A funny thing happened to an old greybeard one day. He was sick and staying home for the day. Waiting for the next bathroom visit he idled his time by surfing the web and he spotted an article about hobbies.
The greybeard was generally happy with his life, having a good job, a lovely and loving wife and two big strapping sons. But the article chastised him and told him that playing WOW was not a hobby (even as a Blood Elf healer!) and that successful happy people gave themselves things to do as they approached retirement age so that their wife did not throttle them in their sleep.
The greybeard searched high and low for an activity of interest. Running model trains was high on the list but the spare bedroom was already full of unused exercise equipment. Building ships in a bottle seemed a little too "old timer" and although writing a second novel was a real possibility (as was writing another computer game) the thought of all that mental effort was daunting after a long day at work.
Then the greybeard remembered when his boys were little and they all went to the arcade, the long-lost palaces of fun and lost quarters. He remembered conversations with his sons about why they could not have one at home, to spend endless hours playing... for free!
Now at last, the greybeard has a goal, to rekindle his long lost love of pinball machines, to tinker and spend quality time alone in the garage with just his table and manly tools and to have something to lure his sons back for family fun nights, where he dreams of kicking their asses in the inevitable round-robin freestyle tournaments that are the stuff of legends.
This is my story....
mark532011
Pinside+ Frequent
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For anyone interested, I've been posting more detailed info on my experiences repairing pinball at my blog: https://pinballrepairandlife.blogspot.com