Category: Travel

When I flew home I was really worried my suitcase would be overweight. Arriving at the airport, I hauled it up on the scale at the check-in station, and my face fell when it came up at 64 pounds and change. Since most airlines have a 50 pound limit for baggage, I feared I’d have to pay a fee for overweight bags. But happy day, Virgin America’s limit is 70 pounds!

Here’s what I got:

• Set # 7090: Crossbow Attack (Castle) – freebie in my event bag – MSRP: $6.00
• Set # 7738: Coast Guard Helicopter and Life Raft – City Build-Off prize – MSRP: $40.00
• Set # 8635: Mission 6: Mobile Command Center (Agents) – was built and disassembled, parts may be missing – Raffle prize – MSRP: $90.00
• Set # 3831: Rocket Ride (Spongebob) – bought at LEGO store at 25% off – MSRP: $30.00
• Set # 7724: Advent Calendar – bought at LEGO store at 25% off – MSRP: $30.00
• Set # 10192: Space Skulls – bought at LEGO store at 25% off of existing sale price ($69.99) – MSRP: $100.00
• Set # 10185: Green Grocer – bought at LEGO store at 40% off (scratch and dent) – MSRP: $150.00
• Set # 10189: Taj Mahal – bought at LEGO store at 50% off (scratch and dent) – MSRP: $300.00
• 4 Pick-A-Brick large cups – bought at LEGO store at 25% off
• 1 Pick-A-Brick bag from the bins at the convention – $5 for a good sized ziploc bag
• 20 minifig parts from the bins at the convention – $10.00

When I went to BrickFair I didn’t win anything in the drawings, and I missed out on the scratch and dent because we got there too late. At BrickCon however, I was much luckier: they had a drawing of sorts to determine the order for the scratch and dent, and my number was the first one called! There was only one Taj Mahal at 50% off, and I got it! Then on the last day I won one of the more valuable sets in the door prize raffle!

The LEGO all arrived home intact, but the suitcase was a total loss. I put it out on the curb hoping a neighbor would take it, and it finally disappeared this afternoon. Both of its handles had ripped off, internal plastic bracing along the sides had crumbled, and one of the zipper pulls was lost. (It was already in pretty bad shape before the trip to Seattle, so it’s not just from that trip).

I got home late last night after returning from BrickCon and slept in until noon.

What a weekend! I finished uploading all my pictures from the show finally. I took 446 pictures in all, which I think is a personal record. I still need to go through them and rotate the vertical ones, though. What I usually do for events like this is make a separate photoset with what I think was the best pictures from the event, but that’s probably going to take at least a week.

I also took a bunch of video footage. I did several interviews on behalf of James Wadsworth for LAML Radio, and once I send them to him hopefully he’ll find some clever use for them as well as other “B-reel” footage I got. LAML Radio, for those who aren’t familiar, is a LEGO-oriented podcast. It mostly consists of interviews and LEGO news, and is usually quite interesting and a great way to get motivated to build something if I’m otherwise not feeling creative. If you use iTunes, you can find it easily there, and/or just subscribe to it in your blog reader.

Anyway, if I didn’t see you at BrickCon this year, hopefully you’ll be able to make it next year.