{"id":207,"date":"2002-04-28T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2002-04-29T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/2002\/04\/27\/the-end-of-an-era\/"},"modified":"2021-09-04T19:36:19","modified_gmt":"2021-09-05T01:36:19","slug":"the-end-of-an-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/2002\/04\/28\/the-end-of-an-era\/","title":{"rendered":"The End of an Era"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is with some amazement that I announce the end of an era: Ethan is no longer obsessed with garbage.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s hard to believe, what with &#8220;gar&#8221; being one of his first words, <a href=\"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/1998\/08\/01\/hawaii-by-garbage-cans\/\">garbage cans<\/a> being the most interesting thing in Hawaii, and garbage trucks being the coolest thing imaginable, but it&#8217;s true. He still thinks garbage trucks are neat, but it&#8217;s not the same as it was.<\/p>\n<p>We have learned, though, that Ethan is still a boy with passion. It just has transitioned from garbage to Lego toys. He especially loves <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bionicle\">Bionicles<\/a> &#8212; build-it-yourself action figures mixing high-tech with Polynesian legend. Bionicles have swords, axes, and other instruments of destruction that appeal so well to boys (big and little).<\/p>\n<p class=\"photo\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/ethan-bionicle.jpg\" width=\"209\" height=\"260\" border=\"0\" \/><br \/>\n<span class=\"caption\">Ethan and &#8220;Kopaka&#8221;<\/span><br \/>\nMar. 10, 2002<\/p>\n<p>He also loves the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lego.com\/jackstone\/\">Jack Stone<\/a> Lego collection &#8212; to the point that he requested his nickname be &#8220;Jack Stone&#8221;. I&#8217;m not sure what Jack Stone is all about, but from the videos on the Lego web site, he&#8217;s the guy who saves the day when the police and fire\/rescue guys can&#8217;t quite get the job done themselves.<\/p>\n<p>So it seems we&#8217;re leaving the trash behind &#8212; at least until Lego comes out with a city sanitation play set.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is with some amazement that I announce the end of an era: Ethan is no longer obsessed with garbage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-familynews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1871,"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions\/1871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}