200 Part Lot

The other night I was looking for Lego baseplates on Amazon.  The airport is outgrowing its footprint and so I thought maybe I would spend a little money to get us some more square footage.  What did I discover?  It turns out that baseplates are really expensive, like $8-9/each.  I would have thought maybe a third of that.  Also it seems like many of the plates I have were at some point discontinued and so getting matching baseplates requires purchasing what is essentially a collectors item.  I saw one lot where the parts were like $40/each.

Too rich for my blood.

While looking for these I kept coming across bulk Lego items.  Lego has some official sets (also fairly steep) and then there are third party sellers dealing bricks by count or weight.

I have a floating purchase max for this sideline activity, meaning when I do buy new sets I don't like to spend more than $19.  Something about exceeding $20 causes the nature of the purchase to mean rather more and I want this to all be casual.  The ceiling ruled out most of the bulk sets, but I did see one that was 200 random pieces for $9.00.

Most of the sets I look at in the $19 neighborhood are also in the 200 piece neighborhood.  So on its face this could be a decent deal.

I read the reviews and they were mixed.  The negative reviews fell into two camps: the first is that 200 pieces really isn't a lot of pieces.  This isn't a surprise to me.  The second flavor of complaint was that the piece selection was such that you couldn't build anything from the set.  This wouldn't much matter to me as I am just looking for bricks.  Part of that second group was also that some of the parts were pretty esoteric, to the point of having part of a multicomponent piece - like half a hinge.  This was a little alarming, but I decided to overlook it.

I mean 200 parts for $9.00, how bad could it be?

So here's what we got:

The upper left are what I call "specials."  Those pieces are either for a specific task or for detailing.  The 200 piece set was probably 100 parts specials.  I don't mind that.  Sometimes you buy an entire set just to get one special part and there were many in here that I didn't have yet.  Most notably in the "new to me" category were 2@2x3x1 slanted pieces with McDonald's Grimace screen-printed on them - you can see one up front there.  Once upon a time there must have been some promotional McDonald's Lego sets.  Not sure what to do with one of those, let alone two.

There were only 2 minifig related parts.  That was a little disappointing.  I had hoped for more than that.

Of the remaining parts there was a trend toward the odd.  In total I think there were 7 2x4x1 basic bricks.  There were some parts in there that I didn't have, and certainly some colors I didn't have (you can see under my current regime that green is blue and orange is yellow).

It was fairly easy to appreciate the "you can't really make anything" school of thought.  But like I said,  I was just expanding inventory, so that wasn't so much of a concern for me.

In the end, the only buyer's remorse I have is that the item wasn't prime qualified which meant I had to pay shipping and that the $9 set was actually a $15 set FOB my mailbox.  That $6 different is enough to tip it over and make me decide that this isn't the buy it seemed like it might be.  For it to be worth doing again either the nature of the pieces would have to be a little different or the shipping would have to be free.

Still, I got a treasure chest piece.  Didn't have one of those.

Popular?

All of a sudden, activity at the tumblr:

This was the post:

Who knew?

Couldn't Resist

Ellipses...

Since I did two posts yesterday can't I take today off?  No...  Did my "Don't shit on other people" lecture today.  I don't think it had the traction it did last time.  In other news, my resume is out of date again...  Got a new work keyboard because the existing one had no C's left.  That would mean a lot of students getting D's so we replaced it...  My brother-in-law came this weekend to get their stuff we've been storing, that and a round of purging and WOW is there a lot of room in my basement.  P.S. I need to apologize to the weekend crew at the East Liberty Goodwill...  This Ebola thing is really starting to nag at the edges of my attention.  I hope people that can actually DO SOMETHING are in fact doing it rather than just having it nag at the edges of their attention...  With about 75 television screens, expecting the baby to doze while we enjoy our BW3 wings may have been optimistic...  School starts a month from today.  Where did the time go?  Guess I should start gearing up for the year proper again...  I finally watched the last Primeval New World I'd been holding onto on the DVR.  Yet another decent show cut down before it really got it's feet under it...  Can you believe there's a football game on TV this weekend?  I guess it is time to finish the home theatre project...  Today I told the kids I am on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest among other things.  Still no connect requests...  I've quietly been acquiring some serious tools over the last month or two.  Guess I out to actually make something soon...  Looks like I am making a California swing in October.  Looking more and more like it will just be me...  I complained about my bank's website on Twitter and they have now called me four times to try to change my mind.  Who knew Twitter's killer app would be consumer complaints?  Not me...  We went to see Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.  It is a sad movie.  Well done, but sad...  Finished Broken Angels, now moving on to Saturn's Children.  I've lost count, but it's something like 10 books this summer. I'll have to check...  Yes.  You have to put the references on your resume...

