MWNews198

 

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Then again, this is not my neighborhood. I am at another job in Wilston. Wilston is a very rich suburb.. Lots of expensive houses. I think it is proximity to the city and not the actual neighborhood itself. There are really steep hills and very small roads and shops. When I say steep hills, I had to drive up one of them and I was not sure the car was going to make it. It was barely moving by the time I got to the top. I was just about to give up and go around, but it made it. Very, very steep. 

I say the houses are expensive but I am only assuming so. Old houses built on hills. I think the average around here is about 1.5 million. It's expensive. I am at a real estate agent. I suppose I could ask them but that would be embarrassing. I have been here a number of times. This place is always reporting problems and when I get here, the problems do not exist. I am just here to be the eyes and ears of whomever is going to fix it. Whenever I come, I get here and they tell me the problem is fixed but no one knows how or even what the actual problem was. I once came here to find out that the WiFi was not working because someone had moved it to another location and did not plug it in. I am here today to find out why they keep losing their WiFi. It is working right now, so the plan is for me to sit here until it stops working and then try to figure out why. Yes, I know, a total waste of my time but I get paid for it, so I suppose someone has to do it. I am not allowed to connect to the WiFi, so I cannot check it myself, I am just allowed to sit here and wait. It should be a fun day.

So I thought I would type. Maybe get that last bit of EKKA news out. Maybe complain about my work. Now that I have the complaining part out of the way, I will begin the report. It should not take long, unless I decide to complain about my typing, which as usual, is bad. At least this time, I can see what I am typing so I know immediately when I type something wrong. Appears to be about every other word or so. It is loads of fun.

To the EKKA. Doesn't have the same ring as to the Batmobile, but we will have to live with it. Maybe to the Show, or to the Arena. I'll work on it. I forgot my water in the car so I may start to dehydrate as I type, so if the words start to slur, you know why.

After we ate, we went to find the special location for people in wheelchairs. It was fairly close and very nice. There were spaces for wheelchairs and spaces for seats to you could sit next to the wheelchairs. It even had a roof on it so if it had rained, we would be covered. But more about that later.

We were about an hour early, no idea how we managed that, so we had our choice or seats. Plenty or room for everyone. We found out later that most of the spaces were to be taken up by people with prams, with or without a baby in them. I had noticed earlier when we had walked by this place that it was completely filled with people with prams and there was not one wheelchair in site. I also suspected that some of these people did not actually have babies as the prams were filled with toys and stuff from the fair. I think they just bring them so they can park in special parking and take of places where only prams and wheelchairs are allowed. But that is just be cynical. We had the two wheelchairs, Maeghan and mine, so we only needed the three seats next to them, which gave us plenty of room. Later, a couple of wheelchairs did show up but the rest of the spaces were filed with prams and I know I saw people in wheelchairs back behind where we were who could have used those seats. But no one said anything. Not that should have but I would think the fair officials could have said something. I don't begrudge them anything, as a person who has someone who is bound by a wheelchair, you plan for this type of thing and get used to the rudeness of others, but still, could have been a little more discipline involved.

The show is a series of things. I might forget some of them and get them out of order, but how would you know, you weren't there. It all starts off with the MCs coming out about a half hour early to tell you what is going to happen. Some kind of local celebrities I assume as I did not know either of them but they seemed to think we all knew who they were. I think they are local news anchors but I am not sure. They were mostly annoying. They did say that they had enjoyed the first night, we were there on the second, and we all had a good show to look forward to. Not sure what they would have said if the show had been bad but it gave us some idea of what to expect.

Right after they stopped talking, they started showing music videos on the big screens they had setup in the middle of the arena. This is a typical stadium type arena, seats all the way around, field in the middle, track around the field. I am not sure what they play on the filed but I assume it can be setup for a number of sports. They had cars and trucks setup in the middle and a big three sided screen. We assumed the trucks and stuff were to be used later.

