2009 in Review/2010 in Prediction

Again, I’m going with dubious grammar choices for the title, but I believe it fits.  Instead of just reviewing the low and highlights of 2009, I figure I’ll go through a list of my greatest hits ’cause for nearly all of them I have goals of faster and more intense for 2010.  So, when you start seeing Facebook statuses (stati?) about how bored I am, you can just send me a link to this page to light a fire under me towards something.  Maybe.  I don’t often admit to being bored in Facebook because it actually doesn’t happen too much.  What’s more likely is that you’ll see statuses (stat–oh, forget it) about me wasting time on something completely inconsequential.  Which is essentially what this blog post is.  Anyways, moving on, in an order where I presume the most interesting to the most number of people is at the top, I present the list:

First Impressions

So, a lot of people know that I’m a WWII reenactor/living historian.  We’re all aware it’s kind of a strange hobby and I probably spend way too much time, money, and energy on it.  And I will grant that’s entirely possible.  However, I’d like to take this opportunity to show the world what really goes into this hobby of mine that I love so dearly and what I’ve been working at since last February when Maggie arrived.  Basically I got interested in what war dogs did during WWII and began wondering if I could create a war dog handler (handler being the human who works with the dog) impression.  What’s an impression, you ask?  Good question.  It’s what a reenactor works at most of the time.  It’s putting together the right uniform, equipment, and weapons for a typical soldier in a specific unit during a specific timeframe.  This is something common to all reenacting, whether it’s Civil War, WWII, Roman Legion, etc.  What I’m going to show you in this post is the research and synthesis from the months of reading, looking at photos, and interviewing a WWII veteran, an extremely generous fellow without whom this would not be possible, named Mr. William Garbo.  The synthesis is what’s in the pictures you’ll see of Maggie and me.  After a couple months of research, it took several months to track down the right items and then find them for the right price.  So, this is what I posted under the “Detailed Impression Photos” section of an online forum for WWII reenactors.  Some of it will make sense to you, some of it won’t.  Just skip the stuff that doesn’t make sense and look for something you do find interesting.