Social Chameleon

Meanwhile, back on the East Coast

Posted by Erin under Life in general

Pay attention to the dude in the blue hat. You know, the one with the same accent as me.

For those unfamiliar with the awesomeness, this is what their first album sounded like.

Siren of the times

Posted by Erin under Life in general

Last Wednesday was my first day living in Uptown, so I was still getting used to the different sights and sounds and smells of my new neighborhood. So imagine my surprise when just before noon, the ebb and flow of traffic is suddenly drowned out by the unmistakable warble of air-raid sirens.

I stop what I’m doing and peek out the window by my desk. In Georgia, that blaring tone meant a tornado had touched down somewhere within a mile radius, and it would seriously behoove me to shuffle my ass down to the basement post haste. But it was a clear and sunny day, with only the barest hint of a breeze and not a cloud in the sky.

Great, I thought. The Reds are attacking.

The first place I went was weather.com to see if there was some freak weather event occurring outside of my field of vision. No weather alerts had been issued for the area, and the current satellite picture exactly described conditions outside my window. Phew! Next I did a Google search for “Minneapolis sirens,” and wouldn’t you know, they test the damn thing on the first Wednesday of every month. Mystery solved! Evidently all was calm and business as usual in the Twin Cities, and the Wednesday drills were just something I would slowly grow accustomed to.

Shortly after this revelation, the warbling tone stopped.

Now, what does it say about me that, when presented with a loud and piercing warning tone, my first instinct is to check the internet to confirm the presence of danger? I didn’t panic, I didn’t run to the streets, I didn’t even call anybody. Where would I be if it wasn’t for Google search? I’ll tell you, I’d still be cowering in the Southwest corner of the basement, ducked and covered under whatever furniture I could find down there.

It must be a generational thing. People my age literally use the internet for everything, and it would really be peachy keen if the government could make use of the system at the speed of events. I would much rather get a text message that says “Hennepin County says RUN!” or “This is only a test (beeeeeep)” than have to run to a computer, TV or radio to figure out what’s going on.

Ups and downs in Middle America

Posted by Erin under Life in general

The room is dark except for a few orange wall torches throwing a dim light down the curtained hallway. It’s hard to make out, but ever so often I catch a glimpse of the macabre: skeletons shackled to the wall, a corpse hanging from the rafters, the velvety lining of a partially opened coffin leaning in a corner, a painting of Whistler’s Mother holding a bloodied axe. I feel my way along the stone walls to keep up with the rest of the group.

Suddenly our guide throws the switch for the fluorescent lights overhead. Much of the magic and mystery evaporates, and I find myself in a room filled with latex and foam props awaiting the next October.

“Over here is a harness,” the guide says, gesturing to the corner where an elaborate rope swing is docked, “where the talent can swoop in and scare folks coming around the corner. You can see the spot on the floor where he lands.”

It’s Saturday afternoon, and I’m at World of Fun in Kansas City, Mo., with my roommate and his two coworkers, all employees of Valleyfair, getting a behind-the-scenes tour of the park’s Halloween Haunt accommodations. We’re in the vampire chamber, which sits unobtrusively in the middle of the park in an old roller coaster docking station. Caleb and Dave ask tons of questions, taking mental notes of designs and concepts to borrow for their own ValleyScare creations. Kara snaps tons of photos. I drink in the theatrics of it all.

We made the six-hour drive the night before, stopping for chili dogs and burgers at Sonic (at Kara’s giddy request) and loading up on liquor and mixers at a nearby grocery store. Ostensibly this was a business trip for the park employees to check out the facilities and gather ideas to take back to Valleyfair and improve their guests experiences. Really it was a chance to ride some bitchin’ coasters and gorge ourselves silly on overpriced food. And ride and gorge we did.

I do love me some roller coasters, but I’m in no way a connoisseur like my compatriots. For one, I am an unabashed screamer, much to the amusement of anybody stuck sitting next to me. Two, I can count the number of different parks I’ve been to on one hand, so I don’t have the largest frame of reference for comparing thrills. The big hit of the day was definitely The Patriot, a hanging coaster with steep drops, loops and barrel rolls. That and the Finnish Fling — and old-school centrifuge where the floor drops out. Evidently, there aren’t that many still in operation around the country, and we had the privilege of seeing two. More on that in a bit.

We took a lunch break and headed over to a nearby casino to load up on piles upon piles of fantastic KC barbecue and beer. With a pound of meat per person, it was kinda hard to walk after lunch. But after stopping by the cabin and cracking into the liquor, we were ready for more park punishment.

Now, I hate to say it, but I’m a bit of a weenie, and I fell asleep shortly after we retired for the night. Evidently I missed some shenanigans. All I’m saying is when I woke up, Kara had shoved herself into the cabinet under the sink, convinced it’d be a good place to spend the night. Her bottle of vodka was nearly empty. I did the math.

In the morning we grabbed some sobering Waffle House and hit the road to come home. Or so I thought! We ended up at Adventureland just outside of Des Moines for another day of ride hopping and midway games. Adventureland is, well, interesting in that I’ve never seen an amusement park run entirely by geriatrics. Seriously, all the ride operators were retirees in their 60s and 70s. I suppose it saves on security, since it’s hard to act like a total toolbag in front of somebody’s grandparents. In any event, the big winner here for me was the Outlaw, a winding wooden coaster that crushed my cigarettes on the first drop (no joke), and another Finnish Fling, which went by some other name which I can’t remember because the operator left us on it for a full six minutes.

All in all, a great weekend. Although I’ll be happy if I don’t see another corn dog or Icee for a couple of weeks. Check out the rest of the photos here and here.