Vote For Comment of the Week

Voting closes Thursday noon...

Student #1 has left a new comment on your post "How To Build a Life-Size Dragon":

First off, this dragon is beautiful, impressive and overall amazing. As someone who sculpts, I would love to be involved in a project like this some day. I think the process of making this dragon shows the importance of a thoughtful process when undertaking a project. They started in small scale, then made a digital version. By starting with a prototype out of similar material, or at least material that will be sculpted in a similar way, they were able to get an accurate idea of the aesthetic potentially better than they could have if they had used a computer to generate the original model. They then put serious thought into various materials, rather than just going with what people typically use. By working with cubes that could be removed and replaced, they increased their margin for error, which is vital for a project where mistakes are inevitable. I could go on about how detail oriented, careful, and calculated their process was, but I would be naming almost everything they did. When you approach a project, you need to plan thoroughly and be able to find and correct mistakes. When I look at this article, it is clear to me that this piece is as much a result of impressive organization and planning skills as sculpture. After all, when Ippolito talks about how he built the dragon, he talks about the planning, not the sculptural techniques. What these artists do can be applied to any task to improve the quality of the end product and often increase efficiency. 

Student #2 has left a new comment on your post "Tina Fey's Mean Girls Had The Most Women on a Crew...":

What I find interesting about this study is the fact that the root of this problem is gender stereo-typing. While society has progressed significantly, it is hard to un-train our minds into not associating certain jobs with certain people. Typically, it is assumed men like action movies more so then women. This assumption carries over into who gets hired to work these movies. The mentality is you want to hire someone who is interested and invested in the job they are doing. However, it is unfair to assume that a woman is uninterested in working these jobs because she is a woman.

On a broader spectrum, the same goes for all forms of entertainment. Women have been given an image that is hard to stray away from when media portrays it so often. Supposedly, all women like romantic comedies, they like dresses, they like wearing makeup, the list goes on. Just like supposedly all men like action movies, sports, and doing hands on jobs.

While changing the ideas of society is not something that will happen overnight, the change can occur. It can start in a field like the entertainment industry which has always been known to break boundaries. Showing this change can only be determined by starting a dialog and watching the awareness and growth that follows.

Student #3 has left a new comment on your post "5 Reasons Why Walt Disney World Represents the Fut...":

Disney and Broadway share a common goal: to entertain. It only makes sense that there are many theatrical elements in Disney theme parks because live performance is a way to entertain. Disney also uses short films, sculptures, and many other art forms throughout their theme parks. It is what works for their audience, and what gets their message across. That being said I just don’t agree that Disney is what American Theatre’s should be following. Mainly because the audience’s of plays and musicals are looking for a different experience. They want a comedy or drama they can invest themselves in, a show they can be engrossed in for 2 hours, not 20 minutes. They want humans they can identify with on a personal level, with no robots in the cast. They want a story that took time to construct, not something submitted by an audience member. While Disney is undisputedly successful in its ways of performance, their success came from recognition of what their audience wanted from them. And theatres across the country should do the same.

Student #4 has left a new comment on your post "Inspired by ‘Sleep No More,’ More New York Bars Of...":

I've personally never been a fan of proscenium theatre. In smaller spaces it gets a little better, but there's nothing I despise more than working in a giant auditorium where you have to squint to get a sense of anything going on onstage. I'm a firm believer in immersive theatrical experiences-- ditch the opera glasses! Get onstage with the actors! Don't just sit there in your box seat, do something!! "The audience is the sixth character in the play."

