A Bit About Me

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Along with my daily duties as founder and head writer of HumorMeOnline.com, in 2003, I took the Grand Prize in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (also known as the "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" competition). I've also been a contributor to "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" and the web's "The Late Show with David Letterman". I also occupy my time writing three blogs, "Blogged Down at the Moment", "Brit Word of the Day" and "Production Numbers"...and my off-time is spent contemplating in an "on again/off again" fashion...my feable attempts at writing any one of a dozen books. I would love to write professionally one day...and by that I mean "actually get a paycheck".

02 February 2013

Hold on...it's going to be a bumpy ride!


While I anxiously await the new "bowel-inspired" lyrics to Journey's "Hold On" song (yes, I know the title is "Don't Stop Believing" but it's not as pertinent if I pointed that out) - penned by the fine folks over at "We Work For Cheese", don't forget to check out the other blog entries and then mock them shamelessly whilst I gloat endlessly about mine.




The mind works in mysterious ways...and, in my case, doesn't work in mysterious ways more times than I dare admit. Case in point, my friend and I were talking about the "Industrial Age" and how much money everyone who made all the money...made. We talked about Tesla and his lovely white pigeon, his fondness of threes, and his oscillating earthquake machine. We also delved into the behind the scenes goings-on with Edison and Westinghouse and their vying for total electrical control, and then that manifested into the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago...and, more specifically, the "Great Ferris Wheel" (also known as "the original Ferris Wheel") which was built for the event.

After talking about Frank Lloyd Wright and "Fallingwater'...and how I typically don't like much of what he's done...I brought up I.M. Pei...and before you knew it...we were at the World's Fair again comparing statistics from the "Great Ferris Wheel" to the one I was more familiar with: the Ferris Wheel at Great Adventure Park in Jackson, New Jersey.



The known statistics:


1893 Chicago World's Fair Ferris Wheel: Designed and constructed by George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. Opened to the public June 21st, 1893. It was 80.4 meters (264 ft) in height with 36 cars capable of holding up to 60 people; 2160 people total.


1974 Great Adventure Park, NJ, Ferris Wheel: Opened July 1974. 45 meters (147 ft) tall. Purchased used from the Holland Tullip Festival in the Netherlands where it was featured as their fair's centerpiece only to be dismantled and reassembled to serve as Great Adventure's centerpiece. Locking doors and additional safety bars were added to the ride in 1988 (about ten years after I could have really appreciated it). Six people can sit inside one "cabin" at a time in each of its 36 cars.

The unknown statistics: Two 17-year-old girls with a yearly pass to Great Adventure meet a couple of good looking guys at the park, or as we used to call them "Babes in the Woods". As this was the late 1970s, these "babes" often times were in the woods because alcohol and "perfumed cigarettes" were frowned down upon in the open areas. These two 17-year-old girls were known to dabble in certain substances which would elicit feelings of giddiness, bravery, paranoia, and "the munchies"...so, naturally, letting nature take its course we all wound up rather high. No, no - we were on the Ferris Wheel, and as luck would have it, the cars all stopped and we were left dangling at about the 11 o'clock position with two boys we had met only minutes before. Boys who might have been ingesting all sorts of things in those woods and without a toxicology work-up kit, it was anyone's guess just what those things were.

Minutes whizzed by at a snail's space while the guys "bravery" portion of their ride kicked in...so they started standing up and rocking the gondola back and forth. This escalated into them opening the little door thinking this must indeed be the height of hilarity (and sexual machismo) needed to impress two 17-year-old girls who were clearly holding on for dear life. Then to kick it up a notch, they decided it was time to play "let's pretend to toss each other out at 140 feet". Legs and arms dangled out...screams came from surrounding gondolas -- screams came from inside ours -- screams came from the ground...then squeals of delight echoed in the nite sky high above Jackson, New Jersey, when they finally kick-started that thing back into gear...and ratcheted us, one by one, back to terra firma.

When it finally came to rest and I managed to peel my clenched white knuckles open...I bolted like horse for the open field...and never went off searching for babes in the woods again...my paranoia never allowed me.

