austin_dern

We try to get to Crossroads Village between Christmas and New Year's, and that left us with the choice whether to go Friday or Sunday. Friday we'd have to leave after work, losing us at minimum an hour and a half of time there; the village closes at 9 pm like it or not. Sunday we could have got there at the village's 4 pm opening, but as it was the last day of the operating season we'd have no backup in case something went wrong. Or, as it happens, if the day was pouring rain, getting a needed inch-and-a-half to two inches dropped on us. It happens we chose to go Friday, sparing us the choice of driving out there in awful weather to a place that might not have even opened.

Our adequate-but-short time was cut even shorter when I managed one of my rare wrong turns driving there, just at a moment when bunnyhugger had unknowingly turned off the turn-by-turn directions on her phone. So we ended up driving well past our exit for a good ten minutes or more before I finally asked where were we. While we discovered some interesting features in the area, including more neon signs than we knew were around, this ate up a lot of time we'd hoped to spend puttering around and maybe looking into buildings. While we hadn't expected to have the time to see the live show in the opera house, my mistake made it impossible to catch the Frosty Follies this year.

The most curious change at Crossroads this year: the cafe up front didn't have any food at all. No burgers, no nachos, but most stunning no doughnuts. They still sold coffee and cocoa, out of large carafes, but nothing else. We think they consolidated all their real food service items into one building that we almost never get to, although we didn't have time to investigate.

The other most curious change: they had a little canvas tent set up with a new vendor this year. The village is all century-plus-old buildings, with a handful of exceptions like the carousel building that at least tries to look vintage. This was just a canvas tent set up, or as I referred to it, the ``historic shopping village''. Inside were, first, some kind of small jet engine blasting enough heat to melt Europa, and second a huge number of 3D-printed toys. Puppets and marionettes and posable figures, done with lots of points and considerable articulation so you could pose your noodle dragon however you like. It was extremely hard not to buy something and we were maybe saved by figuring, oh, we can come back later and then they closed moments before we got back to them.

A small disappointment was that the Ferris wheel wasn't running. It can't have been the weather; it wasn't raining and while it was cold for the first time in several years' visiting it wasn't brutally cold; it was just a little below freezing is all. I'm guessing it was staff shortages. On the bright side, the carousel continues to run at its factory-specified six rotations per minute, so fast that it becomes a thrill ride. For the first time we sat in the ``nanny chairs'', the bench behind the row of kiddie horses. We were not expecting that to be such an intense experience, by the way. Actually being on horses is less disorienting than just sitting still on a bench at that speed, which gave us some of the centrifugal force of being in a Himalaya or other speed circular ride. Strongly recommended and I swear even the full-size chariot isn't this intense.

So our day wasn't as much as we had hoped for. That's all right. We were able to get important things like the kettle corn, and to stop into a shop that I swear has been closed for several years to find some vintage candy and some old postcards they were giving away free. (Unfortunately ours got crumpled while in the jacket pocket.) We also found (in the main gift shop) a cute token, a fridge magnet with a bunch of alleged ``hobo code symbols'' that we were able to give a friend who's deeply fascinated by hobo culture and who was thrilled out of all proportion by receiving this.

On the train ride through the festive lights displays they didn't play many of the novelty Christmas songs we're used to, like ``My Rusty Chevrolet'' or ``I Sure Do Like Those Christmas Cookies'', but at least I heard the latter playing out in the open from a distant speaker while were making the long walk from back of the village to front at the end of the night. (bunnyhugger, who somehow has ears less adept at picking up songs barely-audible-above-the-ambient-noise, just took my word that this was playing.) We could have used another hour but we did pretty well with the time we had. And, as mentioned, Sunday was nothing but rain so we could not have done much better.

Back to Camden Park pictures from June, now, for pictures of their other must-ride ride.

Camden Park's other historic wooden coaster, the children's coaster Little Dipper. Or Li'l Dipper; documentation is ambiguous. The Roller Coaster Database notes that the ride is claimed to have been built in 1961, but it doesn't appear in aerial photographs dated 1967. But the photo might be misdated, or the ride might have been relocated. Anyway, the important thing is it has the most important piece of any roller coaster: a curved loading station.

