Yeah, and the opposite happens too, like in 2015 when 2.5 feet of snow dropped for Thurs/Friday... and was all melted by Sunday!

Got my room booked up for the long weekend! Will be there Thurs and always willing to lend a hand.

Not sure what I'm bringing this year... a pending project acquisition changed my original plans. Was leaning toward bringing Big Hurt for sale, but might have to sell that before the show. Was planning same for PinBot too, but might have to keep that to help the project. I probably won't know 'til week-of like always, ha.

Hopefully the yard is dry when loading time comes around.

Based on the other games mentioned so far, if weather doesn't gift me with an untimely yard bog and transport/trailer plans hold out, I'm planning to bring Big Hurt, PinBot, and/or Expo (1968). Some/all may be for sale depending on my mood, ha. Can't believe this is only 3 weeks away - need to get my butt in gear!

Hope you guys don't mind, but I created a Pinside Event for Expo. Seemed like a big oversight void in the calendar. I copy / pasted the OP description into the event.

Just to be clear, I am NOT officially affiliated the with event... just wanted to help its exposure, and see if the pinside attendance counter might be useful.

If you want me to delete the event, I'll be happy to do so. Guess work has conditioned me too much toward "forgiveness is easier than permission", ha.

I don't have enough "stuff" to man a vendor table and I don't want to clutter up the party tent, but I do have a few spare odds and ends to sell/trade... if anyone needs the following, let me know I and can bring them to the show:

- Data East gen 1 lockdown bar
- Firepower plastic set (original, decent, unbroken, complete)
- WMS 6-digit displays
- Pinbot empty cabinet head
- Old Chicago pop caps (yellowed but presentable)
- GTB sys80 drop mechs (from Amazing SpiderMan)

I also have a couple of my custom stainless steel Space Shuttle NASA speaker panels available!

Please PM if you're interested in any of the above.

Giordano's would also suffice

So what's not working? Be happy to lend a hand if it's something I can figure out.

Last year it seemed like almost everything that was for sale was sold by Saturday, even despite prices we'd usually scoff at. A lot of the sold games were even removed by Sat night. Get there early if you're hoping to go shopping.

Awesome time as always, everyone involved does a fantastic job, this is my new adult Christmas! The past few weeks on the personal work/family side have been exhausting and my friend and I were scrambling to get 7 games ready... so I feel like I slepwalked through most of it... but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.

My friend is the "Atari Guy"... I'm the one that started his addiction and loaded that Middle Earth into my beater van, then told him it sucked when he finally got it working It's all good, we debug each other's projects all the time. I tweaked the pops on ME and Airborne before the show, they still need some work but the Atari switches are a bit unorthodox for field tweaks. Voltage regulator on Atarians died on Saturday, I'm sure we (he) will get it fixed and he might even have a Space Riders there next year.

As for my games, Expo got cantankerous right at 2pm Friday so I'm sorry it was off most of that day, but I got it 95% late Friday night and then found the source cause of the issue (a weirdly broken up-post mech occasionally jamming a switch) just before Sunday open. In my defense, that 50-year-old, unrestored, original EM - which got HOT with stuck coils but still kept stubbornly chugging - was probably up more and less troublesome than the brand-new state-of-the-art JJP PotC

Pinbot and BigHurt found a new local, public home but my girls aren't gonna let me live that down for a while... Speaking of Big Hurt, everyone who played it should know that game - which played 100% flawlessly with no issues I'm aware of - was destined for a dumpster before I rescued and completely disassembled, disinfected, repaired, refurbished, and reassembled it, during which it survived a move with all parts scattered about in buckets and boxes. It certainly deserved to live and boy did it prove it!

JJP PotC was very disappointing to me. Such a gorgeous game, almost a work of sculpture... I could look at it all day... but then you can't see a blasted thing under all the stuff at the top of the pf. It's almost Popeye bad, but worse: very frustrating to lose sight of the ball and have it come back form somewhere completely unexpected. I imagine more plays would bring more familiarity and anticipation, but on top of that the game itself was very buggy and clunky. The left scoop never registered properly, and the boat didn't seem to work well either. Ramp shot is difficult, you finally get it up there and... it dribbles off the side or gets stuck between the flipper and the railing.

Houdini, otoh, was astounding. What an amazing pin!! The theme integration, the fit and finish, the art, teh way the screen is seamlessly placed into a beautiful translite, and the gameplay were all awesome. A very unforgiving game, the shots were tight and I was completely tired and D-game all weekend, but I loved it. Shots felt great when I made them, I liked the challenge... the instructions were very clear and easy to follow, the insults were funny, and this is by far not only the best $7000 pin IMO - it was better than JJPOTC for less. Stern should take this seriously.

Such a shame that Rat Race got sick... I hope it doesn't have to be renamed Rat's Nest... so glad I got to see the engineering-dev level boards in that one. I know it's in the right hands to get fixed!

The Bossy seminar was great. Really intrigued by the dev work going on there. I have a project idea in mind, it'll probably make Jeremy regret he ever spoke of it ha ha.

So much to see and do... my kids kept me busy... hung out with the wife when they weren't... met up with some familiar friends... too tired to make any new ones but can't wait for next year!!!

Sometime very late Sat or pre-show Sunday, the pf motor quit working (pf would no longer move), but the joysticks apparently checked out. Hopefully something simple... but given all the one-off undocumented custom dev wiring in that machine, I don't blame them one bit for leaving well enough alone and not troubleshooting further there. I'm sure it'll get fixed.

Awesome that they brought it at all, and super stoked I got to play: it was that brilliant kind of infuriating that's fun and frustrating because it's so simple to do but easy to screw up at the same time. The way it laughs at you when you fail is great too.

Yeah shoot, in that stupid wall of text I posted last night I forgot to mention that IJ; my 13yo girl and I had lots of fun on that one a few times, and it's certainly a gorgeous IJ!

But I wanted to ask, I noticed the flipper area was some sort of decal. Not criticizing... in fact I wouldn't have noticed if the overall impressive condition of the machine hadn't invited a closer look... but yes, I did see an edge that didn't appear to be under a clearcoat. So I'm wondering what kind of decal that is, to hold up so well? I'd love to know what options are out there for my own refurb projects.

Speaking of pins that looked new, that Bad Cats that showed up Friday hardly looked a day old. Glad I played it while it was on, before it was sold and mothballed. That was the steal of the show.

Thanks for giving it a spin! I'm glad you enjoyed it for 15 rounds The problems were maddeningly sporadic - at its worst the Hundreds reels counted infinitely at random, causing a horrific bell racket until I unplugged it... once I nerfed that on Friday night, it was playable for all of Saturday but the Tens reel would occasionally stick. Took me a while to realize the down-post trigger was the cause, leading me to the mini-post mech having popped off its coil plunger, jamming the switch from time to time. So you might not have noticed anything, but it was sporadic until Sunday AM.

When I finally left the back off so that the 10's bell could be heard, apparently folks kept sneaking behind to take pictures of the mechs. I remember being fascinated by that at one of my first shows too... I think next year I will replace the metal back with a piece of clear, vented plexiglass.

I joked with my buddy about cutting a hole in the cabinet sides to fit the cabinet art while allowing the insides to be visible, but... I don't think I'm that brave, even if the cabinet isn't perfect.

You're welcome. It is a fun game, high energy and friendly, and I'm going to miss it... my girls apparently will worse. But you (and they!) will get to play it again in Louisville anytime, very soon. I had several offers pretty much in line with each other, but the first guys to express interest ultimately matched and bested, with the added "play anytime" and first rights at resale perk. This "father of the year" (/s) couldn't turn that down as the best possible outcome, oops...