I've revisited that memory many times since 1978...chances are I'll hold on to it the rest of my life.


(Off-the-wall trivial tie in:  The Great Adventure Ferris Wheel originally had 27,000 lights all around the spokes and inside the cars...many of these were swiped as keepsakes or vandalized throughout the years...in a strange way I'm sure Tesla, Edison, and Westinghouse all would have been amused and possibly perplexed by this practice.)





22 comments:

  1. Wow, I'm impressed. When I get together with my friends we talk about the weather and how the government is screwing us. I'm gonna try that Industrial Age thing next time and see where that goes.

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  2. Yep...gotta change up the pace. It's always fun to have conversations about Tesla. :) He was quite whack.

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  3. I am never going on a Ferris wheel again.

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  4. Damn, now I'm disappointed that I didn't think of re-writing bowel-inspired song lyrics for every single prompt!

    Great take on today's prompt Mariann. You went easily from the Industrial Age to the Stone(r) Age. Well done!

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  5. Thank you Nicky, and not too many spelling mistakes given I was rather sucking down the Ambien...so I'm proud of myself.

    I was hoping a bowel-inspired song would be incorporated into each one of yours since you did such a smash up job one for the first. :)

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  6. Oh how I hate the ferris wheel. Tesla's the man, though.

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  7. Used to love Ferris wheels but now ride them white-knuckled. I would not have ever gotten on another if that had been my experience!

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  8. I never have gotten on one after that. I am not a big "ride" person to start with.

    And, yes, Tesla's the man. :)

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  9. Hey Mariann! I loved the seamless segue from Nicola Tesla to stoners (you bad girl). Now THAT takes some writing skill, ma'am. Back for more tomorrow! Indigo =)

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  10. OMG! I'm projectile vomiting at the very thought. Although, when I look back at some of the things I did at that age, I marvel that I'm still alive. I know those "munchies" well. Great story!

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  11. Oh god, I hate heights, I would have been scared out of my mind. Tesla's awesome, though, can't argue with you there. ;)

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  12. The first time I ever went on a roller coaster they forgot to put down the safety bar. I had to hold on for dear life to make it through the ride! It was a long time before I went on one again! Amusement rides... *shudders*

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  13. When they built these - I don't think there was a safety bar...and you could just come and go as you pleased out of the car. Ugh. It was not funny. Seriously, they could have fallen out easily and been yet another Great Adventure statistic (of which it had many).

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  14. Okay, I have to change these typos, as it's bothering the hell out of me - wish me luck - each time I go in and change something in my blog, the formatting goes all wonky and it takes me a long while to get it all right again.

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  15. I was actually holding my breath reading part of that! HOLY COW!

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  16. Oh, because I am always loaded up with trivia...yes, I seriously am (my poor pathetic self)...here's a bit of Great Adventure trivia which is neither great or an adventure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haunted_Castle_(Six_Flags_Great_Adventure)

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  17. It's a shame Tesla died broke.

    As for the two idiots in the carriage with you -- morons. The sad part is people would still do the same thing today.

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  18. Tesla not only died broke - but died in a never-ending spiral of OCD issues which were not even understood at the time. People just thought he was completely off his rocker...and yeah, he probably was...but he was completely brilliant (you know, if you take away all the stuff about his pigeon-love, his "divisible by three" and his hatred of earrings) nonetheless.

    Yes, but nowadays they'd also be able to sue...back then you just were glad you didn't pummel to the ground. But, yep...no shortage of idiots out there and I doubt there ever will be. ;)

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  19. I love thinking about you stoned and stranded on a giant Ferris wheel. It seems so contradictory to how I normally think about you.

    And no, don't ask what I normally think. You don't want to know.

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  20. That was really high up there. I mean, really high. I think, at the time, it was one of the highest Ferris wheels in the country.

    I'm very interested in how you think about me now. I'm sure it's much better than reality...so you may continue.

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  21. There's nothing like a brazenly unnecessary brush with mortality to impress the ladies.

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  22. Is that thing thing? Testosterone. Silly stuff there.

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