Day TWO of no smoking.

Read 'em and weep--yah, made it through two whole days now and I ain't killed nobody and the police aren't on my trail. Ain't been fired at work. The Lady Graemon ain't asked for a divorce...yet. Goody, goody for me. Hoo-rah--two whole days. It don't get no better than this. I know. I done this before. It made me slightly crazy then. I have every expectation that it will make me crazy this time, too. Difference being, I hope--I know NOW what to expect, somewhat.

Joe stuff will see me through! Yessiree, Buddy! Tonight I started checking into where I have some of my "true" Joe stuff--the real article--my 40th Anniversary Joes and several of my Classic Collection Joes, also. I'm still going through a process of trying to inventory all my figs and organize my "Special Services and Security Force." I'm looking for places where I need to "fit" troops into assignments, and I'm looking for "holes" in the slots and vacancies I know about. Tonight I learned I have very few Joe Marines--troubling, but not surprising. I'm NOT a big fan of the USMC. Never was, doubt I ever will be. Not being snobbish. Ain't cutting into everything the Marines have coming to them. It's just like some folks like chocolate, some like vanilla, some like butterscotch. Translated into "Joe-speak," my strongest preference is for Army Joes, then Navy Joes, then Air Force Joes, then Marine Joes, then Coast Guard Joes, then whatever is left--police, fire, etc.

Again, I am NOT slamming anybody's favorite service--just stating my own situation, so nobody leave any comments about what a lousy "you-know-what" I am 'cause Marines ain't at the top of MY LIST! I'm an ARMY Infantry vet, alright? These are my toys.

Next on the agenda is I realized my Blackwater Police and Fire forces are sorely un-documented. I have NO IDEA how many and what kind of Police and Fire service figures I have. I know I have "some," because I've seen some pretty cool stuff come out over the years, LIKE the Joe State Trooper fig and the 21st Century SWAT figs. I bought a bunch as I found 'em, but I never really played with 'em 'cause I haven't been much about "cops and robbers," ya know? It's an "army" thing with me.

Now...as things get better organized in and around Blackwater, Michigan, it becomes important to me what the local public sector services are "like." For instance--I have this notion that Teddy Roosevelt will be "The Mayor." He just has that big, ol' smiley-faced grin that says, "I'm a politician!" Bully! :lol If Teddy is the Mayor, I need a Chief of Police or Police Commissioner or Director of Public Safety! This character can be a civilian or a professional police officer of long standing. Gotta think about that, but I have an Arnold Schwartzenegger BBI figure all dressed up, nice and neat, in a black business suit that looks very good on him. He might be my current candidate for Chief of Police/Chief of Detectives in Blackwater PD. Ya see how this is working?

The rest of the PD and FD can be made up as I go along and find more of my figs. I know, fer instance, that I have several firefighters and fire/rescue troops. Joe made several including a very cool dude with a wire basket-stretcher for lifting by chopper or rapelling rescues. 21C has that fugly EMT nurse figure, but she came with a LOT of very excellent medical accessories. Joe, (and I,) have a Metropolitan motorcycle police officer. Joe also has a few FBI agents. I put together several men in civilian clothes--business suits--and I purchased at different times, a bunch of Dragon Police officers/plainclothes detective figures, mainly Chinese police departments, but including some major US departments, like San Francisco and New York City.

Taken all together and organized like my military force, I could field a sizable police force in my fictitious community of Blackwater, Michigan, consisting of uniformed police officers, SWAT officers, some detectives, several County Sheriff Deputies, a few State troopers, a few FBI agents, maybe a generic "man-in-black," or two, just for fun, and several firefighter types in yellow turn-out gear, and black turn-out gear, complete with a few pieces of fire gear, like a short hose assembly, a few axes, fire extinguishers, and such! Oh! Even got two military, Navy and A.F.-type, firefighters/Crash-crewmen from the Joe line! Cool, h'uh?

This doesn't even begin to take into account all the Power Team police and fire figs I've picked up over the years either. I really, really, need to sort it all out and get things organized by service--Army, Navy, AF, Marines, Police, Fire, civilian, medical, etc.

Decisions, decisions...so many Joes, so little time! :lol Hey, thanks for following along in my time of need and madness--all of them--Joe stuff, not smoking, and dieting.

Yesterday, I had to die....

It's the truth, in a manner of speaking. I "had" to die, that I might be re-born as a new man, and live a better life. I got the bad news and explained in the posting before this one, about my bad habits that had to go away for good--smoking, over-eating, under-exercising, and the pointless, ever-present, volcanic anger.

