Bradley Robertson - Blog

Halloween 2009: Dungeon Trailer

Bradley Robertson — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:00:00 +0000

A trailer for my Halloween 2009 Garage Haunt

It was a dark and stormy night...

Bradley Robertson — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:11:59 +0000

For those of you not familiar with the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest it ask contestants to compose a bad opening to a story involving "it was a dark and stormy night." As always I forgot to submit my entry since I don't think about it until around Halloween. I've always found it a little odd that the deadline is April 15th. Since I don't have an official entry to show you I offer you this short story that begins with this oh so trite phrase instead. Click on through to read this horrifying (as in bad) story.

It was a dark and stormy night with the sky dropping buckets of rain and the wind blowing furiously. It also happened to be Halloween night. Some feel that is all too fitting. For me it is a great annoyance. You see, I am what many of my peers refer to as a home haunter. That is, I set up a huge display for Halloween each year that rivals the most grandiose Christmas decorations. Oh, there was a time when I decorated for Christmas as well, but as I got older it got harder and harder for me to stand outside in the cold for hours on end stringing up lights. I figured that there are enough neighbors who decorate for the Winter holiday to keep-up a cheery atmosphere on the street.

But, I digress. The matter at hand is this ridiculous rain. Even though most of my display is waterproof and my garage haunt is, well, in an enclosed garage, rain on Halloween is a home haunter's worst nightmare. You see, some time ago the Trick-or-Treaters (or ToTs as fellow haunters affectionately refer to them) stopped being waterproof. That is, more accurately, the parents decided that trick-or-treating is a fair weather activity. On colder Halloween nights the traffic to my display is minimal. On rainy, stormy, cold nights like tonight it is quite likely not one ToT will push the nose on my handmade skull doorbell.

Nevertheless, I am dressed-up in my caretaker costume complete with my deadguy grey and zombie bruise colored make-up siting in my creaking rocking chair listening to my custom-made soundtrack for the evening. Rocking back-and-forth in my chair I carefully observe the display in my front yard through the storm door. Normally, I would be sitting in front of my garage passing out candy and monitoring the traffic in and out of my garage haunt. My wife would be inside in her witch costume stiring a fog filled stew cackling at those that ventured in. We new it would probably be an exercise in futility to take the effort to have everything in the garage up and running so my wife went out with some of her friends for the evening. My 17 and 19 year-old sons were over at a mutual friends house for a party and I didn't expect them back until after midnight. So for this year it will just be my yard display to look at for those that do venture out.

...
The first hour past dusk has passed by and not a live soul has approached the threshold of my haunted home. On the plus side, the wind tempered its howling and the rain is helping to keep my fog close to the ground. The effect is an awesome sight right out of a movie set. I just wish there were a few ToTs around that could see it. While I do truly love the way my display looks, I don't put it up for myself. I do it for the ToTs to give them some of the same memories I have from Halloweens past. When I was a kid as long as you were healthy enough to trek through the neighborhood you went trick-or-treating. We surely weren't bussed around the neighborhoods in mini-vans like so many of the kids today. Sigh. There I go showing my age. In a few years I will probably be lamenting that I walked a mile uphill in the snow to get to one house from the next.
...
Another hour has gone by and I have seen some activity on the sidewalks, but no one as of yet has dared come to my door. Which is a shame really. I have a neat setup on my front porch this year that allows me to covertly capture my attempts to scare the ToTs. I bought a small night-vision security camera and set up a few infra-red lights. Those infra-reds don't affect my purpleish-red lighting scheme as the light can't be seen. However, it does increase the visibility of my camera enabling me to capture the looks on the kids faces when they trip my motion sensor that causes the coffin on my porch to start rattling the chains that are on it. It seems to work really well if I do say so myself. In fact, it seemed to scare the devil out of my cat when she tripped the sensor when she came to the front porch to be let in. Poor Samhain. Oh well, she'll hide for a couple of days and be over it.
...

