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Attendees:
Stefan Garcia
Victoria Garcia (Sat)
Peter Guenther
David Kohrman
Larry Pieniazek
Nik Pieniazek
Jason Spears
Guests:
Tim Courtney (Sat)
Overall Picture Directories: |
Peter Guenther |
Stefan Garcia |
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Setup
Jason and Peter arrived around 8 am Saturday to set up tables. Lego had set up their tents beginning at midnight, and we found the tent for our display easily--it was the first one on the way into the zoo from the
parking lot. We started setting up tables from the middle and worked our way out. Larry and Nik arrived about a 1/2 hour later and helped complete the table setup. Mini bar clamps made leveling the tables easy, and even
though we were on a slope and pebbly concrete, the layout was pretty even.
David and Stefan arrived shortly thereafter and began moving buildings in. To get nice large blocks in such a small layout, we had to use half road plates and more 16x32 baseplates than we had, so Peter broke one of
the cardinal rules and started cutting. We got the streets laid out in short order and the rails soon after. We had to be creative with the crossings because the slope pieces would not fit with our plexiglass barriers. Instead we just put a couple plates on the barrier sides of those crossings. We put plates between the rails but didn't have enough tiles to make smooth crossings.
Jason got his buildings in quickly so he could leave for a wedding, then the rest of us finished the layout and Nik scattered animals throughout the display. Tim Courtney of NILTC arrived during setup and helped out for the day.
Saturday
On Saturday, by getting all four stickers kids earned a vacuum-molded
construction helmet with a Lego "Play On" sticker on the front. The idea
for our display was "The animals have escaped from the zoo," and to earn
our sticker for their Lego badges, kids had to find a certain number of
animals. They ranged from easy (many spiders all over the place, including
the giant tarantula from the Designer sets) to difficult (a polar bear
in an alley, a white horse coming down a fire escape, a red parrot in a
garbage can, a baby Norbert hidden behind a fence). The first day we made
kids find a number of unique animals equal to their age.
Our display had two loops connected by Christner crossings, several blocks of town, and a 20"x60" area for MOCs, including Nik's Sea Monkeys, Jason's Tower, and Stefan's and Jason's spaceships.
We were very lucky to have Stefan both days and Victoria on Saturday, as their Spanish skills were needed to communicate with a number of visitors. Overall the day was a lot more work than our normal shows-- the kids were
younger than those we see at many shows, at all the other tents they could get hands-on, and of course we were busy handing out stickers and prizes. We probably needed at least 3 more people to help out than we had.
At the end of the day's display, after the crowd eventually thinned out, we wrapped all the sides of the tent with large sheets of plastic Jason (and wife Jamie) had procured for us. This protected it from wind, rain, and greedy hands.
After the show on Saturday, Larry, Nik, Stefan, David, and Peter ended up at a restaurant called Ed Debevic's for dinner. Apparently the restaurant's gimmick is that they're all rude to you--at least that's what Larry claimed, but we weren't sure if that was just his story to cover the way he was acting to the waiter. Nik threw out his construction helmet while we waited for a table; a moment later a waiter came along, saw it in the trash, and said "Bonus! THAT's goin' on!" He didn't actually wear it but just before we left we were gratified to find one of the waitresses had put it on. (Apparently she needed it to get up to her 17 pieces of flair.)
We all had a great time at dinner. Taking the theme to a new level, Nik shot straw wrappers at several other tables. When we ran out of water in our pitcher, (after Peter had dumped about half the ice on the table by accident) we sent Stefan over to the fountain to get more. Figuring we'd get him yelled at. Instead, he came back with our pitcher, still empty, and another full one he just grabbed off someone else's table.
Our shakes took forever to arrive, and when they did (after the food had arrived), the waiter balanced the tray on the table, gave Peter his, and promptly dropped the rest on the floor. Glass and shake went everywhere,
particularly onto Stefan's leg. Larry later told the waiter he really put us in our place, and we were impressed by his dedication to carrying out the restaurant's attitude. Peter told him that normally that would get
him less of a tip but here, Peter figured he should double it. It was not an evening that the waiter or we will soon forget.
When we got back to the zoo parking lot to get the other cars, the attendant gave us a really hard time. Eventually she let us in after "taking our plate." When we got back to Peter's car, we found he had a flat tire. While Peter changed the tire, Nik chased squirrels away and Larry offered helpful advice like "Just be ready in case the whole car swings out at you." It turned out the tire had gotten a nail. Larry, Nik, and Peter took surface streets back to the hotel but eventually got there, and Peter found a Firestone that was open on Sunday to replace the tire, which was too worn to repair.
Sunday
We all got to the zoo between 10 and 11. We opened up the tent a little bit before the noon start time so we could take pictures. The Lego tents weren't up and running yet, so we attracted quite a crowd.
To speed things up, on Sunday we set a goal of 3 animals for 0-5, 6 for 6-10, 9 for 11-15. We made adults perform all kinds of tasks to get their stickers--find the white horse, find out how many colors of spiders
are in the layout, etc. Sunday supplies were limited so we gave out Master Builder licenses instead of the helmets.
We met a lot of interesting people, including a husband and wife with a number of huge Lego sculptures including the headboard for their bed (Larry encouraged them to put up pictures on Brickshelf). Oddly enough,
most of the AFOLS we met were not aware of LUGNET, Brickshelf, or Bricklink; they had been pursuing the hobby in something of a vacuum since childhood.
Teardown
Lego shut down the show at 5 and teardown took less than two hours. We still had a number of people around our display, because the zoo was open later than the show. Once we blocked off several areas with Lego "Construction
Zone" tape most people wandered off. Once the tables were completely clear, Peter took off since he had the longest drive.
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