BoddaH1994

hmm... It's odd that no one has said anything about this.. On the B-Bay tour, Jeff Seibert didn't confirm nor deny Winterfest coming back, but he definately alluded to it. In my book, it'll be back, and it'll be back soon...

Ironically, it's the other way around. There a ride similar to Tazmanian Typhoon at Holiday World in Santa Claus, IN, but that is the only racing slide of that type according to Jeff Seibert. Now, I'm not sure what he meant by "that type" but reguardless, he said it. Anyway, I agree.. Typhoon all the way!! I can't wait to be flushed!!

When I was young, my family used to go to Americana every year. I thought it was the greatest place on Earth! We used to go for one precious visit every year. All of my neighbors used to talk about KI, but I couldn't relate. My family is and was well off, but my parents were always really cheap. My parents said it was too expensive. On year, my aunt announced that she just wanted money for her birthday because she was going to buy some piece of art and it was expensive. When she blew out the candals, she said her wish was good weather for the next Friday, because what she was really going to was take me and my sister for our first visit to Kings Island. You wouldn't believe how excited we were! --Side note: Believe it or not, I didn't make that story up. My aunt is really messed up on the social side. She used to "borrow" my sister and I for different social things with her church and tell people that we were her kids. My sister even recalls my aunt instructing her to call her "mom" if the situation arose. Anyway, leaping ahead about a week, we set off for Kings Island. We rode most Hanna-Barbarra attractions. I remember specifically riding that stupid slide and getting my hand burnt by it rubbing up against the side. We did get to ride the monorial though. At the end of the night, I wanted to do the most thrilling thing that I could possibly do, which was The Racer. I rode that and it scared the crap out of me, but it did top off my day. She took us once a year for the next two or three years. I believe the last year she took us was the year of the Paramount takeover. After that, my parents finally started to take us. Needless to say, I fell in love with the park and as soon as I was old enough to get my first job, which was cutting grass, I bought my first season pass. Probably went 15 times that year. Not bad for a 12 year old kid who had to talk his parents into driving the just under and hour drive up there to drop him off and pick him up. I did the same thing for several years. After a while, I took a few years off... well, I guess you could say that I was off my game. Maybe going to PKI once or twice a year with the family. Anyway, wiz a few years into the future... I decided to buy a season pass this year. I probably went twice a week or so. Once again, not bad for a guy who lives all the way in northern KY. At this time, I also found the PKI fan pages on the internet. Through that, I was able to meet a bunch of you people... I guess you could call us freaks or something, but we're a rarity. I finally met other people who knew what year most of the rides were made, or who manufactured The Vortex, or could name all of the sections of the park, etc. Thus furthering my love for the park. I have always been good with computers, so I majored in computer science. Let me tell you, it's miserable! Imagine staring at thousands upon thousands of lines of code all day. Around June, I was on Top Gun and I had an epiphany. I realized that making people happy through the amusement industry was my calling. I immediately droped the computer science major and picked up engineering. I have always, and continue to realize that working in the amusement industry is a long shot, but I'd say it's worth it just for that hair-line opportunity... and so you could say that PKI has changed my life. wow.. this post really turned out to be WAY more than I expected.. You guys had BETTER be at the next PKIC meeting day next season! -Ryan

Missdi, I'm sure that Dane intended no offense by being rude to you. The 12:00 meeting was really hectic because a lot of people showed up for that one. Dane's a good guy, so I really don't want you to get a bad impression of him. Chef was with me and Coasterguy107 getting stuff out of a locker at that time, so I'm sorry that all three of us missed you. We are including a lot of footage of Nov 2nd for our upcoming film "Downbar, Recheck" which is produced and edited by myself and CoasterGuy107. The first ever showing of the film will be at the off-season meeting at the Thai Resteraunt this January, so if you can make it, you can see what we did all day. If you have high-speed internet, I can send you the teaser for it. It's really big..38mb, but you can just watch it once and delete it if you want. My AOL/AIM name is BoddaH1994, so if you see me on, bump me and I'll transfer it to you. Have a great day, Ryan

I just hope that if it is a giga or something like that, that the hill isn't the only part of the coaster. I'd love to see some cobra rolls or inline twists on a new coaster at PKI.

^ He KNOWS his Bat footers. Thanks for showing up, everyone! That was the best time I had ever had at PKI!

I took what he said as kind of a hint at a coaster for 05. If you remember, he would say "no" to things, but when he wanted to say yes, he couldn't say it but he would definitely imply it. When people would ask about a coaster, he would kind give a "Next year will be Boomerang Bay, but know knows that the next year will bring" answer. He didn't say those exact words, but it was in that kind of context. I also noticed that he said, "We have taken a few years off from building coasters to offer different types of attractions." I kind of take that as an implication that their run of taking years off from coasters is nearly over. Oh well, that's my take on the words from the man. -Ryan

<<The Video is computer animated by BadNitrus. Its very good (some of the people moved a bit funky though). It had AMAZING detail and really helped you get a feel for the water park. >> I thought the people looked like the Sims. Anyway, it was a great day.. 13 hours at the park. I'm too tired to post about it, but there were enough people there to fill anyone else in.

