A new coaster to ride and an old friend to visit

Several weeks ago, I received an e-mail message from our ACE regional rep asking for people to volunteer to be at SeaWorld in San Diego to be on hand for the media day event for their new roller coaster, Manta. Normally, I only attend these events at Six Flags Magic Mountain or Knott's Berry Farm because those parks are close to home and very easy to reach. Over the years, I've attended a number of these events and can count on spending up to three hours riding or speaking to reporters. Between the trip to and from the park and the event itself, it's generally about a half-day commitment.

This time, the trip to the park itself was three hours each way, and I was asked to be at SeaWorld by 4am to check in. After mulling it over for awhile, I figured that it would be easiest to just leave home at midnight and take my time getting there. Sleep would have to wait.

Sure enough, I reached the designated parking area about 3:45am, got parked, and got checked in. Once everyone was there, they took us into the park right to an area with breakfast all ready for us (burritos, pastries, fruit, coffee). After a reasonable time to let us eat, we got a little more briefing before being taken into Manta's station house. While I waited, I took this picture of the entrance to Manta's queue area. This is sometime between 4am and 5am, so the sun monitor hadn't done his daily duty yet. Nice sign, huh?

We were walked through the queue area and up onto the loading platform. As with typical media events, there is a lot of standing around and waiting. Reporters from Phoenix, Las Vegas, and a couple of other cities were seated in the front seat or interviewed before being seated. At some point, one of the people in charge started calling for members of our group to begin filling the train. Since I was standing close to this person, I was one of the first to board. I managed to get a back seat, which was fine with me.

Manta was designed and built by German ride manufacturer Mack GmbH (pronounced "MAWK"). Each of Manta's trains are five cars long with four seats per car. The restraints are an unusual "over the shoulder lap bar," meaning that they come down like the typical over the shoulder restraints on coasters with inversions, but they don't come down over your shoulders. It's a very secure restraint system, and can even be used for coasters with inversions. There is another Mack coaster in Germany that uses this exact train design, and that ride has five inversions. Manta has five trains total, but during regular operation, at least one will be a spare and stored on a track out of view of riders. Here is one of the two trains they were using for this event.

Very nicely themed train, huh? I like how that gate has a little cutout to allow for the decorative fin of the train to pass it when it's in its closed position shown here. (The gate is a safety feature to prevent anyone from passing through there while a train is in that position or moving.) That end of the station is the unloading zone. Once riders have gotten off, this train moves forward to the loading zone.

Once aboard, with restraints locked and checked, the train moves forward and around the bend into the launch tunnel. Inside, they've installed a giant screen that surrounds riders and is intended to make you think you're under the sea. This is as far as I'll go with the description of the ride so I don't remove the element of surprise. What I will say is there are some very unexpected pops of airtime during the ride, and that Manta's mere 30-foot height will fool you into thinking, "Eh, not much to this ride." (That relatively low height is because of the proximity to the ocean, and is set by the California Coastal Commission.) SeaWorld "added" to the ride's height by going 24 feet underground at one point.

SeaWorld needed about six hours of our time, and during that time, I estimate that I got about a dozen rides on it, ranging from one ride in the very front seat to a few in the very back seat. Come about 10:30am, the park was done with us and sent us on our merry way.

But wait! There's more! As a token of their appreciation of our hard work (yep, riding roller coasters is such hard work), SeaWorld gave us the entire day in the park with their compliments!

On my way out, I encountered someone with a porcupine on a leash. I was not aware that you walked porcupines, let alone had them for pets:

There were only a few things that I wanted to do, so I set about gittin' 'em done! The first thing on my list was to ride the Bayside Skyride. I've always liked these aerial tramways (think "Disneyland Skyway" or "the sky buckets" if you're not sure what I mean). Not long ago, I joined a Facebook group created specifically for others who like these rides. While several companies manufactured them, the one best known is the VonRoll company in Berne, Switzerland. VonRoll is no longer in business, but some of their skyrides still run to this day. (The afore-mentioned Disneyland Skyway was built by VonRoll.) SeaWorld happens to have one that was installed in 1967 and is popular to this day. In all of my visits to SeaWorld over the years, I've somehow missed riding this one. That was about to change.

Even though SeaWorld opened at 10am, the skyride didn't open till 11. When I got in line, I was the second person there. The crew was in the boarding area still moving the gondolas  from storage and onto the track. Then they sent them on a round trip to wake them up. Once the first one on came back, they started loading them with actual humans. Cabin No. 22 came around, and the hostess let me in and made sure I was seated before giving it a push toward the mechanism that prevents the gondola from moving onto the cable until the one in front of it is a safe distance away.

My last skyride was in 1997 on the Skyfari at the San Diego Zoo. The Skyfari is another VonRoll installation. So many parks have removed these rides, due to age, expense, lack of part availability, or some other reason. It felt good to get on one of these again. I took the following shot once I got out onto the cable a little way. You can see part of Manta's track in the far right of the picture. It's about the same color as the skyride's gondolas.

Looking ahead, the station on the other side came into view:

When I reached the other station, I didn't even have to get off. In all of my time riding skyrides, you never got a round trip. Not the case this time. Now, heading back, there's SeaWorld waaayyy over there:

Here I am, coming in for a landing back at SeaWorld:

I wouldn't have minded riding again, but by now the line was all the way to La Jolla. Next time for sure.

Next on my list was to ride Journey to Atlantis. This is what is known as a "water coaster." Part of the ride is in a channel of water, and part of it is on a coaster track. This shot is taken from the open area near the entrance to the ride.

Here's another shot that shows the lift to the highest point of the ride, and the 50-foot drop. The boats climb the lift straight out of the loading platform and follow a short coaster track behind the back of the building, then head down the drop.

After taking the plunge, the boats circle around and head back to the building on the left where they're taken to the top in an elevator. You can't see it here, but when the boats roll out of the elevator, they take a plunge down a coaster track, up into an S-turn, then splash into a pool which would be seen on the far left if the picture were wider. After the splashdown, the boats circle back to the loading platform.

While called "Journey to Atlantis," I have to admit that I don't seem to recall ever arriving there. An interesting ride to be sure, but not one that I'd take over and over. I've pretty much taken to calling this one Journey to Nowhere.

One more ride to go. The Sky Tower. Again, another type of ride that I've always liked. I enjoy being up high to get a bird's eye view of things. (That matches what's in my bird brain.) While I'm not limited to how long a blog post can be, I also don't want both of my readers to be falling asleep, either. Therefore, I'll only post a couple of the pictures that I took from up there. Here's the first one, looking to the east, with Journey to Nowhere off in the distance:

Looking north, here's a shot of most of Manta's layout. The launch tunnel is the building in the lower right of the picture where the track comes out. You can see how spread out it is. SeaWorld says that the entire Manta area covers about five acres:

Once I got off of the Sky Tower, I decided that I was done with SeaWorld and it was time to go eat. No, I didn't stay and watch any shows. While I respect the sea and the creatures who live there, I'm not really into watching them perform tricks. Never have been, really.

So I'm back in my car and leave the park, and headed over to meet up with my old friend Bill Hackett. Bill and I met at a church camp back when I was in high school and just clicked from the start. He's been living in the San Diego area for about 20 years and we've gotten together regularly till about four years ago when his mom passed away. I really don't know why we haven't seen each other much, being that San Diego is a nice train ride away (and you know how much I like trains). It's just one of those head scratchers.

I managed to find a Carl's Jr. on El Cajon Blvd. and caught a quick lunch. When I got back out to my car, I checked my phone to see where Bill's condo was in relation to where I was. It was a mere two blocks away! Bill's contract job as a technical writer was ending today, so I went over to his place to wait till he got home.

