LEGOs!

When I was a kid, there was only one thing you were allowed to buy me for Christmas... LEGOs. After years of collection, my parent's basement became overwhelmed by my LEGO city complete with roads, ports, airports, (surprisingly only one home) and helicopters and planes suspended from the ceiling by fishing line.

It has been years since I have played with LEGOs, and that is why I was so pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon a LEGO store in the Palisades Mall. Not only did I not know of it's existence, but I didn't know how many very cool things LEGO was doing.

The first thing I saw was their soccer game which three kids were taking to task. There was an entire Star Wars section. And then I saw a coming attraction for their new Mindstorms products.

Mindstorms, I would learn, was the next step in robotics competitions that take place within leagues. The big idea here is that you can program your own robot to do a lot of different things with all types of sensors and LEGO structures. AMAZING!

The entire experience left me thinking about how similar the store is to the Apple Store. They both are dedicated to selling products that appeal to a rather exclusive and obsessive group of people. The environment are both minimalistic in their design, but packed in content. I especially liked the back wall of the store, which is where you could buy individual bricks of many sizes and colors. The wall itself was designed to resemble the construction of LEGO bricks.

I also found out from one of the employees that there are LEGO Users Groups, much like Mac User Groups, where fanatics can get together and share in each others geekdom. I felt like such an outsider to a world that I had immersed myself in with my childhood, but had grown and become more vibrant in my absence.

So, like the Apple Store, the LEGO Store is a way for the retail experience to be much more than that. It's a place for enthusiasts to come together, for excitement to build, and for the brand to live with complete creative control over the experience. It's a model that I could see many brands benefiting from.

I was disappointed to see that LEGOs overall had become less brick like, and now included many larger parts that were smoothed and idealistic. One of the things I always loved about LEGOs was the imagination that was needed in creating and visualizing a real-life building or object. Some of that "blockiness" is still there in the larger sets, but I saw a lot of sets that had idealized pieces that were molded to form smooth surfaces.

I was very intrigued by the train sets. I think that would be an area where I could really have fun, and it seems there are LEGO user groups just for railroad enthusiasts. I don't know if I need another interest, but damnit this is one that may be just too cool to pass up.

Think you are missing out on you childhood love of LEGOs as well? See if there's a store near you and check it out.