When I was younger, (and to be honest even still now) when this time of year rolled around, I was only the interested in one thing under the tree. When you shook the box it sounded a couple of octaves lower than a box of broken glass.

Legos.

I had giant tubs full of the things. Fleets of ships ready to battle at moments notice. Even as a kid I had would build the sets, and most of the time unless it was a really quality piece, I would rip it down and start over with something new. Iterative design at it’s earliest stages.

As I got older, I still really enjoyed messing with the Legos, although it became more for the act of design than anything else. It was hard too…high school aged friends look at you a little funny when you’re still messing with kid’s toys. My sister and I would still dump out the giant box on Christmas Eve, and spend the evening messing with them (this was as late as college).

I was about five years behind (or ahead) of the times. Recently the Lego Mindstorms stuff has become a really neat way for kids (and some adults) to learn about robotics and programming. There are websites all over the place now for people to post their creations (back in the day we survived with the idea books).

Another cool thing is to see design firms using them for brainstorming sessions, and design tools. It was one of my dreams as a kid to work as a professional Lego builder. Apparently some people actually make it a career. (you go guys).

Most of the sets that come out these days are a little too contrived for me. A lot of them are based on movies, or overdone themes (Although, who doesn’t want a Lego version of the millennium falcon). However the basic premise is still there. Break down the sets and you’ve got an unlimited canvas of potential. Lots of little designers in the making.

So, happy holidays, peace, joy, and Legos for all the kids who asked for them.

This link is a map of where various Whole Eartherlings have ended up. It’s amazing to see how much the folks who work at this store get around. Proof positive that traveling is not based on how much money you have, but how much you want it. Nobody who works at there makes more than $10 an hour, and yet here they are scatered across the globe. Awesome.
Bruce Chatwin had a lot of intresting theories in his bookThe Songlines, about the Human need for travel. How babies like to be walked. How the nomadic culture is something out of our svannah days when we’d out endurance our prey. We’re a mobile bunch. It seems to me that we kind of deny our nature by anchoring ourselves down, setting up camp.

A lot of my friends are seasonal workers, and while I know it has it’s drawbacks they have a good thing going on. Spend the Summer in Alaska or Colorado guiding or running a shop. When the snow starts come on back to Austin for the winter. It’s not exactly treking across the savannah on foot, but it’s not far off.

“What about retirement, your 401(k) ?”
What about it, dude. Does anyone of my age honestly belive that we’ll be able to retire like our grnadparents did ?Not freakin likely. I’ll be shocked and appalled if i get to stop punching a clock at 60. In 30 Years there will be 1 retiree for every 2 workers. So one way or the other I’m going to be working on something for quite a while. So why not the seasonal work. Why not get the added benefit of living in two places (especailly to take advantage of the climate) And take the opprotunity to enjoy the different parts of the world a bit.
I’m soooooo going to end up as the 85-yr-old Kayak guide.

Update: Some new figures on the ridiculous amount we’ll be paying to support the baby-boomers. Make that the 105-yr-old-kayak guide.

Yesterday Rigoberto Alpizar’s was shot by a Federal Air Marshall while boarding an American Airlines flight in Miami, because he claimed he was carrying a bomb. All the while his wife was trying to tell the air marshall that the man was mentally ill and off his medication.

From cnn.com

“She was chasing after him,” said fellow passenger Alan Tirpak. “She was just saying her husband was sick, her husband was sick.” When the woman returned, “she just kept saying the same thing over and over, and that’s when we heard the shots.”

Of course no bomb was found when they blew up his luggage. Part of me really wants to understand both parts of the story (although having guns in a pressurized cabin has always seemed like a bad plan). I understand the idea of protecting the innocent on the plane and on the ground. I remember what happened that morning in September when airliners fell into the wrong hands.

Then I remember friends and associates i know who have what we socially acceptably call ‘some problems.’ It seems shockingly cold to put four bullets in a man who’s wife is screaming behind him that he’s sick. Even if it is for the greater good.

This covers a lot of things for me. The ignorance regarding Mental Illness in this country. The brutality that law enforcement seems inclined to use in this country. The security measures that seem shockingly draconian (They couldn’t restrain the guy ? Didn’t they already scan his bag ?)

Seems like we could do better. Seems like we should expect more. Seems that when we look back on the ’00’s we’ll remember it as a decade of self preservation regardless of our supposed humanity.

It’s that time of year again. As we bid a happy farewell to this odd odd year, the ‘best of’ lists are cropping up all over the damn place. Here in Austin the Chronicle Best of 2005 awards both a readers and a critics poll (Don’t get me started on the crap restaurants that make the readers poll…you people have eaten a places off Barton Springs before right ?)

Anyway, one the lists that interested me most was the top universities for the year. The curious thing here is how much emphasis these schools put on these rankings. I know of universities that have entire plans geared towards putting them in the top 20. Are they provided poor education ? No, not really. From what i can tell, it’s a marketing thing, the higher up the list you are, the more you can charge for your tuition, a sad thing to see when traditionally rural ag schools are pushing so damn hard at this.

The other interesting thing is the geography of it. East cost, west coast, Chicago seem to make up most of your top 20. What happened to the middle of the country ? It’s almost a redstate/bluestate thing.

Wait, does this mean that hateful right wing republicans are less well educated, and don’t fund their education systems as well as the Dems do ?

Curious indeed.