Unfortunately, last weekend things started to take a turn for the worse for Jason.  I noticed that he wasn’t really active anymore.  In fact, he would let you touch him and pet him and wouldn’t run away.  We decided that he wasn’t doing good because he was weak and that he needed to have food/water more easily accessible.  So, we put him in a smaller travel-type cage with food and water easily accessible.  On Sunday we went to PetSmart and got some medicine for what’s called wet-tail.  Apparently it’s like a diarrhea but if not treated very early on it can quickly result in death in mice.  We went home, got a bigger box and gave him a wheel, food, medicated water and house all very easy to get to so he didn’t really have to work for it.  He seemed ok given the circumstances as he would drink but he was still very weak.

Monday we both checked on him before we each left for work and although weak he was still going.  However, when I came home from work I checked on him and it was pretty sad.  He had tried to get some food but just didn’t have any strength left and collapsed into the little bowl.  I had gently tipped the bowl over to see if he was still with us but alas, he was gone.  Even though he’s just a mouse, it was still pretty sad.  We ended up taking him to a local park later Monday night and buried him.  It is sad as both the mice were somewhat analagous to ourselves – the always-running Kevin and the active but always-there Jason.  When sleeping they would always sleep with each other – usually one on top of the other.

PetSmart had suggested to not get two male mice as they generally fight but they had gotten along quite well.  When we get back from an upcoming vacation, we will get another cage to link to our main one and will get Kevin another friend.

RIP Jason.  We’ll visit you often.

Robosexual marriage.

In seriousness though, the episode took the entire gay marriage mess going on now, applied it to robot-human relationships and poked massive fun at it.  I think one of the best parts was when they had basically their own version of the ad that NOM put out against gay marriage.

At the end of the episode, it was deemed legal to have a robosexual marriage, which is where the country is gladly headed in today’s world as well in regards to homosexuals.  An interesting item as well is that yesterday, the same day the episode aired, a Federal Judge declared Section 3 of DOMA to be unconstitutional, a massive step forward in true equality.

Anyway, mega-company Amazon.com acquired the small Woot.com.  Woot will continue being as crazy and continue to sell as many crappy items as ever before so not really a big change.

Let the monkey tell you more:

Me driving the Ski Boat:

Justin driving the Ski Boat:

Gallery of pictures of the day

Justin and I celebrated pretty simply – we went to dinner at Red Lobster and then went home.  Sounds like a good day to me.

Some other items that have happened recently:

• This week I passed my 600th mile running with Nike+
• Last Monday (the 7th), I ran my second half-marathon test run.  Unfortunately, it was three minutes longer than my last attempt at 1:51:17.  Not horrible, but not good in my opinion.  The very hot weather recently is definitely effecting my running ability.
• I have now dropped to 168 lbs.  This means that I have passed the 40 lb mark on weight loss!  This is very exciting for me as I haven’t weighed that in a very long time.  And how did I do it?  By just running 600 miles over 9 months and eating better.
• I installed the GM build of iOS4 to my iPhone 3GS.  It’s been pretty nice so far since I’ve had it for about a week.  I have consolidated all my installed apps into folders squished on one page.  The multi-tasking is very intuitive and I’ve found it very useful.
• This Tuesday I pre-ordered the iPhone 4 from AT&T.  That was a massive mess thanks to AT&Ts incompetence at being able to handle the huge number of people who attempted to pre-order.  My order wasn’t put in until Wednesday morning so we’ll see when I actually get the phone.  Can’t wait though.
• This weekend there is a baby shower for my Corey and Danielle and Zach.  Zach is doing great and it’ll be great to see him again.  Also this weekend is a Mother’s Day/Father’s Day/Keith Birthday party with the family.

I think that covers everything.  Not going to make promises on when I’ll post next as I am bad at keeping them, but hopefully sometime soon.

Enter the Cafe Frappé.  Our only real problem was that up until now we never kept any ice in the freezer as we don’t have any drinks that we need to make colder.  So, we first had to wait over six hours for our slow ice maker to make two cups of ice.  The pictures/steps below are from my Mocha Frappé this morning.

Start by putting three tablespoons of dark roast coffee in the brewer along with 1/2 cup of water.

