Gas Station

With a civilian population, there will be civilian vehicles.  And where there are civilian vehicles, there will be a need to refuel them at a gas station.

The Octan Gas Station

Don't judge me.  Lego bricks are made of plastic, which is made of oil.  I'm not a damn, dirty hippie like you are.  No one's driving an electric hybrid solar car here.  Freakin' treehugger...

Virtual model of the Gas Station

The Gas Station was a pretty easy design.  I took my 6562 Gas Stop Shop and rotated some pieces around so a car could fuel up on each side of the pump.  I placed it on a 48x48 baseplate, then added a 24x24 building in one corner, a few flat tiles beside it to represent painted lines for parking spots, and three round plates with a flat tile on top to represent where the gas hauler would deliver new gasoline and store it for use at the pump.  You know what I'm talking about right?  Yeah, THOSE things...

 An old guy filling up his gas tank (left) and a car parked outside the store (right)

Once I got the external layout figured out, I looked inward to add some elements inside.  A counter for a register, a table for customers to sit and talk, and a soda fountain.  I'm quite proud of the soda fountain.  It's massive compared to the minifigures, but I love how it looks.  I need to make a couple tweaks to get the catcher thingy under the spouts in place.  You know, that grate thing under where your soda is dispensed.  (I don't know what any of this stuff is called, I never worked in a gas station.)

 Views inside the convenience store at the Gas Station

Soda fountain digital design (left) and physical model (right)

The soda fountain is so huge that I was handcuffed as to what would fit inside the store.  After some thought while taking these pictures today, I can shrink down the area behind the counter.  The attendant doesn't need that much room to operate a cash register.  Especially if there are no tobacco products or lottery tickets to sell.  That may give me enough room to add a shelf to see some snacks for sale.  I mean, who goes on a road trip with just gas and soda.  I sure don't

A table for customers to sit and shoot the breeze at

 The gas station attendant standing behind the counter

Don't know when I'll make changes to the gas station here.  I've got some parts coming from the online Pick-A-Brick, and once I have them, I'll tear the soda fountain apart and try to get everything in place.

Sets used: 6562

Struggling to Keep Up

I've been having trouble staying focused on cranking out my Lego blog posts lately.  A lot has changed since I started this back in January.  Among them are...

• School: I'm taking four credits this fall (as I did this past spring), so my semesters are taking four months to complete.  It really takes away from my free time when I have to study, so I'm not as available for my Lego people (the minifigures).
• Work: I'm working on a big project at Deere to upgrade Adobe software for everyone, so I'm spending some extra time on the weekends running reports and preparing software deployments.  If I don't get my work done, I won't have a job, and then I can't afford to buy Lego's.
• Animal Crossing: This is a Nintendo Wii game my wife had shipped to her from California (from her parents' house).  It's a fun game.  As a community simulator, it does require about an hour of play time to maintain my status in Rindge (the name of our town).  Those hours could be better spent playing Lego's (or working or studying).
• Pokemon: Yet another Nintendo game I'm playing.  If you don't know what Pokemon are, stop reading this and crawl out from underneath the rock you've been living under since '98.  I've been refining my Pokemon for Pokemon Stadium for Nintendo 64 so I can win more Pokemon (it's a vicious cycle).
• Exercise: My wife and I are walking on the treadmills about 20 minutes three or four time a week.  Again, this eats up free time so I can't play Lego's.
• Money: Earlier in the year, I was playing with the house's money.  Literally.  I got close to $300 in gift certificates to the Lego store, so I didn't have to pay for anything out of my own pocket.  It was much easier to pull the trigger on things when didn't have to shell out ACTUAL dollars to get the sets I wanted.
• Christmas: With the holiday season coming up, I'm holding off to see what Lego will be coming out with and what I'll be asking for for Christmas (and my birthday, which is a few days after Jesus's).  I'm also not sure what I want to ask for.  Yeah, I'm in my mid-30's, so I don't need any toys for Christmas, but my parents like to buy them for me, so who am I to say no?

Not only so I have all that going on to take away from my commitment to those wonderful colored plastic bricks, but some of my projects have not come to fruition yet.  Several of my buildings I've done scheduled posts for weren't 100% completed (Delivery Services, TV Station, Laser Tag Area).  Two buildings I'm planning to write about haven't even been started yet.  No digital design, no physical model.  Those blog posts are postponed indefinitely.  I've got an idea for one replacement, but I got nothing for the second one.