Today is Day One, without my "crutches," and it wasn't easy, but it wasn't impossible, either. The Lady Graemon and I went "antique shopping" and except for all the ugly, rude, stupid, inconsiderate, lost, oblivious people walking around getting in my way, it was an OK experience.

I say that with dripping sarcasm, as you might detect.

HEY! Give me a break--YOU smoke for 30-some years and go cold-turkey and see how your first day goes!

Yah, well...I'll do better tomorrow--I only have to put up with the numb-skull, idiotic, do-nothing, incompetent fools at work.

OK, OK, I'll take it easy...somehow. They really aren't that bad, not all of them. It'll be OK, because I am a new man. :-D

Joe-stuff. Thank the gawds for Joe-stuff to keep a man sane! I finally got my office/library and Joe-room separated and into some resemblance of order, that I can use BOTH rooms again. Yaaaaah! Now it's only a matter of figgering out what to do next...besides Harvest Time, that is.

*Sigh* The Lady Graemon has presented me with the news that Harvest Time is upon us and we will now be engaged in activities related to picking and preserving food-stuffs in preparation for the long, Michigan winter to come. *Sigh* I can't get over how much work one woman can make, invent, or otherwise create. It just don't seem reasonable that one "small-ish" lady/person can create and do sooooo much stuff! Darn near inhuman at times, I'm thinking!

Don't know when I'll get around to those Joe-pix, but I will yet! Heck--I'm fuming and rarin' with energy since I haven't had an "application of slow-acting, organic poison" in over 24 hours now! (That's what I call smoking now--to remind myself of the nature of the things that were killing my big, doofus butt!) Got too many ideas to execute all at once, so now I need to just sorta "choose something and dive in!" We'll see how that goes--now that I can set up and leave my lights and camera in place, if need be! Oughta be fun, doncha think?

And I still gotta figger out a way to get my ancient Joe pix scanned so I can post 'em on the web! I called a couple of places and once I found a place that could "do" what I needed done, he started rapping-off prices a bit more consistent with paying for his college education and not so much copying 2 dozen photographs! I told him politely to shut up, that he had already priced himself out of the realms of reality when he got to 99 cents per picture, a "set-up fee" of $30, the cost of ONE cd at $10...and I told him, "hold it--yer done, mister." For a little bit more money, I could go to Best Buy and BUY a new damned scanner and be better off doing my own pictures--faster and less aggravation at least! Cost might be comparable. I got a whole stack of cd's waiting for service that cost less that TEN DOLLARS EACH! What? He musta thought I was as stupid as his kid sister, or something!

Well, anyway...life goes on. Doesn't THAT have a nice ring to it? "Life goes on." Life is nice. Life is good. Life is fun. The Lady Graemon is a pretty good ol' girl that makes life all kinds of fun and interesting, ya know? I hope I'll be around for a good, long while, 'cause I got a bunch of projects to do and neat stuff to share...someday! Hopefully, sooner, rather than later!

Thanks for reading.

I am such an utter doofus...

Man! I am losing it for sure! I've been so involved in my own little world and here comes "reality" to punch me square in the chops. It finally sunk in today what I dummy I am. I got the word that unless I change my life-style, I can and will suffer serious consequences to my health, namely--premature DEATH! Took a little bit for me to "catch on," ya know? Doc's been telling me that for some time, but do I listen? I'm over-weight by about 40 pounds. I smoke. I don't exercise regularly--let's call me what I am--a couch potato! And, I lose my temper at the drop of a hat--to use an old cliche'.

All told--everything a man could do WRONG is exactly what I am doing and, literally, it's killing me.

To top it off, as if I needed any more bad news, The Lady Graemon is going for surgery next week AND will be off work for at least two months. That means--no paycheck for her, which means I become soley responsible for paying all the bills for at least two months.

Now, I don't tell you this to garner any sympathy or advice, but rather to express for myself how oblivious I can be to what happens around me in my life. I, like so many other people, get stuck in a rut of middle-class complacency until "bad things happen" to make us wake up. I'm hoping that fortunately, it DIDN'T take me having a stroke or heart attack before I "made the connection."

Well, rather than dwell on "poor me," I have some changes to make in a short period of time, and I think it will affect my collecting habits for the foreseeable future. I won't STOP collecting or anything terribly drastic like that, and I most certainly am not going into a panic "dumping my collection on E-bay" spree, but I will be stopping the frequent acquisitions on E-bay and the on-line retailers for a time until things stabilize and both The Lady Graemon and myself are in better health and fitness. This really shouldn't affect anyone that I correspond with, or running the blog. In fact, I think my Joe collection just took a turn for the better because now, more than ever before, the old Brigadier will have to become a very mellow, relaxed, de-stressed fellow and drive down the blood pressure and cholesterol through the very judicious application of "hobby time" and other relaxation techniques, which includes, not so coincidentally, exercise.