Next, place the following ingredients in the blender jar in this order:

Two cups ice
Two tablespoons sugar
Three tablespoons syrup
1/4 cup milk

The ingredients don’t really look too appetizing yet though.  Let’s brew and blend it!  After the very loud blending process, pour into a glass, top with Reddi Whip and syrup and serve!  Tastes just as good as McDonald’s.

Had I looked into my future even one year ago, I never would have imagined myself actually being so healthy and active!Once I completed today’s run I received the following note:

“Hey it’s Lance again. You’ve covered 250 more miles. Way to go!” – Lance Armstrong

I’ve been a member of Woot for over three years but just at the end of April was finally able to get a Random Crap (also called Bag of Crap or BoC).  Normally when one of these pops up (almost exclusively during a Woot-off), the Woot servers are brought to their knees and the site is barely accessible.  As with almost all Random Craps, this one cost $3 plus the standard $5 Woot shipping.

So, after waiting for FedEx SmartPost, which as everyone knows is the slowest shipping method known to humanity, it arrived two weeks later.

Let’s take a look shall we?

In my box, I received the following items:

1. 2x Star Wars Attack of the Clones Film pieces framed
2. 2x mini-tripod for digital camera
3. 1x Phillips iPod Dock/Charger (doesn’t work for iPhone)
4. 1x Panasonic  Bluetooth Enabled-Telephone with two handsets

Let’s begin by assessing the status of the items.

1. I don’t really care for the Star Wars things but they’re neat – I have something similar for the first Spiderman movie as well.  Although they’re the same, the pieces of film are from different parts of the movie.
2. We already have a mini-tripod that we got from Meritline about a year ago, but extras are good.  They are handy little things.
3. The dock doesn’t work with my iPhone which is a bummer but it does work with my iPod Classic so it’ll probably end up getting hooked into my receiver in the living room and will be semi-useful.
4. The Bluetooth enabled-phone is the most interesting.  It currently retails on Amazon for $70.  This is actually the best item as you can pair it via bluetooth to up to two cell phones.  It then can receive/make calls from the handsets and route the calls through either cell phone.  It will auto-pair with the phones when they are in range.  So far it looks like the cell phones can be anywhere in the house and still be in range of the base.  This will allow us to put the cell where we get the best reception then just use a handset to make/receive calls.  Works great so far.

As with most Random Crap items, it wasn’t without some problems.  The Panasonic thing was missing the manual and a belt clip.  It was obviously a return but seems to work so far.  The Phillips thing was open but had everything with it.  Everything else was sealed.

All in all, a pretty good first Random Crap from Woot.  I’ll be gladly buying another as soon as I can!

Born on April 21, 2010 at 1:29PM CST, Zachary is a beautiful boy weighing in at 5lbs, 11oz.

Congratulations, Corey and Danielle! Thanks for making Justin and I uncles.

More pictures/info later today/tomorrow.

Looking back at today there have been some other pretty cool running-related items that have happened.

A coworker looked at the results of the 5K and found that another person from my department had run in the race. I contacted him to confirm and he had seen me but then lost me in the swarm of people. He finished the race in 29th place, easily beating my time.  He is a great guy in the department, always nice and easy to talk to.  He’s also going to run a full-marathon in about two weeks, which I hope he does great at.  He gave me some information on a few other races which brings me to my next point.

I’m going to sign up for a race in October which will be here in Lafayette.  It will be a half-marathon (13.1 miles).  It’ll be exciting because it’ll be a nice long race yet will be pretty close to home and I won’t have to go drive a long distance to get to it.

Also, about a month before that half-marathon, I’m going to sign up for another that will be in Indianapolis!  This will be my first half-marathon done professionally and even though I’ve yet to sign up for it, I’m already pumped and can’t wait.

After a few people announced some basics about the race a group of people came to the podium and got all the runners to do some fun exercises to get stretched.

A few minutes before 8:30 it was time to get in place. They had markers for where you would start based on your average pace. I was in the second group, the 8 minute average. I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell when the race started but right at 8:30 coach Hope beat on the drum and I started to see people running. The first half mile was bad because of the sheer number of people trying to run. After that it started to thin out some and get easier to actually run. Along the way there were volunteers cheering you on and every mile there was someone with a sign who was also telling you how long it had been. At the second mile they were handing out Dixie cups of water.

