IndyLUG

I finally know how many

David_Gregory — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:23:00 GMT

How many of you know how many LEGOs you have? Most AFOL's have some general idea of how many pieces they own, but it's often some figure that's appended with the phrase "give or take about 50,000." If you have a LUGNET membership, you can enter the number of each LEGO set that you own. The site will then generate a set list for you that gives quantities of every set you own, sets you want to buy and sets you want to sell. (To see this list, use the URL http://guide.lugnet.com/set/mlist.cgi?m= and enter your LUGNET membership number at the end.) At the bottom of the list, there is a sum of the total number of sets and the total number of pieces.

My current set list states my piece total as 229,533 pieces.

That probably seems like a lot, and you're right—I've been collecting LEGO sets since I was a kid, and I never had a Dark Age, so I have accumulated quite a large collection. Sometimes the little devil on my shoulder even tells me that I have too many LEGOs, but I usually toss him in the trash and then listen to the little angel on my other shoulder who tells me that God wants me to have more LEGOs.

Back when LUGNET existed, but Bricklink and ebay did not, the LUGNET set list was a good way to see how many LEGOs you actually had. Back then all my pieces were from sets I had bought, so I could look at that list's total to know the size of my collection. However, there are a few flaws in the LUGNET set guide. They're not really "flaws," but gaps in information. For instance, LUGNET does not yet have the new mini Clone Turbo Tank that comes with the Brickmaster mailing. That's 64 pieces that I have in a set that doesn't show up in my LUGNET set list. The sets that are missing from the LUGNET set guide are few and far between, so those sets don't make much of a dent in my piece total. BUT there are several sets in LUGNET's guide that don't have any entry for how many pieces they have. For example the 320 BASIC Building Set has 71 pieces listed on the pictorial inventory on the box, but LUGNET doesn't have any piece count for the set, so even though this set shows up as one that I own, it adds a big fat 0 to my piece total. The same lack of information holds true to sets 337, 385, 537 (all BASIC sets from the 80's), several 3 digit sets from the 70's, and even several sets from the 90's. So my current LUGNET set list is actually showing a smaller number of pieces than what I own due to the lack of piece counts on several sets. Still, this isn't that bad when I've broken the 200,000 piece mark.

Now I know what most of you must be thinking at this point: What about all the thousands of loose parts you've bought that weren't from sets? That is a valid question indeed. With the advent of loose part sales on the internet, my collection was blessed with a rich variety of whatever I could find and afford. LUGCO member Todd Trotter first told me about Bricklink in 2000. I began using ebay the same year. Since then I've pretty much been on one long LEGO-buying binge. Two of the three main sources for buying loose parts are internet sites: Bricklink and ebay. The third source is the Pick-A-Brick at LEGO stores. If I wanted a big raw number for my Bricklink purchases, I could download it. (Did you know you can do that? Go to the Bricklink Download page, and you can download info from your entire Bricklink buying history, including number of parts in orders, shipping costs, year totals, etc.)

Loose parts certainly pose a daunting barrier to knowing how many parts you own. Luckily I began a system of keeping track of this way back when I started buying loose pieces. I have an Excel spreadsheet for each category of piece. Whenever I get an order from Bricklink or bring home a batch of non-set pieces from P.A.B. or wherever, I add the quantity of each piece to the Excel sheets. This may seem like an overly complicated and unnecessary task, but I have found it to be very helpful when I need to know how many of a certain piece I have. I have also become very efficient with my piece assimilation system over the years, so it doesn't take as long as you might think.

Now it would seem that I have a simple method for determining the total number of LEGOs that I own. I take the piece total in my LUGNET set list and add it to whatever the total is from the Excel sheets of loose parts...after all, Excel can add up all those numbers automatically, right? ...RIGHT? Unfortunately the answer to that is NO. A couple of years ago, I decided to add up all the parts in those Excel sheets to get a grand total of what I had. Excel has a sum function where it will add up the numbers in a row or column or whatever. My Excel sheets had the quantities in a single column, so I figured that it would be pretty easy to make the program show me a sum in the cell at the bottom of the column. I found out how to use the sum function, and I thought all was going well. I tried to use the sum function on my Tiles spreadsheet. The total was way smaller than I thought it should have been. I double checked the Excel sum by taking a calculator and manually adding the numbers in each cell of the column. The real sum was about 1,200 more than what Excel was telling me. Just to make sure I double checked the sum by adding it all up on the calculator again. Excel was still wrong.

