Orlando Attractions Magazine - Episode 21

brickbuilder711 has shared a video with me:



From about 9:44 to about 17:15 is the segment on the newly remodeled LEGO Imagination Center in Orlando, FL.  Some of my pictures don't do the new store justice, but this interview with Justin Tripp, VP of LEGO Retail Stores, does a great job summing up the changes to the newly reopened Orlando store.

Orlando's LEGO Imagination Center

IMG_2296,
originally uploaded by thumat2002.

Todd Thuma uploaded some pictures of the remodel to the Orlando LEGO Imagination Center to his Flickr account -- taken last weekend. As you can see, progress is coming along.

BrickBuildr Updates

I got a message early this morning saying there's will be a new LEGO store in the Miami area, based upon some information from a recent LEGO store flyer -- looks like there will be new stores in Indianapolis, IN & Beachwood, OH as well. Looks like opening weekend for both stores will be April 8-10th; no word on LEGO's web-site about the Sawgrass Mills store opening, at present. There's also been rumors of a LEGO store opening in Toronto, Canada later this year, so I added a store placeholder to the database.

Decided it was also time to add PaB walls for Legoland Discovery Centers & LEGOLAND Parks world-wide. And figure it was time to do some cleanup work on the View iPaB Walls page -- you'll now see the list ordered by country name, added headers over each country section, and started displaying stores that were in the database, but were hidden because there was no PaB information. I'm hoping by displaying the store names, more people will come forward and provide BrickBuildr with more information.

LEGO Imagination Center Reopens at the Mall of America

Herobot 9000 (1),
originally uploaded by nstohlma.

I've been following the TwinLUG's Flickr stream for some time now, watching the behind the walls remodel of the LEGO Imagination Center at the Mall of America. At first, it looked like a few walls, a bunch of open space, and a few cube-like frames. From some of the pictures, I didn't know how it was all going to go together. But now it's a very sleek, simple, modern store, with a large red play area, giant LEGO models standing on top of the cube-like frames, and a (much needed) larger PaB wall.

I manage to catch a video of the models being unveiled... just amazing how big the models are.  Each model represents different historical ages... Watching the video, the robot was assembled (at one point) in the Czech Republic and ended up delaying trains to Prague because people were amazed at it.

Festival of the Masters

IMG_0998,
originally uploaded by thumat2002.

Festival of the Masters was this past weekend (Nov. 12-14) -- this happens annually at the LEGO Imagination Center in Orlando, FL. This year our group's theme was "Memorable Movie Moments".  This year, my wife created a Cinderella castle MOC (I helped a little), complete with a ballroom, glass slipper, and smashed pumpkin carriage.

Joe Meno's gallery
Todd Thuma's gallery
Legoriki's gallery
My gallery

LEGO 2011 Calendar

LEGO 2011 Calendar,
originally uploaded by mhuffman.

So I spotted the LEGO 2011 Calendar in the LEGO Imagination Center, FL today. I'm thinking it was $9.99. It looked cute; there are 12 pictures on the back depicting months in LEGO... It's a little pricey for me.

I found it interesting that minifigs from both Minifig Collection Series 1 & 2 were in the calendar pictures. What I'm wondering, the ghost on the front cover hasn't been seen in awhile... 2002 maybe... I'm wondering if it's planned to be rereleased again soon. That would be nice if it was.

LEGO Family

Family,
originally uploaded by mhuffman.

The LEGO family statues at the Orlando LEGO Imagination Center has been moved from it's previous location to the far edge of the store, nearest the World of Disney store... I think this was to better help the flow of traffic -- there's always a constant flow of people around these statues, taking pictures of family members along side of LEGO family. The dogs are also a source of wonder in their life-like detail, that seem to fascinate anyone who has never seen them.

If you didn't know this, in each round window at the LIC is a 2-D scene of some popular cities from around the world -- Hong Kong, New York City, London, Paris, Moscow, etc. In each window, there's a miniland scale version of the LEGO family in each window, doing some wacky things. Look for them during your next trip to the Orlando LEGO Imagination Center.

LEGO Handcuffs?

LEGO Handcuffs?,
originally uploaded by mhuffman.

Sorry... I thought this was a strange thing to find at the LEGO store --LEGO handcuffs... just wrong on so many levels.

In other news, the LEGO Imagination Center in Orlando now has new name key chains in stock. It has printed printed 1x1 round black bricks. Haven't figure out what I'm going to do with them yet, but they're neat.

Video from Festival of the Masters '08

Festival of the Masters '08
Originally uploaded by mhuffman

So I was off-loading some pictures from our digital camera earlier today and found a short video that I took from GFLUG's display at Festival of the Masters (Nov. 2008) out side the LEGO Imagination Center in Orlando, FL. It give you an idea of the crowd, and how large our display is... and to be honest, it was a light crowd; last year was much bigger.

It's a great show. Most people are there on vacation & are amazed at our "art". Our theme that was "Transportation: Past, Present & Beyond", so we have jet packs, trains, planes, cars, ships, tanks, spaceships, etc.

Enjoy!

Happy Holidays

LEGO
Originally uploaded by postpac

It's Christmas Eve. Everyone should be opening the last of their advent calendars... I've been following and enjoying MisaQa's "Mythical Creatures" advent calendar... this is the third year I've followed MisaQa and look forward to it every year. And speaking of advent calendars, I saw on BrickSet's RSS feed today that there will be a #6299 Pirate Advent Calendar next year??? Let's just hope LEGO doesn't screw it up next year and not ship them to the US like they did with the #7979 Castle Advent Calendar! I bought my two and I'm jonesing for another one.

Was surfing around Flickr looking for something to blog about and stumbled across this Christmas LEGO display. I really wish I knew some of the history behind it -- I don't think I've seen anything on this scale in the US, except the there's a similar LEGO Santa at the Orlando LIC... And I'm starting to wonder what they'll do with the LEGO Santa after the holidays (put it in storage, ship it back to HQ, or something else).

Anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

Festival of the Masters

My LEGO club, the Greater Florida LEGO Users Group (or GFLUG for short), will be displaying our LEGO creations at Downtown Disney by the LEGO Imagination Center store November 9-11, 2007, from 10am – 5pm daily for Festival of the Masters. This year’s theme is ‘Vs.’ as in Spy vs. Spy (from Mad comics), Robots vs. Aliens, Giant Spiders vs. Tanks, etc.

Here’s some pictures from last year’s display.

Come out, there’s fun for the whole family. Chalk artist on the sidewalks, art booths everywhere, and LEGO.

Ugh!

Back from vacation and I'm ready for another one... Work has been crazy again... Got my shipment from Lego Imagination Center today... I should post some picts of my shipment... In the mean time, I only took a few pictures this vacation that's public viewable; most of the pictures we took were of the wedding.

This pictures is of the Pick-A-Brick wall. Tried using it as a computer background... it's a little busy. Maybe next time, I'll take a few 'artistic' shots of the PAB wall... if they don't kick me out of the store.