After we got to the Trash Animals panel --- despite having missed the SpinDizzy wizard --- things did start to pick up. The session had by that time broken up into a couple of groups of people talking, really just hanging out with people, some of them in raccoon fursuits, one in a rat suit, and a couple people in other suits or costumes. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger brought her squirrel puppet Chitter, but ended up talking more with Ed Hyena than anyone else. I gravitated that way too.
Also there was a somewhat long kerfuffle in trying to get a photograph of all the participants. The photographer had the idea everyone should gather around a trash bin, which pushed us all out of the adequate-sized meeting room into the narrow corridor of the walkway from the hotel's center ring to the conference room, there to gather around the small trash bin that never stood a chance of dominating the scene. We'd probably have been better off moving the trash bin into the room --- we'd at least have the chance for people not to be stacked five deep across a too-narrow walkway --- but that's a lesson for next time.
The hanging out merged imperceptibly into getting ready for the next panel, Show Me Your Camera, which was just what you'd imagine from the label. Lot of neat camera gear shown off, ranging from the stuff familiar from my youth --- remember those Kodak short but fat rectangles with the tower of flash cubes plugged in? --- or early digital cameras that record on 3.5" floppies. Some was quirkier stuff, like the Argus cameras once made in Ann Arbor. There were more than one century-old camera, and more than one person with so many lenses and lens extensions it was terrifying to stand too near all this expensive glass.
bunnyhugger was excited for the chance to show off her cameras, collected from estate sales and thrift stores and the like. But when the panel host stopped about midway through saying they were going to just pause showing off cameras to take a group photo, she correctly forecast that the showing-off would never resume. Instead it broke up into a general chat session, and she was able to talk with individuals about their cameras and about hers but never to show the whole bunch off to anyone. Also to people testing out their gear on shots of a couple volunteer fursuiters.
We did get to see a demonstration of someone who'd got a couple portable LED spotlights --- these were actually held by hand --- wirelessly connected to his main camera so that when he snapped there would be a bright flash short enough that the eye --- my eye, anyway --- couldn't even see it. But the picture came out with the spotlight colored as per the spotlights, with a dark background, just as if he were photographing in a studio. Astounding feat of photography; he explained something to the effect of when you have the right gear, everywhere is your studio now.
Following this was a bit of time with nothing particular on the schedule. We did an orbit of the dealer's den where we didn't really spot anything all that interesting --- it felt weirdly smaller than last year's, despite the hotel being so much larger --- and also a dip into artists alley though there wasn't any chance of getting a sketchbook commission. I think bunnyhugger got a couple stickers, though not of what she really wanted, Animal Crossing's lovable jock Bam.
After that, we went back to Hospitality, in my case mostly to get a couple Faygos and to sit a while. We needed to recover our energy somewhere and this would do it. The next thing we had to face was, and it's hard to think it came this soon, Closing Ceremonies.
We're also coming up on the close of our full day at Six Flags America, if you can imagine.
I mentioned in passing a Johnny Rocket's at Six Flags America. There are several reasons we didn't eat there, but one of them was that it was closed due to as the sign says, ``HVAC complications''. This sign being there implies they were getting enough questions about Johnny Rocket's that just not opening the place wouldn't have addressed.
The Tea Cups ride had pretty ordinary decoration but it's always nice seeing one. Little odd none of the parks nearest us have one.
That lake that's over by the carousel (seen in the background) where that squirrel appeared earlier, but here seen from where you can also tell there was a wooden suspension bridge alongside.
Heritage House Food Court is that spot that had all the signs about the park's history and grammatical catastrophes, by the way. We spent a lot of time in here waiting out the rain.
Oh yeah, and checking in on the clocks, well, the analog clocks are at different wrong times and Ye Olde Digital Clock is missing.
It's coincidence that my first picture after the rain included the Cyclone (a Scrambler) but it's at least a little bit funny too.
Trivia: When Louis Blériot made the first airplane crossing of the English Channel from Calais to Dover in 1909 he was accompanied by a French destroyer, monitoring his flight and ready to rescue him should he have to ditch. Most of the flight was at an altitude of about 250 feet. Source: Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories, Simon Winchester.
Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 85: Dragon or Overgrown Lizard?, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.
(no subject)
Date: 2026-02-28 03:49 pm (UTC)