Looking back the year seems to neatly divide into two halves. The first half was about travels and events, with the year beginning with me returning home after spending Christmas with my sister in Hawaii and ending with a weekend trip to Michigan for my niece’s wedding (that completely swallowed up my travel budget for the year). In April I attended the Las Vegas Writers Conference (online), then chose to attend one day of the yearly rockabilly Viva Las Vegas weekend and the similarly named Viva TMS (podcast) event. There were numerous one day events in person, but mostly online scattered through the whole year, including a two day biblical studies conference that inspired me to signup for Bart Ehrman’s online Biblical Studies Academy. No one saw that one coming.
The second half of the year was taken up by my LEGO obsession. I’ve been buying kits since 2017, mostly space or NASA related kits and couldn’t imagine buying the larger modular kits, mostly because of the expense but also because I didn’t think I had the space in my place to display much more than a couple rockets. But then I got a free GWP (gift with purchase) Space Alien Diner diorama and was inspired after I saw a YouTube video where this person bought a second diner and expanded the diorama to a diner with two booths, one full wall and an eating counter. I bought the second diner and did the build, but then decided to expand it further using bricks from my collection into a full building with four walls, doors, more windows, a roof and a parking lot. Well, that was the idea. It was an ugly build and I didn’t have enough bricks to do the full build at first. Off to LEGO.com I went to order the needed parts. That was in September and I’ve been in the build-order-rebuild cycle ever since.
Then I heard rumors that the very expensive Rivendell build was going to be retiring soon and I really had to have it. I placed my order and in the meantime continued to modify the diner.
Given my limited space it seemed logical to build up and add a second floor to my diner. I saw the City Space Science Lab on sale at Target and thought that the domed roof would be a cool second floor and because one of the minifigs was a wheelchair person, I started looking into how to build an elevator for second floor access. Since then I’ve built four complete sets (Natural History Museum, Rivendell, Boutique Hotel and The Daily Bugle tower) and four alternative/MOC builds (modern apartment tower, cozy house, LEGO brand store and friends community center/school).
After buying several roadway kits, I became concerned that easily 1/3 of my limited space was being used for roads, with a two-lane road running along in front of a single line of buildings. A YouTube video popped up from a LEGO city builder with a similar frustration and restrictions. His solution was to create a city with a large central plaza or courtyard, buildings surrounding the plaza on three sides, wide pedestrian walkways instead of “streets” and concentric rows of buildings around the plaza.1 That sounded like a perfect solution for me, but I had already invested in enough road plates for several blocks. But then I found a way to use the road plates and use them as the paved plaza. I also found a way to increased the space for my city from the top of two IKEA KALLAX 2×2 cubes to six cubes forming two rows of three cubes. Prior to this change I was quickly running out of space. Surface area was 15.5” x 60”, now it’s 31” x 91”.
Looking forward, January 1st a new LEGO pub modular comes out. I need to add a town hall/government building, and more brownstone/residential type buildings over the following months. I really wanted to do multi-use buildings with businesses on the ground floor and living areas above, but so far every structure has been separate commercial from residential structures. I’ve been thinking way too much about all of this, and plan to continue into the new year. Happy New Year, y’all!
Sources:
- LEGO City Update – Join me on a tour of the city! by Welcome to Euphoria (2024-11-02), https://youtu.be/w6MK7JqYmdU?si=kegSVLXVY1tRI0iG – Shout out to all of the LEGO enthusiasts on YouTube, you made the journey so much more fun and constructive.
Tags: 2024, end of year reflection, LEGO, travels, year in review
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FOOTNOTES:- Shout out to all of the LEGO enthusiasts on YouTube, you made the journey so much more fun and constructive.[↩]