I just want to thank everyone for showing up today. I probably had the best time that I ever had at PKI. It really has been an honor to meet most of you through different personal meetings as well as events this year. Trust me, the pleasure was all on my side of the toboggan. I wish everyone the best for the off season, and we will meet again, if not at an off-season meeting day, then I'll see you guys in 2004! "May your path always rise to meet you, and a coaster always be in your horizon." -Ryan

Granted people are getting free tickets, I agree with SOB_TOM in saying that they don't necessarily have to use them. I don't think the FF attractions will be bad for this weekend. Since Halloween will be over with, people will be out of the spirit of things. Anway, I'll be there all day Sunday, hope to see you guys!

Holy shnikeys! Look at the roster of people planning on attending! If this many people turn out, it's going to be great!

I said Coney Mall because it has a great assortment of rides, but I'm with you guys on the peacefulness of Rivertown. I hope that never changes.

I went through that same line a few weeks ago. Mainly people tried to hand their passes to the employee thinking that they were supposed to scan it. I don't think it will work. Plus, how could they check the picture?

Universal would have to pay me a lot of money to agree with something like that. I'd get there at open and stay until close. Hopefully, this would be a slow day so I could do everything. I'd ride all of the rides that I could, and even ride my favs like The Vortex, Beast, and FoF several times. I'd even cosider going to a few of the shows. This is hypothetical, because Universal couldn't pay me enough not to go to PKI. -Ryan

^ Not a bad idea with the lubricant and the saw. We just so rarely use it. We have brand new cutters that work really well. I can only think of once that we've used a saw, and that was during a training excercise. Where is the entrance to the elevator? Is it underground, or somewhere at the base?

Yeah lets take the nogo strap off now. Once again You better be able to torch cut my seat out because I would be too scared to move. If it really came down to that, it is always a possibility. The USAR truck has exothermic torches, concrete saws, and reciprocating saws on it, that can cut through just about any material around. Anymore, we use reciprocating saws a lot for auto extrication. True, but talk about big time last resort. If you use a resipricating saw, it throws out sparks like crazy. We only use it on auto extracations in situations where the cutters won't work for some reason. I think a cutter would snap right through that OTSR, and would probably be a lot less stressful than having a saw with sparks flying everywhere right next to your body. I actually read a story on the internet of a guy who was stuck on DZ during an approaching storm. I believe he was stuck up there for upwards of an hour or so, but they managed to drop the ring. I tried looking for it again, but couldn't find it. Apparently, they poor, soaken few that were stuck on the ring were treated to a free dinner as well as complementary "I Survived Drop Zone" shirts. I think that no matter what, there will probably be a way to drop the ring. The reason behind that is, if they had to remove some old lady from the ride by cutting her restraint, and she went into shock, Intamin would be liable for any lawsuits resulting from it. PKI would just have to prove that their people did their jobs correctly, which wouldn't be too hard. So Intamin more than likely made for darn sure that the ring will drop 99.999% of the time perfectly, and the other small percentage it will drop eventually. As far as the rescue team goes, I'm willing to say that using them is more of a "what if" situation. Like someone said, there's probably a manual release for the ring. I'm sure they have accounted for every imaginable situation for tragedies on DZ. It's not like if the power went out that they wouldn't know what to do. Have faith in your PKI team, they know their stuff. p.s. where is this elevator that you guys are talking about? Is it within the tube?

Well, it seems like the Paramount tradition isn't to try to top the world necessarily, so I didn't vote for a recordbreaking coaster. I think we'll get a coaster, but it'll be something that will put PKI back on the map. It seems more cost efficent to make something innovative.

Ok, guys, you're going to hate me for this idea, but here it goes: I think we should get those stupid "Hello, my name is.." name badges for the off-season meeting. I mean, I know it sound stupid, but we could put our first names as well as our user names on them. The reason why I'm thinking this is because I know a lot of you were at the TR:TR filmings but I never had the opportunity to meet you because I didn't know who you were. That's really a shame. I mean, the only people that I can remember from it are Italian Chef, DanielRadsgrl, and Dragonlord. I know there was a pretty decent handful of you guys there. If we know eachother personally, maybe it can help continue this wonder peace that we've had on this web site. Just let me know what you think, Ryan

Calling it a sales gimmick is a little harsh on our friends at PKI. It would be one thing if they never had FearFest before, but since they have, and charged for it every year, I'm willing to say that saying that Fearfest admission is free is a fair statement.

