I first saw a Lego Imperial Star Destroyer at the Power House Museum during the Star Wars Magic of Myth exhibition.

Of course I immediately wanted one.

But it would take nearly two years before the dream became a reality. After much drooling over sets that went on ebay, I finally took the plunge on a buy-it-now set. I then waited the two full months for the surface mail package to arrive.

And what a package it was. According to the packing slip, 21 pounds worth of lego and cardboard. Out of the external packing box, I weighed it on an old bathroom scale, and it came to about 18 pounds.

10030 box, with ruler for scale

Inside the outer box, there are four smaller boxes, stuffed full of lego, and a *massive* instruction manual - over 1cm thick!

I laid out all the baggies alongside each box:

I weighed just the Lego in the baggies - it came to 5.3 kg! (that's nearly 12 pounds!). And it took ten minutes just to flick through the instruction manual from end to end!

This site has an extremelly cool animation of the construction of the ship as recorded by a webcam every five seconds, and then put together into a four minute avi file. And this one has Darth Vader supervising gungans building it.

This is an Aussie dude who made one. This is where I found out that there are two identical copies of the internal A-frame. This guy made the two A-frames concurrently, and I decided to do the same thing. He also made the Tantive IV ship first, which I was planning to do also. And he had a good idea for making the 32 little detail strips, will probably do that too.

So Thursday night I sat down to begin. I cleared a space on my desk, and opened the whopping instruction manual.

As you can see from the above picture, I didn't have much room to work with once the intruction manual was opened and I had the baggies of smaller pieces spread around. This is fine for working on small sections of lego, but I had real problems with the wings. I'd recommend a space three times the size of the A3-sized manual, such as a dining table.

I also kept all the Lego in the baggies they came in, and didn't empty them out. This seemed to work fairly well, once I started to remember which pieces were in which bags.

I began with the Tantive IV ship, thinking I'd rather finish on the big ship not the little one. The reasoning was ok, except that until I had a feel for which baggies all the pieces were in, I was doing a lot of hunting and gathering just to find the small numbers of pieces needed for the tiny ship. I would have been better off leaving it til the end I think. So as it was it took me nearly an hour to make the Tantive IV and the name plate.

Next came the twin A-frames. Having been warned by reading other sites that there were two to make, I decided to make them simultaneously.

Fast forward to Saturday morning, 20.11.04.

I also followed this dude's suggestion of mounting the 16 (x2) identical detail panels to a lego plate and building them there.

There's a mistake in the frames when I photographed them, which I didn't discover until I went to mount the wings :)

Next came the mounting stand, which is built into the infrastructure of the ship itself for stability. Until the engines are mounted though, it's rather nose-heavy and tilts down.

Some closeups of the engines. It seems very strange making engines out of wheels and barrels.

Once attached, the whole engine structure looks like this:

I ran into space problems when I began to assemble the "wings". The table wasn't big enough to spread out the instructions next to the wings, so I was building the wings on top of the intructions. But you have to change pages every three or four pieces, before they're properly fastened, so I was constantly having to move everything and realign everything. So I gave up and moved to the floor. This presented its own problems, as the floor isn't solid, and you can't press big plates together very easily, as they just sink into the carpet.

The wings are cleverly held on by three 2x2 plates at the outer edges, and four magnets on the inner edge. So it's very easy to flip open the wings to see the interior. Not that you can flip the bottom edges very far, and another magnet or two may be useful to prevent the bottom wings just falling off.

By dinner time on Saturday I had all four "wings" completed (I wasn't working all day!). There's a gaping hole with an angled mounting frame for the rest of the ship. The mounting frame is hinged at one end, and to lift the bottom of the ship, simply lift this frame up, then stick your hand into the depths of the ship to grab hold of the chassis. It's quite sturdy and you can carry all of the ship at this stage around very easily.

Next came the "body" of the ship. This section is bristling with grilles, cones, taps, levers, clips, and right angled panels. The interior is all technic beams and pins, and lets the side parts angle down. There's also a whopping great blue tower in the middle, for lining up the bridge section with, and for use as a handle :)

Moving up, we have the back "spine" that leads up to the command decks. The command deck section is rather weird, and isn't solid, but the panels actually wiggle significantly when touched.

