Now your playing with power.   That is what Nintendo was telling us in the late eighties.  I was a complete Nintendo boy.   I got my first job just to get an NES.  Eventually my grandparents got me a subscription to Nintendo Power, the promotional magazine for Nintendo for Christmas 1990.  The year before the Powerfest I was buying each issue as it came along.

One day while I was watching cartoons afterschool a commercial came on it was about the Nintendo World Championship and how it was coming to my town.   I had to go.   I was great at video games.  I needed to be there.  I needed to compete.  I could go all the way.    At least that was my thinking.

I don’t remember how it all played out.  I must have begged both of my parents.   Neither could take me.  I am assuming my father had to work and my mother didn’t want to wrangle three other kids while I played video games.   I then appealed to my grandparents.   My grandmother couldn’t go, but my grandfather could.

Pa and I many years earlier

Let’s take a little sidetrack for a moment.  While I’m sure I consented to go with my grandfather as a last resort, he is the last man you want to take you out for an event.    He likes things operating on his time.   He would drag you to a tractor show and look around ten times longer than what any kid would find interesting.   However, if it wasn’t one of his interests, your time was at a minimum.

The infamous family story is about a family trip to Cedar Point.   My grandparents were living in Michigan.  They decided to take my mother and my uncle to Cedar Point in Ohio.  The drive was about three hours each way.   They got to Cedar Point and started to have a good time.   About two hours into the family trip, my grandfather decided it was time to go.   He had seen it, so he was ready to leave.   This is not the man I wanted to take my so I could indulge myself in video games.  Unfortunately it was to go with him or to not go at all.   So together we went.

It was a gray overcast day in Ohio on March 17, 1990.   There was drizzle in the air in downtown Cleveland.   None of that matter though.  I was walking from our parking spot to the Nintendo World Championships and nothing else mattered.   There is a chance we purchased the tickets ahead of time, but we may have purchased them at the door.   Either way Ticketmaster managed to get their cut of the revenue.     The place was jam packed with kids of all ages.   A sea of video game lovers as far as the eye can see.

Of course after twenty-two years I could be looking at all of this through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia.   I was only thirteen and it was fantastic.   I’m sure this is part of the reason I’m heavily into retro video games today.

There were kiosks everywhere.   They were setup so you could play the latest NES games.   If I remember correctly all the major publishers were there.   The kiosks (once again memory) had a switch that you jump between different games.   This was to make sure that no single kiosk area was completely overwhelmed.   There was a time limit in playing the games so they could move people through as quickly as possible.

In the center you had register for your chance to compete.    This part is fuzzy though.  If I remember correctly you were given a ticket with a number and when your groups was called you went on through.   I could be wrong though it might have been that we waited in line – I just don’t really remember.

Eventually I was brought up to the competition kiosk.   Since there was not an Internet at the time, I don’t think I knew what the competition games were going to be.   If I had known, I would have rented the games to become more familiar with them.   As it was, of the three competition games I was only familiar with one of the three.

The competition cartridge consisted of three games.   These were Super Mario Bros., Rad Racer, and Tetris.   For Super Mario Bros. you had to get 50 coins.   You then had to complete a special race in Rad Racer.   The remaining time was spent in Tetris.   You had 6 minutes and 21 seconds to complete the gauntlet.  Then there was a formula to figure out the high score.   You can read more about it on the Wikipedia Page.

Super Mario Bros. was the only game I was familiar with.  I had never played Rad Racer, so that slowed me down the most.   I don’t remember if I had played Tetris at all at that time.  If I had it would have been the Tengen version of Tetris and not the Nintendo one.   I understood the rules, I just was proficient, not a great player though.    Compare this to about 7 -8 years ago when I was training for Gameboy Tetris World record…..

I did not score the required amount to go to round 2.   That was fine, I could do it again.   Unfortunately that was when the Pa wanted to leave bug hit.   He was done and bored and ready to go.   In his mind I did what I came to do and we could then leave.   We couldn’t wait around to try again.   We could not waste hours playing video games.   It was time to leave.   I may have gotten a reprieve of twenty minutes, but that would have been the most.

I rolled the dice ended up with my grandfather and missed out on advancing in the competition.   I did attempt it though.   I can also say out of big events in my life it was one of the view my grandfather and I did something.   We have gone to car shows and fairs.   Those were all things he was interested in though. I can say this is one of the things that I know he did just for me.

I have been reading a bit lately.   Taking my free time to read a bit here and there.   Every night before I go to bed I read on my iPhone until I just about pass out.   Last night I literally passed out. I woke up and I was holding my phone and it hadn’t self locked yet.   I actually read a few more pages and then went to sleep properly.

In the last few months I have read more than I have in the last 3 -4 years combined.   I’m not up to my reading prime days, but it’s pretty much in full force.   Before I would read if I took a bath or just had a few minutes to kill.   It would take me weeks to finish any books, if I finished them at all.

Since December I’m on my third Oz book with Lex.  Most nights we do a chapter a night to calm him down.  He lies and listens.   Some days he is more interested than others.   We’ve done this he a little over a year old.   Currently we are on the sixteenth book in the series,  Kabumpo in Oz.  I wonder how far we will get before I either have to start over as he can pay more attention now or when he tells me he is done.   There are forty-two “canon” Oz books in total.

I’ve also been working on the New Jedi Order series that encompasses the Star Wars extended universe.  I used to buy all the Star Wars books as they came out.   Somewhere between 1997 and 1999 I stopped.   I just lost the interest for that time.   When I decided to get back into it I chose the NJO because it was one of the most highly acclaimed Star Wars series I missed.   I started these also in December and I’m on the eleventh book of the nineteen book series.   This is put on hold about two weeks ago  since Lex accidentally broke my Kindle case.  I don’t have a book light so I stopped reading these before bed.

I took a side track for a few days in January when I worked the first ninety-three issues of The Walking Dead.  The comic series blows away the television show.  The story is much more engaging.  It is also completely different in some ways.  The television show is like an echo of the comic.   It is not quite complete with a bitter hollowness that existed only in the original.

Last week I read through 11/22/63 which is Stephen King’s time travel novel.  I had not read any King with the exception of the Dark Tower series since Insomnia came out.   King is a great writer and storyteller.  I have never liked the fact that his book endings always seem rushed and hollow.   The journey through this book was fantastic, but the ending was logically rushed.   I’m not sure how I feel about the ending.   Under the Dome by King is one of the books I’m also working through.   We will se how that ends.

Yesterday  finished up Shadows in Flight.  It is the latest book in the Ender’s Game Universe.  It was a short read.  It took less than two hours without giving it undivided attention.   I love everything in the Enderverse, this one just felt a bit anti-climactic.  The ending also didn’t put me in a happy place.   This book was designed to set up another book coming out this summer.   I’m happy that I got something, but I’m not sure I got what I wanted from this book.

Currently in rotation of being read as the already mentioned Kabumpo in Oz, Under the Dome, and the Eleventh NJO book.   I’m also working through The Steve Jobs and Wicked (though Wicked has been in the works of being read before I started reading more in December).    I swear there is two to three more books I’ve read, but for some reason Goodreads is not displaying them properly.   It didn’t even display 11/22/63 until I hunted for it and confirmed I had marked it as read.  It just wasn’t displaying on my read list.  If I hadn’t just entered it last week it wouldn’t have been fresh in my mind that I put it in there.

What about you?  Have you been reading anything worthwhile?

The other day Xie was upset.   She wanted to go out and blast the world with what was going on.   She was either going to go to Facebook or her blog and just let it out.   I advised her not to.  This is not her story, but a view-point on why I suggested to wait a couple of days.

I’m all for writing on high emotions, but the story she wanted to tell would have been clouded by her anger and frustration.  For some stories the high emotion can work.   If the tale is about your feelings and what you are going through, writing during that time can be a great stress relief.   You are naïve though if you think that you are not being clouded a bit.   The story won’t be correct until you do it calmly.

