The Jet Spin relay board I just got finished parting out had one of those "Macgyver" fixes for a blown fuse. I guess the guy didn't have a piece of aluminum foil so he used an old gum wrapper (the 1970's foil pack type wrapper). My favorite is a screw instead of a fuse - "you don't have to worry about that bitch blowing"!

One of these days I'll have to make a little time to do some posting here again. For now just crazy busy selling parts and trying to sort through hundreds of boxes of parts before Spring. Fun-Fun-Fun!

Quick crazy lucky story from a couple weeks ago that could have ended badly. I bought enclosed trailer number 6 about 3 weeks ago and had zero space anywhere to put it. So I had the bright idea if I packed trailers in tight at my rented storage parking spaces I might be able to squeeze #6 their. So I head over to storage and the only way to make room was to move a couple trailers around with my handtruck. Not the smartest idea but I really needed the room!

So I put my handtruck under the tongue of my loaded 6x12 trailer and was able to get it moving until I hit a small rut. So I give the handtruck a good yank and the next thing you know my dumb ass was on the ground with my handtruck laying on top of me. I sat there for a minute or two - then figured out I could still move so I got my dumb ass off the ground and tried again.

What you need to realize - for those of you that don't know me - is I am 6'6" tall and over 300 pounds. It that isn't bad enough I'll be 65 in about a month. All I thought of when I was sitting on the ground in a vacant gated parking lot was "why the hell didn't you grab the cell phone before you went to storage". I had visions of freezing to death with a broken hip in a mini storage parking lot until I realized I didn't break anything. Talk about lucky!

Now the only issue is every time I need to go to storage for something my wife feels the need to rid along. What worries me about that is she is going to see how much shit I actually own and that might not end well!

Not really pinball related but I figured I would share "stupid" anyway.

My wife agrees! But still cheaper than my storage rent was on 5 storage units full of junk & parts machines so in the end I guess it is worth it. The nice thing about trailers is I end up using them basically for free. I watch for people selling them cheap (a couple to five hundred under market value) and buy them when I can. I clean them up a little & use them for storage for a few months to a couple years then sell them for a couple hundred more than I paid for them.

In the past 18 or 20 years I have owned over 40 trailers and at last check on the numbers (once the dust settled) I was about $2500 ahead and had free storage for all those years. Typically I only have two or three trailers at any giving time and right now is a record number at once for me but I am already working on "thinning the heard" and have a potential buyer lined up for one shortly.

Wayne,

Those were the "good old days" when your old man was in good enough shape to do "stupid" all day long. I still do "stupid" but just can't work as hard at it. Those Shuffle Alleys were surely an experience neither of us will soon forget. Great learning experience early on in the hobby "what not to buy". The sad part was when we sold them the buyer screwed me out of 1/2 of our money with a kiss & promise he was going to fix our central air as part of the deal then never followed up. Funny how we try to forget the "bad ideas" but they happen especially when someone is new to the hobby.

We did enjoy the one we fixed up until you decided you wanted to change over to a SS alley. I still like the sound of those old EM's resetting!

They were the ones that I ended up with my broken foot when moving them. Another long story for sometime down the road!

After thinking a little more about the Shuffle Alley story here is another one I thought I would share. When we first got into the coin op hobby about 10 or 11 years ago I thought I wanted to do Jukeboxes. So I made the mistake of buying about 25 or 30 old 1970's Jukeboxes over about a 6 month time period. Then I realized those things were not only heavy but they were also impossible to sell even in working condition.

We still have two of the nice working Seeburgs I bought that I use once in a while down here in the basement and I have another 7 or 8 buried in the back of one of my storage units but thankfully I realized fairly quickly those things were worse than Shuffle Alleys. Worse yet is I also still own about 25,000 of the best 45's from the 100,000 plus I sorted through years ago. What was I thinking!

My warehouse deal I am working on has about 15 Jukeboxes sitting right inside the door and I have already decided to just rent a dumpster and load them right into the dumpster instead of even moving them home. It is sad but no one wants those old Jukeboxes these days. The ones from the 50's still seem to do OK but that 1970's stuff is dead in the water.

Sorry it has been a while since I posted here. Just got home from setting up at the Allentown Show about 12 hours a go and FINALLY got a little rest.

The past 25 days have been INSANE. I FINALLY finalized "Phase 2" of my Norfolk Virginia warehouse deal about a month ago and started moving machines home on April 10. I managed to get a fully packed 10x40 storage unit full of jukeboxes, arcade, pinball machines & parts moved back to PA in 8 days. Over 4000 miles of driving in 8 days making 5 trips from Carlisle to Norfolk with my van & trailer.

