MonkeyPants

I'd recommend a Tuesday or Wednesday, if you can make that work... I strongly advise on NOT going on a Saturday, especially in July or August. I was flat out stunned at how many folks arrived those days... It would be hard to get more than just a handful of rides. I've had really good luck with Halloweekends, especially the Friday evening sessions. This info won't help you this year, but perhaps in the future... The first few weeks in May, during the week was definitely the least crowded days when I worked there for a couple years.

I'm looking forward to finally meeting some TPR peeps in person! I'll be there, with camera in hand...

I was obsessed from almost the first few times I rode them as a little kid, so for me, there really isn't a 'before I was obsessed'. But, back then, finding photos, writing or videos about coasters was quite difficult. I can tell you what I used to do before sites like TPR came around... I would come home from school and watch all the cheesy afternoon comedies, hoping to catch a Cedar Point commercial! Also, I'd often check the travel section of the newspaper for articles on coasters.

Yep, CoasterMania was a really fun event. The rain tried to mess with our evening ERT, but fortunately it only lasted about 3 minutes! CP did a really good job of hosting the event. Very fun, and met a lot of friendly peeps!

I agree with Robb... Just being able to get in early is nice, without having to stay at at CP hotel... Still, the first time I stayed at a CP hotel and they let hotel guests in early, it turns out they were letting everyone in early, so no real benefit. And another time we went to Dragster in the am, and it had technical problems and didn't open til around 10:30. Nevertheless, it's a nice perk, cause it won't always be like those examples. Add in the fact that parking is included with a platinum pass, and it pretty much pays for the upgrade. Anyway, I like the perks... Some of the other ones that I'm not initially interested may be 'open doors' for instance I probably wouldn't see a show, but this might inspire me to.

I very much disagree with the opinion that Knotts is horrible now, and was great before. I've only been there twice... Once was about 9 years ago, Pre-CF. I had a mildly pleasant time but remember having a distinct feeling of "Well, I don't need to do that again." Then I went at the end of last year, (cause my girlfriend had never been there) on a visit to LA. Had a great time, loved the atmosphere, and despite having a parking lot that was beyond packed, the lines were pretty short (exception being Ghost Rider). We were exceedingly underwhelmed with Xcelerator as well. But other rides were fun, and we found the atmosphere to be really pleasant.

Simba, Cool shots! Interesting post, clearly you are experienced in the world of photography. I don't have a bunch of expensive lenses... I'm just starting to think about upgrading. I'm contemplating the Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS. Futher down the line, I'd like a good wide angle, and am considering the Canon 10-22. btw - I don't own that 100-400... I rented it from lensrentals.com. Super nice lens! How do you like that Tokina 12-24? That may be a good alternative, but I'm not familiar at all with that brand. As for camera bodies... I have a hard time telling the benefits of the more expensive bodies, except that they are more durable, but I'm excessively careful with my camera. Back in the day, I worked at a camera store, and when it was not busy, I'd read about the cameras. I remember comparing a Canon Elan II to an A2 (significant price difference) and the only real difference in the specs was the A2 had faster burst speed, and more frames. Plus it had a max shutter speed of 1/8000 vs 1/4000 in the Elan II. I guess in some ways, I still think the same way about bodies. Plus, they're so expensive! What are the benefits of the 5D, in your view? You mentioned the full size sensor... What else? With the XT, there are a few things I would like to upgrade from... One is the view screen is much too small, and of a style that doesn't show detail clearly enough for me. Also, there is some functionality that is a little frustrating ie I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally bumped the little button that turns on timer mode, and subsequently missed the shot because when I press the shutter release, it begins the timer instead of snapping the image.

Nice TR, Rick! Looks like you two had another great time! I love those faster, racing go-karts... We have one near us here in Michigan. It's super fun. I'm a little jealous of all that behind-the-scenes stuff you and the the TPR crew got to do... Maybe next time!

I've got a couple shots of this place too... Paul, wasn't it nuts in there? I felt like I was in a Scooby Doo mystery! It totally felt like a place I'd like to just spend the afternoon, have a picnic, that sort of thing. If I'm not mistaken, the place is being sold / has been sold, and is slated to be redeveloped which means that stuff would be torn down.