Once I got to the last 2/10th of a mile I saw the finish line and really cranked it up to pass someone who was just in front of me. I ended up finishing in 95th place with an end time of 22:51. The pictures show a longer time because I was back from the real starting line when the race started. My first thought was just to find water which for some reason was a long distance away. However I was glad to see my family at the finish line supporting me. And of course for getting some great pics of yours truly.

After I got some food and water we went inside the stadium and found where they were already posting race results. When running, you have a special sensor which goes on your shoe to track your start/finish of the race. After a bit of searching we finally found my place and I finished in the top 100! My goal is to of course do better next year.

After we did that we sat down in the stadium in the awards section. After they let almost all the racers finish they started it up. Only the top 3 in each division for each gender got an award. Unfortunately my division (25-29) had times far better than mine. I did win a “door-prize” though of a free one-year membership to GoldAndBlack.com. Odd for me since I have almost zero interest in sports of any kind, but hey, it’s nice nonetheless.

After the ceremony we hopped in the car quickly and went home. After a short rest we went to Spring Fest then for some shopping and ended the day with some gardening.

That was my Saturday. How was yours? Until next time…

Written on my iPhone.

I’ve been on a coaching program from Nike+ which is an intermediate-level 5k program.  Today was the peak run of the program with a scheduled 10 mile run.  However, I decided to push myself to see how I’d do with a half-marathon.  After all, it’s only another 3.1 miles!  :-)

What helps to really keep me going is my music.  I turn on my iPhone 3GS, turn on the Steve Dahl Podcast, then set my workout run distance in the Nike+ app and just run.  When you have the half-marathon set it’s easy to just keep going and counting the miles go by.  Plus, having Steve to keep me motivated with his comedy is a pretty big bonus (which, I’m about two months behind on his podcasts but am trying to catch up).

So, set a half-marathon distance and just run.  Since I’m running around the three ponds in my subdivision, I’ll pass many of the other inhabitants as they’re either walking alone or with friends or pets.  I’ll also pass a few others who run and nod in passing as an understanding of good-luck to each other.  I also pass many kids playing in their yards or with families.  It’s an environment like this, so friendly and kind, that also helps to motivate one to run and keep going.  To know that you’re not really alone even if you don’t know the people you’re walking/running with.

Unfortunately tonight, Justin wasn’t able to run but he’s been starting to run which is great.  He’s able to have pretty good times for having just gotten back into running.  Good luck Justin and hope that we can get even paces while running!  :-)

Lastly for this post is the Purdue 5k coming up this Saturday.  I know that I’ll do good, but it’ll be a busy morning (race starts at 8:30am).  As of last weekend there were 1,155 participants signed up!  I hadn’t seen numbers from last year but that is a lot of people!  Should be an exciting event.  Justin, Mom and Dad will be there with me waiting at the finish line.  Hope to get some good pics to post afterwards.

As the only things that I’ve posted in recent history have either been vacations or running, I’m going to focus on that for this site.  Also, I’m going to think up a new tagline to go along with my new-found running fascination.

Until next time, thanks for visiting and get out there and run!

She’s 15 years old today which, according to cat-world.com.au is equal to 77 years old! She’s aged well and is doing just as good today as ever.

1. I moved to a much nicer place.  I used to live in a small 550 square foot apartment but now I live in a 1200 square foot three-bedroom duplex.  I now have an office of my own.  Justin has our master bedroom as his office (it’s quite large).  We’ve also got a spare bedroom for when family comes over.  Full kitchen (yay to no more meals cooked on an oven that’s half the size of a normal one).  Also, our property looks out on a nice pond with a track around it.  I just took the picture of me to the right on my patio.  Which bring me to number 2.
2. I’ve been back into running.  I started back up on February 4 and have been going strong on a new Nike+ coaching program.  It’s actually the same one I was doing before but on Intermediate 1 level instead of Beginner.  Except for one run that I ran at the gym, I’ve run everything around the pond outside my house.  It was actually kind of fun running through the snow.  It created a nice challenge from the normal runs.  I’m very glad that the weather improved however – today’s run especially was my best yet.  I’ve got better at pushing myself and have been able to bring my personal-best mile down to 7:41.  My last three runs have all been better than the one before it.  I’ve also resumed loosing weight.  I’ll try to post a separate update on that tomorrow though.
3. Justin and I went to San Francisco in late January.  He was attending a conference and I tagged along for a vacation.  After he did his presentation at the conference, we spent a few days together going around the city.  The weather there was better than in Indiana.  It was a pretty nice break.  Pictures of the vacation are here, here and here.
4. A few weeks ago I finally went and signed up for the Purdue 5k Challenge.  It’s my first real run/walk event and I’m pretty excited about it.  Will I beat everyone there?  Not by a long shot.  Will I do great?  Absolutely.  As stated in item 2, I’ve only gotten better recently.  The best part is that the run actually happens to fall on a day during my Nike+ coaching program when I’m not running.  So I’ll be ready for a nice short (relatively) run.  The race is a benefit for the Purdue Cancer  for Center Research.  More information is on the Purdue Challenge website.

