generaleclectic

No explanation or lead up needed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd5clMjlo5A

I've been obnoxiously verbose lately, so I'll keep this short. Parents: Kids remember more than we give them credit for. Elissa: Your statement is EXTREMELY accurate. It's likened to mommies to be that play music to the womb. Studies show that it DOES have an affect.

I can't remember who it was that said it, (well I can, but I'm not callin them out here! lol) but they said it looked like Cedar Fair went to Home Depot and picked up whatever scratch and dent cans of premixed paint were on the 60% off table at the front of the store...(Re: Carolina Cobra AND Carolina Cyclone)

I am REALLY SHOCKED that Thunderhead and Boulder Dash didn't make it into this report. I've not ridden T-Bolt or The Beast yet, but from Jay and David keep telling me, either one has anything on Thunderhead and BD.

I just finished reading this thread from beginning to present stopping point. In the 45 minutes that it took me to read and take in the detail, I've chuckled, laughed, cried, clinched my fists in disgust, and smiled again at resolution. Elissa... It's been said a couple dozen times, and bears repeating. This is by far your best trip report ever!!!! I read the details, every single one. Hung on the cusp of the next description and it leaves me wanting more. This is way better than the last three novels that I've read. Absolutely fantastic Elissa!!! Well Done! The thing that really gets me is the German Fair experience... I mean REALLY?? There's nothing of interest?! Ok. That person can be invited to sit on the damn bus if they've had enough. I'm sure there's some podcast about some stupid ass metal band that you can listen to while everyone else gets to experience full immersion in German culture. Yeah... I'll make it about me for a minute. I love to ride. Intimidator 232 affirmed and locked in my unadulterated addiction to adrenaline and air time. But I'm also getting older and I'm beginning to see what I missed when I was in my 20s. When I go to parks like Knoebels, I notice the carousel with the pipe organ built in 1913. When I go to SFOG, I see the layers of paint that have built up over the last 40 years in the Dahlonega Mine Train station. When I go to Lake Winnie, I feel the warmth of the staff and the history of the park pulsating wildly through the day to day operations. When I visit Alabama Adventure, I feel the gradual assent from the depths of downtrodden management brought on by a failed municipal amusement authority and respect the strength and power of love that it takes to overcome such adversity when you only make $10/hr. I can't begin to imagine what the experience is to be able to go... well... pretty much anywhere in Europe and experience the culture that shapes these parks over time. To those that don't get this, I can only say this... Boy... Have you really missed an opportunity to expand your horizons of personal experience & cultural diversity. David just told me about Olympic Looper before he went to sleep and explained to me that it's simply the greatest Schwartzie ever built and that it's a nomad coaster. It occurs to me that many coaster enthusiasts never get to experience something like this unless they track the coaster down SPECIFICALLY and travel with the absolute intention of riding this thing. I know there had to be some heavy research on Elissa and Robb's part to lock down the location of this ride because nothing ever happens on a TPR trip from shear chance. I guess what I'm driving at is this.... While I don't see first hand the behind the scenes stuff that goes on for trip prep, I see the end product. Title Fairy is a pretty powerful entity, but she ain't that powerful. It takes lots of work to put these types of events together. Seeing the work party at TPR HQ tonight through FB is affirmation of that fact. While I haven't been to a 10th of the places that Elissa and Robb have been, I see that they employ their -EXPERT- knowledge of parks they've been to before in order to craft a memorable experience similar to their first visit to some remote park. Other than continuing to get the checks in on time (read: letting David get the checks in on time) is the only thanks that I can give physically most times. Verbally, I can't offer any greater gratitude than what has already been expressed. Anything else would be devoid of meaning and feeling. Just know guys, that for my first ever trip outside the United States, whenever that might be, I want it DESPERATELY to be with the Alvey's and TPR.

