The T3sk3y Defenestrator

.. ‘cuz it’s done.

After 9 months and more orders from Pinball Life, Marco Specialties, Bay Area Amusements, and Pinball Resource than I care to count, I crossed the last to-do off the list of restoration tasks.

Restore White Water - playfield view

I’ve had a bunch of pesky little tasks for the past couple of weeks to resolve – like coloring the white edges of the decal with a blue paint pen.  It’s a little detail, but it really makes it look professional.  

The last task was to do something I’ve never done in pinball restoration – weaken the flippers.  Everything I’ve learned has been how to make the flippers nice ‘n strong.  This machine had the wrong flipper coils when I bought the machine – but they were okay with the worn linkages.  Once I rebuilt the flippers, the flippers turned into cannons that threatened to destroy all the expensive new plastic parts.  To rectify, I went one step weaker with the coils and that did the trick.

White Water - Upper playfield view

Pictures from the entire restoration odyssey are here on my SmugMug site: Whitewater Restoration

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I really don’t know if this is legit – some posters have claimed this is from a recent movie – but I think it’s really funny.  If it’s real, it’s so Soviet Union.  If it’s not – it’s so Soviet Union.  To me, that sort of negates the importance of the authenticity.

Either way.. here’s the footage of the mortar launch system test.  Click on the thumbnail to get the full-sized images.

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I was forced to cry uncle this weekend on the topic of Facebook.

Truthfully, I hate it.  But – I realized that I’m missing out on a big chunk of the Web 2.0 experience, so I’m giving it a whack.  It’s also really useful fo publicity when you are a photographer.

So – I’m trying to figure out how to glue the Defenestrator with Facebook and not having much luck.  There’s an official plugin, but it only works on blogs hosted at Wordpress, not self-hosted ones.  There’s a plugin called Wordbook – but that apparently doesn’t work with the version PHP/XML (or something) installed on here.

Now I’m down to a straight RSS feed.  We’ll see if it works!

In the meantime – send me a friend request to Mark Teskey!

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The first thing that we do is practice our Karate:

William working on his Karate moves

Next, Elizabeth eats things that Mommy doesn’t let her eat.. like her fingers!

Mommy won't let me suck my thumb

What mommy doesn’t know WON’T HURT HER!

Take that, Mommy!

But, don’t worry Mommy.. I’m keeping a good eye on my little sister.

William watching out for his little sister

Hey daddy.. do you think you could do something about my hair before starting to play in the studio?

See the rest of my daddy’s pictures at his SmugMug site: Studio Light Practice pictures

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By the number of requests rolling in, I apparently need to post more pictures of little Elizabeth.

So.. for those requesting.. here you go!

Elizabeth in her Exersaucer

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Yeah, it’s been a month since I’ve posted.  Blogging is (for me at least) a binge ‘n purge activity.  I go through periods of time where it’s just not the most important thing in my world.  That’s pretty much how the summer went.  Once fall comes, I’ll be back in to my normal blogging pace.  I hope.

What have I been doing while I haven’t been blogging?  We’ll.. here’s a catch-up post.

1. The Olympics.  I’m a huge addict, so is my wife.  We have a DVR.  This is a bad combo that led to us trying very hard to watch every single broadcasted minute.  Since it’s old news now I’ll stick to general impressions.  Overall, the coverage to human interest story ratio was much better than past Olympics.  I also recall seeing at least one competition where the US wasn’t in the medals.  Both of these are big improvements.  I’m also not a big fan of the team sports, so I skipped through all the basketball / volleyball / softball matches.  I also think I prefer the Winter Olympics overall.
2. The Tour de France.  Two multi-week sporting events back-to-back is a LOT of TV watching.  Actually, it was three since this came right on the heels of Wimbledon.  I can’t say I watched as much of this as previous years.. but it really felt like it was a real competition this year so I still enjoyed it.
3. Restoring my Williams Whitewater pinball game.  I’ve been in the garage the past couple of weeks sanding, mending, bondoing (it’s a word now!) and painting the cabinet.  I’ll finish that up tomorrow when Bryan Kelly helps me put on the decals.
4. LOTS of family & friend events.  This includes weddings, birthdays, baptisms, barbeques, parties, and many more.  We certainly got out this summer!
5. I finished Half Life 2!  That’s two video games completed in one year – an unbeatable record for me.  Wow, what a game… I see why it was pretty much game of the century.

That’s it in a nutshell.. I’m sure I’ll write more on some of these topics in the near future.  Keep tuned!

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Most people go to the U of M Landscape arboretum to take pictures of the flora.  Not me!

It was their annual ice cream social last night – and we attended along with the Tufvanders and the Tjornhoms.  Somewhere around when we finished our picnic dinners, a pretty gnarly looking squall line cruised overhead causing us to duck indoors for cover.  Though it never actually rained on us – it did produce a fantastic rainbow and some cool skies at sunset.

If I were a real photographer, I would have scrambled to find the perfect landscape to frame the rainbow.  As it was, I was busy being a real father soothing a little guy that fell and bonked himself.  So, I had to settle for a ‘grab shot’ as we were loading strollers into the truck.  I’m still happy with it..

A rainbow over the Landscape Arboretum

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So Mark.. how did YOU spend your summer vacation?

