Archive for January 12th, 2009

Windmill

Big admission coming:  I still play with Lego bricks.

That is, er, let me edit that a bit.  I “model” with Lego bricks.  That’s what I do.

By that I mean that once the epic castle with the small blacksmith shop and mysterious wizard’s tower has been constructed, I don’t line up the knight and soldier mini-figures and launch an assault on the battlements.

My wife takes care of that.  I just build.  Mostly.

A basic set of red, blue, and yellow bricks with a single minifig is probably the earliest birthday present I remember getting from my parents.  I played with it every day.  A couple of years later, I got a helicopter on a specially-designed flatbed truck; a year or two after that my parents and my aunt gave me two copies of the same Robin Hood-style set.

I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

From that point, 90% of the sets I bought or received were either medieval- or pirate-themed.  That includes the dozens of Harry Potter sets I bought on clearance several years ago.

I bought big castles.  I bought little guard shacks.  I bought inns and blacksmith shops.

I built massive fortifications, tiny villages, taverns and bridges and mills and hideouts.  I built an Elven library and a fortified windmill.  I built giant trees with battlements on the branches.  I built pirate bases and colonial trading posts.

I discovered Lego websites on the Internet:  Brickshelf, Bricklink, and yes, Lego.com.

I built a Lego website… one which, unfortunately, my students eventually discovered and continue to ask me about, even though I’ve taken it down…

Juliet

…but in a few days, as my students finish reading Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” I will review the story by showing them slides of Lego minifigs acting out the plot in a Lego catacombs.  (The Lego “Amontillado” isn’t my work - it’s better than what I could do.)

Someday, my wife and I will finish building our Lego Romeo and Juliet project, and my (already shaky) reputation as a mature, adult professional will be forever shattered.

I can’t wait.

If you don’t like LEGO, you don’t like yourself. — attributed to Jonathan P. Kennaugh