Calm also has it problems depending on the subject.   It can make you seem distant.   It will be like you are not in touch with what happened.  I’ve written a bit with the calm abstraction of things that have happened to me in the past, about my mother, about my son.   It depends on the subject.

If you are writing about your own personal views, your moral outrage, or just strong emotions in general – the best time to put the words up are as you are going through them.   If you are telling a story that is bigger than those things, it’s best to get calm first you.   You then can remove the name calling.   The bickering with someone else can be a little abstracted.   It will make your writing more coherent without being an attack that you may regret later.

It is hard sometimes.  I’ve done my fair share of writing angry.   I have written depressed.   There are even times I write because it is the only thing I can control and it removes me from world for a brief instant.  I will also go through spurts where it is almost an addiction.  I enter the mindset that if I don’t get this story out now it will never get out.   We all ride an emotional roller coaster and use what ever means we can to cope with that.

There are some methods you should consider when writing something in a public forum.  You have to see how you are going to appear by sharing these emotions.   These status updates and stories are never going away.  Will you come off selfish?   Will you state something you don’t really mean because you are in the moment?   You have to live with these decisions.   You should always question if what you are writing is something you will forever be able to stand by.   You should not write it if you can’t.

If you can live with it, then emotion can be a powerful tool.   You can learn to avoid any topics that may cause you regret.   Once something becomes a trained response you know that you should not get into a high brow discussion about cousin Tommy’s AIDS condition (note that there is no cousin Tommy in my immediate or extended family, just an example.)  You can also go on the attack for things that you are passionate about and are at the core of being.

If you are not publishing these things online, write!  Write about your feelings.  Write about every little detail.  Keep a private journal that the world would despise you for if they ever saw it.   Then realize the world doesn’t really care – this moment and time is about you and what you are going through.   Once you decide to keep a moment private it’s your to exaggerate or exam as much as you want.

I guess this could be summed up – don’t publish online angry without and editor that can make sure you really want to do that.

I’m randomly listening to music and Sk8er Boi comes on.   I’ll admit it I like the song, until I listened too closely to the lyrics.   Once you listen to the  lyrics the  song falls apart.

The first verse sets up the standard Romeo and Juliet motif.   Something that always works.   The first time you listen through the song you think they are going to work out, because that’s the way it happens right?  The girl succumbs to peer pressure and doesn’t date her Romeo.

We fast forward five years in the second verse (so the girl is between 20 and 23).   The girl has a child and see the boy she didn’t date if now famous.   Her friends that bashed him in high school want to go with her to see the show.   The setup seems to state that her life is over or at least a dead-end.  That she will have a chance to get back together with her “true love”.

The third verse and the rest of the song switch perspectives.   They are from the girl who is currently dating the boy.  The fact that the first girl missed out because she didn’t stick with him.  That she is the lucky one because she is with the successful rock star.

WTF?

How many people do you know that starting dating in high school that are still together.   Maybe 1 -2 couples?  That somehow the first girls life would have been different if only she had gone on a date and resisted peer pressure.   That she wouldn’t have a child and her life would be going somewhere.   All they did is flirt and never dated.   If anyone I had ever flirted with, or dated, became famous I wouldn’t regret that I didn’t date them or stick with them.   I would know there is a reason I didn’t date them.

The fact that the second girl lords it over the first girl’s head in the song is also insane.   It shows that she is just petty and seems to be insecure about her relationship.  She is dating the boy more as a trophy than true love.   If it was true love on both sides, she wouldn’t worry about a girl her boyfriend never dated and hadn’t seen in years.

The song when you don’t pay attention is a happy bouncy pop song.  It seems to be about love, but you don’t care.  You just enjoy the beat.   The true meaning behind the song are regret, jealousy, and envy.  These aren’t things you would associate with the song on a casual listen.

Of course Avril Lavigne was a teenager when she recorded this song.   Her whole life was defined by her relationships around her.  She hadn’t had time to grow into her own person yet.   I wonder what she thinks looking back at that song now that she is approaching thirty.   Having a kid to her probably seemed like it would be the end of the world.  Her dreams would have been taken from her.

I’m sure a portion of this is I’m an adult and not a teenager.   Age gives me a different perspective.   This song is also a decade old and probably not influencing too many teenagers today.   What about the ones that were teenagers a decade ago.   The twenty something girls and boys that walk around today?  What did they take from this song?

This isn’t a song about being yourself.  This is not a song about acceptance.  It really is a song about pettiness.  I’ll still listen to it though….

Yesterday Lex was up early and recently we’ve got a new early morning routine of saying goodbye before I go to work.  In the past he was always still asleep when I left.   From his room he watched me take out the trash and leave for work.  He was waving and smiling the whole time.

I guess about a half hour later he goes running into the master bedroom.   He was saying “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy”.

Xie answered “What is it?”

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy – they took it!”

“They took what?”

“They took the trash”

“Ok”

“No, Mommy Mommy Mommy (he is very repetitive when excited and gathering his thoughts).  They took the trash.   Daddy took the trash outside and then they took it away.   We need to go get it.”

“They are supposed to take it”

“No, Daddy took the trash outside and left it by the street and they took it away.”

That’s the dialog that was told to me last night when I got home.  Xie then explained to Lex how the trash man comes and picks up the trash.  That the trash man did nothing wrong.   He then wanted to take more trash out so they would come back and he would get to see them again.

Maybe Xie will comment on here or Facebook on anything I got wrong.  While amusing at first, I’m sure part of his excitement and worry goes back to a week and a half ago when his stroller was stolen.    He understood then what it was like to lose something that wasn’t temporary like he would for a punishment.   When that happened he was more confused and didn’t understand.   I’m sure part of how he felt that he didn’t seem to express came out when he saw Daddy purposely set something on the street and someone else came and took it.

While it wasn’t a great thing to have the stroller stolen, it seems to have taught Lex the lesson of what it feels like to have it happen to him.   It will hopefully ingrain in him that he should never do it.   That kind of understanding and learning from the event might just have been worth getting the stroller stolen.

Now I’m just wondering where he thought the trash went all this time….

I managed to do more work importing Last.fm data.  Earlier I posted how nothing was working.  I mentioned how there is no method to do this.  I also mentioned how some of the migration methods available.  Well below are the instructions on how to actually accomplish this. Dealing with the methods listed online, these were the only steps I found to merge two or more last.fm accounts.

There is come caveats.   I was not able to get all of my tracks down from the server.   Most of this is because of bad metadata.  Out of the my 23k submitted tracks I only managed to get about 20k of them downloaded.   In the re-upload I lost another 6k.

The reason for the loss is two-fold.  I think the script has an issue with Kanji characters and skips them.   This removed a few video game sound tracks from my track count.   Other scripts I have found just died when they reached the bad metadata.   Since this is the most data I can get, it is better than nothing.

You will also lose the last play time. If this is important to you then I can’t help you. Last.fm will not accept tracks with a play date of older than fourteen days. The API does not have a way around that restriction that I have seen. I did find a post that mentioned someone created a script that would rescrobble all of your old music and submit it in a manner that new accounts are able to perform, but he never released public.

Let’s move to how to do this (as a side, I performed this on OSX – but this should easily work on Linux or Windows):

Requirements:

• A last.fm account
• Python installed
• Qtscrob
• A spreadsheet package
• A text editor

1.  Go and download the lastexport.py script from this page

2. Run the command “python ./lastexport.py –user USERNAME”  and replace USERNAME with your account (or any other account) you want to export.

3.  When the script completes it will create a file named exported_tracks.txt, rename the extension to .csv so you can easily open it your spreadsheet.   This file is tab-delimited.

