Father-Husband-Marketer-Geek

Olin administrator builds Lego Needham Town Hall It turns out that two Town Halls were built in Needham this year. One was the brick-and-mortar building sitting in Needham Center, which underwent renovations and additions and will be officially unveiled at a Needham300 event on Nov. 5.  The other Town Hall is made of Legos.  Nick Tatar, Assistant Dean of Student Life at Olin College, built this second Town Hall at Olin over the course of three months, starting in January. Working with Olin professor Brad Minch and seven children and Olin students, Tatar built the Town Hall out of fifteen thousand Lego pieces, sometimes working 10 to 15 hours a week on the project. On Nov. 5, Tatar will break the Town Hall into chunks and transport it to the other Town Hall. At noon, he will reassemble it, then step back and let people admire his handiwork. Tatar said that he decided to build this Lego Town Hall for kids to enjoy during the Nov. 5 Needham 300 gala. “I wanted to see if we c...

An excerpt from a newspaper story explains frustrations from the family of the author of the "Thomas the Tank Engine" books over recent decisions to replace "Christmas" with "Holidays" in some of the popular steam engine's forthcoming content: "A move by television producers to scrap any reference to Christmas in the latest episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine has upset relatives of the man who created the hugely popular children's character.   The TV studio has rebranded "Christmas" as "holidays" for "politically correct" reasons, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported.   Reverend W Awdry, author of the original tales about the little blue engine, would be distressed about the omission of the significant religious event, said his daughter Hilary Fortnam.  "He would feel very strongly about this politically correct age and that those who now write his stories should not have taken the Christ of the Chri...

It was early October this year and we were starting to unpack our halloween village pieces. Our favorite pieces have always been the animated amusement park pieces from the Original Snow Village halloween series. One by one, we looked at each piece and realized why we didn't use them last year. All of the animated functions had stopped working. The Scaredy Cat Ferris Wheel had stopped spinning. The swinging ghoulies were pretty, well, dead. The pumpkin teacups were not revolving. The witch's turntable did not turn. Must be a common cause for similar malfunction, correct? We're very dissapointed. We spent about $80 each, and if we brought these pieces to an electric utility repair shop, we'd most likely be paying for them all over again. Does anyone else have any suggestions on these? Related articles Halloween Decorations: Make Ghouly Hands! (education.com) Halloween Theme Is Up! (cpcheatshq.com) Giveaway: Wonka Candy for Halloween (frugalupstate.com)

My family and I are big fans of all things railroad, from Thomas and Friends, to GeoTrax, to the Dinosaur Train. When we recently heard about Department56's railroad-themed halloween pieces , we were excited to check them out. From the D56 page itself: "Boo...Choo... there's an eerie express on the horizon... it's the haunted rickety railroad train station and famous haunted rails train. You can hear the chilling mob of skeletons, ghouls and zombies waiting at the station as the pumpkin train heads out. The train cars are as varied as the ghosts that haunt them. Frightfully fun and painstakingly detailed, the haunts of this 10th Anniversary Halloween Village will give you shivers of excitement. Complete your 10th Anniversary night train with The Haunted Rails Caboose, Rickety Railroad Platform and Git Offa My Train accessory before it all disappears through shadowy landscapes and isolated rail beds. This Department 56 Snow Village Halloween collection is available acro...

In making my selections for my favorite introductions of 2011, I noticed each series unveiled a new clock tower. My son, almost three, is currently fascinated by clocks and has inspired me to perhaps make a vignette of all of the clock towers. The towers are on the less expensive side, so it may work out. Each is around $35. Now I simply need to come up with some ideas for the landscape. Here are the new towers. See if you can guess which series spawned each tower: Related articles Enormous antique tower clock for sale (boingboing.net) 15 Beautiful Clock Towers Around The World (PHOTOS) (huffingtonpost.com)

From the "Original Snow Village" series, I definitely thought "Moondoggie's Board Shop" was the most original and fun piece: For sheer and utter gross-ness, how can I not pick the "Retching Pumpkin Diner" from the "Original Snow Village Halloween" series? From the "Williamsburg" series, there is only one new building, but it is quite nice. It's the "King's Arm Tavern": Related articles CONTEST - The Moondoggies @ The Horseshoe - February 2, 2011 (chromewaves.net)

From the Dickens' Village series and "A Christmas Carol" series (what's up with the "minis", which are basically ornaments?), I select the "Joseph Edward Tea Shoppe": From the "New England Village" series, I thought the "Nan's Cape Cod Creamery" was very familiar and fun...reminded me of the many creameries in New England: From the whimsical "North Pole Series", my favorite new building is the "Santa's Hot Cocoa Cafe", a worthy throwback:

From the "A Place to Remember" Series, I really like "Christmas in Paris, Large": From the "Alpine Village Series", my son would absolutely love the "Alpine Clock Tower" (One of his current obsessions are clocks of any size or shape): From the "Christmas in the City" series, it seemed to be a dissapointing lot this year, but I did find "Maxwell's Blues Hall" to have an intriguing color scheme: Related articles Some blogs need to be reinvented... (department56.blogspot.com) Introduction to a British Christmas (English Christmas, Scottish Christmas, Welsh Christmas) [Zahir shamsery] (ecademy.com)

From their "About Us" page: Since 1993, Scenic Express has taken great pride in bringing the latest, most innovative scenery products to the modeling industry the world has ever known! Scenic Express credits its many years of success to not only selling “top-of-the-line” landscaping scenery supplies, but also attributes much success to its well-known reputation for prompt processing and shipping of orders (most orders are shipped the same day!). Further, Scenic Express continues to add annually the most modern, up-to-date, exciting, new scenery products to its inventory making every new catalog released the most sought after publication. The NEW ‘SuperTurf’ and MiniNatur Crop Rows and Vegetables are just two of the hottest items selling to date. Scenic Express is also a proud sponsor of the O-Gauge Railroading Forum and delights in participating in children’s programs and knowledgeable workshops which promote enthusiasm and continued interest for the model railroading hobb...