And I can't disprove that. I agree that the mass of dweebs, jerks, rednecks, morons, "something for nothings" and Bill O'Reily (yeah, I thought that was mildly funny) piss and moan and whine louder than most folks with the expectation of getting something for free. I'm guilty of it. I admit it. Time was when I was a poor, broke college student, I'd walk RIGHT INTO a Chik-fil-A and complain so that I'd get a free meal out of it. Not something I'm proud of now, but I did it. I suck. The thing is that the engineering problem presented is absolutely plausible beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt. Metal is an excellent conductor electricity, even when organic in origin. My chief complaint is that Apple is but one more corporate juggernaut that decided that it was better to stand their ground in the sight of undeniable plausibility and pretty much tell the entire world that we were absolutely and undoubtedly full of runny horse crap. They then patted themselves on the back and called it "good PR." Truth be told, because of the application problems that BB experiences with RIMs own in-house apps, I'd probably buy an iPhone tomorrow. BUT because AT&T sees the south as a red-headed bastard step cousin, the coverage here BLOWS unless you're in Atlanta. That was another fantastically arrogant decision on Apple's part. It''s almost as if they said, "Well, Verizon won't agree to our terms and BY GOD we're right all the time without question, so let's go with a 3rd rate, recycled POTS provider as our flagship carrier for this shiny new toy that we've made!" Yeah, perhaps I need to go to an Al-Anon meeting and work a 4th step based on my DEEP resentment of Apple and everything they stand for. I know that most every corporation does business the same way Apple does. Truth of the matter is that Apple has been WAY more smug about their stance than anyone (BP being the exception) that I can think of off the top of my head. In the words of Judge Judy, "Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining..." AND NOW that I've dragged this completely off topic, I'll shut up.

I'm enjoying reading this thread Larry. Got anymore stuff for us?

FAR BE IT FROM ME to question your greatness and your vastly more robust experience with iPhones Robb <\preemptive butt kissing>, but as a fellow member of the I.T. industry, I think you can respect the fact that Jobs essentially chalked this problem up, without saying as much, to user error. This, I felt, was the same old arrogant, self-absorbed Apple that I've come to know in my years as a network engineer. DISCLAIMER: Before I go any further, this is not meant to start a flame war. This is meant simply to engage in friendly discussion. To those of you that read this, I am P R O U D to call Robb a dear friend whom I respect very much. I felt that a disclaimer was needed because there have been a couple of isolated incidents of people reading HALF of the post on the board and causing an incident. Just because I disagree with someone does NOT mean that I like them or respect them any less as a person or as a friend. Am I the only one that thinks that it is epically sad that I had to add a disclaimer to a discussion thread? In a statement released by Apple, they said this of the dreaded, "death grip." Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk Below are pictures of what they are talking about.... The release continues with this.... Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk This simply is not true. For a while now, I've owned a Blackberry. Now let me say right off the bat, that I am not defending some of the issues it has. It's got some obviously debilitating problems. The difference is that I knew what they were before I made the purchase, but I digress. My point with the Blackberry is the one GLARING difference between it and the iPhone; a metal case perimeter bezel which easily conducts bio-electric feedback. The antenna lead on an iPhone, in both the 3GS and 4 models, is located and physically attached to the lower right hand side bezel of the phone. If one is a right handed text-typist as depicted in the pictures above, the problem seems to be blown a bit out of proportion. BUT, enter a LEFT HANDED text-typist that places the meaty part of their hand RIGHT OVER THE LEAD to hold the phone, then forget it. Both right and left handers though unwittingly introduce bio-electric feedback to the antenna when they hold the phone. How the hell else would Mr. Jobs like me to hold the damn thing? Another quote from the same news report... Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk Now I've got a question for Apple. Why in the world should I have to pay 35 bucks US for something that is, quite obviously, a basic electrical engineering problem resulting from human bio-electric feedback? Yer darn tootin you're gonna give me the cockimamie case for free! Don't act like you're doing your customer base a favor. This is painfully reminiscent of when Apple withheld sales of licensing rights from American Megatrends in the 1980s in the name of "not wanting to license the architecture out because of the possibility of poor quality attached to the Apple name." In the end, that line of thinking priced Macintosh right out of the home computer market. Consequently, the decision drove Apple very nearly to the brink of bankruptcy with IBM hovering over them saying, "Well... we told you so." Research In Motion, the manufacturer of the Blackberry line of smartphones had this to say: Source:http://crackberry.com Now all of the above having been said, I will agree that MOST users of computer technology will piss and moan about what they don't understand and be quick to blame the product before they blame themselves. I hear it every day from catty physicians that think they know everything about anything ever contrived. I can say though, with that with all the problems that I've had with the Blackberry Curve 8330 and the Tour 9650, signal degradation because I "death clutched" my phone has never been one of them. I think Apple would have been better served to say simply, "We set out to make a shiny toy and that is exactly what you got. A shiny toy with lots of pretty buttons that bounce around. We're truly sorry about the screw-up on the electrical engineering part and we'll gladly make it right. This won't happen again." Instead we got from Jobs, "'Just avoid holding it in that way. All phones have sensitive areas."