I’ve also made a few mystery purchases recently but I’ll be saving those for another post once I’ve got everything completed.

1. Congratulations to those in New Hampshire for being another state allowing gay marriage.  It’s a crime that it’s not globally recognized, but we’ll get there eventually.  I guess I wrongfully assumed that the phrase “…all men are created equal.” in the Declaration of Independence actually applied to ALL men.
2. I was bad during the holidays and ran very very little, however I was able to at least maintain my weight, which is as good as one can hope for.
3. I have removed the CAPTCHA from my site.  Apparently my WordPress upgrade last week broke that plugin.
4. I am fixing the RSS feeds as they apparently haven’t been updating since about July.  Oops!

Have a great new year and I’ll post again soon – hopefully later this week.

What I’m hoping for in the coming year:

1. More rights as a person who happens to love a guy
2. Continued weight loss thanks to Nike+ and diligence
3. Moving out of my apartment
4. Attempt to continue the more frequent updates to this site
5. Attempt to continue to keep a relevant header based on the time of the year
6. World peace

Have a great last few days of the year and party like it’s 1999!

Mr. & Mrs. Claus have no issues with their gay son and neither should you!  Happy Holidays!

While looking around the Nike+ website tonight, I saw that I can create a “Mini” which is a character version of myself that will help motivate me.  As I continue running, so does the little guy.  As I have run more, I thought it proper to visualize that here so I’ve edited my header to have that Mini as well.

Nike+ Hardware - Picture © Apple Inc.

Many months ago I started working out. Needless to say, it didn’t really work out that good.  I had originally tried working out by doing all the weights and using the treadmill and biking machines.  It was nice for a short time and all, but I very quickly lost the enthusiasm to keep up with it.  I then purchased the iPhone fitness app iFitness to try and get me back but ended up never going back to workout again.

After some months I enrolled in a program through work that tried to teach some healthier things to do.  Start simple by just walking and build up to jogging and go from there.  That, along with cutting soda from my diet, helped get me going again.  I started to run around the campus a few times a week.  In the first many months of this I’d go about a mile then just have to walk a distance and then walk/run the rest of the way back to the apartment.  Total I was running about 1.5-2 miles per trip and walking the rest of the distance.

Enter Nike+.  Like any good and loyal geek, when the new iPhone 3GS came out, I had to have it.  Not because I’d actually use all the functionality, but because I just had to.  So, my older iPhone 3G 16GB got transferred to Justin and I purchased the 32GB iPhone 3GS.  A few months after having it I bought a pair of Nike shoes along with the Nike+ sensor.  This is what has changed my health and my body the most.  In the beginning I was starting easy by running 2-3 miles.  After a few weeks I was able to go the distance without stopping.  Then I signed up for a coaching program on the Nike+ website which helped get me up to better distances more often during the week.

About a month into using Nike+ I had minor surgery to remove some moles (one on stomach and one on my arm).  A few days after that I fell off my bike and slid across a sidewalk – not a pleasant experience to say the least.  Both of these events combined caused me to take just over two weeks from running either because I didn’t want to rip out the stitches or it was just too painful to run as I had scraped up my knee, leg, elbows and palms.  Once the stitches came out however, I had pretty much completely healed from the fall.  A few days later I restarted my Nike+ coaching as I had fallen way behind.

