calcajun

It is going to be a downloadable vid available to all.

So yeah, you have seen my home movies/music vids. Well, take a look at the footage i started to take for the documentary i was doing on SFNO. I can create some really nice stuff when i apply myself. These are a sample of awesome beautiful scenes i have. Shame i did not get much before we lost the park. Also keep in mind that they are way more awesome when viewed without stupid video compression for the internet. These are some of the last images shot of SFNO taken on or around July 2005 sample.zip here http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=214000#214000

I have been trying to upload that vid for two weeks now. few minutes into the upload i get "the server reset blah blah blah. Don't understand what my prob is as i have uploaded the others from here. It is verizon wireless broadband.

Here is a news story from Times Picayune. Also been trying to upload my megazeph video to amateur section with no luck. This was entered into the vid contest but did not make it in. looks like the last film to be taken of this custom coaster. Link to news story: http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_06_30.html#157149 Link to utube vid that i can't seem to get posted: http://www.youtube.com/results?search=megazeph&search_type=search_videos&search=Search Quote info from news story: Experts say reopening Six Flags senseless By Rebecca Mowbray Business writer The company that owns Six Flags New Orleans does not want to re-open the flood-ravaged eastern New Orleans theme park, and has sent a proposal to the city that would allow the amusement company to walk away from its 75-year lease, according to documents. Six Flags Inc. has offered to pay the city $10 million to cover rent to the city, give the city 66 acres of land the company owns adjacent to the park, and give the city 20 percent of its insurance proceeds above $75 million. The amusement parkhas been closed since Hurricane Katrina. News of the proposal marks a change from Six Flags� public stance so far. Until this disclosure, the company said that the park would be closed for the 2006 season, but that it hoped to reopen the property and was working with its insurers. The company now says it wouldn�t make sense to open the park, which was not successful even when the city had nearly a half-million residents. �It�s clear that the people of New Orleans weren�t embracing the park� even before the storm, Six Flags spokeswoman Wendy Goldberg said. �We think it presents a mutually beneficial solution to both of us. We thought it was a win-win. The city would get land it could use for other purposes, as well as liquidity.� But Mayor Ray Nagin says that the city plans to hold the New York company to its agreement to operate the park. �They�re not excited about coming back into the market right now. If any company is trying to figure out an exit strategy, they are,� Nagin said this week in an interview at the Times-Picayune. �We have a pretty solid agreement with them [requiring them to operate the park for 75 years]. They�re claiming they can exercise out of it, but they�re going to have to pay us.� The storm, and any efforts by Six Flags to leave the area, are likely a death knell for the park, which opened in May 2000 as an economic development project for the East. Jazzland Theme Park, as it was originally named, went bankrupt after just two seasons. Six Flags bought the $135 million park at the discount price of $22 million out of bankruptcy, but even after the company installed five new rides backed by a major advertising push, the park failed to deliver financial results. While Six Flags refuses to detail the damage at the park, its rides and buildings sat for weeks in an estimated 12 feet of brackish water and the park is located on the side of the city that suffered the greatest wind damage. The park now sits idle, overgrown with brush, while a security guard watches the gate. �We haven�t gone into detail about the damage, just that we are working on it with our insurers,� Goldberg said. �It�s a very complicated situation.� The prospects of resurrecing the park are further dimmed by a shake-up at Six Flags� corporate offices, where Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder instituted a shareholder takeover of the company late last year and installed a new management team whose marching orders are to pare down assets to deliver better returns to stockholders. �They�d be absolutely out of their minds to try re-open that park,� said Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services, a consultant who has followed the Jazzland saga and the corporate troubles at Six Flags. �That has been a marginally performing park since day one.� If the park closes, it will be a headache for the city, which is on the hook for the $20.4 million that remains on a $25.3 million loan used to build the park through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development�s Section 108 loan program. The payments on the loan are $2.4 million a year until 2017. Under the terms of the deal struck with the city out of Jazzland�s bankruptcy, the city pays $1 million a year toward the debt and Six Flags pays $1.4 million. HUD says the city is current on its payments. Six Flags says it has continued to pay rent since the storm. The rent arrangement is actually that Six Flags pays 4.77 percent of gross revenues or a minimum of $1.4 million, and if the percentage formula delivers a number that is less than $1.4 million, Six Flags gets a credit of the difference on rent in the years after 2017. In its proposal, Six Flags says the city would be unlikely to earn any rent on the project even after 2017 when the HUD debt is paid. In each of the three years that Six Flags operated the park before it