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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
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