JEAPUgrad

Celebrities (from working Capital Pride DC 2001-2008 and other GLBT events) Amber Deborah Cox Crystal Waters Bruce Villanche Tammy Faye Baker Erasure Sophie B Hawkins Lady Bunny Byron Stingly Sean Ensign Debbie Harry Sandra Bernhardt Jennifer Hudson Several American Idol contestants (Fantasia, Kimberly Locke, etc.) Derrick and Romaine from Sirius' OutQ radio show...I know Romaine on a personal level From working in a hotel in Baltimore City George Carlin Bill Cosby Brad Garrett Art Garfunkle The Cast of the Wire Anna Faris (she's so frackin' hot in person) Vice President Al Gore JoMarie Payton (mother from Family Matters) From Umpiring: Several Major League Baseball Umpires past and present Several National Hockey League Refs I've thrown World Series Champion Manager Davey Johnson out of a ball game, November 2001, at Rollin's College in Orlando FL. Me (center) with Erasure, June 2005

Simple, it's in my signature. I sucked royally at athletics growing up and I also hated being wrong when it came to knowledge of Major League Baseball rules. When I was around 10 years old, you had to have talent to play on the baseball teams where I lived locally. I didn't have that talent and started umpiring little league games. Slowly but surely I started taking an interest to working a higher level of baseball. I went to a local umpire school and became the youngest sports official in the State of Maryland to achieve certification at the age of 12. I started working high school baseball in 1996 while I was still in high school. I also umpired at the FIRST Cooperstown Dreams Park tournament in 1996. I was on the right field foul line for the first Home Run derby. My cousin caught the first run derby. Although he didn't make it far after high school, he was Gavin Floyd's personal choice as a catcher whenever he would audition for scouts prior to being drafted. By my senior year in high school (1998), I was umpiring varsity games and breaking into college games. In January 1999, seven months after high school graduation, I attended Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring in Kissimmee Florida. I finished 10th out of 114 students missing the Professional Baseball Umpiring Corporation (PBUC) class by two spots. PBUC is a combination of the two major umpiring schools students competing for jobs in Minor League Baseball. I returned home in February 1999 and earned my first NCAA certification and the rest is history. JEAPUgrad = Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring Graduate. Jim Evans himself (left) signing some items for me (right). There is nothing wrong with your screen, that is one SERIOUS tan line on my head. Me (left) with then AA-Texas League Umpire Scott Higgins. February 6th, 1999 Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring Graduation Banquet.

Homo with a partner in crime. Been together for 9 months, moved in together after four. How crazy is that? We're like lesbians. Well, not totally like lesbians. LOL Me (left) MattyMatt (right) at Nationals Night Out July 22, 2009

First time posting in the random section of TPR. Last night I made a fried PBJ sandwich topped with syrup and powdered sugar. The idea was conceived one night after Patron and I had a great night together. Needless to say I don't know how to post photos in the threads but I posted this TR to my blog. Be sure to check it out! Halley's Comments MOD EDIT: Link Removed - Please see the TPR Terms of Service and Posting Rules on Signatures, and Personal Website Links. (My last name is Halley, hence Halley's Comet to Comments)

Customer Service at the park is on the up and up. Customer Service at their call centers is a different story.

Why hasn't anyone built another 200'+ woodie? Why go 50 something feet higher when you've perfected this particular model at 242 feet? B&M prides their reputation off of their smooth ride, comfortable seats and restraints, reliability, low maintenance, impeccable safety record and ride capacity. You can't fix it if it isn't broken.

Thanks, I'll be sure to check that out.

^even though it's midnight here on the East Coaster, after reading the past couple of posts I decided to go to the special webpage dedicated to the project and was disappointed to find no new pics, no blog update, nothing. In fact the pictures on the site were from back in June when track started arriving to the park. Unless they didn't want to spoil Carowinds spotlight, I really hope they update the content more than once every two weeks. If that's the case its going to be a long fall/winter.

I'm about that same as you at 6'3 270 with a 50 chest/42 waist. My lower half is rock solid thanks to many years of umpiring baseball. I had trouble this year on Griffon, Alpie, and Volcano at KD. At BG, there is some sort of policy where the ride ops are NOT to help you if you need some extra help. Instead they ridicule you and embarass you in front of everyone by telling you "next time we're not doing this for you, you just can't ride." At KD, the Volcano crew goes out of their way to make sure everyone rides. I usually need just a smidge of help as the seat belt buckle is just milimeters from the buckle. A little extra weight by the ride ops always helps. After having a horrible customer service experience a couple of weeks ago, I doubt I'll ever go back to any Busch park just to go. If they build a new coaster, I'll go once for the credit but I'm DONE with Busch. They would rather insult people than take care of an issue.

2010 is really shaping up to be the year of the kiddie land. Five former Paramount Park getting Planet Snoopy's Busch Gardens Africa getting the Land of the Dragons make over Six Flags America adding the largest Thomas Town the chain has ever seen.... Someone made a comment about KD and Carowinds shouldn't be getting a Snoopy make over because of the other new for 2010 attraction. I disagree. King's Dominion's competitor to the south added Sesame Street this year and that park 80 miles up the interstate is adding Thomas Town as already mentioned above. Makes perfect sense for them to complete this project for 2010. They'll have the bragging rights next year for adding potentially (and arguably) a world class coaster plus a kiddie land. Not many other parks could make the same claim.

