The End

The end is near
Time is running out
Live life to it's fullest
For the days are counting down to
The end

I can see the Horsemen
Four to be exact
Riding in the skies
Thunder trailing
Casting a dark red shadow
Upon this Earth

The ground is shaking
Tearing itself apart
With hellfire reaching up
To pull souls down
Incinerating it's victims
Who shall save us?

The temperature is burning
Hotter and hotter
It is rising rapidly
The heat is coming
To engulf us all

Everything is catching
Catching on fire
Everything is coming
To a closure
For the Apocalypse
Is upon us all

So here I am
Writing a record
Of the final day
In closure of this record
My last words are

The end.

The Shadows by Brandon Anderson

This dark it keeps on growing
Threw etched frames
And you'll just keep on going
While I play the game

They thought they'd fight the shadows
The shadows that I slew
But we can see the shadows
Deep inside of you

Now I don't know
I can't see
This trickery
Can it be
This mystery...

The things we hold
Are always first to go
And who’s to say
We won’t end up alone

Surrounded
By this trickery
This mystery…

The sun shines so bright
Burning everything all around
But even the sun will fade
When the day is done
Darker days seem to be
What will always live in me

Darkness falls
Yet the shadows still remain
All around us
Taunting us
And those around

How can we defeat
What we do not wish to know
What we repress
What we use
Everyday

The voices of the shadows call
They understand
They talk to us

The shadows
They watch our every move
Ascending into the skies
Diving into our souls
Finding no resistance
Knowing they can make a difference

We’ve been defeated and brought down
Dropped to our knees when hope ran out
On those skinned knees
We are bleeding

In a bitter place
And a broken dream
We’ll leave it all
Leave it all behind
I won’t look back I’ll fight to remain

These shadows
The demons inside
I will slay

Never to come back
Never to destroy
Never to manipulate
Never to haunt again…

Lifelong Dream Come True

Operating the original Knott's Berry Farm Corkscrew.

Ever since I was in elementary school, when I first read about the Corkscrew, I wanted to operate it, work on it's crew in some way. It was a dream, and for the longest time, I knew 100% it would remain a dream, and only that.

But in October of 2007, that dream, started to become a possibility, and that 100% slowly started going into the double digits, and soon, became a single digit. And then in March of 2008, that 100% came back again. However, that 100% wasnt representing a dream, no no. It was representing reality.

It took moving over 1,000 miles from California to Idaho, but...
Mission Accomplished.
Lifelong dream come true.


I was hired by Silverwood Theme Park in the Rides Department on March 15th, 2008. I was told by that department's manager I would be seeing a lot of Tremors, Timber Terror, Aftershock, and yes, the legendary Corkscrew.

Some say dreams cant come true. Some people say lifelong dreams are near impossible to accomplish. Well, looks like I proved those statements wrong.

Mark VII Monorail - The Problem Discovered

The following has been taken from Mice Age.com....
____________________________________

It's been several weeks since our last update, and there have been some surprising changes around Disneyland. Some of them are good, some are not, and some still hold promise for the next few years. We've also got some news that will likely keep fans of DCA's upcoming Extreme Makeover: Theme Park edition excited, while other plans for the original Anaheim park will strike fear in the hearts of most die-hard fans. In addition to a few other news items, there's also the groaner of a new marketing campaign that will soon be announced as a successor to the bewildering Year Of A Million Dreams. (Before I forget, most of the photos here today were taken yesterday by yours truly.)

Got that decadent cupcake (with the heap of rich frosting) plucked out of it's paper cup? Have that mocha latte picked up from the barista already? Well then, let's get going; we have a lot to cover today! - Al

Monorail Blew

Let's start by getting some of the bad news out of the way, most of it centered on Disneyland. Things had been looking up for the original park in 2008, what with the new fleet of monorails arriving on property and some major refurbishments planned for favorite attractions. The first of the new monorails arrived to media fanfare and plenty of online chatter back in December, and we had told you that the original plan was to have the new train finished with testing on the beam by the busy Presidents Day weekend. Well, Presidents Day has come and gone and the new train has only made it around the beam once, and even then the trip was only accomplished by towing the train with the maintenance tractor. As it stands now, it might be many months before anyone is allowed to actually ride on the new train, while the remaining trains undergo major redesign at the factory up in British Columbia.

It looked good, until...

What happened? Things began to go wrong just a few days after the new train arrived and was gingerly set down on the beam back at the roundhouse adjacent to Harbor Blvd. The arrival and installation of the train onto the track went fairly smoothly, with the exception of some scuffed up paint caused by the shrink wrap used for shipping. After securing the train inside the roundhouse, and ordering up some additional metallic reflective paint at a cost of over $1,000 per gallon, things were progressing smoothly on Disneyland's first new monorail in over 20 years. By the first of the year it was time to take the train out for a spin and begin the official test and adjust phase.

When the train was being moved out of the roundhouse and towards the track switch that leads to the mainline at the back of Tomorrowland, the front of the train began to ease through a gentle S-curve that leads from the roundhouse towards the track switch. It was at that point that a grinding and crumpling noise was heard from under the train itself, and the horrified engineer immediately brought the train to a stop.

Much alarm and consternation surrounded the initial cursory inspection of the damaged train, and eventually the monorail was eased back on to the straightaway and reversed back inside the roundhouse. A more thorough inspection of the underside of the train revealed a shocking discovery; that major portions of the cars chassis had failed to make the clearance in the gentle S-curve the train had slowly moved through. The structure of the chassis itself was heavily damaged, and the underside of the exterior body panels had been impacted as well. The response to this discovery was utter shock and disbelief amongst the assembled Imagineers and Disneyland maintenance team.

A look under a current train.

A further assessment of the situation revealed a fairly simple problem, that the chassis superstructure and suspension system had been incorrectly constructed in such a way that it was not making the clearance between the chassis itself and the cement beam. To make matters worse, this damage was only caused on a gentle S-curve of a turn that is far more mild than some of the sharper twists and turns the monorail would need to make out on the tightly wound beam way in and around Tomorrowland and the Matterhorn. If this much damage was caused by a very gentle curve at slow speed, then the Imagineers knew there was no way the train would be able to navigate the rest of the 49 year old bowl-of-spaghetti beam way at a normal pace.

While the new train sat silently inside the roundhouse awaiting repairs, a few weeks of furious meetings and finger pointing between Imagineering and the contractor up in Vancouver took up most of January. There is still a formal investigation yet to be completed, but the smoking gun now appears to be the original 1980's blueprints that were maintained by Disneyland and WDI. Apparently some changes to the chassis were undertaken back in the 1980's prior to entering service, but they never made it onto the blueprints kept on file back in that less technologically savvy time. When one of the old trains was dissected and used in a form of reverse engineering, the difference between the actual chassis and what the blueprints called for helped cause a miscalculation in the dimensions of the new trains chassis. The result is a new train that now has structural damage to the chassis and that still hasn't been able to make it around the track on its own.

Plastered with ads, just like your local public bus

After the reconfiguration of some of the support arms on the chassis that were supposed to be a temporary fix, two weeks ago the new train was towed around the beam late at night by the biodiesel powered maintenance tractor used by the Disneyland Facilities Department. With some of the chassis structure removed and reconfigured, the train was able to make it around the track without crumpling body panels. While there was no major damage to the train itself, the reconfigured train still couldn't make the tighter clearances through turns and it ripped out dozens of brackets that hold the electric bus bar to the cement beam. It took hours to reattach all the damaged brackets to the beam and restore power to the track, and the Disneyland Monorail System remained closed to passengers well into the next day while the frantic repairs took place. Presidents Day weekend then came and went without the new monorail in operation.

Obviously a permanent fix will eventually be made and a new chassis structure will be fitted to the new train. But in the meantime, all work on the remaining two trains has been stopped up in Vancouver until a permanent engineering resolution can be found. As of this writing, there is not an estimate on how long it may be before the new monorail on property makes its debut. And with construction stopped on the rest of the fleet, there is also no longer an estimate for how long it may be before the second and third trains arrive from Canada. The original timeline called for all three trains to be up and running by Christmas, but that is looking very doubtful now. About the only thing that is certain at this point is next month's arrival of the snazzy new costumes for the Monorail Cast Members that were designed to match the new trains.

Unfortunately, there is still plenty of finger pointing going on and even the hint of legal action lingering in the air, so the arrival of the actual trains may be an ongoing story we'll have to keep updating you on in 2008. The fact that the original track layout and construction of the first two trains only took 12 months back in 1958-59 hasn't been lost on some in Imagineering. It's very disappointing that in this modern age of computerized design and instant global communication a simple oversight like this is causing further delays and cost overruns in what has already been a four year, big budget project.

Where's Bob Gurr when you need him?
____________________________
http://www.miceage.com/allutz/al022608a.htm

Disneyland’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Goat Missing

The following article was taken from the La Times....


Disneyland’s Big Thunder Mountain goat missing



Missing since November, the beloved dynamite-chewing goat on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster is expected to wander back to his exposed butte in the next few weeks, according to Disneyland officials.

The extended and unexplained disappearance fueled speculation on Internet chat rooms about the bleating goat’s demise and led to more than a few instances of baa-baa-bad humor.

