Bill Ward - All - LEGO

Moving pages to Brickpile

Prompted by the imminent shutdown of brickshelf.com I am moving all my LEGO entries from this site to my LEGO blog, brickpile.com. Although I copied all my photos from this site onto flickr.com some time ago, I never updated the blog entries to use those images until now. Since I'm updating them, I might as well move them to the LEGO blog. As I move each entry there, I will add rewrite rules to this site so that when anyone tries to visit the old location it will be redirected to the new one.

For example if you try to visit the page
http://bill.wards.net/blosxom/lego/models/sculpture/holidays/halloween-2001.html
You will be instead taken to
http://www.brickpile.com/2007/07/17/october-28-2001-halloween-2001-ghost-pumpkin-and-witch/
thanks to this entry in my Apache configuration:

RewriteRule ^/blosxom/lego/models/sculpture/holidays/halloween-2001 \
  http://www.brickpile.com/2007/07/17/october-28-2001-halloween-2001-ghost-pumpkin-and-witch/ \
  [R=permanent,N]

New Blog for LEGO, and Changes Are Afoot

I've started a new blog just for my LEGO®-related posts. You can find it at www.brickpile.com. I post new entries there at least once a week, which is a lot more often than I ever did here.

Why so much more often? It's just that much easier to post there because it's built using Wordpress, a powerful and popular blog program. It's written in PHP with a MySQL back-end, unlike this blog which uses Blosxom, which is written in Perl and stores entries directly in the filesystem. The advantage to using Wordpress is that it has a nice Web-based editor, so I can just click the "Admin" button to log into the administration screen, type the entry in, and be done with it. Using Blosxom, I have to actually log in to a Linux server and edit the file in the filesystem. Plus, Wordpress offers automatic support for things like Technorati tags (using a plugin) and a much more stable comments/trackbacks mechanism.

Soon I will be relocating all the LEGO-related content from this site over to Brickpile (and setting up HTTP redirects so any outside links or bookmarks will still take you to the right entries). I also plan to relaunch this site using Wordpress as well. When that's done I should be posting non-LEGO content more often too.

If you can't get enough Ward action there are some other blogs you should visit. My wife Holly has two blogs: a personal one, and one where she teaches how to blog. We also have a joint blog that we both post to.

BayLUG Meeting at Dave Porter's House, January 22, 2005

BayLUG member Dave Porter generously opened his doors to hold a BayLUG meeting at his home in January.

Click the big picture to go to the set page on Flickr, or click on an individual photo. Or, you can view a slideshow of the photos.

These pictures are also available on Brickshelf.

BayLTC Museum Show, Decmeber 2004

Last December, BayLUG and BayLTC put on a display at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto, CA. This was our second long-term exhibit, after the one in Pleasanton in June of 2004. Here are pictures taken both during and during tear-down after the show.

I took the pictures taken during the teardown phase while suffering from a terrible fever and flu, so I don't remember much about it! But the pictures speak for themselves anyway...

Coast Guard Base

Last fall, the Bay Area LEGO Train Club (BayLTC) was doing a show where many of our usual waterfront models were not available, so I volunteered to build a new model for that spot. I discovered Coast Watch HQ sets on sale at Costco for about $20 each, and bought two of them. I used many parts from the sets, such as the baseplates and windows, but built a new design to be a little more realistic. The building is of my own original design, but the helicopter and cutter are based on real U.S. Coast Guard equipment. Since it was for a train show, I made it come apart into pieces for easy transport.

Esso Garage

A garage to take your LEGO cars for their regular maintenance. Has two service bays, each with a lift to give the mechanics access underneath the car. Also equipped with a workbench and a complete inventory of repair parts and tires.

This model is fully detailed on the interior, and also features rare and valuable printed bricks (Two each of "ESSO SERVICE" and "GARAGE") from the 1960's.

Great American Train Show, November 2004

Originally posted November 30, 2004 23:39
Updated December 8: added captions; removed blurry or redundant images; reordered images

On November 27-28, 2004, we participated in the GATS in Pleasanton for the third time. We won third place again!

BayLTC "Dress Rehearsal" Meeting, November 2004

My digital camera troubles continue at this meeting. This time I brought it, but with three sets of nearly-flat batteries. I only managed to get 5 pictures.

This meeting was held at Bruce's church gymnasium as a "dress rehearsal" for the next weekend's Great American Train Show display. We set up the tables and track along with major landmarks to make sure that it all fits.

BayLUG Meeting, October 2004

I forgot my digital camera when I went to this meeting, so I took pictures with my cell phone instead. Apologies for the poor quality.

This meeting featured a Halloween contest as well as several space and Technic models not shown before.

BayLTC Museum Show, July 11, 2004 (tear-down)

Turn out the lights, the party's over...

Sunday, July 11 was the last day of our month-long display at the Amador-Livermore Valley Historical Society and Museum. After the museum closed at 4pm, we took down the "sneeze guards" and table skirts for a photo shoot, culminating in a group photo.