The Holiday Battle Goes to...

"The town was full of fences to walk on, and sidewalks to skate on, and the muted cries of laughter of boys and girl full of costume dreams and pumpkin spirits preparing for the greatest night of the year.

Better than Easter.

Better than Christmas.

Halloween."

Ray Bradbury, The Halloween Tree screenplay

Charlotte will have to disagree with Mr. Bradbury on this one. Without even discussing religion, she thinks Easter beats Halloween. 

Both holidays require dressing up (it is okay if you like to wear your sweater backwards).

Both holidays feature people in costume.

Both holidays require candy bags.

And, of course, both holidays come with copious amounts candy.

But Halloween doesn't bring in this much of a haul.

Saturday morning after the Easter egg hunt at the church:



Plus Sunday morning after the Easter egg hunt at home:



Holy cow. Easter wins! (And so does the dentist.)

Plus,  you have to go to bed after Halloween. You can to go to a park and work off all that sugar after an Easter egg hunt.

Blink and You'll Miss It - Part 6

Easter 2011 (nine months old)

Easter 2012

Easter 2013

Easter 2014 (Just a little grumpy about going to church.)

Easter 2015 (Pretty happy about going to church.)

Easter 2016

Insert the "time flies" cliché here.

Actually, it isn't a cliché; it's a law.

He's Right Behind You

A Bargain, a Steal, and the Sickness Continues

I have a soft spot for used video game systems. Anytime I see a system for sale in a thrift store I'm tempted to buy it. It doesn't matter if I already have the same system at home. I don't have this one.

Daphne doesn't say much about what I've bought. I think she just mentally rolls her eyes, especially when I try to defend my purchase, "Well, someday this stuff is going to be worth something."

I spotted this box at a thrift store last year. It contained a complete Sega Master System and 17 games. I don't know anything about the Master System, but it was a bargain at $15 dollars.

I checked the value of each game on eBay to see if I had scored a rare cartridge. "Golden Axe Warrior" looked like it might be worth some money.

Today's eBay results for "Golden Axe Warrior" look like this.

We all know that an eBay asking price does not equal value. Wanting to sell a game for $125 doesn't mean that it's worth that. I checked Amazon. A "Golden Axe Warrior" was selling on there for $80. Maybe I did have something here. 

I watched those eBay and Amazon games sit stagnant for months. People weren't paying $125 or even $80 for Mr. Warrior. So, when I decided to sell my game, I set my Craigslist price a bit lower. $65 won't get me on Antique Roadshow, but it is still an outrageous price for a video game found at the bottom of a thrift store box. Here's what my ad looked like.

It only took one hour to sell my game for $60. Not bad. See, Daphne, these games are worth something!

What did I do with my easily gotten gains? I raised an eBay bid by $60 dollars on a pinball auction.

I'd been watching this eBay pinball auction for days, and I'd been trying so hard to talk myself out of wanting a sixth pinball machine. I talked Daphne through every reason I could think of for not bidding on this machine. I pointed out the thoroughly rusted coin door. I told her the cabinet had been repainted, the backglass was flaking, and I didn't have room for another stupid pin. It all made perfect sense, and Daphne applauded my reasoning.

When I later admitted that I was the high bidder, she laughed out loud at me, but she wasn't surprised.



I won the auction. The Palooka came from the same seller who sold me the Teacher's Pet last month.

Maybe it is fuzzy math, but I think $420 (duuude) minus $60 is $360. That's a steal for a working pinball machine. Someday, I'll be able to prove this to Daphne, too...

By the way, I was able to fit the Palooka in the Sad Club Arcade. He's a fighter and the other pins moved over to make room for him.

Strike a Pose

I think it's fun to take Charlotte shopping for an Easter dress. I do think my days of sitting outside the women's dressing room with a camera are numbered, though. It's getting tougher to ignore the glares I get from the other female customers.

I don't know where Char learned these poses, but here they are.

Easter Dress Shopping 2014 Link

Friday Forenoon, Half After Nine O'Clock

I found this book in a box of books that was donated to the high school's library.

There was more than the novels of Victor Hugo inside. I found pressed flowers.

Here's a newspaper clipping from the Fulton Journal.

Apparently someone was a fan of this "Gem In Verse".

There's also cool artwork.

This is a version of La Mort de Marat. I won't tell Charlotte what the name of the killer is. 

My favorite item in this book is this invitation.

"You are cordially invited to attend the Closing Exercises given by the Fifth Grade in Room Four, Central School. Friday Forenoon, June Twelve, Eighteen hundred ninety six. Half after Nine O'clock."

Here's the class list.

Too bad I'm 120 years late.

Shine On

I enjoy collecting old stuff, but I don't restore anything. I just try to make whatever I've found better. I like to take something broken and make it work again. If something is dirty, then I want to clean it. I enjoy removing surface rust, and I like to polish what's dull into a shine.

