Edward called me the next morning and we tried to schedual a service call, but since he worked downtown and lives off the north shore of the Montreal island, he doesn't get home until 18:45. Apart from his commuting schedual being complicated, I added that I finished work at 16:30 in Ville St.Laurent and could be at his house as early as 17:20. He couldn't make it until 18:30 at best, so I said that I could hang around the office and get some extra stuff done until traffic died down, so we ended up agreeing on 18:30 as a starting point.

The day of the service call my girlfriend called me at the office where I hold a square job to ask if I could pick up our son at school by exception because she had urgent career obligations until 18:00. Well, I didn't really want to go to this crazy guys' house to fix a Bally SS that he and his lunatic partner had probably tried to fix themselves before calling me, so I said "yes" to my mate and "no" to Edward a few hours before the service call. I later learned that this made Edward quite suspicious of me. In his preconceptions the question ran like this, "Is this guy reliable or just another con artist who is going to screw me around ?"

You see Edward is a high roller, a high finance guy who moves more money around before noon than most of us do in a year. So when he called me the week after to reschedual, his tone towards me was rough, indignant and defensive, so I was quite happy to tell him that I don't need him as a client nor want to fix his screwy pinball machine and that I would gladly recommend him to many other local monkeys who would go to his house, overcharge him and try to fix what he and his dumb ass partner had broken. He quickly reverted back to a much more conciliatory tone for some reason. So the service call was set for 18:30 on the following Wednesday, but when I showed up at his McMansion in Laval there was no answer at the door. Fawk, what an asshole I thought. It would seem that I as well had preconceptions.

I went back to the car and decided to wait until 18:40 and then write it off as a screw up. As I sat down and lit a Dunhill, the front door of the house opened up and a thin slender lady called out to me in French, "Are you the man we are expecting to fix our machine ?" I shouted back, "Oui, es-ce que Edouard est la ?" "Non", she said, "but come in please, I was giving the kids a bath when you rang."

Alright then. She led me to a basement full of fancy high end stuff and furniture along with tons of cheap Walmart like small kid toys everywhere scattered across the floor of this huge finished basement. And there in a corner next to a covered snooker table and some fancy furniture in storage against a back wall  as a headless Six Million Dollar Man.

The phrase, "we can rebuild him" came to mind as I put his head back on and connected the 11 connectors (counting the ground braid) back and bolted the head down before Edward came home. I wanted to know what was wrong with this thing before the client showed up to ask the typical questions, so I hurried to look for signs of what they had tried to fix themselves before calling me in.

The rectifier board had an F4 fuse wrapped up in cigarette aluminum paper so I looked for a burnt coil on the playfield. (for those who don't know, F4 is responsible for the 43 VDC that supplies the coils on a Bally 1st system electronic games) Sure enough, the right flipper coil looked brown as far as its paper wrapper goes. The wiring to the end of stroke looked suspicious (not soldered to the lugs, just twisted on) and I quickly snipped the voltage feed before turning on the machine after replacing F4. As I powered it up for the first time, I heard heavy footsteps coming down the stairs, and by the time the seventh flash of the led on the MPU occurred, I turned around and saw one of the ugliest person I have ever met on a service call say hello to me in a loud and affirmative voice. Edward was an over weight man with the face of a pit bull and turned out to be a an intelligent man once we got talking. His kids then came downstairs after him (about 4 or 5 years old) and started to terrorize me running around with their pajamas falling off and asking if the machine would work tonight. Edward sharply said, "No", and I immediately corrected him and loudly said, "Yes". He shot me a nasty look. My reply immediately sent the kids into a turbulent frenzy until their mother came rushing downstairs and said that it was time for bed and whisked them away after they gave their dad a hug.

So I gave Edward the scoop about his machine, and after my spiel he said, "Do what you have to do to get it going." I explained that I didn't have that particular flipper coil with me (AQ25-500/34-4500) and that his sound board was dead, which were two things he didn't tell me during our pre-service call phone conversation. He claimed ignorance, as most shifty business mongols would when in a corner, and I kindly obliged. I liked him, even though he was obviously shifty.

So I said, "I can do your playfield clean up tonight or when I come back with the coil and repaired sound board."

"No, let's do the clean up tonight." he exclaimed. "It will relax me."

Indeed, Edward proved to be quite helpful in the hour that ensued. He handed me tools and tightened screw posts and handed me different rubber ring sizes from the rubber kit as he told me about the intense nature of his work. He actually participated in the repair and seemed to enjoy it as he told me more stories about how many service guys had ripped him off in the past because he didn't know much about technical and manual stuff, and that is maybe why he sounded suspicious of me on the phone the other day. He told me a story about a guy who fixed his boat and charged him a bundle for something he later found out wasn't broken. When Edward brought in another mechanic to check, a friend this time, he dragged the other guys ass through small claims court. He then explained that he is now extremely weary when he has to trust someone to fix something he doesn't know anything about. I can understand that, not knowing the ins and out of something is definitely a cause for caution, but I also know that when you are in the presence of someone who is competent, has a solid reputation and is honest, good perception is essential in order to know when to trust a stranger or not. Edward was very polite and accommodating with me by the time we finished cleaning his playfield and as he watched me work. So after we played a few one flipper games without sound together, he paid his bill, tipped me and offered me as much frozen canned lobster as I could carry.

Sometimes you make the catch, and other times you just end up reeling.

Robert A. Baraké  (R.A.B.)