Then I went through all of the machines (with a little help from my son & Jim from JT Amusements and a lot of help from my wife) getting ready for the Allentown Show. The end result is 30+ machines sold less than 4 weeks after I started moving them home with a few saved for our collection or to sell at the York Show this Fall. I didn't make a ton of money on this deal and most people would think I was crazy if they knew how little I actually made (once I factored in expenses of getting them home and to Allentown to sell) but it has never been about money to me. I just wanted to get these machines out of storage and to people who would actually do something with them.

So in less than 4 weeks 33 or 34 machines (I lost count) are now in the hands of people who will actually be doing something with them. These machines went into storage on July 27 1995 according to tape labels on the playfield glass on some of them. So after about 25 years they are actually seeing the light of day again. Better yet is some of them have been repaired already and are being enjoyed by their new owners. THAT IS WHAT IT WAS ALL ABOUT!

As far as the Allentown Show it was FANTASTIC for me. Everything I took sold including my Harbor Freight lift table & handtruck. The only thing I brought home was a couple parts machines and a few parts I bought for my eBay parts business and a Strange Science I took on trade. (We had a Strange Science in the passed and kind of missed it so we have another one to enjoy for a few months.) That might be at the York Show this Fall because it isn't a long term "keeper" but we do want to play it for awhile before sending it to a new owned.

Next is a 5+ week vacation down the east coast. Some NASCAR stuff on the way south, then down to the Florida Keys for a couple days, next to Orlando for a couple weeks at Disney then north to Nashville for a couple days. After that is about 10 days in Bowling Green, KY and the Holley National Hot Rod Reunion. (I always get teased about living in Carlisle PA "the capitol of car shows in the world" and going to Bowling Green for a car show. But Bowling Green is different - these is a drag strip right at the show with drag racing going on the entire show. I love cars & racing so what is better than spending 3 days a a car show held at a drag strip with camping right one site!)

Once I am home it will be back to pinball parts on eBay and working on machines for the York Show.

More stories to come over the Summer & Fall but for now it is time to put my feet up again!

I still feel like I need to go to bed in the morning when I get out of bed but the last month was a "hell of a ride". Just thinking about it after I have made a couple post I don't know how I managed to get it all done with a little help from a few people but I did. I know for sure I never want to have to work that hard again! Anyway - still alive and getting ready for some much needed down time. Vacation starts either tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday morning depending on how soon I can get everything ready.

Today is "clean up the remains from the show out of my van & trailer" then tomorrow will be finish loading the camper - hook it to the van and get ready to roll another 4500 miles over the next 6 weeks. You might think I like driving or something?

I just sell parts on eBay under "pinjunk" but we will be away the next 6 weeks so my eBay store is closed down until mid-June. I also try to help people who PM me directly looking for used parts but eBay is actually much easier than "special request items" so I try to limit how much I do beyond eBay when I am busy with other stuff.

Got home from vacation Monday evening and have been sick ever since. I actually starting getting sick the last couple days we were away but thankfully it didn't hit me hard until I got home. We had a GREAT trip and did even more than we had originally planned now I need to get healthy again and get some more parts listed & sold so we can take another few days and head North to the New England States before it gets really hot up their.

I am still trying to make my first Pintastic Show and am hoping that can happen this year but that will depend on what my doctor has to say or Friday.

More updates soon!

Trip North didn't happen and I still can't seem to shake what ever I picked up while I was away. It is very frustrating because I just want to feel better and get some parts listed for sale. Everyday I have people emailing me asking when I'll be getting new listing up on eBay. I hate making excuses - I am more of a "get-er-done" type guy but this bug I got has been kicking my ass.

If that isn't bad enough this past week my brother in law just had open heart surgery and now I need to be helping him & my sister a good bit also. It just seems like I am never going to have the time to do my parts thing right!

After about 14 weeks of being sick I am finally starting to feel like myself again. Exhausted right now after setting up at the York Show this past weekend but otherwise all is good. I finally found out I had walking pneumonia so that explained a lot about why I wasn't feeling great - thankfully I think I am finally 100% over that.

Parts business is now sold, most of our project machines are gone, and I'll finally have time to start working on our neglected collection once I transfer ownership of all the parts and parts machines to my buyer. I expect that process to take until sometime next Spring. Once he is up and running I'll let everyone know who he is and how to contact him. Looks like the HOBBY is actually finally going to become a HOBBY again and not a second job!

