austin_dern

You know what treat I have for you today? The final pictures of our afternoon at Niagara Falls and, thus, of the Lake Ontario Loop! What's coming up next? See if you can guess!

The train back in the station. It's got a fun coffin-y theme to it.

And there's the train ready for the next load of passengers.

The corner of the building has a Frankenstein head and arms reaching out and, of course, there's a burger in his hand, to evoke how Burger King serves you food assembled out of many corpses stitched together.

Another look out over Clifton Hill. There's a lot of miniature golf here that we didn't get to play.

Peeking out between Frankenstein's head and hamburger at the street.

The roller coaster going along a turn that hides half the cars, which is why it looks like the train's so much shorter this picture than others.

And a last look back at the roof as we reenter the building for the walk down.

There's some nice skeletons out to acknowledge us as we leave!

And here's a look up at the House of Frankenstein that somehow misses the whole Frankenstein Holding A Burger that's huge and un-missabe. You can see the coaster peeking out over the roof, though it doesn't actually go out past the roofline.

Trivia: There were twelve sites on the inaugural, 1978, UNESCO World Heritage Site list. There are now over 900. Source: Ruin and Renewal: Civilizing Europe after World War II, Paul Betts. 900 as of the book's writing; the book was published in 2020 so let's say that represents a 2018 figure. (I guess I could get a better range by figuring out when numbers 900 and 1000 were added.) Wikipedia claims there are, as I write this, 1,154 sites: 897 cultural, 218 natural, and 39 mixed.

Currently Reading: Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age, Lori Garver.

Interested in my mathematics blog? That's kind of you; you can find the RSS feed here. I didn't do anything with it this week, so no sense making you stare at that, though. Over on the other blog I looked at 60s Popeye: Popeye and the Herring Snatcher (it's Brutus, you think Sea Hag is going to steal fish?). Now let's get back to looking at water going down fast.

The plaque marks the site of Table Rock, a bare rock shelf hanging about 60 meters/200 feet out from the rest of the landscape, left behind when the Horseshoe (Canadian) Falls receded from it. They blasted it off in 1935 for safety reasons that I don't understand, but the plaque notes there were rock falls shrinking it in 1818, 1828, 1829, 1850, and 1934.

And here we're finally above the level of the Falls ... for now. The falls are receding at the surprisingly rapid rate of about one foot per year, so, in something like 50,000 years they'l reach Lake Erie.

The Falls looking like a discontinuity in the landscape here.

And a closer look to see the Falls looking like the edge of the world.

Just a few feet up you have water where you'd barely know there was trouble apart from the constant roar and people hollering at you.

Someone trying to capture the majesty of the Falls on their phone ... and me getting a picture of that. What makes this art is that I lined up the top of their phone with the fall line.

Trivia: One-pound tins of baking powder were, in the 1880s, the first store-label brand item sold by the A&P supermarket chain, and may be the first private-label sold in any grocery store; certainly the first in a national chain. Source: Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America, Michael Ruhlman.

Currently Reading: Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age, Lori Garver. Lot of talk about the Genius of Elon Musk and considering this is someone who's had multiple encounters with Stretch you'd think she'd be wise to him but, no, she seems sincere about it.

I went to the university library to return a couple of books. And, of course, I wandered around a little to see what might be there. Over in the shelves that turn out to be about planetary atmospheres I saw one of my own books. That is, one of the two mathematics texts that I co-authored, spun mostly out of my thesis and then some post-thesis work. This is the first time I've ever seen one of my books in the wild, as opposed to my shelves or the shelves of someone I gave a copy to. I'm amazed.

I was thinking that it's a testament to how reluctant the library is to cull books. I say without false modesty, it's not like it's that important a book. Mostly it was meant as proof that I could churn out books, in case a mathematics department wanted to hire me, and since nobody does there's not much point to the book being around. But it took me by surprise, even though bunnyhugger reminds me she had said they had physical copies of one of my books. Still, a very welcome positive surprise.

