Month: December 2008

Bricklink Store now Open

So I have decided to take a stab at a little LEGO e-commerce. I now have a Bricklink store where you can buy new and used parts. My plan is to put into the store any sets that I buy duplicates of, and to hold back just the parts from those sets that I want. I’ll also be selling off the instructions and sticker sheets that I don’t want.

BrickLink logo

Note to local Bay Area people: get free shipping and/or pay for your item in cash by picking your items up from me directly at any BayLUG event that I’m attending. If that isn’t convenient, maybe we can meet in person some other way to exchange the items.

Gondola

This is my first ever train car MOC, would you believe?Gondola I’d done locomotives before, but never a car, at least that I can think of…

This gondola car first appeared at the November 2008 Great Train Expo layout by the Bay Area LEGO Train Club. I made two of these cars with a cargo of coal.

One end has a brake wheel; the other does not. Originally I built it with brake wheels on both ends but was told that was not correct, so I removed it from one end.

Advent Calendars, Day 13

Today we get a Frogman and a Frog.

Advent 13

The City calendar gives us a new minifig, so now the pie vs pizza mystery is forgotten and we have some kind of fish spear hunting guy with two mask/snorkel pieces, but no flippers or SCUBA tank.

On the Castle side, our intrepid dwarf warrior gets a new axe, a mining shovel, and a box to store them in. Oh, and a frog for a companion.

Advent Calendars, Day 12

Day 12 brings us more props: a mining cart for the dwarf and an oven for the chef. Hooray for the dark blue jumper plates!

Advent 12

My World of Warcraft analogies are starting to fail on me … oh wait, I know! Deeprun Tram! Well, kinda.

Advent 12 scenes

And I guess that must be a pizza after all. Maybe it’s one of those weird Chicago-style so-called pizzas?

LEGO survey of adult fans

This showed up in my email today. I filled out the survey, and encourage everyone else to do it too.

The LEGO Group Wants to Hear From You!

As Adult Fans of LEGO, you bring an important perspective to the LEGO Group. We respect your creativity and passion for our brand.

Please take a few moments to complete this short online survey to let us know your opinion on how we are doing.

We promise to listen to you and use your feedback to improve!

You might notice that the link refers to the LEGO Kids Inner Circle; this is because Satmetrix, which hosts that site, is also supporting our efforts to track AFOL opinions. Rest assured that this survey is for AFOL’s only.

Thank you.

Steve Witt
LEGO Community Relations Coordinator

Truthfully I didn’t have a lot to suggest. I think LEGO’s pretty much doing everything right these days. My only beef is the discontinuation of 9V trains but then, I understand why they are doing it. I just hope the new Power Functions trains that are supposedly coming out next year are good enough.

Advent Calendars, Day 11

Today is another prop day.

Advent 11

City: Cherry pies for the chef. (I know most of you are thinking pizza, but LEGO has printed tiles for that. Cherry pie sounds more Christmasy anyway.

Castle: Gold Vein (Requires Mining 155)

(Sorry about the World of Warcraft in-jokes… ok I lied. I’m not sorry.)

Train Semaphore Signal

This has been a feature of many BayLTC train layouts over the past few years.

SemaphoreSemaphore, rear close-up

This is an old-fashioned train signal, or "semaphore," which uses lights for nighttime use and an arm at various angles for daytime use. Signals like these were widely used on railroads all over the world in the early days, but particularly in North America they have been phased out and replaced with light signals. Now you mostly see them on tourist railroads or in train museums. Here is an example (from the Wikipedia Railway semaphore signal article) of an Australian version of this:

Wikipedia semaphore image

Update: I make no claim of accuracy for any particular railroad. In my research online I found many different systems for semaphore signals, both “upper quadrant” (such as this model) and “lower quadrant.” Different colors and designs were used on different railroads, and across different countries. There was probably some railroad somewhere that used a signal like mine, but I couldn’t tell you which one. Here’s another article about early railroad signaling if you are interested in reading more.

Advent Calendars, Day 9

Today we get two more accessories: a ladder for the fireman to climb, so he can rescue the cat, and a crossbow on a wheeled carriage (arcuballista) for the castle soldiers to ward off the skeletons.

New stuff for day 9

So to summarize the calendars so far, we have three distinct scenes for City:

City so far (day 9)

And in the Castle world, one grand battle gearing up:

Castle so far (day 9)

My Good Twin / Evil Twin plot will have to wait for now…

Emiko Oye LEGO “My First Royal Jewels” exhibit

Local artist Emiko Oye has been building jewelry out of LEGO and other recycled materials for a while now. I met her at Maker Faire last spring. She brings a really interesting perspective to LEGO, treating it as a fine art medium rather than as a hobby the way most adult LEGO fans do.

My First Royal JewelsHer latest accomplishment is a solo exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design featuring works inspired by Cartier and Boucheron, early 20th century jewelry, built in LEGO. I haven’t been to see the exhibit yet, but I’m hoping to soon. In the meantime here’s the info:

My First Royal Jewels
Interactive LEGO art exhibition by emiko oye
San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design
550 Sutter St, SF CA 94102
Through Jan 4, 2009

You can see images of the show on her Flickr account, or learn more about her at rewarestyle.com.