This Will Take Longer Than Expected...

It's been a rough week over here and next week is expected to be busy too. Instead of working on this site, I've been in bed trying to sleep off some obnoxious sickness I picked up this past weekend. My laptop's in the shop still as well, so even when I have had a little time to spare, I haven't been able to use it for blogging. I did make it to two LEGO Users Group Meetings last week - both of which I ended up being at longer than I planned on. On Thursday night, I made it to a large dinner meeting Joe Meno put together for NCLUG (Joe's not actually in Raleigh often these days, so sometimes he'll call an impromptu NCLUG meeting just to show off exciting things he's picked up in his BrickJournal-related travels). It was an exciting night, and it got to be a bit surreal by the end - at one point it was after midnight and me, ParLUGment LEGO Ambassador Doug Eaton, Brick Engraver Tommy Armstrong, and BrickJournal Editor Joe Meno were still talking about LEGO colors, the manufacturing process, LEGOLAND parks...it was great fun but definitely kept me out a bit late. So much for the "don't worry about the time - you have to eat, right?" defense. On Saturday and Sunday, I had been planning on working ahead to loosen up my schedule this week, but I started feeling ill and I slept through most of the time I was hoping to use. As if sinus-related sickness wasn't gross/painful enough, I had a shaving accident on Saturday that just exacerbated the situation. I thought I was getting better on Sunday afternoon, though, and I made it to the regular NCLUG meeting (where I even showed off some new creations of my own) and had a great time - Mike Walsh brought along some of the older idea books and the parts that the LEGO company originally suggested for the Hobby Train kit (Mike Walsh was on the "Ultimate Train Builders" team that helped put together LEGO's Hobby Train set - and yes, we really do have this many celebrities of the LEGO fan community here in North Carolina). I hope to post some photos of everything soon, but I just don't have the time right now and I don't even know what photos I really have (I was running to the bathroom every half-hour or so all day). I've been very tired and behind for most of the week - just going day-to-day and trying not to miss any deadlines on the "real" work. I don't think I'll have time to write up any of the upcoming events (or finish any posts beyond October first's) now - I barely have time to type this up. I'm going to avoid putting any date on when I'll be able to start up here again - but with any luck it won't be too long.

The Current Plan

For those of you who've e-mailed in links to models lately - I have been getting your e-mails and I'm trying to write up some models in advance right now. My internet access remains choppy (the laptop with the failing WiFi card is currently out in the shop and might not be back until mid-October), but I am doing some updates here with Scheduled Post Publishing. Whether I'm ready or not, some posts will be up here on October 1st, and I'm hoping to have updates appear regularly according to the new format I suggested after that date. I will try to respond to more of the e-mails as soon as I can, but that's what's going on with this blog for now. Also, don't forget that I'm always looking for seasonal models - I do try to keep things kid-friendly and uncontroversial here, but if you have any Halloween-themed models, or apolitical Election Day creations, feel free to send them in. If you have something that celebrates an upcoming holiday or anniversary that I don't know about, feel free to fill me in and send those models too! I will also try to get some info on here about upcoming events as well. I believe there are a few in early October that I haven't announced yet.

Futuron Labs - A Town / Space Model

Name of Model: Futuron Labs

Created by: ME

Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dp3/sets/72157607275256729/

Details: I'm a bit surprised that the other LEGO® fans blogging out there haven't pointed out the bizarre lack of properly shown models online coming from me. Well, at long last, you now get to meet me as a builder and not just a critic (although I, for one, think I am fascinating and reasonably clever). I started building the Futuron Labs building a little while ago, but I decided to properly put it into the Cafe Corner style and add some more vignettes to prepare it for the Reasonably Clever Brick Science Contest. The contest ends Monday morning at 3:14 AM EST. If you haven't been following LEGO for the last 22 years or so, you'll probably miss a few of the in-jokes I've put in the descriptions of the photos. I'll leave it up to you to decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I did include a few set links to explain some late-80's Futuron references, but it's kind of hard to find just one link to explain some of the other things. Feel free to send me questions. There were a few neat techniques here, and I tried to give enough inside and partially-assembled shots to make them all obvious. Most of the studs-not-on-top stuff was pretty simple, but I don't think I've seen the large panels used this way before. I'm really happy with my microscale monorail, and I liked the street vendor with the "spaceships" that are really binoculars. I don't know if I'll use flickr to publish my models in the future, but I think that the "note" feature on there - which allows anyone with a flickr account to mark a section of the photo and leave a comment - will be useful for these photos. I really tried to pack tons of detail into this model - I highly recommend looking at all the photos, although I do have less of a impartial view on these photos than I usually do (I know my photography skills need work, at least...) By the way - I've decided to try to relaunch this site on October first. The break will give me a chance to catch up (primarily) on more high-priority things on my schedule. Also, I'm hoping to build up a buffer of models by using Scheduled Post Publishing more often. I don't know if/when we'll see another one of my models properly written up (or featured), but hey, at least I'm trying to get a little time in for LEGO fun. My internet connection remains a bit erratic, but getting off of a day-to-day schedule for this site should offset that (and of course, thanks to my friend Matthew, who caught me up on a few newer MOCs during a break on this past Monday).