It's a basic double out-and-back coaster. Here's the train making its return loop. It isn't a very tall roller coaster; if it's 25 feet I'd be surprised.

Train returning to the station.

Here's what the station looks like. There's a log flume station to the left there. It looks like a couple rides hidden off from the main body of the park by a vast wall of asphalt.

I don't know why the operator had to go walking around the infield for something but the ride was, of course, shut down until that was cleared up.

View of the operator's booth. While there aren't the big pull levers like at Big Dipper, they do have those nice rotating switches to control the brakes and stuff on this coaster.

Trivia: On the 25th of September, 1690, Boston publisher Benjamin Harris --- who had fled London after being jailed for publishing sedition --- published the first edition of the first American newspaper, Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick. This was also the last edition as the governor and council of Massachusetts suppressed the paper. Source: An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power, John Steele Gordon.

Currently Reading: Archaeology, January/February 2025, Editor Jarrett A Lobell.

As I'm caught up on events again, not much to do but share my recap of what's going on in Gasoline Alley (it's a lot of cat stuff) and then show pictures from Crossroads Village, from our visit late last year:

Here's that much-discussed giant ornament that you can walk through. This isn't exposure games; it's really bright.

Cut the exposure down a little and you can see how it's structured, though.

Looking at the top of the ornament, with particularly intense light strands to suggest the painting atop a bulb.

And here's a view from the door up to the top of the ornament, done at a Dutch angle because you know me.

Here's a more normal angle looking out the door to the lights of the village beyond.

The walls of the ornament, with the village out behind, and tilted to the vertical because this was a more interesting composition.

Back out of the ornament now, with one of the village trees and some strands of light on a tree in front of it.

Box ornaments set up around the tree so as to keep it from rolling away when I put the picture at a severe angle.

But there's the top of the tree, and my proof that I can take a normal picture when I want.

Couple of chicken light fixtures, over by a part of the village where I think they might keep chickens during the summer? Or at least look like they do.

Arch of light and a Happy Holidays animated sign off on a path that you have no reason to visit if you're there on foot. On a drive-through day I believe this is the way out of the village.

bunnyhugger pondering walking through the dimensional portal.

Trivia: William Clark, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, sent President Thomas Jefferson a live prairie dog. Source: On The Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks, Simon Garfield.

Currently Reading: Nose Dive: A Field Guide to the World's Smells, Harold McGee.

So I'm all caught up! Enjoy then a double dose of pictures. Also don't worry, because I'm going to have fresh stuff to report on starting tomorrow. Meanwhile, please enjoy some Crossroads Village photography.

Continuing the walk to the southeast end of the village. The nutcracker figure pointing is not just a fixture but also a way to guide cars on the path they're supposed to take, those nights that the village is open only for driving through.

Here's just a big old tangle of lights and fixtures.

The giant white-light ornament ball was back for 2023. Here's a picture of it lined up in the middle of one of the outline-light trees, because I thought that would look good.

Turns out that looks less good than this, lined up so it looks as if it were hanging from the end of a branch on an outline-light tree.

First view here of the antique rides section of the park. You can see the deer or reindeer lights on the right side there.

And here's their most noteworthy ride, the C W Parker Carousel. And for once I took the time to try and center the building and I think it shows!

Here's the carousel, dressed as normal for winter operations with the blankets that are a bit Christmas colored and also keep mud and snow off the horses.

The chariot, with its winged dragon intimidated by a snake, I always like. Here for once I take a picture showing the back and its hard-to-see image of the roiling sea.

Here's the ticket booth, and some of the Mickey Mouse baners that they have for decoration.

This red snowflake decoration is the most snow we saw in December.

Crossroads Village runs its carousel faster than anywhere else in Michigan, and as fast as anywhere in Michigan and Ohio, and you really feel it when you take a ride.

Tracking shot of the four-abreast kid-size horses with the chairs behind for the kids' parents to have a less exciting ride.

