Ikea-style Lego!

Wow–I figured if I used “Ikea” and “Lego” in the same sentence a wormhole would open and suck the universe into it.

WHEW!

Oh here are a couple other angles:

This is my take on a labor robot from the anime, Patlabor. As per my
standard daily Lego rules, I used only parts from my $4 Free Style
Lego set. I think I did all right, actually. :)

More shots:

More pics:

TheDailyLego: some kinda sled thing again, originally uploaded by thepetecom.

TheDailyLego: some kinda sled thing again, originally uploaded by thepetecom.

That’s a photo my parents took of me and my little brother (I’m the cuter one on the left) sitting in front of The WTC Sphere sculpture as it originally stood, in between the Twin Towers. I’m guessing it had to be taken in the mid-to-early 1980s since my little brother is still shorter than me in this image (he’s really my step-brother and today towers over me by several inches).

A few decades later, while my wife and I walked past the site where that picture was taken, now a big hole in the ground surrounded by blue fencing, I looked for the memorial spotlights the City of New York had been using to commemorate the victims. In years past, I had heard that they were placed in the hole. However, they weren’t there on this September 11th. They were on, but several blocks south.

My wife suggested that perhaps they were moved to avoid getting in the way of construction of the permanent memorial. I replied:

“What construction?”

Politics and miscellaneous city-BS has kept anything else from being built on the spot over the last eight years. This is absolutely fine with me, since I’ve always felt that the spotlights were the perfect homage to the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the WTC. Poetic, haunting, somber, and practically impossible to exploit for a quick buck. They’re actually suggesting that shopping areas be included in the memorial in some capacity.

I say we pave over the whole thing and leave the spotlights in place, year-round. Have a gift shop and a non-profit org to pay for the electricity that the spotlights use. Hell, we could even take
donations to set up solar panels to gather energy in the day to power the spotlights at night.

I used to think that Ground Zero should just have another pair of
towers built on it and let a bunch of businesses set up shop inside. My idea was that we’d be showing the terrorists that they haven’t won.

The problem is, they did win.

Ground Zero, to me, is a tomb stone, not just for the 2752 people who were killed thanks to the attacks, but for the countless number of people who have died because of how America reacted to the attacks–American soldiers, Iraqis and Afghanis who have died because of the wars we were so convinced were necessary after we were attacked by a handful of rag-tag loser-extremists who got very lucky that day.

Let the lights stay.

Let them serve as an eternal flashlight on ourselves and our decisions in the days, weeks, months and years following that horrible day in September.

We need anything but “business as usual.”

Here are a stack of pictures I took last night after visiting Ground Zero.

All right, so this isn’t the Sphere, but it is located just meters away from it. It’s a trailer with the side of it displaying a timeline and the names of the people who lost their lives in the WTC on 9/11/1.

The Sphere from the WTC on 9/11/9 02

In the upper right hand corner you can see The Sphere that used to reside in between the Twin Towers of the WTC. To the left of it are American flags with the names of the victims on them. If you look very closely you can see the eternal flame burning. It’s actually a pretty wonderful tribute to the victims.

The Sphere from the WTC on 9/11/9 03

This is The Sphere sculpture that used to sit in between the Twin Towers of the WTC. If you look closely, you can see how the sculpture was damaged in the attacks. In the bottom of the frame you can see the roses left in the shrubs by friends, family and other visitors. Also visible is a letter left by a son, still missing his father who died in the attacks eight years ago.

Letter left at The Sphere from the WTC on 9/11/9

Here is a closer shot on the letter left by a son still grieving for his father, a victim of the 911 attacks. It rained that day and the lighting wasn’t great, but you can see that it was short but bittersweet. It’s hard to not feel something for both the son and the father.

Eternal flame at The Sphere from the WTC on 9/11/9 01

Here’s the eternal flame. You can see a photo of a fireman who was a victim along with several roses.

Eternal Flame at The Sphere from the WTC on 9/11/9 02

Closer shot on the eternal flame.

Eternal Flame at The Sphere from the WTC on 9/11/9 03

Another closer shot on the flame

A rose left at The Sphere from the WTC on 9/11/9

There were several roses there, all beaded with rain drops from the earlier storm that had rolled through New York City.

The Sphere from the WTC on 9/11/9 with Roses & Eternal Flame 01

The Sphere from the WTC on 9/11/9 with Roses & Eternal Flame 02

NYC on 9/11/9 upward angle

It seemed like the weather was reflecting the somber mood carried by people visiting both Ground Zero and The Sphere that day. Cloudy, dark, but quiet. I liked this agle because of the multiple layers–the Church in the foreground and each building adding a new layer.

NYC on 9/11/9 with red, white & blue light

It seemed like the weather was reflecting the somber mood carried by people visiting both Ground Zero and The Sphere that day. Cloudy, dark, but quiet. This angle I liked because of the colors. Seemed appropriate on a few different levels.

