CoasterGuy06

All of the ones at IOA are probably my favorites of their type. Probably was a bad idea to ride them all in a row at like 10pm last New Year's Eve . I also really dig Pilgram's Plunge because of the elevator.

^Well IIRC the deal included a provision that all of the executives would get to stay on or would receive a hefty buyout if Apollo got rid of them (Dick's son Bart was included in that too, the only non company executive included in that from what I have read, and I'm sure that went over REALLY well with CF's other GMs and such ). Dick and Co. were only looking out for themselves and not the shareholders. I'm glad people like Q stood up and got people to realize how bad the deal was.

^Yeah I agree with you on the KD/Carowinds thing. Even though i305 is my #1 steel coaster, I would still rather go to Carowinds than KD. Visiting them both on their opening weekends in 2010 really showed how night and day they were. Carowinds almost had "perfect" operations for an opening day, while KD's was....well....BAD. I just didn't get how different the two parks were operations wise. Heck, I went to 4 CF parks in 2010 and KD was almost like a ghetto carnival compared to the operations of the other three. Really want to visit Carowinds again this season even though they haven't added a new coaster since my last visit.

If nothing else I think CF is on the right track again. Some people are probably still made at the drama with Q Investments, but IMO they saved the company. Without them CF probably "tricks" investors into a BAD buyout deal while the CF executives would have been just fine. They got some new blood in the company (there's nothing wrong with promoting from within, but you NEED to go out a hire from outside and get fresh ideas sometimes), have been making some decent improvements in their parks, and their numbers have done pretty well the past few years.

^True, but without all the investor drama I have a feeling he would have pulled a Favre and kept pushing back his retirement. Dick has an ego, an ego that he was finally forced to check after the failed buyout. He's too old fashioned/technology challenged for today's business world.

Win.

Top 12 non AQ teams automatically get a bid if they win their conference. TCU won the Mountain West. Arkansas problem is the stupid two bids per conference rule.

26/26. About 4 or 5 done with process of elimination. I obviously have no life

Submitted my ballot. Didn't ride any new to me wooden coasters this year so it was just a minor reshuffle based on how rides were this year. My top 10 this year: 1.)The Voyage 2.)Thunderhead 3.)Rampage 4.)Favorite Steel Coaster (i305) 5.)The Legend 6.)The Raven 7.)Kentucky Rumbler 8.)Roar! (SFA) 9.)The Beast (moved into top 10 this year because of the AMAZING night rides this year). 10.)The Grizzly (KD)

As someone with five years of operations management experience, that's the last thing you want. If I were to put all of my best employees on the star rides, what happens to the capacity on smaller rides, and especially children's attractions? Nine times out of ten if I respond to a complaint call about an employee moving too slow, it's going to be on a single-operator attraction like a kids ride or a smaller flat ride. When I do hiring, my focus isn't on speeding up my star attractions, you have to put them where they're going to fit best. A teenage guy who thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread would probably be best on an attraction like some go-karts, while a college student looking for an education degree would be best in the kids area. When you put them where they fit best, they'll have a better work ethic and, as a result, move faster. I know a lot of other parks that do this as well, like Cedar Point, the Disney parks and even Universal (to an extent). You usually don't hear about capacity problems from any of those. That's what I mean when I say "all-star." I remember reading here one of the chain parks having anyone interested in working at their big new coaster that year write an essay about why they should be chosen for that crew. Believe me, I'm aware of the number of complaints kids rides can draw Parents are like hawks with their kids and do not hesitate to report an issue, and I totally agree with knowing your ride op for a best fit. I just believe you use that knowledge to improve your capacity. If I have two equally awesome employees, whose best fit is working our major thrill rides but one of them simply can't keep up with the fast pace of running two trains on a coaster, I'm not going to put him on that coaster the days it is running two trains with a long line unless I can balance them being there with someone that can cover them and keep the line moving. One thing I enjoyed seeing here is reading about the challenges the three CF B&M mega coaster crews have where they see which ride can have the highest through put over a certain weekend. Six Flags could do the same kind of thing with similar rides across the chain. Have the Medusa/Bizaro/Scream crews or all the B:TR crews challenge each other say Memorial Day weekend. Give something to the winning crew. Keeping the crew motivated is important to see a good performance.