The command deck slots into the spine, which then slots into another layer of the body of the ship. These three components then sit atop the main body.

When I'd finished, I ended up with the standard number of extra pieces, as well as one extra wing. So I poked my head around the superstructure (fortunately it's perfectly symmetrical) and finally found where I'd forgotten to attach it. I also ended up with four extra magnets, which aren't listed on Peeron as being extra. But there were no mounting brackets, so I guess those must be spares also.

And so twelve hours after I began, we have the Imperial Star Destroyer.

I spent very approximately 12 hours building this set:

Tantive IV and name plate: 1 hour
A-frame structure: 1 3/4 hours
A-frame detail: 3/4 hour
Frame attachment and stand: 3/4 hour
Engines: 1/2 hour
Wings: 3 1/2 hours
Main body: 2 1/4 hours
Spine: 1/4 hour
Command deck: 3/4 hour
Last layer of body: 1/4 hour

And definitely worth it :)

Had various friends and kids over to have a look at it today (Sunday). Although the kids were far more interested in playing with the Harry Potter lego I had out. Oh well :)

2007. Interesting year. A year of upheaval.

The biggest thing to happen this year was quitting my job of ten years, moving to Canberra and starting a new job. Quitting my old job was tough, and I'd been putting it off for two years since I met Stu as I knew it was going to be difficult. I'd had it in my head that I'd stay for the full ten years and then move. Well last year they announced that there were likely to be mass redundancies, so I thought it would be a good time to leave, as I could also score a large payout. Except the redundancies never came, and in fact a couple of weeks ago they announced the plan to outsource had been scrapped. But I'd decided to leave anyway as I'd been offered a job in Canberra. Anyway, after six weeks at my new job I'm still not entirely sure what I'm meant to be doing. The whole place is very overwhelming and their server infrastructure is huge. In my first week I told someone to ask me again in a month how I was liking it. I should probably extend that for another couple of months.

On a lighter note, living in Canberra is nice. The traffic is infinitely better. Although I'm actually catching the bus to work so that I can read - something I've not done in over ten years. Is letting me actually get some books read, as I don't read at any other time. The main annoying thing with Canberra is major services and shops are only in a few select locations, which are quite spread out. And petrol stations are few and far between.

As far as wedding plans are going.. after being engaged for a full year now, all we've managed to organise is a wedding dress for me (found on eBay in February) and set a date and book a church. Reception, honeymoon and other important details have yet to be organised. Four months is plenty of time.. right..? ;)

I'm writing this in Queensland at our friends Chay and David's place. It's actually the third time we've been to visit them this year, driving up over Easter and then flying up in July. Traditionally we drink a lot, eat a lot and generally be merry, usually in the form of a lot of singing of Sing Star songs. This trip has been no exception, although we did bring a couple of board games to play this time. It'll be nice to spend New Years Eve with them, so long as I can watch fireworks at midnight :)

During our Easter trip we also got to stay with my fifth cousin twice removed Diana, and see lots of places close to Stu's heart.

The other major travel we did this year (other than the every other weekend trips between Canberra and Sydney) was five days on Lord Howe Island. It was as good as I remembered it twenty years ago, but with a lot more cars :) Stu loved it too, and we're sure to be returning to it one day.

In preparation for the move, I culled boxes and boxes of high school and university notes. I gave away and sold lots of toys and other bits and pieces from my childhood. I also freecycled a lounge chair, a table and a desk. My little brother replaced all the taps in my house, a Sydney Water plumber installed a water saving shower head and washers, and a tiler regrouted my shower. I was kicking myself that I didn't get the shower fixed a long time ago, it would have made it sooo much nicer. As it was, my shower was pretty disgusting for most of the six years I was there, until the very last week. Oh well. I still had a tonne of stuff to move though. What I couldn't tetris into Stu's place got put into storage. We have a twenty cubic metre storage unit that is very full. We hope to start looking for our own place after the wedding/honeymoon. Then we'll reevaluate everything we have.

