floating water

Water forms floating 'bridge' when exposed to high voltage

Two beakers side by side, filled part-way with water. With enough voltage, the water actually climbed out of the beakers and formed a "floating bridge" up to almost an inch in length. Water is weird, but cool.

another gig, another bbq

There was supposed to be a jazz band playing at this Saturday's all-you-can-eat barbecue for the Lorain County Historical Society, but they had to back out. Instead, we'll have the next best thing:

Me.

I'll be offering up my usual selection of pop and jazz standards on my digital piano, with a few upbeat showtunes thrown in for good measure. If you just want to come listen, you're certainly welcome to come to Jack Matia Honda (823 Leona Street in Elyria) and just hang out and make use of the cash bar.

But if you want to put the "all you can" in "all you can eat," tickets are $30, which includes the nametag for your chicken and ribs access, plus cole slaw, potato salad, baked beans, rolls, bottled water, coffee, and dessert.

If you're interested, the tickets are pre-sale only, on account of it being a catered event. Call the historical society at 440-322-3341 sometime on Friday. Big Dog Catering makes awesome ribs. It'll be good times.

rest in pieces, geauga lake...

...specifically, with pieces scattered about the country at various Cedar Fair amusement parks.

There had been word that two more roller coasters, Dominator and Thunderhawk, would be leaving Geauga Lake after this season. This following last year's removal of X-flight (renamed Firehawk at Kings Island) and the standing-but-not-operating Steel Venom (moving to Dorney Park as Voodoo for 2008).

Stu and I wanted to be sure to get in our last rides on Dominator just in case the rumors proved accurate. We managed to ride Big Dipper as well, on what would turn out to be the last operating day of Geauga Lake's amusement park component, during their fun and delicious (and crowded) Oktoberfest celebration.

Imagine our dismay when, last Friday, we heard the news that not only would the two aforementioned coasters be leaving, but the entire ride side of the park would be closed for good.

I don't have any great emotional tie to Geauga Lake, but it had been growing on me ever since my first visit last year. We went three times this season, and I'll admit the ride side was always something of an afterthought; the water park was the big draw, and our visits were limited to hot weather days -- unlike Cedar Point, which we'll visit even into the 60-degree October nights. Still, Dominator was an excellent coaster, quite possibly the smoothest I've ever ridden. The Villain, in its freshly-retracked form this year, was also a good thrill.

And then there's my buddy the Big Dipper, Ohio's oldest operating roller coaster, built in 1925. There really isn't much to it -- the basic "out and back" bunny hop hills characteristic of coasters of that era -- but it was still fun and ran well. And far less painful than Cedar Point's Blue and Mean Streaks.

Personally, I'd be thrilled if Cedar Point installed Big Dipper in place of Mean Streak, but only if they first held a big bonfire to burn it down, allowing us (and our spinal columns and ribcages) to exact our revenge on that rough rickety piece of crap. Maybe it could be on Halloween, so we could release the evil spirits that quite obviously possess the Mean Streak. Sadly, considering the Big Dipper's age, I find it highly unlikely that it will be saved or relocated.

Theories, both of the conventional and conspiratorial variety, abound regarding what could and couldn't have saved Geauga Lake. Many point to the Six Flags purchase of SeaWorld Ohio, which created a park so large that ticket prices skyrocketed, thus elminating the "cheaper alternative to Cedar Point" demographic. Some say having two parks with separate admissions created a "destination" where families would go to Geauga Lake one day and SeaWorld the next. On the other hand having three parks in one (ride, water, and animal) gave the impression of getting a great value for the ticket price.

And indeed, Six Flags brought in record numbers of visitors during 2000 and 2001, so much so that Aurora and Bainbridge Township residents complained about the parking lots filling up and people leaving their cars in tree lawns. But after the novelty of "hey we have a park with a famous name now" wore off, apparently many found Six Flags Worlds of Adventure to be poorly managed and unclean. I can't vouch for that since I wasn't there, but that's what I'm told.

There's a larger question of how much of a draw the marine animals were. SeaWorld itself barely broke even. For one, they were only open 120 days out of the year, because, well, Ohio has winter. Also, when SeaWorld was built in 1975, part of the land agreement prohibited them from building rides to compete with Geauga Lake. (And Aurora wasn't exactly eager to grant permission for yet more noisy rides; both Aurora and Bainbridge Township had a hate-hate relationship with Geauga Lake and Six Flags.) At the time, this really wasn't a concern, since SeaWorld was primarily an animal park, but they eventually realized the benefit of roller coasters at their San Diego and Orlando properties. Busch Entertainment, the parent company, finally gave up and sold SeaWorld Ohio to the new Six Flags Ohio across the lake for a hefty sum. Six Flags actually paid well more than the value of the park to acquire it, as part of the rabid company-wide expansion they were undergoing at the time.

