Subject:
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Perspective of a Burnout -- TEXLUG's Big Train Meeting (Fall 2002)
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lugnet.org.us.texlug
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Date:
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Wed, 16 Oct 2002 08:04:18 GMT
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1276 times
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(Apologies to Erik Schroer, whom I called "Eric" in my last post -Pat).
Chuff, Chuff. Two parts to this long puppy.
PRE-MEETING:
Anyway, around August of 2002 I was fearfully in danger of losing
interest in LEGO altogether. An unemployed ex-Austinite now living in exile
in San Antonio, my bricks and I separated by precisely 81.2 miles of road, I
had not built a single MOC since prior to TEXLUG's previous meeting in March.
Worse still, I had suddenly and inexplicably lost interest in
maintaining the website for the group and knew someone, anyone, else could
do a better job (be dam-- er, darned if my hunch wasn't right; TJ's site is
far more impressive and professional-looking). Now, I would like to blame
this loss of enthusiasm on the fact that I was working a 90-day seasonal
stint at the IRS at the time, the worst job I have ever had by the way, but
that would be a blatant lie. The fact is that there simply was no reason
save atrophy; when a muscle in the body ceases to be used, it atrophies. End
of story. This is no less true for AFOLs and their LEGO. The distance
between me and the 10x20 storage unit housing my LEGO had taken its toll.
Well, when the first e-mails working up to the October 12 2002 meeting
started showing up, I simply read them and took no further action; had I
already in fact lost complete interest in LEGO? Was this it, then? Time
would tell.
It wasn't until Sunday, September 29th, that the moment of truth came.
TJ had sent the inevitable "headcount" e-mail. Who is showing up? Time to
make a decision, Hough.
A last remaining spark of interest spurred a response e-mail from me to
TJ. Since this first (really second) train meeting called for a modular
approach to building one big communal layout, I was half-curious to know how
many folks were bringing corner sections, and how many were bringing
straight sections.
TJ's answer surprised me; only two replies and both of these were
straight modules. No corners...yet. Fine then, said I. I would be happy to
bring enough track to do at least one double corner module (8 corner and 2
straight track elements). In response to my response, TJ asked if I could
bring enough to do at least two corner modules. I replied that I would,
although to myself I was skeptical; I had seen enough track elements at the
March 02 meeting between Tom Reed and TJ to span Nueces Bay. Of what aid
could my paltry amount of track be?
There was more to come before the meeting, however. First, I had to
drive the 80+ miles from San Antonio to Austin and pull what LEGO I could
find among all the moving boxes from a two-bedroom apartment out of storage
and into my car. Then I had to get them to my folks house, and lug (no pun
intended) them up the stairs to my bedroom where I would have a whole twin
bed to prepare the modules.
I decided to attempt both a corner module and a straight module that
would hook up to the left of the corner, and in doing so, try to make some
sort of harbor scene which I was fairly certain would not be duplicated by
the other two contributors. This meant blue 32x32 baseplates. As it turned
out, I had just enough for a few piers and little bit of "bay": four (4).
Ah, but a harbor needs ships now, does it not? So I started work on
something I knew I could not truly complete (at least the way I wanted to)
by October 12: a Navy destroyer for my harbor. I built the whole thing in
less than three days. It did end up having two rotating 5-inch guns for'ard,
fire-control radar, surface and air-search radar, two black antennae,
gas-turbine exhaust, and a helo pad aft. I added Tomahawk missile launchers
amidships during the meeting. James Simpson made some remarkable
contributions (see MEETING section below).
By Friday, October 11, I was bloody exhausted. Half of my tiny bedroom
was coated with LEGO, and the bed itself was a disaster. I had everything
packed and ready to go to Austin by 2330 (11:30 PM) and flopped down on a
bed filled with LEGO beg-bugs, leaving many indentations and marks on me
(some of them permanent).
Saturday morning, after experiencing hygiene, I hurriedly packed the
car and drove up to Austin. After stopping at storage to grab the
hand-truck, I made my way to National Instruments HQ in north Austin. I
arrived at 1013 (10:13 AM).
MEETING:
Anthony Sava and I arrived at NI HQ about the same time. Laura Hayden
had not left a single detail to chance; security at Building C were very
professional and polite, not to mention they knew what was going on!! They
directed me right to Conference Room 1, where Laura was waiting. TJ Avery
and James Simpson had arrived already and unpacked TJ's award-winning Marine
Crane which won the Best Technic/Mindstorms MOC award at BrickFest 2002.
James had also produced an impressive roadster complete with opening doors,
hood, and trunk.
As I said, Laura had not left out a single detail and already had
hand-carts for our use in unloading our cars. Oh well, I had brought my
handtruck and decided to use it for deniability purposes if nothing else. I
packed onto the handtruck my now-(in?)famous (at TEXLUG meetings anyway)
RubberMaid blue storage box filled to the brim with Ziplocs full of parts,
two old red LEGO storage boxes (one with curved track, one with straight
track), two LEGO train sets, and a two transparent bait-boxes filled with
minifigs and parts thereof. You could tell when my handtruck was on the move
because it made a distinct squeaky sound eerily reminiscent of the pulley on
a water-well or a drawbridge being lowered. TJ and James were hard at work
setting up the folding tables into the square formation that our train
layout would form.
