Wednesday 11-20-24 Dance Day, Pinball Project & Diamond Painting

 

Awesome Day

It was a gorgeous day with a lot of sunshine. The high was 65 degrees with a north wind, which made it a little chilly.

Larry spent the day working on the mini pinball cabinet. He drilled the holes for the fans, a few holes for the flippers and a hole for the on and off switch. He also prepared the piece of the top box with bondo. Once the bondo setup he sanded it down. 

I attended three virtual square dances. First was Di Green and Terry McCann's weekly plus at 10:00 for an hour. Di and Terry took turns calling five tips to 10 participants. In between the tips we talked and joked around. Di and Terry did an excellent job of calling. When the dancers had problem they walked us through the move. I had a great time.

Second was Ett McAtee's weekly C1 at 1:00 for an hour. Ett called four tips to 21 participants. We discussed if we were going to meet next week, which is the day before Thanksgiving. About half of the dancers said they would be there because they weren't from the United States. She said she would let us know. Ett called a lot easier moves and I had a lot more fun this week than last week. 

Third was Dave Eno's weekly C1/A2 at 6:00 for an hour and a half. Dave wasn't there because he and his wife were in Thailand. Karin Rabe and Greg Moore called the whole dance. They called each tip together, which was 3 C1 tips and 3 A2 tips. In between the A2 tips we had a Trivia question. During the C1 tips we had 8 participants and the A2 had 10 participants. Karin and Greg did a great job of calling the dance. I had a fun time.

 

Having fun with friends

 

I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Free Cell Adventure of 20 games. It took me 1 hour, 27 minutes and 4 seconds, which put me in 5th place in my group. Then I played Angry Birds.

I worked out with the Synth Riders for 30 minutes.

I played seven games of pinball. They were Playboy, Elvira Party Monsters, Cactus Canyon, World Joker Poker, Big Buck Hunter Pro, Dr. No and Mission Impossible. No new high scores but I had fun.

World Joker Poker

Playboy

Mission Impossible

Elvira Party Monsters

Dr. No

Cactus Canyon

Big Buck Hunter Pro

I finished doing the diamond painting Seaside House yesterday so today I started doing the Tiger diamond painting.

 

Tiger diamond painting

 

After the last dance we continued watching the first season of Elementary. When Larry went to bed I watched a new series on PBS called The Marlow Murder Club. I watched the four episodes, that were available. I ended up doing 17,500 steps, which put me in 2nd place in my group.

   

Tuesday 11-19-24 Dancing A2, Diamond Painting, Mini Cabinet & Games

 

Beautiful Day

We had a beautiful day with sunshine and the high of 80 degrees. 

Larry spent the day working on the mini pinball cabinet. He finished building the upper box and built the monitor mount. He  installed the two hinges that allow access to the bottom cabinet and behind the small monitor. Next step is to take it apart and start prepping the pieces to get painting. The cabinet is coming out excellent and looks outstanding.

Complete Cabinet

Hinged Bottom Box

Hinges on the cabinet

Monitor mounted in the cabinet

Mount holding the monitor in place

I attended Di Green and Terry McCann's weekly A2 dance at 10:00 for an hour and fifteen minutes. Di and Terry took turns calling five tips to 12 participants. I danced the dance by myself while Larry worked on the mini cabinet. Di and Terry did an excellent job of cueing and calling the dance. I had a fun dancing and joking with friends.

Dancing with friends

I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Two Game Tango of 6 games (3 Spider and 3 Pyramid). It took me 20 minutes and 17 seconds, which put me in 31st place in my group. Then I played Angry Birds 2 and Angry Birds and Friends.

 

I played four games of pinball. They were Playboy, The Godfather, World Joker Poker and The Flintstones. I didn't get on the board but had fun.

 

 

 

The Flintstones

 

 

The Godfather

 

World Joker Poker

 

I continued working on my diamond painting of Seaside House. I completed the picture and it came out super.

The finish diamond painting of Seaside House

I worked out with the Synth Riders for 45 minutes.

Working out

In the evening we continued watching Elementary. Then I watched Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Then I finished watching Almost Paradise. I ended up doing 18,000 steps, which put me in 3rd place in my group.

Monday 11-18-24 Rain, Projects, Dancing & More

 

Rainy morning

We had lite rain throughout the morning. It started last night and left around noon. The high was 78 degrees.

