As always, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything.  I have a great “excuse” this time.  We moved into our new house even though the builder wasn’t finished.  To make things even more fun it’s been an eye opening experience when the builder decided to drop off his “Job Cost Summary” papers.

Sound strange to move in without it being finished?  Well, it was somewhat understood because some of the tile for the fireplace was on backorder.  So they couldn’t carpet the living room nor finish the fireplace.  Of course, there were other things, but that was the major “not finished part.”  We could deal with this unfinished business because I wasn’t about to let another month slip by not being in the house.  Yep, it was already supposed to be completed the month before.  Which you would think 10 months would be enough time.

To make things ever so exciting my builder decided to pull out some of the old tricks of slick General Contracting fun.  The “Job Cost Summary” had an almost heart clinching number on it as extra due.  He snagged on “assembly” charges, made “Comparible” changes into $3000+ changes without ever giving my wife and I the numbers to approve the change.  He simply said it was “comparible” and we pushed him a couple times to get us a quote if it costs extra before we approve.  We received the “comparible” and thought because his reputation was pretty sound we would go ahead with the change.  Of course, we never signed anything (kind of hard to do that when nobody shows you anything to sign).  The “Job Cost Summary” was filled with numerous instances of things he just decided to charge for even though the bid states in the allowance that the allowance is for the parts (never does it say it’s for installing or assembly). 

So who is the builder.. Well.. Let’s just say we are going to be talking to an attorney to see what we can do to protect ourselves.  We’ve learned a lot from this experience, and will most certainly learn more by the time this is over.  One thing for sure, if you ever are building a new house.. … Have a number of people who are experienced with new home construction review the contract and bid with you.  We felt way too comfortable with our GC just because we knew a couple people who had a great experience with them.  Of course.

All I want to say is for anybody who is a General Contractor/HomeBuilder.. Make sure you calculate the numbers, put together the Change Orders, and don’t try to pull things on people.  I believe in paying people for the work they do, however I’m not an idiot.. You have to give me something stating what it will cost before I’m going to pay you anything.  I’m not going to write a blank check.. So where would a builder get the nerve to try that?

Lanista

It’s been way too long since I’ve posted on here!  I apologize to everybody, but my wife and I are still uncovering from the move.  Our house is psuedo finished so we moved in as soon as we managed to get an occupancy permit.  The only trouble is.. it’s not DONE.  Which that makes things even more interesting.

Our builder has been great in most respects, but as anybody who has built before you will know that it’s not all sweet smells when trying to build a house.  Which, if you ever build a house.  I’d highly suggest talking over the contract with a couple people who have built before.  Not just realtors, architects, or builders…  Even with a highly recommended builder, I’d say building in deadlines with penalties is necessary. 

Of course, my miniatures are located in the safest location in the entire house.  Yep, under the turrett there is a lovely basement area that has become the dedicated game room.  Since a fair share of the octagon is concrete with insulated walls.. I’d say, they should be pretty safe in the event tornado.

When I start building the display cases and setting up the tables I’ll be sure post pictures here and on www.miniwarzone.com!  For now, just imagine trying to find things in boxes.. And still wondering where in the world the parts for the bedframe went. 

MiniGladiator is finally getting a bit of a face-lift now.  I spent some time this past weekend modifying a Wordpress theme for MiniGladiator.  I tried saving myself some time by copying over the fabled Kubrick Wordpress theme by Michael Heilemann.  Eventually, after editing away for a while I figured out I might of had an easier time starting off from scratch.

 Sadly, I used to code webpages quite a bit, but I’m currently stuck on the Computer Support band wagon that I can not seem to get off of.  My normal environment is PERL & ASP/ASP.NET, so switching over to PHP takes a bit to get used to.  Sadly, I’m one of those HTML/CSS rejects who used tables far longer then I should of to setup page layout.  I’d use CSS but never quite use it to it’s potential prefering table layouts to divs.  The only time I would use a div is to setup floating divs and expanding/colapsing sections of webpages. 

So Wordpress and messing around with Michael Heilemann’s theme was a trip.  Hopefully, when I go to make the miniwarzone.com and my wife’s WordPress theme I’ll be more comfortable.  After all of that is done, then maybe I’ll make a fully custom version for minigladiator.com.  Maybe..

 Till next time.. Happy gaming,

Lanista

Where I grew up games such as Dungeons & Dragons were considered evil, satanic, and certainly not allowed to exist in the public arena.  Today, there are some people playing Massively-Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORPG) who bring a new shame to the gaming world.  Just this week the morning news brought out the questions of a violent game like “World of Warcraft” (WoW) if it could of been the cause of the death of a child code names “Baby Grace.”  So is the American media going to start a witchhunt again?

Amazingly, when I searched this on FOX it did not attempt to draw such conclusions.  I merely mentions that the parents that committed this atrocity met through “World of Warcraft.”  Oddly, the written documents on both CBS and FOX do not even attempt to connect the violence to the game.  However, the morning news certainly loved to repeat a screen captured video of a group of WoW players hacking away at each other.  I do not play MMORPG, however I doubt that the game was truly the “cause” of the actions committed.

Course, I could push the conspiracy that television media sources will want to always destroy the reputation of games in general.  Especially, games that draw their audience away from sitting in front of the TV in the evenings.  Television has lost a lot of money in advertisement and have been losing ground in people’s interest.  Television is a one-way media and in today’s individual interactivity drive, there is not much of a drive for the younger generation to sit in front of the tube.

I started this out with an old grudge I have with small town America.  When I was in High School I actually actually was in the top 10% of my class.  Nothing special, however it was ironic when I was outlawed by the Principle from wearing a D&D shirt (a dragonrider) and was told that I would be suspended if I had Magic the Gathering (MtG) cards in the school.  Eventually, my friends and I found a collectible Bible card series and glued these to mana cards for Bible Wars (a patheticly nonsense card game).  Amazingly, when we were dragged into the principle’s office with the Bible cards he did not have much to say when we showed him the cards were actually Bible cards.  It was pretty funny though…