Chocolate ice cream and recreational eating just took a dumper, though! LOL. Well, recreational nervous smoking did too, matter of fact!

Anyway--I envision that Joe and Friends will get more of a "play" work-out and will have to do without many new goodies anytime soon. What the Quartermaster has in stock, will have to be "it" for the time being. Austerity budget. So, maybe it's time to finish up the Joe-room photo-studio and start taking pictures and playing with my troops as they ARE, and not as they "could" be.

I WILL get the weight down the 40 pounds needed. I WILL stop smoking. I WILL control my temper and anger. I WILL increase my exercise. I WILL live so The Lady Graemon has the pleasure of my company, (and my Joe troops,) for a very, VERY long time.

There. I feel better already. :)

Excuse me for being a downer, but...

...that's how I feel today. Man, it feels like someone pulled a couple of my plugwires and I'm only hitting on 6 out of 8 cylinders. I got no good excuse for feeling kinda messed up, either. The Lady Graemon is feeling wiped-out also. Wierd. We both must be coming down with "something," a virus or something like that. Yuck, and it sux to be me, I know.

Actually, today I received a package from a trade--a full gift-set of Mademoiselle Marie. Talk about a cool set! This one is IT. Now, I haven't lost my sense of reason about Dreams and Visions, the maker of this set, and I'm not really a big fan of the Sgt. Rock comix from 30-35 years ago, either, but Marie is kinda cool, even for me. 'Course, I DO like the Cy Girls and Marie is based upon the CY Girl body style. Maybe I'm just a sucker for the French mystique, I don't know.

Marie, the doll, is beautiful, in trashy sorta way. Her eye make-up seems kinda heavy with lotsa light blue eye shadow. Her lips are full with deep red lipstick, with only a slight gap between her lips, unlike that vapid, empty-headed appearance of most "smiley-faced" Barbie dolls. Marie looks like she "could be" real, in her own special way.

She's dressed in a red, turtle-neck, long-sleeve sweater and wears a knee-length black skirt. Believe it or not, she's wearing black fish-net stockings and high-heel shoes! Now don't THAT make a guy stand up and go, "Oo-la-la Bay-bay!" 'Course, the Thompson sub-machine gun and ammo bandoleer around her neck kinda/sorta ruins the "French party babe" look, ya know? I'm afraid to check under her clothes to see if she's packing a French Lebel revolver in her skivvies. Maybe a Fairburn-Sykes commando dagger, even! Holy smokes! What if she's packing a grenade or sumthin' under her bra! She looks kinda busty to me!

Her clothing in the window-box arrangement are pretty neat, too. I haven't removed her from the box yet, and probably won't until I'm ready to "do" something with her, like use her in a photo-shoot of some type--several ideas pop to mind right now, including a match-up meeting with Sgt. Rock and the Men from Easy Company--you were thinking something else, maybe?

Anyway...her clothing. She comes with numerous articles of clothing for her "missions," including a set of snug-appearing fatigue shirt and trousers, a "peasanty" appearing dress and blouse, a belted beige overcoat, a blond wig, a pair of combat boots, a morse code radio in a carrying case, a stick of dynamite, (prolly the weakest looking article in the set,) a maroon beret to go with the red beret she wears already, a .45 pistol and holster and lastly, a pair of clear green sunglasses. (Did they have sunglasses back in the 40's?)

I'm impressed by the sheer number of items that come in this set. I don't usually change clothing on my figs once I get them set up as I want them, but I am intriqued that I have the option with Marie.

The price-tag. I got a deal from my seller--$55, shipped, for the gift set. I've seen this set for sale at the on-line retailers for more, around $65, NOT including shipping, as I recall from the majority of them when Marie was first released. NOW that I've had the chance to see the box and the items in hand, I would say that, yes, $65 was a fair price and $55 makes me feel very good about my decision to buy at this time, from this seller.

Marie won't be for everybody. She's for a more specialized collector, if I may seem a little smug and maybe, snobbish. I don't mean to be, but maybe in this case, I think I am. The price-tag will keep many folks from buying her, when compared to a Dragon figure--even a Dragon "Soldat" series figure. She IS more closely compared to, maybe, a Cyber Hobby "special" release figure set. And, of course, being that she is a comic book heroine, and being that she's a female figure, will keep many of the "Manly Men" from including her in their collections. She just wouldn't "fit in" with many collections UNLESS you had a fairly eclectic collection the way that I do.