I love when folks dig these absolute JEWELS of fabulousness out the catacombs of the board. Most random thing I ever purchased... hmmmm.... Three words: Kinoki Foot Pads

I've always been one that is Quality over Quantity for sure. I didn't realize until recently what a sweet spot Savannah is.... Carowinds: 3 hour drive Wild Adventure: 3.25 hour drive Universal: 3.5 hour drive SFOG: 4.5 hour drive Lake Winnie: 6 hours Alabama Adventure: 6.5 hour drive Yeah. These drive times seem long.... BUT All these parks have some neat little thing to offer that makes them worth the drive. Carowinds is getting lots of love from Cedar Fair here lately in the form of refurbishment revenue. The one thing that I forgot to mention in my little addendum to David's (jynx242) Coaster Stock 2010 Trip Report was that the renovation of the children's area was not only genius, but done VERY VERY VERY well with particular attention paid to detail. Charles Schultz would be absolutely PROUD of what's been done here with the Peanuts gang. I'll take some shots when I'm there next. Carowinds has a HUGE amount to offer families and families with at least one coaster dork (Re AfterBurn and Intimidator 232). They've also done some work to Hurler which by way of 2nd hand information, has finally made this former Paramount staple, at long last, ridable without worrying if you left your spleen at the station. Same goes for Thunder Road. Ask Andrew (Pufferfish) and Steve (Skycoastin Steve) about the park if you don't take my word for it. OH... Props go out to one of my new bestest friend, Bryn Hough. She is the freshly installed PR Manager at the park and when I say freshly installed, I mean to say that she's been there a little over 4 months and was formerly a news anchor and was at one time, a field reporter for CNN. If you get to the park and you have the pleasure to meet her, ask her to tell you her story of how she went from being a career journalist to a PR manager for a theme park. She'll make you cry with absolute joy in your heart and you'll just wanna wrap her in a blanket to protect her from sometimes overly dramatic GP. Carowinds is going places. Look for big things from Cedar Fair here. WIN!!!! Wild Adventures is another one that's on the fast track to greatness. While there is still a great deal of work to do, they are trudging forward full speed ahead. While it will never be a Silver Dollar City, or Dollywood for that matter, Herschend has laid the groundwork to bring this park up to be nearly in the same class and make its patrons KNOW that it's a Herschend park. Little things like ditching the concrete paradise, cleaning the lake, dealing with the question of quality vs. price with the food stands and last but not least, beginning a multi-year project to re-track Cheetah are what really make this park worth it. Add in the fact that you get NAME ACTS to perform at Wild Adventures EVERY SINGLE SUMMER at a REASONABLE price (free if you take your own chair).... You know, I'll just leave this with I am FANTAZMAGORICALLY impressed with what Herschend has done to turn this park around in... what... a year and a half? This place is loaded with kinetic and potential win. Universal... well.. It's Universal. What can be said about Universal that hasn't been said by the 55,000 other visitors to this board? Fabulous park. I especially like the idea that at Thanksgiving David and I, plus Scott, Kimby, KerryB, Christiana, Terence... (Who else was with us...) could pop a turkey into the oven at the condo set to slow cook, go to the park, have a fabulous day because most of the rides are either walk on or 15 minutes or less wait time, have a turkey leg for lunch then go back to a FABULOUS whole bird dinner. This is a Thanksgiving win and you don't even have to wait for your drunk uncle to drop his pants and put on a lampshade during the football game. SFOG: Wow... SFOG at Easter. Scorcher... WALK ON Mind Bender.... WALK ON Batman.... WALK ON Superman... WALK ON Goliath.... 