Category: Doug

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Lego Turns 50 Today

Today is the 50th anniversary of the filing of the patent for Lego bricks.


The Google logo received a Lego treatment today.

I received my first Lego set 34 years ago—number 480, the Rescue Helicopter—at age 5, as a Christmas gift from friend-and-neighbor Chuck Altwein. I quickly learned to completely assemble and disassemble the model without the directions. This was followed by set number 135 that year from my parents (too small a set, but I do not blame them), and many, many others, including some of my favorites, 190, 404 (which still gets my vote for best classic building set), and the 487 Space Cruiser, which was one of a trilogy of sets that opened Lego’s hugely popular (and still running) space line. (This line also introduced the modern Lego minifigure, or minifig.)

Lego forever changed my childhood, as I spent nearly every Saturday morning surrounded by Lego. One of the worst punishments I ever received was when I got frustrated trying to build a truck, and threw the partially completed assembly across the room. My Mom put my Lego in the attic for a week, and I learned to control my temper better. (I recall an incident with Isaac, at around age 4 or 5, where he had his Lego taken away for something similar, and he cried for 3 1/2 hours straight.)

I continue to build with Lego with my kids on rainy days at home, and lead a Lego robotics group that meets once a week at work (where I am known by the nickname LegoDoug). We have completed one project using the original RIS/RCX, and are switching to the NXT this week, thanks to Nichelle’s wonderful anniversary gift.

My boys are crazy about Lego Bionicle and the Lego Star Wars lines, and even NaNi loves to build, and I can’t think of any toy that has provided so much innovative playtime.

Check out some coverage on Gizmodo, Slashdot, Time, and this Lego timeline on Wikipedia.

Following are images of some of my favorite bits of my own Lego history.


I lobbied shamelessly and amorally for this one Christmas. It was Lego’s largest set to date.


One of Lego’s best sets ever, which included a Lego motor.


The Lego Space Cruiser, an unquestionable classic.


Lego’s first castle set.


The first Lego robotics kit, and a little piece of history.


An iconic robot constructed from the new Lego NXT robotics kit.

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2008: Year of the Nerd

I hesitate to include this, but this is the sort of thing that goes on at a New Year’s Eve party at Heritage Baptist Church.

In addition to “praying in” the new year, we also spent several hours playing board games and doing improv skits. Lynn B., our great game organizer, ran a Family Feud session, which was quite fun, although at first we demonstrated our vast lack of knowledge in how this particular game show operated. Once it got going, the competition was fierce.

I loved the fact that all the kids were involved as well. David was interviewed by me in one of the skits as an eyewitness to the events of “The Ugly Duckling”; in his version he ran over the Ugly Duckling with his car! Tom H. brought a snowball inside, which ended up recycled a number of times by being thrown or dropped down the back of people’s shirts. Pastor Erik told people (not necessarily children) not to run about 4,328 times. Phil L. and David E. carried Isaac outside a couple of times and threw him in a snowbank.

Afterward we went home and let the kids stay up as long as they wanted, as is our tradition on New Year’s. NaNi didn’t make it much after 1:00. David was up until about 4:30. Isaac stayed awake until 6:40 p.m. on the first. We woke him up for dinner, and trounced him at Halo 3, which is extremely unusual, but shows how drastically sleep deprivation can affect performance and critical skills.

Late afternoon on the first, we were in the process of getting ready to go see Enchanted, when David came in calling, “It stings! It stings!” I thought he’d hurt or frozen his hands, until he pointed to his head. Isaac had accidentally hit him across the eyebrow with a snow shovel, splitting the skin open quite deeply, so we went to the emergency department at SNHMC instead of to the movies. (The physician’s office had just closed.) David was very worried about stitches, but got to have his skin superglued together instead.

While David and I waited, and waited, and waited in the waiting room, Nichelle was at home making beef enchiladas, our last bit of holiday eating-too-much-for-our-own-good.

Welcome, 2008!

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The Jerks Always Win

… was the text message I received recently from a heartbroken friend. I am not at liberty to share the details behind this, but emotional abuse figured significantly in the story that was summed up by that statement.

For several years, I have informally studied the short- and long-term effects of sexual abuse. I have read over a dozen books on the topic, attended trials and hearings, evaluated cases in the media, communicated with subject matter experts, and supported and interviewed survivors. The bottom line is, as Anna Salter wrote, “Child sexual abuse was like getting bitten by a rattlesnake: Some kids recovered completely, and some didn’t, but it wasn’t good for anybody.”

On the whole—unlike 20 years ago—our society is beginning to “get it” in regard to sexual abuse. Popular knowledge is now cognizant of the need to expose its occurrences, protect its survivors, and punish and forever monitor the offenders.

Sadly, the balance still favors the offender. Most are never caught; even those who are prosecuted often reach that stage only after permanently damaging numerous innocents. The jerks always win.

But there is another type of abuse, typically (but not exclusively) perpetrated by males against females, that we often gloss over: Verbal and emotional abuse.

There was a lot I did not understand about sexual abuse, due to my own ignorance—I could not fathom, for example, why Celie did not simply run away to escape her abusive husband when I read The Color Purple ages ago. Of course, now I know that her sexual abuse as a child played a large part in this, and that certain types of abusive behavior will nearly always produce certain types of behavioral results, such as remaining with or returning to the abuser. Whether this can be explained rationally is irrelevant; the causative facts remain both evident and consistent.

There is a lot I do not understand about verbal or emotional abuse. Why would one continually mistreat a woman with whom he shares a social or even romantic connection? Why would anyone continually belittle her accomplishments, describe her as worthless or stupid, scream profanities at her, become angry at her without provocation, or limit her financial and personal freedom?

Why take something beautiful and damage it, making it less valuable?

