New book

I finished The Millionaires by Brad Meltzer and have started on the newest Jack Higgins book. Meltzer is becoming one of my favorites and this one was almost as good as The First Council, which is my favorite so far.

Stuff for Brick Magic

Here's some of the stuff I have been working on lately for Brick Magic in May.

Reading update

Back to The Millionaires by Brad Meltzer. First Family is one of David Baldacci's better books that I have read.

On the LEGO front I am working on stuff for Brick Magic. Last night it was a P-47 Thunderbolt that is still a long way from finished.

Brick Magic

I know where I'll be on Mother's day weekend...

Brick Magic

books and LEGO

I picked up First Family by David Baldacci at the library. I'm putting The Millionaires on hold for a while...

I worked on a couple of LEGO planes this afternoon. I might post some pictures later.

Uniforms

So I have established that I am a fanboy. What's a fanboy you ask? Well according to urbandictionary.com a fanboy is:

A passionate fan of various elements of geek culture (e.g. sci-fi, comics, Star Wars, video games, anime, hobbits, Magic: the Gathering, etc.), but who lets his passion override social graces. Used in a sentence: At the mall I almost got mowed over by some Dragonball Z fanboy on his skateboard.

Sounds like me! Yes, I read old comics (haven't bought a new one since Civil War), watch Star Wars (but not the Clone Wars), Star Trek (Riker was on a guest star on Criminal Minds last week), and I like video games. Oh yea, I like LEGO too.

In addition to that I am a sports geek. Particularly for college football. So when EA came up with a web-enabled team creator for NCAA Football 10 I was really excited. So excited in fact that I created a uniform for my high school. Here it is:

Home uni

Away uni

Alternate uni

I have done up some others as well. Maybe I will post those later on. I have painted up some cars in Forza too. But that's another post for another day.

new book

I finished Pirate Latitudes last night. I didn't think it was Crichton's best novel but it was a lot of fun. I almost wish I would have read it during a beach trip. The setting would have been better. I have started a book called The Millionaires by Brad Meltzer. I got into him through comics. I told you I am a fan boy. This one is about some guys who steal money from a private bank they work for. Looks pretty good so far.

Holiday

No work today since it's MLK day. I spent the day taking care of B and little J. B has had a nasty stomach bug. She's feeling much better tonight. I spent all day watching TV and playing with little J. He really enjoyed watching the animated Green Lantern movie First Light. He's going to be a fan boy just like daddy...

During J's nap I went out in the back yard with Baxter and took some pictures. I'm still learning to use the new camera. Here are the good ones:

I'm trying to get better with the camera before I post any more pictures of LEGO.

The end of an era - Non LEGO

So I finished reading Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final volume (tome?) of the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer tonight. Becky loved these books. I thought they were OK. I lost interest about 300 pages into this last book and finished because I had too much time invested to quit. It reminds me of when I read George RR Martins "Fire and Ice" cycle. Ugh. Sadly if Mr. Martin ever finishes the next book I will probably read it. All 1,000+ pages.

Anyway - Twilight was not so bad and the last book was definitely the best. Up until the end anyway. I was really hoping for a big, fun, Clash of the Titans, Superman vs Doomsday type brawl. And I got... talking. Lots of talking. Then more talking. We've got a whole cast of super-powered Vampires and sort-of werewolves lined up and ready to right. And they talk it out. Really? Only one vamp gets torn up and burned? At least in Fire and Ice there were exciting fights. On every other page.

Now on to seventeenth century Jamaica with Michael Crichton's last (?) book Pirate Latitudes. I hope I can count on Pirates to shoot first and ask questions later.

And now for obligatory father-son pictures from this morning:

J playing in the basked of LEGO, literally. Yes that is the TV remote on the right.

This is what we looked like after the 'Pack blew a 5 point lead with less than a minute to go in overtime against Florida. Next time hopefully our coaches will realize that you shouldn't foul intentionally when you're ahead! Again - UGH!

Country Church and Yellow Truck

So, I have been updating some of my old MOCs as I move them to their new homes. This first one is a small country church that I starting building a while back. It still has no interior, but other than that I think it is finished. When I rebuilt it I shortened the total length so that it fits on one green baseplate now.

Side view

Aft 3/4 view (Yup, those are train windows)

Cross detail

Roof construction - The sides of the roof are held together by plane landing gear type pieces that I picked up at the PAB in Orlando many moons ago. I didn't want to build an airplane big enough to use them, so they ended up here.

Front view

Next up is the Yellow truck. This thing was inspired by the jacked-up redneck trucks that I see around home. That's not a disparaging remark either. I am totally jealous of huge milage-reducing, road noise creating tires. When I rebuild this one I actually made it 2/3 of a brick shorter. It looked a little to top heavy the way I originally built it.

aft 3/4 view

Front 3/4 view

Sweet suspension-articulation view

And finally for today: My sig fig. Of course he is wearing a suit.