While getting back into it, it seemed like the coaching was pushing me too much but I was able to quickly get back into a good grove.  That was two months ago.  In those eight weeks, I have ridden my bike to work almost every single day (only about 4 miles total distance round-trip) and I am now up to running four times a week.  Tonight I ran my first six-mile run.  Admittedly I had to take a small pause after four miles but then did the rest and maintained a good pace throughout.

What is the point in all of this?  Well, I haven’t lifted any weights at all.  I haven’t even seen the fitness center at all since I started running.  All I’ve done is ran and rode my bike.  In the past three weeks I have lost over ten pounds, I’ve felt healthier than ever before and I am starting to see definition in my abs.  Seeing real results like these is what keeps me getting back out on the road or on the track running so much.  Tonight I weighed in at 189 lbs which is the lowest I’ve weighed in a number of years.  My goal is to weigh 180 lbs, but I’d like to weigh less if possible.  Given my current progress – not a problem!

Some quick updates:

• We took a nice trip to Buffalo NY and Toronto almost two months ago.  Pics here here and here.
• A few weeks later we went to Indianapolis for lunch and then went to a Corn Maze in Lafayette.  Want to see some pictures?
• Last weekend Justin, Dad, Corey and I went to Chicago as a bachelor party for Corey.  We went to the Museum of Science and Industry, ate at Subway, then went to Shedd Aquarium.  It was a pretty fun trip ending with us getting drenched.  More pics!
• I had stitches a few weeks ago after a few moles were removed (all normal) and finally went running today for the first time in several weeks.  Felt great!
• Lastly, I’ve been secretly working on a project that will go live here in the near future.  It’s coming along nicely after having been stalled for quite a long time.  I’ll post a decent update for that once it’s ready.

In the meantime, I’ll try to actually post some stuff occasionally.

Why can’t we all be equal?

I shed a tear. From laughter.

The talk of marriage brought me back to wanting to get married to Justin. Sadly, because of the state of the country and with the current laws, that’s not quite as simple for us. Along with getting married to really express our love for each other, we thought that it be good for his future also in that it may help when he graduates in order to try and stay in the USA.

However, our dreams were pretty much crushed this weekend when we started looking into things far more closely.

Justin found an article on the HRC site which, although fairly old (2003), does provide a basic understanding of what will happen if we get married with the current law situation.  Basically, sure, you can get married.  However, because the F1 visa is a temporary visa issued with the intent of the foreign person returning back to their country of origin to apply their learning, getting married risks nullifying that visa as it would be very obvious that the intent to return no longer exists.  Also, it places heavy risk on ever getting said visa renewed in the future.  Why should they renew the visa when you’re obviously not going to want to come back to apply what you’ve learned?

The solution to this is to become a resident, citizen or an immigrant.  However, after research into these vectors it was found to be impossible (or nearly so) as well.  The end result of this line of research is that the only way that Justin could get a immigrant visa number (required) is either through a relative or through employer.  If obtained through a specific relative (who must be a US citizen), then a number is instantly issued after the application is accepted.  Depending on other relation or employer, etc, a number may not be issued for several years as only a specific number are issued per year per country of origin.  The massive downside to being gay comes back to a four-letter acronym that conjures up feelings of disgust and anger amongst many – DOMA (Defense Of Marriage Act).  Through the terminology which is defined by DOMA, a marriage is defined as a legal union between one man and one woman.  A spouse is a person engaged in the defined marriage, which explicitly denies same-sex marriages.  Regardless of whether marriage between same-sex individuals is allowed at a state-level, DOMA, on the federal level, over-rides state-level marriages in terms of immigration law, taxes, etc.  Therefore, even if we got married in one of the several states which now allows it (Iowa is supposedly the easiest state in which to get married), it wouldn’t matter because of federal DOMA.  Going back, the only option available then is through an employer which is highly unlikely given the current economic status, plus the fact that Justin is in the middle of his PhD program and won’t be done for approximately three more years.

