robohara.com

I’m not as afraid of tornadoes as I respect them. Modern meteorology has advanced to the point where local forecasters can typically predict the weather patterns that form tornadoes days in advance. Still, knowing one is coming and being able to do something about it are two different things. Despite the fact that meteorologists can tell us the speed and direction in which these forces of nature are traveling, the best defense we have against them involves climbing into holes in the ground and waiting for them to pass.

Some of those holes are nicer than others. In the basement of my building is a very nice gym, which also happens to be our designated meeting place when tornado sirens go off. On Monday, they did, and that’s I and a couple hundred of my co-workers went — all of us standing around, watching the live television feed of 200+ mile per hour winds destroying people’s homes and lives.

For most of us, tornadoes are like a twisted (pardon the pun) version of the lottery. The news shows us moving satellite imagery and live video of the destruction in progress as we hide away in our safe spots, cross our fingers, and hope that when we emerge we’ll find that it wasn’t our family or friends that were affected. Thank goodness, usually it’s not.

On May 3rd, 1999, a tornado of unprecedented mass tore across Moore, Oklahoma. At the time, the ranking of F5 (the highest rating we then gave to tornadoes) was deemed not strong enough. All the urban legends surrounding tornadoes came true that day. Grass was ripped out of the ground. Pieces of lumber became missiles, penetrating trees and houses. People seeking shelter under bridges and overpasses were pulled out by the wind and thrown mercilessly.

Both my mom and grandma lived in Midwest City in a neighborhood that took a direct hit by the May 3rd tornado. Somehow both of their houses were spared; hundreds of others in their neighborhood weren’t. On May 4th, I took this picture of a house literally 10 hours down the block from my mom’s.

All the houses had been reduced to piles. I’ve never been inside a war zone and never hope to be in one, but I am sure this is what it must be like. We saw toilets in the street, cars in trees and houses, and unidentifiable “stuff” everywhere — just bits of paper and plastic and wood that were all parts of something somewhere the day before.

The devastation left behind the May 3rd tornado was the worst I had ever seen.

Here was yesterday’s headline:

Following an almost identical path, a massive tornado once again ripped across the state. Tornadoes are made of wind, and as such tend to build up power and speed in wide open spaces and die down in urban areas. Not this one. Not this time. Not again.

Current estimates are that the tornado was between 1 and 2 miles wide and was on the ground for 17 miles.

(AP Photo)

Early reports of an elementary school taking a direct hit proved true, and one of the first reports of casualties to make the news were of a group of elementary students who were trapped in a school basement and drowned. It’s an absolutely horrific story that feeds on our (as parents) worst fear of sending your kids to school and not having them come home. Absolutely, absolutely awful.

The past 48 hours have been an emotional roller coaster, even though I was not directly affected by the tornado (all my friends and family are fine). Facebook has been flooded with pictures of piles of rubble that used to be homes. Some of the pictures came from the news, and some of them came from people on my Facebook friends list who used to live in them. Some of the stories have been heartbreaking. Obviously any story involving someone’s death is terrible, but also as a collector of “things” the idea of coming home and finding all of your things gone seems unthinkable. Coming home and not finding your house there seems even more unthinkable.

Here’s a picture one of my friends posted on Facebook of her house.

So now, the cleanup and the healing begins. Sadly we’ve had some practice in that department here in Oklahoma. According to the 6am news this morning, some volunteers are being turned away because there are so many of them. There’s a donation center set up on every corner. People are buying water and Gatorade and work gloves by the case and donating them. Phone lines at local radio stations have been clogged for days by people asking how and where they can help. Kevin Durant from the Oklahoma City Thunder donated a million dollars to the relief fund. This was matched by the Thunder organization, which has been matched by countless local organizations.

Sometimes we Okies take others’ generosity for granted. Nobody is taking anything for granted this week.

Within the next day or two the national news will shift back to sports headlines and torrid celebrity scandals while people here continue to dig out both figuratively and literally. My Twitter and Facebook feeds have already begun to re-clog themselves with cupcake recipes and pictures of cats.

Once again we’ll move on, and once again, we will never forget.