I checked it out of the library, of course, so that the school is stuck with it for another thirteen years unless they change their culling policy. I have not looked at the page of due dates in the book (the university library does not yet have self-checkout so you can see the last several dozen times a book was checked out) for fear of confirming that I'm the first. But this also makes me think: this is the book that I got a welcome yet unexpected royalty check for a couple months ago. Is it possible the book's gotten a second printing? Or even found an appreciative audience? We had thought while writing it that the target reader was ``grad student course in numerical simulations of fluid flows'' and maybe someone actually started one? No way to know. (Also from checking the publisher's web site I learn the hardcover sells at US$124 and the paperback at US$74, which you should know, ain't going to me. The eBook is a more resonable US$59.)

Speaking of fluid flows, here's a lot of fluid trading gravitational potential energy for kinetic energy:

Canadian tour boat getting about as close as they get to the spray (and rocks) of the Falls.

Sign explaining Louis Hennepin, the earliest known White guy to record the existence of the Falls. There's a French version of the text on the other side of the plaque. I can't explain why the seal up top is Michigan's.

Looking down at Canadian and United States tour boats with a rainbow separating them.

Looking down at the lower-level power station(?) Or whatever it is? that I shared in photographs a couple days ago. It's got not just dirt but grass and shrubs on top, which is probably a good thing for the temperature control of the building but still weird to look at.

The edges of these blocks make it look like a Roller Coaster Tycoon landscape or something.

Getting closer to the actual fall, but it's still farther away than you'd think.

Trivia: Aristarchus, the ancient astronomer, developed a modified sundial called a skaphe, a spherical bowl with needle standing upright in the center, with which he measured that when the moon is half-full the sun is 87 degrees away in the sky, allowing him to conclude the sun must be considerably farther away than the moon is, and must be quite larger than the Earth. Source: The Calendar: The 5000-Year Struggle to Align the Clock with the Heavens --- And What Happened to the Missing Ten Days, David Ewing Duncan. (Though Aristarchus's reasoning was right, the measurement was understandably inexact; the actual angle is closer to 89 degrees 50 minutes.)

Currently Reading: Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age, Lori Garver.

The reason we did not spend the whole of Saturday with bunnyhugger's parents was that we had a commitment. bunnyhugger has been walking a mile or more every day without fail since early in the pandemic, and she's spun that habit into doing the occasional five-kilometer race. She walks, but she still gets timed and celebratory t-shirts and acclaim from me and all her Facebook friends and whatnot. She had one that Saturday, a dusk race in the small town of Leslie, Michigan, that takes one on a path walking quite far outside the small city and back, passing through the graveyard, before ending up downtown again. They encourage walking in costume, and she had brought her Cerberus kigurumi to walk as the three-headed dog. (They also sometimes post about having a costume contest but we have no idea where or when it was judged.) And when I said I wanted to come see bunnyhugger's photos get introduced at the sister city event, this left the question what I should do while she walked the race. The obvious answer was for me to sign up and walk it too. This would be my first time walking a five-kilometer race, although I've done that distance often in my own less-regular walks.

We fussed around a little before deciding whether to walk in tandem or not. We ended up walking separately, in part since we both figured to be listening to something (me, a podcast, she, an album) anyway. After a long time of nothing clearly happening suddenly the race was started and we weren't ready. But, since we had chip-timed badges it's all right to start at the back of the pack; your time is what you make of it.

I also chose to walk, although with my long legs that was naturally faster than bunnyhugger. It was still behind most of the pack of a couple dozen people, largely running. A couple people were in costumes elaborate enough I didn't think it possible to run, inflatable aliens and Minions and the like. They passed me anyway, as did someone with a baby stroller and, I assume, baby, near the end. There were a nice number of houses with lawn decorations for Halloween and I considered stopping to take pictures, but didn't. Also a woman and child somewhere way out of town told everyone they were doing great, which is kind of them.