My freshman year in college Pepsi did all the fountains for all of the athletic fields/arenas while Coke did all vending machines. Coke usually had a 2:1 fountain ration in the dinning halls too. The contracts for all expired that year. After the university negotiated with both....the simply swapped what Coke and Pepsi did on cmapus

^Also some parks require extra ride ops for additional trains. Again, I don't know SFDK's policy, but some parks will run one train with two attendants, two trains with three attendants, and a third train only if they have four attendants. That's an extra cost too.

Yes they do! I really liked the fact that SFOG had some and we could use our drink vouchers there during Deep South Bash (Vanilla Coke Zero, FTW!). I hope they pop up at all Coke parks soon.

Carowinds is one of those places that I think is just a solid park. No, no one will claim they have the best _______ in the world, but they have a coaster collection full of good rides, have a decent sized waterpark, and a decent collection of non coaster rides. I think the WindSeeker rides are good crowd pleasers and will go over well with their crowd. I also agree that a frisbee would be a great addition to put them as one of the country's premier corporate seasonal parks.

As someone with a ride operations background, I believe that ops that do not care about efficiency with two trains running will not care with three running. However, I know I always hustled even more when we were running two trains instead of one. They key is finding people that care. Medusa (and throw in Superman as a close second since it will be the new hotness next year) should be the all-stars of ride operators at the park. I don't know how SFDK divides the park, but the best of the best should be operating the star rides.

^ Yeah when I cleaned off the table I figured someone would get a kick out of it being there so I left it

My IAAPA Bag of Crap arrived today!! I feel like a kid in a candy store going through all this crap Thank you to Robb, Elissa, and everyone that works so hard to make TPR the BEST theme park site out there!! Hmm....is this what I think it is? Let's open it up and see! IT IS!! That's a lot of crap! Proslide, White Water, Zorb, Moser Rides, etc. The "Big Boy" table. B&M, Intamin, The Gravity Group, Great Coasters, Mack, Sally, Gertslauer, Zamperla, and Mondial IAAPA stuff!

I'll do a few of the parks I have visited in the past couple of years. Holiday World: -Widen your que lines. Seriously this is America and we have a ton of fat ess. I felt packed in with skinny and average size people, I shudder to know what it would be like surrounded by huge people. -Re-evaluate your rides training. I know someone stood up on Raven and was killed, it was tragic, but having your ride ops put ALL of their body weight to slam down lapbars is NOT a good solution. I like to tell ride ops "We want them as far as they can go but we don't want it to be uncomfortable for them to breath." -Continue playing "Yea, Alabama!" I the Thanksgiving section. I brought a smile on both of my visits -Design a nice family style coaster that can fall in between Howler and the wooden coasters so families can actually ride a coaster together. -Continue expanding Splashin Safari. That is the park's cash cow. Kings Island: -Re-evaluate your weather policy. Invertigo's ops were LOOKING for a reason to shut down early on my last visit. A storm was nearby and it did shut down, but other tall rides like Vortex were left open until closing. Tell you employees to not look so eager when they shut down. I looks bad. -Find someway to rebuild/strengthen some areas of The Beast to turn the trims down some. It's such a boring ride when every time you pick up speed you get grabbed by a trim (although the one night ride I got was NUTS). -Actually open up FOF's indoor que. It's frustrating to see the outside section full but almost all of the inside section roped off. -Remove Crypt. -Add another high capacity, quality steel coaster. Giving SOB a NTAG treatment could be done to achieve this. -This park has so much potential as a corporate park. I think a few more years like CF has given them could make it a real special park. Kings Dominion (based on opening weekend last year) -Hire new operations management. It should not take 4-5 minutes to dispatch a coaster train. -Actually have rides ready for opening day. It seems like every year recently a ride has been down for "rehab" for a few weeks after opening (Shockwave, Grizzly, Hurler, etc.). Plan offseason to get his done when the park is closed. The same goes for having coaster trains ready. I understand Dominator only having two for opening weekend, but don't get only running one on Grizzly, one on Volcano, one on Backlot, etc. Yeah, it was opening weekend, but Carowinds had two on everything the week before on their opening weekend. -Repaint Anaconda -add Huss Giant Frisbee SFOG: -Continue improving GA Cyclone. Remove hard foam and actually have some kind of soft cushion for the trains on it too. -Repaint SUF. It's looking pretty bad, especially when you look at all the rides they have repainted recently -Add flat ride package (Frisbee, Star Flyer, etc.). That's really the only ride type this park lacks. -Get more Freestyle machines. They are awesome drink machines. -As far as operations go, can't really complain about my last few visits, other than BTR and SUF. I feel like those two rides, along with Goliath and DDD need the "all-star" type crews with their popularity/capacity issues. -Continue improving entertainment offerings. I remember always seeing the shows as a kid, and they seemed to almost all disappear a few years ago, especially when the dome was taken over by Shake, Rattle, and Roll and the Drive In was destroyed. Sorry for the long post. These are just a few ideas to improve these well established parks.

