The Writing Desk of Jakebe Rabbit

A small thing I forgot to mention the other day, but that I don't want forgotten for good. When I was driving home --- with my car at that magical 142,500 miles --- I noticed several wild turkeys on the side of the road. They were just hanging out, and looked really good in the early-evening light, with their heads almost shiny. Nice moment. I didn't know that there even were turkeys in that area. I expect to see them farther from the Interstate.

That's all. Just didn't want that forgotten. And now ... the last pictures from our big Halloweekends visit last year! The next Cedar Point photos you see on this blog will be from this year! ... Except ...

Gemini in the evening light; we're getting close to sunset and not that long before the park closes.

Way back over near what's now the Boardwalk area is this building, where long ago Helen Keller gave an important speech. Here it's decorated for the season.

Little view of the control booth for the Atomic Scrambler.

Midway Carousel, and what seems to me like a rare focus on the mirrors in the center.

And now the park is closed; GateKeeper's lights are already off, and people are rushing to the bathroom and to leave.

A last picture of the Midway Carousel, after its last ride but before they turn off the lights.

We took a shortcut through the Breakers since that was an option now, to get back to the car. It's surprising it's this dark considering there were still some people staying there through Monday morning.

And a last walk through the lobby --- Linus is writing the Great Pumpkin --- for the weekend.

Trivia: During the Great Fear --- a stretch in July and August 1789 when the French countryside erupted in panic at rumor of what might come from the aristocracy or from foreign invaders --- gossip spread at apparently supernatural speeds: in the Languedoc hills, on a single day, the same rumor appeared in places twenty miles apart and unconnected by road. Source: The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography, Graham Robb. Wikipedia notes the abolition of the feudal regime in August 1789 was a measure the National Assembly took to appease the peasantry and quiet the fear.

Currently Reading: Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, Daniel Okrent.

While driving home today my car reached 142,500 miles, and then a couple more because I wasn't quite home yet. This stands out to me because 142,500 miles is what my Scion had on it when I drove into a flooded street and killed it.

The Prius bought hastily to replace it was not a new car --- odds are I'll never own a brand-new car again; it was fun doing once and probably necessary after I got over monthly major repairs, mostly transmission-related, on the Mercury Cougar but I don't know that it's worth the premium --- but rather had something like 95,000 miles on it. I guessed at the time it'd be four years before I reached what my old car had and I sure called that right, to within about two weeks.

Of course, a couple weeks after I bought the Scion I got laid off, start of a truly horrible fifteen-month span that I'm not fully recovered from yet. Fortunately, there's no chance of that repeating as I have a comfortable job working directly for the state.

On a coincidental note work asked everyone to submit their plans for what to do in the event of a budget-impasse-provoked shutdown with the start of the new fiscal year in October. It's not regarded as likely, but the state Republicans have been radicalized since the last shutdown something like fifteen years ago, which came and went in a couple hours past midnight October 1st so that nobody except last shift even noticed.

It happens that one of the programs that I work on is regarded as critical, so that as the prime programmer I'm rated as critical and so wouldn't be furloughed. At least, my understanding is, if I'm working on that program. I'm trying to get confirmation on that. Because this program is also complete, and hasn't had a bug fix or service enhancement required in months. There is work that I could usefully do it that that would keep me busy for about a one-week shutdown. If there were a one-month shutdown, the other case we've been asked to plan for, I'd run out of stuff to do after that first week. If they want me to come into the office and screw around on my phone all day fine, it's their essential-personnel budget, but I felt the need to tell my boss that after that first week of stuff we'd meant to get to, I'd be able to cover the project just checking in once or twice a day in case a problem developed.

I'm sure this car event passing and then surprise job uncertainty emerging is all harmless and meaningless coincidence though.

In pictures, now, back to Cedar Point Halloweekends. We'll finish Sunday before our big Halloweekends visit this year, I promise.

Camp Snoopy had Lucy out doing some crowd work! Not sure if the kid in the foreground is happy or distressed by this.

Clownz: Death Metal Tour, that's the name of the other performance I had photographs of, the one out here near Gemini in the back of the park. The area is called an aggressive, high-fear-factor zone and maybe I'm jaded but all that really happens is a guy in a death metal clown outfit will jump-scare you?

