so many things to ponder

whoa, it's been awhile. things have been busy. it's been a pretty intense period and there's no end in sight. i've been trying to take creative breaks - a lovely weekend away with my creative group, the yearly trip with my weaving group, going to weaving, going to a gourmet knitting day, a pampering event with a friend (think facial and foot bath), followed by an art show and a really nice lunch, several work trips to copenhagen - but it has all left little time to think about personal writing. i miss the way this space allowed me to process things and it would be nice to get back into the habit. odin knows there's plenty to process.

today, as i made dinner - a roast chicken, jerusalem artichokes freshly dug from the garden and some roasted beets, plus a salad with avocado, mango and tomato - i found myself pondering topics to write in the way that i used to and it made me think it would be nice to be back here again. 

things that crossed my mind...the need that everyone seems to have acquired to have a diagnosis, the latest james bond, growing older, the individual nature of grief, what lumke would have wanted to be could she have chosen anything, how to best talk about kitchens from a warm, sympathetic perspective, the natural order of adjectives (thanks, molly), an obsession with growing things from seeds extracted in the kitchen (see the mango plant above, which i started myself), old friends i got to see again this week, sharing what i love about copenhagen, our upcoming trip to arizona (i SO need a holiday), tomorrow's make-your-own-ravioli dinner with friends, what tattoo to get next (i'm thinking a cactus), the chestnut man on netflix. so many things to ponder and write about.  

i think i need to start blogging again like it's 2010 and no one is reading. because, after all, it always came back to me. and it's extremely likely that no one is reading.

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wow, what a story that was released on the day of the seafarer a few months ago (yes, i started this post awhile ago). tales of politics, containers, big tobacco, cancer and whitewashed company histories. i worked for maersk for 5 years and never even heard a whisper of this - only that sealand represented the great maersk move towards containerization. that and the banana plantation that they bought somewhere in africa to push containerization of bananas, which were hauled on refrigerated bulk carriers before containers came along. 

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a national geographic piece on adult fans of lego that, if you ask me, doesn't give enough credit to the actual fans themselves. 

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best ad for wearing a bike helmet ever. the danes are just so good at these things.

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fantastic cooperation between marina abramovic and wetransfer.

bittersweet ending

i made a short journey yesterday in a truck. it's the last journey that "my" lego ship will ever make. after three long years, thousands of kilometers traveled on the wheels of the curtain-side trailer beneath her, she's going to be dismantled, her bricks going to a good cause. when she wasn't being pulled by a truck, she traveled by ferry and rail. she visited the far corners of europe, from istanbul and italy in the south, to estonia, latvia and lithuania in the east to norway in the north. she was seen by crowds of people on trafalgar square in london, in front of the european parliament in brussels and near the brandenburg gate in berlin. and i was with her pretty much the whole way. probably the crowd i remember best was on a glorious, sunny autumn day in klaipeda - there were balloons, music playing and children looking on in wonder. that was just over three years ago.

but even as i write this, she's being broken down. i don't have the heart to go down and witness it. the fans at the lego fan weekend in the little town of skærbæk will have the chance to buy her bricks that aren't glued, by the kilo, and some of the cars and one of the lifeboats will be auctioned for a good cause - fairy bricks - an organization that gives lego sets to children who are hospitalized. the bricks that are glued, which is about half of them, will be recycled by lego themselves, and turned back into lego bricks that will go into sets and have a new life with children all over the world. that makes me happy.

this is probably the project i'm most proud to have been part of in my working life. the seed of the idea was one i presented in my job interview and it became so much more in collaboration with the ideas of the amazing creative people i worked with. and it was such a privilege to see it come to fruition beyond my wildest dreams. so i feel sad that it's really truly over now, but so happy that the ending is such a worthy one that will bring joy to so many, who may not even know the source of the joy, but who will undoubtedly feel it. goodbye, jubilee, you were amazing.

it's a slippery slope

i made the mistake of joining a retro toy group on facebook. two of them, actually. it all started with being on the lookout for vintage lego fabuland characters. because obviously, i hadn't found enough of those on ebay...

and while there was no fabuland in the groups, i did run onto these little teeny tiny people, still in their original package. and i just had to have them.

of course, i didn't really care that they were in their original packaging as they weren't going to stay there. i had to take them out and play with them.

it seems that the lego minifigures were just a gateway drug to wider toy photography...

pondering happiness

loving inna's post about happiness...and pondering it myself. how connected is happiness to contentment? to gratitude? to satisfaction? to feeling safe? to sunshine? to being well rested? to things? of course, i'm pondering this in relation to our happiness project and those eternally happy danes, but also just in terms of my own personal state of being. and i'm wondering if i'm happy? i think in moments that i am, but that those moments feel fleeting and elusive. how can we better hold onto them? and disconnect them from material things? i don't really know the answers. but maybe this will help...i signed up for 100 days of happiness starting march 1.  i don't know if it will help, but it should at least give me renewed motivation for my daily photos.