4.  You should now have a spread sheet opened with all the data nicely arranged in columns.   The first column is the timestamp.   The second column is the track name. The third column is the artist name.  The fourth column is the album name.  The fifth column is the Musicbrainz artist ID.  The last Column is the Musicbrainz song ID.

You will now need to rearrange these columns to the following order:

 - artist name
 - album name (optional)
 - track name
 - track position on album (optional)
 - song duration in seconds
 - rating (L if listened at least 50% or S if skipped)
 - unix timestamp when song started playing
 - MusicBrainz Track ID (optional)

For the track position column I just auto-filled 1′s in all the cells down the sheet.  For the song duration column I filled in 180 (3 minutes) in all the cells down the sheet.   For the rating columns I filled in L in all the cells down the sheet.

The Unix timestamp is a tricky one.If any tracks on your list are older than fourteen days old you will need to change the time stamp or last.fm will ignore those submissions.

Previously I had a friend generate a list of Unix times 180 seconds apart.  I copied this in, but realized my 20k tracks took the time back older than fourteen days.   I took the latest 2k times and just copy and pasted those 10 times down the list.   To find the latest Unix time and understand the time stamps go to this site.

At this point you should have all the columns filled out in the correct order to create a .scrobbler.log file.   The website everyone points to for the .scrobbler.log file format details seems to be down when I was doing this.  Here is a link to the page in the Internet Archive.

I do have a theory with this method that all the tracks can have the same time stamp.   One of the earlier methods I tried did not allow that, so if you don’t want to figure out a bunch of random time stamps it is something you can test with. The difference in this article is how QTscrob is going to submit these tracks compared to how Libre.fm did in my other article.

5.  Select all the data in the spreadsheet and copy and past it straight into a text editor.   You are going to add the following lines to the very top of the new file you created:

 #AUDIOSCROBBLER/1.0
 #TZ/UTC
 #CLIENT/Rockbox h3xx 1.1

These lines are required for the file to be recognized as a .scrobbler.log file.

6. You can now save the file. You must choose a Unix format or a format that will add hard breaks at the end of each line. I believe this is what caused the file to fail on me earlier. If you editor allows it (mine did not) you can save the file name as .scrobbler.log (remember the “.” at the beginning of the file name.

7. If your text editor did not allow to save the file name as .scrobbler.log you must rename your file to this at the command line or terminal level.

8. Start up QTscrob and select open .scrobbler.log. Browse to the directory where the file is. It is only looking for the containing directory so you will not be opening the file name directly.

9. At this point (if you have done everything correctly and I’m not going to troubleshoot files if you did not) you should see a list of tracks in the QTscrob interface. If everything looks good just click submit.  This may take a few minutes depending on how many tracks you have.

In theory someone could easily change the lastexport.py script so that it directly creates the .scrobbler.log file.   If you are interested in doing this, you would have to change the field order, add the extra columns, and the header in the manner described in steps four and five.

At different points I have spent days trying to find a good way to do this.  With the bad metadata most archiving scripts just failed on me, so I’m quite happy with the lastexport.py script.

I couldn’t find a single place online that told you directly how to make a .scrobbler.log manually.   All the sites seemed to assumed that you must only be using software to do this and the programmers would only look at the file specifications.   I could not even find an example file to compare to.   If the Internet Archive had not mirrored the site with the file specifications I never would have gotten this far.

If this post has been useful to you, just please drop a note and let me know.

Let me give you some background before I get into this issue.   A few years ago I signed up for last.fm, it is a service that records what music you listen to.   I actually aggregate this data into other places.   Xie had her only account, but only rarely used it.   Once Lex was born we were listening to music all the time, though mostly instrumental stuff.  Instead of scrobbling (sending my track information) to my account, I created a family account.

For awhile I maintained my account and the family account depending on where the music was being played.    In September of last year I finally moved my listening to the family account.   This consolidation was to make everything easier, but I left my account which has 23441 track submissions over the last six years.   The family account has 24112 today over three years.   While there is some duplication from attempting to merge these account  in the past, the majority is instrumental items for Lex.

Yesterday I find a neat utility that takes your last.fm data and merges it into your iTunes library to give you an accurate play count.   I attempted to merge the three accounts on my local machine.   The problem lies in the fact that it will overwrite (instead of add to) the play count.   So if my account played Smells Like Teen Spirit fifteen times and the family account played it ten, then whoever was imported last would win.  This was not acceptable.   It should be a total play count of twenty-five times.

So yesterday I spent hours trying to merge the accounts.  There is no supported way to do this.   There is also no method for existing accounts to upload a complete list of all the plays in iTunes, new accounts can do this though.  It would also mean leaving out all the podcasts I’ve played over the years since I don’t have the original files to add a play count to.   So I need a way to take all the data and shoving it into the new account.

There was a blog post about using Libre.Fm as a middleman in the transaction.  You can use a script to pull the data from last.fm into a text file.   You then setup your Libre.FM account to send the tracks it receives to last.fm.  Finally you run another script that submits the text file data to Libre.Fm.  All very convoluted a MacGuyverish (something I’m good at).

I managed to get tracks into Libre, but they were not being forwarded to last.fm.   I then found out the reason, last.fm disregards submissions that are older than fourteen days.   Grrrrrrrrrr.

I went about and checked the file.  There was a column that corresponded to a Unix time stamp.   I then replaced all of these time stamps with the same time that was less than 24 hours earlier.   I then re-ran the submission tool.   The tracks were submitted to Libre, but out of the 143 test submissions only four tracks showed up in last.fm (with a combined play count of 143 times).

Then I rehacked the time stamp and set each play time to one second intervals.   I then re-ran the submission script.   All the tracks made it to Libre again, but the same duplication with four tracks issue occurred on Last.fm  At this point I was going to hack the data with a timestamp a little further apart.

I needed a way to generate numbers 180 seconds apart with a starting time of the previous day.   I couldn’t find a great and easy way to do this.   I contacted a friend of mine and he wrote a quick program to generate 143 Unix time numbers 180 seconds apart and another that did 24k.   I then had the data ready to go.   I’m still not sure why but last.fm still didn’t like the data.   Back to the drawing board.

For portable device they can keep a log file (.scrobbler.log) that you can submit online to your account.  It even allows you to do it without a time stamp.     I looked at the file specifications and modified the file that I dumped earlier from last.fm to match those specifications.   I also still had the modified time stamps.   Unfortunately I keep getting information back that the file is invalid.  I haven’t yet figured out why.

So that is where I am at the moment, speculating the best method to take this tab delimited file and giving it back to last.fm.  Once this is done I will be able to sync the play count on all of my devices.  I will have a master repository of my played track data and I can let the old ones go.

In the end this is all being really anal retentive.   I can back up my data in these downloaded  files and call it a day.   I won’t have the true statistics of what has been played, but most people don’t really care.   I could also just migrate to Libre.fm, but the problem with that is they don’t support iTunes, which is an issue for someone who has media played in such an Apple-centric ecosystem like I do.  I may just have to surrender on this, but first I’m going to figure out that .scrobbler.log file format.   If after that I still can’t figure it out, I’ll cry.   Then I will surrender.

Thinking today I would do a post with a fewer words than normal. I started posting some bad cover songs on my Facebook timeline yesterday. Thought I would share with the rest of the world today and round out a complete list. The first one above is Miley Cyrus covering Smells Like Teen Spirit. I can say at least she tried to embrace the spirit of the song, yet still missed the mark. Cobain is rolling in his grave. Ironically I could not find one of her covering Achy Breaky Heart (I looked because I wanted to be amused).

Britney Spears singing I Love Rock and Roll? Why Joan? Why did you authorize this?

While not the most terrible thing on the planet, Avril Lavinge singing Imagine just doesn’t fit musically or personality type. From her faux teenage angst image it might though. She is just trying to show her sensitive side, which comes off hollow.

