Andy Gapin

You know, I was planning on typing up a nice little recap of my Six Flags Great Adventure trip from this past weekend, but I decided that instead of going on and on about how much I love rides, I’m going to just say that Six Flags, to me at least, represents so much of what is wrong with this country.

Yeah, it’s pretty cliché to complain about the prices at an amusement park, so I’m going to leave most of that out, but what I am going to say is that it is absolutely ridiculous that if you bring a bag with you into the park, they no longer allow you to put it down next to the ride when you get on. Now, you are forced to pay a dollar to stick your bag in a locker. It wouldn’t be too much of a big deal except that there is a sign saying that after 120 minutes, your stuff may be removed. While this doesn’t mean that it’s actually going to happen, it’s insane that they would make you use a locker and then only guarantee your stuffs’ safety for two hours. On a busy day, it’s not unheard of to wait for over two hours for a ride (luckily, the waits this weekend were nothing like that).

What I’m sure happened is that someone got their stuff stolen and threatened to sue so the park decided to go with lockers and have a very strictly enforced policy that no one is allowed to go on a ride and leave their stuff near the exit anymore. This wouldn’t even really be that big of a deal if someone at the park entrance said something. It’s possible that there were some signs that we missed, but if they were there, they were small. Because this is a new rule and because all bags are searched upon entrance, what should have happened was that the security person doing the checking should have mentioned that there was a new rule and bags would have to be put in lockers. Doing so would allow the guest to go back to their car then rather than find out after waiting twenty minutes for a ride only to find out that they couldn’t get on if they didn’t put their bag in a locker and wait in line again.

It’s not even just about customer service, it’s about common courtesy and not trying to suck every last penny out of the consumer.

It’s not about paying the dollar, it’s about the inconvenience that you have lock your bag up at every ride or leave the park to go put it back in the car, which is often a half hour walk round trip.

Other than that, the day was a ton of fun and as usual, the rides were everything I could have hoped for. Especially, Kingda Ka and El Toro twice in a row without having to get off.

Here are a few boring pictures…

I can’t believe that it’s 2008 already! I could swear that it was June only a few weeks ago! 2007 flew by so fast. It was a crazy year too. I had a lot of change in my life and in the things around my life as well…

The relationship that I was in for almost five years ended and I started a new one a few months later with the girl who I had met and become best friends with earlier in the year. I was “promoted” to a new position at my job. The radio station upgraded it’s signal by leaps and bounds. I got a new roommate. I reached a point where I could actually start saving money, albeit not a whole lot, while affording a decent apartment and all of my loans. I started this blog. And this is just what I can think of off of the top of my head right now. In the end, I would have to say that 2007 was a pretty good year for me and looking back, even though there were some really hard decisions that I had to make, I’m pretty happy about it.

Looking forward, 2008 is going to be starting off with a bang…literally. Just a few minutes after midnight when we lit off hundreds of fireworks to bring in the new year and I’m surprised that New Brunswick is still standing after it. I also am kind of surprised that there have yet to be any casualties during this New Year’s tradition.

In about a week and a half, I’m going to be going to San Fransisco. It’s a business trip, but it looks like I’ll have plenty of time to see the city and do fun things. I already got a ticket to see Cirque du Soleil. So that should be fun. I’m also planning a trip to Chicago over Memorial Day weekend and a road trip to Toronto to go see Evil Dead: The Musical again. I’m really excited to see it again since it was pretty much the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I also will probably be going to Vermont for a couple days and I’m trying to make it to Cedar Point later in the year. And as usual, I’ll probably be doing the radio station retreat to the Poconos.

Now that I’m actually writing all of these down, I can’t believe how many places I’ll be going to this year. Most of them will just be weekend trips, but still, it’s exciting! In the past five years, I haven’t really gone anywhere outside of NJ, PA, NYC so it’ll be nice to get away a bit. I used to go places more often, but in the past few years it just didn’t happen.

Beyond all of that, I will probably scale back my role at the radio station and for the first time in years, not have an elected position.

I don’t really believe much in New Year’s resolutions, since they tend to be the kind of thing that last no more than a few weeks. I also don’t think that you need a new year to make change in your life. However, there are a few things that I want to change with this year. I want to read more. I love reading, but it’s just something that I never find the time to do. So I’m going to try to find, or make, the time to do it more. I want to start exercising more, even if that just means that I start mountain biking regularly again. I got out on the trails a couple times in 2007, but if I could got at least a couple times a month in 2008, that would be awesome. And lastly, at some point this year, I want to get my software ready to be sold to other radio stations.

