• October 19, 2009

    Hi there!

    My name is Paul Kmiec and my nickname is 'Sariel' for the general community and 'searme' for YouTube. I was fortunate enough to be one of the three lucky guys who got invited by LEGO to write here. I'm very happy about it and I hope it will be as much fun for you as it already is for me.

    I'm 26 and I have been working as a webdesigner for a couple of years, which means that I have been doing a bit of graphic design and programming to produce complete websites from a scratch (at first I was a freelancer, now I work for a media company). When I'm not at work and not building something, I keep myself occupied with some photography (a handy hobby when it comes to publishing my constructions), skiing, ice-skating and computer games (a good source of inspirations).

    I got my first LEGO set when I was 8 and I have been fascinated with LEGO bricks until I was about 16 (a dangerous age, it seems :)). I remember spending hours browsing through LEGO catalogues and dreaming - something you are probably familiar with. I tried out a number of LEGO themes - Pirates, Castle, Space, Town - until I got my first LEGO Technic set and fell in love with it immediately. It was my favorite theme ever since, even though I was limited to a few small sets (which was very good for creativity, I suppose).

    Roughly three years ago I have taken out again all the LEGO sets from my childhood and started to buy new ones. The world of LEGO Technic has changed in a wonderful way since I was a kid, and it was the first time I came across studless beams or pneumatics. Soon after that I stumbled upon LUGPol (LEGO User Group of Poland) and joined the other adult LEGO fans. Later I became one of LUGPol's moderators, creator of LUGPol Wiki (our knowledge database), and co-editor of Klocki, the major bricks-oriented blog in my country. Finally at the end of 2008 I have launched my own blog dedicated to documenting everything I build - and there is a lot of it.

    I'm a practitioner builder, releasing another construction every couple of weeks. My main area of interest are models of vehicles - cars, trucks, bikes, a whole variety of construction equipment (cranes, dozers etc.), but from time to time I also build things like a gantry or a pallet jack. I participate in the off-road races with custom-built LEGO trucks, a competition called Truck Trial, although recently I have been more into documenting than driving. The thing that keeps me going is my future projects list that rarely has less than twenty items on it - so it doesn't look like I'm going to be done with it anytime soon :)

    Until we meet again,
    Paul

  • October 7, 2009

    Hello!

    My name is Fernando Correia and you may find me online, under the nickname ‘Conchas’.

    Together with a few other fans, I got the privilege to be invited for start writing here at Technic.LEGO.com, so at first I’d like to thank LEGO for giving us this unique opportunity to write into the official LEGO Technic website. The ultimate destination for all the LEGO Technic fans!

    I’m 41, have an engineering background and have been working in the Telecommunications area for 12 years.
    I have 2 lovely children, a 9 year old girl and a boy at 2, whose one of the first words he learnt to say was ‘LEGO’… ;) Maybe because it is the most common thing he is used to see all over the house…

    While I’ve never completely taken LEGO out of my mind, I got a long Dark Age (or Catalog Age as I like to call it) since I was 16, till I felt the impulse to buy a large Racers set (8386, Ferrari F1 Racer 1:10 – A LEGO Technic like set) to my son still to be born… at the age of 38.

    Since then I became a proud and active member of PLUG (Portuguese LEGO User Group), where I’ve been playing a role in the management board and helping other members with our LEGO User Group activities and exhibitions.
    In the last two years I’ve also taken part of the LEGO Ambassadors program, chosen to foster communication and feedback between fans from the community I represent and The LEGO Group itself.

    The main reason I believe to be now writing here, is because I also run a blog fully dedicated to the LEGO Technic theme and constructions where I write a bit about everything that may interest the LEGO Technic builders. Despite it is mostly targeted to the Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOLs), you all are welcome to visit it, read and maybe leave your comments if you like.

    We meet the next month again,
    Fernando