Unless you hang around a few select retrogaming forums or have previously attended the Oklahoma Video Game Expo (OVGE) in in Tulsa, chances are you’ve never heard the name “Brad Prillwitz” before — and even if you have been to those places, you still may not be familiar with Brad’s name. Never one of the flashiest or loudest people in the room, all it took was a few minutes of talking with him to know that he was one of the nicest.

Late one rainy evening in 2006 I found myself in a hotel room with Brad (who went by “PureEnergy” on the Digital Press and Atari Age forums) along with Steve (“MegaManFan”), his wife Michelle (“Mrs. MegaManFan”), and OVGE organizer Jesse “Crossbow” Hardesty. Here’s what I wrote on my blog back in 2006 about that night:

I still had to drive back to Oklahoma City that night, so I broke up the dinner party around 9:30pm. In the five mile trip between the restaurant and the hotel, a huge rain storm came out of nowhere. Winds went from 0 to 60mph in no time. My truck was rocking back and forth in the parking lot, and I decided I would wait at the hotel for a few minutes for the rain to subside. Crossbow and I bolted from my truck to inside the hotel, where employees with walkie-talkies were running around trying to find where all the rain leaks were coming from. In the lobby we ran into Brad Prillwitz who was talking with Mr. and Mrs. MegaManFan, who invited us all up into their room to hang out for a bit. Up there, MegaManFan showed us his booty (don’t ask) and Brad graciously handed out Pac-Man-themed scratch-off lottery tickets. I think everybody won a couple of bucks on them but me, so Brad handed me another card. No cash prizes for me on that one, either. Ah well — I was never that good at Pac-Man, anyhow.

Brad was cool like that; he’d give you whatever he had if he thought it would make you happy. For what it’s worth, here’s a picture of the lotto ticket he gave me that night. I wish I had taken a picture of him with it.

The next time I saw Brad (outside of OVGE) was in 2008 in a grocery store parking lot. Brad was “thinning out his collection” and decided to sell his Amiga 500 computer. I didn’t own an Amiga at the time, so we agreed on a price and I told him to hit me up the next time he was in the city. A few weeks later when Brad was in OKC the two of us met in a random grocery store parking lot. The price the two of us had agreed on would have been a good price for a loose Amiga 500, but it wasn’t until we met that Brad mentioned that the computer also came with a mouse, a video adapter, a bunch of cables, and over a thousand floppy disks. “Oh, and I have another spare Amiga computer here if you want that too,” he added. It was one of the few transactions I ever made where I insisted on paying more than what the seller was asking. In the end I got the impression that Brad was not all that interested in the money. I think he was the type of guy that was more interested in “finding a good home” for stuff than he was at making a buck off of it. We were kindred spirits in that aspect.

Aside from his generosity and eternally upbeat demeanor, at least throughout OVGE what I think Brad was best known for was his tournaments. Each year Brad would set up tournaments and let kids and adults alike compete for prizes and for fun. Brad never charged money for any of his tournaments — I think he honestly just got a kick out of other people enjoying his games. Brad owned a rare copy of “Pepsi Invaders” (a version of Space Invaders that was commissioned by Coca-Cola back in the early 80s), and each year he would set up his own Coke/Pepsi tournaments, letting people play this rare game and giving away tiny cans of soda to the winners. And the losers. Heck, knowing Brad, everybody who asked for one got one until he ran out.

I mentioned earlier that when I bought Brad’s Amiga 500, he was thinning his collection. Brad was always either thinning or building his collection. Here is Brad’s first post on Digital Press, posted on November 15, 2003:

Hello classic gamers,

My name is Brad Prillwitz (purenergy), and I live in Sherman, Texas (about one hour North of Dallas, Texas.)

I’ve been reading the forums for a long time, but haven’t posted much. I can’t remember when I found the Digital Press site. Possibly through the newsletter?

