Keith Palmer's Multi-Purpose Journal

Christmas at bunnyhugger's started with a couple of traditional exercises, like my waking bunnyhugger over and over fidgeting on the inflatable mattress we have there. Last year we brought a sleeping bag that I used on the floor, but this time we failed to remember it. Also I got up first, when something loud was going on outside, and had the idea to go to the bathroom just as bunnyhugger's brother did. We worked it out. I forgot my hairbrush once again, and I don't know where to find their hair dryer, so my hair was not doing well.

Brunch was the traditional scrambled eggs followed by waffles, with bunnyhugger's parents apologizing all the time that the waffles were only being guessed at for done-ness because the light for 'done' wasn't working. They were just fine, we have no idea what was wrong. We also finally got an answer to how bunnyhugger's father got interested enough in making scrambled eggs that he's good at it: he dunno, it just seemed fun to learn how to do.

Between everyone's slow start we had a scheduling problem in unwrapping presents: my family had the idea to do a group Facetime about 2:00. I'd imagined that might run 15 or 20 minutes, and it did not; everyone was really happy to talk and show off things --- one of my niblings had some Lego set for a Fortnite(?) restaurant(?) thingy that he completed live during the call; another was weirdly happy with this stretchy-foam stick of butter(?) that I don't understand, sorry --- and we got into riffing on great and embarrassingly bad gifts of our youth. Also me showing off how I was wearing the Red Cross Pac-Man socks I got for a platelet donation a couple weeks back.

Well, during all this bunnyhugger's family figured they had to start opening presents or we'd never be cleaned up in time for dinner, and I missed the first couple rounds, including the one where bunnyhugger gave her mother a new iPad. When our group phone call finally ended and I could start complaining about how Facetime's interface has gotten worse since last year, bunnyhugger's brother, as the Christmas Elf, said he was going into emergency protocols giving me two gifts to every one everyone else was opening. Spoiler: I got a lot of books, plus the Peanuts page-a-day calendar, which is just as I'd like it.

And! I managed to give everyone at least one thing that was not a book, this time. A record for bunnyhugger's brother that kind of felt right and that he was delighted by. Jigsaw puzzle for his partner. Rubber stamps for bunnyhugger's mother, as stamping's one of the hobbies she can still do. A replacement neck pillow for bunnyhugger. A couple t-shirts for bunnyhugger's father, of local Lansing institutions, which might be a mistake as he kept asking and getting wrong what FB&C --- Flat, Black and Circular, a revered used record shop --- stands for. I suppose it doesn't much matter if he gets them wrong.

And then there's the things that didn't go as traditional.

But before getting to the end of the day let's get back to Plopsaland in June, approaching the biggest-name roller coaster in the park:

The entrance to The Ride To Happiness, which gets its queue started in this building that looks vaguely steampunk-inspired.

Inside the building are a lot of displays of things rotating slowly and the suggestion of fire and water.

View of a returning train from the queue. The tower and coaster track out of it is not part of the ride. The other track is, as is the four-car train with the spinning cars.

Paddlewheel that adds to the atmosphere underneath the ride.

The last stage of the queue is ascending this sun-themed stairwell.

And you go past more rooms full of riveted tanks and stuff.

Trivia: According to a 1954 television survey Milton Berle was watched by only 1.9 percent of viewers in Charlotte, North Carolina. Source: With Amusement For All: A History of American Popular Culture since 1830, LeRoy Ashby. The networks concluded people feared he was too Jewish for small-town America; this kind of fear would help get Dick Van Dyke the leading role over Carl Reiner for what became The Dick Van Dyke Show, which had been based on Carl Reiner's own life.

Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.

Christmas Eve, bunnyhugger's parents, brother, and her brother's partner planned to come visit us. This would give us valuable time with them, and also to let bunnyhugger's parents see the house and our trees in their full decoration; you'll recall that her parents skipped coming up to be with us when selecting a tree.

This also meant we had to get the house cleaned up to presentability, a task difficult enough to send bunnyhugger to her sixtieth night in a row of being up until 6:30 am and that had me regretting some that we'd spent those hours at the Wonderland of Lights. But, with the help of a few cheats of putting a box in the basement for the interim or stuffing stuff into a bin that was meant for some better-curated contents, we got the place where it looks decent enough.

