Hexblade
We are working on the new Stormlord kit with the objective of making it magnetize-able into all SIX options. We call it the Hexblade. It’s no simple feat.
Adepticon Call
It’s still not too late to have us do you army for Adepticon! We can even order your models. We could even do all four of your team’s armies.
We’re going to Adepticon this year. Passenger list: Shawn, Sarah, Joseph, Renn, and ????
High and Low Tide
An imperial guard Valkyrie. The plastic kit is coming out soon. This is an oldie but goodie I dug up this morning.
BTP as a business is like the incoming tide. There are high and low marks, but generally moving forward. Each high is higher than the last. And each low isn’t as bad as before.
As usual, I got up and hit the keyboard in the wee hours, about 4am. Then I went back to sleep a few hours later. After driving the kids to school I found Sarah already at the office blackening some flush movement trays for a major tray project (a client ordered 65 of our fabulous flush trays.
Pretty much we’re staying on top of things. My new resolution is to answer emails in a super-speedy manner. As it stands now it’s near instant response time.
I am booking projects for painting in April now. It’s best to order or send materials a few weeks ahead of time to allow for incoming-ship and assembly.
I left work around 4pm to go see a matinee with wife and kids. We went to see Bolt at the dollar theater. The kids loved it. I highly recommend it as a family movie. It’s on par with anything from Pixar. If for no other reason than the opening sequence.
We are very close to
Spring Forward
The other day in the break room we were eating Chinese takeout. We have a tradition to say what the fortune in the fortune cookie will apply to before opening and reading it. For example, you might say, this fortune has to do with my love life, or my money for the coming week.
Renn states that his will apply to the Assembly room the opens this: Great things will come from small things.
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That was good for a larf.
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So, what’s going on the Gately household? The house is a disaster area, we’ve all dropped the ball on our chores for a few days and it shows. We are in relax and enjoy mode. Baby Willow is healthy and happy. She is starting to track people with her eyeballs, and make preliminary movements to get from looking over one shoulder to the other. This morning she dropped her bink into her lap, then when I turned around she had somehow got it back into her mouth. So, she’s bright-eyed and bushy tailed. She is beloved wherever she goes.
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The morning flew by, and somehow we were late for church even though it is not until the mid-afternoon. I was tapped to substitute in my daughter’s Sunday School class so I grabbed some puppets and other visual aids. When my wife and I were first married we were called to teach some kids, I think a typical calling for newlyweds, and that started wearing away at my aversion to dealing with kids. I was able to see how my daughter’s brain is firing on all cylinders; she’s paying attention and then needs one additional thing to be engaged with. She gets that from me.
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I need to redefine my goals for life. I think that I’m going too short-term to short-term. In a way, I’m in a place where I just want some stability. No shocks. I’m in family mode. My life is adventurous enough with just four kids. If I manage to raise the four of them into at least relatively decent members of society that will be a huge score for life. But that can’t be all there is to it, of course.
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When I got home from my mission in 1994 I wanted to be a translator for the UN. Now I realize the UN is a worthless lump. Boy I was lucky not to end up there. So, maybe looking too far out isn’t so useful.
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The major thing missing in my life is some kind of exercise regimen. Nothing has “stuck”. I’m just so sedentary. Swimming is the only excercise that I’ve ever done that I enjoy. Basically, if I don’t enjoy it, I won’t do it for very long. Blarg. I watched myself on the latest “Christmas” video and how I got winded after like seven seconds of prancing around and it was really pitiful. When we moved to Utah I lost five pounds from just having stairs in the house.
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The business has been such a focus, and has taken up so much time and energy, just getting to the next month has been enough for one man to deal with. And the business has slowly bent into proper shape. Slow and steady gains.
Open the Gates
I spent the day at the studio today (Saturday). I am completely caught up. It’s pretty sweet.
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I am ready to book new projects. I have a few slots for late March still, but mostly looking at early April.
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Business is going well, everything smooth.
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This morning I slipped away without saying goodbye, not typical, but I really wanted to get down to the studio and work un-bothered.