15 minutes or less wait. GA Cyclone.... WALK ON (until someone strikes a match to the old gal) GASM.... 5 minute wait... 10 TOPS. Yeah, there are some times during the day that start to feel kinda ghetto fabulous and a little reminiscent of Six Flags America, but still a good holiday get away. It especially helps since we have family that live about 35 minutes from the park. Lake Winnepesaukah (affectionately known as Lake Winnie) has all the fun, charm and history of Knoebels IMHO. They're doing some great things there and have one of the older, still operating, out and back PTC woodies in the region. Personally, I think Cannonball has no where near hit its stride. They are big on maintaining the history of the park and nothing rings this idea more true than the PTC Carousel located at dead center of the park. The park also features the only known working Eyerly Fly-O-Plane in the United States. If you're a music history dork like I am, you'll be particularly impressed with the pipe organ for this carousel. They are planning upgrades to their dark ride in the park and... well... it's just well loved, almost as much as Knoebels. And then, there is Alabama Adventure in Bessemer. Yeah it's a little bit of a drive from Savannah. I gotta be honest with you too.... I knocked this park a little during Deep South 2009 but I think it was because I was TOTALLY OVERHEATED (102 degrees with a heat index of 115 that day) and was beaten to hell and back by the Vekoma Boomerang and Rampage. Let's face it though. There is one -almost- decent boomerang in the entire country and the rest of them suck.... BIG time. Rampage had JUST gone through a deprecating event a couple of weeks prior to our showing up at the park. Now that I look back on it, I think, "Yeah... the boomerang sucking is not their fault and the ride engineers at the park SCRAMBLED and I do mean HARD to get Rampage running again after her event, and they did it." I don't remember what the total downtime was, but it wasn't long at all. It was a lot less time than some other parks would have had a downed ride for a similar event. This tells me that what the park lacks in glits and glamor compared to its cousins in the Southeast, it more than makes up for by the love shown by the staff. This love is echoed and edified by their Director of Operations, Michael Schwitek. They've seen a lot of trial and tribulation since 1999 when West Jefferson Amusement and Public Park Authority first contrived the park of public SPLOST funds. I think that the park is in good hands now with the Adrenaline Family of parks. (Alabama Adventure's sister park is Clementon incidentally) Just as a side note, I shared a thought with David just now. When you have a park that is run by a municipality such as West Jefferson Amusement and Public Park Authority, You get aborted projects, a failure to manage employees and infrastructure and poor overall quality resulting from a lack of love. Short story: You get Rye Playland. When one takes into account the charm of living in the deep south, I can't think of a better place to live than right where we are.

Yeah, it is.... I was just taking its temperature to see if there was a promotion (or decent rather) to another level of sycophantry....

Quite possibly my favorite YouTube video of all time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFgiUm4lQig

I just did Intimidator at Carowinds with my glasses. I was really sweating a lot that day, but was confident that they would stay on. They did. There was a couple of times where I would wipe the sweat, coaster grease and skin oil off with my shirt and make sure to get the nose pads too. Worked out just fine. In the past I have bought straps SPECIFICALLY from my eye doctor that have the rubber, whole stem retainers on them. I then tie up the slack behind my head and it works just fine.

