CARRERA SLOT CAR TRACK

66fyssh said
Thanks John. Please thank your son for me to his service. My son did a tour in Iraq early on at a small FOB near Mosul where he saw combat. I'd go back in the military tomorrow if I could. Its very difficult to duplicate the team environment "out here" in the civilian sector!

Very creative converting Swing-along over to a car theme. SUNDAY - SUNDAY - SUNDAY!!!!!

I poked around the last time we lived in Georgia and found a guy that sold pinball ball machines near us, but it looks like he may not be very active now. Once we get settled, I'll start looking again. I can imagine it could get boring playing the same one over and over. Just need to find one that presents a challenge!!

Great thread and pictures!!

Although I don't believe my son ever had the intention of remaining in the Army, I do feel he struggled to blend back into the non-military environment when he got out. He's always been pretty quiet about the time he spent in the service but it wasn't hard to tell that he was easily disturbed by the lack of discipline he'd see in others. I hope your transition to civilian life hasn't been too rough.

I'd been looking at pinball machines every now & then that I'd see advertised on eBay and Craigslist. Most of the time I did it just to get an idea of what they were worth and to fantasize about getting Teresa one 'some day'. Of the two we've got, - one is electronic and the other uses relay logic. The newer one is a lot more fun because it has more targets to hit and there's more of a strategy to playing it. Playing the older machine is mainly about trying to keep the ball in play as long as you can before it goes through an exit.

There are a bunch of websites devoted to pinball machines and some of them rank them from best to worst. I've found that the better ones usually sell for more money and are a lot more entertaining than the ones ranked lower. There are also many sites that sell parts for the machines so you can keep them repaired.

I had considered getting a 'virtual' pinball machine. I still may some day. I don't know if you've ever heard of them but they are a video simulator built into cabinets that resemble an actual pinball machine. Once you've built one you can run software that simulates 100s of different pinball machines. Some are so well done that they say they're very close to the real thing. I included a few YouTube links that show what I'm talking about.