PKI Jizzman

Very true! I hadn't thought of that before. Hm, still sounds iffy. I'd like to try it out. -J 'Love that Firehawk...but not how it operates...' Z

That's just one big problem I see. How about how fast it's going to drop down from the half loop into the brakes? Ouch! Talk about a headrush and having your shoulders slammed into the restraints. -JZ

Here's the 8AM report!

..... Didn't see that part during rehearsal tonight! That's f'ing massive!!! -JZ

Well, weekends suck for KI starting in June. May shouldn't be too bad, especially on those weekdays where school is still in session. I'm planning on getting up to KI during the week multiple times because of the darn snake! Shouldn't have too much trouble. -JZ

I just found out allll this stuff on how and where to control my apature and shutter speed on my D40...now I know what the result will be! Thanks for the great photos! -JZ

Jeff, you always have great quality coverage of the parks...A+!! What an amazing park. Thanks for the pictures, keep it up! -JZ

Great, and our maze at KI is still filled with crap! Though the rest of the park looks fine; especially how they dealt with all the downed trees and lights. I'm sure our maze is an afterthought right now... -JZ

After watching the videos a few times, I think the lift is going to be very very steep, and it appears the transition from the top of the lift into the drop is going to be very quick; similar to Maverick's. Anyone understand that? -JZ

Some pics. Mm....bottom of the drop. Curvy. check out the incline for the lift in the backround!

Alright guys. After checking out the construction today, getting views from Vortex really makes it look like they are going to have to crunch in this first drop. Seriously. From the bottom of the first drop, to the bottom of the lift hill....it looks like it's going to need to go very, very steep uphill to fit the hill in. That's just how it looks to me...you'd really have to see it yourself to comment.. -JZ

I have to cope with with 6 months every year! (with the exception of last year with the Aussie trip) But yeah, KI closes November 1st, and re opens April usually 20th...ish. The longest time was probably around 7-8 months. Gotta have my fix man! -JZ

Damnit My birthday's on the 4th of July! -JZ

Check these out. On's a mesh from a guy on KIC. bottom of the drop what the camera's shown

They form something like an upsidown V. ----> /\ -JZ

Since when is Holiday World not in the Midwest? Or how about Kings Island? That's Midwest.

The infamous USS Nightmare http://www.ussnightmare.com/ Halloween Haunt http://visitkingsisland.com/special/haunt/ The Dent School House http://www.frightsite.com/ The Land of Illusion http://www.thelandofillusion.com/ St. Rita Haunted House http://www.srsdeaf.org/events/hhouse/hhouse.html Yeah, Cincinnati's pretty good.

See? At 12:30 it was just a normal cloudy, windy day..... 3:50PM - This is coming up behind the Eiffel Tower next to Backlot. You can see trees down, things bent, and lots of crap everywhere. This is coming up that little hill to ET; you can see a big evergreen uprooted, and lots of dibris all over. Here's a close up. You can see that light post tilted, and the inflatable thing is like, being tethered down. At this point, we started running out of the park haha. Woahh...crazy blurred shot. I think the wind was like, shaking my car. Sorry guys but that's all I got haha. -JZ

Awesome...just....awesome, Hanno. -JZ

So it's Sunday the 14th, a nice and breezy sunny day. I arrive about 12PM for a 12:30 to 9PM shift. It's a Proctor and Gamble day, the second of the two so it's fairly crowded. I knew there was talk of the storm coming up around four, but I wasn't clear on everything. I was sent to Launch Pad/Euro-Bungy to sell tickets and such. Well around 1:20PM, the winds REALLY started to pick up and it got very cloudy. Things on the grounded started to sting your legs when gusts picked up; hats started to fly off heads; and 15 minutes later, the ride closed down. Drop Tower, Sling Shot, SoB, and Skyflier had been closed since I got there and Eiffel Tower recently shut down. Around 2PM, I was sent out to 3 Point Challenge. We got about 3 players in the next hour because of the high winds. The high score that day was 6 points! At this time, the wind was SO strong I was setting up garbage cans that had fallen over every 5 minutes or so. Branches and parts of trees were starting to come down and I heard that a lamp post had fallen down. By then I noticed the medical cars wizzing around; I had gotten hit in the head by at least 5 branches! Isn't that enough to be concerned about? Apparently not because it wasn't until 30 minutes later where I saw Vortex running empty trains. I was getting VERY nervous watching it slug through the loops. Usually, you're whipped through them. That proved something was up. Later, I saw my supervisor running around and we were told to pack EVERYTHING up and put it away. About 10 minutes later the PA announced, "Due to extreme weather conditions, the park is closing IMMEDIATELY. Please exit via the main gate as quickly and safely as possible." Some people just didn't get it because they were lingering around waiting for the rides to re-open. The police came around and ushered people out while we helped clean things up and get the games prizes down from display. The police came around again and yelled for us to leave. By now, the wind was making it hard to hear, hard to see, and almost hard to walk. Looking up into the sky, you could see all sorts of dibrees flying around; leaves, trees, trash cans (just kidding). It was really frightening. We packed up, but then were told to come back and help out; hey, there were hundreds of basketballs that needed to be bagged, prizes were falling off of the wires....so we helped out. Finally, the police came around a second time and screamed for us to leave. We were let go. Shortly after the PA was announcing for all staff and workers to go home! As we headed out, I watched the tops of street lights fly off, trees being uprooted, unknown objects flying around, and even the Diamondback sign on the Eiffel Tower looked like it was going to fly off! We made it out into the parking lot, only to be greeted by small rocks and pebbles flying around at 40-50 miles per hour. Now, the winds were REALLY picking up. Like, it was really getting hard to walk in; especialy when the little rocks in the parking lot were hitting your legs. I noticed a lot of cars in the lot had dents and bumps on them; when I opened the door to my car, I found out. The door flung open, luckily I caught it! That thing was so hard to pull shut! So everyone's trying to rush out of KI, causing massive jams. A few of the parking lot signs flew off, 2 of them hitting my car! Luckily they were plastic instead of metal. I drove by the track for DB....it wasn't going anywhere. Everyone's cars were rocking back and forth as the wind blew. I got home alright, I had to take a few detours due to accidents, roofs being blown off houses, and trees being toppled over into the middle of the road. Not to mention power lines. We just got power back today. Overall, I think KI really should have learned the lesson - close the park sooner!!!! Holy crap, I'm lucky to be alive! One of my good friends got seriously hurt (tree fell onto his car/him) and he was in ER! Should he have been sent home earlier, he might have made it home safely. Thinking back: -What if you were on Beast? It's in the middle of the woods! Trees were being up rooted, branches were snapping, and pieces of them were flying through the air. -Wooden coasters: I'm sure there's a concern that the wood would have been able to snap; there were gusts up to 77mph! Oh, and I hope they will be able to get things back to normal for this weekend. I'll post some pictures later. Feel free to comment. -JZ

No, but Vortex and Racer started to run empty trains yesterday and due to the high winds....they were really making me nervous!

Things that EKI missed Last piece to be put in Wayyyy down in that ravine OMG....First wooden B&M??!?!?!?!?

Looking forward to more Big Mike TR magic! -JZ

I'm pretty sure nothing got done today, it was really cool to see the construction site though; when you go in Rivertown, you can look right down into the track and just imagine it flying overhead. Like....it's going to be LOW clearance. Casey, look out for that snake! -JZ

Yeah, what Don said about those track pieces in the lot....there are TONS! (Not tonnes ) Atleast like, 40 or so? I was like, WOW. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see that area last night...just stuff in the lot. Thanks for the updates! -JZ