Vacation, all I ever wanted

Don't kid yourself: Blogging is a lot of work for something you don't get paid for. I'm only doing it now because I'm at the end of a week of vacation and I got a lot of stuff done around the house, so I feel like I earned some non-productive blogwork.

It's also tough because I just haven't been doing a lot of pinball lately. I have been slowly pushing stuff back and forth in my basement to try to get my wife and I separate but equal workspaces. Getting those spaces up and running is one of the goals of my vacation (including both the week that just past and most of December... we've been trying to get a project out at work this year, so I haven't taken a lot of time off). I did a big push in my wife's space this week, because in order to clean out the dining room for Thanksgiving I had to transport a lot of the stuff into the basement. Remember when I said that cleaning our house is like playing Sokoban? Well, this is case in point.

Currently I'm at an impasse with the cleaning. I'm out of space in the bedroom that will become my wife's space, and when I moved all of the pinball stuff into my corner I ended up with almost no space there. The best solution would be if every room in my basement were about 5 feet wider, but for now we'll leave that for my next vacation in a week and a half.

But this is a blog about Pinball, things related to Pinball, and things largely unrelated to Pinball... I've covered the latter pretty thoroughly, so let's talk about the first two.

I went to the White Rose Pinball Show in York, PA in October. Usually I complain about the overpriced junk, the non-working junk, and the just plain junk at that show, but the Hershey show caused me to reevaluate just what a crappy pinball show is. By contrast, York was great. I had fun, played some interesting games, and had a good time. Surprising fact of the day: I barely spent any money. Being dormant in the pinball department has put me in a position of not needing any parts, so I didn't have anything to buy. I think I spent about $40 the whole day, a new record for me.

One fun bonus thing I did in York: I left the show around 8 and was hungry. Usually I end up stopping at an Arby's or something on the way home, but this time I made up my mind to try something different. Right about that time I passed a burrito place about a half mile from the fairgrounds called Roburrito's. I negotiated a series of right turns and went in. It turns out it's like a punk rock burrito place... as a child of the '80s L.A. music scene, it's just the sort of place I would eat burritos at if anywhere around Derwood had the temerity to be like that. It was a good burrito, made better with the selection of hot sauces they had available. Yay!

One of the big pinball auctions showed up at the MD state fairgrounds in the last week of October, and since it happened to be on my birthday I got a free pass to see what was up. The last auction I went to -- in the same building that the York show is in -- was not so much a game auction as it was a crap auction... they had 4 Gorgars in various states of repair and about a hundred beaten down cabinets from late 80's and early 90's D-List video games. This show was much better. A bunch of pins, mostly Stern and 90's games, but a smattering of EMs and early 80's games. There were also a lot of reasonable quality vids from the past 30 years. I took advantage of the games set to free play and left a little before noon. There was nothing I really wanted to buy, but I had a pretty good time.

So, we're up to date. Hopefully I will make progress on a workspace and be able to start fixin' pins and workin' on some of my secret projects before the end of the year.

November Will Be Magic Again!

Why settle for Change when you can have Transfiguration?

Not as poignant as Republicans for Voldemort, I admit. I made this sign a few weeks ago as more of a Dada Art Project than any kind of real political statement. I had it next to our first actual political yard sign, but my wife forced me to move it because she felt people would think we were making fun of the real candidate. Re-elect Fudge was out for a week or so, then we got two inches of rain and it turns out I didn't properly seal the sign, which turned it into abstract art. ^_^;