AllenA07

We're getting one out here called "5 guys and fries" which I've heard is pretty decent. However as of right now In n' Out remains my favorite.

Does anybody know how minimum heights are chosen for a ride? Is this something that the park sets, the designer sets, or is it something more complex and is set by the state or insurance companies. I'd be curious to know, because I agree that some of the height restrictions at SFMM make no sense.

What's wrong with the US. I for one am a pretty big fan.

^I've got a B.A in History and now I'm working on my JD... I also took Atmospheric Science.

I think he did exactly what he had to do given the situation. He was talking to the press. If he had made the slightest acknowledgment of the possibility of bankruptcy, the headline would have been: CEO THINKS SIX FLAGS MIGHT DECLARE BANKRUPTCY Couldn't have said it better myself. As CEO one of Shapiro's main jobs is to be the companies main cheerleader. If one of the parks is engulfed in flames, it is his job to tell the media that this gives him an ample opportunity to fix up the park.

He didn't even do anything important. Not like he's the father of modern economics. Exactly! Other than publishing two books on who gives a crap, he was a very boring person. Something about the Laissez-faire economy or somethin... I already forgot. Really? Am I missing some sarcasm here. You know bullion isn't something that only goes in soup right?

He didn't even do anything important. Not like he's the father of modern economics.

That was my first thought!

It is interesting to see just how fast Terminator has come together! Nice trip report for the most part, though just a piece of advice, stay away from the on ride shots. All it really does is show a blurry piece of track and not much else. Otherwise nice work!

My advice is that if you want to do a coaster site, narrow it down and do it on a single park, or possibly a region. It'll be much easier for you to handle and likely a lot easier to get noticed.

I would have given anything to be in their hotel room that night. I just imagine it had to be really really funny.

My wife was watching the 17 kids and counting thing on TLC the other night, and the guy on there got married without every kissing his girlfriend. So there you go.

Just looking at the pictures of the ride what I am noticing is the absolutely huge amount of lumber that seems to have gone into it. Now we know all the earthquake provisions that are made, but there just seems to be so much lumber that the structure itself looks huge. Is it just the pictures or is the structure as large as it looks?

I hope you have a fast recovery, and am glad to hear that you're ok.

Basically the court doesn't want to have to deal with the issue. the court likes to go on with their day to day business and not have people really watching them. They don't like to be in the media, they just like sending down their rulings and having lawyers discuss them. I've been told from a former law clerk to the late Chief Justice Rehnquist that members of the court were very upset following a case a few years ago (Kelo v. City of New London if anybody is curious) that ended up taking a great deal of heat in the media, they simply are not used to the average person caring what they do. They know that people are going to care (very much) if they chose to take on a case about gay marriage, and to a degree I don't think they want to deal with the media circus that is going to follow. Now with that said the court understands that this issue is going to come up and eventually they're going to have to take it. However for now I think they just want to sit back and see what the lower courts do. When this does finally come up to the court I'm fairly confident that the court will find that states can't prohibit gay marriage using an analysis of either the equal protection or possibly the substantive due process. Just a hunch! I don't think you have to worry about there being a state that bans homosexuals from living there. In 2003 the court ruled against sodomy laws in the case of Lawrence v. Texas. I won't go into a long analysis about the reasoning behind the case, but it was overturned on the concept that it was a violation substantive due process. I'm sure that this ruling would carry through and make it impossible for a state to ban homosexuals from living in the state. I can think up several other legal arguments that could be used as well, so there really is chance of that ever happening. As a side note, when gay marriage does eventually reach the court Lawrence v. Texas, is a big reason why I think that the court will rule that a state can't prohibit such marriages.