Well – I spent the end of my July the same way I’ve spent the three before it.  That would be eating pork, looking at cornfields, and biking across Iowa.  What I’m trying to say is that I just got back from RAGBRAI – the Great Bike Ride Across Iowa.  It’s seven days long – but I only did the last four.  It still turned out to be about 275 miles of biking in four days – and that should be enough for anyone.

The 75-mile long pelaton

The usual zaniness of crazy costumes, beer tents, ’stereo trailers’, and gastronomic delights was in full force.  I’d equate it to Sturgis, the State Fair, and the Tour de France all rolled into one.

I don't know who they are - but they are the kings of RAGBRAI in my book!

I’ve been preparing for several months now – you can’t just hop on and ride that many miles cold.  Well, I can’t at least.  It’s a good thing I prepared, too – the route was the toughest I’ve seen.  Each day had more climbing than I did in all of RAGBRAI 2007.  To add to the fun, there were strong headwinds and rain on a couple of the days.  It made for a real grind sometimes.

Like last year, I rode with Team Balance Fitness – a local bike club that I belong to.  There were 45 in our group – almost double the size of last year.

In the end, I made it to the Mississippi River at about 11:30 AM on Saturday morning.  I dipped my wheel into the water with several thousand others, and loaded up for a long ride home.

Team Balance Fitness finishes RAGBRAI

Until next year – all of my (and all of the team’s) pictures are right here: RAGBRAI 2008

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Saturday morning started off well before dawn as we rolled out of bed, threw down a quick breakfast, and headed off for Second Beach to shoot the sunrise.  We made the mile hike back down to the beach in the dark and clamored over the beach logs just as the first streaks of dawn made their way across the sky.

Even before the sun rose enough to start shooting, we realized it wasn’t going to be a memorable day for photography.  The sky was nearly perfectly clear which just wasn’t going to make a spectacular sunrise.  We still went through the motions and shot the surf as we looked for anything interesting.  Even though there weren’t any suitable gallery shots from that morning – we still had fun exploring the beach.

Waves crashing between the sea stacks

By mid-morning, we made our way back to the camp to get cleaned up and have some actual breakfast.  After finishing my peanut butter and jelly bagel (my request), I set off for my shower in the campground shower facilities.  This was one of the more frustrating attempts at a shower – I found a shower that worked on my fourth attempt.  When I figured out that one didn’t work, I had to get completely dressed again, go outside, select another, then strip down again to try once again.

That afternoon, we headed for the Hoh rainforest after a short stop at Ruby Beach.  The Hoh is a beautiful spot with giant cedars and heavy moss.  if the weather and lighting conditions would have cooperated, we would have had lots of good photo opportunities.  This was not to be the case – the weather was the same bright sun and blue skies that doesn’t make for good rainforest photography.

Having fun in the Hoh when the weather isn’t cooperating

As we were pulling in to Forks on the way to the Hoh, Jon noticed a sound coming from one of his tires.  As we were stopped for gas, we noticed a rather large spike sticking out of one of his tires.  This meant trying to locate someone to fix the tire while we ate lunch sitting outside of the garage.  The cost of the repair?  $16.00

The Hoh was beautiful – and we saw lots of wildlife.  While we were there, we saw deer, Roosevelt elk, and other critters.  Jon did his best to continue the lesson – but it ended up being more of a discussion of photography topics rather than a lot of hands-on.

Roosevelt Elk in the parking lot at the Hoh rainforest

After returning to our campsite, we had just enough time to prepare for our sunset shot at First Beach.  There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, so there was no chance of majestic sunset shots.  Instead, we tried to capture the surf and the warm setting sunlight against the cliffs of First Beach.

Jon suggested that I get right up to the advancing surf and try to catch it as it was receding.  I set my camera for a high f-stop (22, I think) and about a quarter of a second exposure and waited for the right wave.  I didn’t have to wait long – because one of the first big waves went crashing right over my boot tops soaking me from the knee down.  As it turned out, it was just what the shot needed – even though I spent the rest of the night with about a cup of water in my boot.

Waves receding from around my boots on First Beach

Before packing it in for the night, we took some still life rock shots and snapped a few shots of the setting sun as it ducked behind a cloud bank.  We headed back to the trailer for a tasty dinner of ground turkey and vegetables in a spicy thai peanut sauce.  While we waited for dinner, we took a few moments to review and edit our pictures from the day and pick our favorites.

That night, Ross was able to score one of the luxury condos right on the beach and he invited us to crash there for the night.  We stayed up for a few moments and talked before turning in early since we were getting up to shoot the sunrise the next morning.

Check out the rest of my shots from the weekend at SmugMug here: (link)

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No, not a Dobro (see below):

… a DROBO (see below):

What’s a Drobo?  Well, according the manufacturer.. it’s “The World’s First Storage Robot”.  Basically, it’s a really cool really big RAID array thingy.

Basically, I’m not afraid to shill for schwag – so I’m trying to win the weekly contest from the “This Week In Photography (TWiP)” podcast.   The contest is for a free Drobo – and to enter the drawing, you have to link to the TWiP site.

It’s actually a really good podcast, and one I just stumbled upon.  They do a pretty good job of keeping it fun and informative – though I wish they’d talk about Aperture (from Apple) a little less.  Not being an Apple user, I’m not real interested.  The other 95% is great, though..

So – here’s my link in a post, and my link in the sidebar: This Week In Photography

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