There are times when I REALLY hate computers. This was one of them. I found it hard to believe that a complex program such as Excel could not do such a simple task as adding numbers. I went to the Microsoft Office site and downloaded the update they had for Office. "Surely this 27 meg of updates will fix the problem," I thought. I was wrong. Excel still couldn't ad! I tried other spreadsheets and found that a few more of them had the same problem. At that point I gave up. I wasn't going to take the time to use a calculator to add up every single number cell in every spreadsheet.

Last week I asked my sister if she could open up my Tiles spreadsheet on her computer. I knew that she had a newer version of Office than I did, and I thought that her version might do the math right. She said that she had the same number in the sum cell that I did, but it showed her these tiny triangles in the corner of some of the cells. When she clicked on the triangle it told her that the cell should be converted to a number cell. When she did that, the sum cell had THE CORRECT SUM! This was very good news to me.

I have absolutely no idea why Excel would convert random cells in my spreadsheets into non-number cells. (I'm talking seriously random; they weren't grouped together or anything.) I went through each sheet and made sure that each cell with a number in it was viewed as a number cell, then I redid the sum cells at the bottom of each column. It took a while, but I was finally able to get an accurate count of how many loose pieces I had.

I admit that I still have some work to do with this. I haven't made sum cells for my spreadsheets of minifigs, nor have I made sums for parts that are made of multiple pieces, such as elephants. I still have thousands of P.A.B. pieces laying around that I haven't assimilated into the collection yet, and a couple of tubs of other random parts that I don't have a spreadsheet for...but short by a few thousand pieces, I have:

229,533 pieces in sets and

138,622 pieces that I bought loose

for a grand total of...

Insert drumroll here

368,155 LEGOs!

I've been telling people "about 350,000" when they ask me how many LEGOs I have, so I guess I was fairly close.

I finally know how many

IndyLUG — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:23:00 GMT

RAILBRICKS Issue 4

David_Gregory — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 23:48:00 GMT

RAILBRICKS Issue 4 is out!

In this issue:

Brian Williams: The Royal Train

Building Brick Roads

BricWorX Instructions

DCC Primer

RAILBRICKS issue 4 can be downloaded from the following links:

Standard Resolution download: (10.2 mb - Adobe Reader 5.0 or greater)

High Resolution download: (55.7 mb - Adobe Reader 5.0 or greater)

On-demand print issues are available for $14.25 USD + shipping from: http://www.lulu.com/content/2048108

Giant Dragon Project at the Children's Museum

David_Gregory — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:41:00 GMT

Giant Master Build Event at
The Indianapolis Children's Museum

Join IndyLUG and Master Builders from the LEGO Company September 19-21 at the Indianapolis Children's Museum for a funtastic build event. From 10:00 to 4:00 Friday, Saturday and Sunday people of all ages will be able to help build a huge dragon made out of thousands of LEGO bricks.

The Indianapolis Children's Museum is located at 3000 N. Meridian St., Indianapolis, IN 46208.

Additional information on admission prices, directions and parking can be found here.

I can't escape LEGO

David_Gregory — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:09:00 GMT

I freely admit it: my life is FULL of LEGO. My apartment, my web surfing, my thoughts—there's LEGO everywhere in my life. However, just like any other LEGO Maniac, I can't spend 100% of my time with LEGOs. I have to go to work, eat, watch movies, etc. Yet there are some times when LEGO just seems to find its way to me, even when I'm not looking for it.

