Legogal

Eddie, You are in fine company for sure! Many of us are hooked on modulars. Jamie Beard is my favorite modular designer, and I always look forward to the new ones arriving in the US. It is cool that modulars appeal to almost everyone. Kids can role play with them, and adults can redecorate them until the cows come home. Glad you have grandkids to play with you and your modulars. I can't wait until mine are old enough to enjoy modulars (and other LEGO buildings.) It is also fun customizing a modular, which can be easy to do. Add tiles to the floors and some furniture to the rooms of the older sets. Extend the height by building another floor. Collect the matching color of bricks as they fall in price on Bricklink due to the existence of the modular. Glad to see you are becoming a modular fan!

The staff members in the Raleigh store are always helpful. I have never had a problem there, and try to stop by at least once a month. It is much easier if you can go before 5pm on weekdays and avoid the store on weekends because it tends to get jammed. Wish they had more space for the crowds.

Cool! We saw all the construction fences around the building site in May during EB 2014 and are excited to see the finished building in two years. LEGO needs a modern showplace in Billund (along with the many historical sites,) and this should be well received by LEGO fans. Thanks for sharing this with EB!

Wow! A very creative approach to the space theme! The Friends gals look quite comfortable inside and definitely liven up the place. The aliens from the Mixel and Car Wash family are a total hoot! Hahaha! The details are just sumptuous! So much to see and do here...flat out wonderful. (I definitely would buy this set.) Congratulations on an extremely fine build!

Wow! The place looks so inviting! Did the fellow on the left collapse because he was drunk or due to food poisoning? I would definitely want to know before spending much time there! The oven is a masterpiece. And the furniture is also perfect. Congrats on a fine build!

Love that bus! Sand green is lovely. I graduated from uni in Fairbanks in the Seventies and could have taken that very bus #142 around town. If I remember, the buses used the school colors of blue and gold/yellow, which are on the state flag as well. Not having viewed the film, I am not sure what color bus they used. I camped inside Denali many times seeing lots of wild animals. It is a very special National Park which holds a special place in the hearts of most Alaskans. The only changes I would make would be plants/skinny trees/bushes and trash (empty cans and boxes and broken carts and appliances of all kinds) surrounding the bus with a few animals as well. The Park is full of fox, caribou, moose, squirrels, rabbits, lynx, bear, beavers, birds of all kind from eagles to ravens, at different times of the year. There are lots of blueberries in the Park, and most folks fry fish for dinner. So blueberry cobbler/pie might be on the counter and fish bones on the ground or smoked fish hanging on racks. If this was after his death, there could be a skeleton parts all over as the bears really tear up the remains. it would be hard to show much of this in the limited space, but that is what might surround the bus. Again a wonderful build!

Fae, I agree. We built our own toys from whatever junk was lying around, and we pretended it was anything we wanted. No one analyzed what our play meant and if it was politically correct or anything else. Kids played together on each block in the 50's and 60's US before TV, video games and computers took away that free play time outside everyday. There was very little parental involvement in the kids' games and play. And yes, we did whack our siblings on the head now and then and managed to live through it. Today it seems like parents feel they either 1) have to entertain Johnny 24/7 or 2) they ignore him leaving technology to be his best friend. Could we strike a middle road here and let kids entertain themselves or play with friends half of the time, and restrict the playing with technology to maybe one or two hours a day? My son could play with his bricks or Matchbox type vehicles for 2-3 hours at a time when he was three because there was little tv in the house and I had to do some school work at home as a professor. He learned to entertain himself with me nearby but not interfering nonstop with my work. And he got to play video games at TRU now and then as a reward because we did not have them in the house. it is tough for many parents to say "no" to their kids and stand by that, but this is an important part of parenting. You can't be your child's best friend and do a good job as a parent until they reach the age of 18 or so. So LEGO can play an important role in helping a child learn to entertain herself. And express her creativity at the same time. We don't need child experts to tell us that.

1. Wishing I had been born in a country that had LEGO at the time. Did not run into it until my 26 year old son was 3. 2. Wishing that my family had been able to afford some LEGO at that time. (At least I made up for it when my son got into LEGO, and began collecting for myself six years ago. Phew!)