I worried about getting lost on the trail, but the path wasn't complicated and they had vehicles with people pointing the way at all .. .five? ... turns. Also a couple of markings in the street where the actual direction changed, although I'd have rather had those cardboard signs you stick in the lawn to advertise a yard sale instead. You can see those from a way off and be confident you aren't lost. The last approach, through the graveyard, was near sunset, although not quite near enough for the walkway to be eerie. bunnyhugger said last year it was definitely at night at was atmospheric for that.

When I got to the end the race announcer read off my name, getting my last name correct on the second try. And then, as we'd been instructed to do, I checked the medals table. They had medals for the top three finishers in every one of the many age and sex brackets, and what do you know but I finished second in my group! The other guy my age ran. (Later we checked and confirmed what I thought: had we done this a month ago, before my birthday, I would have not gotten a medal.) Amazed by this I got to thinking this must mean bunnyhugger's earned a medal too, and I was busy thinking of that when she crossed the finish line and I was fumbling with my camera so I failed to photograph her. Also any of the people in costumes, really, which is a pity.

bunnyhugger was extremely resistant to the idea of checking for a medal as she was among the last finishers, but I was too. I was also reluctant to admit that because she always claims I upstage her on things like this. Well, she did get a medal, third place, her first competitive medal for five-kilometer race walking. And then she got suspicious about why I was so sure it was worth her checking.

Well, this all was a good, happy bit of exercise and I'm amazed how well it worked out. I'm up for doing more, although since most of these five-kilometer races start at like 8 am and I don't stay up that late anymore who knows when the next will be?

Let's take in pictures of a lot more water now. More Niagara Falls:

Peering way down at a tour boat unloaded. I know that to the right of it is just very churned up water but somehow it looks like a sandbox to me.

A natural wonder, and Niagara Falls behind her.

It turns out selfie sticks are still a thing! Remember like ten years ago when people were angry about them for some reason?

Tiny little baby falls, doing its best with the Niagara Falls just up the river like that.

The line of people to, I think, the elevator down to the tour boats. I thought it was to the zip line at first but they weren't zipping nearly enough people for that.

Looking up at the zip line tower. The brickwork makes this great abstract tree pattern and I don't know if that's the original design or something they removed brickfront from to create a pattern. Also I don't know what the structure was originally for.

Trivia: A renowned spectacle of the 1820s in America was one Calvin Edson, the Living Skeleton, who was in his forties, stood five feet two inches, weighed sixty pounds, but could lift over two hundred pounds. Source: Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson, David S Reynolds.

Currently Reading: Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age, Lori Garver.

PS: What's Going On In Alley Oop? Why is Doc Wonmug visiting his past self? July - October 2022 gets a quick plot summary. I bet you were expecting mathematics to get mentioned here. Nope!

Friday we saw a movie, in the theater, for the first time since March 2020. Not without hesitation and uncertainty, of course. But we got our bivalent boosters about three weeks ago, and we were going to a matinee, and to a movie we figured would have a small audience even at its peak. So, wearing our N95s except to toss popcorn in our mouths seemed like a tolerable risk.

The movie drawing us out of our protective shells was a documentary. Boblo Boats: A Ferry Tale, which subtitle did not quite shake bunnyhugger away. It was about the steam ferries which used to shuttle people between Detroit and the Boblo Island Amusement Park, from the 1910s through to the park's death in the 90s. And, particularly, about the small group of true believers who think they can salvage the boats and return them to service.

As you'd imagine it's not easy to repair two very large boats that are out of service and their story was largely one of little bits of progress halted by hassles and occasionally catastrophe. Mostly shortages of money or volunteers. Sometimes of space; getting a cheap dock for a 200-foot-long boat that draws 16 feet of water is not easy. And sometimes actual catastrophe, as in a couple years ago when one of the ferries caught fire and all the wood structures burned. (The hull and the engine, metal pieces, survived, allowing the documentary to ask the Ship-of-Theseus question without saying Ship-of-Theseus.) Also they had some part in the movie Transformers: Age of Extinction, not mentioned in the documentary.