I also want to continue something that I started in 2007. I want to try new things. I started liking Thai food and, to a degree, sushi in 2007 and I’d like to try out more foods as well. I also want to do and experience new things beyond food too.

While I’m sure that things will be just as hectic as they always are for me, I am looking forward to living a life with a lot less stress this year. I think that some of the changes that happened in 2007 will help this happen in 2008 and taking a step back at the radio station can’t hurt either.

Cheers to 2008!

Yesterday I got to go to Six Flags America (Maryland) for $5 including food and parking. It was pretty awesome. The deal was through Lockheed Martin (I have a friend who works there that scored a bunch of tickets). They did a family day and bought out the park for the day so it was closed to the public. With very few exceptions, we were able to walk right on the rides we wanted to go on with no lines.

Being raised in New Jersey with Six Flags Great Adventure less than an hour away, I never ventured to any of their other parks. I was very pleasantly surprised and with having been to Great Adventure just one week prior, comparison is easy. Overall, the park seems smaller in land area than the Jersey one, but they pack stuff much closer together. It doesn’t seem like Six Flags America is quite as well kept as Great Adventure with things seeming slightly more run down and dirtier. Instead of there being cable cars to take visitors across the park, there is a train which is quite annoying if you’re on foot and have to wait for it to pass. Where Six Flags America beats Great Adventure is where it really counts, the rides themselves. Each roller coaster was very unique in what it offered instead of being the same thing as the last one you were on. At Great Adventure there isn’t really a lot of diversity among the coasters, they all kind of do the same or very similar things.

However, the coasters and attendants are much more painful at Six Flags America. I presume that many of the female attendants had recently been dumped by their boyfriends. When they walk by to check the restraints, they often used both hands to push down as hard as they can, as if giving CPR, and thus shattering the rider’s pelvic region.

Mind Eraser
We started the day off with the Mind Eraser. It’s a pretty decent coaster that flips you upside down five times and has a few corkscrewy things as well. It also has a pretty neat heart shaped thing going on with the track that you can see in the picture to the left.

When I got on the ride, the first thing that I noticed was the huge pads for your head on the shoulder restraints. Once the ride started I quickly found out why the pads were so huge. The method used to erase your mind is simply slamming your head side to side repeatedly for the entire length of the ride.

Roar
Roar was second for the day. This was one of two wooden coasters at the park. It also was the roughest coaster that I think I’ve ever been on and nearly compacted my spine. Riding this directly after the Mind Eraser left us all feeling like we had just been beaten up…a few times. The ride looked and felt like it was a few decades old and had suffered the normal warping that occurs with wooden coasters, but apparently the ride was only built in 1998. Overall, it was not all that impressive though I did see some very positive reviews for it online. There is a 200′ roofed section of the ride that is less like a tunnel and more like going through a shed.

The Wild One
After we ate, we went on The Wild One which we figured would be a nice way to start again after just eating. This ride actually has a very long history and originally opened in 1917. Despite being very old and having been moved from another park, it was quite smooth and very impressive. It felt extremely fast and towards the end there is a 450° helix which was one of the best parts of any coaster I’ve ever been on. The speed and g-force around it is pretty incredible. This helix is replicated to a degree on the Superman ride which we later went on.

This ride was made even better by the guy sitting in front of us. He was wearing a Gilligan hat and definitely was not too bright. Just as the coaster started down the initial drop, it started to blow off of his head. He reached up to grab it, but instead of taking it off and holding it in his hand for the rest of the ride, he just held the hat on his head. Part of the time, he had one hand on his head and the other up in the air and part of the time, he was holding both sides of the hat down. It was absolutely hilarious. We instantly burst into side splitting laughter that lasted well through the whole ride and popped up at various other times throughout the day.

Two-Face: The Flip Side
This was one of the most innovative coasters I’ve ever been on. Each car seats the rows back to back so the riders are facing the riders in front of them. This adds an amazing element of being able to see the faces of other riders throughout the ride.

The ride starts out by pulling you up the incline and then letting you go back down the way you came and through the loading area. Then you go up through some loops, back up another incline, and then down again through the whole thing in the other direction. Half the riders go backwards on the first pass and forwards on the way back while the other half are the other way around. It’s very neat.

When I rode it, we weren’t fortunate enough to have anyone facing us so that element was out. We went backwards first which was super intense. When the coaster went up the incline on the other side, we were left hanging facing straight down at the ground. That was probably the scariest part for me.