Oh technologically savy and e-keeper of monumental designations, We are not worthy to cast our eyes upon your greatness, that from which off-the-cuff creativity flows so freely and without reservation of mind or fingers on the holy keyboard which was created for you to rule over all donkeydom. You have cared for the board and have filled it with your knowledge. Abundance of humor flows in your keystrokes through donkey pastures. You provide for our virtual home away from home day by day, softening it with glimmers of improvisation, bathing it in laughter, and blessing it with creativity that only a word-smith as you can give. The monitors and LCD screens glisten with joy; the webpages are covered with vocabulary; the forums deck themselves with coaster grease and gear chain to glorify your name for ever and ever. We remember those who are less fortunate than we. We lift up in positivity the victims of those that are humorless, and all those who suffer from forms of downtrodden description and oppression of individualism. Let the users that goes forth from our boards speak of your bountiful vocabulary and let us proclaim our faith in Title Fairy as our one true hope for a world without cliche. Oh Title Fairy, I come before you today, not as a deserving user of the boards, but as a grateful occupant of what you have made so good in your presence. I beseech thee to grant to me the title of Fabulously Disguised as a Responsible Adult so that I might better do the work that you have so graciously given us to do. This I am not worth to ask in your name, amen.

Hey Adam... Forgive me for stepping on the toes of your trip report, but I really just wanted to take a moment to evangelize this park. It's deserving of a little up talk. By all rights, what with its financial troubles over the last 6 years and the continued battles with Sherrif Paulk and the Lowndes County Commission, it should have closed probably after the 2006 season. Yet, even in the face of certain death, it has stomped on the toes of the naysayers and proclaimed, "I... have HAD.... E-NOUGH of... YOU!" One of the things that sets this park uniqueness is it's location in relation to Valdosta. It's deep in the heart of Lowndes County. The directions to get there are to take I-75 to Exit 13. Then drive past three farms, a cow pasture and the entrance to the park is 500 feet up the road past the cemetery. LOL I don't remember where exactly, but Jay (ElToroExtreme) met the Public Relations Director for this park somewhere along the way. We actually bought season passes after we went the middle of April so that we could A: Get a 50% off discount at Dollywood two weeks later and B: get into the Chicago concert. Yes, Chicago was in concert here! I took some pics at the concert, but I still had my old Blackberry at the time. Consequently, the pictures were horrid. I remember going here when the park first opened in like '98 I think? The last time I went was in 2004 and it had kinda gone down hill. Jack Hannah wasn't doing the wild life thing there anymore and Cheetah had fallen into disrepair like crazy. Even in 2004 the thing was absolutely UN-RIDABLE. During the off-season (which is only January, February and half of March for them) they managed to re-track LARGE portions of Cheetah which is a feat in and of itself given the time. What amazed me more is that Herschend did most of the work "in house" with only minimal supervision from CCI. To say that I was blown away by how incredible the ride is now would be an understatement. There are sections of the ride where it gives pretty good ejector air and the banks don't make you have to visit the chiropractor anymore. They're still runnin the old Gerstlauer trains which amazingly enough, were pretty darn comfortable compared to some other Gershies I've ridden. The day that David, Jay and I were there, we bumped into my boss from work and marathoned it. The park was pretty empty, so the ride was a walk on and we got 8 laps out of it without having to move. OH Yeah... This is definitely a back of the train ride. This is NOT my video, else it would be better, but from it you can see the portions of Cheetah that got re-tracked. The changes that have been made to the park since Herschend took it over, have been stupendous. As Jay stated, no longer is it the concrete paradise that it used to be. They have absolutely gone bananas with putting in greenery, saplings, and they cleaned up the lake at the center of the park which was just RIPE with algae and all manner of things dank and dingy. It's still not the lake at Universal Studios or Knobles, but it's getting there. On the day that Chicago was in concert at the park, we showed up at about 11:00 and got some rides in, but the main purpose of being there was the Chicago Concert and the Water Park. The TALL slide in the water park was just completely off the chain. Jay rode the slide that sticks out a little, then goes straight down. As he tells it, his butt never touched the slide all the way down. LOL The Wave Pool was in very good repair and they have a BRAND NEW water castle that rivals the one at Dorney Park easily. The only 2 parts of the Water Park that were MILDLY irritating was the lack of large lockers. (Imagine if you will, three gay men with their man purses trying to cram all three of them into a SMALL locker) And the lazy river was PACKED with lots of irritating people. It was more of a schitzo, bi-polar river of doom. Herschend appears to be taking their investment in this park VERY seriously. In the future (maybe in the next 5 or 10 years), I see the park getting a B&M like Kumba at Busch Gardens Tampa, maybe a little bit better drop tower, and if not a re-profile and expansion of Cheetah, then a nice shiny new GCI with Millennium Flyers. If you're in the Valdosta area or travelling down I-75 for any reason and you got a day or an afternoon to blow... Wild Adventures is ABSOLUTELY worth the stop.

