Fail.

So yes, I signed up on Facebook. Yay me. I’m cool now. No, I won’t friend you.

I decided on a couple rules. I won’t friend family members or coworkers. There may be the rare exception, but for the most part those rules are pretty solid. I know most people have family in their friend lists, but that’s just a wall I want to put up. As for coworkers, what the heck? I work with you! Quit stalking me!

So far I’ve found some buddies from the Marines and some people I knew in high school. I found one guy who left midway through junior year and I hadn’t talked to him since. It was good to find him and know he’s doing well.

I’m not going to post a whole lot of stuff there given I have several other haunts on Algore’s interwebz. I should probably link some of them from here, huh?

And, as it turns out, a lot of amusement parks are on Facebook as well. Naturally, I’ve friended them or become a fan of their pages.

Who will I find next?

It seems that  Cambodian government officials worked with anti-gun zealots from the EU and Britain to turn thousands of weapons into “art”.

A moment of silence please.

I’m taking a half day at work tomorrow and will be driving down tomorrow afternoon and evening.  It’s about a 6.5 hour drive from Kansas City.  I’m going alone this year as my usual coaster buddy can’t make it.  If my other coaster buddy, Charlie, would get a real job, he could go with me. Yeah, I know you ready this, buddy!

I’ll spend the day Friday at Holiday World, with Exclusive Ride Time (ERT) that evening on the Raven, the Legend, the Voyage and Pilgrims Plunge. The Voyage is currently my top coaster. It’s the most intense and unforgiving coaster I’ve ever been on and it’s great. I’m not a fan of water rides, so I don’t know if I’ll be riding Pilgrims Plunge, which is the tallest water ride on the planet.

Since I attended HoliWood Nights last year, I thought I’d made a side trip to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom in Louisville, Kentucky. I discovered it was fairly close when I was plugging addresses into my GPS unit. I’ll drive over on Saturday morning and spend most of the day there. I’ll head back to Holiday World in time for ERT that evening.

As always, there will be pictures posted at Family Joules, and possibly some videos on YouTube.

Hey Paula, if you find this like you found the corresponding post last year on Pencil Nub, my previous blog, welcome!

For everyone else, Paula blogs at the HoliBlog, the Holiday World blog, and tweets on Twitter.

I waited in line to ride Patriot, which is always a good ride, then headed over to Timber Wolf. That line was pretty long as well. While I have enjoyed Timer Wolf in the past, it wasn’t worth waiting in line for, at least that day. I headed over to Mamba, which had an even longer line. When I was about halfway through the last set of switchbacks, they close the ride because of the weather. It wasn’t raining, but there must have been some lightening nearby. A 200+ feet tall steel roller coaster and lightening don’t go together too well.

I decided to leave and started to make my way back to the gate. I went through Africa to check out the soon-to-be-open Prowler, a Great Coasters International (GCI) wood coaster. I’ve ridden two other GCI coasters, Renegade at Valleyfair in Minnesota and Evel Knievel at Six Flags St. Louis. Both of those were a lot of fun, so I was expecting something good from Prowler.

I only had to wait a week to find out.

Last Friday, May 1, Worlds of Fun hosted a Prowler preview event for the media and season pass holders from 3 to 8 p.m. I left work early and headed to the park. There were a lot of people there already, and more would come as people got off work.

I met my friend Charlie there, and was going to meet another coaster buddy a little later. We made our way into the park and headed back to Prowler to wait in line with the rest of the season pass holders. The media people had their own line, and since there were fewer of them, they got more rides than us hoi polloi.

Well, it was worth the wait. Prowler is a blast! It’s not the biggest, baddest woodie on the planet, but it’s lots of fun. It has plenty of twists, turns and airtime to keep anyone happy.  We rode in different parts of the train, and agreed that it was definitely a backseat coaster. Like Evel Knievel, however, any seat will give you a good ride.

Charlie had to leave for work after our third ride, but I stayed until 8. My other coaster buddy, Jason, left early as well. He was going to be one of the first riders when the coaster opens to the public because he won a seat through a charity auction.

I got six rides in the five hours I was at the park. Not bad, but I would have enjoyed more.

PROWLER POV Video Worlds of Fun

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you like wood coasters, Prowler is definitely one to check out.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Doing a detail strip doesn’t look that complicated, though if I ever do it I’ll want to be in the presence of someone who knows what they’re doing.

One thing I love about the Glock is it’s easy to field strip and you get four easy to clean parts.

First we have the people who, when entering their email into an online form, use my email address. This results in me getting emails about Redbox DVD rentals, quotes for home remodeling or online registrations for cell phone service. There’s the occassional odd website registration as well.

Next we have the people who send an email to me thinking I’m someone else. These are by far the most entertaining. I was invited to a bachelor party. I received song lyrics. I got some pr0n.

That’s right. A little bit earlier, I received an email with a video attached. It was from a stranger, though I think she’s emailed me before. The name of the video was fairly innocuous. It wasn’t something I would look at and go, oh, that’s pr0n.

I started watching it, then, uh, yeah, there were nekkid people.

I exchanged a couple emails with her and I think I made it clear that I wasn’t who she thought I was and she deleted my email address.

We shall see.

You’ll have to excuse me as I’m not the greatest story teller.

I don’t remember how old I was, it would have been in the 70s, though.

We camped at Branched Oak Lake, which is outside Lincoln, Nebraska, near a town called Malcolm. Incidentally, my dad was born and grew up on the land that is now under the lake. It was a village called Crounse. His dad farmed some land there. I sort of remember the site where we camped. If I went back out there I could probably find it. It was near the lake, but not a regular campsite.

My dad had an old green, canvas tent that we set up. It was an A-frame type tent, and there were three or four poles that you put together to support the front and back. The flaps were the kind you tie together with little canvas tabs that were sewn on.

We cooked pork steaks for dinner that night. I remember they tasted pretty darn good. We probably had potatoes with them, but I don’t remember.

The next morning we walked down to the lake. It was quite and the lake was calm. It probably looked like glass. It’s pretty cool to see a large body of water that is still. I remember times when I was in the Marines and at sea aboard the Peleliu that the Pacific Ocean was like that.

For breakfast that morning we cooked bacon and eggs. They tasted great. Some things just taste better when cooked in the great outdoors.

I wish I could remember more detail, but it’s mostly just feelings at this point. I don’t remember if we had a campfire or used a camp stove, or maybe both. I don’t know if we talked much. We probably did. I imagine I spent some time looking at the sky. Away from the city lights, the stars shine brighter, are more plentiful and you can catch glimpses of the streaks of stars that give the Milky Way its name.

I looked out the window and saw him and realized I hadn’t been feeding him. I felt horrible. It was like I’d forgotten I’d got a new dog.

I opened the door and he came in carrying his food bowl in his mouth.

I gave him some food, and that’s the end.

Weird.

Tomorrow is my birthday.

Unfortunately, I’m not down in Florida like I was last year.

The new year should bring some actual posts.