Blue Fire Guy

I think the rest of the park should get this level of shade, waiting in line while exposed to the elements is not very fun. I also think the park should be properly equipped with misters, those would help greatly on really hot days.

I just ate some marinated pork with green beans and buttered, PLAIN German egg noodles. I liked the noodles the best.

QFT, and I can tell why. It's pretty bad on SCBB Giant Dipper, and it happens on the vast majority of my rides. One particular ride proved to me that even in that last slow straight bit before the lift (where one can CLEARLY see the light ahead), shriekers will still shriek just for the hell of it. On that ride, one girl behind me screamed like 10 or 20 times during the straight bit, not stopping until we were completely clear of the tunnel. To sum it all up: long dark tunnel + first drop = 999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 x infinity% chance of shrieking.

Even with just the frame up the entrance looks amazing...

I'm loving those last two photos. Gatekeeper looks very photogenic, definitely a "work of coaster art"! Looking forward to seeing some testing footage.

Just RMC track this bitch or TAER it down! two cents> Fixed. Needed a little extra kick to it.

^ In addition to the across-the-lap seatbelts, the ride has ANOTHER belt connecting the lap bar to the seat divider, introduced for the 2012 season. And yes, it has to be checked as well. Combine the checking of the lap bars, the seat belts, and this belt, and you get dispatch times nearing 4 minutes. The best dispatch I've clocked with this setup was a little over 2:30.

Yeah, it makes no sense to me. KD's Grizzly and CW'S Wild Beast are the same ride but for some reason the CGA Grizzly got butchered. To anyone who has ridden Grizzly East or Wild Beast (lol, they rhyme!), how are their dispatch intervals? Yesterday when I was at the park the intervals averaged at around 3:45-ish, mainly due to the wretched seat belt + "failsafe lap bar" seat belt combo. The ride doesn't do anything crazy at all, has microscopic floater air at best, and is almost completely forceless, so I really don't get the seat belt overkill. I imagine the loading and dispatching of the PTCs on Grizzly East and Wild Beast isn't nearly as troublesome.

Ready for some retro hotness (or not-so hotness)? Here's a retro 1996 POV of our lovely turd Grizzly I found on youtube, and one can notice the following: -It is VERY slow, the 10-minute turnaround is more like 20 minutes -It is MUCH more efficient. When the train reaches the brake run, the other train has already reached the bottom of the lift hill. Why'd the park have to make this already giant turd even turdier by adding all those pointless seat belts? -Sky Whirl is running -Drop Tower in it's original color scheme -Did I mention the ride is a turd?

...you get all excited and happy when turbulence on a flight occurs, meaning .

Just got back from the park, gonna do a little write-up here. Rolercstrluvr and I spent a "I've been through better days here" sort of day at the park. The park was fairly crowded today, not insanely crowded, but still crowded. There were lines for just about every ride, ranging anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour (Grizzly has the latter). There was some good and some bad in our day, here are the notable moments: 1.) We decided to ride Vortex first just to get it out of the way. Rode in the front row, middle seats. It was surprisingly smooth with only one jolt following the loop and one more in the corkscrew. It still has that cool moment of "levitation floater" air on the last hill before the brakes. Makes me think that the trains got an extra nice rehab this past off-season. 2.) We headed over to Demon next, were about to dispatch in the red train when the ride broke down due to some problems with the brake calipers on the transfer. The calipers were "fixed", and the ride started up again after about 10-20 minutes. The calipers were making funny wheezing sounds in the morning, but when we came back in the afternoon they were hissing like normal again. Both trains are running well right now, red is pretty smooth due to its recent rehab while yellow I expect to gradually get rougher as the season progresses. 3.) Flight Deck ran freakin' AMAZING today. It seriously hauled A$$ the whole way through, grayout included. Much faster than on the 29th, it was a bit sluggish that day. Now it's all warmed up and kicking A$$ again! 4.) Here's an example of a ride that has changed significantly for the 2013 season: Whitewater Falls. Rolercstrluver told me that the park made the boats heavier for this season. The difference was VERY noticeable. On the double down, the airtime has always been pretty good. But this season, the airtime is OMFG INSANE! Total ejector heaven, I think this ride has become the world's first standup flume ride. But then...the splash. Before 2013, the ride would just sprinkle me on back seat rides. This season...it is NOT Dan-friendly! We were really, ridiculously soaked! 5.)The Food Festival area was the most crowded area of the park we encountered during the day. It was seriously PACKED there. We waited 45 minutes at Andre's Chicken, but it was worth the wait. You wanna know why? Andre's Chicken is, to rolercstrluvr and I's knowledge, the only place in the park that sells VAULT. To all who plan to visit CGA this season (I don't wanna come off as an advertisement here but...): go to Andre's Chicken and buy some Vault NOW before it disappears into nothingness. 6.) Ah, Flying Eagles. The legendary and erratic tub #5 was out of commission today, at least until we hit up the flyers. Our cycle lasted less than a minute due to the ride op calling maintenance in to put tub #5 back into commission. We avoided tub #5 for our next (full cycle this time) ride, just to pay respect to the ride and not soil the sacred tub. We got some really good ker-chunk snappage going, and no Snap Nazi response either. 7.) Our final ride of the day was on Grizzly, which up until a half-hour before park closing had an insane line. Rode in the back car, wheel seat. The first drop, retracked in 2011, is starting to get slightly rough. The last turn is much better thanks to the retracking it recieved, but it's just sooooooooooooo sllloooowwwwwwww. After the final hill, there was a REALLY bad pothole that sent a wave of pain up my spine, probably wouldn't have been that bad if we didn't sit on a wheel. The final verdict: One cannot polish a turd. If a woodie is boring and is simply retracked, it'll still be boring. If one had blurry vision, Grizzly would literally look like a giant turd. Adhering to tradition, I'm gonna rank it lowest when the Mitch Hawker poll rolls around again, even if Roar and Ghostrider beat me up later this year, I'm still going to rank Grizzly last. It just doesn't have any redeeming qualities whatsoever. Overall, it was a fun day with some good, some bad, and some ugly. I'll be coming back this Sunday with the usual group, here's hoping it won't be nearly as packed as it was today.

