Build of the LEGO Super Star Destroyer (10221) timeline.

Hello :-)

This is a timeline build of the LEGO Super Star Destroyer I ordered from Amazon.com. The kit set me back $400, but I love it and do not regret buying it one bit. I started this project as a way to take my mind off of things and give me something to do while my mother was at Cleveland Clinic getting examined to see if she would need surgery or not. I had a choice between this, the LEGO Death Star or the massive LEGO Millennium Falcon (not the one I already did, but one they put out years ago that is 3 feet long). It came down between this and the Death Star because I did not have either in any kind of toy form and it was a coin flip that decided that this would be my new project. It took me almost a week to build, but I loved every step.

When the box finally arrived, it was huge, but I was really excited to get started.

I opened the box expecting a lot of bags, instead I open it and find three large boxes waiting inside for me. The boxes were the size of a box you would put a sweater in for Christmas gift wrapping. Suddenly it dawned on me on just how large this project was going to be, and I felt like i might have been in over my head.

The manual for this project is immense and bonded together with a spiral, overall I would say that the book itself was the size of a coffee table book and contained 260 pages, front and back!

I then opened box one and sorted the bags by numbers. I opened all of the bags labeled "1" and sorted the parts on my table (which the only surface large enough I had available was a small air hockey table that no longer functioned and I was using for storage) and went about putting together the minifigures first.

The first figure I put together was Dengar. I like the level of detail with this figure, including the headwrap. I also love that they actually got the fact that he had one eye covered correct, many people seemed to overlook this one little fact. He comes with a LEGO rifle.

They also included a backpack for him, which is a nice little detail in my opinion.

This is my first LEGO Vader, I was impressed with the fact that they included a gray and scarred head with him to go under the helmet. As this was my first Vader, I wasn't and still am not sure if this has been included on previous Vader's, but I still enjoy the fact that they went just a little bit further with the detail. He comes with a LEGO silver lightsaber hilt and red blade.

This is LEGO Bossk, this is the second LEGO Bossk I've owned, but I still enjoy the level of detail they have done with his head. He comes with a LEGO rifle.

This is a LEGO Imperial trooper to go on the Bridge. He comes with a LEGO Hologram of the LEGO Emperor (not pictured, because it wasn't until I finished with the project that i realized what it was).

This is LEGO IG-88, and is my first LEGO version of him. I am not too happy that his head is so big, but this is how he was diagrammed being put together.  He comes with a LEGO rifle and pistol.

This is the point I got to one the first night of building before I called it a night. This is a few hours of work.

I carefully moved the framework to my floor to take a better picture.

This is where I got to on the second day before taking a break for a little while so not to get burned out on the project.

This is where I got to by the end of the second day and before I opened bag "2".

 The third day, I managed to get through the bags marked "2"

A close up shot of the previous photo.

Another close of shot, this is the "middle".

Another close up shot, this is towards the rear of the ship.

Another close up shop, this is the rear of the ship.

A close up shot of where I got to by the end of the third day. This is the front of the ship.

 Another close up of the end of the third day. This is the middle of the ship (sorry about the glare).

Another close up shot, showing the progress I have made on the Bridge. The piece is the middle is the backside of a console.

Another close up shot, this is towards the rear of the ship.

Another close up shot, this is the rear of the ship.

The progress at the end of the fourth day.

 A close up of the progress at the end of the fourth day, this is the front of the ship. Seen here in the front is a bracket the long top pieces "connect" into to better hold it on.

Another close up shot of the progress made at the end of the fourth day. This is the middle of the ship.

Another close up shot of the progress made at the end of the fourth day. This is the mid middle of the ship showing off the beginning of the detail shown on the outside of the ship.

Another close up shot showing the progress made at the end of the fourth day. Seen here is the bridge and at the far right of the photo you can see the catwalk and consoles that are below.

A close up shot at the progress made at the end of the fourth day. This shot better shows off the bridge, the consoles and the "door" into the bridge seen at the top of the photo first photo. I forgot to take a picture of the rear of the ship, so sorry!

A shot showing the process I made before opening a new set of bags.

A close up of the progress I made,this is the front of the ship.

A close up of the progress I made, this is the middle of the ship.

A close up of the progress I have made, this is the mid middle of the ship. I forgot to take a picture of the bridge, sorry!

A close up of the progress I made, this is the rear of the ship.

Another day, another close up shot of the front of the ship. Sorry for the fuzzy image.

Another close up of the middle of the ship, sorry for the fuzzy image, I think my lens had a smudge on it.

This is where the bridge would be. They had me construct a "box" to fit over the bridge that is easily removable for playing.

A better close up of the the bridge area of the ship.

Another close up, this is towards the rear of the ship

 Another close up, this is the very end of the ship.

The next bag I opened was parts to construct two stands with. Seen here are the stands completed and attached to the ship.

 A top view of the progress I made at the end of the fifth day.

