Last weekend I spent $32 on a single Atari cartridge.

If you’ve been following my Atari shelf project, that probably doesn’t sound like much. But up until now, I don’t think I’ve paid more than about $8 for any one game.

A few weeks before the wedding, the owner of the retro game stand at our local flea market told me he was getting a copy of Miner 2049er. He didn’t know what he was going to charge for it yet, but he knew I was working on recreating the Atari print hanging in my office and thought I’d want to know.

When I got home, I looked it up on eBay. Most copies seemed to be selling somewhere between $25 and $45. That was enough for me to decide I wasn’t going to rush into anything. If the game was still there after the wedding, after the honeymoon, and after life settled down a little, I’d think about it.

Then life happened.

The wedding came and went, the honeymoon came and went, work got busy, and the flea market wasn’t really on my radar for a while.

Last weekend was the first time we’d been back in quite a while. When we stopped by the retro game stand, the guy behind the counter immediately recognized us. He told us he had specifically asked his boss to add Miner 2049er to their inventory system because, as he put it, “there’s this couple that comes in every few weeks looking for Atari games.”

Apparently his boss’ response was, “Really?”

Honestly, I probably would have had the same reaction a year ago.

Then he pointed toward the row of glass display cases that hold the more expensive games. Lots of NES, SNES, and Nintendo 64 cartridges. Mixed in among them was Miner 2049er.

Still there.

Still waiting.

The price was $32.

I stood there looking at it for a minute longer than I probably needed to. It wasn’t because I didn’t think it was worth it, and it wasn’t because I couldn’t afford it. I was mostly trying to figure out if I was really about to spend four times more on a single Atari cartridge than I ever had before.

Of course, Sherri had already weighed in on the subject earlier. She knows I sometimes have a hard time spending money on myself, and her opinion was pretty simple:

If it’s still there when things settle down, buy it.

Eventually I handed over the money and became the proud owner of Miner 2049er.

After I got home, I did a little research and found out there’s a reason the game costs more than most Atari cartridges. It wasn’t produced in the same numbers as games like Combat or Pac-Man, and over the years it built a reputation as one of the better games on the system. It’s not especially rare, but it’s uncommon enough that collectors tend to grab it when they find one.

Honestly, though, that wasn’t what stuck with me.

What stuck with me was the realization that I never really debated whether I was going to buy it.

I was only debating when.

A little over a year ago, this whole thing started because my wife suggested it would be fun to recreate a print hanging in my office. At the time it felt like a silly scavenger hunt. We’d wander through flea markets and antique stores looking for specific titles, crossing games off a list and slowly filling the shelf beneath the print.

Somewhere along the way, though, the project changed.

Now I know which games are common. I know which ones are harder to find. I have opinions about label variations. I check display cases when we walk into a retro store. Apparently I’m the kind of person who spends part of a Saturday morning debating the value of a forty-year-old cartridge called Miner 2049er.

And the funny thing is, I’m completely okay with that.

The cartridge is sitting on the shelf now alongside the rest of the collection. There are still plenty of games left to find before I can recreate the print completely, and I’m sure at least a few of them will end up costing more than I’d like.

But if there’s one thing I learned from buying Miner 2049er, it’s that I crossed that line a while ago.

I just didn’t realize it until I was standing in front of the display case.

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Ever since my birthday last month, there has been a giant LEGO Soundwave box sitting in my office.

And for weeks now, it has felt like he’s just been sitting there staring at me.

I wanted to build it immediately.

First because it’s Soundwave. And Soundwave has always been one of my favorites. In fact, my beat-up original Soundwave is one of the only surviving Transformers toys I still have from when I was a kid. He sits on the shelf right now next to Hound, looking a little rough after a few decades of existing.

Second, because it just looks cool.

But between work, the wedding, the honeymoon, and everything else going on, I knew starting a LEGO project right before all of that was probably a terrible idea.