Considering the expense of operating a marine life park in Ohio and the old SeaWorld's attendance figures, I'm not sure what effect the animals really had on Geauga Lake. I'm sure for some people it provided something Cedar Point didn't, and it's rather obvious Six Flags made a mistake in trying to compete on the roller coaster aspect. Cedar Fair tried to remedy this by turning the former SeaWorld area into a premier waterpark and removing a few coasters on the ride side to make the park less expensive to operate. I honestly thought they would continue doing this (with the removal of Dominator and Thunderhawk), bringing Geauga Lake back to its mid-1990s era profitability and reputation as a less expensive "family" park.

Just a little bit of history on Geauga Lake and its relationship with Six Flags: Geauga Lake had been run by Funtime Inc. (also known as Funtime Parks) since 1966. Meanwhile, in Oklahoma City, a real estate developer known as The Tierco Group found themselves successful in the renovation and expansion of small amusement parks, so much so that they changed their name to Premier Parks in 1994 after the acquisition of Funtime. This merger added Geauga Lake, Darien Lake (Buffalo), and Wyandot Lake (Powell, north of Columbus) to their portfolio. This seemingly sent them on a buying spree, going so far as to incur massive debt to acquire Six Flags from Time Warner in 1998. Over the next few years, most of the smaller parks were rebranded with the valuable Six Flags name.

Eventually, the sagging economy, the post-9/11 travel decline, rising gas prices, and whatever all else caught up with them. Every year since 2003 has seen Six Flags divest itself of its less-successful parks -- see Geauga Lake sale to Cedar Fair in early 2004. Incidentally, all three former Funtime parks (Lakes Geauga, Darien, and Wyandot) have since been sold off. Wyandot Lake was acquired by the adjacent Columbus Zoo and is reopening next year as a water/amusement park called Zoombezi Bay.

In the end, it's hard to tell who's responsible for which aspects of Geauga Lake's demise, at least from what information is publicly available. I do wish Cedar Fair had given it another year to try and set things right, and I'm certainly disappointed that future visits will be limited to the waterpark only. But, they also are not in the business of losing money, especially with the debt incurred from last year's Paramount Parks acquisition, so there's that.

the cardstacker

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Don't ever let it be said that anyone has too much time on their hands, else we wouldn't have people like Bryan Berg creating sculptures from card stacking. In fact, he's so good at what he does, he gets paid to do it -- enough to make a living. That's awesome.

Also check out this video of him building, and then destroying with a leaf blower, one of his rather extensive creations. It's amazing to me just how long that structure lasts, even as one entire side is removed.

He also gets points for spelling Bryan with a 'y' and having a name that sounds like mine.

ragtime muppets

This video clip combines two of my favorite things: Muppets and ragtime piano. Rowlf and I both know how annoying it is when you're just trying to play a simple song and women start cavorting and throwing themselves about the piano. (I'm lookin' at you, Jessi May!)

Apparently this is from the British airing of The Muppet Show. Since they don't have commercials on British broadcast television, these short segments were created to fill the gaps that would normally be commercial breaks on American TV.

The video quality isn't that great, and you have to turn the volume up to hear it, but it's still a funny clip.

it's that time again

It was a bit chilly today, and appropriately enough, we had chili for dinner tonight. This means, in my mind, it is now effectively autumn... and time to change the blog over to the orange theme until December. Never mind that it will be in the 80s a week from now. :)

pointless post

Your useless factoid for the day, courtesy of the Wikipedia:

Dum Dums are made in about twelve different flavors; nine or ten of these flavors are classic flavors; two or three are cycled in and out. The infamous "Mystery Flavor," ominously present in every bag of Dum Dums, is a combination of two flavors in the bag. The combined flavors are random. This combination occurs because the production of Dum Dums is continuous--there is no stop between flavors. This practice results in the flavor combination.

Mystery solved!

giant moose!

I stumbled across this on Wikipedia:
Beware: Jurassic-Park-sized moose ahead!