All my fish survived the move. It did take a good half a dozen trips to get them all down though :) My major addition before moving was another white angel fish, this one a boy, to go with my girl angel. She laid eggs a couple of times after he arrived, but while he had successfully bred before and knew what to do, she had been single for so long, that she kept telling him to piss off away from her eggs, and then ate them all herself. Silly fish :) We currently have fourteen tanks with fish in them, and four that don't. Stu sold some of his juvenile Julidochromis transcriptus fish for $7 each. We're going to have to take good care of the other fry we have, as they seem to be little money-spinners :)

At the beginning of the year, I saw comet McNaught, after not thinking that I'd get to. We also saw the total lunar eclipse. And we had two astronomy nights in Spence in Canberra at someone who has a telescope mounted permanently in his backyard.

Our Christmas involved lunch at my parent's place the Sunday before Christmas (actually we were up for Jake's wedding reception on the Saturday and bundled the two). Then it was back to Canberra for Christmas day at Stu's.

Other things I did this year:
* decided to cut down the amount of orange juice I drank per day and lost two kilos
* went on lovely cruise on Lake Burley Griffin as an engagement present from Damien
* went to Cancon
* more poker nights at cia and work, with mixed success (success at work ones, failure at cia ones)
* saw the Queen Mary 2 and QE 2 in Sydney
* went up Sydney Tower with Mum and Stu
* discovered Google Sketchup
* walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge on the main deck, on the weekend of its 75th birthday
* dragged Stu up Black Mountain Tower to take photos
* participated in Earth Hour to save turning the timers on my fish tanks back an hour ;)
* saw the Amazing Human Body exhibition at the show ground
* saw the very last flight of Qantas' very first 707 jet
* saw the Kitty Hawk in Sydney
* read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows the day (and day after) it came out
* dragged Stu to the Blue Mountains, down the Giant Staircase and up the Scenic Railway
* did a day trip to the snow to go skiing
* babysat Josh and Rachel at Questacon all day
* got the hiccoughs for the first time in a *very* long time
* shut down my eleven year old photo server conspiracy, after moving all the photos to a virtual host
* had a farewell at work that not too many people came to (probably about a quarter of the people that were invited)
* got a new computer
* decided very quickly that Vista sux
* met another blogger (Lil Lioness)
* got the latest Hogwarts Castle Lego set
* got the Millenium Falcon in Lego
* had about five different work end of year parties, but felt left out because I couldn't go to my old work one
* got my own Blackberry, switched to Optus only to find they are just as crap as Vodafone

Things I miss about Sydney (in no particular order):
* my job
* walking with George on Thursday nights
* lunches with Luc/cards in the office
* dinners at Alan and Marylon's
* living right next to a big airport
* my flat
* easy access to petrol stations (especially my regular one and the dude there)
* family and other friends

Things I don't miss about Sydney:
* the traffic
* my bumhead neighbours (we just have bogan neighbours here)
* Freecycle Sydney Central moderators

Have a safe 2008 :) Happy new year!!

1. Who is your partner?
Stu

2. How long have you been together?
Since May/June/July 2005 (depending on how you look at it)

3. How long did you date?
Well I suppose technically we're still dating since not actually married yet.. heh

4. How old is your partner?
37

5. Who eats more?
Definitely Stu :)

6. Who said �I love you� first?
Stu :)

7. Who is taller?
Also definitely Stu

8. Who sings better?
Me. Well according to Sing Star anyway :)

9. Who is smarter?
I say Stu. Online IQ tests put us about the same

10. Whose temper is worse?
Mine. Stu rarely gets angry

11. Who does the laundry?
We both do. We haven't merged our laundry routines yet

12. Who takes out the garbage?
Also both of us

13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed?
Depends on which way you look at it.. :)

14. Who pays the bills?
Stu pays his and the common ones, I pay mine

15. Who is better with the computer?
I reckon Stu. But probably just cause he's more patient :)

16. Who mows the lawn?
Stu's mown it once or twice... once even recently ;)

17. Who cooks dinner?
Both of us, but Stu is a better cook

18. Who drives when you are together?
Stu more often, but I do too

19. Who pays when you go out?
Stu

20. Who is most stubborn?
Me.

21. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong?
I think we both do

22. Whose parents do you see the most?
Mine.

23. Who kissed who first?
Stu kissed me first, although I'd been thinking about how I'd do it.. heh

24. Who asked who out?
I asked him out. Firstly just to meet in real life after having met on the blogosphere, then again a couple of days later.

