Tag: Father's Day

July 1, 2025 – To Be a Kid Again

July 1, 2025 /

When I was a kid, I loved Legos. Between my brother and I, we didn’t have a ton of them but certainly enough to be creative. There wasn’t the plethora of different lines that they have today but I was partial to the ‘Space’ series. A couple of those kinds of sets along with a good foundation of basic blocks gave us enough to build lots of things.

The pinnacle of what we built was a clipper, sailing ship complete with cloth sails and rigging. My only regret is that we didn’t have enough of the same colors to make the ship really look proper. I was pretty proud of that back then and if they had allowed Legos in the state fair then, I think we could have won. I have a picture of it somewhere, maybe I will try to find it some day.

The Legos of today seem to have tons of specialty parts. I feel like that takes some of the creativity out of the process. For one thing, after I built the model and threw away the instructions, that was the one and only time the actual structure was built as intended. Everything else was improvised.

I know that when I built my Ford GT500, all I did was follow the instructions. Everything was in unit bags and all you had to do was open the unit bag and follow the instructions sequentially. It certainly took several hours but honestly it was easy. I see no reason why the most advanced kits are labelled for ages 18+. Honestly, a determined 12 year old should be able to follow directions and complete the model without breaking a sweat.

My wife bought me this set for Father’s Day. It is from the ‘Botanical’ line. I am taking my time building one type of flower a day. This is just to extend the enjoyment that I am getting from doing this. I don’t think it will ever get disassembled and my wife wants to display them where we currently have a Lego cityscape.

There are certain pastimes that I did as a youth that I honestly believe were highly influential as an adult. Those things would be reading, Legos, G.I. Joes, Dungeons and Dragons and drawing. Some of things I have written or spoken about before and some I have not. I am pretty sure this is the first time I have written about Legos at least.

We had this old, brown fleece covered bean bag. That thing became army base, moon scape, race track etc. I remember times when it would be all setup and then it was time to put stuff away for the night. I instructed everyone in the family not to touch the bean bag because it would then ruin the scenario that was setup for future play. You know what? It worked more often than it did not.

Not having a build plan, not having a bunch of specialty parts, not having access to mind numbing TV is what made this so beneficial. I had to look for pieces, I had to estimate scale from a picture, I had to figure out how a bunch of squared off blocks could make a curve of a hull. I think that another thing I learned was that if I didn’t have the exact part, it was going to be OK.

We like puzzles in this house. I think puzzles and Legos share some common elements. But more so than that, I believe that puzzles are good for the brain. This is especially true for analytical skills. There is pattern searching and recognition as well as visualization involved.

One other thing I notice with puzzles as well is that the efficacy diminishes over time. I attribute that to brain fatigue. I think that awareness with puzzles can help you become cognizant of when you are starting to see brain fatigue.

End Your Programming Routine: We often do a puzzle during a break time like Thanksgiving or Christmas. That has become a mixture of Legos or a puzzle over the last ten years. As I stated above, I think that they provide similar kinds of benefits albeit puzzles are significantly more difficult and cheaper. The next time you are wanting to go back in time a little bit, try building a Lego set.

August 10, 2023 – Finally

August 10, 2023 /

Happy Father’s Day to me. We purchased a safe for Father’s Day and it was pretty cheap by all standards. It was already on sale and then we were able to by gift cards at 10% off. We used those gift cards to purchase the safe. So all told we bought the safe for $800. Buying it is one thing, but actually getting it in place is completely another thing. Today, I am going to talk about what to know when hiring a safe mover.

First of all, I never wanted the safe in my shop. This was an alternate choice. I wanted it in the basement where I currently store all of my sporting goods. While negotiating the delivery, I was told by the safe mover that it was too big to negotiate down the stairs and make tight turns. He told me when he showed up for delivery that safes of this size were too big to move up or down stairs (in general). Quite honestly, I don’t believe that. But, you should know that size matters when dealing with some individuals.

I think that if I had known this, I possibly would have purchased a smaller safe. The reason I bought this one was three fold. Conventional wisdom is purchase the biggest safe you can afford. The second was that this size was only $100 more than the one that was 20% smaller. The third is that I had no idea that people would say no. I assumed that I would say I want it here and the price would reflect the effort or manpower.

I wont go through all the gyrations that we went through to negotiate delivery. Suffice to say, I would not recommend this company to do further work. I mean, six weeks for delivery, who runs a business like this? I will comment on some of the more egregious parts of the process.

When he showed up to the store to pickup the safe, he called said that it wasn’t there. Mind you, because this was for Father’s Day my wife started the negotiations. Then he calls back five minutes later and said that she told him the wrong store. I had taken a picture of the receipt and sent it to him. But, my wife had already done that over a month ago. Since I wasn’t involved in the discussion, I don’t know who said what but the fact of the matter was that he already had the correct information. That wasn’t the worst part of it, he charged me an additional mileage fee because he got the wrong information.

He did do his best to position the safe where I wanted. He spent time to level the safe, check the door operation and give me some quick instruction on how to deal with batteries and change the code on the lock. I had assumed that this was full installation so I didn’t ask questions, but when he was done he said that we did not discuss anchoring the safe. He charges $25 per hole (and there are four bolt holes in this safe). By that time, I was so fed up with him that I said no. This is a job that I can easily do.

Another irritating thing was that when he drove off, he left all of the packaging in the driveway. Fortunately, most of it is cardboard and I can recycle it for free. But, I have never had an installation where they left stuff for the customer to deal with. This is poor business practice I would say. Here are my suggestions on what to know:

  • If you are hiring a mover, you might want to check with them before purchasing a safe on what they will or wont do in terms of placement.
  • You might want to look at more than one option if you have any. This was the company that the store recommended. I am sure they have no idea what this experience is like.
  • Make sure you get an itemized list of what you are paying for. I really didn’t appreciated getting sprung with extra costs on the spot.
  • I bought the safe at a farm and ranch store. Maybe you get what you pay for. They are not safe experts, just cheap, safe sellers. Probably had I purchased from a safe specialist, I would not have had all of these experiences.

This was a purchase that was long time coming. While I really don’t own that many guns, the current cabinet was at its full capacity. It is full of ammunition, accessories an all things shooting related. I even modified it when the kids were young adding a gate clasp with padlock for ‘extra’ security. It offered no fire protection and is always a chore getting stuff out that is not in the front. So despite the fact it isn’t totally what I wanted, I am happy for the extra security, protection and room.

End Your Programming Routine: In retrospect, I should have paid the $75 delivery fee and looked for movers that would do what I wanted after it was delivered, especially when I didn’t get a good feeling early on. I my case, I paid a third of the overall cost to have the safe delivered and positioned. I did learn a few things watching and so I will definitely not pay for this service again, especially to not get what I wanted. I have a few more things to accessorize before I start seeing how everything looks. I am eager to get started.