A casino for the rest of us

[notmuch_23 2300]

Aveline watches John's ball roll straight, and cringes as she sees it slam right onto the head pin. That's a great way to get a nasty split, like that 7-10.

The screen up above plays an animation of the seven and ten pins "hopping" out of the way of the ball, and shows "7-10 split" in red font that looks like it's dripping blood.

The fact that he was able to pick up that spare is remarkable. It's not a Greek church, but still...

Aveline picks up her ball from the return rack. "Nailin' the head pin is a great way to get splits," she says as she grips the ball, "the sweet spot is in either 'pocket' between the one and two or one and three pins. That's what I'll try to do, but it's been a long time since I've been in an alley."

Aveline steps over to the approach, eyes down, steps up, kicks her right behind her left as she swings the ball, giving a sharp twist to the left as she releases.

The ball rolls straight for about two-thirds of the lane, right towards the six pin, but then curves left...

...right in front of the head pin, and nails the four, taking it, the five, seven, and eight.

"Fuck..."

The setter drops, grabs the remaining six pins, and the rake clears the two still on the pin deck. The screen shows a picture of the remaining pins and a ball right in the 'pocket'; showing how to pick up the spare.

When Aveline's ball comes up the power lift, she grabs it again, shifts four boards right of her last position, and tries to roll her ball the same way as last time.

This time, the curve nails the pocket, taking the other six pins.

[notmuch_23 2300]

Now it's Thurgood's turn; he picks up the ball he picked out from the return rack, grips it, steps up to the approach, steps up and rolls the ball, kicking his right leg behind his left as Aveline did, and also putting spin on the ball.

As it rolls down the lane, it curves really far down the lane, and doesn't nail the pocket. Instead, it nails the 3 pin dead on, and takes the pins behind, leaving only the head and two.

"Little too hard," Thurgood says as he watches the setter pick up the front two pins and clear the rest.

Once his ball pops out the power lifter, he again grabs it, steps onto the approach further left than last time, and rolls the ball, this time with his fingers parallel to the lane to impart as little spin as possible.

It works. The ball rolls straight, and hits to the left of the head pin, taking the two pin as well.

As Thurgood returns to the bench, his phone buzzes, so he takes it out and answers.

"'sup? ... oh, sweet! Fuck yeah, I'll see what everybody else wants."

Thurgood then turns around to Aveline and John. "Pizza oven's up, and they're testin' it upstairs. What kind of pizza y'all want?"

@danzilla3

[danzilla3 5018]

John smiled politely at Aveline's advice, knowing that if he threw the ball as hard as he could that he would take out the pins along with most of the back of the building. But then, he supposed that was a part of the challenge; using a bit of finesse instead of brute force. Much to his amusement, the young woman ended up hitting the exact same spot that he'd aimed for previously. He managed to stifle the chuckle that bubbled up from his throat as he watched her pick up the spare.

"A fine start!" 

Thurgood was up next, and he seemed to have the same general strategy as John did. His first roll had plenty of power behind it, but only managed to get eight out of ten. As soon as he too picked up the spare John sprang to his feet and grabbed his ball. At Thurgood's question, he glanced over his shoulder.

"Pepperoni, extra cheese. A classic, elegant in its simplicity."

Approaching the lane, this time John mimicked Aveline's swing and watched the ball curve into the sweet spot between the head pin and the second one. The pins flew, and John shot his fist skyward.

"STRIKE!"

[notmuch_23 2300]

After Thurgood utterly gutterballs the last ball of the tenth frame after picking up a spare, Osiria arrives with the three pizzas.\

"So how's the conveyor ovens?" Thurgood asks. The kitchen area has four electric conveyor pizza ovens to keep the buffet stocked with different varieties, and will also have various other equipment to cook en masse, as well as another area for a traditional restaurant.

"Oh, they're great!" Osiria says, "got wired up nicely, they're good and hot, and, well, just taste!"

Osiria then sets down four boxes: pepperoni and extra cheese pan crust, supreme deep-dish crust, pepperoni, sausage, bacon stuffed crust, and cheese bread, with some cups of cheese and marinara sauce on a nearby table.

