Shambling Back Into My Hobbies

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     What’s up nerds?  It’s been awhile since I’ve been here scribbling but I’m back…in more ways than one.

     So, I was laid low for about 6 weeks with a bulged disc in my neck.  It manifested itself with increasingly severe pain in my left shoulder and arm with numbness in my fingers. I figured I had torn something in my shoulder (probably while swinging from the Bat-rope) and my carpal tunnel syndrome was coming back.  As it got increasingly harder to function and sleep, I finally visited a doctor.  After an unsuccessful nerve block, I had a discectomy and fusion of my C5/C6 vertebrae. You can see the titanium plate and screws below:

The neck bone's connected to the head bone...

The neck bone’s connected to the head bone…

      Interestingly, in the post op X-ray, the surgeon found that the processes (the sticky-outy part on the back) of  both the newly-fused vertebrae were, in fact, already fused themselves–probably when I was in the womb. So I guess my career as a circus contortionist was doomed from the start.

     So anyway, I’m back to 100% and have lately been jonesing to get back into some hobbying. Which brings me to the zombie minis you see at the top of this post.

     A little over 4 years ago, before our house fire, I had been working on a Warhammer Fantasy Vampire Counts army.  I had decided to hold off painting until I had finished all my units’ assembly and conversions.  I worked on it a little almost every night and I had about 50% of what would be a pretty large army done when our house burned down.  If I’d have stored those units away in a box or drawer, they’d have likely survived since my work table (in our bedroom at the time) didn’t really burn.  But I had all but one regiment of zombies sitting on top of a shelf that sat above the table.  And when the ceiling drywall collapsed on it, they were crushed and broken.

     I salvaged that unit of zombies (it had been in a drawer in my organizer cabinet) one of those rough days of digging through the rubble. I sat that  little plastic drawer in the center console of my car and they stayed there for like 3 months, serving as one of many reminders of all the things we’d lost. It was kinda weird.

      When we moved into our new house, they got stuck in a drawer somewhere and kind of forgotten until I converted our outside storage room into my new workshop (aka, “The Nerd Lab”).  And there they’ve sat for the better part of a couple of years. Until yesterday.

     I’ve taken a week and a day off work and was in the Nerd Lab yesterday morning straightening up.  My eyes settled on that little regiment of zombies sitting up on a shelf and I figured, “what the heck?”  I took them down, repaired the few broken limbs and weapons that they suffered in the disaster, washed off the dust and soot, and proceeded to paint the first five little dudes.

     A couple of painting sessions later, I was done.  I still have to finish the bases, but will wait until all 25 minis are finished so we have some cohesiveness. Anyway, you know what?  I freaking love them!  Years ago, I was hyper-critical of my own work and would often get frustrated if a paint job wasn’t “perfect.”  But I guess being older now, and having kids, I’ve realized perfect isn’t the point.  I was just having fun and isn’t that the goal of a hobby?

     I’ll be back soon with more pithy ramblings. Until then…stay nerdy my friends.

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