Had to fire the first guy we hired to go to the seller’s house to disassemble the pool table, after he canceled on us twice, with rather lame excuses, considering that we and the seller rearranged our schedules twice to accomodate his. He probably has figured out by now that we fired him, because we never returned his text to reschedule for a third time. We hired someone else who showed up on time, got it disassembled in under an hour, made it over here, and did his thing with his buddy. They got it placed, leveled, and reassembled, etc., in a little over an hour. The felt was in fantastic shape, and the previous owner was the original one, so there was no issue regarding being able to reuse it. I paid the seller, and the movers, in cash.
The pool table moving company owner, Ryan, even did me a favor on his way out that had absolutely nothing to do with the scope of the job for which I hired him, and loosened a screw on a door lock that I was trying to change. I swapped out a similar one a few weeks ago, but couldn’t get the screw loose on this one to save my life, and didn’t want to strip it by using my variable speed reversible drill with a screwdriver bit. It’s one of those euro locks, and I had the replacement hardware, but couldn’t get the machine screw loose to remove the old hardware. He happened to have the necessary tools in his truck, because obviously my #2 phillips head wasn’t doing the trick. Once that screw was out, it took me 30 seconds to slide out the old assembly, pop in the new one, and screw it in place. No extra charge for the handyman work, but he didn’t mind, and I tipped both of them a $20 each.
The table’s great! It’s not a freakin’ gorgeous Olhausen, but it is an AMF Playmaster, which is still a very good pool table. It’s a little slow because the felt is in such great shape, but it will get faster as we play more on it. Ryan said the felt should be good for another 10 years if we don’t have to have it moved again. John, the seller, included the rack for the cue sticks, five regular length wooden ones, a semi-shorty, a shorty, and two really sweet graphite sticks. I prefer the 20 oz. one, but the 19 oz. one is fine, too. We also got the bridge, two brushes, a fistful of chalk cubes, a triangular rack and a 9-ball rack (both wood), an extra 8 ball, and the rasp to reshape the ends of the cue sticks as necessary. Obviously, the seller had no further use for any of the accessories w/o the table. John even offered us some sort of generic rack he was otherwise going to throw out; it’s perfect for my cowboy boots, so we took it.
We played 8-ball and 9-ball after dinner. I won both games, but it was ugly. The graphite stick I was using did a really good job of making the cue ball follow, stop, or reverse, upon contact with my target ball, depending on whether I hit it above, on, or below the equator. But, I am seriously rusty for angle and bank shots. Considering that I haven’t played pool since college, it could have been a lot worse. My saving grace is that my husband is just as rusty as I am.
We’re awful! At least we can practice in the privacy of our own basement rec room/(wo)man cave, instead of making fools of ourselves in some pool hall or dive bar.
luxury. not heard fron nickster for at least a year now. Is someone keeping him under control?
He’s supposedly moving in with mom and step-dad at the end of March in Pinellas Park (Florida). They won’t keep an eye on his internet activites, so he may start up again. As far as I can tell, they’re taking him in as a last resort, and he’s not going to want to live by their house rules.