Officially, the nameless, genderless goat is “on vacation.” Unofficially, the audio-animatronic animal is getting a new fur coat in the Anaheim theme park’s maintenance department after years of exposure to the wind, sun and rain.

Disney fans fondly recall the legendary “goat trick” — where riders at the crest of the second lift hill train their eyes on the goat throughout the subsequent sharp turn to greatly increase the sideways G-forces (watch the video).

My 7-year-old daughter, Hannah, worries about the death-defying creature’s fate as she waits impatiently for the “goat ride” (as she calls it) to return to its full and explosive glory. In the meantime, Hannah bides her time on the “a-bob-di-bull snowman” ride (a.k.a. Matterhorn Bobsleds roller coaster).
___________________________________
http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/?p=1338

Subs = Zero: Will the Submarines Ever Sail Again?

The answer is yes, they will sail again. In fact, they are sailing at this very moment. Walt's 8th Largest Submarine Fleet In The World were brought out of decomission and set sail on June 11'th, 2007.

NOTE: This article was posted 28 months after the 1998 Tomorrowland Refurbishment.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



David Koenig
Subs = Zero
Will the Submarines ever sail again at Disneyland or Walt Disney World?


The sub lagoon in better days

Too bad Disneyland's New Tomorrowland of 1998 doesn't have a time machine. Then we could travel back to the days before the area's grand reopening. Behind tall construction fences, workers busily added the finishing touches. Giant signs and artwork advertised the dawning of a whole new world of wonder. The excitement was reaching a fever pitch—as was the pessimism.

In his first three years as president of Disneyland, Paul Pressler had become synonymous with cutbacks. It was no secret that he rejected many of the Imagineers' more ambitious—and expensive—suggestions for the New Tomorrowland. No matter how exciting the project would prove, Disney watchers would always wonder what could have been, if Imagineering hadn't been so hampered by budget constraints.

Despite the area-wide overhaul, one corner of Tomorrowland was ignored: the Submarine Voyage. Rumors, naturally, began circulating that the attraction's days were numbered. So in April 1998, when Pressler finally consented to an interview for the Orange County Register, he was asked about the subs. Pressler was adamant: the ride would not close until—and unless—a bigger, better replacement was in the pipeline.


The former Disneyland sub loading area is now an Autopia themed shop

Less than five months later, Disneyland closed its 40-year-old voyage through liquid space—with no concrete plans for a replacement. Just be patient, the company assured us, be patient. Now, after 28 months and counting, the question has become not so much when will the attraction reopen but if the attraction will reopen.

Pressler's not completely to blame. Long before he arrived, the attraction had been earmarked for drastic changes. In fact, in 1994, while Pressler was still heading the Disney Stores division, Florida's Magic Kingdom closed its 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea attraction because of the same maintenance, capacity and labor problems that torpedoed its California counterpart.

"The subs offered low capacity, but required high labor," said a former Walt Disney World ride operator. "Operating the maximum of nine subs, you needed nine drivers plus breakers, six loaders, two greeters, and one person in the queue."

He said there also were problems with the water filtration system and, not a leaky lagoon as was the case at Disneyland, but leaky subs. "The subs leaked so much that eventually they had to turn the falls way down," the cast member recalled. "They tried a lot of quick fixes, like replacing the hatch areas, but that never worked."

Inside the company, everyone knew that the closure was permanent—something Disney refused to admit in public. In fact, the company demanded a retraction from Reuters after the news service reported that 20,000 Leagues was closing for good. Disney hoped that, in time, the public would forget there ever was such an attraction.

A Little Mermaid meet-and-greet area was built in front of the lagoon. The subs were stashed away in the caverns and the back dock area. One by one, they began disappearing. Disney put the top of one sub in the Water Tank at the Disney-MGM Studios. They took two subs to Castaway Cay, the Disney Cruise Line's private island, and sunk them to make a reef. They reportedly removed the console from a sub to auction off as a collectible. The rest of the fleet sits outside the Shops area, rotting.

The chances of a submarine attraction reopening at Disney World are, optimistically speaking, microscopic. Many still hold out hope for Disneyland. Top Imagineers such as Marty Sklar and Tony Baxter have gone on record to voice their support of keeping a submarine attraction alive, in some form. It's not for history's sake, they argue, but for its uniqueness and entertainment potential. Every other amusement park has roller coasters and flume rides, but where else can guests take an undersea adventure in a real, live submarine?


