Mid year Update 2018

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Well, it’s mid way through the year so here is a collection of updates on various random topics. Squirrel!

Michelle is now doing training for doing Casual HIMS coding for Alberta Health Services in Calgary in addition to the rural areas around Calgary. Hopefully that will give her more work and cut down on the gas bills and wear and tear on our poor little KIA Soul.

We are still in recovery mode financially after two years of schooling and took a bit of a hit when we had to do some unexpected bathroom repairs. We discovered that the wall behind the shower was weak and ended up having to replace the back wall along with the side walls. Continue reading ‘Mid year Update 2018’ »

Happy New Year 2018

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This year is starting out with a sputter rather than a bang.  I came down with a nasty virus right at New Year’s and it’s still hanging on.  That means there are a few things that I wanted to get done on my vacation time that just didn’t happen.  However, that just means I’ll have to fit them in around my regular schedule.

As far as 2017 goes, the biggest accomplishment was that Michelle finished her courses and practicums at SAIT and passed her certification exam with CHIMA to become a Health Information Management professional.  She also got hired as a casual rural employee with Alberta Health Services, and when she isn’t booked with them she can still book in doing her previous profession as a sign language interpreter. Continue reading ‘Happy New Year 2018’ »

Family Tree – Ancestor Locations, Mom’s family

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One of the things I’ve always wanted to do was mark on one map as many of the important locations in my Family History as I can find.

I’ve always been told that my background is Polish, Ukrainian, German, Russian and a little bit of Gypsy.  I always joked that all my ancestors probably lived within 10 miles of each other but that the borders kept moving.  Turns out it’s not as much of a joke as I thought.  The distance might have been a little more than 10 miles, but borders certainly did move around and a village that used to be in one country could suddenly find itself in another country.

So, to get things started, here is a list of some of my ancestor’s and the locations associated with them from various sources. Continue reading ‘Family Tree – Ancestor Locations, Mom’s family’ »

Family Tree

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I’ve played around with Family Tree Maker and Ancestry.ca on and off for a few years and am thinking of trying to publish some of the information to this website.

I’ve been looking at a plugin called “RootsPersona” that looks promising.

First I’ll have to make a long overdue backup of this site, then I’ll create a small test GEDCOM file that goes back a couple generations and includes some living and deceased family members. I want to set the import to have deceased members visible to the public but living members either only visible to me (if possible) or else not included at all.

I’ll do a post on how it all goes.

The Basement is Back

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The Basement is back! By that I mean both the actual basement in my house and this blog. This blog got the name “Brent’s Basement” because most of what I post about is either Roleplaying Games, Miniatures Games, Board games or model building.

Almost all of those activities either take place in the basement of my house, or the materials required for them are stored in my basement.

As I’ve mentioned in a couple of places, my basement flooded back in July 2016.
Fortunately most of our stuff is either stored on bookshelves, cabinets or in plastic bins. So, other than the carpeting and the drywall, we didn’t lose much.
The physical bookshelves did soak up water, so they were also lost, but the items on the shelves were fine. Continue reading ‘The Basement is Back’ »

Battlestar Galactica Character Miniatures (part 6) – Crooked Dice Game Design Studio

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The last miniature company that I ordered from was Crooked Dice Game Design Studio.
More Cylons!  This time called “Argonauts” and mostly found under the “Villains and Monsters” section.
They don’t have anything that really looks like Viper Pilots, but they have a ton of other very nice minis for all sorts of shows including “Planet of the Apes”, “Space 1999”, and even a “Mork” mini. I had to order some of the Simians along with my Argonauts and I’m sure I’ll be ordering more from them in the future. Continue reading ‘Battlestar Galactica Character Miniatures (part 6) – Crooked Dice Game Design Studio’ »

Battlestar Galactica Character Miniatures (part 5) – Nexus Miniatures

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The fifth stop on my tour of miniature companies was Nexus Miniatures.
I finally found some great miniatures for Cylons, and as a bonus, some really good Viper Pilots as well. At the time there was an “Ancient Enemies” Deal on, which isn’t available at the time of this posting but the individual figures are, at least for the Viper Pilots, called “Dino-Rangers” on the site. Right now there only seems to be one Cylon, referred to as “Caprican Legion” on the site. I wasn’t able to locate the Caprican Legion/Cylon figures that came with “Ancient Enemies” deal. Continue reading ‘Battlestar Galactica Character Miniatures (part 5) – Nexus Miniatures’ »

Battlestar Galactica Character Miniatures (part 4) – Tin-Soldier.com

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The fourth company I ordered miniatures from was Tin-Soldier.com.  At this point I was looking more for something I could use as Cylons rather than humans.  I had ordered some Star Wars Super Battle Droids which I thought would work okay for the Re-imagined Cylons in a pinch, but wasn’t really happy with them.  I did find and ordered some interesting miniatures from Tin-Soldier, but still not a great match for Cylons.

The mini’s came packed reasonably well, not as much protection as some of the other companies, but they arrived intact so that’s all that really mattered.  Also, everything came labeled as “Reviresco” rather than “Tin-Soldier”.  A little bit of Googling came up with: “Reviresco Products is owned by head designer John McEwan. It was formerly known as McEwan Miniatures until a name change around 1990 to Reviresco (the latin motto for Clan MacEwan). Reviresco’s current in-production figures can be found at Tin Soldier.” Continue reading ‘Battlestar Galactica Character Miniatures (part 4) – Tin-Soldier.com’ »

Battlestar Galactica Character Miniatures (part 3) – Reaper Miniatures

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The third stop on my quest for Battlestar Galactica characters was Reaper Miniatures which has a huge selection of miniatures for all genres.

I accidentally ordered one miniature on it’s own instead of adding them all to my cart and then placing the order.  I found out their site is a little odd when it comes to trying to cancel or change an order.  To quote a section from their FAQ:  “In short, if you don’t catch us before 5PM CST, M-F, it’s unlikely you’ll catch us in time. On the weekends, we’ll be unable to catch these requests at all.”

The good news is this is because they are very quick on the shipping.  Anything you order one day is usually on the truck being sent for delivery the next morning. Continue reading ‘Battlestar Galactica Character Miniatures (part 3) – Reaper Miniatures’ »