King's Island

My brother Kevin and I went to King’s Island on Saturday. It was the first time either of us had been in more than ten years. Here is a review.

General review
We had free tickets, a free buffet lunch, and a five-dollar vouchers that could be spent anywhere in the park, so money wasn’t a factor for us. With normal adult admission somewhere in the vicinity of $45, and food prices very high (2 slices of pizza for $5.95, a bottle of Desani water for $3.65), I wouldn’t normally consider going. If, however, I had $150-$200 to spend on a one-day getaway for a family of four, I’d certainly consider it. The park was well-kept and clean, and attendants were plentiful. I had a lot of fun.

Some Specifics
King’s Island opened in 1972, and the general layout hasn’t changed. I was pleased to see many of the same features I recall from my first visit in the mid-Seventies, such as the massive topiary clock near the Eiffel Tower, and the huge row of fountains along International Street.

The parking lot, sadly, is no longer divided into Hanna-Barbera character-named sections. One can no longer park in Boo-Boo Row 20, or Quickdraw Row 41. We parked in Face/Off Row 42. I assumed that the sections are named after Paramount movies, since until last year Paramount owned the park. It just occurred to me, though, that the sections could be named after park attractions, and Face/Off is the name of one of the rollercoasters.

Kevin and I both noticed that most of the graffiti that had been scratched into the railings around the attractions, the result of untold thousands of youths waiting in lines for millions upon millions of man-hours over several decades, was gone. The wooden railings all over the park, once heavily adorned with intials, dates, and wads of chewing gum, were in many cases replaced entirely and always painted in a heavy layer of glossy enamel.

It was hot. Despite the awnings over many of the waiting areas, the longest lines always had their tail-ends in the sun. For popular attractions, the tail-end is long. The most grueling part of the day was our wait to get on the FireHawk rollercoaster; that was nearly an hour long, and most of that was in the sun. It would have been fine if it had been in the seventies, but it was in the nineties, and there were no clouds. Park attendants set up a stack of coolers with cold water and plastic cups, which was a great idea. I got the last plastic cup. I hope some cups arrived for the people behind me. One girl in line, evidently suffering from the heat, was being aided by friends and park employees.


The Racer: This was our first ride of the day. It’s 45 years old, and has been at King’s Island for 35. This was probably the first “grown-up” rollercoaster I ever rode, and it’s the yardstick by which I measure all the others. It’s fast and lurchy but fairly painless. There was almost no queue at all, which was a great bonus.

The Beast: Still ranks as the best rollercoaster I’ve been on. The violent beating one takes on it isn’t quite bad enough to keep is speed and drops from topping my list. Kevin and I individually noted the sensation of the meat on our calves vibrating: Wub-wub-wub. I got slammed back and forth quite a bit, but not enough to really remember the pain. Which brings me to…

Son of Beast: Sounds like a kiddie coaster, right? Like a miniature version of The Beast? Holy crap. Constructed from an entire forest’s worth of lumber, its speed and drops are exceeded only by its violence. We both felt sharp pain in our lower backs when we hit the curve at the bottom of the second hill, and then could do nothing but hang on and watch in dread as we continued the horizontal curve and hit the same sharp turn again. This ride kicked my ass, and more than half of that was in the bad way, not the good way. I won’t ride it again.

Flight of Fear: Like Son of Beast, this ride does some unpleasant chiropractic work, with the added terror of working you over in a dark enclosed warehouse. It’s like a gang fight with strobe lights. It’s fast and loopy and worth riding once, but I’ll avoid this one in the future. Which is what I said last time I rode it. I just forgot.

Firehawk: This coaster, the park’s newest, is a “flying” coaster. One is strapped in very securely, then the car flips and you spend the entire ride hanging from your harness. You’re flat on your stomach looking down at the ground. It’s light on the bone-crunching, but heavy on the “Oh-God-I’m-Going-to-Die” feeling, so I rate it highly. This had the longest line we waited in.

Top Gun: Not a bad ride, but one must endure the movie-themed junk all over the place. The ride is relatively smooth and fast. The fact that it’s a hanging coaster may once have been a nice gimmick, but it’s not so novel now and the supports from which it hangs tend to obscure the view. Note so self: If I ever ride it again, try to sit in the very front car, where I’ll be able to stare death in the face more clearly.

Delerium: This ride is similar to that swinging galleon ship ride, but on a grander scale. About fifty people sit all around the edge of a saucer, which hangs from a tall support beam. Then the saucer and beam start to rock, going higher and higher as the saucer slowly rotates. Shortly, one finds oneself being giddily lifted well past vertical, then plummeting earthward, over and over. Peaceful yet terrifying, I think this is the best ride there.

