A Few Months is Hardly a Difference

What was that USPS package in my mailbox? I did order a replacement remote for my ancient Onkyo Home Theatre System. My Internet search showed a single Florida business where I could order the no-longer-produced item. I did that yesterday, so I knew it couldn't have already arrived. The mystery box had no visible return address.



As soon as I saw the handwriting and images on the enclosed card, I knew it was from old friend, Bret. Notice my inclusion of 'old' which can mean 'for a long time' or 'advanced in age'. There was a smaller wrapped packet inside too.

I was quite surprised to find a brand-new, 38-year-old t-shirt. It is the perfect gift. It would barely fit around my right arm nowadays, but how cool to have a souvenir from my youth! Bret and I co-owned one of the most notorious boats floating (sometimes) on Lake Sunapee at the time. It was purely for recreational purposes and the original printed shirt proved we had quite a few 'passengers' to clothe and impress.



I cannot dispute that I moved into my sixth decade before Bret. However, that does not make him as young as his card seems to imply. I know this for a fact. In fact, I submit this photographic evidence captured just shy of a decade ago. This photo of him and his son was taken on August 23, 2009, during his surprise birthday party in Ballard, WA. He would be turning 50 years old. So, if my math is right ...

Virtual Doesn't Mean 'Instead' - Day 63

I think the word, virtual, has collected some unwarranted emotional baggage. Doesn't it contain a hint of the concept of not being as good as reality? That is clearly not true.

Well okay, I'll grant you that taking a photo on our present balcony is definitely not as good as having you take a chair right here beside me. And it'd be especially hard for me to offer you a glass of wine online.


Yet a lot of what we do virtually helps to promote real living. I am sitting at a table in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico but have been very aware of the past, present, and future today.

I won't take time to discuss how I listened to music, banked, researched, and kept up with friends from far and wide. Today's entry only includes my idea of getting former classmates together for an eventual reunion. Planning for a fortieth class reunion sounds like someone else should be doing it, someone old. Ours, in fact, is still a few years away but it's never too early to start planning.

I was rousing the troops on a Facebook group created years and years ago. This also caused me to remember a different page I made. While the first group is designed to get people together in the future, the latter is just designed for remembering the past. In the process, I discovered this:

I'm Not the Angry One

What? Did I just spend 20 minutes playing Angry Birds Rio?

I have never ever been much of one to play electronic games. Well, perhaps back in the days of yore and The Harbor Gameroom, but that was only because when on shift I had a tool-belt-full of redeemable quarters. I mean, I never bothered with PC games. To further the point, I never owned a dedicated gaming console until the PS3, and that purchase was made primarily for its Blu-ray capabilities.

So, I find it odd that I just spent any measurable time trying to sling-shot birds against piles of precariously balanced bricks and mortar.

My Past and Bit Before It

Today allowed me time to recall a few connections to my past.

Last October, I created a Facebook group for people who've graduated from my original hometown of Sunapee, NH. School staff and interested people are encouraged to participate as well. Since last fall almost 300 people have joined the Virtual Sunapee Reunion 2. It is a great place for people to reconnect with old classmates or to organize events such as reunions. I recently realized that one of the members was trying to organize events for a fiftieth high school reunion and that it would've been my mother's class. As my mom passed away in 1981, I have a difficult time picturing her as an older lady. The person spearheading the reunion for the group had posted a few old scans too. I noticed my mother in a photo. Her name was Martha Osgood.


The caption says, "1958. We were in Boston for some event.
Anyone remember why? Marty, Harriet, Karli, Dotty, Joanne"
Okay, so that was the day's first connection to the past. Then, when I went to the mailbox after work, I had an envelope from Bret Wirta's company. Inside there was a copy of the summer 2009 issue of the SooNipi Magazine. SooNipi was the original spelling of the place I grew up. In the langauge of the Algonquian Indians, it meant something akin to 'waters where wild geese land'. The spelling is now just plain old, Sunapee. I knew that Bret had been writing an article on The Harbor Gameroom. Sure enough, there it was. I hope to eventually get permission to scan the interesting four pages of text and photographs. Nice job, Bret!