New LEGO Store Openings

Sorry for the delay in posting this, and I apologize to anyone in Braintree, Mass, who might have been able to make it to yesterday's opening. Here's the news on new LEGO retail stores opening (courtesy of our friends at BrickJournal): LEGO Brand Retail will be opening the following stores in the US:   King of Prussia Mall, King of Prussia, PA Store will officially open for business on Sept 18 Grand Opening Celebration Weekend will be Oct 3 – 5 Master Builder will be Dan Steiniger Model being built will be Yoda Master Builder Event happens all 3 days in the JC Penney Court Friday 11 – 7, Saturday 10 – 6, Sunday 11 – 6 AFOL Volunteers are needed, included at least 1 expert builder who can help Dan actually build the model! Volunteers will get a special reward at the store! On Saturday, Oct 4, the first 300 customers in the store to spend $35 will get a FREE exclusive make & take set of the Liberty Bell, complete with crack and moving clapper! This set is not available for sale. On Sunday, Oct. 5, the first 300 customers in the store to spend $35 will get a FREE exclusive child’s size LEGO Store t-shirt, featuring the LEGO Minifigure holding the state flag! This shirt is not available for sale. Exclusive sets and t-shirts will also be given out as trivia question prizes by Dan throughout the event at the build site! Fans can also enter a raffle in the LEGO Store for a chance to win a $100 LEGO Store Gift Card!   South Shore Plaza, Braintree, MA Store will officially open for business on Sept 12 Grand Opening Celebration Weekend will be Oct 11 - 13 Note: This event runs Saturday > Monday due to the Columbus Day holiday. Master Builder will be Dan Steiner Model being built will be Yoda Master Builder Event happens all 3 days in the Macy’s Court Saturday 10 - 6, Sunday 11 – 6, Monday 11 – 7 AFOL Volunteers are needed, included at least 1 expert builder who can help Dan actually build the model! Volunteers will get a special reward at the store! On Sunday, Oct 12, the first 300 customers in the store to spend $35 will get a FREE exclusive make & take set of a Baseball Player, complete with bat, red hat and socks and home plate! This set is not available for sale. On Monday, Oct. 13, the first 300 customers in the store to spend $35 will get a FREE exclusive child’s size LEGO Store t-shirt, featuring the LEGO Minifigure holding the state flag! This shirt is not available for sale. Exclusive sets and t-shirts will also be given out as trivia question prizes by Dan throughout the event at the build site! Fans can also enter a raffle in the LEGO Store for a chance to win a $100 LEGO Store Gift Card!   Arden Fair Mall, Sacramento, CA Store will officially open for business on Sept 25 Grand Opening Celebration Weekend will be Oct 17 - 19 Master Builder will be Dan Steiniger Model being built will be R2-D2 Master Builder Event happens all 3 days in the Center Court Friday 11 – 7, Saturday 10 – 6, Sunday 11 – 6 AFOL Volunteers are needed, included at least 1 expert builder who can help Dan actually build the model! Volunteers will get a special reward at the store! On Saturday, Oct 18, the first 300 customers in the store to spend $35 will get a FREE exclusive make & take set of Sacramento’s Transcontinental Railroad Engine, the Gov. Stanford Steam Locomotive, complete with moving wheels and realistic details! This set is not available for sale. On Sunday, Oct. 19, the first 300 customers in the store to spend $35 will get a FREE exclusive child’s size LEGO Store t-shirt, featuring the LEGO Minifigure holding the state flag! This shirt is not available for sale. Exclusive sets and t-shirts will also be given out as trivia question prizes by Dan throughout the event at the build site! Fans can also enter a raffle in the LEGO Store for a chance to win a $100 LEGO Store Gift Card!

So Much For the New Format...

I was hoping to get some posts put together this weekend to carry this blog through the week, but I wasn't able to. This is actually really bugging me - I have some great models lined up that I'm excited about sharing, but I need to get more info on them before I can post them here. Trying to research that ate up too much time and now I won't be able to tend to the site for a few days - it's safe to assume that there will be no posts this week. Sorry. EDIT: Icing on the cake - now the wireless card on my laptop died, further limiting my blogging abilities. I guess the site has to be on hiatus again - at least until I can get that PC fixed.