Trivia: In 1921 the Crosley Manufacturing Company received its radio license and as station 8XAA began transmitting on a four-tube, twenty-watt model. Powel Crosley Jr began programming, mostly by giving his name and telephone number over the air and inviting anyone receiving the signal to call in, and then playing a record, usually ``The Song of India'', by putting the phonograph horn next to the radio microphone. Source: Crosley: Two Brothers and a Business Empire That Transformed the Nation, Rusty McClure with David Stern and Michael A Banks. I don't know that it was this specific recording, but it's plausible that it was this song anyway.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine Volume 44: Truth Is Stranger, Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

To give an idea how stable things have been lately: I'm writing up something that happened today, as in, not twelve hours before this publishes.

Last year (admittedly more than twelve hours ago) our attempt to get a leaky outdoor faucet fixed was foiled by the bad shape of our interior plumbing. The plumber recommended replacing all our galvanized-steel plumbing with something not waiting to explode. Since then it's been one of those things we talk about maybe getting to at some point when we have the energy. Yesterday I called the plumber and made an appointment to be seen ... sometime today. The company, recently bought out by a bigger one, no longer does specific times for things like doing an inspection and giving an estimate. They just call when they figure it's likely they'll be along.

While bunnyhugger was getting her car's oil changed the guy visited, and agreed, our galvanized plumbing should be replaced before it's something we have to replace. Also apparently some of our old copper pipes aren't in any too good a shape either. He wrote up estimates for a couple projects, including one of our wish-list items --- a laundry sink for the basement --- and one we hadn't even considered, replacing the water heater, which is something like 18 years old.

He offered the advice that we might want to just replace the plumbing in the basement for now, and leave the upstairs plumbing --- going into the bathroom --- for later or until we have a particular issue. This largely because it's a lot harder to get at the upstairs plumbing, what with having to tear out not just drywall but plaster walls. There are only three people left in the United States who even install plaster walls anymore, and they're all dead. But, if we put off the upstairs until, say, we're ready for the bathroom renovation we've been planning to do someday for a decade-plus now ... well, that would be a compelling moment to rip out everything and try to put it back in, only less bad.

But then doing the downstairs and upstairs plumbing and renovating the bathroom all at once --- and somehow getting plaster walls repaired after that --- would be concentrating a lot of stressful events together. Also putting a lot of money into the house all at once, beyond what would be justified if we needed to sell the house in the next couple years. On the other hand it would be nice to have a house repair thing done. On yet another hand: while our pipes are maybe twenty years past when they should have been replaced we haven't actually had trouble, or signs of trouble. The plumber congratulated our foresight in keeping all the basement stuff in plastic bins, though.

Stuff to think about. Also to think about: they got me to sign up for a $15-a-month subscription service. The main benefit, right now: the $75 service call was waived because we're now a subscriber. Also: we'll get a discount on any service calls in the future, so if we do go ahead with this project we'll save a year's worth of subscription, easily.

Also as part of the subscription they offer furnace inspections (complimentary, if you've been subscribed for nine months) and electrical inspections. On the one hand, we definitely need to get the electrical system straightened out; on the other hand, oh, lord do I not want to know what exactly its issues are. It was hard enough learning that our chimney was built so badly that it's only luck that's kept the house from burning down with every fire of the last 95 years, I don't want to open the electrical box too.

Now on to pictures. In my photo reel it's still 2023, and we're at the Crossroads Village's holiday show in the opera house. We've seen Santa and Frosty and the Grinch, so who's left?

And now here's Rudolph, of nose fame, dancing with the cane and wearing that bow tie a little suspiciously low on the neck there! It's certainly not a choice that, combined with the brown of his chin and black of his mouth, makes him look like he's wearing a ball gag!

But as you can see, his nose does glow. Amazing what they can do with fursuit LEDs now.

And now we've got to the part of the show where they dance in a line and kick.

You know it's a happy ending because not only are Santa and the Grinch sharing the stage but they've let a woman in the show too.

And here they show off the long word that made up the climax of the show and part of the big audience sing-along and I have no recollection of how its meter is supposed to work.

After the show, kids get up close to the stage to look at the 'snow' that was blowing around. (It's soap bubble foam, much as was used all those years ago to bring 'snow' to Orchard Road in Singapore.)

