a simple man

60 Brick by Brick: Portrait 1.0 (and 1.5)

If you’ve been following along my blog, then you know I am working on a #60BrickbyBrick challenge, wherein I build a new something each month from one of the 60th anniversary sets by LEGO, and in the off weeks, continue my LEGO Portraits. Well, last week I did so and you can see that build in my last post. This week was a portrait week.

I first had the idea for this week’s shoot in the beginning of this week, but didn’t have time, predictably, until today to execute my idea in between loads of laundry. Ah. Such is the adult fan of LEGO’s life. A little adult obligation and a little LEGO fun. Anyhow, there was actually a seed part for this photo, which I will get to in a second, but it was also a chance to photograph a bit of my new CITY street baseplate and do a micro build. First I’ll show you the resulting photograph, then break it down a bit.

So this is what I ended up with. I call it “Early Morning Trash Run” and I just love it. A lot of LEGO builders will begin with a single part, usually called a seed part, and build around that, sometimes to force creativity and sometimes just to have fun. In this case, my seed part was the dark colored trash bag you see in the foreground in front of the recycling trash can. For whatever reason that part popped in my head and I decided to use it. Now, that part has been used variously as a Santa’s Sack or a trash bag or just a loot bag for a traveler, but in this case is acting as a trash bag. I then, more or less, imagined the complete scene you see above. All that was left was a matter of building.

The new CITY baseplate is what you see in grey in the bottom of the picture, the extreme foreground, and what all this is built on a little corner of. I will show a behind-the-scenes pic in a minute and you will see what I mean. Beyond that, the fire hydrant was a micro build that needed to be there to give some contrasting color and something more interesting in the photo, and dog about to pee on it is just classic and funny. Add a wine bottle in the recycling trash can and a sleepy person bringing his trash bag and all you need is a wall behind for a background.

There’s the rub: I only had so many “brick” bricks available to me because most were being used in another build I haven’t photographed yet. So I had to build, literally, as much wall as I could and position it just so. SNAP! and a little editing and there you go, a nice little portrait that tells a quick little story.

Here is the behind-the-scenes look.

In this photo you can see that the wall is not very big and all of this is on a very small corner of the baseplate. But that is the magic of photography: you don’t actually need very much in fact to tell a fun story. A creative angle of photography and, as I said, a little editing, and presto! you’ve got what you need. I don’t yet have an idea for next week’s photo, but that is the excitement for me…getting an idea and then executing it.

Anyway, I do have another pic that I took, this just as a practice for a LEGO set I built. I have been wanting a Star Wars Imperial backdrop for a while, featuring the iconic white and grey walls that are all over the Death Star and Star Destroyer hallways. So I found a set that had been released for San Diego Comic Con a few years ago that featured said walls, and then built my own from the instructions. The resulting piece of corridor is delightful, but I had to see if it actually worked in camera. I am pleased to say that it seems to. We will see in the future if it needs to be tweaked for future pics or if it works as is. But enough talk. I give you “Imperial Conversations”.

In the foreground a pair of Imperial Officers talk, while in the background a pair of Stormtroopers stand sentry. Why? I don’t know. Anyway, behind them is my Imperial wall, completely brick built. As I said, I am happy with this little build and it yielded a bonus pic for this week, so win-win as far as I am concerned.

I hope you enjoyed my pics and and a look at how they were created. Come back next week for more #60BrickbyBrick!

60 Brick by Brick: Build 0.1

I posted earlier today about LEGO, and without rehashing, this is my first LEGO build of my #60BrickbyBrick challenge. To read what I’m on about, hit the LEGO link at the top of the page and find the article “Brick by Brick: 60 Years in the Building”.

So here is the LEGO set I started with, the second smallest of the new 60th Anniversary LEGO sets available, with only 186 pieces. The challenge is to build something with only those pieces available. This turned out to be quite a challenge! The set actually came with an instruction booklet, which would have allowed me to build the car, robot, and parrot shown on the box, but I didn’t want to go the curated route. I wanted to build something unique and fun, like I used to do before all the pieces in the world were available to me. So I did.

