More LEGO animals

Becky, Jeremiah and I rode to the local Toys R Us yesterday on a mission to find the new collectable minifigs. They had one in stock... But they also have all the new Prince of Persia sets on sale 20% off. So I grabbed a couple of those. And there are ostriches! These will be added to the livestock collection for my farm layout, which is currently in the "I'll get to it sometime" stage of development.

yet another header

Becky fixed me up a header very similar to the previous one, but a little slicker. Yay wife!

New header, etc.

So I changed the header on the site. I'm still not in love with it. Add creating decent looking digital images to the list of things I'm not great at.

Also, I started a new book. Yay for not being too lazy to read.

And I have started a Flickr account, which is awesome. I remember when I used to be an early adopter.

Little J's First MOC

Becky noticed that Jeremiah was carrying around a LEGO car today and asked me if I put it together for him. Alas, I did not! It seems that Little J has made the transition from just taking apart the things that I build to building things himself.

Since this is his first MOC it must be blogged. I learned one important thing from this experience: I love our Nikon D5000 and it's fancy flip around LCD. However, holding the camera in one hand with the LCD in the "self shooting" position whilst trying to corral a sub-two year old with LEGO is not easy. Evidence:

So then I tried just taking a picture of J holding his creation:

And the close up:

Not bad for a sub-two year old!

Building news

I've started building some of the sets that I picked up during Brick Magic. Why didn't they have LEGO like this when I was a kid?

This is my first Power Miners set. I love the minifig!

... and all the green bricks.

This is the log loader tractor and the new tractor from the pig farm set.

More of the new tractor.

Pigs!

Farmer minifigs. Check out the new baseball cap element.

I've still got lots to build, including the UCS Millenium Falcon.

Brick Magic

So Brick Magic was this past weekend. I had a blast and met a bunch of great local (relatively) AFOLs. Here are some pictures from the event:

The stuff in my car on Thursday. It all survived the trip!

My initial set up on Thursday - the castle was part of the large castle layout.

Me building a third floor for the massive Grand Emporium.

The grand Grand Emporium starting to take shape on Friday.

The Grand Emporium on Saturday. It got about twice this high by Sunday.

My mech being attacked by rock monsters

The Shuttle Adventure set that was launched at the con and the Imperial Flagship that Dan ended up winning in the raffle.

My take from the weekend!

The unreleased minifig that I got at the keynote.

Over all I think the event was great and I can't wait until next year! I'm already thinking about what I'll be taking!

books?

Only two more weekends before Brick Magic and I haven't even started on one of my big projects! Becky's had me working on some home projects. Dad and I rehung the shutters and door and the yard work is (mostly) caught up. So the next two weekends are going to be dedicated to LEGOing! In honor of my procrastination I am not going to start a new book until after Brick Magic.

I finished The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly earlier this week. It was better than I expected and I think I'm going to have to read some more of his stuff.

Racing!

Becky and I went to Caraway Speedway last night with Dad to watch Perry race. His fist race didn't go so well but he managed to win the second. It was cold and late but we had a good time. The folks at Caraway are much more laid back than the folks at Bowman Gray although not as numerous.

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.