Here are a few more fun animal silhouettes. These are from Tom and Kristy's honeymoon:
turkey xing
snake xing
uh, cougar crossing?
anteater xing

(Admittedly this was at a nature preserve so these kinda make sense.)

And I'll just let you all figure out for yourself what this one is for.

island of kings

At long last, I finally have a spare moment to write about last weekend's trip to Cincinnati. As mentioned before, I have a Cedar Fair Maxx Pass, which grants me admission to most of their parks, which now includes Kings Island since Paramount sold it off last year.

I had one more vacation day to use before the end of September, so I decided to use it for this trip. With the Pump Boys rehearsals during the week and various weekend goings-on, I needed Friday morning to pack and catch up on some things at home.

The drive was rather uneventful, although I did hit rush hour in Wellington -- i.e. a farm tractor driving slowly along SR 58. My friend Denise now lives in Cincy, so I stayed at her place. We went down to Newport on the Levee for dinner and drinks. It was a beautifully temperate night, so we spent some time enjoying the view of the Cincy skyline and the various lighted bridges across the Ohio River.

Upon checking out the Kings Island map online, I noticed they were offering a $24.95 ticket when purchased from their website, which was a $20 savings, so that was handy for Dee. We arrived at about 11:30 and the park was deliciously empty. Apparently Labor Day weekend is a good time to visit.

We began with a ride up the Eiffel Tower so we could survey the park and see where everything was. What struck me, compared to Cedar Point or Geauga Lake, was the number of trees. Kings Island is a virtual forest in comparison, and they have plenty of room to expand (the park only uses 364 of its 775 acres).

We rode most of the non-kiddie coasters throughout the day. Somewhere in there we stopped for lunch, and I decided to call Stu and brag about how dead the park was and how we waited only 70 seconds for The Beast. This got him all excited and jealous, and he got permission from the wife to hurry on down to join us. (His 18-month-old had the croup earlier, else they all would have been with us.)

He got there at about 5:30, by which point Dee and I had pretty much ridden all we wanted, including the Scooby Doo Haunted Castle. Stu and I went on a few rides Dee didn't want to attempt, and we re-rode a few others. I wish I had called him earlier in the day, had I known he would be crazy enough to spontaneously pack up and drive down.

By then it was finally getting dark, which meant it was time to experience The Beast at night. The Beast is the longest wooden roller coaster in the world, with a four-minute, 50-second ride (never mind that a good 30+ seconds of this is the first lift hill; it's still long for a coaster). The track twists through the forest at the back of the park, which is unlit, so most of the ride is in total darkness. It's a great flight during the day, but an entirely different ride at night.

We returned to the front of the park to see how Son of Beast compared to his father after dark, but the consensus was that the original won out. We managed to get another ride on Top Gun just under the wire.

This was my first time at Kings Island, and it was a good one. The weather was perfect, and as I said, the crowds minimal. I was impressed with the number of really good coasters they had -- which is saying something, considering my home park is Cedar Point. Kings Island has some nice woodies too, which is something CP severely lacks. However, Cedar Point's corndogs are far better; in fact, we had trouble even finding a concession stand at KI that sold the carnival-style food that abounds at CP.

Having a still quasi-sick baby back home, Stu left Sunday morning. Dee and I went back to the Levee for the Newport Aquarium, which was very cool. Many of the hallways are glass tunnels through huge aquariums, so you get to see various marine life from all angles. The fish get bigger as you progress through the facility, hence the largest sharks are in the last room. It's amazing to me the variety of fish they had in a single tank; I mean, you wouldn't dream of putting that variety of land animals in the same cage at a zoo.

The otters were cool, as always. They're like little puppies. Or long, swimming rats; either way. They actually had a sitting area so people could watch them play. Similar for the penguin room. I happen to think penguins are awesome, especially if they happen to be in the movie Madagascar.

I also felt it only appropriate that I walk through the free-range bird room, which Dee refused to enter. They sell little cups of nectar for people to hold and feed the birds; one kid had three of them, and hence had a bird on each shoulder plus one on his arm. The room was fairly small and crowded, so I wasn't in there long, but it was enough time for the high-pitched squawking to give my ears a little ring.

We had an excellent sampling of pizzas at Dewey's, a local chain, then we headed back to Dee's place. I briefly got to see my friend Gregg before trekking back north.

Then I had Monday to catch up on all the things I should have been doing. All in all it was a great weekend!

My lifetime coaster count is up to 34 now. I have a ways to go to catch up to Stu yet.