The LEGO kit came with a midi (read mini) Star Destroyer that attaches to the side of the Super Star Destroyer to give you a sense of scale of how much larger it is compared to a standard issue Star Destroyer. When Mini heard about it and seen how small it is, he decided that he wanted to assemble it to help out his big brother with the project. So I gathered the parts and let him have his fun.  Seen here is Mini assembling the mini star destroyer.

The final day, I assembled the two top pieces and attached them to the Super Star Destroyer. Seen here is the front part of the ship.

Here is the mid to rear section of the 99% completed Super Star Destroyer. I still had small little detail pieces to attach to it but it was basically done.

Here is a shot of the engines, which I didn't think of taking a picture of until the project was finished! Sorry about that and for the grainy quality of the photo.

After I added the small little detail pieces that were left (too small to notice so I didn't take more pictures) I attached the midi Star Destroyer to the Super Star Destroyer. The poles attaching it are clear to give the effect that it is "flying" along side the Super Star Destroyer.

All in all, it took me about six days to do this project. I took a day off from it to give my fingers a break, they were getting raw from all the poking from the LEGO studs. I'm impressed with the scale of it, fifty inches long! My only small gripe with it is with the box over the bridge I can't pose the figures at all, the height of it is just a tad too small to allow them to stand, especially with the massive head of IG-88 poking up higher then the others. Even though I can't see them with the box on, it would be nice knowing that they are all standing in there posed. Would I recommend this? If you have the money, yes definitionally! I only wish they would've included a Boba Fett, a Zuckuss and 4-LOM minifigure with this kit, considering what I paid for it, it would've been no issue of it being a matter of cost. I hope you enjoyed this post, stay nerdy my friends.

Random Funny Sweet Nerdy Man

One year down.

        Wow, one year already? I never would've thought in a million years that this page would've lasted a year. First of all, I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who's been around and interacting with me in comments. I love talking to each of you every day and I hope that you love talking to me in return. I'd like to like to thank the page admins of Slice of Humble, Chibi Cow, I Want A Dumpster Baby, The Klonopin Chronicals, F*ckasaurus Rex, Mommy Only Wanted A Backrub, SS TTSP and The Makeshift Mom; without you ladies, I wouldn't find the strength to face another day, let alone carry on with Nerdy Man. Man, where does the time go?

         Time, it's always moving forward. I've spent a good part of my life looking back towards the past, wishing there were things that I could change. I spent so much time looking back, that I missed things that were right in front of me. So many chances I didn't take, so many choices I made wrong and in the end, I ended up looking back on them too, wishing I could have done things different. Lately, I've been stuck in a rut, with nearly all of my attention focused on what has already happened and I realized that I can't do that anymore. If I keep looking back, I'm going to keep missing what's right in front of me and I especially don't want to do that now.

          A good friend whom I shall refer to as “kitty brat” has been helping me turn my life around slowly. I'm taking each thing one day at a time, sometimes it's one week or even one month at a time, but I'm making progress. I've even been trying to lose weight! It's a slow process to, but I know I'll get there eventually.
With all the changes in my life recently, moving recently has had the biggest effect on me. Until I can figure out a way to support myself, I'm more or less stuck here. I've been moping around since moving, feeling depressed that I was so far from the area I knew and what few people I still talked to. Recently though, I decided that instead of moping about it like I have been, I'm going to try to make the best of it. I still have my health, I still have good friends, and I still have family that loves me.

          Here's hoping for many more years of being around and talking to each and every one of you.

Peace,

Nerdy

P.S. - Feel free to leave your comments on The RFSNM page.

Am I getting too old or is the kid just not getting it?

Welcome to the first Nerdy Man blog of 2012! For those of you that are new to page/blog, with each blog I just go over whats going through my head at the time of writing the blog so if it seems jumbled and doesn't make sense, you know why, and you have been warned! Also, I try to introduce anybody I'll be talking about in the blogs for that day, today it's just Mini, for those that don't know, Mini is my little brother, who is almost like my own son in many ways and tends to follow me around and mimic me, he has even been called my "Mini Me" by family members and so I just refer to him as Mini online.  So let's kick this blog off!


The other day I was sitting here looking at pictures on the internet when I came across this one;

Mini just so happened to be sitting on the bed behind me, playing the PS3 and so when I remarked out loud "that's cool!" he looked at my screen and said "What is it?". I explained to him it's a journal that looks like a VHS tape, he asked me what a VHS tape was and I said it's what we watched movies on before DVD, but just waved it off. I mean after all, the last VHS tape we ever bought was when he was about 3 or 4 and he hasn't seen or touched those in years.

Then, Saturday night was the night that made me wonder if I'm getting old, or am I just failing to pass on the nerd to Mini. For those that missed the post, what happened was Mini and I were sitting here watching Mars Needs Moms. Neither of us had ever seen it before, but I heard it was good so I talked him into watching it, I mean after all, it was a Disney animated movie with Seth Green doing a voice, how bad could it be?

As we are watching the movie, one of the characters in the movie is using a lot of 80s slang,and at one point she said "That's heavy.". Of course, me, being a HUGE Back to the Future fan am instantly reminded of that classic scene...

