Every year BayLUG holds a holiday show in Palo Alto at the Museum of American Heritage, and for the past few years this has featured an annual themed collaboration. This year’s theme is a tour of roadside attractions around the United States, featuring models representing a variety of places around the country.
Category: Events
LEGO Events
Bricks Cascade 2025
Hi, I still exist! Some of you may have even seen me in Portland when I went up for the Bricks Cascade convention a couple weeks ago.
See me at Maker Faire Bay Area this weekend
The annual gathering of creative artists, hackers, and all around cool people known as Maker Faire Bay Area is upon us again! Like last year, it’s at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, CA. Unlike last year, it’s just one weekend.
Brick Geometry Recording from October 2022 BayLUG Meeting
Since 2008 I’ve been giving a presentation at various LEGO conventions, mainly BrickCon in Seattle, Washington, and Bricks by the Bay in Santa Clara, California, called “Brick Geometry” covering a variety of LEGO building techniques. A new recording of the latest version of this presentation is now available on YouTube.
DÃa de los Muertos 2022
I’ve created a bunch of new MOCs (“My Own Creations”) for DÃa de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). BayLUG honored the Mexican holiday by displaying our themed collaboration at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto, CA. The show will continue through January 15 (see schedule below), if you want to come see it.
BayLUG Meeting October 8, 2022
BayLUG, the Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group, had its second in-person, indoor club meeting since the pandemic started on October 8th in San Leandro. I was anxious about the in-person meeting, but I went anyway, and even took my N95 mask off to eat once or twice. Not everyone was as paranoid as I was, but as far as I know, nobody got sick from attending the meeting which is the important thing. Anyway, it was great to see and hang out with other humans again, which is pretty novel for me these days, despite having all my shots. I am looking forward to more such gatherings in the future.
BayLUG July 2022 Tailgate Meeting
The BayLUG meeting at the church in San Leandro was changed at the last minute to being a “tailgate meeting” in the parking lot (like the one in April) due to the rise of new COVID-19 variants and concerns of several members (including me) about the safety and ableism of holding indoor events.
Brick Geometry at Bricks by the Bay 2022
I’ve updated my Brick Geometry Presentations page to include the PDF from my talk given today at Bricks by the Bay in Santa Clara, CA.
BayLUG May 2022 Meeting
Ever since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, BayLUG‘s meetings have been virtual (on Zoom) with the exception of two meetings held in the parking lot of the church in San Leandro (including the April meeting). This is the first time we’ve had a meeting indoors and I was very nervous about going, but I went anyway.
BayLUG April 2022 Tailgate Meeting
This past Saturday April 30th I attended my first meeting of balug since the start of the pandemic. We’ve had plenty of online meetings over Zoom and the club has had at least one other meeting in person before (also outdoors) but this was the first one I have attended.
BrickCon 2021
I just finished attending the first ever hybrid (both in-person and online) LEGO convention, BrickCon 2021.
BrickCon Presentation Video
My presentation from last October’s BrickCon event is now available for viewing online. They’ve posted this as well as plenty of other great talks from that event for public viewing. Check them all out! Hopefully this year BrickCon can be held in person… in the meantime stay safe and stay healthy!
New LEGO Conventions page
I’ve added a new page about LEGO Conventions to this site, with links to the conventions’ websites, and for the events I attended, all the trip reports / travelogues / photos I’ve posted on this site about them over the years.
Bricks by the Bay 2020 Virtual
Yesterday, July 11, was the first-ever online edition of the Bricks by the Bay LEGO convention. I set up a MOC (“My Own Creation”) exhibit in my dining room, since we couldn’t meet up in person this year.
Play 101 Bricks with me at Bricks by the Bay Virtual
I’ll be hosting a game of 101 Bricks at the upcoming virtual Bricks by the Bay event. Sadly the pandemic rules out any in-person activities this year, but they’re having a Zoom-based online convention instead, next Saturday July 11th. It’s not too late to register, and it’s only $5 per household to attend!
Bricks Cascade 2020: 99 Bricks Contest
A month ago I was attending the Bricks Cascade LEGO convention in Portland. A highlight of that event for me was on Friday when I participated in the “99 Bricks” challenge, in which you have to build a bunch of different models out of the same 99 elements, each one to a different theme or subject matter, and you only have 3 minutes to do it in! I think my favorite was the first one I made, a robot:
LEGO Masters at Bricks Cascade 2020
At the recent Bricks Cascade LEGO convention (Feb 29th / March 1st) in Portland, Oregon, about half of the cast of contestants from the LEGO Masters TV show (Wednesday nights at 9pm on FOX in the USA) were there.
Bricks Cascade 2020 MOCs
It feels like a million years ago, but it has only been 4 weeks since my first (and I fear it may be only) LEGO convention of 2020, Bricks Cascade, in Portland Oregon. Despite early worries about coronavirus, I had a pretty great time, and don’t seem to have caught anything. Since then, of course, I’ve returned home and have been sheltering in place and watching with horror at the way the virus has spread across the world. It feels almost impossible that an event such as this could ever happen, much less just a few weeks ago. It’s amazing how quickly we adapt to changing realities. Everyone, please stay home and help flatten the curve.
Anyway, let’s try to forget about COVID-19 for a minute, and talk about the MOCs (My Own Creations) at the event. As usual at LEGO conventions, I tried to take photos of photos of all the MOCs displayed by the builders there, and think I probably didn’t miss much if any. Here’s an image of my MOCs that were on display in the Art area:
East Bay Mini Maker Faire 2019
Last Sunday, as we do every year, BayLUG had a display at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire in Oakland, CA. Several of us brought Micropolis modules and we had a pretty extensive city set up, plus a variety of other models. See the photos below for more details – click on any photo to go to the Flickr photo album.
BayLUG October 2019 Meeting
This past weekend I attended the annual BayLUG anniversary meeting in San Leandro, CA. It is the club’s 21st year, but we had a big celebration last year for the 20th and this year it was more like a regular meeting. We had a Halloween themed contest and lots of people brought models to show. My photos from the meeting can be seen here or on Flickr (click any photo to go to the album).
Bricks by the Bay 2019
This year’s edition of Bricks by the Bay, the annual LEGO convention in the San Francisco Bay Area, happened last weekend. It seemed like I wasn’t going to be able to go due to illness, but thanks to the miracle of antibiotics, I was able to go! Here are some of my models (Teddy, Kermit, Owl and California Flag) on display: