Six Flags Great Adventure

DS and I spent the weekend with our friends Matt and Sam.  The Matt who married us.  They live in NY, which had its first Maker Faire.  It seemed smaller than the SF one we went to last year, and DS and I got there late in the afternoon so we didn't have a lot of time.  Still though, it was cool to go, and ARC Attack was AWESOME!  I recommend finding some video of the dudes themselves, because it was so cool.  Though maybe you've heard of them?  Apparently they were on America's Got Talent?  I have no idea, I don't watch TV...

Anyway, we had a lovely dinner, delicious chocolates, and good conversation.  Then on Sunday we drove Sam out to Six Flags Great Adventure in NJ.  It's been at least six years since I've ridden a roller coaster.  I have a serious fear of heights.  Well, not so much of heights, but of falling.  If I think I'm safe, I have no problem whatsoever being high in the air.  Roller coasters were something that took me some years of concerted effort to be comfortable with, to trust that they wouldn't kill me and accept the fear so I could enjoy the adrenaline rush.  It's a skill that requires practice to maintain, and so I was excited about Six Flags, but also horrified...

There were six of us altogether, and we split a Flash Pass so we wouldn't have to wait in line.  (so worth it!)  We started off with the Batman coaster, which looked about on par with the types of coasters I really enjoyed back in the day.  I've looked up some point of view videos on YouTube for you to ride along.



Not too high, not too fast.  Easy peasy.  Also, shoulder harnesses, which are an important part of me feeling safe.  So then they all insisted we do Nitro, which is the second highest coaster in the park, with the first downhill going past vertical.  Yowza.  According to Wikipedia, you can see Philadelphia on a clear night from up there.  There aren't even shoulder harnesses.  I was freaking out.  I closed my eyes for the lift hill, because contemplating falling to my death is less forceful when I can't see it laid out before me.  Surprising myself, I opened my eyes as we crested the hill and let go.  It was exhilarating.  Watch.



That horizontal helix is just the right length so that you just start to feel your vision fading, then those little snake hills would have me giggling from the blood still stuck in my head.  Probably not good for you to do all the time, but several times a day once a year seems like a good plan.

Other notable experiences:

 El Toro, which I think is supposed to make you feel like you're riding a bull. And as such, there's little to hold on to, and I was lifting out of my seat quite a bit.  Also, those rails always freak me out, which is oddly one of the reasons I love wooden coasters so much.  And hooray for banked turns!  That's something wooden coasters have seriously needed.

Kingda Ka gave me a panic attack just looking at it.  DS loved it, and I sat and tried not to think about him failing to come back to me...

Superman would probably be a lot of fun for me, except that the cars invert you so you face the ground like you're flying.  Staring straight down at the ground as I plummet towards it was a little too much for me visually.  Though with my eyes closed, it didn't feel all that crazy movement-wise.

Bizarro is actually a fun coaster, but it has this music that plays right in your ears the whole time that's loud and static-y and completely annoying.

Skull Mountain reminded me of Kentucky Kingdom's old Starchaser, and as such had me laughing through the whole thing.  Also, they put a giant foam jack-o-lantern at the bottom with a spotlight on it.  SCARY!

After at least six hours of this, we were exhausted.  DS and I made the short trip home (about an hour, and some of that was because we took a wrong turn; though we ended up getting home toll free because of that wrong turn, so I was happy) on our own.  We made a frozen pizza, checked the interwebs, and then crashed as the pitiful hour of 8:30.  Even me people.  Me who is currently up at 3am.  I slept 14 hours last night!

This was my third separate theme park, the first two being Kentucky Kingdom and King's Island.  I have to say it was a lot of fun.  Sometimes terrifying, but overall, fun.

*YAWN*

Holy moly I'm tired. I had to get up early, with an alarm clock, like a normal person today. And also last Friday. You see, I have a job again. Nothing much mind you, easy stuff that pays what feels like minimum wage for Santa Barbara. But minimum wage is at least a paycheck, which is much better than the nothing I've been getting. The first two weeks is just training, so only 4 hours a day. This is both good and bad; good because it lets me transition back into a working person again (outside the home at least), and bad because we could really use a full-time paycheck. I think in this case the good outweighs the bad though, so I'm cool with it.

