austin_dern

I apologize to my dear bunny_hugger most of all, but I haven't had time to continue writing up the Old Northwest Tempest trip report. Please enjoy a double-dose of pictures from Silver Bells maybe after you read up what's going on in The Phantom's weekday continuity, please. It's probably not aliens but I can't prove it's not just yet.

There's the reviewing stand, before many people have got ready to sit down and review stuff yet. You can kind of make out the big throw switch they totally use to light the State Tree.

And here's an architectural thingy on the capitol that looks all nice and official and all. ... Is that tree stumps on the left? That's tree stumps on the left, isn't it?

Paws, the Detroit Tigers mascot, rides in one of the first cars of the parade.

The mayor and grand marshall of the parade and the tree-donating family get brought in by horse with ruby-slipper horseshoes.

Here's eternal crowd favorite the Cata-piller bus.

The Old Newsboys float advertising their spoof newspaper that I didn't see last year either.

Here's the Hager Fox inflatable suit.

Ooh, hey, got a picture of someone taking a flash photo! Or just using a spot light to take a less bad picture. You know my picture is art because of the light leak.

And here's the TV camera operator in front of one of the floats, and as the camera operator is in focus you know this picture is also art.

Eternal crowd-favorite the Petoskey Steel Drum Band. Turns out the drum band started out because one guy really thought it'd be a fun thing and yeah, the Petoskey community agreed.

Here's a float showcasing, based on the way those streaks look, two people shooting 1930s Flash Gordon serial guns nowhere near each other.

And again I catch the TV camera operator taking a picture. I like that you get motion blur on the float from my picture but see it clear enough in the TV camera's screen.

Trivia: The (apochryphal) Books of Enoch and of Jubilees, dating from Maccabean times, mention a year of 364 days containing 52 weeks, with the year divided into four quarters of months of 30, 30, and 31 days, with a warning about abandoning this year in favor of a lunar year. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, EG Richards.

Currently Reading: Animation by Filmation, Michael Swanigan and Darren McNeil.