So, I turned to Mini and I recite that very line, word for word, expecting him to smile or laugh about it because he's seen the movies quite a few times himself and I figured he would recognize it. All I got in return was a confused look like I just spoke to him in German. I asked him if he knew what I meant and he said no, after shaking my head followed by a face palm I turned away and said never mind.
I proceeded to post about this on the fan page, which apparently he's gotten very good at reading over my should because about twenty minutes after me posting it, he made his own BTTF reference. One of the characters was rambling on and he said;

"English Doc! Get it? Back to the Future?"

To which I looked at him and said;

"Really? NOW you get that Back to the Future quote? What'da do, read over my shoulder?"

Mini: "No.. I..."

Me: "Uh huh..."

After the movie he went to bed since it was late, and I got to thinking, it wasn't the first time he's missed a movie or TV show quote I've thrown at him. I pick movies he's seen a lot vs. something he's only seen once or a couple times to give him a fair chance. He gets the Star Wars quotes, but that's because since he could crawl he's had nothing but Star Wars around him, so it got me wondering if it's failure on my part, or just a sign I'm getting too old. Here's an example of him missing something completely.

One day he decided he wanted to watch a movie so I let him pick something out of my collection. He picked Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The movie went off and about a half hour later I had to let the dog in because it was raining out. However since she was wet I wanted to keep her in laundry room to dry off but she got out so I had to wrestle her back in there and Mini heard all the noise so when I finally got the dog put up I came back in here and he had a "what the heck was all that?" look on his face. The only thing I could think of was pulling an Indy.

So I pointed towards the laundry room door and said in my best Harrison Ford voice "No ticket!", thinking for sure he'd get since we just watched the movie. However, I was once again faced with the confused look and he said;

"What ticket?"

Shaking my head I said never mind and sat down.

I remember, very vaguely being his age, I was into Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers, and the one movie I could remember quoting was Tim Burton's Batman and parts of Die Hard. So, I'm wondering if the nerd maybe skipped him, or if its something he'll get into more when he gets older? He CAN quote Star Wars, so maybe there's hope?

Well, that's all for this blog, until next time folks, see you in the funny pages!

From computer nerd to car repair nerd?

Welcome to another blog!

Today has been interesting to say the least. When RamMan was in town I had some vinyl come loose in my car on the passenger side door. Here's a picture;

It's happened before with another door so I knew how to fix it just had to wait until a nice day.

So yesterday was pretty nice here, I went outside and tried to fix the door using the same stuff I used last time, but for some reason this time around it wasn't working. I messed with it for a few hours and used up what I had left of the glue trying to fix this thing but it was a no go. Finally I just gave up and called it quits for the day, deciding that today I would go out the next day and find some new glue.

After spending the night searching the Internet for the best kind of stuff to use on vinyl and then when I got up I went off to Auto Zone find this glue. Here's where my interesting day started.

I got there and I didn't see the glue I was after, so I asked the guy what kind of glue would be good to glue vinyl and we get into a twenty minute discussion about different glues and stuff. The man is an older gentlemen, really nice and seemed really well informed so I figured I would take a shot in the dark and describe the old glue residue left behind.

Well he said it sounded like some stuff called Indian Schlack so he goes and gets a bottle and shows it to me;

I honestly have no idea, so I tell him that I have the car right outside and if he wanted to look maybe he could make sure before I spent the cash on it. Well this is exactly what he said to me;

"Aw, hell, I wouldn't know what that stuff looked like even if I did it myself."

So... yeah... I'm standing there taken aback for a minute, thinking; "Okay, not even five seconds ago you told me it sounded like that stuff and now your telling me you wouldn't know what it looked like?". So I just finally ask for the stuff I originally came for and he said he had some in the back, so I purchased it and left.

On the way home, I was feeling a little hungry so I decided to stop at McDonalds and get me something, figured it also wouldn't hurt to get another free Coke glass. Well, the thing is about the McDonalds in my area, its right next to a four way traffic light, four lanes of traffic and it can be very, very hard to get out of there and go to the left.

So I'm sitting there with my food, waiting, traffics backed up, well somebody decided to let me out so I inch my way out, peak around her car see its clear and go for it, well as soon as I clear her car (I'm in the second lane of traffic at this point heading to the median), this car come flying up doing way past the posted speed limit. I had to floor it to keep them from hitting me, I got into the median but at this point I'm speeding like crazy myself and there was this other car stopped just a few feet away in the median waiting to turn so I had to merge into traffic and cut this car off.

Ugh, was almost in three accidents, all because one dumb person decided that they couldn't be late for wherever it was they were going? Oh I was mad, but I went home, sat in the car, ate my sandwich and then decided to get to work.

At first the new glue wasn't wanting to work with me, but then I finally got it figured out and after about three and a half hours worth of work I got it all done, as you can see;

 It's not perfect, sure, but considering I've only done this about one other time I say this is a pretty damn good job. I may be a nerd, but I can get something fixed if you give me enough time to figure it out!

Well, its nearly 3:30am, so I'm going to bed. Got to get my teeth drilled in the morning, yay! (not)

Until next time,
Nerdy Man