The original idea had been to head out somewhere, ideally a neighborhood bar, to get an early dinner but everywhere was closed or demanding reservations. The bar that we'd had penciled in to visit also had a packed parking lot, bunnyhugger's family reported, so we switched to ordering delivery. Chinese, from what had been our second-favorite place, before our first-favorite place passed out of existence sometime this past year.

We also got the chance to show off our fireplace, without daring to mention the repairs we'd needed done on it. bunnyhugger hadn't been sure whether to start the fire, since it takes some time to prepare and get to where it's really good, and bunnyhugger's family was evasive in answering questions like ``would you like a fire?'' and ``if we go out to dinner, will you be going home immediately after?'' that are relevant to how much to prepare. There might have been a window to ask them early afternoon, when her father called to ask if highway construction was still blocking off the off- and on-ramps to our place; they were not, but as I pointed out, bunnyhugger's brother was driving and his phone would warn him if there were road --- oh, he's hung up. No chance to ask.

For all the stress and strain getting ready, and the dread that bunnyhugger's brother would not succeed in talking them into leaving late so we have more time to prepare, it went well. Smoothly enough, at least, and we learned too late that we don't really have enough places for six people to eat. Next time we're going to have to get some more seats for the dining table or else just have pizza.

This was also apparently the first time bunnyhugger's father had seen our new bathroom sink, or at least the first time he's noticed it, since we got it nearly a year ago. He was extremely impressed that the sink, with its rectangular basin, fit in the space the vanity had for its old elliptical sink, but the thing the hole was always rectangular. Our old elliptical sink basin had a lot of rim, filling out to a rounded-rectangle fitting. He was still amazed that I could find something that fit the measurements of our sink, apparently unaware that plumbing has been very well-standardized for very long and you can pretty near always find a selection of things that fit whatever you want to do.

After they left we had our things to bundle up and prepare to bring down to bunnyhugger's parents. This took longer than we expected, close to two hours, but we were able to have a couple hours' hanging out, talking further, and generally bonding. The only drawback is that bunnyhugger's brother and his partner stayed up talking an extra hour and a half past when they said they were going to bed, which delayed bunnyhugger's being able to get to wrapping their gifts, pushing her into a sixty-first night of staying up until 6:30 am. Since Christmas she has not been doing that.

Let's enjoy now a little more of Plopsaland. Will I finish my pictures from that before 2025 is out? No.

Chef boiling some food and/or laundry outside one of the gift shops.

And now ... a ride we had heard legend of, The Ride To Happiness. Here's the sign outside explaining its deal and note that it's not only in Dutch and French but also English, and that English gets pride of place. Also that it's got a heck of a complicated story for a spinning coaster ride. Anyway it promises an unforgettable journey that shows the Four Elements working together for an extraordinary machine and it is rather a good coaster, yes.

Entrance to the ride, and yes, it does feel like a prog rock album might be breaking out.

Some of the entrance, not quite at the queue. Notice how the mini-bricks lining the pathway trace curled paths. Must have been a real pain to install.

Here's a view of the station and some of the track. That twist on top of the hill does a good bit to help the cars spin.

A resting point within the entrance, of an overly elaborate thing that gives off clock vibes without being working. The angle is such that one of the coaster's support legs appears to be coming out the globe. I apologize for this error.

Trivia: In 1669 England's King Charles II granted Chelsea College (originally founded to train protestant priests) to the Royal Society, thinking the Society could use it as a base of operations. The Society never moved in and sold it back to Charles in 1682, which became the Royal Chelsea Hospital for old soldiers. The Royal Society invested the revenue from that into the East India Company. Source: A Gambling Man: Charles II's Restoration Game, Jenny Uglow.

Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.

I think the biggest surprise this Christmas week was that I didn't get to work from home Tuesday. In previous years someone up the boss chain had told everyone that they had the option to work from home the last two weeks of the year, and I don't know whether it was forgotten this year or was a conscious choice. Since Wednesday last week (and next) was a holiday I only had to go in the one day, and a lot of people brought a lot of food, so that's some consolation.

