CaptainMorgansDad Posted April 15, 2018 Posted April 15, 2018 Hi Everyone! My name is Neil, and I am a 31 year old AFOL in Tel Aviv. I have been lurking on the site for several months, and recently, finally created an account (and have posted my first 2 MOCS in the Pirate Forums- check them out!). I love to read about everyone's Lego journey- so I thought I would share mine! My story is much the same as many of yours. Born in 1986, and spending much of my formative years in the early 90s, I would say that my youth was tied to the Golden age of Lego. My first serious memory of Lego, I was 3 years old and very sick with a rare childhood disease (Kawasaki Disease, if anyone is interested in looking it up), and my parents bought me the Carribien Clipper. I have very vivid memories of lying in my hospital bed and building the majestic ship with my father (he mostly built it for me while I played with the minifigs - I WAS 3...)- although I am certain that I had Lego and Duplo before that. This was 1989, the introduction of the Pirates theme, which would become my favorite. Later that year, I met my best friend (who remains so to this day) at preschool by bonding over the brick. He is an architect today, so building stayed with him for his whole life. For my whole childhood, every birthday or holiday, there was Lego waiting for me. I would build the sets, play with them, then disassemble them and add to my part collection. Soon, my collection was overflowing 3 large bins! While Pirates was always my favorite themes, I also was addicted to the old Space themes. In particular, I loved the Ice Planet 2002 theme (I was ultimately a Physics major in University, so Space seems logical for me as well). Like many childhood Lego builders, my dark ages started while I was in High School. While I still had a large collection of bricks, and would even build something from time to time, I stopped acquiring new Lego, and my priorities changed, making Lego something I did once every several months rather than every day. Then school ended and I worked for a while then joined the army. As I'm sure you can imagine, being in the army doesn't leave much time to build. Plus, my collection was still in Atlanta at my father's house, and I was in Israel. Not conductive to MOCing. I didn't touch a Lego brick for 10 years after joining the army. Fast forward to last August. I had just gotten married in July to my amazing wife. On our way home from our honeymoon, we stopped in New York City for a day. While there, I decided we should stop at a Lego store - the new Saturn V was getting great reviews, and the space nerd in me (my other main hobby is Kerbal Space Program) needed to have it. Unfortunately, the Saturn V was all sold out, but my wife and I had gotten our hearts set on Lego, so we purchased the UCS TIE Fighter as a wedding present for ourselves. After arriving home, we spent the next afternoon building it together, and I was hooked - just like I had been in my childhood. I started purchasing more bricks. I now had my main collection in the USA, probably with around 30,000 bricks, and another small collection here in Israel. I alao finally purchased the Saturn V from Amazon, but it is also in Atlanta with most of my collection. My wife and I will be moving back there in August, and I will be able to have my entire collection at my disposal. I am looking forward to sorting through to see what all I have! ANyways, I have been rambling a bit, but that is my story :-) If anyone is looking to chat, let me know, I am definitely looking to become more active in the Lego community and make friends within the hobby! Quote
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