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by the way, something that makes me very happy that i had not yet shared, is this little project which i had the pleasure of working on at the end of last year: 

i'm on top of the world!

my maersk triple e is finished. it's probably the coolest thing i've built so far. it's quite a different build than the previous maersk ships (not that i built much of those), as the containers are in full blocks and not separate. i didn't photograph it here, but there's a really cool clear section where you can look in at the fabulous little green wartsila engine. the details are awesome. the bulbous bow and thel little bitty lifeboats are way cool too. i couldn't resist posing my new business card (yes, we have the coolest business cards in the world) mini me on the front, ala titanic.

here's a shot of the whole thing. the display stand is awesome and the details are just so great. the way the bow curves in front is ingenius and involves a clear cup piece! i also adore the twin propellers and the detailing at the back. it's a real thing of beauty and amazing considering the lego designer wasn't allowed to see any drawings or photos of the ship while he was designing it due to differences of opinion regarding non-disclosure agreements between two big danish companies. he was brilliant anyway. you can hear more about his design here. looking at this and listening to him, you can understand why he's a superstar designer.

and one more shot of me with my camera in hand. i'm sure i was up there on the bow, taking pictures of the dolphins that were undoubtedly playing in front of the ship as it sailed along. it was awesome to be able to combine my two favorite jobs ever in one awesome model. life doesn't really get better than this.

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how much do people spend on food in your land?

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how long should you nap?

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there's a new harry potter short story on pottermore.

those play-doh folks really did an awesome job with wallace & gromit

we all know how much i love lego, so it's not surprising that i wasn't all that keen on this cynical piece in the nytimes (while otherwise generally being a fan of both the nytimes and of cynicism). i also read this one, which chose to be charmed by the branding of the movie, and is thus a little more positive. it's actually interesting that it's taken nearly a month for some negativity about this film to surface.

but both of these pieces and many of the others, in my view, give a bit too much credit to lego for a movie made by warner brothers and cleverly written and directed by phil lord and christopher miller. yes, there was an executive producer from the lego company and lego did, of course, protect their strong brand name and interests, but (you knew there was a but), giving them all of the credit is a little bit like attributing the cleverness of wallace & gromit only to play-doh.

like polymer clay in the aardman animations, lego bricks were a medium in the film - a vehicle on which to attach both visually and to tell a story. a human, funny, positive, charming, but also slightly politically subversive and even ironic (in its anti-capitalist message) story. it is postmodernism at its best, engaging all of the references of pop culture and childhood memories (from benny the spaceman to batman), rolling them into a rolicking good time of a movie that's self-referential, visually enchanting and has a positive message of believing in your own talents. it's a feel good movie. lego is lucky is worked so well, and some credit for that goes to the strength and positivity of their brand, but they don't deserve all of the credit. warner brothers played a significant part.

exhausted in a good way

this blurry sunset photo, taken at the end of my day, well after it was way too dark to take a photo, perfectly matches how i feel right now. it's got a warm glow, but it's just not in focus. i had a long and full day of learning exciting new things and while that's wonderful, it's also exhausting. especially because we stood up for most of the day. if i'd known it was going to be standing up all day, i'd definitely have worn different shoes. my feet went from complaining to not speaking to me to cautious rapprochement here after i came home and showered and put them up for awhile. they will undoubtedly have a strong opinion about what shoes i wear tomorrow.

this week has been amazing so far. but it does tire you out in a completely different way than putting around home, writing a little bit here and there, taking some leisurely photos and then perusing pinterest for dinner ideas does. i'm loving every minute of it tho'.