Earlier today I received another fun order of swag, and with it something that got me in mind of the post-apocalyptic. You can see the box is already asking about the future, so I went with that theme for this build.

With these pieces, I began. First, a minifigure emerged, part of the reason I bought this set and not the smallest of them, this one came with a person.

This person begins androgynous, with a choice of either “girl” or “boy” hair. I opted for the helmet, because the air is probably a little toxic in the post-apocalyptic environment this person inhabits, but the boy look because I am a dude. So…what to build, little man?

I decided on a vehicle, after first deciding that I didn’t have the requisite pieces needed for a shelter of some kind. So I tinkered and built and rejected this piece for that. Eventually I decided to go as eye-searingly colorful as possible because I wanted to hearken back to a time when I couldn’t color coordinate an all-black or grey vehicle with artistic color touches. Also, all I have is ALL THE COLORS so that works. Any vehicle needs wheels, so I got a few. Interestingly, the largest tire manufacturer in the world is LEGO, not any of the brands meant for larger, human-size wheels. I find this hilarious. Anyway, I continued to build. Halfway through (and forgive my lack of iterative pictures, I always get caught up in the build and forget to take interim pictures) I decided my post-apocalyptic man needed a robot companion, so I built a simple, if sad looking, robot.

At last, the vehicle, too, was finished.

With seat for my little pilot and room behind for his robot companion. It’s difficult to see, because, again, I didn’t document well, but my robot wouldn’t actually fit without some modification to the vehicle, so I had to remove the seat. However, the rest of the vehicle is as appears here. So what next??

Only time will tell. I seriously had fun, like I was 9 again, building with LEGO on my bedroom floor, only this time I was at a table like a sensible adult because my knees won’t do floors anymore.

I hope you enjoyed the February #60BrickByBrick. Come back for more in March!

Brick by Brick: 60 Years in the Building

This year is the 60th anniversary of the LEGO brick. As any of you know who know me, I love LEGO. I find it interesting that I have been around for half the life of the LEGO brick given how much joy and entertainment LEGO has brought to me, personally. My love of LEGO really took off when it bought the license from Lucasfilm to produce Star Wars LEGO, though I had been building X-Wings and the Millennium Falcon long before. Suddenly my two favorite things coincided and I was in geek heaven.

For nearly 31 years I have built, photographed, bought and sold, and enjoyed LEGO in many different ways. This year, for their anniversary, LEGO has produced several new sets, each with a different theme, to return to their roots of unlimited imagination and creative building. Sure, constructing an X-Wing according to the directions is fun, and you end up with a cool (dis)play model, but sometimes just staring at a pile of bricks and putting two and more together until you create something unexpected is even more fun.

To that end, and to foster a new era of LEGO building and photography for myself, I bought one of the smaller 60th anniversary sets. To commemorate LEGO, and challenge myself to be creative throughout the month(s), I want to use the set to construct a random creation and photograph it. Given the 60th anniversary, I want to create 6 unique builds from this one set, one build per month for each decade of LEGO, debuting at the end of the month. For the other three weeks of the next six months, I want to continue to photograph my minifigures in unique ways. When I finish, I should have built and documented six builds and eighteen minifigures.

This sounds like fun! And, I will start building today! Follow my instagram @philredbeard to see iterations of my builds, but for each final model and minifigure photo, I will post them here on my blog.

Perhaps join me on the journey, #60brickbybrick and if you do, contact me on social media and let me see your creations!

Self-Improvement

It is the quiet of morning and I am listening to one of my favorite film scores (Pirates of the Caribbean) and am contemplating life.

Last week, I was challenged on Twitter* to examine my life and discuss the intentional and permanent changes I had made in myself. Few things are permanent in this life, but some of the decisions we make can be. My father tells me of a time of in his life where, as a child, he decided to react a certain way to a situation, and that decision has stayed with him his entire life.

Intrigued I thought about it, and shot off a tweet, but want to examine my choices a little more here.

