Monthly Archives: April 2013

Pinball Showdown

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2013-04-26 15.54.57sThe Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown is this weekend at the Sheraton down in DTC. Chris and I went Friday afternoon.

Twenty bucks at the door, play all the games you want. There was a pretty good crowd. We never had to wait to play, but almost every machine was in use all the time. All the machines were in pretty good condition. A couple were being worked on, but I’d say this was the best maintained bunch of pinball machines I’ve ever seen. The event filled the large ballroom and two large meeting rooms. Something like 125 pinball machines, perhaps 80 unique games.

It was a bit nostalgic. I played many of these machines many times and for many hours. I first played pinball when I was ten or eleven. We kept the trailer at Chateau Chaparral on the Arkansas River at Nathrop. Spent a lot of unsupervised time there, some of it in the clubhouse. The teenagers played CCR on the jukebox and shot pool. They had half a dozen pinball machines there. I played one of them Friday.

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One of the first machines I ever played

Jerry’s parents bowled at Celebrity Fun Center and Jerry and I used to play pinball there. Then my misspent youth, first at Mines and then a lot of hours at Malibu Grand Prix before video games took over. Lots of sessions with Wes over the years. Hundreds of hours of pinball, on all sorts of machines produced over the last fifty years or so. This show didn’t have all the machines I played so often, but they did have a real nice mix.
But play lacked in intensity. There was nothing to play for. No matter how badly you did, you could play again.

Because the machines were in top shape, I was disappointed that they didn’t take more care in setting them up. Most were not quite level, some quite a bit off. I guess it would just take too long to get them all properly set up.

Years ago I went to an event like this with Wes in Phoenix. That one had fewer machines, but had some fun twists. Back at Mines we used to do things like throw a jacket over the top half of the table, or cross our arms and flip with the opposite hands. There they had a machine that was wired that way and one with the glass obscured. Another had a platform with flippers you operated with your feet. But nothing like that at this one.

There were vendors there. Show t-shirts, of course, but booths by machine makers and hawkers of supplies. There were cameras mounted over two machines and the video displayed on large monitors with pinball table aspect ratios.

Preparations

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Three car related items today. Plans for events, rather than events themselves.

First, I just registered for the 30th Annual Colorado Concours. This is my first time entering the car in any sort of show. At this one, I had my choice of being judged or just being on display. I have no illusions that this is a winning show car, but what the heck. I’m going to be judged. Here’s how the organizers describe it:

Now in its 30th year, the Annual Colorado Concours – Exotic Sports Car Show & Concours d’Elegance is large-scale, highly-visible and well-attended. Local and regional car clubs showcase nearly 500 rare sports and exotic cars. Come take a look at these beautiful high-end, high performance vehicles. Meet the owners and exchange your favorite car stories. And, don’t forget to bring the kids as this day is filled with activities for the entire family! Mark your calendars now for a car event that has established itself as the premier auto show in its class. All proceeds from the event benefit CP of Colorado’s Children’s Programs. The featured marque for  this special anniversary edition of the car show is Porsche!

If you’re in the Denver area, come on out and see the cars. This is happening on Sunday June 9 at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton. Gates open at 9am. I believe it’s $10 to get in, and it supports a fine charity.

Second, every year Lotus Colorado puts together a long weekend drive. We haven’t gone on any of these yet, but I just made reservations at the hotels for this year’s trip. They’re calling it “The LOCO Four to the 4”. We leave Denver Saturday morning, May 18, and head down toward the four corners. One night in Telluride, one night in Pagosa Springs, then back home Monday, May 20. Ross describes it thusly:

Many of you have been with us on our Colorado Good, where we do a bit less than the Colorado Grand; three days instead of four, about 800 miles instead of over a thousand miles; stay at good hotels instead of grand hotels and dine at good small yet really cool specialty restaurants with reasonable prices. This will be our fourth trip and will go to the Four Corners via Telluride and Pagosa Springs.

Finally, CECA is having their first track day of the season at Pueblo Motorsports Park on May 11 and I just sent in my registration.

CECA 2013 EVENT SCHEDULE (Tentative):
May 11                            Pueblo Motorsports Park
June 29                           High Plains Raceway
August 24                       Colorado State Patrol Track
September 28                 High Plains Raceway
October 12                      Pikes Peak International Raceway
I’m not sure how many of these I’ll attend. Last year I managed all except PPIR. I’d like to do them all, but if I miss any it will likely be one of the HPR dates.

Saturday in the Park

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Saturday I thought I’d hike to Mill’s Lake. Frankly, I wasn’t exactly sure where I wanted to go, but Mills seemed like the right sort of distance for me that day. I didn’t want to get up at the crack of dawn, and I’m a bit lazy when it comes to hiking through snow. A couple of miles each way seemed just about right.