probably one of the biggest challenges (other than remembering people's names), is learning a whole new corporate language. i've never been in a company that made consumer products before (unless you count microsoft and i was arguably in a B2B corner of that behemoth). it seems there's a whole language around the way you speak of pricing and intellectual property and licensing and play experiences and buyers and gift givers and moms and DNA and built-in toilets when you're a toy company. and i had a prolonged exposure to all of that today. it's like trying to decode a language that sounds vaguely familiar, but which also seems like total gobbledygook. and it's pretty exhausting. even while it's also exhilirating.

but i'm trying to remember that you can only have new experiences once before they aren't new anymore and i'm doing my best to enjoy every minute and everything i'm learning and doing. it's such a creative, positive atmosphere that i can't really do anything other than enjoy the ride, wherever it's going to take me. and right now, it's going to take me to bed. my brain says it's time to shut down and let it get on with the processing. i'm sure that tonight i'll be dreaming of lego.

it's official!

it's official! i've known for a month, but i signed my contract today! i'll officially start working at LEGO on february 3! and i'm so very excited. it's really a dream job for me - working together with all kinds of creative people who have great ideas, to bring their ideas to life as LEGO products or projects. for someone who loves ideas and loves floating them out in the world to see what happens, it's pretty much perfect. i also think it will be good for my minifigure collection.

30 days of lists: day 29

i had this ready and couldn't get into blogger for hours due to some strange "infinite loop error" message. very strange. but here it is. better late than never and only one to go. went to a late open evening tonight, but only bought some small gifts for sabin's december christmas countdown calendar. i really do want to go with either handmade or flea market items this year and not succumb to the usual gift panic. happily, my budget will hold me to that.

oh, and these aren't minifigs, but some ordinary christmas-themed lego from a few years ago. i love that little reindeer.

a busy weekend awaits. we're moving sabin's horse home tomorrow and i'm frantically finishing up things for the christmas market on sunday, but first, a good night's sleep.

happy weekend one and all!

co-creating ideas (or please help me out here!)

assembling a diverse group - practical people, experimenters, musicians,
people with their finger on the pulse of trends, nerds, children, folks from diverse cultures,
the more diversity of ideas and backgrounds, the better.

i need some feedback for a co-creation project. first a quick explanation of what i mean by co-creation. in these days of social media, there are a lot of ways that companies are co-creating together with their customers. there's crowdsourcing (which is arguably what i'm doing here) - asking an open question online or via social media, there's direct invitation to be part of an exclusive engagement with the company (what pinterest did very well with their recent translations into the scandinavian languages), there are actual gatherings of users (ala LEGO brick conferences around the world), where the company can take the temperature of what interests users. and i'm sure there are countless other ways of co-creating in this developing field.

for a presentation that's very important to me, i have to sketch out a fictional (but plausible) scenario and describe a co-creation process. the type of process i'd like to describe is one which may start with crowdsourcing, but it will end in an invitation to be part of an exclusive group and ultimately end in a new or improved product/product line, so it will actually engage several aspects of the kinds of co-creation i described above.

i believe that when co-creating, the more diverse your group, the better. i'm a believer in putting together experts, users, artists and musicians, shaking them up and seeing the magic that happens.

i'm looking for LEGO-related ideas, which is where you come in. i have several, but i would like more. i would also like your feedback on the ideas i already have. they are as follows:

~ along the lines of their architecture series, LEGO should develop a wildlife series, possibly even with a tie-in to the BBC, which produces such breathtaking nature documentaries and or/the world wildlife fund (or other organizations devoted to the welfare of the world's animals).

~ LEGO education has some pretty amazing stuff available to schools today, but it's only available in large packs, which not every school can afford. it's difficult for an individual teacher to obtain a package to investigate and look into how she can use it in the classroom without the school having a big, expensive subscription. a co-creation process together with teachers from smaller schools around the world might result in ideas for LEGO education to make it easier for teachers to use their wonderful products.

~ the LEGO advent calendars could use some inspiration - a co-creation process whereby consumers come with suggested stories/themes for the calendar. i know we personally bought two of them in 2010 - the castle-themed one and the city one, but haven't bought one since because we don't feel that the story that's there is clear or will sustain us through 24 days.

~ despite the popularity of the friends series, there is a lack of focus on girls with LEGO. i know my own girl wouldn't want the friends LEGOs. there must be another angle to appeal to girls. who should be involved in determining that?