'Course, if you collect Barbies, Cy Girls, "Perfect Body" fem-figs, Dragon fem-figs and BBI fem-figs, and the like, you MUST buy Marie because she WILL add to your collections of fem-figs! Look around and you should be able to find Marie available in different places--E-bay comes to mind immediately, and I KNOW I have seen her and this set there a number of times. Marie was available as a stand-alone figure for about $35 in both long-hair and short-hair versions. I believe she came with an option of different eye colors--maybe green, instead of blue, but don't quote me on that little detail.

I would love to share a photo of her, in her window-box set, with you, and I will in the near future, just as soon as I can manage to set up enough work-space after my "room move project," which is now in it's second week of dis-array. Hopefully, this week-end coming up will be the LAST major effort necessary to "put things right" and then I will be able to set up my 1/6th "photo studio" area and start snapping a ton of pix for the Blog-space! Gawds, you don't KNOW how much I crave that ability--to be able to set up my stuff and photograph my ideas WHEN I want to, and desire to, and leave things set up without having to tear down and re-arrange things each and every time! I salivate just thinking about it!

Ok then--there it is! I've shared my lastest acquisition with you and I actually feel better now than when I started writing tonight! I thank you for reading along with my review of sorts.

Influences, Part Two

ALX2000

This is a real guy also. Some regular folks that have been around, on-line and into 1/6th scale, and live in or near San Diego may know him. I know he doesn't know me, because we have never met--face-to-face, or person-to-person. Nonetheless, ALX has his own website and one section of it is called something like T.O.M.B.--Tear Open (your) Mint Boxes. He means to free your 1/6th scale troops from their boxes and stop the madness of collecting "Mint" boxes for a hobby and actually "play" with your troops!

Seems obvious, doesn't it, but years back, collectors had a real thing about getting at least two of everything--one to open and one to save for "investment purposes," or some such silly thing. ALX got me to thinking, "what was I doing--collecting figures or collecting boxes?" When I read through his website about TOMB, it really changed the way I viewed my collection. I started opening boxes and I stopped trying to buy "mint figures for investments." What a silly notion, really. Like...was I gonna be around in 30 or 40 years to collect on my "investment?" Well hell...I just wanted to have fun with my troops like I did when I was a kid growing up in Detroit.

Around this same time, IIRC, other companies were starting to come onto the market, most notably, Dragon, with their highly detailed 1/6th figs. These Dragon figures were head-and-shoulders above GI Joe and 21st Century Toys for authenticity and detail. They also cost a lot more at the time. An average GI Joe cost about $20-25, a 21C fig was about $25, and Dragon was about $35, IIRC. (And please--no need to bust my hump if I got the EXACT prices off a little--that ain't the point.) The point was that trying to buy one of everything was getting cost-prohibitive. Trying to buy TWO of everything was "mortgaging the house" time! Just madness!

So...ALX influenced me to play with my troops and lose the mint boxes AND to stop trying to "collect boxes."

Model railroading

Does this surprise you? Model railroading is sometimes more than just running a toy train around underneath the Christmas tree. Some of us actually devoted entire rooms, even entire buildings, to our model railroad "Empires." The thing that separates the toy trains under the Christmas tree and "model railroading" was size, yes, but a great deal more than that. Many model railroaders actually set up their trains to run "as if" they were prototypical. That means they set up a timetable with regular station stops for their model trains and actually "timed" the runs around their lay-outs, just like the real railroads did to avoid untimely, un-profitable, un-safe delays that could ruin the financial condition of the business, or cause a head-on collision between two trains using the same track! It's more like a strategy game to modellers. It can be complicated, depending upon how many trains you choose to run, or it could be fairly simple if you only ran a single train over your mainline or branch-line lay-out.

The whole point being to "simulate" the actual running of a full-sized, real railroad business.

Now, the influence here was that modellers run an entire spectrum of "realism" with their trains. At one end, you have the absolute detail-conscious "rivet counters" that determined their roads had to be as close to 100% accurate as they could make them, with motive equipment and running stock a complete match for whatever railroad line that particular modeller was simulating, such as the Sante Fe, the East Broadtop, the New York Central, or Virginia and Truckee, etc. There are, or were, hundreds of real railroads and modellers had many to choose from to emulate in miniature. The detail hounds built structures, added prototypical vehicles and detail parts to simulate their favorite road right down to choosing a particular "day" in history for their lay-outs.

