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

Delivery Services

Delivery Services wasn't a necessity for my Lego Town, but I thought it'd be a decent challenge.  I didn't feel like building just a post office would be sufficient, as I wanted something that would include document services, like printing.  More like a Mailboxes Etc. or Kinko's style store.

If it absolutely, positively has to be there...  Meh, whenever...

When it came to deciding on a color scheme for a Deliver Services building, it was kind of a no-brainer.  You can't get purple bricks on the Pick-A-Brick wall, so I went with a brown and yellow combination, to resemble UPS.  I admit, I prefer them to FedEx because of good customer service in the past.  I wish the employees had uniforms to match.

Delivery Services hard at work sorting through packages

Building a delivery truck was kind of tough, not only buying all the pieces but also ensuring it was structurally sound.  I'm very happy with how it came out.  Yeah, yellow doors on a brown van is kind of tacky, but it matches the building, so I'm OK with it.

Loading up the truck to bring packages to the peoples.

Packages are easy to make.  Just take a brick or a plate, and slap a similarly-sized flat tile on top of it.  Not too tough at all.  Just keep checking your local Lego store's Pick-A-Brick wall and grab some tiles once they become available.  Once you have tiles, grab the appropriate brick to go with it.

Packages come in all different colors

As I stated before, my Delivery Services also handles the daily mail routes, bringing the citizens their letters and newspapers.  I will need to build more mailboxes, but that can wait until I get more roads in place.

Checking the e-mail...  Er, um, the p-mail?

City Services

A city needs a crew to maintain the roads, work on street light fixtures, ensure fire hydrants are ready to go, and handle garbage pickup.  My folks at City Services will make sure upkeep is done in town.

City Services office

City Services has four departments, one each for water works, road maintenance, street lighting, and sanitation.  The head of each department gets his or her own desk, and the models on their desks indicate which department they run.  I wish I had something more to put on their desks for them to work on, like computers or files or somethings, but for now, they don't do much.

Left to right, the heads of water works, road maintenance, street lighting, and sanitation at their desks

There aren't many people on staff at City Services.  In additional to the four department heads and their supervisor, there's only about 4 additional employees working here.  One of the conditions for working at City Services is being dressed appropriately.  And by that I mean, you're in orange.  I need about four more minifigs to round out the complement of city workers here.

Several employees at City Services

I'm mostly good on vehicles, though I could use another one.  Not sure what type I'd need or want.  I got a couple of cherry pickers to work on light fixtures in town, and a flatbed truck to either haul supplies around or tow illegally parked cars away to impound.  I should put something together for transporting equipment around.  More of a pickup truck with a bed in it to hold tools and such.

A couple of cherry pickers and a flatbed truck used by City Services

Sanitation a particular example of needing more stuff, especially people.  How can one person be expected to drive the truck AND load all the garbage into the back?  Ridiculous...

Garbage truck (left) and refuse bins (right)

I need more parts for light fixtures, especially stop lights.  There are several styles I could go with, as shown below.  I just kind of throw them together as I get spare pieces.  I'm not too gung ho on keeping all uniform.  As long as they are in place, and the drivers pay attention to them, I don't care

Street lights and components

I've also got a street sweeper, plenty of traffic cones, a good set of tools, and a couple of fire hydrants to install as well.  As I get new sets, I'm always looking to see what I can use to help City Services out with stockpiling supplies for their operations.

Lego Haul - 8/1/15

I've been slacking with my Legoing lately.  My scheduled post for July were kind of half-assed, and I didn't buy a thing all month.  I had a bunch of other stuff going on that took priority, so I had to put my Lego's away.

August is a new month, and I'm back on the wagon.  This month brought new sets to stores, which I just have to have...  Sadly, I could not find them.  Big Bang Theory, Scooby-Doo...  All sold out.  Not what I was expecting, since they weren't SUPPOSED to be on sale until the 1st, but...  Whatever.  I bought some stuff, so we're good to go for now.

The Lego haul from 8/1/15

I did find some much needed 2x6 medium stone gray bricks so I could finish the walls of my Watch Tower.

Contents of my small cup refill

I got more than I needed to to finish off the wall, but it doesn't hurt to have a few extras, ready and waiting to be used for the next building.  Especially since it looked like that was my plan in the first place.  I don't know why I was holding onto extra medium stone grey bricks for the Watch Tower, but oh well.

Current progress on the Watch Tower (left) and with extra bricks (right)

The Watch Tower is far from complete though.  I have all the bricks. but I still need more dark stone gray plates to finish off the second and third floors.  It's going to cost me another $35 or so to finish it up, but I can never find those pieces on the wall at my Lego store.  I've got enough saved up in store credit to pull the trigger, but I want to find a better deal.