After work, though, we had our last chance to get to the Potter Park Zoo's Wonderland of Lights, which still hasn't returned to running after Christmas. Most of the snow that we'd gotten had melted by this point so the sights weren't as dramatic or good for county fair photograph season, but we were hardly sad to go.

For whatever reason we took the zoo's trail the ``wrong'' way this year. Apart from 2020 and 2021 they haven't really had a designated path, but there's a couple natural attractions, starting with the arctic fox and the otters, and instead of leading with those we went the other way. This worked out nicely, though; the terrain of the zoo is very familiar by now, and while they change some of the decorations every year it's not like they ever make radical wholesale changes. So this did a good bit to make the trail feel new. Also unfamiliar in that we kept getting caught up on questions like didn't this path used to be open? I think some of them are paths that in years past were open but that haven't been recently. But it's easy forgetting.

Taking the contra-flow path meant we saw some things ``early'', like the rainbow wall of lights, or the Corvid Corner, a bird enclosure that someone going the other way warned us had nothing visible. We could see one bird in there, in the far distance, not particularly moving, possibly because it was well after dark and there wasn't anything they wanted. And we were there in time to see in one of the indoor enclosures one of their rhinos pacing a bit. Didn't use the huge back-scratching brush. We did have the luck to see a snow leopard in silhouette, against the lights outside a building, and while the big cat meowed a bit in a way that sounded like a whiny complaint, they hustled off before we could get decent pictures. The spider monkeys were hidden altogether, we suppose in a private home, and the lemurs were heaped up far out of sight, sleeping.

After walking around a fair bit we had some time left so popped in to the discovery center where they, alas, had no animals on display to pet. They did have a couple of pelts on display, where I was able to identify the lynx pelt as ``I don't know, a bobcat?'' And a guy had a little demonstration quiz, pictures of various animals and the gifts they give others of their type and why they give that. bunnyhugger got the five perfectly, and was only a little guided by being pretty sure we'd done this same quiz in previous years.

We did not see any otters, who may have been off celebrating their Fishmas. Anyway the light was off in their enclosure, as has been true the last couple years. In the long ago past of like 2019 we could get very blurry, badly-exposed pictures of bubbles and blurs.

In pictures, we're still at Plopsaland and are only one roller coaster in.

More wonders of the park: Frits and Frats sure offered something to eat, although we didn't get anything there. The roof line is great, though.

A bit of scenery in a giant spilled hot chocolate.

Another fine moment of parkitecture: the giants' table used as porch overhang for a dining area.

More decorations around a roller-skating-themed roller coaster. It's all giant for reasons we don't know.

But here's the coaster, naturally called K3.

Here's a fun-looking water-y ride we didn't go on, but, flying jetboats in a way. Whoever their superhero is flies over the ride, orbiting as the ride does.

Trivia: Throughout World War I the largest category of cargo unloaded at French ports for the British army was fodder for horses. Source: An Edible History of Humanity, Tom Standage. (Horse-drawn wagons being the best way available to carry supplies from train stations to the front.)

Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.

Still caught up in the rush of doing things rather than having time to write about them, so please, enjoy Plopsaland De Panne.

A walk-of-fame-style star for Meli Park ``Familie Florizoone'' near that building.

In the windows are miscellaneous pictures and merchandise from the park's earlier existence.

At the feet of the sleeping giant you can still find Meli Park.

I assume the fishing pirate-y guy is from Meli Park although since Plopsa does do shows with pirates it could be a more modern construct.

And wait, what's this? Yes, they had coffee vending machines just all over the place and as much as bunnyhugger anticipated getting a cup, somehow, she never did.

Hi, beloved characters we're assuming are for a young kids show but don't really know!

Seems to be named Bumba and we were remarking on how rare it is to see just a playground-type area in American amusement parks these days. And then remembered that Michigan's Adventure put one in for their big Camp Snoopy addition a couple years ago.

Carousel! Plopsaland has a double-decker Venetian carousel much like any given upscale shopping mall, or a number of other amusement parks we've been to, but it's nice seeing anyway. I don't know what the choice was to paint the ostrich ``battleship grey''.