A Reason to Go to the Harbor

This weekend I got a message from Bret. He's the premiere reason that another buddy, Joel, and I were able to run a summer arcade business in my hometown of Sunapee, New Hampshire. Those were the years right after we'd graduated from high school. Bret was recently asked to write up a story for a locally-published magazine. Of course, in 2008, the request was to record the significance of those activities in a historical perspective. By a strange twist of circumstance we have separately all ended up as residents a few hundred miles of each other but near the other ocean. Bret's email was to ask whether Joel or I had any quotes to offer.

I have, on occasion, difficulty remembering what I had for dinner on the previous evening, so I am skeptical about how much I might be able to add to events of thirty years ago. I did a few searches on the Internet to see if I could locate any photos that would help to remind me of Sunapee Harbor in that bygone era. The only pictures, I could dig up were those that I'd contributed to the Internet myself. I modified this picture which Bret had once taken. It was originally in Kodacolor but all but the yellow dye had faded; therefore, I converted it to black and white.

It shows the most important part of what I can recall. The picture does show a young Joel and me. A significant aspect is that another classmate, Sherry Simms seems to be hard at work with maintenance too. She would not have been a paid employee but was among the others who simply wanted to hang out. During those summers of operation, we offered such a place for many of the kids in town too. In those days the school system or town offered fewer programs to occupy youths' time. We were left to our own devices. Luckily, Bret saw the need as a business opportunity. I don't think it was as much about the money as a way to provide a fun atmosphere for not only the three of us. We gave many Sunapee residents, who were under twenty, a reason to come up to the harbor.

Image Conscious

I'll admit I can remember Pong on a home TV. Yet, as mentioned in my eJournal and images before, most of my game playing experience occurred when friends and I ran an arcade during the summers of my college days. That was the late 1970's and early 1980's. I remember shooting at tanks from inside a virtual world of vector graphics in Atari's Battlezone. This would've been the original, stand-up cabinet where the player looked through a periscope. I knew that even thin green lines in 3-D sure seemed to beat out the coloured, but flat, images on the Pacman machines.



For years and years after that I didn't play games.

I did toy with an original xbox which is still in a closet here somewhere. We used it to play DVDs for a while and I spent a few hours impressed with Voodoo Vince.

Today, I spent most of the morning looking at trailers for the Sony PS3. This time things seem right for a fit to the Onkyo home theatre sound and the 42" Toshiba LCD. Although I'm thinking about buying one primarily for playing Blu-ray movies, if it's all connected, I will probably end up exploring a few game titles too. The Playstation 3 isn't known for having many good games at present: however, I expect the number will increase through 2008.



Yikes, we've gone beyond basic, wire frame graphics in the last 28 years, haven't we?

Rack 'Em Up

What a blustery day! I'm happy there's no class today due to it being a 3-day weekend for many businesses in Canada. The rain and wind started in the middle of the night. The noise woke me up. Even our gas fireplace blows out from the force and angle of the wind. Although it's mid-morning it hasn't let up. So, it is a suitable day just to hang around and watch DVD's, review email, and blog.

Last week, when I discussed games, I talked about old-school arcade machines. I even located an Internet photo of Xenon, the pinball machine for that entry. And wouldn't you know that Bret was able to scrounge up an actual photo from Sunapee, NH! Here's a scanned image from the Harbor Gameroom circa 1980.

Back When Games Were Games

Earlier this morning, I was looking at the my eJournal and images page which showcases my games label.

I guess I'm now old enough to be a little nostalgic.

I hear about game titles like BioShock in popular media but I've never been much of a first-person shooter. Although it must be said that I had a 22 rifle as a teenager. I even became quite good at skeet shooting with a 12-gauge. These were real life situations with family though. I just cannot seem to get too excited about buying into any of the modern gaming consoles. In fact, my old, original XBOX actually sits in a box.

I was a happy, however, to re-visit an old link I had entered in September 2003. It pointed to www.flippers.com. It seems to be a local Vancouver company and although the guy's no stunning web designer, it's the content that I found so very appealing.

