Brickworld Detroit

Well, I have been accepted to display at this year's Brickworld in Detroit. The event is actually held in Novi, a city in the Detroit Suburbs where Tinkerbell and Tech live. The show is on September 24th and 25th.  I am very excited, but I have a lot of work to do. I will probably end up rebuilding certain areas while increasing the overall size of the model and adding some height to the back portion.

I have added a counter on the side to remind me I have to get moving if I am going to finish in time.  So many things to consider, including transporting the model across town. This is all new for me.

 

Writing

 "I should write a book," I tell Ava. A female-centric fantasy novel like Fifty Shades of Grey. Ava wholeheartedly agrees. She feels like she is already living the fantasy. 

After giving it some thought. I've come to doubt that I could not reach my target audience because I am a man. I think women and men write differently. My book would land somewhere in the middle and fall on deaf ears.

I feel like I would be better off writing about what I know. Somewhere between passing on knowledge and experience. The self-help out there for men seems to fall into two categories. On one side they say focus on money, muscles, and game. On the other, there is the MGTOW (men going their own way) who give up on dating.  I feel there are many guys out there like me-- stuck in the middle. Neither of these is a viable solution for average guys in their forties and fifties in today's dating market. 

I have no answers, but I do have experience, the desire to write, and some incite I think is valuable. Even if it turns into another cautionary tale. 

The new book would start out with this quote:

A man wants what a woman has—sex. He can steal it (rape), persuade her to give it away (seduction), rent it (prostitution), (or) lease it over the long term (marriage). —Andrea Dworkin.

I wanted to expound on this further, but it is turning into a busy week.

Where The Night Takes Us

 Ava came over and spent the night Thursday. She arrived at 9:30 pm, took a shower, and crawled into bed with me. We started having sex in the bedroom, but I pulled her down to the living room at one point, and we continued on the couch. We spooned together downstairs for a while before returning to the bedroom.

We talked late into the night. Ava would like to get away with me again, though her schedule keeps getting more complicated. I have to keep reminding her of this fact. She has compromised a lot of things for her current relationship. She says the good outweighs the bad. This is probably true, although the more she becomes financially stable and independent, the less she will need what is appealing, and the bad will become more glaring over time.

I wouldn't be able to explain this to her, but I think she sees that instinctively. Currently, she is trying to have the best of both worlds. Being fully committed is hard when you have options, and Ava is not short on options. She talks as if she wouldn't be too phased if she got caught and her relationship ended. I believe that to be true.

 At some point, her desire for long-term security will outweigh her desire for thrills and adventure, but I don't see that happening soon.

I am reading a new book, The Ape that Understood the Universe. I am only a third of the way through, but it is very good. One of my first takeaways from the book is natural selection has engineered humans, like every other species on the planet, to procreate the genes we carry. Not the species but the genes. I think modern humans outlive our usefulness in that.

I also believe in the future, if our species survives and continues to advance, we will become more asexual and reproduce through genetically engineered replication. The evolution of humans will become more rapid. It has taken millions of years to get here, but our technology is outpacing evolution. 

We are currently out of sink with our biological imperative. We will either outgrow the biological imperative or be thrown back by some cataclysmic event. I am just speculating. I don't think I will be around to see either outcome.

Lego Images

Here are a few images of where I am so far.

 

Brickworld

This week will be slow at work. Most of my customers and coworkers are on vacation. I decided not to take time off. Hopefully, I will have a worthwhile destination to use my vacation time on later this year. One can only hope. Otherwise, I like using it at the end of the year.

I reached out to Brickworld last month. They hold Lego shows all over the US. The upcoming Detroit show is in September. You can display by invitation only. I wanted to know the criteria and whether my creation would be accepted.

I received an email back today. Local exhibitors need to be able to cover two eight-foot tables. People traveling to the show from further away need to cover four eight-foot tables. My current model covers one eight-foot table, but I can continue to expand it.  There isn't a lot of time between now and September, though. 