closed, revenues were less than $29.4 million � the amount necessary for the percentage formula to exceed the $1.4 million base payment. The park generated $24.5 million in revenue in 2003, the year that Six Flags installed $25 million in new rides and heavily advertised their arrival. It generated $18.1 million in 2004 and $15 million last year, when the season ended in late August instead of at Halloween. With the prospect of revenues even worse for the park now that it�s located in a flooded and gutted area in a city with half its pre-storm population, it�s unlikely the Six Flags would ever pay rent on the park. �Put simply, the marketplace has never embraced the park. There are a number of factors contributing to this situation, all of which have been exacerbated by the displacement and damage of the storm, which impacted not just the park, but the entire market area of the park,� the proposal reads. �Given this performance, there would almost certainly never be any rent paid for many years after 2017.� In offering the city $10 million in rent immediately to break the lease, Six Flags says that it assumes that the city would be able to get HUD to forgive the loan and the city would be able to keep the money. But HUD says its hands are tied. Because the money was actually loaned by investors and guaranteed by the city through the Section 108 program, HUD has no authority to forgive the loan. If the park never re-opens, the city will be required to repay the remaining $20.4 million debt. Six Flags notes that it has an obligation to rebuild the park, but only to the extent of the insurance proceeds received, and it�s unclear how much money the park will get. The company has received no insurance proceeds to date and believes that its claim may ultimately require litigation. It�s fighting the same flood versus wind battle that many homeowners around New Orleans are fighting: the park has $180 million of �named storm coverage� with full replacement cost value, but only $27.5 million in flood coverage. �We are doing everything that we can to maximize the insurance recovery, but it is a complex and time-consuming process,� the proposal reads. �There is substantial uncertainty regarding the level of insurance proceeds which can be expected, and it is likely to be sometime before that will be resolved.� Six Flags proposes giving the city 20 percent of its insurance proceeds for property damage beyond $75 million. Goldberg said the $75 million figure represents Six Flags� total investment in the property to date. The letter notes that it does not think it would be �a prudent use of resources� to rebuild and repair the park. �It had been a disappointment in terms of its performance even before the storm, and the factors impeding its performance have only worsened,� the letter reads. �As a public company with responsibility to our shareholders, we could not therefore justify investing anything more than our minimum legal obligations.� Six Flags� lease with the city says that the company is required to maintain insurance that would cover 66.66 percent of the replacement cost of all park property, or a percentage of replacement cost typically maintained at Six Flags parks, whichever is greater. Katrina�s havoc on the park comes after Six Flags was taken over by a renegade group of shareholders led by Redskins owner Snyder in an effort to turn the company around. Snyder became chairman of the company in December, and he brought in a new management team over the winter to reduce the company�s debt and improve its operations. Over the past few months, the new team has announced a steady stream of plans to sell parks, land or explore options to do so. In an earnings call last week, Six Flags announced that it was looking for buyers for six parks in New York, Texas, Colorado, California and Washington. It has been mum plans for on New Orleans, but the announcement tes that �a key strategic initiative� for the company is �to evaluate the disposition of non-core assets in order to reduce leverage and focus management resources on the company�s parks that have the highest strategic value.� In other words, Six Flags wants to get rid of anything that does not show good potential for profit, and that doesn�t bode well for resurrecting the New Orleans park. Speigel, the Cincinnati theme park consultant who has followed the saga at the New Orleans park and the slow decline of Six Flags as a company in recent years, said that New Orleans won�t make the cut to survive. Speigel has heard that there was �incredible deterioration on the equipment and the buildings and the facilities� because the park sat in water for so long. �I do not think it is possible to salvage it. Too much damage,� Speigel said. Plus, Speigel notes that the park is now located in an area with no population to go to the park or work at the park, and there are no nearby services for park patrons. With people relocating along the I-10 corridor to Baton Rouge or on the I-12 corridor between the Northshore and Baton Rouge, Blue Bayou Waterpark and Dixie Landin� Family Theme Park in Baton Rouge are better situated to pick up the business. �If we were talking about a park that had a history of profitability and growth, sure, they�d take a look at it. But they�d be crazy to come back down there. The market�s just not there. It wasn�t there in good times. To think that now, with conditions as they are, there�s no way anyone would consider it,� Speigel said. �In my opinion, the best thing that could happen is to just let the park die rather than to resurrect it.� Rebecca Mowbray can be reached at rmowbray@timespicayune.com or at (504) 826-3417. Staff writer Bruce Eggler contributed to this report.

SFOG fo sho!

At Mt Olympus, it is not that barriers are out of place. They are insuficient or non existant.

