Rides @ MindSay

Well my cousins are coming over in about an hour, becuase all our parents are going to the Italian Festival. I can't wait to go. it has all sorts of well duh! Italian foods! it also has ew gross carnis. becuase there are carnical rides there. But its still fun. Anybody From Des moines should hit it up!!

 

 

Question!!!!

Which place would you rather visit?

New York or California?

The other day I went in to Docklands to drop off some gear to one customer and pick up some from another. Michael Wittingslow had organised a carnival there that was supposed to take advantage of all the activity relating to the commonwealth games facilities in that area. Unfortunately for those involved it had been fairly disastrous the first weekend with most of the rides not even taking camp money let alone wages.

 

The quality of the equipment at this carnival was second to none and included the following participants. Breakdance ,Dodgems,Kiddie Rides and Pirate (The Pirate was still not up as it was late off the wharf after returning from China)-Michael Wittingslow. Hangover,Ali Baba,another set of Dodgems and Ferris Wheel -Verfurth family. Drop ride and Ghost train-Lou Osborne. Sling shot-Durkins, Energy Storm-Sam Evans and Super Slide-Keith Nocen. Trevor Leach also had his canteen and Dicky Long had joints.

 Now the fact that the carnival was not a success to me was not surprising to me given that it was hidden down a road behind multi story buildings with no advertising support at the same time the government was paying for free concerts at the other end of the city on what should have been the Moomba site. In fact, the only event at docklands that has ever fired was last years indoor  Winter Wonderland and that was supported by saturation advertising from the developer.

This begs the question why all these people with all this good gear were prepared to risk it at a 3 weekend ,20 day event.

 

Well the Commonwealth games has been an unmitigated disaster for our business in Victoria. The only good thing is we will never see it in our lifetime again. Most hire companies are down because the holidays were move to 2 of the busiest weekends the year and many schools cancelled fetes rather than reschedule them.Yes,there were a few commonwealth games jobs but these were relatively small.  Secondly, many festivals such as Moomba and St Kilda were cancelled or in the case of others carried on a smaller scale. Why? Our great and good government had once again ran over budget and needed the money for the Commonwealth games free festival where there were no rides.

But why did others from north of the Murray come down for this carnival. I believe that the answer might be the huge influx of high quality equipment into the country over the past couple of years driven by a relatively high Australian dollar. To give you an idea of just some of the equipment that has arrived or will arrive soon:-

 

Sam Evans-Energy Storm

Anthony Laurie-Techno Jump

Russell Watkins-Space Roller

Giant Wheel-Bradley Verfurth

Another Giant Wheel- Gary Johnson and partners

Giant Slide-Jamie Pickett and Buttons Gill

Spinning Coaster-Pickett Family

Lou Osborne-Giant Drop

 

And this is by no means comprehensive.  So all this new gear needs the ground of 2 or 3 major rides on showgrounds that are not expanding or to find other locations to work. So perhaps that is the answer to why all these people came down and took the risk. Lack of alternative spaces for all this equipment. Its something to think about anyway.

 See my rides at www.smartamusements.com.au

 

today was delightful. sort of. this morning i went with my friend jill to try and find her new house but it took us forever and we took a wrong turn and ended up way far away from where we were suppose to be. we found it eventually and it was fun. then when i got home, i set off a bunch of firecrackers with my younger brother and sister. one went off in my hand (an M150) and now i have nasty looking blisters. i also got a blister on my thumb from using the lighter so many times in a row. my hands look disgusting.

           then jill took me downtown to the community carnival and it was crowded. we didn't go on any rides because they were all stupid. then on out way out of the parking lot, jill scraped up against some guy's car and she was nice about it and gave her info and stuff, but the guy's girlfriend started saying shit like "bitch, learn to drive, you fucking retard" which pissed me off alot because it's disrespecting my friend. so i got out and asked her nicely to appoligize because it was unneccesary for her to say that but she just said "fuck you, too! she needs to learn to drive!" so i was like "can you even drive?" and she said she was almost old enough to get her license so i told her she has no right to say that if she can't even drive. so she bitched at me more and i told her that if she kept this going, i might hit her and then she stopped because she's a pussy little preppy girl out past her bedtime. i didn't even swear at her at all, i was calm, everyone was calm but her. even the guy whos car got scratched was cool about it.

 

so today was a nice distraction from everything that sucks. i have to visit my brother in jail tomorrow.

We went to Madison's annual Brat Fest and had a blast. There were live performances, plenty of food, games & rides! Here are the pictures from part of that day:


The banner was displayed proudly above the stage where the musicians performed.


A small dragon roller coaster was the first ride that greeted our eyes. The fake pagoda-esque front shone brightly in the sun. It looked surreal against the blue sky with it's dark outline.


What goes best with a brat? Ice cream of course! I had coffee almond fudge swirl. Delightful!


Get it in a cone, waffle cone or cup. Any which way you have the ice cream it spells delicious!


Savannah & I got excited watching the people on the rides so we narrowed it down to one ride we wanted to go on the most.


Our feet dangled and swung while we waited for the ride to start. Very soon the ride started and we were spun around in all directions like a blender whipping cream.


The staple games were of course there. Here you can see the old "get the ball in the glass and win a goldfish". Ping Pong balls were flying as little children tried their best to win their shiny aquatic prize.


I won the prize, a stuffed fuzzy cow, at the water gun race. Some of the other prizes seemed positively psychedelic. You could possibly get a seizure looking at these guys!

I hope to come back next year. I love excursions like these. My next post I will tell about the second half of that day.

... are amusing at any age and we had a great time on the ferris wheel and roller coaster and frog hopper and bumpercars and arcades and buying cheap crap with out tickets like a rubber stretchy man who can be put into all sorts of nasty contorted positions. bad stretchy man. bad. i'll have to ice my ankle tough as it was  rammed repeatedly by the competition. it was worth it though.

 

as a child there was a small kid's amusement park along the north shore of long island called Bayville. a few rides , a great carousel, miniature golf and bout a half mile of terrific places to eat from posh dining over the sound to little lobster shacks with  bricked patios. It was a constant joy in my life even through late teen years.

 

our rituals were simple. we'd buy our tickets for the rides, my dad would let us go while i spent the evening schmoozing with the owner and the four of us would go nuts on whatever rides we liked. my brother favored tge roller coaste and the airplanes with mock machine guns, my younger sister likes the spinning dishes, my older sister liked looking cool and haughty but someone still managed to come with us and I went straight for the blackk horse with the jeweled harness who was twisting his head to the side to watch me rise.

 

the food was simple, daddy with cams on the half shell, marsha proving she was cool again but sharing those wads of phlegm with him and bob and I order hamburgers. He asked for orange soda, me for black cherry. My mother usually had crab legs and a coke.it was a several times a week summer ritual for as long as I can remember anad so last night, hugging and laughing and playing with theose well rubbed wooden bals in  the arcade ( no computer games) I was thrown back to the 50's only this time it was better. my husband , my own money and no one to tell me when to go home.  and yes I rode a black stallion on the 1911 carousel and patted him hello while i held hands with jim.