Yeah, they're really not losing money per se with bring a friend free days. I'm sure the money spent on food alone makes up for the lost revenue for admission. Keep in mind that if you're bringng a friend, they obviously don't have a pass so they'll probably want to stay all day, which is two meals and countless drinks. It all adds up. I wouldn't go so far as saying that the perks are lame. The park does do a lot to try making having a gold pass worth the effort. The only real down side is that for a lot of them, you have to get there bright and early, which is not my cup of tea. I know that it's nearly impossible, but I would love to see PKI stay open late for gold pass holders. Actually, it would be AWSOME if they would have an overnight, like 6pm to 6am for gold passholders. I know that due to ride maintanance and needing to get employees to work, etc would make that improbable, but hey, it's a cool idea.

My guess is that there is some sort of manual release on the ring. If all else failed, they could send someone up to pull that lever or whatever it is. I'm guessing that there is also something electronic that pulls the ring down once the brakes stop it, if it got to that point, a cherry picker would probably be used to get people down if necessary. Now, if that thing was stuck, as in there's no way that it could drop, I think they'd have a platform suspended from a helicopter which could retreave the people. I'm guessing that there's some sort of emergency release for the OTSRs. They could individually get people out that way. I can't imagine them trying to get people to jump to a landing surface below... just not reasonable.

I used Two ride Tuesday once on SoB...ouch Other than that, just parking.

Hey, I want to thank you guys for your responses! Whether you agree with me or not, these editorials are only worth writing if you guys actually read them and have some input. First off, I think I need to defend myself a little bit. I want to tell you guys straight up that I love PKI more than life itself like many of you out there. I doubt Kings Island would have been able to grow exponentially the way it has without the Paramount takeover. In my opinion, Paramount is the only company that is worthy of "my" park. I'm not a big Six Flags fan at all, but I think that a lot of you might agree that they would not have done nearly as well with it as Paramount has. At that, the intention of my editorial piece was in no way to bring down Paramount or Paramount's Kings Island. As far as my 'warm fuzzy memory' goes, that was simply an example. Obviously you can't make any money if you're just giving things away (although Video Professor seems to be able to do it ). I don't expect any park to give anything away really. The point of the story was more the mood-setting which it created rather than the actual act of giving things away. It was like, that guy did everything he could to make sure we walked away happy. A lot of PKI employees are the same way, but to a different degree. There is only so much an individual can really do, but if you think about it, that 'only so much' can really make or break an experience for another individual. For example, if say, The Beast were down, and there was an employee blocking the queue line, and I asked him what was wrong with it, he would more than likely say something along the lines of, "The Beast is experiece some maintanance problems and will be open as soon as the mechanics decide the ride is safe for our guests." It's generic, but respectful. Now imagine the same situation, but the employee said, "Well, obviously it's broken! It's really none of your business what's wrong with it. Now go away!" Both of which answer my question, but how would I feel had I walked away from either of the situations? Americana did have several problems. Essentially, it was an over-worked, under budgeted little park for the better part of a century. PKI had the goods to go and stole all of their business. Not that PKI did anything wrong, but people are naturally attracted to winners, so it was obvious from day one who the winning team was going to be. If they reopen it, will I go back? Maybe some day. Who knows? I do see your point though. I didn't exactly go home and tell all my friends to go to Americana because they gave my girlfriend a stuffed animal. As far as big vs. little, with big being the bad guy, you'd have to look at the situation. For the most part, you are correct though, the reason why big businesses are big is because they started small and did things correctly and built a small empire. I mean, is it wrong for McDonald's to drive a mama and pop family burger place out of business by opening a location right next door thus driving mama and pop into bankrupcy? Hell yeah, it is. But what are they going to do? Stop expanding? Would you stop expanding if you were them? Probably not. Would I? Probably not. Jimmy Jamz, you mentioned that most people around Kennywood say that the park was better 10 or 20 years ago, that seems to be a rather common comment in the amusement industry. I don't know if it necessarily has to do with big business takeovers, though. I mean, how many times have we have threads on these boards about how great The Bat was? I mean, serious, how many of us had ridden it? I'd guess MAYBE one or two. The same goes for Phantom Theatre. Probably no one would have posted anything about it before, but not that it's gone it's mentioned in a thread atleast weekly. Ufortunately, it seems that park-goers really don't appreciate something until it's gone. Well, I'm working on my next editorial right now. It's going to be about why we haven't gotten a coaster in several years, and how coasters affect the industry. I'm just waiting on a few e-mails from a few people. You guys will probably really like it. Thanks, Ryan

I totally agree. I have thought the same thing many times. Just think about the potential with Delirium. Chasers on the bottom of the Frisbee would be really cool, like neons or something. All coasters should have chasers going up the hill, it should be a state law. -Ryan

I'm in Fusiondude (You're in, right?) BoddaH1994