25. Who proposed?
Stu did, although I kinda hinted not so subtly that I wanted him to ;)

26. Who is more sensitive?
Tough one, we're both pretty sensitive

27. Who has more friends?
Stu at the moment..

28. Who has more siblings?
Stu

29. Who wears the pants in the family?
Well that would be Stu I suppose.. not that I ever wear skirts... hehe .. in terms of "wearing the pants" though, that'd probably be me to some extent..

Last night Natalie came over for pizza.

We drank.

A lot.

More than I've drunk in a while actually. Between the three of us we got through half a bottle of cointreau, half a bottle of vodka, a bottle of wine and goodness knows how much cognac.

And the pizzas were good too (I made them myself).

Somehow When Harry Met Sally came up in conversation (I think in relation to the whole thing about "men and women can never be friends because the sex part always gets in the way". Well the others had never seen it, so we put it on and it was fun, I think they enjoyed it.

I also found someone else who likes Tetrinet!! We had a few drunken games. Would have been fun to fire up another computer and have a three-way game. Maybe next time.

So yeah this morning we suffered. Not helped by TTotM hitting hard at 6am :(

So we had a quiet day today. Really didn't get anything done. Had some nice salmon for dinner and watched The Phantom Menace. That movie truly had some painful stuff in it :( We really must see if we can find the Phantom Edit...

Two of my best friends are moving to the other side of the universe (ok, the other side of Sydney). /me somewhat sad

As seen at Bren's a while back

1. Can you touch your nose with your toes?
er, lemme try. Yes!
2. Who were you with last night?
Noone, all alone with Mr Bowie :)
3. Are most of your friends in your life new or old?
Bit of a mix. Mostly old.
4. Do you like candy necklaces?
er, I suppose so. Don't know that I've ever eaten any tho.
5. Do you eat raw cookie dough?
Sure, but really only to lick the bowl/beaters
6. Pancakes or French Toast?
Pancakes. The one and only time I had french toast was at Dennys in Las Vegas in 1983
7. How do you like your eggs?
Sunny side up
8. Creamy or crunchy peanut butter?
Never liked peanut butter
9. Instant or home-made mashed potatoes?
Home-made. Instant is awful
10. Can you handle the truth?
Probably not. I hate not knowing though
11. What is the compliment you get from most people?
Nice hair
12. If you were another person, would you be friends with yourself?
No
13. Is anyone on your bad side right now?
Shrug
14. Whats the best drinking game?
Never played one
15. Do you like your music loud or soft?
In the middle :) Depends what it is though. Some things I like cranking up loudish.
16. Do your jeans have rips, tears, and holes in them?
Yes. Way overdue for new ones
17. When was the last time you fell over or ran into something?
I fell over at work a few months ago tripping over crap on the floor
18. Whats the first movie that gave you nightmares?
I've been fortunate in my life to never get nightmares. But the first movie that would have (and I think did once) was Friday 13th I saw when I was about 11 (flipping irresponsible parents of a sleepover I went to allowed that one)
19. If you could sleep with one famous person, who would it be?
I wouldn't. A few years ago I might have said Jason Isaacs, and before that David Bowie, maybe a few others
20. Have you ever sung in front of the mirror?
Probably. I don't make a point of it though
21. Do you talk a lot?
No
22. Do you make up your own words?
Blurgle bloggle bling blong
23. Are you typically a jealous person?
Not the suspicious/mistrust sort, but I can get jealous of anyone that takes up Stu's time away from me
24. What is something you say a lot?
Are we having fun yet? It wasn't me I didn't do it? It's true I'm not lying.
25. What was the last movie you saw in theaters?
Casino Royale. It was really good
26. Deep Thoughts About Life and You in it?
er.. are we there yet? can I go home now?
27. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone?
With someone. Although admittedly sleep isn't as good as when alone
28. Who have you kissed on your top friends?
What sort of expression is that? Kissed on??
29. Do you still talk to the person you had your first kiss with?
Nah. It was a holiday romance and I never saw him again
30. Do you stay friends with your ex's?
Not friends with first, out of contact with second, still friends with third and with unofficial one
31. First Loves Are Never Over; is this true for you?
No
32. Think of all your exes. Would you take any of them back?
I'd probably take Guy back. Well that is assuming neither of us were in other relationships heh. None of the others though
33. What attracted you to your recent ex?
For the last official one, we used to hang out in a lab together on irc. Did fun things like playing ping pong in #netsex until we got thrown out heeh.
34. What didnt you like about your recent ex?
He often tasted like coffee :(
35. When was your last kiss?
A week ago in the driveway downstairs
36. Are you/have you been in love?
Yes (why bother asking that now after all the other relationship questions? heh)
37. Would you wear a boyfriend/girlfriends clothes?
Sure. Except Stu's completely don't fit me :)
38. What would you say if an ex said "I love you."
er ... okaaaaaay. Pretty unlikely to happen though.
39. Do you consider love a mistake?
No
40. What do you find romantic?
Um. I suppose just little things; treats; having him pay for things
41. Turn-on?
Confidence
42. Turn-off?
Bad breath
43. Do you prefer knowing someone before dating them or just diving in?
I prefer to know someone first. Didn't quite work that way with Stu though, kinda jumped in with him :)
44. Have you ever wished it was more socially acceptable for a girl to ask a guy out?
er, not really, I don't think there's any problem with it, I just tended to lack confidence. Then I got old. I asked Stu out on our first (and really only) date :)
45. Have you ever been naked in a public pool?
No
46. Have you ever had sex on the beach?
No
47. Have you ever been cheated on?
No
48. Are you too forgiving?
I'm not forgiving enough
49. Believe its possible to remain faithful forever?
Yes
50. Do you feel pretty, and witty and gay?
er, not really