At last! Finally someone is venturing up my drive-way! I think it is Jeremy from across the street. Looks like he decided to go with the grim reaper instead of a baseball player. Good choice in my opinion. I've never understood why kids would want to were a uniform they wore all summer long. Halloween is only one night a year! Your choice in a costume should be something you can't wear any other time.

As Jeremy approached the front porch he stopped right in front of it once he reached it. He looked left, then right. Carefully, he grabbed his cloak around his knees and pulled it up so he could high step on to the porch avoiding the trip sensor that I had spent an afternoon on. Once he made it the storm door he gave me a creepy smile under is skull make-up and exclaimed, "Treat-or-Treat!"

"Ring the doorbell," I said with a smile.

"What?" he questioned.

"Ring the doorbell," I repeated a little louder. I had spent quite a bit of time rigging it up and I wanted to hear it play Toccata and Fugue just once this evening without me having to push it.

Jeremy obliged and said, "Trick-or-Treat," again as I opened the storm door.

I handed him a couple of full-size candy bars, which I had plenty of due to the lack of traffic to my door this evening. I've never given out those measly "Fun-size" candy bars and I never will. I decided to give him a few more since I definitely didn't need the left-overs. As I was putting them in his pillowcase cum trick-or-treat bag I noticed the only candy he had in there was what I had given him.

"Are you just now going out for trick-or-treating?" I asked.

"Yeah," he replied sheepishly. "Mom didn't want me to go out in the rain, but I got her to let me come over here since we saw you at your door. She said something about feeling sorry for you. I didn't understand why she was feeling sorry for you. I'm the one that isn't getting to go get candy!"

"Yep, that stinks," I agreed. "Tell your mom thanks, and have a happy Halloween."

"Thank You," he said as he turned around to leave. As he did so he tripped the sensor to the coffin, forgetting it was there. It visibly startled him. He turned around to look at me with a mild look of panic that quickly turned in to smile. He shook his head and rolled his eyes as if to say, "Fine, you got me." I smiled back, and Jeremy restarted his trip back home to his house across the street.

...

Ten P.M. rolled around and Jeremy was still my only visitor. I decided it was time to accept that Halloween was over and it was time to start turning off my display. First, I changed out of my costume and put on some sweatpants and a hoodie. I put my camping rain suit on over that and starting the process of turning off each of my fog machines and carrying them in to the garage. And then the penguins attacked. Of course I use the term "attacked" liberally. As most people know penguins don't exactly move very fast. Nevertheless, there were at least 20 of the birds waddling towards my graveyard. Most of them were squawking, but it wasn't quite normal for what I expecting them to sound like. Then I noticed their eyes. Their eyes didn't look right. It was as if there was nothing behind them. And their feathers were all disheveled in a way that I had never seen on penguins before. Granted, I've only seen a few penguins in person so I am by far not an expert, but there was something just not right about this lot.

"Holy Shit!" I exclaimed out loud. It was starting to click. The dead eyes, the moaning, the mussed up feathers could only mean one thing. These had to be zombie penguins! I finished gathering up the final fog machine and I hurriedly took it to the garage. Not wanting to wait for the garage door to go down with the opener I pulled the safety release handle and manually slammed the door shut. Once it was down I reconnected the release to the opener and locked the door. This effectively created a double lock on the garage. I walked past the Halloween display separator to the undecorated side of the garage. Frantically I looked around for something I could use to defend myself. The first thing that caught my eye was a post hole digger. I went over to grab it, but as I did so I realized it was too cumbersome to be used effectively as a weapon. I continued to eyeball my surroundings when the glint of my shovel caught my attention.

Feeling sufficiently armed I went inside the house to secure all the entrances. Luckily, I had the windows boarded up already as part of my display so all I really had to do was lock and deadbolt the doors. As an extra precaution I moved the kitchen table in front of the back door. I then went back in to the garage and grabbed a two-by-four, some nails, and a hammer. I secured the two-by-four underneath the handle of the door handle and nailed it in place. I took a step back and and tried to think of any other entrances I might be missing. I considered blocking off the fireplace, but that seemed like overkill. Then I realized I was forgetting the basement. I grabbed more lumber and nails, and I rushed down in to the basement. I went to the door for the walk-out and began tacking up boards width-wise across the frame. I was glad I had because there were already a few of the penguins that had made their way in to the backyard.

