The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide

I had a bit of a pleasant shock yesterday morning when I woke up and checked the stats on my website. (Yes, I know…. only a geek would check web stats before breakfast.)

By 7:30 a.m. I’d already had more hits than I normally get in an entire 24 hour day.

I checked the details to see where most of the hits were coming from. It turns out most of them were originating from BZPower.com. Kelly (a.k.a. Binkmeister) had posted what I think is a very flattering review of the book.

What was really great about the review was the time and effort Kelly took to point out two key points.

First, he noted that even though the book is not about Bionicles it might be of interest to Bionicle fans. I happen to agree.

He also was up front in mentioning that the book (as noted many times here) is printed in black and white. And his reasons for why this isn’t a big deal were right on the money.

There is also a discussion thread on BZPower about the book and the review of it, so be sure to check that out.

Thanks again to Kelly for such a great write-up.

AB

As I’ve noted previously, I keep an eye on the hits to my website with a basic stat counter. Yesterday I began to notice a lot of traffic coming from a LUGNET posting that I made nearly three months ago. At first I thought perhaps someone had grabbed the link and posted it to a group of friends who were chatting online or something like that.

But then the hits kept coming from this link. So I began to suspect it wasn’t just a few friends sharing the link.

So today I was pleasantly surprised to find out what was really going on. It seems ULBG has been featured on the front page of LUGNET.com. Many thanks to the LUGNET crew for making that happen. And best of all, look what else is featured there too! When you’re mentioned next to The BrickJournal you know you’re in good company.

Allan B.

One of the interesting things about having the book come out has been watching the traffic that now comes to apotome.com. I use a hit counter that tells me (among other things) the country of origin, the browser you’re using, the pages you’ve visited and most interestingly…. where you’ve come from. And that can often be the search results you found when using a search engine like Google.

And one particular search that people seem to do on Google is for the words, “LEGO builder". Without fail I get at least one person a day visiting my site who has searched on this exact phrase… usually on Google. The link ends up looking something like:

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=LEGO+builder&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

Are you one of the people who found this blog or apotome.com by searching for those words? If so, I’m curious to know what you were looking for. I ask this because I find the choice of words to be interesting. Were you looking for something about your hobby… that of a LEGO builder? Were you looking for someone to build something for you… a person who is a LEGO builder? Or was it something entirely different that you had in mind? If you are one of the people who did that exact search and you don’t mind sharing your intent, I’d really enjoy hearing from you. It’s just something that’s made me curious for a while now, so I thought I’d post the question for anyone to respond to.

Please feel free to email me with your story.

All the best,
Allan B.

It’s true… authors are night people. They like to hang out in dimly lit places and listen to avant garde jazz music.

Here’s the proof:

O.K. it wasn’t really all that late, and the picture was really taken at a Tex-Mex restaurant after a long day of displaying LEGO models at The Hobby Show in Toronto. But it made me laugh when this pic arrived today… sent last Saturday night, via the same cell phone that took the picture. So for the last four days this picture has been travelling the ether in search of my Inbox. Weird.

AB

My second time participating in The Hobby Show along with LEGO builders from across Ontario. Here are some pictures taken this past weekend at the show in Toronto:

http://public.fotki.com/Apotome/hobby_show_2005/

Enjoy!
Allan B.