Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Visiting Fort Ticonderoga



Hey all!

First off, sorry it has been SO damn long... I am just not doing a lot with toy soldiers at the moment, so have nothing to share!

Well, almost nothing:)

I took a trip with my father in law up to Fort Ticonderoga and took a few shots for those AWI/F&I folks here; so Giles, these are for you!:)


A shot overlooking the lake.  Man, those cannon have a great view:)



Every gun had beautiful engravings.


One of the many mortars in the place.


An impressive list of "guests" I would say!:)


The barracks.  A number of reenactors were there, doing the living history thing.


A model of a British landing craft.


Very cool breech loading gun!  They had some wonderful weapons there.



Beautiful horns.



Another beautiful powder horn.


One of the MANY powder horns.  Beautiful stuff.




A selection of Scottish weapons.


Muskets.  Ahhhh muskets!:)


A brace of pistols.


Toy soldiers!  I loved seeing these... apparently our hobby is timeless!


I love seeing original leathers and original canteens, almost more than the weapons themselves.


This was very neat; a powder tester!  You load it up with an amount of power and then fire it, and the further along the crank-thing it gets, the higher grade the powder is.


A pair of Brown Besses.  Maybe my favorite ever gun.


The interior of the fort.


I liked seeing that drum sitting there.


A pair of pistols owned by George Washington.


A view over the lake.


"... that our flag was still there!"


Small hole that can do a lot of damage.


Great little gun.


A demonstration going on.


A close up of the participants.


The fife and drum corps.


After the demo, the guys still fired off a few rounds.

Overall a really beautiful fort!


Saturday, July 7, 2012

My Minecraft project; a "Minecraft city"

Hey all!

Thought I'd share... Everyone remembers my castle from a post or two ago?  Well, I thought I'd start to take advantage of the NPC village I built above, as their feudal lord... to provide for my people.  I've been working on a rather large city in Minecraft.  It is taking a LOT of time to finish... more than you'd expect.  A ton of small buildings to go.  Note the cathedral and square near the center, and the gatehouse to the front right... it features a fully functional portcullis, courtesy of KidMischief over at YouTube. You lose a bunch of the wall behind the castle and to the left, and can't see the entrance to the natural caves on the other side of the city there.  Lots more to go, including a city park, finishing the dock areas, actually making the front right corner into a fortress... eventually linking in the world transport system in an honest way, instead of its nearby stop at an once proud mine... good stuff!

Friday, July 6, 2012

I'm still here

Hi all!

Just as an FYI, I'm still alive and kicking; but the end of the school year, combined with a family cross-country trip and another family trip just days afterwards, coupled with no toy soldier time, has resulted in no blog posts.  Sorry!:D