You would have almost thought this would have been too new to have a terrible cover already.

The Boys of Summer is just one of those great road songs. This version, not so much.

You take a song that is about teen angst and fighting back, and you then turn it into a dancing pop song? Can we have Hillary and Avril switch, at least this song would have made a bit more sense for Avril to sing.

Yes, your famous because of your father and a reality show. Yes, you adored Madonna growing up. No, you should not try to tribute one of her songs.

Madonna, please see the note I left Kelly Osborne.

As a huge Guns N’ Roses fan, this song torments me to no end. I think I even had a nightmare about it once.

I have no words.

Ok, this last one is awesome and horrendous at the same time.

It was a bit different for me. My parents had me when they were young. My mother was mostly into eighties pop music. So the music we were listening to was Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Culture Club, and Michael Jackson. My father loved the oldies station, he could go on about Steppenwolf, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and Cream. None of his bands ever spoke to me. He didn’t like Culture Club because of Boy George’s orientation. He had a little of an issue with his seven-year old singing Karma Chameleon.

There was an overall fandom of Billy Joel in the house. The Stormfront Tour was my first concert. To this day I can still sit back and listen to almost Billy Joel album and enjoy it. There seems to be very few people who dislike him. Some people may not be into his music, but most don’t hate him.

Xie posted something about Pearl Jam last night. My sister responded that she gets made fun of for liking Pearl Jam. I don’t get that. I may not have liked the Rolling Stones so much, but I don’t know of anyone that would have been teased for liking them. This sister is twelve years younger than me. She once told me she discovered this awesome band called Guns and Roses…..smile and nod……

If we go two generations it gets even worse. How do you bridge the gap from The Andrews Sisters to Nirvana smoothly? How do you even justify that to a teenager? I don’t think today’s music is bad, but it doesn’t grab me. Most the stations still play the music from the nineties that I loved. I wonder if this equivalent of my father and his oldies station. When my father was my age, I was 15 – the start of my prime music listening years. There was a huge gap between what we would listen to, I can’t imagine what it will be like between Lex and I.

While Autumn and I have guilty pleasure pop songs we like, we aren’t really pop people.  The heavy pop we listen to is from the eighties.  The equivalent from a year perspective for my son would be my parents to be listening to pop music from the fifties.  I’m sure he will want to strangle us.   Michael Jackson to him will be equal to Buddy Holly for me.

I’ll just leave you with this item trying to bridge the generational gap:

A little over a year ago I was almost done with getting my mp3 metadata into shape.  I had a few stragglers but the majority was complete and I would get to it eventually.   Over the last year my collection has grown a lot.  That small part that was probably under 10% of the collection had ballooned to 25-30% with all the new items that I was too lazy to update.   For those curious I have a ton of classical and video game music.  The local library has also helped my collection grow.

Last night I finally sat down and fixed them.  I fixed them all.   I have 100% metadata done in my Itunes library.  All albums have an artist.  All albums have cover art.   Genres are consolidated down to about 15 different types.  Each artist only has a single listing (I’ve fixed typos and spelling differences). Albums with multiple CDs have now been consolidated under a single name instead of having album names ending in CD1 and CD2. It actually looks good.

I do have to admit that some of the albums I had no idea what the true genre is though.  So these items got lumped together under Rock or Pop depending on how I felt at that moment.   I don’t really use the genre tab too much, so it’s just a guideline anyways.  If anyone wants to spend hours sorting out proper genres they are more than welcome to.

This cleanliness does come at a price.   It took me about 6 hours going through and removing duplicate tracks, consolidating information, and downloading cover art and applying it.   It is not a job for the weak of heart to power through.   Watching Breaking Bad while I did this is probably the only reason I could maintain my sanity.  I still have to do with other digital media also.   It makes everything prettier and easier to find.  I just wish that it didn’t take so long.  Even with automation tools it takes tons of time.

After I got the metadata “masters” done on my desktop I deleted all the earlier non-perfectly cleaned tracks out of the file server.   I set the server then to reimport all the tracks again.  I was going to bed when I was done anyways so it didn’t affect me at all.

I thought briefly about re-importing them to the laptop.   The problem with this is that it will screw up all of my playlists.   I wish there was a good way to sync metadata updates between computers.   I do know the “hacks” using a central repository, but that doesn’t fix the problem of keeping an archive at home and having one to take with you at the same time.

Now if I could only fit all the music into a single Google Music account.   I’m going to start uploading tracks there soon.  The only reason I have not done that is the screwed up metadata.   I guess I don’t have much of an excuse now.

Onto to mixing the metadata on the DVD rips……

The Blue Streak taken by Andrew Borgen

The Blue Streak was built in 1964.  I wouldn’t rate it as being one of my favorite roller coasters.   It is however a classic.   The Blue Streak (followed by the Mean Streak) taught me that I’m not the largest fan of wooden roller coasters.   The ride is rough though.

I know a few people who absolutely love the Blue Streak.   So don’t take any negativity from me as trying to bash the ride.  It isn’t even my least favorite roller coaster in the park.   It just isn’t something I would wait past 20 minutes to get on.

The ride is a bit tamer than it was when I was in high school.   In 1995 they changed the seats to have a single seat and a locked strapped down bar across your legs.  Before this the ride had more of a sense of danger.   If anything they tamed the whole thing down.

The new seats (I’m referring to something as being new that is 17 years old….) with the bars are uncomfortable because of my height.   The Mine Ride does the same thing to me, but I love the Mine Ride.  So I’ll continue to long for the untamed years of the Blue Steak.  I’m next to positive they will never revert the seats back.

In the pre-1995 era the seats were a single bench seat.   This meant that if you were riding with someone, around the turns you would slam into them (part of the fun).   Across the laps of you and whoever you were riding with was a shared seatbelt.  The and the seat belt made the ride a bit more intimate.   It was also just a little bit awkward if you were riding with a stranger.

I don’t remember the first time, but I think it might have been 1992 that I was taught how to take the ride to a whole new level.   After you cleared the first hill you unstrapped your seat belt.   At this point you were hanging on to the bar that came down (but didn’t lock in place) to do your best to stay in your seat.  When you were hitting the hills you would literally fly up out of your seat.

You never did this when riding with strangers.   The whole negotiation of removing the only thing physically keeping you in your seat on a roller coaster would have been awkward.   I can envision it now, “Yeah I want to make this a little more exciting – so would you like to risk your life with me?”.   I’m sure some people have successfully made it through the conservation, but not me.

My wife has said that was one of the favorite things she did in the park.   She also has a higher rating for the Blue Streak than I do.   I don’t think she will defend the Blue Steak to the death, but she would shed a tear if it was ever removed.   The Blue Streak midway has already lost too many attractions over the years including the previously mentioned Star Voyager.

Enjoy a video ride through of the Blue Streak:

In my next post I’ll be posting about of the rides nearest to my heart, The Paddlewheel Excursion.

Rail Road Station taken by Andrew Borgen

I originally said I was going to write about the Sky Wheel, but I had it confused with the other Cedar Point ferris wheel.   I don’t remember the Sky Wheel at all.   Moving on.

In 1963 the Cedar Point and Lake Erie Railroad was opened.  The first half of the Railroad would take you from the main midway to Frontierland.   Then you could get back on and ride from Frontierland to the starting station.  If I remember way back this ride had animatronics on both halves of the ride.  In more recent years they only exist sparingly on the second half of the journey.

I think my favorite animatronic was the burning house.   It featured fire fighters and a woman leaning out the window.   It was setup so it looked like the fire fighters would catch her.   I don’t remember on which half of the railroad this was on.   As teenagers we loved to do the royal wave as we drove past crowds at the train crossings.  I always wanted to jump off the train at one of the crossings, but I never did.

