NiceMarmot

Hi y'all! Resurfacing yet again. Unfortunately, I'm still spending most of my time thousands of miles away from my bricks, so no builds likely in the near future. Adding to Kaliphlin woes, my dad spent two weeks in the hospital, and has only recently been discharged, so I'm still helping my mom take care of him. He's on the mend, but it was a close run thing for a while there In positive news, LEGO Santa was generous to my son this year, so we have a lot of new bricks to use, if I ever get time at home, and can convince him to break up those new sets. The LEGO collection is a bit of a mess, as he had a LEGO Movie themed birthday party, and 30 6-7 year olds playing with LEGO causes an immense amount of havoc. Enough about my crazy life; on to Kaliphlin stuff! Welcome to all the new Kaliphliners! You have made a wise choice! The plans for Sultans Gate look great. I probably won't be able to build anything soon, but will follow along. Robuko, sorry to hear about the job, but congrats on the new baby. Hope you get some time for building; those kids tend to eat up a lot of time. But only about four years until you all can build together (less if you do Duplo)! I think Kayne was taking over Ras-el-Akhen, which sounds like a great idea. We really need someone to take charge of that area. It's practically next door to my domain at Messahmuk, so I look forward to visiting and seeing the new construction. I'm not near my bricks, but I do have my laptop, so I'm going to revise the maps. Honestly, this time I'll really get to it. In fact, the next few days would probably be great. Maybe everyone could take a quick look at the existing maps on the wiki, and suggest locations that should be added. I'll definitely put in Sultans Gate. My work-in-progress from last year already had added Cobalt Vale, Starbowl, Al'Derak, Samrd'dha, Adskhan, Darlig Ulv-Stranden, Everlast, Kek'Baan al-Thir, Belt Mutanji, and Auner (although those WIP versions of the maps are not on the wiki yet). I'm not sure if all those places are still relevant, but people did place MOCs in them at one point.

Glad to know that the US Customs and Immigration aren't the only major pains around. I've never had a problem with the Germans; maybe they treat visitors better than their citizens.

I like this a lot. Great round walls; way to mix up the techniques! I wish I had more of those 2 stud technic lift arms, but they're expensive on BrickLink. Last time I checked, you could get the 7 stud lift arms cheaper than the 2 stud ones. +1 for the military fortifications and the round walls. I'm not sure there's enough rockwork here for both rock landscaping credits… Let me think on that one.

Let the lava flow! Hope this war doesn't hurt "business" too badly. +1 on yer credits too.

You guys need to attend Brickworld and fly back dressed in one of these: http://www.scottevest.com/v3_store/Expedition-Jacket.shtml I'll bet you could fit three or four cups worth in there!

Nice job. Great MOC; really looks like Avalonia. +1 for all the UoP credits.

This could be a big boost to US tourism! LEGO shopping tours! If you buy enough, you could save enough on LEGO to pay for your plane flights!

3 hours away? Perhaps you should go to the Copenhagen store instead? Unless you're north of Stockholm, in which case it'd be even farther away. I'm always surprised at the few number of LEGO stores outside of the US. I suspect that TLG is making great profits through its existing dealers in those countries and doesn't want to disrupt that. Whereas in the US, the toy market is controller by Amazon, Walmart, Target, and TRU, who are able to drive big discounts from TLG. Thus opening their own stores and controlling that channel looks a lot more attractive. Therefore, maybe you ought to welcome Walmart to Sweden! Or find an American to supply you. When I worked in Stockholm in 1997, every time I flew from the US, I used to bring a ton of stuff for my Swedish colleagues. They'd give me big shopping lists (mostly for clothes), as I could buy stuff for about 35% of what it would cost in Sweden. Thank goodness customs never checked my baggage... I hear you. It is a bit frustrating to load up on tan 2x4s, 2x6s, 2x2s, 1x4s, etc, but then they never put a crucial piece like 2x3s on the wall.

LOL. That was my thought too. Especially since at least one human hand is probably required for full assembly. However, I have it on good authority that TLG will be including actual human hands in 2014's Halloween sets…

Very nicely done! Love the interior design, especially the wall design and the floor. The blue curtains are a nice touch! What's the hidden door under the stairs?

Thanks for the encouragement! BTW, the PAB wall at the LEGO store can easily rectify your tan bricks problems. Recently there seems to be a pretty good selection of tan bricks at the store whenever I go - 2x4s, 2x6s, 1x4s, plates, etc.

