Diamondback

Call me a bit Privateer, a bit Merc, a bit Independent Contractor, a bit "Hague Tribunal With Guns"--if I believe you to have conducted yourself in a "dishonorable manner", I got cannonballs with your name on 'em no matter what uniform you wear or what colors you fly, and I'll happily take the gold from all your enemies for the job of taking you out. Sometimes setting out to "do good" sees you do very well indeed... lol

Old native ruins? Hmm... could this be a use for the old Amazon jungle sets in the Adventurers line? Albeit, leave the Adventurers out unless they have access to an 8-passenger DeLorean with a darn big Thru-Haul (think U-Haul for time-travelers)...lol

Found the problem: some of my security software was set to "Block HTTP". I'm running a bunch of stuff, all set to "Paranoid", and they don't always play nicely with each other... Thanks for the support, y'all. Mods, please feel free to delete the thread.

But I wasn't using a public computer, this was my own laptop--and the glitch is now repeated from a second hotspot. ---------------- Now playing: Bill Brown - USA 11.mp3 via FoxyTunes

I was on just fine a few days ago, maybe it's something with the library's internet connection... Copy/pasting the Firefox error-page: Unable to connect Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at www.lego.com. Let's try to troubleshoot the problem: * Check Internet connection: Your Internet connection seems to be working! * Try to perform some diagnostic tests: (omitted) General troubleshooting tips: * The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments. (But would this be an ALL DAY issue?) * If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network connection. (Non-issue--I'm navigating here and most other sites I frequent just fine) * If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web. (Ditto) Giving it a whack with Safari now, and it says "can't connect to server" too. Guess I'll try again from a different WiFi hotspot later tonight... ---------------- Now playing: Brad Fiedel - I'll Be Back via FoxyTunes

I haven't been able to get a connect from LEGO.com all day, and was wondering if anyone else has been having problems of late?

Try complete airliner fuselages, like how Boeing ships 737 fuselages built by Spirit Aerosystems in Wichita up here to Renton for assembly. Or a locomotive--this one, I think, was when Purdue U. ("Boilermakers"--get it?) donated their locomotive collection to the National Museum of Transport in St. Louis ---------------- Now playing: James Horner - Re-Entry And Splashdown via FoxyTunes

Confirmed at US Target.com, no coupon. Checking the brick'n'mortar ad... ---------------- Now playing: James Horner - Into The LEM via FoxyTunes

Jet snowblowers are rare over here too; the only ones I remember were three cases in the 1960's where the New York Central grafted old fighter engines, 1 each, onto flatcars. I'll see if I can find the photos again and get access to a scanner...

No, that'd just be a "dummy A"--a "Baggage Cab" as Amtrak refers to some of their F40PH's where they've turned the former engine compartment into cargo space but kept the cab for double-end train operations (point-to-point and back with no turnaround at either end, like the Seattle-Portland Cascades) Take a look at these drawings, which will explain it better (can't embed for copyright reasons) GM FT A & B: http://paintshop.railfan.net/images/belanger/ft_ab.html Note, on the FT the cab (left side of the drawing) and booster (right side) units were permanently connected by drawbar--this was before the unions had wrapped their minds around the concept of multiple-unit operations. Slugs were typically rebuilt from locomotives by railroads' own shops, like this Missouri-Kansas-Texas slug chopped from a GM GP-series: http://paintshop.railfan.net/images/moldover/ex-gp_slug.html Or they could sometimes keep their cabs, like this Morrison-Knudson rebuild of an EMD GP30: http://paintshop.railfan.net/images/moldover/gp30slug.html If you're ever trying to MOC North American locomotives, Model Railroader Cyclopedia, Volume 1: Steam Locomotives and Volume 2: Diesel Locomotives, while a Texas-size pain in the butt to get now, are must-haves--they even include diagrams for the monster Big Boys, Triplexes and the eight-axle GM DD series, which were basically two smaller complete units mounted on a common frame. Someday a DD35A/B/A set and DD40AX doubleheader are on Ye Olde To-Do List... even though each unit will need not one, not two, but four PF motors to run! ---------------- Now playing: Frank Klepacki - Tension via FoxyTunes

