We Built This City

RESOURCEFUL: First thing this morning I found myself standing in the basement and cursing (softly, under my breath, but definitely cursing).

After a weekend full of unfulfilling, dirty, back and and spirit breaking work on the house, yet another full day of remodeling horrors stretched out ahead of me. And, unlike this weekend, I refused to just 'autopilot' the kids for yet another day. I vowed today would be different.

But how to combine this big remodeling mess with my sawing and hammering and painting, meanwhile enriching the kids? I scanned the dingy basement in search of inspiration. I found it in a roll of paper (for covering flooring during construction). I pulled off about a 10-foot section and headed upstairs, not sure what we'd be doing with it. Somewhere between the basement and the main level, I struck upon the idea of having the kids plan a city. (I recalled doing something similar when I was a fourth grader.)

When I told the kids they would be building a city, CJ immediately suggested it be named CJopolis. :) I told him the name was a good one, but Annabelle might have something to say about that. She did. The two struck a balance at C & A City.

I grabbed our white board and convened a meeting of the city planning commission. I asked the kids what kinds of structures they thought would be necessary to have in C & A City. They both said a restaurant right off the bat. :/

However, with a little prompting from me, they did come up with a pretty decent list (homes, fire station, police station, post office, a mall, a chocolate factory, a pizza place, a park, a lighthouse, a utilities company, a museum, a library, a hospital, a farm, a grocery store and so on).

They started laying out their city using 3x5 cards and small toys as placeholders. Placing the buildings prompted some interesting conversations. There was much talk about what made the most sense, as well as lots of considering the pros and cons of proximity. For instance, would the farm really be in the center of town, or would it be more likely to be on the outskirts, where there's more space? And does it really make sense to have the utility company near the park/seashore, or should homes or businesses be on that prime real estate?

One siting wasn't up for negotiation - there would be a CJopolis tower and it would be the tallest building in town and it would be in the center of town. :)

When they had a pretty good idea of what was going where, I reminded them that before they could make any final decisions they had to make sure there was room enough for roads. I think they were surprised by just how wide a swath the roads cut through town. They had to do some major realigning of their buildings in order to accommodate room for two lanes of traffic, plus shoulders/sidewalks. And speaking of cars, I reminded them that certain types of structures (the grocery store and hospital, for example) would definitely need parking lots.

CJ cut and pasted the sections of road in place. Meanwhile, Annabelle and I assembled buildings. ...

Initially I was stymied about what to use for our structures. The kids don't have any real building blocks, and I don't store small boxes, we recycle them. In the "Duh, Ralph!" moment of the day, I realized that we do, however, have a plethora of raw wood blocks - from all the construction we've been doing. Time to break out the power tools!

I used the chop saw to quickly make blocks and triangles of all shapes and sizes, and then I used the (compressed-air driven) finish nailer to connect 'em in various configurations. Worked like a charm!

We put in about four hours of work on our city today, and we're definitely not done. We only got a couple of buildings decorated (the lighthouse, the barn and CJopolis). But, as the saying goes, Rome wasn't built in a day. We'll be back at the construction of C & A City tomorrow.

As an aside, can I just say that this project had one very nasty by-product? All damn day I had arguably the worst rock song in history stuck in my head. A song that, according to the magazine Blender "seems to inspire the most virulent feelings of outrage." A "good" example of what nearly killed rock in the '80s, this song was number one on VH1's "The 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever." You know you want to hear it!

UP ON THE ROOFTOP: While it isn't super sunny out, summer does seem to be trying to make an appearance. Weeds are growing like, well, weeds. This weekend we took the time to survey our plantings. Our tomato and pepper plants are starting to perk up and our new green roof looks gorgeous (IMHO). CALLING ALL GAMERS: Lord knows CJ loves a good video game (and his sister is fond of them, too). I got a press release from NASA today I thought the two of them might be interested in. It was about "Moonbase Alpha," an online game "with single and multiplayer options where players step into the role of an exploration team member in a futuristic 3-D lunar settlement. Their mission is to restore critical systems and oxygen flow after a nearby meteor strike cripples a solar array and life support equipment."

According to the NASA folks, "The game is a proof of concept to show how NASA content could be combined with a cutting-edge game engine to produce an experience that inspires interest in science, technology, engineering and math -- skills critical to achieving NASA's exploration goals."

We watched the game trailer on NASA's Web site and boy oh boy does it look rad! The game releases on Tuesday, July 6 on Valve's Steam network. The game was produced by the Army (yes, that Army) Game Studio with development by Virtual Heroes, a division of Applied Research Associates in Research Triangle Park, N.C.
image (screenshot): NASA