It has been some time since I have written and a lot of things have changed in my life about 5 years ago. That and I needed a break from sharing too much. Things are still changed, but trying to get back to other things that are also important to me. In this blog post I hope to catch you up to what has changed in my life and how things have been going. This might be a longish post, but it also has been about 5 years since I last posted. I will try to keep things simple and only give you the highlights. Things might also get a little political, but I will try to keep it light. I will also update you on some other recent changes.
About 5 years ago I met someone that helped me confirm something about myself that I wasn't sure about, but as soon as I saw him I knew that I was gay. He is by no means perfect, but I love him and from what I can tell he loves me. We went on a few dates, eventually exchanged keys and then he moved in with me. It has been a roller coaster of life ever since, but wouldn't change a thing. I have learned a lot about myself and what it is like to be in a relationship. I was also lucky to have a family that is open and accepting. They have accepted me and my partner with open arms, and his family has done the same.
For you haters out there, this was a realization not a choice. This is who I have always been, it was just masked by what society expected me to be. About 20 years go I started to notice things about myself that needed to be confirmed. Eventually I got the guts to try dating guys and it turned out to be the best thing I did. I am not saying that everyone is the same, people need to figure out themselves on their own. There are plenty of examples of people out there both public and private. Just be true to yourself, not what other people expect you to be or what will make you "accepted" in society. Humans are humans no matter what they look like or who they share a bed with, and should be treated with the same respect as anyone else. What defines you is how you treat other humans.
Sadly he doesn't game, so for a while I cut back on my gaming habits so I could spend time with him. But this past spring I got out my 40k armies and started to play. I even got a few more models painted and cleaned up some other models that had poor prime job. As for my "Fantasy" army, or I should say Age of Sigmar has been put on the back burner. The nights I go it is mostly 40k players, and not a whole lot of opportunity to play Age of Sigmar or Hordes. I am thinking it might be time to sell them off. However, for now I will eventually paint them first, as there are some models in those armies I really can't let go of and would be awesome to see painted.
I found that my Necron army is lacking and needs some TLC, but my true love is still my Orks. They are just too much fun to play and I almost have an army list that is completely painted. All of the boys are now all painted, but I have a another 30 boys to put together and paint. As with any minitures gamer you will always have a stack of boxed or unpainted pieces, which we all try to keep small. I have been trying to make it to the store once a week. However, life with a partner and a house can be distracting so making it every week can be challenging. With the summer you always have lawn and gardens to maintain, and the winter driveway and sidewalks to shovel. My partner does help when he can, but in the end I deal with the outdoors and he generally deals with the indoors.
For the house improvements the garage was finished and added a raised garden or two for vegetables. The gardens have been good, I have learned about every 2 years it is good to put down a layer of mulch and keep pulling weeds as you see them on the big garden. The vegetable gardens have been easier to keep weed free as when ever I see something I pull it before it seeds. With all of the vegetables that we have been getting, I have been canning some of them. We have been having a little trouble with dill pickles coming out mushy, but I think last year we might have found the solution. We also had some issues with some recipes for tomatoes, they were asking to add citric acid. For the tomatoes that I have grown I didn't need that as it made the canned tomatoes to acidic. Slowly getting a hang of canning. Mostly pickles, tomatoes and beans so far.
There was one improvement last year and one this year. Last year I had the roof done, I probably should have waited another year to save for a metal roof. However, I was able to get the next best thing and should last me for as long as I am in the house(which should be a long time). The other improvement was started a couple weeks ago and still waiting on it being finished. Last fall I put a request into our city's 311 system that my sidewalk and my driveway(from the sidewalk to the road) needed work. The sidewalk was all broken up and the driveway would scrape the bottom of one of our cars as we exited. Had a little trouble with getting them to give me an estimate for the driveway(city apparently doesn't do), but was at least able to get them to do it. I will have more on this when they fix the road in front of the driveway, so we can actually use it.
Programming wise I have a couple projects started and hope to release them into the wild soon. One is a ballot program, which we use to select a restaurant every other week for group of people we eat out with. I am sure there are other uses, and it is open to the world it just doesn't show in searches yet. Another I bought the domains for about 6-7 years ago and never got around to build on it. I have a gamer's dashboard started on it, but it has been a learning curve. I am also hoping to start a programming blog to at least store things I have learned and so I can give back to the community a bit, but waiting on some projects to mature a bit before I create that.
Hope to get back into this a bit more again and not wait years for another blog post. We will just see what life throws at me.