My day in Paradise.

At 47 years old, I am a roller coaster junkie. Sort of. I don't generally travel the globe in search of the biggest, baddest, steel behemoth that man could churn out. I have been content, up until now, to live down the street from Six Flags, or Great America as it is more fondly known, escorting my younguns around the park with our season passes, getting my fix on Batman, Viper, Vertical Velocity, and the Raging Bull. I went in one time by myself, on a "day off", at 9:45am, so I could be on the first ride of the day on the Bull. I rode it 3 times, and left the park, waving to the stunned worker at the exit when I didn't want my hand stamped at 10:20 in the morning. Now Raging Bull is as good a coaster as it gets in the Midwest. So I thought. That is, until I finally realized a lifelong dream and made the reservations to take the kids to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio.

Driving up to the park, built on and Island on the shores of Lake Erie, it is a sight to behold. The Millennium Force is so tall, you can't believe that it just doesn't tip over into Sandusky Bay. And it's not even the tallest one. And there are so many coasters that you couldn't possibly ride them all in a single day with the lines we saw, (max wait on the first Saturday of the Fall season 1 hour 20 minutes). And although I soaked up every nanosecond of the plunge down Millennium Force, heart rising into my throat the whole way down, that was not the reason I was there. I had to ride this beast. The tallest roller coaster in the world.

The Top Fuel Dragster
Height------420 feet
Length------2,800'
Ride Time---0 min., 17 sec.
Speed-------0-120 mph in less than four seconds.

And it was AWESOME! You are so high, its un-be-freakin-liev-able. Without a line, I could've ridden it 10 times easy. It was the Crown Jewel of the day, the moment I had actually been thinking about literally for years, wondering what it was like to be that high up on a coaster. And the brooding teens stopped brooding for a day, and actually had fun. The were duly impressed with the rides, and that's not an easy thing to do, impress a teenager. But exhilaration has it's price, and after about 6 coasters we were all in. The tedium of the hour wait every time began to seep in, and before we knew it, we had been there for 7 hours.

But I can't end my tale of adrenaline seeking without mentioning the sights we saw. No, we didn't look for Callahan Auto from the movie Tommy Boy, the sights we saw in line. Some of the freakiest looking people I have ever seen seem to populate the place with their piercings and tattoos and mo-hawks and hair dyes and those ear thingies that look like they're from some tribe in Africa. As you pass by them in line over and over and over again through the mazes, you can't help but take in everything about their appearance. All in all a great trip, a little expensive, but worth it as I am sure we won't ever do anything like it again. Before I know it they will be in college, and seeing how the wife opted out of the trip as she hates coasters as much as I love them, it doesn't look like I will have anyone to go with. Something weird about a man in his fifties going to an amusement park alone.

We're not so think as they dumb we are.

So, I'm sitting at this intersection in the double left turn lane. The left turn arrow is red, but the light for traffic in my direction is green. Looking down the vast expanse of concrete and blacktop the lay before me, there is not a car coming for miles. Head spins left, right, then left again, and I 'm thinking, Do I do it? Would you? Have you?

Ok I didn't. Not there anyway. But I have. In intersections that were not so vast, a little later at night, you get my drift. But this is why I am ranting today. It's been a while since I have given my monthly traffic rant, and it's about time I went off on the left turn arrow. Like I can't make the decision to go when it's safe to turn. I just don't like the government telling me how to do things. We pay the price for the actions of asshole/stupid driver's that become a statistic when they have an accident. It's not fair.

So, as I am sitting there, I ponder the math. Imagine a busy intersection that still employs the now archaic notion of left turns on the green light. How many accidents actually happen here? One a month? A week? Lets be generous and say one a week. Now this busy intersection is near to a tollway entrance, and that means two things; speed and quantity. How do you guess how many cars go through it on a daily basis? Where do you even start? Well I'm guessing a cycle of the lights could be as high as 90 seconds. In that time, ten lanes of combined traffic, in rush hour, I'll bet it could be as many as 2 or 3 hundred. Let's be fair and say 200. Times 40 = 8,000. Figure a good 6 hours of heavy traffic, plus average flow for the remaining daylight hours, and sprinkling in the stragglers coming home from the bar late at night, and I come to an approximate total of 78,000 cars a day. Whew. But I'm not done.

312,000 cars a week with one accident means that you or I have about a .0003% chance of getting hit. Well, probably more like .00025$ you and .00005% me. I'm just saying. But it all boils down to one infuriating mantra, that the masses are all dumbed down to the basest of levels. That I have to sit at a red turn arrow for no reason, while not a single car passes through the intersection, all because some careless jackass/clueless idiot wasn't paying attention. Hey, I'm all for rules. Like no public urinating and the like. Rules that make common sense. And common sense tells me that if I can safely turn left at an intersection I should be allowed to do so. Next time, I am so going.

Bring it on.

Holy perpetual procrastination! Has it really been 6 weeks since I posted last? I've been busy, sure, but there is no excuse for laziness! Well, I did finish my book, start a new job, and travel around the world in a 10 foot dingy named "Dinsdale". Actually only two are true, but I did find time to butt heads with brooding teenager number two. And that's why dear reader(s) I am back to the keypad.

True blood. Ever seen it? It's an HBO series that's about vampires, and it's full of violence, sexual innuendo, and nudity. Oh, and blood. No blood, no vampires. And here's the rub: it's rated TV MA. To be honest, I never let a little thing like ratings determine whether or not I let my kids see a TV show or a movie. So I did what I had to do, I watched an episode.

Now brooding teenager number one is a month shy of 17 and is at the point that A) he can pretty much watch anything and B) there's not a damn thing I can do about it if I disagree with point A. But the young lass is only 14, and after watching a scene where a female vampire was having sex, but had to stop because it hurt due to the fact that everything heals on a vampire which I guess includes the hymen, followed by a scene where two lovers, after eating a pie made from a human heart, beat the living crap out of each other while spewing vile language, then had sex, which was interspersed with nudity, more violence and lots and lots of blood, we drew a line. The wife and I decided that we would say no, and that would be that.

She didn't go quietly. She stomped, she threatened, she sulked, and she scowled. I remembered at that point that parenting isn't about being friends with your kid. When you know that, then nothing else matters. Sure, you want them to know you love them, but pissing them off for their own good is a good thing now and then. And the tantrums? The brooding? The evil stares? I say, bring it on.