However, due to the fact that I do most of my work in a high school theater, I don't have much variance in the format of the shows I work on. And due to the fact that I'm a teenager living in the suburbs with a curfew of nightfall, I don't often get to experience any works of devised theatre. Thus, it's always a joy to read articles such as this one, just to get a sense of what I'm missing.

Play/Date sounds awesome. From what I can see, it sounds like a perfectly normal nightclub experience, except in this case, you're encouraged to eavesdrop. What a brilliant idea! It's a raw and natural human desire to know exactly what is going on in the lives of others. This show allows the audience to completely indulge themselves as they're given a perfectly ordinary scenario with the freedom to act on their guilty pleasures. Play/Date is an excellent study in voyeurism.

I was also happy to read about the new forms of presenting Shakespeare. I'm actually not that preoccupied with the fact that Shakespeare's plays were originally meant for the rowdy working class; art can adapt to the society it finds itself in, and I see no problem with Shakespeare becoming a thing of highbrow academics. But for reasons of my own personal enjoyment, Drunk Shakespeare sounds awesome. As an avid fan of the Bard, I definitely enjoy studying his works seriously in an academic setting, but most of my Shakespearean love stems from the interactions I get with my like-minded peers. There's nothing better than swapping theories and joking with kids who have also read Hamlet religiously. So to me, Drunk Shakespeare is exciting less because of returning to Shakespearean roots, and more because of my own relationship with Shakespeare's works.

Altogether, this article was a great read and I'm thrilled with all the changes theatre is going through.

Student #5 has left a new comment on your post "Kurt Cobain Musical Theater Production 'Very Likel...":

If you ask any given white girl, they will tell you that Kurt Cobain never dies in their hearts. But, in reality, Kurt Cobain is totally dead. So it should come as no surprise that people want to resurrect him, and why not resurrect him through a musical? Nirvana is a solid band that arguably kicked off an entire movement (punk in the mainstream), but the punk musical has already been done. American Idiot and Spring Awakening come to mind. So then why make a Cobain musical, one might be asking themselves at a time like this. Is a seminal artist's passing really a decent reason to immortalize them in a musical? At the moment, we don't have a definitive answer, but the closest thing to one we do is Holler if ya hear me, the ill-fated musical based around the life of Tupac Shakur. Now, this musical crashed and burned almost instantly. Fame and infamy are themes Broadway grapples with constantly, but another dead star might just not be the best vehicle to drive down that street this time. I bet this comment smells like teen spirit.

Oh No! I'm a Bot

Do you think this is how Tigh felt when he found out he was a Cylon?

Not 48 hours after setting up my Blogger>RSS>IFTTT>Buffer>Twitter thing it all fell apart.  Twitter decided I was a bot since all my posts were links and I wasn't following anyone (you think they might cut me some slack as at that moment I was only tweeting to seven people).

Of course I didn't know it was Twitter that was the problem.  Their email saying they'd frozen the account got swept up  in a spam folder.  So naturally I spent a while making sure I hadn't screwed things up somewhere along the chain.  I had a nice twitter exchange with someone at Buffer.  I deleted and re-wrote the IFTTT recipe.  Eventually I looked at my old email spam (I had to tie the new twitter to an old email) and found the freeze notice.

Update password and we're off and running again.  At least until the next SNAFU.

Worth a Look

Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...

Proof That Your Moonlighting Gigs Can Earn You More Than Just Extra Cash

Fast Company | Business + Innovation: I am on a quest to stay passionate and productive in my day job.
By day I am a business consultant, but by night--not to mention during the wee hours of the morning and on weekends--I become a freelance writer, yoga teacher, and photographer.
On my journey I have met a number of inquisitors who ask why I toil away the hours before and after work to master crafts that are seemingly unrelated to my day job.
For instance, I work in consulting, so my pursuit of an MBA was embraced, even enthusiastically promoted to clients by my colleagues. But the mere mention of my other jobs provokes an inquisition of epic proportions.
Here are four lessons I’ve learned from moonlighting that may inspire you to render your own lessons from a side gig

Posted by David at 7/24/2014 02:07:00 PM

Sign Painters: book and documentary

Boing Boing: Sign Painters looks to be a fascinating book and documentary about the traditional art and craft of hand-drawn signage that is being lost to digital prints and die-cut vinyl. The film is playing at venues around the US right now, including this Sunday (7/27) at the Webb Gallery in Waxahachie, Texas!