It'd be nice if I had more resources to work on this blog, but it's just a hobby.  Maybe I just need to walk away from it for a bit before tackling it this winter.

Lego Haul - 10/3/15

Made another Lego run this weekend.  But it got me thinking about this blog and what I'm trying to accomplish here.  Stay tuned for that post later this week...

The haul from October 3rd, 2015

I wasn't sure what to get this time around, because I had no idea what would be available.  My wife pretty much found everything for me.  I'll start with the large cup I filled.

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The contents of my large Pick-A-Brick cup.

The Pick-A-Brick wall was fully restocked with new product.  Nearly every bin was completely filled up.  Gone were the yellow 2x2 slope bricks, but they were replaced with yellow 1x4 bricks, which I needed for the inner wall to the Pyramid Nightclub.  I need some 1x6 bricks to finish up that inner wall, but I had enough to build up three more layers of 2x4 bricks.

I'm about 700 slope bricks short of building up the pyramid, but I'm at a point where I can start considering the internal layout.  A bar, a DJ's booth, a dance floor... This place is going to be off the hook.

Current progress of the Pyramid Nightclub

My wife located 40123 Thanksgiving Feast on the shelf and grabbed it right away.  Sure, Thanksgiving is still a couple months away, but as we've learned, you have to get while the gettin' is good.  I was so excited to put this set together that I forgot to take pictures of the three bags of pieces and instructions contained in the box.  It will go great with my other Thanksgiving sets, which will be featured in a future post.

40123 Thanksgiving Feast fully assembled.

The Lego Store at the Mall of America finally got some Series 14 minifigures in stock (or maybe just managed to hold onto some).  I needed five to complete the set, and we got them all.  They were pretty easy to feel out, as the parts to identify them were very unique to each minifigure..

Gargoyle, Plant Monster, Specter, Zombie Cheerleader, and Spider Lady

Not sure when the next haul is coming, as I'm awaiting the Holiday 2015 catalog to come in the mail.  Until then, I don't feel like I have much direction.  Like I said, I have to figure out what my next steps are here.

Laser Tag Arena

Fifteen years ago, Lego started releasing Star Wars-themed sets.  Over the past few years, I've purchased several of these sets (and received a few others for Christmas), but I was always left with the question as to how do I integrate them into my Lego city?  Sure, I put the droids to work in the Research Lab, but where do the Stormtroopers go?

Action is going down at the Laser Tag Arena

How about a laser tag arena?  Sure, Stormtroopers can't hit the broad side of a barn in the presence of a Jedi, but there are no Jedi's in town.

Service counter and orientation room at the Laser Tag Arena

Design was a challenge, as the arena is a two-story building.  Not only did I need to put a floor together, but  a couple of entry rooms as well.  One to handle the customers (reservations and monetary transactions).  The other is a holding room for the next round of laser tag combatants to go over the rules of competition and await for the current battle to finish up.

The arena itself has a number of obstacles in place.  You can't have a laser tag arena without a few walls and other objects to hide behind, run around, cilmb on, or snipe opponents from.  I've got a few in place right now, but I still need some pieces to complete others.

All the Stormtroopers, plus a few others, who are playing laser tag

Stormtroopers and other Star Wars characters work great for laser tag, as their uniforms help distinguish the groups of friends who will team up in the arena.  They also came with a good number of blasters in all sizes.  A contestant can go with a smaller unit that's easier to carry, or a bulky rifle with increased accuracy over other models.  

The open back wall in the Laser Tag Arena, so you can reach in and place the minifigures

One of my favorite features is the wall that opens up so I can access the first floor without having to remove the second floor.  I could have left the wall completely open, but it would have been more difficult to place the second floor in place.  As I write this, I'm now thinking of rebuilding the top layer of plates on the first floor walls by placing flat tiles and 2x2 plates with a single stud every so often, so the second floor could be easily removed.

I have all the staircases to connect the two floors, but I haven't found the best way to ensure they remain connected.  Sigh...  I'll get this finished up some day.  But I got other fish to fry.