Been doing much better... health has upticked and I've had some energy lately.  Great thing to have!

Bindle Rails is ready to move once cards come in.  They should be in tomorrow or Saturday and then there will be a big rush to get the preorders wrapped up and out of the garage.  I have to take a picture of it.

Had a chance to play disc golf last week before the weather turned cold.  Windy as all heck and only played at Ashtabula Harbor from holes #3 to #13... I had only two holes where I parred, the rest were bogeys and a three hole streak of double-bogeys.  Awful.  Wind was from the southeast, which is a really odd direction to hit the holes there on top of it.  Not to make excuses of course.  :)

I've been working on a new game design for yet another rail game.  The rules for this one are significantly less involved than Bindle Rails as they tip in at roughly four pages.  The idea is to build rails across a grid of the Northeastern US (although I will probably do some other maps as well as they are pretty easy to do.)  Players pick up tiles into their hand that represent capital to build routes and resources which count for VP.  There are also VP for being the western-most railroad and a big juicy bonus for getting to Chicago.  The gimmick in this game involves the resources themselves - each resource is worth a different amount of VP (usually degrading) for each stage or age of the game.  The game is split into three separate ages of silver, gold and rust.  Players attempt to build quickly westward to not get shut in, but still have to juggle laying resources if at all possible to get the biggest bang for their resources.  Resources may also be shared between railroads and cities may be upgraded to allow for more railroads.  Resources are plentiful in the first stage, wane in the second stage, and the final stage is a quick wrapup of the game.  You may also rip up your own resources to build track and attempt to lay resources in a friendly region without risking any capital.  Resources can only be placed in a matching region.

In terms of mechanics, if I had to compare it to other games, it plays like a very tight low-impact Chicago Express crossed with Carcassone as well as some of GM&O's tension in for good measure.  The tile laying and track laying rules reward those can build track away from others and claim resources, however, being the second or third company into a city can really make building difficult.  There is a fair amount of luck in terms of tile drawing which is mitigated somewhat by holding onto resources as long as possible. Everything counts in large amounts and if you get boxed in, your life can be very difficult.

Anyhow, it's being worked through and the design has come together pretty well.  I anticipate releasing it to the wide world this weekend as a free PnP.  If there is interest, I will self-publish this game as well.  It has been provisionally been called Manifest Railways.