BUILD AN ARCADE AND THEY WILL PLAY
Robert has long had a dream of owning his very own Centipede arcade game. However he did not really believe this pipe dream of his would ever come true. A few weeks ago, Chris unleashed a new dream. "You can build your own arcade Dad. I can put a PC inside and load thousands of games on it. Not only will you have Centipede, you will have just about every past arcade game created."

Robert was immediately and totally on board. And so the project began.

The details of building the arcade ranged from securing small parts to buying big parts, many off EBay, to using the monitor from my business computer. No, I am not dead in the water because of this theft. I now have a brand new, more swanky, brighter, and a much more beautiful monitor as a replacement.

After securing a cabinet from the arcade auction in San Jose, Robert and Chris set their focus to finish the arcade in time for the family reunion. If you don't count putting a new design on the outside of the arcade and rebuilding a control panel board, then they succeeded. Robert and I did throw together a temporary "rooster" design for the top of the arcade to go along with our "rooster" family reunion theme.

Chris was here just hours before it went into play making sure all was up to snuff, installing software so the interface displayed horizontal not vertically. My uncle Ron was the first convert. He arrived early on Wednesday before the reunion and got a head start on Centipede. From then on, through Sunday, the arcade was in constant play.

That's not all. The hard disk being used for the arcade is so large it also can be set up with a jukebox capability. Next, we will buy a special card to allow for a wireless connection to the internet. So, if the arcade games aren't in play, you can surf the net or listen to our "jukebox" in the poolhouse! Of course we can already predict, the jukebox and the internet kiosk functions likely will not be fully utilized. After all, we built an arcade and they (our guests) will play games long before they will want to listen to music or surf the world wide web.

 

 

 

 

 

REUNION ON THE GRAY SIDE
Not only did we have clouds and a mid afternoon downpour, we had a small gathering at this year's annual Gray PEAR family reunion. Lots of potential attendees who thought they were coming, somehow in the end, had a change in plans. Donna, what happened? We were counting on you to break in our new horseshoe set.

Not only did horseshoes sit idle, so too the camping ground remained barren. No anticipated Walkie Talkie chatter. Only Uncle Tom was adventurous enough to spend the night in the field albeit in his van. Because there was a good deal of noise from our reunion campers in 1999 about incessant crowing, we even made sure our six-month-old unplanned for rooster was rousted out before the weekend. We sure didn't want any uprisings like those that were threatened in 1999.

On the other hand, the rooster pinñata was spared. The only kid attendee, at a year and a half, was much more interested in swimming and dog walking than candy.

Gray indeed. Not so those who did show up. No wait, that's not quite right. There were a few: Mom, her sister JoAn and her brother Tom. Okay now that I got that cleared up, those who did show up, all were delightful, enjoyable and fun to visit as we caught up on what's happening and what's new. We had a wonderful variety of family members. Robert's Mom Jean and sister Kim, his aunt Marjorie and uncle Dana, my Mom Alice, her brother Tom, her sister JoAn and her sister's husband Ron. There was my aunt Irene, my cousin Frank, his wife Dawn, son Frank and granddaughter, Anya. A pleasant surprise were my Dad's second cousins, Jack, and his wife, Carol, who came down from Tacoma on the train. Even family friends, who are always welcome, attended. Patty, a lifelong friend of Frank's wife, along with her daughter, Melissa, also joined us and, of course, Kathy, Chris, Robert and myself. All in all, a total of 21 of us were in attendance.

Although horseshoes and the piñata faded into the background, the pool and arcade certainly did not. Robert worked hard on both.

About a month ago, the arcade was only a thought in his head. With a great deal of focus and a lot of help from Chris he succeeded in having up to 3000 arcade games available for play shortly after my Mom, Ron and Joan arrived Wednesday night. The arcade did not stop running for three days as contenders for high scores in Centipede, Space Invaders, Frogger, and Tetris lined up and competed.

Then there was the pool effort. Everyday, for the last month, with Northern California's extremely warm weather working in his favor, Robert faithfully turned on the solar heater above the arbor in front of the poolhouse. Every night he made sure the pool cover was in place. This dedication resulted in a very warm 85 degree pool which made for balmy swimming and lots of web feet sprouting— especially on Anya and her daddy!