Mine Ride with one of those classic Halloweekend long lines, possibly because nobody set up the switchbacks so people had to spill onto the midway. But at least you can see the train rolling.

Nice afternoon light near the Town Hall Ex-Museum (out of frame to the left) and Maverick (roller coaster straight ahead). The structure at the center, to the right of the swings, is the former Frontier Carousel building. The carousel was moved to Dorney Park in the 90s and since then the building's been used for a Halloweekends walk-through attraction.

Bunnies! Here's a pair of antiferromagnetic rabbits in the petting zoo.

Here, the rabbits do their impression of a Venn diagram.

Trivia: The car company Toyota split off from the (1907-established) Toyoda Automatic Loom Works company in 1937. Source: Car Wars: The Untold Story, Robert Sobel.

Currently Reading: Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, Daniel Okrent.

Exciting news ripped straight from the today! You may remember that back in February we adopted a mouse from the pet store, a lone female that they thought was a year old. This seems plausible; she's starting to look elderly. But ever since bunnyhugger and I have watched the pet store in case they got some more mice in, that she could have a companion or even friend. Last week, they finally did.

So bunnyhugger put down a 50% deposit to secure one of the (female) mice for a week, during which she would hunker down and finally build the spacious mouse enclosure out of a plastic storage bin we've been meaning to do forever. While getting that done, we also went back to put down a 50% deposit on the two other mice, sisters surrendered by someone who had a mis-sexed mouse in their care. (There were also four boy mice in the litter, two of which had been adopted out by the time we went back.) Making the box was longer and more frustrating than bunnyhugger anticipated, which you can say about any craft project, but it was done by early this afternoon. So when I got home from work I found bunnyhugger not here, as she was driving home with a cardboard box full of just-past-weaned mice.

We introduced the three of them to our old mouse at the same time, setting them all in the new bin where nobody could claim they were on home turf. There was a lot of exploring around, as you'd think. And one of the new mice started to groom the old. We listened for a while to hear the telltale peeps of some mouse begging for release from a fight. As I write this, so far, we've heard only a couple quiet submissive peeps from one of the mice the old one was grooming, which most likely reflected the young mouse accepting that the old one was in charge. At least for now, while she's still healthy and the new mice are essentially teens out on their own.

With things seeming okay we went to a pinball event, and when we got back a couple hours later our old mouse had already built a small, temporary nest in the new bedding. The new mice were going about other business. Not sure if they've got their own places under way or if they're trusting the senior mouse will let them know what to do.

Pictures will come in time, but right now, I want to wrap up my Sunday-at-Halloweekends photos, so please enjoy these:

It's easy to think of Cedar Point as completely overbuilt and then you come across spots like this and it looks almost like the swampy grove it used to be. Of course this is all landscaped, but it's landscaped to look plausibly natural.

And here's a spot near Camp Snoopy, looking out over the lake that the Mine Ride goes over. Apart from a glimpse of Millennium Force in the far background you could almost think this was the wild.

And a landscape shot of almost the same spot. Again, if not for the bit of Top Thrill 2 in the background on the left you could almost think this as a place to get away from it all.

What a spot to put an animatronic gator though, right?

Here's the sun shining through autumn trees, with a roller coaster behind. Just gorgeous.

Emerging back from Camp Snoopy into the main body of the park here. Woodstock Express, the roller coaster we ride the least (not counting Wilderness Run, née Junior Gemini, which you need a kid to accompany you on) is in the background here.

Trivia: The word ``mousse'' derives from the same root as ``mead'', with the Latin ``mel'' for honey; then ``mulsum'' for honey mixed with wine; to Old French as ``mousse'' meaning ``froth'', and finally borrowed by English to mean a pudding desert, losing all the alcoholic connotation but keeping the sweetness. Source: Webster's Dictionary of Word Origins, Editor Frederick C Mish.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 72: Operation Aissuria!, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

PS: What’s Going On In Rex Morgan, M.D.? Seriously, _is_ Rex Morgan still in his comic strip? June – September 2025 and yes, Rex Morgan appeared yesterday, after sixteen weeks away.