Edward called me the next morning and we tried to schedual a service call, but since he worked downtown and lives off the north shore of the Montreal island, he doesn't get home until 18:45. Apart from his commuting schedual being complicated, I added that I finished work at 16:30 in Ville St.Laurent and could be at his house as early as 17:20. He couldn't make it until 18:30 at best, so I said that I could hang around the office and get some extra stuff done until traffic died down, so we ended up agreeing on 18:30 as a starting point.

The day of the service call my girlfriend called me at the office where I hold a square job to ask if I could pick up our son at school by exception because she had urgent career obligations until 18:00. Well, I didn't really want to go to this crazy guys' house to fix a Bally SS that he and his lunatic partner had probably tried to fix themselves before calling me, so I said "yes" to my mate and "no" to Edward a few hours before the service call. I later learned that this made Edward quite suspicious of me. In his preconceptions the question ran like this, "Is this guy reliable or just another con artist who is going to screw me around ?"

You see Edward is a high roller, a high finance guy who moves more money around before noon than most of us do in a year. So when he called me the week after to reschedual, his tone towards me was rough, indignant and defensive, so I was quite happy to tell him that I don't need him as a client nor want to fix his screwy pinball machine and that I would gladly recommend him to many other local monkeys who would go to his house, overcharge him and try to fix what he and his dumb ass partner had broken. He quickly reverted back to a much more conciliatory tone for some reason. So the service call was set for 18:30 on the following Wednesday, but when I showed up at his McMansion in Laval there was no answer at the door. Fawk, what an asshole I thought. It would seem that I as well had preconceptions.

I went back to the car and decided to wait until 18:40 and then write it off as a screw up. As I sat down and lit a Dunhill, the front door of the house opened up and a thin slender lady called out to me in French, "Are you the man we are expecting to fix our machine ?" I shouted back, "Oui, es-ce que Edouard est la ?" "Non", she said, "but come in please, I was giving the kids a bath when you rang."

Alright then. She led me to a basement full of fancy high end stuff and furniture along with tons of cheap Walmart like small kid toys everywhere scattered across the floor of this huge finished basement. And there in a corner next to a covered snooker table and some fancy furniture in storage against a back wall  as a headless Six Million Dollar Man.

The phrase, "we can rebuild him" came to mind as I put his head back on and connected the 11 connectors (counting the ground braid) back and bolted the head down before Edward came home. I wanted to know what was wrong with this thing before the client showed up to ask the typical questions, so I hurried to look for signs of what they had tried to fix themselves before calling me in.

The rectifier board had an F4 fuse wrapped up in cigarette aluminum paper so I looked for a burnt coil on the playfield. (for those who don't know, F4 is responsible for the 43 VDC that supplies the coils on a Bally 1st system electronic games) Sure enough, the right flipper coil looked brown as far as its paper wrapper goes. The wiring to the end of stroke looked suspicious (not soldered to the lugs, just twisted on) and I quickly snipped the voltage feed before turning on the machine after replacing F4. As I powered it up for the first time, I heard heavy footsteps coming down the stairs, and by the time the seventh flash of the led on the MPU occurred, I turned around and saw one of the ugliest person I have ever met on a service call say hello to me in a loud and affirmative voice. Edward was an over weight man with the face of a pit bull and turned out to be a an intelligent man once we got talking. His kids then came downstairs after him (about 4 or 5 years old) and started to terrorize me running around with their pajamas falling off and asking if the machine would work tonight. Edward sharply said, "No", and I immediately corrected him and loudly said, "Yes". He shot me a nasty look. My reply immediately sent the kids into a turbulent frenzy until their mother came rushing downstairs and said that it was time for bed and whisked them away after they gave their dad a hug.

So I gave Edward the scoop about his machine, and after my spiel he said, "Do what you have to do to get it going." I explained that I didn't have that particular flipper coil with me (AQ25-500/34-4500) and that his sound board was dead, which were two things he didn't tell me during our pre-service call phone conversation. He claimed ignorance, as most shifty business mongols would when in a corner, and I kindly obliged. I liked him, even though he was obviously shifty.

So I said, "I can do your playfield clean up tonight or when I come back with the coil and repaired sound board."

"No, let's do the clean up tonight." he exclaimed. "It will relax me."

Indeed, Edward proved to be quite helpful in the hour that ensued. He handed me tools and tightened screw posts and handed me different rubber ring sizes from the rubber kit as he told me about the intense nature of his work. He actually participated in the repair and seemed to enjoy it as he told me more stories about how many service guys had ripped him off in the past because he didn't know much about technical and manual stuff, and that is maybe why he sounded suspicious of me on the phone the other day. He told me a story about a guy who fixed his boat and charged him a bundle for something he later found out wasn't broken. When Edward brought in another mechanic to check, a friend this time, he dragged the other guys ass through small claims court. He then explained that he is now extremely weary when he has to trust someone to fix something he doesn't know anything about. I can understand that, not knowing the ins and out of something is definitely a cause for caution, but I also know that when you are in the presence of someone who is competent, has a solid reputation and is honest, good perception is essential in order to know when to trust a stranger or not. Edward was very polite and accommodating with me by the time we finished cleaning his playfield and as he watched me work. So after we played a few one flipper games without sound together, he paid his bill, tipped me and offered me as much frozen canned lobster as I could carry.

Sometimes you make the catch, and other times you just end up reeling.

Robert A. Baraké  (R.A.B.)