With my purchase, I got a free Pirate set to commemorate that line of products and how it's changes over the last 25+ years.  It's pretty nice, to have a newer looking shark with more detailed eyes, some more gold, and a fancy little palm tree.  It's very nice.

Contents and fully assembled Pirate retrospective set

I also got 76039 Ant-Man The Final Battle.  My wife and I enjoyed the movie, which we had low expectations for after all the drama Marvel ran into with production.  Paul Rudd was pretty good as Scott Lang, the new Ant-Man.

Contents and fully assembled 76039 Ant-Man The Final Battle

The final item in this acquisition is 31036 Changing Seasons.  Unlike most Creator sets that come with increasingly complex building instructions, this set came with 3 booklets, one each for summer, fall, and winter.

Contents of 31036 Changing Seasons

With autumn on the horizon, I followed the fall instructions to put the house together.  I'd like to assemble the other two as well, but I'll have to verify I have sufficient bricks to do so.  I know I don't have all of them in the exact colors in the instructions, I should have all the shapes.  I'm not concerned if the color varies or not, but I'd really like to put the winter house together for the Winter Village, and the summer house to sit beside the Family House and Apple Tree House.

Fully assembled fall scene from 31036 Changing Seasons (left) and leftover pieces (right)

I'll get back into my regular buying Lego habits as the winter progresses.  I'll be debating what to get, as I'll leave some items on the list for my family to get as Christmas gifts.  But there are new minifigures due out in September, plus some holiday-themed sets that have yet to be revealed.  I just hope I have enough money to get them all.

Treehouse and Princess Play Castle

Designing things out of Lego's is tough.  Sure, I can do big buildings to house banks, firefighters, and a fine dining establishment.  But not everything I touch turns to gold.

 

The Treehouse and the Princess Play Castle

Case-in-point, I have a 31010 Treehouse.  It came with a small boy minifigure.  To even out the gender scales, I've been trying to build a princess play castle, for the little girls to play in.

Rear view of the Princess Play Castle (in its current configuration)

It has not been easy.  I have high standards for the elements going into my town.  I know it looks like I don't, but I put a lot of thought into every item.  I've got a large tote filled with sets that I haven't touched yet because I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE TO PUT THEM.  All my classic Space sets from the late 80's to mid 90's?  Sea exploration sets?  They're staying put.  Possibly forever.

Side views of the Princess Play Castle

I've got plenty of bricks to play with.  I'm working on combining a few different sets together to get the princess play castle built.  10660 Lego Pink Suitcase and 10668 The Princess Play Castle help me with the building blocks, but I need more.  I'm keeping my eye on future set releases that might be more female-oriented.

Extra bricks I'd like to use, but have no idea where to put yet

I'll never figure all this out.  But it's the journey to my Lego town, not the destination.

Police Station

If there's one thing I have more than enough of in my Lego town, it's police forces.  I've got plenty of people in uniform ready to enforce the law and protect the citizens from the crime.

Lego Police Station

I've a big enough police station to house them in.  I think this was the first building I designed with a larger 48x48 baseplate.  There were several rooms I had to add.  An office for the chief, interrogation, a jail cell, and a lab.

Clockwise from top left: the chief's office, the mobile lab, the jail cell, and interrogation

When I was designing and building my police station, I built it around these elements.  First, I needed a larger entrance for officers to bring in criminals or evidence.  A normal door (4 studs wide, minus the frame) would not have worked, so I went with something wider (and unencumbered).  Then I needed an opening for the mobile lab to drive in and out of the station.  Lastly, I used an 8x16 green brick as a platform for the desk where people can check in to speak to an officer.  The officers themselves don't have anything fancy for desks...  But they really don't need anything more than a chair and surface to work on.

Check-in counter (left) and the officers' desks (right)

I actually have too many police officers.  In addition to the nine who sit in the station, I have eight more on patrol.  I think it's a 40-to-1 ratio, citizens to officers, or something like that.   To help you put that into perspective, that'd be like a city with a million people having more than 24,000 officers.

Police patrol officers, ready to go on the beat.

And it's not just people, I've got too much equipment.  For example, I've got 4 police helicopters.  What the heck am I or anyone else going to do with them?  I need to take them all apart and build a single, larger whirlybird.  To make things eve more difficult, I've got a police jet.  Why does any police force need a jet?  It's ridiculous.

Four (4!!) police helicopters and a jet

I've got a good number of items for the force to use, though I still need a place to store them all.  I'll divvy them up someday, but I've got plenty of time to figure that out.

All the rest of the police equipment housed at the station.