Kindly explain the Red Baron's Fokker Dreidecker (the "Dr." in Dr.I, "I" being their first design of that configuration) and the Sopwith Camel, please? By your logic, "U-26" from LA shouldn't show up either (not to be confused with the real U-26, a Type IA and one of the first of the WWII-generation Unterseebooten; IIRC, the fullsize sub in ROTLA was the same one from Das Boot.*) *Sorry, an old friend used to drive real subs for a living, including a stint as captain of a big missile-sub. Never could get him to talk about that part of the gig, even with him getting me a tour of one in drydock... Trust me, few things make you take the world seriously like sitting in the launch-control center while they do a missile drill once. As for the chopper in Dino Attack, am I the only one that found it creepily reminiscent of a Soviet** Mi-24 Hind with the wings chopped off? **Apologies to our members from the other side of the former Iron Curtain, just that the Hind is an iconic symbol of the Red Army in the Bad Old Days and when you grow up a Cold Warrior studying how the various scenarios would play out it becomes a little difficult to separate the two. Western from the Indy fedora, doubt it--not ruling out the theme possibility, but when you look at 'em side-by-side a Stetson and a fedora have very little in common aside from the fact that both have a brim. A fedora would stand out in the Old West like a dude who's just had a stagecoach run over his foot... and a cowboy Stetson similarly in the times when fedoras were popular, even though Stetson did make fedoras too around the '20s-now. This month's History Channel magazine had a really neat article on how cowboy gear evolved...

Also, take the economy into account--lotsa people are cuttin' back on the creature-comforts.

Just waitin' fer a killer deal on Brickbeard's Bounty and I'm complete... although I'm considering several more Soldier's Arsenal impulses and performing head-swaps with minifigs from other impulse sets.

Possible--you're right, Dale's stuff is too big for the "conflict" model LEGO likes and is too real-world. From the first novel, the Old Dog would easily be a $100US set by itself, to say nothing of Papendreyov's MiG or the Kavaznya laser complex... and I don't think a theme of a lone American B-52 and two B-1s taking on the entire Soviet Far East's air defenses would exactly be a hot seller... pity, the early ones are good books after you take the timeline-divergence into account.

Unfortunately, here we see where the myth of pirates and the reality diverge. Almost all real pirate ships were small sloops or not much bigger--their primary weapons were surprise and raw audacity rather than real firepower. Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge, the closest thing to a pirate ship-of-the-line even though still much smaller, was probably the largest, most powerful ship ever under pirate command, and even then it was so huge and unsuitable for hit-and-run work that he abandoned it and most of its crew. And even the BIG ships of the Golden Age, the Spanish treasure galleons, were smaller than a WWII PT-boat. (Seriously, I have models of a galleon and JFK's PT109 in the same scale on a shelf in my bookcase, and the PT's almost as tall as the older ship's hull but much beamier and longer. I'd say SES and BB are probably about LEGO's version of QAR, and the old Renegade Runner more like a typical pirate vessel--and would like to see more serious "militarily useful" naval forces and genuine, worthwhile-target-sized merchies for the pirates to employ "pirate-ly" tricks against.

Dale Brown's novels. Ever imagine a LEGO B-52? Now imagine a souped-up, hotrodded one...

OTHER: More. Of. EVERYTHING!

Better idea, skip the Mini, and include additional parts and instructions to retrofit your existing AT-TE or Fighter Tank for "airdrop"--then keep both those sets in production, making the tank in an Unlimited Edition.

Well, another thing you can do is swap heads on dupe pirates and soldiers... which raises the "population" a little.

One word: Executor. Minifig, UCS, doesn't matter as long as it's reasonably accurate--IMO Vader's command ship is the single most undermerched piece of the Star Wars Universe.

Any chance of a two-tone KARR with amber/trans-orange scanner to go with KITT? (KARR was KITT's "evil twin", in his second episode he had a yellow scanner and a silver or light-gray bottom half.) Very nice work--looks like the closest to accurate a Minifig Knight Firebird can get...

Nice! Now if only LEGO will just take the hint and design future Soldier and civilian "waterfront" buildings as a "bolt-on extension" with similar modular architecture... I mean, you've blended the old ITP in near-seamlessly, so why can't they do the same looking to the old designs as a baseline to "modernize"?

Thanks, Cale--forgot that reefers were frequently flat-ended. I need to check out RailBricks myself... now if only LDraw would catch up on certain parts like your grabirons. (I admire good SNOT technique when I see it, but hate trying to do it myself because of how much of a pain it is in MLCad.) Now all you need is a whole bunch more of 'em pulled by a triple or quad of freighter F-units or early Geeps... typical practice for longhaul was to run reefers as "unit trains", at least on NYC.

Frankly, to me this MOC comes off as a tribute to Captain Sullenberger and his crew's heroism in getting the plane down and everybody out OK, and that of the NY Harbor ferry and fireboat operators in quickly moving in to get everyone on boats and headed to shore.

Any chance of getting a better view of the ends? I'm working on applying some of your design-principles to a 1946 NYC Pacemaker fast-freight service boxcar in 10-wide, and end corrugation is starting to drive me nuts.