I also believe that Les Miles has at in fact sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for unprecedented football success. THIS! LSU fans were really upset with him blowing their season in 2007, then EVERY body loses and they make it to the title game. 2008 was obviously disappointing for them and 2009 was decent, but man did he get lucky in 2010. 13 men on the field to beat Tennessee, the bounce fake field goal to beat Florida, etc. If those two plays go the other way does his team still play strong to end the year? Or do they lose those two plus their other close game to Alabama? Maybe an upset against Ole Miss? Just think....they lose those two games in 2010....is Les Miles still the coach at LSU this year?

It IS a playoff....just a one game playoff. I really wish we would go to a plus one though. Different circumstances back then too. That was before the SEC had won 5 straight titles, and that was when the Big 10 ended their season 2 weeks before everybody else. Going into the final week you had one loss USC and one loss Florida. This year you have three quality one loss teams (sorry Boise). One was blew a 24-7 lead to a team they were favored to beat on the road by 27, One lost at home to their conference champion by 3 in OT, and the last lost at home to their conference champion by three TDs. It is not that hard to argue why Alabama got in over Oklahoma State and Stanford (not that I might be biased ). Depending on who all comes back next year they can make a good run, but their scholarship reductions haven't started yet. They will still get good players, but they won't have the depth a team like Oregon will have. A couple of injuries once those reductions kick in will really show on the field. I do have to say, I am impressed with what Kiffin has done in his 2 years. Never thought I would say that.

The Patriots beat the Giants at NY 38-35 to cap their perfect 16-0 season and drop the Giants to 10-6. yet the Giants beat them in the Super Bowl 17-14. Is this really any different? Speaking of the Superdome....I'm really excited to be there and actually see a game from the stands. The last time I was there was when I was in Alabama's band for the 2009 Sugar Bowl and they had us in folding chairs on the sideline, although I guess that made the beatdown to Utah easier to swallow.

My current one is the logo for where I will be on 1/9/2012

http://blog.newsok.com/jennicarlson/2011/11/29/saban-quote-making-the-rounds-its-a-fake/

And Troy Calhoun voted them 5th. Unlike Saban (or any other coach for that matter), Calhoun releases his ballot every week. He dropped OSU to 9th after the Iowa State loss and moved them up as other teams lost. Last week the teams Calhoun had ranked 1-4 didn't lose, so he only moved them up to 5th. Considering the teams Saban had ranked ahead of OSU it's possible he did the same thing.

Even without the BCS the Sugar Bowl would not have taken a team like Kansas State or Baylor. Bowls want teams that bring lots of fans and a large TV audience. It sounds crazy, but without the BCS it most likely that Utah, Boise, TCU, and Hawai'i would have never made it to a major bowl game.