{"id":2206,"date":"2013-02-12T10:42:28","date_gmt":"2013-02-12T01:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2013-02-12\/2206"},"modified":"2013-02-12T10:42:28","modified_gmt":"2013-02-12T01:42:28","slug":"slice-of-kid-heaven-pick-a-brick-at-a-lego-store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2013-02-12\/2206","title":{"rendered":"Slice of Kid Heaven: Pick-a-Brick at a LEGO Store"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>40 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 50 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nIn LEGO Heaven<\/span>\nat a LEGO Store near Cleveland, Ohio\n<\/div>\n\n

During our recent trip to The States to visit my folks, 10-year-old Anthony and I stopped<\/span> by a LEGO<\/span> store that\nhad a “Pick-a-Brick” wall.<\/p>\n\n

\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>20 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 80 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nHand Full of Grass<\/span>\n( which is hard to see in these crappy phone pictures )\n<\/div>\n\n
\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>20 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 50 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nSo Many Choices<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

With “Pick a Brick”, you pay by the bucket, so the goal is to engineer as much stuff to fit as possible...<\/p>\n\n\n

\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>20 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 125 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nEngineering Maximum Fit<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

For example, some large white wall pieces had hollow space when stacked, so we worked on filling that space as much as possible...<\/p>\n\n\n

\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>20 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 125 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nAssembly Line<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>20 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 125 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nTight Fit<\/span>\nawaiting matching “cover” wall piece\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>20 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 80 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nTopped Off in Red<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

It was a fun challenge, perhaps more fun for me than for Anthony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>60 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 64 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>25 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 50 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nCreating His Own Minifigs<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>25 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 50 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nPurchases Complete!<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

When we got home to Japan, he opened up his two buckets and we counted how much of each piece he ended up with, and then tallied what it would have cost\nat the LEGO online store, where he's placed orders before.<\/p>\n\n

Just the aforementioned handful of grass (he ended up with 207 pieces) would have cost $31, which is about what the two buckets cost, so\neverything else was gravy. In the end<\/span>, all the stuff in his $30+tax pair of buckets would have cost $201, plus tax plus shipping plus handling.\n(This says more about how ridiculously expensive LEGO is than how good a deal<\/span> the Pick-a-Brick is, but what can you do....)<\/p>\n\n

As big a haul as it was, it didn't do much to dampen his hunger for everything LEGO. He's already<\/span> placed (and received) an order from\nthe Swedish Warehouse19<\/a> on a bunch<\/span> of special parts, along the lines of what he did last year\n(as chronicled in “Anthony\u2019s LEGO Battle at an Abandoned Castle<\/a>”).<\/p>\n\n

I recently got a bunch of Plexiglas and foam-core sheets to help with photo lighting (so that I don't<\/span> have to use\na kitchen<\/span> cutting board as a reflector<\/span> as I did<\/span> here<\/a>), and am planning on using\nthe detailed LEGO pieces from Anthony's Warehouse19 order as practice, if I could<\/span> only find the time....<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During our recent trip to The States to visit my folks, 10-year-old Anthony and I stopped by a LEGO store that had a \"Pick-a-Brick\" wall.<\/p>

With \"Pick a Brick\", you pay by the bucket, so the goal is to engineer as much stuff to fit as possible...<\/p>

For example, some large white wall pieces had hollow space when stacked, so we worked on filling that space as much as possible...<\/p>

It was a fun challenge, perhaps more fun for me than for Anthony.<\/p>

When we got home to Japan, he opened up his two buckets and we counted how much [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}