Archive for March, 2007
31st March 2007
Got up and of course, everyone else was awake before me, and that was only 8:30 on a Saturday. Sheesh. I went and took a run before breakfast, it was raining out pretty good and I was soaked when I got back. Sarah made “Bubble Bread” which is like little clusters of bread that taste similar to cinnamon roles. Pretty good, could use to be more sweet for my taste and less bready, but not bad.
After breakfast, Dad and I went out to the garage to do some things, and the women stayed inside. Sarah still had homework to do for her class, so she worked on that, and Mom took the time to fix my University of Michigan slippers. Mom Chapman had started them, took out the old bottoms, cut the new foam, and then they had to stitch on the new bottoms that should be more durable. I am just happy we can salvage the slippers.
Dad was nice enough to do some spackling in the basement for me for the missing chunk of drywall we removed in the electrical project. Then he came out and did the outlets in the garage where I had torn them up running the wire. I worked on reorganizing things in the garage. I moved a good amount of stuff into the attic that won’t be used often or ever, mostly wood, and shifted stuff from one shelf to another, trying to reorgaize my tools and make them more accessible, especially in a crowded garage which has been my deal for almost a year now.
Then he helped me a few other things, cutting the holes in the Ms. Pac-man backdoor, and removing the monitor and PCB from the Pac-land cabinet. We went inside for a short break, then headed over to Lowe’s to pick up a couple of things, a hanging system for yard tools and some Scott’s lawn stuff. We picked up some vanilla ice cream on the way back.
When we got back, the girls had made some snacky stuff for lunch. Then Sarah suggested going for a walk since it was a nice day, downtown on the canal. Pretty short walk, time flies quickly. We did get to see the development done to Buggs Temple, and the new life sciences building up there by the Stutz.
We got home, I went outside and spread the Scott’s stuff on the front yard. The free spreader we got last year was kind of a pain to get regulated just right, I probably used too much on the front, but I did finish that. I showered and so did Sarah and we all headed down for an early dinner to Vito Provolone’s. Mom was all into researching restaurants online, which is right up my alley, and that is how we found this place, otherwise we would have never known about it, it’s tucked away on US 135 going south by Stop 11. The food was pretty good, I think mom had the best meal. They had awesome bread, and since we did beat the rush, we were in and out in less than an hour.
When we got back I napped a little while dad watched the first half of the basketball game. Then we continued what we had started before we left, happy hour Wine and Rum and cokes, we busted out the Cornhole in the back yard. It had been muggy when we left for dinner, but now it was just perfect outside. A couple of games, and it started to get dark. I started a fire in the pit, and mom got the pie ready for Sarah’s little celebration. We blew out candles, then went outside and talked by the fire as we ate, good old camping stories and different tales of my sister and my childhood.
Back inside, we watched a movie to wind down the night, Hollywoodland. Decent, I wouldn’t watch it again.
Received Sanyo EZ-20 Cap Kit
Got the cap kit I ordered from Bob Roberts today in the mail. I went outside and got the monitor out of the cabinet so I can start working on it. There was some rust and dirt on the monitor frame that I cleaned off, taking a steel wool to it to try to get the darkest portions removed. I will probably wait for the uncut harness to get really motivated to get the game totally done and ready to go.
30th March 2007
Today we had a photoshoot at work, and a nice lunch at the boss’s house, so it made for a really fun and change of pace type of day. Sarah and I got home about 5:30 and got ready for my parents. We had gone back and forth all day with them, we weren’t sure when I’d be getting out of work, and they had made a stop at some friend’s on the northside and were just hanging out there. Turns out we all sat down to dinner at 7:30. If I knew that going in, I may have worked longer and avoiding traffic and all that, but you just never know.
But before they got there, I made some client calls as follow ups, and Sarah picked up more, did some more of her school work, and got whatever else ready that she didn’t feel like she had time for last night. I worked just a touch on the Jr. Pac tracing.
After a nice dinner, we helped them unload the car. They had brought down a bunch of stuff, including my cornhole set from Christmas, a rolling filing cabinet tray thing, and some small presents including some taffy from out west, a carbon monoxide detector, a Marvel Scene It game for me, Sarah’s birthday presents and some movies we borrow from my sister.
Dad was itching for ice cream, so we all headed down to Greenwood to Culvers for that. I had only had the mixers there, but the custard in a cone was just as heavenly. We had good conversation, my parents were full of a ton of great stories, even more than usual.
When we got home we popped in the Marvel Scene It game for a little bit, and tried to figure it out. It was a kind of weird disc in the way it was organized, but we did figure it out enough for me to sit there an answer some questions. Dad answered a couple, but the girls pretty much didn’t know any of the answers. It had been a long day, and shortly after this we called it a night.
29th March 2007
Today was just a terrible day. I had some crap to deal in relation to our old bank, and that carried over to a switch over I thought was done that I had to do when we got home. Then we left for the gym seperately. Sarah came for an hour then went to the grocery store, I lifted with Brian and came home.