You may be aware that today is DS's birthday, and that he is officially 30. Last week was also my friend Sam's birthday. To celebrate, we're having a joint party here at our apartment tomorrow. Thus, I spent the weekend cleaning (with DS's help), seriously cleaning the craft room/office (SERIOUSLY; as in filed 6 months worth of floating papers and found all the carpet and desk space!), and then doing other things. For example, I made a super sweet birthday banner out of felt and fabric (photos and a tutorial to follow when I'm not exhausted), and because I love him, a LOT of peanut butter balls for DS. Also lots of earrings for Sam for her birthday (with major design help from Juliana!). Those last three things didn't get finished over the weekend though, so I finished them tonight. Oh crap, scratch that. I have more PB balls to dip in chocolate. *sigh* Hey, I get off at 12:30 tomorrow!

Well, as long as I get to sleep soon (it's 10:09 right now), I should be well rested for the festivities tomorrow. In the mean time, here are some photos I've been meaning to share for a long time.

Felix and Winston, crow hunting. Not that they'd know what to do with one. I'm positive Winston would run away in terror if one actually came to the window instead of taunting him from the power lines.

A rare moment of shared love. They did this a lot as kittens, but not so much anymore.

Also, it's pretty rare that I can get decent photos of Felix. She's not very photogenic.

I love how he has his leg sprawled over her. He takes up so much space!

Look at them holding hands!

She really is a pretty cat. I'm happy to finally have some pictures to show that.

Did I ever show you these? They're my Settlers of Catan cookies, made the first night that the group of six of us that regularly play games together got to play this particular game. We had needed the 6 player expansion, and the game stores were sold out for a long time.

This is homemade royal icing, dyed with food coloring, and piped with different tips onto that break and bake sugar cookie dough (I could only make so much from scratch in one night).

Here they are laid out like the game board. Blue is the ocean (ports), yellow is wheat, black is ore, green is forest, white is wool, and red is brick. That one lonely cookie with only yellow sprinkles is the desert.

The cookies were a lot of fun to make, though my icing designs got sloppier as they went, because I ended up being late. Not really a quick project. But tasty!

Hello to New Digs!

I'm sitting on the floor of my old apartment, which is more or less empty. DS and I have never been very good at actually getting everything out of the apartment when we move, which ends up lending itself to some extra, non-planned purging. He's left to drop some random stuff off at the new place, and then he's going to bring back lunch and oven cleaner (I have to admit I don't think I've ever cleaned an oven...)

I'm surprised at how clean this place is. It gives me hope that the December mega-move to CA will be not quite so bad as we're fearing it will. I'm happy to report that we got everything (except for cleaning supplies and aforementioned riffraff) into the new place in somewhere around 10 hours. And that's with lunch and dinner breaks and only one helper! (Bless her soul, Renae is a saint.. actually, if she were drinking while reading this, I'm pretty sure milk would shoot out her nose. But still, she was our sole volunteer, and we have waaay too much stuff even after all our purging)

The cats were ANGRY that we were moving. We had to lock them into one room all day (with all needed supplies of course) because they are notorious for running out the front door at every opportunity. I also read somewhere that cats get very anxious when they see all they know of the world disappearing out the front door. I think maybe they started getting angry when we started packing and purging about a month ago, because I found a suitcase that one (or maybe both, but I really think it was Winston) had starting using for a litter box. Things like that are always a sign of either a sick animal, or one that is very upset. And since they both seem more than fine now that they're in the new place full of their stuff, my guess is someone was sending me a message...

I think we might end up fitting into our new place even better than I had planned (I have to scaled cut-outs of all my furniture, and I like to draw out apartments and arrange my stuff before we move). That's pretty exciting considering we'll be extremely lucky to have this much space after December. Though I think the more we move, the more DS and I move towards the sentiment of less is more.

Oh.. and we're tired. Extremely tired.