[Nicholas R Forystek]

Feet First
Before I knew it, before I could swallow, I had a job. Before I know where
toys came from, it seems there was a fountain of LEGO's that started before
I could open my eyes. Santa seemed to come around more then I appreciated,
but love only lived in a hard personal and physical grind of my own pool
LEGO's. Mobile, Constructs, Mask and Micro Machines are all toys of
measurable collection it appears I took for grant it. Through out all the
years up until my early teens, only LEGO shined and was kept precious in my
life like a safe chest. Even today I still buy and play, just not as
active. When I was a child, it was obsessive. Five to as much hours as
possible a day I would sit with my legs crossed on the carpet digging into
my large chest of pieces. It seems it was endless. There was no
opportunity I would miss for a LEGO opportunity. I hear my mother, "Why don't
you go outside and play with your friends, it's a beautiful day out." One
leg crossing shift later to ease the blood I would finally think of it, and
realize how long it took to ponder the thought of leaving my chest behind,
and figured whatever commotion that occurred has passed, "back to the plans"
is all my brain would think. A new set was always a treat in my life, from
Christmas to McDonalds every set I can remember receiving always got special
attention when I cracked open the clear plastic bags; first thing was always
first, follow instructions. After that, it was every set for itself added
to the pile of ever growing LEGO's that I would hold to this day. Two
generations of castle, three generations of space, police, fire, hospital,
construction, BASICS, techniques, planes, helicopters, airports, race cars,
motorcycles, boats, motor pack, pneumatics and a monorail is just a general
span of what the chest once held. I pride myself on never loosing pieces,
but in all honestly, I had too many to care to keep count. I never felt I
lost pieces, during my hours and hours of play, taking out my pieces and
putting them away was always first and foremost. Often I wonder if it's
just my past imagination that plays with my mind, I wonder if I fantasize
about sets other friends had that I believed were once mine. For instance,
I can remember a separate entire motor pack kit purchased separately in a
box with battery holders and motors and wire connectors, but there's no
trace of it today. Instructions were always attempted to remain preserved
with the collection, but they went through some rough times. One thing I
know for sure I never had or owned or even played with that always made me
so jealous was the light up sets. I played so much I swear to this day by
my nails, it was a job. I was alone a lot, if it wasn't the sudden
splitting of one part from another with too much forward force that jabbed
the under nail bed it was the attempts to pull them apart with too much over
power that buckled off in the stress like your nails were being pulled off
the finger. You can leave your LEGO's together. The swishing around would
also cause hands to go cold from having to put in so much power when you
look for a piece for the amount of it, all the smaller pieces turned up at
the bottom in a circle fashion populating into corners. Aside from sets my
brother owned, or the obvious age difference where he came first in life,
there is a blur at just where I started with LEGO's. Seems there were not
many friends aside from my brother that could hang around d playing LEGO's
as long as I would. There is a classic red plastic LEGO carrying case I'm
unsure where came from, it now holds all the instructions. It is far
inferior in space to the other red chest the LEGO's where kept in most of
their life, which is a quite common large key chest.





Penny Raider
For sometime during my adult life the LEGO's got set aside, I picked up a
set or character here and there but never played with them as much as I did
before. Funny story, I never really "played" with them in the traditional
sense one would think. If the LEGO people are dolls, they never talked in
my imagination. I would set them up more as models in frozen scenarios and
just admire the scenery, or I would build 100% out of my imagination from
the taking. This subsequently led to an interesting past hidden in my LEGO's.
Recently in my early thirty's I reacquired the collection and decided I
would make a serious attempt at separating every piece. Long story short,
one night later of serious commitment, and two days of nail healing after, I
was disgusted and amazed at what I found, and proud they were sifted for
safety purposes regardless of how even still dirty or discolored they are.
I can now cite four methods of speed sorting via hand and eye coordination
to be done in sequence when you think it just doesn't end. The facts behind
me committing to un-clinging every piece in the first place was because they
were just poured into a large clear plastic bin when they went into storage
and none of dirt grit or grim was evident that I ran into when I actually
tried sifting through them. The filth was among them was far worse then
their appearance, in three categories. Carpet, paper, and string; and these
are just the items that came out in their own pile. Carpet accumulated from
the way I played. I would have separate piles going outside the chest where
I would be thinking about possibilities and putting them away was sometimes
a choir so I would just round them up with my hands and piles would get
clumped with loose carpet. Weird carpet, that looked like wire hair, not
pulled loops from the matting. A black and white patterned paper from the
old chest lining started shedding off from all the use and it was just as
dusty and dirty as the age of the LEGO's. The string comes in a few
stories; the most was fine sewing thread that I would just use and clamp
between LEGO's when making things, however as much as there was that I
actually removed it seemed odd. Some original LEGO string was intact on
pulleys I think I have three or four of them pulleys from things like the
castle draw bridge and a fire truck, so occasionally kite string was used to
restring the wind up. Some LEGO's had to be separated by a scissor blade
because they were scotched taped together so powerfully I guess they're made
to be their own unique piece. The other oddities found was unusual small
chewed up pieces of unrelated plastic that I coupled and threw away with
blown caps from cap guns. There was about one piece found unusually
deranged from what appeared to be cat teeth; which is a lot less then I
remember actually was chewed by my cats. Another one piece found deranged
from just separation struggle with another LEGO that was beyond repair. I
found about two normal sized 1x2 LEGO imitations, I found three Duplo 2x2
blocks. I found probably 5 to 10 Connectx, or Constructx, I forget the name
of the toy, it was sets that you can collect that had grey rail bars and
blue intersects that connected them. I found a pile of magnets with two
tiny compasses along with three refrigerator letter magnets. I found 10 Yen
in a single coin piece, a piece of fools gold and one marble. I found three
glass microscope slides, paper 3D glasses. I found a rusted dart, beads
laced on a bobbing pin and a nail with the head cut off hot glued to a LEGO
panel. I found three tiny green army men whose legs moved, one didn't have
his legs. I found three Marvel comic action figurines; Wolverine, Arch
Angle, and Nightcrawler. Last but not least, six retractable antenna's from
electric appliances.