Today I was looking for maps of Indiana on the internet. The sites that sell new maps are really expensive, so I started searching ebay. Guess what I find on the first page of results for "Indiana map"? LEGO! The auction was for a minifig of Indiana Jones' dad holding a 2X2 printed map tile. Even when rendered in ABS plastic the face of Henry Jones Senior stared at me with a look that said, "What were you thinking David? Did you really believe that you could spend even a few moments of your time on the world wide web without running across some LEGOs?"

Point taken Dr. Jones Sr. ... point taken.

I can't escape LEGO

IndyLUG — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:09:00 GMT

I freely admit it: my life is FULL of LEGO. My apartment, my web surfing, my thoughts—there's LEGO everywhere in my life. However, just like any other LEGO Maniac, I can't spend 100% of my time with LEGOs. I have to go to work, eat, watch movies, etc. Read More......(read more)

Bloomington Block Party - July 25

David_Gregory — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:27:00 GMT

When a city has an event called a "Block" Party, IndyLUG just can't resist!

Come join us at the Bloomington Block Party for a family-oriented, free celebration of the arts, crafts and music at The Waldron Arts Center. This annual event is part of the Be Neighborly Bloomington campaign and includes the BAAC, Wonderlab, Rhino's, WFBH, IndyLUG and dozens of hands-on arts activities for children of all ages.

IndyLUG will be providing a mosaic build in which kids may participate. We will also be displaying several of our own creations.

Where: The Waldron, 122 S. Walnut St., Bloomington, IN 47404
When: Friday, July 25, 2008 - 5:30 PM to midnight
Cost: FREE!
What: Arts-related fun & entertainment 'til the cows come home
Who: All ages are invited

Comparison - Tub vs. Box

Leah — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:58:00 GMT

Last year at Brickworld, the Lego Stores had the green Pick-A-Brick tub, which were really convenient compared to the cups. Unfortunately, the tubs were a temporary deal, and they were discontinued. It looked like this year everyone would be back to filling cups. However, I was surprised to see that they also had some white boxes which could be used for Pick-A-Brick.

Of course, I was interested in how the two compared in capacity. So, I did a little test.

I had this box of parts:

And wondered how much of this tub it would fill:

turns out, they're about the same:

Comparison - Tub vs. Box

IndyLUG — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:58:00 GMT

By Air, By Rail Festival -- Fortville, IN July 18-20

Jeramy Spurgeon — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:07:00 GMT

Come visit IndyLUG at Fortville's annual By Air, By Rail Festival. This is a free event. Visit the Fortville Chamber of Commerce website for more details.

Steve Reviews It - Bellville

IndyLUG — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:30:00 GMT

My plan for the Lego Store shopping spree met with limited success. First they didn't have the Green Grocer, then they didn't have the Technic bulldozer either, and that was my backup plan item. I was able to get a Cafe Corner and I quickly filled two Read More......(read more)

Steve Reviews It - Bellville

Steve — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:30:00 GMT

I had read some reviews of the set and thought it had some neat uncommon pieces but was afraid of the high price point and fear of useless pieces. It turns out this set is full of usefull pieces you could use in almost any project, a nice selection of uncommon usefull, and very few worthless pieces of crap. I counted only two or three totally useless pieces. These pieces like the baby and the bear have zero attachment poins. They can not even stick between studs like the fairy pieces. It does have a few pieces like the parents or the pink panels that are mostly useless but the set overall doesn't have many. Turns out I really like this set and would seriously consider buying another. If you have thought about buying a Belville set but couldn't bring yourself to do it, this is a very nice set if you want some different colors or unusual pieces. My favorite piece in the set is the baby toilet, I need to get some more of the for a spaceship design I've thought of.

Pros:

lots of food pieces, apples, turkey drumsticks, croisants, bananna,hot dogs

pink windows including a bay window.

cool gold dinner plates and 1x1 cones

large green pine tree, small green pine tree, 3 bright green plants, 3 pink flowers - the trees are not shown on the box at all

stickers- yes in this case the stickers are a plus, not putting them on gives lots of good pieces, printed bricks would have made the set crap. They put stickers everywhere.

