@philmatt24
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I’ve had it linked to my gmail calendar since whenever we started it. My life is managed less by that calendar these days because wifey prefers the physical calendar on the wall of the kitchen, but it’s still nice to have.
The longest reply is only under 12k characters? As a writer by night, I should use my purple prose here and easily beat that.
Do it without using the letter E, and we might be impressed. 😉
My argument would be, if you are noticing lack of commitment to staff a shift, encourage people to staff and if possible, take one yourself, even just a short 4 hour one as an example to others.
I hear you. I’ve certainly done more than a few shifts at the trolley museum and elsewhere in previous years; maybe not as much as Pete but quite a few weekends fully dedicated to LUG events. However, I’m now in a stage of life where my weekend time has other demands and I have to be judicious about if / when I staff. I did say I’d try to make it down for a shift, depending on if I can free myself of other commitments for a half day.
My posts aren’t intended to be discouraging, just realistic. Part of our club’s philosophy has always been to participate as much as you want and are able, in whatever ways bring you joy (paraphrasing, but that’s the gist.) But as someone who previously held leadership positions in the club, I also know that part of our job is to ensure we don’t overcommit and underdeliver. If our current membership is burning out between Fall Trolley, TUBS, Winter Trolley, etc., we should NOT be agreeing to any more days for Winter Trolley. I’m just trying to point out that it’s easy to say “sure, let’s leave it up!” but harder to actually get the staffing – and we certainly don’t want to create, or exacerbate, a situation where folks like you feel obligated to overextend because nobody else is stepping up.
Bottom line: it’d be great if a lot more of us would staff a few shifts! (if you’ve never staffed, try it out – once you get there, it’s usually super chill and fun!) But also, we have a good reputation in large part because we deliver. The Trolley Museum’s feelings won’t be hurt if we decline to extend the display – Kristen’s message to Josh explicitly said that:
got this in from Kristen:
…so everyone was wondering if LUG would be willing to keep the layout up those days. I understand that’s a whole staffing issue, so I totally understand if not, but I told everyone I would ask!
So, let’s by all means support the original commitment and get some folks out there this weekend! But, on the flip side, let’s feel no shame if we don’t have the staffing commitments to extend beyond 12/21, and let’s not commit to extending the display based on warm fuzzy feelings if those staffing commitments don’t materialize.
The other thing I don’t understand is why would the display be up 2 additional weekends after the 1st? The museum isn’t asking for that, just between Christmas and New Year.
That was my interpretation of what Will suggested, not of what the museum asked. And Bob’s response nullifies it, anyway. So the idea of leaving the display up beyond 1/1 can be fully disregarded.
Would they let us leave it up until its time for the train display at the science center? Seems to be a situation similar to TUBS.
Not to be a downer, and I certainly understand and support the potential logistical synergies of packing up at Trolley Museum and driving the display directly to the Science Center, but doesn’t this just exacerbate the issue of having the display unsupervised?
Locomotion Weekend 2026. Load in will be on Friday, January 16, 2026
So keeping the display up at Trolley until Fri 16th (or the day before or something) would add these days where the display would require supervision:
Fri 1/2
Sat 1/3
Sun 1/4
Thurs 1/8
Fri 1/9
Sat 1/10
Sun 1/11
Thurs 1/15?Currently, the Shift Tracker is showing zero staffing for Fri 12/12 thru Sun 12/14. I’m just reiterating my lack of confidence in our ability to staff after Christmas if we can’t cover the shifts to which we’ve already committed.
Counter-thought: does the Trolley museum have storage space that we could leverage for a few weeks? Still tear down the display on Sun 12/21 (or by Thurs 1/1), but leave it in their storage for a couple weeks, then pick it up Thursnite 1/15 or Friday 1/16 and haul it straight to the Science Center? This would alleviate the concern about the display being exposed to public traffic without LUG members present.
At this point, maybe this should just be discussed during Q4 on Tuesday night? Not a lot of response here in the thread anyway.
so unless we can do it remotely, we can’t staff.
I move that the LUG buy a camera that ties into an app / wifi-enabled monitor and has speaker functionality (like the baby monitor we have in my son’s room) and give the monitor to Jonathan & Kristin, so if someone messes with the display or tries to steal anything, they can push a button and the guilty party will hear a tinny voice going “hey, don’t do that!”