At the other end of the spectrum, were the "eclectic" modellers, that could and would "pick-and-choose" the road and the details THEY wanted without worrying about being 100% accurate. They could run a steam locomotive and a diesel loco at the same time and enjoy the contrast. They could run Burlington Northern trains alongside with Louisville and Nashville and not give it a second thought. They ran their railroads as it appealed to them and tickled their fancy.

Or...they could pick the details of the railroad they admired and wished to emulate, while making up an entirely "fictitious" railroad company, terrain, and purpose! I chose to make a railroad that "could have been" in Michigan, that ran over several of the lines that actually did run in Michigan, but through entirely fictitious cites and countryside. All the businesses my railroad serviced were fictitious, but ran "as if" they were real businesses. I made up a name for my railroad that "sounded" like a real railroad. I set up a schedule for trains to operate to simulate when rail cars needed to be dropped at a business or picked up for forwarding. It's NOT a simple as it sounds, when you have move a train from one location to another, break the train, set out or pick up railcars in a particular order, in a minimum amount of time, AND clear the track or return to the starting point simulating the end of the business day! It really IS a complex puzzle to solve and a strategy game to play. The model-building and train running are the obvious "play" activities, but they are NOT the only activities involved!

The influence result here was to treat my collection as something of a real world "business." If ya stop and think about it, the US Army is a "business"--the business of protecting the American people and fostering the policies of the United States. All politics aside--we aren't going there and starting a flame-war--the Army has to run as a business and so does my collection of troops. My analogy breaks down somewhat here, but my collection needs something of a purpose besides just being cool dollies, and so I invented a business for collection. It is an "public" organization that trains private citizens in military subjects while also being a clandestine, under-cover "mission force" to help execute secret missions on behalf of the free western democracies when the overt use of governmental forces would not be "politic."

Think of it as Green Berets teaching American civilians, like "survivalists," and also being secret military agents for NATO. That's kind of how I think of, and treat, my collection of 1/6th soldiers, civilians, and consultants. I "picked and chose" the elements of the "real" Army that I liked and used that idea for my own purposes. I also use as much detail in my troops as I want to use and I ignore what I DON'T want to model. It's "eclectic" modeling.

War-gaming

G.I. Joe and war-gaming--ought to be easy to make the association here! I got started in war-gaming after I came home from Viet Nam in 1972 and met up with a guy at Ft. Knox, Kentucky. He, (his name was Guthrie,) another guy named Dobek, and I rented a trailer off-post near Ft. Knox to get out of the barracks and have some peace and quiet to ourselves and NOT be available when the First Sergeant came looking for "volunteers" after the duty day was over. If ya ain't there, ya can't be "volunteered" for extra duty and you don't end up being the senior man in the barracks when the other guys get all rambunctious and stupid! Ain't nothing worse than losing sleep because some other guys feel the need to get drunk, raise hell with loud obnoxious music, or start a fight with somebody. And, in a barracks, there's ALWAYS something needs cleaning--usually someone else's mess!

Anyway...to pass the time and have some fun, Guthrie taught us about Avalon Hill board war-games. These games, if you are NOT familiar with them, are strategy games sort of on the order of Chess, but simulating combat between armies--usually historical in nature, like World War Two on D-Day. You use cardboard printed "counters" that represent your various units and a large board-mounted or paper-mounted map sheet to represent the terrain you are fighting over.

More advanced and more complicated war-gaming uses miniature pieces like models of tanks, trucks, soldiers, and guns, even aircraft, to represent the units involved. This form of gaming is called appropriately "miniatures" war-gaming. You have to arrange and organize your miniature units into effective fighting units just like the real army must do, and you must employ your miniature models like the real army does. You have to learn "real tactics" or your units get "killed" just like real soldiers in combat. In war-gaming, charts, tables, and dice-rolling are used to determine the relative strength of the units in attack and in defense and to determine "which" and "how many" miniatures are "lost" in a combat engagement.

Here the influence to me is that I began organizing my collection of Joes "as if" they were a real combat unit of troops just like my miniature 1/285th and 1/72d scale armies, which GI Joe IS a "miniature" soldier of a type--a 1/6th scale soldier! So, my Joe collection began to be organized as first a squad, then a platoon, then a company, and so on, up to today, when my troops are loosely organized as a battalion of soldiers with some special reinforcing "attachments," like my Armor troops, my medical troops, and my Air Section of helicopters and jet aircraft. The fact that some of the troops are outfitted as World War Two soldiers and some are outfitted as modern '90's soldiers doesn't really matter to me. What matters is that all the Joe troops have an assigned "unit" they are in and that makes it easier for me to know what I have and where I have it.

