imagineerz

IB sucks

Well, the weather in Colorado never fails to entertain, enrage, and confuse. On Friday we woke up to four inches of snow. Yesterday, it was in the high 80's. Most people think that we're exaggerating when we say this: But we're not. It's like the Four Seasons hotel without the hotel piece.

I'm at 43. That's such a terrible, scraping-the-bottom-of-the-pan-to-get-anything-we-can sort of list. Genuinely curious how Mr "dan_happyhammer" came up with some of those. **coughcoughthebosscoughcough**

Well, I've decided to play around with FVD++, since it's available for Mac. I'm making an attempt to recreate the infamous Traver Safety Coasters, which is going surprisingly well. However, the incline helix is being a serious pain, and I can't get the trick-track quite right, but some progress is better than no progress.

I absolutely hate the fight about domestics and imports. (Side note: Why aren't European cars considered imports? They're imported, thus they should be considered imports. Or is that too logical for the car community?) Anyway, with Frankfurt starting up, anyone have a favorite concept so far? I'm swooning over the Volvo Concept C.

If the brake run was sloped though, wouldn't gravity do the job just as well as a drive tyre for getting it moving again? I'll rephrase. Making a moving vehicle come to a full stop using an eddy current brake is impossible, so the drive tire is used to stop the train via friction. ANYWAY, great to hear about GateKeeper's restraints. My ride in July wasn't great. It was pretty rough (not intolerable, but bad for a B&M), especially considering how smooth the other Wing-Riders that I've been on were (Raptor and X-Flight). And anything to reduce the tightening is a good thing.

But magnetic braking force is directly proportional to the velocity of the vehicle (change in flux), so it's impossible for a train to be stopped by a magnetic brake unless the fins are made out of steel (steel is directly attracted to magnets), but the attraction to the magnets would be so strong that they would break off of the train, so manufacturers use copper plates instead to create an eddy current brake. The point is, you can't use magnetic brakes to stop a train if you then want to get it moving again, so you have to use a drive tire as the block brake.

So am I..... And correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't RMC say at some point (IAAPA?) that they wouldn't do any high-G inversions (ie any sort of loop)? EDIT: Found it (starts at 22 minute mark) HOWEVER, he doesn't specify whether that's Topper Track, Iron Horse, or neither that they will do high-G inversions with.

Soooooooo........ Half Life 3 Confirmed?

Love your logic there But I totally agree, the extended barrel roll looks to be one of the better parts of the ride (not that any of it looks bad).

I don't think that the enthusiasts that want RMC to renovate it don't like rough rides, it's just that we can't stand when said rides become brutal and not re-rideable (that's the key word right there). The more that I think about the pleas for RMC, it's really a plea for PTC to stop making trains. I know that it sounds really harsh, but I think that if PTCs weren't used on The Voyage in the first place, it wouldn't be in the condition it is now. In essence, a bit of roughness isn't bad, but being forced to ride defensively really detracts from the overall ride experience.

I think the biggest difference is going to be the train length. Having the shorter trains on FT probably allows for more articulation/swinging on the straightaways, especially on the bottom level of the Triple-8. This looks more out of control(ish) than Mack bobsleds, but it could just be the wide angle lens combined with where the camera is mounted creating a tunnel vision effect.

^ If you want proof that it's fake, here are the kinematics equations: Y = Yo + Voy t + (1/2)gt^2 30 = 0 + 0 + (1/2)(9.81)t^2 t = 2.47 seconds The alleged victim fell in less than a second, and at a constant speed. Also note now there was no rebound whatsoever from the chain after the chair was disconnected. There's basically nothing to verify, because obvious troll is obvious.

