A sizable percentage of coin-op hobbyists seem to share my predilection for having more restoration projects than they can reasonably manage at any given time. A deal comes up for a rare or desired arcade cabinet and you have to pounce on it, right ? You can't just leave it there. Right ?
Right now I have a PacMan, Atari Football, Arkanoid, Tron, MultiWilliams and Exidy Multigame in the project queue. Those are in addition to the projects that are awaiting finish details or minor repairs (Asteroids, Galaga, Flight 2000, TMNT).
With the influx of end-of- and start-of-year work projects, if I get to spend an hour a week on any of these projects, then I've been productive ... although when I do spend the time, it seems to be consumed by cleaning up my workshop in preparation for actually doing work. Or, I sit down to do some monitor repairs and find that I don't have all of the parts that I need (that big cap on Wells Gardner 4900 series is a pain to get a hold of).
And that makes me sad ... I have these hulking wood boxes that should be playing some really great games, but instead are ... well ... hulking wood boxes sitting in the basement.
There is nothing like a 6 foot, 300 pound paperweight (no, I don't mean me!) sitting beside you to make you feel like a failure. And it has been weighing on me heavily.
Apparently, I'm not the only one with a problem moving the queue along.
Yesterday, Mrs Cheffo and I received a letter from one of the centres providing services for families of autistic children.
This letter was sent to inform us that we can book a "screening appointment" for our child with autism (oddly enough, we have two and the name of the child who is now eligible is not mentionned anywhere in the letter).
"Your child's name" (that is how they phrased it!) was placed on a list for services at the time of our initial intake at the centre and they would like to invite us to call to book that screening appointment (which is just that -- an appointment to determine what services the child will benefit from and to get on the waiting lists for those).
The most generous scenario is that "Your child's name" refers to our youngest, who is seven and a half years old. His initial intake at the centre was in 2004. And here we are in 2010.
Are you (insert expletive of choice here, but make it a doozy) kidding me ? It has taken 5 YEARS to get an invitation for an appointment to determine which services we should get on the waiting list for ? How long are the waiting lists for actual services ?
For years, the experts have said that early intervention, preferably before the age of 3, is critical for these children and this centre has a 5 year backlog for preliminary screening ?
Add to that the insult of the last time we were invited to a screening where they denied us funding for our daughter's Applied Behaviour Analysis therapy (the one therapy that has been scienticially proven to work and runs 60-80K per year) because she was too high-functioning to qualify. No shit she was too high-functioning to qualify ... she had been in private ABA therapy for years by the time they even got around to screening her.
Now, while I am incensed and outraged, we are fortunate. We do well enough financially, and have such generous friends and family, that we have been able to afford to get our kids into private schools, treatments and therapies. We also do well enough that Mrs. Cheffo has been able to exit the workforce and, instead, investigate, arrange and transport our kids to the various venues. It means that we don't have many luxuries, we don't get to take family vacations every year and I can't buy that New-In-Box pinball or classic Death Race that I want, but we can provide for our children better than most.
So far, we have qualified for three funding programs.
The first was a diaper allowance (due to potentional delays in toilet training autistic kids). Well, one of the first things that was dealt with in ABA is toilet training. Short-lived benefit and didn't even come from the government in the first place.
The second was 6 sessions of speech therapy. 45 minutes per session from someone who knew less about speech therapy than I do (and wasn't a licensed SLP). We took it simply because you can't say no or you get cut off from all funding. I had to take nearly 3 hours out of my work day for each session. Those 3 hours could have been used to pay for many more hours of private therapy, from a qualified therapist, 2 minutes from our house.
The only meaningful program that we have qualified for is respite allowance, which is to be used for the rest of the family to get a break from dealing with the kids with autism. While I see the need to "take a break" from time to time, doesn't anybody think that it is completely and utterly stupid that I can get money to get away from my autistic kids, but can't get any money FOR my autistic kids ?
At the end of the day, however, we are lucky (and I can't believe how my definition of luck has changed!) and can provide these services for our kids despite the governement and their completely broken programs.
The question that I have for the government is: What about the thousands of families who can't manage the financial burden or who don't have the benefit of education and access to professionals ?
Maybe if I fix a game it will make me feel better ... I could really go for a round of Robotron right now.
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