Well, it looks like I'll need to run a Part 3 of my influences article. Hope you enjoyed reading about my collection influences so far and hope to have Part 3 ready by next week-end. Thanks for reading!

Taking a break

I need a break from working on this warm Sunday. We, (The Lady Graemon and I,) went out to a Flea market yesterday and I found a few cool things there. First, I found a new (old) book about war after World War Two. It's written by a number of authors about the various world conflicts that came about after the Second World War was done--places like Malaya, India, Israel, Viet Nam, and so on. I've only had a short time to look through it, but it looks interesting discussing many of the lesser-known wars and conflicts our poor planet has experienced in the last 50 years or so. We Americans really should be a great deal more grateful than we are because America has NOT experienced the unbelieveable conflicts that have raged across our globe. I blame the American School Systems that struggle for funding and struggle for and against Liberalism and Conservatism as political realities instead of FACTUAL knowledge about our planet and it's inhabitants.

Next, I found a guy selling action figures and I bought a couple of Joe RAH figures. "Roadblock" is black and bald and truly a bad-ass head-sculp that I already have and used to create a very decent fantasy archer figure. I have no problem having a duplicate of this head-sculp because it is so very, utterly COOL! Another fig is called "Black Out." This guy is supposed to be a Cobra operative that's a sniper. I thought his head-sculp was plenty good enough for him to be useful somewhere else, someday. His clothing and gear kinda suck in my estimation, at least for any of MY purposes, but so what? He was inexpensive and even if the head-sculp is all I use, I get my money's worth from this purchase. The last fig I bought is a Cobra "Battle Android," called a B.A.T. II. (whatever that is.) I couldn't care less, really, because it has interchangeable arms and weapons and I'm certain I can fashion some sort of robot/android/alien creature out of it for my Sci-fi characters from the Traveller Universe. A little paint, some different attire, a little tweaking of this or that, and it will fit in nicely somewhere also, just like Black Out will.

On the way home from the Flea Market, we stopped for water-softener salt. Next door to the store was a Dollar General store. I had to float in to see what's what at this location--a place I don't normally go to in my routine travels. Ah yes--a few cool Joe things were found here, too! To be accurate, Power Team figures are not Joes, but they are "Joe-stuff" to my mind. It's a new toy season coming up for Christmas-time and this store had some new-ish figs. I bought only one new black American fig. Body and equipment suck, but he has a new head-sculp unlike any other I have and he had a wicked-looking knife of unusual design. It'll be useful for some 'bash. Also, I found a small toy pool table about the right size for a Joe-style Recreation room in the barracks. It's a little small to be considered "regulation," but when I was in the Army, many day-rooms had smaller tables to fit the room. It's cheap, it's plastic, but as a prop for Joe scenes, I think it may do well to create that Army Dayroom environment that exists in my plans, ideas, and vision.

While we were out, which was for most of the day, the postman made a delivery and yup...there was stuff for me. I've been shopping E-bay lately to find some out-of-production items for Joe-stuff, and that was the delivery yesterday. I had 2 packages containing a total of three sets of 21st Century Toys Armor Crewman uniforms and figs. SUCCESS! I've been real lucky lately trying to get these outfits to equip my armored vehicle crews and yesterday's delivery plus one more on the way, should do it for my crews! Everybody should have a proper camo cover-all set and CVC helmet, plus some web-gear and M-9 pistol. I can't wait to get time to outfit my guys in their proper uniforms now!

But, outfitting the troops will have to wait--too much inside and outside work needs to be done, and it's from THAT, that I am taking a break. Most importantly, and the reason I mention it at all, is because "negotiations" with The Lady Graemon have gained me some much-needed additional space within "Casa del Graemon" to be used for a Joe Room expansion project!!! YAH, BUDDY! Fort Graemon will get a whole room just for a Joe "display and work-room!"

The truth be told now...our little boy has moved out and is on his own. Plus, the old Joe room was also the library/computer room. The Lady Graemon would retire early and I would stay up late, pounding away on the computer keyboard and drive Her Ladyship crazy, so it's been revealed. NOW, the library/computer room is at the opposite end of the house in the former digs of "sonny-boy," and the old library becomes the NEW Home of Ft. Graemon and all the Joes that I can fit into the space! Well... within reason, because I need a space for actually "working" on the Joe-stuff, which includes making a semi-permanent photo studio for Joe pix!