Laurels
Hello all. I am in “nose to the grindstone” mode officially starting tomorrow morning. I’ll be down at the studio tomorrow (Saturday) for an official work day, regular hours.
I need to get projects booked up. So, now’s the time!
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Last night I watched “Traitor” with my wife, as sort of spy-type thriller. It was tight and tense. Well worth watching. It was engaging with enough twists, and evenly paced to keep the attention of a half-there sort like myself. I despise movies where you’re waiting for the zing and it never shows up. There’s that sort of sinking feeling when you realize that the movie isn’t going to get better. That’s NOT the case with this one!
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We also rented Flight of the Navigator (from 1986!) which the kids loved. My 3yo calls is “Fight of the Alligator”. My kids love play on words.
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What else? I finished up a notrep with High Elves v Dwarfs. That’s coming up. Youtube is on the fritz so I’m waiting that out.
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My main challenge right now is getting projects booked up. I rested on my laurels this last week, taking time out for this and that. Now it’s time to get cracking again.
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Speaking of which, I took a few hours out this morning to watch “The Bucket List” with my wife. She really, really liked it and classed that one as a Top Ten all time. That’s something. Definitely not a comedy, but very nice. Got me thinking.
Youtube Down
Has anyone noticed that youtube is down?
If someone knows what is going on can you please contact me at bluetablepainting@gmail.com
House Resolution 1207
Federal Reserve: H.R. 1207, “The Federal Reserve Transparency Act” This was put forth by Congressman Ron Paul as follows:
Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. Throughout its nearly 100-year history, the Federal Reserve has presided over the near-complete destruction of the United States dollar. Since 1913 the dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy. How long will we as a Congress stand idly by while hard-working Americans see their savings eaten away by inflation? Only big-spending politicians and politically favored bankers benefit from inflation.
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Serious discussion of proposals to oversee the Federal Reserve is long overdue. I have been a longtime proponent of more effective oversight and auditing of the Fed, but I was far from the first Congressman to advocate these types of proposals. Esteemed former members of the Banking Committee such as Chairmen Wright Patman and Henry B. Gonzales were outspoken critics of the Fed and its lack of transparency.
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Since its inception, the Federal Reserve has always operated in the shadows, without sufficient scrutiny or oversight of its operations. While the conventional excuse is that this is intended to reduce the Fed’s susceptibility to political pressures, the reality is that the Fed acts as a foil for the government. Whenever you question the Fed about the strength of the dollar, they will refer you to the Treasury, and vice versa. The Federal Reserve has, on the one hand, many of the privileges of government agencies, while retaining benefits of private organizations, such as being insulated from Freedom of Information Act requests.
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The Federal Reserve can enter into agreements with foreign central banks and foreign governments, and the GAO is prohibited from auditing or even seeing these agreements. Why should a government-established agency, whose police force has federal law enforcement powers, and whose notes have legal tender status in this country, be allowed to enter into agreements with foreign powers and foreign banking institutions with no oversight? Particularly when hundreds of billions of dollars of currency swaps have been announced and implemented, the Fed’s negotiations with the European Central Bank, the Bank of International Settlements, and other institutions should face increased scrutiny, most especially because of their significant effect on foreign policy. If the State Department were able to do this, it would be characterized as a rogue agency and brought to heel, and if a private individual did this he might face prosecution under the Logan Act, yet the Fed avoids both fates.
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More importantly, the Fed’s funding facilities and its agreements with the Treasury should be reviewed. The Treasury’s supplementary financing accounts that fund Fed facilities allow the Treasury to funnel money to Wall Street without GAO or Congressional oversight. Additional funding facilities, such as the Primary Dealer Credit Facility and the Term Securities Lending Facility, allow the Fed to keep financial asset prices artificially inflated and subsidize poorly performing financial firms.
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The Federal Reserve Transparency Act would eliminate restrictions on GAO audits of the Federal Reserve and open Fed operations to enhanced scrutiny. We hear officials constantly lauding the benefits of transparency and especially bemoaning the opacity of the Fed, its monetary policy, and its funding facilities. By opening all Fed operations to a GAO audit and calling for such an audit to be completed by the end of 2010, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act would achieve much-needed transparency of the Federal Reserve. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.