~ an environmental angle on LEGO. despite being a plastic toy, they are a plastic toy that lasts and that people save and hand down to the next generation. LEGO should take advantage of this and have an environmental themed series. but what should that contain? and who should be involved? (can you tell that this is the one that interests me the most).

so, please, please leave me your thoughts and ideas in the comments or email me directly jknachti (at) gmail (dot) com (sorry, had to write that way to protect from the spambots). please do let me know your thoughts, i really need and appreciate your help! the sooner, the better!

lego minifigures, like modern baseball cards, without all that stupid baseball

i was in the grocery store and spotted a display of lego minifigures. i've long been familiar with little lego people, as we have many of them around the house, mostly of the kind that came with sets of lego. and one of the ways you can properly judge a lego set is by how many mini figures come with it. but until friday, i wasn't really aware of the minifigure collecting phenomenon.

they come in a sealed package, like baseball cards, in a numbered series and you'll get a surprise one of 16 minifigures in your package for 20 kroner (or 17 if you buy them in fakta, where i did). i spotted a little chicken on the package and decided to grab a couple, thinking in light of my missing chickens, it would be fun to get a lego chicken.

the first one i opened was not a chicken, but this club-wielding troglodyte (which i later found out is actually a cyclops). and i felt a little bit like i can never escape those cavemen, tho' he's also kind cute. naturally, i still had to try for a chicken, but i had bought two, so i had one more to open.

inside the second package was this awesome little forest maiden, who i took to be a warrior goddess who was sworn to defend the forest. plus, how awesome is her hair? i was happy, but it still wasn't a little lego man in a chicken suit, so i picked up another handful when i had to go back to the store anyway for some things i forgot for the party.

next up was a judge. he's very cleverly made - his little red robe held in place by his white wig. no minifigures this cool come with the actual sets. and look at his wrinkles and that expression on his face. this is an awesome level of detailed cleverness.

before my chicken came, i got caesar, complete with little gold laurel wreath on his perfect little caesar haircut. that was cool, but still not a chicken. the chicken only came on my 6th try. but it's so cute it was worth it. i don't need all of series 9, but i would still like to have the hollywood starlet, who looks a bit like marilyn monroe and the mermaid, so i imagine a few more will find their way into my basket the next time i'm in the grocery store.

then we discovered that the local campground (i went there, trying to source ice in a fit of pre-party panic yesterday) had a display with some of the older series - 3-4-5 to be exact. those must be getting pretty rare, so we had to pick up a few five of them. we got this little zookeeper, complete with monkey and banana.

and my fave, a mad scientist, also with super cool hair. the hair on these is WAY better than on the normal ones that come with sets.

we also got kimono girl from series 4. we were trying for the viking that was part of that series, but no such luck.

and who can resist hazmat guy from series 5? look at the expression on his face? he looks really worried!

honestly, i do not need more bits of plastic in my life, but i am definitely a sucker for something that's cleverly done. i even arranged a trade with lost star (she's got warrior girl from series 10 and i had an extra cyclops that she needed). but i'll be able to stop as soon as i get viking girl, viking guy, the little soldier in a furry hat (after all, husband was once one of those himself) and the one in a bunny costume (ala the chicken man who started it all). and then i can quit. really. for sure. i promise.

what i've learned this week

~ lego has the coolest business cards in the world.  name on the front, email & phone # on the back.

~ it's very in amongst the toddler set to go to great lengths to expose said toddlers to chicken pox. parents get together with a child that has the pox, then they proceed to make the children drink from the same cup as the infected child, suck on used suckers and generally embrace and kiss one another in hopes that their child too will become infected. i can tell you a lot has changed in ten years.

~ a lot of good things can happen if you just dare. (including meetings already next friday!! [insert happy dance here])

~ if you ask for feedback on something, you'd better be able to take it.

~ if you wear something fabulous, you will feel fabulous. (i didn't so much learn this as remember it.)

