General Stuff

I should think most of our readers would be familiar with the BrickLink Forum, but just in case you've not looked at it, I encourage you to do so:

http://www.bricklink.com/messageList.asp

Check it out with the option of not looking at the replies so you just see all the main messages - there's quite a plethora of good information there.

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In other news. Chris is working on order processing and I'm at work dealing with month-end and railcar issues. The market is insane for sulphuric acid right now, and that's really interesting considering we're in a "non" recession.

I'm wondering how many folks out there are curbing their buying of the brick due to this "non" recession we're in, and if you get back your huge tax refund (in addition to anything you might normally get, the $300-$600 - in the US only) will you spend it on Lego?

I'm waiting for the new Green Grocer set...I haven't built the other two sets in that series yet, but I really want it!

I'll see if I can't find a pic and link it in.

Let us give you a hand! (or maybe 11,000+?)

For any of you who've been to one of the Lego stores across the nation (or in another country) and have experienced the "Pick-A-Brick wall" and the "Build a Minifig station", I'm sure you were amazed. I know I was the first time I went to the Orlando store, my very first store of Lego I'd ever experienced. I remember vividly how exciting it was, and this wasn't that long ago. I re-found the love of plastic building bricks at the young age of 33.

Now, after almost 5 years of absorbing myself in the plastic goodness that is Lego, and successfully building a large store on BrickLink, I'm branching out and trying to find more people to enjoy the love of building bricks that I have.

One of my all time favorite things has been minifigures (and Star Wars, and Fabuland...but, if we're looking at the toy itself, it's minifigures and parts of minifigs). The Lego store in Orlando has a wall of minifigures that you see behind the main register bay at the front of the store (you can see above). The first time I saw that my mind went wild with all the amazing creations I could make!

If you look at our BrickLink photo (http://www.bricklink.com/feedback.asp?u=BrickAThon), you'll see one of my first creations - an undead army, made from Luke Skywalker torso assemblies (removed the yellow hands and replaced with black or white - some have one, some have another), used both the glow in the dark and regular "evil" skeleton heads, black police hats and black legs. I love this army. There's something amazing about having over 1,000 little army men that all look alike defending your Lego collection!

When I go to the Orlando store I always see with great interest the children busily creating new figures to play with. You get 3 for $10 plus a little carrying case. They come with a torso assembly, a leg assembly, a head and one accessory (hat/hair or a weapon/utensil) per figure. So, for about $3.34 each you get to make your own figure based on the parts they have in stock. That is pretty darn nifty!

The Pick-A-Brick wall is set up a bit differently in that you can pick as many parts as you want off the wall and put them into pre-priced cups or tubs, anything you can fit and get the lid closed on you can have for that price. Nice idea, but not always the best selection. Same problem with the figure parts.

This is where we come in, folks. Do you want to create your own figures but get frustrated with not having enough parts? Never fear, Brick-A-Thon is here!

At last count (about 15 minutes ago), here's what I show our store as having in stock, just for some examples (*these could be new or used, too!):

11,493 hands in 20 different types.

56,589 heads in 156 different types plus another 40 "alternative" heads (i.e. SpongeBob heads, you might find a Dobby head, Martian heads, etc.).

22,964 pieces of headgear in 159 different types - this includes hats, hair, helmets, etc.

27,749 leg assemblies in 74 different types.

12,287 torso's with no arms/hands (just the torso) for you to customize - in 65 different types.

40,631 torso assemblies in over 218 different types - these include the hands and arms.

We also have plenty of arms, minifig utensils and even some footgear for you to choose from. It's quite amazing! We have over 170,000 items in those sections listed above, alone! Just think of all the possibilites for creations!

One of my personal store goals was to create a sort of "minifig pick-a-brick" aspect to our shop. I want you to be able to come in and buy all different types of figure parts to create what YOU want. I try to keep in a good stock and am constantly listing new and used figure items and parts. I also try to keep in a good selection of brand new figures from the new sets and get parts for those as I'm able.

Chris is an integral part of my deciding what we should put into the shop for many reasons, one of which is she does most of the order pulling and sees what people are buying and can tip me off when it appears we're running low on something or are having a "run" on the product. Another thing is that Chris is what I like to call an "ultimate consumer" - she loves a lot of the basics of Lego that the "non-collector" can relate to, being that she's new to Lego, so I get a new viewpoint on the parts that I've lost over the years. It's great to see her reaction to some of the parts that come out, and she just recently ordered a bunch of Indiana Jones parts to build with and to make her own figures out of.