My favorite games: (not anymore, as my collection has been sold.)
Atari 2600: Skeleton+
Atari 5200: Miner 2049er
Atari 8-bit computers: Jumpman
Atari 7800: Tower Toppler
Atari Lynx: Chip’s Challenge
Atari Jaguar: Tempest 2000
NES: Super Mario 3
SNES: Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario World 2
Gameboy: Tetris Blast
Gameboy Advance: Wario Ware
N64: Rush 2
Gamecube: Hudson Collection Vol. 3: PC Genjin (Bonk’s Adventure, Import)
Sega Master System: Montezuma’s Revenge
Game Gear: Devilish
Genesis: Sonic 3
Saturn: Last Gladiators Pinball
Dreamcast: San Francisco Rush 2049
Playstation: Driver
PS2: Katamari Damancy
Vectrex: Frogger
Intellivision: Diner
ColecoVision: Jumpman Jr.
Neo Geo: Viewpoint
Neo Geo Pocket Color: Crush Roller
TurboGrafx: Devil’s Crush
Turbo CD: Gate of Thunder
X-Box: Halo

I collect for any system listed above, but currently, I’m looking to complete my Dreamcast collection. (update: my colelction has been sold, due to tough economic times. Hope to start collecting again someday.)

In real life, I’m an assistant manager for a major retailer. Not the greatest job, but I’m happy. (update: now working another job that I won’t mention, because it sucks and pay is low.)

I’ve been in the gaming world since my parents bought a Pong clone, back in the seventies! The first system that I purchased was a ColecoVision, which still works today. I remember spending hours playing Pepper II, and Mousetrap, back in the good ol’ days. After the crash in the mid eighties, I bought everything from a mail order retailer called Video Take Out, located somewhere in California. They even had some rare goodies like Atari Video Cube for the 2600, and some hard to find 5200 games. Video Take Out kept me informed of what was about to be released, and I bought my first NES from them. I will never forget trying to get R.O.B. to balance those spinning tops! And, R.O.B. ended up in the trash a few years later, when nobody wanted him.

I enjoyed meeting classic gaming fans at the CGE shows that I’ve attended (CGE99, CGE2K1, CGE2K3), and it’s great to find more classic gaming fans at the Digital Press site! And, the Oklahoma Gaming Expo in Tulsa this year was fun. Nothing like CGE, but because it was smaller, it was more personal. I would like to see more competition at any gaming event, kind of like the couch at CGE this year. Not for any prizes, but to enjoy the games more, and have a more “personal and up close” event. (Every gaming expo has been a wonderful event to remember, not the games, but the people who enjoy the games!)

Happy gaming!

Happy gaming indeed, old friend.

Brad Prillwitz passed away at the age of 47 on April 30th, 11 days shy of his 48th birthday. According to Brad’s sister Debbie he was an organ donor, which isn’t the least bit surprising. Debbie also mentioned that most of Brad’s retro games have been passed on to his nephew Josh. I know I speak for all of the OVGE regulars when I say that we are looking forward to meeting Josh this fall.

A couple of months back I bought a flat screen television to use as a monitor for some of my old computers. After posting the following picture, the number one response I received was, “nice milk crate.”

While digging around in the garage this weekend I found some scrap wood left behind by the previous owners and decided it would make a nice shelf for the television.

I decided the perfect height would be “two Commodore disk drives, plus an inch or so.” Not very scientific, I know — rounding up, I decided on 8 inches. Once the sides were screwed on I attached a back brace and slathered the entire thing in some white paint that I found out in the garage (also left behind by the previous owners).

After an hour or two of drying out in the sun, it was time to move the shelf inside. Goodbye milk crate, hello shelf!

Many friends, co-workers and family members have told me on more than one occasion that I am the luckiest person they know. The Luck of the Irish shines upon me, almost continually. I’m the guy that pulls into Walmart on Christmas Eve and gets a front row parking spot every single time. I’m the guy that doubles down in blackjack when he shouldn’t and still wins. I’m the guy that buys a single raffle ticket and walks away with a prize. In all things that involve luck, I do well. All things, except one:

Bingo.

I’ve played bingo for free and never won. I’ve played bingo for money and never won. We used to play bingo in fifth grade music class and I never won then, either. I can’t recall ever winning a single game of bingo. How someone generally so lucky can win so infrequently consistently in a game that is decided completely by luck is beyond me. I never win at bingo, ever ever ever, so if at all possible I don’t play bingo. Look, my life’s pretty awesome. If the worst thing someone says about my after I’m dead is, “nice guy, but he sure did suck at bingo,” I’ll be okay with that.

Last night was Bingo night at Mason’s school. Both kids’ schools have a bingo night each year — it’s a fundraiser that makes money by selling bingo cards and giving away donated prizes. Typically I try to skip out of bingo night, but with Susan still recovering from knee surgery, I decided to suck it up and try my hand one last time at bingo.

