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Here's a great flume ride idea!  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=085A7Iv6xzA

I'm so excited just at the possibility, that I can hardly sit still.

The regulars here know that I moved my family to New Hampshire on October 1, 2012. I've been in Texarkana by myself since then, remodeling our old house, getting it ready to sell pending a job transfer.

Things really didn't look good for a while. The economy and budget put all transfers on hold. Then the Texas house burned to the ground, while I still had no hopes of a transfer any time soon.

There are worse things than living in a nice hotel, but still...I'd rather be plodding along in the house I planned to sell. On the positive side, it looks good for a transfer on at least one of the three jobs for which I've been rated "Best Qualified".

Fast forward: my baby girl (23) plans to fly here to spend a week with her bestie, then be my road dog for the final trip home.

A very kind SDC friend has offered me passes. I will hit Paige up for the Homestay special. Baby Girl has never been to SDC, and is super excited about it. I hope for two full days at the City, plus the SOTH show.

After that, it's northeast bound and down, with our road trip playlist rockin' on the stereo for 1,400 miles!

Being able to relive my childhood with the one kid who not only appreciates the same things, but loves and embraces them: priceless!

I've been away from the forum for a few days, but I've been busy.

My house burned down.

Not the house we just bought in NH, but the house in Texas where I was still living until my job transfer goes through. I've been working on it, remodeling and getting it ready to put on the market. Last Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning, it burned while I was at work on graveyard shift. Total loss.

Thankfully it was just "stuff", and insured, but what a pain this is going to be. I'm in a hotel right now, and they'll probably move me to a furnished corporate apartment in a couple of weeks, until everything is settled with the insurance.

Reading the local news at my new home in New Hampshire:

http://www.newhampshirelakesandmountains.com/Articles-Coos-County-Democrat-c-2013-05-21-158025.113119-Negotiations-are-underway-for-Six-Gun-City-purchase.html

JEFFERSON — Six Gun City will not open for the summer over the upcoming Memorial Day weekend.

At least one intensely interested purchaser — and possibly a second — is pursuing buying the 50-acre Old West theme park on Route 2, just west of the Route 115 intersection.

...

A potential buyer has been doing due diligence since February.

No purchase and sales agreement has yet been signed, however, but that next step appears close, Brady explained.

Six Gun City is located on a 40-acre tract on the south side of Route 2, plus two 5-acre parking-lot parcels on the north side. Members of the Brady family expect to retain the 50-acre Fort Jefferson Campground, located on the south side of Route 2.

http://www.sixguncity.com/

I don't suppose there's any chance HFE is looking at this small but very popular regional park, eh?

If anyone mentioned it lately I missed it, but TNT opened in 1993. It's my favorite of the modern coasters.

It's time to spruce the old gal up with a good refurb and overhaul, in my opinion.

I'm still "bi-state", working in Texas and working on our old house, waiting to rejoin my wife and kids at our new (old, 1850) house in New Hampshire.

It's cool here in the Texarkana area. It even got below freezing tonight.

Meanwhile, in New Hampshire...

The owner of Rowdy Adventures in SW Arkansas has reportedly purchased another 2,000 acres in the Glenwood/Hot Springs area, and is planning the largest zip line course in America.

It's not my thing, but his current park gets good reviews.

http://www.rowdyadventures.com/

This is going to sound very off the wall, but I have my reasons for trying to verify a story that I was told once upon a time.

Do any of you who are familiar with SW MO know if there was a strip club in Webb City in the 1985-87 time frame? More specifically, I'm trying to find out if there was a place that either featured a live tiger, or had tiger as part of its name. It may have been in another town, maybe even in Kansas, but Webb City is what I was told at the time.

I'm not going to give any details about why I'm asking, out of courtesy to the parties involved, but I'd like to know if such a place ever existed.

I was reading a local paper's online edition near where I'm moving to, and saw that a group of Pennyfarthing enthusiasts had shown up at a local event.

That jogged my memory, and unless I'm sadly mistaken, SDC Main Street in the '70s included the occasional Citizen on a Pennyfarthing bicycle.

