CTB Container at the ILTCO NMRA 2007 Show

Posted on July 28, 2007 by Mike Walsh

CTB ContainerI was poking through some of the early pictures on BrickShelf from the 2007 ILTCO combined club layout and found one of my CTB containers in one of the images.? I had built a number of these containers a few years ago (2004?) and gave them to a few people.? They are constructed from Maersk Blue bricks I obtained from the LEGOLand California Model Shop about 5 years ago.

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Received two more LHTs

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Mike Walsh

A few weeks ago while this blog was offline I received two more copies of the LEGO Hobby Train.? As part of the agreement for working on the LHT we received three (3) copies of it – I had received the first one several months ago but it didn’t have instructions with it.? This shipment, one European box, one NA box, had three sets of instructions, one extra for the original set.? I will probably keep these two sets sealed, at least for a while.? We are supposed to receive one more item from LEGO, a box of bricks of our choosing from LEGO Factory.? I requested mostly dark red, dark blue, and dark green elements, we’ll see how I make out in a couple months or so.

?With the receipt of the LHTs and the box of bricks, the UTB/LHT effort is over.? LEGO is changing the infrastructure we used for all communication so all of that history will likely disappear.? That is unfortunate as the whole process was pretty amazing, it is a shame it will go into the bit bucket.? :-(? I’d really like to know how the LHT is selling.? We know that initially it sold well but haven’t heard anything else in a while.? What does the future of 9v trains look like?? I have no idea.

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7990 Cement Mixer

Posted on July 23, 2007 by Mike Walsh

This morning when I got to work I built the 7990 Cement Mixer I had picked up in Chicago last week.? I have to say that this was one of the more enjoyable builds I have had for a Town type vehicle in a while.? I was surprised to find that the spinning drum actually dumps cement (1×1 round plates).? Well done, LEGO, keep it up!?

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Blog offline

Posted on July 23, 2007 by Mike Walsh

My blog has been offline for about a month since Northstar Computers lost their database server.? It was an odd situation in that they lost the server and all of the backups were corrupted.? Ouch.? It affected this site as well as many others including the ones I take care of (ILTCO, NCLTC, and NCLUG).? I had a backup from last November but it turns out that since I had run the backup, the database format WordPress uses changed slightly so I couldn’t simply reload the data, I had to massage it first.? I kept putting it off but now have taken care of it and all of the content has been restored thanks to my backup and the Web Archive’s Wayback Machine.? ILTCO is fixed as well but I have yet to touch either NCLTC or NCLUG.

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Carelessness turns out ok …

Posted on July 19, 2007 by Mike Walsh

If you are in the Chicago area or caught it on the news, you know the weather last night was not very good for anyone traveling.? A large thunderstorm closed O’Hare cancelling my flight home (along with thousands of other people).? I was sitting on the plane, with my LEGO purchase in the overhead bin, when my flight was canceled.? As you would expect, chaos ensued with just about everyone at O’Hare trying to rebook flights and find a place to sleep – it was 9:00 PM when my flight was canceled.

I was on the phone trying to rebook my flight and on my laptop trying to find a hotel and left my LEGO purchase in the overhead bin when I got off the plane.? After an hour or so I had a new flight home (well, sort of, as close to Raleigh as I could get was Greensboro), a hotel, and car in Greensboro.? As I was getting ready to leave O’Hare, I realized I was missing something – my LEGO purchase.? I knew the plane hadn’t left so as long as (a) they would let me back on it and (b) someone hadn’t taken it, I felt I might have a chance to get it back.? Much to my surprise, when I treked back down to the gate I found my yellow LEGO bag sitting on top of the ticket counter waiting to be claimed.? I was convinced I had lost it in my carelessness but it all worked out.

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