Showing posts with label ILTCO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ILTCO. Show all posts
Thursday, July 31, 2008
2008 NMRA/ILTCO Anaheim, CA Convention
Here's a few pictures from people who have tagged their photos with LEGO NMRA 2008 (YMMV) -- from the 2008 NMRA/ILTCO Anaheim, CA Convention that took place July 18-20, 2008 at the Orange County Convention Center in Anaheim, CA. The show report was posted on LUGNET -- the size was 65 x 70 feet with 8 ILTCO clubs.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Call for Participation: Disney-Themed LEGO Display
A little back story first: GFLUG/GFLTC decided last year that a few of us will try to make it to NMRA in Anaheim in 2008 -- the attraction of making side trips to Legoland & Disneyland is just too great to stay away.
Being a Disney-geek as well as a LEGO-geek, doing a little research on-line, there will be a NFFC (National Fantasy Fan Club) convention in Anaheim around the same time as the NMRA convention -- Disneyland’s 53th anniversary will be July 17th, 2008 btw. If you don’t know anything about the NFFC, it’s a national Disney fan club, please check their web-site out.
I’ve been in contact with the NFFC convention planning committee, and have managed to secure a few display tables for a Disney-themed LEGO display for Sunday July 20th, 2008 during the public Disneyana Show and Sale event -- set up should be sometime Saturday or Sunday before the event.
So this is a call for participation; if anyone is interested in displaying Disney-themed MOCs and would be in the area during this time, please contact Joe Meno and myself. If you won’t be in the area, but would still like to participate, let us both know, we’ll try to make arrangements.
In the next few weeks, there will be some on-line brain storming of ideas for the display. Send me an e-mail and I’ll invite you to the Yahoo planning group.
Being a Disney-geek as well as a LEGO-geek, doing a little research on-line, there will be a NFFC (National Fantasy Fan Club) convention in Anaheim around the same time as the NMRA convention -- Disneyland’s 53th anniversary will be July 17th, 2008 btw. If you don’t know anything about the NFFC, it’s a national Disney fan club, please check their web-site out.
I’ve been in contact with the NFFC convention planning committee, and have managed to secure a few display tables for a Disney-themed LEGO display for Sunday July 20th, 2008 during the public Disneyana Show and Sale event -- set up should be sometime Saturday or Sunday before the event.
So this is a call for participation; if anyone is interested in displaying Disney-themed MOCs and would be in the area during this time, please contact Joe Meno and myself. If you won’t be in the area, but would still like to participate, let us both know, we’ll try to make arrangements.
In the next few weeks, there will be some on-line brain storming of ideas for the display. Send me an e-mail and I’ll invite you to the Yahoo planning group.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
NMRA
... this post has gone unwritten for a few weeks now -- been busy & frustrated. We were close to selling our house in Ohio, but couldn't come to terms with the buyers -- we bent over backwards, but we weren't willing to give our house away. While I was up in Detroit, I made a detour to the old house in Ohio to move more stuff out of the house to our storage unit, in hopes of closing on the house. NMRA was enjoyable, but stressful; on one hand I wanted to help my GFLTC mate with manning the display, but on the other hand, I wanted to help my wife with the house negotiations.
Erika built this house for NMRA -- it was her first LEGO creation she made without instructions. I'm very happy with her first attempt; I hope she'll keep it up & try more. Everyone at NMRA was asking where she was... It's funny, she's more popular with my LEGO friends than I am. :)
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Detroit NMRA
Got back Monday from Detroit. I was an exhibitor at the Detroit NMRA show -- a show for model trains. GFLTC/GFLUG (my local LEGO clubs) had a LEGO display at NMRA along with 9+ other LEGO train clubs.
Overall, it was a great show. People were friendly & appreciative of us driving all the way up from Florida to be there. The public (and their kids) were well behaved and amazed. The layout was big enough that there wasn't too big of a crowd in front the of displays at any time.
Did a little more drinking than normal -- there was a bar close to the hotel, so after the show, most AFOLs congregated there. So this event, I met someone who worked on the Red-Green show at one time -- he did the special effects on the last 2 seasons of the show. I'm a such a fan of the show, that this just blew me away -- and he's a very nice guy to boot.