At fundraisers (especially ones for the school) we try and spend as much money as we can, so we showed up hungry. For dinner the school was selling two slices of pizza and a can of soda for $3. This seemed extremely reasonable to me (I was expecting to spend at least $5/person) and so we ended up using the money we saved on food on additional bingo cards. This turned out to be a mistake.

With two sheets of paper (each containing six bingo game boards) in front of me, the madness began. It may sound ridiculous, but I could not keep up with the speed at which the numbers were being called. Despite a few random cries of “SLOW DOWN!” from the crowd, the bingo caller called numbers swiftly one after another. B7… O72… I17… with each new number I rapidly scanned my game cards, my eyes dashing back and forth like I was watching a tennis match in fast forward. The words “bingo” and “super stressful” do not normally appear in the same sentence, but they will here: this was the most super stressful game of bingo I have ever played.

(Thanks to my friend Tamara for the punny title: “BEANGO”.)

Complicating matters was the fact that we were given beans with which to mark our cards. Beans are not flat; their rounded shape makes them wobble and wiggle whenever they are dropped onto, oh say, a bingo card. Thank goodness there weren’t any children around to bump the tables and make everybody’s beans shift around! OH WAIT THAT HAPPENED 90 TIMES. If numbers weren’t being hurled toward us at a breakneck speed — which they were — a person might have had the time to straighten his roly-poly beans and re-verify the numbers on his or her card. But not on last night’s quarter mile bingo drag strip.

I don’t know how many games of bingo we played last night, but Mason won at least three times, as did Susan. I am proud to say that I broke my 39-year bingo losing streak, only after Mason got bored and gave me his card to play as well. We walked away with two OU scarves, an activity bag, a jar of Yukon Millers Salsa, and several other goodies.

The last game of the night was a “blackout” game where winners must cover every square of their card. The grand prize was a Kindle Fire, so of course we stayed even though I knew I had no chance of winning. When the shouts of BINGO came — and there were three, all at once — both Morgan and Mason needed two numbers to finish covering their cards. I needed 9. Even if it had been a normal “five-in-a-row” game of bingo and not a game of blackout, I still wouldn’t have won. It is impossible to convey just how unlucky I am at bingo. Then again, when we pulled up to the school someone has just backed out the very front parking spot and I got it. Can’t win ‘em all, I suppose.

As we were leaving Mason’s Principal announced that they would be buying two additional Kindle Fire tablets for the other two winners, so good for them. As for me, I suspect I’ll keep this OU scarf forever as a reminder of the ONE time I won a game of bingo.

When I was a kid my parents bought me a book titled “Monsters & Vampires.” I don’t remember exactly when they gave it to me, but it’s copyright 1976 so I’m guessing I was pretty young. Its late-70s publishing date puts it just before the slasher films of the 80s, and instead focuses heavily on Universal monsters and the Hammer films. The inside cover of the book is covered with a two-page, full color spread of two dinosaurs fighting as a cowboy on a horse jabs a spear into one of them. I didn’t know it at the time, but the scene was from 1969′s The Valley of Gwangi, one of dozens of films that featured the special effects wizardry of Ray Harryhausen. To say that book had an affect on me is an understatement; it’s sitting here in my lap as I type these words.

As a kid I remember loving all the Sinbad and Jason and the Argonaut films which is where I first became aware of Ray Harryhausen’s work. The skeleton battle made a particularly strong impression on me. It seems to me like I’ve posted this clip before, but if so who cares — watch it again. And while watching it, remember that each of those little skeleton figures had to be moved and photographed 24 times per second. Think about that the next time you’re complaining about a web page taking too long to load.

In the early 80s, two television specials aired: Everything You Wanted to Know About Monsters and SPFX: The Empire Strikes Back. Both specials had small tributes to Harryhausen and his work. I videotaped both specials and watched them many, many times. (I recently converted both tapes over to DVDs.) By the time each aired, The Clash of the Titans featuring Harryhausen’s fantastic work had been released.

I had both the Kraken (which was huge) and the Pegasus toys from that movie. You don’t know how many times the Kraken was killed by carefully choreographed X-Wing Fighter attacks in my bedroom.