Having experience working 3 diff departments in parks, including rides, I totally felt safe. Don't care if they don't check my restraints cause i always check my own. It bothered me that a select few others are not safe. Including those that might walk/run up to and climb on exposed ground level coaster track.

^ HAHaha!^ That would have been awesome to see a bunch of old queens byching at the two kids!

At a time when SFI is selling and or closing parks, along with trying to reduce thier huge dept, I don't see that they would be spending money on land or to build a new park. Thats just my thinking.

Doug, Thats why i said it was cool. You can walk around the area and there are no signs. I was there also and walked around. You are talking bout in front of the park right? Yeah, if they came to ask you to leave the area they need to put up some signs. As far as the area goes, it is safe as far as low clearance track being fenced off. You could get hit by a falling person or piece of coaster! Yeah Collin, I saw the peeps jump the rail and run across. Some people just don't know or think that it could potentially be dangerous to step onto the other side of the rail. Thats my big point at Mt Olympus, you can just duck under a single rail and actually walk up to the coaster track that is ground level. Matter of fact when you exit Hades there is a fence in front of another high speed ground level track and the fence is three or no more than four feet high. Any of us can probably hop right over it and 10 feet away is danger. SHRUG

Doug, you were totally cool in the area you filmed in. Thats why they had fence around low clearance track that you mentioned so you don't get on it . I do like the idea like the photo depicts in other countries that there are basically no fence around the flats but peeps are smart enough to stay a safe distance. Someone mentioned feeling bad for the guest on the train. Thats why it bothered me. Shure i would feel bad for the dummy that woulg go off path and get killed but i would not want to have to see it either and have that memoy. There are just to many places some dummy can get at dangerous track. It will happen eventually, then they will deal with the situation. Honestly, I like having the open view without fences in front of everything. We just live in a time and place where people do stupid things.

how many places around Mt Olympus where an child / teenager / adult could easily access low clearance high speed coaster track where they can get injured or killed. It bothered me and detracted from my visit. I sent Mt Olympus a note on the issue. I found like ten places and I was not even looking! Wonder how many I can find if I actually look. Here is one of many good example

Yes, post it at The Professional Amateur Videographer Forum. I always enjoy seeing new vids. Even though you post it here or anywhere else you can still submit it in the next contest!

It is possible some may surface in the future, but I would not hold my breath waiting cause it could be many many months. Then again they may never. SHRUG

It is possible some may surface in the future, but I would not hold my breath waiting cause it could be many many months. Then again they may never. SHRUG

The last official word about a month ago was " it could go either way " No one has or is giving the definitive answer at this time. I came back to add your quote... " Talk is cheap, action is priceless " There has been no action yet.

Yes, you can't see from this photo due to the angle but many of the buckets are hanging sideways.

Yes, Photobucket made it too small. I will make it larger. Untill then look close. You don't see every gondala damaged? I fixed it. Now you should see it quite well.

The Big Easy 12_2005 Or what i like to call F**ked Ferris

I am ready for the next set! Can't wait!

My top two out of the first group are Julian Johnson and Paul Ruiz. After reviewing both, I have decided that my #1 pick from this group is going to be Paul Ruiz. Both those vids in my opinion where creative, had great shot mixture of people,rides and fun along with great editing. Paul ruiz came out #1 for me due to a few factors. The beginning used a few special transitions that looked and worked very well. At first I was afraid that the vid would be too heavy on special transitions, but was relieved to find, they were only used at the beginning. Good choice, and use, to open the vid. The next stand out feature was the use of some staged effects such as jumping out the way of the frisbee, Boxing and the biggest surprise was the drop tower flick. I was expecting to see the drop ride fall through the circle made by the fingers, but was surprised and laughed so hard when it was flicked off. Awesome Great mix and use of rides, food, people and shows. Then there is the line jumping segment. Overall this video is totally packed with great footage and creative editing . WOW! Out of the first group, Paul Ruiz is the clear winner!

Not everyone has highspeed internet so for those, streaming most likely not so good. I do have highspeed, but i still prefer to download a higher quality video that i can view and enjoy anytime i like forever. Even with highspeed if i am downloading and i try to stream video it still may not go so smoothly. Thats just me though.

This is B&M batman invert. Since the guide wheels are on the outside, I would think a single car could navigate the course without coming off, but would be more stable being trailored. Thats why I think a lead or zero is used.

^ I personally believe it is a trailor issue. ^ How bout this though, at the Tatsu media day, why don't one of you guys that are there actually ask someone from B&M? Then we have the final answer? I wanted to do this when they came to inspect Batman at SFNO in Novenber but of course they showed up on my day off.