The most obvious permanent change I have made in my life are my tattoos. Barring painful and expensive reversals, they will be with me until the day I die. I have two of them, one on the underside of each forearm. The first one that I got, on the left, I lifted from the pages of a favorite book, the Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien. It says in the Elvish “aurë entuluva” and means “day shall come again”. The passage it is taken from tells the terrible tale of Hurin, warrior among men, who is fighting in rage-filled desperation against the forces of the Dark Lord Melkor. He is slowly being overwhelmed by the Dark Lord’s army, and with each smoking stroke of his sword Hurin cries out “Aurë entuluva – day shall come again!!” A battle cry that even should he die, the Dark Lord will not win forever.

This passage inspires me in my struggle against my own Dark Lord: Depression. No matter how dark and terrible the battle, day shall come again. Depression does not win! To companion the first tattoo, I delved into the Elvish and wrote a corresponding phrase “auta i kelomiâ” which means “night/darkness/the abyss is passing away”. Again, it is a battle cry for me against depression. On the one arm, striking a blow, “day shall come again!” and the other, following the blow with one of it’s own, “night is passing away!” For me, a powerful two-punch combo.

But what are the less obvious changes?

I guess second to my obsession with all things Tolkien, which inspired the first permanent change in my life, the next has been a life long tango, that is, my dance with organized faith. Early in life, even before I was born, I was involved in a Christian church of varying types. After I was born, my parents insisted on taking me to church every time they went. This was a life long choice that was made for me, and as soon as I could make the choice for myself, I didn’t go back for about seven years.

Recently I started attending church again. I still do not know what exactly I believe for myself, and how much I believe it. People around me talk of love for God, or Jesus, or whatever you want to call the divine being, and that for me remains a mystery, but I understand a great deal about Christianity’s holy book, The Bible. Thus I have begun teaching small parts of it that I do understand, at least a little, and live the questions for the rest. I don’t know what my future with religion looks like, and whether this second trial will be any more long lived or permanent than the first, but despite that I think my life will always be entangled with the Christian faith. I cannot seem to escape it. It makes up a significant portion of how I think and my moral compass and predates a lot of the morals I have decided to hold that are similar to Christian principles.

Third permanent change I made in my life was finally getting treatment for depression, and learning to deal with the ongoing effects of my mental illness. Yes, I am not well, and this is rarely obvious. My sickness is one of the mind and not body. It effects me in various ways, and I have written about that throughout the years on this blog that you can find, but it is a Very Bad Thing and it keeps me from enjoying many of the things in life that others take for granted, such as the ability to enjoy things in life. I am much better off now than I was many years ago at the height of my suffering, when my wife divorced me and left me to crumble under it’s weight, but I will never be healed. Full recovery I understand to be impossible. My brain is broken in ways that can only be patched, not perfected. Each night it passes away as day comes again, but it always returns.

I don’t know what the fourth change means, and I don’t remember precisely when I made it, but it was long ago in my teenage years perhaps, but I stopped writing in lowercase, or cursive, and began to write exclusively in print capital letters. At the time I think my handwriting was becoming more and more illegible, and I wanted to make not only stylistic changes, but make it readable. Since then, I have tweaked how I write certain letters (depending on where they fall in the sentence or word) and have developed a consistent font that is all my own. Someday when I can get an iPad and an Apple Pencil, I will digitize my handwriting into a font. That would be fun. But it qualifies as a permanent change I have made in my life that was intentional.

Beyond that, I don’t know. Do learning skills count? Perhaps, if they are unique? What about changeable decisions that are made continually? I have learned skills, and I usually make the decision to color my hair, or get tattoos (and I will again in the future). What about life goals, do they count? I have decided to not accept the status quo and fight for justice and freedom to think, learn, grow, and exist as you are and wish to be. This drives a great many of things I say and do and how I interact with others.

I don’t know.

But that is enough for now, I suppose, to give you more than a tweet to understand the permanent changes I have made in life. Perhaps that gives you more of an insight into the complex individual that is me. You’re welcome.

*(@philredbeard warning: I earn my M for Mature rating)

A Few Poems

In a bout of creativity, I wrote a few poems. I thought I would share them with the world.

First of all, a tribute poem, in free verse, about the death of AOL Instant Messenger, a program I used for many years at the beginning of the internet, in the long ago times, to chat with friends and family. Just today it was announced that AOL has shut down the service. Wow. Never thought I would see the day.