The train was not necessarily the fastest way to get from the back to the front.   If you got the station right when the train was there you might be able to get to the front of the park faster.  Normally though you would wait 5-10 minutes for the train to arrive.  This delay meant you could usually beat the train by walking.   So, we normally rode the train because we wanted to go for a ride or we were walking by the station anyways and it was there.

Take a ride on the Cedar Point Railroad:

Here is the video for the second half of the ride:

Also constructed in 1963 was the Mill Race.   If you click on the picture below you can get an aerial view of the ride.

PianoJohn posted this picture of the Mill Race in a forum post.

The Mill Race was a water flume ride that had dips and curves.  It was kind of a water roller coaster. Later on Cedar Point would be a second one in Frontierland, White Water Landing.   Unfortunately the Mill Race had its last year in 1993.  It was removed to make way for the Raptor which debuted in 1994.

The Mill Race was always one of the rides I needed to hit every year.   Quite a few rides didn’t make it to that level.   When I was going once a year there were a few “if I can get on due to line length rides”, but I never missed the Mill Race.   The Mill Race was an older ride so the lines were not gigantic for it.  It was a nice lazy ride where you didn’t get wet despite the water.  You were more likely to get watching it than riding it.

Here is another PianoJohn forum pictures of the Mill Race hill. 

I wonder how many injuries were caused by this ride? I remember always dipping my hand down to touch the water as a kid and teenager.   I’m sure there were a few people with crushed hands that came from the ride.

While I was hunting for pictures of the Mill Race I found lots of forum posts being nostalgic for it.  I wouldn’t trade the Raptor for it, but they could have moved it somewhere else in the park.  The footprint wasn’t so large that they couldn’t have placed it somewhere in Frontierland.  I remember riding it 1993 and I wish I would have known that it was going to disappear.   I may have cherished those memories just a bit more.

Next time I am going to cover the Blue Streak.

The Sky Ride taken by Andrew Borgen

In theory, unless you are afraid of heights, there is no terror in the sky.   It is however a catchy title.   In the last post I said I would cover the Sky Ride and Star Voyager.   This is the post you have anxiously been waiting for at the edge of your seat.   I know – not really – but pretend to show some excitement people.  Just wait until I get to the Cedar Pointer……

In 1961 both of these rides opened. While at least half of the Sky Ride still exists, Star Voyager is a lost memory.  I did my best to find a picture of Star Voyager, but I came up short.   If you can hunt one down, please let me know.

We are going to go by memory of Star Voyager (if I’m wrong someone please let me know).  Star Voyager from where I remember was located next to the Blue Streak.  It was a ride similar to the Dumbo Ride at Walt Disney World.   You could control your “rocket”  by going up or down on the arm as it spun in a circle.  The controller also had a trigger where you could shoot your laser (just a light that lit up on the nose of the rocket) at the “rocket” in front of you.   As a young kid I thought this was awesome.   I remember it being one of the first spinning “adult” rides that I rode by myself.

Unfortunately I can’t find a record of when Star Voyager was removed, but it was definitely before 1989.   Does anyone know what year it was taken out?  I would love to get a time frame other than sometime after 1980 and before 1989.

The Sky Ride on the other hand is at least still kicking.   It goes over the main midway giving you a great view of a significant part of the park.  Depending on the year the flower gardens would be designed so you could see images in the air from the Sky Ride.   I don’t know if this is a time constraint where it is something they didn’t get to on a particular year or if it is about saving money.

Have a video view of the Sky Ride:

There used to be another half of the Sky Ride it was called the Frontier Lift.  You would board the second near to the site where the Iron Dragon is.   This half would exit at the Bathroom building next to the Mine Ride in Frontierland.  I do not remember this at all, even though I would have been at the park at the years it was opened. It closed in 1985 when I was 9.   My wife remembers the Frontier Lift, she is also three years younger than me.    This is one of those moments my memory annoys me.

The Converted Frontier Lift building taken by Andrew Borgen

I would have said that they closed it due to the construction of the Iron Dragon, but that wasn’t built until 1987.  Unless they were planning that far in advance it was probably removed due to damage or lack of interest by the patrons.

In the next post I will cover the Sky Wheel.   I don’t expect that to be a long post.

Let’s go over some background.

For some comparison until the Roku arrived we have used an Apple TV2. This has been jailbroken and has XBMC installed on it. The reason we purchased the Roku is that our device started getting the infamous time bug. The ATV2 could not longer update it’s time. This meant that Netflix stopped working on the device. I am reluctant to reflash the device because I don’t want to spend the 2-3 hours it takes to set up XBMC again to my liking. Xie was miffed because she used Netflix all the time so this put a large damper on her media consumption, especially the kids shows that my son watches.

We do have a lifetime subscription to PlayOn basic so I could use that to view Netflix and Hulu Basic through XBMC.   The problem with that route is that you can only really watch what is in your Netflix queue.  It also does not mark once you have already seen something.   We also tried using Netflix through the PS3, but compared to the ATV2 interface it was clunky, slow, and just didn’t work well.

So the goal was to get a device in which we could watch Netflix without reflashing the ATV2.   I would love to say I researched different models for days, but truthfully from what we had seen in the past Roku was really the model we wanted.   It could do Netflix, Hulu (albeit Plus only), and Amazon (so we could use our Prime free streaming on the TV for once).  I did think briefly about getting a Boxee, but it didn’t have the Amazon Prime streaming and was twice the cost.   I also had played with the desktop version of Boxee and I didn’t like the user interface compared to XBMC or the ATV2.   Boxee was also twice the price.

So you can see that we didn’t need something to watch Netflix.   I just wanted to be lazy and not reflash the device.   The other methods though were not as easy to use, so I will concede to that point.   The rule is I can do whatever I want to the home network until it makes something more difficult to do.   The stupid ATV2 bug broke that rule on me.  It was only my fault in so far that I didn’t want to fix it.  I purchased a Roku instead.

Onto the Roku

The first issue with the Roku (I knew when I ordered it) is that I was out of HDMI ports on the TV.   I bought a HDMI switch box which allow us to switch between the Roku and ATV2 with the touch of a button.   Currently the PS3 is without a picture.

When first setting up the device we had to register it.   This requires a computer to go online to the website and enter a code.   This is kind of a hassle.  I sit down in front of the TV to start configuring the device, and it tells me to get up and use another device.

Dear Roku,

The first rule of TV watching is that you want to keep the eyeballs on the TV set.   Maybe in the digital era sans commercials this is no longer relevant.  Unfortunately for the TV viewing public this is still the golden rule.   When I configured the Apple TV2 I did not have to use any other devices than the remote the came with the unit.   Please work on this.

Sincerely,

Creeva

This of course has the ease of use of not typing in anything on the Roku and being able to use the keyboard to set everything up.    You would think that wouldn’t you.   We’ll get back to that thought in a minute.

During the initial setup on the website you enter a code from the device to link it to your account.  You select your channels and options you want from the website.   Third parties can offer more channels through a private channel method.   I selected the defaults – Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Flickr, Crackle, Angry Birds and some others.  I then had to wait about 15 minutes while all the channels were downloaded to the device.   Seriously?  I understand the ability to update the software later, but the default programs advertised on the box should have already been on the device.

I then managed to get into Netflix. It is similar to the PS3 interface, but slightly better.   Xie was not happy.   We will make it work until I have time to reflash the ATV2.   We then tried Amazon Prime, which even though we added the channel we had to link the device.   This requires us to once again get up off the couch and go over to the computer.   The choices are pretty much the same as Netflix with a few exceptions.

Then we tried Hulu.  Hulu required Hulu Plus which I clicked to sign up for the one week trial.   You can’t sign up for the trial from the device.  You have to go to your computer and fill in the information.   You then had to use the remote on the Roku to type in your username and password. Why can’t all this account info be handled on the Roku site?  We then get into Hulu and can get a few more things than basic – but of course lose access to other shows because of weird Hulu licensing (thank god for PlayOn).   The Hulu picture though was sharper than going through the PlayOn / XBMC combination we normally use.