This focus --- on the ferries, and particularly the vexed restoration efforts --- and the shortness of the film created some lacunae. I don't remember any mention of the commissioning of the ferry boats in 1910(L), for example, or why two large ships were built rather than, say, six medium-size ones. (I'm guessing saving on staffing.) Nor was any mention made of the boats' unsafe reputation, or the near-riot that was one of Boblo Island's late-80s/early-90s curses. Or of Boblo Island's decay; I think the only mention of the park's decline was an interviewee talking about the last year, where under new management people started coming again because they heard the park had been cleaned up.

Getting some very welcome attention was the Boblo Ferries' role in civil rights history: in June 1945 war worker Sarah Elizabeth Ray was kicked off the company-sponsored trip to the amusement park, and (through the NAACP) sued the transportation company for racial discrimination. The transportation company (registered in Canada) sued Michigan on the grounds that anti-discrimination laws shouldn't apply to them. The Supreme Court was in its brief window of seeking to expand civil rights, and it set a precedent against discrimination. It's credited, not just by the documentary-makers, as a precedent for Brown vs the Board of Education.

THe serious focus ends up being the people behind the project. As you'd imagine they're a quirky set. They're mostly interviewed separately and as the narrative unfolds we hear about people leaving the project abruptly. It's hard not to suppose that someone who would buy a hundred-year-old ferry with the plan to restore it and do a something might be difficult to get along with. We don't learn that directly, though, I imagine because the documentary-makers have to not be slugged (or sued) by any of the participants.

Afterwards bunnyhugger came to understand the real story --- since the boats' story is as yet unresolved, both struggling to be restored --- was of one of the participants, someone who was strangely her. The man --- sharing her brother K's name --- was not just an amusement park, and specifically Boblo Island fan. He had an elaborate HO model set of an idealized Boblo Island, with working toy models packed far beyond what the actual park could ever be. Somewhere in the background --- unexamined in the documentary --- were carousel animals. In his backyard he had the children's Turtle ride from Boblo Island. And ... he had a fursuit. A mascot costume, representing the Boblo Island Bear. I wasn't clear whether this was the original costume or a modern reconstruction; it looked quote good. But anyway the real narrative of the documentary seemed to be more about whether he would return to Boblo Island, to see what remained of the park (not much) or the McMansions built over its corpse.

It was all quite interesting and we're glad we were able to see it. If I seem to be harping on lapses in the documentary it's because I got to thinking about it, and what it did and didn't say. It's a good documentary that has you thinking over what you've learned afterwards.

And now we're coming to the end of the Lake Ontario Loop. We drove from Rochester to, first, Niagara Falls, since we hoped to spend some time on the Ontario side and we weren't committed yet to just what we'd do but you probably have an accurate idea what we did. But compare your idea to the pictures, if you don't remember what I already described a couple months back.

The curious strip mall in which our hotel resided. Bon-Ton's been gone for years and Sears? Who has a Sears anymore? There was also an Arthur Treacher's somewhere in town, but I didn't get a picture of it.

Here's Niagara Falls, Ontario, and particularly Clifton Hill. We only had a couple hours to not get home too riotously late, but the spectacle was grand to see.

Oh, now, what's the significance of a roller coaster on top of a building? Hmmm ...

And here we are looking over the falls. I loved the look of the procession of people walking up the long trail into the sea foam.

More people seen on the United States side of the falls, at the bottom of the elevator.

There's some of those hikers enjoying being wrapped up in dampness.

Trivia: The legate Robert de Courçon, who in 1215 gave the new University of Paris its first statues, proposed establishing a council to eliminate usury from the Christian world. Source: Gold and Spices: The Rise of Commerce in the Middle Ages, Jean Favier.

Currently Reading: Squaring the Circle: The War Between Hobbes and Wallis, Douglas M Jesseph. Have the strangest feeling I've read this already but the last checkout date is before I moved to Lansing so it's probably nothing?