Why tarnish God’s most beautiful and intricate creation, rather than polishing it for all the world to see?

We’d like to think this happens only in our underclasses, but that is hardly the case. One account conveyed to me by a friend was of a woman who was a published biological research scientist, with a doctorate. This didn’t protect her from her boyfriend whose constant belittlement convinced her that she was of no value. This happens far more than we realize.

I confess, I simply do not understand verbal or emotional abuse. I absolutely cannot understand why someone would mistreat any woman, especially one entrusted into one’s care. I know what the advice is to those in an abusive situation: “Get out immediately”; but few will be able to heed that. I often wonder why women seem to be so predictably malleable under such abuse, but perhaps this is why the Apostle Peter referred to wives as “the weaker vessel,” and commanded husbands to honor them and be understanding.

I see that I need to improve my knowledge deficit, just as I studied sexual abuse.

In the mean time, I’m going to keep polishing.

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One Mile, Baby!

For the past month or so, six mornings a week, I’ve been working on running, trying to get up to a mile without stopping. Today, I finally made it!


This is pretty much how I felt after finally completing a mile without stopping.

Previously my best distance before walking (and then resuming the run after I caught my breath) was only about seven tenths of a mile. Whew! Hope I can make it again tomorrow.

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Skvid Number One

Skvid = SKit on VIDeo

Last week our pastor asked me to put together a video skit to help illustrate a sermon in a series of lessons on stewardship: What happens when we overwhelm ourselves with choices and activities? Of course, it also illustrates beautifully the quirkiness of the Wilcox family.

I did the video in Windows Movie Maker, a free download for Windows XP. I had to overcome a quirk that kept locking the software up, discovering that previewing clips in the preview window wouldn’t work correctly, unless I dragged the clips to the timeline first. I can’t explain that, but wish I’d found the answer hours earlier. Movie Maker isn’t bad, but I need something that will let me treat the audio track from the video separately, as well as add more audio layers.

The film was shot entirely out of sequence, in order to meet the availability schedule of the actors (my kids), over the course of a very busy Saturday. The Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back clip was created by shooting our own HDTV, the quickest way I could think of to get the piece I needed.

Background music includes Ella Fitzgerald’s, “I’m Beginning to See the Light,” and the title theme from Back to the Future.

Overall, it’s a tad too long at just over 6 minutes (the goal was 5 minutes), and I never got around to including any video transitions. I may tweak it a bit in the next few days, especially if I try out a more advanced software package, and hope to get it down to 4 to 4.5 minutes. I recall seeing George Lucas talking about an old filmmaker adage, “Films are never finished, just abandoned,” and how he had the technology (and money) to keep going back to his films to finish them the way he wanted.

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Shootin’ with the Brethren

Back in September, Nichelle, Isaac, Phil, and I participating in our church’s extremely informal, annual skeet shoot. (I know not all churches go shooting together, and one certainly won’t find the Apostle Paul writing about it, but we do, after all, live in New Hampshire.)

Neither Nichelle nor I hit any of the clay pigeons with our 12-gauges. Phil nicked one or two, but didn’t really fare much better than we. Isaac, however, managed to nail three of them (putting him in 5th place for the day), with a more-his-size 410.

We also did some handgun shooting. I found that to be highly invigorating. (Translation: “Quite the rush!”) Target shooting is also a little easier than skeet shooting, so doing that last helped rebuild my shattered ego after being trounced by Isaac.

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NaNi the Brain Surgeon

Last week we were visiting the McGrath family, and they (as usual) offered the kids some food. NaNi was eating a bread roll, and said, “Dad, we can cut open your head, and put this inside, and glue it back together, and you’ll act all crazy. Then when you’re done acting crazy, we can cut your head open again, and put your regular brain back in, and glue it back together again.”

A week before that, she said, “Dad, I can’t take my head off, because my blood is sticky—just like glue—and it holds it on.”

What a kid.

Oh, she also is crazy about dresses. Two weeks ago she slyly pronounced, “Dad, if you buy me a twirley Cinderella dress, I am soooo letting you take me to the ball.”

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Amazing Dental Technology

This morning I reported to my dentist at 8:00 a.m. to have a crown done. They use a CEREC system, and I was amazed by the technology.

They shot me up with Novocaine, got rid of the old filling and ground down the disintegrating part of the molar. Then they use an IR imager to get a 3D image of the tooth that remains, and match—in beautifully animated 3D—the crown that will be milled to the base that remains, using the tooth outline against a database of about 500 3D teeth to get one that looks natural. (See the video above. It’s jaw-dropping.)

The dentist then can adjust this using a mouse and 3D view. They pick a tint that matches the rest of your teeth, throw a block of dental material in a tiny, computerized milling machine, and in 11 to 22 minutes, the crown is done.

This gets molecularly bonded (rather than just cemented) to the original tooth surface, and voila—essentially a new tooth, in less time than it takes the Novocaine to wear off.

I was out and on my way again at 9:20.

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Shiver Me Timbers! Talk Like a Pirate Day Is Here Again!

‘Twas A grand, glorious day when I awoke. “Wench!” demanded I, “Where be me mornin’ grog?”

But then I learned a right powerful lesson: Be not calling a fair lass a “wench,” if’n she be stronger than thee. Painfully quick the lesson was, and quickly painful.

I woke me offspring up this mornin’ by yellin’, “Avast, ye good for nothing lazy swabs! Get out of those bunks ‘fore I have ye keelhauled!”

Arrrrrrr!

We had a great time talking like pirates on the way to school, and David tried to convince me that, as it was a holiday, he had the day off. I changed the words to our usual Geek song fare, “Can’t you see I’m white and piratey?” and “That Be the Power of Love.”

See last year’s post here.

Reuters covered it with this article.