Better view of the carousel and some more colorful figures, which are mostly what you'd see on any ride of this class.

Chez Albert along with some characters who look like they could be from any midcentury beloved comic strip. I like the background guy with the insect antennas.

And oh, yeah, the figures are on the panels atop the carousel too. Yes, one of them I can't help thinking is Jughead.

I believe this is the grounds of a Disk'o Coaster, like Pipe Scream at Cedar Point or Cosmic Chaos at Kennywood, with the bonus feature of a statue of some quarreling Viking-y folks.

Trivia: The first use of the Konami Code was for their first Nintendo game, Gradius, in which it would equip the player's spaceship with an array of weapons. Source: The Ultimate History of Video Games, Steven L Kent.

Currently Reading: Volume 80: Popeycatapetl! or Th' Demon Idol O' Inkypoo, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

Friday night we went out to a pinball tournament. Not one we were organizing or anything either; this one, on the east side of the state, was one of MWS's ``Speakeasy Specials'', held at the Sparks pinball museum in a mall. This was to feature a Super Secret Santa --- those choosing to participate brought a gift, and picked a gift, and if they got a gag gift that was that, with the packages opened at random --- so we of course went to find things that might fit. bunnyhugger found some of her higher-quality stickers that people might like (she was correct; the person opening them was delighted by each and particularly by the seagull proclaiming something Salty). I got out a Donkey Kong Jenga game I'd got meaning to give someone ages ago, and never got around to giving. All going well, this would finally leave our home.

And it did. There were surprisingly few gag gifts, I suppose for people feeling unsure that it was decent to zonk someone who might be a complete stranger to them. The Donkey Kong Jenga set went to someone who seemed interested at least. As mentioned, the guy who got bunnyhugger's stickers was happy with each of them. I got a couple of scratch-off lottery tickets, including one of the Christmas Vacation scratch-offs, so you know it's correct. bunnyhugger got some candy and a glow-in-the-dark comforter blanket that might just fill that niche of ``stuff to have in the car in case of emergency''.

As to the tournament play: this was eight rounds of max matchplay, that is, pairs being drawn up on randomly-chosen games whenever there were enough players waiting around for it, until every person had played eight opponents. Yes, of course I had to play bunnyhugger, third round, on the mid-70s game Fireball. That's a particularly difficult late electromechanical game, almost all of which comes down to whether you make the skill shot. I made it once; bunnyhugger didn't even know there was one until I showed her, and she wasn't able to find it in the one ball she had left.

And this would hurt her. The top eight players would go to finals, and my four wins put me below the threshold. Her five wins, though, put her in a tiebreaker to go to finals. Had she beaten me on Fireball, all else being identical, she would have been in finals and even had a first-game bye. Her misery at being in a playoff game, which she insists she never wins, was tempered by her putting up an overwhelmingly good score on Stars --- a solid state game that seems like it should be friendly, but isn't --- and crushing all before her. Also I'm pretty sure crushing my best-ever score on any Stars ever.

Sad to say, in the playoffs --- a ladder-style tournament, starting with the fifth-through-eighth place qualifiers; the bottom two are eliminated and the top two then play another game against the third-and-fourth-place qualifiers, and so on --- she flopped badly, on the early 60s game Riverboat. She ended up taking eighth place, so this won't be changing her state ranking, at least not in any useful way. But the tournament wouldn't anyway; it was too small, too low-rated a tournament to bump bunnyhugger's position even if she had won. There are a handful of tournaments left in the season --- and only one very small women's tournament --- and at least for bunnyhugger only illness or catastrophe is going to be changing any seedings. And she and MWS and I are so far out of open contention that we won't be seeing the state championship series except as spectators. Doesn't matter; it's fun getting out and playing some. And, y'know, there's something in Grand Rapids next Friday if we have the itch.

Now to close out pictures of walking around De Panne on Friday night. We'd try to get to bed early so we could enjoy the park the next day ...

I'm sure this sign outside the sciencey museum center type building makes sense if you participate in the educational activities within.