Joker’s Jinx
This coaster was just a mess to look at. The entire coaster is completely compacted on itself and looks as if the blueprints for building it were really just a bowl of spaghetti. The entire half mile of track only takes up about as much space as my bedroom. Looking at the ride is a complete mindfuck.

The ride starts you off with a 0-60 in ~3 seconds linear induction launch and then you get jumbled through the mess of track. Unfortunately, the launch and fear of decapitation are really the only good parts of the ride. Most of the time the train moves pretty slowly though everything then leaves you cooking in the sun for a few minutes while they load up the other train with riders.

Superman: Ride of Steel
This ride was pretty simple, but a whole lot of fun. It starts off with a big climb with a decent drop then goes into a couple humpbacks before
sending you through two opposing helices and then back through another couple humpbacks. The ride feels extremely fast, applies a nice amount of g-force through the helices, and the humpbacks hit you with that nice ejector-seat feeling.

The landscaping around the ride is a bit barren though. The ride is in the back of the park and feels like it’s just in someone’s backyard. There is absolutely nothing around it other than the Batwing which is even further back behind it, but at least near some trees.

The real gripe with this ride is the design of the restraints. The lapbar has a pole that comes between your legs and as man, this is very much less than ideal. Not only does the attendant destroy your chances of being a father when they check the bar, but the pressure against your crotch the entire time is very uncomfortable.

Batwing
This was the last ride that we went on for the day. It also was the only ride with a significant wait. We were in line over an hour for it and had considered giving up. It wasn’t so much that there were a lot of people in line, but it was that they were only using one train at a time and the loading process for each one took five to ten minutes.

The wait was well worth it though. It’s a flying style coaster much like Superman at Six Flags Great Adventure. I had never been on one before so I can’t compare it, but many of the reviews I’ve read say that it’s one of the best, if not the best, of this style. The coaster starts you off laying on your back and carries you up the incline like this with you staring up at the sky. Once you get to the top, it flips you over so you are hanging underneath with your stomach to the ground. You are whipped around some loops and curves and many times it feels like you’re going to fly off face first into the ground. It’s a very intense ride and was well worth the wait.

Yesterday I got to go to Six Flags America (Maryland) for $5 including food and parking. It was pretty awesome. The deal was through Lockheed Martin (I have a friend who works there that scored a bunch of tickets). They did a family day and bought out the park for the day so it was closed to the public. With very few exceptions, we were able to walk right on the rides we wanted to go on with no lines.

Being raised in New Jersey with Six Flags Great Adventure less than an hour away, I never ventured to any of their other parks. I was very pleasantly surprised and with having been to Great Adventure just one week prior, comparison is easy. Overall, the park seems smaller in land area than the Jersey one, but they pack stuff much closer together. It doesn’t seem like Six Flags America is quite as well kept as Great Adventure with things seeming slightly more run down and dirtier. Instead of there being cable cars to take visitors across the park, there is a train which is quite annoying if you’re on foot and have to wait for it to pass. Where Six Flags America beats Great Adventure is where it really counts, the rides themselves. Each roller coaster was very unique in what it offered instead of being the same thing as the last one you were on. At Great Adventure there isn’t really a lot of diversity among the coasters, they all kind of do the same or very similar things.

However, the coasters and attendants are much more painful at Six Flags America. I presume that many of the female attendants had recently been dumped by their boyfriends. When they walk by to check the restraints, they often used both hands to push down as hard as they can, as if giving CPR, and thus shattering the rider’s pelvic region.

Mind Eraser
We started the day off with the Mind Eraser. It’s a pretty decent coaster that flips you upside down five times and has a few corkscrewy things as well. It also has a pretty neat heart shaped thing going on with the track that you can see in the picture to the left.

When I got on the ride, the first thing that I noticed was the huge pads for your head on the shoulder restraints. Once the ride started I quickly found out why the pads were so huge. The method used to erase your mind is simply slamming your head side to side repeatedly for the entire length of the ride.

Roar
Roar was second for the day. This was one of two wooden coasters at the park. It also was the roughest coaster that I think I’ve ever been on and nearly compacted my spine. Riding this directly after the Mind Eraser left us all feeling like we had just been beaten up…a few times. The ride looked and felt like it was a few decades old and had suffered the normal warping that occurs with wooden coasters, but apparently the ride was only built in 1998. Overall, it was not all that impressive though I did see some very positive reviews for it online. There is a 200′ roofed section of the ride that is less like a tunnel and more like going through a shed.