We greeted each other and Bill took me up to check out his place. It was my first time there as well as my first time meeting his gray tabby cat, Bonehead. We sat and yakked for awhile, then decided to go have dinner up at Applebee's. After dinner, we headed back to his place and continued getting caught up. Around 10 or so, I decided that it was time for me to hit the road because I had a minimum three-hour drive home. We continued yakking for awhile longer, then finally I took off.

On the way home, I decided to stop at one of the rest areas to get a little snack to tide me over. An hour or so later, I was getting drowsy, so I decided to pull off the road about La Mirada. There's an In-N-Out Burger where we often stop to get a soda on our way home from Disneyland or Knott's, so I was familiar with that area. I pulled into a deserted restaurant parking lot, cracked the windows and locked the doors, reclined my seat and laid back, fully expecting to take a short, refreshing nap.

Refreshing it was; short it was not. When I woke up, it was broad daylight and my watch read 6:30am. I knew I needed to get home, but there would be morning traffic. I also wanted to get something to eat as well. Obviously In-N-Out wouldn't be open, so I got on my phone and searched for the closest McDonald's. There was one a couple of miles away, so I headed toward it. A block from where I'd spent the night was a Carl's Jr. Even though I had just eaten at Carl's yesterday, it was close to the freeway and I could get in and out of there quickly. Once I got back on the road, there was a little traffic, but it wasn't bad. I made it home a couple of hours later, safe and sound.

So there you go, ladies and gentlemen. The end to a crazy adventure. My apologies for the lack of pictures of my sleepover in a restaurant parking lot, but, well, whatever...

And as I mentioned in my last blog, I will do a report on cleaning your headlights. But not till I get some sleep.

Lemons

Not much of a title, huh? They're yellow. They're sour. They're round...ish. Why am I writing about lemons, anyway? Because we grow them and I have never written about them before and you will enjoy this blog entry and tell your friends all about it.

Here is our lemon tree before I started picking them. If you look at my Facebook page, then you've already seen this picture. But if you don't, then you haven't:

Lots of lemons to pick. Lots of work to do. And during a solar eclipse, too. So I had to get busy and the the work done or else night would fall, and with my luck, it would fall right on top of me.

(By the way, this will be a fairly short blog entry. Just letting you off the hook if you haven't already left for more interesting activities.)

When I got out to the tree and started picking, I noticed that there weren't as many lemons to pick as I'd thought because many of them weren't quite ripe. But I did get a plastic container and filled it up. This is my catch of the day:

Not really that many, but there are enough to give away or take to my mom's or make lemonade or whatever. So many choices.

Speaking of catch of the day, one of the lemons sort of caught my eye. Yes, Virginia, this really is a lemon. It reminded me a little of a fish, so I got a Sharpie and had a little fun. Betcha can't guess what I added to it...

This lemon wasn't as big as you'd think it was. I held it up and took a picture of it. That is in fact my hand holding it, so you can get an idea as to how big it was. I don't have giant man-hands or anything, just normalish guy hands.

And a lemonfish isn't all that I found. Here is a mutantlemon. Yes, you read that right. Mutantlemon. One word. When I saw that on the tree, the only thing I could think of is that the diesel fumes from the trains passing nearby have really affected our lemon crop. Check this out (and, no, it isn't Photoshopped).

So there you go, ladies and gentlemen. This is what passes for fun at our house. Come back next time for even more fun in Save Time and Money by Cleaning Your Own Headlights. And do it quickly. It's getting dark...

Amtrak's National Train Day

Just like I threatened last time, I did indeed attend Amtrak's 5th Annual National Train Day at Union Station in downtown L.A. Normally, I drive to Woodland Hills and park at the Promenade Mall. Then I catch one of MTA's Orange Line buses and ride all the way across the Valley to North Hollywood, where I catch a Red Line train and ride to Union Station. Today, I drove straight to North Hollywood. Like last week, I went down, dowwwn, dowwwwwwn into the North Hollywood Metro station. It hasn't changed since last week, but who knows? Maybe one day they'll dig it deeper.

