Vacation's over. Damn! I hate it when that happens. I was off work for the last 10 days and enjoying that I had to do only what I wanted and planned to do...or I could do nothing at all. Getting back into harness and doing what other folks wanted me to do got me thinking throughout the day...no need to do "exactly what others wanted me to do." It's the routine, you see? We all have one no matter what work we do to earn our keep.

It occured to me today while at work about "routine." We have our own personal routines about our hobbies also. We decide what hobby we will enjoy, when, and how much time, money and energy we devote to "having fun." If you're like me, you get into a routine at home, in your hobby, and again, just like work, we get tired of what we do, more or less. We do the same general things with our hobby materials regardless of what that hobby is. What bothers me when I view the 1/6th boards is that some guys "burn out" on the hobby, and post a notice they are "getting out," and then they proceed to sell off all their stuff to pursue some other interest.

I am surprised at times to see new-comers to the hobby posting questions and posting progress about their "newest and greatest" achievement with some 1/6th project, and that's all cool for now. In a year's time, (or some passage of time)...yup. They are all done and selling off the hundreds or thousands of dollars of merchandise they have bought over the years and sometimes, if not always, take a severe loss in the dollar value of their stuff, often just to be "done with it."

I "think" a big part of the problem is "too much available." There is soooo much 1/6th stuff on the primary and secondary markets that when a new-comer shows up and gets bitten by this hobby of "plastic crack," they try to get everything their heart desires. Now, normally that's not so much a problem if the person is keeping the bills paid and the kids fed, right? The hobby is tons of fun--hobbies are supposed to be!

But, ya soon find out, it all takes up space, which is finite for most of us normal folks, and it is expensive trying to buy EVERYTHING available, and everything your wicked imagination creates as a new project in 1/6th, but...reality sets back in eventually. Ya realize just how much money you're throwing to the retailers and e-tailers each week or each month and...you positively FREAK!

If that doesn't happen to you, or even if it does, and you survive the "sticker shock," another aspect shows up and that's organizing and finding all the cool stuff you've been purchasing like a crazy person over the weeks and years. Ya got so much, ya can't find it! Or, you realize just what a pain it IS to drag out all yer cool stuff to play with it. It's the "Law of Diminishing Returns" setting in. You...just...have...too...much.

As a kid, I use to have only so many Joes. I knew them all. I knew what accessory sets I had. I knew where it all was. At the time, I could keep all my Joe-stuff in one general location, and when I wanted to play Joes in the back-yard or downstairs in the basement, I could gather up my troops and head off for hours of adventure. Easy. Got tired, and I could put it all away again in one general location until next time.

Isn't like that anymore, ya know? As an adult collector, I have way more stuff than I need, and it's scattered to every nook and cranny I can find to keep it in. I no longer "know" exactly how much stuff I have or where it's all located...might be in my library/work room. Might be in the garage--somewhere--in some box or another. Might be in my storage locker down the street--in some box, somewhere.

Am I going to sell it all off next week because I'm burned-out? Am I ashamed at how much money I spent on all those toys? Not only "No," but "Hell, NO!" I'll let my estate administrator worry about finding and cataloging all my gear for the sale or auction I know will take place after I'm cold, dead, buried, and otherwise "transitioned" into the next Life!

I have all this stuff because I recognize I get tired of my toys from time-to-time. Sometimes I just can't stand to look at it. I get annoyed, frustrated, or burned-out. So, when THAT happens, I just walk away for a while because I KNOW I'll get bitten by the 1/6th bug all over again in a week or a month, or six, and I will be only too glad to explore through my stuff and "re-discover" all my cool toys!

I learned this about myself after several disastrous episodes of "getting rid" of some of my things over the years, and then spending inordinate amounts of time and money trying to get it all back again. Fortunately, I "got over it" 20 or 25 years ago--the last time I tried to get it all back. Since then, I just tuck things away for another day. It works for me, but what about you?

Another strategy that might work for you is simply break your "routines" with your hobbies and do things different. I don't know what that means to YOU. Only you can figure that out for yourself. If you collect Joes, maybe it means collecting and working with the more accurate, but more expensive, Dragon or DID guys. Maybe it means that if you do World War 2 figs, maybe you should try working on Medieval warriors. If you only collect fully-weathered, "museum-quality" figures, well...I don't know what you poor guys are gonna do--you're already "over the edge" to my way of thinking!

Maybe the thing to do is just simply put away your troops for a while...except for three or four of your very favorite ones. Write a story about these special figs of your's. Imagine them as real people...how would they get along? Where do they come from in the real world? What did they do before they became soldiers or whatever? What missions have they been on? What training did they have? What weapons and equipment do they have, or favor, or prefer? How do they "perform" on their missions or during training?

Your "toys" can be "gateways" to places your adult bodies have never been, or maybe have been, but don't, or can't go anymore? Play involves more than sitting at a desk and building up a modern-day paratrooper from the 101st Airmobile Division during Desert Storm... ya know? Play can be fairly unlimited "imaginary" travels and experiences. And, no, you don't have to get down on the floor and go, "bang, bang," so relax on that count--the men in white coats won't come take you away for a long rest. 'Course, I personally don't worry about going "bang, bang." I might set up an ambush team and some un-suspecting terrorists and mow 'em all down with automatic fire: "RATT-A-TAT-TAT--Die, you cowardly, murdering bas..." well, you get the point. The Lady Graemon probably will chuckle. She might roll her eyes. But, she'll leave the telephone alone and after I put everything away, she might ask if I had fun. She's a good ol' girl, ya know?

I've told "my story" before, but not here--I got started in 1/6th--again-- when Hasbro released their 12 inch line of figs back in the early '90's, albeit they were making their "Real American Heros" line based upon their 3 3/4 inch Saturday Morning Cartoon characters. I saw them and thought they would be cool to represent my role-playing game characters "IF" I could find the right costumes and weapons for my rpg characters. I needed some female characters as well, so I began looking in the "pink aisle" for Barbie/fashion doll figures. And, it should go without saying that I felt mighty out-of-place shopping for girl dolls, as if buying 12 inch boy dolls wasn't bad enough! Sheesh! A "manly man" buying and playing with dolls! What if my friends and family found out? Horrors!

Well, didn't take too long for me to settle down and realize manly men can do just about whatever they want--that's WHY they're manly men, right? RIGHT!

Anyway, not to belabor the point, but I was already "playing" at my "role-playing game" stuff, so what did it matter that I included toys as part of that effort. I really didn't care if some of my friends found out I played Dungeons and Dragons or Traveller or Twilight:2000! Heck, my best friend invited ME to JOIN HIM in a "Twilight" game, so he shouldn't be too upset if I showed him my kitted-out T2K main character in 12 inch size. Well, I was right--all my fears were un-founded and he thought my soldier character, whom I think was Duke, wearing 21st Century Toys Viet Nam era fatiques was utterly cool and just right for T2K.

One thing led to another and here we are today. Joes and all the 1/6th figs can be almost anything YOU want them to be, whether a static 101st Paratrooper from Desert Storm, sitting on your bookshelf, or a medieval knight fighting orcs, or a platoon of Viet Nam era Marines troops running a "Search-and-destroy" mission in the Nam in your back-yard "jungle," which you lovingly photograph and post pictures of on the OneSixth Warriors board.

The whole point of all this yammering is--you have NO EXCUSE for burning-out in this hobby. There are far too many things you can do with your soldiers to EVER get bored with them. You could probably NEVER run out of things to do with your collection because there are so many different aspects of this hobby to explore.

All you need to do is "imagine." Or not. The choice is always your's.

Thanks for reading and hope to see you again!