Did more stuff today! bunnyhugger got a certificate and a medal for separate, unrelated reasons. The story on that is not yet ready for me to divulge. Maybe next week. Meanwhile let's reveal more of Seabreeze Amusement Park, from late July:

The Jack Rabbit station, illuminated, seen in the twilight.

And there's the end of the lift hill with the lights throwing back the slight darkness.

Looking from the Jack Rabbit queue out towards the entrance gate and also at the flying scooters, a ride we didn't know dated to the 1940s. If we'd known it was that old we might have taken a turn on it.

The front of Jack Rabbit's station, with the track sloping downhill toward the lift hill. Somewhere around here is where a skunk briefly appeared.

The line for Jack Rabbit wasn't long, but it was long enough for night to noticeably advance on us.

Waiting for that front-seat ride ... we'll get it if they run enough trains. The queue is already closed.

This is the bridge you walk over to get to the queue The hill behind it is the log flume and just looks like another wooden coaster.

They look like they're looking forward to their ride!

And we got it! Front seats on the last train of the night!

All done. They're going to be putting the Jack Rabbit to bed for the night, now.

A last look at Jack Rabbit. For some reason I didn't take a photograph of the station and its logo and all that at night. Next time, I suppose.

Looking down the main midway, all closed up for the night, as we went looking for a bathroom and for park maps.

Trivia: Ahead of the Nazi occupation of Kharkiv, Ukraine, in 1942, the Soviet military enacted a scorched-earth policy, destroying buildings and especially every food product, declaring the remaining population (about 450,000 of the roughly million people in the area before the war) to be traitors and ``enemies of the nation''. Source: The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food, Lizzie Collingham.

Currently Reading: Defining NASA: The Historical Debate Over the Agency's Mission, W D Kay.

Carrying on with my humor blog, at least, another week gives us these recent posts, not all of which were me being angry at Funky Winkerbean:

• MiSTed: Skippy's Mom (part 5 of 12)
• I Was So Anticipating the Remaster of Pinball Construction Set Too
• Statistics Saturday: Some Things Named For Their Inventors
• What I Thought About All The Jack Kinney Popeye Cartoons
• Finally, the Best of Possible News
• What's Going On In Judge Parker? Is there even a Judge Parker anymore? July - October 2022
• In Which I'm Watching Old Game Shows Again
• MiSTed: Skippy's Mom (part 6 of 12)

Have a little more of Seabreeze, and another ride on the Jack Rabbit, won't you please?

On the miniature train, going past the log flume. The kid in front does not like whatever the heck I'm up to.

Jack Rabbit's station and the ride's logo, as seen from the queue for Tilt. There's jackrabbits on either side of the ride name and I'm sorry this is the best picture I have of that, somehow.

Tilt is the tilt-a-whirl and we love the name and logo but don't see why the ride couldn't be more pinball-themed, given that.

This time around we waited for the front-seat ride. Here's the train ahead of us getting ready to go.

And here's what the front of the ride looks like. Love that fast rabbit.

And here's bunnyhugger, proud Rabbit Rider!

Trivia: In 1518, French silk merchant Jaques le Saige noted favorably the forks which had become fashionable at a ducal banquet in Venice. Source: Food in History, Reay Tannahill.

Currently Reading: Defining NASA: The Historical Debate Over the Agency's Mission, W D Kay.

And then the other pinball thing, from just last week. This would be the split-flipper or 'Zen' tournament, a not-for-points thing that's the traditional close of our league season. bunnyhugger went in with high hopes about this was the first tournament she'd ever won --- when we played together in the second season of the league --- and that she and I had one win each, with other players, and nothing since then. I pointed out she had another win, since we have five Zen Tournament trophies on our mantle. This we hotly debated, but not hotly enough to go to the mantle and count. Still, it's been a while.