Baby toilet piece - Ok so this piece probally only appeals to me, but I am positive it hasn't ever been used for a spaceship part before.

Cons:

couple of totally useless pieces

some mostly useless pieces like the figs

some cloth pillows and sheets, clothes - come all sealed in their own plastic so your real pieces aren't tainted

baseplate color ( its a light blue) will be tough to use in a layout unless had enough for maybe a river.

Overall I rank it 5 out of six studs.

-Steve

RAILBRICKS Issue 3

Jeramy Spurgeon — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:05:00 GMT

RAILBRICKS Issue 3 is out.

Articles include:

PF Trains + 9v Train Tricks

Creating Wooden Trestle Bridges

RCX (PBricks) and 9v Train Integration

Interview with Swoofty

and much more.....

RAILBRICKS issue 3 can be downloaded from the following links:

Single file download:
(10 mb - Adobe Reader 5.0 or greater)
mirror 1
mirror 2

On-demand print issues are available for $14.75USD + shipping from:
http://www.lulu.com/content/2666597

Vintage sets on ebay can go for a LOT!

David_Gregory — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:25:00 GMT

I love sets from the 80's. I'm not alone, as many AFOL's consider the 1980's the middle of LEGO's "Golden Age." Specifically I have a penchant for construction sets. (Yes, yes—I realize that all LEGO sets are "construction" sets. I mean the Town sets where there's some kind of heavy machinery, and the minifigs are construction workers.)

Just like any other set collector, I love to find sets that are still sealed in their box. As you can imagine, sealed sets from the 80's fetch a premium price on ebay. A couple of weeks ago I was browsing ebay and came across a sealed 6686 Backhoe set. I knew that this set would go for at least $20. It could very likely go up to $50, and if the right people happened to be searching ebay during the auction, then it might get into the $70 to $80 range.

I put the set on my watchlist so that I could see what the final price was. After 18 bids that 7-day auction ended at $152.50! I've been watching LEGO sets sell on ebay for enough years to know that a small set going for over $100 doesn't happen very often. If the set had some exclusive minifig or part, that might explain it, but the 6686 Backhoe doesn't have any rare items. Being sealed in the original box after 24 years definitely pushes up the price on a LEGO set, but $152.50 is just crazy. Even if I won the lottery and had money to burn, I wouldn't pay that much for such a small set.

In the last couple of years, I've seen ebay auctions that made me think that all the rich people have bought what they want. What I mean by that is that rich people who have enough money to buy whatever they want have completed their "vintage LEGO I want to buy" checklists, and therefore they're not out there making high dollar bids nearly as much as they used to. The people out searching on ebay for vintage LEGO today are the ones who are still trying to complete their own LEGO collecting checklists because they've been outbid so many times over the years by those who had scads of cash. The reason I thought this is that I'd seen several vintage LEGO auctions go for a lot less that what they would have gone for just a few years ago.

...and then I see something like this recent auction, and I realize that I have to rethink my whole ebay/LEGO/online-economics theory.

Vintage sets on ebay can go for a LOT!

IndyLUG — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:25:00 GMT

I love sets from the 80's. I'm not alone, as many AFOL's consider the 1980's the middle of LEGO's "Golden Age." Specifically I have a penchant for construction sets. (Yes, yes—I realize that all LEGO sets are "construction" sets. I mean the Town sets Read More......(read more)

Well that just sucks

IndyLUG — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:10:00 GMT

Some of you in IndyLUG may know that before I was a member of IndyLUG, I was a member of LUGCO ( L EGO U sers G roup of C entral O klahoma). Meeting with the members of LUGCO was my first experience with other AFOL's. I had communicated plenty online Read More......(read more)

Well that just sucks

David_Gregory — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:10:00 GMT

Some of you in IndyLUG may know that before I was a member of IndyLUG, I was a member of LUGCO (LEGO Users Group of Central Oklahoma).