The Wild One
After we ate, we went on The Wild One which we figured would be a nice way to start again after just eating. This ride actually has a very long history and originally opened in 1917. Despite being very old and having been moved from another park, it was quite smooth and very impressive. It felt extremely fast and towards the end there is a 450° helix which was one of the best parts of any coaster I’ve ever been on. The speed and g-force around it is pretty incredible. This helix is replicated to a degree on the Superman ride which we later went on.

This ride was made even better by the guy sitting in front of us. He was wearing a Gilligan hat and definitely was not too bright. Just as the coaster started down the initial drop, it started to blow off of his head. He reached up to grab it, but instead of taking it off and holding it in his hand for the rest of the ride, he just held the hat on his head. Part of the time, he had one hand on his head and the other up in the air and part of the time, he was holding both sides of the hat down. It was absolutely hilarious. We instantly burst into side splitting laughter that lasted well through the whole ride and popped up at various other times throughout the day.

Two-Face: The Flip Side
This was one of the most innovative coasters I’ve ever been on. Each car seats the rows back to back so the riders are facing the riders in front of them. This adds an amazing element of being able to see the faces of other riders throughout the ride.

The ride starts out by pulling you up the incline and then letting you go back down the way you came and through the loading area. Then you go up through some loops, back up another incline, and then down again through the whole thing in the other direction. Half the riders go backwards on the first pass and forwards on the way back while the other half are the other way around. It’s very neat.

When I rode it, we weren’t fortunate enough to have anyone facing us so that element was out. We went backwards first which was super intense. When the coaster went up the incline on the other side, we were left hanging facing straight down at the ground. That was probably the scariest part for me.

Joker’s Jinx
This coaster was just a mess to look at. The entire coaster is completely compacted on itself and looks as if the blueprints for building it were really just a bowl of spaghetti. The entire half mile of track only takes up about as much space as my bedroom. Looking at the ride is a complete mindfuck.

The ride starts you off with a 0-60 in ~3 seconds linear induction launch and then you get jumbled through the mess of track. Unfortunately, the launch and fear of decapitation are really the only good parts of the ride. Most of the time the train moves pretty slowly though everything then leaves you cooking in the sun for a few minutes while they load up the other train with riders.

Superman: Ride of Steel
This ride was pretty simple, but a whole lot of fun. It starts off with a big climb with a decent drop then goes into a couple humpbacks before
sending you through two opposing helices and then back through another couple humpbacks. The ride feels extremely fast, applies a nice amount of g-force through the helices, and the humpbacks hit you with that nice ejector-seat feeling.

The landscaping around the ride is a bit barren though. The ride is in the back of the park and feels like it’s just in someone’s backyard. There is absolutely nothing around it other than the Batwing which is even further back behind it, but at least near some trees.

The real gripe with this ride is the design of the restraints. The lapbar has a pole that comes between your legs and as man, this is very much less than ideal. Not only does the attendant destroy your chances of being a father when they check the bar, but the pressure against your crotch the entire time is very uncomfortable.

Batwing
This was the last ride that we went on for the day. It also was the only ride with a significant wait. We were in line over an hour for it and had considered giving up. It wasn’t so much that there were a lot of people in line, but it was that they were only using one train at a time and the loading process for each one took five to ten minutes.

The wait was well worth it though. It’s a flying style coaster much like Superman at Six Flags Great Adventure. I had never been on one before so I can’t compare it, but many of the reviews I’ve read say that it’s one of the best, if not the best, of this style. The coaster starts you off laying on your back and carries you up the incline like this with you staring up at the sky. Once you get to the top, it flips you over so you are hanging underneath with your stomach to the ground. You are whipped around some loops and curves and many times it feels like you’re going to fly off face first into the ground. It’s a very intense ride and was well worth the wait.

If you see a really rusted looking roller coaster with a loop on the Ocean City, NJ boardwalk, go on it! Yes, it looks like the most unsafe ride ever and it probably is, but that’s what made it awesome. Just make sure that you duck as it goes around the turns because I definitely thought that I was going to get decapitated. And don’t panic when you get to the top of the loop and it feels like it just completely stopped. It’ll make it back down again…eventually.

Also, there is a horror mini golf course. It’s falling apart a bit, but it’s a lot of fun. The guy who worked there said that it is going to be taken down at the end of the summer so go while you still can! There’s a cycloptopus!