After riding Siren's Curse the other big attraction we hoped to be sure and ride was Top Thrill 2. We just had to wait for it to open and, what do you know but it did. So after getting a pop we joined the line which promised to be something like a half-hour or so and was. We'd tolerate that for a big ride; might do it again for our big Halloweekends visit this year. We had a pretty nice time in line, despite having to deposit everything in these small, but free, lockers near the ride entrance. Free ride lockers are a thing Cedar Point's been adding to the bigger and more intense rides in the hopes of speeding up the loading and unloading of trains. What this really does is move the delays to way earlier in line, and leave people without their phones for the last leg --- or on Top Thrill 2, the entire leg --- of the wait, though. Also, Top Thrill's lockers are nowhere near the ride exit, so we can only guess how many people forget their stuff and realize a half-hour later.

We had a nice chat with people standing near us in line, though, people who hadn't ridden it since the conversion into Top Thrill 2. We hadn't even ridden Top Thrill Dragster since the pandemic began; plausibly we hadn't ridden it since 2018, as the long lines and short ride made it a low priority. We were really seeing something new.

Because the twist with Top Thrill 2 is the backwards spike. Instead of one big, dynamo-defying burst of speed to send you up and over the 420-foot-tall tower, you get one more modest burst of speed sending you up partway, then falling backwards, getting a second burst backwards as you go past the launch track again, and after that second drop, you go through and get a third acceleration, enough to send you over the top. The dream of every roller coaster fan in Dragster days was to get a rollback, where there's not quite enough speed to get you over the hill and you drop backwards. Top Thrill 2 promises that every time, although a smaller rollback. It's got to be a decent approximation of what it was like, though.

Actually ridden, though? Oh, I really liked this. At the top of the first forward and the backwards accelerations you get a moment stopped, and a little bit of freefall. Just as on Siren's Curse. You don't get freefall on rides these days, and you don't get vertical drops, and here's a roller coaster with two of them. Add to that the train seems to get to the top of the hill a little faster than it used to and, you know? This is a better ride than the original Top Thrill Dragster was.

After this, we didn't have any further goals for the day. JTK, who was not there but was watching crowd-calculator sites and Facebook posts from other people, started giving us advice about what rides had no or short lines. As the evening came on, the hope that this would be a ghost town sort of day came close to true. Maverick, almost always an hour-long wait, proved true in the rumor that it was no line except the walk up the final stairs to the launch platform. Also for the first time in ages I noticed which of the six names we got on the train. (Sam. The other trains are Bret, Bart, Beau, Ben, and Brent; get it?)

While we were near the back of the park we considered: there's one other marquee ride there, Steel Vengeance. Which always has a tremendous line, but if there were ever going to be a time it didn't, this would be it. But if we went to it, we wouldn't have time to get a night ride on Siren's Curse. bunnyhugger voted for Steel Vengeance and it was a great pick. We had a very short wait, almost as short as we'd see on Mean Streak back during Halloweekends. Steel Vengeance was running fast, too, more thrilling than usual and the crowd was really into it, which always makes the ride better. Ah, but then the closing hour had come; the ride operator wished us well going home.

But ... was it closing? By bunnyhugger's watch it was two or three minutes before the hour. We rushed back to the ride entrance and yes, it was open. We went back around to an even shorter line, and got one more ride, this one definitely after closing. So, we had the long walk back to the front of the park and our car, costing bunnyhugger time she could have used to sleep before an early-morning appointment (a 5K walk), but ... well, six marquee rides in under eight hours, and that with time chopped out by high winds? Excellent riding day. Have to hope for more like it.

And now a day not much like this, except that it was at Cedar Point and Halloweekends. But this was a Sunday and almost a year ago. Watch:

There's that skeletal jester atop a broken-down carousel horse, in the Hotel Breakers. Some year we're going to see what the place looks like normally and we won't believe it.

Stained glass windows that used to be on the end of a long hallway, most of which was removed around 2015 or so to make way for the new entrance and the circular drive out front. We'd worried the glass might be removed for good then, but it's now sitting above the vestibule leading in to the truncated hallway.

