Yesterday, the whole lot of us went to the State Fair. Two of our friends are in the process of moving to Arizona, that is they just stopped here on the way. And, they had never been. Ah, fairs -- greasy food, scary people and animals! Loved every second of it. The FIVE-Os' kids liked it too.
We went in two carloads. Needless to say the parking on the first weekend sucked. We saw spaces in a lot from the freeway (where we sat for a good 20 minutes). We pulled into that lot (which happened to be the Historical Society where E used to work) and were told by the parking attendant that we were going to be routed through the lot, directed to park somewhere a good distance away. The consensus was "screw that." What our driver decided to do was wait until we were far enough from the State Trooper Cadets and just pull into a space. Problem one solved. Problem two was getting tickets to stick on the windshield which was solved by asking some departing people for theirs. "Now, why should they give you their ticket when they paid and you didn't?" Well, they became sympathetic when they found out what "The Man" wanted to do.
MR. FIVE-O and I went through the flea market stuff. He got a deal on an item. I myself was poring through the collectibles. Found some stuff I wanted, but not at the prices I wanted. Heck, I didn't have much cash anyway.
In one of the main buildings, I got a shock. There was an exhibit for Hubei Province in China. On one of the display boards were pictures of Wuhan University, Yellow Crane Tower, East Lake, and a couple of other places E sent photos from. It wigged me out for a moment. I bought myself a hat to snap myself out of it. While I was there, a woman from Cincinnati started randomly speaking to me in Chinese. She asked me a question to which I replied, "Ummm... no?" We laughed and the two of us got to talking along with the person who sold me the hat. I told them about E and what she was doing there, and about the pictures of places where she was. The Cincinnati lady told me that she's spent several summers teaching English there, just like E, in both northern and southern China. Talk about coincidences, eh?
After the Fair, we took the opportunity to beat the system yet again. As bad as it was getting into the lot, getting out of it was 5 times worse. Or, it would've been if we would've followed the flow of traffic. Instead, we cut around and ended up in a merging line about 20 cars ahead of where we were. As if that wasn't bad enough, MR. FIVE-O decided he was too far behind us (3 or 4 cars). So, he cuts through some grass to get in front of our carload, which probably pissed off a good amount of people. Not that any of us cared.
Off and on through the night, the subject of "Would an anarchist commune really work?" kept coming up. These incidents were a good example of why it might not -- it wouldn't, so long as people are ready, willing and able to seize the opportunity to abuse the system for their own ends especially when resources (in this case, parking) are scarce. I'm one of those people, too. As I tell E all the time, "I'm scandalous."
Well, I'm about to "hit the road, Jack." Next post should be from A-Town.
We went in two carloads. Needless to say the parking on the first weekend sucked. We saw spaces in a lot from the freeway (where we sat for a good 20 minutes). We pulled into that lot (which happened to be the Historical Society where E used to work) and were told by the parking attendant that we were going to be routed through the lot, directed to park somewhere a good distance away. The consensus was "screw that." What our driver decided to do was wait until we were far enough from the State Trooper Cadets and just pull into a space. Problem one solved. Problem two was getting tickets to stick on the windshield which was solved by asking some departing people for theirs. "Now, why should they give you their ticket when they paid and you didn't?" Well, they became sympathetic when they found out what "The Man" wanted to do.
MR. FIVE-O and I went through the flea market stuff. He got a deal on an item. I myself was poring through the collectibles. Found some stuff I wanted, but not at the prices I wanted. Heck, I didn't have much cash anyway.
In one of the main buildings, I got a shock. There was an exhibit for Hubei Province in China. On one of the display boards were pictures of Wuhan University, Yellow Crane Tower, East Lake, and a couple of other places E sent photos from. It wigged me out for a moment. I bought myself a hat to snap myself out of it. While I was there, a woman from Cincinnati started randomly speaking to me in Chinese. She asked me a question to which I replied, "Ummm... no?" We laughed and the two of us got to talking along with the person who sold me the hat. I told them about E and what she was doing there, and about the pictures of places where she was. The Cincinnati lady told me that she's spent several summers teaching English there, just like E, in both northern and southern China. Talk about coincidences, eh?
After the Fair, we took the opportunity to beat the system yet again. As bad as it was getting into the lot, getting out of it was 5 times worse. Or, it would've been if we would've followed the flow of traffic. Instead, we cut around and ended up in a merging line about 20 cars ahead of where we were. As if that wasn't bad enough, MR. FIVE-O decided he was too far behind us (3 or 4 cars). So, he cuts through some grass to get in front of our carload, which probably pissed off a good amount of people. Not that any of us cared.
Off and on through the night, the subject of "Would an anarchist commune really work?" kept coming up. These incidents were a good example of why it might not -- it wouldn't, so long as people are ready, willing and able to seize the opportunity to abuse the system for their own ends especially when resources (in this case, parking) are scarce. I'm one of those people, too. As I tell E all the time, "I'm scandalous."
Well, I'm about to "hit the road, Jack." Next post should be from A-Town.
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