Who I blame (thank) for my pinball addiction

Somewhere around 2005-2006 my best friend OVFDFIREMAN decided that he needed a man room. It started with a few old arcades that we had fun playing as kids and now had fun repairing and playing. One night, about six months later, I got a call telling me I had to come over. When I got there, he showed me his latest prized posession, a Williams Jubilee. It didn't work well and we had no experience with an EM machine. I can still see the image locked in my mind when we first opened that machine up to go to work. The nest of dirty wires and switches and solenoids and all the cams on the score motor in the cabinet was very intimidating. The burning smell of a bonus advance solenoid that we were unknowingly frying by lifting the playfield with the power on is "burned" into my memory bank. Each time i open an EM machine I am taken back to that moment.

We learned enough to get that machine running and the bug had taken firm hold of both of us. Slowly the "arcade" transformed from mostly arcade games and a pinball machine to just the opposite. Now it is mostly pins and only a few arcades. I got my first pin in December of 2011. A Williams Klondike in decent condition now sits in my basement completely sealed up in stretch-wrap and the thought of repairing/restoring it consumes most of my free time for thought and work. Unfortunately, I don't have much of either and repairing/restoring a pinball machine is secondary to the honey-do list and the kids. One day I will unwrap her and make her as good as new. Until then, I am looking for a few more machines to add to the collection of wrapped-up monoliths taking up space in my basement. I have no time and currently no space for the machine I own, but somehow I can justify buying more. Yeah...this hobby sucks...flippin' awesome isn't it?