Gift shop in the Breakers, just inside from that stained-glass window. You can see there's also windows of a similar style flanking the doors, though they're obscured while the place is open.

Stitch getting ready to go back out and ride Corkscrew (background).

And this is the still-new-to-me entrance with the traffic circle out front.

Back into the park! This is part of Camp Snoopy; in the background is the Tilt-a-Whirl, one of the few adult-friendly rides there, and it's called Linus's Beetle Bugs for some reason. (I had, for a while, thought the character pictured might be Rerun, but looking it over, no, that's Linus. Rerun's hair ends around his ears, at least in his 90s design, which is the era most of the Peanuts branding uses.)

Trivia: By 1914 the Americas were exporting 600 million bushels of wheat to Europe, about fifteen times what they did in 1850. Source: The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea, John Mickelthwait, Adrian Woodridge.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 72: Operation Aissuria!, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle. (Get it?)

In the rush to tell you about every amusement park trip of this summer I overlooked telling you about some pinball tournaments. In late August we finally managed to get back to RLM Amusements for one of their Friday Night, run-until-dawn tournaments and it went pretty well. For me, at least, though not badly for bunnyhugger, who really is the person who needs it more. I don't have any hope of making state finals; bunnyhugger should be in state women's finals, and while she's most likely getting in for her performance at women's events, it would nice to also be able to get in for performing well in open events. So a finish like I had would have helped her nicely.

Qualifying was, as traditional, fourteen rounds of head-to-head play against randomly drawn opponents on randomly-selected games and I started out taking a loss on Dune, and also some boutique pinball manufacturer has made a Dune game. But after that I had a string of four wins, took a beating on Jaws (by Stern, a normal game) and then five more wins in the seven rounds after that. So I was well-qualified for finals. bunnyhugger, who'd started with two wins and then hit a string of losses, and never got a streak of more than two wins in a row going again, was officially below the cut and not at all happy when groups were drawn up for the playoffs.

Except that it took longer than usual for everyone to finish. Qualifying is played by a scheme called ``Max MatchPlay'', where there aren't specific rounds, just when there's enough people available they pick new groups until everyone's played fourteen times. And two people --- new players --- had left early, unaware that fourteen rounds of play takes hours and not enjoying losing over and over and over. The tournament format required then everyone that those departing players had played to go and play makeup rounds. So by the time all this was done a lot of people who would have qualified for playoffs decided they would rather go home and sleep instead, and enough did that bunnyhugger, who'd stuck around because of me, was in.

Not for long enough. She took last place (of four) on Jaws, and third place on Total Nuclear Annihilation. This raised my eyes because I had thought that in playoffs --- when the person with the highest seed in the group gets to pick games --- house rules were that only one LCD-screen game could be played per round. And both of these are screen games. RLM had also ruled that Total Nuclear Annihilation, a game with a thoughtfully retro playfield and rule set, didn't count as an LCD game. If you take LCD screen game as representing a game style, that's fair then. It also meant the rule would not --- and it turned out, did not --- exclude the Baby Pac-Man hybrid video game/pinball machine that the high seed loves to play and cannot be dissuaded from. bunnyhugger took last on that too, although after a last and a third-place finish it was almost impossible that she'd be moving on anyway. (Had she finished first and the correct people finished second and third she could have had a tiebreaker to move on, but that's a lot to line up.)

Meanwhile, though, I was ... almost on fire. I made up for my qualifying loss on Dune with a first-place finish. I managed a third place on Alien Poker, an early-80s game I've recently been getting really good on, though not this time. And then on Fast Draw, a 70s game, I got the second place I needed to move on.

Semifinals I got a second place on Jurassic Park, which was fine by me; get second place on every game and you're probably advancing to the next round. On the next game, Terminator 2, one of the historically important but awful early-90s games, I flopped into last place by far. I fully expected to be knocked out but TY --- who already had two first-place finishes and so was guaranteed to move on --- left the choice of games to me. So I picked Fast Draw and, what do you know, got a first place, the only thing that could have moved me on.

By this time it was so late that Taco Bell was in danger of closing so bunnyhugger had gone out to get some dinner for us. When she came back, knowing nothing of Terminator 2, she saw only that we were on Fast Draw and concluded someone had given me a big break. Yes, and that person was me.