Since DOMA is the problem, it would seem then that the solution is to get rid of it.  The law was created in 1996 under the Clinton Administration.  Although Former-President Bill Clinton did support gays, he was vocally opposed to same-sex marriage, hence the signing of DOMA into law.  Earlier this year, on June 12, the Obama Administration upheld DOMA in a lawsuit filed by a same-sex couple in California.  However, just last week the Commonwealth of Massachusetts filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services et al regarding the discriminatory issues of DOMA.  Hopefully this case will be able to push DOMA out of existence as it’s cases like this that provide the only chance for me to truly be with Justin in the USA.  Land of the free?  Apparently not if you like the same sex…

First, the new iPhone 3.0 software update came out Wednesday.  The changes to the various programs are mainly fairly minor.  Such minor items include the ability to not load remote images in Mail, Mail and Messages now go widescreen for easier typing and Stocks has been enhanced with a widescreen view.  However, there are larger updates included that really make the update well worth installing.  What would these be?  How about global search (similar to QuickGold on jailbroken devices), cut-copy-paste and undo support across all apps with an intuitive interface that makes it very easy to select what you want to copy/paste across any app?  Also, the entire phone seems faster and more responsive now more than ever before.

Along with this great update is the fact that it’s able to be jailbroken already on the current iPhone 3G.  Friday I went through and jailbroke mine to have the best of everything.  Coming soon is the unlock (Ultrasn0w).

The second tech update for the week is my new 15.4″ Macbook Pro.  This is from the new line announced at last week’s Worldwide Developers Conference.  It left Shanghai Monday and arrived at home very late in the day Friday.  Unfortunately, late Wednesday I started to get sick and Thursday I was feeling very crappy (constant nose and throat issues along with pressure in head).  So, I took Friday as a sick day from work (not knowing Macbook was coming as it was scheduled for delivery for the following Tuesday).  There’s still some remnants of the sickness remaining, but the bulk is gone.  Anyway, the Macbook Pro came from Fedex at about 4:04 (give or take a few seconds).  At which point, I unboxed it (pics below) and then fired it up for the first time.

I’ve used some of the new Macbooks at work from various faculty purchases, but it’s different when it’s your own laptop.  You notice more things with it.  For instance, the volume is a lot better than the white Macbook.  It has more depth to it and seems to be louder although not by that much.  The Macbook Pros all are the aluminum unibody design which means that they take a solid piece of aluminum and laser-cut out the entire body which provides for a much sturdier, yet lighter industrial design.  This can be felt when using the laptop as it is quite sturdy.  The trackpad is new and has no visible button (the entire trackpad is in fact a button).  It is also very silky – the finger just glides right across it very smoothly with no resistance.  The backlit keyboard provides a great experience when using the Macbook at night or in low-light conditions.  The backlight is completely adjustable via keyboard keys.  The screen no longer has two small raised pieces which allow the screen to stay off the keyboard when closed.  Now, there’s a thin ruberized gasket around the entire display which cusions the screen more.

While not fair because this new Macbook Pro is almost three years newer, the speed difference is very noticeable.  Things just start with little or no lag.  I’ve yet to try it out, but I can now choose between integrated and non-integrated graphics.  This change does require a logout to take affect though, which I’d never seen documented or mentioned anywhere.

All in all, it’s been a pretty good week so far.

Gallery added after the break.

This year’s conference is expected to be just as big.  Snow Leopard should have some good announcements and is expected to be released a little later in the year.  Like last year, the iPhone is also expected to have big announcements.  Rumors have been circulating for several weeks about possible features to be included on a new iPhone (tentatively dubbed the iPhone Video).  Such features include auto-focus camera, video, front-facing camera, compas, and possibly a further refined design.  Unfortunately, due to health concerns, Steve won’t be heading this year’s WWDC but will instead be headed by other Apple top executives.

Although this is a great time to learn more about upcoming Apple products and to gear up for product releases along with arming yourself with geeky information about said products, there is a downside.  The downside is the onslaught of news releases.  I personally subscribe to about 45 RSS feeds from various websites.  About 66% of those are Mac related websites.  To me, this means that if I don’t keep up on the news during the day, I’ll easily have about 1,000 news updates by the end of the day.

I love Apple, I really do.  But I don’t know how many times everyone needs to see the exact same story or miniscule product update get blogged about 20,000 times, let alone get it’s own blog post.

Regardless of the information overload, tomorrow is going to be an interesting day and will almost definitely over-shadow this weekend’s launch of the Palm Pre.  Which, by the way, the most interesting story I saw about it so far was the woman who drove her car INTO a Sprint store on Friday.  Definitely a must-see article.