Someone else's pic of Delirium


Some very old favorites are still around. The Monster and the Scrambler are still there, and still fun. We didn’t go an any water rides.

Sick, Profit, Coin, Saw, Freud

1. I started feeling a little ill on Thursday, and by Friday evening I knew that I had the cold that pretty much every single one of my co-workers has been passing around for the past two weeks. I stayed home yesterday. Today I feel much, but not 100%, better. I suspect that my quick recovery may be due to those zinc lozenges.

2. I watched the pilot episode of “Profit” last week. It was pretty good. I think maybe that was the only episode I ever saw. My Netflix disc has ep. 2 on it also, and I’ll try to watch it soon. It’s odd; in 1996, that was a show that was absolutely an oddball, very original, and doomed to failure. If it came on now, it might be a minor hit on Showtime, or USA. TV is a little weirder now, I guess.

3. I missed Erin’s second soccer game to attend my coin club meeting on Sunday. I must admit, I would have enjoyed the soccer game more. However, this meeting was the last meeting before the big coin show on the 28th and 29th, and I knew that they’d be signing up volunteers to help. I signed up for Friday the 28th, 10:00-1:00, and I figure I’ll probably be working at the front table like last year. Also, at the coin club auction, I purchased a 1982-P Lincoln cent with a clipped planchet error. I think that’s my first purchase of an error coin.

4. I think I’m done with the saw. I sat down last night with my painting supplies, and my two dead butterflies and one dead bumblebee, and my insect field guide, and my sketchbook, and tried to figure out just how to paint in a nice bug or two. I created a couple of small pencil sketches, and then I painted a butterfly (a European cabbage white) on an artist trading card. Finally, I decided that I was NOT going to add anything else to the saw. No bees or butterflies. I spent fifteen minutes doing a little touch-up on the blue sky behind the trees, and decided I’d be an idiot to work on it any more. I’m pretty happy with the results.

5. Last night I dreamed that I was fishing on a big boat with Paul. He hauled in a 15-foot pike. There were many friends on the boat—it was a regular Otter excursion. I was worried that the huge pike would start thrashing and injure someone, including Erin and Jill, who were nearby. Pike also have large, sharp teeth, by the way. I was holding the pike on a stairwell was we tried to get the boat into a dock. Erin and Jill came close to look at the fish, but I was really concerned that the fish would break loose, so I told them to move away. Jill did, but Erin didn’t, and I woke myself up yelling “Hurry!”

Conversation exerpt

I: “I saw some hot air balloons last night.”
Co-worker 1: “Did you? I see them all the time out where I live.”
Co-worker 2: “Balloons are stupid. They’re so slow. Why would you want to go anywhere so slow? There are a lot cooler ways to get there. Airplanes go fast. Airplanes are cool.”

Another dream

The alarm sounded this morning, and I hit snooze, and immediately fell into an annoying dream. Until the alarm went off again, I dreamed that I was on the phone with a bill collector who was trying to get a “tracking number” (dream-speak for routing code) for a check I’d sent in. I spent some minutes searching, and then found my own hand-written notes, but the numbers I’d written were indecipherable. The resembled the graffiti one sees on innumerable passing train cars, obviously comprised of letters and numbers but somehow inscrutable. Finally, I found another actual check from which I could read the numbers, but there were so many numbers that I had a hard time figuring out which were the ones the caller wanted.

Black Walnuts

I will now be on the lookout for black walnuts. I’m not sure, but I think almost any walnuts growing in this area will be black walnuts. They can be used, I’ve heard, to make a very nice ink.

If you have any walnuts growing near you, please let me know. I have a few good leads on obtaining some, but there is no such thing as too much information.

If and when I get a bunch of walnuts, I’ll chronicle here my efforts to turn them into drawing ink.

I have big dreams for a Halloween costume this year. But will I actually make the time to do this? I need to price PVC pipes and PVC glue, and solidify plans to make a big scary yead. I've done a couple of very small sketches, and need to work on more.

Last night I had an unpleasant dream that I was watching televised film from an aircraft cabin camera as the plane was catching fire. People were out of there seats trying to get a view of another compartment on the airplane where a garbage can had caught fire (thanks, Brian.) One lady was on fire and another lady was trying to wrestle her to the ground to put out the flames. I knew the plane was going to crash.

