All is quiet on the modelling front...

Or is it?
I came to the shock realisation earlier this week that it has been more than a few weeks since I last gave an update on the Tamiya M8 HMC, indeed the last update was the 24th of February 2009. I do apologise for this, but I do assure you that I have not been quietly plugging away at the project and not updating the SBS. No, unfortunately I have not been doing any work on it.
So just where the hell have I been? What the hell have I been up to? Well, a lot I guess! Some of it scale modelling related, and other just life really. So this blog post contains a bit of everything really, but mostly it is an explanation of what has stalled the M8 HMC build and an insight into what I will be working on in the forthcoming weeks.
Let's start on a more personal explanation: what has been going on in my life these past (almost) two months? As everyone (the press, our clients, my bosses) keep reminding us, we are amidst a "Global Financial Crisis", which has lead to a slow down in work for the company I work for resulting in quite a few people being laid off. Fortunately I was not one of them, but I do think if I had not been sent out to a client a few weeks ago I might have been one of those unhappy souls. I am now doing some process documentation and analysis for Australia's largest telco. What started as a week-long "freebie" in February has led to a longer contract. It really is interesting, but somewhat of a challenge as it is quite technical and really takes me back to my days as a network/systems administrator. Most importantly, I am off the bench, out the office, earning revenue for the bosses, and (hopefully) out of the firing line. A further plus to this is that I generally do not work more that 8 hours a day while on a client site, which means that when I work through my lunch-break, which is most days, I can be home before 17.00 if I hop on the train.
Something else that has been going on is that The Missus and I have been house-shopping. The buying process certainly is different here in Australia. I will not attempt to explain it, as I will probably just get it wrong. The long and short of it is that we have seen two houses we really liked. The first one we lost out on due to our offer being too low. In retrospect we could have afforded more and put in a higher offer, but we did not due to our own ignorance of our lending capacity at the time. More recently we put in an offer on a townhouse which we really liked as well. The offer was accepted, but we heard yesterday that the bank valuation of the property was about 10% less than we offered. This despite the fact that the offer was below the area median price for similar properties. We have instructed out mortgage originator to apply through another institution. If they also undervalue the property, we will probably cancel the deal and perhaps offer the vendor a lower price. If they do not accept then we know it is not meant to be. It will be a pity though, because I really like this house.
So what else has been keeping me from the project? I seems to me that I have more time after work.
To be honest I had become a bit unmotivated with the project. The photo-etch instructions were becoming annoying to say the least. I would sit down at the desk, look at the parts, try to decipher the Eduard instructions, get annoyed, and then get up and watch TV or surf the 'net instead.
And that is when it happened. I saw a post on Armorama asking for review volunteers for a range of products, including DML's new Bison I SPG. How could I resist not putting my paw up? Yes, I have volunteered to review an armour model! When I received the box from Jim Starkweather, the Kitmaker publisher, he had also included quite a few more interesting kits for review. Just prior to this though, Neograde had also sent me a few resin accessory/conversion sets. As did Pat McGrath, a fellow Kitmaker staff member, albeit figures. But let's face it: I love writing modelling reviews, and I am really grateful to all who indulge me by supplying samples.
So you ask why I am not at the workbench? It is because I am reviewing again. That is not a bad thing: someone around here needs to write decent, objective (I hope) reviews.