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I Grabbed a few more pics of El Toro at the Park Yesterday. Look at the hills in the foreground. These are the "Back" hills. The one on the right is gonna be SICK! Plus, both tracks are so intertwined with the structure! Headchoppers Galore! Ok, Not El Toro - But I had to grab a pic of this! Apparently someone DID go to the Holy Land Experience! Tough Day Putting together a Roller Coaster? Relax with a Lucky Stike! Hill #2 - You can tell it is not a perfect parabola. You know what that means! AIRTIME! You can make out the Mounts for the Track here at the top of the turnaround. The Banking looks insane!

I didn't use my good camera, but I took a few pics in the Rain today. Progress is REALLY moving along now! The turnaround has been almost completed and a lot more track has been installed. Towering over the Golden Kingdom Lots of work has been done this week. And they were out there today, in the rain on a holiday! More El Toro Also, Six Flags posted an official update today: Hairpin turn Worker on First Drop Looking down at First Drop

Spinny rides make me sick all the time, but I was convinced to try out Evolution. BIG MISTAKE! I have NEVER been sicker on a ride. Ok, maybe once on a Gravitron at a fair, after eating a funnel cake, but how I felt after riding Evolution is BY FAR the worst I have ever felt at Great Adventure!

Alone? Tons of times! Living so close to Great Adventure, I've hit it a bunch of times after work, or in the morning on a weekend for an hour or two. (I just did that last weekend!) I enjoy going in groups, but I don't mind going alone either. I am a talkative guy and I will normally make small talk with people in lines (Yes, I'm THAT guy!) What's even better about going alone is when I want to take pictures. My wife hates waiting around for me to get that perfect shot, but I'll wait for it! As for lines, occasionally you will get the fill-in spot, but without Single Rider Lines, it is hard. Parks I've done alone: SFGAdv, SFKK, SFOG. Rides I've done alone: Too many to count!

The park's weekly update was actually not so informative. It was two pics, one just of the drop, and the other was over a week old. Today's weather sucked, and the park ended up closing early. I don't think we will see many Photos from today. Tomorrow should be a little better and hopefully some people will have their cameras. I probably won't get back to the park until next weekend.

Wow, that is so cool. I love "old" stuff like this! I did a little Google Earth playing and came up with this...

XM202 - High Voltage for Opie and Anthony XM48 - Squizz - Alternative Rock XM22 - Mix - Current Hits

I definetly saw an abundance of Taiwanese employees this past Friday and Saturday. The RideOps did a pretty good job, but they couldn't understand the guests when there was a problem, and that could be a major safety issue. I also witnessed another Taiwanese employee working a register who could not figure out how much change to give. The guest in front of me in line needed to tell him exactly what to give him, quarters, dimes, etc. My only concern is with the placement of these employees. Any employee who will be dealing with guest safety or interacting directly with guests at all should be able to converse with them. I fault the management for some of these decisions. For instance, the employee that had a hard time at the register, had an American woman getting the food. Those employees should have been switched.

Nothing really groundbreaking here, but a few pics I took on Opening day... And with my Super 12x Zoom from the parking lot!

New Photos today, Opening Day! El Toro's first drop Really taking shape now Can't wait to see this in person tonight!

^I'll be honest, I had never even heard of Galaxy Express 999 until your post! Good to know! As for riders "behaving"... If everyone in life would just behave, we wouldn't need laws either. The truth is that people are stupid, and do stupid things, and the parks neet to cover their for fear of being sued.

^Awww Matt, now you're just holding out on us! If it is true that these will be G-Style Restraints, I fear for my legs on the twister section. I mean I think I still have the bruises from Legend at SRM 2001! Honestly it wouldn't be a surprise to NOT see the T-Bars, as Intamin has yet to build a new ride with them since the Accidents started.

I. Want. This. Now.

Giving away the gate? Or boosting attendance on a normally slow opening weekend? Getting people into the park before El Toro is open so that they can see how big the new ride is going to be? Giving people a taste of the "New Six Flags" for free admission while getting them to spend money inside the park and hopefully getting them to come back? This wasn't a year-long giveaway, this was for opening weekend. Which has historically been one of the slowest weekends for the park. It's a great idea if you ask me.

^Agree Agree Agree! Especially on Federici's!

The 2006 Press Kit for Busch Gardens Williamsburg now refers to the park as "Busch Gardens Europe". In addition, at the rear of the kit, Busch Gardens Tampa Bay is referred to as "Busch Gardens Africa". So what does this mean to us? Probably not much more than a name change...

XM here! Big O&A fan as well! I'm not as anti-Sirius as most XMelots though. Everyone is entitled ot their own opinion, regardless of what I think. I liked XM's hardware better and O&A put me over the edge. When there were rumors of O&A going to Sirius, I was loathing the thought of carrying around one of those receivers! (Although they are better now, XM is still ahead in the Tech game! The new XM2Go's are sweet!)

Hands free only here in Jersey as well... But currently only as a "secondary offense", meaning they can't pull you over for it. But the rumor is that it is changing to a primary offense to fix that. In addition, I recall seeing a TV show that proved that just talking on the phone in general distracts you enough, even on a handsfree kit, to be dangerous while driving. That said I have a handful of accident stories: 1) I was sitting at a left turn lane waiting for an opening. The light turns yellow and the car that was approaching slows down. So I go for it. The other car changes his mind and decides to do the same. Needless to say I was at fault for that one. 2) Driving down a road in a light rain at a nearby mall. Suddenly the car in front of me (Explorer) is SLAMMING on their brakes. Bang Bang. It turns out that in front of the Explorer was a station wagon that was about to miss their turn into the mall. They slammed on their brakes and hte Explorer rammed into them, destroying their rear tailgate. I hydroplaned right under the rear bumper of the Explorer. We all get out, and say "Is everyone alright?" "Yes?" "Ok, have a good day, and we all leave. NO COPS! Sweet! 3) Driving down main route in freezing rain, following my wife. The light ahead turns yellow. The guy in front of her SLAMS on his brakes, so my wife does the same. Her Mitsubishi Galant's ABS kicks in and she stops. My old Ford Probe didn't believe in such luxuries as ABS, and skids right into the back of her car, deploying my airbag. (Scariest thing ever!) I immediately jump out and see if she's ok. She is, and I pull her car off the road, and then go back for mine. All the while everyone is Honking their brains out at us. I called the cops, and luckily the cop ruled it as no fault. However, he did ask my wife, "Is there anything we need to know?". She of course said no! Insurance was pretty good on us as well as it was two cars on the same policy. My old car, post accident.

Awesome news! I can't wait to see this! C'mon US Show! (Maybe some of our friends in Canada or the UK can hook us up?)

Ha, you're not THAT old Robb!

Dept of Army Civilian Here... That means that I'm one of the engi-nerds that help define and build the computer systems that Army Soldiers end up using. Again, I will echo my utmost respect for anyone who has done volunteer service for their country. In this day and age, that is such an act of selflessness that needs to be commended.

And if you can afford it, buy the max number of days and add the never-expire option. That way you will have days for when you go back at today's prices!

Photoshop can do AniGifs? I always create the layers in Photoshop and then save it and open it with ImageReady (should have come with Photoshop). ImageReady lets you setup the AniGif just as you like it, frame by frame.