Saturday morning I went to the St. Regis Park city-wide yard sale with Kim and Mom. I obtained three items, two of which were purchases and the other of which was a freebie. First, I bought for a dollar a little three-pronged gardening fork thing. Second, I was given a bunch of plastic poker chips. Thirds, I bought a 3-ring-binder slide-holder page of coins and little bits of junk for fifty cents.

The coins and junk—it really, really is junk—was a good deal. Nothing actually valuable, but there are several eastern European coins (Yugoslavia and Turkey, mainly) that I could put in my collection. There are also three Office of Price Administration rationing tokens from WWII, and one or two more tokens I have not identified. As for the junk: One rabies vaccination tag that I think is from the 1960s, a campaign pin which I’ll have to look up but I suspect is from when Bert Combs and Julian Carroll ran for Governor and Lt. Governor in 1971 (Thanks, Wikipedia!), a pair of cufflinks, and part of an earring or something.

The poker chips I got for use with various games, but my main intention is to use them for D&D. I won’t go into it unless someone asks*, or until I turn this into a roleplaying game blog, which could happen some day. I was standing at a yard sale looking at the poker chips in a cookie tin, wondering what the price was, when a lady walked up as said, “You want those? Just take them. Let me find you a bag.”


*For David and Aaron, since I know you read this and probably are wondering: The chips will replace those colored index cards.

The result of car-drying. An undried one is included for your reference.Dried tomatoes

Painted saw

Yesterday I decided I was done with the saw, but today I'm really having second thoughts about that bee. I'm not satisfied. I would appreciate any comments you'd care to make. I may just turn that bee into a monarch butterfly.

More dried tomatoes

Several days ago I cut a bunch of cherry tomatoes in half, salted them, spread them in a pan, and heated them in the oven at 190 degrees for an hour or two. Then it was bedtime, so I pulled them out (there have been times in the past where I’ve accidentally or intentionally left them in the oven overnight, and the results were crunchy and bitter.) At that time, they were showing slight signs of shriveling, but still looked pretty much the same as when I put them in.

I put the tray on my dashboard the next day and left them there. It was a hot and sunny day. By the time I left work, they were done. In fact, they were a little over done. I think they might have come out better if I had not put them in the oven.

I’ll have to make some more before the weather cools, if I can manage it.

D&D

Why would I post a D&D game recap? I don’t know. I just broadcast. I hoist my banners with pride. It’s not as weird as a knitting blog.

We played D&D on Sunday night. This was with Team Beta, or the Ensley Group, or whatever I feel like calling them at any given moment. Team Alpha, or the Arlay Group, or whatever, traveled south to Arlay to get their comrade the half-orc barbarian resurrected. Team Beta is still at the ruins of Ensley Keep, cleaning and making repairs. They had a lot of relatively amusing character interaction.

Actually, I won’t post any real recap. Some of my players read this blog, and there isn’t much I can say that wouldn’t possibly provide too much information to some players who maybe shouldn’t get that information yet.

tomatoes & other garden stuff

I am attempting to make some sun-dried tomatoes. Last year I made some in the oven, and they turned out very well; I tended to eat them like raisins after they were done, so I didn’t get to keep as many for use over the winter as I had planned. But the ones I did keep were pretty useful. I just dropped them into boiling pasta for the last few minutes of cook time, then drained it all together, then added some butter or olive oil. That was good.

Unfortunately, drying in the oven can be a little annoying, because one must run the oven at low temperature for a long time—six to ten hours. I over-cooked quite a few. This year, the idea of keeping the oven running while the air conditioning was fighting off the 90+ degree heat just didn’t appeal to me at all.

So I am trying a new method. I happen to have a Ford Festiva-shaped solar-powered dehydrator, which I brought with me to work. I placed it so that the front solar screen was facing the sun, put a tray of little sliced tomatoes on the front panel, and went into the office to work.

I think this might take two days. Wish me luck.

Also, the newspaper mulch I’ve attempted to use in my watermelon bed has failed catastrophically. It is now difficult to see the watermelon vines under all the 18-inch-tall grass, as well as the volunteer tomatoes and basil (I won’t complain about the last two. The basil is especially welcome, and has a pleasant lemony flavor.) My garden, almost every inch, looks terrible. It’s extremely weedy, overgrown, and browning.

Just like 8th grade

Book Report

A Book I Read on My Summer Vacation by Mark T.

I just finished reading a novel! That makes a total of two for this year, which is as many or more than I’ve read in several years. I turned the last page yesterday as I sat at the Mall St. Matthews food court, waiting for the Goodyear mechanics to be done with my car.