Yeah, this really sucked. Didn't expect to have to fork over $18! Oh well, at least I'll burn a little more calories walking to and from the park entrance on future visits, starting Wednesday next week. I'm still trying to get over the from Flight Deck's ride op's "Global Winter--California's Great America", that was just classic. No double rides on that as well.

Just got back from an awesome day out at the park, and the TPR group was pretty large, though split into pieces: me, Angry_Gumball and his cousin, JeffyJosephNorCal, robman, coaster-crazy (Nicholas from ACE), Flagg O' Dim and rjvader. Highlights: -At the opening ceremony, we got absolutely COVERED in red, white, and blue paper streamers when the ribbon was cut! It's like the park used String Shot (Pokemon move that lowers speed) to slow the crowd and prevent a stampede, lol! -Flight Deck ran awesome, smooth, and intense as usual. Can't believe it's 20 years old this season! Still a really awesome ride, it has definitely passed the test of longevity. -Probably the most insane Flying Eagles session ever. When you put three skilled snappers (including me) on a set of flyers, you KNOW things are going to be insane. An "Oh poo-poo!!!" moment to remember, that's for sure. -On my way out, I hydrated up on some pink lemonade with a free refill using the free souvenir cup I got when I entered. Other members of the group got their's too. Overall, awesome day at the park. Looking forward to going back for a full day next week!

Great recent pics, thanks GCI! I love me some airgates, but I'm still a bit skeptical about that roof...this is CGA after all...right? Friday simply can't come soon enough, sooo excited for all the hot wonderfulness this season shall deliver! Edit: I spy a lift cog! Can you see it?

So, crazy Mario Kart 7 (3DS) story to share right now. I was just doing a 150CC Flower Cup GP (not, not that kind of GP! lol), and on the final lap of the race (course was Music Park), I put my "blue shell coping skills" to the ultimate test. It was on the piano section, with a bottomless pit to the left, when I heard the blue shell approaching. With precision timing, I braked to a stop next to the pit and let the AIs in 2nd and 3rd place catch up. When they did, I started accelerating to stay right by them, and all of us were right next to the cliff as the dreaded blue shell made its strike. I managed to get us all caught within the blue shell's blast radius, with me still on the course, while the 2 AIs fell off the cliff! It was a moment of relief, accomplishment for handling the blue shell so well, as well as a moment of ! Blue shells were the bane of my childhood. In Double Dash, I managed to dodge one on Yoshi Circuit during a 150CC GP, but that is the only one I remember dodging in ANY Mario Kart game, and I have no idea how I did it. I've learned to cope with them like in the story above, but they're still a pain in the A$$ regardless, ESPECIALLY if they hit right before the finish line and you have an AI right behind you. That last blue shell I encountered in Music Park was probably one of the few times I've ever been happy to be hit by one, mainly due to the LMAO factor. Mario Kart 7 was generous enough to show who had what items at any time, but that requires shifting attention to the touch screen. Usually I make my move when I see a blue shell icon in one of the laggers behind, immediately putting myself in 2nd place. But this past encounter, I was too busy drift boosting that I wasn't paying attention to the touch screen. I wish there was a "save replay" function in the game. That moment was absolutely insane, definitely one of the more memorable video game moments I've had.

Great looking layout! Any coaster that involves getting eaten by something, going through its intestines, and getting crapped out is automatically awesome. Just one of many, MANY reasons why Europa is so amazing!

The whole MF seat as a gaming couch thing makes me think if any of the GCI guys use a spare MF car for sitting down to eat, watch TV, play games, or do anything that requires sitting in a couch!

YES PLEASE! Would be perfect for playing a racing game like the Mario Kart series or F-Zero series (F-Zero X for N64 and F-Zero GX for GameCube have coaster-like tracks, so probably the latter).

Awesome to see some fine German track coming in! Gonna have to go to the 'walk once this thing goes vertical to shoot some construction porn of it.

Yes! Yes! Yes! Millenium Flyer goodness and some theming in those pics too! Makes me anxious for how the rest of the queue will look. But really, its all about those shiny new steel wheels. They made me drool the most out of everything I saw...

Serperior, Pokemon Generation V.

Yeah, Undertow should shoot up pretty quickly, especially considering its one of Maurer Sohne's off-the-shelf spinning coaster models (XSC2000). And because its at SCBB and not at SFMM (completely different ride than GL, but intensity still varies based on weight balance. Heard about GL being neutered), I think they'll allow insane unbalanced rides.

YOLO! It's much closer to me than Gatekeeper, it can be made much more fun of than Gatekeeper, it'll use lap bars, and it looks like a very fun ride! Though shorter, it brings the flying snake dive to the west coast, the top hat looks like it'll have good airtime, and my local Premier LSM launcher, Superman at SFDK has also set my expectations high as that ride was absolutely amazing (it has quite possibly the most extreme moment of airtime I've experienced in California so far, and California isn't exactly known for being rich in ejector air). Not to mention the reputation newer B&Ms get for being forceless (or having some force, just not to the extent that the old school B&Ms do). To conclude, I have a fetish for launched coasters. Looking forward to hitting it up at WCB. YOLO!

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Wow, this thing's already looking sexy! Gotta love those GCI curves. Looking forward to seeing some more pics of it as it grows.