In which I shall be 30.

[brooksmoses]

Tomorrow -- the 15th -- is my 30th birthday.

I am not at all sure what to think of being 30 yet, so I shall save that for later, perhaps after I have experience in the matter. suzimoses will point out to me that I am old, though she does that every birthday, and then I remind her that four months and two days later she will be this old too, and then she points out that even then I'll still be older than she is.

In any case, I went into Fry's -- the local computer supply superstore and general geek Mecca -- looking for little bitty metric screws to properly affix my laptop keyboard to the laptop. Unfortunately, they didn't have any little bitty metric screws, only little bitty Imperial screws....

I ended up getting an impulse-buy birthday present for myself instead.



They had a large mountain of buckets of Legos in one of the main aisles -- set 5369, which is a collection of 700 multicolored basic bricks, at $9.99 each. Like I said: geek Mecca. Do they know their audience or what? I decided that my impending birthday was a sufficient excuse for a minor extravagance, and thus came home with five boxes. (Well, actually, I came home with two boxes, thought about it some, and went out to HSC supply in Sunnyvale and got laptop screws and went by the Frys down there and got three more boxes.) Then I opened all the boxes and sorted the Legos into piles by color, as you can see in the picture.

They have orange Legos now. And green ones. I wonder if it is a sign that I am old that I find this slightly disconcerting.

Then I used most of the white Legos to build an eight-inch-high model of a combination desk/bookshelf that I'm working on designing and having trouble figuring out whether I like the proportions and stuff. I don't have photos of that yet, though.

Comments

[hopeforyou.livejournal.com]

Oh COOL. Can you bring the Legos to Projects Night this week? =)

[brooksmoses]

If I can come, I'll definitely bring them!

[ejalbert.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday!

[brooksmoses]

Thanks!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday and happy Legos!

[brooksmoses]

*grin* Thank you!

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Then I used most of the white Legos to build an eight-inch-high model of a combination desk/bookshelf that I'm working on designing and having trouble figuring out whether I like the proportions and stuff.

Thought like an engineer.

[brooksmoses]

Hee. I think that's part of why suzimoses was terribly amused by it, too.

[okoshun.livejournal.com]

That's an awesome purchase - hope you have a wonderful birthday day!

[brooksmoses]

Thanks! I am, indeed, having a very good day so far.

[julesjones]

Happy birthday, and yes, that is the perfect 30th birthday present. :-)

I can see there being either complaints about still more junk, or it being *stolen* from me if I went and bought a tub. Probably both.

I found it much more disconcerting to turn 35 than I did 30. 30 is just a number with a zero on the end. 35 puts you into a different demographic group on surveys and the like. :-(

[brooksmoses]

Thanks!

And, indeed, I was pleasantly surprised to note on a survey a couple of days ago that I am still in the same demographic group.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

Ooh, green ones! I didn't know they made green ones!

Happy birthday!

Basic bricks are the best. Kids these days, with their NBA this and their Harry Potter that and all these specialized pieces you can't use for anything other than their intended purpose. ::shakes head::

[brooksmoses]

They've made green Legos for rather a while, but it's rather new to have green bricks instead of just green baseplates and green trees. And, yeah; even when I was still a kid I was bemoaning the tendency of the sets to have more and more specialized pieces and fewer bricks. It was very happy to see that they're still making basic-brick sets.

Thanks for the good wishes!

Metric screws

[akosut.livejournal.com]

The only local store I've ever found to have a decent selection of tiny metric screws is Palo Alto Hardware (http://www.paloaltohardware.com/). No one else seems to stock them, but they do.

Re: Metric screws

[brooksmoses]

Thanks! That's good to know -- HSC happened to have the size I needed this time, but they didn't really have all that much of a selection.

[larksdream]

Happy birthday! In your honor, I promise not to sing. :)

[brooksmoses]

*grins* Thanks!

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

Many happy returns of the day. I'm with julesjones touching demographics, though.

[brooksmoses]

Thank you! Yeah, I'll use that as an explanation of why I don't feel any different today.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

oh, what a most excellent birthday gift! may it be happy all around (i better say so today, since i might not remember tomorrow). :)

none of the big-number birthdays have had any significance for me, not even the 50th last month. i keep waiting for one of them to leave me feeling ... different in some way, but i think it's just not going to happen.

[brooksmoses]

Thanks much! (And I was a little unclear about which day it was, I suppose, due to posting the original post after midnight yesterday -- my birthday is actually today, and so you did indeed make the wish on the right day! *grin*)

And it's good in some ways to have that perspective on future birthdays; I like who I am now.

[anghara.livejournal.com]

AND I'm even on time! Happy birthday!

(30? you spring chicken!!!)

[brooksmoses]

Thank you!

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday! (old man *grin*) (I don't hit 30 until September!)

That's a good deal

[akosut.livejournal.com]

I was at Fry's yesterday, and that same set was $19.99. Must have been a sale.

I agree that the new colors are a little strange, although I think orange is still rare. In addition to the new colors, they've also changed some of the colors. In particular, you can find much uproar in the LEGO community about the new grays, which are visibly different from the old grays, and don't match existing sets. But if you go to lego.com or to one of the LEGO stores (there's one at Valley Fair), they have bins of every possible color

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday! (And you're right -- orange Lego is Just Wrong.)