So I left it alone.

Which somehow made it worse.

Every time I walked into the office, there it was. Sitting there on the shelf. Not in an annoying way. More like:

“No rush. I’ll be here.”

And honestly, I think waiting accidentally made the whole thing better.

Because now it doesn’t just feel like a LEGO set I got for my birthday.

It feels like getting back to normal life a little.

The wedding happened.

The honeymoon happened.

Work finally settled down.

Will is recovering.

The house is mostly back in order.

And now there’s finally room in my brain for one more thing.

So Soundwave is still sitting there.

Still unopened.

Still waiting.

But for the first time in a while, I feel like I’m finally getting close.

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We got back from our honeymoon on Thursday, and I think today is the first day that actually feels normal again.

Not because things were bad. Just because life came back fast.

Thursday was unpacking, getting everything back in order, seeing everyone at the Tap House, and dropping my car off because the hatch suddenly decided it wasn’t interested in opening anymore.

Friday turned into dealing with the fallout from work issues, so instead of our normal date night we ordered pizza, stayed home, and caught up on everything we recorded while we were away.

Saturday was all about Will. He had his splint removed after breaking his paw, which means we now have to closely monitor his every move to make sure he doesn’t overdo it.

Sunday somehow became another stay-at-home day, followed by a work night that lasted until almost 3AM.

Yesterday we finished The Boroughs, made a Home Depot trip, and officially started planning our next project: trying to make the front yard look like people who know what they’re doing live here.

And now today finally feels normal.

Work is normal. The schedule is normal.

Lunch TV is back.

Everything feels like it clicked back into place.

Which honestly feels pretty nice.

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This is going to be a short one.

Work has still been busy this week, but tomorrow we leave for our honeymoon cruise, and at this point my brain is already halfway out the door.

There are still things to finish, things to pack, and probably at least three things I’m forgetting entirely.

But that’s kind of where things are right now.

Honestly, I’m just looking forward to slowing down for a few days. No work, no schedule, nowhere to be.

Just good food, ocean air, and finally getting a chance to breathe a little.

We’ll pick back up with games, TV, nostalgia, and everything else when I get back.

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We got married last weekend.

It was an amazing day, and I’m still kind of processing the fact that it actually happened.

What’s funny is how quickly normal life starts creeping back in afterward.

Work is still busy. There are still emails to answer and things to keep up with.

We’re still watching House at lunch.

Everything is the same.

And also completely different.

I don’t think it’s fully hit me yet. Not in some huge emotional movie moment kind of way, just in small little moments here and there.

Saying “my wife” for the first time.

Seeing our rings.

Little things like that.

It’s been a strange week. A really good one. Just busy enough that I haven’t fully caught up to it yet.

We’ll get back to talking about games, TV, and everything else soon enough.

This just happens to be where life is right now.

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I’m getting married on Saturday.

It still feels a little strange to say that out loud.

This week has been busy…. work, last-minute things, trying to make sure everything is where it needs to be. It feels like there’s always one more thing to take care of, even when you think you’re done.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, it actually started to feel real.

Not in a big, overwhelming way. Just in small moments, stopping for a second and realizing, oh yeah, this is happening this week.

I’m not really nervous. Not in the way I thought I might be.

It feels more like everything is lining up the way it’s supposed to.

Sherri has been amazing through all of this. Way more organized than me, which has definitely helped keep things moving in the right direction.

At this point, I’m mostly just trying not to forget anything important… and hoping that if I do, someone will tell me before it actually matters.

I don’t have anything big or profound to say about it.

Just that it’s happening this week.

And I’m really looking forward to it.

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It’s been one of those weeks where everything kind of stacks up at the same time.

Work has been busy, the wedding is getting close, and it feels like there’s always one more thing to take care of.

None of it is bad. It’s all good stuff, really. It’s just… a lot at once.

Most days have felt like moving from one thing straight into the next without much space in between.

