I Blame Lego

I thought I'd take a break from the usual denim and what have you (what do I write about anyway?) and briefly, and publicly admit something: I like Lego. When I was a wee nerd, watching Battlestar Galactica (the original series, not the re-imagined one, though I love that too. So say we all.), Buck Rogers, etc, I'd scurry off to my lego bins, and try my best to re-create the spacecraft I saw on the shows. I once even tried to build the Searcher big enough to actually hold starfighters, but I lacked the pieces, and at age 7, attention span required. Jeez, you look back at a paragraph like this, it's amazing I actually found a girl (and a hot one, too!) to marry me.

This is a better starfighter than I could make. What do you want? I was 7. It was the 70's.

So, I can trace my love of lego to the late 70's, a long time, but how did they get there? Who created them to ensnare me so? Well, for that, you can thank a Danish Carpenter (I don't think he was Jewish, but a Lego messiah? Maybe.) named Ole Kirk Christiansen. During the Great Depression, he began making wooden toys to support his family, and by the late 1940's, he had created over 2oo wooden, and later plastic, toys. The name, Lego, came from the Danish words leg godt, "play well". Lego also means "I put together" in Latin, which because I am obsessed with Rome, and as if further proof was needed, a nerd, I think is cool. In 1958 he patented the block system; blocks built today can still be connected to blocks from 1958. Unfortunately, in March of 1958 Ole Kirk (that's his name, not 'ole Kirk) had a heart attack so he didn't get to see the success his company would become. But his son, and grandson did, and that's awesome.

I still have my bins of lego (and an understanding wife), awaiting my next sick (really sick, like flu sick) day where building something and eating grilled cheese is about all I can manage.

Okay this may be going too far.

Now this is more my speed. Skull One FTW!