There was other entertainment too. Besides a trivia game which Kim won followed by Tom in second place and JoAn in third, Tom's newest buddy, a handsome, 1 and 1/2 year-old Jack Russell named Sherpah, bounced throughout the house, patio, poolhouse, and all over the field. Anya, coincidentally the same age as the puppy, added to the entertainment. She decided Sherpah needed a walk. I am sure she walked him (or was it he walked her?) every foot of our property, again and then a third time if not more. When Anya finally tired an hour or so later, Tom took Sherpah's leash off. Anya immediately became distraught. She picked up the hook of the leash and just looked at it quite perplexed. "Broken," she announced over and over as she kept looking at Sherpah in Tom's lap and the hook that no longer had a dog attached to it. Everyone roared.

Wait. That's not all.

Friday night, after barbecued hamburgers and hot dogs by the pool, everyone caravanned over to Chris' house to "build their own dessert" with all the fixings for banana splits and sundaes set out on Chris' kitchen counter—vanilla, chocolate, & strawberry ice creams, cherries, nuts, bananas, whipped cream and flavored syrups. Not only did we all get to enjoy the yummy creation each of us created for our self, we also got to see Chris' immaculate house, his yard weeded and groomed for the first time in months (both of which he worked very hard at all day long), and to marvel over the K'Nex creation still hanging on his wall in the living room. As impressive as the Charlie Coaster is, and unfortunately broken because of stripped gears, Tom was disappointed when he discovered the current K'Nex creation was not the one written up in the local paper. He had told everyone how great that first creation, dubbed the Atomic Paraball, was. He was anxious to see it in action. He made sure Chris pulled out the article for everyone to read. http://www.buildfest.com/paraball.htm

Saturday night Tom pulled out his dominoes and gathered up all the sort of self proclaimed domino players. This included Irene who obviously enjoyed playing the most—she who is from a long history of card and game playing, much like my Dad and his brother Lee.

Speaking of Lee, he did not make it. He called though to voice his regrets. He told me he just was not able to arrange any transportation to come down. This is only the second PEAR reunion he has ever missed. If it wasn't for Irene and her son, I am sure he would get the prize (if there were such a prize) for the most family reunions attended.

In reflection, the whole reunion event really did turn out nice. It is not the quantity of the crowd but the quality that really makes the event. We enjoyed having everyone and next year hope they will all come back. Speaking of next year, the Gray PEAR family reunion is slated for Alice's or Tom's house in Washington, and guess what? I am ready. I already have a piñata to bring!

 

 

 

WEDDING DETAIL
Since the end of June, Kathy has come up from southern California three times to take care of wedding details. It is hard to fathom how much there is to planning a wedding. You have to be on the inside to really know. I don't consider myself being on the inside, at least not like Kathy. Every time we get together I discover more and more what she is dealing with. So I am getting a little more of an idea of what the inside track is like.

The first trip up, the weekend before the Fourth of July, was measurable. Tim and Kathy flew up, rented a car out of Oakland. One of their major accomplishments that trip was finishing all the invitations, stuffing envelopes and addressing them.

Trip number two, on July 11, Kathy once again flew up arriving in Oakland where Robert and I picked her up. This weekend was mostly scheduled for her bridal shower. Of course she stuffed in as many other wedding related activities as she could manage.

Trip number three, the weekend of the family reunion, Kathy drove straight up to Sacramento to try her wedding dress on for a second fitting and with still adjustments to be made, had to return the following Tuesday for yet another fitting. During this weekend, she had a facial, trial makeup and hairdo done. She dove into a number of homemade projects including garter belts and ring bearer pillows. Grandma Alice was a big help with these last two projects.

She also found time to check out dinner entrees for the rehearsal dinner this same weekend.

The list of details is growing shorter. So is the time to do them. She returned home feeling quite overwhelmed even with me volunteering to take on more projects than she ever intended. I want her to be more burden free, not to worry about all the little things. I want her to just to relax and enjoy her wedding day. Of course she is like her mother, she wants to do it all, she wants everyone to enjoy her wedding day too.
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