Blog of Josh Hall

Think for yourself.  At the risk of sounding too much like Emerson, form your own opinions.  Don’t just swallow the expert’s advice.  The fact is, sometimes they’re wrong or sometimes you’re different than what they’re generalizing.  If they’re right, then great, but at least you know why they think that way and why you agree with them.

hearing the talk about Queen Elizabeth being in Canada and then speaking at the United Nations made me remember the time I saw the Queen.  In May of 2007, Keren was spending a semester in Italy, so the whole family decided to take a trip over to see her.  While I was over there, I was fortunate enough for work to foot the bill for me to stay in London for a few days and meet everyone I work with on a daily basis.  While I was there, my friend Penny took me to see Equus, staring Daniel Radcliffe, of Harry Potter fame (yes, I saw him naked).  Anyway, on our walk home at night, past the London Eye, we hear all these sirens behind us, and then a cop (bobby?) on a motorcycle pulls up and blocks the intersection we were walking past.  I was a little scared, but we kept walking, and then saw some more bike cops roll on by, finally followed by an old style brown car, in which i could easily make out the Queen.  They just zipped right on by.  Penny was shocked.  I think she had never even seen the Queen.  I fumbled for my camera, but it was too late to snap even a blurry pic.  I’ll see if I can get Penny to back me up on this claim.

Anyone who knows anything about LEGO knows that storage and organization is a constant struggle. I read this post on the evolution of LEGO sorting from back in 2001 and laughed at how much I empathized.

I don’t think I have any pictures of my green bin, but I used to keep everything in this ~2.5 foot diameter x 2.5 tall plastic bin with white rope handles and no lid like the picture to the left. EVERYTHING went in there. As I was a kid, I’d come across multiple curled up spider carcasses that must have thought it was a great place to hide…

The worst problem with the bin is that all the tiny pieces get down to the bottom, so you’re never able to find them. The second problem was that the delicate pieces like poles, swords, and flag clips, get bent or broken in all the shifting around that you have to do to find pieces. That second problem though is also a side effect of the most gratifying part of that method. There’s just something so satisfying about sticking your hand into a sea of LEGO and stirring it all around and hearing all the pieces move around! Man, I miss that!

My next evolution in LEGO sorting incorporated a screw/bolt organizer with drawers like the one to the left. It had different size drawers, so i was able to keep all my horses (notoriously the hardest piece to store) in 1 drawer. I head everything clearly labeled. So I had that for the specialty pieces, but still relied on the bin for bulk storage of everything else.

The bin stayed around at my mom’s house until I got my own house and was teaching a class to kids, so I brought the bin up to my house. I kept it in my closet, because it didn’t really fit anywhere else and you can’t stack anything on top of it anyway. When I got married and because consolidating things, the bin had to go to save space.

My wife got me Stanley portable storage containers for my birthday. It took me a few days to get everything sorted out, but I think I have a pretty good system and everything just happened to fit pretty well! I have a little flexibility to grow into it with the adjustable sections too. I also got a bag from running in a 10k that fits all my plates, even my raised castle plate, perfectly!

Bin 1 contains mostly blocks and basic 1x pieces as well as down slopes and roof pieces –

Bin 2 contains some more blocks in the side drawers, but it’s mostly large building materials with a more practical application like doors and castle walls –

Bin 3 contains everything you’d need to make a character, pets and plants, as well as some other car and pieces that add personality and detail –

As I’ve been using them, I’ve had to adjust a little bit.  I find that it’s easier to keep the pieces using the space efficiently when they’re clicked together.  So I connect similar colors together for easy storage.  I have way too many black pieces, so they get their own side drawer.  I fear that’s the next step, if I ever get to it; each color having their own bin!

Educate yourself.  If you’re going to abide by #1, you’re going to have to do some research to form solid opinions and to be able to back those claims.

I’m giving away free tickets to see Pittsburgh Native and 4 time X-Games gold medalist Adam Jones on Jauary 29th!

Adam is currently ranked third overall in the ASA World Championships of FMX, and has three AST Dew Tour wins and he’s from the ‘Burgh! He makes the stop with the freestyle motocross tour, Nuclear Cowboyz, at the new Consol Energy Center, so if you haven’t been there yet, here’s your chance!

What I need you to do for a chance to win is follow me on facebook.

Step 1: Click this link.
Step 2: Click the link to follow on the right hand side.
Step 3: Respond here to let me know that you’ve done it!

If you’re already a follower, THANKS! If you still want to help me out, give the site a rating or share it with some of your friends that you think would enjoy my blog. Otherwise, just post here and say that you’re following me and you’ll be entered!

I’ll contact the winner on the 22nd, so get your entries in. If you want multiple entries, get your friends to follow the blog and you’ll get an entry along with them.

Thanks for reading!



Which would you rather be?  Extremely cold or extremely hot?  I can’t stand the heat.  I get sweaty, tired, and irritable.  Also, when you’re hot, you can’t do much to cool down.  When you’re cold, you can run around or something to get warm.

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