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Here is my Battle of Hoth scene that incorporates sets 8129 (AT-AT Walker), 75049 (Snowspeeder), 75014 (Battle of Hoth), 75138 (Hoth Attack) and a laser cannon from set 75259 (Snowspeeder – 20th Anniversary Edition) on three white base plates. The background pictures were my son’s idea and are much better idea than the plain white background I originally had. The reflection off the glass doors makes it difficult to get a really good overall picture, hence the close-up shots. Being at home all the time does have its advantages after I get done teleworking, more family time and more building opportunities. Since this is technically not a MOC since I did not modify any of the sets, I am posting it here.

Everyone needs to extend some grace and patience with the teachers. They were not trained for this moment. Many of them are not technically inclined like most of us nerds on this forum. Most have kids so they are dealing with the same adjustment that we all are. Some have spouses that may have lost their job or are in fear of losing it soon. Some might be single moms with kids and no way safe way to even get groceries right now. Some might be older and have no clue what a video conference is. Most have never considered a day where they would have to teach an entire class remotely. Also keep in mind that kids have different circumstances at home which makes it difficult to prepare a curriculum that is accessible to everyone. Heck, some kids just rely on school for a couple meals a day. Most teachers are anxious and stressed like all of us. I think they are doing a hell of a job given the circumstances. My son's teacher is older and doing her best. She responds to messages and remains flexible. I'm not expecting them to be super heroes in this moment. Plus, it's only a couple months so I'm not too worried about it in the grand scheme of things. Health and well being is most important right now. The kids are learning a lot more than what's in the text book right now anyways. This is a historic moment. They will learn the most from how their parents handle this situation. (Sorry for the rant. My wife used to teach and she knows a lot of teachers that feel helpless. They are doing their best and wish they could do more.)

My daughter and I did a little building today.

I finally bought it! This was my first and only "big" LEGO set as a child. Everything else was scrounged from a Happy Meal or hustled off some neighborhood kid for pennies on the dollar. My dad would only buy me Joe's, because they were the real American heroes. That flip lid means so much to me. I remember hanging out in the stores and that little plastic window gave me a glimpse into another world. LEGO made the best box art too. It actually represented what was in the box and provided the same excitement. Do you remember the Nintendo box art? Some of the best until you actually played the game. Man, what a let down lol! I'm interested to see others recent childhood purchases and learn your story behind it.

$200 on Offer Up.

I found this gem a while ago, and finally had the pleasure of building it last week-end with my 9 y.o. The whole time, he (Yes, the one that is enamored with every new Ninjago set released) kept remarking "This is so cool!" I'm always amazed when building older sets both how short and terse the instructions are compared to modern sets, and how creative the designers were with a limited color palette and mostly simple brick shapes. As a kid, this set was the first I built that used Technic bricks. They work very nicely here, to model a support-beam industrial look. Back when this set was new, it and the Galaxy Explorer formed the core of Lego Space Command for my brother and me. Good times.

Indy collaboration between me & my middle son. We've been doing weekly "Lego Masters Challenges" since they've been off from school, and this week's challenge was to recreate a scene from a movie. They've really been into it.

My buddy held a Lego build a castle challenge over the weekend through our FB family. We were encouraged to use whatever Lego we had "around" the house. Those without kids like me were encouraged to join as well. With most of my loose Lego in storage I decided to bust open a water damaged 10237 ToO. I made sure to say it was a set and not custom. Took me about 15 hrs I'd say. I liked the build and it looks awesome. Now to break it down I guess.

No worries, Florida still has plenty of supply: https://www.legoland.com/florida/legoland-florida/buy-tickets/tickets/tickets-page/?keyword=legoretail

Legoland exclusive made it online https://www.legoland.com/california/legoland-california/lego-retail/ 40346 Legoland is $65 with free shipping

We finished the UCS Blockade Runner on Sunday. Man...what a beast of a set. Beautiful. Up next to build from the lot: UCS Death Star II, which was missing 4 pieces. @Huskers1236 I went with Vinyl aftermarket after seeing the shape the original stickers were in (as you can see in the pics) and reading online. They aren’t here yet, and it will be my first experience with aftermarket stickers.