Special Delivery
So here I am with my Champaign case of LEGO's, still with tiny scratches
they occur against each other colored filled with dust and smoke, and I'm
parting some after the sort fact into separate Ziploc for organization, such
as LEGO people and the LEGO's with paintings still on them, and I'm thinking
of how beautiful they have become from just one day of unknown cleansing.
The whole time I'm thinking about how when I get a new set the first thing I
do is put it together, in the meantime, thinking of my largest single set
ever owned I got for Christmas one year, a space monorail, which during it's
new stage I had boxed and kept separate and setup a second time. The most
non-unusual occurrence and bossy experience I ever had against my LEGO's.
Because the second time I put it up, one piece was missing, and I didn't
believe it, but searched so much I had to let it go, it wasn't turning up.
As a reminder to myself, I was in belief I counted out the parts evenly just
before that. So I never believed it, but it was so gone I had to just say
"yeah," and walk away believing absolutely forever that set has one piece
missing, there were plenty of that piece in the set but not in my chest,
that set was the only supply of that piece I ever owned, to this day. Later
I am loading up my old "LEGO Creator" disc I've owned for years and rarely
ever touched but was such a great deal I had to own it at the time,
completely oblivious to the fact LEGO.com is a conglomerate of fun and
advancement related to playing with LEGO's on computers. I'm looking at my
ten or so new $2.99 LEGO people from the local stores Mini Figures bin
because that's nearly all they sell and I'm thinking about old think paper
catalogs the size of small yellow pages where I once though I bought a LEGO
separator tool that I personally never found useful. Thus I end up at the
site looking to order a catalog which I did, and I discover LEGO Digital
Designer (LDD), OMG. As a programmer I feel I sense certain speed and
efficiency internally with other's applications to the task CPU and MEM face
plate, and as a CAD I am more then just blown away at the ease and precision
of amount of fun that's freely included with a single download whether they
want their assets file or not! It's rare to see a 3D implicated design tool
that is as easy and cleanly centered apart from heavy features. The last
application I played with that was in comparison until it moved from the
Google label and its install came with extras was SketchUp, still a great
program. Long story short, I made my first imaginary anything set, The Aqua
Ducts, a small lovely build between architecturally unique strong structure
and entertainment learning. Tragically, I missed the "Designed By Me" boxed
package deal cutoff by one year. I got to have it. So I started looking at
options on LEGO.com for ordering a nice brand new clean piece list for The
Aqua Ducts because I didn't receive the catalog I expected and I do find
some options. However between back and forth and understandably limited
attempts to get just what I want easily the piece list gets whittled down to
attempting to just purchase two LEGO people that I made on a single panel.
Down for whatever between Pick-a-Brick the e-mails and the phone calls I
made, they finally just sent me a ten cent blue cone, the one I lost on my
monorail set, free of $2.99 shipping and charge. You can't blame the run
around if, or if it isn't done on purpose. The facts, minus the box and the
instructions, the tool makes it more probable someone would or could take
something they produce and order it cheaper, but that's really their loss,
my loss is the facts I'll make due with HTML instructions for mine own.