AIM

Little yellow person
Running ’round the world
Connecting…
Me to you to her to him
To talk
Life, and everything.
Until the twenty year rotation
Killed the connections
In favor of more tenuous tendrils:
Texts and time for faces
Time to run no more.
Rest in the graveyard
Of future things.
Did you leave an away
Message: R U there?

Next up is a little poem contemplating nuclear holocaust. It came to me in a moment at work the other day as I was watching a bubble of water skim across the dishwasher surface. After a brief moment, it suddenly popped, and there was a miniature shockwave that rippled across the water beneath. I live in fear that our stupid president might attack North Korea and start a nuclear war and no one will have the guts to stop him. A silly fear perhaps, but there it is. Here is my poem, also in free verse.

Push the Button

One should not
Push the button
Until one has under
Stood
The cataclysmic collapse
Of a water bubble

Finally there is a poem about the dignity of manual labor. Usually I don’t go in for that sort of thing, but as I was mopping the floor at work the other day it struck me that there is dignity in accepting what we have to do in the current moment and doing it to the best of our ability. As I said, I don’t think manual labor in and of itself imparts dignity or creates a work ethic that is worth anything, but I do think that doing one’s task well is worth, well, something. For better or worth, here is that free verse poem.

Quiet Dignity

Quiet dignity resides within
Back and forth
Back and forth
Simple mop and motion
Back and forth
Back and forth
Sweeping away yesterday’s
Crumbs and beet blood stains
Back and forth
Forth and back
For a change of rhythm
And pacing
Back and forth
Back and forth
Fan dries clean floors
The blades whir
Back and forth
Back and forth

To Thank

Today is that day on which American’s stop, eat more food than they should, watch a damagingly physical game that bewilders the rest of the world, and give thanks for things they possess and events in their life.

As traditions go, it isn’t a bad one. I’ve enjoyed it every year of my life so far and this year is no different.

I sit here typing over a belly too full of turkey and fixings, watching a team called the chargers play some guys in stripes while some guys called the cowboys watch an oblong brown ball fly around, and think about that for which I am thankful. The list is long and distinguished and in no particular order.

I am thankful for family. They sit around me, and though the small humans are a bit too loud sometimes, I love them all. They are flawed, full of snot apparently, and of various sizes, and the kids aren’t too nice either, but then, neither am I, most of the time. We are human and wonderful.

I am thankful for my mind and my health. I have suffered from depression for a long time, but lately have been on the upper side of things a majority of the time. I still have days where I lose to the depression, but they are far between.

My car starts, my computer works, my Apple watch amuses me, I have two good jobs that I actually don’t mind working. I have favorite t-shirts and the luxury of my choice of shoes. I have a roof over my head, and floor beneath my feet, and four walls.

In all, life is good, and I am thankful for each and every part, no matter how I may complain on any regular day, or groan about work in the morning, or wonder if I will ever achieve my dreams.

I have much, and for that I am thankful.

What are you thankful for?

Untitled October

I’ve been more depressed lately. I don’t know why, except to say that depression ebbs and flows, like the ice tides on a long dead moon. Creeping first from one position, then settling in to a new orientation, pulled perhaps by a gas giant, or an old star, my depression changes from slightly happy to slightly sad and back again. Along the way, my energy also fluctuates. Sometimes I get things done, sometimes I don’t. It is extremely frustrating that I cannot count on my emotions or energy from day to day, or even hour to hour.

I did discover one thing that seems to be making a difference, at least so far, and helping me to have more get up in the morning: taking my meds at night. Damn things say right on the bottle “may cause drowsiness” and here I was confused as to why I was getting tired in the morning. I don’t know yet if that same drowsiness is kicking in and helping me to sleep at night, but I feel better pre-10 am than I used to.

Also, if you’ve been following along this year, I made a resolution, a pact with myself, to do more throughout each month. I’ve been keeping track of my progress mathematically and writing about it. I did well for the first half of the year, and then got off track when my apartment was invaded by bed bugs and I was forced to move. I also got a new job and have been using up what energy I had throughout the day working. My finances look slightly better, but my creative output has suffered.