Oh hey did we mention that De Panne, despite being in the part of Belgium adjacent to France, is Dutch-speaking so you get names like Doktersweg for a street?

And here's the place to get a cold drink and all the Funky Winkerbean merchandise you can imagine.

I believe this is the street-just-beyond-the-boardwalk we went to because the map suggested there was an Automat here. It turned out to be a couple of vending machines, some with sliced cold cuts in, not all of which were even turned on.

And here's a look west at the actual beach. It's a shore town and moments like this felt strikingly Jersey-Shore to me.

Funland, alas, did not have a pinball machine that we could find. We only looked through the windows; I think there was an admission price we weren't willing to pay if there wouldn't be any payoff. (Possibly I'm remembering wrong and it was closed by that hour.)

Trivia: Cuba's Constitution of 1940 had 286 articles in 19 sections, and included (in article 61) a national minimum wage, (in article 62) equal pay for equal work, (in article 64) a ban on paying workers intokens or scrip, (in articles 65 - 67) workers' social insurance, an eight-hour day, and paid vacations; (in article 68) paid maternity leave, and (in articles 70 - 72) right to unionize and to strike. Source: Cuba: An American History, Ada Ferrer.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 79: A Viper Called Le Burgoo! Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

Tuesday night, after some day-filling events I'll get around to, was time for the close of the Lansing Pinball League's season, with the split-flipper ``Super Ball'' zen tournament. In this nonsanctioned, for-fun event, teams play, one person working one flipper. bunnyhugger and I were a team, naturally, and while we got to the venue late for our own tournament we did pretty well considering.

The unexpected twist this time around was two guys we didn't really know who were hoping to play as a team. The tournament's meant as a little bit of fun for league members and not just anybody, but, they did say they were hoping to join the league and intend to be there next season. We've seen them around some before, too. bunnyhugger yielded on the point, allowing the two in and reassuring league folks that this was okay because they pledged to make good their pinball league connection.

The tournament structure was identical to that of finals, a double-elimination bracket with teams having to win two games out of three to move on. I'd like to brag that bunnyhugger and I finished the first round with two straight wings but turns out all four brackets that round ended 2-0. We went 2-1 in the next round, against PCL and DRG, with a game of Indiana Jones that turned out well thanks to bunnyhugger's skills at the jackpot-collecting right ramp, and with a game of Cactus Canyon, one of the games that I alone of the league understand or like.

Our next match was against the team-of-destiny of DMC and RED, two great players who blend magnificently. This one we lost, although we did get one win by picking to play Metallica against them. On our choice RED said yeah, that's exactly the game to pick against him. That's one of the other games that's usually surprisingly nice to me. We lost on Deadpool, but my recollection is it was closer than we had reason to expect.

That put us in the second-chance bracket, although by then three elimination rounds had gone on and we had to win only one to move into finals. And what do you know but those brand-new-guys were our competition there. We picked The Addams Family as our first game, mostly on the strength of my being good at the skill shot, and that skill didn't fail me. The brand-new-guys never got the skill shot dialed in and sent too many balls into the too-dangerous pop bumpers. Their pick then was Star Wars, the 2017 Stern game. That one seems like it should move too fast and be too complicated to play worth anything split-flipper, but, you know? At heart, the layout is a simple fanfold, shots reaching from the left side of the playfield to the right, and most of the shots can be backhanded. And since I'm confident in the complicated use of the Action Button to set a multiplier of shot value on chosen shots, well, we blew things up and they thanked us for a good night.

This brought us to finals, against the undefeated DMC and RED, and they chose Godzilla, a game where both of them are just on a much higher level of skill than we are. But, wow, we got some good shots in, got a Kaiju Battle completed and won, and somehow ended up ahead of them by the end. They picked King Kong, a game they similarly understand on a level we never will. We played the dumbest possible strategy, starting this easy-to-start-but-low-value two-ball multiball over and over and over, while they played with skills for a strategy that would have paid off if they didn't get a bad couple bounces. We beat them, two games to nothing.

