A gaming journey 30 years in the making

My gaming story starts out in 1986. For my 5th birthday my parents bought me a Commodore 64 and from that point on games and technology were part of my life. My favorite cartridge was Popeye, I played it and Gyruss everyday after school.

Flash forward to 1999, and I stumbled across someone selling a Popeye upright arcade game locally for $200. I rushed out and bought it on the spot. It worked great for a few weeks and then died. My journey in to repairing arcade tech began. Toward the end of the summer of 1999 an acquaintance of my father mentioned he had a friend who was a Jukebox collector who had bought out a bunch of local routes, and wanted to sell off the games he only purchased to get the jukeboxes. I picked up 30 arcade games delivered to my home for $600. My friends thought I was crazy but I turned that hot mess in to ~$17K. People I knew started calling letting me know they had games they didn't want and this hobby of repairing games got a little out of control.

I moved for college and arcade games were put on hold, until one night 2 of my buddies showed up at my door at 2am with a Williams Grand Prix in tow. It was obviously not functional and I knew very little about pinball machines, but hey a pinball machine in my college apartment, how could you go wrong? Well with no knowledge and what at the time seemed like nothing more than a rats nest of wires and crap inside, it sat broken until I met Scott Sheridan, "Dr. Scott". We did a little barter deal, and for the design of a large format billboard to advertise his shop by the Toledo Zoo, he would come and fix up my Pin. After a few hours of adjusting, I had a working beautiful Grand Prix.

That pin was with me until October of 2007, when it, and everything else I owned, was lost in an apartment fire in Beachwood Ohio. Thankfully no one was hurt, and I had renters insurance. My fiance and I were living in a hotel for months afer that, but when we finally bought our first house I could not wait to get another pinball machine.

Since it was now 2008, and people weren't just dumping this stuff anymore I was in for real sticker shock. I was unaware of the pinball community locally, and the only place I could think of that may sell pinball machines was Danny Veghs. I stopped in and negotiated what seemed like a a crazy high price for a NIB Family Guy all in with tax and delivery $3650 (I still have the receipt, which compared to today's Stern prices was a STEAL!!!). I still have the game today.

My family moved again at the beginning of 2015 and I finally had the finished basement I had always wanted, with enough space to build out a respectable game room. Unfortunately that plan would have to wait for almost a full year, as the house needed some money put in to it.

That brings me to writing this today. July 2016, 7 Pins and a 4 Player Multicade in the game room.

I have become pretty versed at repair in a short period of time, cutting my teeth on a System 80 Black Hole (which needed everything). I have now moved forward and have been working on WPC games, DE, Sega/Stern Whitestars and SAMs, and 90's era DMD games are my thing now!

I am a web and software developer for a large print media corporation. I spend most of my days staring at lines of code and pinball repair and restoration has become a great outlet and stress reliever for me. I am a terrible player (hoping to get better), but I love this hobby for the project aspect. Breathing new life in to what I perceive to be modern pieces of art is now something I really look forward to doing.

It is also great to watch my son, who is now 4, grow up with access to these games. He loves pinball, especially the dinosaur one (Jurrasic Park). When he sees games on locations he immediately wants to go play now (although handing him $1 is hard pill to swallow, and now I understand my father's reluctance at forking over 50 cents in the 80s!). Pinball and games are hopefully something we will be able to share for a long time to come. Even my wife has come around, sort of. We have our "Game Room Treaty of 2016" which allows me to do whatever the hell I want in the unfinished side of the basement and the small carpeted portion of the finished side just passed the theater area. You can see my little game room area in the attached photo. I will say she enjoys playing the Monopoly with me and relaxing after work with a drink or 2 while playing.

If you are in the greater Cleveland area, I'd love to meet you and swap stories and maybe pins! Pinside has been a great way to really dive headfirst in to this and the help I have gotten and people I have met have all be really great.

Thanks,

Dave G.