I will submit images of what I have completed, and we will see what happens. I have seen other displays on par with my own at previous shows. I think I have a decent chance of being accepted. Usually, Lego clubs get together and build larger displays. It takes a lot of Lego to cover two to four eight-foot tables. Still, now I know the requirements. At the very least, I can submit again next year. 

Long Weekend

 It was a full weekend. Friday, I managed to get someone out to fix the air conditioner. $300 later, it was up and running. We also picked up Max's car from the shop. That was another $3300.  An expensive start to a long weekend. After getting all that out of the way, I took the twins' presents and out for ice cream for their birthday. 

Saturday, Max was supposed to come over early and help me swap the Chinese knock-off steel bumper on the Gladiator for the original factory bumper. The steel number is starting to rust around the blot holes and needs to be repainted. I am unsure if I will end up repainting or scrapping it and getting something else.

Chinese Knock-off steel bumper

Original Bumper

By noon Saturday, I had the bumper switch, the Jeep washed, the top and the doors off, all before Max woke. I was ready for a nap after that. Later in the evening, Sam and I went to dinner in the Jeep. After eating, we went to several stores in search of pasta noodles. Alexis planned to make macaroni salad for a Fourth of July party and needed four boxes. I guess macaroni salad is popular on the holiday. The selves were bare.

Sunday, I headed across town to go biking with Tinkerbell and Tech. It was our first ride of the year. Tinkerbell wanted to get some miles in. I suggested being flexible on our route and starting at Kensington Park. That would allow us options for extending or shorting our ride, but Tink didn't like that idea.

We started from their home in Novi and rode into South Lyons for lunch. On our return trip, we took the cut leading to Kensington Park. We rode to Kensington but ended up riding through Island Lake instead.  Island Lake is a state park that borders Kensington Park. I think it is less crowded and more scenic than Kensington.

The temperature was in the mid-eights. We rode a total of forty-six miles and were out all day. It was exhausting. I said this before, anything over thirty miles gives you a diminished return. It is better to ride for one hour every day than five hours in one day.

Sam, Alexis, and I went to a Four of July party the next day. One of their childhood friends is a famous former major league baseball player. His wife has a large family that still lives in the area, so they have never moved. They live in a subdivision a few miles away from Alexis. 

In the large subdivision, a group of twenty homes surround a small man-made lake. The houses are huge million-dollar homes packed close together on tiny lots. They have the party every year. I have only attended once before. I usually know ten people, including the host, but I am not big on crowds, and this party is pretty big.

They serve grilled fillets and chicken instead of hamburgers and hot dogs.  I would call it affiance at its finest, but the hosts are the nicest down-to-earth people. The houses on the lake chip in for a professional fireworks display. Last night the fireworks went on for thirty minutes. The finale was a combination of white bangs and a golden shower of sparks that filled the sky and rained down dangerously on us.

Karma

I have been having a bought of lousy karma lately. Max's car is in the shop still, which is going to cost me $3200 and now the air conditioning unit at the condo went out last night.

Yesterday, I went to see Alexis and get my haircut. Candy, one of Alexis' old coworkers, was there when I got to Alexis' house. Candy wanted Alexis to pop a cyst she had in her armpit. Candy is a nice woman, but she is an alcoholic. She looks as older as Alexis though she is ten years younger. You can see the toll her lifestyle has taken on her.

After hanging out with the girls for a while, I went to get gas and deposit an expense check at the bank.  I noticed a woman parked oddly in the bank parking lot on the way through the drive-through. I finished my banking and was about to pull onto the road when I noticed the woman had a flat tire.

My first thought was not to get involved, but I got out and slowly approached her vehicle and asked if she needed help.  She indicated she called a serviceman, but they were an hour out.  It was getting late.  The sun would be down soon.

"Miss, would you like me to change the tire?"

The woman said, yes that would be great. She was probably in her mid-thirties and dressed in dark blue scrubs. It was a newer GM vehicle. Ten minutes later she was good to go. Hopefully, that will spread some good karma.