| |
I enjoyed reading that little log of your trip. I'm glad you enjoyed
yourself.
Frank Filz <ffilz@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:3AEF6AEE.2A27FFE2@mindspring.com...
> Brad Hamilton wrote:
> >
> > This meeting was a big smash with over 35 folks from LUGOLA, the • Southern
> > California LEGO Train Club, and many out-of-town guests.
>
> Thanks to Brad and Shelly for hosting a fest on Saturday, and everyone
> else for a fun weekend. I hope to get some time this week to put my
> pictures up, but until then, I'll tease you with a little report on the
> weekend...
>
> Prior to leaving I had to become confident that it was ok for me to go.
> This was finally decided Thursday at 5 PM or so. I got home somewhat
> late and packed until 2 AM (well - I did take some time to build a few
> ships). I got up at 5 AM to get to work by 6 so I could leave at 2:30ish
> for my 4:10 PM flight. The flight out went pretty well, though they were
> chock-a-block full. I discovered food in the food court in Atlanta is
> actually reasonably priced. I got take out Chinese with kung-po chicken,
> stir fried veggies, and rice for $5.35 (with tax). Of course I later
> discovered I hadn't needed to do that, they did actually feed me (my
> impression has been that if you aren't in the air at 5 or 6 PM or so,
> you don't get dinner - I guess there's a little more leeway on
> transcontinental flights). I arrived in San DiLego at about Midnight
> (well - 9 PM local time). I checked around a second or two, and saw no
> sign of Larry Pieniazek and James Brown, so headed for the exit. Just as
> I was about to exit the gate area, Larry and James came through
> security. We bundled off to the car and headed for Carlsbad. On the way,
> Larry called Kevin Loch and Denise Jadud and we met them at the hotel
> restaurant for dinner (for Larry and James). Denise and I ordered
> brownies a-la-mode (well, Denise shared hers with Kevin). That just
> about did me in.
>
> Larry, James, and I retired to our room, where they had decided I got
> the cot, which I set up. I also unbundled my LEGO and showed off my new
> ships (3 ships based on the small cutter in 6277 Imperial Trading Post,
> two in black and red sporting custom Wolfpack sails by Sheree
> Rosenkrantz and one in yellow and green [testing out what could be done
> using the green boat bricks in the LEGO Studios dinosaur head set]), my
> Blacktron MOC, and my tank car, as well as my Scala clock.
>
> Saturday morning after cycling through the shower (I woke up first and
> got mine out of the way), we headed to Ruby's for breakfast. At 9:30
> after waiting for Denise and Kevin, we headed over to Legoland. After
> buying tickets and not spotting Mark Papenfuss, we got in line to get
> in. Just after going through the gate, Denise and Kevin rounded the
> corner (having got in the employee's entrance). We all headed straight
> for the new coaster and took two rides. On the 2nd ride, Larry took
> Kevin's video camera in his pack and handed it to Kevin as soon as we
> were out of sight of the operators. Near the end of the ride, Kevin
> handed the camera back and Larry stuffed it away. Based on the way the
> operator who let us out smiled, I think he saw us, but since there
> hadn't been a way for him to stop us, it wasn't any skin off his back.
> On that ride I had forgot to stuff my Red Hat cap away and it sailed off
> on the first drop (oh well, I had two - I hope some employee takes it
> home and enjoys it). We then headed over to the castle area to ride the
> Dragon. While the others took a 2nd ride, I shopped the castle store and
> bought a bunch of Wolfpack goodies (money pouch, cape, shield, and wind
> sock) and a Bulls shield.
>
> After that, we made a quick stop in the castle play area, where Larry
> drooled over dark grey macaronis and other parts before honesty won him
> over. Then we wandered off in the direction of mini-land where we oohed
> and ahhed (and cried just a little - especially over the Maersk Blue
> house), and took lots of pictures. While there, we started bumping into
> more of the crowd. Next we waited outside the model shop for it to open.
> Finally it opened and we just about bought them out of black 1x8 tiles
> (Larry got two pounds and I think 2 or 3 more pounds were bought). We
> also put a serious dent in the orange 2x4 and 2x3 bricks. Someone got
> the last quarter pound of black 2x2 tiles (there were about 10 tiles
> left).
>
> My next stop was the big store where I settled on two Creator sets (the
> one with the video and another smaller one) and 5 Women's Soccer Team
> sets (I intended to get 6, but they kept falling off my stack and by the
> time I rung up, there were only 5 - which I didn't discover until later
> that night - but fortunately, they only rung up 5 so the loss happened
> before I hit the register). James and I ran our purchases out to the car
> and then we headed to see more stuff and get lunch. About 4 PM or so, we
> left the park and headed to Brad and Shelly's place.
>
> Although the directions were a little unsure, we had absolutely no
> problems finding the house. Ross Crawford even managed to keep up with
> Larry. As others have mentioned, there were lots of MOCs to be seen,
> trades to be made and pizza to be eaten. I displayed my MOCs and at one
> point Tim showed the figs from the original minifig world tour at which
> point I remembered I was carrying my Colin and Wanda clones which
> promptly came out for some photo ops. I dug through Brad's trade pile
> and found a bunch of things (including a blue 4.5V battery car). Later I
> dug through someone else's trade pile (the one inside) and found a few
> interesting bits. Then James and I sat down to split the 6 Imperial
> Shuttles we had bought to split up. The onlookers kept asking us if this
> or that was available, and after telling them no many times, we finally
> started dealing on the items we didn't want (we had gone for the deal
> because we realized there was so much good stuff, and we mostly had
> separate interests [ok, James's primary interest of the curved bricks
> was also interesting to me, and we did split a few things like the white
> plates, the dark grey bricks, and the dark grey plates]). By then it was
> time to head for the hotel and let Brad and Shelly clean up and go to
> bed. Unfortunately I missed the fact that Brad was selling 12V track and
> Kevin got it all (I would have been interested in a bit of it - ah well,
> I'll find more).
>
> Sunday morning, we headed to Ruby's again for breakfast. Kevin and
> Denise managed to connect with us that time, and someone else made it
> also (I'm terrible with names). After breakfast, Larry, James, and I
> piled into the car and took off to see what we could see (after a quick
> stop at a grocery store - I needed to get some packing tape to seal the
> box of loot I had). We wandered down the coast and mostly gawked from
> the car, though we did make one stop at a hang gliding park where we
> watched several people glide as well as one fellow with an RC glider (it
> was a real beauty, just as we were leaving he had landed it and we got a
> close up look). Larry then tried to find a burger place he had eaten at
> before. We finally found it and had a quick burger and then hopped in
> the car to dash to the airport. We made it in plenty of time, and there
> was no line at the Delta counter (I was almost an hour and a half early
> for my flight).
>
> The flight back was interesting. While waiting to board, I noticed a
> woman who seemed familiar. It turned out she was in the seat next to me.
> We eventually determined we went to the same church, at which point we
> discovered the person in the window seat was also a Unitarian
> Universalist, though from Atlanta, but she had gone to the same
> conference the woman from my church had gone to. What a small world! (On
> the way out, I had a small world incident also - again, while waiting to
> board, I saw this head go by with a buzz cut which looked a lot like a
> fellow worker. When I got on the plane, there he was, 2 seats ahead of
> me, which then suggested why he had been in the lab at 6:30 that
> morning...)
>
> I just wish there had been more time to chat with folks and look at
> creations.
>
> Frank
|
|
Message is in Reply To:
42 Messages in This Thread:
 
 
 
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