When the music started, of course it was loud, I entertained everyone with some dancing. I tried dancing for real and managed about five minutes of it, then got tired and had to dance in my chair. Shayla was sitting next to me and I am told she joined in but I did not really notice. Juanita and Maeghan told me we looked good dancing together. I think William was jealous as he has wanted to do the goofy things I do for a while but no one ever seems to notice him. I will try to get him involved but if there is not an audience, he is not really interested. I have not explained to him that he and Maeghan are all the audience you need and I do it for them but he wants to do it for Juanita and she rarely laughs at thinks it is clever even when I do it. She is just embarrassed. I think that is part of the charm but William is like his mother and he will see it the same way she does, so he does not commit or do what needs to be done to make it entertaining. He will get it someday. I just wish I had the energy or the stamina to do it for longer than just a few minutes. After a while, I got angina and had to stop and this scared Shayla so she stopped too. But it was fun while it lasted and most of the crowd around us enjoyed it too.

They did a lot of corny bits during the show. Like trying to start a wave or using a kiss cam to try to get people to kiss. They did not get a single one. The started a dance cam to show people dancing but they only looked at one place and I think it was a setup to just show a few people who were in the stands. It was the bad part of the MCs but the rest of the show was pretty good.

They had horses to begin with, as you would expect at a livestock show. Interesting but the announcer/main person was really bad. He was enthusiastic but he tried to make everything the end all be all of whatever he was doing. Like it was the best thing ever done and the best thing we would ever see. It was horses running, horses stopping, horses following him around. Maybe that's a good trick in the horse show world but it was just horses running to me. Not bad but not the best thing we had ever seen as he was telling it. It ended with some lady riding a horse with a spotlight on her and someone somewhere singing a really long song. They had her on the screens but I could not figure out where she was. I thought it was the lady on the horse for a while and they were just showing someone else in the stands but I never figured out who exactly was singing. It was good singing but went on forever. Eventually, the announcer and her went around taking bows on their horses. I forgot, at one point, they had a bunch of donkeys come out of a truck who did the same running and stopping thing. This was only worth mentioning as there appeared to be more donkeys in the truck than could have actually fitted in there and they had been in the truck for a couple of hours as far as I could tell. The truck had been there from the beginning when we got there and the donkeys must have been in there the whole time. Lots and lots of donkeys, but more of the same things. This part was finally over. Not really bad, just annoying.

Next, there was harness racing. One race, four laps around. I have never seen it in person and the kids had never seen any kind of racing, so they enjoyed it. Not a lot to it as they just ran around the track and no one ever passed anyone or anything. Not a lot of drama but it was good to see it since we had not seen it before.

The next thing was the racing cars. Small old timey racing cars that ran around the dirt track around the field for a while. Maeghan and William thought they were racing and wanted to know who won. I told them it appears to just be an exhibition and they were not actually racing each other. It was good. It was the sliding around the turns racing, I can't think of what that is called, using these old cars that did not go real fast but on the small track, they went fast enough. And they were loud enough so it felt like real racing. I don't think they were allowed to pass each other.

Next came what I would normally call the best part. The motocross people. Guys doing incredible things on motorcycles. There were a couple of racing cars also but they just drove fast and didn't really do anything. Supposedly racing but since they were going in opposite directions, it was just race around the corner and then come back. Whoever got back first wins. I am sure it is all planned so no real suspense. It was good but compared to the motorcycles, nothing special.

I am still in awe of what these guys can do, and do it in front of a crowd and do it consistently. Jumps with flips and completely letting go of the bikes and then hoping back on in mid-air and landing perfectly every time. I am sure they have done this hundreds and hundreds of times but seeing it in person is just phenomenal and amazing. I'd go anywhere, anytime just to watch that. And the best part, and I don't know if it was planned or not, but that they seemed to have left too much time before it got dark so they just did jump after jump to make up the time. The fireworks were after this, so it had to be dark. The announcer said they would continue until someone chased them off for the fireworks. As I said, don't know if it was planned that way or not but it was spectacular. They did double back flips, superman jumps, where they leave the bike, go all the way to the back of the bike, and act like they are flying and then climb back up the bike and sit back down, all before the bike lands. Amazing.