The above video is a great example of how some traditions just aren’t worth preserving.

Video by: Keith Hartman

The Diamondback is new at King’s Island for 2009.  It peaks at 230 feet tall with a first drop of 215 feet at a 74 degree angle.  There are 10 drops with two helixes. The wait for Diamondback wasn’t too bad at about 30 minutes.  Once you do finally get to the ride, about the only thing holding you in is a very tight lap bar – no chest restraints.  You first climb the 230 foot hill which alone was making me dizzy and I had to close my eyes after Justin made me look around.  Then came the first drop.  The drop was so steep that I actually was holding onto the bottom of the chair because I felt like I was going to fall out (I wasn’t though).  After the first drop the rest is a LOT milder although still scary.  I think that I was also scared to the point that I wasn’t even screaming.  The ride lasted three minutes although it felt like it was about 30 seconds due to the speed of it (80 miles an hour).  After the ride my neck felt a little sore, but I survived.    Now, that doesn’t mean I’d ever go on it again, but it was OK.

Next up, we went to The Beast.  The Beast is the world’s longest-running wooden roller coaster – having been running for more than 30 years.  It is impressive, however most of the coaster is in a wooden area making it impossible to actually see most of it.  I suppose that this is better as you then can’t get freaked out ahead of time.  I was warned that as it was a wooden coaster that it would be a rougher ride.  Unlike the Diamondback, the cars of The Beast are standard cars that have seat-belts and a lap bar and sit four people in a small car.  The seats are quite small and I was smashed in pretty good.  Once it got moving, it first has you go around a small turn then you climb the initial hill.  I looked around once but had to close my eyes again as the railings alone scared me – they were very rickety and looked like it was going to fall apart – not very assuring when the entire structure is made from wood as well.  The ride was about 4 1/2 minutes long and definitely seemed longer than the last ride.  We went through several tunnels and were whipped around many turns.  It was definitely rougher, but it was actually fun – after the initial hill was over at least.  I would go on this one again I think.

After we got off this, we went and all met up for lunch.  I had pizza while Justin had a salad and we shared some chicken strips as well.  A tip: If you go, get the large souvenir cup like we did – it’s much more economical in the end.  The cup is $9.99 and is 46 ounces but you can get refills all season long for $1.99 ($2.12 including tax) – we refilled it three times throughout the day.  Our lunch (including drink) was $32.  That’s a bit of money, but the food wasn’t heavy and was actually pretty good so wasn’t too bad at all.

Next, Dennis, Julie, Justin and I went to go on the Firehawk while their friends took both kids around the park.  Firehawk had an hour wait although it may have been even a little longer.  Firehawk is an interesting ride.  When you first get into the seat, you are sitting at a small angle backwards.  You have a harness over your chest that covers all of you but then there’s a guard that secures your feet into place as well.  Once everyone is secure, all the cars lean completely on their backs and they start moving backwards (face first).  Again, I had my eyes closed.  The climb up the first hill is very noisy as safety catches were clanking the whole way up.  I didn’t actually open my eyes until halfway through but it was obvious when we were all the way up – it got quieter and you could feel pressure against your chest as you were now hanging with your body facing the ground!  Immediately after the initial hill it inverted all the cars.  Despite it being so scary it also was kind of fun (I’m noticing a theme here).  My biggest fear was that the chest restraint would bust open and I’d fly out and get killed – I know, kinda morbid.  However, it was fun being whipped around everywhere and the ride ended fairly quickly as it’s a shorter ride.

After we got done, we all met up again and we went through various kid rides.  Everyone next went to Boomerang Bay, which is the water-ride section of the park.  Their friends and Joey went to the water section while we got on the train and went to its first stop – which was almost by the Diamondback’s entrance.  Justin went onto the Wild Thornberry’s log ride with Julie and Matthew.  Matthew was very scared, but ended up going.  We all then took the train back to the water section and met up again.  Matthew went and played in the water while Dennis, Justin and I sat and lounged on the pool chairs by Kookaburra Bay.  Eventually everyone wanted to leave so we started back and split into three groups.  Dennis and their friends went for round two on the Firehawk, Justin and I went onto a water ride and Julie went to the kids section with the kids.

