HMGS-PSW October War Convention 2013

I had an opportunity yesterday to attend the HMGS Convention. The convention is put on by the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society, of which I am a member. (Here is a link to their site http://www.hmgspsw.com/ ) They put on a good show. Miniatures from all eras of history are on display, as players take on the role of generals and captains, trying to either recreate history or change history. I had a great time playing the miniatures game Check Your Six! which is a World War II simulation of air combat. We played an engagement set in the late war pacific theater, where Japanese fighters and US fighters tangled in the skies. All of the players had an enjoyable time sending their opponents planes down in flames.
The second miniatures game that I attended yesterday was from the Check Your Six! Jet Rules. This was my first time playing the Jet version and I wasn't exactly sure what I was in for. The version played similar, but there were a lot of new rules with missiles, radar, and afterburners. I learned however that tactics which work well in the WWII version, don't exactly translate to the Jet version. As the jets move much quicker, and take longer to turn, that made it harder to set up good shots. It was a very enjoyable game, and I'm looking forward to learning the Jet rule set and painting up some jets of my own.

Until next time, Cheers!
Kevin

Periodic Hopscotch

The beginning of another week. This past month I've sent out some more of my writing to various magazines in hopes of maybe getting one piece in. I was rewarded thus far by a response from the Curator magazine, they'll be publishing a piece of mine entitled "Periodic Hopscotch." So far no other hits on pieces sent out, but this is a silver lining in the dark cloud of rejections. It gives me fuel and gumption to send out more pieces to other magazines. And hopefully one day I'll be able to sell some of my short stories to publications. This has been harder than I originally thought, although in a way it energizes me. It is exciting to discover new publications and then try and find pieces of work which will fit. I'll continue to plunk away at the keyboard in hopes of another hit.

http://www.curatormagazine.com/kevin-meeks/periodic-hopscotch/

CY6!

Check your 6! (CY6!) is a miniatures game published by Skirmish Campaigns. It is a table-top simulation used with aircraft miniatures for air combat. I'm currently working on painting up a bunch of Japanese planes as well as a few Finnish planes. Pictures are forthcoming once I get a plane up to completion. This is more just an update of the nature that I want to take my blog for awhile. Thanks. Enjoy!

An Update

This won't be too long of an update, basically letting you know that I am still blogging. I'll try to get this down to a semi-regular basis for interesting thoughts and the like. The handmade book is on indefinite hiatus until I can find some suitable glue for adhering suede to thick cardboard. I'll be using this item as a prop for a Steampunk costume which is currently in creation at the moment. I need to find some suitable goggles to modify in order to finish off the costume. I've modified, what no self-respecting steam-punker should be without ... my trusty Nerf Maverick (photos to come in a later post). The goal of the costume is to have fun creating it, and then to find a convention to attend (or something of the like) with a miniatures group that I'm involved with in Anaheim. That's probably long enough of an update. Take care.

Handmade book (Part 2)

Here is another update into my bookbinding endeavor. After finishing with the sewing of the spine of the book, I then proceeded to glue on what is known as mull cloth (I used cheese cloth). This cloth helps bind the covers of the book to the spine of the book, and in essence, hold the entire book together.

 (Bound and glued)

The next step will be creating the cover for it (which I am currently doing out of brown and black suede) It will be accentuated by brass and nickel eyelets. I'll hopefully make some kind of wrap-around tie to keep the book shut. More on that when it comes.

Handmade book (part 1)

While browsing online for steampunk inspiration I stumbled upon tutorials of how to make your own handmade journals. I thought to myself that this would be an interesting project to undertake. So this next series of blog entries will be my endeavors to create a handmade book.

I folded thirty sheets of parchment colored paper into "signatures" of three sheets each, which yields six book pages (12 sides) in each signature. So the finished product should have 60 pages (120 sides).

The next step was to stitch the "signatures" together.

 

(Signatures folded and stitched together)

So far that is all I have done. As I do more steps, I'll update my blog.

Update #0001

I should probably get back to blogging at a semi-regular basis (hopefully I can manage this).
Here is the link for the online e-zine of Gone Lawn #6
http://journal.gonelawn.net/issue6/glj_current.php
I hope you enjoy "The Action which Wolves Do towards the Moon." Whose title is an allusion to Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" which inspired this work.
After somewhat of a writing hiatus, I'm going to get back on a regimen of trying to edit my novel and work on the sequel.

This past week I did go out and watch Sherlock Holmes A Game of Shadows. It was relatively good, following some of the same tropes set forth in the first film. Overall it was on par with its predecessor. Professor Moriarty was an excellent villain in the film. Although my familiarity with the older series starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce somewhat tainted my opinion of the new Sherlock Homes films. In itself, the films are excellent in setting Sherlock Homes in the authentic time period. But the character dynamic and interaction was not quite what I had anticipated. But it was good overall.

Have I Gone Lawn

In the midst of submitting my poetry to various literary journals. I've had one accept my work so far. Now at least I'll have something to add to my bio when submitting to other journals. I have a poem which is forthcoming in the #6 issue of Gone Lawn, a journal of prose poetry. I'll post a link to it when it is live on December 1. I'm off to go submit more poetry and finish stories.

The long haul

As some of you know, I've been recently trying to submit poems to various journals and magazines in order to get them published. I've been deleting some of my poetry from this blog. Just so that they aren't available anywhere else online, if the magazines do decide to buy them. Basically right now it's just a waiting period to see if they've accepted them. If not, then I'll send them out to more magazines. Time to go write some more, so that I have more to send out. It'll be a long process, but it's fun at the same time to discover some random magazine which seems to be a perfect fit for some of your poetry. Wish me the best.