Here is one of the fare machines. Metro charges $5 for an all-day pass. That's fair to me; or should I say, "fare?" By the way, even though this particular machine suggested that I Push button H, I didn't do so. Therefore, I really don't know what happens if you do. Maybe you'll get a taco for all I know.

All Metro passengers must pass through these turnstiles. They didn't have these at one time because Metro originally designed its stations to be on the honor system. But too many people were riding without paying their fare, so they've resorted to these.

Note that one of the turnstiles doesn't have anything blocking a person from going through it. I've heard that the one in the middle is a trap. If dishonest non-fare payers use that one, thinking they've pulled one over on Metro, rumor has it that a death ray will turn them into sawdust. Needless to say, I didn't choose that turnstile. Even though I paid my fare, I'm not going to risk becoming hamster bedding.

Down this much shorter escalator is the actual boarding platform for the Metro Red Line trains. You can see the edge of the platform and part of the track on the left and right side.

I took this shot of an incoming train. Then after I boarded, one of the rent-a-cops sought me out and yelled at me. "DID YOU KNOW THOSE TRAINS COME INTO THE STATION AT 70 mph?!?!? IF YOU'D HAVE SLIPPED, YOU'D BE DEAD NOW!!!" Yeah, and we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we? (Please pardon the sarcasm, but at no time was I in any danger. If trains blew into stations at 70 mph, they'd suck people off of the sidewalk up on the street. I saw a bug running faster than this train as it pulled in.)

Less than a half hour after boarding the Red Line train, it pulled into Union Station. I got in line to see the displays and waited for less than the posted hour. When I got to the display area, I saw Silver Splendor, one of four dome cars that were on display.

All of the dome cars were vintage 1940s-era rolling stock. Along with Silver Splendor, there were Silver Lariat, Silver Rapids, and Silver Solarium, which brings up the rear. Inside Silver Solarium, this is a typical private compartment. Sofas can be turned into beds for nighttime.

Looking toward the rear of Silver Solarium, on the bottom level, you can see the curved shape of the car. As I mentioned before, Silver Solarium is at the end of the train.

If you ran through that door and jumped out onto the track, this is what you'd see moving away from you while you sat on your sorry (and sore) butt:

You think this is a fancy restaurant? Think again. It's inside Silver Rapids.

How'd you like to take a train trip aboard this car? This is the dome part of Silver Rapids.

GET YOUR FEET OFF THE DAVENPORT!!! Back in the day, your kids might have heard that if they rode in this car on the lower level.

When you ride in Silver Lariat, you always know which car you're riding in, as you're reminded every time you look at the top of the seats.

Inside Silver Splendor, the living room theme continues with more sofas and tables for passengers. This is travel the way it was meant to be.

We're done with the classic railcars. Now let's see what Amtrak has to offer. The car below is an Amtrak Pacific Parlor car. It was built in the 1950s and originally ran on the Santa Fe as a bi-level car. These bi-level cars were a couple of feet shorter in height than Amtrak's Superliner cars. But people were shorter then, too, so it made sense. Amtrak refurbished them to current standards, and quite honestly did a nice job.

By comparison, here is the interior of one of Amtrak's current cars:

Same idea, but with bigger windows and sideways facing seats. Not a bad way to watch scenery go by. But if you want to eat on an Amtrak train, this is where you do it.

Not quite as elegant as other onboard dining facilities--sort of the Carl's Jr. of dining on the rails. To be fair, Amtrak's food really isn't bad--it beats airline food by a mile or twelve from what I remember. Now if they'd only switch to Coke...

Moving on, Amtrak had some Metrolink equipment on display and I went ahead and walked through one of the cars. This is the interior of one of the new Hyundai-Rotem cars that Metrolink has purchased within the last 18 months. These new cars have been designed to withstand the forces of a collision and keep passengers safer than the older Bombardier cars.

