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This is a pretty amazing cave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwWgdlTGTUg

They're paving the main road through my town (I live on that road).

I told my sister, "It smells like Silver Dollar City!"

She replied, "I miss that smell."

Even though I live 15 minutes from Santa's Village, I've never been there. It's mostly geared towards families with younger children.

I do know it's themed to the North Pole and back, and everything is Santa-/Christmas-themed.

Even they are doing away with an old favorite ride to make way for something new. This was originally at Benson's Wild Animal Farm, another NH attraction that was open from 1926-1987. Santa's Village opened in 1953, and is still growing.

https://www.wmur.com/article/rudys-roller-coaster-santas-village-retiring-new-hampshire/43832138

If you ever spent hours fascinated by the glassblowers (as I did), you'll enjoy this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1KT8PS6Zs4

If you don't want your iPhone 14 dialing 911 while you're on a ride, you might want to turn off that feature before riding.

https://www.macworld.com/article/1339221/how-to-turn-off-crash-detection-iphone-apple-watch.html

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/xpoxef/rollercoasters_arent_car_crashes/

This blogger is mostly about aviation and political issues, but he enjoyed his visit to Dollywood.

https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2022/08/23/dollywood/

Seems generally related to parks. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vYV6Mru6Zo

A six year old wasn't buckled in. The operators were untrained.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/27/us/colorado-glenwood-caverns-adventure-park-child-death/index.html

If you missed John Davidson in Branson, or if you wondered whatever became of him, I just found out that he's in NH now, and still doing his thing on a much smaller scale.

https://www.wmur.com/article/new-hampshire-chronicle-club-sandwich-john-davidson/36980715

"Closed for Storm"

https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/movies_tv/article_4b05ae46-96ce-11ea-95e2-ef1b943779a8.html

You won't hear it at SDC, but it's impressive!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KBvRdR4c44

Santa's Village is about 7 miles from my house. It's an iconic New England theme park, but I confess that I've never been there.

We drove past today and saw big plywood crates labelled "WHITEWATER" and "FRAGILE", so of course I said it must be from Italy.

Coming back, we saw workers assembling water slide tubes across the road from those crates. The park has been expanding a lot the last couple of years. It's a real family operation, four generations so far.

https://www.nhmagazine.com/behind-the-scenes-at-santas-village/

I think that all of us who visited SDC as kids dreamed about living there. I'm sure that's true of everyone's favorite park.

Some Disney fans got that chance. It turned into more of a nightmare.

https://www.news.com.au/travel/world-travel/north-america/the-creepy-history-of-disneys-perfect-town/news-story/8b9a034e93ddb074b5fbdbb286f83806

As seen on Facebook, shared from a friend in Oregon, originally by some stranger, probably none of whom have ever heard of SOTH. 

No politics or partisanship involved in this announcement, just a personal brag:

On my first-ever attempt at public office, I won my race for state representative in New Hampshire. It was close: just four votes. The long-time incumbent asked for a recount (so would I, had it been four vote the other way), and the recount came out with exactly the same numbers. 

NH has 400 state representatives for 1.3 million people, and the office pays all of $100 a year. It's not a profession; it's a huge pain to serve.

I still wanted to share and brag a bit, though. 

This is specifically about Disney, but we've had discussions about the American with Disabilities Act as it applies to SDC. I don't think it belongs in SDC talk, nor other parks talk, so I'm putting it in Random Talk.

I quote from law professor Eugene Volokh's "Short Circuit" roundup of recent U.S. Circuit Court decisions.

"Disney theme parks accommodate individuals with cognitive disabilities by allowing them to skip the line for all rides with wait times of less than 15 minutes (which is most rides) and to schedule appointments at rides with longer wait times. They are never required to wait in lines. Parents (in 30 separate lawsuits): Not good enough. Our kids still have meltdowns. Eleventh Circuit: Disney might not be complying with the ADA."

http://www.wcvb.com/article/former-schlitterbahn-executive-facing-manslaughter-charge-in-water-slide-death/19577801

Tyler Miles was booked in the Wyandotte County Jail Friday and charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of 10-year-old Caleb Schwab.

SDC and SDCfans.com remain some of my favorite places. For months now, I swore I would check in on the forum, but it seems the more I retired, the busier I got.  

I am officially retired now, after more than 31 years of military and law enforcement. I work part time at a regional grocery chain, and it's nice to do something motivated by profit instead of "just because I showed up".

And oh yeah... I moved from northeastern Texas, to northern New Hampshire. Life is great up here!  

Anyhoo, speaking of theme parks, there is one just six miles from my house that is key to the following story. I strongly suggest that everyone take the advice given, and just listen to the audio first, before reading. When the Museum of Well-Turned Phrases opens, the first line of this story will be the key exhibit.

http://nhpr.org/post/mankind-saint-mick-mick-foleys-journey-wrestling-cage-santas-village

http://www.forbes.com/sites/grantmartin/2014/01/12/southwest-airlines-plane-lands-at-wrong-airport-almost-careens-off-cliff/

When the wheels of Scott Schieffer's airplane touched the ground at his destination, something didn't seem right.

"We landed very abruptly with the pilot applying the brakes very hard. We smelled burnt rubber from the stop," he told me privately over Twitter.

The flight, Southwest Airlines LUV +1.3% 4013, which left from Chicago's Midway airport this afternoon was originally scheduled to fly to Dallas with a stop in Branson, Missouri (BKG) but instead, the aircraft touched down at Taney County Airport (PLK), 8.6 miles away from its intermediate stop. According to airportguide.com, PLK's runway is about half the length of BKG's at 3738 feet versus 7140 feet.

Only after unloading the plane, did Mr. Scheiffer notice the gravity of the situation, noting "we have all deplaned from @SouthwestAir 4013, and the mood is somber now that we realized we were 40 feet from the edge of a cliff."

It's been a while since I've been on the forum, but life has been pretty busy.

I was selected for a promotion and finally got my transfer, to rejoin my wife and kids in New Hampshire. I didn't make it for Christmas, but I got here on the 30th. The weather has been great, until today -- it thawed and started raining, turning everything into ice.

Friends and family in NW Arkansas and SW Missouri have had almost as much snow as we've had this year.

But in prettier weather, here's the view from our living room window (the deer have really pawed up the snow under our apple trees!), a view along my daily drive to work, and a before-and-after picture that shows how much my wife accomplished on the house while we lived in different states for 15 months (the first picture was January 2013, and the second was December 31).