The astounding thing, then, was that I was in the final four. Whatever happened would be my best finish ever at an RLM tournament, and the best of either of us. I'd never finished higher than 17th before, while bunnyhugger had finished 5th and 9th this year.

The more astounding thing is that in the first game of finals, Deadpool, I went and put up an absolute killer first ball, the sort of first ball that freezes everyone else out. Two of the players never recovered from this, but on his final ball TY came back and edged out my score. That's all right. Anything might happen on the next game, Getaway. The subtle thing about Getaway is that it's a fast-playing 90s game; it's just easy to drain and it's hard not to suspect that with it past 2 am and everyone having been playing for seven hours everyone kind of wanted it to be done. I managed a pretty good rally on this but still only got third place. TY, with two straight wins, had secured first place, but second through fourth were still up for grabs. The last game: Alien Poker. Not quite as much a gift to me as Fast Draw would have been --- TY won easily --- but still really good for me. I picked up second place, and managed against all my expectations to take second place in the tournament.

Bumped me up from about 110th in the state to 93rd place --- the top 24 get invites --- so if 70 people aren't able to make it, I'm in. (There's eleven people I think almost sure to decline, if asked.)

We haven't had the chance to get back since; might make next Friday's. Could be thrilling. Probably will not see me repeat.

Next up, photograph-wise: finishing the Sky Ride return trip from that Sunday of Halloweekends.

Looking over the far end of the Coliseum building, on the right; the top of the Peanuts gift shop and, beyond that, Planet Snoopy. The Wild Mouse is the yellow roller coaster in the background.

Whoops! Another car interrupts my ride.

The Pagoda Gift Shop and the SweetSpot candy shop beneath. And in the distance you can see Planet Snoopy and at least one giant pumpkin set up for Halloween fun.

Stickers attached to one of the towers holding up the Sky Ride and I have to say I'm impressed people can get those things on. I wouldn't have the nerve to try.

Looking out towards, roughly, the Hotel Entrance. Windseeker's way in back. The shop on the left, near the shadow of my car, is where they sell the tradable buttons.

And now, back where I started, with the rides graveyard at the far end of the Sky Ride.

Trivia: Stephen Fox, named in 1661 by England's Charles II the paymaster to the King's Guards, solved the problem of the guards being paid erratically by undertaking loans himself to provide regular salaries, and taking a shilling in the pound commission, eventually making himself rich. Source: A Gambling Man: Charles II's Restoration Game, Jenny Uglow.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 71: T-Bone Steak Trees, or, Steakiflora Hannibalus Carny What, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

My humor blog this week was not entirely about pop culture nonsense, but it was close! Featuring a Star Trek post that straddles the line between 'funny concept' and 'just statement of fact'. Let's watch:

• MiSTed: The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit, Part 4
• Statistics August: In Which AI Does Not So Obnoxiously Screw Things Up
• Statistics Saturday: Star Trek Episodes By Mission Objectives Accomplished
• Sir, This Dream Wendy's Is Not a Dream in the Good Sense
• The Closer I Am to Understanding This _Compu-Toon_ the Farther I Am
• What's Going On In The Phantom (Sundays)? How is there time travel in The Phantom? June - September 2025
• Nobody Who Knows Is Telling Why _Nancy_ Is in Really Old Repeats This Week or if Olivia Jaimes Is Still Drawing It
• MiSTed: The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit, Part 5

And now in pictures let me share the thing you haven't seen from me before, Cedar Point from slightly above! But not from the Giant Wheel! Just watch.

And we're off! I'm off, anyway. Picture here looking back over my shoulder at the Corkscrew midway and points beyond, all the way to Magnum in the far background.

Looking ahead, there's the main midway and GateKeeper in the distance.

Have you wondered what's on top of the Coliseum Arcade building? Now you know! It's ... roof.

Looking out past the Coliseum to the Kiddie Kingdom, including the carousel, the biggest unobstructed building there. Also there's the Giant Wheel, which I'd been on at the start of the year, for Eclipse Day.

Raptor here, and the Blue Streak beyond it, and past that, Sandusky.

