 Hey everybody, welcome back today to Retro Tech. I've got a special vlog for you. We're going to hang out and we're going to try to complete one of my final quests here in the move from Tennessee to Virginia. I'm currently in my Virginia shop area and my editing studio and you may notice some noise in the background. We've got some construction going on here at the house and also in parts of the other studio that's going on so please just bear with us in some of this transition period. But what I am on today again as I said is the quest for the final CRT. We need to retrieve this 25 inch Zenith arcade monitor. Now this one came from my Neo Geo MVS machine. It's a four slot machine, big red as they call them and this machine does have some issues. It has some restoration. I also got a cool part recently ordered that's a new overlay for the CRT so hopefully we could show that off if we get the CRT back and in good condition without anything happening. So we're going to have to go today and then go to the old shop in Tennessee where this is literally the very last CRT that was left behind because I was too concerned something bad would happen to it because it's a naked shell. There's no real protection around the neck or the circuit board other than a couple of metal bars so anyway hey let's go jump in I'm going to show you some more things as we go along. We're going to go jump in the new ride now I've got to show you. Now Brutus we talked about this you cannot go on this road trip with me I am very sorry but I need somebody to stay behind and guard all my wonderful stuff like my VIC-20. I think you can do it yeah you're a good boy we'll see you in a little while okay. Alright ladies and gentlemen we are here in the loading area and this is big red. As you can tell we've got some side panels to take care of on this thing and some other small things to do to get it back in a great condition I've got parts inside here but obviously we've got no CRT so that's what we've got to go retrieve today is from the CRT that was inside of this and I guess we have an opportunity to show off the new ride now you guys have seen the Jeep before but you've not seen the new I'm calling it new but it's a 1997 Mercury Grand Marquis that's right this beautiful white dream machine will get you where you need to go in a very comfortable leisurely bucket seat has all kinds of wonderful features only suitable for late 1990s so I'll show you some more on the car as we go and tell you what I had to do to the Lexus because it had to go now that I've got this lovely beauty my some people might consider that a downgrade but not me and I'll tell you why as we get in the car and get on the road but this is what we're going to be using to go pick up that last CRT alright so we're currently on the I-81 corridor we're headed south towards Tennessee today's trip is going to be a total of almost 530 miles I got to do it in one straight trip and then I'll have to turn around and do the darn ride again tomorrow after I finish and just thought I'd give you a little information again I had to get rid of the Lexus the wonderful Lexus machine and basically the reason was is I got a new car which you've seen now the Grand Marquis this ride is older than the Lexus but it has almost 400,000 miles less so it's only got 90,000 miles it was treated well it's in good shape and I've had it looked out looked at by my mechanic and he said it's you know he tried to buy it from me actually because he said it's a car that will pretty much run forever and so I'm confident that it is a good ride and I can't keep all these old vehicles it's just becoming too expensive but how much do you think I could have gotten for that really how much how much do you think I got for that Lexus when I was able to sell it because it did have a check engine light on again over 480,000 miles on it I did clean it up but I got I sold it in two days on Craigslist to a very sketchy individual and I'll be honest with you I'm glad I'm not in town to hopefully run into this person again but they want to buy it for $1,200 cash and that was a dramatic story in its own right but we're just gonna continue down the I-81 corridor here and the cars running great smooth we'll check in when we have to get up some get some gas here we hit the Tennessee border welcome y'all we are back in Tennessee volunteer state hey everybody we're halfway through our trip I mean right halfway about 265 miles in it's taken me four hours of just straight-driving 95% of that has been on the interstate on I-81 I'm still an I-81 and you know I like to stop here at this specific exit a lot in Johnson City Tennessee and Kingsport it's actually kind of on the border of those two cities you know it's kind of funny the way that the world works because when I was growing up my parents they got divorced when I was 13 years old and we used to actually meet at this exit because this exit is exactly as I said halfway between Harrisonburg Virginia and Gallatin Tennessee and that's where both sides of my family split off to so when I would be dropped off with my siblings we'd end up at this exact exit at a McDonald's which is still here today you know sometimes you go through 20 years of your life and 25 years even and some businesses just disappear but not the old golden arcs so they're still around so anyway that's just an interesting thought there the cars been riding great and I'm just real excited to take a break and then we'll head back on the road well hey welcome back here we are in the shop well the old shop that is and there you are how wonderful yes the final CRT the lovely 25 inch arcade monitor again from my big red machine you could tell why I didn't want to transport this along with everything else it's got just a simple metal frame around it that barely protects any of it and so I did again remove it from the machine and left it here to be the last one to take on this trip and I'll give you a quick look around I'll come grab the camera and show you what the studio or the ex studio actually looks like now again I told you it was nothing more than a simple two-car garage and unfortunately the garage door is pretty darn busted I actually had a pretty bad accident with that one day that gear up there broke chain went flying down door went flying down broke a window it broke that spring and I just never dealt with it till now so yeah so that's the whole garage door and why the chain just hangs there but not a whole lot left here the rest of that stuff's going with me and obviously so is the monitor so let's get it packed up and get out of here as we say one last goodbye to the oh the shop that made so many wonderful memories here and where everything started for retro tech so just got some damage here left over from Brutus when Brutus was a pup like I cut up the door and he used to true the molding on there look at that so unfortunately the next owner will have to deal with that but yeah that was definitely our buddy Brutus and definitely tried to get in this door a few times when he was left out here all right let's just go ahead now load up our final CRT monitor and then we'll pop it in the car and get out of here all right well we've got the old Zenith and chassis in here thankfully this is an old-school car and it won't set off any seat alarm if my CRT is not buckled in but the goal here is to not destroy the seat and to not break the tube because that can break right in there pretty easily what a lot of traveling so I finally made it back let's go see how the CRT looks and hopefully all is good we'll get it out of the car and just take a quick look at it after we check it out in the seat right now okay here we go okay nothing wrong up there down there okay let me get set up I'm gonna pull this out and we're gonna take a closer look at it let's take a closer look at the actual back here and the body of the CRT tube and the neck looks to be good it is dirty I've never cleaned it or serviced it myself it looks to be in good shape and we seem to have been able to move it safely thank goodness so even though it was a ridiculously long journey it is something I had to do as well worth it now the interesting thing about this tube is recently I purchased something that arrived while I was away and this is it and how cool is this this is actually a plastic high quality 25 inch bezel cut out that I could put on my tube because the prior one was nothing more than a piece of cardboard let me show you what that looks like real quick see it's just a flimsy cutout piece of cardboard which is pretty common now the issue is that piece of plastic is too big for this machine as is so unfortunately I may have to try to alter this one if that's even possible I'll check it out I may even message the guy who had a maid and see if there's a way to trim it down and if not then I'll repurpose it for another project but just thought I'd show that off and whoo good this tube is here and it's safe and I am of course exhausted and before we get out of here let's go see how our buddy Brutus has been doing well hey there Brutus how are you doing you look to be doing great oh friend you seem to have done a wonderful job while I was away thank you so much for your help still the hardest working member of the team here at retro tech our good old buddy Brutus anyway that'll close us off today for this episode I hope you enjoyed it please let me know what you think with comment below if you have any feedback or questions and of course if you enjoyed it Brutus and I would love a thumbs up I'll see you guys next time with some more retro content good boy yeah guard that Commodore good boy