Well, LEGO has finally made up their mind on the future of trains. Steve Witt has announced that the 9V system will be discontinued, to be replaced by IR-controlled, battery-powered trains.
Bill Ward
BayLUG at Chabot Space & Science Center, August 25, 2007
On Saturday, August 25, 2007, members of the Bay Area LEGO Users Group converged at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, CA.
Yoda Build Event at Hillsdale Shopping Center
LEGO has been doing these “Yoda build events” all around the country as promotions for their retail stores. We finally got a chance to participate in one!
Vintage Vehicles and Family Festival 2007
BayLUG took part once again in the Museum of American Heritage‘s annual Vintage Vehicles and Family Festival in El Camino Park in Palo Alto, CA. We had a small booth with several models on display and lots of LEGO for sale.
A Reprieve for Brickshelf
Brickshelf.com owner Kevin Loch finally posted about the whole shutdown controversy. It seems that he has had enough people offering to donate that the shutdown of Brickshelf is, for now, not iminent. Still, I think it’s pretty clear that moving one’s pictures to a more stable place like Flickr or MOCpages (which has introduced a new feature of hosting images, in response to the Brickshelf shutdown), is a good idea.
Brickshelf is back – but not for long
Brickshelf has returned, but with a prominent notice saying “Notice: Brickshelf will be shutting down on 2007/07/31. Please save your files to your computer.”
No More Brickshelf!
For many years, brickshelf.com has been the primary image hosting site for the LEGO community. But sadly, if you visit it today, you get nothing but this cryptic message:
USB Flash Drives in LEGO
Every once in a while someone comes up with a new way to modify LEGO parts to do something unexpected. The latest example is a USB flash drive by an Australian company called Zip Zip. They are taking 2×2 LEGO bricks and installing USB connectors and flash memory. For about US$50 you can have 1GB of LEGO for your very own. As much as I generally dislike modifying LEGO, I have to make an exception here, this is just too darn cool. I gotta have one! Don’t you?
Little House Instructions
Recently I posted about some little houses that I had built for the BayLTC train shows.
Little Houses
I built a trio of small houses (16×16 stud footprint) as practice in building in different architectural styles with LEGO. There is a Victorian with bay window, a house with a dormer window in the roof, and a steeply-roofed house.
BayLUG Meeting April 15 2007
We had a BayLUG meeting on April 15 at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto.
Next BayLUG Meeting: April 15
The next Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group meeting will be April 15, 2007 at Museum of American Heritage. Please come by and see what people have to display, as well as buy/sell/trade.
Caltrain F40PH Locomotive
I keep building stuff and using it in BayLTC displays but not posting them online
Here’s another example. This locomotive was built a few years ago, not long after I first got the Super Chief, which sadly has long been discontinued. Like the Super Chief, the top lifts off and it has a control cab with prime mover motor modeled inside. I also added a head-end unit.
Another BayLUG LEGO Store Display
I forgot my camera, but Bruce took pictures which you can see on his Brickshelf Gallery.
LEGO Online Game Coming Soon
It would appear that LEGO is working on a massively multiplayer online game!
BayLUG Meeting, February 2007 in Palo Alto
A meeting of the Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group on February 25, 2007 at the Museum of American Heritage, Palo Alto, California.
Furniture
I know it was posted a while ago but I wanted to blog about this mainly so I could find it easily to copy some of these ideas shamelessly… Last August Janey “Red Brick” blogged about these amazing minifig-scaled furniture ideas which is really just a bunch of Brickshelf links to some amazing stuff.