Trivia: Paul Specht's six-piece band, debuting with ``rhythmic symphonic syncopation'' the 14th of September, 1920, on Detroit station WWJ appears to be the earliest name music band on commercial radio. Source: The Mighty Music Box: The Golden Age of Musical Radio, Thomas A DeLong.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine Volume 44: Truth Is Stranger, Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle. There's really no predicting where any of these stories would go, but ``professor has whipped up some glasses that show you yourself'', showing Popeye what he and Olive Oyl and Wimpy and ... Oscar ... were like as kids, seems like a weird way to get to ``oh, and Popeye's Mom is alive and can be found''.

Labor Day, now, we did our more-or-less traditional visit to Michigan's Adventure for closing day. This is one more tradition mucked up by the ongoing pandemic, as they used to run Labor Day until just minutes past sunset giving us a few moments at the park in darkness. And they used to be open the weekend after Labor Day too. But, rather than that, they open for several weekends through mid-October for Tricks and Treats, their new Halloween event. So we can't be too upset by that, but it did mean the end of season came sooner, and wholly in the sun. And with the water park open, so we didn't have a low-crowd day. Which is not to say the lines were bad, or even particularly noticeable, apart from a bit on Thunderhawk where someone needed their restraints re-set and re-set again, enough that at one point the ride operator in back just waited for the call to go out and re-do the restraints yet again, and said he knew that was coming.

We had --- once more --- beautiful weather, inviting the question of whether there's ever a just rotten day to visit Michigan's Adventure. Well, they've had to close for flooding a couple times so I guess there must be, but it never hits us, and that's fine as we see things. It was cool, but not quite cold enough to shut the water park (as they do when it's below 65 Fahrenheit), but cool enough that hoodies were just fine. The miniature railroad wasn't operating, I assume because they're setting up for the Halloween event. Also not running when we entered: the Mad Mouse. This would be the only (non-kiddie) roller coaster we didn't get to ride. It came up during the day --- we saw test rides from Wolverine Wildcat --- but by the time it was open, at the end of the day, the line was longer than we wanted to deal with. We got a last ride on Wolverine Wildcat --- a front-seat ride at that --- and trust we'll probably be able to get Mad Mouse during the Halloween event.

The whole of our disappointment was in kettle corn. The kettle corn stand was not open when we got there, not to our surprise. Nor was it open several times when we passed it during the day. But the last hour of the park's opening? Then it was open. We had just turned away from a late ride on the Mad Mouse to get to the stand and find they sold their last bag two people ahead of us. The group one ahead of us had a park employee in it --- she showed her badge --- and after a discussion with the kettle corn maker, paid for a bag to pick up later, when they were made. The kettle corn cashier then started, very slowly, making corn, including what seemed like a lot of checks on whether they had enough sugar and two failed phone calls to someone, somewhere, before finally turning the kettle heat on and pouring oil in. She finally told us it would be, like, fifteen or twenty minutes before they were ready and we weren't waiting for that. We went for some other rides instead.

When we finally got back, maybe ten minutes before the end of the day and the regular season, we were split on whether to get popcorn or get on Wolverine Wildcat. I told bunnyhugger to get in the line for Wolverine Wildcat --- you can see it tolerably well from the kettle corn stand --- and I'd get a bag. And I intended to, but they were still not ready. I understand that a big ol' kettle of corn is more complicated than pouring a half-cup of kernels into a pot at home but this seems like quite bad kettle corn throughput.

So, I figured, we could get on Wolverine Wildcat and in the ten minutes or so before the last ride of the season --- we did wait for that, and got a front-seat ride --- they wouldn't sell out. You, having read the lead sentence three paragraphs back, know what happened. They were not only closed but had somehow shut the place down and packed it up for the long break before either Tricks and Treats or the 2024 season. bunnyhugger was cross enough that when she got home she wrote a letter to corporate complaining about what are the rules of the Kettle Corn stand anyway? When do they open? When do they close? Why has it been so hard to get ever since the pandemic began? It's bags of popcorn, this shouldn't be hard.