But seriously:
What exactly are the hours and days we need to cover if we commit to the extended display? You guys are talking about teardown on New Years Day (a Thursday), but their site says they’re closed that day (which doesn’t necessarily mean we can’t tear down then…)
From their Hours section on that page, it looks like we’re talking an additional three-day weekend, but no other days; is that correct?
Fri 12/26 9-5
Sat 12/27 9-5
Sun 12/28 9-5I would say that while I support the idea in theory, I see a lot of red in the shift sign-up even through the current commitment of Sun 12/21. I’d rather we not commit to even more shifts unless we have strong commitments from enough LUG members to guarantee coverage on the days between Christmas and New Years. Better to under-promise and over-deliver than to over-promise and under-deliver, don’cha know?
I personally might be able to sneak in a shift at some point but can’t commit to anything until I see how the family holiday plans shape up.
Eleventh Hour’s weekly e-mail blast has LEGO night for tomorrow. Have people been going the past few months? I don’t think I’m likely to be able to swing it this month but am glad they’re still doing it. They’re not billing us, so I don’t think we’re in trouble if we don’t have a presence… but it’s def a fun time so yinzall should go!!
I’m just mad at how long it took me to figure out. Maybe I’m losing my touch. But it shouldn’t have taken a half hour of trying repeatedly. And surely, I’m not the least savvy of their users… others will probably also be frustrated.
Aaaand I figured it out. They wanted my BL username, not my BL email that I have used to log in to BL for years.
Related is the attached gem of a screenshot, which I encountered after solving the above….
Need to get @dc221803 to update zip so we get that sweet Colorado pin…. 😉
It didn’t like my zip code being “Polish Hill,” lol. Couldn’t find my pin at all. Fixed, and now I live on Fifth Ave in Oakland. Close enough for government work!
Haha I didn’t see the set at the meeting, so I figured I was too slow / you and Jonah were prob already there when I sent that. No biggie. I’m still interested, but not sure what my upcoming attendance looks like (hoping to at least make an appearance at a Trolley Museum event and Ultimate PittBricksShow…) I could send funds if you’re ok holding the set until we figure out when we’ll be in the same place…?
Hey @tfdesigns, I’d take the Bonsai tree if you have it with you / can bring it today…
So it’s a watch party with everyone but also a live streaming commentary event! We are working out the details but myself and your Pittsburgh Pals are going to be doing a live commentary as the finale unfolds!
Interesting! Are you planning to try to amplify your commentary within the restaurant, or just for the stream??
I’m probably a game-time decision but am going to try to make it if things break in my favor to do so.
Pete’s coming in a bit. Anyone else?
[See thread title]
classic Strange Planet strip!
how am I just now realizing there were 2 fort legorado sets?
They didn’t call it Fort Legoredo for nothin’!
Does the Dave & Buster’s manager know there will be Lego Masters contestants present?
I don’t know Marcella well, but I would certainly assume she led with “I’m a famous reality TV star and you’d best give me what I want, which is attention from news media and volume cranked to eleven” 😀
But seriously, yeah, if they don’t already know, it’d be worth mentioning that locals are (A) in the show and (B) coming to their restaurant to watch the premiere.
So we won’t be in the arcade section where it’s crazy loud.
We aren’t paying anything so we will see how it works out. ☺️
Yeah, we’ll probably be ok… I’ll admit I’m not a D&B’s regular, probably only ever been there 2-3 times, so my knowledge of the layout isn’t great and my perception of how noisy is probably mostly recalling the arcade area. Plus, maybe they just won’t be crowded on a Monday night. Anyway, as long as we have sound on. Watching a sporting event without the sound is ok, but watching a show like LEGO Masters is not going to be a worthwhile experience if we can’t hear it. Like, are Krista and Marcella going to just say “oh, that was where Will said (insert terrible pun here)… oh and that time he said (another terrible pun)” over and over throughout the hour? 😉
I wish I could fall that spectacularly. It was really from illegal speed building. Oh no, I’ve said too much. 😂
Oh, you’d better believe we’re going to get yinz drunk and spilling all the dirt from behind the scenes… (it worked reasonably well with the LEGO Masters crew who were at BrickFest Live in Monroeville a few years ago…)
