Swimace

I love Hollywood Studios, although even as a passholder I still haven't taken the time to do some of the smaller, non-ride attractions at that park. I sort of want to go find out what Disney character I am! p.s. I am also a Pushing Daisies fan, it's a guilty pleasure of mine.

^I agree, I went and took a few spins on the Dragons last night on my way to a concert in Orlando. I had about 30 minutes at IOA so I just kept hitting up the reride line for four rides on Fire and one on Ice before the park closed. Rockit is really going to stand out from the Ice lift hill once the track is complete, the treble cleff already looks a lot bigger than I thought it would.

Did you guys think the Polar Express was the most fantastic smelling ride you have ever been on? The holiday smell that they pump into the loading area and the post-show is amazing! Other than that, it was sort of creepy IMO. haha

Do we even know if they have the splash finalized yet? Remember, when SheiKra was built they tried out a couple of different splash effects in the testing phase. Is it possible that they may have a couple of options that are going to be worked out when the coaster if fully built, or is it for sure that they know all the details at this point? Maybe that's a reason that the answer was so vague.

I voted for Terminator: Salvation. I was sort of over the Terminator franchise after the third one, but I really like the series on Fox and how the story has evolved beyond the "cat and mouse" format that the first movies mostly followed. I think that the post-apocalyptic war will be a really fresh start for a franchise that got sort of repetitive in my opinion.

I strongly disagree, SFA is one of the worst run parks I've ever been to. In order to be on par with other parks of the same size they really need to improve their operations more than anything. A "world class coaster" is obviously something that could improve any park, but just throwing money a place like SFA is what got Six Flags in financial trouble to begin with. They really need better staff, better operations, and perhaps some landscaping in the back of the park to make it a nicer place to visit. Investing millions of dollars into more rides is a foolish business decision when the rides that are already there are poorly ran and maintained.

I think the topic of Tyler's employment has been discussed to death by now, the should have ended in June. I feel like the majority of posts in this thread have nothing to do with the author's request for advice and more to do with telling one person how they should have made their employment decisions. The guy works part time in a fast food restaurant, I think he understands the realities of having a less than glamorous job. [/rant]

Nice report dude! This makes me want basketball season to be in full swing, but some of us need to wait until after the final BCS game to move on from football! Kentucky has an ugly looking basketball arena, I would have thought it would be more impressive considering their history.

My advice: don't plan college around temporary employment in a theme park. Busch Gardens Africa mainly employs USF students, I've heard mixed reviews about what it's like to work at that park. Obviously the WDW College program is a good option if you really want to work at a park, but you should probably wait another year before you start looking into internship programs. As for Cedar Point, I've heard enough to tell you to avoid it.

Joe, that was great! I'm so hungry now, I love your CWJ reports!

Wow Eric, it looks like you had an awesome time! While I don't ever see myself going to a Madonna show, I have to say that the production value of this show looks insane! It looks more like a permanent show than a tour!

^^What he means when he says to upload them to TPR is that you can add photos to your post. When you type in a post there is a box under where you enter your text that says "Add Photo, Video or Other Attachment". You can use this feature to directly upload your photos into your post, rather than having to link to another site. Yes, you are correct that "TR" stands for trip report. Discovery Cove seems really cool, that's awesome that you went! This is what a picture would look like when you upload it to your post. It can be as big as 800x600. Hope this helps!

As always, that was hilarious. You can never have enough Universal Studios.

I sometimes sit in on interviews for lifeguards and swim instructors and am asked to give input on whether or not we should hire a person. I am one of the head lifeguards for our city pools, so I pretty much go between the pool staff and the city management. Most of the people we hire to work at the pools are between the ages of 16 and 24. Given that most people who are 16 and are coming in for an interview don't have previous work experience, we don't expect resume's or work references (although it definitely is a plus, many of the college/grad students that come in to interview bring those). When interviewing someone around your age we want to make sure that 1) you will have reliable transportation to and from work, 2) you are going to be a quick learner (we understand this is your first job so we don't expect you to know everything, it's actually a turn-off to interview a high schooler that thinks they know it all), and 3) that you have a good personality that will allow you to get along with others. We have a lot of high schoolers that apply to work at our pools, and a lot of the time they don't get hired because there's an equally qualified college student (that's life in a college town). I'm going into my fifth year working for the city, so I've seen my fair share of hirings and firings. Coming from a place where high schoolers really need to stand out to get a job, I suggest that you pretty much follow what Teacups Make Me Sick had to say. When you're in your interview it's important to relax, have an honest good sense of humor about your lack of work experience, and let them see your personality. The biggest reasons high schoolers get turned away from working at our facilities is that 1) we feel they'd be incompetent, especially in an emergency situation, 2) Lack of reliable transportation, 3) "I know it all" or "my parents are making me do this" attitude, and 4) lack of maturity. Hope that helps, good luck on getting your position!

