mjensen

Wow - I love the daytime tower in HDR - looks so vibrant! Great pics!

This book has been mentioned several times already - but it's on sale at Barnes and Noble for $6.50. Pretty nice book - I flipped thru it - it's current up to Kingda Ka. Here's the Barnes and Noble link if you're interested... http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Roller-Coasters/Robert-Coker/e/9780760776155/?itm=2

Happy Birthday! You're not that old. Jimmy Page - also born today (but in 44) is OLD!

SFGAM is my home park. I'd have to say the Viper and/or Raging Bull. Viper is a great ride - super intense.

I worked for Great America in Chicago for 12 years. I was in the park services department - the people who clean. It started out as a summer job, then when I got a 'real job' I stayed on part time. I know personally, I wouldn't want to do any of the jobs you listed because most of them involve standing in one location all day. But that's just me. The job I had let me move around the whole park, and not be tied to one specific location - the negative was that I was cleaning! As far as pay is concerned... well yeah, it's not great. I'm not sure how much different the pay scales are at SFOT versus SFGAM, but at our park, 15 yr olds were paid minimum wage, older than that depended on the department - generally didn't exceed $8 per hour. If you like talking to people, the jobs listed are great - you'll do that all day. Great summer job - but something that would be difficult to live on. It's a neat atmosphere and you'll meet tons of cool people. My first year there was the most fun i've had in a long time.

Hard to imagine the time and effort that went into maintaining his little park. Every picture i've seen (excluding those more recent ones) the park was immaculate. No doubt he's more than a little strange, but it sure was a lot of effort for a private park. I guess it was a labor of love. Do you think that every ride there required that you be under 13 to ride???

Lots of cool rides going in apparently, except at SFGAM. We're getting a Mack splash battle ride. OOHHH, decent replacement for the basketball game that was there, but with Splashwater falls removed just across the midway, they missed an opportunity to add something much better I think. No offence if you like this sorta thing, just would have liked to see something bigger...

Adding my name to those thousands of others on this site! Pretty staggering to realize that there's 151 pages of introductions here! It seems like there's a common theme in this thread. I, like many others was a 'lurker'. I must have spent weeks reading all the old threads and i'm at the point where I feel like I know everyone really well without even having introduced myself. Little about me.. I have been and always be a coaster nut. I worked for 12 plus years at Great America (Gurnee, IL) - it's actually where I met my wife. She, much like myself is also a coaster fan. We have a 2.5 year old and another one on the way. This is a bit of a bummer for my wife since she's now coaster verboten for the next 6 months. She'll just have to live vicariously thru me I guess. I have been to a number of different theme parks. As a much younger person we lived in a number of different countries so i've had the pleasure of having been to parks and ridden coasters in Australia, Japan and the UK as well as a number of different parks here in the states. Well, enough for now I suppose. I look forward to interacting with the folks here and adding content. No longer a lurker!