Finally feeling somewhat secure I went back upstairs to sit down in my rocker and try to figure out what my next course of action would be. After a few minutes of mulling some options in my head the thought occurred to me that while I had locked myself in, I had also locked my family out.

"Dammit," I sighed. While I was trying to decide how to resolve getting my family in to the safety of the house I decided it was probably best to call them and find out how widespread this zombie outbreak was. I called my oldest son first and got no answer. Instead of trying to call again I called my younger son since they were both supposed to be at the same place. He answered on the second ring and seemed to be okay. I asked him what the penguin situation was where he was at. He didn't seemed to have any idea what I was talking about. I told him to take a look outside and tell me what he saw. He grudgingly obliged and told me to hold on. When he came back on he re-affirmed that he had no idea what I was talking about in regards to any penguins. I asked him if his brother was with him. He said he was. I explained that no matter what they were not to leave where they were until I came to get them. He made a snarky comment and hung-up.

I wasn't pleased with the conversation, but I was satisfied that they were okay. I started to scroll through the contacts on my phone to call my wife when my phone started to ring. Conveniently, it was my wife. As soon as I answered she asked me if I was drunk. I didn't understand what she was inferring and thought that was quite rude. She explained that our youngest had called her saying that he thought dad was drunk because he got a random call about there being an penguin invasion. I sighed and made the assumption there weren't any penguins near my wife either. I told her we could talk about it later and to be careful. I then hung-up on her and leaned back in my chair and went back to rocking so I could clear my head.

After rocking back-and-forth for a while I decided I should take another look outside. It was hard to see through the fence boards I had used to board up my windows, but it appeared that most of the penguins where now congregating inside my graveyard fence. A couple were in front of my porch but were having a hard time scaling the steps. The steps seemed like enough of a barrier alone to keep me safe. I thought about undoing the two-by-four from the door, but decided against it . I sat back down and started to wondering if I was imagining the zombie penguins. I know it sounds crazy, but they have to be zombies. They are all scraped up and making the most horrific noises. Then again, I wonder if the penguins are even real in the first place. Did I have something to drink earlier?

THUMP! Rattle-rattle rattle

"What the hell was that?" I wondered aloud as I got up from my rocker to investigate. I looked out the window next to the door once more and saw a penguin trying to make its way up the steps. It kept flapping one of its flippers causing the sensor for the coffin to be tripped. Annoyed, I flipped the switch for that outlet on the inside of the house and it turned the mechanism off. I sat back down in my rocker and continued waiting. Waiting for the kids to come home. Waiting for my wife to get home. Waiting for something worse to happen.

...
Duh ni nuh, dun it tah nuh nuh

"Huh?" I said sleepily. I think I must have dozed off. I rubbed my eyes to bring them in focus and saw my blue and red lights through the window.

Duh ni nuh, dun it tah nuh nuh The sound came on again. It took me a second to realize it was my doorbell. Then I noticed my lights were flickering.

Duh ni nuh, dun it tah nuh nuh This time I sheepishly said, "Hello?" aloud.

"This is the police. Can we please talk to you?" the voice said.

"The penguins," I muttered. "The penguins! Watch out for the penguins!" I yelled.

"Sir, we know about the penguins. Everything is fine now. We just want to ask you a few questions so we can have a better idea of what happened," a different voice said.

"Did any of them bite you?" I asked.

"A few of us got nipped, but we're okay. Nothing serious. Can you please step outside?" the first voice repsonded.

"Nothing serious?" I questioned loudly. "How do you know none of you are infected?"

"Sir, what would we be infected with? Aside from a few scratches these are very healthy birds. For the last time, can you please come outside? This is the last time we will ask," the second officer requested starting to sound annoyed.

"I can't come outside. I barred myself in with two-by-fours. I wanted to protect myself from the zombie penguins."

"Zombies?" the first officer muttered.