This is a guess to some degree, but this is how I would assume it's done. Anybody with more insight please correct me. Once the ride is purchased I'm sure it is paid for through some type of a loan agreement. I highly doubt that there is going to be one lump sum payment. Again a disclaimer before I go on, I could be wrong here, this is just how I think it'd be most logically done. So for the sake of guessing let's take B&M. SFMM decides that they want a new coaster, so at that point they make a request to Six Flags, who will either approve or deny their request. Assuming the request is approved Six Flags will head to their nifty B&M dealer and buy a brand new shinny red (major over simplification because I'm clueless to how this process works) B&M coaster. Now I'm not sure if B&M has a financing department, but my guess is that they do not. So Six Flags then is going to go to the National Roller coaster Bank (and again not a real bank, just insert any bank here) and request a line of credit for 20 million dollars. The bank will approve (or deny) the request and purchase the ride outright from B&M for Six Flags. Six Flags and the bank are then going to have some kind of a detailed contract with the bank likely taking a security interest in some form from Six Flags. Not sure what form that interest will be in, could be in anything from stocks (which I doubt right now), property, to even the ride itself. Six Flags will then pay off the loan over a set period of years paying a specific amount of interest to the bank. Basically it's like buying a car, just on a much bigger scale. With Six Flags talking bankruptcy, it is still possible that they can get loans. They're just going to have to offer up a much larger security interest (collateral) and the bank is going to have to make sure to prefect that interest to keep out of trouble. Basically if the park is going to want to get the loan, they'd have to offer up something more substantial than stock, likely they'd offer an interest in the ride or in property that the Six Flags corporation holds. To get a good idea who who holds the security interest (does B&M or the bank hold the interest) a good way to try and guess would to be look at Hard Rock Park. Who is going after the rides there, is it B&M or is it a bank?

Really? Without a nervous system or brain I find that difficult to believe. Do you have a source for that claim?

I had noticed in another report that it was Physics day... Of all the time I worked at SFMM that was without a doubt the best day I had there. In order to learn physics the students (and myself ) made paper air plane's and flew them inside of Magic Moments, with the one going the greatest distance earning it's creator two free tickets. Good times!

Some more information on this plan. http://www.kcbd.com/global/story.asp?s=10074877 All things considered $6 for a beer isn't the worst. However it should still be high enough that most people will not be getting drunk very often. Will there be problems? Most likely there will be some people, however I think that this will be a good source of revenue for the park, and at that cost won't (generally) allow for a lot of drunkenness at the park.

Personally while there is always a chance that the park gets a huge record breaking B&M Auqatrax (yeah I know that isn't a B&M, but the B&M version) dive machine, I don't think I will be staying up at night in anticipation. While possible, I think adding something like that (making three coasters in three years) would go against what the park seems to be wanting to do at this point. Logically with all things considered I think next year the park will be adding a more family friendly ride. I'm thinking along the lines of something like Jaguar at Knotts. I actually thought that this year a ride like Jaguar was the most likely thing to be put into the park, and I still believe that in the near future an addition like that will be made. I also think at some point we'll begin to receive some new, non-coaster, attractions. the park is short on flat rides, and with the loss of Freefall could use a drop tower of some kind.

I've not done the upgrade yet, but that blue light on my Wii is inviting me to do it right now. I don't have much of a space issue but I've been very careful in my downloads to make sure it doesn't become an issue.

Well I can't comment on the iPhone, however if you're curious my biggest complaint about TPR on a Blackberry is that there is actually a text wrap problem that occurs. If I attempt to post something, my text will continue on in a straight line forever and will never wrap down to the next line. When I post the message it is correctly formatted, just a issue that makes posting difficult. However before you put any thought into finding a fix for this problem, I should mention that I have a hunch that it isn't TPR but rather a group of forums. Most sites I post at work fine, however this site and Crackberry.com forums have the text wrap issue. Crackberry is running what I believe to be phpBB, so I think it is possible that the problem is in the type of board being used. Anyway just some insight to an annoying problem.

Yeah looking at it that is a very pronounced bump! I'm sure that is going to give a nice shot of air.

The forecast for the next three days: Tomorrow: 78 and sunny. Friday: 36 and snowing. Saturday 68 and sunny. I was going to post this in the weather thread but then realized that I'm upset enough that it makes this a rant! Especially because I have plans to go out Friday, and stay in and work on Thursday and Saturday!

^Not that it matters any more (or ever really did) but I liked the pop up until I tried coming to TPR on my Blackberry. Man did they freak out my poor phone! I was happy to shut it down because for a moment I thought I was going to have to do a battery pull on it. My guess is however that very few people here ever check TPR on their phones.