Meanwhile, I gaped at Laura Hayden's train station which reminded me of
a mausoleum (and rather faux-pas blurtedly, I said so). She also brought out
several of her other impressive buildings including a skateboard park; good
thing too. Turns out we were to be rather short on architectural
enhancements for this first big layout.
Speaking of architecture, just then in walks Tony Sava w/ girlfriend
and the biggest LEGO castle I have ever seen. Whoa. Over 8000 bricks? Not to
mention he did one hell of a job in the construction. Also, this was the
FIRST event, thank you, that Tony was able to display all four of his
stunning dragons! We were indeed priveleged!
For awhile, TJ and I thought we were going to be short, very short, on
track. OK, make that "I thought we were going to be short on track." TJ
pointed out that more sources of track were on their way. I was however
disappointed to learn that Tom Reed would not be attending due to illness.
Here's to your speedy recovery, Tom.
Tim Rueger arrived early afternoon with all the track we could eat and
his breath-taking monorail (i.e. Airport Shuttle) station. In addition to
supplying us with the 9-volt track necessary to complete the double layout,
he set up the monorail track to run a loop on either side of his station and
configured the whole thing to go neatly with our main 9-volt layout. The
extra track was such that TJ was able, with help from just about everyone
but me (I was still pieceing together that annoying harbor) to build a
separate oval track elevated above the main line. In all, we had four trains
running at the same time and it was something to see for a first big run.
Incidentally, apologies to John Voltin; he did arrive at NI HQ Saturday
and wait patiently outside the locked doors to Building C for security to
show up and let him in, only to give up after 15 long minutes and drive
away. Unfortunately for all, security was away from the front desk at that
time...watching us set up that is! (oops) Thanks for showing up Sunday,
John. We hope we can make it up to you next meeting.
We also felt bad for Jason Spangler; the poor man worked his tail off
Friday and early into Saturday morning, and between catching up on sleep and
attending to other matters, he also was unable to attend until
Sunday...we're glad you brought some stuff with you anyway, Jason,
especially that handy train/road intersection! It's just what we needed.
Despite some hitches (and I won't allude to those), Saturday's setup
went very well. We later adjourned to hear National Instruments' very own
Randy Hoskins give an enlightening presentation on NI's ROBOLAB using
Mindstorm bricks and Tufts University's software. Read more about it at:
http://www.lego.com/dacta/robolab/home.asp
The next day, Sunday October 13, was even better if shorter. It is the
neatest thing to see kid's faces light up in that familiar look of being
awestruck at the sight of something really huge. The kids and their
accompanying family asked very intelligent questions. TJ enjoyed showing the
kids the workings of his Marine Crane, and NI's Danny Miner set up a ROBOLAB
booth to answer questions.
We ended that Sunday afternoon clustered around in chairs discussing
the next meeting in the spring of 2003, and TJ mentioned that he would like
it to be in his hometown of Houston. Fittingly, the theme will be Space LEGO
(YES!!!) and we're hoping to make this modular as well. Tom, if you're
reading this, we'd sure like you to bring along your sci-fi train that you
showed us last March!
Another successful meeting!! My special thanks to:
Laura Hayden: For setting me straight, maintaining a high level of
enthusiasm all weekend, your great building MOCs, and for getting National
Instruments to allow us the use of their facilities.
TJ Avery: For organizing the theme for the meeting, contacting everyone,
showing us the Marine Crane, lending me two blue 32x32 baseplates to make
the harbor more complete, and establishing the new TEXLUG website.
NI's Randy and Danny: For introducting TEXLUG to ROBOLAB and being
all-around friendly (if not to each other ;-) ).
James Simpson: For all your great suggestions on improving my
(what-passed-for-a) MOC, the navy destroyer:
- Putting lifevests on some of the sailor minifigs
- "Anchoring" the ship in the bay
- The minifig (Timmy!) on the helo-pad positioned to look like
he's guiding in a chopper
Tony Sava: For showing us all four dragons in one place at one time, and the
awesome castle!!!
Tim Rueger: For saving our bacon with all your extra track, and the monorail
setup!
Jason Spangler and John Voltin, for being there.
My only regret: I forgot the &@#%*! camera. Good thing other folks brought
theirs. Look for their photos soon. Hopefully this year.
My apologies to any for whose name I have forgotten, mutilated, misspelled,
or incorrectly attributed actions and/or events in this post.
Afterword and Conclusion: It turns out I wasn't completely burned out on
LEGO, but I learned that you have to keep your hand in. Fortunately, six
months and 80+ miles between me and my LEGO could not make me forget that we
still have some good folks in our group. It was their enthusiasm and
positive outlook that brought me back from the brink.
Wondering what spring will bring...
Cheers,
Pat Hough (on deck)
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