Recently on the Yahoo! Department 56 discussion group , they asked about some of the buildings from "A Christmas Story": The Joke Shop, The Firehouse, The Police Station, Pulaski's Candy Shop, The Optometry, etc. -- where did they appear in the movie or book? I reached out to the current owner of the " A Christmas Story " licensing rights, Brian Jones, who offered some insight: "The movie being 94 minutes long not all aspects of Ralphie's home town were shown. So Dept 56 took some creative license with buildings: the police and firemen that helped flick would have had to come from their stations. Ralphie directly mentions Pulaski's Candy store as the place Flick saw some grizzly bears. And to get the fake teeth for the joke on Miss Shield they might have bought them at the joke shop along with the rose that squirts that Flick or Schwartz was going to get their old man. Pulaski's did actually appear in the sequel..." The sequel was actual...

Image via Wikipedia Yes, Sodor is the fictional island where the Thomas & Friends steam engine rails run their specials, shunting cars and hauling freight. Can you believe there is an entire mythology and history to Sodor? From  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodor_(fictional_island) : "The need for consistency in the locations for The Railway Series necessitated the creation of a suitable location. The Rev. Awdry required a setting for his books that would be within Great Britain,Rule[›] but would be sufficiently isolated from the rest of British Railways to allow him to do as he wished with the location. Inspiration came on a visit to the Diocese of Sodor and Man[1] in 1950. Awdry noted that while there was an Isle of Man, there was no similar Island of Sodor. A large island would meet the criteria he required, giving him the isolation from changes to the British railway system while giving him somewhere that people could believe in. Between them, Awdry and his brother George ...

By this year, I mean 2010....way back on November 21, to be exact.\ Our annual trip to the Yankee Candle flagship store is always one of our most fun outings of the year. For 10+ years running, my friends and I have trekked our families up north on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. We typically stop in Northampton for Starbucks and some shopping. This year was the fourth with kids, and it takes on an entirely new meaning. To see the kids' faces as each new room at the Candle is unveiled is precious. Especially the D56 display room. What a good way to introduce villages to our kids. The flagship store has gotten very commercial in other areas, from the lame imitation Build-A-Bear workshop to the home & garden shop...but I swear, the Yankee Candle Santa is the most authentic...I mean he's the real deal. We always end the trip at Bub's BBQ, which looks like a dive, but offers up a magical chicken noodle soup, great barbecue, and some very good fountain soda with the right ...

This was a post I had begun late Thanksgiving evening, after the Tryptophan had kicked in, after the football had been played out. Often before the bird is even sliced, people are charting out a course of action for tackling Black Friday doorbuster deals and Cyber Monday online steals. While half of the family is toiling in the kitchen cleaning up the pots and pans used in preparing the Turkey and all of its' accessories, the other half of the family may have made its' way outside to begin hoisting lights up on the house. We made it a point to begin placing our village pieces out early, to really enjoy them for the entire Thanksgiving to Christmas holiday. Little did we now our boy would be sick for 10 days with some cough and stomach bug. Needless to say, our plan would come off course for a few days. We ended up getting the tree decorated by the week before Christmas (we displayed a half-decorated tree for our Tree Trimming party on Dec. 5th!) and we created two small vignett...

...and this is one of them. The Department 56 blog was created when I was at the height of my affection for the product line. I was collecting the Original Snow Village, the Original Snow Village Halloween, Dickens' Village and the "A Christmas Story" line from Sears. A few years ago D56 was purchased by Enesco. Dealers were complaining about a change in the way they were being treated. Financial struggles forced us to purge our pieces, except for Halloween and A Christmas Story. I lost interest, barely paying attention to new product introductions. I saw dealers closing up shop. Two of my favorite dealers stopped carrying new merchandise. I also happened to become a father -- a blessing which I gladly reallocated time for. Less blogging, more diapers. Now I find myself interested in some other collectibles: Lego, Thomas & Friends, Comic Book stuff, things which he and I share a passion for now. My son is now 2 years and 8 months, and as train tracks lay across my hou...

I ran across a great article recently which spoke to Lego's customer service secrets. Here's an excerpt: "I visited a LEGO store opening in Austin, TX last weekend. It was a family affair, as my mom, wife, two sons, brother, sister-in-law, and their three sons were all in attendance. The line to enter the store stretched for several hundred feet and some people waited up to an hour to get in. Whatever marketing they had done for the grand opening worked famously. As part of the promotion, LEGO also set up an area on the floor below to build an 8-foot tall Buzz Lightyear model. They assembled an area where kids could build blocks of Legos that would later be used in the construction of the Toy Story character. Once the blocks had been put together, the kids could turn in their work to receive a certificate of achievement for helping. This, of course, was a big deal to the kids. You couldn’t leave without getting a certificate. My 2-1/2 year old son made me acutely aware of ...

There have been some amazing things built with Legos, and I'm not talking exclusively about the in-store displays like the fireman at Toys R Us, although he's pretty cool as well. Here are some of the other designs which have gained notoriety lately. Super Lego Stadium: The Android game "Angry Birds" has been recreated in legos: The invincible Iron Man: Pure artistic intrepretation: Intricate LEGO cities: Historical memorials: Of course, there are also many Christmas-themed Lego designs out there: Related articles These LEGO Brick Birds Are Angrier Than Ever [DIY] (kotaku.com) Lego.com: Up to 70% Off (forthemommas.com) 10 Facts About Lego Toys (quazen.com) Brickify turns your images into LEGO plans ()