Bill Ward’s Brickpile

Last weekend (October 1-4) the BrickCon LEGO convention was held in Seattle, Washington. I drove up to the convention and had a wonderful time!

As it turned out, my friend Donia who I met dancing in Santa Cruz was moving to Seattle that weekend, so I was able to combine helping her move with attending the convention. It also got me a place to crash so I could save the cost of a hotel room. I drove her car to Seattle, while she followed in a van she borrowed from a friend of hers. After the convention, I drove the van back home. On my way north, I stopped in Portland for the night Thursday night, and stayed at the apartment of another friend I knew from dancing. While I was there I went to the Waltz Eclectic and had a great time! In the morning I did a little Goodwill shopping and had lunch with yet another dancing friend before heading to Seattle.

I got to the convention Friday in the early afternoon and unpacked my LEGO models. I brought the Scrambler, various cars and trucks and RV’s, a few train models, and my DC-3 airplane. The Scrambler and DC-3 were motorized, so in keeping with the theme of the event, “Bricks in Motion,” I thought it was especially important to bring those.

Friday night we had the opening ceremonies, where the new 10210 Imperial Flagship was revealed. There was much oohing and aahing. Afterward we all went to the LEGO store in Bellevue where we were able to get discounted LEGO sets – 50% off “scratch & dent” sets (prize tickets were used to determine order for selecting up to 4 items) and 20% off everything in the store. It was quite crazy, as it always is at these events, but a lot of fun too. I think I restrained myself pretty well, all things considered, but I still spent a lot of money.

Saturday was the first day that the exhibit was open to the public. We had about 4500 people go through looking at all the LEGO models on display. Most of the day I spent with my nose in the computer, avoiding the crowds. I didn’t go around and take pictures at all Friday or Saturday, though. A few people had to leave Saturday night, so I missed a few models, but Sunday (even more people came on Sunday; over 4700!) I made up for it in terms of picture-taking. I managed to go around to all the tables and take pictures Sunday, mostly during the public hours. Also, the friends I was staying with came by Sunday and I was able to see the exhibit through their eyes which was a lot of fun.

Sunday was Donia’s birthday, so we went out for sushi and chocolate. We were going to go to a swing dance featuring Gordon Webster but didn’t manage to get around to it. (But it’s OK because he played at the Friday Night Blues in San Francisco this past Friday, and I was able to go to that – the music was amazing!) But back to the BrickCon trip… On the way home I stopped in Portland for the day, and met with a colleague from Oracle who was based there. I went to Random Waltz in Portland that night (If you like dancing and ever find yourself in Portland on a Thursday or Monday night, you gotta check out those waltzes. The dance community there is very welcoming and friendly, and I had a great time at both of them!), stayed the night in a hotel paid for by the company, and then went home the next day. I got home around 2am Wednesday morning.

My pictures from BrickCon can be seen on Flickr (or view as slideshow). Warning: there are over 400 photos so it may take a while to see them all!

This coming weekend, I’ll join members of the Bay Area LEGO Train Club (a subgroup of the Bay Area LEGO Users Group) at the Great Train Expo in San Jose. We’ll put out a large train layout, about 25×25 feet, with lots of trains, a city, and the usual stuff. Come on down and say hi. It’s at the Santa Clara County fairgrounds in San Jose. Admission is $7 for adults (good for both days) and kids under 12 get in free.

And then, I’ll be driving up to Seattle next week for BrickCon! A friend of mine happens to be moving to Seattle for the first of October, so I’ll be borrowing/ferrying her car up, while she follows up in a van she’s borrowed from a friend of hers, which I’m driving back home in. Sounds complicated – wish me luck! Anyway I’ll be coming up with an assortment of MOCs, though probably not as much as I took to Portland for BrickFest this spring – I’m carrying some of her stuff up, and anyway I ought to be able to see out the rear window.

As promised, I made a second episode for LAMLtv about BrickCon. The main feature is an interview with Joe Meno, editor of BrickJournal.

This video stuff is a lot of fun. I’ve got a lot more ideas for video projects. For example:

• BayLUG meeting and event footage
• Interviews with BayLUG members
• My MOCs and those of other local folks who will consent to being taped
• Other LEGO conventions (I’m already planning on BrickFest PDX in 2009)

If you have any thoughts about LEGO video projects, you can share them with me here or over on the LAMLradio blog.

You’re probably well aware of the famous Monty Python sketch about the Spanish Inquisition (if you’re not, or if you haven’t seen it in a while, or just want a good laugh, it’s available on YouTube). Well, it turns out that someone – I know not who – put together a LEGO homage to this great piece of British comedy on the castle display at BrickCon. In fact, I even took a picture of it. But the thing is, I didn’t spot it at all until someone pointed it out on my Flickr photos!

The guy who spotted it, who goes by the name </arpy>, edited my photo and reposted it in his photostream. Isn’t Creative Commons grand? Anyway, here’s his version of the photo:

I guess I should spend more time admiring the creations and not so much time staring at the viewfinder of my camera, eh?

At BrickCon 2008, I shot video of a lot of models on display and interviewed a few people. The result has just been released as an episode of LAMLtv, the new video podcast arm of LAMLradio. This episode features interviews with Simon Kent, design lead at Lego Creator in Denmark, and Jenn “The Brick Chick” Wagner, as well as footage of models on display.

I have enough footage to make at least one more episode. I hope you enjoy!  Let me know if you have any feedback – comments, questions, or suggestions. And if you are interested in video, contact James Wadsworth and offer your services. It’s a lot of fun to be involved in LAMLtv and there’s always room for more.

The slides from the Half-Plate Offsets presentation I gave at BrickCon are now available online. The slides are freely available and redistributable using a Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike license.

Download here: half-plate.pdf

I took video of the presentation, but I haven’t watched it yet. If it comes out well, I’ll post it online also.

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.

BrickCon is going very well so far. There are tons of great models on display, many great deals to be had on LEGO, and some amazing news.

I took a lot of photos yesterday and they’re all up on my Flickr account. The biggest news was the unveiling of a new castle set, the 10193 Medieval Village. I made a video of it and posted it on YouTube (but had to wait until 12 noon today so that BrickJournal.com could have an exclusive 3-hour early announcement). I also created a special photoset for just those pictures so you don’t have to dig through all the images in my BrickCon set to find them.

I just bought my plane tickets (on Virgin America, natch) and am looking forward to my second brick convention this year! I’ll be arriving at Seattle airport at 11:35am on Friday 10/3 and leaving Sunday evening. I have a room at the Hampton Inn (official hotel for the con). Question is, how do I get there from the airport? I would rather not rent a car…