It has been fun - it has been a great ride - but it is now time to "fully retire" and enjoy traveling a little more and work a little less.

It is kind of interesting with me (or kind of a pattern) when I was younger I was into cars and Lionel trains and made a business out of each of those hobbies. Once I was in the business for a few years I totally lost interest in the hobby and after I got tired of the business I moved on to something else. Then for years I was in several other businesses and always did OK with what ever I got involved with but I never did one thing for more than 5 or 6 years. (I think I kind of got bored with each business once I made it successful?). But after I got out of each of those businesses I never went back to the hobby I once loved.

This time around seems different. I am very excited to be moving away from the business and making pinball a hobby again. I can't wait to FINALLY have a little time to work on the collection. I have already bought 3 or 4 project machines to keep me busy once the sale of the business is finalized and I have not even started delivering the parts & parts machines to my buyer yet. I am very concerned I am going to miss helping people with the parts they need but on the flip side it is going to be fun to have some spare time back again.

I have several "stories" I want to post here once I finally have some spare time but for now I need to focus on getting my buyer started out of the right foot. So it will likely be a few months before I do anymore posting on this post. In closing I need to say it has been a fun ride but I am most excited about making pinball a hobby again. Thanks for all the support when it was a business for me and I am looking forward to hanging out with my "pinball friends" for years to come.

We are getting ready to take a few weeks off and head South. So I will not be posting here again until sometime in December. Once I get home I want to look back at the "stories" I have already shared then add some fresh ones but for now I need to get away for a few weeks and finish healing. When I am home it sees like I go from pushing to get one task done right to the next task without giving this old body a break and I am realizing at my age that no longer works.

-Skip-

One last quick post before we hit the road South on Tuesday.

If life wasn't already crazy enough I decided to add a 1150 mile road trip North to save a load of parts machines. Friday morning at around 5:30 AM I hit the road to NH with an appointment to meet up with the seller at 6 PM Friday evening. Got to his place a 5:58 PM Friday evening and was loaded and back on the road by 7:15 PM thinking I would drive for another hour or so then get a motel room. Somehow life is never that easy for me?

About 14 hours and 600+ miles into the trip I decided it was finally time to get a room and get some rest. Kind of in the middle on nowhere I stopped at the first motel and they wanted $175 for the night. I thanked them an ran out the door - I don't want to buy the place I just want a clean bed for a few hours!

Anyway I kept driving and stopping at motels and they were either fully booked or over $150 a night for a room. Another 6 hours later I finally found a place for $90 a night at 2 AM and got a few hours sleep. (That was 750 miles and 20 hours into the trip) Then yesterday I drove the rest of the way home ate some dinner and off to sleep I went.

Now after a few hours of rest it is time to clean out my email in box again then once the sun comes up I need to unload from that trip so I can get my van loaded for vacation. We will be hitting the road South for 5 weeks on Tuesday morning with a couple pinball related stops along the way. First stop is HEP to drop off some parts and a machine to be restored for a customer of mine. Then a couple stops to deliver parts I sold. After that 4 weeks of R&R in Florida before my "busy Winter season" starts.

Another couple days of "fun" in the crazy life of Skip & family!

Well another 4 months has "slipped away" and still no time to work out our machines. In fact right now I can't ever see our machines for the "junk" I have piled on them. I have been slowly processing through parts and delivering stuff to the buyer of the parts business but this process is taking way longer than expected. Matt - the buyer of the business - is a great guy but he has way too much going on in his life right now to be getting much stuff listed.

So I kind of moved over to "Plan B" and have continued to list and sell parts longer than expected on eBay. At the same time I keep working through "junk assemblies" and making as much as possible whole again (making one out of two, two out of four, etc) trying to give Matt more stuff that is ready to list and less boxes of "mixed junk" I know he will never find time to process. I feel this is the only way to save some of this stuff from either sitting on shelves for another dozen (or more) years or just ending up in a landfill at some point down the road.

In the end I am making a little extra money, Matt will have a "better inventory" of ready to list parts, and more of this stuff is being saved. The down side is I have been working 14 to 18 hours a day seven days a week for as long as I can remember and I am still not done.

My van & one trailer are loaded waiting for Matt to make room for the next load. After that is delivered I'll have one final load to deliver and I'll be finished with that transaction. I'll likely still list a few parts from time to time because I keep finding boxes of stuff I didn't even realize I still owned. But next on my list is a cross country trip in a few weeks if this Corona-virus doesn't end up getting too bad.

Just figured it was time for an update for those of you that have followed some of my stories. I am sure there will be plenty more to come in the future!

