A Working Vacation
My lovely wife and 5-year old son will be flying to San Diego the first week of June. They will be gone for 14 days total enjoying all the sun and fun that San Diego has to offer while I stay back, stuck here in Idaho, having to work. I will miss them terribly, especially my boy who seems to grow leaps and bounds over any short span not seeing him for two full weeks is a long time in young kid years. Luckily, I have a plan to occupy my free time when I am not at "work"… I call it "arcade time".
Every year when the wife and kid go to visit grandma (I rarely have the opportunity to take long vacations with my current employer), I take that opportunity to do things in the arcade I normally don't have the time to do. Last year I restored a Tron from top to bottom. The year before I worked on a few projects including a Guns n' Roses pin. The year before that I believe I restored my Star Wars…
or was that the year before that? You get the drift. Being that I am essentially alone for 2 weeks (well, Mom does live here too but she's no fun… and I'm not big on "sleep overs" with friends), I take the free time I have to work on whatever needs to be worked on. I usually try to focus on a larger project.
This year I have a few larger projects that have been stacking up. Among them is recapping my jukebox. I've had the box of caps sitting here for at least 2 years. It's a big job, with an estimated 200 or so parts to replace. Fun stuff indeed… but this is a job that you have to sit down and just "do" … with as few disruptions as possible. I've not had the time to dedicate to the project since I got the kit. Well, that's a lie, there were the last two years Lisa and J.J. went to see mom of course, but I had other projects that I chose to do… which still may end up being the fate for this project this year. We shall see.
I will also be receiving my Exidy Collex'ion mult-kit by the time they leave. This particular project is a no-brainer. It won't take but a single day (I hope) so it's FOR SURE on the list of things that will get done. I've been waiting too long for this kit NOT to get it installed as soon as I can. Another project that I am waiting for hardware on and hope to have by the time vacation time comes is the Darksoft Multi-CPS2 kit. I am in the first batch, so there is some hope that I will, indeed, have the hardware necessary here to get this done as well. Mu
ch like the Exidy Collex'ion kit, adding the Multi-CPS kit to my current Multi-JAMMA cabinet won't take TOO long. The project requires some hole cutting though as my current CP only has 4 buttons, not 6.
My Lethal Weapon 3 pinball machine needs a little work. I need to replace the drop targets. I have them here, I just haven't gotten around to doing it. I'm at a point where I sort of NEED to do this repair as the right-most target up the middle started with a small chip when I bought it… it's not more-or-less a stump. If I'm taking the time to pull the glass, etc… I, of course, will have to do a quick playfield cleaning, etc. With pins, it seems to never be a single repair then you're done.
The final option is one that has been dogging me for years. Well, pretty much since I started getting in to this hobby. I really need to do SOMETHING with the garagecade. Currently it looks like a garage … with some arcade swagg on the walls, etc… but still a garage. The walls are unfini
shed (though sheetrocked) white. The ceiling is sheetrock white. There's no texture. The tape between the sheetrock pieces is visible. It's… well… a garage. In a perfect world I'd texture the whole thing and paint. The reality is… I ain't texturing anything. I'd be happy if I could paint it. The problem is that it's a huge pain in the ass to do this while both sides of the garage are full of arcade games. It's a big project. Probably the biggest. But it would REALLY help out with the atmosphere in the gameroom. I figured I'd probably stick with something simple… black ceilings and cave-grey walls, but who knows, I might want to make some stripes or something. I've not given it a HUGE amount of thought because, frankly, it's probably not going to happen anytime soon. But again, who knows.
Well, I have to make a decision. I'm really leaning toward busting out the Exidy & CPS2 kits then working on the Lethal Weapon 3 pin. If I get all 3 done I could move on to the jukebox cap kit… but damn, what a surprise for the wife if she showed up and found the entire garage painted. Whatever I decide, I'm sure I'll enjoy the process… even painting… thanks for reading.