Rct3man777 - Are you saying that you know those people? Let them know that posting it was all in good fun! Yep, that's the lens alright.. So nice! And yes, you're right, I mistyped... I use a Rebel XT, not XTi. I had brain fart... Good catch! LOL! I disagree with your wife's assessment, but I could be biased since I'm a man. A small, small man. But I have a big lens! That counts for something, right? "Hey baby, check out my 400mm!" Well, thanks very much. I like your questions actually, I can tell you're probing to learn how to improve your photography. In my opinion, at least in the SLR range, digital is vastly superior to film. I'm glad I switched to dig, and hope to never shoot film again. Part of what I didn't like was the extent that other people had an influence on my results (ie, labs). And I always had to make the choice between potentially half-assed processing or paying alot for pro-processing. The shots of MF first drop were taken from near the first overbanked turn. If you go into the petting farm area on Frontier Trail, you can go behind it. You actually can go underneath the overbanked turn a little. That's where I shot from, and that's why it doesn't really appear that I'm 'looking up' at the lift hill. I used the 100-400 of course, zoomed to 400. The really close up ones are also cropped. They were not shot that tight. That would require a very long lens. Canons longest lens currently is the 800mm. Needless to say, 800mm lenses are not cheap! It goes for about $12,000. But, in order to crop tight like that, you must have a sharp image to start with. That means using a fast enough shutter speed to eliminate camera shake (the IS helps here) but also to freeze the motion of the train (not super hard at top of lift, quite hard at bottom of first drop!). My older consumer level lens (70-300mm) does not have high enough quality glass to accomplish this. If I had shot this same photo with the 70-300, there's really no way it would be as sharp. I used Lightroom for processing. All I really did was adjust contrast (speading the histogram towards the dark end really, really helps with making colors pop. I don't generally add saturation as a way to make colors vibrant, as this often is unnatural looking. And of course, I cropped the images. That's pretty much all the processing that went into them. If there was one thing I wish I could change, it would be the huge hotspot on the front of the MF train. As the train went over, that only happened for a split second, but I happened to shoot just as it did. (I actually didn't not notice it, but I suspected it might happen, since the sun was in that postion. Without question, the shots would have been much prettier if I they had been shot later in the afternoon, or early evening since the sun would be shining on the people directly, and would be warmer. The trick would be that it would be harder to be able to use a fast enough shutter speed. Anyway, I hope that was informative! Thanks for all the compliments! Glad people are enjoying them!

My first inversion was actually a pretty funny story... When I was little, my family was at Cedar Point, and my dad pointed to the corkscrew part of Corkscrew and asked "Who wants to ride that one?" "Not me!" "No!" etc.. We were all afraid of going upside down. So we end up walking along Frontier Trail, and then back along Gemini. When we get to the Corkscrew station, he asks who wants to ride this one. None of us realized it was the same ride we all vehemently opposed riding a short while earlier. Needless to say, we found out soon enough!

Well, the XSi supposedly has a next-gen image processor, and beefed up noise reduction, so that may counteract the effect you mention, though I've never heard of that effect before myself. Worth checking into....

CoasterP, too bad... I was hoping to laugh with you guys again! Definitely get in touch if you will be at CP this year... We're getting passes again.

btw- what's Hanno?

For all those that asked, it's a Canon Rebel XTi. I'm thinking of upgrading soon... The XSi is about to come out with 12Mpixels (this one has 8M pixels). I also used a Canon 100-400mm IS lens, which retails for about $2500, but can be had for about $1600. Thanks for all the compliments! It puts a smile on my face, for sure! CoasterPalooza - Hi! How you guys doing? We're doing the Holiday Nights again, and CoasterMania.... That's all we've got planned so far. You and Gwen going to either of those?

So here I am going nuts, hoping for spring to arrive, and I thoght I'd share some CP pics I took late last summer to help tide people over the last month before coaster weather arrives.... I've been spotted! Me likey. Must come down. What goes up.... I do believe this whole family needed to make a stop at Wal-mart for new dainties not too long after this moment. Some screamin' peeps on Power Tower. This one has a train on it. And here's another one! Talk about segue. A test shot that I thought looked kinda cool. Playing a bit... Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! If you guessed "Wicked Twister" you're right! If not, you should be ashamed to caller yourself a Major-Roller-Coaster Dork. Here's a little challenge (very little)... What Cedar Point rollercoaster is this? When you ride the Sky Ride, it seems pretty high up... What's does this say about Dragster? These Demon Drop riders are just hangin' out. They had some ratchet-type thingies holding various stuff in place. And stuff. Some work on Rappie's chain. (Raptor doesn't use a cable-lift, in case you were wondering). Fly-by I like this shot Zoom! Those same peeps from before, only this time much steeper. Big ol' drop More peeps having fun! I love all the people's expressions in this shot! Everyone is having a blast! Ok, this officially qualifies as a nerd shot, cause I took it specifically to show those little wheels under the train that magically lift the anti-rollback dogs, resulting in the quite ride up the lift. Ride. Big ride. Obligatory Driving-Across-The-Causeway-Skyline shot

Mantis

Man, those are some excellent shots! A fresh variety of angles, everything's sharp, and you capture the excitement! Very nice!