A little reward for all the hard work this week ....

Perfect timing... didn't know this was a thread... I am going to make this a historical site in our city.

people being paid for “not working” have had to work continuously to earn their unemployment benefit. Workers who just started out in a job aren’t able to file in most states. Many states aren’t going to be able to pay benefits if these numbers do indeed continue to climb, hence the fed support. Also keep in mind that some state’s max weekly unemployment isn’t even $300. Some, like Mississippi, max out at $235 a week. To compound this, most states stop paying Benefits in as little as 13 weeks while others tap out at 26 weeks. This isn’t a handout to most—it is a lifeline.

Gas is cheap and most everyone is off of work right now, so I'll make the drive from WI. This will be me when I get there... Sorry, folks! Parks closed!

I would argue that the best thing to do is...Nothing.

Pre-orders start today. Ships 4/27 1,077 pieces and will retail for $99.99/€99.99 https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/dom-s-dodge-charger-42111

Amphitheatrum Flavium - Colosseum by Kevin J. Walter

Little bit of a flex here. Our new brand of Hand and Power tools, Blue Ridge, is now available at Target. There have been 20V tools and 40V OPE tools on Amazon for a little bit now, but this is our company's first venture into non-powered hand tools; of which I was integral to the 8-month compressed launch timeline. https://www.target.com/s?searchTerm=blue+ridge+tools In store, you might see some discounted Stanley, B&D and others tools since we have the entire 4 to 8ft section. Many are not shipping any longer but may still be available in store. These tools are good for entry-level homeowners and people who need quality tools for common household tasks. They are not Dewalt or Milwaukee quality, but are aimed to meet he needs of the common Target customer. Anyways, wanted to share as I am excited to see our team's hard work come to fruition.

I’m locking the thread today. It’s Sunday. Let’s rest, let’s build. Let’s spend time with family. And most importantly, knock off the insults to one another. Brickpicker is literally the only online forum I participate in (leave comments). Because I genuinely enjoy talking LEGO with yuh guys. But the last 48 hours especially has turned into a mud-slinging fest and I’m not thrilled with it. It’s not my board, but the incel talk, never been kissed, and other insults need to stop. Y’all are killing the vibe.

Target GC deal is back...

76042 Helicarrier re-build finished this morning. I reverse bagged this one so the build was very smooth. I've always loved this set, and since it took me a while to find one at a good price that adds a bit of extra satisfaction each time I build it. This is one of the sets that they did a great job with, the proportions and details are very close to the shots in the movies in my opinion, and the interior bridge addition it excellent. Once I modified the minifigure stand to include all of the original Avengers, that was the final touch, although one of the front turret extensions looks to have fallen off during transport from my building area 🙃 On the cons, I wish they would have scrapped the turbine spinning feature and added more interior, perhaps a Hulk lab, bunk rooms, and hallways. And secondly, the upper/second level bridge needs work. That large translucent piece just doesn't look good with all the other small details. But overall an amazing set for me!

I think you read a lot into what out Czech friend wrote. I don't really buy the lie of American Exceptionalism. Will the United States get through this? Yes. Will thousands of people needlessly die because of bad decisions all over the place? Yes. I think Americans have become complacent that our government has functioning systems in place to help us in a crisis like this and those systems can't work when you don't staff them or think about them for years and years. I certainly grew up with a notion that the US was untouchable, 9/11 was a big wake up call for people in that regard, I think this also is/will be a wake-up call for people. Our government downplayed the role that face masks could play in containing/slowing the virus, seemingly because they realized we didn't have enough PPE to protect critical healthcare workers and wanted to avoid hoarding and shortages. I honestly took Crayxlp's post a week ago about everyone masks to heart and started wearing one to stores and it seems like more and more people are wearing masks out to shop, I'd say about 50% at Costco today. I just don't think Crayxlp hates America or Americans. It's literally just fine to be critical of the USA, it's policies, it's actions and even it's people, it doesn't mean you hate it or them. On another note, I can only hope that 30-40% unemployment is what it takes to realize employer provided healthcare coverage is a pretty dumb way to approach paying for medical care. I think I'd rather just have the extra $20k in income and pay an extra $15-20k in taxes for a different bureaucracy (lets not pretend Blue Cross/Aetna/etc are really cutting the red tape) to cover health expenses.