College Fund
I've heard of a magical real life size scale city made of LEGO's, and I
visited LEGO Land at the Mall of America when it was there plenty of times.
While I'm not impressed by oversized LEGO creations they amaze me face to
face. It makes me think of ratios in pixilated view where at the right
distance and numbers any curve is possible. Often it also makes me think of
ASCII art. I also wonder what it would be like to be an employee of LEGO
hands on. Is there a factory where they just play with recycled LEGO's? Is
there a janitor that mops the floor? Are they so cheaply disposed of by the
creation team that the janitor just sweeps them into a dumpster every night?
Is it more of a controlled lab of bin style tables and every piece has its
own table? Do the creators have to walk far to get their pieces? Is it all
done on LDD? Is there a bin where failed creations that just came off the
line get thrown for new experimentation pieces? Do the creators have a
direct order line where they just send a model and they get hands on model
in return? Is the demand for pieces such that they have to either use what
they have? Who determines new pieces and what is acceptable? Do the
creators have to barter with the demand when they really believe in their
introduced creations? How does LEGO deal these questions?! Sometimes I
wish I knew. Are LEGO pieces hot off the press? Or is there a bunch of
shavings left over from a pieces creation? Does the janitor sweep up the
plastic shavings and recycle it? I sometimes have this fantasy of a ball or
egg the size of a T.V. that has an opening and an electronic punch pad where
you can punch up entire instructions or LEGO sets or just a single piece and
you hit a button and it's fashioned in plastic right in front of you
instantly. Then I thought maybe there was one of these per piece in the
beginning, and that's tied into their factory budget per area and demand.
They only have so much space and every time they want something new or
changed they have to download the machines modularly and decommission them
for new fabrication. An employee at LEGO mentioned to me that often fan
sites have more back info about previous sets and instructions with part
numbers then their own company. That makes me think of the love customers
are holding on to in LEGO that may be so greatly changed through demand that
remembrance is nothing short of showing them again that they once sold a
set. I also understood then there is no pride in their company survival
holding on to demand that is game over like period era lock outs. Even in
their def stage, they must keep remixing, the past remains what it is, past.
The only hope in their thriving through real world exchange is real world
exchange. If there was such thing as that magic egg, I would order 50 and
find the largest mountain I could, then I would carve a boardwalk attraction
into it and line up the 50 eggs and sell any set for one dollar, and any
piece for one cent, to be fashioned live there and only there, to be thrown
over the boardwalks fence. Color a mountain, something about view that
that is so amazing thinking about the bottom line, the blend as you look at
it so far away and small yet size in trash starts to show pinks and purples
taking over the entire color. Would be one of the coolest attractions, at
peer size of chance of a lifetime first glance, aced it to have relations
kissing justice to one piece is history in the making. You could help spend
it "write" by your side with the original glorious view of a plastic
mountain, and in the attraction, zoo, and airport gift shops across the
world; you can purchase inexpensive sets from the architecture series
treating the soul to identifiable structures.





Be sure to visit LEGO.com and the LDD Gallery. I know that sounds like a
plug but
Some of the most interesting things come from the allowance to upload our
creations.
Search for the user: SoSouiX and click the blue arrow to see my personal
creations!

The following set numbers are what LEGO sets I hold, plus instructions;
6521, 2584, 6833, 6833, 6684, 6522, 6804, 4015, 6356, 6687, 6621, 6880,
6508, 6846, 6901, 6628, 6654, 6931, 6928, 8832, 6877, 6395, 6392, 6385,
6384, 6373, 6876, 6603, 6848, 6970, 6824, 6805, 6849, 6927, 6861, 6041,
6030, 6074, 8042, 6357, 8020, 8838, 8815, 8810, 6631, 6686, 6990, 6673,
6682, 6534, 6698, 6896, 6623, 6654, 375/6075, 510, 722, 3833, All 4 LEGO
STUNT Club Sets. I'm sure some pieces are missing, VERY little, due to the
care taken in LEGO.

My new sets; 41015, 41015, 41055, 41022, 30228, 30228, 30282, 70404, 70400,
41010, 21103, 21005, 21006, 21018, 30300, 31015, 31015, 31015, 1 series 8
minifigures, 12 series 7 minifigures, 4 series 10 minifigures, 2 Simpsons
minifigurines.






Call us toll-free:
LEGO Shop Service: (800) 453-4652
Customer Service: (800) 835-4386

Or find out more on LEGO.com/service






Dear Nicholas,

Thanks for getting in touch with us.
What a fantastic story! I'm so glad that you took the time to share your
experiences with us. In fact, I actually shared it with the entire staff
here! I know that I can speak for all of us in Consumer Services when we say
that hearing stories like this is what makes us feel like have the best fans
in the world! In case you were ever interested in just how our designers
come up with all of those great ideas and how it comes together on the
production floor, check out this video about our factory in Billund:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moWLf05znek

Thanks again, Nicholas, for getting in touch. We're always pleased to
receive feedback from LEGO fans! If you could take a moment to complete a
four question survey by going to the link below, it will help us make sure
we are providing the best customer service to you.


LEGO Survey link
Please let us know if you need anything else.

Happy building!

Brian
LEGO Service


Did You Know?
In 2012 the LEGO Group made about 400 million minifigures. If you put them
next to each other in a line, it would stretch approx. 10,000 kilometers. It's
the distance from Billund in Denmark to Singapore in Asia!
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From: nich...@sosouix.net <nich...@sosouix.net>
To: ERMSSUPRT2/CSWE...@LEGO.COM/P11CLNT411 <CSWE...@LEGO.COM>
CC:
Sent: 09/02/13 11:30:09
Subject: WEB FORM :{sender:[nich...@sosouix.net]}


4 page document I wrote today about me and LEGO, thought I would share it.
http://sosouix.net/ipub/docs/My%20LEGO%20Experience%20by%20Nick%20Forystek.doc |
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