Author: sandcastle

Decoration Day. Also called Remembrance Day was May 31st and it was the day we went to the graveyard to clean up family graves and leave fresh flowers. After going downtown to watch the parade of VFW and American Legion members. Where we stood up and put our hands over our hearts as the Color Guard passed. And my Dad marched in the parade playing the bugle as part of a drum and bugle corps.

That was before they moved it to a Monday and renamed it to Memorial Day. Before it became the unofficial first day of summer. Before it became the first weekend of camping. Before it became a day of BBQs and outdoor play.

I wonder how many people still spend time thinking about deceased soldiers and family members?

I know my step-sister still goes out and tends our family’s graves. And I give thanks that all my family’s soldiers and sailors came back alive.

TTYL,

Linda

One of the things I’m enjoying about these Lego sets is the sheer number of details they put into a kit. I recently built a three-story department store that has casual clothes, formal clothes, millinery, glassware/china, and toy departments. Plus a changing room, checkout station, and escalators for getting from one floor to another. And a revolving door that actually turns. That’s a lot of detail to fit in a 7 1/2″ x 7 1/2″ space.

And that’s just the interior. The exterior has sidewalks including decorative tile and storm drains, an ice cream stand, a mail box, a street lamp, huge flower pots, a trash bin, flags, window awnings, a billboard on the roof, and a window washer on his scaffolding hanging on the side of the building.

Back in the 1970s I wanted to be an architect. I wanted to design houses that had just enough space for a family to live in without a lot of wasted space. I enrolled in architectural school and began informational interviewing to get people’s feedback on what I wanted to do. Everyone I interviewed said it couldn’t be done. It was too specialized. Unfortunately, I listened to those people and gave up on the idea.

So imagine my frustration when Sarah Susanka published this:

It’s too late now for me to begin a career in architecture.

So I just build Lego sets and admire their designers’ ability to get so much detail in such a small space.

Maybe I should design Lego kits?

TTYL,

Linda

I had an eye appointment today. As we left Dave pointed out that we  still have a bit of snow along the east side of our building. We had a late winter this year.

Then we went directly to summer. Here’s today’s current temperature and forecast:

Spring? What’s that?

TTYL,

Linda

I couldn’t finish packing up the set that included the Class B RV without rearranging bricks to see if I could replicate my conversion van. I didn’t have enough bricks to build all of it but…

…I was able to do a good enough version of my interior. Behind the driver’s seat is my desk then my sofabed. Overlapping the space of the open door is my sink, counter, and cooking area. My side door was a slider rather than hinged but I loved having the sink accessible from outside. I had to turn the bathroom sideways to fit it into this shorter frame so I lost my Scoot parking space and a bunch of cabinets. But the windows are placed properly which I am please about. All in all, not bad for a kit with so few pieces that actually worked for me.

TTYL,

Linda

RV stands for recreational vehicle and usually means some type of vehicle used for vacation camping. Some of us expand beyond vacationing into living full time in an RV.

Lego has made kits for the most popular types of hard-sided RVs. The first kit I bought when I returned to this new-old hobby was a Class A motorhome.

Class A:

These are the big motorhomes you see going down the highway usually pulling a car behind them. This one is pulling a boat so it must belong to Jim and Sandie. We lived in a Class A for about a year and a half.

Class B:

A Class B motorhome is built inside a van; these are also known as conversion vans. This was the type we first owned back in the 1980s and it’s the type my last one was.

  

Class C:

A Class C motorhome is built on a cut-away truck or van chassis. You can recognize it by the bed being located over the cab. We lived in one of these for another year and a half.

5th Wheel:

This type of trailer gets its name from way back when automobiles had a spare tire mounted on the trunk. The hitch of this trailer was designed to attach to that 5th wheel. Nowadays that hitch mount is in the back of a truck–sometimes a really BIG truck.

Travel Trailer:

This type is also known as a bumper pull although nowadays cars don’t have the type of bumpers that can handle a trailer hitch. But you can get a frame mounted hitch to pull one of these.

Tent Trailer:

Many campers, including us, start out with a tent trailer. I don’t have a picture of one of those but they look like a tent mounted on top of a box trailer. I suppose I could have faked a picture by placing the tent that came with the Class C kit on a box I could have built on the boat trailer. But then it would not have truly been a Lego RV kit like these others are. And I don’t want to be accused of false advertising.

TTYL,

Linda