Here's vintage CoasterMania TR from earlier this summer. Lori & I decided to go about two days before the event. We weren't even sure if we wanted to go since so many people on boards said it was too crowded to be fun. Thankfully, that wasn't the case, and we had a great time! But once inside we saw it was nicely busy. Go Geauga Lake! We started to get concerned about the park being too empty to survive... It looks abandoned. "Hello TPR! You're all a bunch of nerds!" Nor was the walkway to the gate The parking lot wasn't full. Superman was Pwned! What did I tell you about the bolts. I was thinking of taking this piece home as a souvenir. Let's hope this thing didn't see much use. I don't know about you, but I loves me some rolliecoaster bolts. The magic of tubular steel. Superman - CollectionOfTrackPiecesInAParkingLot of Steel Geese chillin' underneath Dragster In 1978, the Gemini was the tallest coaster in the world. Now, not so much. Old school...... New 5kew1 "Hey Bob, you wanna ride Magnum?" "Nah, let's just play tennis. It's almost as fun. Kinda funky More nerdiness. This somewhat nerdy shot shows how much lower the valley after the 3rd hill used to be. Magnum's turnaround has some odd banking. Lift structure goodness. Magnum. Through the trees! Cedars is the guys dorm, or at least it used to be. Same Chausee after our mid-afternoon naps. (We did wake up at 4:45 after all) Random Raptor "I'm only gonna say this once, and I'll deny I ever said anything... New for 2008?.... Aquatrax." A very good turnout for the Q&A session. Mr. Kinzel is a very cool guy. I always thought his recipe for success was rooted mainly in his positive attitude, but we really saw how much thought they put into just about every decision they make. Hosted by Tony Clark, who was really hilarious, and kept the crowd going. Ok, time for some Q&A with Directors and such. Here;s a goat. A lot of the ride has dueling-action! More air. This is why they call it a TerraCoaster. And some nutty air. Maverick has a lot of cool near-misses. The only thing I didn't like about the ride was the water geyser that splashes you in the face just before the on-ride camera, like this dude. Oh so steep.... Of course, we had to check out Maverick. Checking out the sensors? In case you didn't know, Millennium Force is a cool-looking ride. "Oooph, there goes my Lucky Charms!" Brisk morning air. I like this shot. So, we decided to ride Mill Force to start the day. I've seen this view many times, but with nobody else in it? Some peeps getting some fresh, early-morning rides on Raptor. The strolling of the bulls. The front gate wasn't too crowded. Probably because it's 6:00 am. They made some cool passes for us Maniacs. I always love driving across the Chausee. This morning had a beautiful sunrise.

Oh, yea! I forgot about that. How hilarious. We ride Double Shot, the ride ends and our restraints get released Since we're the only guests even in that section of the park, we ask if we can just ride again, and the ride op says "Sure. Go ahead and pull down your restraints. And can you check them for me? I'm too lazy to get up." Awesome.

There weren't that many people there, so it was easy to get into the back seat. It just wasn't all that exciting for us. It had a bit of air, but other than that, it was so-so. We liked LoCoSuMo MUCH better! That ride was crazy!

Yep that's right! The prize is the personal satisfaction you must have felt having solved the puzzle! Congrats!