I have a gazillion ideas for setting-up the Joe room, but that's a few steps down the road. Right now...I need to get back to work. All those books and such won't move themselves and I need my (Joe)space.

Thanks for reading today, and have a great Sunday for yourselves!

Thanks where it's due.

I've started Part Two of my "Influences" posting, but it's not ready for publication yet--maybe a few more days. What I really wanted to do today, though, is just express my appreciation for the several very positive responses and comments you guys have made so far. "Thank you," to each of you guys. You are a nice bunch of internet friends and I enjoy your company! It is so easy for folks to hide behind the internet and make, shall we say, less than encouraging remarks. It's wonderful of you fellows for being pleasant and positive with what you have done.

Here is a special little gift I give to you, my friends, today. It is some wisdom that was shared with me, and now I pass it along to you. This is how I feel today while thinking of you wonderful guys and I hope that each of you will someday find the right time and the right someone for you to share it with:

"Humility is seeing that everyone's path through the Earth school is as difficult as your's, and just as important.

"Humility is not feeling less than another nor greater than another, but truly equal, as friends, with another. It is giving and receiving among equals and among friends."

I give special mention and thanks to ET, today, for having encouraged me to start and continue this blog.

We'll be back to our regular fare soon. Until then--thank you, my friends. Have a Peaceful Day.

Influences, Part One

A few questions from my friends about my collection got me thinking--more-- about the people and events that influenced me with my collection. I think it'll take more than one entry to get it all down, but whatever. The "influences" that strike me right now include The U.S. Army, the TV show "Combat!," Hasbro/GI Joe, a guy with the internet handle of "Eagle," another guy with the internet handle of "ALX2000," model railroading, war-gaming, role-playing gaming, and an internet group called "Flash Force." There may be more, if I think on it for a while, but these are the influences for my current collection.

The U.S. Army

Well, how obvious does it have to be? Ever since I was a small kid before starting Kindergarten, I wanted to be a soldier one day. Don't ask me how a three or four year old kid knew about the Army, but I did. I can only guess that I was impressed at that young age watching war movies on TV. Certainly my parents weren't ex-soldiers for goodness sakes! My Mom cried when I told her I wanted to be a soldier when I grew up. My Dad didn't strike me as caring one way or the other. I could have told him I wanted to be a musician or a newspaper salesman and I would likely have received the same response.

Anyway, there was "something" about becoming a soldier that was for me--it was a "given," and it was written in stone as far as I could tell. I read every school library book I could lay hands on about the Army and the World Wars. I think I started collecting books about the Army and military history from the time I started getting an allowance and birthday money. Mainly, they were what I call "reference books" dealing with the more technical aspects of military subjects, like the specifications of military vehicles and aircraft and such. I also bought books about war and military history.Toys about things "military" were high on my priority list as a kid as young as four years old as I remember. My first military toy was a toy bolt-action rifle that had real ejection and loading action. It didn't shoot out a bullet, but it had plastic shells to load into the magazine and each time you worked the bolt handle, you ejected a round. The rifle had a big simulated scope on top--it was, I think, intended to be a "big game hunter's rifle," but for me, it was a sniper rifle! Yah, I was four years old and sniping my home and neighborhood. What a cool toy it was and I have no idea what happened to it or when it came up "missing." My guess is my parents had something to do with it "getting gone."

So, it should be no surprise that when I turned 18 in 1970, I enlisted in the Army for three years, with a guarantee to attend the NCO Candidate Course at Ft. Benning, Georgia, after going to Ft, Jackson, S.C, for Mortarman's school...all prior to my also guaranteed tour of duty in Viet Nam. In 1979, I took my Army Discharge and went back home to Michigan to assume a new career as Civilian. An Army career was behind me and to tell the truth--the Army was kinda boring after the excitement of Viet Nam was done. Nuff said about that.

Remember the TV show "Combat!"?

It starred Vic Morrow and Rick Jason. If you were born after about 1958, you were probably too young to remember or watch this neat show about World War 2 in France. It was weekly fare for my brother and I and I was dressed up in my best approximation of an Army uniform, complete with my toy guns, grenades, and webgear. Week after week, Sergeant Saunders and his men battled the Krauts across France after D-Day and, week after week, they kicked German butt by the end of the show. That's what I wanted to do when I joined the Army--kick ass and let someone else take the names! Didn't work out exactly that way, but it was fun and it was a learning experience.