We started the day out by attending Di Green and Terry McCann's weekly C1 dance at 9:00 for an hour and fifteen minutes. Di called five tips to 12 participants. Larry danced four of the tips with me. Di did an excellent job of calling. She cued through the dance, which helped the dancers get in the right formation and home. We had a super time dancing with friends.

Get a partner and dance

Larry continued building the mini pinball cabinet. I worked on the Seaside House diamond painting.

 

I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Solitaire World Tour of 30 games. It took me 3 hours, 3 minutes and 30 seconds to complete, which put me in 8th place in my group. Then I played Angry Birds.

 

 

Angry Birds characters

I worked out with the Synth Rider for an hour.

I played four different games of pinball. They were Playboy, Maverick, Star Trek the Next Generation and Superman and the Justice League. I got a new high score for the weekly challenge of Playboy, which was 55,756,220. It was an exciting game because I got all the playmates and did the Mansion Mania challenge. By doing this I entered my initials in the game. I didn't enter my initials in the other games but I had a good games.

 

 

 

 

Maverick

 

 

Playboy

 

 

Star Trek the Next Generation

 

 Superman and the Justice League

 

 

In the evening we continued watching the first season of Elementary. Then I watched Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and the fourth episode of the third season of Whitstable Pearl. I ended up doing 17,500 steps, which is a great start for the week. This put me in 2nd place in my group. 

Sunday 11-17-24 Top Cabinet Build Continues, New Challenge & Diamond Painting

 

Happy Sunday

We had a humid day with the high of 83 degrees. About 7:00 pm a front came in with rain. The rain was lite and stayed around the rest of the night. 

We started the day by going outside and working on the mini cabinet. I helped Larry when he needed me to. He started assembling the frame pieces. He experimented with pocket screw holes and found that this method had some flex. He then glued and screwed a couple of frame boards together and now he has to wait until the morning to see how this works. While he is waiting he started cutting and assembling the upper cabinet. For this he tried using 90 degree brackets. The brackets he got were not actually 90 degrees, some were more and some were less so he had to bend them to get 90 degrees. He assembled the upper cabinet with the brackets and they also have a bit of flex, depending on how his glue experiment goes he may have to also glue these. When he finished he realized the monitor would work better with an angle on the top cabinet. Tomorrow he'll figure out how to do the angle. 

 

 

Sanding boards for the upper cabinet

 

The cabinet so far

 

I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Medium Mayhem Mini of 5 games. It took me 15 minutes and 6 seconds, which put me in 15th place in my group. Then I played Angry Birds.

I worked on my diamond painting of Seaside House.

Today is the beginning of a new week so I have a new weekly challenge in pinball, which is Playboy. We already have this game so Larry just had to change the number of balls from five to three. Larry changed last week's challenge of Fish Tales from three balls back to five balls. I came in 39th place out of 58 participants last week. The first high score for Playboy I got was 22,971,620, which put me in 2nd out of 3 participants. I played six other games, which were Game of Thrones, Black Rose, Theatre of Magic, Terminator 3, Judge Dredd and Star Wars. While playing Judge Dredd in VR I didn't get the screen that displayed my score. After I finished playing I played it in 2D and the monitor works so I could get the score. 

 

Playboy

 

Black Rose

Game of Thrones

Judge Dredd

Star Wars

Terminator 3

Theatre of Magic

In the evening we continued watching the first season of Elementary. When Larry went to bed I watched Thor: Love and Thunder and continued watching the second season of Almost Paradise. I ended up doing 17,000 steps, which put me in 2nd place in my group for the week with 121,121 steps.

 

Relaxing in front of the television

      

Saturday 11-16-24 Belton Market Days, Pinball Project & More

 

Windy Day

We had a windy day with the morning temperature of 51 and the high of 81. 

We started the day out by going to town. Today was Belton Market Days, which is the third Saturday of the month. This event brings together local crafters, artists, food vendors and live music in downtown Belton. This event takes place downtown, some of the local shops and restaurants open their doors early so people can shop and dine. This week all the available spots were full with vendors. We walked around and looked at what the vendors had to offer. We didn't buy anything but we saw a lot of amazing things. Some booths had homemade breads, cookies, pies and other baked goods. Other booths showed off their crating ability such as woodwork, 3D printing, paint by numbers and many other. The vendors were friendly and very talented. We had fun walking around.

