Two-week Teaser

One reason for starting a blog is to have more writing and photo space than what other media offers, in order to update friends and family on news and events going on my hobby.  I experienced some very exciting highlights over the first two weeks of September, and I've barely had a chance to relay it all.  I'll share it all over the next several days, so that I can pace out the content.

So the big exciting news happened at the NOVA Open, a gaming convention that is in its fourth year, I think, held at the Arlington Hyatt Regency, located next door to where I work!  It doesn't get any better than that in terms of convenience.

I volunteered time over the course of this year to engage with the NOVA organizers and staff.  When I attended for the first time last year, I was blown away by how large the event was and how well it was organized.  I was curious to learn just who was behind all of it, and so that's why I got involved.  One of many goals for them this year was to construct enough of their own terrain to be entirely self-sufficient and be able to populate well over 100 tables for the Warhammer 40K tournament.  I spent quite a few weekends helping construct terrain.  It was a great opportunity for me, because, along the way, I learned about a lot of techniques that I was curious about, including mould-making, casting, foam-cutting, terrain-assembly, flocking, and, best of all, airbrushing.

More about the big news later.  For now, here's a link to the NOVA Open web-site in case you want to check out the galleries and see what it's all about.  Oh, ha, ha, spoiler alert!  I just went to the site to grab the link, and it looks like my big news is on the front page (depending on how close to this publish date you visit the site, of course).  In that first picture for the painting contest, I'm the grinning bald guy on the left!