The former loading area, as viewed today

When the Submarine Voyage closed at Disneyland, management refused to acknowledge that it was a financial decision. The reason, they insisted, was that the ride was:

(a) unpopular (untrue, as evidenced by often full queues) and

(b) outdated (sadly, true. The primitive plastic fish and hackneyed recorded spiel had become laughable. Watch a film like Attack of the Crab Monsters sometime. Special effects circa 1959 don't hold up any better in theme parks than they do in the movies.).

Nonetheless, Imagineering took Disneyland executives at their word. The designers were convinced that the park would reopen the ride if it could be improved. After the Submarine Voyage first closed, Imagineering devoted months to designing—and even testing—countless concepts, ranging from a modest update to turning it into a full-scale, E-ticket thrill ride. One idea was rigging the submarines with Alien Encounter-type effects to simulate an attack by a sea creature that could rock the boats and even smash through portholes. The most probable scenarios seemed to be those tied into the upcoming Atlantis animated feature.


The turtles are still visible from lagoonside

But, as Imagineering soon discovered, it didn't matter how good the ideas were. Disney was in no hurry to reopen the Submarine Voyage, especially with all the money the company was sinking into Disney's California Adventure.

The hope still remains that after DCA opens and Disneyland goes a few years with no major additions, attention again will turn to the original park. Yet, if that means salvaging any of the old Submarine Voyage, some cast members say the company had better act quickly.

At first glance, the area still looks like a shimmering blue lake. Closer inspection reveals neglect. It's not unusual to see trash or a stray plastic fish floating in the lagoon. The submarines themselves currently sit in the caverns, hatches raised, decaying. "The subs were moved out of sight because management was getting tired of guests asking about the attraction," alleged one cast member. "The subs are berthed inside the caverns. However, because of the damp conditions in there, the subs are rusting faster than anything else. They are just sitting in there. If no action is taken to fix or rehab the subs within two years, they will be unsalvageable."

"These facts are essentially correct," confirmed a Facilities worker. "I can't comment on the time line for the end of restorability, but my guess is it's not far off."


The former docking area next to the Autopia shop shows how it is used as a trash recepticle by visitors

Structural problems also plague the lagoon. The maintenance worker said, "The main reason the subs were closed was the fact that the tunnel was collapsing. In at least one place, the guide rails had broken free, and the repair costs were deemed too excessive. At least one sub had damaged its sail when traveling across this section. The water level in the lagoon has to be maintained to prevent a large sinkhole from collapsing underneath Innoventions, which would take out Autopia and Rocket Rods as well. Attempts to seal this hole have all failed, mostly due to the porous soil, so Disney pumps something like 50,000 gallons of water per day into this mess to keep things 'stable.' Each year, the amount of water necessary grows, and nothing can or will be done about it."

Certainly with the opening a brand new park, Disney figures it has more pressing concerns than polishing up a creaky, old attraction that's been closed for years. Hopefully, someone soon will find the time at least to check up on the subs, before they're too far-gone to restore.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alright, when I found this, I was in absolute shock. If only David Koeing knew that the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage would be opening, almost a decade, 8 years 9 months to be exact after the Submarine Voyage carried it's last passenger.

R.I.P. Fort Wilderness 1956-2007

As many of you know, since the 2003 refurbishment of Tom Sawyer Island, Fort Wilderness has been closed off to park guests due to safety reasons. The fort was still used however as a changing area for Fantasmic! peformers and for Cast Member parties. However, the fort was still a safety hazzard, and everyone knew that it would be demolished, but no one knew when. Well, on May 16, 2007, Mice Age editor Al Lutz posted the following "Editor's Daily Note" item:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5/16 BREAKING NEWS: R.I.P. Fort Wilderness 1956-2007 Team Disney Anaheim has just decided to demolish Fort Wilderness after years of trying to ignore the looming problems with the aging wood structure. With Pirate's Lair debuting next week the demolition will be handled overnight for the next 30 days. A cement log stockade for Cast Member use only will replace the Fort in the same area that the original stood. Stay tuned for all the details in the next update. - Al Lutz

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The elements and the termites have won.

And with that news, yet another Disneyland Resort attraction packs it's bags to Yesterland....
Speaking of Yesterland, this breaking news now has allowed Werner Weiss to add Fort Wilderness onto his website Yesterland, a website for discontinued Disneyland attractions. You can view Fort Wilderness by taking a trip to Yesterland at the following link.
http://www.yesterland.com/fortwilderness.html

While the good news is that Fort Wilderness is currently being reconstructed, the bad news is that it will most likely stay CM-only. This shocks me and other Disneyland die-hards, considering that Fort Wilderness is a park legend. Why rebuild this classic if they have no plans to re-open it? If this plan goes forward, it's a waste of money in my eyes...


-Brandon