It was particularly fitting that Harryhausen was featured on the Empire Strikes Back special, as Star Wars was heavily influenced by his work. The animated chess pieces from the original Star Wars as well as the Taun-Tauns and AT-ATs from Empire could have come directly from Harryhausen’s studio. Later stop motion works were more than influenced by Harryhausen’s work; some of them were direct homages. The scorpion battle from Clash of the Titans…

…looks similar to the scorpion battle in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids:

Although CGI animation has largely replaced the time consuming art of arduously animating armatures made of wire and clay and frequently covered in fake hair, there was a look and a charm that emitted from those tiny models that computers have yet to be able to reproduce (ask anyone who still watches the old Rankin-Bass Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman Christmas specials year after year).

I’ll leave you with this, a montage containing many of Ray Harryhausen’s most iconic creatures he quite literally brought to life on the big screen. Like a good slight of hand magician, knowing “the trick” to stop motion animation makes me appreciate these movies more, not less. Knowing the time and dedication that went into turning these small models into larger than life monsters makes me smile more than ever.

RIP, Harry.

May the 4th has unofficially become “Star Wars Day” for millions of fans around the world (“May the Fourth Be With You”). People celebrate this somewhat low key holiday by posting Star Wars pictures on Facebook each May the 4th. I decided to do something a bit different this year and add to my Star Wars collection.

(Oh, who am I kidding? I would have been perfectly content to do that on May the 3rd or May the 5th. But not the 6th. That day is “Revenge of the Sixth”.)

On May 4th I found myself in not particularly unfamiliar territory — the Star Wars section of my local Vintage Stock. If I have one complaint with the store it’s that I’ve mostly picked over what I plan on buying and the vintage Star Wars toys (understandably) don’t seem to turn over too often. The store is planning a Memorial Day sale; I need to be sure to hit the other local locations that weekend as well.

In the vintage figure section, I found these three figures on the left: the A-Wing Pilot, Death Squad Commander, the the Death Star Droid. Ignore the big blue guy (“Mas Amadda”) on the right. He’s from the new movies; I only bought him because he was $1.99.

I also found two of these TIE Fighters:

I ran across two slightly different ones and I couldn’t remember which one I had, so I bought them both. Turns out, I didn’t have either one! The Darth Vader TIE Fighters on the ends are essentially identical except the one on the left is slightly larger. The one in the middle is “battle damaged,” something that became popular when Lucas and Kenner discovered that buy damaging their ships a bit they could damage their fans’ bank accounts a whole lot. At first glance I thought that the battle damage had been done by the previous owner, but a closer look revealed damage details in the dark areas.

I had a pretty good May the 4th! I wish I could say I am looking forward to adding to my Star Wars collection next May the 4th, and while I will probably do that, chances are strong that I will be adding to it before then too.

I start this post as I have started many posts by stating that my life is filled with many fun and random adventures. I love that bizarre and unique things happen to me; I treasure the experiences and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Monday morning I drove north from Greensboro, North Carolina to our nation’s capitol, Washington D.C. I timed the roughly 300 mile trip so that I would arrive in time to pick up my friend Emily at the airport. After meeting Emily on the airport, we took a shuttle to the metro, and the metro to the part of town we are staying in (which happens to be near the Verizon Center).

Less than five minutes after exiting the metro, I was approached by a news crew wanting to “ask me a couple of questions.” They asked if we were interested. Emily said “no,” and kept on walking. I on the other hand agreed to be interviewed.

“So you’re a basketball fan, right?” the reporter asked. I guess the OKC Thunder hat and hoodie gave me away.

“Sure,” I responded.

“What do you think about Jason Collins coming out as the first gay professional athlete?”

After pausing for a moment I replied, “Well, it didn’t help him get to the playoffs.”

After a couple more questions, the reporter asked me what the risks I thought were for a player making such an announcement. I said something in regards to the possibility of losing endorsements and that it might make other players uncomfortable, or something like that. He also asked what I effect I thought it would have on other athletes and I said he was probably paving the way for others. Then he got my name, I said “GO THUNDER!” into the camera, and walked away, catching up with Emily who was waiting for me down the block.

“What channel was that for?” she asked.

Shoot. That would have been good information to have, I reckon.