We stopped at the hipster farmer market on the way back --- about two hours after we left the park --- and got a bag of popcorn from them, plus some other groceries. I think this was our first trip there since Roger died and it's so hard going through and not buying an overflowing bag of greens, but that's our situation for right now.

We had hopes of getting to Cedar Point the weekend after --- that is, this past Sunday --- but couldn't. This coming weekend we might, or might catch Tricks and Treats at Michigan's Adventure. Depends how long we feel like driving, I imagine.

My photo roll has got past Christmas so you know what that means ...

Our traditional post-Christmas event: the visit to Crossroads Village. Which was cool but, as the huge puddle shows, not remotely freezing. It had rained a good bit, so there was wet mud everywhere, but snow? Ice? Not even close.

But look at that, Christmas Train far as the eye can see!

This time around we got on the train first thing, catching it during twilight and the earliest part of the sunset.

The early hour means we could photograph things like leaving our steam trail in the dust.

And while we don't get the full glory of, say, Santa fishing, we do get to see it without terrible streaks of the train's motion.

Here's one of the perennial displays on the ride, Santa taking off and dropping one box over and over again, forever.

Trivia: Three days after Christmas 1961 there were 323 McDonald's restaurants in 44 states. This was when Ray Kroc assumed leadership of the chain from the McDonalds brothers. Source: Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, Marcia Chatelain.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine Volume 43: The Cheerful Earful Club, Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

Saturday, the day of state championships, we slept in. We figured to avoid the rush for bathrooms among the estimated 46 people staying with us, all of whom qualified. We slept on much later than that. Well, I did anyway: I'm still getting used to the 7 am alarm for work. bunnyhugger had time to discover the house had a gloriously ancient first-aid kit, one from the early 80s at the latest. How does she know this? Besides the kit included smelling salts, with an expiration date in the early 80s. She was so delighted by the existence of this cartoon-world attraction she took photographs and texted friends back at the tournament not to faint until we got there.

In all we missed much of the first round of state finals. We had a bunch of friends, some with excellent seeds, going in, including MWS who had a coveted first-round bye. (Eight of the 24 players had such.) But we couldn't do much besides root them on; for one, it's not like we know any games better than they do. For another, it's not like we could touch a pinball machine, not in all the large main room. No one could except for tournament play. We, and people who wanted to warm up or fill time between matches, could play a handful of tables in the front room. This was a nice enough lineup of games that weren't suitable for tournament play, mostly because they weren't quite reliably working enough. Like, Breakshot, a 90s pool-themed game, had a tendency to crash and reboot midway through games. The Data East Star Wars, an early-90s take on the game, had a wobbly flipper. Really fascinating me was Jacks To Open, a Gottleib table made in the mid-80s that was a solid-state re-creation of Jacks Open, a fun electromechanical game. I've only played Jacks Open in simulation --- The Pinball Arcade has it --- but love it; it's one of the tables I play when I just want to have a nice easy relaxing time. This mid-80s version was a bit odd to make since it was old-fashioned for the era, but, all right. Most of what was done to liven it up was to add a never-ending bit of eight-bit music in the background. On the actual table I managed to put up the high score and a score bigger than I've ever done in simulation where, must be said, the shots are easier. I suspect the scoring changed between the electromechanical and the solid-state versions.

As I say we were rooting for people, mostly our friends, including ones we don't see enough anymore like CST. Lansing Pinball League could make a reasonable claim on like five or six of the players, a great proportion until you consider that almost nobody plays in just the one league. In any case I hope you will not think worse of us if I admit we were also rooting against someone. And, a kid. SPM, the ... uh ... I don't know? 11? 7? 9? I can't tell kids' ages. Pre-teenager, anyway ... son of that guy who picked the Facebook fight with bunnyhugger was there. That's not a problem. The problem is his father was there and we did not want to have to deal with him. The father was walking around, slightly kiasu, watching over his son, and holding a small dog the whole time. I didn't know what he looked like so Friday and early Saturday when I just noticed, oh, guy walking around with a dog, I thought that was neat. When I tumbled on to who he was that all got to be less fun.

