Motor City Fur[ry] Con 2024! This year I felt secure enough in my position and finances to take the Friday off, although the prospect of getting there in time for Opening Ceremonies evaporated. Just too much to do to get ready, and then it turned out there was a heck of a lot of traffic and even more road construction going on between Lansing and Ypsilanti. It got bad enough, in fact, that we gave up on US 23 south, the sensible way to get there, and improvised tacking our way across Ypsilanti and it so happens going past the famous water tower that people make too big a deal of. This time, seeing it by daylight, we noticed the bust in front of it and briefly wondered who it might be. It was, of course, Demetrius Ypsilantis, namesake for the city.
In the end we got there late enough that we were able to check in to our hotel, the overflow hotel we always seem to end up in because we aren't paying attention when they open the main hotel. We also got there very close to the first event we wanted to attend, the ``Trash Animals'' SIG. Whether we could make it would depend on whether we could find parking and how long the registration line was.
The registration line was almost nothing and, even better, I didn't lose anything in line, unlike last year. Parking, though, that was a problem. The parking lot for the Motor City Furry Con hotel in Ypsilanti has always been too small, and it got even more constrained when the golf course adjacent to it built a new sports center thingy. It's managed to get even more constrained than that, because the hotel is putting up gates at its parking lot, chopping off a couple of spaces from every row, including the one that still has the sign reserved for ``Employee of the Month'', which feels like a special insult to an already meager prize. There's also more spaces roped off for valet parking.
We did wonder a little why the hotel doesn't have nearly enough parking spaces, and finally realized: oh, it's because furries will put 26 people in a two-bed room, and all 26 of them will have driven in separately. In the event, I dropped ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger off at the hotel --- a thing that would become our routine all weekend; I think there's one time we parked together --- and I went searching the many rows in the forlorn hope that there might be one --- oh, there's a spot right in the front row, not far from the entrance. OK. Sweet. We could start the convention!
Before getting to the SIG, let me wrap up the Calhoun County Fair. Ready for whatever pinball tournament was next on my photo roll? Well, just you keep waiting, you'll see what's next.
Crown of lightning bolts at the center of the Silver Streak ride, by night. Love the look of that.
And from Silver Streak here's a photograph looking to the front of the carnival area, with the Gravitron and Zipper and way in back, the Nuf Edils and all that in the glow of a warm, humid August night.
Going back to the carousel for a visit and photographs of the wrong side of the horses before they close it up.
... Oh, they're closing it up.
Last look at some ride art on the way out, here, the ringmaster, a tiger, and a human cannonball for the Big Top Circus funhouse-type walkthrough.
And here's a cheerful-looking monkey and elephant sharing peanuts in the Big Top Circus ride art.
Trivia: In 1927 the NBC radio network had 28 affiliates and CBS 16, accounting for 6.4 percent of all the United States's broadcast stations. By 1931, NBC and CBS accounted for 30 percent of all stations and 70 percent of all broadcasting. Source: With Amusement For All: A History of American Popular Culture Since 1830, LeRoy Ashby.
Currently Reading: The Acme Catalog: Quality Is Our #1 Dream, Charles Carrey and Scott Grass.
