Wikis, Lego and Running

First of all, I hate wikis.  I hate giant public wikis that are run by 5 guys with Napoleon complexes.  I hate the fact that they are useful.  I hate that I try every once a year or so to be involved in one or more only to have my additions or changes reverted back because of someone's concept of quality or notability.  No matter how big they are, they always ask to make the page better by editing it.  So I do, and then it gets changed back.  And frankly, I don't want to invest that much time.  So, have fun Alpha Geeks.  I'm sure your noble contributions will not go unseen by the great Eye of Time or whatever awaits you.

Next up, Lego!  I have a new project, which actually lead me down the wiki path.  Star Wars: The Clone Wars, while actually quite good, has also been an inspiration for Star Wars ship building.  I haven't taken advantage of this because I've been organizing and sorting and I can't build and sort simultaneously for two reasons: First, I get panicky.  I'm not a hoarder or OCD about sorting papers or pens or canned vegetables, but for some reason Lego all has to be in its place.  LMA and G-man both have their own sets and as children they are, to their rights, constantly losing pieces and scattering bricks hither and yon.  I think they do this to watch my eyes twitch.  Reason two, I have a limited space and can't have a giant thing of unsorted bricks hanging out on my drawing table AND build on it at the same time.  Not to mention if I've got drawing to do (which I don't, order a robot people!) as that would require the same flat surface.

The drawing I can get away with doing elsewhere, but I doubt I'd get the same amiable response to a giant box of Lego.  On top of being underfoot and a nemesis to vacuums, Lego is really loud when you're pushing it around in a box while looking for that one piece.  Hence the sorting.

So I'm building a T-6 ambassador shuttle.  I was going to build a little snow planet speeder seen last season but I got distracted.  Now they actually have a set for it and I must say it's a little weak.  But this is on the heels of the SERIOUSLY weak Republic Y-Wing set.  I say weak because I did the same thing to a much better scale, in my opinion.  The problem I have with minifig scale items from Lego is that they are generally more playable, but they don't line up really well with actual scale.  For instance, the image of the shuttle here looks to be a fairly monsterous size, were it to be built out to actual size.  The cockpit seats four and there's room to walk around behind the cockpit seating.  I drew it out based off screenshots from the TV show, and I took my minifig to human scale of 1 in. to 1 meter and the ship turned out to have a 30" wingspan.  To give you an idea of what that looks like, when I built the Nebulon Ranger last year, that had roughly a 30" wingspan and that thing was a beast.

(I realize the descrepancy between a minifig being 1" and a human being ~1.5m, but for sake of building, 1:1 is easier.  Also, minifigs tend to be shorter and fatter so that changes much of the perspective.  For more on this, read here.)

So I'll be spending my next few non-drawing months building that.  I don't know why I take on these big projects.  I don't have the right supply of bricks for big ships and yet I do them anyway.  Which reminds me, the holiday season is coming up.  If you really want to be an awesome reader, you can order and ship me some Lego sets, I don't care what they are or how big or small.  In fact, if you did that, I'd draw you whatever you wanted.  Say you sent something like this, that's worth, to me, two 8x10 robot portraits.  But I mean we could totally work out something else.  Pencil, ink, watercolor, photoshop graphics, posters, whatever.  I think I might start a new business model.  Get paid in Lego.  Hmm.

Meanwhile I've started running again.  I get horrible shin splints and I'm pretty sure the crunching sound in my knee is a bad sign, but I'm 210lbs at 5'8" and that's just not healthy.  When your kids say things like "Well, at least your not fat like daddy..." you know it's time for a change.  I stopped smoking a while back (or as my Grandma Vi would say, "I choose not to smoke now") no reason I couldn't drop a few pounds.  Plus it'll help when I play basketball.

So far it's no bad.  I can run in the gym at work and watch Daily Show repeats and the time just flies by.  I'm no fool, though.  I run/walk a mile so far and that's about my limit.  I'll just slowly build up until I can actually run the whole mile and move on from there.  Even if I don't lose much weight, it beats doing nothing.

Thanksgiving was a blast, had a fantastic time with the folks that were at our house.  It's like a new little family that we've adopted.  If you've been watching Ms. A's and my Flickr pages, you'd have seen most of these people.  It was wonderful to have a full house, beer, food, music and laughter.

Miss LA and Tiger Lily were in Louisiana for Thanksgiving so we had to do without the cajuns, but it was a good time none-the-less.

Speaking of Louisiana, guess where I'm going for Christmas?  That's right.  I'll be taking a drive to Abbeville to hang out with Tiger Lily's family.  Last year she went and I stayed and it was a long sad three weeks.  We were a newly minted couple but it was still hard to be apart in that tentative and formative time.  We text like crazy so were at least in communication with each other.  I know my parents will be upset by this seeing as I said I wouldn't be able to make it up to Colorado for either holiday.  To be honest, it's a sight easier to drive alone for six hours than it is to fly with two kids.  Think about it, come the 23rd or 24th or whenever I leave, I get up, grab my bag and go.  I stop for gas, maybe a donut and coffee and I'm gone.  And I'm a guy so I don't have to stop and pee for three weeks.  (Tried it once, true statement.)  If I went with the kids, it's getting up two hours before you have to leave for the airport, then you have to get to the airport and hour before your flight, then the flight is two hours, then getting out of the airport is another 45-60 minutes.  So, let's plan for maybe early in 2010.  I want to go to DC next year too so we'll have to see.

Finally my car needs to go to the hospital.  It's getting sick.  It didn't pass inspection and will likely need the following: transmission flush, head gasket, O2 sensor, shocks, breaks, belts.  Time for a new car?  Probably, I've already pulled my free credit reports to see what I can clean up before buying a new one.  And it's time for a new one.  I've had this car for 8 years and the exact same model for two years before that.  I want a nice, fuel efficient sedan with an mp3 jack and cup holders that don't sit in front of the vents.  I'm leaning toward a VW Jetta or maybe a Kia Forte.  We'll see.  (I'd also like a 47" Vizio LCD but that's just me being selfish.)

Off to do X-mas cards.  Carry on.