I tried the Angry Birds and I didn’t like the motion control remote that pretends to be a Wii controller.  At first it wasn’t responsive and then it was too responsive.   For a game like Angry where the gimmick is to pull a sling shot it is workable, but for anything with more precise controls I would hate it.

Since you setup everything on the website, if Roku ever goes out of business you are stuck with a hunk of plastic.   The ATV2 could still be usable or hacked into something else if Apple ever went out of business.   For some this may be a real concern.   It is unlikely since Roku seems to be in the lead as the Internet streaming to your TV provider.

Finally I can not play any local media with Roku.  I can’t listen to a local MP3.  I can not view a local picture on my computer.   I can not play one of my DVDs I have ripped (99% of my media collection is ripped to a file server).  With the ATV2 I use XBMC to consume these things.   You can also import them in iTunes and play from within the standard ATV2 interface.  You can also use AirPlay from your iOS devices and stream directly.  I can set up a Plex channel on Roku, but I’m scared how that is going to look and act compared to XBMC.  I would have to set up a second database for media since I already use a MySQL server with XBMC.  Duplication to do the same task is a pain in the ass.  I love XBMC.

The interface is slow and clunky in all the channels.   Xie referred to this as beta software.  I explained this was the third revision – her response was that it was still beta.   Compared to the ATV2 I will concede that it is slower, less elegant, and the user experience for getting up off the couch to configure items is horrendous.  It does offer the Hulu Plus and Amazon Streaming which is its advantage at the same price.

For the second half of the Lex birthday weekend we took him to the Cleveland Zoo on Monday.   We arrived around 1:30 since we knew it was going to be a short day.   Lex wanted to ride in the stroller for a change and we stuffed his winter jacket in the bottom pocket.

We decided that we were going to get a season pass this year.  It turns out they actually let you go past the ticket booth and inside to buy a season pass.   On slows days the pass booth outside is closed.   We purchased our pass and it was only 72.00 for the family (in comparison to the 55.00 it cost us to the aquarium).   We made it through the Elephant which Lex enjoyed.   For some reason though he didn’t like the moles that were inside.

We went through the Australian section and he was disappointed that the train and the tree house slide were both closed for the season.  He was kind of oblivious to any of the animals since he was all hyped about the slide.   He had gone down it last time we were at the zoo.  There was a little playground / maze area that he got to play in for a bit.

We then headed with the stroller up the hill to the aquarium / cat / primate house.   For the record both Xie and I are not fans of that hill, especially when pushing a stroller. We went into the building and didn’t feel like taking the stroller inside.   We left it parked by the door like many people door on busy days.

We went inside and saw the tigers.   Lex was really excited at looking at the different types of lemurs.   By the time we made it to the aquarium section he really didn’t want to look anymore.   He was tired and cranky.   It was signaling to us that it was time to go.

We got outside and the stroller was gone.  I did a quick scout of the immediate area and there was no sign of it anywhere.   Someone stole the stroller and Lex’s jacket.   I was fuming.   I wasn’t so much mad about the stroller as I was the jacket.   It was getting cooler out, but we would be back at the car before he would have really needed it.

We went to the administrative offices to report the theft.   The receptionist called one of the park rangers to arrive  and take our statement.   We are sitting there in the waiting area with a three-year old that hasn’t had a nap and is cranky.  It was a fun time.

The ranger showed up 15 minutes later, originally he had gone to the wrong building.   I filled in all of my information and the information about the stolen items.   The ranger stated that usually the items were left in the park and we would get a call if they turned up.  In the immediate timeframe he was going to go down by the front gates and see if he spotted anything.   I showed him a picture on my phone of what the stroller looked like.

I walked Xie and Lex down the back hill that exits behind the lake.   Once we got near the junction by the elephant area I sent them ahead to the car.   I went back up through the Australian area to see if the thief left it on the hill.   I then remembered there was a restroom attached to the outside of the primate building.    I then scooted all the way back to check that out.

The bathroom was clear.   I checked behind some other buildings up top and then headed back down the hill.   I checked every restroom and building along the way back the to the car.   There was no sign of it anywhere.   Xie told me that she met the ranger at the gate and he wanted to know the value of the stolen items.   She filled in all the missing gaps and was at the car when I got there.

Great fun times at the zoo…..

As part of Lex’s birthday weekend we went to the Greater Cleveland Aquarium.   This year we didn’t do the whole birthday party thing.   Last year we went on a train ride and had a dinner at Ihop.   We invited along family and ten of us mingled through the aquarium.  We managed to get my father, my step-mother, two of my brothers, Xie’s parents, and Brian to come along.

I seemed to have managed to get everyone together at the wrong time, so half of us waited for the rest to arrive.   Part of this whole thing was that we arrived early, not something we are actually known for.  While we were waiting “Uncle” Brian won a stuffed shark and another stuffed fish out of a claw machine in the cafeteria.   The second fish has since been dubbed dork fish.   Brian gave the stuffed fish to Lex, and by reaction even a few days later, Brian gave Lex the best gifts of his birthday.

The first thing I can say is that visiting the aquarium is not cheap.   We paid around 22.00 per adult and 16.00 for my son that was two days shy of three.  So for a family outing for a day with parking we would be over 55.00 before tax. For some things that is not a bad deal, but I’m not sure it was great for what we received.   For those who may want to visit more than once I would highly recommend the family pass which costs 130.00 and allows for two adults and two children.

The aquarium was nice, though a few sections were a bit cramped.  The building wasn’t designed from the ground up to hold an aquarium.  When the building was originally designed to house a power generator for Cleveland.   At one point in the aquarium walk-through a skylight to allows you to look straight up the outside of one of the old smoke stacks.  They did however make great use of the space.    The separate fish areas in the hallway alcoves were a nice touch.

The only thing there that felt out-of-place were the alligators.  Alligators may live a significant part of their life in water, yet I wouldn’t really consider them aquatic creatures.   They did put on a show as they were eating when everyone was coming by.

Having worked at a haunted house I do understand the design choices they went with.   They purposely routed you through areas and put obstacles in your path to walk around to make it seem longer than it actually is.   This definitely caused there to be some traffic choke points walking through.   It was designed to have you walk straight through and not really meander back and forth exploring.  The whole trip through, taking our time in sections, was about ninety minutes.

Near the end of the aquarium there a long tunnel that is an arched aquarium that let’s you watch the fish swim overhead.   The tunnel was long enough that some of our party started to feel claustrophobic.  I am guessing they anticipated this, so you can exit without going through the tunnel.   You do however have to exit through the gift shop……

Xie’s parents had to stop at West Side Market. So instead of heading to a restaurant for lunch we decided to eat at there.  We managed to get gyros from the stand that was featured on Man Vs. Food.  They were the best ones I have ever had in my life.  I ordered the jumbo size for Xie and myself – we took them home and ate the rest for dinner.   Lex had a smoothie and some of the gyro.

The most important part of all of it, Lex seemed to have a great time.

I was a victim of extreme bullying growing up.  Surprise, surprise a fairly hard-core geek was picked on.    What I realized today is how many people don’t understand the difference about being picked on and being bullied is.   They think they should just stand up and be a man.   Fight back and they will back down.   Those are the people who back then were either doing the bullying or mostly just left alone for other reasons.

The reason this is coming up is due to the recent shooting in Chardon, Ohio. Being in Ohio it is a hot topic at work and among people I went to school with.   It is too close to home.   How could anything like this happen?   I was taking all of this in stride until a Facebook status message hit home for me.   It said:

I sure wish kids would just fight it out like we used to do in school instead of shooting each other. A little one on one knuckle action can turn into a great learning experience for everyone involved. I think kids would do themselves a service by sticking up for themselves, even if means taking an ass whoopin once in a while.