Meeting with the members of LUGCO was my first experience with other AFOL's. I had communicated plenty online with AFOL's, but looking at pictures and messages on the internet is much different than having an actual gathering of people who love LEGO. At a LUG meeting you can talk face to face with others and look at their MOC's firsthand. You can make friendships in a single afternoon that are stronger than ones you spent years building online.

LUGCO meetings were always fun and laid-back. There was also little to no pressure in LUGCO to build layouts to a certain size or by a certain deadline, since we never did any shows. That's right—we never did any shows, and we always had a blast. In the beginning there were just 4 of us: Todd Trotter, Jon Palmer, Michael Daniel and me. Michael and I both lived in Oklahoma City, Todd lived in Moore in the southern end of the OKC metro area, and Jon lived in Tulsa (so he had the longest drive; about 2 hours). We met once a month and usually took turns meeting at either Michael or Todd's house.

Besides us "core 4", we had a few other guys who came to meetings once in a while. One guy, who I believe was named Jeremy Sproat, came from northern Texas. He said that the Texas LUG was in the southern half of the state, and since Texas was such a huge state, it was actually shorter for him to drive to our meetings in OKC. There was also a guy named Drew who would show up once in a while with his teenage son. There was one meeting where us 4 original members, plus Jeremy, Drew and his son were all there for a total of 7 people. That was the most people we ever had at a meeting.

Michael had one room in his house that he devoted to his LEGO collection. Two sides of the room had tables around the edge for his town. (He was basically into just Town.) We never had a set draft in LUGCO, but we did do a lot of trading. There was one of our earlier meetings where Jon and Michael had each brought a tub of colors that they didn't use much and wanted to trade. Michael had a bunch of brown and dark gray in his tub, and Jon had a bunch or white and yellow in his tub to trade. Both of them looked through each other's tubs Ooohing and Aaahing at what they found. After several trades, Jon said, "you just want to trade my whole tub for your whole tub?" to which Michael replied, "Sure."

Michael's city was something he kept displayed all the time and would add to as he built new MOC's. That made it neat to see about every 2 months, because you could look for what had changed. When I moved from Oklahoma City, I knew that I might never see any of those LUGCO guys again, which was a total bummer. However, at Brickfest 2003 I saw Jon again. I asked him about LUGCO, and he told me that he didn't live in Oklahoma anymore; he had moved out to the west coast. He said that before he moved, LUGCO activity had died way down. He had kept in touch a little with Todd, and knew that Todd had had second child with some pretty bad health problems, which had kept him from spending much time with LEGO. With myself and Jon hundreds of miles away, and Todd busy with Life's Hurdles, that meant that the only active member of LUGCO left would be Michael...and you don't have much of a club with just 1 person.

Since I've lived in Indiana, I've often wondered if LUGCO revived in any way. You can still see the website, although it hasn't been updated since 2002. (Todd made and ran the website, so I assume he has a way to keep it online cheaply &/or wants it to remain accessible for archive type purposes.)

Today I was building a gazebo, and I needed several of those hinge plates that are 1X2 on each half in white. I went to Bricklink and found the seller who had the quantity I needed at the cheapest price in the USA. That seller was MWD Brick Bytes, and I saw that the seller was from Oklahoma. I thought to myself that because of the initials "MWD," this seller might be Michael Daniel who I knew from when I was in LUGCO. As I looked through the pieces in the store, they seemed to be mostly Town type things. I also noticed the statement "This is all I have none in reserve." in the Splash page. I clicked the "Newest" link in the store to see when the seller had added most of their items. Sure enough, their entire inventory had just been added to their store throughout the month of March.

I realized that Michael had probably decided to get out of the LEGO hobby, and this was his way of selling his collection. In my head I muttered the blog-title-inspiring statement, "Well that just sucks." I understand when someone doesn't have time for LEGO. Things like kids, poor health and school can put building on the back burner for months or even years. But it really saddens me to see someone give up on LEGO entirely. I've always seen LEGO as a lifelong hobby for those of us who are really into it—and Michael was one of those people. I'm sure he spent plenty of time, energy and money on his LEGO like the rest of us do.

