Subject:
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BricksWest Thoughts
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.events.brickswest
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Date:
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Thu, 20 Feb 2003 05:34:40 GMT
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Viewed:
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2869 times
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Hey everybody!
WOW! what an awesome event! I had a blast this weekend, hope you did too!
Flew home last night, got to take an early flight out of Carlsbad, but that
didn't matter, cause my flight from LAX was delayed - mechanical problems on
two planes. I'm super tired, still can't think straight... spent today doing
mindless stuff, emailing, and napping.
Had to download Rocket Man today :-) "and all that LDraw...I don't
understand" :-D Dan Jassim is the man! (send me a CD of your other karaoke
stuff, and guitar music Eric was tellin me about sometime)
With all the silliness of karaoke night on Saturday and Monday hangin out,
not sure if I can take talking about the event seriously ;-) I'll try...
I got in on Thursday afternoon. Matt was supposed to pick me up at the
airport, but ended up in slow traffic following the severe rainstorms on
Wednesday. So, I hopped a taxi, checked in to the hotel, and then made it
over to LEGOLAND to help Dan Parker set up the Technic Diner. There I saw
Dan and Dave Schilling, and got to work. Jake stopped in with his wife,
Donna, and the LEGOLAND staff was also around, visting and making sure we
were getting situated OK. Other than dinner with Matt, his family, and Dan,
didn't see anyone else the first night.
Friday AM spent at LEGOLAND, wrapping up setup of the diner. Then came back
to the Windmill and set that up. People started trickling in after noon, and
many showed up in the evening. I totally missed Stephen Fisher's CAD
session, which I really wanted to see.
Saturday James Mathis' Train SNOT session was a huge hit! I think it was
great that he passed around design studies of the physical assemblies as
well as displayed beautifully rendered MegaPOV images on screen. I had a
pretty small audience for my intro to LDraw session, since I was running
opposite Detailing in LEGO. But, I had a good audience - quality
discussions, good questions asked, etc.
Saturday afternoon I gave a presentation entitled "Virtual LEGO: LDraw in
the Classroom" over at LEGOLAND in the Mindstorms building. It was a part of
the LEGOLAND Teacher's Appreciation day -- but since the Pavilion got rained
out, I guess there wasn't adequate signage to direct teachers to these
sessions. So another small audience, 10-15 (some in and out), and a quality
discussion too. I can/should upload this presentation for others to see as
well. All in all, I was very happy with how that session turned out. Several
teachers with experience using the tools showed up, including one very
enthusiastic First LEGO League state tournament organizer.
The dinner event went well, and karaoke was a BLAST! We HAVE to do that at
BrickFest - are you listening Christina? ;-) Having been to all of the Brad
Justus Q&A sessions in the flesh (even overseas - I'll bet he's getting sick
of me by now) ;-) this was the best one to date. They unveiled some AWESOME
products like the Space Shuttle, Wright Flyer, Mars Rover, and Engine Shed.
The shuttle and the flyer are very wooshable, and the shuttle's landing gear
retracts!
Oh, and lest I forget, Saturday night's Bricks Magazine intro was a hit! We
unveiled the cover image for the preview issue, and presented it to James
Mathis, who designed the trains in the image. Here's some photos of that:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=326511
And James Mathis talking with Matt and I standing there:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=325985
(doesn't the red eye make me look evil?) Bwahaha :-) Ok, here's a good
picture of me to compensate:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=326526
James also surprised me by presenting me with the Critter in physical LEGO.
You can see that in my hand in the one pic above... thanks James!! That
totally blew me away!
I enjoyed Kevin Clague's LPub presentation a lot. Great information there,
and a wonderful application. I've been playing with the program a lot lately
for my various projects, and Kevin and I have talked quite a bit about it.
The same goes for LSynth, which I think he presented on Friday night.
Ben Fleskes' New Track Geometry session on Sunday was very enlightening.
Great work on those modifications, Ben! I hope LEGO takes a cue there :-)
Some of them are complex for kids, but others make a lot of sense to expand
the 9V line. Steve Barile's Train Instruction Book session was really cool
too - and we had a lot of good discussion about building instruction theory.
The animation festival was great, allthough ran considerably over the
allotted time. I especially enjoyed the comedies. Because of the festival
going over, we had a shortened closing address since things were running
late. In our attempt to juggle letting people leave and get to bed, and
covering what we needed, we missed quite a few thank-yous. For those who
stuck around for Monday, we covered them at noon when the event officially
closed. Otherwise, our heartfelt thanks goes out to all who helped out
(please forgive me if I forget to mention you by name), including Dan Parker
and Bill Ward with the Technic Diner, BayLTC, Dave Schilling of SMART, and
the guys displaying other MOCs there. Steve Barile and the train guys, Paul
Sinosohn with registration, Brad, Jake, and the LEGO guys, Dan Pearson with
our projectors and Paul Thomas with the karaoke machine/sound system, Frank
with gaming, Ahui Herrera for compiling the schedule and producing the
CD-ROMs, and all of the presenters. Also, to John Neal for his hard work on
the shirts for this year -- the bowling shirts are AWESOME! And to anyone
here who I missed - I'm sorry, please don't take it personally, I'm tired.
It was great to meet people like Teddy Welsh, Kevin Clague, Jon Babcock,
Steve Putz, Bruce Lowell^2 (Jr. and Sr.), Jeff van Winden, Rob Hendrix,
Jeremy Rear, some of the younger attendees whose names I unfortunately
forget, and Keith Goldman (plus many others!). Also good seeing familiar
faces like Eric "Nova Monkey" Sophie, Todd Lehman, Christina Hitchcock,
Derek Schin, Abner Finley, Larry, John Neal, Ahui Herrera, Todd Thuma, Wayne
Gramlich, Darrell Urbein, Scott Little, Jake & the LEGO contingency, Robin
Werner, Dan Parker, Dave Schilling, Russel Clark, Bill Ward, Dan Jassim,
Bryce McGlone, the Michons, Paul Thomas, Steve Barile, etc etc etc (I could
go on and on and on)... you guys made the event for me!!
Ok, so I think I'll stop rambling now. This past weekend was a lot of fun,
and we had a lot of wonderful discussions about the future of the community
as well. 2003 is going to be an amazing year for the LEGO hobby!! Keep
building everybody, and I hope to see you at BrickFest this summer!
-Tim
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