Speaking of the older Bombardier cars, here's one that apparently has gone to the bikes. Actually, what Metrolink has done is to remove some of the seats from these cars to make room for more people who bring their bikes as a means of commuting. These cars are easy to spot because of the graphics.

In honor of Amtrak's 40th anniversary last year, they painted a fleet of their most modern diesel-electric locomotives in the various color schemes that they've used over the years. Today, they only had a Genesis series model with Amtrak's original 1971 paint job on it. By the way, that's the MTA building in the background. Just thought you'd like to know that. I hope they don't have turnstiles in there.

Here it is parked next to a 1927 Santa Fe steam locomotive:

Speaking of which...with only one exception, I've attended all of the National Train Day events since 2008 when the event started. This event doesn't really change much, but this year I got to do something a little different. The old Santa Fe steam locomotive, No. 3751, was not only at the event, but was open for tours of the cab. For only $10, you got to climb into the cab and listen to one of the guys who operates it tell you everything you wanted to know and probably even things that you didn't want to know. Miracle of miracles, I managed to snag the next to last available ticket of the day.

Upon climbing up into the cab, I noticed the biggest collection of knobs, dials, gauges, cords, switches, wires, and buttons that I'd ever seen. Why, it would take an engineer to know how to work all of this stuff!

The talk was very interesting; unfortunately, we weren't able to take a ride or ring the bells or blow the whistle. Because we were the last tour of the day, we got a little more than the 15 allotted minutes. To all who think it's SO important to be first, think again...

There is nothing like travel by rail. Amtrak does a decent job, but it pales in comparison to what we had decades ago. Thanks to those who have a love of trains, these classic railcars live on. The owners of these cars book tours, and for a premium, the average Joe can experience travel like it was in the old days.

National Train Day 2012 is now behind us, but I look forward to next year.

A Metro EXPOse...

Ha ha! Got you in here. There's nothing exposed here today. Besides, doing so in public could get me arrested. This is just a quick look at my trip today on the Expo Line, L.A. Metro's newest light rail line. It was just an innocent play on words. Get it? Well, don't feel bad. No one at my house laughed either.

Having been a longtime fan of public transit, it only makes sense to write about it once in awhile. And what better place to do so than at Eric's Planet? With an overflowing fanbase of 12 faithful readers, I have to keep things jumping around here.

When I reached North Hollywood, I parked in the Metro parking lot close to the entrance to the Red Line. Going into the station is a long, lonnng, lonnnnnng ride down as you can see in this picture. In fact, it's so far down that it's still nighttime in there:

After purchasing a Metro day pass for the bargain price of $5, I headed down to get on the Red Line train that would take me into downtown L.A. (No sarcasm here. $5 really is a bargain for all-day transportation, and in many cases, free entertainment.) Normally, I'd have taken a picture or two of this part of my trip, but with a few scary looking folks on the train, I chose to...do that another time. However, I did take a picture inside the tunnel.  (Note that I refuse to use the term "pic" because I despise that term and most of the other grammatical "shortcuts" that people are using these days.)

As you can see, there isn't much of interest in the tunnel, so I won't take any more shots like this.

Upon reaching the 7th St./Metro Center station, I got off the Red Line train and went upstairs to where the Blue and Expo Line trains board. For the first time that I ever saw, they were using both tracks for boarding and/or disembarking. Normally only the track on the west side of the station is used, but now with twice as many trains, they're going to have to use both sides or play musical trains or something.

There was a bit of confusion today, as some trains destined for "Long Beach" were in fact Expo Line trains destined for "La Cienega," and vice versa. All I could do was to cross my fingers and hope that whichever train I got on was in fact headed toward La Cienega. The Metro people stationed on the platforms were very helpful in directing people to mislabeled trains. Sure enough, the train I boarded kept going down Flower St. past where the Blue Line tracks split at Washington Blvd. I knew then that I was going to La Cienega and that everything was going to be all right.