The email that Bricklink sends you when you order confirmed my suspicions; the seller is Michael Daniel. I guess that without really knowing the specifics of what happened in the OKC LEGO scene after I had moved, I had always subconsciously assumed that Michael, Todd and any other AFOL else who happened to come along to the LUGCO area had been building away all these years. Maybe they had been building less frequently or had decided to stop buying new stuff, but it had been a comforting thought to me that maybe, just maybe all those LUGCO members who I hadn't seen or heard from in so long still had an inextinguishable passion for LEGO. Today I learned the sad bitter reality that what I had hoped in the back of my mind just wasn't true.

Michael, if you're reading this, I just want to let you know that I really enjoyed all the time I spent with you and the other LUGCO members. I have no hard feelings toward you about getting out of the LEGO hobby, and I hope you can find something else that's just as enjoyable to take up all of your free time and empty your wallet...oh wait—you're already married.

500 Festival Kids Day

Jeramy Spurgeon — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:32:00 GMT

IndyLUG will again be displaying at this year's 500 Festival Kid's Day held in downtown Indianapolis on Monument Circle. This year's event is on Sunday May 18th from noon to 4pm. The ever popular LEGO version of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway created by Brian Darrow, will again be one of our attractions. Please come down and visit us! Admission to the event is free and more info about the event itself can be found here.

Brickworld 2008

Jeramy Spurgeon — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:11:00 GMT

Visit the Brickworld website for all of the details!

"LEGO" in Futhark alphabet on Viking printed tile

David_Gregory — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:34:00 GMT

Please read ONLY if you are prepared to delve very deep into the world of LEGO nerdiness.

So we're currently in the midst of preparing our D&D characters for Jeramy's upcoming D&D game. Of course, being a LEGO club, we're using LEGO for not only our characters and their weapons and gear, but also all of the landscaping and buildings. As if that wasn't nerdy enough, I decided to learn the runic alphabet that dwarves would use, since my D&D character is a dwarf. While D&D dwarves are fictional, the runic alphabet is/was real. It's called "Futhark," because that's what the first 6 letters in the runic alphabet spell:

The Futhark alphabet is what people from the Scandinavian region of Europe would've used to write with during the Middle Ages. Enter the 1X2 printed tile from the 3rd edition of Hogwarts Castle:

I'm not sure why this tile that's printed with Futhark characters comes in a Harry Potter set instead of a Vikings set, but we can worry about that later.

You can see that the gold runes are characters from the Futhark alphabet. Ever since I was a little kid, I thought that runic characters looked cool, hence it's no surprise that I liked this printed tile and put it on my Bricklink wanted list. However, until recently I had never learned the runes' phonetic equivalents.

Today I was browsing a BL store and saw this tile. I had seen pictures of this tile before, but today was the first time that I had seen it since my eyes had been opened. The gold letters say "LEGO". But wait—that's not all! Do you see that there are also lines of tiny runes along the top and bottom of the tile? They're quite small, but you can just make out that they say "Leg Godt" (Danish for "Play Well"; the words that Ole Christiansen contracted to form the word "LEGO") and "Play Well" (in english). That is SOOOOO COOL!!! Whoever worked at LEGO and was in charge of making this printed tile actually went to the trouble of translating LEGO's name and motto into Futhark runes.

If you're shaking your head right now and think it's ridiculous that I think this is totally sweet, then you're totally lame. This is SO super cool, whether you think it is or not.

"LEGO" in Futhark alphabet on Viking printed tile

IndyLUG — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:34:00 GMT

Please read ONLY if you are prepared to delve very deep into the world of LEGO nerdiness. So we're currently in the midst of preparing our D&D characters for Jeramy's upcoming D&D game. Of course, being a LEGO club, we're using LEGO for not only Read More......(read more)

RAILBRICKS #2 is out!

Jeramy Spurgeon — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:08:00 GMT

I’m proud to announce the release of issue #2 of RAILBRICKS!
It’s a little later than we had hoped, so we crammed in 16 more pages!