I knew Sarah was going to be going nutso tonight because of guests, so I tried to help as much as possible, pick up clothes, clean the kitchen up, and I made dinner. I sat down and relaxed, watched an episode of Heroes with dinner. Then I did some emailing and went out to the garage to work on some bolts for the Dig Dug.
She got home not too soon after and we unloaded the car. Then while she was putting things away, I got the arcade / guest room picked back up and stuff organized, and hauled the two singles beds downstairs. Sarah had a ton of work she wanted to do, and was not in a good mood. She had school stuff to do that she didn’t get done, as well as stuff for tomorrow and I am sure cleaning up things around the house that were bugging her but I wasn’t noticing.
I got out of the room and downstairs where I sat down and chilled, worked on redrawing some Jr. Pacman artwork, watched some tv, and then finished off the night with another episode of Heroes before going to bed. It is starting to get consistently warm, and is gorgeous outside, so I think it may be time to spend more of my time downstairs where it is cool.
Working on small things, monitor ID and photos of Dig Dug
Last night I did some things with the game.
I took out the Land Sea and Air board that was in the game (Taito game, not Atari unfortunately), which meant taking off a little
block of wood as well. I took the Dig Dub PCB I had out to the garage to compare connectors, and it doesn’t look like it is exactly the same. There was an auction that ended today for an uncut Dig Dug harness, and I won so I have it just in case I need it.
I took some photos of the machine for the interested trader tonight as well, some close ups of the different pieces, some of the
blemishes as well as the good stuff like the marquee and bezel. This morning I made up a list of my costs that I have put into the machine so far to see what my totals are.
Tonight I also got the monitor number down (20 - EZY) so I could order a cap kit. I found that the cap kit, according to posts on the Google forum and other places, is interchangeable with the (20 - EZV), so I placed an order with Bob Roberts tonight for
that cap kit, and sent out payment this morning. He emailed me back tonight to say that he cross shipping the parts and I could have them as early as Friday.
Found out that my trade with this game would depend a ton on it working, this is a big deal in this instance even though I have
everything, so I am trying to get my butt in gear to get it up and working as best I can.
28th March 2007
After work my really great boss took me out for a couple of drinks. I couldn’t stay long though, I was supposed to be at the gym at 5:30, and I didn’t need to drink 5 beers and then go ride 5 miles.
Sarah was meeting with Kim and Kate at church tonight for the last Lenten service, but before she went she was nice enough to make some really good soup for dinner and leave it for me for when I got back.
I went pretty hard on the bike tonight, I hit 7 miles in 17 minutes, so I was pretty wiped when I got home. Had some dinner, picked up the clothes and the dishes around the house, and then got to taxes. I had to get all of the earnings for Rothecreations last year to our accountant, so even though I am pretty good about record keeping, that was still a pain. Then I had to get my paypal account verified with the new checking account.
Sarah got home around this time, she did laundry for a good portion of the night and went to bed at a reasonable hour.
I went outside and removed some screws from the Pacland cabinet to use in the Dig Dug. I did some more emailing with the guy about the trade tonight too, but I think that may fall through. Justin and I talked for about an hour or so about general stuff, he got the Space Invaders hooked up and it works just fine, which is exciting news. Then I finished off the night watching an episode of Heroes and went to bed. Pretty good show.
27th March 2007
We had dropped my car off in the morning to have it looked at. I wanted to do it after our Goose run-in over Christmas, but now I was getting a service light, and I knew I was in need of an oil change so I figured, let’s kill all three birds dead.
Sarah picked me up from work today, we got the other car, and then we had an appointment at 4. That didn’t last too long, and we were home and back out the door again to meet at the gym. Brian and I lifted, Kim couldn’t make it.
I got a freelance check today, so I thought we could save a little time for Sarah and get a $6 pizza from Papa Murphy’s for dinner. She has enough going on anyway. We got home, I got the pizza in the oven and made Sarah and salad, she did laundry. Then we sat down and had pizza and watched a movie. She worked especially hard at the gym tonight, so she was really tired and needed to lay down. I think she got to bed before 9.
After the movie was done, I had a phone call to make to a client, and they needed to talk to me about a new project and have me do some quick pdf editing. I took care of that, and then I dinked around with the Dig Dug. I took out the old Land Sea and Air board out of the game, took some photos of it, and checked the Dig Dug board I had to see if it would work with the current connection in the cab. It didn’t of course, so that probably means I will need to redo the harness, eck. I also checked the monitor number, went online to do some research about it, and contacted a guy about ordering a cap kit for it to make sure that was looking good. I emailed out the photos to the guy that is interested, and did some more email.
During the process, I got some more photos to publish for another client, so I just knocked that out since it was the end of the night so I didn’t have to worry about it tomorrow. I went to bed right after around 11:30.
I may get Rob’s information who owns the Mr. Do!
Just when I thought I was going to have to start over, my trail has picked up again. I emailed Gary one more time to see if he had found Rob’s information (Another guy in MA who owned this Mr. Do) and let him know about Walt and how things didn’t work out. He was nice enough to email me back last night with Rob’s information, and to let me know that he had already told him that I was going to email. So, back at it, and hopefully he has time to get back with me.
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