Happy New Year!

This is my first post of 2014 and so far this year is looking really good. We had our new year's celebration at the Miller's as we have for the last few years. I took a number of pictures of the burning bonfire. I really need a better camera, but here's what I got either way:


Keep in mind that the fire was about 10 feet tall at it's high point. I think Abby may have taken some pictures of people in front of the blaze. (My camera wouldn't do that.) If I can find any of those pictures it would give you a better idea of the scale.

Anyways, the party was great although we did head out before 9PM. The fact is that we were close to an hour from home and I wanted to get the wife and kiddies back to the house before all the drunk drivers were out on the road. Rachel stayed up with the kids until midnight, but I went to bed around ten. I figured it would be 2014 when I woke up one way or the other, lol.

In other news: The game continues to go well. Les and Darek (the producer and lead programmer) are probably going to go showcase it to a potential publisher in the next couple of weeks. We have very high hopes of getting picked up by them. If that happens it should be really good for the game. My own work also goes very well. I expect to have the design essentially complete by the end of the month. I'll almost certainly still be working on the spell list and I'll have to help improve balance during the play testing phases, but in the main the design will be done. So, there's a good chance I'll start tinkering on my next game concept in the next few months. This project has taught me to get as much done in advance as possible. I've been working on Worlds of Magic for almost two years now. I want to get as much of a jump on my next game as I can.

All this game work hasn't made me forget about getting my book published. I was actually offered a contract last week. Sadly, I had to turn it down. The publisher was just too small to give me what I wanted. (In fact, they were almost a “self-publish” service.) Still, I'm not discouraged. I keep getting people to look at the manuscript. Lord willing, it's just a matter of time before I find a publisher that's really interested.

These next few pictures are just to show my Dominican friends how dreary and gray it can be here in the Winter. These photos represent several days of cloudy weather. They show one of the main reasons I don't like the Winter here. This kind of weather make me sleepy, lol.


We went to Church in Willistion again this Sunday. Rachel stayed home with Abby, Caleb, Felicity, Issac, and Titus. Caleb and Isaac seemed to be getting sick Saturday night. It turned out that they were fine when they got up Sunday morning (thank the Lord), but that was basically after Church was over.


Other than that it's been the same old, same old around here. I keep dreaming about being back in Dominica and hoping and praying that we have the money to head down there around this time next year. In fact, I want to take even more of the family than I did last time. I'm also hoping to have a bit more vacation in it and a bit less “working”. Either way, this post is around a page long, so I'm going to wrap it up. As usual, goodnight from South Carolina!