The Artificer's Studio

ain't my strong suit.


Well, I guess I should post and update. I mean, it has only been three months! But, those three months were chucked full of news. The two big bits of news that I am most excited about are; the birth of mine and Kendra’s son, and Gamesday Chicago.

On June 16, 2007 (father’s day), Kendra delivered Jack Abnett O’Reilly after fifteen hours of labor. Jack weighed in at seven pounds seven ounces and was twenty inches long. He is named after my late father Jack and my favorite author Dan Abnett.

It was pretty much a no brainier that he’d be named for my dad. My dad really left a much bigger impression on me then he ever knew. He instilled in me a love of reading and desire to achieve a better life through hard work. I appreciate every slap to the back of my head he ever gave me, because I deserved all of them.

Jack’s middle name was strongly contested for months. We finely agreed on Abnett. Kendra thought this was the least odd out of the thousands names I kicked out there. I mean, how could you not like Elizabeth Godzilla! (For a girl, of course) In all seriousness, Dan is one of my favortite authors and the names just works well together.

So, life changed, but way for the better, with less sleep.

I truth Jack is a super baby. His claim and quiet baby. He has had his moments, like the three day hospital stay around August 5th. He was running a fever of 100.3 for more than a day. They poked and prodded him and gave him a spinal tap with no freak garden accidents. The labs from our local hospital and Children’s hospital on Columbus never figured out the issue. That weekend Jack learned to cry and that nearly killed me.

The End of July was Games Workshop’s Chicago Gamesdays and it was most excellent. I worked the 40k Grand Tournament. It was the most well prepared tournament I’ve ever been involved with. The crew running it; Alan, Donavon, Clay, Peter, Paul, Stu, Dave Chris and all the fantasy and support people were top shelf. I personally believe this was the best GT ever. The players were the best bunch of hobbyist you could hope for. Yeah there were a couple hold-ups but nothing to bad. I met allot guys from the Bolter and Chainsword forums; (these are screen names) Kurgan the Lurker, Orkdung, Littlebits, Lunchbox and so many more. I also caught up with a couple guys I’ve in the past, Tim and Angelo. Both of them are great guys. Damon and Larry rode up with me and worked their first Gamesday. These two guys are guys I consider good friends and after that week they earned a lot more respect from me. I could think of two better guys to spend the weekend with.

The high light of the weekend was meeting Dan Abnett. I had posted up on Dan's blog about naming Jack after him and he thought he was getting punked. So, I looked Dan up on Friday night and showed him photos of Jack. He seemed to take it as compliment (which it was meant to be). On Saturday, I got Dan to sign my copy of “Brothers of the Snake”. Later I caught some of his Black Library seminar. After that he came over to the tournament and had me show him around. That was most Excellent! Dan is truly one hell of a guy.

So, onto the modeling bit of this blog, well I really haven’t done much since May (hell, this year). The necrons for Randy are close. I need to finish the weapons and washes and they be done. If I don’t finish them by September 1st, I need my ass kicked.

I finally got my Warhammer. I have photo this week.

I’ve been reading allot. I have found some surprising inspiration for a modeling project in Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead.” Maybe it is the repressed architect who’s been design wastewater treat plants for seven years in me or that I am an Architect designing WWTP’s. Anyway, watch this space for something different and soon.