Leinninger.com

I met Shawn O’Grady while visiting the University of Michigan 3D lab. He’s the rapid prototyping expert on-site and does some amazing stuff during the day. However, a chance mentioning of Lightwave 3D on the Amiga had us talking about our affinity for the 20-year old multimedia powerhouses before the end of my visit. A few weeks later, Shawn came over to our house and tried to revive one of my Amigas (a 2000 w/ Video Toaster). The computer was DOA, so he hooked med up with his beautifully restored and updated A2000 and I gave him my A4000T. All-in-all, I just wasn’t using the A2000 he gave me and I thought it should go back to Shawn. This past weekend, I visited Shawn and got to check out his amazing collection of Atari, Commodore, and other retro hardware.

Shawn has updated his “museum” a fair bit since these photos were taken. I thought I knew just about everything from the history of Commodore/Amiga, but he has machines I never knew existed including the Commodore plus/4 and Commodore 16! Just about every Atari console and computer system were also represented. He has a few rare/odd finds including the Mattel Aquarius and Coleco Adam computer systems and a handful of game systems only found in Japan.

To cap it all off, Shawn had an old Super Cobra arcade cabinet made by Stern that he wanted to give to a good home to make some room in his garage. I gladly accepted it and will be restoring/updating it for MAME duties in our theater’s game room!

- Duane

Today I finished preparing my Camaro for storage. After a thorough cleaning and hooking up the battery tender, it’s back under its cover: safe and sound. It served me well on my 50-mile-each-way commute to work… though we had a bit of a scare last week in the rain. Sideways changing lanes in traffic is a good way to make sure you’re awake in the morning. With new shoes, fresh oil, an alignment, and much needed O2 sensor replacement, my Subaru is back on daily driver duties. After sinking a fat wad of cash into the latest repairs, Gina and I agreed that it will be a good winter car even after I finally get a new daily driver. Gina and I spent many hours cleaning and repainting the theater seat hardware. They’ve been sitting in our basement and guest room for 4 years and they needed a good scrubbing, stripping and paint. I’m happy with how well they turned out. We’ve planned out the last details of our basement finishing and theater project. After doing some research, we’ve selected and are scheduling our ceiling, trim carpentry, and carpet. If all goes well, we’re on track for the theater to be complete by the end of the year. Although I hoped to squeeze 5 race weekends into this year, a long an expensive first race weekend combined with a number of upgrades and repairs to my Spec Racer Ford eliminated a fifth race due to budget constraints. I had a lot of fun and learned a lot this year. With a little more prep on the car and some more seat time next year, I’m hoping to offer a little more competition in the spring. Lastly, Gina and I delivered my first race car (an ITA/Spec Neon) to it’s new owner. Though I set the price exceptionally low to sell it quickly, we were surprised by the quantity and speed of responses from the members of Waterford Hills. It sold in a week to an excited new driver with some quarter midget experience. It should do well as I’ve invested a lot of time and money in the ole’ girl since I purchased it in 2003. Hopefully, he’ll seek out the expertise of Chris Childs at Angry Sheep Motorsports. He certainly knows how to get the most out of the platform as well as just about anything else with 4 wheels and a roll cage. Don’t forget to take care of your car with Auto Parts Canada.  

- Duane