Week after week, these guys fought their way across France. Sometimes they got wounded, but usually only the new guys and maybe the Guest Star would get killed. The stories were usually simple "people" stories about the guys interacting with one another. Sometimes there were funny parts, but normally it was war--they got into trouble and they had to figure out how to get out of trouble by the end of the show. It always bothered me, though, that the guys would be in a battle each week, yet they never got any medals or decorations, and if they got wounded, they always recovered by the following week. And nobody that I remembered ever got a promotion. Just fighting, fighting, fighting all the time against them despicable, ol' atrocity-committing Germans. I loved it!

When I started getting GI Joes as a kid, guess what I did with them? Yup, I made them into Combat characters. Not exactly the SAME characters, but one Joe was the Lieutenant, one was the Sergeant, the rest of the troops were riflemen. Joe ran patrols through the house and through the backyard, in Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall.

Hasbro/GI Joe

How can I explain the influence GI Joe had on me? Since I was already studying the Army and military subjects, I was astounded as a kid to see Joe and recognize his uniforms and equipment as "pretty darn close to the real thing!" Yup, he was dressed more or less correctly for the 50's. He had an M-1 Garand rifle and an M-1 Carbine. He had a .45 caliber pistol, M-1919A4 .30 caliber machine-gun, 81mm. mortar, radio, field telephone, ammo belt, pistol belt, Ridgeway fatigue cap, backpack, pup-tent, mess gear, and tons of more cool stuff to dress him up and outfit him like NO toy soldier had ever been equipped before!

I grew up with little plastic army men, those 2 1/2 inch tall soldiers made by Marx and gawd knows how many other toy companies, and I was kinda put off by them because they were molded in one position and their molded gear didn't look exactly right for US Army soldiers--well, some did and some didn't. But, there was NO COMPARISON with Joe and his friends. Only Joe had the coolest gear and weaponry that you could choose for him for each and every mission you could dream up for him. Joe was the "real deal" in my young mind at the time. I might have been too young to be a soldier then, but Joe filled the imagination bill for me until I WAS old enough to join up and see the world.

A Real Guy and a real influence

There was a guy went by the handle of "Eagle" on his own web-site years back when I first went on-line. The web-site has long since evaporated. I don't know what happened for sure. I remember the guy was a fireman, and he had some kind of medical problem that caused him some great difficulty in his life. I think he had some serious disease like cancer, or something, that took him away from the hobby of computer-stuff and Joes. Sure hope things worked out for him and his family and he just moved along to another hobby. I sure do hope he didn't end up dying from his disease, poor guy.

But, why is he influential to me? Well, he did several cool things for me. First he took his figs out of their boxes and actually played with them! More than that--he literally cut them up and re-molded and re-constructed parts and made his own clothing and otherwise customized his figs the way HE wanted them and not how the toy companies manufactured them! He also organized his figure collection into various teams of "themes" he was playing with at the time. I remember one team were some 1930's-type investigators/crime fighters. Another team were comic-book heroes. Another team were modern-day Adventure Team-like characters. He organized them and gave each team a section of his website with detailed histories and specialties for each character. This was in the age BEFORE Dragon, before BBI. It was GI Joe, Playmates, and barbie figures! Those were the choices!

He showed me that there was more than one way to play with your Joes. At the time, I was still in that "collectors" mentality, where ya bought every Joe thing you could and displayed box and all as your "collection." I didn't do that entirely, but I had quite a number of troops stored away in the original boxes and I had no intention of "playing" with them--they were for looks. Eagle showed me to consider the figure sets more as "parts" like a model kit of a tank or car. You could "build" the kit as intended by the maker, OR...you could re-arrange the parts and use them in different ways. The GI Joe sets at the time were pretty much made as ONE Joe, ONE uniform, ONE weapon choice. Ya put them all together like the picture on the box. Eagle didn't do that--he did a lot of mix-and-match and made custom pieces for the troops. Heck, one female figure he made, he cut apart a GI Jane and added some Barbie parts to make a better articulated figure that could wear some Barbie clothing because a "straight" Jane was wrongly proportioned to wear most Barbie clothes.

I remember one special thing about Eagle--he had a General Colin Powell figure in his team. I was astounded by that because his Powell figure was wearing different uniform parts and dressed like a regular ol' combat soldier! MAN! At the time, Colin Powell was an expensive set, like about $50! I couldn't believe somebody would use a Powell figure for "just a regular guy" figure!!!

After the shock wore off, I realized, "what difference does it make--if its YOUR action figure?" You can play with YOUR action figures ANY WAY YOU WANT TO!

End of Part One

Watch for Part two sometime soon. I need to do something else besides pound a keyboard, and you need to do something else, too, no doubt!

Thanks for reading and visiting!