Thing is, SPM is really good. Like, he's currently about the 500th-highest-ranked player in the world. MWS is at 350th and he's been playing seriously longer than SPM has been alive. Maybe. I guess. Conscious, at any rate. SPM is maybe a bit much to take but you can absolutely understand that: he's got an amazing talent and he should be exited by it all. If he occasionally gets to be obnoxious, well, he's ... young ... and who wasn't like that at that age?

But, also, he's got the handicap of his father being a Stage Mom, not just congratulating his (considerable) accomplishments but also making sure everybody knows about them as soon as they happen and several times after that. And hovering over every event making sure his son doesn't get a single bad call or unlucky bounce. It's stressful just to watch, and I'd hate having to referee his trying-to-claim-every-edge, even as his son smashes opposition using the only edge anyone needs.

It would be a long day watching all these forces clash.

And now I close out my pictures of Crossroads Village. You know what you haven't seen enough of yet? You're going to see it!

Kettle corn stand with, inevitably, its reflection beneath.

Over on the right is the opera house, with the gift shop, and the cafe, and other stuff .

Looking down the street at the light-wrapped tree.

And her's a slightly different angle on the tree; couldn't decide which picture was slightly better than the other.

Now we're talking: that light-wrapped tre plus its reflection showing you all the times the shuttle had been around today.

A look at the Christmas train, done with its last run for the night.

Trivia: The space shuttle Columbia launched on its last mission the 16th of January, 2003, 25 years to the day after the announcement of NASA's eighth group of astronauts, the one including Sally Ride (who would serve on the Accident Investigation Board) and Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnick, and Francis Scobee, who died in the Challenger accident. Source: NASA's First Space Shuttle Astronaut Selection: Redefining the Right Stuff, David J Shayler, Colin Burgess.

Currently Reading: A History of The World's Airlines, R E G Davies.

A week ago Friday we got our filled duffel bags into the car and, shortly after I finished my workweek, we got on the road. What had us away for three days --- and why we needed bunnyhugger's parents to watch Sunshine --- was the Michigan State Pinball Championship. Not that we were playing in them. Since the pandemic began we haven't played nearly enough events, not nearly well enough, to qualify. Even if we did play enough we might not have made it: the level of competition has gotten ferociously high lately. It's a good sign for the hobby, but it does mark an end of something for us.

But Friday night they were having a tournament at the venue, a six-rounds, two-games, groups-of-four match where you'd get points based on how you finished. I was up for it, although we arrived only minutes before the tournament started at 7 pm. bunnyhugger blames herself for getting to a slow start, as she had pretty recently got back from dropping off Sunshine and didn't know I expected to play in the tournament. I had just assumed that was a given, and figured we had enough time to roll up and join the event.

Well, the tournament went for me, eh, bah. I started out with a last-place finish on Blackout, a game that had always been one of my strengths before the pandemic. And then a tough third-place finish an X's and O's, a game that's mostly about getting the skillshot, which nobody did. I had a couple great rounds after that, first- and second-place finishes, bringing me close enough to the top of the pack --- people like RLM and JAB, serious competitors for the state championship --- for me to get kicked back with three last-place finishes in a row. I had a last rally with a first-place finish on the electromechanical game Big Brave, and then a third place on Time Fantasy, a tough early-solid-state game that I used to know how to play. I ended up in 25th place of the 46 competitors. (Three of them dropped out before the final round.) ACE would finish tied for 12th, JAB tied for 4th, and MWS tied for 35th, a good moment of defeat ahead of the big day to come.

I have no report on how bunnyhugger did. She didn't enter the tournament: she was just hanging around the games not in play, trying out tables for her own purposes, to be revealed later.

Afterwards --- pretty close to midnight --- we took the long drive to the AirBnB that MWS had rented. There are few hotels in Fremont, where the tournament was, and he figured a bunch of people splitting the cost could get a pretty nice spot. He was right. He got a pretty large house on a lake (not Lake Michigan), with a lot of people. Enough that I felt the need to stay masked the whole time we were in communal spaces. I'm still not sure I saw everyone who was there. It was here that ACE --- among those in the group --- shared the good yet sad news about his moving back home sooner than we expected he would.

