She moves like sea breeze, swirling around me

I owe you two pinball reports. The first is about our league's finals, two Tuesdays ago. We had a smaller group than we've had in years playing all season, with a mere fifteen people playing the four nights (of eight) you need to qualify. One of the International Flipper Pinball Association's rules for avoiding leagues hacking the system is that only people who play at least half the games in a league count. Another of the rules is that at most half the people playing can compete for the top division in finals, so we would have our smallest A Division --- seven people --- in ages. (One time the league was so small that there was only the one division, but this was before the IFPA insisted on only half the qualified people playing for the top position.) Last season we had 24 people qualified, and a 12-person A Division, something we found to be too large; we hoped we wouldn't need more than an eight-person A Division anymore.

Not that an eighth person would have helped me. In my most mentally unhealthy season ever I also played my most erratically. Despite a couple good nights, I had more lousy nights, and finished in ninth place, securely in B Division. If there were any consolation to be had from this, though, it's that this would be my best bet to get a 1st Place trophy. I've gotten second and third-place trophies but first place? I'd have to beat people like CST (unbeatable), or MWS (currently the 334th-best-ranked player in the world). Here? ... All right, I'd have to beat RED, who's rather better than me but who also had a bad season. Or hope someone else did; the tourname was double-elimination brackets and he ended up on the other half of B Division. If I got lucky, someone else might eliminate him and maybe I could avoid that.

In this regard I did get lucky. I didn't see who, but someone knocked RED first into the second-chance bracket, and then out of that entirely before I had to face him. When I saw that I started to feel pretty good about my chances for that first-place trophy, even when PAT --- the top seed in the division --- knocked me into the second-chance bracket too.

I ended up winning my way out of the second-chance bracket, going back to face PAT for the championship. And he creamed me, including on my pick of my favorite game there, The Beatles. (I had a great first ball and then did nothing the second ball, which would open up plenty of space for him to win.) So I would come home with the second place trophy, our first new trophy in several years.

bunny_hugger, who had a generally better season than me despite thinking she did worse, made it to the A Division. Her first round put her up against DMC, one of the most ferocious players. She expected to lose, but she did take him to three games. And he took her seriously as a competitor. In finals everyone has their pick of tables to play, but could only pick each table once per night. DMC used his first pick against bunny_hugger to choose Rush, one of the tables he's strongest on. He didn't want to save it for a later round. There's respect being conveyed there.

Ah, but, she got knocked into the second-chance bracket by DMC after all, and she lost her first match in the second-chance bracket, leaving her with a seventh-place finish. But in the A Division anyway.

MWS would go on to win, coming out of the second-chance bracket to beat IAS two-games-of-three, two matches in a row, in an event that ran closer to midnight than bunny_hugger wants us to ever do again, at least while she has classes Wednesday mornings. We'll see what the league can manage next finals, which --- if we're not interrupted by the coming Covid-19 wave --- should be around February.

Now let's enjoy a bit of the jewel of Seabreeze, Jack Rabbit roller coaster.

Jack Rabbit's train getting ready to leave the station.

The train gets up near the top of the first lift hill.

Bye!

Jack Rabbit still has manual brakes, that the operator pushes and pulls to stop the train and let it in, although I imagine the system's been updated from its 1920 origins.

Roll of 'Finally 48 inches' stickers to be given to people having their first ride on the coaster. They probably would have given them to us but as we rode in 2019 we didn't feel it honest to ask for.

There's the sign for everyone entering the Rabbit Rider's Club.

Trivia: After the launch of the first Sputnik, American bars offered the ``Sputnik cocktail', one third vodka and two thirds sour grapes. Source: Project Vanguard: The NASA History, Constance McLaughlin Green, Milton Lomask. NASA SP-4202. They don't say which bars, just ones ``across the country''. The paragraph cites October, November, and December 1957 New York Times articles and the 1958 book The Challenge of the Sputniks, in the words of President Eisenhower and Others.

Currently Reading: Defining NASA: The Historical Debate Over the Agency's Mission, W D Kay.