Since I spend so little time reading fiction, I must select great monuments of literature, right? Yeah, sure. This particular book was Riders of the Dead by Dan Abnett, and was published by The Black Library, the fiction-publishing arm of Games Workshop, which produces the popular Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 miniatures wargames and roleplaying games. You can clearly see the tie-in because, above the book’s title and the cover art depicting a bunch of men killing one another with giant medieval weapons, is the big “WARHAMMER” logo. The book was recommended, and loaned to me, by David.

Well, I thought it was pretty darn good. There was a time when I primarily read science fiction and fantasy novels, but I left off with that because…well, I was going to say that so many of them were lame-o, but that’s not really why. There are countless titles, and among those countless titles are many, many very good books that I’ve never reached for. I think it actually comes down to this: I don’t allot much time for fiction. I read (or, most often, browse) non-fiction. When I do get around to reading fiction, I want it to somehow matter. I want it to be something important, or educational, or unforgettable. I don’t often set aside time for reading fiction for the joy of reading fiction.

I sure used to, though. When I was a teenager, I’d often start a novel and not put it down until I had finished it, opening it when I got home from the library and finishing it sometime before dawn the next day.

A month or two ago I read American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and I really enjoyed it. It wasn’t a great or important literary work, but it was well-written and clever. I loaned it to David, and he loaned me Riders of the Dead. One evening I cracked it open and read a few random pages involving some guys killing one another on horseback in the middle of a stream, and it was pretty engrossing. So I decided to I’d read it soon.

This is the first swords & sorcery novel, besides The Lord of the Rings, that I’ve read in 15 years, maybe more. I call it swords & sorcery although there is little sorcery in it. The Warhammer setting, clearly but loosely based on late medieval Europe, keeps magical fireworks a rarity. There is, however, plenty (buckets and buckets!) of limb-hacking, decapitating, bone-smashing, blood-puddling, horse-toppling, chest-impaling, skull-stacking, and war-whooping. In between, Abnett does a fine job of painting cultures and landscapes in a way that feels quite real and down-to-earth without becoming overlong or wordy. Having a pseudo-European backdrop certainly must have helped; the cultures didn’t need to be created from whole-cloth. But it’s imaginatively told.

The story involves two horse soldiers from the continent’s great Empire. They travel with a large army to the steppes of the northeast, preparing for an incursion of brutal barbarians. They are quickly overrun by the hordes of the north; one is captured, and the other escapes to join a local band of horsemen in their resistance fight. The bulk of the book skips back and forth between the two over the course of a year.

I found the writing to be surprisingly good, as was the editing. The language is descriptive and evocative. My only real complaint is that the final scenes—the climax of the book—seemed rather abbreviated. Perhaps the author wanted to convey the sense that the reader was rushing unstoppably towards a fateful confrontation, but it instead feels like he just wanted to finish because he was tired of writing it.

That flaw, however, is minor. I’d have to file this book under “ripping yarns.” I’ll add, for any of you knitters who read this, that a “ripping yarn” can be a good thing in certain contexts. But I bet you knitters aren’t too likely to read any novel in which the stacking of trophy skulls is featured prominently.

And so the cosmic dance continues

At ten minutes before six this morning, I walked out the front door in nothing but my boxers, crossed the lawn, and stalked up my neighbors’ driveway. Then I was able to see the moon. The Earth’s shadow hid our milky whiteness, hers and mine. The eclipse had ink-washed the moon’s top three-quarters; the bottom still shone a bright salmon hue against the grey-brown of the morning sky.

Every time I view a lunar eclipse, I think of a story that a professor at U of L told me once. He was in France with a bunch of friends. After dinner, they were all outside as a lunar eclipse was occurring. He knew some French, but was not fluent. Looking up and noticing the moon, he blurted in French, “Look! The moon! …It isn’t there!”

Movie review, random thoughts, restaurant review

The Host

David came over last night and we watched “The Host,” a Korean monster movie. I thought it was pretty good. After a fairly standard set-up in which an uncaring U.S. Army doctor orders the dumping of scores of bottles of formaldehyde into the Han River, I was treated to scenes of a hideously mutated, bus-sized creature (fish? lizard? salamander?) trampling and mauling panicked pedestrians and picnickers.

After the initial rampage, four family members band together to rescue another who was kidnapped by the beast.

The monster, at least as it appeared on the small screen, was nicely done. There were a few scenes it which it was a dark shape moving underwater in which it didn’t look very convincing; it had a “painted-on” look. But for the most part, as it ran, tumbled, and jumped through the cityscape in broad daylight, it had a natural look.