"What zombies?" The second officer asked. "The only thing that was out here were some penguins that escaped after a transport carrying them crashed while en route to the new exhibit at the zoo. Is this some sort of Halloween prank? Do you think this is funny sir? I'm ordering back-up to get a battering arm to take your door down."

"No!" I exclaimed. "Don't do that! I'll come out, I promise. I just need to take these two-by-fours off first."

"What about the going through the garage?" one of the officers mumbled.

"Oh," I said. "Yeah, I guess that would be easier wouldn't it. I will be out in a minute."

I put the hammer down I had picked up as a self-defense reaction and headed towards the garage. I unlocked the garage door and activated the opener. After I did so I put my hands on my head as a precaution. I knew I was still amped-up and I think I probably scared the officers as well. Once the door was opened I saw that the officers were standing in front of the door at a distance with their hands on their holstered guns. I looked past them and saw a large refrigerated truck on the street.

"Is that where the penguins are?" I asked as I nodded to the truck with my hands on my head.

"Yes," replied the officer on the left which I believed to be the 2nd officer by his voice.

"Can I see them?" I asked.

"Fine sir. You can take your hands down now," officer number two replied.

I slowly made my way to the back of the truck. When I arrived I saw that the door was still open. There were several metal crates, each with a penguin inside. Since one of the patrol cars behind me had its spotlight on I was able to see the penguins better now. Most of them were very dirty, and a few had some cuts. It was clear to me now that the penguins were indeed not zombies after all.

"Okay, I admit I let the spirit of the night get the better of me and I overacted. Sorry if I freaked you guys out," I apologized.

"Yeah, um about that," the first officer started, "We would like you to come with us to the station so we can have someone ask you some more questions."

"Am I under arrested?" I worried aloud.

"No sir," the first officer responded. "Well, provided you come voluntarily. If you refuse then yes, I am afraid we will have to arrest you so to speak."

"Under what grounds?" I belted out.

"Sir, please stay calm. We just need you to have a talk with one of our other officers," the 2nd officer explained.

"Fine," I said feeling defeated. "Can I call my wife first?"

Both of the officers looked at each other, shrugged, then turned to me and nodded. Taking that as a yes I fished my cell phone out of my pocket and called my wife.

"Honey? Can you meet me at the police station? I will explain everything when you get there."

###

Bradley Robertson: Why do I do it? Part II

Bradley Robertson — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:14:55 +0000

A year ago I made a post explaining why I put up such a big Halloween display each year. I explained that I am not a Satanist, that it does take considerable time to put up my display each year, and that at the end of the day I put up my display because I want to create memories for the neighborhood kids. However, I find that along with other people I am asking myself the question of why I do it. Before I address that I want to talk about the number one question I have been asked this year: What does your wife think about all this?

The short answer is she loves it. The longer answer requires a little bit of back story. Anyone who knows my wife or I well knows that about 6 years ago my we had our wedding reception on Halloween (we got married in small private ceremony 3 days earlier). Nine years ago on Halloween we met each other for the 2nd time and spent the evening at a coffee house. Obviously we have a personal history with Halloween. It doesn't stop there. Last year when the entire main level of my house was covered in scene-setters wall decorations my wife helped put it up. If she didn't like Halloween it is doubtful she have spent the 30 or so hours over two weekends to help me put it it all up. Likewise, I wouldn't ask her opinion on every part of my display if she didn't like Halloween almost as much as I do. Granted, I do 90% of the work involved with setting up my display each year. So to some degree she isn't as crazy about Halloween as I am, but she is proud of how the house looks every year.

Speaking of the work involved, this is what had me questioning myself. This past weekend I started my work on creating my garage haunt. This involved making about 30 new rivet holes in tarps, and tacking down scene-setters wall roll to the tarps. Nothing to extraordinarily tiring, just repetitive fine motor actions. Yesterday, I started working on the signs that I will be putting out to advertise the garage haunt. Creating them entailed doing what would be considered minor office work, such as drawing lines to line up cropping marks, using a paper cutter to crop the pages, and then sealing the pages with contact paper and duct tape. Again, nothing too burdensome, but it does require some fine motor actions with my hands and fingers. For the average 30 year-old male this wouldn't be a problem.

