Monday, November 30, 2015

Up Chuck

The evening of the 19th was a Daddy-Daughter night, and we headed over to Chuck E. Cheese's for an elementary fundraising dinner. Char had plenty of friends there from her kindergarten class, and in between playing "games" and eating cold pizza I talked to a few fellow sufferers - a.k.a. parents I know. While we were leaving Charlotte declared, "We're coming here for every Daddy-Daughter night!"

I felt like a hero.



But then Char was uncommonly quiet on the way home. When I asked her if she liked the pizza tonight she vomited her reply onto the floor mat in two, wet splats. "Oh, Char..."

I could see her teary eyes in the rear view mirror when she cried, "I'm sorry, Daddy." I have no idea why she felt the need to apologize. "It's okay honey; it's not your fault. You just got a little sick."

Charlotte responded with a longer heave. This time, I thought I could feel debris hitting the back of my neck. "Ohhh, that one sounded bigger... are you doing okay?"

"Yeah..." her voice trailed off into round three. There wasn't much strength in it, but the smell was now filling the car. It was a relief to turn the corner and see our driveway. I stripped Char down in the garage, and we headed upstairs to get her cleaned up in the bathroom. She later threw up during the night, and on Friday morning Charlotte woke up with pink eye.

Oh, man. That's not what I had in mind. Tonight we have another Daddy-Daughter night, and instead of Chuck E. Cheese Char wants to go to the Pizza Ranch.

I hope they don't have a chuck wagon.

The Holidays Are Sneaking Up


Do you have all your shopping done?

Monday, November 16, 2015

Pinball Laundry: Cleaning the Apron

On a pinball machine, the pinball rolls on a surface that is called the playfield. At the bottom of the playfield, closest to the player, is part that holds the instruction cards. This part is called the apron.

Here's an example of an apron that is in very nice condition (it's not mine).


I'm pretty sure my Royal Flush pinball machine spent a lot of its life in a bar. There's a phone number scratched into its head, it has been played so many times that some of the playfield's paint is worn away, and the bottom of the apron was really rusted - most likely from beer that had been spilled on it.

Last winter I used sandpaper to get rid of the rust. I covered the bare metal with white Testors paint and then put a sticker on to cover up my poor paint job.




The apron didn't look too bad, but I decided it was time to do the repair correctly. My first step was to order a new decal from pinballrescue.com.


Pinball Rescue is located in Australia, so I had a couple of weeks to get the apron ready before the decal would arrive. The next step was to strip off all of the old paint. I used a chemical stripper that we had from a previous wood project. What a messy job. I didn't take any pictures of because I didn't want to get corrosive material all over our camera.

I installed the bare metal apron, so I could keep playing my machine on school nights.


Next I sprayed painted the apron with gloss white paint. I let the paint cure for a couple of days. Then I installed the apron again while I waited for the package from Australia to arrive.


On Saturday night I got up the courage to apply the decal. It wasn't difficult. All you have to do is spray the apron with a mixture of water and dish soap, slide the decal into place, and then squeegee the bubbles out.



I downloaded some free images of the instruction cards and used a laser printer to print new labels on recycled manila folder stock. I cut the old folders into sheets the size of typing paper (A4) and ran them through the printer one "page" at a time. I think they look pretty authentic.


Overall, that's a big improvement! And I only messed up a little. On Sunday morning I used my finger to work a bubble out from under the left blue arrow. I must have been too enthusiastic - a bit of the blue ink rubbed off. The ink isn't gone; it's just a bit lighter in that one spot. I should have been more patient, the bubble dried up on its own later in the day.

That's disappointing, but I won't make that same mistake again. Besides, if the apron looked perfect it wouldn't look right on this machine.

I bet I forget about it in a couple of days.

Thursday, November 12, 2015

At Least Someone is Having Fun Today

Every so often I page through my list of old blog posts (there over 600 of them), and I'll see one that is marked as a Draft.


I'll open it and wonder, "Why didn't I post this?"

I suppose I got too busy, found something else to write about, or simply forgot. If the post has pictures or videos, I'm going to publish it. Who cares if they aren't current? I don't want to lose track of these again. Pictures are too precious.

Here's a post from April, 2012:

"Nothing brightens my work day like getting an email from our daycare provider with action pictures:




I sure wish I was standing at that bottom of that slide right now."

2015 update: Do you see that building behind Charlotte the two-year-old? That's where Char attends kindergarten now, and tonight we'll be there for our first parent-teacher conference. 

Time moves faster than that little girl on the slide.

Monday, November 9, 2015

Daddy Daughter Night: How We Got To Here Edition

I've got a few books about pinball machines, but they don't feature every machine that was ever made. There's a lot of machines out there that I haven't read about yet, and eBay can be a cool resource even if you don't want to buy anything.

That's where I spotted this Paddock machine. I haven't heard of it before.


The pictures on this listing were pretty poor, so I checked the Internet Pinball Database to see what Paddock's playfield and artwork looked like.




The IPDB doesn't only have pictures, they have comments from people who allegedly know the machine and can make unbiased comments about it.

Here's the opening to Munckster's review of Paddock. Any guy who'll write about a pinball machine and Daddy Daughter Time has my attention. (Wait... am I talking about myself?)


But what's up with that movie, Moondance Alexander, that he mentioned? I haven't heard of it before. I checked Internet Movie Database to see what the movie looked like.



The IMDB doesn't only have pictures, they have comments from people who allegedly know the movie and can make unbiased comments about it.


Okay, it's rated G! Do you know how hard it is to find a decent movie that's rated G?  It's almost as hard as finding a movie that shows girls as sensitive and strong human beings.

Time to check the local library's online catalog.
Yea! They have the movie and it is available. Tomorrow night is Daddy Daughter night, and I think I know what movie we'll try.


PS. Charlotte, if you ever want to go pinball machine shopping, you just let me know!

Monday, November 2, 2015

See You in Six Months

Charlotte has been excited about going to the Science Center of Iowa for weeks. On Saturday they opened the Geometry Playground, and they were also having "Spooky Science" exhibits for Halloween.

Bat Girl was pumped to explore the geometric bat caves, but she was disappointed that you had to be seven in bat years to play on the main geometrical structure. 


It was pretty cool when the Spooky Scientists sealed a bowl full of dry ice with a bubble.


What do you call wearing a mask over your mask? Politics? I don't know, but it's cute.


Char thought that the round mirror experiments were fascinating. 


Before we went into the Science Center we strolled through the neighboring Farmers' Market. It was the last market of the season, and so it was our last chance to enjoy some of our favorite foods. I didn't mind Saturday's gloomy weather. It's easier to say goodbye when the wind and the cold speed you on your way.

Here's my final bite of a Chef Steve's pork kabob.


The last of the poffertjes went down easy.



Daphne got the last bite of our BLT pita.


The pita and the poffertjes were made by the people who run the Breakfast Delights stand. They have great food and are great people. They personify what makes the Downtown Farmers' Market so special.

By the time we left the Science Center all the market venders were gone, and the parked cars had reclaimed their territory.


I might have been sad at the thought of not eating down here for half a year, but then I remembered all that Halloween candy that Char has left. I'm not above raiding that bowl! Let's go home!