Partially Obvious

Friday at any LEGO event means that everyone is finally showing up and getting set up, plus opening ceremonies.  I helped Brand Retail finish getting themselves up and running and we sold Brick onsite on Friday afternoon.  Meg showed up around 2:30 (yay for meg) and we got her all checked into the hotel then headed over to the event. 

Some of the folks from Mass Media showed up this day and started doing some filming.  Actually there were a bunch of fun people filming.  The LEGO Club TV guys were there and a documentary film maker named Jess were taking in the sights and sounds as well. 

I also had like three meetings on friday with various people.  I don’t remember a damn thing any of them said to me, but I figure if I owe them anything they’ll remind me.

For dinner we went to a sushi place by the hotel called sushi land, and I liked it.  I’d been talking it up to Megan since the last brickcon, so I was hoping it was still delicious…mission accomplished.  plus they had Pibb, and Dr Pepper and all its variants make any meal perfect for me.  The funny thing about this meal is that we started walking with a group of like 8 people that somehow grew to a group of like 30 people which then condenced to only 6 of us after we got to the sushi place and found out we wouldn’t all fit. 

The opening ceremonies were fun.  Matt Ashton from the Design department talked about the new Toy Story sets and we then showed off the new pirate ship.  I answered a few questions for the crowd before I sat down and let them get on with it. 

We then had the instore sale which went really really well.   Actually the fun theme about this whole event is that everything went well from everyone involved.  Sometimes I have things I want to fix, and there’s always something to work on, but this one had great execution from everyone from LEGO and the event alike.  Megan and I ran sets from the back room to the front for a few hours before we went to the hotel and passed out.

Thursday was set up day for BrickCon, so I was up and at ‘em pretty early.  I met up with Gitte and Raffn from the LEGO Design by Me and LEGO Digital Designer (respectively) teams to check on our shipments at the LEGO store in Bellvue.  We headed over there and met up with the staff in order to help load the truck and get the first round of stuff out to the event. 

Once to the site we unloaded and started working on our booths.  I got the the LEGO one started and people were excited to start building sets, so I let em.  At some point here I went to the comic book store with Mark, Adrian and Jim.  I got my weeks comics plus I bought the variant cover for Blackest Night #2.  Now I have the variants for 1-3 so I feel sort of driven to get the next 5.  oh well, I enjoy my hobby.

I’m certain I saw a bunch of people this day, but the day is a bit of a blur now.  lots of great MOCs this year though.

The rest of the night involved food and drink and hanging out.  It was rather pleasant as I got my first plate of nachos for the week, but still no megan until Friday.

Hey everyone.  The last couple of weeks have been quite eventful for Megan and me.  we started off at BrickCon in Seattle nearly two weeks ago.  Well I guess I started off there as Meg came two days later.  I try to get to events a day early now, especially if they’re on the West coast so I can accomplish as much as possible on the Thursday set up days (west coast is nice because it means waking up early is easier). 

Wednesday night I got to the airport and checked out my rental car.  The car was a red toyota corrolla.  Great car actually.  the only downfall was a less than optimal backseat, but turns out most of the backseat went into trunk space, which I can deal with.   

Once I got into Seattle I went out to eat with Mark Sandlin who was also already in town.  we ate dinner with some friends of his and discussed how to fix lighting fixtures.  oh to be an adult.  I had wanted to go to the Comic book store because I needed my Wednesday fix, but it was already closed so I had to wait till thursday.

We hung out with Mark’s friend Keith for a while after that and Mark tried once again to convince me that scotch was a grand drink and not the cough syrup/paint thinner (but worse tasting) that I really think it is.  I then went back to the hotel and went to sleep.

Since this is bound to be a really long blog post I’m going to split it up over the course of the week.  hooray for content.

hope to see a bunch of you in DC this weekend!

I am so tired right now I can barely think straight to do my work.  I’m not going to try and write anything comprehensive.  instead here is a link to my flickr gallery from comic con.  enjoy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/speaknspell/sets/72157621878724362/

we drove…and we drove…and we drove some more.

The west coast is quite pretty and driving on route 1 between San Francisco and LA is one of the neatest experiences I’ve ever had. you’re literally following the coast on the side of a mountain for hours and hours. its pretty sweet. anyways, once we got past the main stretch of mountains and back onto roads that don’t curve every 5 feet we had to find a hotel, which was harder than we expected as everyone got done with that stretch of road and immediately got a hotel. we must have passed about 25 hotels that were all full before we found a place to stay (awww yeah embassy suites).