Thus the reason why small businesses need to apply for the PPP(Payroll Protection Program) and keep people on the payroll. We applied this afternoon. I will let you know how it goes, but if it works, I will be able to pay all my employees for two months with the help of the Feds.

Somebody fire up the "My Order Status" thread. We need a distraction from all things Coronavirus. The "did I buy a ticket or a set?" sale of 2020 should keep us occupied for a few days. That being said, I bought the limit of three. I'm really hoping it's the set. I don't feel like driving to CA. Hopefully we start getting some shipping confirmations soon so I can double dip knowing it's really the set and not tickets. Great deal here, so I wouldn't mind a few more. Thanks for posting, OP, I think! 😂

You mustn't have bored kids at home going stir crazy. Dads just happy to have an excuse to get out in the car and then taking the extra long scenic route home.

Here's the page with all sets: https://www.amazon.com/gp/promotion/A2UVYI3AAN71UD?ref_=pdaatf_psp_A2UVYI3AAN71UD

Probably like in The Running Man where they explode if you leave a certain area.

Ordered mine today. I really like this little easter egg.

As should be expected of the princess to our esteemed corn-dog connoisseur.

iahawks550 posted the IHME link yesterday. It's nice to see that at least the variance bars have tightened with the most recent update. I still think this study is **** ****, though, and I say that as a professional in the medical industry and a data scientist. They post their data, but they don't describe the statistical methods they use to arrive at their conclusions, there is no evidence of peer review (the "pics, or it didn't happen" test in my world), and as best as I can tell the information used by those models does not include intervention events. With a proper description, I should be able to recreate their results, but there is not enough model description for me to do so in practice. In my state (MA) their models is not tracking the reported stats, nor being adapted to current conditions (again, as best as I can tell, because the model is opaque). For good hard data, I've found this site to be valuable: https://covidtracking.com/. The numbers I'm watching are confirmed case counts, hospitalizations, and deaths. Hospitalization/dealts are running ~10%/~1% of confirmed cases. If capacity (beds, ventilators, etc) is reached, then the death rate will go up. If capacity can expand, the rate will likely stay static. If the therapy trials prove to be effective, it will drop. The big question, that no one knows the answer to yet, is what is the rate of asymptomatic cases which require neither testing or hospitialization? In short, I suggest one treat these models with skepticism. I think they are useful for predicting peak activity, but not total numbers. Don't despair or be led into fear by academic click-bait. p.s. ICU cases in MA are running 20-25% of total hospitalizations [cite: from my employer's daily update]

Someone asked me for a deal on the 10247 Ferris Wheel and 10257 Carousel together on a local auction site. I gave him a deal at $318US each, and now he wants to buy all the stock I have of those sets (total 6 more) at the same price. Average buy-in was $148. Sure, maybe I could sell them all between now and Christmas for up to ~$370, but selling the lot of 8 at once for $2544 with no fees is pretty worthwhile in my books The same guy also interested in buying my 4 Brick Banks and a bunch of other sets... Fingers crossed!

