so...

... i'm on tumblr now.

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Fond Family Memories

When you look at the bare bones of an amusement park, you will find its special purpose. To make money? Well, yeah, but I'm talking about entertaining families. (This obviously does not apply for XXX amusement parks, assuming there are such things.) Family entertainment is a tradition. If a family has a good time at an amusement park one year, they are likely to come back the next year, and the year after that and the year after that. You get the point. Family outings to an amusement park provide an interesting way to have fun, build family bonds, and to observe change in height and interests. This summer, I have seen many families visit our amusement park and many of these families have been coming here for quite awhile, decades even. They always seem to enjoy it.

And when I say it, I do not mean the actual present experience they are having in the present. I mean, of course, the shining glorious memory of times from childhood (for parents) and parenthood (for grandparents). Generally they have few bad memories from this time, but for some reason the memories of trips to the amusement park are filled with the most fun, wonder, and excitement. Now, most people will accept the fact that changes come with ti

me. They are inevitable and will happen, especially when the amusement park they knew has been bought a corporate firm. Others have an almost insane ability to give up the grand memories of summer fun and adventure that they had experienced in years past. What these "others" need to realize is that the past is the past for a reason. It's not going to happen again. Its's not going to go back to the way it was even if they complain about everything that they deem wrong with the park.

As if that isn't bad enough, these families often who have children who may or may not be experiencing that park for the first time. They sometimes tell their children about they're "glory days" of high adventure and fun times at the amusement park, with verbs all in the past tense and the adjectives colorful and bright. Now, the children may have had fun prior to these recollections by parents or grandparents, and they may still have fun after. But due to budget cuts, the amusement park has had come cutbacks. On the weekdays only a few people are working the kiddyland rides and some of the bigger rides are getting fixed for the weekend. This makes children grumpy enough, and when coupled with darkened dreams of older generations, it can send them into a spiraling hole of grumpy disappointment. This causes everything else to go to hell. Need proof? Here's an illustration of the effects of this on the customer service employees.

This is a poorly drawn MS paint drawing, but I feel it gets the point across. What it doesn't show is that the children are bored and unhappy while waiting for their parents to complain. They would most likely get over their grumpy-ness and disappointment as they went on more rides that were open or ate ice cream as they watched the creepy carp swarm as they saw them approach.

Moral of the story? The past is in the past, childhood memories will always be shining glimmers on pedestals too high to reach ever again, and children do not stay disappointed for long.

Also- ending note. Let me know the drawing is entirely horrible, k?

poem 103

She looks to the rear view mirror,

savoring the evening's sunset

while completely ignoring the storm that lies a head of her.

She ignores the rumble of the thunder

the flash of lightning

the pounding of rain

all ahead of her,

instead drowning the noise with loud music

and the flash with visions of a brighter tomorrow.

"There Will Come Soft Rains"

And then there will come hard rains and windy rains and stormy rains, which all result in angry customers (and also dead gardens, but thats another thing all together.)

How to handle these angry customers, you ask? Well, the thing is, I really don't. I send them to supervisors, but the anger of these people knows no bounds. They will use a number of excuses- "We got here right as it was raining" or "All the rides were shut down"- and then proceed to ask for a refund, which can't happen. After all, we have a no refunds/rainchecks policy. It doesn't change for the weather.

But the thing I guess I'm wanting to say here is that people are silly. Thats what I feel every blog post results in, the conclusion that people are silly, but they really are. I mean, they seem to make really bad decisions (examples, not check the weather, not read the clearly posted notices, not understand that water+lightning=bad) but then they blame us, because we have on employee shirts, and that obviously gives us power over the weather.

Maybe my powers are late in developing, because I certainly haven't experienced any weather changing abilities yet. I would love if I could remove the humidity and leave Indiana with a very Arizona-y climate. It would be awesome if I could do that, but I can't. Some people, while they understand this, still don't like to play by the rules, which are " no refunds and no rainchecks"

One guy had the audacity to claim that he got more respect in the army than he did in our office, which was totally false. Of course, his sobriety could be questioned, but that happens to. Especially in the rain, which is most unfortunate, since people will come to complain about not being able to ride rides (or their kids not being able to) when its raining, even if they've had all day. I'm going to assume that most of this logic is influenced by alcohol. I'm hoping so.

Anyway, this blog was written at two different times, and frankly, I'm bored of writing it. I have Pokemon to play and thats more exciting right now.

Distracti.... hey! Look over there!

