Greetings all,

I hope this post finds you in good spirit. Here we are, the first day of the second month of 2025, also known as the kickoff of Black History Month, and maybe some other celebratory months I saw listed on social media somewhere. In any event, I don’t think anyone in these United States (or globally for that matter) can say that the last 11 days haven’t been “interesting” (define that word as you see fit)

In any event, over the last few weeks, I’ve returned to a enjoyable pastime that I essentially got away from over the last 10 years or so – building with LEGO. I played with LEGO as a child but that didnt really hold my interest like other toys did, so by middle school, that interest pretty much dropped off. Fast forward to my adult life, and I mean in the 201os, is when I took a renewed interest in LEGO, particularly in the Space and Technic vehicles theme. What renewed the interest wasn’t so much the sets themselves, but the talented, everyday people, that were building these amazing space themed creations from their own imaginations, coupled with the immense knowledge of building techniques. Not even being a huge science fiction fan, I wanted that creative knowledge also. Beyond that, I began to see real life LEGO replicas of everyday things being built which, to this day, I find amazing.

Aside from the combination of building technique knowledge and creative imagination, there is an entire engineering aspect, especially in Technic themes, that comes into play. This aspect directly lends itself to LEGO’s Mindstorms and Spike Robot Developer products, which are HIGHLY up my alley, which also includes their Power Functions and Powered Up lines of products. All in all, the term AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO) has always be an very real thing, and from the products they have been creating for the adult market over the years, it’s quite apparent.

Personally, I find building therapeutic, not just in following the build instructions that come with each set, but setting out to create something in my imagination and seeing the final result before my eyes. This result is called a MOC (my own creation). It involves levels of building techniques that you have to learn along the way by doing. The more constraints you have to deal with (mostly a smaller inventory of bricks, let along enough amounts of the colors you need), the more you have to become ingenious during the build process. These constraints are what I am dealing with currently because I just don’t have the room or the display space to build larger kits (or I should say I haven’t made the space). Never the less, where I am rignt now in the building process is good, and what I’m seeing other builders sharing online is VERY inspiring and motivating, so that makes the learning process (and there is a lot to learn) exciting. I definitely aspire to get to the level of many I see online, not only with space themed builds, but the robotics and powered builds, both employing the engineering aspects I mentioned above. The whole concept of LEGO (‘LEGO’ is an abbreviation of the two Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well”), has always appealed to me, and still lives within me and in many of their products still.

In any event, I’ve been posting my latest builds to Bluesky (primarily to another account purely for that) as well as my Flickr account, and look forward to building these sets (along with any alternative build plans to the original instructions that people share on the net – oftentimes I find those MOCs even more interesting than the originals!

Thanks for the read….”Be well”

Fresh!