I wanted to create a new thread in order to give progress on my site updates. I want explain a bit on what happened and what I am doing. What happened with the site? Honestly nothing really exciting or dramatic, overall in the end, I did not want to support the host I was with for the past four years after not really offering too much help with managed servers. They would spend 30 seconds looking, say they can ping the server so its up and then just say, "hey not my problem". I was on aging hardware, paying the same amount of money, so I took the opportunity to move to a new host with better/faster hardware and a staff that does help to support you when run into an issue that you can't handle on your own. I have been doing this a long time and pretty good monitoring and handling 99% of what comes my way, but there are issues that you need the next level up to help figure out what to do. I wasn't getting anything like that, but paying for it. Not anymore. What my goal is... I know more than anyone that the site needed some TLC. It's been a while since I have done any drastic updates, the site looked tired and I know the site can be so much better than what it's current state was. LEGO investing has changed since Ed and I launched the site and it's time to remove the dead content and bring more of what people are looking for. Below is the short term list of items planned for updating. I have been working on the nightly, just like the early days and enjoying seeing parts of it coming to life. Fix the login. This has been messed up and quirky for a while. This has been resolved and working well. It's a simple thing overall, but nice that it actually works how it's supposed to Overall price guide site design update. The site was tired and disjointed. I hated it and pained me to look at it. Time to start over. Brickfolio update. All the Brickfolio data is safe. I have close to three million rows of data for Brickfolio entries. Time to bring this thing to 2020. I will probably create another thread at some point to solicit some feedback on some new requests for the brickfolio Fix the data syncing with Brickset. A lot of people used this feature, but it's time to make it work the way it should. Later I will work on the content portions. The news and blogs. I have some good ideas for this, but want to get the price guide and brickfolio to you sooner than later. What I am asking for if possible... If you can, please stop asking where the brickfolio is. Again, the data is safe and I am working as fast as I can to bring it all back to you. It won't be a few days, but more like a few weeks, but it will be worth it. I setup my dev environment to push releases quick and easy. I want to create a true changelog so that you can follow updates to see what was done/fixed/new/removed, you know like what real software companies do. I really do appreciate your patience with this. It wasn't planned, but if there was going to be a time to do it, it was going to be now.

Everything is... oh forget it. by captainsmog

I found this at work today, maybe it will help lighten the mood

This plays in my head every day that I wake up in America.

Just Sold Used Complete Star Wars Ghost & Phantom $300 on EBay. Minus fees and $12 Shipping, I pocket $145 Ofcourse gotta factor in the "Labor" of building these w/ my boy (I made a stand and had it on display for a year or so) and then him later breaking it down and having to apply his math by figuring how much he gets if Daddy promises him 30% of the profits...nothing like Home schooling with real economics

Industrial reconversion and sense of humor in Italy: "Maybe it is true that we Italians are in a difficult situation. But tell me where you will find another such country: in which aprons for doctors are sewn by ARMANI, FERRARI is manufacturing respirators, GUCCI is making face masks, and sanitizing gel is made by BULGARI ??? We may end up in hell, but in style! "

My 7 year old built these w/in the last week. Special thanks to [mention]Ed Mack [/mention] for the friends set.

https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/176667-review-11010-white-baseplate/

Let's put this to rest...face masks of almost any kind reduce virus spread. Whether it's a lot or a little, it does. It's a physical barrier. That being said, I realize why the government (Feds, CDC, WHO, Surgeon General, Etc...) would recommend against it...they are trying to stop hoarding and put the available masks in the hands of doctors and nurses. If they weren't effective, why are doctors and nurses wearing them? That is all...

Post Offices and their employees need revenue also. Denying them business will not be good for anyone. I had a visit with our local Postmaster. He said with any downturn in revenue, it means higher future costs or layoffs.

Built the new 76898 Panasonic / Jaguar Speed Champions and I display the cars but not the figures. Enough figures piled up I decided to use the start/finish line to create a bit of a minifigure display. Turned out pretty nice!

Accurate about what? I cannot suggest any US news site that is honest and doesn't spin. What I do know is CNN is all about making the situation sound worse than it is. That is how they get ratings and make money. Death count meters and graphics all day, every day? BREAKING NEWS every 5 minutes. Seriously. Did they do that for H1N1? No. Please, there will be no CNN promotion on this website.

We have been going through our Facebook Marketplace find from last month and sorting all of the pieces into each individual set. Now we are finally to the stage of getting to do some building! First up: 10019 UCS Rebel Bloackade Runner, which was missing 0 pieces. We are a little over halfway finished. I did have to order a replacement sticker sheet, which is en route.

“Stand beside her, and guide her,” we sing in “God Bless America.”

Complaining that Lego won't give it to you doesn't do you a whole lot of good because it simply highlights that you're not an authorized dealer for them. A better route is to argue that the certificate is what federal law requires Lego to issue to document compliance with the applicable safety standards and if that's good enough for the U.S. government, it should be good enough for Amazon.

At the rate things are selling, I won’t have anything left in 30 days...

2 years of Keto diet went down the drain thanks to the quarantine. At least that was my excuse for eating this huge bag of Lays