We went to bed late, trusting that --- as non-players --- we could get up a little later than everyone else and avoid the rush on the bathroom. And this closed our Friday.

Sure, Crossroads Village might be closed but that doesn't mean I'm nearly done with pictures, so please enjoy some more!

The shuttle from the rides section (at the back of the park) to the front, with reflections in the ice and mud. We didn't take it --- we're almost never in that much of a hurry --- but it was worth a picture of the unusual sight.

Here's that giant ornament walk-through light. Everyone was taking a chance to visit and photograph it .

Here's what it looks like from inside, only vaguely resembling that giant wall trap Q put up in the first episode of Next Generation.

Looking up to the 'hanger' of the ornament.

And here's dear bunnyhugger within the ornament.

bunnyhugger and the rings of ornament latitude and longitude lines reaching up to the skies.

Trivia: Laudanum was a tincture of opium. Paracelsus, who claimed to have invented it (and more likely learned of it in travelling to Constantinople) named it, possibly rom the Latin 'laudere', to praise. Source: Mendeleyev's Dream: The Quest for the Elements, Paul Strathem.

Currently Reading: A History of The World's Airlines, R E G Davies.

bunnyhugger brought Sunshine to her parents' house last Friday. I'd have gone too but, you know, work. It's really made me aware how much I took for granted that I could just take a half-day off when I felt like, with my old job. With my old job I'd have just taken off early the day before to take her down, or gone with bunnyhugger.

Anyway, we were boarding Sunshine with bunnyhugger's parents. We were mighty relieved that she had gotten over her mysterious disinterest in eating; her appetite was back and she was moving around more, so we figured she'd be all right. We were mistaken.

For what Sunshine did was cut way back on her eating. Not entirely; she'd still have some hay, and her favorite, freshest greens. But she wasn't interested in her pellets anymore, and she wasn't much interested in moving around either. I tried to write this off as how Sunshine always mopes the first day or two that she spends at bunnyhugger's parents. None of our rabbits since Stephen has much liked being brought to a different location and none of them much want the hourlong ride in the carrier that going there demands. bunnyhugger would later have the insight that maybe Sunshine particularly hates going to new places because her sight is getting worse and she doesn't enjoy spending the energy to explore unfamiliar surroundings, or the anxiety of not knowing them until they are explored.

bunnyhugger's mother had, when she visited a few weeks back, spotted Sunshine as looking like a body winding down. And so she didn't leave her side, not more than she really had to, worried by the thought of Sunshine dying alone, or having an emergency undetected. (A mildly stressful thing leading up to this was finding an emergency vet they could take Sunshine to. Our vet is closed weekends. The Michigan State University animal hospital would be great except their Animal ER vet is ``deathly'' allergic to rabbits, which seems like a career problem. The other vets we could find were the place in Ann Arbor that lied to us about doing rabbit echocardiograms, a place in Novi, and a place in the barren void outside Grand Rapids that her parents could never possibly find, as her father threw out their satellite navigator when one time it froze up and he decided there was no sense trying to reset it or anything.) She would lose considerable sleep herself, watching and worrying about our poor rabbit, who hadn't yet reached the point that her breath clicked.

Well, by Sunday there was some relief, and she could rest her vigil. Sunshine began eating more, and more heartily, and moving around more. Apparently the problem was her usual start-of-trip moping, or homesickness, or as bunnyhugger realized, desire to avoid dealing with something her disability makes difficult. Monday evening, when I picked her up, Sunshine was in good spirits, although not as good as she'd be in when I opened the carrier and she could hop back into her pen nd somewhere safe and comfortable and familiar and home again.

Some more time with Crossroads Village here, now.

We got back to the Carousel building. Here's a picture of the arch in front it but mostly a lot of the reflection in the muddy ice and snow that was the walkway leading to it.

bunnyhugger spotted the good picture potential of a photograph of the arch reflected in the puddle, so I stole that, but didn't do it as well as she did.

The Parker Superior Wheel looks here like Clippy is taking a ride.

Ride operator for the Superior Wheel at the control levers.

