As a kid I thoroughly enjoyed building Lego. I would work hard doing random things to try and make some extra spending money – which generally went to Lego sets.
I spent many summers traveling out to the mine with my grandfather. We would ride the backhoe up some haphazard switchbacks he had scraped in the side of a steep colluvial fan. Sometimes my grandfather would have us switch sides and basically use us as ballast so the backhoe would not slip.
I spent many long hours on a ladder leaned against the cliffs. I would carry a three foot hammer drill up as high as I could get it and spend 20-45 minutes per drilled hole. The difficult thing was the cliff was only a foot away. In order to hold the hammer drill I would have to lean back two feet and hold that position while trying to maintain some kind of pressure.
Once we had made Swiss cheese of the cliff face we would then stuff each hole with dynamite and C4 detonation cord. My grandfather carried a blasting cap inside his pocket – tinkling with his Wriggleys gum and prospector lens. He really was an old-time character. He would take a stick of dynamite and break it in half over his knee. Then he would dig out the sawdust and nitroglycerin innards with his trusty old timer pocket knife. He would then tape a blasting cap on the end of the detonation cord and shove it into the hole. Electrical tape it right and use the end of a broken shovel to ram it down into the hole.
I just imagined how if the cliff blew, I would only hear a slight muffle and then there would be complete and utter blackness.
I mention mining with my grandpa because it was an adventure (We mined Alabaster). It was a way to truly feel alive. And that’s how I earned a lot of my spending money that went to Lego. I loved how each set was created out of so many pieces that had the possibility to be anything I could imagine. The possibilities were endless… And so were the options I created to make money. From mining to selling cherries with my dog, there was always something to get me a few bucks in my pocket.
I have since looked back on my childhood and I realized that my days were full of work I enjoyed. It was fun, creative, and hard. But it never really felt like work. I know have boys of my own and I have introduced them to the addiction of building Lego. Lego is a toy I’ll gladly buy for them (and myself). I have had many odd jobs from inventory to switch gear design over the past fifteen years but my favorite has been the hardest work that does not feel like work.
I have spent the past fifteen years designing and growing my Wowflutes until it has become my main focus. I am passionate about making products that can be enjoyed, and ones that never get old. Like Lego.
My goal with Wowflutes is to show that you can love what you do and be successful to. I feel that too many folks are focused on earning money as their primary goal. This is not a bad thing, but what they do not know is that the most successful individuals are those who are doing what they love. The work does not feel like work but rather play, just like those long hours spent in my childhood working, playing and building Lego.
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