From August 1999 to January 2001 I worked at search engine company Ask Jeeves, Inc., in Emeryville, CA, acting as first a senior graphic designer and then a senior site engineer. One of the defining moments of the Jeeves experience was when me and a friend decided to get a couple of top-of-the-line Nikko R/C monster trucks. That decision led to my wholehearted dive into the R/C hobby and the creation of Ultimate Traxxas and the Ultimate R/C Network.

The most lasting impression I made on the company headquarters, though, was surely my Lego City, a ~50' long, 4" wide string of creations using over 12,500 individual blocks. The City still exists today.

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The "Ask!" button atop the large building is actually a pixel-for-pixel, block-for-block exact duplicate of the 2-color version I created for the Palm Pilot version of Ask.com. The arch bridge was contributed by another employee, and partially destroyed by a producer who just couldn't keep her hands off of it. I made the best of the situation by adding some construction equipment.

The Charles Schultz Memorial Spaceport (dedicated to the late great Peanuts comic creator) display was my pride & joy. It included an experimental VSTOL (vertical/short takeoff & landing) vehicle (yellow), a visitor center, a mobile remote mission control station, a visitor center, a microwave satellite transceiver, a control tower, three ground support vehicles, a robot, a retired shuttle lander, and the amazing variable-geometry WX3 self-propelled mission platform. Why "WX3?" My original title at Ask Jeeves was "Graphic Designer WX3," a tribute to the Vector supercar. The Lego-built craft had dual-hinged wings that expanded from about 4" to about 8", and the forward nacelles were hinged as well. Best of all, though, the top opened up and inside was a utility boom (like the one used in the American space shuttles) that folded out to three times the length of the cargo bay and was fully articulated.

The colorful sculpture at left, above, was called "The Flower," dedicated to a coworker whose last make was "Fleur." In the middle is Gina's Pizza, and on the right is the gas station across the street from the building Ask Jeeves was in. The tow truck is pulling in a riced Honda hatchback that bottomed out over a tiny bump in the road and cracked its frame.

The fire command chopper, fortunately, never had to fly a mission. At right, above, is the curious "Leaning Tower of Pizza," across from Gina's. Barely seen in the lower left is a turbine-powered three-point hydroplane speedboat of which I unfortunately have no full pictures.

The marine biological center was my most carefully planned and meticulously executed project. The huge aboveground tank had acetate windows and featured an assortment of underwater flora and fauna that took over a month to collect from across the country via eBay. The center also had a professional diver training academy, a specimen classification center, a huge utility barge, small skiff, and four submersible vehicles (the large passenger-carrying blue one, its remote unmanned camera vehicle, one manned exploration sub carried by the barge, and the high-tech self-contained deep-sea unit with fully articulated robotic arms). Also annexed in a cooperative project was a small particle accelerator facility.

The fire command chopper, fortunately, never had to fly a mission. At right, above, is the The police station was one of the first buildings made in the city, and I was especially proud of the motorccle, which featured a much more true-to-life design than most Lego bikes.

The Statue of Liberty was built in an afternoon by an 11-year-old visitor. Great work! The windmill, under attack by a black dragon and being defended by a magic-wielding knight and a sword-wielding ninja, was supposedly a piece of a haunted theme park that got out of hand. The yellow & white structure at right was one of the last things I built, a building and piece of modern art at the same time.