Carolina Train Builders

I was in Schaumburg (Chicago) today for work and had a some time before my
flight home?so I stopped off at Woodfield Mall LEGO Store (conveniently located about?a mile from our Chicago office) to see if they had anything new or interesting.? The Pick-A-Brick choices were pretty weak, certainly nothing I couldn’t live without. The store did have a few sets in a pile at 20% off, including the 10170 TTX set.? I have been meaning to pick another one of these up but had never gotten around to it.? S@H has it for the same price but I went ahead and picked it
up along with the new 7990 Cement Mixer .? The Cement Mixer?is one of the few 2007 sets I was intrigued with as it reminded me of Pierre Normandine’s cement mixers I had seen at BrickFest in 2004.? I was at Toys-R-Us a couple weeks ago and they didn’t have it so when I saw it at the LEGO Store I decided to buy.? I’ll build it at work one of these days!

While I was in Munich last week I picked up the 4918 Mini Flyers set. I really liked most of the X-pods, not so much for the parts but for the aspect that when I was traveling I would pick one up and putz around with it where ever I happened to be. At a $3-$4 price point, they were cheap enough and small enough that I ended up buying quite a few with them. I had not seen the 2007 sets yet other than on the web so I decided to pick up 4918. I usually keep a couple of the Xpods on my desk at work and fiddle with them when I am on a conference call or web meeting. I find they keep me from trying to multitask on my computer and odd as it may sound, engaged in the conversation on the phone.

I like the helicopter 4918 builds, it is the only thing I have built from the set so far but I do miss the Xpod form factor – I liked those round cases. The plastic box 4918 comes in is twice as big as it needs to be for the number of parts in it. It was also 5 Euros (about $6.25) so the price is ticking up in the wrong direction for small impulse purchases as well.Pic