At some point during all this, I can't remember when, they had a monster truck. Not really a monster truck, kind of small, and not very interesting except when they made it jump a ramp. That was unexpected and good. Made a really loud noise when it revved up and took off, so it scared everyone as we were not expecting that but overall it was just a truck with big wheels.

After the motocross riders, it was time for the fireworks. That took a while to setup. There was this big giant crane in the middle of the field next to the screens. It had been used to drape some ribbons down from for the horses to ride around and tie into knots. I thought that was a waste of a giant crane but it turns out, it was used during the fireworks as well.

It was a good show. I mean, nothing like what I had ever seen. They used people with glowing, flaming ribbons, giant poles that shot fire out of them. One of them quite close to us, and all around the stadium. They had little remote controlled cars that had fireworks and sparklers on them, I mean big sparklers that shot sparks 20 feet in the air. They had horses with lights and flames shooting out the back ridding around the stadium. Not sure how they train a horse to do that but it was amazing. The big crane had little pods up and down a cable hung from it and these shot fireworks all the time. Fireworks on the ground in pods that had really big displays and then it shot shot fireworks way up into the air, that hissed and exploded up above us. I say up above up as this is where the roof over us was a hindrance. We could only imagine what the ones that went up high were doing. We could hear them but we could not see them. It wasn't that bad, we did not see any of the explosions, but we could hear it and there was plenty of stuff going on on the ground that was good to watch. If you were looking up at the ones in the sky, you might have missed the ones on the ground. 

It was a great show. Lots and lots, too many to name them all, of things going on everywhere. Alas, this is where I am going to have to end my tale of it. This entry, once again, is way too long. Maybe I should have done more, probably done less, but it will have to come to a close soon.

I will mention that after the fireworks, there was a massive crowd we had to get through. We would have just waited for it to clear, we were not in a hurry, but we all had to go to the toilet and we did not know where the closest one was, so we attempted to get to the one we knew was closest. Turns out, this was in the same direction the whole crowd was going. We had to split up, according to how urgent the need was. Juanita went ahead, pushing her way through. The kids and I followed but got separated by a large crowd also. We came to a place where they were stopping the crowd and letting one lane go through and then switching to the other. The toilets we wanted were on the other side of the switch. Juanita was no where to be found but I did finally see her waiting in line at the toilets we were headed for. The kids came to the switch first and did not know that the toilets were one way and the crowd was going the other. They followed the crowd and since they were not going out the exit where everyone else was headed, they went down to where the big ride place was, under the bridge and through. I came to the switch, saw Juanita, and tried to stop on the side. I was told I can't stop there and I pointed to where my wife was and I was waiting for her. They let me go into some alcove and wait. Juanita had seen me also, so she came and found me. I messaged the kids and told them to come back. They had to wade through the long lines again to get back to us. By the time they got there, we found out that they were closing the toilets. I have no idea why they were closing the toilets but all the ones in that area were closed. We ended up going all the way back across the whole show to find one that was open. It was near the entry where we came in, so we assumed we could go out that way. Nope, you had to go out back where we were stuck in the crowd. So we took our time, got some more food, looked a couple of things and then go back to the train. All in all, it was a pleasant time as the crowd was gone as we walked back and only a few late stayers were still there. It was supposed to close at 9:00 and the show had ended at 8:00, so most people had left directly after that, so it was a nice walk, even though most of the food places we came to were out of the food we wanted.

But we made it. And that is the final thing to say about it at this time. Now that I closed this a few pages ago, it is time to really close it. I missed a call earlier, while I was tying, that told me to go check on something, so now I have to pay attention and can not type anymore. So it is a good place to stop. Haven't looked yet, but maybe my longest entry to date. I need to make a better effort to shorten these. Not sure if it is writing more often or not telling every single detail. I know sometimes, I have nothing to say but I still manage to wander on for a couple of pages. Not sure why so many people read this. Then again, I don't know that anyone reads this, but I am sure there is someone in the far distant future that will use this as a justification for whatever it is they believe and want others to believe with them. Or not.

So until next time, 

Later