I would like to float the notion that Ernest Shackleton’s ship was prophetically named Endurance, not because of the trials and tribulations that his crew survived, but rather because of the fortitude needed to construct the LEGO set of the ship.

Shackleton and his men may have had to survive bitter cold, fierce storms and a lack of supplies, but I had to withstand an inadequate instruction manual, unhelpful online videos and pieces that kept falling off and rolling under furniture, and, on a couple of occasions, deep into the bowels of the vessel, necessitating rescue missions that exposed, not my body to the elements, or the ship to the ocean depths, but rather my pocketbook to the possibility of having to replace lost pieces under the new tariffs.

The Endurance crew was stranded for approximately 16 months. Yet, with all the roadblocks, I can proudly say that it took me a little less than 3 months to finish my project, during which time I lost no fingers or toes to frostbite and did not have to shoot any dogs.

I will never know whether history will still be acknowledging my achievement over one hundred years after the fact.