Comments followed how the kids today are pansies and should just man up and fight back.   Then somehow with fighting back the issue would just magically go away.   Being a target of bullying, that logic to me sounds as much like fantasy as saying the solution is just to ride a unicorn and you will never get bullied again.

My response:

I find it funny how some of the comments here have blinders on.

I know at least two of you were not bullied in school in any large degree. I had a few tormentors that tortured me so bad from middle school through high school that I actually feared for my life. I was much closer to taking myself out than to shoot anyone – but most of the time the kids that do this are so demoralized or broken that they just want to take someone else with them before they go themselves.

It is about standing up for yourself. It is about surviving so many beat downs that you wonder if you will survive the next one. The fact that the only reason you are being attacked is because of what you like, what you wear, what you own, or how good you grades are. You didn’t do anything to anyone else. You just kept your head down and counted the hours to get home where you wouldn’t be attacked.

To live in constant fear is something I hope none of you have to go through. That none of your kids have to go through. You can say I raised my child to be a man / woman who will stand up for themselves – but everyone has a breaking point.

What we are seeing play out in the media is the kids that have reached that breaking point.I had a friend in HS get caught by his parents with a shotgun in his mouth right before he could pull the trigger. He was sent away for a while to deal with this – he could have just as easily turned the gun on his tormentors instead.

It is also naïve to say this couldn’t have happened when we were in school. I know for fact of at least two people who carried a gun to school every day for a couple of years. I didn’t know it when I was in school, I found out about it a few years after I graduated.

To mock the kids that resort to this doesn’t make the kids bad. It just means you were more likely in school to be part of the problem. When we are down to the point of calling them pansies or pussies, that’s part of the reason these kind of things happen.

This is by no means a defense or justification for their actions – just an understanding of what some of the kids go through to reach this horrific point.

I did get a comment back about surviving being picked on, and my response (since I know the person giving the comment):

There is also a difference between being picked on which happened my whole school career and extreme bullying where a group of kids would regularly beat on you no matter how much or little you fought back.

The worst years of my torment were seventh grade through the beginning of my Sophomore year.  My seventh grade I moved to a new town, a new school, and a new life in Vermilion, OH.   I was coming from Elyria where I was picked on, but never really bullied.   Moving to an area where there wasn’t anyone that wasn’t white and the economic between groups was wide was a bit of culture shock to me at 12 years old.

I was the kid that would rather have a book shoved into his face than talk to you.   I just wanted to get through school and make it the promised land where you were no longer picked on.   I had a small group of friends, but I mostly kept to myself.   I looked the stereotypical geek / nerd role with the exception is that I normally had name brand clothing thanks to my mother’s obsession over appearances. My demeanor mostly was timid, I wanted nothing more to be by myself and just do what needed to be done.   I left everyone alone, I only could have hoped it was reciprocated.   It wasn’t.

A month or two after I started in this new school I got jumped on the way home.  I don’t remember any particular reason (normally there wasn’t any), but it was after school on this long stretch of sidewalk that went along the road between the middle school on the high school.   I was riding my bike and got shoved off it into the field.  I remember fighting back and then getting shoved down again.   There was three of them and one timid me. I had no chance.   Eventually I got the bike up and got moving away – fast.

I believe it was the next morning that I got jumped by the same group coming into school on the same strip of road.  I believe the reason was I got away the day before.  While this wasn’t a daily occurrence if I couldn’t find someone to walk to school with the chances were very high that it would happen.   I dealt with this at least once a week.

I showed up to school or home covered in mud or clothes soaked from being tossed on my back into a mud puddle.   I had clothes torn.  I had new pairs of Nike Airs and Reebok Pumps popped and destroyed while I was being held down.  The only thing that I never remember happening was my bike tires getting slashed.

This happened repeatedly until it got to the point that I learned to be the first out of the school at the end of the day and as close to the last to arrive to school as possible.   I also varied which way I would come to school.   Sometimes I would cut through the woods and other times I would walk along the long strip of sidewalk.

Then for a couple semesters disaster struck.   My grades were slipping.   I was getting D’s on my report card (not that many F’s that I remember).   This was caused by me switching schools and the bullying, I had adjustment issues.  So the teachers worked out something with my parents that I had to get a note signed by my teachers of any homework assignments I had.   If I didn’t get the papers signed, I would get a detention.  This meant I couldn’t be the first out of the building.  Which in turn made me a prime target for the bullies.

Eventually I managed to get my grades up again to an acceptable level and I went back to my routine of being the first out of the school again.  I would exit out through the cafeteria and high-tail it to the woods between a crack in the fence between the soccer field and the football field. I was like clockwork getting out the building.  If I thought anyone was close behind me, when I hit the woods I ran as fast as I could to get through them.

A friend of the family told my dad that she was a little sad the last day of school my eighth grade year.   She found the sight of me being the first out of school amusing.   She never realized that I was just avoiding getting jumped again.

One of my tormentors was whispering to a couple girls in my last period class.  He was then looking over at me and laughing.  I knew I had to get out of there.  The bell rang and I took off to get out of the building.  He followed me and caught me in the stairwell.   He punched me three times in the face in quick succession while the girls watched on.

A teacher caught him as I was trying to get away dazed.  We were both hauled into the office.   The assistant principal was going to give us both in school suspensions for fighting.   At least he believed when I said I didn’t throw a punch and I was just trying to get away.  He also believed that I did nothing to instigate it. The other kid got the suspensions and I got nothing.   Well, except for getting punched again after his suspension was over.

This was small town middle America, all the kids were safe to walk the street and nothing bad ever happened to them.  The citizens seemed to just turn a blind eye.   I was jumped on a major roadway during prime before school hours. Once I believe a bus even drove by.  I was jumped in front of random houses in the Vallyview subdivision.  Never once during any of these dozens of incidents did a car stop.  Never did anyone question what was happening.   In their mind it is just kids being kids, nothing bad could ever happen in their town.

During all of this I never went to the school or my parents.   One of the screwed up things in our society that those that are constantly picked on is that people in authority don’t care.    In Elementary school you would get in trouble for tattling on someone for hitting you.  Half the time the schools would turn a blind eye unless they see it. You would get reprimanded for tattling - so you were screwed every which way.

The parent perspective was worse.  Your parents have this idea of the life you lead.   They always think it is better than it really is.   As a kid you don’t want to seem weak or an outcast to your own parents.   You just build up their fantasy of what is happening and suffer through another day.   My parents would have cared and may have actually tried to do something.   The problem is that this tried to do something would have been to talk to school.  Now you are looking like a tattle tale and when the bullies get you away from everyone you were going to get it worse.   From the perspective a 12 -13 year old your only choice it to take it or run.  Life really sucked.

I tried to live up to the manly image that I thought my father wanted.   At one point because I hurt myself in some little way my father said I would need to be grown up or I still would  be a cry baby if i stubbed my toe.   I’m paraphrasing that a bit, somewhere I have it written in another post.  He didn’t mean it like I took it, but at the same time there was no way I was going to bring to him what I was going through.

To my mother, I’ve written about her before that appearance was everything. There was no way I was going to come clean and seem to be loser.   I don’t think she would have thought less of me, she just would have been in denial of the whole thing.  That I was blowing it out of proportion and everything would be ok and work out.

Freshmen year was still bad.   I did mange to blend in more, but still punched regularly in the hallways.  I had homework torn up.   Books were destroyed.  I was shoved halfway across hallways.   It was easier to get the “safe” zone of houses on my bike from the high school.   I’m not sure I ever really got jumped after school except once or twice for the next four years.   All my torment happened in the school.