Posted by David at 7/24/2014 02:05:00 PM

Beach Books for Museum and Design Folks (Summer 2014 Edition)

ExhibiTricks: The Museum Exhibit Design Blog: Since I'm not a "beach person" if I end up in a hot, sandy spot I try to make sure I'm under a big, shady umbrella with a book in my hands.
With that in mind, here's a list of books you might like to peruse, on (or off) the beach.

Posted by David at 7/24/2014 02:06:00 PM

Craftsman Tools In Retrospect – A 50 Year Comparison

Tools In Action - Power Tools and Gear: Part of growing up is listening to your parents and grandparents gripe about how expensive everything is now. They’ll tell you how in their day, prices were reasonable, people were honest, and the world was a lot better off as a whole. Now, I’ve lived my life up to this point believing this view of yesteryear to be true, but as I started taking a fact based look at it, I discovered that at least part of that utopian recollection may be somewhat debatable.

Posted by David at 7/23/2014 02:18:00 PM

The Broadway actors who’ve played the same roles for over 10 years

New York Post: The first time Donna Marie Asbury stepped onstage in “Chicago” crying, “He ran into my knife — 10 times!” her daughter was in diapers.
That was 16 years ago. Daughter Jacqueline, 18, heads to college in August, but Asbury’s still playing a character named June. Along the way — over the course of more than 6,600 shows — she’s seen 20 Velma Kellys, 26 Roxie Harts and 38 Billy Flynns come and go. That she’s still here, sharing a small dressing room with four other, less seasoned “merry murderesses,” surprises even herself.

Posted by David at 7/21/2014 06:34:00 PM

Jetway Test

It's got potential...

Haircuts!

Now is the time at TANBI when we shave the cats...

Freya decided to be conservative:

Bra'tac went for the full Brazilian:

And we apparently charged their lasers too.

Airport Expansion

The airport expansion continues.  This time mostly with support vehicles.  My playdate was very motivated to keep working as he's off to camp soon and won't be able to contribute for a while as a result.

So here's the current overview:

One of the first adds was a fuel truck.  I'd done one before, but I am happier with this one.  It looks less like a cement truck than its predecessor.  It's minifig scale - has doors, which is unusual for me, and hoses that can be manipulated.

Next up is a passenger staircase.  I keep running into this problem where to accommodate the minifigs takes only two spaces, but that representation isn't really something that would work.  So this time I went two wide but worked in some handrails out to the side.  If I'd built out the handrails with bricks I think the passenger aisle would have had to be four wide and then the thing becomes six wide and starts to look out of proportion.

Upon further consideration I decided that this unit was too tall in relationship to the plane (which admittedly is in a completely different scale - although more and more to me is believable as an executive jet - but that would mean the control tower is way too short).  So I dropped it down one course.  That necessitated re-jiggering the diagonal rails, fwiw I like this better.  I also added a safety chain to the front.

That's fuel and people, next we did luggage.  First was the baggage loader.  It has a ramp that raises and lowers.  It also has a data screen and a control lever.  I went to old school wheels here.  For some reason I thought it mattered.  Maybe I was concerned about the height of the deck using the standard wheels.  Anyway, I think it's a nice piece for what it is.

Then as you can already see we did a baggage tram.  It's a tractor and then three, two level carts with all flexible connections between them.  I think this was really successful.  It even rolls around like an actual tram when cornering.  If anything here I found myself wishing there was a two wheel axle component that was only two studs wide instead of four.  I've since discovered there actually are those pieces but I didn't have them at the time (and probably have IBI now).

What's next you say?  There's still catering and maybe de-icing vehicles to do (and if my playdate has anything to say about it probably police and fire).  Also I am starting to see a terminal building and jetway in my head.  Just have to wait for the next visit I guess.