ACK!

You know, it's awful busy these days.

At any given time I have at least two things to attend to, and my deadlines are pretty much NOW. To which my answer is usually, "How soon is NOW?'

But I have to stop things every so often to gettsome things out.

Like now, or NOW.

In the past couple of months, I have been out of state and out of continent. The activities that I have gone to have to do with BrickJournal in terms of covering and participating...

The first event was the Festival of the Masters in Orlando, Florida. Located in Downtown Disney, this is an event that is a large (VERY large) crafts festival. Estimated traffic for this year was 300,000. And the Greater Florida LEGO Users Group had a display at the LEGO Imagination Center.

For me, the equation of LEGO and Disney adds up to a thing I cannot resist. I have been a Disney fan since about 1994 - on a lark, I took a job at the Disney Store. And I ended up staying for four years, and then transferring to Disney World and working at DisneyQuest. I learned a a lot in those years, including the importance of being positive.


Since then, I have doing what I can to get to the parks, as it's oneplace where I can basically forget everything to have fun. I finally got back after 6 years last year. And I returned this year, and I was able togo to the parks after the event.

Festival of the Masters is always fun for me - I get to relax and show off a model or two. Last year, I brought my old model of the Nautilus from the Disney movie "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." And did it hit a chord at Downtown Disney - The older crowd recognized it, and also remembered the long-gone ride at the Magic Kingdom. That was a really cool moment for me. This year, I rebuilt it as a waterline model, mainly because the display model didn't really work so well in a layout. Now, the Nautilus can be put in a train layout:-).

This time it was placed in the ocean fighting the squid in the movie. Along with that, I brought along my Star Trek microships (the theme of the display was 'Vs." - good vs. bad, Starfleet vs. Klingon, etc.). Other members brought in some really neat models - Todd Thuma did a Spy vs. Spy model from Mad magazine, KK Quah did a layout from "300" and a "War of the Worlds" layout. Robin Warner did a Batman setup, and Mike Huffman did a Peter Pan layout. There was also a Harry Potter layout by Scotty (no , I don't know his last name - I'm bad about that) and there were other things too.

This is a pretty straightforward public event and I really enjoy it - there's a lot of interaction that happens and we all get to talk about the models and the GFLUG members talk about the club and what they do. And with the traffic, there are a LOT of questions and people. It also helps that the LEGO Imagination Center has an event to go on as well - a master build of some sort. THis year it was a build of a 6 foot tall version of R2-D2 - with lights and sound. Master Builder Dan came back to coordinate the build and have a fun time and so outside we were displaying and inside he was building with the public.

With each visit I have stayed at Mike Huffman's place, and I should thank him and his wife Erika here. They are great hosts and they live literally behind the Magic Kingdom. Really. As in, you can FEEL the 9pm fireworks. Andto get to their place, you can drive through Disney property. Way cool in my book.

This year was really nice for me because I was made an honorary GFLUG member:-) I got it mainly because I showed up to the display with stuff from North Carolina:-). I'm very happy with that and thank the members for inducting me. They are a great group to hang out with and display.

As for Disney World, it's always fun!

About two weeks later, I went to Hawaii. Why? Well...

More later...