Sophomore year opened up to my first after school activity, the marching band.  I was deeply involved and passionate about it.  It also had the advantage of not having to leave school immediately when it ended.  I also had friends that could drive me home.   I also moved to contacts and got braces.   Appearance wise I was much less of a target.  A few months into my sophomore year I lost my virginity and had my first long-term girlfriend. Life was better.

Two big incidents stood out my sophomore year.  The first was in history class.   The teacher walked out of the room for a couple of minutes and one of my tormentors leaped over the desk and punched me hard in the face.  What makes this incident different is that it was in front of the class.  One of my good friends was sitting next to me and did nothing.   At all this discussions of pansies or people who won’t stand up for something, I never stood by and let get a friend get beat – with the exception being if they deserved it.  It did teach me to read my friends and trust their qualities on how I expect them to act instead of just believing in blind faith that all my friends would act like me.

The other big incident was being shoved, pushed, and punched on the way back inside after gym class.  One person just took pity on me and started wailing away on the guy leading the group doing this to me.   He knocked two of the tormentors teeth out.  They both got out of school suspensions. He taught me that not everyone on the planet actually turns a blind eye to what is happening around them.

Junior and Senior years were better for me.   The bullying was there, but not as prevalent.  I did have issues with a couple of people in marching band and picked on them for being gay.  It was more a general dislike on both sides.   This is kind of the normal rivalry.   In some ways our group may have taken it too far.   I still feel sorry for that to this day.  We didn’t actually believe they were gay and honestly I was still a little surprised later in life when it turned out they were.

I wasn’t in the bottom rung of kids in the school.   I was definitely in the lower half of the school hierarchy. Each time I switched schools – Open Door – Elyria – Vermilion – I fell a bit further down the ladder.   I think by the time I graduated I was closer to the dead center.  Average is all I wanted to be.   I wanted to be somewhere where I could blend into the crowd.

I did get into a few fights in school, but that was separate from the dozen or so kids that heavily terrorized me for at least four years.  I’m not writing any of this for attention to my plight.  I’m happy today.  I’m sure I carry some baggage from those incidents – but I carry heavier baggage from other things.  Don’t feel sorry for me.  I’m happy with who and I am.  I am also appreciative that in adulthood I can be the geek I want to be.

I can admit to where I was and what happened to me.   Some people spend the rest of their lives in denial acting like they were popular when they weren’t.  Some move far away and reinvent themselves, leaving their old life completely behind on.   Some are broken for their rest of their life and will never be normal.  Some become successful and use all that pain to push them further.   Some kill themselves and everyone acts like they don’t know why.  The ones that are completely screwed up and can’t survive are the ones that shoot up schools.

Those years feel like the ones that are the worst.  Hormones and emotions are raging and you think things can’t get worse.  I did spend a few weeks being a cutter.   Slicing cuts into my arms and legs.  Hiding them from everyone the best I could.   Some people did notice though.   I was doing it to see how bad it would hurt to slit my wrists.  I realized to myself that as much as I was going through that suicide was a cowards way out.  I am glad I learned that.

Just realize your children might be going through the same thing, and you would never know it. In the end that is who I want you to think about after reading this.  I want to worry that your kid is a bully.  I want you to worry that your kid is being bullied to the point that they could consider suicide.

I thought about suicide as young as seventh grade.  I feared for my life to the point that I thought it might just be easier.  Life did get better though.  That is the lesson you should impart to your child.  If they are having a hard time, it will get better.   They will be able to move on and be who they want to be without the torment that only seems to exist in school.   The real question I have is why does the interim have to be such torture on some of our kids.

That my friends is a picture of the Tiki Twirl. Do you know how hard it is to find a picture of the Tiki Twirl? I hunted and hunted for a picture of this ride hoping that it would jog a memory. I finally found an image in this forum here.

Even though it was in the park the years I went, I don’t remember this ride at all. Supposedly it was located where the Matterhorn would later be. At the very least it will make it easier for someone to find a picture that validates that this ride existed.

The Scrambler was a ride I may have enjoyed when I was really little. These days I can’t take it anymore. I can’t really take any spinning rides. It doesn’t help that this ride spins in two directions at once.

I take after my father in the spinning rides department. My mother would take me on all the spinning rides. My father would handle the roller coaster duties. He couldn’t do spinning rides either. My mother, not a big heights fan couldn’t handle coasters. I received the best of all worlds since I always had someone to take me on a ride.

The biggest issue i had with the Scrambler in my later years wasn’t really the ride itself. It’s that it looks like a standard ride you would see at a fair or carnival. For some reason in the back of my mind I always thought Cedar Point was better than this ride. I also grew up in the Cedar Point era of mass expansion and bigger is always better. Some people however love this ride.

The nineties would have been the last time I rode it. Whenever someone else wanted to ride it, we always would. I believe I have taken my sisters on this ride with me. Never did I suggest riding it. I also do not believe I ever rode it with another male. Plenty of females, but never a male that I can recall.

I did find a video of the Scrambler ride experience (good luck Tiki Twirl hunters).

Watching the video I can say that it seems to run a bit slower than I remember. I don’t know if that is because it’s been so long since I paid attention to it, or if it has just slowed down with age (like all of us). I can almost get that pit in the stomach feeling from watching the video. For all the rides going forward I am going to do my best to include a video of the ride. I should at least always be able to track down a picture. I did find the god damned Tiki Twirl.

In the next part I will cover the Sky Ride and Star Voyager.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

OK, next time the Scrambler and the Tiki Twirl…….

The Cadillac Cars taken by Andrew Borgen

The cars at Cedar Point.   You either loved them or hated them.   Part of that also depended on your age group.  When I was young I loved these, especially the turnpike cars.   For the most part except on extremely busy days these are all walk-on rides.   Since there is never a wait, generally these are your throw away quick rides.   The ones you hit while your friends are using the restrooms.

The general design of all these rides is a novelty car shell hooked up to a go-kart engine.   The car then follows a track which consists of a concrete “road” with a metal bar in the middle of it.   The bar does not give power, it serves only a guide to keep the car on the path.

You can in theory just hold the gas pedal down and rattle along through the path without bothering to steer. You can also steer completely wrong, banging and fighting the bar like most children do.

The real skill that we used to play with is trying to drive the car without hitting the bar once.   In theory that sounds like it would be easy, but there actually was little play on either side of the bar.  Even on the straight away keeping it off the bars was tricky.

The ride had two wooden “bridges” that went over a stream.  When you made it to the end the attendant did their best to jump on the running boards and take control.  If they didn’t you could cause (sometimes intentionally) a multiple car pile up as one car banged into the next down the row.

Scene of The Turnpike Cars taken by Andrew Borgen

The Turnpike Cars  shared the same field as the Cadillac Cars.   The cars were smaller and designed like sports cars.  In the picture above you can see one designed to resemble a Shelby Cobra.   The wooden bridge in the background is part of the Cadillac Cars.

The neatest thing about the Turnpike Cars was the bridge that cars could pass underneath.   The problem with getting older in the Turnpike Cars is that these cars were harder to get into as you got older.   The Antique and Cadillac Cars were much more friendly to the over 5′ 5″ crowd.

The Antique Cars building taken by Andrew Borgen

The Antique cars was definitely one that I rode the most.  I believe it also had the largest track.  You could walk completely around the track from the outside, so I remember my mother walking the stroller with my brother following my father and I on the cars.   As you can tell this cars must have gone lighting fast.

The main reason I think these got rode the most was placement.   I used to ride all the rides back in this area of frontier land over and over.   I can say with all the car attractions you started to feel a bit like an idiot riding them by yourself in your teenage years.   That is unless your friends and you were riding in a giant train of cars.   We got yelled at once because we ran a chinese fire drill between four cars in the middle of the ride.

All of these rides I remember riding with both of my parents.  Driving away like any pre-teen mad man could.

Next time we will talk about the Scrambler and the Tiki Twhirl.