 

Unique bird feeder booth

 

3D printing booth

 

Paint by number booth

On the way home we stopped by Ace Hardware to buy some anti slip bumpers for the new pinball machine. Next stop was Walmart to pickup Larry's prescription and some items we were low on. Last stop was Dollar Tree to buy some cookie mix.

By the time we got home it was time for lunch. After lunch Larry went back to working on the mini pinball cabinet. He worked on building the top of the cabinet. We didn't have enough of the left over plywood so we ended up using part of the plywood we bought the other day. I helped when he was cutting the pieces he needed. Next step is to decide how to assemble the top of the cabinet. It's looking great.

I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Spider Adventure of 20 games. It took me 4 hours, 7 minutes and 58 seconds, which put me in 20th place in my group. Then I played Angry Birds.

I played four different games of pinball, which was Fish Tales, Cirqus Voltaire, The Great Houdini and Dr. No. I got a new high score playing the weekly challenge of Fish Tales of 139,441,540. This moved me into 26th place out of 44 participants. While playing Dr. No I entered my initials as high score #3. I had a good day of playing pinball.

 

Cirqus Voltaire

 

Dr. No

 

Fish Tales

 

The Great Houdini
 

Larry played a few games of pinball.

I worked on my Seaside House diamond painting.

In the evening we continued watching the series Elementary. I watched Dr. Strange in the Multiverse Madness and continued watching the second season of Almost Paradise. I ended up doing 17,000 steps, which put me in 2nd place in my group.

 

Friday 11-15-24 Happy Friday, Pinball Cabinet Build, Games & Ett's Dance

 

It's Friday enjoy the weekend

We had a great day. The temperature was very mild. The temperature started at 46 degrees and got to 76 degrees.

Forgot to tell you about Larry's tablet. The other day he was putting it up for the night and he dropped it, not the first time it has been dropped. He uses the tablet every day. The next day when he went to use it he saw a chip in the screen and a long crack. The good news was it still worked. The tablet is a bit over a year old and he really likes it. He jumped on Amazon and it was still available but the price had increased. He also thought he might do a bit of research and see if something else might catch his eye.

Later in the evening he was using the tablet and he said maybe the screen wasn't broken, maybe it was the glass screen saver he had put on it, sure enough, he pulled the screen saver off and it fell into two pieces but the actual screen was perfect. Happy man. He was quick to order another screen saver.  

We spent most of the day building the cabinet for the portable pinball computer. We started early in the morning, 9:00 and stopped at 2:00. Yesterday we bought a sheet of 1/2" plywood to use for the cabinet but so far we have not had to use it. Larry had some that was left over from another project and it might be enough, we will see. Larry decided what size he needed for the bottom and sides of the cabinet. He got his miter saw out and cut the size he needed. Then he used his table saw to cut the pieces to the more exact size. He wanted to put an angle on a couple of boards, this also required both saws. He was surprised when he put the angle on one of the pieces and cut it to size, the cutoff piece was an exact match. Saved him from having to create a second one. Next he had to drill the holes for the screws using his pocket hole tool. Then he used his Dremel tool to clean up the holes. Last step he screwed the pieces together and the cabinet looks great. Next step is to build the top. 

 

The cabinet

 

I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong before going to bed. After helping Larry with the cabinet project I did the event, which was Event: Experts Only Mini of 5 games. It took me 1 hour, 50 minutes and 14 seconds, which put me in 21st place in my group. Then I played Angry Birds.

I played four games of pinball, which were Fish Tales, Black Rose, Maverick and World Joker Poker. I didn't get on the board but I had fun.

 

Black Rose

 

Maverick

World Joker Poker

 

Larry continued doing research on parts he wants to put in the cabinet. Amazon and the post office have been making lots of deliveries.The other day he received packages via the post office from France and China, later in the day Amazon also made a delivery.

In the evening I attended Ett McAtee's Weekly A2 dance at 6:30 for an hour. She called four tips to 8 participants. We just danced and visited with each other. I had a fun evening of dancing with friends.

Having fun with friends

After the dance we started watching the first season of Elementary on Amazon. It is a Sherlock Holmes series starring Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Lu. It ran for seven years from 2012 to 2019. Then I watched Spider-Man: No Way Home. I worked on Seashore House while watching television. I ended up doing 17,000 steps, which put me in 2nd place in my group.