I long to build things in LEGO, paint, take pictures, write, read: create. But between life’s fuckups and my own depressed nature, it is oh, so hard.

This was supposed to be my latest update, but I just can’t muster the energy to quantify what I haven’t done yet again. I am not giving up on those goals so much as I am giving myself the freedom to fail at being regimented about them. I am giving life space to intrude. I am not giving my depression reign, but realizing that it does have consequences that are out of my control. So now this will be my last update. Not an end, but a whole new beginning.

I’ve been reflecting on life and the nature of happiness all day since I watched Blade Runner last night and Blade Runner: 2049 this afternoon. (Both are good, solid science fiction films, by the way.) Both films are future noir and full of depressing things, but also strange hopefulness that comes through in unexpected times and in unexpected ways. I decided to wait for my own moments of joy and happiness without worrying about ticking boxes or running up numbers.

There’s now my new normal, which feels like an old, worn leather jacket. Comfortable, with just the right smell. I’ll put it on, look and feel great, and go about my day.

A Toy Story

Twenty-two years ago, Pixar released it’s first feature film, a delightful romp through childhood from the perspective of the toys children play with, and history was made. I was eight years old, but the characters and the animation delighted me. Today, I am thirty, and I still find enjoyment and amusement from the antics of a few old toys.

Apple released watchOS 4 in recent days, the new operating system for its watch, and with it came a delightful new watch face: an animated Toy Story themed face.

Apple-Watch-OS-4-Toy-Story

With the watch face selected, each time the wrist is raised, one is likely to see Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Jessie, Rex, the Aliens, Ham, and other characters from the Toy Story universe. The characters are fully animated, and will often give a wave, check out the time above their heads, and smile at you.

They also get active! They will run away, or bounce across the screen, or dance – or, well, I don’t think I’ve seen everything they are capable of. I just know that every time I glance at my watch for the time, I smile and often giggle. It’s just plain fun and funny.

The thing is, I am clinically depressed. Joy and happiness are difficult things for me to feel and express. To have a thing as simple as a watch face bring a smile to my face and laughter to my heart is quite special. I will treasure those few seconds when Buzz, Woody, and the gang, light up my face.

Thank you, John Lassiter, for creating the magic of Toy Story, and thank you, Tim Cook, for bringing that magic to my wrist.

checkUp twenty17: August

Just so you know, August was a flustercluck. Here goes:

Each month it is my task to accomplish: #1: Writing, #2: Reading, #3: Building, #4: Art and #5: Activities. So, how did I do in August?

#1. Writing. I wrote twice (in addition to my update)! Go me. 5/5

#2. Reading. So here’s where we get to the aforementioned storm of feathers. I had bed bugs in my apartment, discovered right at the beginning of the month and essentially taking the whole month to not really take care of until I moved out and into a new apartment. Then I took, inadvertently, bed bugs to my parent’s house and helped with that extermination. So I didn’t read nothing. But I get a pass? 2.5/5

#3. Building. Following, but not really related to, the bed bug incident, I had to pack up all my LEGO and noticed that much of it was dusty as if it were left out on Tatooine for a week. So I’ve embarked on a “clean most all LEGO” endeavor. No building, just work. Again, pass? 2.5/5

#4. Art. I finished painting my Stormtrooper helmets! The Artoo Detoo helmet came out really good and the Packers helmet came out ok. I attempted to sell them, but no one wanted them, so I guess they’re mine. 5/5.

#5. Activities. Other than becoming the “Great Bed Bug Squasher” and working, I haven’t had the chance to do any activities, except for going to a Ranger’s game with some friends of my parents. I’ll be generous and give that a full credit, otherwise this month will be very lousy in deed. 5/5.

Total? Looks like 20/25 or 80% for August. For the year then I am at…71% if I’ve done me math correctly. Not bad. I am pleased that I’m keeping up with my goals throughout adversity and work and life. Beating depression one step at a time is good!