I found the main characters to be interesting and appealing. Although I’m not sure I got some of the plot nuances (I feel like I’m missing a few grains of understanding with the whole virus/no virus/ “agent yellow” deal), it all held together and progressed in a more-or-less believable* fashion, taking into account the bumbling-comic aspects of the family’s situations.

*******
Yesterday I mowed my front yard and about a third of the back. I had to quit in order to fix dinner for the girls and relieve their Nana, who was sitting them while I cut. The grass really needed it; the front lawn had not been mowed in more than a month. It was hot and humid and the cut grass came out chunky and gloppy. When I came in and picked up Jill, she kept reaching down to touch the front of my T-shirt. She’d make a “Gee-ahh” sound, some sort of commentary on how wet I was.

The night before last Kim and I had a date night. We had dinner at Puccini’s, again while Nana watched the girls. Thank goodness for grandparents—Erin and Jill have the four best. Puccini’s was good. I had a small pizza with artichoke, olives, mushrooms, and bacon. Kim had fettuccini with pesto sauce. Both were very good, as was the garlicky cheese pepperoni bread appetizer. Prices were reasonable. We’ll go back, some day.




*edited to add: When I say “believable,” I mean as compared to similar movies.

Last night, as that crazy storm was winding down, I headed over to Carrie’s to work on that saw. I am almost done! A couple more hours of work, maybe less, should do the trick. Really, it might be less than an hour of painting.

The night before last I finished “Revenge of the Sith.” The second half was a definite improvement over the first. Instead of rating the movie a 3 out of 10, I’ll raise it to 5. That means, to me, that it was watchable, some parts were fun, but overall my reaction was tepid.

Hop on the ferry

You're Siddhartha!

by Hermann Hesse

You simply don't know what to believe, but you're willing to try
anything once. Western values, Eastern values, hedonism and minimalism, you've spent
some time in every camp. But you still don't have any idea what camp you belong in.
This makes you an individualist of the highest order, but also really lonely. It's
time to chill out under a tree. And realize that at least you believe in
ferries.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Well, it’s at least as accurate as my horoscope.

Yoda says

Paul, Aaron, and Karen came over a couple weeks ago for D&D. Paul brought his two sons, who watched movies while we played. The next day, I realized that they had accidentally left their DVDs. Some Scooby-Doo cartoon movie and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

That, I thought to myself, is great. I haven’t yet seen the final Star Wars movie, since I’d sworn I wouldn’t pay money to watch it. I just didn’t think it would be worth it, after seeing the last two.

Last night I started watching it. Eh. Perhaps it is the best of episodes I-III, but still. I like the ‘splosions just fine. However, it (like Episodes I, II, and VI) lacks the …something… of III and IV. What is that “something”? Charm? Focus? The sense of drama and comedy and character that arose from a more limited special-effects palette, budgetary constraints, and the relatively short (several years, as opposed to thirty) period of mythos-building and commercial tie-ins?

It’s stupid for me to post about it. Thousands upon thousands of Star Wars nuts have discussed this to death; I really don’t care that much. I’ll probably try to finish watching the movie, but if I don’t get the chance, oh well.

All of this is just leading up to the following point: My very favorite part of the movie so far is when Yoda, sitting on the Jedi Council, says, “Good relations with the Wookies I have.”

Un sol de oro

I really like this Peruvian coin. It’s brass, but it looks rusty, which would normally be a bad things but seems quite nice here.

I’m fond of coins with animals, especially ones that are simple, straightforward designs. They don’t get much plainer than this. It’s a very nice little llama; what more can you say?

This is one of the ones my parents found at a yard sale.

blackberry picking

The girls enjoy picking blackberries. They usually come back in the house with maroon juice stains on their faces and clothing. Also a hit are the cherry tomatoes, although Jill usually just gnaws on hers for a moment before taking the mess out of her mouth and either throwing it on the ground or handing it to me. I think she likes the flavor but doesn’t like the thick skin.

The blackberries are usually fairly tart. It’s possible to get them when they are perfectly ripe and quite sweet. However, at that point, they are so tender that they can easily fall apart in my hand as I try to pull them away from the plant. They are also more likely to be damaged by bugs or to have been chomped by birds. I’ve seen cardinals eating them. I suspected insects were responsible for the chunks missing from the ripe ones, but I finally witnessed some cardinals in the act. That explains why the ones that are damaged tend to be ones that are easily visible; berries that are hidden down low and under leaves stay safe.

Also pictured is our first watermelon. I picked it a little too soon. Yesterday, though, I got another one. I haven’t cut it yet, but its stem was starting to shrivel, so it must have been time, right?