The forecast high for Denver was 62 or 64, depending on who you listened to. I guessed it might be a bit breezy at Mills, but what the heck. It’s always windy at these lakes in winter, right? But generally it’s not bad in the forest. I arrived at the Glacier Gorge parking lot a bit after ten. I was thinking with such nice weather I might not get a parking spot there, but it was only about half full. As soon as I stepped out of the car it was obvious why – the wind was quite fierce. Took me about 30 seconds to decide not to hike. I exaggerate only slightly when I say the wind nearly knocked me down. I do this for fun, not as some sort of test.
Windy at Bear LakeI got back in the car and drove up to Bear Lake just to check it out. Not many hardy souls there, either. I was only in the parking lot for a few minutes but still managed to see three or four cars pass through without stopping.

I headed back to Moraine park for a while; it’s the first time I’ve bothered to check it out since the Fern Lake fire burned the area back in October. I sat there for maybe an hour, watching the world go by. Took a few pictures but nothing very interesting. The grass will be back in a few weeks, the shrubs might take a while longer. Maybe they’re not all dead but we won’t know for a few more weeks.

Moraine Park

Then I headed back toward Deer Mtn. to watch the clouds fly over the mountains and set up the cameras. Eating my picnic lunch in the car isn’t as nice as at some alpine lake, but there are worse places to eat. I didn’t bring the GoPro mounts for the car, so I had to use the little gorilla pod instead of the suction cup. The suction cup does okay up to about 80mph and would have handled the wind. The lesson here is to always carry all the mounts with me whenever I take the camera. Oh well. I set the SLR up on a tripod, as low as it will go, on the leeward side of the car. Unfortunately, the wind here was still quite bad. Both cameras got moved around quite a bit.

When I looked at the raw footage I was a bit disappointed. I knew the cameras were moving quite a bit but hoped there was something I could do with the shots. I decided to make use of the “old film advanced” video effect. It makes the video look like an old film that’s been run over by a tractor. I figured the jitters in the footage looked a bit like film jumping a sprocket.

But it wasn’t a total loss. This was the first outing with the new battery grip for the EOS 20D. Worked like a charm. Shot over 1,100 photos without a snag. The grip supports either 6 AA batteries or two of the Canon battery packs. The grip shipped with two, so now I have three, even after tossing the original which no longer holds a charge. The only sub-optimal issue is that even with a full charge, the meter only reads a partial charge. I’m looking forward to trying it when it’s not so windy.

Cars & Coffee & Pinball

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The first Saturday of every month a bunch of car lovers get together at 95th and Arapahoe in Lafayette. I try to show up every few months to see what sort of vehicles show up. Today was the biggest turnout I’ve seen there. A lot of these types of events are dominated by hot rods or muscle cars. This one gets a great turnout of exotics. I’ve never seen fewer than a half dozen Ferraris and, a wide variety of Porsches from different eras, a sampling of Corvettes, Jags, Astins, and so on.

I ordered a battery grip for the SLR, but it hasn’t arrived yet. So all these pics from the cell phone.

There always seems to be a Morgan or two. Not sure that I’ve seen the same one twice. Today it was a three wheeler.Morgan 3 WheelerThis was another surprise. Don’t see too many of these.WillysWalked by a Tesla S twice without giving it a second glance. At first, I thought it was a Porsche Panamera. Then somebody said “both trunks are empty.” Ah, yes. Something’s missing!

Boulder is full of Audis, but I don’t think I’ve seen an A7 before. I’m not a big fan of matte paints, but I like the lines.Audi A7These things start pretty early with the first people arriving about 7am. I’m not sure how long people are there, but people are coming and going all morning. Every now and then, somebody will make a rather noisy arrival or departure. About an hour after I arrived, this pulled into a spot:Corvette!

It didn’t take long to see this isn’t really a Corvette. Usually, they put the engines in the front.Corvette?He left at the same time I did. Or, he tried. Got it out of this spot and into everybody’s way before stalling it. And unable to get it going again. A bunch of people had to push him back into the spot. That’s gotta be embarrassing, with dozens of people watching.

No Ford GT’s today, but this pretty Noble showed up. I’ve seen a couple of these but I think this had the best paint – a bright, pearlescent yellow.Noble

I don’t think we’ve had Lamborghinis every time, but today I saw three or four. All driven by young guys, which I find surprising. Usually it’s the older guys who have the kind of coin it takes to own and operate one. I find them a bit over the top. But you don’t see too many purple ones, so I couldn’t resist. LamborghiniThat was this morning. This afternoon, Chris came over and we drove up to Lyons to play some pinball. I’ve been meaning to do this for quite a while but somehow never got around to inviting him.

He showed up here at 1pm and we headed north. They were closed when we got there – I didn’t bother to check first, but they don’t open until 3. So we went next door to Oskar Blues for beer and chat. It was not long after three when we finished our beers and the place was already pretty busy. At least half the machines were in play.

Joust

We played Banzai Run, Black Knight, Captain Fantastic, Joust, Space Time, Strikes and Spares, and Wizard. I had played Banzai Run before in Lyons and enjoyed it. Joust I’d never seen before, and the others I’ve played many times at other places. Joust is an odd one. Although it can be played solo, the idea is two players compete. The players stand facing each other and the table is peaked in the middle – balls can pass from one side to the other. The idea is to hit your targets but not the other player’s. It’s loosely based on the video game of the same name. One annoying feature is that every time you press a flipper button, it makes a little dragon noise from the video game.