Some of you in IndyLUG may know that before I was a member of IndyLUG, I was a member of LUGCO (LEGO Users Group of Central Oklahoma).

Meeting with the members of LUGCO was my first experience with other AFOL's.  I had communicated plenty online with AFOL's, but looking at pictures and messages on the internet is much different than having an actual gathering of people who love LEGO.  At a LUG meeting you can talk face to face with others and look at their MOC's firsthand.  You can make friendships in a single afternoon that are stronger than ones you spent years building online.

LUGCO meetings were always fun and laid-back.  There was also little to no pressure in LUGCO to build layouts to a certain size or by a certain deadline, since we never did any shows.  That's right—we never did any shows, and we always had a blast.  In the beginning there were just 4 of us: Todd Trotter, Jon Palmer, Michael Daniel and me.  Michael and I both lived in Oklahoma City, Todd lived in Moore in the southern end of the OKC metro area, and Jon lived in Tulsa (so he had the longest drive; about 2 hours).  We met once a month and usually took turns meeting at either Michael or Todd's house.

Besides us "core 4", we had a few other guys who came to meetings once in a while.  One guy, who I believe was named Jeremy Sproat, came from northern Texas.  He said that the Texas LUG was in the southern half of the state, and since Texas was such a huge state, it was actually shorter for him to drive to our meetings in OKC.  There was also a guy named Drew who would show up once in a while with his teenage son.  There was one meeting where us 4 original members, plus Jeremy, Drew and his son were all there for a total of 7 people.  That was the most people we ever had at a meeting.

Michael had one room in his house that he devoted to his LEGO collection.  Two sides of the room had tables around the edge for his town.  (He was basically into just Town.)  We never had a set draft in LUGCO, but we did do a lot of trading.  There was one of our earlier meetings where Jon and Michael had each brought a tub of colors that they didn't use much and wanted to trade.  Michael had a bunch of brown and dark gray in his tub, and Jon had a bunch or white and yellow in his tub to trade.  Both of them looked through each other's tubs Ooohing and Aaahing at what they found.  After several trades, Jon said, "you just want to trade my whole tub for your whole tub?" to which Michael replied, "Sure."

Michael's city was something he kept displayed all the time and would add to as he built new MOC's.  That made it neat to see about every 2 months, because you could look for what had changed.  When I moved from Oklahoma City, I knew that I might never see any of those LUGCO guys again, which was a total bummer.  However, at Brickfest 2003 I saw Jon again.  I asked him about LUGCO, and he told me that he didn't live in Oklahoma anymore; he had moved out to the west coast.  He said that before he moved, LUGCO activity had died way down.  He had kept in touch a little with Todd, and knew that Todd had had second child with some pretty bad health problems, which had kept him from spending much time with LEGO.  With myself and Jon hundreds of miles away, and Todd busy with Life's Hurdles, that meant that the only active member of LUGCO left would be Michael...and you don't have much of a club with just 1 person.

Since I've lived in Indiana, I've often wondered if LUGCO revived in any way.  You can still see the website, although it hasn't been updated since 2002.  (Todd made and ran the website, so I assume he has a way to keep it online cheaply &/or wants it to remain accessible for archive type purposes.)

Today I was building a gazebo, and I needed several of those hinge plates that are 1X2 on each half in white.  I went to Bricklink and found the seller who had the quantity I needed at the cheapest price in the USA.  That seller was MWD Brick Bytes, and I saw that the seller was from Oklahoma.  I thought to myself that because of the initials "MWD," this seller might be Michael Daniel who I knew from when I was in LUGCO.  As I looked through the pieces in the store, they seemed to be mostly Town type things.  I also noticed the statement "This is all I have none in reserve." in the Splash page.  I clicked the "Newest" link in the store to see when the seller had added most of their items.  Sure enough, their entire inventory had just been added to their store throughout the month of March.

I realized that Michael had probably decided to get out of the LEGO hobby, and this was his way of selling his collection.  In my head I muttered the blog-title-inspiring statement, "Well that just sucks."  I understand when someone doesn't have time for LEGO.  Things like kids, poor health and school can put building on the back burner for months or even years.  But it really saddens me to see someone give up on LEGO entirely.  I've always seen LEGO as a lifelong hobby for those of us who are really into it—and Michael was one of those people.  I'm sure he spent plenty of time, energy and money on his LEGO like the rest of us do.

The email that Bricklink sends you when you order confirmed my suspicions; the seller is Michael Daniel.  I guess that without really knowing the specifics of what happened in the OKC LEGO scene after I had moved, I had always subconsciously assumed that Michael, Todd and any other AFOL else who happened to come along to the LUGCO area had been building away all these years.  Maybe they had been building less frequently or had decided to stop buying new stuff, but it had been a comforting thought to me that maybe, just maybe all those LUGCO members who I hadn't seen or heard from in so long still had an inextinguishable passion for LEGO.  Today I learned the sad bitter reality that what I had hoped in the back of my mind just wasn't true.

Michael, if you're reading this, I just want to let you know that I really enjoyed all the time I spent with you and the other LUGCO members.  I have no hard feelings toward you about getting out of the LEGO hobby, and I hope you can find something else that's just as enjoyable to take up all of your free time and empty your wallet...oh wait—you're already married. Stick out tongue