We have a unique store with over 5,000 different lots available and over 550,000 total items (and I'm trying to keep it at this count). There are other well stocked shops out there that I appreciate a great deal, but one of my goals is to be your "one stop shop" for at least 50% of what you need. Not many shops out there can say that for the large collector or builder who needs a lot of different items in all types of different genres.

***Sorry if this post today sounds like an advertisement, but honestly I'm just very excited about where we've gotten this store and I want everyone to know what we're doing and WHY we're doing it! We love our customers, we love our store, we love our LEGO!

Please don't hesitate to stop in and say HI and if you order some figure parts and are making something new out of them please do send us pictures as we'd love to see them and would be happy to post them in future blogs. This goes for your own MOC's made with our parts - we'd love to see it all!

Tracy

It's Friday, the root canal is done!

Just a short note to all my friends out there (and all of those who ghost read us)...

I went in at 8:30AM today to have the root canal done - and I found out that I've got a couple cracks in my tooth as well. So, almost $400 later and my tooth has a temp filling in it. I have to get the crown done still. Lovely.

That being said - if anyone out there wants a coupon just leave us a note (via BrickLink - the messaging system works best) and we'll issue a 8% off ALL items coupon for you just because you took the time to read and WE LIKE YOU - but, you have to put in "give me your blog coupon" or something to that effect so I know why you're asking for said coupon. That would be LOVELY!

My dentist told me a little trick - since I can't take codeine (nasty headaches) he said to take 3 Advil liquicaps and 2 fast acting Tylenol at the same time and that it should work the same as codeine for the pain numbing - How hot is that? Okay everyone out there in pain-land, let's all try it! Then go buy Lego since you're not in pain anymore! YES!

Oh, and by the way - I'm at WORK! I managed to make it in and surprisingly, at 1:15PM, I'm doing alright so far (let me knock on fake wood here on my desk). Let's hope it continues...and maybe I'll tell Chris we're going out for BEER tonight! WooHoo!

BrickTracy

Wooooooooot!

Over the past weekend I discovered the joys of using the "chat" feature on BL. I met some people and hope to meet some more. It's great to be able to chat with people in real time that you've been dealing with in only "order" form (did that make sense???). Anyway...yeah!

It's always amazing to me when you see the fruits of your labor. Repeat customers, more business, more orders, and building relationships and friendships with folks you meet and deal with is a great thing! Brick-A-Thon has come a looooong way in the past year and that's all thanks to the teamwork between Tracy and myself and our friends who come over to help sort and count and who contribute their time and skills to better our store. I'd like to take the chance to thank all our friends (you know who you are) for helping us make Brick-A-Thon a success!

On the order front, orders are on schedule and caught up for the most part. Hopefully that'll change and I'll be running around like a chicken with my head cut off soon. I'm almost positive there'll be sorting and posting in the very near future.

I hope everyone is having a good week!

Root canal.

Hey everyone!

Well, it's Monday. Time for me to catch up on outstanding orders from late Saturday (I pretty much got things caught up through 6 pm Saturday night) and into Sunday and today.

Tracy went to the dentist this morning because 2 of her back molars have been painfully bothering her for the past few weeks. They suggested a root canal on one of her teeth (at least) but couldn't numb her up properly. So they referred her to another specialty dentist and she has an appointment tomorrow morning at 7:30 am. Now she's in bed trying to sleep off the effects of the gas and other stuff they gave her at the dentist today and then she'll head out to her "real life" job in the early afternoon. She's hurting, I can definitely tell, and I feel badly for her. :-( Poor Tracy.

That's all the new news from Brick-A-Thon for now.

Have a great day, everyone!

-Chris

Orrrrrder up!

Just thought I'd stop in and type up an update since it's been a few days. :-)

Today I'm working on finishing off the 15th and starting on orders placed today. Tracy is busy doing taxes, so I figured I may as well keep busy myself. She can't be the ONLY one pulling a 6 day week this week. :-) I'm thinking we'll take some time to ourselves tonight and go out for a nice dinner someplace. Even Lego needs to take a backseat once in awhile. *ducks while Lego addicts world wide start throwing plastic bits at me*. :-P

Back to the grind! Hope everyone has a good weekend.

-Chris

Happy ValenLEGO Day!

I'd like to wish a Happy Valentines Day, Anti-V-Day, Black Thursday, or as my friend Paige says, "Happy 'Guy who got his head cut off' Day" to everyone out there in Lego-Ville.

Today I'm working on completing a 7,000+ part order that we received a day or so back. I have 2 other bigger orders to complete and a handful of smaller ones, so I'll be on the move today. :-)

What're you doing today for this wonderful "Hallmark" holiday? We'd love to know! Not sure what we're up to yet, but you never know what the day will bring. ;-)

Have a good one, all!

-Chris