Fast forward an hour; Emily and I were hanging out in the hotel’s lounge, sitting next to a wall-mounted television that was showing the local news. Right as I was taking a drink of water, the newscasters mentioned the story and cut to footage of Bill Clinton, who apparently called to congratulate Collins. Then they mentioned the reaction of other sports figures (mostly on Twitter).

Then the reporter said something to the effect of, “And here was the opinion outside the Verizon Center.” When I looked back at the television, I was on it! Using my phone, I snapped the following picture of myself in front of the television.

And, just because I’m a dork, here’s a picture of me in front of my iPad with the picture of me looking at the picture of me.

Hotels are lonely.

Anyway. The video clip has now been posted on this page. If anyone can figure out how to download the embedded Flash video (my Chrome extension appears to no longer work) from that page, I would owe you one.

A couple of months back one of my online friends (Mikey) mentioned to me he was looking to buy a Commodore 64. The next morning I went out to the garage, got one of my remaining spare Commodores, boxed it up and mailed it to him. Although I have run out of spare 1541 drives, Mikey had little trouble picking one up on eBay.

It just so happens that Mikey lives about 10 miles away from the hotel I’ve been staying in for the past several days. Mikey expressed an interest in obtaining some more disks for his his new Commodore system, so I told him while I was out in Greensboro, I would hook him up. In the car I brought with me an additional 1541 drive and my ZoomFloppy. To make sure everything was in working order (and to make sure I remembered how to do it!) I hooked the spare 1541 up to my netbook using the ZoomFloppy and transferred a d64 disk image over to a real floppy.

With everything working properly, I packed everything back up and headed over to Mikey’s house.

Of course when I arrived, my 1541 broke. Of course it did. I mean, why wouldn’t a drive I’ve owned 25 years keep working one more day. Ugh. Fortunately, we were able to use Mikey’s drive to make disk images, even though that turned into a steady stream of swapping cables back and forth since we were making disk images on my rig and testing them on his.

Some of Mikey’s requests included Little Computer People, Wizardry, and Alternate Reality, along with a few skateboarding games (Skate or Die and California Games). Before two long we had a nice pile of floppy disks adding up. This was like a real life old school copyfest!

After several hours of copying, playing, and just chit-chatting, I packed my stuff up and headed back to the hotel, leaving behind me a pile of Commodore warez for Mikey to enjoy. I only brought two boxes of 5 1/4 floppies with me (and no disk notcher — dummy!) but hopefully Mikey will enjoy the games!

Over the past 18 years that I have worked for the federal government (both as a contractor and as a federal employee) I can’t recall ever being on “leave without pay” status. Even when the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center closes due to ice and snow each winter, I climb into my truck and manage to make it into work. I was even there during the furloughs of 1995, although as a contractor I believe we were either allowed to continue working or were retroactively paid for the time.

Today though, that changes. Today, I am officially on furlough status. What that means is, one day every two weeks for the next 11 pay periods I will be sent home from work without pay. Since a pay period is 10 days in length that means I will be only be working 9 days, taking a 10% cut in pay from now until the end of the fiscal year. Since my wife is also a federal employee, she will be taking the same cut in pay. If there’s any upside to this at all it’s that at least we are getting the day off from work — I suppose they could have just cut our pay and made us keep working. Always look on the bright side of life…

There will be minor impacts on our lifestyle. In anticipation of the furloughs we have begun preparing more meals at home. Three months ago we were eating out two or three meals a day. For the most part now, we’re cooking at home at least two meals a day, usually three. It’s a-maz-ing how much money you can save by eating at home. We are literally saving hundreds of dollars each pay period by doing this. We are also looking at things like cell phone plans and other services. By making these minor adjustments, everything else will be fine. We are in no danger of losing our home or our cars or, God forbid, our high speed internet.

While most people associate furloughs, sequestration, and government employees with Washington D.C., approximately 9,000 federal employees in the Oklahoma City area are being furloughed. That will definitely have an impact on our local community. We love shopping locally and eating at locally owned restaurants and I doubt restaurants like Poquitos de Mexico, Tacos Don Nacho or Chilenos will close their doors because of this, but as we (furloughed employees) feel the pinch of a 10% pay cut, so will the places we frequent. Even non-locally owned establishments we shop at put money back into the community via tax dollars. Multiply “a little bit less spending” by 9,000 people and I think you will see an effect.