Unfortunately, I have moderate arthritis in my fingers. Today my fingers are stiff, and the slightest movements are painful (this includes typing this up by the way). At its worst it feels like someone is stepping on my fingers, at the mildest it it feels like your fingers do after being outside for a few minutes in winter without wearing gloves. As a result, today and the last several Mondays have had me asking is the pain worth it. What really motivates me to put up this display knowing the level pain that is going to ensue afterward? The short answer is I don't have one. I still stand by what I said last year that I want kids to grow up realizing that there is nothing wrong with Halloween and that it should be celebrated. Additionally, I still hope that neighbors will be inspired by my display and start decorating their houses.

Even with those answers I find myself asking are those two reasons enough of a reason for me to keep doing it. For the time being it is a definitive yes. However, in the not to distant future I am going to have to start enlisting help. I foresee that within 5 years doing the amount of work that I have done in any given weekend will take at least one full day to recover from to the point that typing will be hard. When decorating starts to interfere with how you make your livelihood it is time to get help or stop. Hopefully once I am at that point the neighborhood kids will be at the point where they no longer want to observe, and instead what to start helping create the scares. Personally, I can't see discontinuing decorating for Halloween. I would rather stop decorating for Christmas and I don't see that happening either. So for the time being, Yes, Virgina, there is a Frankenstein.

Kansas City Chiefs fans still some of the best

Bradley Robertson — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:14:24 +0000

Last Sunday I went to my second Chiefs game at Arrowhead Stadium. The first was during the 2005 season where the Chiefs finished 10-6 and just missed a Wildcard bid. We had nose-bleed seats, but we got to see Chiefs win the game against the Raiders with a touchdown on the final play after the clock had run out. The atmosphere was great and it was everything I expected a Chiefs game to be. Flash forward 4 years and going in to the Cowboys game last Sunday the Chiefs were 2-27 in their last 29 regular season games. Needless to say I was curious what the attendance levels would be as well as the game day atmosphere.

The pre-game atmosphere is exactly what you would expect at a Chiefs game. A haze of charcoal and wood smoke hovered over the parking lots. There were plenty of fans playing catch with footballs, washers games, and bean bag tosses going on to try to kill time while food was cooking. After the food was eaten more time was killed with the aforementioned games, and of course the alcohol flowed freely.

For the 2005 game the attendance was 79,033, the highest for that season. The game last Sunday had an attendance of 71,214 which is 7819 less than the 2005 game. This didn't seem that bad to me when you take in to consideration how the Chiefs are performing, and due to the economy NFL tickets are somewhat of a luxury item right now. Now, to be fair their was a very large Cowboy fan presence. It would be safe to say they made up a 1/4 to 1/3 of the people in attendance. I would like to think that most of these folks are season ticket holders who are Chiefs fans geographically and Cowboys fans by choice. Whatever the case may be the crowd noise was just as loud, if not louder than I have ever heard it and it definitely took its toll on the Cowboys with multiple false-start and off-sides calls against them.

Even though the Chiefs lost the game in overtime making them 0-5 this season and 2-28 in the last 30 games, I am still proud to be a Chiefs fan. I'll be the first to admit I have found it hard to watch them these last two seasons. That's not because I'm a fair weather fan. It has more to do with it breaking my heart to see what favorite team has become after being a force to be reckoned with in the '90's. Instead, I still faithfully listen to the games on the radio when I'm not at Arrowhead hoping like many of the 71,214 fans last Sunday that the Chiefs can get their first win of the season.

After more than 10 years, I'm saying goodbye to Hotmail

Bradley Robertson — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:24:30 +0000

Back in the Spring of 1997 I finally grew tired of using Juno as my email client. Back then it was a simple program that would use a dial-up connection to download your emails off of its server. The application was ad-supported and had a limitation of about 2 MBs. The problem with it was I could only access it at my home computer. I wanted a solution that would allow me to access my email anywhere. This is where HoTMaiL came in. It provided the solution I needed and was easy to sign-up for. I stuck with it after Microsoft bought and I have been through all iterations of it.