The coin door on my Teacher's Pet pinball machine is a good example of how I work. The eBay seller ranked the coin door's condition at a 5 out of 10. Here's a picture from the listing.

I cleaned the painted surface with a couple of SOS pads. I don't think SOS pads get enough press in the hobbyist world. The steel wool does a great job at removing deep seeded grime, and the soap keeps the surface from getting scratched. After being scrubbed, I used a cleaner car wax to give the old paint some sheen. Here's what it looks like now. 

I don’t repaint most of my projects. I think an imperfect, polished surface looks pretty good if the chrome near it shines. That's why I replaced the bolts that hold the door to the cabinet with new ones. I also let the coin slot, the coin return lever, and the coin return door spend a few days in the tumbler. 

This part was all but black before.

The Schwinn bicycle that I rescued is another example of this idea.

I think the chrome distracts you from the scratches in the paint.

The bike is currently hanging upside down from the garage's ceiling, but you can get the idea.

Then there's my Bug: shiny paint and shiny chrome. It doesn't seem to matter if the original paint is pitted, chipped, and scratched. Few people notice. They just see the shine.

I don't think I'll keep these things forever, and sooner or later I'll sell them. The next person will have the opportunity to keep them original. Old stuff is only original once.

Char's Poster Garden

I found a recycled wooden window at the "Junk Jubilee" last year. I didn't know what to do with it, but I figured inspiration would eventually strike, so I bought it. The problem was that I couldn't find a spot in the garage where I thought the glass would be safe. The frame is also too bulky to be stored in a closet.

Then I remembered that the previous owners of our house had left a picture hook in a wall stud in the living room. So, that's where the window has been hanging for the past 14 months. It has nothing to do with style or decor. It's there out of convenience, and honestly because I forgot about the window. It's strange how the most awkward things can become familiar. I guess that's how guys like me remain married. Our wives forget how weird we are.

I thought it might be neat to decorate the window with a motivational quote. I ordered a decal from Amazon, but when the decal arrived I decided that was too cliché.

Char's fever kept us away from church last weekend. We stayed home instead, and Charlotte cut flowers out of her mom's gardening catalogs. Her intention was to tape the flowers all over the house, but I had the idea to tape the pictures to a white sheet of cardboard. We had fun creating the flower arrangement.

We were trying to decide where to hang Char's poster garden when I spotted the window frame.

Taa Daa! It a project the whole family can be proud of. I just wish I could share a better picture with you. Windows are tricky to photograph.

There were four in the room, and then the new one said, "Move over! Move over!"

There are two threads on Pinside.com where members post links to pinball machines that are for sale in various parts of the US. One is for Craigslist and the other is for eBay.



Desireable machines do appear on midwest Craiglists, but it's first come, first buy. I can't just drop everything and make a road trip to Kansas City or Minneapolis on a Tuesday morning. So, I've yet to score a game on Craigslist.



I also check eBay every once in awhile, but most of the games for sale are out of state, and shipping them (if that's even offered) to Des Moines would cost as much or more than the price of the machine.

Then I spotted this post two weeks ago on Pinside:



This was interesting. The machine in the auction was in Mason City - less than two hours from our home. Better yet, the machine in question, Teacher's Pet, has very good reviews on the ipdb.org.

I decided to place a bid since more than one Pinsider commented that the seller was a nice guy who did good work. I waited six days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 37 seconds to place my bid. You can probably guess I won the auction because I'm writing about it. I was excited to get another machine, but I was a bit nervous about buying a game I hadn't seen nor played. Sometimes you just can't play it safe.

I had to wait another six days to get my Teacher's Pet into the Sad Club's lineup. Last Saturday was the best time to drive to Mason City. I  was okay with the wait. That gave me time to rearrange the basement so it wouldn't look cramped. All I had to do was move a bookshelf.

I'm happy to report the rumors about the seller were true. He was a very nice guy, and we spent 20 minutes in his basement talking about pin repair and collecting. He gave me some good advice, and he walked me through the machine I had bought from him. The guy swore so much he made me want to swear. I had a good time.

Here's what I bought.

No, the bulbs behind the backglass aren't burned out. You have to spell T-E-A-C-H-E-R-S-P-E-T by hitting the correct targets to get all the bulbs to light (and get a free game). I haven't done it yet.

I sit at my desk in this same saintly pose when I'm teaching.

At 51 years old, this is the oldest pinball machine in the arcade, and I'd argue that it might be the most fun to play, but that's probably just the newness of the machine talking.

I like the artwork's sense of humor.

Public School Number 72 apparently has a pretty rough group of gossipy first graders.

Teacher's Pet, welcome to the Club!