Lego Haul - 2/13/16

My wife and I tried to go to the Lego store again last week to find some Series 15 minifigures, but still no luck.  As I usually do when we're at the Lego store, I looked at the Pick-A-Brick wall and filled a small cup with bricks

The small cup of bricks I purchase today

Today's haul was great, as I got nearly 40 2x6 blue plates needed to finish up my hospital. A small cup cost me less than $9, but the individual bricks, had I purchased them from Lego's website, would have cost more than that.  I can never resist a good Lego deal.  I also got the rest of the brick yellow (tan) 2x4 bricks I needed to finish up my Tech Startup Firm building.

Late October 2015 hauls

I've bought a lot of Lego sets and bricks lately, but haven't had a chance to sit down and write about them until now.  I had a paper to write for class, a Gopher football game to be disappointed by, a Jim Gaffigan show to attend (so freakin' hilarious), and work.  I finally got the chance to put finish everything together this weekend.

I bought a sand baseplate at Target, but since that's only one piece, I don't need to get into that (just yet).  I also ran to the Lego store on October 25th to grab a 10249 Winter Toy Shop and some yellow and sand 2x4 bricks.

Lego Haul from 10/25/15

The Winter Toy Shop will go with the rest of my Christmas-themed sets.  I have the Winter Village Cottage from 2012, the Winter Village Market from 2013, Santa's Workshop from 2014, so this makes me 4-for-4 for the exclusive seasonal sets.  Not that I'm keeping score or anything.  Seriously, I'm not, because I'm not trying to collect every single set out there.  I don't have that much money to spend on Lego's, geez...

10249 Winter Toy Shop (left) and 40138 Holiday Train, a large and a small Pick-A-Brick cop (right)

Obviously, the Winter Toy Shop and Christmas Train will go to the Mountain Village area outside of my Lego city.  My scheduled posts for November, December, and January will go into detail as to its progress, so stay tuned.

Pick-A-Brick cup contents

The Pick-A-Brick contents were almost entirely 2x4 bricks.  Yellow for my Pyramid nightclub, sand for my Tech Startup (for which The Big Bang Theory set will be used as the basis).  More on this later.

10249 Winter Toy Shop contents

The Winter Toy Shop is a bit redundant when paired with Santa's Workshop.  Two toy assembly sets is a bit overkill, even if one of those is also a retail facility.  I'd like to put them on a single baseplate, but that would be too crammed for a 32x32 area.  I'll place the two buildings side-by-side.

10249 Winter Toy Shop fully assembled

The Holiday Train is purely decorative.  I don't think I'll actually use it in my mountain village.  I'll put it on the shelf when Christmas rolls around every year.

40138 Holiday Train contents (right) and fully assembled

Now, let's get to the fun part: Online Pick-A-Brick.  I cashed in $10 of store credit to get various pieces to continue construction of several buildings.  These pieces went to the Grocery Store, Pyramid nightclub, Islanders luau, and Watch Tower.

Pick-A-Brick online order contents

Many of the white, gray, and green pieces built the meat department in the Grocery Store.  I'm built the layout of the Grocery Store around this counter.  I'll work on the next phase of construction soon, with another Online Pick-A-Brick order in late November or early December.

The meat department at the Grocery Store

The 2x4 yellow bricks I got at the Lego store allowed me to finish building the inner portion of the top of the Pyramid.  1x6 yellow bricks from the online order completed the inner wall for the bottom portion.  Now that walls are complete, I can figure out some the internal layout for a DJ booth, a bar, and a storage area inside the wall of the lower portion.  I still need 755 2x2 slope pieces, which I figure will take three large Pick-A-Brick cups to finish off the external sloping sides.

Top (left) and bottom (right) portions of the Pyramid nightclub.

I forgot to order four 1x4 white bricks for the picnic tables at the Islanders luau.  Otherwise, this complete.

Current progress of the Islanders luau

My online Pick-A-Brick order also had a couple of 2x4 medium stone grey plates to close up a gap next to the Watch Tower door.  I move the door up by one-third of a brick to close up a gap between the door and the arch above it, which created a gap at the bottom.  A 2x12 plate with four 2x4 plates (two on each side) took care of that, so there's no physical security breach anymore.

The gap in the Watch Tower doorway is no more

The sand baseplate I got at Target?  The 2x4 sand bricks from my Lego run on the 25th?  Remember those?  They and the Big Bang Theory set will be my Tech Startup Firm.  Not sure what to do with the whole crew, as you don't need that many people to manage the websites of all the Lego businesses and government entities.  Since they are biologists, I'll probably put Bernadette and Amy to work in the Medical Research Lab.  Penny and the guys should be able to run the IT web infrastructure for everyone, but even five people many be too many.  We'll see once I get the rest of the building laid out and assembled.

Tech Startup Firm enjoying dinner while discussing their clients

Lego Haul - 8/29/15

My wife went to a blogging conference last week at the Mall of America, and she was kind enough to bring me a couple of souvenirs.  OK, she bought them from the Lego store there, but still...  LEGO'S!!

She managed to get a hold of The Big Bang Theory Lego Ideas set that came out last month.   We didn't have any luck finding one at the Lego store for most of August, but she lucked out this time.    

The Lego haul from 8/29

The Big Bang Theory is one of our favorite shows.  We're constantly quoting it, we watch it on TV every chance we get, we have several T-shirts and other clothing items from the show, we've even got a poster on our wall.  It's been such a bonding event for us.  If it wasn't for this show, we probably never would have ended up together.

Contents of The Big Bang Theory

Right now, this set is sitting up on a shelf on a wall.  Eventually, I'll use this set  to house a tech startup firm in my Lego town.  All the characters will be a part of it.  The scene will function as the lounge area, I just need to add a couple of desks and computers, maybe a fridge.  It's gonna be nice.

Leonard and Sheldon's living room, fully assembled.

My wife also managed to get a hold of one Series 14 Minifigure, two days before they were scheduled to hit stores.  Apparently, there weren't many left in the store, but it's better than nothing.  All of the Series 14 minifigs are halloween-related.  Zombies, witches, monsters.

We got a Mad Scientist.  All the minifigs will eventually go to the costume party.  I'll also rotate them in and out of the fall scene from 31038 Changing Seasons.

Series 14 Mad Scientist minifigure

The Lego store has been slim pickings the last couple of months.  I'm sure we would have had better luck if we didn't wait until the weekend to hit the store.  If only my work schedule would have let me escape for a couple hours on Monday mornings...  Even worse, I let my lack of purchases affect my blog (that, and school).  I didn't post much this summer, but with the fall and holiday season coming up, I'll get back on pace here.

All the contents from last Saturday's haul