Granted, for the last several years I have not given out my @hotmail.com address. Instead I have had my account set up to receive and send the email address for this site. The only thing that gave away to the average user that I was even using Hotmail was I was using an "i'm MAKING A DIFFERENCE" link in my signature. Otherwise, most people never realized I was still using Hotmail as my email backbone so to speak. For some reason I have started to grow tired of the service and decided to look in to transition into using only Gmail. First, I needed to edit all of my old subscriptions that were being sent to my Hotmail address and change them to email address for this domain. That has been a task in progress for a couple of months. It is not a particularly time-consuming process, but I had mailings I got very infrequently and I used these as reminders to go to the list and change my address.

Now that I had everything switched over to my real email address I started looking in to what I needed to do to dump all of my Hotmail messages. I had assumed that I was going to have dump my messages and use an email program to copy all my messages to my Gmail account. I could have saved myself some time if I would have just gone in to my Gmail account from the start. I was pleasantly surprised that Gmail could import all my data from my Hotmail account. Once the process started I was even more pleasantly surprised to see that Gmail automatically tagged all my messages based on the folder I had them in on my Hotmail account. Also, since the Gmail BlackBerry plug-in has been created using Gmail on my phone is easier than it was the first time I tried it over a year ago.

So far the only messages I am getting at my Hotmail account are Spam. Gmail has been smart enough not to import these so far. It will be a little while before I delete my Hotmail account (if ever), but if Gmail ends up working the way I think it will then it is quite likely my Hotmail account will end up getting deleted from non-use. It's been a good run Hotmail. I'll always have soft spot for you, but don't expect me back.

Halloween 2009: a brief teaser

Bradley Robertson — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:46:06 +0000

At one point this year I thought this might be the year without a Halloween display at my house. I have been in the process of remodeling my kitchen, and I honestly didn't think I was going to have the full weekend of down-time it requires to get my display up. Additionally, I had some real estate clients that I was also spending a fair amount of time with on the weekends as well. Earlier this week things worked out so that I was going to have this entire weekend free to put of my decorations. I finished getting everything put up earlier this evening, and I have to say for the 3rd year in a row the display is better than last year. Click on through to see a preview of this year's display.

Halloween 2009 front porch view

What? You didn't honestly think I was going to give you something worthwhile to see this early on did you? If you have followed my displays the last couple of years you would already know that I won't do a full picture of the whole display until 1 week prior to Halloween at the earliest. But, if you want updates before then follow my photo blog at http://photoblog.bradleyrobertson.com or friend me on BrightKite.

What are you doing?

Bradley Robertson — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:09:33 +0000

As many of you know by now the micro-blogging site Twitter asks the simple question, "What are you doing?" You might have also noticed I haven't been so good about talking about what I have been doing lately because of my lack of posts. To be quite honest there is really no one reason why I haven't posted an entry in over two months. However, even though I haven't been actively updating entries on this site, I do still "tweet" a couple of times a day. Below, I have listed my 10 favorite tweets I have sent over the last two months. I hope you enjoy them and it prompts you to follow me on twitter along with reading my site.

