They won't catch me now

[austin_dern]

I realized I forgot something big from our August trip to Michigan's Adventure. It's something special that happened after we got on Corkscrew and saw in the queue after us someone wearing a Kings Island Vortex t-shirt. bunnyhugger called out to him to voice her approval of the ride and we thought that was as much neat amusement park enthusiast stuff as we were likely to get. (Her previous visit, someone noticed her Darien Lake t-shirt and asked what the seats were like on the Man Of Steel coaster.)

But no, we had something more wonderful happen! As the train returned from the circuit, the operator missed one of the brake buttons a little and the ride stopped a few feet forward of where it had been. So the operator told us that he was sorry, we'd all have to go through the ride again. This seemed a bit much --- everybody except the front seat was still beside the concrete platform and could have unloaded safely enough --- but hey, free re-ride! Vortex guy was envious, of course, and the only downside is the ride was a walk-on anyway so it's not like we got a rare duplicate chance at the ride.

Still, that's always wonderful and we had just a few days before talked about this sort of pass-through reride. And how modern control systems, with more computerized and automated braking systems, make this sort of thing less likely or even possible. Great little extra treat on the day.

---

In other news, I got my bivalent booster shot yesterday. Spent today feeling a bit cranky and sore but, you know, at my age who can be sure what the cause is?

---

And now for more pictures of Carello's Carousel, at Sylvan Beach but not the amusement park:

---

This one's a different camel; look at the different horse, in the second row, with ... a bullseye blanket.

---

You can see some of the lighting here and also the cables that lead to the center pole above.

---

Carousel Since 1896, the sign promises, and which also makes me wonder how old this building is and, if it's not 126 years old, how they arranged the logistics of building it. (Certainly a carousel can be moved, especially for building a new structure around it. That's just complications is all that I'd like to know more about.)

---

Here's a rooster up front. Also note the sign warning that your Sylvan Beach ride tickets are no good here.

---

You can spot the Carello Entertainment logo in back. I like it; it's got a golden-age-of-comics or maybe 60s television studio design.

---

And here's what the ride tickets look like.

---

Trivia: Until 1956 clocks in Holland observed two times: the standard railway time (matching the time in Amsterdam Station) and the local sun time. Source: Marking Time: The Epic Quest to Invent the Perfect Calendar, Duncan Steel. (Steel writes that ``the nation'' joined the standard time zones in 1956 so I assume he means the whole of the Netherlands, but what he wrote was just Holland.)

Currently Reading: High-Speed Dreams: NASA and the Technopolotics of Supersonic Transportation, 1945 - 1999, Erik M Conway. Y'know, growing up in space-enthusiast circles, you hear about stuff like supersonic transport programs being cancelled and it's always presented as the triumph of anti-science forces or sometimes environmentalists with silly ideas like ``air travel shouldn't break every window in Oklahoma City''. I count myself fortunate to have matured to the point that I can look at and consider, uh, why would it be a good idea to rush in to finishing something that doesn't have a lot of the necessary background technologies, which if put into production could do only a slice of what it needs to actually be useful, and incidentally also break every window in Oklahoma City? Also, startled to learn that it was only after the National Aerospace Plane was announced that anyone calculated whether, at the sorts of accelerations you could expect passengers to endure, a Mach 25 airplane was even possible. Turns out the world's too small for anything past Mach 6 to be viable and even that's pretty flimsy.

Comments

[armiphlage]

Plus once you get from aeronatics to space flight, orbital dynamics come into play.

Low Earth Orbit velocity is around 25,000 km/h, getting you around the earth in about 90 minutes.
Mach 25 is 30,800 km/h, and would get you into a higher orbit that takes longer to get around the earth.

[selki]

I like that rooster running along -- and the other animals, too.