Mark's latest projects

Mark had the itch to do a lot of projects this summer. He started quite a few.

He went up on the mountain to get some wood, and carved out this little rustic bowl:

  I think it turned out to be harder than he planned, but maybe with some more specialized tools, he could churn out a bunch of these.

While he was at it, he made some wooden coasters.

Then, he decided to make an all wooden vintage style pinball machine. He'd really like a real one, but in the meantime, this is a fun project. He lies awake at night getting ideas for stuff like this.

He's got the levers working, and painted a protective finish on it, but has some more things to do with it before it's done.

He had a birthday on August 18, and about a month before that, he decided to treat himself to a very large present:

Much to his delight (and much to my exasperation), he found out about a restaurant in Hurricane that was selling off an entire arcade, with more than a dozen vintage gaming consoles. He begged me to let him buy a couple of them, but I said no way ($700, hello). But next thing I knew, he called them up and said he'd buy the Neo Geo for $350. Alrighty then...

Unless you grew up in the 80s going to arcades like he did, this seems like an odd obsession. But Mark was like an excited little schoolboy. Mark's brother Paul was enthused enough to make a YouTube video featuring it.

So then, of course he had to take the whole thing apart and clean it, and fiddle with the electronics and the speakers, etc.

...I don't even know if it's worth apologizing for Captain Underpants there in the background, as we all know Luke is only in his undies in 3/4 of the pictures I take of him. I literally cannot keep him clothed. He is like Mowgli or Tarzan or something.

Then he added new speakers and paint to his handmade MAME console, and now we have TWO of these giant things in the garage. Mark could not be more giddy about this. He says he's just biding his time for when we can have a whole game room, complete with a real pinball machine and air hockey table. And maybe a Foosball table and who knows what else.

On his birthday, he and I went out to eat at a fancy restaurant, and then made a trip to Home Depot to buy PVC pipe and dowels ("The best birthday date ever.") so he could make some pump action cork guns.

They are still a work in progress, until he can borrow a scroll saw to cut out the handles. I keep telling him he could have his own etsy shop for stuff like this.

Everything sort of came to a screeching halt in August, because Mark picked up a bunch of extra shifts at work. He didn't have a single day off for something like 17 days in a row, he was working all his Thursdays (normally his days off) plus Thursday nights, and his clinic is making them all work full day Fridays, see extra patients during lunch, and also come in an hour early for work (their new policy now). He was working his Thursdays to try and earn extra money to help us get caught up...

Long story short, we still had medical bills rolling in and our health care costs were 4x what they were last year. We ended up having to drop all our health insurance policies in order to stop going in the hole every month. Lovely!

He (and I) just barely survived him working himself to death in August. And now he is studying his brains out--having to re-certify for his BLS and ACLS (Basic Life Support and Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support), and taking online courses on ECG interpretation in order to pass the ACLS. And 2 1/2 weeks from now, we have to travel up north so he can sit for his PANRE (medical boards re-certification)!! He is going nuts--he hates studying. But hopefully he will pass and then not have to worry about it for another 10 years! Wish him luck...