Happy Star Wars Day everyone! May the 4th be with you.. @ The Dagobah Swamp 2:12 PM May 4th from Brightkite
We just sold our car to a random dude on the street. We were planning to donate it, but the cash is nice too. @ The Dagobah Swamp 7:38 PM May 5th from Brightkite
The neighbors across the street are smoking pot on their front porch. Seems like a surefire way to get arrested. @ The Dagobah Swamp 8:22 PM May 10th from Brightkite
Ugh. Someone got my debit card info (again). $700 unauthorized charge. Glad we always have back-savings... @ Career Education Systems Inc 9:37 AM May 15th from Brightkite
I don't understand why people have the AC on already. Only been 82F the last several days, and will be 70's this week. @ The Summer Cabana 3:03 AM May 25th from Brightkite
Got an estimate for the damage done from someone rear-ending my car: $977 @ Bud Brown Chrysler Inc 3:26 PM May 28th from Brightkite
Anyone know where to get empty 55 gallon steel drums in the Kansas City Metro area? @ The Summer Cabana 8:27 PM Jun 1st from web
Hope the weather around here changes soon. All the rain in the last 2 months has caused my arthritis to be horrible. @ The Summer Cabana 7:59 PM Jun 10th from Brightkite
I really need to write something soon. I feel like a major part of who I am is slowly dying because I haven't done so. @ The Summer Cabana 2:43 AM Jun 14th from Brightkite
Your musical talent will be greatly missed Michael. @ The Summer Cabana 4:59 PM Jun 25th from Brightkite
Having a bit of an arthritis flair-up today as a result of the rain. @ E 163rd St & Addie Dr 3:17 PM Jul 4th from Brightkite

(Okay, so I lied. There are 11)

Prowler Media/Season Passholder Preview Day

Bradley Robertson — Fri, 01 May 2009 23:00:24 +0000

Today was a day that I had been looking forward to for well over a year. It had been rumored for quite some time that Worlds of Fun was going to be getting a new wooden roller coaster for the 2009 operating season. Clues gradually started showing up last year with survey flags, construction materials, and labels indicating the manufacturer. On Labor Day last year the press announcement was made confirming that Worlds of Fun was going to be getting a new world-class wooden coaster. I lieu of doing a full on report of the event, I would rather show you everything that was going on. Click on through to see my photo report.

Entering the park to Ride Prowler

Always cool when you get a chance to attend these

General Banks and his team were here to make sure we were safe

Folks from Cedar Cove were here with some real kitties

Kitties!

More Kitties!

This is no little kittie

The photo booth

A DJ was on hand to soothe the guests and the beast.

An almost full queue

WE'RE UP NEXT!

Climbing and clawing in to the sky

The return run

AWESOME!

Time to wave goodbye for the day

Valerie and I both thought this was a fantastic coaster. We are so glad that we will be able to ride something this awesome so close to home. We took a ride in both the front and in the back. The air-time in both is great, but the view in the front can't be beat. This may be the first woodie that I will ride more often in the front. Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind and I have the whole summer to decide. If you are hungry for more pictures you can check them out in my Gallery.

Worlds of Fun Opening Day 4/18/2009

Bradley Robertson — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:00:00 +0000

Since we knew the weather was going to be nasty in the morning, but nice in the afternoon Valerie and I decided to sleep in and planned on going to the park later in the day. We weren't planning on making a full day out of our visit. Mainly we just wanted to ride some of the coasters, see some of the off-season improvements, and get as good of a look at Prowler as we could without treading in to forbidden areas. We ended up arriving at the park around 3:30 pm, and our first stop was Patriot The wait for the front row was about 20 minutes, and the rest of the rows seemed to be no more than 10 minutes. One thing that always bugs me is when they don't have the front line open. When they don't open up that line it usually ends up blocking the turnstile for the entrance to the rest of rows. Because it was blocking the view of rows 2-4 more folks were getting in line for rows 5-7, and as a result we saw several trains leave with a much lower capacity than it could have handled causing longer than necessary waits for rows 2-7. As to the coaster itself, it is still just as fun as the first time I rode it. It was running really well, and I heard very little of the clanking that I noticed during some of my rides last season. I have always tried to compare Patriot to Silver Bullet because my first rides on both occurred within a week of each other. I used to think I liked Silver Bullet a little more, but after my most recent ride on Silver Bullet a few weeks ago I can safely say I think we have the better coaster.