Looking up at the Superior Wheel. The photo was more interesting if I didn't rotate it to the correct orientation so please enjoy my most severe Dutch angle ever.

Again, not rotating the picture to the correct orientation makes it more interesting.

Trivia: The 1856 trial of Dr William Palmer for the deaths of his wife and brother were the first time strychnine was suggested as a cause of death in a criminal trial in England. The Manchester Times claimed (wrongly) that Palmer owned a horse named Strychnine that figured ``mysteriously on the Turf''. Source: The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime, Judith Flanders. Flanders notes an inability to think how a horse is mysterious on the turf.

Currently Reading: A History of The World's Airlines, R E G Davies. I get the book wants to be about the histories of airlines, and not get too lost in the weeds of technical details (the book is already 550 pages long!) but it's weird to talk about the Comet 1 as merely being ``withdrawn from service'' without mentioning that it did so after, you know, a series of horrifying crashes resulting from an inherently defective design.

Got my humor blog going with more of Grumpy Weasel and then comic strip stuff. A sampling, by which I mean the whole population:

• MiSTed: The Tale of Grumpy Weasel, Chapter 9
• Fortunately Since Realizing This My Mood Has Been Stable
• Statistics Saturday: Beloved-Enough TV Shows Already Made Into Movies You Never Knew About, So Far As You Know
• What's Going On In Broom Hilda?
• In the Sequel They Join the Writer Doing a New Version of _Turnabout_
• What's Going On In Prince Valiant? Why are you angry at Prince Valiant of all things? October 2022 - January 2023
• Winter Has Finally Arrived
• MiSTed: The Tale of Grumpy Weasel, Chapter 10

And now a sampling, by which I mean a proper subset of the proper subset of pictures I took at Crossroads Village back on Christmas week:

Animated illumination of a penguin falling off the igloo. Still don't have my camera on the right settings for this!

Finally got my camera on the right settings and got a picture of the people on the other side of the cart in Santa's way. I still like the picture since the negative space of the person adds something to it.

Two turtle doves, part of the Twelve Days of Christmas loop. One very tiny good bit from 2020 is that since we could drive through the illuminations we got clear enough pictures of these figures that I don't have to try taking blurry, moving shots of them all. Just enough to show I was on the ride.

Toy Soldier not quite ready to be seen by the train! I know, I'm surprised too.

Much farther along we have this rainbow illumination and I accidentally caught bunnyhugger's picture of it too.

Now I've got my settings right and have this double image of Santa fishing. Also, I don't know, Santa fishing.

Trivia: The strange odor that Apollo 1 commander Gus Grissom noted when entering the Command Module was determined to not be related to the Fire. Source: Apollo By The Numbers: A Statistical Reference,, Richard W Orloff. NASA SP-4029.

Currently Reading: A History of The World's Airlines, R E G Davies. I agree it seems like I've been reading this forever but that's because what with various things I've had like five minutes a day to read this past month. I actually finished a hundred pages for the first time in, like, ever today.

No time to write because of how much has been going on since Friday. Instead please consider learning What's Going On In Prince Valiant? Why are you angry at Prince Valiant of all things? October 2022 - January 2023 before going on to to pictures from Crossroads Village:

The band organ, telling us of North Tonawanda, New York. Hey, we've been there! Not to the Artizan Factories but to the Herschell-Spillman factories, which are quite nearby.

From near the boat launch here's the carousel building on the left, and the pony carts ride on the left. You can see the Parker Superior wheel behind the carts ride. And that lights arch way off on the right. Also how little snow was left just a few days after the state was impassable for two days for snow.

Superior Wheel going at its full speed; it's a nice fast Ferris wheel, fast enough that bunny_hugger doesn't get nervous on it.

Please don't pet the animals that were turned into flat rings of lights!

Looking down the street to the arch; the carousel's off-screen to the center-left from here.

And here's the always beloved lights-wrapped tree, glad to see it whenever we can.

Trivia: The isolation booth on The $64,000 Question was unventilated. Source: Quiz Craze, Thomas A DeLong.

Currently Reading: A History of The World's Airlines, R E G Davies.