NWAAPS: Closing day

Closing day was one half regular, one quarter awards, and then two thirds packing. If you think that I messed up the numbers, then you have to realize that many people worked way past midnight to finish delivering the used arcade games.

The night before we finished around midnight. I wasn’t speaking in English, or anything even close to it. The closest I could get was a garbled accent that sounds sort of Scottish. A friend decided to not let me drive all the way back to Renton, and let me stay at his place. I won’t say exactly where he lives, but his cats are awesome.

The next morning, I grabbed a glass of milk, and some carrots for breakfast. Tacoma was pretty that morning, and it was nice to not have to drive an hour to get to the convention. Special shout out to my friend.

We continued to get people buying tickets at a steady rate. In fact, there was a purchase of a new roll of tickets for just that day. We got through half of it.

I officiated at the kids Shrek Pinball competition, and was amazed. These kids were better at the game than I will ever be. Scores of 30 million were seen. I would be lucky to get one million. Anyway, the job for me was to write down the name, tag, and score of anyone that placed. The machine was set to competition, so it would tell us if someone placed. Once again, the Shrek machine was awesome.

While they did the awards show, I ran the kid zone, and museum. This meant playing games against various families, and trying out the gadgets Oz left. They were circuit boards to teach kids how to connect wires. It was really spiffy, and I wish I had taken a proper picture of it.

A last minute prize of two arcade boards was entered by the guys from my neck of the woods in Idaho. We couldn’t take them because it was too late. So, I got the machines. There is no room for an arcade game, but I took them anyway.

After the awards were handed out, we had a little bit more time for people to enjoy playing the game, and then it was all done. The show was over by 3PM. This meant we had to package, set up, and move all of the arcade machines.

There was a special device just for wrapping machines. It was a circle of metal on bearings. We placed a machine on it, and just held out the wrap. Devices like this are just amazing to me.

I found out why they were wrapped as well. It was to stop scuffs, and dirt. We had giant rolls of plastic wrap, and it took some special thinking to get stuff like chairs, or NBA Jam wrapped. I also had to unhook, and prepare all of the kid zone games.

Sadly, my Pong machine was wrapped before I could move the monitor inside it. This made a loud clunk when I moved the machine into my car. The next article will be about the story of the Pong machine, and how I sold it.

We worked hard to wrap things, and move them into their proper spot. Many of the machines I had in the Kid Zone were not registered, since they were not videogames or pinball machines.

I met a guy from Vashon Island, who talked about how similar my stories from Hawaii were to his life. It is strange to think that and island life is the same no matter where the island is. Another guy was from Seat Tac, and worked on construction equipment in a warehouse. We were able to get all of the machines out, and ready to the docking bay.

After most of the machines were sent out, I found myself unwilling to continue working. At first I thought I was lazy, then I noticed everyone else was sitting down. Food was served, and greatly appreciated. Then finally I mentioned the cake.

This had been sitting in the back the entire show. Had I not asked about it, no one would have known. A local baker asked if he could make a cake for us, and it was delicious.

Finally, we moved the last of the arcade games to the dock, and called it a day. I got into my van, and drove off. It was getting dark, so I decided to spend the night at Tuan’s one more time.

On the trip back, i gave one of the arcade boards to the manager at the Del Tacos in Ellensburg. He gave me a browny in return. I consider that a fair trade.

After that, it was a quick and easy drive home. What was odd for me, was that i thought there would be insights in gaming culture in one way. Instead, I saw it just walking around and chatting with people. I saw people suddenly want a machine, or remember a machine from their childhood. The show has basically jump started the arcade scene in Seattle. It was intense, but I can’t wait for next year.