It’s Tuesday and a little over a week since leaving our home valley.
Honestly the day we arrived in Sandusky it felt like the trip was almost over, but here we are, still here. As Plonker mentioned, a week may be a little much in Sandusky. The city is fine, sure, I actually like it better here than home (or anywhere else but home), but our timing wasn’t the greatest this year. Generally we’ve been doing these bike trips in late August (and only for a week). By that time a lot of kids are back to school and crowds die down in the park. That makes the park experience better, though it doesn’t matter so much with the Platinum Passes. If a line’s too long, “Fuck it, we’ll come back later. Or tomorrow. Or next week. It doesn’t matter.” Whereas before when we bought a day ticket , if we didn’t get on everything that was it.
Nowadays though, things are different due to not having to cram everything into one day. We’ve been known to pop in the park for a couple hours and say fuck it, the lines are too long. That, however, has it’s own drawbacks as there’s not a ton to do in town. Neither of us are into wine trails, so it’s either one of the parks, Goofy Golf, African Safari, movies, or food.
Usually we hit everything at least once, and then it falls down to food. Which is great because food it great. But with the flood of tourists at this time of year it seems the waitstaff aren’t quite as friendly as other times we’ve shown up.
To be clear I tend to like our waitresses.. lets say, real. I hate when they’re that fake super nice so they can get a good tip. Be yourself. Like the waitress that called me a pussy they other day. She was being fun, wasn’t the pretend nice, and was decently social. I’m fairly certain we left her a good tip. The next day we had a different waitress at another place and he wasn’t that fake nice, but she also wasn’t fun or social. She may be a great waitress, but we got the vibe of “here’s your food, here’s your bill, ok you can leave.” Which may be great for turn around, and no, we didn’t stiff her on tip, but there wasn’t that welcoming vibe. Or even asking us if we wanted dessert. Just asking we would have said yes (I mean look at us..) , thus upping the bill, and upping the tip (based on percentage). We ended up going another place for dessert.
The first 3 days of this vacation were probably the best in this trip as far as the waitresses go. Day one in Austinburg (or Fosburg as Plonker’s been calling it) there was literally one place for us to go that wasn’t fast food, so we went there. The waitress was friendly enough from the get go, but we were able to talk to her a bit, got some drinks in our normal “dealer’s choice” way, and she was really starting to be fun until Plonker decided to leave. Day 2 took us to Cleveland, and the first place we had that “eat and get out vibe” again. Again, didn’t ask about dessert. The second place we had a great waitress, but they ended up closing the restaurant portion and sent her home. They didn’t have dessert at all.
Normally in Sandusky we have the fun waitresses, but I think with the influx of tourists they’re striving for the quick turnaround. We’re essentially looking for someplace to hang out for a while until the next adventure. So the end of the month, when tourism falls seems to be the best time for that. Or a city where the tourism is already lacking. However, I notice in most of the stops the alcoholic beverages have been very strong. Like, drinking a bottle of rubbing alcohol and maybe there’s a back end of fruit. I’d rather think “What the hell, I’m not ever getting any alcohol with this juice!” then black out when I stand than have to fight my way through one drink. I’m not 100% sure it’s even the drinks since we’ve been to multiple bars and they’ve all been like that. What is wrong with my taste buds?!
The last few days, and the last handful of trips to Cedar Point we’ve noticed WindSeeker has been stopping about halfway up the tower. I know how WindSeeker is supposed to go, I’ve ridden it once. But, like I said it’s been stopping. I’ve assumed it’s breaking down mid-trip, but one one’s freaking out, it’s not making any kind of news, no one is crying about their kid stuck 150 feet in the air. So I start to wonder, could this be some kind of special pass thing where it stops half way up the pole for a better view before continuing on it’s way? I mean, yeah it sounds stupid, and I don’t like the ride to begin with, but it makes more sense than “meh WindSeekers down again just like everyday.”
So being a maintenance guy myself, and liking to know how things operate (both Plonker and I spent spent many a minute trying to figure out the cable clasp mechanism on the Sky Ride today) I went to the maintenance guy that was standing there and said “Just wondering, is it supposed to do that?” Clearly it’s not supposed to stop, and I tried to say it in at least a semi sarcastic way, hoping he’d elaborate as to WHAT what going wrong, power outage, tripping breaker, bad sensor, etc. He says “what? stop? No.” Then a lady came up saying her kid was on the ride kinda freaked out and what can she tell him, to which he replied there’s speakers in the seats and the operators are probably talking to the passengers while rebooting the system to get them down. So I got no further info, and it didn’t help I had these bright blue eyeglass straps on my glasses that made me look really stupid. We assume he was later talking to the other maintenance folk about this retard that asked if WindSeeker was supposed to stop on the pole.
So after we leave the park, we go to Speedway for drinks and who does Plonker see? The maintenance guy from WindSeeker. The conversation went something like this:
Plonker: Hey were you working on WindSeeker today?
Maintenance Guy: Yeah, How’d you know?
P: My buddy was the guy that asked if it was supposed to stop half way up the pole.
M: OH! yeah, what was up with that?
P: He’s an idiot. Did you get it fixed?
M: no, they’ll be working on it all night.
Thanks, buddy.
Overall, though, the trip has been fine. It’s good to get out of our home area. It’s great to be on the bikes. I’ve had a few calls and texts from work, but nothing too bad. And I’ve been ordering some equipment and supplies for Fujupz, LLC – Printing Division. Yes! Fujupz is now an LLC and we’re making a printing division! With a name like Fujupz it has to be… good? Right? Seriously though we put every effort into our jobs. Fujupz Printing Division is starting small doing sublimation printing, which I have yet to do, but we’re hoping it grows! Hopefully soon there will be a web store with Fujupz merchandise!
Fujupz the T-Shirts! Fujupz the Hat! Fujupz the Plate! Fujupz the Shot Glass! Fujupz the Bedazzled Logo!
I’m hoping to add capabilities as I go while trying not to overlap with the capabilities of my current job, ideally, in addition to Fujupz merchandise, doing small run custom prints. At least until I can grow out of the basement.