We would go in as a team again, and in practice put up a score on The Beatles high enough to get on the high score table. This seemed anomalously good. But in another tradition, we had an odd number of people show up for the tournament. There was someone who's sometimes in the league at the bar but he wasn't interested in playing. So, we had to find someone willing to double up and play with IAS who, in an annoyingly piquant touch, always appeals for partners on the league Facebook group and never gets a response. I was glad to play with them, though, and they were glad to play with me.

Except that, as luck would have it, our first match based on team seeding put me and IAS up against me and bunnyhugger. Whenever someone gets on two teams there's some divided loyalties but somehow it didn't strike me that I'd have to deal with that. I played my best, throughout, of course, but me-and-bunnyhugger beat the higher-seeded me-and-IAS, two games to none.

Me-and-bunnyhugger would go on for some time in the winners bracket. Me-and-IAS would also be a pretty solid team in the second chance bracket too, winning pretty steadily. I was starting to think that I was a lock for one of the Zen trophies, either with IAS or with my wife. And then, what do you know, but me-and-bunnyhugger got knocked out of the winners bracket.

We had some interesting things happen. Like, people kept taking me --- in either group --- to Star Trek, a game that it turns out I can play very well just on the one flipper. With IAS I'd take the left flipper, with bunnyhugger the right, but either way we just didn't lose on it. And yet different competing teams would take me to it, acting like they had a sure game ready to knock me out. There's a clear lack of information about matches in this tournament.

In the end, bunnyhugger and I went up against the power team of JAB-and-MAG, two of the top players in the league this year. And we beat them, two-games-to-none, knocking them out of the Winners Bracket! We just had to do it one more time and we'd take home our second couples trophies.

And that's when we faceplanted. JAB-and-MAG took their second chance and beat us two games in a row, winning the tournament and the trophies. Well, we had some good play getting there.

Now some more Jack Rabbit love from Seabreeze Park.

Jack Rabbit 101 logo, celebrating when the park was able to actually open and commemorate their roller coaster becoming the fourth coaster in the centennial club. (The park didn't open in 2020, but according to its Wikipedia entry they did run the coaster for staff and such private riding.) In the gift shop they had stickers and patches that looked similar but celebrated 102 years.

A commemoration from the US House of Representatives for the centennial (actually for 2021), noting that the house will ``publicly acknowledge those exemplary individuals, organizations, and roller coasters who have attained outstanding success in their respective fields of endeavor''.

That beam in front, I promise you, says, ``Pay As You Leave'' in extremely faded paint, reflecting the long-ago instructions about how to pay for your ride, back before the park took up the pay-one-price model. And really before that too; they uncovered the sign in renovations done in the 90s, I think it was.

Historical sign explaining the Pay As You Leave thing. I have never seen anyone explain what you did if you rode without the pay.

Another historical marker about that time in 1977 when they showed a guh-guh-guh-girl could throw levers just as well as a man could.

And here's a picture of Seabreeze's second-most-important coaster, one that nobody talks about but should: Bobsleds, a wonderful weird little terrain coaster.

Trivia: At the festivities in Oradell, New Jersey, celebrating his 1962 spaceflight Eagle Scout Ronald Nillsen gave astronaut Wally Schirra a merit badge made specially by his old scout troup, Number 36, for ``achievements in Astronautics'', which Nillsen called ``the first Astronaut merit badge''. Nillsen said the requirements were:

• Present yourself fully clothed for the test, a nine-hour space journey in the vicinity of the Earth
• Take off and come to an altitude of at least 100 miles
• Maintain minimum speed of not less than 16,000 miles per hour
• Make no fewer than six orbits, coursing a distance of at least 155,000 miles
• Upon landing avoid carelessly placed rescue vehicles.

Currently Reading: Defining NASA: The Historical Debate Over the Agency's Mission, W D Kay.

PS: What's Going On In Judge Parker? Is there even a Judge Parker anymore? July - October 2022 gets a plot explanation.