We got up this morning and ate at ihop, and drove again. then we stopped at Chipotle for lunch and went to another Toys R us (we stop at every one we see). Apparently I now collect DC Infinite Heroes…please don’t tell my wife.

anyways, we’re now in Carlsbad right by LEGOLAND California. we just finished working (jim’s a slave driver…his words) and now we’re off to sleep…in seperate rooms.

we’re meeting Mark from the Enfield model shop tomorrow at LLC and hanging with SandLUG tomorrow night. All shall be well. night everybody.

So this week Jim Foulds and I are heading from San Fransisco down to San Diego for the Comic Convention that takes place next week (aww yeah SDCC). We’re starting in San Francisco in order to visit our friends from BayLUG and to start talking about cool things like Bricks by the Bay in 2010.

last night though we drove around the town and saw the sights. I got to see the bottom of the golden gate bridge. The top was so covered in fog that it wasn’t even visible. which was actually pretty impressive. We also went down to fisherman’s warf and that was pretty cool. We went to the San Francisco Aquarium (no George and Gracie…very dissappointed) and the checked out the rest of it. There’s a spot where hundreds of Bay Seals just pile up and hang out. we also watched the magical antics of captain Jack Spareribs (why is the bbq always gone).

After that, the quest for a hotel began. we ended up in San Mateo which had a lovely Toys R Us that we just couldn’t resist. I was able to pick up a fiery legends set for Megan Rotherick (sp?) who is the set designer so she can show it off at Comic Con and Jim got some of the halo figures he’s missing.

We checked out the boxes for the new Megablocks Halo stuff out of morbid curiosity. We’re very confused by what the sets really look like because the box was so heavily rendered that we have no clue what truth there may be to it. oh well.

Today we meet BayLUG for Lunch and then we start driving towards LA. We’ll be working on businessy things in the car the whole way, so hopefully this will be a productive day

have a great one everybody.

Research Research Research. we have a researching department, but I still end up doing lots of research. what good are they. I jest, those folks are my friends and I can’t afford their services is the reality of it. Everything out there is so expensive

Anyways, This weekend is the NMRA show in Hartford, so that oughta be a lot of fun. We’ll see how it goes at any rate.

I finally got the Ambassadors all chosen and now I’m just waiting on people to get their forms in. it should settle down soon, but then I’m gone a week after tomorrow to go visit BayLUG and do San Diego Comic Con.

Hey hey everyone.  If  you haven’t walked away from my blog completely (since I’ve not been around to post lately) I have a couple of things to catch up on.

Brickworld was a whole lot of fun.  there were about 600 attendees this time which is the biggest I’ve ever seen at a US event.  The best thing about it is that most of them actually brought a model with them.  There was so much to see this time around and I challeng other events to play catch up on the amount of material attendees bring (its up to all of us). 

I even brought a MOC this time around.  I’ll see if I can find a picture of it sometime. 

I ended up being the keynote speaker as well which was fun.  I enjoy talking to large groups of people, its actually less stressful than smaller one’s ironically because you can appeal to a much wider range of senses of humor with a huge group.  People seemed to enjoy it though which is all I could really hope for.

As I suspected, the trip has destroyed any semblence of a diet that I might have been attempting.  I ate at Chipotle at least once a day and consumed my fair share of f Mr. Pibb (the poor man’s Dr. Pepper).  Mr Pibb and Dr Pepper are not the same thing, no matter what your waiter/waitress may try to tell you at any given resteraunt.  I enjoy both, but it must be acknowledged that Pibb is sweeter than DP and that is the fundamental difference. 

Finally, Michael Jackson passed away yesterday which is a sad day.  He was one of the prime examples of why money doesn’t buy happiness and I’ve always felt badly for him for that, but man could the dude sing.

Pete, Erik and I watched Youtube videos at lunch today to commemorate his passing.  I’d never seen Captain Eo, which is the 3D video that played at disney world in the 80’s.  If you go look it up its actually shocking how much Star Trek ripped off from this video especially regarding the Borg.  Go check it out and you’ll see what I mean. 

Hope you all have a great weekend.

well I’m off to brickworld early in the morning tomorrow.  Erik Varszegi and I fly to Chicago in the morning and will get there a bit before lunch time.  I’m hope to see some of you there and maybe you can come help me build a few things at the LEGO booth

Steve