How many of you on here are bowling center mechanics? I am a head mechanic at a 32 lane center myself. Just wondering who else on here maybe?
 
 This would be a good time to air out any lane conditions problems you have at your centers or with the head mechanics at your center. When the lanes are bad, who do you  blame? This question is for anyone who throws the ball.

We all learn from our mistakes!! And this may post may have been one, HA HA

The thing that drives me nuts is when the system that detects how many pins and which ones are standing is malfunctioning.  It totally screws up the pace when you are making lots of score corrections and I get really mad at myself for missing spares where the count misses double wood and I don't look close enough to see the hidden pin in back.

But machines aren't perfect and they will malfunction, so what are you going to do?

My big beef with the head mechanic at one of the 3 centers that I throw the ball at is that he continues to use the crappiest oil that he can get his hands on. Last night for instance, I was bowling on lanes 5 and 6 in a 4 person mixed handicap league. I had no one crossing my shot as I tend to play a little further inside the lane, but lane 6 was a little straighter than 5.. No problem, just a slight adjustment to the line.. Get into game 2, and all of the sudden, the shot on lane 6 starts to fall apart.. I'm not talking about throw a heavy hit and move.. I finished the 2nd game with a big split on that lane, and turned around the start of the 3rd game making a 3-2 move. Again I went through the nose, so I moved 2-1 the next shot over there. Through the nose.. Move again.. Nose. Getting the picture? The conditioner that they're using is so poor that once it starts to go away, in the event that you DO find the pocket, you should just COUNT on moving the next frame.

Since I grew up in the folks bowling alley, I guess you could say I became a "shadetree" mechanic on the old Brunsick A2's.  Worked in an older AMF house when going to college (forgot the machine models in there), but they were MUCH easier to work on!  Granted, the A2's were OK when they were running well, but much harder to fix when something went wrong.  AMF's seemed to have a bit more trouble, but you could fix almost anything in less than 5 mins if you had the backup parts available.

As for the automatic scorers, I really don't like them.  I didn't mind keeping score - it kept my head in the game a little better.  Also, at tournaments, sometimes you'd get lucky and have a hot little lady to flirt with while you were bowlin'.

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Why, WHY won't the last one just fall??  It's WIGGLING for cryin' out loud!!