lego – Page 63 – Bill Ward's Brickpile

Nobody expects the Spanish Iniquisition!

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?

Slides from Half-Plate Offsets Presentation at BrickCon

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.

My BrickCon Haul

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).

Home from BrickCon

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 2008 so far

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.

Great Train Expo San Jose 2008, Day 2

Today was the second and final day of the Great Train Expo at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. I was there with the Bay Area LEGO Train Club. I had taken some pictures yesterday, but today I was much more prolific and uploaded almost 80 new pictures which I added to the existing photoset. Click the picture or check out the slideshow to see all the pics.

Great Train Expo San Jose 2008, Day 1

The Bay Area LEGO Train Club is taking part in the Great Train Expo at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds this weekend, September 27-28.

Sorry about the lighting – I didn’t get around to taking any pictures until after they had shut off the main lights, so I had to use a flash. I plan to take more tomorrow.

We have a 25×25 foot layout with downtown, train yard, farm, and other LEGO models on display. If you have a chance to stop by and see the show, please be sure to say hi. I’m planning to be there all day.

Haunted House at Valley Fair LEGO Store

Every six weeks or so, we (BayLUG) change out our display window at the Valley Fair Mall LEGO store. This time, we replaced the Hollywood diorama with a haunted house in honor of Halloween. It will be on display there through November. The entire display is the brainchild of Kenny Paul, a member of BayLUG and designer of excellent houses and other buildings. Check the photos for all the great little details he’s included. My favorite part is the way two of the windows look like angry eyes glaring out at the street. It reminds me of that otherwise forgettable movie Monster House from a few years back. Click the photo to see all the pictures on Flickr or view them as a slideshow.

Land Rover

I just finished building my newest vehicle, a 7-wide Land Rover:

It’s a little bigger than most minifig-scale vehicles, and at 7-wide (really 8 if you include the fenders and bumper) it’s a bit big for standard LEGO roads. But I think it has all the elements that readily identify it as a Land Rover from the 1960’s-70’s era. Hope you like it. Click the picture above for more, or view them as a slideshow.

Brickshelf v Flickr

I’ve been using my Flickr account exclusively for LEGO photos as well as other things, like pictures from Earthquakes soccer games or various scenic shots I may take from time to time. Flickr Logo Brickshelf Logo I always tag my LEGO pictures with the lego tag though. I stopped using Brickshelf in 2006 when Kevin Loch suddenly shut it down. At that time I uploaded my back catalog of LEGO photos to Flickr and updated links in all the blog entries… what a chore that was! Then he said it would stay up after all, but I was so miffed I didn’t go back.

But I recently realized that a lot of people are still using Brickshelf. So, I’ve started uploading my pictures there too. I’m working my way backward in time through the blog, uploading all the photos to my Brickshelf account that are only on Flickr. I’m not planning on posting any links to the Brickshelf pics, but in case anyone finds me through that outlet, they’ll not miss what I’ve been doing. I am putting a ‘readme.txt’ in every folder I add, which has links to the corresponding Flickr page and blog entry.

How do you do your image hosting?