Strangely this is a few blocks south of the actual location of the
WTC. Not sure why they’re down here.

UPDATE: Here are some more pics I took down there:

I thought the 911 Memorial spotlights were supposed to be at Ground Zero, but apparently they’re not. Don’t know if this always has been the case in previous years or not.

911 Memorial Spotlights on 9/11/9 as seen from Ground Zero

Here is what I saw when I looked south of Ground Zero. Don’t know why these weren’t at Ground Zero as I’ve heard they have been in years past.

911 Memorial Spotlights 9/11/9 01

I’ve always felt that the spotlights were the perfect homage to the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the WTC–poetic, haunting, somber… According to NY1.com (source: www.ny1.com/Default.aspx?ArID=105570): “Two beams created by two banks of 88 separate spotlights are lit every year to evoke the image of the World Trade Center’s towers. The lights were first lit in March 2002 to mark the six-month anniversary of the attacks. This year, the eighth anniversary of the September 11th attacks was the first officially-designated ‘National Day of Service and Remembrance.’”

911 Memorial Spotlights 9/11/9 02

911 Memorial Spotlights 9/11/9 04

911 Memorial Spotlights 9/11/9 05

911 Memorial Spotlights 9/11/9 GPS location

This is where the 911 Memorial Spotlights were according to my iPhone’s GPS. If you look toward the top of the map, you can see where the WTC is in comparison. Not sure why the spotlights were so far away.

My good friends Bet & Stennie over at Hucklebug.com are taking part in Blogathon 2009. They’ll be podcasting their show The Hucklebug all day long this Saturday. HOWEVER, they need pledges, so please, please, please, stop by HuckleBug.com and pledge a buck or two today and help them make their 24-hour Hucklebug-a-thon a BIG success.

Or, at the very least, stop by their site, give their show a listen and get addicted like I did well over 150 weeks ago (yes, they’ve been going for quite a while). Bet & Stennie’s Hucklebug is like sitting around listening to your two best friends talk about everything from movies, to news, to whatever. Leave a comment, they give you a shoutout. Too cool.

Tune in Saturday July 25, 2009 starting at 9am Eastern Time for new mini-episodes of the Hucklebug ALL DAY and hear not only Bet & Stennie, but also listen as folks call in. I’ll be calling in and so will Jay ThePal and many others!! So, this Saturday, PEOPLE OF EARTH: LISTEN TO THE HUCKLEBUG @ HUCKLEBUG.COM!

First off, THANK YOU JEFF PULVER (@jeffpulver ) for inviting Jay ThePal! It was a truly great experience for both myself and for my wife Sierra (@Siskita ) and for Jay ThePal and Kay ThePal, too ;) Not only did we get to network and meet a lot of great people, we also learned quite a bit from the talks given by some really intelligent and interesting people. I’ve been to other conferences/conventions and usually the panels and talks are kind of on the “meh” side of things, but I think I managed to pick up something from every talk/panel we watched. My only gripe is that they seemed too short. But short makes sense at a conference based on microblogging and how it is changing our world. Besides, all the folks who spoke were so friendly and approachable, we had no trouble just walking up and talking to them after they were done speaking.

Be sure to check out JeffPulver.com and 140conf.com!

Second, I’d like to throw a HUGE THANKS to Sol Lipman aka Sol on 12seconds.tv and @thesolster on Twitter. Without his support and enthusiasm, we never would have gotten into #140conf. (Hell, Jay wouldn’t be as popular either!)

I have STACKS of people to say thanks to beyond Jeff and Sol, but I want to make sure I have a comprehensive list before I go and forget to mention someone. I hope to have that up in the next day or two.

Until then, go check out Jay ThePal and his Jay TheVlogs! Or check out Kay ThePal and the videos she has at her site.

You can also check out two flickr sets that I’ll be adding more pics to soon:

#140conf Day 1:
www.flickr.com/photos/thepete/sets/72157619816438619/
#140conf Day 2:
www.flickr.com/photos/thepete/sets/72157619901583210/

You can also check out The12stream for a couple of #140conf-related vids I’ve already posted on 12seconds.tv.

This is only the beginning… YEAH!

ANYway, here are the pages from last night! Yep, Chapter 4, complete with un-proofread typos, I’m sure:

PDF

Flash embed (if you can’t see it below, just click the headline of this post):

AS ALWAYS: I would love to hear any feedback you have ASSUMING IT IS NOT about typos, spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. These are all first drafts I’m posting, so no fair holding that against me. ;) Anything else is fair game, but if you’re rude or unhelpful, I may ignore you. But if you read any of it, you should know I GREATLY APPRECIATE IT!! Seriously, I do. Honest.