The last show I saw was Jack's Mannequin with Eric Hutchinson and Treaty of Paris at the State Theatre in St. Petersburg, Florida. I spent a few hours at BGA earlier in the day and then drove down to St. Pete for the show, so I think it's safe to say that it was a pretty good time. Here are some of the pictures I took at the show... Andrew McMahon really got into the show, he got up on the piano a couple times. This is the second time this year I've seen Jack's Mannequin (the first being at the Warped Tour). Seeing them play in a real venue was nice, especially since they took the opportunity to play a pretty long set list. Eric Hutchinson was the second opening act and he was pretty good. The first opener was Treaty of Paris and they were sort of "meh" We got to the show early and got a really sweet spot sitting at the front of the balcony.

Ummm...have you??? Two of them have held the tallest coaster in the world record!!! I wouldn't say that is 0 feet. *Sigh* That's an intamin ROCKET COASTER...I'm talking about, you know, Rita, furious baco, etc. I'm not really sure what you're talking about. An Intamin accelerator coaster (or a "rocket coaster" as you put in all caps) includes coasters such as Rita and Kingda Ka. Making such a blanket statement about Intamin accelerators doesn't really fit the discussion, and having an attitude about it certainly isn't going to get you anywhere. I wish we could see a detailed rendering of the coaster, then it might be more appropriate to compare it to other rides...

^It's sort of curious timing for that to be announced. Does anybody think there's a chance Kemah might have picked up Cypress Garden's ARM tower?

^ 1) What GCI? Did I miss something on my last visit? 2) Neither Wild Adventures nor Cypress Gardens have a theme song that's as catchy as the Alachua County Fair. Maybe that's where Cypress Garden's marketing department went wrong... 3) Florida 49 - Georgia 10

^A lot of the time Cypress Gardens will assign a ride op to more than one ride, so that op will have to rotate which ride he/she will run. Because of that a lot of rides will be open for one portion of the day and then closed during other times. I wasn't there that day, but that would be my best guess. As for the "nice park" comments, I have to say I really disliked this place as a whole. There are really nice parts of the park, but the rides area isn't one of them. The gardens and waterfront area are really nice, but the area that has all of the rides in it is pretty much a long shadeless path with mostly portable rides.

Oh ok, blame it on me then! You're a disappointment to your fans, don't make excuses!!

YES!!! My wish/demand was fulfilled! That was hilarious!

I went at the end of September to get my credits and I am so happy that I did. I hope that the woodies can find a new home, they were pretty fun. That park just had "mistake" written all over it, but at least I got all of those credits for $5!

I want to see pictures of you drinking Beverly at Epcot, and I expect some funny facial expressions with witty captions.

My top group of wood: 1) El Toro 2) Boulder Dash 3) Ravine Flyer II 4) Thunderhead 5) Tonnerre de Zeus 6) Kentucky Rumbler My worst wooden coaster is tied between Ghostrider and Cheetah My top group of steel: 1) Phantom's Revenge 2) Storm Runner 3) Dueling Dragons- Fire 4) Fahrenheit 5) SROS- SFNE 6) Montu My worst steel is Goudurix I already sent in my wooden ballot, but it will take a pretty long time to get the steel one together...

This is sad, his novels were really thrilling. Last year I came home from morning practice and randomly picked up State of Fear and got so sucked into it that I ended up staying home from class and reading the entire thing before afternoon practice rolled around. That thing was over 600 pages and I couldn't put it down until I was done!