"Want somethin' to drink?"Thurgood asks.

@danzilla3

[danzilla3 5018]

John's game was a mix of strikes and splits, the latter happening when he put too much power into a swing. It was easy to get distracted as his enhanced sense of smell could pick up the cooking pizza from back in the kitchen. Wilder was a known lover of Thurgood and Aveline's cooking, and he was greatly excited for the meal. Once the final frame had been bowled, the food arrived, and he tucked in.

"As always, your culinary prowess exceeds expectations my friends," he said between mouthfuls of pizza.

When Thurgood inquired about beverages, he temporarily stopped eating, "Of course! What do you have?"

[notmuch_23 2300]

"Oh, let's see, there's root beer, orange cream, vanilla cream, banana, jackfruit, mango, black cherry, apple, lemon-lime, cola, red grape, strawberry, raspberry,  gha'zu, starfruit, blackberry, papaya, rambutan, pear, and of course, acid bomb energy," Thurgood says as he turns around and lists off the flavors at the pop fountain.

"We're still wait'n on the line chiller equipment," Aveline says, "so we don't have beer yet."

The lines from the planned keg room are really long, so they'll be wrapped in a jacket where cold glycol can keep the beer chilled until it gets to the taps of the various bars and serving stations.

The lights unexpectedly dim a bit, and then...

*BOOOM*

...an explosion rocks the entire building, shifting everything, shattering glass panes, and cutting the power.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!?" Aveline shouts.

"I DON'T KNOW BUT WE BETTER GET OUR FUCKIN ASSES OUTTA HERE!" Thurgood replies, again shouting because everybody's ears are ringing horribly right now. Thurgood gets his phone, still open to the communication app he'd been using, and opens an emergency line to all recipients. "EVACUATE NOW, ALL PERSONNEL, I REPEAT, EVACUATE NOW! THIS IS NOT A DRILL, THERE COULD BE SERIOUS STRUCTURAL DAMAGE, EVACUATE NOW!"

Aveline starts leading John, Osiria, and the pinsetter techs to the closest emergency stairwell using her phone's flashlight.

@danzilla3

Edited June 30, 2020 by notmuch_23

[danzilla3 5018]

As something exploded and everyone around him fled the building, John Wilder was the picture of calm and collected. Nonchalantly wandering behind the food counter, he retrieved a few boxes before making his way back to the table. Carefully moving the leftover pizza into the boxes, he then turned and moved to the exit. Once he was outside, he found Thurgood and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"Well my friend, it seems our lunch has been cut short. Should you require my assistance, don't hesitate to call!"

John then hopped aboard his Owlbear and took off towards city hall. 

[notmuch_23 2300]

"Thank you Mister Wilder, but I should be able to handle this," Thurgood says as John mounts Baba.

"I knew it," Aveline says, "I fucking KNEW IT!"

"Things were going too well there, weren't they?" Thurgood asks, "I gotta go around, account for everybody that was on site."

"Yeah, you do that, while I... uh... see how much deeper our financial hole is gonna get," Aveline says.

"I got insurance for shit like this," Thurgood replies, "I may be ambitious, but I ain't stupid."

"Yeah, put on a parachute before you fly towards the sun, huh?"

"Yeah," Thurgood says before he walks off to check on the rest of the crew as smoke billows up into a mushroom cloud from the crater where the three giant transformers once sat.

[notmuch_23 2300]

July second, eighteen thousand five ninety nine, the Copper Bell Casino was still under construction. The six underground floors and subway station were getting finished as the thirty-second floor of the hotel tower was being poured, and ironworkers were welding the steel structural beams of the thirty-sixth.

Three separate thirty-kilowatt transformers supplied power for the construction, with space for three sixty kilowatt transformers to be installed later.

Sometime around eleven-thirty, the transformers entered an "open delta" state, as one transformer was disconnected. The other two are able to operate at eighty-three percent of the reduced total capacity to supply three-phase current, but the demands of construction and equipment testing drew, combined, a whopping one hundred sixty percent of safe operating power.

