So quick little epilogue here. I took TFUV to LAX2020 and... it was great! Phoebe graciously honored me with a spot smack in the middle of the famous Cincy Row... and it seemed to quickly get attention even though you couldn't see the UV effect until the official show start and facility-lights off... at which point her husband promptly owned it by setting GC as soon as the show started, ha!
But everyone who saw it seemed to be impressed. It made the new rotating "Social Big Board" outside the LAX entry...
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...was played by a celebrity: no less than Brian Eddy himself (!)...
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I know I slung some indignantly good-natured mud in Stern's direction once they revealed the UV-mode in Stranger Things, but I have to say it was really gratifying to hear Brian describe some of the struggles they had with it during his seminar. When we chatted privately later he went into more detail and wow, we were really on the same page at almost the same time in researching and discovering and trying to figure things out. My effects are more colorful, but theirs are more intense. Stern's UV strips are also far more elegant and robust than anything I could come up with on my own.... maybe I should have begged for a "seconds" UV kit from them to hack and adapt into my game. But it was really awesome to chat with an industry pro and legend about things and to even feel like I had a small shred of shared experience now. He even gave my daughters some cool Stern hats! So I'll eat a little crow... but am still rightly proud that I came up with my own solution for a different effect. (And as Phoebe reminded me, she gets some credit for tipping me off on what paints to not/use...)
Over the weekend, the game held up perfectly. Only had to open it up to clean a switch, replace a bulb (one of the few incandescents I left in finally burned out!), and then reseat the mushroom jump wireform which popped out 2 hours shy of show's end. Can't complain about that.
And thanks to Pheobe, and everyone else who played and complimented, I got to take some cool hardware home with it:
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Funny enough, that plaque almost works with my hacky light boom as a sort-of-topper, ha!
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Many thanks to all who helped with advice and tips along this journey... and especially to the Sys7 code genius (you know who you are, I only don't mention your name to maybe spare your inbox!) who helped me... I owe you big time!