Star Wars: The Phantom Confession

“At last I will reveal myself to the internet. At last I shall have catharsis.” – Darth Me

The Phantom Menace premiered in theaters on May 19, 1999. I had just turned 12 two months before and I was ecstatic to see this new Star Wars film. You have to remember, in those days, Star Wars was a trilogy, a finished masterpiece in three volumes. It had been since 1983, four years before my birth. For my entire life, Star Wars was the best set of films there were for a nerd, young or old. It was “this colossus, this great legendary thing”.

A new film, a new trilogy, was announced. I scoured the young internet for news, images, clips, rumors and at dial-up speed, fuzzy jpegs revealed themselves for my viewing pleasure. Articles kept me fascinated. There wasn’t much being disseminated, remember, again, this was before Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and every other network. We had no smart phones, no texting, no social media. I remember reading articles in actual magazines and the newspaper about this new Star Wars film. I cut out pictures from pages and savored images of Qui-Gon Jinn, whom I mistook for Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Jake Lloyd and Ewan McGregor whom I thought were playing Anakin Skywalker. I also remember savoring images of the Naboo starfighter: graceful, sleek, and deadly. Much of my information also came from LEGO, who had just signed a deal with Lucasfilm to produce Star Wars branded and based Lego sets. Most of my early spoilers came from LEGO fan club magazines that depicted ships, characters, and locations in brick form. Pepsi had also made a marketing deal in which every can of every variety of soda featured a different character image with a printed backstory that you could collect. Even Taco Bell got in on the marketing with their stupid chihuahua. It was all glorious and amazing and wonderful. I annoyed my family and friends silly because I would not stop talking about the new Star Wars film. It was to be the best thing EVER.

A few days, or weeks, I don’t remember exactly, into the premier my dad took myself and my brother to a Saturday afternoon showing of The Phantom Menace and I floated into the theater. I absorbed every sound, image, and musical cue with delight … except … except, something wasn’t quite right. Jar Jar Binks wasn’t funny, like he was supposed to be. There were fart jokes, in the middle of John William’s grand score even! Some bits blew my pre-teen mind – Darth Maul versus the Jedi – podracers roaring around Tatooine, but mostly it was boring with a shine and long with excitement. I didn’t realize it then, but every time thereafter that I saw it, my smile was less broad and the twinkle in my eye shrank. I remember visiting my grandfather, perhaps the next summer, and convincing him to Pay-Per-View rent The Phantom Menace. It was a day long thing, where you could watch it over and over again for 24 hours. I must have watched it 8 or 9 times that day. Over and over again. It was amazing! It was Star Wars! but it wasn’t quite the Star Wars I loved and had grown up with.

Truth is: I loved The Phantom Menace. Even with Jar Jar and the fart joke. In those early days, I couldn’t get enough of it. It wasn’t until 2002’s Attack of the Clones that I began to become disillusioned. 2005’s premier of Revenge of the Sith arrived and I was in college. It failed to end the new trilogy properly, but I had lost my love. Star Wars was nothing more than the Old Trilogy, as it was now known, and the new films were dead to me. I even spent time methodically watching Menace, Clones, and Sith and tearing them systematically apart on my blog (which you can still read under the Star Wars tab). I made a reputation among friends and a presence online by hating the prequels.

But. But. I did love Menace. I thought Clones had good parts. I figured Sith was mostly there. I don’t know when or why I let other people’s opinions and acidity eat through my heart of enjoyment. I like plenty of badly written movies that are chock full of bad performances and cheesy effects. So I suppose now we are here, at the end of my vitriol to admit a love I once held dear.

I haven’t watched the Prequel Trilogy in years, now, and I feel a strange urge and longing to do so. Maybe it is the 11 year old in me that collected Mountain Dew cans for their images of Yoda and Qui-Gon Jinn. Maybe it is the 12 year old that convinced my grandfather to let me spend a day watching a movie ad nauseam. Maybe it is the 13 year old that treasured old LEGO magazines and their pages of colorful LEGO Star Wars sets.

At least I am willing to admit it to myself, and now, the world that reads my blog: unabashed, unashamed, unfettered: I loved Star Wars The Phantom Menace a long time ago, and may yet love it. And that’s ok.

Embrace your famdoms, nerd out, rock on, love what you love. It makes you you and no one else. And that is the best thing ever.