Just in case you were jonsing for a 2-month-old Holiwood nights TR, this is for you! Lori & I planned on driving down to Holiday World for the Holiwood Nights. A few days before we headed out, she had the brilliant idea of driving partway a day early, buy our Maxx Passes at KI, and get some morning rides in before continuing to HWN. It was a good idea! (The last two pics are out of order... Sorry! Just pretend they're right after the shot of Lori playing the Ring Toss game, ok? Ok!) And that’s our trip! We had a great time! Hope you enjoyed the pictures! And a little Wicked Twister for ya. This ride is themed like a dragster! In the morning, we had to drive back to Detroit and go straight to work! Ugh! We soooooo wanted to go back in the park for some Draggie, but instead I had to settle for taking pictures from the hotel parking lot. Lastly, on to Cedar Point. The rates at Breakers early in the season are pretty reasonable, so we were finally able to stay there! Turned out to be a great idea, cause at the end of the day, instead of driving 2 ½ hours home, we jumped in the huge hot-tub, and enjoyed the waves of the lake and the colors of the sunset. Ahhhhhhhh. From the wheel, we could see the cast of ye old Pirate themed water show practicing their fencing, yar har ye matey. D’ya think this might do it? The ferris wheel offers a nice view of the part, and turns surprisingly fast. It kept making a disturbing noise, so I was looking for what might cause it. Apparently, it had been an electric powered ride, and they built the coaster on top of the old non-hilly track. Look at this track! The whole thing looks like it was hammered together one night at a huge Let’s Build A Coaster Party where everyone was fully inebriated. Lost Coaster was freaking insane! The Hurricane is out over the water for most of the course. So, the coasters are pretty much built above everything else. Here’s Cornball Express acting like the Chicago El. We heard so much good stuff about Cornball, but neither of us understood the appeal. We didn’t care much for it. Whack-a-mole POV! Careful playing this… You might get whacked! Playing the frog game. Lori loves her some games. Notice the assorted prizes already on her person. We played Fascination in air-conditioned comfort. The game host was awesome! A very quiet, older Korean woman who kept cheering for us as we played. We both thought she was super-cool! Awwww yeah! Air conditioning! The majority of the park was from the 50’s, and hasn’t been updated, so it has a nice, wholesome nostalgic feel to it. Here she is still zoning out 15 seconds later. From our table, I saw this ride op on the chairlift… Here she is zoning out. They had pics of many of the musicians that had played there in the past. The only name I recognized was Tommy Dorsey. Then breakfast at this funky restaurant, that also was decorated in the 40’s-50s. It was different… Cool in a funky authentic sort of way. Next morning, right to business… Squish some pennies! Purty coaster-style sunset. Finally, we’re at Indiana Beach. We stayed at a little hotel rite inside the park. The room was unbelievably tiny, and had been decorated in the 50’s. Still, it was quaint. This is our first look at Hoosier Hurricane. It’s all fairly tight. Don't take the tour if you're claustrophobic! The tour was actually very cool. We truly enjoyed it. At one point, when you’re the furthest you can go, the tour guide turned off the boat lights, and had everyone be silent. It was eerie! Then had banged the boat with his seat cusion, and you could hear the boom echo down the caverns. It’s in the big whole that used to be a pond. One day, the farmer who owned the land came out to discover his pond had disappeared. Turns out, the bottom broke thru to the underground cavern and all the water drained out. This is the entrance into the cavern. This shot if for Rick… He has a thing for tunnel-walkways. For those of you who haven’t been there yet, I must warn you… Holidog is freakin’ huge! After a great time at HW, we headed to Indiana Beach for our first visit. On the way, we stopped at BlueSpring Cavern. We were a little concerned as we drove up, we found ourselves on this little rural road to nowhere. Lori kept humming the theme from Deliverence. But in a good way! Here he is getting his Credit Whore credit. I slowly began to learn that Rick is, how shall we say…. Looney. Me likey. … the Voyage! In my eyes, this is the perfect rollercoaster. For years and years, I’ve wanted a coaster that is all-out crazy and intense. So many coasters didn’t deliver. This one does. It’s a very cute ride. HW continues their tradition of excellent themeing. The cycle runs a long time! I didn’t feel so good afterwards! Turkey Whirl is right next to…. Rick & I decide to give the Turkey Whirl a whirl. Hheeeeeeeeellllllllllllllppppppppppp mmmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!! Lori won two! In your face, Gyendolynne! Gwen won a penguin! Gwendolynne and Lori love skeebal. So, just as the Holiday World was closing on Friday night, I recognize Rick from his TR’s. We all went to the hotel bar and laughed our asses off for hours! The next morning, Rick began documenting all the fun. So we left KI for HW around 1:30, and decided to go on Gridlock: Ride of Suckdom. The resemblance is quite disconcerting! Ahhhhhh. Back in my natural environment. Showing off my manly-muscles. Fresh off our first ride of the season. The past few times we’ve been there, the first couple hours on the Beast is emp-tee. Lori & I both love this ride. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa?! That silly fence is removed from the Beast. (Notice how I’m pretending this isn’t old news?) Lori loves the fountain & International Street at King’s Island. Yep, all the rumors are true! The campground has been removed!

This one talks a bit about a cable wrapping around her legs... How horrid! What a terrible accident! http://www.whas11.com/topstories/stories/062107whasmjdTopTowerOfPower.26e52d52.html

I just rode my first SLC at Geauga Lake (Thunderhawk) and was quite surprised. I expected a torturous ride, and I found it to be completely comfortable. We rode in the front, and had no head-bashing or any other pain inducement. We rode it 3 times total, and each time was laugh filled, fun and pain free. I don't know why everyone complains about it.