nesdude

So girlfriend and I took a trip to KI Friday and due to a cold rain in Santa Claus, IN, we headed back to KI on Saturday as well. Some thoughts. Number one, the construction signs on the fence have a weird quirk: the bottom row of words is a sticker. The "this evil phenomenon can be identified" is a sticker and can be peeled off. I'm incredibly curious to know what's under that. Didn't snap a picture, but you can see it here. Look closely at that first picture, you can clearly see the color difference in the last row of words. One was starting to peel but because I like my Platinum Pass I didn't dare peel at it more. Number two, something weird happened on Saturday. There was a "prize wheel" that you could spin for $1 directly in front of the Diamondback test seat. Prizes on this wheel included BOGO Funnel Cakes, BOGO Lazer Maze, BOGO Skycoaster, 25% off at the Snoopy store, and the most interesting prize of all: front of the line pass for two, your choice of any one ride in the park. You could spin a maximum of three times ($3) and every spin was a winner. My girlfriend got two front line passes and one BOGO Funnel Cake, and I got one front line pass and two BOGO Lazer Maze. We used the tickets on Flight of Fear (120 min line), Beast (120 min line) and Diamondback (full queue, so, 60 min?). The employees at Diamondback had a row blocked off for the front line tickets (presumably because 99% of the people who won one went right to DB). The other coasters we simply walked through the exit and the employees took the card and got us seated in a train or two. I've never heard of this happening before. Is this completely new? It was an incredible gesture and people were ecstatic when they won a front of the line pass. My girlfriend and I only entered the park on Saturday to play some midway games and it was nice to be able to hop on a roller coaster as well. Anyway, good times in the park, landscape is weird without SoB (especially on Flight Deck) and Fast Lane Plus is amazing and worth every penny, even when it was mostly dead on Friday (walk on DB but still 30-60min on Flight of Fear, park got busier after school let out). Said front of line pass. Interesting!

The White Castle stop seemed to be one of the defining moments of the trip, as most people were truly excited for it. I, as a Michigan native with a White Castle a few miles away, knew that eating there would of sent me out for a day, so I proceeded to avoid it like the plague. This video was an excellent reminder of an excellent trip, I can't wait for the DVD! -nesdude

Very nice, I always love seeing old brochures and ads to see what it was like back in the day. When we were cleaning out our grandparents house over the summer, I found a Magic Kingdom map from either the 70's or the 80's. I put it someplace safe, and for the life of me I can't find it. If I ever come across it, I'll be sure to scan it in here. -nesdude

Yay for the flyer! My friends and I are trying to hammer something together so we all can make a weekend out of this. Friday is our high school "Senior Skip Day", so we'd come out early, stay Friday and Saturday, then dip down to Beech Bend for a Kentucky Rumbler trip on Sunday, then drive back towards Michigan while stopping in Indiana Beach on Memorial Day. It'd be a crazy trip, but I think we could pull it off. Holiday World was a blast when we were there with the TPR Midwest Trip, and I can't wait to get back there, and even better, sharing that experience with my friends. By the way, if someone had to recommend a good / cheap club to join so we can get in, what would you all recommend? -nesdude

Late to the party, but "Good Luck, Robb!" all the same. Between the Midwest trip and your advice for the "Robb Alvey's Sex and Water Diet" (good on the water, not so much on the sex), I've managed to lose about 15 pounds since August! (went from ~245 to ~230) So thanks for the advice, and good luck all the same! -nesdude

Loving the new store, Robb, very slick. -nesdude

^ Pigeon Forge, I believe. Zorbs look sweet. Japan looks sweet. I'm jealous of you all, let me tell you. After the MW trip, an international trip with you all would be WILD! Thanks for the on-the-fly TR's; I know you were busy on the MW trip to put them up, but I couldn't imagine the stress of being international! Good luck on the rest of the trip everyone! -nesdude

Oh my, dude. The Freddie comic? That's pure gold, right there. I won't even lie to you, that was one of the funniest things I've seen in quite a while. (For the record: Freddie was my roommate on the trip, he's a great guy!). And that comic sums it up perfectly. Hahahaha. -nesdude

Good evening TPRers. On the Midwest trip, at Indiana Beach, I played a wonderful game known as Fascination. The premise of the game is to roll a ball to a 5x5 grid of holes, trying to make 5 in a row. More information on how the game is played can be found here. This little game cost 50 cents a play. I ended up spending 16 dollars total on the game. I didn't win anything, but I had an absolute BLAST playing the game. It's hard to understand until you try your hand at it yourself. And that got me thinking- what's stopping me from making my own 4-person Fascination board? I currently have the opportunity in my senior year of high school to make the board - and get credit for it. So I have a request for everyone out there. If anyone has any information that goes a little more depth than what the wikipedia article I linked above, that would be incredibly appreciated. This includes anything like schematics, exact dimensions, pictures of the board, anything at all would be appreciated. Google has failed me at trying to get concrete information. I realize that I could probably make this by winging the directions and eyeballing it from pictures, but I would love to have as close as a replica as I could. I figure that putting this out here for everyone to read might yield me something, no matter how small. Thanks, -Chris "nesdude" K.