I am 65 years old (almost 66) and I have been doing 16 to 18 hours a day since I was in high school. A "short day" for me is something like 14 or 15 hours. I don't know exactly why but I have never needed more than 4 or 5 hours a night sleep. Even when I was a baby I would drive my mom and dad nuts because I never took naps (according to what I was told years later).

One mistake I made years ago and the one thing I would change in life is I have always worked 7 days a week. Without having a day off you don't have a spare day to get caught up when you get behind. As I have told friends & family for years if I could "start over" the one major change I would make is to take one day a week off just to have a "safety net" for when I got behind.

Unlike most people I love working and love keeping busy. I don't do it for money I just enjoy accomplishing things and helping people. However, I also like to "play hard" so when I do take time off to travel and enjoy myself I typically have a schedule that is just as busy as when I am working.

We had a cross country trip planed for this Spring but with the Coronavirus we have decided that isn't going to happen. Knowing I would go out of my mind without something to do so I made a "new revised deal" with Matt (the guy who bought the parts business from me) and I am going to continue to list & sell parts online until this Fall. That will give him more time to get things set up on his end and give me something to keep busy until this whole Corona thing settles down.

OK - enough for now! More updates coming soon. Everyone try to stay healthy and not let the "mess" drive you too crazy!

Four months later and it is still pretty much SSDD. We did decide to make some more changes because of this Coronavirus mess and sold our camper as well as all but one of my enclosed cargo trailers. I have the "last" cargo trailer sold once I am ready for that to happen but I still need it for a few more weeks.

Still buying loads of "junk" (two trailers full in the past couple months plus about a half dozen parts machines one or two at a time) and still listing parts on eBay until around October. After that I am hoping to actually have some time to work on our collection for the first time in years.

We still want to travel but I decided to build a custom camper from a new custom built enclosed cargo trailer. I am close to being ready to getting that project underway but want to finish up some old business first. I have the "new trailer" all designed & ready to order but I am holding off a few more weeks just to see if anything changes with this whole coronavirus mess.

All my project machines are gone, 90% of the parts machines & parts for the parts business have been delivered, and I am working on getting ready to sell off some additional stuff that wasn't included with the sale of the parts business. Anyone want to buy 1000+ pinball and arcade manuals? I guess that is a story for another day!

One last thing to add today after looking back at some of my old post here. The "new van" is about 28 months old at this point and just turned 51,000 miles with 95% of those miles put on it moving machines or parts around. I set a new personal record the other day driving 980 miles round trip to western Ohio and back in about 18 hours. My last "record long day" was 960 miles in 22 hours.

The Coronavirus has changed highways speeds a lot. Not that the speed limits have changed just less vehicles on the road with people driving faster from what I have experienced. Including stopping for lunch & dinner as well as unloading time I averaged 55MPH. Even in the "slow lane" traffic was moving 70+ MPH most of the trip. It seems like the police are afraid of the Coronavirus so they are not enforcing speed limits much these days!

I don't like driving that fast but it sure does help when you have a long drive and don't want to stay in a motel! Thankfully that should be my last delivery other than when I drop off the balance of the parts to the buyer of my parts business. I'll miss the "thrill of the chase" but I will not miss much else and I especially will not miss moving 300+ pound machines out of basements by myself.

I think I am finally FINISHED with the two nasty "M" words & parting out "junk machines". As anyone who follows my post already likely knows I have sold the pinball parts business to Matt and the final load of parts will be delivered to him later this Fall. After the Coronavirus mess totally changed my plans for 2020 we decided I should just keep listing & selling parts until around September or October. Anyway today I just parted out my last two machines and after over 10 years of dealing with the two "M" I am finally finished. The two "M's" are mouse nest & mold and I will not miss either! Since I only part out "real junk" 95% of the machines I part out have had mice living in them or are moldy. Today I cleaned my last mouse nest out of the bottom of a cabinet. I will not miss that part of the hobby!

Anyway this will likely be one of my last post on Pinside and soon after I deliver the last load of parts to Matt I'll be closing my Pinside account. It has been a great 10 years but time to move on to a new chapter in my life. We will still have a collection of around 15 machines but I don't want pinball to continue to consume most of my awake hours. So to get away from the temptation of being "sucked back in" I need to just completely walk away for a while.

Thanks for the memories!
Skip

Thanks Guys! It has been great and I have really enjoyed most of it but I will not miss being 1/2 sick most of the time from breathing in all the mold when working with this stuff. I try to do as much as possible outside or in the garage but every year the mold messes with my lungs worse & worse.