Do we even want to discuss how it got up there? Okay, yes we do. You grew up, right? You became a man and put away childish things. And you almost feel guilty about wanting to pull them down. But you’ve kept them. You didn’t let your little brother inherit them; you didn’t let your mom garage-sale them (or worse yet — sell them to a complete stranger on eBay), and they’re still sitting there in a cardboard box. Or a pile of cardboard boxes. Or maybe they never even got to the attic — they’re still in the back of your closet, or under your bed.

But you’re twenty-five. Or thirty-five. Maybe you have kids that have their own batch of bricks. And now you’re sitting there on the edge of the bed with a dusty-covered, slightly musty-smelling box that contains knights in shining armor battling green and black dragons, astronauts setting up a base on the moon for exploration, bits of Fort Legoredo still standing to defend against the bad guys, a pirate ship with the Jolly Roger hoisted … all the adventures you spent hours on every day as a kid until … something. And all your imagination was put in a cardboard box. And set aside. And forgotten.

Until now. What will you do?

Does your wife come in and find you sitting there, staring at the box? Perhaps it’s your kids. Maybe the dog is begging you to take him for a walk. Something. Something will try to tear you away. Or not. You close the door to the bedroom and you blow the dust off the box. And cough. And then you open one flap of the cardboard, and then peel away the other three.

Poking up at the top of the box is that Jolly Roger you were thinking about a minute ago. The deck is still being manned by a crew complete with the wooden-legged captain and his first mate, the monkey. Beside the Pirate ship, all jumbled in with the rest of it is a stack of building instructions, well-worn, half of them missing covers, most of them ripped a bit, some gone altogether. And beneath the pirate ship is a sea of brick. You touch it. The bricks. And pick one up. It’s a standard 2×4. Red. You remember how the plastic feels. You remember pushing your hands through a pile on the carpet, looking for just the right piece. You start pushing your hands through now. You find part of a spaceship. And the instructions were just there a second ago … yes, here they are. And a few hours later the ship is done; and the castle is rebuilt; and the Pirate Ship is taking them both on. And you’re sitting in the middle of a pile of LEGO in the middle of your bedroom. You’ve made a space for yourself, and you have a pile of special pieces beside your left knee, and a pile of minifigs beside your right knee, and the monkey in your left hand with the sword is attacking the space man and his blaster which are in your right hand. And you’re making “eek-eek” and “ka-zhoom” sounds when your wife bursts through the door and looks at you, and you look back and she puts her hands on her hips and raises her eyebrows.

But what happens next is all up to you. Maybe she’ll pull her box out of the attic, too.

Perhaps the delivery folks are supposed camouflage packages? Make it look like they’re not really there so my neighbor doesn’t steal it before I can get to it? Or maybe tossing the Welcome Mat is an effort to help the package not blow away?

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not mad. Mildly perplexed, maybe. Somewhat amused. Maybe. I do appreciate the folks that deliver my mail and packages … I just don’t expect the creativity when it comes to delivering them. And, so long as this is the extreme of the creativity, and we can get back to some normalcy, soon, i.e., just put it behind the door!

I have always been a LEGO lover. Some of my earliest memories involve waking up in the morning eager to see what Dad had built with my Lego bricks overnight. He didn’t make something every night, but when he did, it was usually a house, using those red slopes for the roof. Whenever I tried to reproduce the effect (at the ripe age of 5) it didn’t work as well.

Another memory, (this time a sad one), was the first Christmas I didn’t get any new Lego sets. It occurred to me that my parents believed me to have “grown up” at that point. I let them know otherwise.

And as I continued to “grow up” and we got rid of toys (yes, I still can’t believe I donated my Star Wars figures to our school’s annual fund-raiser yard sale ), I never got rid of my barrel of Lego. Through college and grad school I would still buy a small set from time to time.

Even after I got married, I’d pull out my Lego barrel from time to time and build something. I’ve always continued to want to do something a little more, though.

Fast forward a few more years. I’ve been married for nine years. We have four kids. Our oldest is almost 6 and started getting Lego (no longer the bigger, Duplo type) sets this past Christmas. Actually, he inherited, from my cousin, a couple big boxes of sets with some of my favorite types … the pirate sets, ones that started coming out right about the time my folks quit buying them for me.

I did a little stint a year ago where I was buying Lego lots on eBay, rebuilding some of the more popular sets (Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc.) and reselling them for about a 500% profit. On the cash value, that is. When I compared it with the amount of time I was spending sorting, checking piece inventories, building, taking pictures, posting on eBay, etc., I was really only just playing. That fact *really* sunk in when I picked up a 55 pound lot. I still haven’t finished sorting through it. And at this point I’ve just been cannibalizing parts there for other projects.

So, what am I up to now? Well, I’ve been inspired by the online community of AFOLs. Also, there are a number of adults out there that make a living (or at least as a part-time job) creating and selling LEGO art, particularly sculptures and LEGO mosaics done by converting a photograph into a LEGO representation of the image. Now this, I thought, is exactly the sort of thing I’d love to do. So, combine my love for LEGOS, my savvy with computers (making use of various open-source and otherwise software packages that allow you to design with LEGOs), and my growing work in web design, and voila! Out came the start of a new website.

As I finish up various mosaics, and other MOCs, I’ll post and blog. I’d also like to start cataloging various building techniques.