The truncated cone here is Cedar Downs, the racing carousel.

Got this snap of a train on Raptor's helix!

And here's a loop on Raptor, with Blue Streak far beyond.

The Funway here is an arcade now; in the far distant past, it was a Fascination parlor, and the building around it is midway games. Which are very shallow, when you look at it; I'm startled how much of what's beyond is empty space and other buildings for some kind of park work.

Here's the front of the midway games, and the ice cream parlor we remember we can get stuff at maybe one time out of every three years.

End of the journey! I'm at the Sky Ride station near the front of the park and above one of the better gift shops here, ready to leave.

But here's a quick picture of a couple Sky Ride cars kissing.

Trivia: Flight Controller training for the Gemini program involved about 140 hours of classroom instruction and familiarization sessions with the spacecraft and ground support systems. New controllers were also required to attend about 30 hours of spacecraft trajectory instruction. Source: Gemini 4: An Astronaut Steps Into The Void, David J Shayler. 170 hours didn't sound like a lot --- it's literally just a week and two hours --- although if it were done as a college course that'd be something like twelve credit-hours and that sounds heftier somehow.

Currently Reading: Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic, Simon Winchester.

The Sunday we picked up bunnyhugger's pictures from the Calhoun County Fair --- and, briefly, thought one had gone missing --- we went to Michigan's Adventure as we were determined to get some decent time in at the park. It took only about two hours to get from the fairgrounds to the park, which is surprising because Michigan's Adventure is about one hour 45 minutes from our house, and the Calhoun County Fairgrounds about an hour from ours in not quite the opposite direction. We did a lot of riding on minor roads, rather than Interstates, but still took far less time than we expected.

This time around, Thunderhawk was open, although the first time we went to it the line was too long and we came back later. We also saw the curiosity of an empty car on the Mad Mouse, but not as part of test cycling. It was just a single red car, one of two they have, that was running without passengers. We have to suppose there was something wrong with the car, probably the restraints being stuck, but that they didn't want to spend the time taking the car out of rotation.

Past that the most distinctive thing about this trip was our second attempt at getting Beyond Burgers at the Coasters restaurant only to be forgotten about this time around. We should have gone to the Wagon Wheel pizza which offered a Vegan cheese pizza, but I didn't think of it. We formed an idea of going there when we made our close-of-the-season visit. The next time we went to the park, Wagon Wheel Pizza would be closed.

Still we did have a pretty solid day of riding, and got to a good number of flat rides too, including the always-solid Scrambler and Trabant. And a close-of-the-day ride on Mad Mouse --- not the red car --- that would go into making this our most successful season in ages for getting rides on that coaster. The park was not open as late as sunset --- it hasn't been since the pandemic began --- but we got very close to sunset given how late after the park close we did get to ride.

Also while we were using the bathroom outside the park we saw a kid free-climbing a couple of park flagpoles, at one point even going from the top of one to the top of the adjacent flagpole. As a person who in real life has never successfully climbed anything but stairs and ladders, I had to applaud. Enough other people will be telling him how that's dangerous.

Now, let's get to the Sunday of our Halloweekends visit to Cedar Point last year.

Rides graveyard, now tucked underneath Corkscrew supports. Turnpike Cars was one of the three antique car rides the place had until 2014 and we rode it once or twice every year. Space Spiral we rode once.

Corkscrew doesn't have an on-ride photograph so what do you think of my substitute?

Corkscrew! Roaring at you for 1976!

And then without warning a marching band came through.

We think this was the end? Or near the end? Of the band. What they were up to was unknown to us.

Stuff we can understand: the Peanuts gang on the Celebration Stage, doing a bit about how monsters were on their street and would only be fended off by singing Let's Do The Time Warp Again.

Trivia: Ten million pounds of nylon were produced in 1953 as ``engineering plastic'', a plastic strong enough to use in place of metal. Source: Napoleon's Buttons: 17 Molecules That Changed History, Penny Le Couteur, Jay Burreson.

Currently Reading: Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic, Simon Winchester.

PS: What's Going On In The Phantom (Sundays)? How is there time travel in The Phantom? June - September 2025 and I admit I don't know the mechanism of how the time travel thing works.

