WAMALUG: Meeting: March 3, 2001

Abe reported on the meeting in the 901st message to the members-only mailing list.

As you can see from the list of attendees, this meeting was packed. We also had a large train layout, so it was a bit crowded, but nobody seemed to mind.

I don’t know what happened for about the first two hours because I was constantly fixing one of the two train bridges I built. The narrow bridge held up perfectly but the fit was a little tight. The larger bridge had two train tracks and we had a collapse—breaking three of Tom’s cars into pieces (sorry Tom!) but after much ad-hoc re-design, the improved bridge at least kept the trains from crashing to their deaths but whenever two trains crossed as the same time it bent something fierce. Dan should have some pictures of this sorry structure up so you can see just how bad it was.

Stephen was marveling at one of the new LEGO® racers. I’m not so impressed but I do have to admit that the driver is flung to his death quite a distance when it crashes. Stephen was also videotaping various parts of the meeting so when he uploads them you will see all the fun you missed!

Margaret built a motorized ferris wheel out of Znap (which is about the best thing I’ve seen them used for) although mini-figs kept leaping to their deaths. I guess that was the theme for this meeting—things leaping to their death!

Jeff brought a 3 foot stack of LEGO® he was sorting. Showing his many bags of LEGO® and shouting Mine! Mine! Look how many purple slopes! Well, OK, he really wasn’t doing that but we were all envious of his large stash anyway.

Cletus brought a church, a bank, and a post office. I especially liked the little mail boxes made out of thin walls.

Greg had a MISB train freight loading station (which is much better than the current one). I think he explained how much he paid and how he got it over, and over, and over, and over…

I saw Dan walking around carrying his laptop and it looked like he was making a copy of the train layout which I’m guessing will find its way to the internet. It was one of the larger layouts in a while. I guess I caused a feast or famine when I posted my request for track because we had more than enough (which is better than not enough).

Tom had two nice box cars that had working doors that you couldn’t open (or if you managed to get them open they wouldn’t close). He also had several black coal hoppers that had working doors at the bottom (soon to be copyrighted, trademarked, and patented).

Ed showed up with a large spaceship with more display consoles than I’ve ever seen in a single ship.

Roy had several buildings. A furniture store (I think?) and an orange street vacuum truck.

The next meeting is scheduled for Saturday, April 7th. We can also have it at Granddad’s unless there is a strong preference for another location.

Probably one of the meetings following the next meeting (i.e., May or June) will be held on a Sunday to give the folks who can’t come on Saturday a chance to show up. We’ll talk about this at the next meeting. Also there seems to be some interest in meeting at least once at Kevin and Denise’s new place once they move in. It may be a bit too far to have regular meetings but it’s something to talk about in the future. Although we were done with the meeting by five o’clock, we kept Tom company for another hour while he waited for his wife.

I have to go now. I need to rebuild my bridge…

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