Naturally, the transformers, including the mineral oil inside, started heating up. The thermal cutoff system that should have opened all breakers to the transformers did not work, neither did the associated warning systems.

Unknown to those on site, the temperature of the transformers rose to three hundred thirty degrees Celcius, causing the mineral oil to boil rapidly.

The pressure quickly rose to the point that safety relief valves opened, releasing mineral oil vapor into the local atmosphere. Ventilation fans installed to keep the transformers cool pulled the vapor outside, where it formed a colorless cloud with the odor of burning rubber, which went unnoticed during construction that produced similar odors. Once the vapor cloud reached explosive concentration, detonation was inevitable.

The fireball and massive explosion severely injured twenty-nine workers, with nine sustaining third-degree burns. The overengineered structure remained standing where a properly engineered one would have completely collapsed, saving hundreds of lives.

((I wanted to write a USCSB-style video "script" for this. Too bad I don't have the means for Abbott Animation to animate this explosion...))

Edited July 3, 2020 by notmuch_23
transformers are not generators

[notmuch_23 2300]

Before the insurance company could investigate the incident, the building had to be stabilized. Within a week, trucks carrying oversized loads of very long steel I beams that are ten feet tall and eighty feet long, with some smaller, but still massive beams, and were being welded into really long I beams.

The plan is this: roll/slide the beams through the lowest undamaged floor, so each end sticks out. then, weld a temporary steel structure that will take the weight of the tower directly to the bedrock. then scaffolding and supports can be constructed below to hold the damaged floors up and provide a place to repair the structure.

Doing so was a huge feat, requiring custom-made lift frames with rollers for the gargantuan beams, along with floor rollers and counterweights to roll the beams in without putting strain on the damaged structure. Hydraulic jacks lift the beams up to the floor above, and ironworkers weld in the temporary support structure as concrete workers place forms around the base of the main vertical beams to secure them to the rock.

Once the concrete cures, the real work begins.

[notmuch_23 2300]

"Uh, I hate to point out an oversight," Aveline says.

"Bull fuckin' shit, you loooove to point out where and when I fuck up," Thurgood replies, "so where is it?"

"Parking," Aveline replies, "there's no chance we're gonna have enough lot space, even if we paved every extra square inch of surface."

"We've got a subway station," Thurgood says, "do we need a lot of parking?"

Aveline just glares at him.

"Alright then, we gotta build a garage though..." Thurgood says

"Okay, but where exactly?" Aveline asks, we don't got a whole lot of space left on our plot...

Thurgood looks around, and his eyes fall on the temporary support structures. "there," he says as he points to them, "once the repair work is done, we can convert those into parking garages.

"Huh, guess Grant was right," Aveline says, "you can be resourceful...

...at least when the solution's obvious..."

[notmuch_23 2300]

It takes a couple more weeks for the insurance investigators to finish, and in that time, the workers have made significant progress on repairing the damage.

What the insurance investigators find is that the explosion was not planned by either Thurgood or Aveline. However, it was deliberate. The insurance company will forward their findings to the police, and pay claim; the company will do everything they can to get the money back from the perpetrator(s).

The Copper Bell Casino gets finished only one month behind schedule, and with tightened security, nothing else bad happens. Dealers got trained, slot machines got configured, some tenants were signed to the mall (but it's not full yet), and the giant copper-plated bronze bell gets hung in the atrium.

[notmuch_23 2300]

Full summary: Thurgood decides to build a hotel casino entertainment building. Aveline doesn't like it at first, but she kind of comes around... kind of. While the Singlances were testing the bowling alley equipment with John Wilder, a giant explosion rocks the building. If Thurgood hadn't overengineered it, the building would have collapsed. The explosion was a deliberate malicious act, but set up to look like an accident. It also contains a Mil Dot location, with a range underground with robots!

Short summary: Thurgood and Aveline build a hotel casino, named it the Copper Bell, despite a boom during construction.

Consequences and Opportunities: There is yet another casino in New Everrun.

The Saboteur: Somebody tried to bring down the Copper Bell, trying to make it look like an accident, Who did it, why, and are any other places in New Everrun in danger?

@Csl @danzilla3