Even after visiting last week, I still can't get over how nice of a park it is. Honestly, if you took all of the Six Flags branding away, you would never know it was a Six Flags park. The operations were incredible, we never waited in a line that was longer than 15 minutes. I'm not sure if the whole mandatory-high-five thing is the best idea, just because it seemed so forced on some employees, almost painful. That said, I never saw a stacked train (except first thing in the morning, see below), even Pandemonium. But every rose has its thorn. And it's a thorn that really makes the park a Six Flags park: That damn no-loose-articles-whatsoever-but-only-on-some-rides policy in combination with the lockers. I understand that it's supposed to speed up dispatch times, but sometimes slowed them down, because the person holding the loose article was arguing with the ride op about the whole thing, increasing dispatch times up to three minutes. A) It would be easier if everything was consistent, and not "some loose articles on this major coaster, but not on this one." And B) If they choose not to allow loose articles at all on any major ride, then they need to implement a system similar to Lagoon's lockers (free for 30 minutes, pay after that), and not $1 per open. With that out of the way, here are my two cents about the rides: American Thunder: Really fun, airtime filled. Just the right length to keep the speed up while still seeming like a long ride. Log Flume: It may be short, but again, a very fun ride. Mr. Freeze: Holy crap on a crostini this ride is good. As the ride op put it: AINT NO PARTY LIKE A MR. FREEZE PARTY CUZ A MR. FREEZE PARTY DON'T STOP. Seriously, this ride op totally made the ride so much better. She was singing, interacting with guests, everyone was laughing and having fun. Sensing a theme? The Boss: Eh. Needs some TLC. Fast, but I had to ride really defensively. Screamin' Eagle: It seems really unassuming, but WOW this ride is just insanely fast. Every corner it seems like the train is actually going to fly off of the track, and then in gets faster in the next corner. River King Mine Train: A nice mine train, albeit vertically short. The helix coming up to the second lift was surprisingly intense. Pandemonium: It spins, it's intense. It's a Gerstlauer. Sky Screamer: TERRIFYING Ninja and Boomerang: Ew. Batman: Not sure why, but I definitely prefer having it mirrored. Scooby Doo Ghost Blasters: Was not expecting a floating dark ride, it was different, well themed, but the shooting aspect was distracting from the rest of the ride. TL;DR A nice park with really good employees that doesn't seem like a Six Flags. Main problem is an inconsistent loose article policy. Overall 7/10, would visit again.

If we're defining "worst" as supposed to be good (and hyped to be good), but was really disappointing, then (I'm probably going to get a lot of flame for this) in that case I sincerely despise the Belmont version of the Giant Dipper. That thing beat the crap out of me, way worse than Mean Streak. It may have just been an off day or something, because I've never heard anything else but pretty good reviews about it. But if we're simply saying that "worst" is just bad bad bad, then it's any Boomerang. Poorly engineered, too common/horribly cheap/too good to be true, and after riding one I'm ruined for the rest of the day because of how sick I get. Mind you, I'm find with most shuttle coasters, but Boomerangs just destroy me.

I just got my senior photos taken, so here's a small sampling. The first three were taken at Lakeside (such a hidden gem), and the last one in Downtown Denver. In front of the Cyclone Near the Skoota Boats On the Skoota Boats Next to Little Man Ice Cream

On the TPR NTAG video:

Thanks guys! We decided that we're going to do Johnson Shut-ins and leave St. Louis early in the morning. We've been thinking about doing this. Both my mom and I have Celiac (Gluten allergy ), and the breakfast buffet is advertised as having gluten free options. My only concern is contamination from item to item that can happen with buffets. Has anyone with a gluten allergy had the gluten free options in the park?

Warning: Long Post My family and I have decided that we're going to SDC is a couple of weeks, but we were hoping that you, the lovely slice of the internet that is TPR, could help us solve a slight dilemma. We're doing a Missouri road trip (last week of July/first week of August), starting in St. Louis, then going to Branson, and finishing in KC. We leave St. Louis on Wednesday morning, and we cannot decide if we want to go to the Johnson's Shut-ins State Park. If we do go, it makes the drive upwards of six hours, and putting us in Branson around 8PM (assuming lunch and swim time). If we don't go, the drive is around four hours and would have us in Branson around 3-4PM. (I know what you're thinking: "WTF does this have ANYTHING to do with SDC?" It's coming full circle, I promise) Either way we would go to the park on Thursday for the entire day. We were hoping to take advantage of the "Day Before Preview After 3PM" thing, so with that in mind, here come the questions: 1. Is Johnson's Shut-ins worth the extra couple of hours? 2. Knowing the time frame, do you think it's possible to hit all/most of the rides WITHOUT the preview?

If you have a trackpad with the two finger right click turned on (you can change it in System Preferences --> Trackpad --> Point and Click --> Secondary Click), then you can just click with two fingers and drag. If you have one of the corners activated for right click, then you hold down that corner with one finger and drag with another. If you're using the Magic Mouse, click and hold with two fingers, then move the mouse.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say there's no flame effects in a tiny tunnel. I believe he was referencing these: These appear on each archway in the tunnel I assume that they'll be lit up when they finish construction (which is probably going to be next year knowing MM )

Not that I was planning on sleeping tonight anyway. Even so, I can't wait to see how this unfolds. It's great to finally see an effective, strong viral marketing campaign from Merlin.

I assume that at *some* point they'll get SDL trains, but yeah, sometimes their logic seems to be beyond flawed.

Not only is it now available on the Play Store, it's available in the US! Rejoice! Rejoice! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.altontowers.thesmiler&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5hbHRvbnRvd2Vycy50aGVzbWlsZXIiXQ That said, it isn't compatible with all Android devices. If you own an S3, you're probably out of luck (I can't get it onto mine or my dad's) but it seems to work on most other phones.

Unless you want to go through a proxy server, get a UK iTunes gift card, and set up a UK iTunes account (which would be a MASSIVE pain), no. That said, it might change soon depending on market demand, but I'd say that we won't get it.