Hello from Bublehead in Phoenix Arizona

[Bublehead]

Hello, I am Bublehead, also know as BubleheadDan or just Dan Roth

I am a 56 year old AFOL returning to building after coming out of my second black period which was brought on by a fear of carpal tunnel and my excessive building.

Turns out it wasn't carpal tunnel that was causing me to have numbness in my left hand but from a pinched nerve in my elbow.  So after reassembling a bunch of my old Star Wars sets, I caught the building bug again and went and bought a bunch of Lego, mostly used, but a lot of nisb from TRU (RIP), and a bunch of sets off Craigslist from Lego "investors". But I found a guy who was getting out of Lego and more into RC stuff and he sold me a bunch of misb older sets I had missed in my second "black" period.

My first foray into posting a MOC here brought me a bunch of unwanted attention, and I am having to say a lot of mea culpas to get my standing back. If I have learned one thing, never use the words "game changing" in the title of your MOC thread.

That being said, some may wonder about the spelling of "Bublehead" and why bublehead and not bubblehead. If anyone remembers IRC chat back in the dark ages of the internet, your handle could only be 9 characters long, and so I dropped the extra "b" and went with just Bublehead.

So now the question, why call myself Bublehead? I am glad you asked...  I spent 6 years of my life in the United States Navy as an electronic technician trained in the Nuclear Power field as a nuclear reactor operator, or as some like to point out, the same job as Homer Simpson. I was stationed on the USS Andrew Jackson, SSBN 619 (Gold crew), a Lafayette class ballistic missile submarine,  and made 7 strategic deterrent patrols off the coast of Russia during the Cold War. I have spent 83 days underwater on my longest patrol, and most averaged around 75 to 80 days at sea. Since then my career has taken me through many different occupations including:

Electronic Technician repairing manufacturing fallout from producing networking cards, IBM typewriters, and radar avoidance detectors.

Electronic Technician working in a small electronics store selling IBM computer clones and Alps printers

Electronic Technician working for Grimes Aerospace Advanced Electronics Department, servicing Fokker 50 and Fokker 100 flight warning computers.

Qualification Testing Technician, doing final qualification tests on Grimes Aerospace products. My specialty was photometrics, which is a fancy way of saying I was a lightbulb tester which is a way over simplification of what we actually tested for.

Aircraft Lighting Engineer- so after telling his engineers how bad their lighting designs where, the head of Aircraft Lighting asked me if I thought I could build them better and I said, yes, I think I could, so he gave me the job. After working there 12 years, they were bought out by Allied Signal, who eventually went on and became Honeywell after buying them out and keeping the name. I left soon after because I had hit the glass ceiling of career growth without a degree, and completed my associates in computer programming.

IT Consultant/Developer working for Accenture.

Software engineer working for Wells Fargo Bank.

ok, so much for my work experience, my hobbies are Technic Lego, Pinball (I own 3 real ones and a virtual cabinet), technology and making things including rapid prototyping, 3D modeling (using Solid Works) and 3D printing using my Printbot Simple Metal printer.

My focus in Technic Lego is Flagship modeling, that is either modifying original TLG sets to make them more flagship-like or creating a playset that is a TLG flagship worthy design.

My first real mostly original MOC has been brewing and steeping in my mind for 25 years, because that was how long ago I initially tried to build it. Using studded Technic beams, and a lot of model team construction techniques, I was able to build the gantry and the ride "heads" with cars, but the scale of it was out of control. So now, fast forward 25 years, and I have finally built it using studless beams and posted it in the Technic Mindstorm model team forum under Twirl & Hurl... please check it out.

So that is where I am coming from, and one final thought.

When I build, I build for kids. I try and build playsets that kids would want to play with.  I am not going for hyper reality or for scale accuracy but for playability and fun and cool working functions. 

Thanks for reading,

BH

Edited May 8, 2018 by Bublehead

[Agent Kallus]

Hi Bubblehead, welcome to eurobricks.

 

[Void_S]

Hello and welcome to EB! I knew that this community (especially Technic and Mindstorms forum) mostly consists of Engineering-related people, but so hardcore-ones...   

[Littleworlds]

Hi Bublehead!

Greetings! I saw your thread about your fairground-MOC. Technic isn't really my department, but it looks like quite impressive stuff. And quite impressive engineering background of yours.

[dr_spock]

Welcome aboard, Bublehead.  I like to build for playability and solid like IBM Selectric typewriters. 

 

[icm]

Sounds like you've had a long life so far doing lots of useful things.  Writing software for Wells Fargo must be very different from tending a nuclear reactor.  Sometimes I wish I'd gone into ROTC in undergrad, but now I think I'm too old to start on the path to cool stuff like that.  So I just build Lego in my free time instead.  Like you, I like to try to build as if it were an official set, but I don't know enough about mechanisms to do Technic MOCs so I just build silly Space stuff on the computer.  Maybe one day I'll even be satisfied enough with something to try it in real plastic - hopefully that doesn't take 25 years!

[Bublehead]

Ok, I will admit that I had not checked back here after posting my intro and want to thank everyone belatedly for their greetings.  @Agent Kallus, @Void_S, @Littleworlds, @dr_spock, @icm 

I am enjoying my time here at EB, and have worked my way into the swing of things pretty well, and everybody seems to forgive my initial gaffs so I hope I can add something to the conversation.