LAML August Wrap-Up

The previously mentioned LAML live event can now be downloaded in a condensed (but still quite chaotic) podcast form. Nannan of Brothers Brick fame also is on there to discuss LEGO related news. I'd like to apologize to the panel at BrickFair, though - if I had realized that there were time concerns, I certainly would have asked James to let you guys talk first! If anybody has a complete list of people on the BrickFair panel, let me know - I'd be happy to plug their work here. I didn't have a chance to look up all of them, but the ones I've come across before are all excellent builders. LAML's August builder interviews project has been concluded as well. CD's with all 28 interviews are now available for $12 (US dollars). Of course, you can still listen to the individual episodes on the LAML website ( http://radio.laml.org/ ) too - but James doesn't run any ads on his site, so he's volunteered a very large amount of time to run LAML. As per my recent post on this blog's new format, that's it for the week - Have a great weekend and I'll see you on Monday! If I add anything else to that list of BrickFair photo galleries, I'll put it on top as a new post so that it shows up as unread in feed readers.

Mosaic Gallery

Name of Model: Lego Mosaics

Created by: BrickWares

Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21154048@N04/sets/72157603264335842/

Details: I don't know how I hadn't seen these before (apparently BrickWares started uploading them in March of 2007) but there are more now and these are all excellent. OK, so this is technically a series of models, but I'm counting them as one since there are only one or two photos of each mosaic (and 30 photos overall). Several of these have people or furniture shown with the mosaics to provide a sense of scale - these are all very large. The description for the latest one described it as a commissioned work - so I take it that BrickWares does these professionally (wouldn't we all like to?)

Back to School Time - A Summer's End Vignette

Name of Model: Summers End

Created by: Commander Calamitous

Found at: http://mocpages.com/moc.php/68843

Details: I know I'm not the only one running short on time these days - I'm pretty sure that most students (from Pre-School to the University level) are just as disappointed about having more of a workload now. So - to everybody starting off another year of school at this time of year, I feel your pain. This minifig seems to as well, and incidentally, my desk is just as well-organized and LEGO®-covered as his is at the moment.

This is Wednesday's model of the day

Giant A-Wing Fighter

Name of Model: Star Wars A-Wing

Created by: Lino M

Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/12622904@N03/2816729390/

Details: This builder predominantly builds cars. I've featured one of them before, but truth be told, most of them are very well-built. Sometimes when a builder focuses primarily on one theme, it'll really throw people when they try out another - I'm told there are veritable turf wars between Space fans and Train fans at LEGO® fan conventions - but I like to think it doesn't matter as long as the builder's good. This ship is spectacular - an A-Wing fighter from Star Wars (at least two official kits have been released based on that ship, but none of them are on this scale or level of detail). Wheel-turbines, dark red details, the cockpit, and the curves - those are some great uses of the curved parts. Some of the dark-red parts here are actually quite rare - only featured in one set - but those 1x4 tiles have become pretty common in the LEGO® stores' Pick-A-Brick bins. I'm not sure where some of the other parts are actually from. There are only 6 photos, but they're all good ones. This looks to be miniland scale to me (let me know if I'm mistaken, though). As mentioned in the photos' descriptions, "You can see this Lego creation as well as thousands of others at Brickcon08 at Seattle Center Exhibition Hall October 4th and 5th from 11am-3pm" - BrickCon has a new location this year, but it is the event previously known as NWBrickCon (which has become on of the largest fan conventions in the United States).

The New Format

I'm not sure if we're going to be featuring models this week (I'll start as soon as I can), but I believe I have settled on a new format. Many a daily TV show or radio show has gone with doing new episodes just 4 times a week - Monday through Thursday. I'm planning on trying out that pace to see if it's more manageable. A few things this means: No Sunday edition - I've been using larger galleries from events on most Sundays to do a "Sunday edition" like a newspaper would. I'm going to start just mixing these in throughout the week. News posts will count as models - I know it's cheating, but it should help me to find the time to post something each day I should Robotics Monday will now be more intermittent - I'll blog a robot on Monday if there's one that caught my eye in the past week, but I'm no longer making it a hard-and-fast rule that I must have a robot featured every Monday Expect to not see two models at the same scale within a week - 7 days a week is often enough to mix minifigs, microscale, sculptures, Technic/Scala/Belville scale models, Bionicle people, and even Jack Stone things in a way that allows for multiple minifig-scale models in a week without becoming a minifig-scale-only site. I figure I'll now only feature minifig-scale models once per week. This should also help with the issue of overlap for the people who read this blog and some of the other LEGO blogs out there (of course, cutting back on robotics models will help there too - I don't think people realize how big LEGO Mindstorms is with people who don't generally follow LEGO). I'm hoping to try out some polls soon as well, to get a better feel for what direction people would like to see this site go in.