One of the high points for me this year was the first BF VA Mini Con, which was a micro scale replica of the entire convention center exhibits. Not many folks knew about it and built a micro scales of their MOC's on exhibit and placed them on the Mini Con table in their assigned location. Danny P and Marianne A did a wonderful job assembling the gigantic base, which uses several bazillion bricks and has been at a couple of BrickFair events this year. This should become an extraordinary collective build as more exhibitors begin adding their micro MOC's in the future. It is especially fun for those of us not used to collective builds. Thanks to those two folks for going the extra mile and setting this up for everyone.

That is a great strategy for avoiding the sounds beating into your skull from every angle. God, was it noisy. If I wanted to go to a heavy metal rock concert, I could catch almost as much noise at BFVA. My fault was staying too long trying to rebuild my Duplo layout Saturday afternoon after finally getting it put together. Will take more breaks outside next time and wear my noise canceling headphones and act deaf.

The details really make this build stand out. Especially on the roof and exterior walls. These places can be found all over the US because there seem to be as many stores closed for good as open stores these days. Not something I would have thought to build, but quite realistic. Congratulations on a fine build!

32. Yatkuu 102. Yatkuu 123. Fujiia 138. Fujiia 105. Cecilie 202. Cara 258. Cara 264. Cara 104. beaver-1 Wow! Hard to choose from so many fantastic entries!

I guess a good deal depends on whom you ask. Both buyers were pleased with the prices and felt they were fair. I had to pay over $700. twice (including the hotel) to attend BrickFair where I bought in 2008 and sold the sets also requiring 8 days of my time and two 5 hour trips to Virginia. In the end, it feels good to know that both sets are being built by enthusiasts and are not sitting on my shelf. Maybe this is the answer for those of us who have run out of space for LEGO. Sell or trade LEGO to keep within our space limitations. I may try it again next year with used sets if space is still a problem. It seems like it is much easier selling LEGO in person than any other method due to the amount of fraud on most selling sites. Most sellers at the BrickFair VA 2014 yard sales seemed to be doing okay as long as they priced well below BL prices for comparable items.

Boyhood, which was filmed over 12 years and about the life of a small boy and what happened as he grew up. Well made. We have watched Moonrise Kingdom (on Netflix/Flix) a few times and always love it. A great family film. Bruce Willis is a great islander cop, and Bill Murray and his onscreen wife play hilarious attorneys who speak to each other as if they are in court...all of the time. In the middle of umpteen hundred episodes of The Good Wife, a CBS TV drama set in Chicago also on Flix. Well acted and interesting stories. Makes me detest lawyers/attorneys and the US legal system even more....even though I was an attorney for a while in an earlier life.

For anyone seeking LEGO and visiting the Munich area with access to transportation, visiting Legoland Gunzburg is well worth the trip. It will take a full day at least, but you would be traveling against rush hour traffic for the most part. The Factory/Brick Store is one of the best I have seen in the six Legoland Parks. If you have the time and a willing partner, it will be even more fun. And they have wonderful parts. At US parks, you can run in the store near the entrance for an hour or less and get a refund on your park admission. This would be hard at Gunburg if they do have the policy because the brick store is not near the entrance, so you would have to be a world class runner with a backpack. Does anyone know if they have any discount passes to Gunzburg like the two for one Kellogg's cereal box offer at good at Windsor in the UK? This could be a huge incentive for someone visiting Munich and looking for LEGO.

This thread is very entertaining! Makes me so happy that I got into modulars while CC and GG were still available and picked up two of each. Sold LEGO for the first time last weekend at BrickFairVa. Decided it was time for my spare new GG and CC to get built by someone rather than sitting on my shelf. Am happy to report that they found new homes and are being built by folks who really wanted them. As a condition of selling them, both buyers had to open the boxes and a few bags in front of me because I did not want a reseller to flip them for twice what he paid for mine. It would be nice if more folks with spare modulars would sell them to those who want to build them. They are lovely sets for the most part. Another thing I lucked out on was that I began my LEGO collecting in 2008 with purchases of all the sand green and sand blue I could afford at the time because I love those colors. There was a lot of sand green on the market from people parting out large Harry Potter sets. I can build whatever I want in the green, but only something smaller in the blue. If there is a color you really love, buy it when you order something else off BL so the freight is minimal and you build up your stock when prices are lower. It makes a lot of sense to substitute colors you like for those that are hard to find. It is your modular, so build it to your tastes. A sand blue GG sounds lovely! What a great color! Sometimes I do not like the colors used in the modulars and wish I had substituted as I built the original sets. I bought a lot of 1by1 tiles quite reasonably priced from European BL sellers when starting up in LEGO for myself, and those have been quite handy for finishing all the floors in my modulars. And adding furniture has made the early modulars much more pleasing. It is great that the Parisian Restaurant is furnished because this makes it look great from day one. You can always change the interior, too, if you don't care for it.