Next, we headed over to the coaster I was looking forward to riding again the most over the off-season,Timber Wolf. Last year I probably rode Timber Wolf more times than any other coaster in the park. I had also become somewhat of a cheerleader for it because I felt it got a lot of unwarranted negative criticism. The improvements they did in the previous off season really helped smooth it out and breathed some new life in it. On our one and only ride on it for the day we waited about 5 minutes to ride in the 3rd row from back. While the sections of track that were replaced this year were noticeably smoother, it seemed to be running a bit slower overall. Valerie was actually the first to say something that it seemed slower than last year. This confirmed to me that it wasn't just my imagination. I don't know if the trims are on too high, if the new track needs to broken in, or if I just had my expectations built up too high over winter. Either way, I am hopeful the speed will improve over the season.

Since Valerie hadn't seen any of the Prowler construction progress in person, we took a ride on the Worlds of Fun Railroad. After we boarded the train we ended up just sitting for 10 minutes before we started moving. It wasn't an issue of a bunch of people coming through turnstiles and waiting for the train to fill up. The line cutoff 5 minutes before we left the station. I think old Eli was having some issues. When we did get going the highlight of course was taking a loop around Prowler. I hadn't seen it in person for about 5 months and it looks like it is going to be fantastic. I think I will probably ride Eli just as often as I did last year just to get some fun looks at Prowler while it is running.

After our ride on the Railroad we went over to the Africa section to ride our last coaster of the day, Mamba. We waited for about 20 minutes for the back row of car two (row 6). The Mamba crew seemed to be lacking some enthusiasm compared to last year, but hopefully our friend Matt at Coaster Community can fix that. The ride itself was awesome as always. After going after about 5 months without riding this hyper it felt almost like a new experience. I had forgotten just how much air-time there is. Additionally, the mid-course brake run didn't seem to be slowing the train down too much which made the bunny hills on the return run more fun than usual.

After riding Mamba we realized we were indeed holding on tight (to our stomachs) and that we needed a bite. As such, we headed over to Coasters Drive-In and grabbed a vanilla shake. The rest of the day was spent walking the park and checking out other off-season improvements in addition to the ones made to Timber Wolf as well as adding Prowler. The most notable improvement I could see was the new paint for the Le Taxi Tour building. This has made it look like it is a new addition to the park. Norseman's Nicities has been given a makeover and is now The Lift. This store seems to be geared towards teens by selling brands such as Hurley, but it also has a nice mix of Worlds of Fun branded items as well. Since I smoke I also noticed that there were a few more smoking areas added to the park. This seemed a little odd to me since most parks are reducing how many smoking areas they have, and I never felt the park was lacking in this department. Additionally, I have been informed that the midways and the entrance plaza will receive a new layer of asphalt sealant over the course of the next couple of weeks. There were some "behind the scenes" improvements as well that can be seen on the Unofficial Worlds of Fun blog.

Overall, we had a nice time on our short 3 hour opening day visit. I look forward to many more visits this season. My next visit with be on May 1st for the Prowler Season Pass holder/Media Day preview. Until then, take a look at my pictures from my visit in my Gallery, or on Facebook.

Schlitterbahn Construction Tour 4/16/09

Bradley Robertson — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:16:21 +0000

Back in October of 2008 I took a tour of the Schlitterbahn Vacation Village construction site. At that time the only major projects that had be done was the pouring of most of the conrete for the Torrent Tidal Wave attraction, and the installation of a large portion of the plumbing system. Since the latter was already buried, there wasn't a lot to see. Flash forward 6 months and the site has changed drastically. A lot of the dirt moving and leveling has been completed, there are concrete footers for some of the water slides (which should go vertical any day now), the concrete for Henry's Hideout (an adult hot tub with a swim-up bar) has been poured, and some of the play equipment has been installed in a few of the kiddie pools.

In addition to seeing some of the attractions in place, this tour gave me some perspective on how large the development is. The Phase I development that will open sometime in June, is much larger than I expected. When the entire development is completed in the next couple of years there won't be any attraction in the region that rivals it in regards to the amount of things there will be to see and do. In some regards, it reminds me of Downtown Disney or CityWalk with a massive waterpark attached to it.

Finally, I want to give a big Thank You to Chris Ozimek, Marketing Director for taking the time out of his schedule to give myself, and Jason Hazel a tour of the site.

You can see HDR versions of my photos in my or on Facebook.