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From the field...

For What It's Worth...

October 20th, 2011:
Sayonara Airsoft! Konnichiha Paintball!

After an exciting work outing to Action Paintball Field in Taylor, I’ve decided to switch back to paintball from Airsoft. While Airsoft was relatively inexpensive and fun, it’s more difficult to find somewhere to play. A few years ago, we were having relatively frequent matches on private property (either friends or mine). However, we’ve all had some changes in our lives (some folks got married, I converted by pole barn to a full time race car workshop) and the availability of these locations has become severely limited.

Enter Paintball… There are several great Paintball fields in the area. Action Paintball in Taylor is close enough to work for a quick match on occassion, while Hell Survivors in Pinckney is just 20 minutes from my house. They have open play every weekend for just $15 as well as regular events including a zombie hunt-style outing in October. In addition to dedicated and convenient locations, the hardware is more fun than I remember. The markers (guns) shoot and hit hard, air is free at most fields with entry and all of it is easy to find (compared to Airsoft) at one of several local shops (Exotic Sportz, Action Paintball, etc.). There are even some indoor fields to play during the winter.

I’ll be selling my Airsoft gear on EBay, unless somebody would like to buy it directly (let me know). I already have 2 outing scheduled for the upcoming weekends with some folks. If you’re not sure if you want to invest in the hardware, you can rent a marker and mask from any field and try it before you buy it.

- Duane

October 16th, 2011:
I Think We Missed The Summer?!

Apparently, summer happened. We were so busy, I’m afraid we missed it. So much was going on that we just didn’t notice!

Gina interviewed with a number of Universities and Research Institutes across the U.S., but decided to set up her new lab at Michigan State. She’ll start there in June 2012. We had a full and successful race season. A lot of the gremlins in my race car have been cased off and it performed very consistently, though we all agree it’s time for a new engine and upgraded transmission. I survived and enjoyed my first full year working in downtown Detroit. I’ve yet to drive to lunch and did more waking downtown than I would have imagined a year ago. We also completed our basement theater (with the only exception of an anamorphic lens for our projector) and game room. We even upgraded to a Sony ES 3D projector. We had a late summer/early fall trip to Florida with my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. Gina had to present some of her work a a big conference, but it was a good excuse to hang out in a rental house with hot tub and pool. We even made it to the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Animal Kingdom despite some sickness on my brother, nephew’s and my parts.

We’re looking forward to settling in for the winter and enjoying our theater while preparing to finish the bar area! If I’m really lucky, I’ll find some time to update this blog a little more often!

- Duane

June 30th, 2011:
Theater Project: Close, Yet Far…

The major construction on our basement remodel is complete… And it looks amazing. My brother’s custom building company, Degen Development, really transformed the unfinished space into somewhere I would like to spend a lot of time. The basement is now divided into 5 spaces with several closets for equipment and utilities. There is a game room with arcade and air hockey, a bar (not completely finished yet, due to the cost of cabinets and countertops), and dedicated theater room. We’re at the point when we should be buying all of the equipment for the theater, but due to tsunami damage in Japan’s manufacturing plants, our projector is no longer available. So, our consultant at AVIO have recommended a different model (given our requirements) that will be available in August. Everything else is ordered and available. So, come August, we will be enjoying big screen goodness in our home theater.

- Duane

January 9th, 2011:
Keith, Gina and I Record A Few Songs (Part 1)

In early December of last year, Gina, Keith and I goofed around with some of the most basic recording equipment I’ve ever used to record a few songs. Using a simple USB audio-in converter and a 4-channel mixer we recorded Crazy and I Will Follow You Into The Dark along with a few others that I’ll have online soon. This was all recorded live… and just for fun. No post-production work has been done.

- Duane

November 22nd, 2010:
A Visit to Shawn O’Grady’s 8/16-bit “Museum”

I met Shawn O’Grady while visiting the University of Michigan 3D lab. He’s the rapid prototyping expert on-site and does some amazing stuff during the day. However, a chance mentioning of Lightwave 3D on the Amiga had us talking about our affinity for the 20-year old multimedia powerhouses before the end of my visit. A few weeks later, Shawn came over to our house and tried to revive one of my Amigas (a 2000 w/ Video Toaster). The computer was DOA, so he hooked med up with his beautifully restored and updated A2000 and I gave him my A4000T. All-in-all, I just wasn’t using the A2000 he gave me and I thought it should go back to Shawn. This past weekend, I visited Shawn and got to check out his amazing collection of Atari, Commodore, and other retro hardware.

Shawn has updated his “museum” a fair bit since these photos were taken. I thought I knew just about everything from the history of Commodore/Amiga, but he has machines I never knew existed including the Commodore plus/4 and Commodore 16! Just about every Atari console and computer system were also represented. He has a few rare/odd finds including the Mattel Aquarius and Coleco Adam computer systems and a handful of game systems only found in Japan.

To cap it all off, Shawn had an old Super Cobra arcade cabinet made by Stern that he wanted to give to a good home to make some room in his garage. I gladly accepted it and will be restoring/updating it for MAME duties in our theater’s game room!

- Duane

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