From Bren:

1. Will you be looking for a new job?
More than likely - in Canberra
2. Will you be looking for a new relationship?
Nope :)
3. New house?
Perhaps. We'll see how we go with job stuff first
4. What will you do different in 07?
Try to remain calm, especially on the roads
5.New Years Resolution?
Haven't made any
6. What will you not be doing in 07?
Being so slack about stuff
7. Any trips planned?
There was thoughts of a Europe trip, but job uncertainty makes that a bit hard. Maybe a small one somewhere
8. Wedding plans?
Yup!
9. Major thing on your calendar?
Nothing has been defined with a date for putting on any calendar..
10. What can�t you wait for?
Living with Stu
11. What would you like to see happen different?
Not sure..
12. What about yourself will you be changing?
Trying to be calmer and more organised
13. What happend in �06 that you didn�t think would ever happen?
I'd ever actually want to leave my job
14. Will you be nicer to the people you care about?
I will try
15. Will you dress differently this year than you did in 06?
Nope
16. Will you start or quit drinking?
Nah
17. Will you better your relationship with your family?
Maybe
18. Will you do charity work?
Probably not
19. Will you go to bars?
Not often
20. Will you be nice to people you dont know?
I try
21. Do you expect 07 to be a good year for you?
Hope so :)
22. How much did you change from this time last year til now?
Not a lot?
23. Do you plan on having a child?
No
24. Will you still be friends with the same people you are friends with now?
Probably
25. Major lifestyle changes?
Only ones associated with moving
26. Will you be moving?
Probably, to Canberra
27. What will you make sure doesn�t happen in 07 that happened in 06?
Dunno..
28. What are your New Years Eve plans?
Games with J&G
29. Will you have someone to kiss at midnight?
Yup yup :):):)

I first heard this years and years ago, and a year later (probably the year I got my tape recorder - as I had it at my Nana's when I heard it again) I managed to get it on tape. Either from that tape recording or possibly some other source on the web, we have the mp3 version. I always thought it was Govnet not Bognot, but other sources disagree. This song gets dragged out every year, it's somewhat of a tradition in our family :)

Dear Nola - aka, what would happen if some actually gave the gifts in the Twelve Days of Christmas ...

Day 1
Dear Nola,
Thank you very much for your lovely present of a partridge in a pear tree. We are getting the hang of feeding the partridge now, although it was difficult at first to win its confidence. It bit the Mother rather badly on the hand, but they're good friends now, and we're keeping the pear tree indoors in a bucket. Thank you again.
Yours affectionately,
Bognot O'Launacy.