You are correct on the level of interest. Every time I mention the show to anyone with kids living in the DC area, they all want to go. There is massive interest in LEGO around DC, so BFVA is a great location for an event. And household incomes tend to be high in that area making it possible for families to buy more LEGO. The extended hours are tough on the exhibitors and volunteers because many are using their personal vacation time to work the show and have long drives to and from there. And are dead tired after 4-5 days of nonstop activity. The noise level bothered me more than the crowds. It is very hard on the ears to endure that much noise for 6-10 hours a day. I had sound deadening earphones but never managed to put them on because so many people wanted to talk. Silence at home is wonderful!

Glad you made it! Thanks for posting photos of a BrickFair! Most of us are still in the recovery mode and slower to post. The crowds were greater than expected and too heavy during the 11 to 1 early hours. By 3, things slowed down a lot. At 22,000 tickets over Saturday and Sunday, the crowd in the lines outside was too large. Advice for future visits would be to go later if your children no longer need afternoon naps.

The colors are flat out astounding! This definitely is food for the eyes! Friends rock for sure. And the design is outstanding as well. Makes very happy each time I look at it. Way to go!

Wow! This is very cool and a perfect summer build! The curved roofline is lovely, and the water and beach look so inviting. Palm tree with hanging green fringe is also a very nice touch. Fantastic design all over!

Wow! It is indeed a very dark time with so many wars and dangerous places in the world. My heart goes out to the many Dutch and Malaysians so directly touched by this shocking event. Having spent time around these countries recently, it really makes me depressed thinking about how badly they must feel. The Malaysians have been through this twice in less than a year. Many are losing their jobs because tourism is basically dead there. Their families will not be able to eat. And the loss of innocent lives is just too much. Neither they nor the Dutch deserve this fate. We think of your people with heavy hearts and tears that don't want to stop. People deserve better than this. No war is worth the price paid in lives.

Wow! This is a lovely design for Amsterdam canal houses! A great use of 31026, the Bike Shop/Cafe. Guess I will have to open my set and try something like this after the original build. Sorry I don't know much about building a canal, but I have been on plenty of them, and the color of the water changes throughout the day depending on the light, clouds, wind, turbidity, etc. So you can use most almost any color of brick, and it will be appropriate for some time of the day if the sun comes out at some point. Thanks for sharing this with us. The interiors look great, too!

Wow! A fantastic haul! I remember building many of those sets with my very young son in the Nineties. It seems that many sellers of used products have no sense of smell and have no idea how seriously those of us with highly developed noses are offended by any smell. I just sent back a really smelly, expensive and rare cloth toy sold as "new" on eBay, and the seller admitted she had almost no sense of smell offering a full refund including the return shipping charge. Now I know to ask if the item has stains, tears, odors, was exposed to smoke or pets, or is mildewed among other things. Phew! If I were a seller (I give away most of our no longer wanted items with just a handful of Craigslist sales over the past decade), the first thing on my list would be not to buy or sell anything with an odor unless it is supposed to smell and I like the scent as with the new Corolle doll signature scent of vanilla. I especially abhor receiving clothing that reeks of Tide detergent and is wrapped in a smelly sheet of dryer fabric. We try to live in a scent free home for the most part, and these items go straight outside on the porch for weeks after multiple soaking and wash cycles fail to remove the scents. Yuck!

Wow! Very impressive skyscraper! Details of the roof are outstanding! My first impression was that it is a gorgeous building, and I surely hope the fire department can put out that fire. Not being from the NY area, the World Trade Center idea did not cross my mind until folks seeing this brought it up. This shows how subjectively we each view a build. I can imagine how others might view this differently, but I don't need to judge where someone else's opinion is coming from. In summary I assume that builders are not out to inflame or show disrespect for anyone. So the building appears to be neutral IMHO. This is a low key, laid back approach to enjoying LEGO without any disrespect for the views of others. (And no interest in debating the politics of a build. There is just too much political instability and war going on at this moment; LEGO provide a much needed escape from reality for many who cannot change their place of residency in order to make their lives safer. This does bring tears to my already red with grief eyes.)

It looks great! The design and colors work well together, and the addition of a cafe for folks who are waiting is a neat idea. Congrats!