So that put us into the second round of finals, winner taking all, and they picked Jaws. I'm not sure RED plays it enough to have the higher-order-of-magnitude understanding than we do, but DMC certainly does, and they beat us soundly. We had choice of game and the question, ``if we do get knocked out, what's a game we feel okay being knocked out on?'' I suggested Black Knight: Sword of Rage, since it's been so nice to me lately and mostly on this shot in the upper playfield that would be my responsibility. We started that and the game malfunctioned, giving us credit for a multiball we hadn't started. RED, in his role as repair guy for the machines, gave his opinion that the game was just going to keep doing that; he hadn't had the chance to fix that particular problem. So, with the approval of assistant tournament director MAG (making the ruling), we picked a different game.

This would be Attack From Mars, which everyone understands and can play on an expert level, but that's also really good for split-flipper play. And the heck is that through two balls, we were doing great and they were not getting it together. We had a fair shot at winning this, but I bricked a shot and ended the third ball at short of two billion points, which for that game is a respectable but not great score. And, sure enough, they got their control back, shooting the flying saucers (the attackers from Mars) for ever-increasing payouts until they finally beat us.

So, too bad. But it was still a great run, and it didn't even take too long into the night. Still a good way to close out the night.

And now, in photos, we're on Friday of our big European trip already and travelling from Rennes to De Panne.

Trains. The TGV inOui would bring us to Brussels Or Wherever and then we got another train to get to De Panne, on the Belgian coast. There's a red flag hanging out the edge of a panel containing the train number, which is why you can't quite see the inOui logo clearly.

And here we are! We got off the train to our first glimpse of what was then still Plopsaland De Panne. (A few weeks after our visit it was renamed Plopsaland Belgium, even though there's another park in the chain that's also named Plopsaland and in Belgium.)

Here's the train station in De Panne. I couldn't swear that we were ever inside the building, though. There's vending machines outside for ticket-buying that were all we really needed.

And a view of the observation tower and a coaster I would later know was The Ride To Happiness, before we set out to walk to our hotel because we thought it was a shorter distance than it was.

Here we go, a we-just-arrived photo of our hotel room in De Panne, and done artistically, which means through a reflected surface.

Then we went walking into town to find somewhere to eat. This fine building looks like it must be some kind of science museum center given the Fibonacci Spiral sculpture out front.

Trivia: In 1886 there were 3,500 elevators in New York City, 114 of them running a hundred feet or more. Some could carry thirty people at a time. Source: Otis: Giving Rise to the Modern City, Jason Goodwin.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 79: A Viper Called Le Burgoo! Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle. Bluto back in for his second story in like three tales, after being out of the comic for a half-century or so.

Once more, no time to write stuff up, so have a double dose of pictures getting from the conference back to our hotel room and (the next day) getting ready to leave town.

Entrance to the subway to get back home. The university was near but not at the end of its line; our hotel was just off the central depot.

And this is from walking around our hotel's neighborhood.

This national theater was just down the street from the supermarket we kept finding dinners at.

And here's the market that had that fascinating bread-slicing machine and the HappyVore burgers.

Our hotel's room key, which delighted us by being based on a punched-hole system.

Here's our trashed hotel room. Some day I'll remember to take one of the place looking pristine.

Out our window was this very ordinary roof and the more charming buildings behind. Also nearby was a sign warning not to leave the window open or pigeons will get in.

The main train station, Gare de Rennes, on the top of a hill. Made for a nice spot to rest while we waited for a train to be ready for us.

bunnyhugger pausing in the morning air.

Another view of the town from the hill top. There's also a passage into a lower level of the train station, which you can kind of make out from the way there's a sort of slope in the hillside. Look where the motorcycle in the background is.

Oh yeah, and a zoom photo looking back at the street our hotel's on. That cafe in the corner? We had breakfast there our last morning in town in 2015.

And you know I have to try a panoramic photograph!

Trivia: The Eighth article of the 1707 Treaty of Union between Scotland and England gave Scotland a guaranteed seven-year exemption from English salt taxes, and a reduced rate forever after. Source: Napoleon's Buttons: 17 Molecules that Changed History, Penny Le Conteur and Jay Burreson.

Currently Reading: In The Shadow Of The Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965 - 1969, Francis French and Colin Burgess.