Chapter 1 - Where we left off... almost 23 months ago...
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Re: One Tale At A Time...
Postby WARLOCK » Tue Jan 05, 2016 10:58 pm
Well, I must admit, I am distracted "doing" things lately which leaves no time for writing.
(BPL - Bluffs Pinball League)
Since Brewmanager and I are busy with our friends getting pins on legs for a new league, I had this thought...
I will start documenting and posting 10 pin fixes on 10 machines in the next 10 days until our first league night in 10 days or so.
1st pin on deck is a very nice Firepower II that just had a quirk or two and is happily running. Super great pin from a friend in NY state.
More soon.
All the best.
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Once upon a soft Toronto winter approaching; in December of 2015, a merry gang of pinball misfits began taking pinball machines and vids and coin OP objects of some sentiment and notoriety, out of 2 large south Scarborough storage units.
The silencing of Mike Wong was fantastic, and the prompting from Mike of me getting pins on legs and playable ceased. I owe Mike a debt of gratitude that I cannot repay. Mike pushed for me to either sell pins or get them on legs and playable. After 2 and a half years of stacking pins in storage, (many of which Mike Wong - The Enabler, helped me procure) the time had come to get them all out and playable at the new shop.
Bluffs was born before that Christmas, and the storage units were empty before New Years. Bluffs Pinball League - BPL was born that cold January and we pushed to get those first 10 pins up and running immediately. The storage units were floor heated units, so the pins did do well in the 2.5 years in storage. Many just needed some tweaking and cleaning, wax and rubber to play well. Once we were into the new location at Bluffs, not far from my other work and business shop, we rushed to get the league up and running for every 2nd Thursday initially for the first 18 months. It now runs every Thursday with finals occurring every 2 months afterward. We picked Thursdays as it didn't conflict with the Toronto or Durham League event nights, and we still try to coordinate all finals and special events, tournaments and fundraisers around what is now 4 leagues in the GTA including City league in the west end. Scarborough and(The Bluffs) is in the east end of the GTA, and south, close to the lake and the natural beauty of these Bluffs and the waterfront is what inspired the name for our pinball shop close by.
Brewmanager (Walt) (
http://www.portunionpinball.com) is our league administrator and runs the Bluffs league and his PFC (Pinball for Change) Charity events from his website in the Port Union area of the far eastern most part of Scarberia.
Walt's double door garage has perhaps hosted more pins from more different people on a temporary basis than anyone else I know in this hobby. Walt's eagerness to assist pinheads wherever possible is... wait for it... legendary. Bluffs (Port Union) Pinball was originally intended for Walt's garage until we, (I) had to many pins and we became too big... Many of us from the GTA, southern Ontario, Ottawa, Montreal and many places inbetween owe Walt - The administrator, our gratitude for his assistance in temporary housing of pins from all over in this, the most infamous of garages. From early spring to late fall, that garage could tell great stories of pins of temporary residency. We discussed putting new doors on it and winterizing it, and I bet one day we will...
Bluffs is also home to all of the "stuff" that doesn't fit into the shops of a couple of other businesses that I and one of my business partners run. I run an Audio Visual production company (
http://www.pandor.com) and my business partner at Bluffs runs a Flower Shop that also provides florals for large events. Together, we have a Decor company (McMann Events) which provides furniture and other event rentals that fall outside the realm of our Floral and Audio Visual companies. We have even rented out video games and pinball machines to corporate clients that ask us for them. This new company we formed was how Bluffs became, well Bluffs. It is the reason that we have machines there and our League. Bluffs has space for pinball and contributes to the rent of the building. Bluffs runs differently than most places with pinball machines. It has a great management team who volunteers their time and energy, providing what the league and the machines requires. I will go into further detail on this in a later chapter but I want to ask everyone's permission first before naming names just yet.
10-12 machines was initially the goal to have up and running at Bluffs in early 2016. Eventually 16 would be great, and if we had 16 members in league, then 16 pins should be lots... This quickly (in my mind) went to 24 pins plus 2 spares based on floor space available to us. The desire was to play PAPA style banks of 4 pins, with an EM, SS, DMD and something kinda special in each bank of 4 pins. We play 2 banks of 4 pins each Thursday night. We play 8 Thursday nights and we need 6 sets of scores of those 8 nights for IFPA rankings. We have approximately 80 members, with 28-32 regular players attending with 40 showing up for finals once every 2 months. There is redi-rack with shelves that house an additional 24 pins above the ones we play weekly. There is easily another 48 pins that are in the wings in various places either under restore or on loan so there are 96 pins that are in the lineup to play for league. This should keep us busy for several more years before we can get to playing all the inventory. 20 more long term projects wait patiently on higher shelves and in other places until their time comes.
Bluffs came about out of necessity to deal with having too many pins in storage with an overwhelming desire to play them. It developed differently than I thought it would and has become it's own unique entity. Bluffs turns 2 in a few weeks.
Next Chapter, I will touch on the last day at Pitt Street in Montreal and what happened in that time from early May until that December of 2015 when Bluffs was born...
And I will get to that list of the first 10 pins - but I do have to look that up...
More soon.
