Skycoastin Steve

$20 Walmart shoes every two weeks or $60 New Balance that lasted me three months (I worked Thunder Canyon and Magnum, so running was a necessity) and were significantly more comfortable. That's just my past experience though. I bought $22 wardrobe shoes at the beginning of each summer at CP and they each lasted all summer, and last year I had to get two pairs of shoes to make it through the summer, but they were both about $14 from Wal Mart. And I'm about as tough on shoes as they come.

Flying out this afternoon after the Florida-BYU game. Go Gators, and hello California tonight!

I disagree wholesale on the theory about buying nice shoes. They're just going to get torn to shreds. Every year I've worked at a park I've just bought cheap shoes for no more than $20. Typically they're comfortable enough and it doesn't feel like a waste of money when they fall apart in 2 months. I'd rather have $20 shoes fall apart than $90 shoes.

^I'll be going back on April 11, but that will probably be my last visit of the season due to work and other trips. Who knows, maybe enough complaints will cause some change to occur in the next few weeks, but I'm not holding my breath.

Boy they really need to wash those trains before opening day. EDIT: And why is there a bottle of Aquafina duct taped to the top of a dummy's head?

I imagine when I get to SFMM this weekend, my reaction will be something similar to this......

I guess I'm in the minority of people that's driving to Knott's the night before instead of waiting for the morning. Our hotel is not even a mile down the street from the park. I figure I'm less likely to run into traffic at midnight than early in the morning, and I can sleep in a little later Sunday morning rather than waking up at the crack o' dawn to drive there.

^Yep, and the drop off of Apollo's MCBR gets you some wicked airtime in the back row. Back row of Apollo is by far my favorite ride experience on any B&M hyper, and it's only behind the ejector seat on Magnum for my favorite hyper ride period.

^In my most humble opinion, the ridiculous helix of death is the best part of Goliath. Sure, it's got some wicked airtime, but that helix is SO much better than the hammerhead turns. It's like the difference in filet Mignon and chopped steak. And the fact that it's the only B&M hyper without a MCBR is another plus.

^Of all the ridiculous, ludicrous, horribly childish things that uber fanboys say and do, giving ANY roller coaster a nickname that involves putting a "y" or "ie" at the end of its shortened name is the one that drives me nuts the most. For example: "Millie" for MF. "Maggie" for Magnum. "Termy" for Terminator: Salvation. "Timmy" for either of the Intimidators. And so on. Once again, if only the e-punch were reality. On a related note, my second year at Cedar Point when we got Skyscraper, I referred to it the entire summer as "Raper" to poke fun at the fanboys. When we operated it, we even referred to it as "raping" people. Is that bad?

^Kids like that make me wish the e-punch was possible.

I just ventured over to the KD Fansite to see if any kind of good information might be getting spread by an insider, and I deeply regret having taken that plunge. One kid is speculating that the ride is going 102 mph and pulling 6 g's.

The way I see it, there's nothing to be afraid of with roller coasters or heights in general, so no.

Cyclone makes my eyes hurt.

Yes, Kansas. Do you like Dum Dums?

Peter Graves, also known as the creepy pilot in Airplane, has died. He also starred on the Mission: Impossible TV show. Link.

At the risk of sounding like a Cedar Point/Cedar Fair homeboy, I wish some SF and BGA (basically just for Gwazi) operations managers would take a day to observe CP's operations at their coasters. There's absolutely no unnecessary wasted time, and they still create a fun atmosphere with the guests in the station. And they run at near maximum capacity all day, every day. It's really not that difficult.

^Thanks for the clarification!

^Ha, that's crazy you were in the station at Mindbender, I was about 3 trains away and had just gotten up there. I never heard the ride op singing that, but it probably would have annoyed me like everything else they were doing yesterday. I also agree that Goliath and Monster Mansion were the best parts of my day. My friend and I were singing the Monster Mansion song the rest of the day. "You're invited, to a picnic, monster picnic!"

Nice to finally get some confirmation that it was testing, now let's hope that everything runs smoothly through opening day.

Hey my TR made facebook, I guess I'm in the big time now.

Instead of posting every picture I took on every trip, I'm basically only going to post my favorites. Takes too long to post them all! First picture of the year, subterranian loop action on Mindbender! Loop action on Batman, I consider myself a loop enthusiast, a loopthusiast! Nice looking turn on the Scorcher. Artsy Goliath. Airtime and blue skies. The airtime was always there, the blue skies weren't! First drop action. I love my Skycoasters! Didn't ride it, though, don't really prefer to pay for them after riding them for free for three years. The part of GASM that didn't still look like Floodageddon. This was as close as I would get to Ninja. Getting anywhere near that thing just makes my back, shoulders, and neck hurt. DO NOT WANT! This will be a staple of any of my TRs, a picture of me in front of that respective park's Skycoaster! What else would you expect from a guy with Skycoastin' in his user name?!?! Superman pretzeling behind the sign. Artsy fartsy Superman. Coming down the loop. Another picture to illustrate just how random the weather was all day! This one just looks freaky. Epic helix action and a cloud of death moving in. Compare this to the sky two pictures above this one! Yes these were taken on the same day! Another wacky weather shot. Corkscrew action on Scorcher, taken on the way out. A practically overbanked turn on a stand-up. Those Swiss sure know how to build a coaster! My favorite picture of the day, and the current background on my computer. Last picture of the day. Next stop, California!