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happy weekend, one and all. 

laughing and crying

this to make you laugh

because this will make you cry. 

be back soon

it's the winter holiday and we've had visitors...but i'll be back soon, with much to tell...

lego on the brain

i've got lego on the brain. sabin got the lego indiana jones airplanes yesterday and built them already last evening. every time she builds something, i am totally amazed at how ingenius the designs are. lego really pulled themselves out of the slump they were in a few years ago and got back to the basics of what they're good at. they made smart tie-ups with certain films - indiana jones, star wars, harry potter and there are even totally cool lego games for the Wii, where these little lego indy figures go around building things with lego blocks and whipping the heck out of the enemies. lego, as you no doubt know, is a danish company and the word is shortened from lege godt which means play well. and who wouldn't play well with things that are this well-designed:

check out that pirate's expression and his peg leg!

the pirate girl has a voluptuous figure to go with her treasure chest.

indy's shirt is rumpled and he's got a 5 o'clock shadow.

check out the little lego sean connery!

and that little door right below him actually opens and indy can store his suitcase and whip there.

doesn't indy look fetching flying that plane?

what a great expression on his little lego face.

with design that good, it makes it quite ok that the child still wants lego for her birthday, even when she's turning 9. i'm happy to keep buying it for her.

thank you all for your kind wishes for her birthday yesterday! they elicited that little proud snort thing she does when i read them to her.

t minus 36 hours and counting

the danes think christmas is the 24th, even tho' they do refer to it as christmas eve, as one should. they torture their children by making them wait all day, until after the food is consumed and the dishes put away before finally letting the sugar-crazed, zombie-tired little darlings tear into their gifts. imagine how much more peaceful the day would be if they just waited until actual christmas, let the kids open their gifts in the morning like normal people and then they had their new games and toys to play with all day while the adults cooked. you know, like the normal order of things.

at our house, we try to do a bit of both. it works out because sabin's big sisters come to our house on the 25th, which is actual christmas, and i save a stocking of small prezzies for sabin to have in the morning. we do our big christmas meal that day and just have a good soup of some sort - tho' not my mom's oyster stew because i can never find oysters 'til after christmas - and some good bread on the 24th.

nigella fruitcake #95

as of this moment (midmorning on december 23), the only tree we have up is the little lego tree pictured above. and as you can see, the presents don't really fit under it very well. i baked up a storm yesterday - making a beautiful and easy fruitcake from nigella's christmas cookbook, a couple of loaves of cranberry-orange bread (recipe coming soon to domestic sensualist) and a thyme focaccia. when i wasn't baking, i was playing outside in the snow with husband and sabin and her friend, so there was no time to put up the trees (one big one and a little one for sabin's room), which we went out and cut down on monday.

after seven nearly uninterrupted hours of playing in the snow yesterday, around 8, sabin began complaining of a stomach ache. her cheeks got rosey (not in a good way) and her eyes glassy.  her friend, who was going to stay overnight, reluctantly tore himself away from her computer and went home with his parents who had come by to inspect the fort and have a bit of hot apple cider and freshly-baked nigella fruitcake. it was a good thing he did, because she spent the entire night throwing up, then fitfully sleeping for a little while, then throwing up again. and it's no better this morning, tho' now her little tummy is empty, so there's not as much throwing up. what a way to spend christmas!

weekend whimsy

my sis sent the most hilarious link. apparently lego is making some commemorative people for the 30th anniversary of the little bitty people legos. the article says they won't be for sale to the public, but i think we should start a grassroots campaign so that lego makes them available. check them out:

madonna

amy winehouse

brangelina

i don't know if it's just a spoof or if it's true, but how hilarious either way! ya just gotta love lego!!

the lego factor

since there are zoning rules in denmark about how much of your property the main house can take up (20% in our case), we weren't able to build on as much as we would have liked. however, you can use 25% of your property for buildings in general. we took this seriously. we have built a greenhouse (which doesn't count in the 25%, as it's under 10 square meters).

we have my writing playhouse and

a shed for lawn mower and firewood (on the right here).

husband's workshop

and another shot of the storage shed on the left in this picture.

still to come (behind the writing playhouse) is a sauna.

this adds up to quite a collection of buildings. there will be five plus a roof on the other side of the house for parking bicycles under when it's all finished.  this got me thinking. and i've come to the conclusion that it's all because of these....

lego, as we know, is a danish company. the name comes from the danish words lege godt--play well. my dear husband, as a good little scandinavian child (whose father was an architect to boot), grew up playing with lego, just as our daughter is doing. i didn't really grow up with lego (i had a pony, after all), tho' i knew what it was. but, i think it has a marked effect on the psyche. you build small buildings, you arrange them, often around a square green lego base, and then play.

it dawned on me as i looked out the addition yesterday that husband is assembling three small buildings around a square base (decking). he is strategically placing other small buildings around the square of the property. he's playing with lego in adult size. it seems that play in childhood really does prepare you for life. i'm just relieved he played with lego and not with matches.