In the more recent sets, with all the dwarves and grey and dark tan bricks, it's looking very Mitgardian to me. Things are stabilizing enough that I've got some free time to check EB. Unfortunately I'm 2000+ miles from my bricks. Just downloaded LDD to my new computer last night; maybe I'll do some virtual builds.

Wow, you guys are racking up the new members! I'm going to go check the first post in this thread and see if you're offering free Hobbit sets to new members or something. Maybe the new LotR and Hobbit sets are driving interest in Mitgardia, as it does seem to be the guild most aligned with those themes. Game of Thrones might drive some interest too. We just need TLG and Peter Jackson to come out with desert-oriented sets and movies, and then Kaliphlin will rule!

Very nice! Quite a collection. I second the call for backstory and history! You might want to post a parts list for these -- I always find it hard to determine what all the minifigure parts are from photos, and I'm probably not the only one.

This is great! Keep up the good work. And work it is -- I remember the pressure to produce a build every day from when I did it last year.

Here ya go: http://www.eurobrick...owtopic=67539. It's from nearly two years ago. The micro scale city is bigger than it looks in the photo; it's a bit obscured by the bench behind the characters. I never finished that MOC; I was going to have three more builds. I did finish the story though; maybe someday I'll finish those builds and post it. Usually I recycle my builds, but I still have the first build from that MOC; it's one of my favorites.

Definitely +1s for the wooden walls and Mitgardian village life. I think you could have claimed the roof rake credit, plus one roofing style. This is just all-around great. Exactly the kind of build I was hoping for when I put in the "Mitgardian/Kaliphlin/Avalonian/Nocty life" subjects.

+1 for the brick-built dragon, definitely! Very nice indeed. I like those palm trees too. You could knock off one of the tree requirements too if you wanted.

Wow! I really, really like this one! Your Kaliphlin walls are great as usual, and the general Barqa architecture is very nicely done. I would have liked to see the interior of the barracks -- looks like you can see a bit on the side. Definitely +1 for windows, military camp, and life in Kaliphlin. Plus I love those flower boxes!

Really nice microscale! Reminds me a bit of one I did a long time ago showing Messahmuk, except that this one is a lot nicer. The gold rings are a nice touch, and the curved walls are great too. Definitely +1

Nice MOC and good story too! +1 for Geography: oceans I agree with the others on the sideways rocks ​Need to think about the waves and minifig posing ones a bit… Not sure if I'm looking for more there or not yet.

Well, when it rains, it pours. Not to add on to the sick fathers (my own), torn ACLs, herniated discs, etc, but … I got laid off yesterday (again)! No big deal; that's the danger of working for software startups -- sometimes they start up, and sometimes they don't. It's a bit of a mixed blessing -- no job == no income, but it provides plenty of time for LEGO! Except that I'm 2000+ miles from my collection… Anyway, given this news, I expect that I will have lots of time to grade university papers, er, I mean, review MOCs for the UP program! If I'm really ambitious (and my dad takes long naps), I may even start working on some LDD builds -- I'll just use the brick collection right here inside my Macbook Pro!

Great idea to remind people of the UP builds that still need to be reviewed. I have completely fallen behind on those what with the US Thanksgiving holiday, but will try to catch up. The bad news is: I'm across the country helping take care of father after a car accident (and he was already ill). In addition to the bad health news, it means no building for me, probably until well into January, as I'll be out here quite a bit over the next month. I'll try to stay fairly active on the forums, but between being out here and the holidays, I don't see any time for building. Which is a major bummer, as I was really looking forward to the challenge, and also bought a PAB cup of 1x2 masonry bricks I was so looking forward to using. I have had a few spare moments on the computer to take advantage of LEGO sales: last week I bought two LotR Pirate Ship Ambush for $60 each, an Epic Dragon Battle and Temple of Light on sale, some heavily discounted Lone Ranger sets, Jabba's Sail Barge, etc… It's been a good November for LEGO sales, and I think my son is going to have a great LEGO Christmas!

Under Trade and Law there is a subject for 'shipping by sea / water'. I thought of adding a shipbuilding item under General Building, but figured it would be duplicative. Hopefully people won't just throw a few barrels in a rowboat and call it shipping by sea. It also doesn't explicitly allow a non-commercial shipping MOC with ships, but I think I'd +1 a great ship MOC even if it wasn't really shipping related. Perhaps we need a brick-built ship/boatbuilding subject under General Building. What do people think?

I've always used Kaliphlins, but it could be Kaliphlinians, Kaliphlinistas, Kaliphliners. I kinda like the last one actually.