Building a brighter tomorrow with LEGO® bricks
Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group – www.baylug.org
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.
Don’t know yet what I’ll be displaying, but I’m hoping to build some stuff before then. I’ll probably have stuff for sale too. At the moment, however, I’m on vacation in South Carolina (if you’re in the area and want to meet, let me know!), so I won’t be posting much LEGO stuff for the next week or so at least.
This weekend, BayLTC is exhibiting at the Train Collectors’ Association Cal-Stewart Spring Meet at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara. 
We have a 25’x25′ train layout with four loops of trains and a monorail. The exhibit is open to the public today from 10am to 2pm.
I took some pictures of the layout this morning which you can view on Flickr (or view as a slideshow)[tags]bayltc,lego,tca[/tags]
I forgot my camera, but Bruce took pictures which you can see on his Brickshelf Gallery.
We used a theme of “winter sports” for this one, based on a snowscape built by club member Anne, with some skiers and snowboarders and trees contributed by various members. Since it was fairly low to the ground, we added a couple of snowboarders hanging in mid-air above the slope (suspended on string).
The display will be up for about six weeks at the LEGO store in Valley Fair Mall, Santa Clara, CA.[tags]lego,baylug[/tags]
Each year for the past couple of years BayLUG has put on an exhibit at the Museum of American History in Palo Alto, CA. 
This year was no exception. The exhibit ran from December 16 through January 14. I didn’t actively participate in this show, though, as I was busy with holiday madness and illness. But the show went on without me, and I managed to go there last Thursday, when the museum played host to a reception for the local Yale alumni club. While I was there I took some pictures using my new phone (I got a Treo 700P recently) and I just now posted them on Flickr.
You can click the photo to the right to view the photoset or see the pictures as a slide show.[tags]lego,baylug,bayltc,moah,trains,paloalto[/tags]
I spent much of Thanksgiving weekend at the Great Train Expo in Pleasanton, CA, at the BayLTC layout.
Click the photo to see the rest of my pics on Flickr, or check out the slideshow.
As usual, my primary contribution was in the downtown area, where I lined both sides of one street (mostly) with my models, including the Blackburn Hotel and Luigi’s Italian restaurant. I didn’t build anything new for this show, as I really haven’t had the time to build lately and my LEGO work space is currently a big, big mess. Hopefully I can get that cleaned up soon and get back to work![tags]lego,trains,trainshow,pleasanton[/tags]
Last night we set up the BayLTC show in Pleasanton at the Great Train Expo. I forgot my camera so no pics yet, but I’m bringing it today. Come on down and say hi!
I’m very excited by the recent announcement that BrickFest PDX 2007 will be held next spring (March 30 – April 1) in Portland, OR. I missed the last one (in 2004) and after attending the big BrickFest in Washington, D.C. I’m very excited about all things BrickFest. I’m definitely planning to go, and hoping some of the other BayLUG members will take part as well. It’s unlikely we’d do anything as organized as schlep an entire train layout up there the way we did for the BricksWest 2003 convention, but hopefully we can make our presence felt in some way…
Mark your calendars now! Will I see you there?
On Sunday I attended a meeting of the Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto.
The theme of the building contest for this meeting was “Harvest” and I created a vignette featuring the Grim Reaper (with a Halloween tie-in). It came in tied for first place!! I received a small Star Wars microscale Imperial Shuttle set as a prize. I’ll blog about that vignette when we get closer to Halloween…
There was also plenty of shameless commerce going on. I picked up a bunch of useful parts from Uncle Dan’s smorgasbord, and a bunch of minifigs from Mark Benz.
Besides my contest entry, I also displayed my DC-3 and moonbase “mobile lounge” – both of which are also in the “to be blogged about” category – and my Scarlet Mayhem spaceship.
Click the photo above to see more, or click to look on Flickr (slideshow) or on Brickshelf (pending moderation).[tags]lego,baylug,moah[/tags]
This past weekend, Bay Area LEGO Train Club (BayLTC) took part in the Great Train Expo in San Jose, CA.
We set up the layout Friday afternoon/evening. I had to teach a Perl class Saturday, but Sunday I was there all day to help man the layout. It’s always a treat to see the looks on kids (of all ages) as they look over the layout. We also met a few people who might become members of the club, which is another plus. At any rate, I handed out more than a few membership application forms and suggested to a number of people that they might want to come to the meeting on October 8 in Palo Alto.
My contributions to this layout were mostly in the downtown area: the Blackburn Hotel, Luigi’s Italian restaurant, an office building, and a few houses. I also supplied a few trucks which could be seen in the downtown area and my RoadRailer Trailers which were parked in the train yard.
View all the pictures on Flickr (slideshow) or on Brickshelf.[tags]lego,bayltc,baylug,trainshow,sanjose,greattrainexpo[/tags]
On Wednesday night, I got together with a few other membes of the Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group (BayLUG) to set up a new display at the LEGO store in Valley Fair Mall, Santa Clara, CA.
My contributions included the buildings (blue office building and Quik-E-Mart), the cars on the street, and the traffic signals. Charles and Adrienne built the subway and sewer module specifically for this exhibit. Bruce brought a helicopter (based on one from the Batman sets) and a trolley based on a design by James Mathis. Russell provided the street details such as streetlights, mailboxes, fire hydrant, etc. Detailed photos are available on Flickr, or check out the slide show.
You can see more similar models at our exhibit at the Great Train Expo this weekend in San Jose (at the fairgrounds).
[tags]lego,city,downtown[/tags]