Alright so my first day of the season wasn't a bad one at all (well, it had its ups and downs, pardon the coaster pun). We made our way to SFOG yesterday and got some good rides on all kinds of B&M action, and one good cycle on GASM. When we first got there, I had to renew my season pass, which thankfully didn't take too long since it wasn't too crowded. Now I'm all set for WCB! First coaster of the year was a 2nd row ride on Goliath, which was running AWESOME yesterday despite the cold, windy conditions. Seriously, I don't know what changed from last year to this year, but Goliath went from barely being a top 25 coaster for me to possibly jumping into my top 10. It definitely beat Nitro out, although I still think I like Apollo and Diamondback a little better. After our first ride on Goliath, we made our way over to Georgia Scorcher, which didn't have too bad of a wait despite the fact that they were running one train (as was every coaster in the park except Superman). I only got one ride on this last year and didn't really remember it that well, but it was a great ride! We rode in the 2nd row from the back and I was actually getting airtime on this thing! Kind of a strange feeling getting airtime standing up. After the Scorcher we headed to Gotham City. Mindbender had a pretty long line so we hit up Batman, which also had a long line. Dispatch intervals on Batman were a shade under 4 minutes (no, not exaggerating, more to come on operations later). Kinda made me question my sanity for waiting a long time for a Batman clone, but we were able to get a front row ride when only two people boarded it in front of us and nobody else took the two empty front row seats. It was just a typical Batman experience. After Batman we got pulled pork barbecue for lunch and grabbed another cycle on Goliath, this time the 6th row, which didn't have great airtime until the last few hills, but then it was crazy airtime! Next we headed back to the back of the park and had to wait a little bit for a front row ride on GASM, but in my experience, waiting for the front row for GASM is necessary because of how rough the rest of the train is. Yesterday proved my point, as it was a smooth, pretty airtime-filled ride in the front row while everyone else complained of its roughness in the middle and back. A moment to rant on GASM. While they had fresh paint on the parts of the ride you could see from the midways, the backside of that ride looked like death. While I'm obviously smart enough to know that chipped paint doesn't make the ride unsafe, anyone from the GP would see what that ride looks like back there and think that it's about to fall over. I know the recovery from the flood is a gradual process, but MAN it looked bad. Superman was next, and while it's obviously nothing spectacular, we still had a good first row ride after only waiting 2 trains to get on. Funny how a two train operation cuts down waiting time, isn't it? On an unrelated note, the pop of airtime entering a pretzel loop on a B&M flyer is spectacular. Then we got a quick ride on Monster Mansion, which was a neat little dark ride that provided a nice change of pace in entertainment. They did a pretty good job with this one. Back up to the front of the park to ride Goliath again, the 4th row this time, which once again delivered some delicious airtime. However, on this ride, I neglected to zip up my jacket pockets like I ALWAYS do, and my cell phone fell victim to the negative g-forces and flew out of my pocket. Didn't even notice it was gone till the end. While it sucked to lose my phone, it was my own damn fault, and it was a hell of a lot better than if my wallet or camera had flown out of my other pocket. Cell phones are easily replaceable, my wallet and everything in it.....not so much. That was about the time a rain storm hit (the weather went from sunny and warm, to cloudy and cold, and back and forth several times, it was a strange day for weather). We were in the station waiting to get on Mindbender when the rain hit, and that ended any chances we had of riding it. After that, we pretty much just left. Now a moment to rant on SFOG's operations. I've rarely ever been that disgusted with an operations department as I was yesterday. Seeing as how I'm an operations employee, I'm always pretty hard on other parks' operations staff (although I still give credit when it's due), but they took the cake yesterday. They were slow, uninterested in cycling people through as quickly as possible because of the ridiculous one train operation park wide, and exceedingly obnoxious. Every single coaster's operators would waste 30-40 seconds PER CYCLE to try to play to the crowd AFTER restraints were fully checked and ready to go. Instead of playing to them while they were ACTUALLY CHECKING RESTRAINTS, they would wait until the end and have screaming matches with the riders. Most of the time, the riders just looked annoyed and wanted to get the hell out of the station, but those wonderful operators had to get their obligatory two "oh yeahs" from the crowd every. single. time. Multiply 30 seconds wasted per cycle and extrapolate it over an entire day, they were spending over an hour total the entire day just playing to the crowd after the train was ready to dispatch instead of letting the train go and moving the line faster. Completely unacceptable. Waiting times should not be over half an hour on a day when the park was practically dead. That was pretty much the one big negative of the day yesterday. Anyway, other than the operations and losing my cell phone, it was still a good day and I snapped some great pics. Had 3 cycles on Goliath, and 1 each on the Scorcher, Batman, GASM, Superman, and Monster Mansion. Pics are on their way in just a few minutes.

Just to jump in on this real quick, you're a little off on the reason the splash isn't as big. They made it so there was a long run-out before the splash and then a gradual plunge into the water because if you hit deep water at over 50 mph, the deceleration would be pretty extreme and most certainly unsafe. Also, those boats could never create a "wall of water" because they don't have a broad enough front like normal chute boats and wouldn't displace enough water to create the same splash that a 50-foot chute could create. Holiday World just had a genius brush stroke of marketing for that ride. Either way, I rode it last year and you still get soaked regardless of wave size.

No, I don't do waiting very well. Going to about 10 parks before my park ever opens. Are you filling out a bracket for the NCAA Tournament?