Historical Airport

It has been a busy week around here... so I'm late again.   We will work to correct that.  
I found some pictures of what our airport looked like in its earlier days and I thought I'd share them.  These also will help me come in for a "soft landing" this week because... well, there is still a lot going on around here! I hope you enjoy some scenes from our airport's history.

One of These Things Is Not Like the Others

Sorry I missed my usual posting day.  If you've been checking back you may have noticed I'm trying to put up new posts about 3 times a week.  Today being an "off" day and a "make up" day, I thought I'd show you something quite unique in our family Lego world:

What's That Sound?!

It is pretty hard for us to sneak up on anyone lately.  Our Subaru has a hole in the exhaust and rumbles and roars like a Top Fuel Dragster (no flames though, which is good).   With the weather being so wet and snowy I have not been able to attempt any repair, so we're just thumping around town scaring all the little kids until I can.   So... in that theme, I thought I'd share some older pictures of our Lego mechanics hard at work... mainly because I wish I could send a small army of minifigs out to fix our real car.  Wouldn't that be great?!

NEAR.... far... NEAR.... far....

Growing up I was a Sesame Street kid.  Oh sure, I watched Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, The Electric Company, Fat Albert, and the all the rest....  but I remember the Sesame Street segments better than any of the others.  Even now, decades later, I often find myself whistling jingles for letters and numbers.
Today's post is in honor of Grover.   In the days before GPS systems, we kids had two very simple ways of describing where something was and Grover taught us.   Near.   Far.   Very simple stuff.
So I'm still playing with my new lens filters and their potential for storytelling.  The limited depth of field is great because it allows us to play with things that are near...  and far.    For instance, consider this policeman:

Open Wide

Earlier this week I posted a few samples taken with my new macro lens filters.   For under $12, I was able to get up close and personal with our Lego people.  Certainly that will help with our story-telling and our upcoming (hopefully!) movies but it has also opened my eyes to the town in a new way.   Even wider shots of the town have a whole new look:

Up Close and Personal

I recently purchased some new lens filters to use for making some short HD movies (hopefully!)   My problem was that I couldn't get any up close views of the Lego minifigs and that's no way to tell a story!  Imagine how boring watching any TV show would be if every shot was a full-height body shot.   Luckily I was able to address that for the low, low price of about $12.   Now I am experimenting with a whole new perspective.  Check out this car driver:

The One That Got Away

Over the course of about a week last Fall, Tyler and I played two sides of a jail escape in town.  I was the prisoner who broke out of jail and he was all the police trying to catch me.  We'd make measured moves each day (sort of like a chess game) and left video messages to each explaining what had happened.  It was kind of fun and quite unpredictable but the combined video messages aren't really good enough to share.  HOWEVER, the pictures tell the story pretty well and I thought you'd like seeing them.  So here's the story of how I ran from the police:

Rule the Air!

The police station set # 588 was the very first Lego set I ever had.  It was Christmas of 1982 (I think) and I was both thrilled to get it and also mystified by what I remember thinking was a weird puzzle of some kind.  Lego weren't something I had see before!  The set is superb, even by modern standards, with lots of details and selection of vehicles to mess with.  As time went on the motorcycle was replaced by the more modern types (and dismantled) and the patrol car itself was vastly upgraded.... but the helicopter still... well...  stunk.  And then we upgraded it to THIS:

Just Truckin'

It started simply enough.   We had two black fenders in the new style and were trying to figure out how to use them in our "classic" style town (where the vehicles are only four studs wide).  Most vehicles have at least four fenders...  so this was a puzzle.  Pawing through the parts bins and randomly snapping pieces together, we found inspiration.   We designed around the two fenders and came up with a pretty decent (and quite useful) flatbed truck.  What town can't use another dude with a truck?!

Take the Money and Run

One of the joys of having a large town and two kids who are camera savvy is that I find surprises quite often.  Depending on what's going on, I generally "empty" the various cards from our camera arsenal about twice a month.  Almost always I find interesting pictures on them that only the kids could have taken.   Today's sequence of pictures are from an ATM theft and police chase that Tyler set up and photographed.   I never saw this set up -- I only found the pictures over a week later, but the story speaks for itself:

Looks like today, crime DOES pay.  These guys are making a withdrawal.

A Deluxe Apartment in the Sky

In Bricksburgh, if you want to "move on up" there is only one address that will do.   The Apartment/Condo building (sadly we don't have a fancier name for it than that) is the tallest tower in town at 5 stories.   It has beach/ocean views and a coffee shop owned by Mia in the bottom.  I'll post the video tour of the building at the bottom, but here's some pictures I took of it being constructed:

CATZILLA ATTACKS!

Sophie is our cat.  She's so intent on being near us that whenever anyone enters the room where the Lego table is she promptly jumps up and finds someplace to watch us.   Most of the time this involves sitting on someone or something on the table (she prefers the smooth streets but those are typically crowded).  Naturally, this weird behavior has brought us a lot of fun.

Isle of Man... Sort of.

The annual Isle of Man Tourist Trophy motorcycle race is an incredible event featuring daredevil cyclists throwing their bikes and their bodies around turns and down straights with very little separating them from certain death.  Our Lego island has a somewhat smaller (in more ways than one) version of the event.

Generation 2

You may have noticed in the header for this blog that we are TWO generations of Lego fans.   I am the first generation  (Matt) and my son is the second generation (Tyler).   Somewhere I have pictures of my introduction to Lego in 1982, but I can't find them at the moment.  What I do have are pictures of the first time Tyler received my hand-me-down Lego.

Zombies Don't Obey Traffic Laws

It's hard running a civilized town when the locals become zombies... made only worse by the well known fact that zombies don't stop for red lights.  Luckily for this unfortunate cab driver, the police are ready-- but ultimately our zombie friend still hasn't learned to follow traffic laws and does not use the crosswalk.

Police are chasing the stolen TechMan van when it runs a red light and gets hit by a taxi.

One Stud at a Time...

After years of thinking about it, this weekend we finally made the leap and purchased a web domain.  You'll have to patient with us as we're newbies at this, but we're ready to do our best to dazzle and excite you with our passion for Lego.  Hopefully by the time you read this you're linking straight in from our new domain:

www.Bricksburgh.com

I suspect most of you are past friends or current subscribers to our videos at www.youtube.com/msimmons and you've faithfully followed us here.  Thank you.  Your interest in our videos encouraged us to start this.  We hope to use this blog as a place to talk with you between the video posts.  Think of this as a complement our Youtube Channel which will feature picture galleries, town updates, and building tips.   This will also be the home for "behind the scenes" articles as we move into mini-feature movies.  Like the YouTube channel, our primary passion is our Legotown featuring "classic" style buildings and cars.

As we always have, we welcome your questions and comments here and will do our very best to answer all of them with the best information we can reasonably provide.   Come back often!

Thanks for visiting us here at www.bricksburgh.com and check out the videos on our YouTube channel at www.YouTube.com/MSIMMONS.