In my narrative here we're finally reaching August, which you may know of as County Fair Season. bunnyhugger entered photographs into a bunch of county fairs this year, including some she hadn't been to ages, although I didn't go along with her to most of the. Mostly I was tired or felt like not going out somewhere.

Come early August, though, we were up to the two we just don't miss. First would be the Jackson County Fair, with a heck of a spread of exhibits and that impressive building that has a water mil and stream through the center. bunnyhugger had an uncharacteristically poor performance at the Jackson County Fair this year, just ... I'm going to say three ... pictures of nearly a dozen getting ribbons, and this is a fair that gives ribbons all the way down to fifth place. Some of this you can understand; a lot of people entered pictures of dogs or cats for black-and-white-pets and the choice of ribbon-winners has to have been almost a random draw. And some were solid choices, like, a photo of snake-charmers getting a better place in the street photography category than bunnyhugger's picture of people getting chestnuts at the Silver Bells street market.

They also had a category for AI-generated image content, maybe supposing that if there's a specific spot for that it'll keep the pollution out of the photography and visual arts sections. Can't say any of that stood out, although I did notice in among the kids arts someone putting up a cure picture of Dragonite colored in a patchwork mass, like a raggedy doll. It didn't win a ribbon --- what looked like fan art from The Land Before Time did --- but I liked the notion. Als in needlepoint there were a lot of Halloween-themed stitchings done. I have no explanation for this phenomenon. Also, the ham radio guys weren't there when we happened to be around, although they had the display of their gear for us to admire.

I had thought, going down, that this year we might buy the tickets needed to go on the four-storey New York, New York walkthrough funhouse ride, because I had forgotten that was something at the Ionia Free Fair instead. I'm embarrassed to say that we got down there so late, and spent so long looking at the exhibits, and the rabbits and turkeys and chickens, and looking around the midway rides that we didn't have time to actually ride anything. We had just been thinking what rides to go on when the woman doing customer support next to the ticket vending machine asked if we wanted anything before they shut it down for the night. So we grabbed one ride on the carousel and that was all we'd get to ride for the night.

I know we wouldn't have ridden the Gravitron --- bunnyhugger has reasonably sworn that ride off --- but they had a travelling kiddie coaster, an (pardon me) Orient Express, that didn't have any signs saying adults couldn't ride. bunnyhugger had gotten credits for the equivalent ride at two other county fairs and was up for the goofiness of making one of those her 337th or whatever it would be. No luck, though; we just didn't have as much time as we'd imagined. Maybe next year.

At the end of the night we got some square ice cream and sat at picnic benches to enjoy it. While we were there the moment of the fair's closing for the night hit, and a couple minutes later security was coming around telling us, fair's closed, shoo. We had already finished the ice creams so it wasn't that much an inconvenience but it felt needlessly hostile, especially coming minutes after the last midway lights were turned off, instead of, like, a half-hour past.

Now for a bit more Saturday at Cedar Point Halloweekends last year. Don't worry, there's not an endless supply of this left.

Celebration Stage here has opened a portal to the heart of the sun, which is exciting.

The stage, the Top Thrill 2 spire, and the Power Tower, plus some ordinary light posts to add to the whole lights-and-vertical-lines motif this picture.

Stage performance going on. We didn't stop to listen to the show so I don't know just what was going on but horrors of the night coming out and singing 80s rock is a safe bet.

More mid-show footage and vertical lines for you to admire.

And I like this moment for getting the shafts of light pointing out at the viewer.

Back to some serious stuff, like Stitch getting a ride on the Musik Express. Note this is from the inside of the ride building; you can just see the outside in the distance.

Trivia: Of the twelve votes cast by the Smithsonian Board of Regents for their first Secretary, one went to Charles Pickering (lead zoologist of the US South Seas Exploring Expedition), four to Francis Markoe (corresponding secretary of Washington's National Institute for the Promotion of Science), and seven for Joseph Henry. The board then moved the approval of Henry to be confirmed unanimously. Source: Joseph Henry: The Rise of an American Scientist, Albert E Moyer.

Currently Reading: Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic, Simon Winchester.