2010 August | BoWilliams.com

The timelessness of Lego

Consumption, Family, Leisure, Memories, Popular Culture 3 Responses »

Aug 252010

The boys are heavily into Lego, just as I was.

They’re into building spaceships and cars, just as I was.

I was most of 30 years old before I really put Lego down. I can still remember my dad having a little fun with me for asking for, receiving, building, and enjoying the 8824 Hovercraft the Christmas I was 23 years old. (‘Course, then I busted him driving it around the coffee table after dinner.)

These days, one of my favorite idle occupations is to take whatever Lego pile one boy or the other has left on the couch cushion, the ottoman, or wherever, and build what I can with it. Generally it earns their approval. I built a scout/attack craft two weeks ago that is still intact. (He said, proudly.)

They recently learned that Dad’s Lego collection survives. It occupies all of the top shelf in his closet, complete with all of the instructions for the Whirl ‘n’ Wheel Super Truck, the Super Car, the Whirlwind Rescue, the Rally Van, the Technic Fire Engine, the Off-Roader, and many, many others. There are over 100,000 pieces up there, all meticulously organized into trays and compartmentalized boxes.

(Some of the kits are worth several hundred dollars on the collectors’ market now, but I’d never try to turn a profit on them. Legos are some of the greatest toys ever invented, and great toys are to be played with.)

Occasionally the boys remember they’re up there and get after me to get them down, and I will soon, but I think I’m going to wait until a cold night and/or weekend. There seems something proper about that.

Argiope aurantia in the front bed

Bug Shots 4 Responses »

Aug 242010

So Lea emailed me this afternoon to ask if I’d seen the spider by the Japanese maple when I was home for lunch. I hadn’t, but her description (and the less-than-optimal look at her photo on my phone) made me think it was probably our old friend Argiope aurantia (aka the yellow and black garden spider and the writing spider).

And so it was. She’s a real beauty. Her body’s an inch and a quarter long—quite large even for the species:

Behold the $578 million public school

Annoyances, Consumption, Current Events, Politics 2 Responses »

Aug 232010

The Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex, part of the public school system, was just completed on the site of the Ambassador Hotel, where its namesake was killed in 1968. It will house 4,200 K-12 pupils when it opens in Los Angeles next month.

It cost $578,000,000.

It’s not, you know, real money, though. It’s just the school system budget. Actually “voter-approved bonds that do not affect the educational budget” funded this monstrosity, according to “officials.”

Thank God for that.

(By the way, the LA Unified School District has laid off almost 3,000 teachers over the past two years, and currently faces a $640,000,000 budget shortfall.)

The above linked article points out that this is only the priciest example of a not-as-uncommon-as-you-might-think trend. Dozens of public schools around the nation check in at $100-million-plus. What, you never had padded maple floors? Bamboo nooks? Orchestra-pit auditoriums? Gourmet cafeterias? How did you ever learn a thing, you poor dear? Sheesh, fifth through tenth grade, I didn’t even have air conditioning.

“Architects and builders love this stuff, but there’s a little bit of a lack of discipline here,” – Mary Filardo, executive director of 21st Century School Fund in Washington, D.C., which promotes urban school construction

Ya think?

Saturday looks like this

Family, Leisure, Sports No Responses »

Aug 212010

Did some yard work at church before the boys’ soccer games, then did the same here afterward. It feels like I’ll wake up regretting that I didn’t use sunscreen. Gee, if I could find this level of physical activity three days a week and never stop, I could probably keep my atrocious diet.

Yeah. So.

Alex, Melissa, and offspring are coming over for pizza in a little while. Haven’t seen them in some time, so I’m looking forward to the visit.

Bailey (our other dog) is handling Brenna’s death fairly well, which is good, because he has a history of getting upset when I would take Brenna to the vet. First he’d try to dig out (presumably to go save her), and then after Lea would confine him on the deck, he’d howl. (He’s not a particularly large dog, but wow, he sounds like a timber wolf when he wants to.) He’s a bit clingier than usual, and I think I’ve spotted him looking for Brenna a time or two, but I’m pretty sure he’s going to be all right.

The last non-oval IndyCar race of the season is tomorrow. Alabama kicks off in two weeks.

Saw a rainbow a little while ago.

I hope you’re having a good weekend.

Brenna, 1995-2010

Family, Memories 13 Responses »

Aug 202010

Brenna died this morning. She was pretty close to exactly 15 years old.

Lea and I got Brenna as a puppy at the Humane Society in the fall of 1995. Best anyone could tell, she was a Lab/chow/shepherd mix. We really enjoyed her. She had such an appealing mix of clown and seriousness about her. She was playful, but never really goofy; protective, but never really aggressive. She was a marvelous companion dog.

She’d been having a rough go of it lately. She’d been blind since she was 8, but got really good at navigating by sound, to the point that if I didn’t tell you she couldn’t see, you might not realize it.

Her hips starting giving her trouble a couple of years ago. Her movement wasn’t badly hampered; she just had to go more slowly, you know? Then she slowed down a lot this year. She stopped running at all. The steps got tough for her, to the point that once she got up on or down from the deck she’d generally stay there for the day.

Dr. Patton told me at her last checkup that she couldn’t see and she was slow, but he couldn’t find anything else wrong with her. So we put her back on an anti-inflammatory that hadn’t seemed to help before, hoping to see improvement, and were planning to discuss quality-of-life issues at her next checkup.

(That’s such a tough question when a pet goes like this. You certainly don’t want to euthanize her because she’s inconvenient, but at the same time you don’t want her suffering needlessly, and dogs can’t speak English, you know?)

Instead she had her own timetable, sometime early this morning around dawn. It appeared to me that she went peacefully in her sleep. Godspeed, girl.

I do want to end with mine and Lea’s favorite Brenna story. At one of the last Christmases at our old house, she got an enormous basted rawhide bone. We gave it to her in the garage (where her bed and dishes were). She sized it up, proud of her new wealth, and went to take it to her spot in the yard:

Oops. She tried that a couple of times. Then, she shifted mental gears and said “ah, I’ll go outside, and then pull it back through”:

Lea and I were just howling at this point. She was so serious about solving this problem, and I swear she cocked her head at us laughing. “Pleased to amuse you. Are you going to help me solve this problem, or what?” We didn’t make her wait long. One of us oriented the bone for her to grab one end of it, and she pulled it through.

We miss you, Brenna. We’re sad you’re gone. We’re also happy, because we’re confident there is no blindness and arthritis in heaven.

Older Entries Newer Entries