It might have been me & whenever I talked with people, I began by asking about the drama behind Brickshelf to get the conversation rolling -- nothing like a "hot button" to get people to talk about something. Many were glad that it was back up; they still support it & might support it with cold hard cash. Others fear more LEGO community fragmentation. Others were looking long-term, like in how to keep the site operational. While some of us reflection on Brickshelf's moderation policy & history. Like others, I think if there's a fan-centric image repository web-site (something like Brickshelf, but brought into the 21st century, instead of using 90's technology) it could emerge as the leader. But then the conversation turned towards the classic developer vs. systems-architect argument of either rebuilding the web-site from scratch vs. taking an existing solution & customizing it to fit the community's needs. It's the same 80%/20% problem to me. :) Either the developer's delima (80% development completed on a new project vs. 20% left unfinished in the end) or the systems-architect's delima (pre-existing software off the shelf will only meet about 80% of the community's needs with customizations & the other 20% not able to be completed because of the software's structure). Either way you reach the same goal, but it depends on time & money at that point.
Anyway, how we build that better LEGO community shouldn't prevent us from striving for a better LEGO community. Now if only we can change people's attitudes on being so club-centric and be mature enough to assist other clubs in set-up/tear-down, when there's a surplus of people... :) It took Robin & I nearly 4 hours to tear down our display. We did have a little help -- I do appreciate that -- but to have a few extra hands, especially since Robin drove 21+ hours to attend the show.
Overall, it was a great show. People were friendly & appreciative of us driving all the way up from Florida to be there. The public (and their kids) were well behaved and amazed. The layout was big enough that there wasn't too big of a crowd in front the of displays at any time.
Did a little more drinking than normal -- there was a bar close to the hotel, so after the show, most AFOLs congregated there. So this event, I met someone who worked on the Red-Green show at one time -- he did the special effects on the last 2 seasons of the show. I'm a such a fan of the show, that this just blew me away -- and he's a very nice guy to boot.
It might have been me & whenever I talked with people, I began by asking about the drama behind Brickshelf to get the conversation rolling -- nothing like a "hot button" to get people to talk about something. Many were glad that it was back up; they still support it & might support it with cold hard cash. Others fear more LEGO community fragmentation. Others were looking long-term, like in how to keep the site operational. While some of us reflection on Brickshelf's moderation policy & history. Like others, I think if there's a fan-centric image repository web-site (something like Brickshelf, but brought into the 21st century, instead of using 90's technology) it could emerge as the leader. But then the conversation turned towards the classic developer vs. systems-architect argument of either rebuilding the web-site from scratch vs. taking an existing solution & customizing it to fit the community's needs. It's the same 80%/20% problem to me. :) Either the developer's delima (80% development completed on a new project vs. 20% left unfinished in the end) or the systems-architect's delima (pre-existing software off the shelf will only meet about 80% of the community's needs with customizations & the other 20% not able to be completed because of the software's structure). Either way you reach the same goal, but it depends on time & money at that point.
Anyway, how we build that better LEGO community shouldn't prevent us from striving for a better LEGO community. Now if only we can change people's attitudes on being so club-centric and be mature enough to assist other clubs in set-up/tear-down, when there's a surplus of people... :) It took Robin & I nearly 4 hours to tear down our display. We did have a little help -- I do appreciate that -- but to have a few extra hands, especially since Robin drove 21+ hours to attend the show.
Friday, July 8, 2005
ILTCO/NMRA Setup
Was tired when yesterday was done... long drive down, long drive back... got stuck in traffic on the way down, about 50 miles outside of Cincy... for about 30+ minutes. When I got to the Cinergy Center, couldn't find where the display was... on the opposite side of the building from where I was told to walk.
Set up went a lot faster. Our club is using folding tables that (1) weight about 1/2 as much as the wooden tables, (2) don't take any time at all to set up, (3) consistently the same height; don't have to futz with lining everything up. We also set up the display a little differently; take a table, put down the skyscrapper bases, add in the road plates, detail the ground level, put the table in it's proper place, finish adding the other segments of the skyscrapper, & repeat the process till the display is complete.
There was some difficulty squeezing one table in-between 2 other tables... off by just a little... had to take a bolt out from one of the wooden tables this display was joined next to.
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