Junior? Rube?

So, we're moving. We're moving far away, and soon. My next SDC visit will probably be sometime far in the future.

But, these two parks will be within 40 miles of my new home. Small and cheezy, but fun. The Wolf Man is legendary in New England. 

http://sixguncity.com/

http://www.clarkstradingpost.com/

For some bigger rides, Canobie Lake Park is just two and a half hours away.

http://www.canobie.com/

Here are some serious steam fans!

This was a narrow-gauge event, so the one train shown that operates as standard gauge appears really tiny in comparison. There's a saddle tank engine, and a shay (No. 15, Western Lumber Co.), which is an intricate thing of beauty.

Too bad that SteamFreak isn't on the forum any longer. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VAuPPufNro

[will]

Blame another one on government meddling.

http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/x136110631/Blitz-USA-to-close-plant-at-Miami-Okla

The federal safety regulations for gas cans have effectively made them less safe to use, causing more spilled gasoline.

It's never been smart to throw gas on a fire, but with the new mandatory designs it's not a case of "something bad might happen", but "something bad will happen". The resulting lawsuits bankrupted Blitz, and they are being forced to close and lay off 117 people because of other people's stupidity.

Thanks to Parson B Ready for posting here, and reminding me that this forum section exists!

I doubt anyone here is in our immediate area, so I'm not trolling for customers, but here is my wife's Facebook page for her dog grooming business. I've always thought her business name was better than the typical cutesy puns her competitors choose. Then again, I might be biased. 

Creature Comforts

 


http://youtu.be/Qk_8H-zx-nc

I saw this on Facebook. Short version: a guy buys two one-day passes to Disney Land. His girlfriend isn't with him at the time, but is around the corner.

They enter, and never touch or use the passes after that point.

A couple of official photographers take her pictures with a character, but they don't purchase them. He wasn't in those pictures, since he was taking pictures using his own camera.

He paid cash, no ID, for a picture from Splash Mountain. It's a tandem ride, so they're not sitting together.

When he got home and logged on to download that picture, Disney had already tagged his girlfriend's photos and attached them to his account, offering him the chance to buy them.

How did they know who she was, and that she was with him?

Long version:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=336416016413968&set=p.336416016413968&type=1

 

The self-described "flight through apocalyptic devastation on Europe's tallest winged rollercoaster" propels up to 28 riders at a time with their arms and legs dangling freely at 62 miles per hour and includes trips through an inverted 127-foot drop and several close encounters with walled structures that are designed to make passengers feel like they are about to crash.

The ride's designers ran some test runs with crash test dummies, leaving many shocked when the dummies returned from the experience missing arms and legs. A team of former British fighter pilots were then brought in as the coaster's preparation neared completion. Mark Cutmore, team leader of the Blades, a stunt pilot organization, told the Metro: "I am a self-confessed adrenaline junkie, but even as a pilot used to G-force there were some gut-wrenching moments, and I have to admit the near miss element is eye-watering -- you really do feel as if you are going to crash into the structures."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/winged-roller-coaster-swarm-rips-arms-off-crash-183513325.html

This coaster would give you eight seconds of freefall. Cool!

http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2012-01/zero-gravity-roller-coaster

Very cool. I don't have an iPhone (I'd love one, I just refuse to pay the outrageous monthly charges for data when I only want to make calls and take pictures).

Anywhoo:

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/01/steampunk-gps-app/

Okay, not even a gazillion, but if I found myself with enough discretionary dough, one of the things I would do is either make or finance an open source documentary about SDC.

I can see 3-5 hours' worth, broken into history, behind the scenes, the current park, non-SDC Branson, and the future.

I'd sell DVDs or downloads, but open source all the raw footage. Even HFE could use it they wanted to.

I better stop and buy a lottery ticket.

They're more Eastern Appalachia bluegrass, but this is a band whose music would definitely fit in well at SDC.

The band themselves might shock a few traditionalists, though. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbcqGjeNz7w