Getting bored with how I have so little stuff to report about my mathematics blog week after week? Don't worry, that's going to change soon. Meanwhile, here's the last couple weeks of my writing there:

• How August 2022 Treated My Mathematics Blog: Romania Has Tired Of Me
• Some Fun Ways to Write Numbers but Complicated
• Have You Considered Spending Next Month Drawing Mathematics?
• How Pop-Up Cards and Books Work

Now let's take in some reading material from Seabreeze.

In the carousel house were, free for the taking, these five-page brochures, replicas of a talk about the Long Family and its history with carousels, given at the October 1974 National Carousel Roundtable Conference in Flint, Michigan.

Page two. I regret that I held the page badly so that the last words in the upper right corner are cut off, but it's all right, if my photos should end up being the only copies of the essay to survive as ...

There you go. The missing corner appears with the rest of page three here. Also it caught me that Wildwood, New Jersey, gets a mention.

Page four. Mentions of several now-gone carousels including the one at Million Dollar Pier, Atlantic City.

Final page. The 1974 conference was a big step in the organization of carousel appreciation, so it's grand to have this touch from that transformative event. (Note that I do not know how well Robert Long's research is regarded in light of fifty years of further historical research and analysis, but I expect this reflects the best information he had at the time.)

Getting back outside now. Here's a stunt show --- 'Cirque en Vol' --- held a couple times in the afternoon. Besides the bicycle stunts they had the bits of people jumping down and back up the wall on the left there. Seabreeze's midway games and food are in the background.

Trivia: The earliest known Greek writing to mention Rome is a mention in a fragment of Aristotle from the fourth century BCE. Source: Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World, Nicholas Ostler. At least as of the time of Ostler's writing (the book was published 2005, so probably around 2003); I can't swear an earlier mention hasn't been found.

Currently Reading: Defining NASA: The Historical Debate Over the Agency's Mission, W D Kay.

My aunt died after all. I suppose everyone does.

Here, look at Seabreeze Park.

The jackrabbit horse on the carousel.

The Jack Rabbit centennial (which was 2020) set up in the carousel building, featuring the giant drive wheel that used to lift coasters to the top of the first hill.

Sign explaining what all the various posters on the drive wheel were about.

Jack Rabbit's had three different trains over its history and here's pictures of them all. The modern train's been repainted to be primarily black, instead of orange.

bunnyhugger standing before the drive wheel.

Next to all this is a stand with flyers for local attractions and, yes, our eyes were caught by the Jell-O Gallery. But did you also see how teens can get in free to the Corning Museum of Glass? Think how happy they'll be!

The band organ that replaced the one Seabreeze lost in the fire back in the 90s. It's admirably big and loud.

The band organ has this great display showing the current scrolls --- they have a huge collection --- and which song is currently playing; at the moment of this photo it was Lara's Theme from Doctor Zhivago.

The band organ is accompanied by a nice comprehensive essay about the machine and its history. I took a photograph so I could read it at leisure --- and now you can too --- and so I wouldn't have to carry around this sheet all day.

Page two. As you see, we're urged to please take one, so I feel sharing this photograph fits with the intention of the author.

Sign from the old Fairyland zoo attraction the park had in the 50s. ... Oh, this can't be good.

More signs, inclding the mention that besides the beloved Henrietta the Tapir, they used to have a coati, which, oh dear.

Trivia: In 1699 the Archbishop of Canterbury discussed with John Wallis (Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford, and inventor of the &infty; symbol), a plan to drop all leap days for forty years, until the calendar and sun were back in line. Wallis perceived ``the hand of Joab'' in the proposal, and claimed it had come from Papists. The plan was dropped. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, EG Richards.

Currently Reading: A Mathematical Tapestry: Demonstration the Beautiful Unity of Mathematics, Peter Hilton, Jean Pedersen, Sylvia Donmoyer. The book really picked up once I got past all the flexagon and paper-folding stuff but boy was there a lot of that which I didn't care about.