Never having ridden on this line before, I saw a lot of new things. This line takes you right past the USC campus, the Natural History Museum, the Science and Industry Museum, and a restaurant that advertised something called "HILI" on its sign. (I suspect that a letter was  missing, but I didn't make the train stop so I could go find out. A lot of folks would have given me a 'hili reception when I got back...)

Here's a shot of the La Cienega station. They were smart to put it up on top of that bridge. Putting it in the middle of the street would not have been safe, and traffic would be tied up for hours longer than it already is. For the rail nerds among you, this train was built by Nippon-Sharyo in Japan. This was a three-car train, though in this picture you can only see two of them.

A train is approaching. The destination sign says "TEST TRAIN," but it was real. I pinched it. But I did wait till it stopped, just to be safe. NERD FACT: This train was built by Siemens and was also a three-car train like the one shown above.

On my way back to L.A., I took note of this sign that Metro has posted on many of its trains.

In the smaller picture, some thug is painting the train window, causing the meek, mild-mannered guy in the seat behind him tremendous distress, noted nicely by the exclamation point. (By the way, I like how they put a backwards ball cap on the tagger, you know, like all vandals wear!) Next, the thug has vanished and the meek, mild-mannered guy has whipped out his cell phone to contact Metro and let them know what he saw. One thing about this sign: some Metro trains run up to 120 feet underground where cell phone reception is all but nonexistent.

I managed to get back to 7th St./Metro Center station in one piece and boarded a rather crowded Red Line train for North Hollywood. But crowded is all there ever is, so I made do. Of course, it's hard to leave North Hollywood without stopping at Henry's for something to eat. This time, I didn't eat there, but got a combo burrito to take home for dinner. And for a change, this time I parked on the shadeward side of Henry's.

Another adventure in the can, as they would say in Hollywood. Next Saturday (May 12) is Amtrak's National Train Day, and I plan to attend. If I can, I'll do a report on that event.

What does God have in store for me?

When I was growing up, I was taught that God watches over us and has a plan for each of our lives. During my own life, things have always seemed to fall into place and work out just fine. As a result, I have never doubted that God was in fact guiding me through life, steering me down the path that He knew was best for me. There were no reasons to have doubts, and I never did.

Most of you who know me are aware that I've been out of work for quite some time. One of my top prayer requests is to rejoin the workforce so I can contribute something to the community and earn a paycheck once again. (Those kind of help out with household expenses and other stuff.) I've prayed when I was out walking, driving somewhere, sitting quietly at home. There have been a few nibbles, but no bites. Our nation's sour economy over the last few years certainly didn't do anyone any favors, but things have been looking up for a little while now.  So why am I still not employed? Could I be looking harder? Of course I could, but when relatively few jobs in my line of work are out there in the first place, and with so many others competing for those few jobs, my chances are greatly reduced.

Just within the last week, I had an opportunity to work as a technical writer for a company that has a contract for work at one of our local Navy bases. As I wrote in my last post, I felt good about that interview and felt like I had a good shot at getting the job. But as I learned via e-mail this morning, someone else beat me out.

I always thought that the Internet would make things like job seeking easier. If anything, it's made that harder. Employers can hide from you by providing no contact information. And few employers these days even bother to let you know where you stand if you've submitted a resume to them. (One exception is the company that I referenced above.) Many of the tried-and-true methods of looking for work are obsolete today. You can no longer go "door to door" to find work because that's now considered "creepy." No one wants you to follow up about an interview.

While it's frustrating to keep waiting, I have to trust that God knows what He's doing. There is obviously a position that is suited for me somewhere. I need to be patient and wait it out. If God does things in my life the way that He always has, then something will come when I least expect it. It may not be exactly what I want, but it'll be what's best for me.