I agree completely with pkdcoaster. However at BG, I tend to make a bee line for Griffon when the park opens. In my few experiences, the crowd heads for AC first. I can usually get 3-5 rides on Griffon before a line starts to form, and then head to Alpie. Walk on or 1-2 train wait for the front seat, and head over to Dar Kastle (sp?) for multiple re-rides, and hit Festhaus before the lunch rush begins. As the lunch rush begins, I'm walking out and enjoying 10-15 minute wait times for BBW.

Um, last time I checked, Typhoon Seacoaster at SFA was a reversing boat ride that has two backward flume hills when it opened in 1997. Therefore, if this post is accurate, Cedar Point would not be installing the first ride of this kind, it'll just be the only one that has the turntables to make it go backwards. This is dated technology. Thanks Cedar Point.

Mostly in the way that people keep saying they bet it's a GCI or Gravity Group or any number of things the park has said it's not getting. You're giving Cedar Point too much credit. Dude really? You're knocking everyone else's ideas but have yet to offer anything up of your own.

While reading the last few pages about this, I was thinking this EXACT same thought and glad you bring this up. Having been on Medusa East, BDK, Dominator (OH & VA), Hydra, Griffon, and Sheikra, I have to take Medusa circa 1999 over all the rest. The experience riding on the first floorless coaster ever back in 1999 was mind blowing. Medusa will always be my favorite floorless. Same goes for Montu. Montu was my first B&M (any model) and I was fortunate enough to ride it in 1996 pre-trims, and have similar feelings with Montu as I do Medusa.

If it is a coaster, they'll paint the track red and the support structure yellow. LOL You never know when it comes to theming. I mean look at Terminator Salvation. Granted it's SF and not CF but who thinks of wood when they hear Terminator? I think steel.

It's called pre-fab for a reason. No one really knows what's going on. It's an educated guess at best. They haven't added a coaster since Maverick and that was what 2006. 2007? I'm not a CP fanboy at all. I just think they're due for a new coaster and CP seems to have been building quite a bit of Intamin for a while now (Maverick, Wicked Twister, MF). El Toro is arguably one of the best coasters on the planet and I bet CP would love to have something a little bit better in their arsenal.

You could even theme the coaster to Earnhardt as well...

Has anyone thought about an Itamin pre-fab woodie ala El Toro? Cedar Fair has yet to purchase one of these babies as they've been in bed with GCII for the past couple of years. I'd guess the Point would take a run at steepest drop for a woodie...they have enough problems on their hands with Son of Beast at KI I doubt they would dare not attempt to break the height record. Unless of course SOB is coming down and they can build something not quite as tall but beat the 2nd height (whatever it is? Mean Streak?) .

Funny you mention that. I have received probably close to ten calls from "redneck" friends who typically fit the perceived sterotype. They know this is hobby of mine and called to see if I heard the news. Some of them haven't been to KD since Grizzly was installed and can't wait to ride "Dale's" coaster next year. The buzz this coaster is creating within the NASCAR market is going to be astounding. As much as I trashed the potential for a racing theme, I'm willing to eat my words on this one.

Be grateful you can actually ride El Toro and be tossed from side to side. I'm 6'4" approaching 300 pounds (love my weight and not ashamed of it!) and have to be wedged into El Toro so badly you'll need a crow bar to remove my fat ass. I don't get throw around, I don't experience airtime yet the coaster still rocks. I would kill to be able to be thrown around like a rag doll on El Toro. If you get headaches riding coasters maybe you should consider finding a new hobby.

I may be wrong, but doesn't Cedar Fair have a habit of posting the new for the next year ride on the park's website a couple of hours before the official announcement?

Don't think like that. Imagine what riding in the back seat of a 90 degree+ first drop...the airtime will be nothing short of INSANE!!!!

Check out the logo posted on the announcement page for KD. If the logo is anything like the coaster, it looks like it will have the standard 45 degree angle lift with a vertical drop. The logo also depicts the support structure like MF's. Here's the link: http://www.kingsdominion.com/events/events.cfm

Actually I don't think that would quite work. A balloon high up against the sky wouldn't really give an effective sense of scale because it wouldn't be next to anything. I think anything over a certain altitude would just look "really high" but I don't really think the human eye can really eyeball that effectively without something to compare it to. I guess they could do the balloon next to the park's Eiffel Tower but then they might as well just say "almost as tall as the Eiffel Tower" or "taller than the Eiffel Tower" or however tall it's going to be. Lots of parks when building big rides have done a chart saying what other recognizable structures the ride is bigger than. In 1999, the year before SFA built SROS, they had two red balloons depicting the height of the lift hill as SFA tried to get approval for the coaster.

Whatever the height is going to be, I'd think it would be pretty cool if they hand some balloons to show how high next year's ride will be. Imagine what a lasting image that leaves in someone's head in hopes that they return for the next year.