As mentioned here previously, two high-school friends and I had an arcade in our little hometown of Sunapee, NH decades ago. It was the industry's turning point from mechanical to electronic. Pacman, Space Invaders, and Galaxian were fun to play but there was nothing better than the selinoid-thumping, electro-mechanical sounds of a real pinball machine.

I'd own a vintage example today were it not for a 725 sq ft apartment and the $2000 to $3000 price tag for an average setup. I bet it'd be much more for a mint conditon Bally Xenon. After all, that suductive female voice coaxing a player to "try a tube shot" could catipult just about anyone back into one's adolescence. And how much is that worth?

Where's Siglinda Steinfiller?

 

In yesterday's entry, I mentioned Bret. He's on the right in this well-worn photo of the famous trio that ran the Harbor Gameroom during summers from college. (See a previous blog entry.) This photo has been hanging around before. In fact, one very small and very old copy sits on my regular eResume Site's youth page. I recently scanned it again so that I could upload a copy to Flickr. It deserves to be re-digitized as the image will be 25 years old next spring.

By the way, this entry's title is a foggy reference to a beer marketing campaign. It was probably aimed just at college males. There were hundreds of free posters with a buxom babe with several large, full mugs. I can't remember the company but I recall the posters being on many dorm room walls.

A Business Card from 1977

It started the summer after high school graduation. The Soo-Nipi Shoppe at Sunapee Harbor, NH was created for tourists. We provided space in, what is again called, The Anchorage. To fill a small room, we collected handicrafts from locals and sold them on a commission basis. During that first year, we oversaw a few pinball machines and a jukebox in an adjoining room. In subsequent years, the whole business morphed into the Harbor Gameroom.

[Editor's note: Unfortunately this file seems to have been misplaced. --Nov. 2023]

The Eyes Have It

I was a little remiss in not getting this file up sooner. Back on my birthday, I quoted a line by Bette Davis as Margo Channing in "All About Eve". Over thirty years later, this tune was popular the summer I finished college. It is the epitome of early 80's music and I've never tired of it.


Kim Carnes sings a favourite from
the jukebox of The Harbor Gameroom.

Busting Out All Over

Being a student and instructor for so many years, I find there is more of a September to June orientation to years than a typical January to December. Until living in Vancouver and working by contract, the month of June had always been a time of change or travel. I thought I should return to a Microsoft Word file called myhistory.doc and I was able to put together a listing of previous Junes.

1980 - End of junior year at Keene State College. Worked at Harbor Gameroom.
1981 - Finished Bachelors at Keene. Worked at Dorr Woolen Mill and HGR.
1982 - Completed first year of Teaching in Kuwait and flew home through Amsterdam.
1983 - Finished at Al-Bayan. Spent summer as waiter at Indian Cave Lodge, Sunapee NH.
1984 - Flew home from U of WA and returned to Indian Cave as Front Desk Person.
1985 - Working in Taif, Saudi Arabia. Took a land vacation to Kobar and Bahrain.
1986 - Was playing with first IBM compatible computer at Taif Ordnanace Corp.
1987 - Flew to NH / WA for a vacaction from Taif.
1988 - Now at Saudi Navy in Dammam. Getting ready for a trip to Sri Lanka / Maldives.
1989 - Moved from first apartment in Bahrain to a compound at Al-Hamala Beach.
1990 - Still at the Bahrain Defense Force and had recently moved to Juffair flat.
1991 - Heard from HCT in Dubai. Worked part-time at Pitman Language School, Manama.
1992 - Completed 1st year at Higher Colleges of Tech. Ready for summer in Indonesia.
1993 - Got college's Teacher of Year. To NH to attend my father’s wedding to step mom.
1994 - Finished 3rd year at HCT. Getting ready to tour India for the summer.
1995 - I have no record of what happened in June of this year!
1996 - Quit at the Higher Colleges and arrived in Canada.
1997 - Working at Pitman Business College in Vancouver, BC.
1998 - 3rd Class at BC Institute of Technology. Moving to newly purchased apartment.
1999 - Teaching 7th Class at BCIT.
2000 - Took at BC Road trip for 12 days and 3000 miles.
2001 - Left for a 7-week road trip from Vancouver to St. John, Newfoundland and back.
2002 - Another local road trip: Vancouver Island / Sunshine Coast.
2003 - Teaching 18th Class at BCIT
2004 - Blogging this!

