A Dude's Guide. . . to everything

Mind, Set, Match

by Richard

With school all started up again, the folks at Beloit College have come out with their annual mindset list. No, it’s got nothing to do with yoga, transcendental meditation or psychics. Basically, it’s a list of stuff designed to make sure their professors don’t go around dropping outdated pop cultural references in class that their students wouldn’t understand.

Like, gag me with a spoon, you know?

It’s easy to make fun of out-of-touch professors who can’t keep up with the zeitgeist (German for spirit of the times). In fact, it’s so easy, I’m not even going to get into the silliness of making this list so the professors can pretend to be up to date. Let’s just look at the list itself. That’s easy to make fun of.

This list is made with the class of 2014 in mind. That is, the kids who are entering college this year, which means most of them will have been born in 1992. Whoa. I just realized. That’s the year before Sarcasmo made his first sarcastic comment. (a snarky, sideways look. She Who Must Sometimes Misremember Because She Was Under Anesthetic disagrees, but I’m sure I saw it when I was giving him his first diaper change and he peed on me.)

Anyway. The list.

No. 1 shows us that Few in the class know how to write in cursive. I’m not so sure about this. Even Hyper Lad, who’ll be in the class of 2021, knows how to write in cursive. He doesn’t like it, and all three little dudes confess ignorance about how to read cursive, but they do know how to write it. I’m not even going to comment on the inherent contradiction there. Too silly.

Picking purely at random and not because I can think of a good joke for it: No. 12: Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry. Go ahead, make my loving and tender comment. You know, it just doesn’t have the same resonance, does it?

No. 28. They’ve never recognized that pointing to their wrists was a request for the time of day. Now this one I’ll go with, no question. None of the three little dudes wears a watch. Not only that, but I have to work with them to get them to be able to read my analog watch. They’ve got cell phones with time displays on them. So do I and, I’m sure, most of you. It’s just I feel, well, naked without a watch, I’ve been wearing one so long. Strange to think that in 20 years, the watch will be seen as a trite antique, something only the very old wear. Or maybe as jewelry. I think I’ll be selling my Seiko stock right about now.

Now, this last one really frosts me. No. 74. They’ve always been able to blast off with the Sci-Fi (SYFY) Channel. You young punks don’t know how good you’ve got it. Why I had to search all over to find quality entertainment like Mansquito and all you’ve got to do is flip on the TV. Young punks.

Go ahead and check out the whole thing at http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2014.php

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Cheers

by Richard

The middle young dude, Zippy the Monkey Boy, goes to a private school, which means we pay (out the nose) for his education. And the lovely thing is this means it’s like he’s going to college for four years before he goes to college.

Anyway, there are times when he’s overjoyed to be going there and I’m a little suspect. Today is one of those times.

Every year, the high school portion of his school packs up and the young dudes and dudettes head out to camp. Yes, they’re going to Camp Cheerio, the same place Zippy the Monkey Boy, Hyper Lad and Sarcasmo, have spent so many happy summer months.

Now, the school says this three-day excursion is an exercise in team building and getting the students into a different setting to work on their educations and their approach to learning.

Me? I’m thinking it’s more of a mini-vacation for a group of students, who already have far too many days off during the school year.

Yes, I am turning into a grumpy old man. Why do you ask?

Zippy the Monkey Boy loves it, though, so I’ve decided to quit griping. At least in public. Well, at least where he’s likely to notice it anyway.

The good news is that it’ll be two days where I won’t have to actually dynamite the young dude out of bed on school mornings and that’s always good for my blood pressure.

So, I guess, cheers!

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Building Up

by Richard

There’s a dude from Chicago who’s got one of the greatest jobs in the world. He puts up replica buildings. Using Legos.

Former professional architect Adam Reed Tucker is one of only 11 Lego-certified professionals in the world, designing scale models of famous buildings and structures out of Lego bricks. His work, including models of the St. Louis’ Gateway Arch and the World Trade Center, is on display in the Smithsonian’s National Building Museum through Sept. 5.

One day I had this idea of doing something a little different, being inspired by the events of 9/11 and realizing that a lot of people from the general public were intimidated by vertical architecture—skyscrapers. They weren’t really visiting the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower, because of what happened to the World Trade Center.

So, I thought it would be kind of neat to educate people on the engineering and the design that goes into these buildings. And I really didn’t know how to go about it.

I thought “Well, the brick as a medium could be kind of whimsical to offset the intimidating nature of architecture.” It’s something that’s not typically thought of outside of its usefulness as a toy.

I went out one day and I went to Toys R’ Us and I filled up several shopping carts with Lego sets to get reacquainted with the brick. I didn’t know what elements, didn’t know what colors Lego had been making since I had stopped playing with them probably back in 1981. I just needed to get familiar with them to find out if they would work with my idea.

From there I started these large buildings and I was invited to a Lego event on the East Coast in 2006. I brought some of my buildings there—the initial ideas behind Lego Architecture. I actually got to meet some Lego executives and I shared some of my vision and my passion for what I was attempting to do with their product, and essentially they invited me with open arms into a relationship with the Lego group as someone who is using the brick in a positive and entrepreneurial way.

Come on! How awesome is this? I just can’t get over the fact that there are 11 professional Lego builders. Something like this really restores my sometimes flagging faith in our civilization.

For more information on this guy, go check out the whole article in the Smithsonian Magazine:  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/The-Worlds-Great-Structures-Built-With-Legos.html#ixzz0xcm0XDwx

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