Hi, I'm Peter

[Pierre_Cochereau]

Hello, all readers near and far.

Though I may not know who you all are,

I'm going to introduce myself

to all of you who use Brickshelf

and Eurobricks and other pages:

Thus listen, members of all ages,

and learn what I would like to share

about myself and what I do

and who I am and where from, too,

and other stuff. But I will spare

you more of these annoying rhymes.

(I like to use them, though, sometimes.)

It's been a while since I joined EB (Nov 28, 2008), and until now I haven't properly introduced myself, mainly due to lack of time. Though lack of time seems to be a chronical condition of mine, I thought nevertheless I'd spare a couple of minutes to post a topic here in this introduction forum.

I'm from Germany (for those who are geographically versatile or who may be from the same or a nearby area, the Gelnhausen/Hessen area). Currently, however, I live in Washington, DC and have been doing so for the past six years ; I've been doing graduate studies here, I am working on a Ph.D., and right now, I am ABD as we say – "All But Dissertation." (Okay, the only word that worries me right now is the "but" ... it seems that as the writing pricess evolves, the whole thing gets more difficult and time becomes an even more precious commodity ... which first of all concerns my hobbies, one of them – of course – being LEGO )

And thus we have arrived at the next point: hobbies. Well, like I said, LEGO is of course a big one, going all the way back to when I was a toddler and began playing with my first DUPLO sets (all of which I still have ... you never know, I might need them again in the near future to "hand on the tradition" to my kids ... once they are here, that is, of course ). As a kid, I was really into the Town series ... I remember looking at the LEGO catalogues and dreaming about getting the town sets although *sighs* as a kid, money is an issue and you don't get LEGO sets as presents every day, even if you have lots and lots of relatives ... But I'm not going to complain; over the course of years, I got a fair share of town sets, enough to set up my own LEGO town layout, and I spent countless hours playing with my town and recreating all sorts of scenes I read in books; (for those of you who are from Germany as well, the following might be more understandable than to those who are not German) for example, I was also a huge fan of the junior detective series "TKKG," and as I was reading the books, I actually recreated these stories – as best I could, i.e. with the sets I owned, and with buildings or other stuff that I MOCed ... So as you can see, I was really into LEGO. – Besides the town sets, I also liked the Castle series, and I owned (and still own) a large number of such sets.

Then, as some of you probably have experienced as well, came a dark phase. But for me, this was not really a dark phase in the sense that I completely turned my back on LEGO and *gasp* even sold sets or *almost passes out* threw them out (who would do such a terrible thing?!?); rather, it was the fact that the "Golden Age" of LEGO town, as some of you put it, came to an end and the "Dark Ages" began *looming and sinister music playing in the background* ... Nevertheless, I continued to add to my town collection whenever possible, although that wasn't very often (mainly when classic sets were being re-released, such as 6472 in 2001 which was a re-release of the classic 6397 from 1992). In addition to that, I bought some of the older sets from eBay, but as you all may well know, that can be a long, fussy, excruciating, and most of all expensive process

Upon the return to a more classic City line on the part of TLG (beginning in 2005), I began to develop a renewed interest in LEGO town and city stuff, and hence I have been spending quite a lot of money buying more or less all the amazing CITY sets that have been released since (and believe you me, I'm not going to make the same "mistake" twice the mistake, that is, of not buying sets when they are readily available and having to pay lots and lots of money on eBay later can you say, "buyer's remorse"? ) So of each set that was/is worth buying, I own at least one copy.

At this time, unfortunately the majority of my collection leads a shadowy existence in boxes, carefully stowed away, due to two main reasons:

1. I need to redesign a more or less completely new layout, due to the recent expansion of my collection. There was simply not enough room, so I needed to move everything to a bigger room; there, I will have to construct a complex table system on which to put my town.
   
2. In order to accomplish (a), I need a lot of time, which at the moment I simply do not have. So whenever I have to opportunity to go back to Germany during academic breaks, I can only do so much, and quite often, that is not a whole lot.
   

I also like MOCing, and I do have a few ideas for MOCs which I would like to incorporate in my yet to be designed LEGO town. Some ideas for MOCs I have designed and/or tried with CAD, and for some MOCs I have already ordered the parts, but again, it all will hopefully come together once I can dedicate more time to working on it.

I think I may have written too much already, so I better stop here. If you'd like to know more, please don't hesitate to ask.

Edited February 18, 2009 by Pierre_Cochereau

[Natman8000]

Wow. Welcome?

[Asuka]

Hallo and welcome to the pretty adventurous side of the brick!

[Dadster]

Great introduction! Welcome and great idea with the rhymes!