The Brick Connection – A novice Lego fan explores the great brick world of LEGO

You guys! It’s my 1 year anniversary!

It was a year ago this month that I posted my first blog for The Brick Connection titled Hello LEGO World.

In honor of this anniversary I decided to re-read that first blog, and I gotta say, I’m proud of it. It didn’t drag on (some of my other blog posts definitely have that problem), it was funny, cute, and made you curious about where the blog would go.

It’s been all downhill since.

Okay, that’s exaggerating, but I’ve definitely had my ups and downs in this process. I've only skipped posting this weekly blog a total of three weeks in the past year; for my family vacation, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. That means every week I have had to come up with something, ANYTHING that could be LEGO-related to blab about for a few paragraphs. I gotta tell you, by week number six, the struggle was real!

It didn’t help, that I got almost no help from the higher-ups here at BrickWarriors in letting me expand my LEGO fandom with some actual LEGO to play with. (Hi Ryan and Amanda! I don’t know if you read this blog anymore, but if you do, hope you enjoyed this shout-out.)

I did get to help organize Ryan’s LEGO as they prepared to move his large collection out of his mom’s house into Ryan and Amanda’s very own house. “What an honor!” she said sarcastically.

Okay, that was actually a very useful task in helping me get to know the different LEGO parts better and I did write a nice post about it titled, Take Your SNOT, but it still wasn’t much help.

Then there was that one time Ryan bought me my very own Star Wars LEGO set. That was 8 months ago, but it was really awesome! I genuinely enjoyed building and reviewing Rey’s Speeder. (Thanks, Ryan!)

But one LEGO build and helping organize someone else’s LEGO collection does not really make someone a LEGO fan. Or at least not the kind of LEGO fan I was planning on being.

To become a LEGO fan without LEGO to play with, I’ve had to improvise. I’ve read other LEGO blogs, watched LEGO vlogs, looked at A LOT of LEGO product pictures, read LEGO product reviews, watched LEGO video reviews, read about LEGO’s history, (both the brand and company), kept up with the latest releases (even though I can’t buy them), and on and on the list goes.

It was an unconventional path to LEGO fandom, but it worked! I really do consider myself a LEGO fan now.

And it’s not just for show! I mean I’ve actually taken time while visiting Target to peruse the LEGO aisles; purely for my own enjoyment and curiosity. No hidden agenda. Just being your average LEGO fan.

In fact, the anniversary of this blog means it’s the 1 year anniversary of my start as a LEGO fan.

At first, I was forcing myself to become a fan so I could write an interesting blog. But in the end I was happy to become one, and for more than just blogging purposes. I’ve loved getting to know the LEGO brand and the LEGO community. And I feel that this newfound fandom legitimizes my role in the LEGO community as an employee of a third-party accessory company.

Going back to that first blog, I see I hadn’t realized yet that you’re supposed to capitalize the entire word of LEGO. Fortunately, I at least was educated enough to know that you never refer to LEGO as “Legos.” Yeesh, it hurts just to type that.

And now, whenever I read articles that spell LEGO as Lego or hear people say "Legos,” I cringe a little.

From looking back at that first post I also realized that there are a couple things I said I would do for this blog that I have yet to do. Specifically going to the LEGO Store (I have been to one, but not for blogging purposes) and joining LEGO forums.

The trip to the LEGO Store is definitely still something I want to do, especially since I could go during work hours because it’d be a work-related trip. But I’d like to have someone go with me to take pictures and video and also make me feel less awkward while taking pictures and video in front of the employees and other patrons. So I need to figure that out.

Joining a LEGO forum is something I’ve looked into, but I was kind of scared off by how hardcore these fans were and how they were talking about things that were and still are out of my realm of LEGO knowledge. Particularly because I have had very little hands-on experience with LEGO.

Maybe I could just go on there and ask them their thoughts about the house made of LEGO or the accusation that LEGO is becoming too violent. That’s a possibility...

Speaking of those topics, here are some of the highlights of my year as a LEGO blogger based on my enjoyment of writing about them and/or the response from the internet:

• Attending a LEGO convention as a vendor for BrickWarriors, but this time with some real knowledge of the LEGO brand and products
  
  
• Talking about the Star Wars: The Force Awakens sets
  
  
• Reviewing a Star Wars: The Force Awakens set
  
  
• Shamelessly reviewing the actual film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens for my own selfish enjoyment while barely relating it back to LEGO
  
  
• Learning about the new LEGO video game, LEGO Dimensions and wanting to play it
  
  
• Finding a custom Game of Thrones minifigure set online
  
  
• Watching James May build a two-story house out of LEGO and realizing I have no patience to ever accomplish a task like that
  
  
• Watching and being inspired by A LEGO Brickumentary
  
  
• Learning about the First LEGO League and realizing that all those kids are way smarter me
  
  
• Learning about LEGO products that I knew nothing about like Mindstorms and LEGO Architecture and wanting to buy all those sets
  
  
• Seeing my post about how to become a LEGO designer go viral (or at least “viral” in comparison to all my other posts)
  
  
• Defending the LEGO brand when a stupid study claimed it was becoming too violent and getting wonderfully positive feedback from my fellow LEGO fans
  
  
• Discovering the limitless creativity, ingenuity, and compassion of LEGO fans, both young and young-at-heart

You know, I’m really glad I was able to rattle off all those highlights because there were times in the past year that I thought this blog was off the rails and completely pointless. But in the last 4 to 5 months I think I have found the right track and the right voice for this blog. 

I don’t know how much longer this blog will go on, (I guess that will depend on how long I work for BrickWarriors), but I will continue to try to come up with fun and interesting LEGO-related things to talk about for as long as I can.

Which reminds me…what the hell am I gonna talk about next week???

Perhaps a second review of The Force Awakens, just because? Have I completely exhausted the LEGO and “violence” topic yet? Should I start a crowd-funding page for the blog that will fund the purchase of LEGO sets for me to build and blog about?

No matter what I do next, thank you to anyone that has read any of these blogs in the past year. It’s nice to know that at least one person might be getting a kick out of these. (But hopefully more than one!)

Until next time…how about funding a real cause. Support the victims of the Orlando shooting and their families by going here: Pulse Victim Fund  #LoveIsLove 

*Compliments, general feedback, and constructive criticism are welcome. Any haters that are gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate can go step on some Lego with their bare feet.*