It's always tragic when someone dies, whether you know them or not. Rest in peace wherever you may be, Dan. My heart goes out to the family and anyone close to him, you will be in my thoughts. -nesdude

From what I've read on other websites, the Magnum accident is indeed the reason they're so finicky with rain this year. Usually it takes a downpour to shut down most rides, but ever since the accident, not only do they shut down the rides, but after they get back up some of the rides are trim-heavy. Hopefully this won't be the case next year, because even a minor shower can be a setback when they need to shut everything down then test everything again. -nesdude

Millennium Fatties represent! I must say, that was one of the (many) highlights of the trip was getting on MF with Chuck, Robb, and Will. Not only did we all fit (we were worried about Chuck in the station for a second!), but we have an awesome onride picture from it as well! It was the moments like this with simply some of the most AWESOME people you will ever meet that made the Midwest tour what it was. Simply phenomenal! For those of you on the fence about a TPR trip, don't hesitate. Do it. You won't regret it. The coasters are great, but the people are where it's it! -nesdude Edit: it's not scanned for now, but here's the on-ride, sorry for the crappy quality, expect a scanned version soon! Millennium Fatties and Will pointing at his forehead!

GCI for Kentucky Rumbler alone. It's fast, smooth, and you could ride it all day and have a different experience each time. It's THAT good. I did not know that GCI made Gwazi, but I forgive them for that due to the awesomeness that is KR. Oh, and Will - please burn that Gwazi shirt you own. A coaster that bad doesn't deserve a t-shirt. -nesdude

Wooooooooweee. What a hell of a trip. I'm sore, tired, mildly sunburnt, and exhausted. But do I care? No way! I'm going to crash, but I'd just like to give a shout out to everyone who made this trip possible. Thanks to Robb and Elissia for putting on such an epic trip, thanks to Holiday World for the walkbacks and the general hospitality, thanks to SFKK for the wonderful ERT, excellent food, and great employees, thanks to Beech Bend for the kickass ERT (and thanks GCI guys for running the coaster!), thanks to Indiana Beach for the wonderful day (and bumper car ERT!), thanks to Little-A-Merrick-A for the AWESOME Meteor preview, thanks to the Dells for the great ERT on Hades in the morning, thanks to SFGAm for EVERYTHING (ERT on Bull and Viper, Gold Q-Bot, the works!), thanks to Cedar Point, thanks to Kennywood for the awesome Racer and Thunderbolt ERT and the rib/ice cream dinner, and thanks to Kings Island and Stricker's Grove! Without all of you, none of this would have happened. Seriously, this trip was a blast and the best thing I've ever done in life. Thanks to everyone else on the trip as well for being great people just to hang around with at parks, on the bus, and even during downtime! I hope to run into all of you in the future! Stay in touch! -Chris "nesdude" K.

Yay Holiday World. Big shoutout/thanks goes to everyone who helped make the photo walkback of the Voyage happen. It was incredible, and some of my pictures turned out GREAT! It's 1:15, and I'm now going to bed. -nesdude VOYAGE!

I must say, the color and clarity on some of those pics are excellent, what type of camera do you use? Great TR, excellent pictures. -nesdude

Excellent photo TR, and I love the monorail/sub money shot, one of my favorites out of all of those shots. Glad to hear Nemo was at least decent! -nesdude

First coaster: Zach's Zoomer, MIchigan's Adventure, must of been in 95. I was 5 or 6 at the time. -nesdude