I get distracted a lot. Honestly. My brain has moments where it will move way too fast for me to process anything let alone have intelligent thoughts. Sometimes these moments result in clever, if not genius, banter. More often though it ends up with me staring blankly at a screen or ceiling, thinking that I should be doing something in that moment. It's been awhile (relatively) since I've posted a blog, and I think it's because my brain is slipping into a place of semi-permanent distractedness. This is useful at work, since I can write blogs and such while I'm bored, but on the whole, it's very annoying. Especially when I'm trying to post said written blogs. I always revise and think about what I want to add/remove from the originals before I post them because sometimes I write out of anger or extreme boredom, both which yield to mediocre writing and hostile statements flung towards certain people or groups of people. These are the last things I want (they are my least favorite things to do).

And then there's that, my random references to media and entertainment sources that often make little to no sense to most outside observers. Even my friends get confused sometimes. A distracted brain is a very obscure brain when one reaches a point of tiredness... and I'm reaching that now. Plus I'm getting bored writing this.... I swear, my brain needs to focus a lot more somedays. Hopefully something will be up tomorrow.

p.s.- here's that reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZUPCB9533Y

Britain

Okay, I have determined that I need to live in Britain- or at least some place where I can get BBC channels. Sure, we get BBC America here, but they don't show new shows right away and if I want to watch Doctor Who, I have to wait three weeks (assuming I don't use the internet, which I do.) I feel that this is an injustice. But then I pondered... Do the British get American tv shows right away? I mean, you think some might be interested in House or other things that are pretty much awesome. I didn't look into it... no, I was thinking of this at 2 am... there is no research at 2 am ever. but yeah.... i need to live in britain. They have history, Doctor Who, tea, Doctor Who, and Sir Patrick Stewart... did I mention Doctor Who?

Sorry for the messiness... I am not tired, but my brain is shutting down. I'll put more sensical stuff up sometime soon, when I have something to write about.

Homeschoolers

That might not be a word, but whatevs. This is another observation thing... only this time, I'm looking at home school students.

Imagine a home school kid. What do you see? Typically you would imagine some conservative republican spawn that loves christian music and hates everything liberal. They wear outifts almost straight out of the 50s (the girls don't, they wear long skirts and no cleavage shirts) and are always neat, polite, restrained, and ready to pull out bible verses or republican propaganda at any moment right? (I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS... JUST A STEREOTYPE).

The other stereotype is a kid too stupid, too troubled, too much for public school. Home school isn't a choice, it's the only option. Neither of these stereotypes hold up... not entirely.

This week is home school week at the amusement park, and while the groups aren't as large, they are just as interesting to watch. Today I was stationed in a ticket booth at the far end of the park, so I didn't get to observe them as they rode rides and traveled around the park. I only got first impressions this time, but it was a strong first impression.

The first home school group had six people in it, two who were adults. The four students seemed to be around 14-17 and were dressed in normal attire, shirts and shorts and tennis shoes. No button down shirts or long skirts or conservative dress styles at all. No skater boy outfits or tattoos or other visible signs of a troubled youth. They look normal. Maybe theres a little less cleavage or leg than a public high school girl would show, but that's not really a bad thing. They were very polite and seemed to be very at home in each other's company. I think that may be the biggest thing I noticed. All of the home school groups seemed very comfortable around each other and almost didn't seem to care that they were out in public. They didn't have any defenses such as unfriendliness or cold shoulders toward strangers. They were very smiley, very happy. I was almost jealous.

The next home school group was a group 0f fifteen junior-senior aged students, without a chaparone. They told me of their worries that they wouldn't be able to get the discounted price, worries that they would have had to call ahead. I let them have the discounted price anyway and they were very grateful. There were a few couples in this group, but they weren't as active as other couples in the park were. There was no making out, no groping, no icky PDAness, but they did hold hand and treated each other with respect. The boys bought the girls passes and when the girls offered to pay them back, they said that they "didn't mind" and "that's what boyfriends are for." It was very sweet. They were also very joke-y. This group made fun of the fact that they were homeschooled when certain members of the group forgot their receipts making remarks such as "I guess that's why we're homeschooled" and "You'll have to forgive us, we don't get out much." These were followed by laughter all around. When all 15 wristbands were bought and placed on the right wrists, they walked off, shouting "Thank you so much" and "Have a nice day!"

These kids were so nice. And they were normal, not one bit of either stereotype held to be true. They had a great sense of comfort in each other and are able to laugh at what others would make fun of them for. I really liked these kids. They were polite, nice, and funny. A pretty good combination.