Visit the RAILBRICKS website for more information.

Brickjournal 9 is out

Mark — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 23:07:00 GMT

BrickJournal 9 is now available for downloading through its publisher, TwoMorrows. It’s 148 pages of reports and instructions, with event reports of 1000steine-Land, Brickworld, and LEGOFest. There’s also interviews with a couple of Star Wars builders and a Star Wars LEGO designer!

In order to download the magazine, everyone will need to create an account at Twomorrows - this is needed to create a mailing list for the magazine.

With Issue 9, it’s the end of a phase of the magazine. Issue 9 is the last free online issue of BrickJournal, as BrickJournal goes to print! The Journal will be going to Volume 2 - the printed edition, out February 2008!

For more information go to LUGNET

RailBricks Issue 1

David_Gregory — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 01:29:00 GMT

Congratulations are due IndyLUG Vice President Jeramy Spurgeon, the Senior Editor of RailBricks, because...

RailBricks Issue #1 is now online!

RailBricks is a dedicated LEGO® Train Hobby Magazine similar to Model Railroader. Each issue will strive to advance the LEGO® Train Hobby by providing a FREE online publication created by LEGO® Train fans that focuses on various aspects of the LEGO® Train Hobby.

RailBricks #1 can be downloaded from one of the following links:
(6.37 MB file size, Adobe Reader 5.0 or greater required to view)

http://www.railbricks.com/media/railbricks_1.pdf

http://www.indylug.org/downloads/railbricks_1.pdf

http://www.ciltc.org/downloads/railbricks_1.pdf

http://www.freelug.org/Railbricks/railbricks_1.pdf

On demand print issues are available from lulu.com for $12.50 each + shipping

http://www.lulu.com/content/1257423

Glow-in-the-Dark my @$$

David_Gregory — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 02:24:00 GMT

Does anyone remember when I was so excited about the new Duplo skeleton figs? Well, when I was at Brickworld I bought the Duplo Pirate Treasure set that has one of the Duplo Skeletons. Here's what the front of the box looks like:

As you can see from the picture of the set, the skeleton appears to glow in the dark. Then from the inset image in the lower right corner of the box, the buyer is shown that, yes, this Duplo skeleton does in fact glow in the dark.

However, when I opened my Duplo Pirate Treasure, the plastic that made up my skeleton looked stark white. I let it absorb a decent amount of luminescence (That's a sciencey word for "light") and then took it in the bathroom where there are no windows and closed the door. It didn't glow. My Duplo skeleton was not emitting a single photon (Another sciencey word for particles of energy that make up light). My skeleton looks just like the one on Bricklink:

The plastic is just the regular white without any of that yellowish tint that glow-in-the-dark stuff has. I still like my Duplo skeleton, but I'd like him a whole lot more if he glowed in the dark like I was led to believe he did from the box art.

IndyLUG

I finally know how many

I finally know how many

RAILBRICKS Issue 4

RAILBRICKS Issue 4 is out!

Giant Dragon Project at the Children's Museum

Giant Master Build Event at The Indianapolis Children's Museum

I can't escape LEGO

I can't escape LEGO

Bloomington Block Party - July 25

Comparison - Tub vs. Box

Comparison - Tub vs. Box

By Air, By Rail Festival -- Fortville, IN July 18-20

Steve Reviews It - Bellville

Steve Reviews It - Bellville

RAILBRICKS Issue 3

RAILBRICKS Issue 3 is out.

Vintage sets on ebay can go for a LOT!

Vintage sets on ebay can go for a LOT!

Well that just sucks

Well that just sucks

500 Festival Kids Day

Brickworld 2008

"LEGO" in Futhark alphabet on Viking printed tile

"LEGO" in Futhark alphabet on Viking printed tile

RAILBRICKS #2 is out!

Brickjournal 9 is out

RailBricks Issue 1

Glow-in-the-Dark my @$$

Giant Master Build Event at
The Indianapolis Children's Museum