More crippling to me than the 10% loss in pay is the 10% loss in productivity at work. Regardless of what I am doing at work, typically somebody, somewhere is waiting for me to do it. When I am on furlough status I am legally prevented from doing work. I cannot use my work laptop, I cannot check my work e-mail, and I cannot answer work-related phone calls. That means while I am being furloughed, those calls and work requests that typically find their way to me will now find their way to somebody else — and, when other people are on furlough status, those calls and work requests intended for them will likely find their way to me. There are only a handful of people who can do or even understand what I do at work, all of whom are already operating at capacity. It is inevitable that we will see work deadlines “slip.” It is a difficult thing to admit because none of us like working that way, but it is an unavoidable side effect of these furloughs.

Sometimes at work I feel like Lucille Ball struggling to keep up on that chocolate factory assembly line, Taking one day off every two weeks is the equivalent of walking away from that assembly line 6 minutes every hour and being expected to keep up. Imagine what the pile of candy in the floor would look like after that thing ran for six minutes with no one watching it. That’s what my Monday mornings are going to look like. Think about how long it would take Lucy to get “caught up” with an assembly line that never stops moving.

For what it’s worth I plan on using my furlough days creatively. Having a three-day weekend every other weekend (which can be expanded by using additional leave) opens up all sorts of possibilities. I have friends in Denver, Albuquerque, Dallas, Kansas City, and all over Arkansas that I wish I could spend more time with. With a bevy of three-or-more day weekends coming up, I might just get to pay some of them (or all of them) a visit.

According to CNN this morning, the senate may be putting an end to the furloughs for Air Traffic Controllers in an attempt to avert flight delays. Anyone who thinks removing furloughs for only air traffic controllers will fix the problem does not understand what the FAA does. All the air traffic controllers in the world can’t direct a plane a take off that hasn’t passed a safety inspection. Just my opinion, of course.

Even though I won’t be working today, I can assure you I’ll be thinking about it — wondering what’s going on, what will be waiting for me on Monday, and in a weird sort of way, missing it.

A couple of months ago I decided to display all of my vintage (1978-1985) Star Wars figures. Ten minutes later, I decided to try and complete my collection. Based on what I can tell, I am currently missing roughly 30 figures. Some of these I know I had back in the day (who didn’t own a jawa or two?) but some of them slipped away over time.

If you happen to have any of the following figures from the original vintage line and would like to let them go, please let me know. I have pretty much exhausted my local Vintage Stock stores. I am looking for loose (not carded) figures and willing to spend up to five bucks a figure. (eBay has almost all the ones I need but I’m not willing to spend $20+ per figure.) I don’t care if they are missing their weapons or show wear; right now I’m just trying to assemble them all. I’ll worry about updating particularly worn figures later.

Here are the figures I’m missing. RebelScum.com has pictures of every figure, in case you aren’t sure what they look like. Next to some of the figures’ names are brief descriptions that help me remember who is who when I’m out searching.

Amanaman Jabba, Big Flat
AT-ST Driver Grey Open-Face Helmet
B-Wing Pilot Red Flight Suit
Barada Green Face, Purple Pants
Bespin Security Guard II African American
C-3P0 (with Removable Limbs)
EV-9D9 Brown, Jabba Robot
General Madine Male, Gray/Blue
Greedo
Han Solo (In Carbonite Chamber) Removable
Imperial Dignitary Purple Robe/Hat
Jawa
Lando Calrissian (General’s Pilot)
Luke Skywalker in Battle Poncho
Luke Skywalker in Hoth Gear
Luke Skywalker in Stormtrooper Outfit
Lumat Ewok, Light, Bow/Arrow
Paploo Ewok, Dk. Brown, Lt. Headress
Princess Leia Organa in Hoth Outfit
Princess Leia Organa (In Combat Poncho)
Pruneface
R2-D2 with Pop-up Lightsaber
R2-D2 with Sensorscope
Rancor Keeper
Romba Ewok, Dk. Brown, Dk. Headress
Star Destroyer Commander (Death Squad Commander)
Teebo Ewok, Grey Striped
Warok Ewok
Yak Face