Day 2
Dear Nola,
I cannot tell you how surprised we were to hear from you again so soon again, and to receive your lovely present of two turtle doves. You really are too kind. At first, the partridge was very jealous and suspicious of the doves, and they had a terrible row on the night the doves arrived. We had to send for the vet. But the birds are OK again, and the stitches are due to come out in a week or two. The vet�s bill was �8, but the Mother is over her annoyance now, and the doves and the partridge are watching the telly from the pear tree as I write.
Yours ever,
Bognot

Day 3
Dear Nola,
We must be foremost in your thoughts. I had only posted my letter when the three French hens arrived. There was another sort out between the hens and the doves, who have sided with the partridge, and the vet had to be sent for again. The Mother was raging, for the bill was �16 this time, but she has almost cooled down. However, the fact that the birds droppings keep falling down on our hair while she's watching the telly doesn�t help matters.
Thanking you for your kindness, I remain,
Your Bognot

Day 4
Dear Nola,
You mustn�t have received my last letter when you were sending us the four calling birds. There was pandemonium in the pear tree again last night, and the vet�s bill was �32. The Mother is on sedation as I write. I know you meant no harm, and remain your close friend.
Bognot.

Day 5
Nola,
Your generosity knows no bounds. Five gold rings! When the parcel arrived, I was scared stiff that it might be more birds, because the smell in the living room is atrocious. However, I don�t want to seem ungrateful for the beautiful rings.
Your affectionate friend,
Bognot

Day 6
Nola,
What are you trying to do to us? It isn�t that we don�t appreciate your generosity, but the six geese have not alone nearly murdered the calling birds, but they laid their eggs on top of the vet�s head from the pear tree, and his bill was �68 in cash! My Mother is munching 60 grains of valium a day and talking to herself in a most alarming way. You must keep your feelings for me in check.
Bognot

Day 7
Nola,
We are not amused by your little joke. Seven swans a-swimming is a most romantic idea, but not in the bath of a private house. We cannot use the bathroom now because they have gone completely savage, and rush the door every time we try to enter. If things go on this way, the Mother and I will smell as bad as the living room carpet. Please lay off! It is not fair.
Bognot.

Day 8
Nola,
Who the hell do you think gave you the right to send eight hefty maids a-milking here to eat us out of house and home? Their cattle are all over the front lawn, and have trampled the hell out of the Mother�s rose beds. The swans invaded the living room in a sneak attack, and the ensuing battle between them and the calling birds, turtle doves, French hens and partridge made the Battle of the Somme seem like Wonderly Wagon. The Mother is on a bottle of whiskey a day, as well as the sixty grains of valium. I�m very annoyed with you.
Bognot

Day 9
Listen you loser! There�s enough pandemonium in the place night and day, without nine drummers drumming, while the eight flamin' maids a-milking are eating my poor alcoholic mother out of her own kitchen and gobbling everything in sight. I�m warning you, you�re making an enemy of me.
Bognot

Day 10
Listen manure face! I hope you�ll be haunted by the strains of the ten pipers piping, which were sent to torment us last night. They were aided in the evil work by those maniac drummers, and it wasn�t a pleasant sight to look out the window and see eight hefty maids a-milking, all going round to the punk-rock uproar. My Mother has just finished her third bottle of whiskey on top of 124 grains of valium. You�ll get yours!
Bognot O�Launacy

Day 11
You have scandalised my mother, you dirty Jezebel. It was bad enough to have eight maids a-milking dancing to punk music on the front lawn, but they�ve now been joined by your friends, the eleven lords a-leaping, and the antics of the whole lot of them would leave the most decadent days of the Roman Empire looking like Outlook! I�ll get you yet, you old bag!

Day 12
Listen slurry-head! You have ruined our lives! The twelve maidens dancing turned up last night, and beat the living daylights out of the eight maids a-milking, �cos they found them carrying on with the eleven lords a-leaping. Meanwhile, the swans got out of the living room where they�ve been hiding since the big battle and savaged the hell out of the lords and all the maids. There were eight ambulances here last night, and the local civil defence as well. The Mother is in a home for the bewildered, and I�m sitting here up to my neck in birds' droppings, empty whiskey and valium bottles, birds' blood and feathers, while the cows eat the leaves from the pear tree. I�m a broken man!
Bognot O�Launacy.