Justin and I wanted to go onto the White Water Canyon.  After making sure that all of our electronics, wallets, etc were in zip-lock bags in our pockets, we started through the line to the ride.  Most of the line is actually spent just walked through lots of woods until you finally get to the line of people.  Actually waiting in line wasn’t bad – maybe 20 minutes or so.  Along the way you can watch people coming to the end – where they were soaking wet.  The entrance and exit to the ride is interesting as it’s just a huge rotating platform that grabs the boats securely so that you can get in and out safely.  This ride was good as all you needed was a simple seat belt.  As it was just Justin and I, we got on with a dad and his daughter.  She didn’t want to get wet, but… that’s not how it ended.    At the first rapids, I got completely soaked.  At the second one, Justin got the full blast.  While the other rapids were fairly tame, at two points water jets shoot up in the air and soak everyone inside though which pretty much guaranteed the soaking of everyone and everything.  A day later my shoes are still water-logged from it.  Although a lot tamer than the other rides so far, I enjoyed it and had fun.  Next time, I’d definitely go with swimming trunks and less stuff so that I can go on more rides like this.

After we got done, we tried to dry off and then I called Julie so we could meet up.  We then went to find one of her friends who was at the park with some students while Dennis and their friends were on the Firehawk.  Justin and another salad for dinner while I had more pizza.

Their friends kept the kids while Julie, Dennis, the teacher and kids and I all went to ride another roller coaster.  This one was called the Son of Beast.  It’s a lot newer than The Beast, but supposedly a lot better.  Unlike The Beast, you can’t see any of the ride at all except for the very first hill from the line.  The line was an hour for it and lasted just a little shorter than that.  While in line I Twittered.  I was assured that it goes a little slower and isn’t as rough as The Beast.  When we got closer, I started watching the cars as they went over the first hill – which curved into the distance – and you could clearly see the entire structure move a little with the force of the cars.  Although scary, it was pointed out that structurally that is necessary so that it can distribute the force of the ride.  The worst part of the entire ride was actually just before we were supposed to get on.  There was one round of people in front of us when it was announced that due to “minor technical problems” the entire ride was temporarily closed down.  Did I jinx that with my Tweet?  I think it was an omen that I wasn’t meant to go on that ride – which hey, that’s OK with me!  After all the cars were back, people started jumping the track to try to leave because they didn’t give any options to let us leave.  Eventually they let everyone pass through an empty car to leave through the exit.

We then all met back up and started to feel a few drops of rain.  I got a pop refill, then we decided that we would go into an arcade for a little while and let the crowd thin out before we would try to leave the park – it was about 8:15 by then anyway.  Total, Justin and I spent $4 on tokens and played several games.  I played a few games of Air Hockey.  Justin and I then went around and played various games.  First I tried Cyclone, a classic and got only 8 tickets from that.  We got little numbers of tickets – 8 or 12 or other little numbers, then I wanted to try Cyclone again.  So, I did and this time I got it just right and hit the Jackpot.  That was a pretty nice 213 tickets!    After a little more we stopped and had 303 tickets.  For that we didn’t get much as we missed out on cooler things like train whistles.  We ended up with two small Disney plushes, a deck of cards (got them for Dad as he likes to collect them), and a little green army guy.

Inside everyone was having fun, but outside things had gotten much worse.  The light rain had turned into a full thunderstorm watch and tornado warning for the area.  At about 9:10 the rain subsided and we all went outside to try and get further towards the front of the park.  We got a little further but where pointed by a security guard to go into another arcade that was designed as a shelter because of the tornado warning.  The entire place was packed.  I called Mom and got a storm update.  At about 9:35 or so the rain again subsided and we rushed back out again and went further.  Dennis, Matthew and Justin went to the bathroom while Julie and I headed for the front of the park.  We all met on the way but didn’t get further for a while.  Hundreds of people were under the main entrance of the park while it was again pouring outside.  After about 10 minutes we had to move some because the storm drain that was by us started flooding and bubbling up.  When the rain subsidded again, it was agreed that we would all go to the car and get home.  At 10pm we finally were all in the car and were leaving the park.  Got back to Dennis’ house at midnight and they let us stay overnight.

All in all, despite the massive storm, it was a very good day.  Once I get a chance to get the pictures from our camera I’ll add those.  The ones above were found on various parts of the Internet.