Tag Archives: nerd cave

The Thrifty Nerd–Dirt Cheap Art For Your Walls

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Not bad for $8 a piece.

Not bad for $8 a piece.

     I was cleaning up my office the other day and took down my 2012 Vintage Marvel Comics calendar (published by Asgard Press).  I got it last January for 50% off at Barnes & Noble–You know to never, ever, ever buy your calendar before January 1st don’t you?  Anyway, it’s a really nice, high quality calendar, and I thought it’d be a shame to just chuck it in the trash.

     The cool thing about Asgard’s calendars is that they’re designed to be used as framed wall art once their done functioning in their intended role. Each image is perforated at the top and bottom of the page.  Once a print is removed from the calendar, it’s ready for framing in a standard ready-made 11″ x 14″ picture frame.

     In need of some art to fill in some of the remaining blank space on the Nerd Cave’s walls, I headed to Hobby Lobby to see what they had in the way of frames. I was pleasantly surprised to find all their picture frames on sale for 50% off. I happily paid $6.50 each for a black and a silver frame.

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You Gotta Accessorize…

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     Awhile back, I broke down the design and construction of my dream Nerd Cave.  Sitting in there the other day, it occurred to me that while the furniture, paint color, etc. is important, it’s really the little details that create the vibe.  So, in no particular order, here’s a list of eleven things that (IMHO), no self-respecting Nerd Cave should be without.

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Musings From The Nerd Cave

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     Hello nerds of the world. Been busy with work and landscaping here at the house so haven’t had much of a chance to post.  I’m hoping once I get this place up to my standards, I’ll have more time to devote to my hobbies and blogging.  I decided to forgo the weed pulling tonight and am ensconced here in the cave with yet another Bigfoot documentary (don’t even ask) on the T.V.

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My Nerd Cave To-Do List

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     Now that my new home within my home is more or less completed, it’s time to actually have some fun in here.  But as you might have noticed, I don’t confine my hobbies to just one or two interests. So, instead of making things up as I go, I’ve decided to put together a little “to-do” list as far as projects I’d like to get done in the near and not-so-near future.

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Designing the Nerd Cave–Going Online

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     I spend 8 hours a day sitting at a desk in front of a computer in a dingy, windowless, government office.  The absolute last thing I want to do when I get home is sit at a desk in front of a computer.  Unfortunately, the busy life of a renaissance nerd means I need to have a PC handy.  The obvious choice was to get a laptop and that’s what I ended up doing.

     I’ve never been a huge fan of laptops.  The few times I’ve played with them in the past, I found them to be clunky and I absolutely hated touch pads.   After some research,  I went with a Sony Vaio, getting a nice deal on Amazon.  Adding a Logitech wireless mouse took care of my aversion to touch pads.

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Designing the Nerd Cave–Modeling Workbench

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    I’ve been buildling models since about the age of ten and I’ve had a model workbench everywhere I’ve lived since 1989.  I’m a huge military history buff and I used to build 1/35 scale armor models almost exclusively.  However, in the years since my kids were born, I’d gotten bored with them, had less time and all but lost interest.  They tended to be massive dust collectors and I had pretty much maxed out my skills on them.

     In the years before our house fire, I’d started dabbling in Warhammer, 40K, Lord of the Rings miniatures, spacecraft and large scale figures. I actually had a pretty nice Warhammer Vampire Counts army progressing. Key word: had.

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Designing the Nerd Cave—The Reading Room

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     It’s a cold rainy Monday afternoon in November and you’ve got the day off of work. You’ve spent the morning running errands or doing chores around the house.  Now it’s time to chill.  If you’re like me, the absolute number one way to spend the afternoon is to ensconce yourself in a comfy chair with a big fleece blanket and a pile of books, comics, magazines, or all of the above.

     When designing my dream nerd cave, my first priority was a comfortable place to read.  However, the room still needs to function as a guest bedroom.  The queen-sized bed that we had, while comfortable, took up way too much room.  Plus, I’ve had too many reading sessions in bed turn into nap sessions, so I’ve got to stay more or less vertical.

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Designing the Nerd Cave or How my foray Into the world of unconventional sandbox design taught me to ALWAYS have a plan

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     I’m a planner.  Sometimes that can be a bad thing.  I frequently succumb to what’s known as “paralysis by analysis.”  G.I. Joe claims “knowing is half the battle.”  For me, knowing I have this problem doesn’t always keep me from falling victim.  But in the case of my new Nerd Cave, I made a conscious & disciplined effort to keep that side of me down.  It’s not every day a guy’s wife tells him to take a whole room and do with it what he will (except, of course for hanging model airplanes) and I didn’t intend to squander the opportunity.

     A couple of weeks after my wife gave me carte blanche, we sold the headboard and mattress.  The room was empty.  It was time to start making the “making it happen” part happen. I sat down with a pen and paper.

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The Blank Slate: Rebuilding My Empire

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            The “blank slate”—sometimes it’s a good thing, and other times…well, not so much.   Before I get down to the business of blogging about exactly what came from the Nerd Cave, I should explain something.

           Not long ago, I was what you might call a “hoarder.”  I have many nerdcentric interests and once I acquired something, I wasn’t likely to get rid of it.  And when I use the past tense above, I should clarify.  I didn’t get therapy or have an intervention by family & friends or some “reality” show.  Although like an intervention, my “cure” wasn’t voluntary.  And it certainly wasn’t painless.

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Welcome to IT CAME FROM THE NERD CAVE

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     Welcome to the first installment of It Came From the Nerd Cave.   If Seinfeld was the “show about nothing,” then this will be the “blog about a whole bunch.”  If it falls into the realm of nerd culture, then I’m likely heavily into it, have dabbled in it at some point, or have it sitting in my Amazon.com shopping cart ready to be dabbled in.  I’m new to blogging but I’ve been living the nerd dream since the early 1980s when I discovered comics, Frank Frazetta, Dungeons & Dragons, and a ton of other really cool stuff.

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