Down I-5

I will be travelling to Seattle today. It is time to catch up with friends. Bret and Joel were high school friends from the other side of the continent. The three of us ran, The Harbor Gameroom, an arcade at Sunapee Harbor, New Hampshire in the early 1980's. The last time we were together was at our 25th High School Reunion in 2002.

I am sure that I'll be able to blog from there. Bret is in the midst of adding computers for the kids, a wide-sreen notebook book for his lovely wife, and enough wireless networking to tie it all together.

No More Kidding Around

I looked like a baby in yesterday's photo! My glasses had lenses as large as the windshields on two Volkswagons.

Strangely, all three members of the gameroom gang are now on the other side of the continent. Athough we live less than 200 miles from each other, we unfortunately seldom get together. Here's a comparison image between our college years and the current millennium:

The Harbor Gameroom

A person could read any blog from the beginning. However, if there happens to be any logical development in the topic, then it occurs in reverse chronological order. For example, here's a recap of the last few days:

Last Friday, I mentioned that I had brought my camera to BCIT.

So, on Saturday, I showed a picture taken in the computer lab.

On Sunday, that led me to consider the music at the beginning of the PC era.

Yesterday, I spent some time discussing the movie, TRON, from that time period.

Now here's the current connection: The movie, TRON, contained arcade games as an important aspect of the plot. This has led me look around for a picture of the gang who brought Pacman to the Harbor at Sunapee, New Hampshire. Look at the friends in the picture who began The Harbor Gameroom. Thanks to Bret Wirta's endless business acumen, Joel Thomas's engineering aptitude, and the good fortune of the arcade boom, we created a summer business during my college years.

Although the building no longer exists, our business is kept alive in memory. Our large roof sign now sits in the Sunapee Historical Society.



"Come Play With Me .... at the Harbor Gameroom". That's what
the t-shirts used to say and it was accurate for the hundreds of local
and visiting patrons. I'm in the back. In the first row, Joel Thomas
is on the left. Bret Wirta appears in the middle and his brother, Mark
Wirta is on the right.

Werewolves

I got a message from Michael Ansart the other day about the death of singer/songwriter Warren Zevon. You see during my college days, a group of three ran an arcade in our small town in New Hampshire. The Harbor Gameroom was a hangout for not only summer visitors but also for the local youth in our tourist town of Sunapee. In that arcade, there was a jukebox that burned the favorite tunes of those times into our brains. During the summer of 1978, one of those songs was Zevon’s Werewolves of London.

Here’s a recent email exchange:

Michael Ansart: For some reason as soon as I heard the news, I felt the pain from old bruises sustained in a cardboard "pizza disk” fight at the gameroom.

Dennis Hurd: Thanks for the news. Okay, Bret ... what was the number on the jukebox?

Bret Wirta: All this ol' brain remembers is N4. Was that Main Street? Love is Like Oxygen?

Mark Wirta: Why couldn't it have been the Heart sisters instead. Would have given me some measure of satisfaction for having to listen to Barracuda every time that Bungay kid had an extra quarter.

Dennis Hurd: You mean the jukebox used quarters? I remember just opening a little door, reaching inside, and hitting ...

Michael Ansart: Years ago I saw Warren Zevon in a small club, I went in just liking his music, but came away with a bit of admiration for the man. He was three songs into his first set, when this loud group of approx. 8 entered the club and made a big deal with the club staff. Essentially demanding that they set a table up for them near the front of the stage. The club staff, trying to avoid a scene complied. Between songs, the loud and most obnoxious of the 8 repeatedly tried to talk with Zevon. Right in the middle of one song, Zevon simply stopped playing and turned to the audience and said, “Did you ever notice how the f#$*ing a*^holes who are up front at a show, are the ones who care least about the music?” Then he announced to a semi-stunned crowd, “I’m not going to continue until this table is empty” Then to wild applause, the club staff escorted the table of 8 to the door. Ever since that night, I always enjoyed listening to Zevon a little more.