I keep thinking I’ll get a minute to catch up, but it never really happens.

I know it’s temporary. A few weeks from now everything will slow down, and I’ll probably look back on this and laugh a little.

But right now it just feels like one of those stretches where you’re trying to keep everything moving without dropping anything along the way.

Just where things are right now.

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Today’s my birthday.

It’s been a busy week with work, so I haven’t had much time to think about what to write.

Honestly, that’s kind of where my head is right now – just trying to get through the day and then slow things down a bit tonight.

We’ll probably end up at our local tap house for a few drinks, and then back home to the couch, watching something, same as usual.

And that sounds pretty perfect to me.

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Before I met Sherri, lunch was barely a thing.

Most days I’d just eat something quick at my desk while working. Sometimes I’d skip it altogether. It wasn’t really a break, just something I did in between whatever else needed to get done.

Now, when noon hits, we stop.

We sit on the couch, turn something on, and watch an episode of whatever show we’re in the middle of.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

But it’s become one of my favorite parts of the day.

We’ve gone through a bunch of shows this way. Bob’s Burgers, The Sandman, The Good Place, Lucifer, Evil. Right now we’re working through House. One episode at a time, every day.

It’s not about powering through a series or keeping up with anything. It’s just the rhythm of it. One episode. A little bit of time to sit down, relax, and not think about work for a while.

Some days we pay attention to every second. Other days we’re half watching, talking about something else, or just enjoying the break. The dog usually ends up somewhere nearby, occasionally deciding this is the exact moment he needs attention.

And more often than not, we end up stopping with about ten minutes left in the episode because something comes up or we run out of time… and then we just pick it right back up from that exact spot the next day.

At this point, that’s basically part of the routine.

It’s a small thing. Just 45 minutes in the middle of the day.

But it’s something I look forward to.

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I started in a league when I was five, and I really loved bowling. It’s something I stuck with into my late 20s and still miss now. But when I think back on those Saturdays, what stands out most is being there all day.

Junior leagues would start early, and once we were done bowling, no one was really in a hurry to leave. My mom was there helping run things, along with my aunt and a few other adults we knew. There was just enough structure to keep everything moving, but the rest of the day was ours.

And we used all of it.

There was a small arcade tucked into the corner with games like Zaxxon and Space Invaders. I spent a lot of time there, not really thinking about how new or exciting those games were , just knowing I didn’t want to stop playing them.

Attached to the bowling alley was a little pizza shop with a tiny black-and-white TV mounted up in the corner. That’s where I remember watching Saturday morning WWF and whatever Godzilla movie happened to be on that day. It didn’t matter what it was. If it was on that TV, I was watching it.

I still remember standing there when Shawn Michaels kicked Marty Jannetty through the barbershop window. Even on a tiny black-and-white TV in the corner of a bowling alley I knew it was a huge moment.

The whole place felt like its own world. Bowling, arcade games, pizza, TV, noise… everything happening at once. You could drift between it all without really thinking about it. One minute you were bowling, the next you were playing a game, then grabbing a slice of pizza, then back to the lanes again.

We were there from early morning until late afternoon, and it never felt long enough.

And when it was over, the day still wasn’t really done. A lot of the time we’d head over to my cousin’s house, where I’d end up sitting on the floor in front of an Atari, still running on that same kind of energy. The bowling alley and those early Atari sessions feel completely connected in my memory.

Looking back now, I think what made it special was how much freedom we had without it ever feeling like we were on our own. The adults were always there, just in the background enough that everything felt safe, but not so close that it felt controlled.

It was freedom, but it had structure.

There was another bowling alley my parents went to that had a much bigger arcade with pinball machines, rows of games, a jukebox, it was a whole different kind of experience. I ended up spending a lot of time there later on too.

But these Saturdays were the first version of it.

At the time, it just felt like something we did every weekend.

Now it just feels like part of how everything started.

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