Silver Dollar Overload

Setting off on the latest post-holiday adventure, our crew landed in Silver Dollar City without incident.  The remainder of the day would remain in question.  The mass of people joining this expedition proved astounding.  Later inspection of statistics outlined an amusement park at 97% capacity.  It was too much.

From the moment of entry, the masses insisted on forward movement.  It did not matter in which direction, so long as it was away from the front gates.  Resistance proved futile.  We persevered though, riding rode the crest to discover the most welcoming place of sustenance that did not already host an hour or more wait.

We plunged back into the fray, satisfied and in a better frame of mind to handle the obtuse situation.  Inspecting the variety of offerings brought no real sense of joy.  Silver Dollar City has long since sold out to commercialism.  Very little is actually made there any longer.  Most items are directly imported from China.  There are a few exceptions; very few.

Shopping proved relatively easy.  Otherwise, lines were awful in every direction, boasting a wait time of an hour or longer for even the simplest things.  Waiting for the night parade to begin, one man returned with hot chocolate for his family, proudly declaring he had waited in line for one hour to obtain the substance.

A portion of the expedition chose to ride the "Time Traveler" roller coaster prior to the start of the parade.  They did not return in time; instead, standing in line for more than an hour.  The parade came and went, much to their disappointment.  Those of our crew remaining, enjoyed the show, excepting the interference of angry woman.  She decided to chastise us for choosing to sit where she was clearly reserving six spaces on a rock wall.  Her moose intervened, but decided to forgo any sort of sustained confrontation, after hearing of her blatantly rude and antagonistic opening remarks to the situation.

In contrast, the crowd was mostly jovial throughout the day, and our crew all seemed to have a good time of it.  It was that evening hour that things began to deteriorate.  In addition to the aforementioned situation, parents appeared drained, and the protests of children echoed in every hollow.  One woman passed, dragging her child along, insisting they were going to have fun, as the child howled in response, "I don't want to have fun!"

Our clan had reached a pinnacle of excitement as well, but took a little time to wonder at the millions of lights adorning nearly every building, tree, and orifice of the front third of the amusement complex.  A man doing repairs earlier in the day had indicated there were over 6 million lights on display there.  He followed that up with the fact that they were all torn down after Christmas and tossed to the side for someone else to figure out.  That seemed a bit of a waste, and not entirely representative of the "hillbilly" ideal, where nothing is ever really thrown out; rather, repurposed.

The following day, thoughts turned towards looking about Branson a short while.  That was quickly shut down, as the town roared to life after breakfast, seeking in earnest to reproduce the population encountered the previous day.  The road home suddenly took on the luster of a well-polished diamond.

This turned out the best decision all around. and offered up the chance to wander about a bit of memory lane in Warsaw.  Some of our crew found more exceptional opportunities for shopping in that little town, along with quiet sustenance and a unique little light display at Drake Harbor.  Lesson learned.  Stick with the simple things.

The road home was mostly uneventful. Rain greeted our expedition as we neared the city, just after stopping at a traditional spot for a little ice cream from the home state.  The blackberry cobbler is truly delicious and the price, much more satisfying than buying it at the local market for five times the same amount.

. . .

Further Reading

An Old Time Christmas

Silver Dollar City

Silver Dollar City Queue Times

November 25, 2022

Queue-Times.com

Christmas on the Harbor

Warsaw, Missouri

Ice Cream Factory

at Break Time in Clinton

A New Computer Experience

Buying a new computer is equitable to buying a new car.   It is exhilarating and awful in the same breath. There are entirely too many options to filter the noise out effectively, as well as a lot of junk, too.  Sometimes, it is better stick with what you know.

I gave in to the world of Apple, recently while considering options to replace my 2014 i5 with something similar to the to the Mac Mini M1.  I wanted appropriate power in a small footprint.  That little piece of equipment fit the bill, while the variety of comparable options in the PC world boggles the mind, with mixed reviews. Conversely, Apple's reputation for both hardware and software stood for itself.

All seemed well, at first.  Learning the OS involved a lot of "how to" searches.  Each left me a little more disappointed, each time.  Functionality in that realm is somewhat limited or pushed to "the cloud" without any other option.  That may not be entirely true, but I did not wait around long with this platform.  

A lack of ability to write to NTFS drives felt crippling.  There is an option out there to enable it, but often the installation requires changes to the kernel, seeming to leave doors open.  Other options offer the chance to "brick" your new Mac Mini M1, attempting to open this forbidden gateway.  

That was really the last straw.  I packed it up and sent it back.  Suddenly, there seemed very little reason to abandon the old i5.  A facelift with Windows 10 made it feel new again, along with my old friend the alien head.  That upgrade had been put off for entirely too long.

It did not last long and was a poor choice, ultimately leading to a new i7 nVidia supported machine running Windows 11.  It is good and makes light work of photo processing and video editing.  

The video editor is a love / hate situation.  It lacks certain functionality, while churning out high quality product.  The recommended ClipChamp turned out to be a pile of garbage, leveraging so much compression that video looked awful, even at 1080p.  I hope DaVinci Resolve stands up to its name and resolves the necessity to lean on either of the aforementioned.

. . .

Further Reading

If you are a veteran Windows user, don't buy a Mac.  It is not worth the trouble.  

The entire thing is designed for beginners and too simplified, to the point of annoying.