Hey Jaron! It's nice to see a new enthusiast on here! Welcome.

I have been putting together a demo CD for some time with what I'm calling Christian Folk tunes. I was particularly proud of this one considering the equipment that I had available at the time Equipment: My Latitude D630 Laptop A Logitech Desktop Microphone Tanglewood large body 12-String guitar Software: Cool Edit 2.1 (Now known as Adobe Audution) This is actually the second song on the demo. Please pardon the crap visual quality... I was doing it more to capture the audio. First Video is instrumental only. The audio on this is not final format: Second Video is with Vocals. Audio is in final edit form: Track composition: Track 1: Open board: Key of G Track 2: Capo 7 - Key of C Track 3: Lead Vocals Track 4: Tenor Vocal Track 5: Alto vocal

Just wanted to add to this a little. I was SUPER impressed with the attention that was given to our "little" group of 120 people. I particularly enjoyed the tour of the maintenance bay under the station. Much to my surprise, my Blackberry captured some pretty good video. One of the best views of the day so far as I'm concerned. This was taken from in front of the picnic pavilion area.

Flight Attendant: Oh, that was great. Glenn Quagmire: Thanks. I know you have a choice in airport sex, and I appreciate your choosing Quagmire. Please exercise caution when standing up, as the contents of your vagina may have shifted during coitus. Win!

Wrestle Mickey Mouse in a no-holds-barred, cage match with chairs, ladders, stun guns and a tube of Icy Hot. Would you rather spend the rest of your life coupled with the hottest, sexiest, most inconsiderate, mean hearted waste of space in the world or the most unattractive, homely, kind hearted, self-less, sweetheart ever to live?

I work for a regional IT Managed Services Provider where I am an associate network engineer. The place where I work is about as cool as an IT company can get without being Google or Microsoft. There's a 52" TV in the lounge with a Wii and an XBox 360 and... get this... there is ALWAYS beer in the fridge in the breakroom. I work from home though in my beautiful home office that David redecorated for me.

Because contrary to popular belief, size DOES matter. Why is there a law in Colorado that states you cannot divert rain water on your own property without a water rights easement?

I had David all talked into going... Had already called Robb to make the arrangements. We even looked where we could scrape together the funds... BUT I mad the mistake of looking at the calendar. David won't even be really freshly in the door from MidAmerica Jay will in New Jersey visiting family I am attending the ordination of a close friend of mine to priesthood on Saturday August, 21 SO... Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be there. We have committed to doing two things now that we realized that Carowinds is actually a closer drive than our home park (And this might make KerryB happy) We collectively decided that SFOG can STFU on Easter. We'll be at Carowinds. Next summer... Seasons Passes to Carowinds Hmmmm... Season pass list... SFOG, Wild Adventures, Alabama Adventure, Universal Florida, AND Carowinds... I might need to ask for a raise.

All because Emmitt Brown sold them a shoddy bomb casing filled with used pinball machine parts. WIN!

I was just reading a trip report and came across this photo.... ...And INTRODUCING THE GEEKBAUM FAMILY! Jon!, Cora! Christiana!, Nick!, Jason!, and Renee! On your MARKS!!! Let start..... THE FAMILY FEUD!!!! And here's the STAR of the FAMILY FEUD... DAVID... THOMAS!