Monday, May 21st was our high schools (Plymouth Canton Educational Park) annual trip to Cedar Point for physics. This trip involves gathering data to do a plethora of physics-related problems in anticipation for our cumulative final this Thursday. I thought this day wouldn't be a whole lot of fun, but it turned out to be a nice, if not a bit chilly, day. // Start boring report, scroll down for pics! Our physics problems ranged from the period of the Carousel to the height of the ferris wheel to the speed of Gemini after it's first drop. As you can imagine, gathering data took quite a long time, and it took a little under 4 hours (10-2) to get everything we needed. By this time, my group and I wanted to sit down, so we decided on Johnny Rockets for lunch. A bit pricey, but my St. Louis burger was delicious. My group went off to ride Raptor and left me with the bags and packets, so I shoved them into a locker and went off on my own. I really wanted to get on Magnum a few times and did so - 1 front row ride and 2 1-3 rides in under a half hour. Not bad at all. Maggie was a lot smoother than I seem to remember! Wondering to the back of the park, I took a quick lap on Mean Streak, which had a 20 minute wait. I actually got air in the front seat of the Gold train, 3 times, which is a first for MS. The only reason I wanted to ride was to catch a look at Maverick on the lift, and look I did. What a nice looking coaster, I can't wait till it opens. Of course, I took my ride on the Maverick test seat. I'm a big guy (6'1",235~), but fit with room to spare. Bonus! Heading back towards the front, I had to try the MF test seat, as I've been borderline for the past year or so. Pleased to find out I fit nicely, still snug but enough to get about an inch of slack. An hour and a half wait killed whatever idea I had of riding it. Walked on Iron Dragon, halfway surprised to see an empty, broken down Dragster Q. I would later find out that after running nicely in the morning, it went down around 2 to not reopen again that day. Bummer for that. It was right around 4 when I entered the Raptor queue, with a posted wait of about a half hour. The line never stopped moving, and it ended up being right around 25 minutes to ride. Unfortunately, the water machine took 2 dollars hostage from me when I wanted a water (3 dollars, ouch, but I was thirsty!), and it wouldn't give change for my 5. Oh well, life happens. Raptor was good, but since riding Montu, Raptor just doesn't do it anymore! Blue Streak had 0 wait, so I hopped on that and proceeded to get 4 rides altogether. Man, is there violent air on that ride. I counted 16 seconds where my behind was NOT in the seat. Painful air, but it was alright. At this time, I didn't know what to do, as I had around 45 minutes to kill, so I headed back and got 2 more Magnum rides. They were excellent, not too much to say about them. Guess I really like Magnum. The day was coming to a close, and I headed out to the parking lot. On the way out, I noticed a banner that said "XVII", with the mantra of "17 coasters, one park". Didn't think CP was going to go back to the "lots of coasters in one park" angle, but at least the sign looked nice. // end boring report, here's some pictures! First view of CP! WOO! Welcome to Cedar Point! TTD and PT off in the distance I really like how this photo turned out. // obligatory Raptor loop picture Raptor zero-g roll! Random Wildcat shot. Mantis. Loop. MF sign, last overbank. Again, really liked this picture, yellow MF train. TTD WAS open today. Quiet path heading towards the back of the park, very quiet, very peaceful. **WARNING! NERDY MAVERICK PHOTOS AHEAD!** *drool* I think there might be something missing. A crane and track (or lack thereof) behind supports. Big missing track section. Mmmm. Hill. Through-the-trees-dramatic train shot. It's gonna be amazing when it opens, let me tell you. I love this picture. Probably my favorite from the bunch. XVII! A long day and a thumbs up to Cedar Point! See you in June! -nesdude

Dust in the Wind - Kansas -nesdude

I'm not quite sure, but a good number of TPR videos have some sort of crazy music that really sets the video off nicely. I really can't describe it, a lot of it is upbeat and just seems to make the video better. Good examples of this type of music is the other Alton Towers video, the Blackpool video, the UK Trip closing segment, the Kentucky Rumbler video, even the Sarkanniemi video had an excellent song choice. I guess I didn't feel that this music fit the coasters involved, maybe that's it. Something just seemed off with the music. Maybe it doesn't feel like "coaster music"? Really, I don't know. But that's me, dunno about anyone else! -nesdude

Nice POV, but I was expecting so much more with the music! Oh well, there's always next video. Anyways, I couldn't help but notice that some of Alton Towers coasters don't seem to have a set "first drop". Air gradually gains speed, Rita has a launch and that small hill, and Nemesis eventually hits an inversion that goes down. Is this a trick of the camera, or are there really no set "first drops"? Nice footage anyway. -nesdude

I'd recommend weekdays in May before Memorial Day or Monday-Thursday until June, I've had the best luck. Last years Coastermania fell on Friday, June 2 and crowds were relatively light. End of June it picks up but still better than July. Also, the last week in August was traditionally lighter crowds, but that wasn't the case last year. Finally, I'm sure Maverick will bring a ton of extra people to the park. The buzz at my school (almost 6000 kids) is decent and is sure to bring in a few extra people that wouldn't normally show up. It'll probably be bad for the first weekend/week because of Maverick, but I'm sure it'll slow a bit before Memorial Day. -nesdude

Nice TR! I have two comments. One, the Pavilion of Life in Epcot- is that permanently gone now, open seasonally, or what? It was open for us on New Years Eve a few months ago, but I've been hearing that it was supposed to be gone now. Can anyone shed some light on that? I really hope it isn't gone, I'm a sucker for Cranium Command, and Body Wars wasn't terrible (it has the same ride system as Star Tours? Sweet!). Two, Carousel of Progress being open when the park is busy, true, but that doesn't mean anyone rides it, sadly - in late December when we went, it was open and there were all of 6 other people in the theater with us besides my family of 4. That attraction doesn't get enough love, it's such a timeless classic that everyone needs to experience! Oh, and that song WILL be stuck in your head for months after riding. -nesdude

Congrats you two! Man, after a crappy week, this day is getting better and better. Such good news in the world. -nesdude