Despite our luck in finding a parking space and the shortness of the wait at registration we weren't quite in time to the start of the Trash Animals SIG. It was gathered in one of the bigger rooms, a roughly pentagonal room that last year had been one of the dealer rooms, which should give you some idea how big it is. Several dozen people were there and they were going around the room, everyone introducing themselves. But the space where we found seats was past the wave where people had introduced themselves. I assumed this meant we'd go when everybody else was done.
Now for the part where I make ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger cringe: when was everyone else done? I assumed it was when they got back to the desk, at the center of the long diagonal wall where the people running the panel were introducing themselves. So when they got done with themselves --- and yes, I thought it weird they didn't go at first, to set the idea of what people should say --- I didn't see or hear anyone else talking so stood up to introduce myself.
Except. There was someone else talking, and the line of people along that diagonal wall was not done. Finally I tumbled onto this and sat down, wondering how they chose the start for this. Eventually the diagonal wall people finished, and I took the chance to go again while bunnyhugger tried to disappear into her camera bag.
Also, she discovered something genuinely distressing. Her digital camera was low on battery and she did not have the charger. And her battery has reached that point where it's always showing either 100% charge or else it has four pictures left. And this at the start of the convention, when we had the whole weekend of extremely photographable things ahead plus our Eclipse Trip to Cedar Point. And all she had was a handful of photographs left in her camera. Also her film cameras, with a couple rolls of film but that's all. She --- already stressed from the late start, the traffic, the school work she had to do, and coming in late, and realizing that she hadn't brought her Chitter Squirrel puppet, and then cringing from my mistake in talking about myself too early --- was not having a good time. After the introductions finished and everyone went to socializing she stayed back a good while and we had to plan what to do about the camera situation.
What would be done is: we had often seen billboards in the area for the Camera Mall, somewhere in Ann Arbor. Their web site indicated they might have a charger for the kind of battery her digital camera takes. The web site said it charged that model battery, but also that it was good for the batteries for a list of cameras that noticeably failed to list her model camera. And there was the problem of when we'd get out there. Or if it would be better to make the hour-plus drive back home and get the charger for sure.
What we did do was Saturday afternoon, in the lull between the fursuit parade and some panels we really wanted to see, was to split up. While bunnyhugger stayed and took care of work and also a needed nap, I drove out to the Camera Mall, which turns out to be on the other side of Ann Arbor, near the University of Michigan football stadium. The place turned out to be smaller than I imagined, with maybe as much customer-accessible space as the Camera Shop here in Lansing. The construction's more modern, with that sort of veneer chic you expect from a jewelry store in the mall or something. A guy came over and helped me right away, agreeing to let me test out that the charger they had actually did the charging. All was good there. I also got a couple rolls of film per bunnyhugger's wish list, which they kept in a refrigerator. Ringing it up was the work of but a moment and soon I was on my way.
Coming back I thought, you know, it's near enough coffee time, I should get bunnyhugger the latte she'd been denied in Fort Wayne. Also get some fries since we could well use a snack. The fries and my pop were easy enough to get. The latte, though ... they asked me to move up to the waiting-for-drive-through stuff and from there forgot about me. After ten or fifteen minutes I got out of my car, just in time for someone to come out and ask what I was waiting for. After a then reasonable wait they came out with the coffee and I could rejoin bunnyhugger. Still, feeling pretty burned lately by fast food places.
Getting the charger, and getting a full battery, and getting a bunch of fries and a decent coffee, helped bunnyhugger start to have a good weekend after all. But she was still disappointed that she had missed a chance to see the Camera Mall herself.
In pictures, onward into Indiana Beach! Let's get some rides in and then photograph cute stuff.
Car all ready for Indiana Beach's newest operating roller coaster, Cyclone. (While they had --- and still have --- All American Triple Loop, formerly La Feria's Quimera and Flamingo Land's Magnum Force, on site, it was under construction then. They hope to open it this season.)
And there I am snapping pictures of the manufacture date and all. Says it was built 1978, although Roller Coaster Database doesn't know where it was besides vaguely ``travelling in Mexico'' before 2022 when it came to Indiana.
Can you spot the dark ride in this picture? Hint: loko underneath the big skull!
My attention was caught by I.B.Bananas here, as it would be. Also see how they've got real cartoon art, retiring the attempt at CGI'ing I.B.Crow.
And oh hey, a comic foreground for people who heart bananas, that's great! I wonder what's on the other side.
Oh hey, this is probably the foreground part of the comic foreground. I like the monkey tails curled up to make hearts.
Trivia: A Kunstlerroman is a novel which deals with the formative years of an artist. Source: The Know-It-All, A J Jacobs.
Currently Reading: The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars, Dava Sobel.
