great america – The only certainty is bad grammar

the shyte my brother and i go through / i rode the dare devil dive

Published: August 26, 2009 / Updated: August 26, 2009 Crystal great america, humor, long

if you’re going to go around picturing my little brother, just take everything you know about me and then move to opposite land (it’s right next to Colbert Nation).

don’t misunderstand, i love him deep-down crazy style. we come from the same twisted homelife, and he’s one of just a few people in the world who can ever know my very core.

but because we are not alike in any practical way, we’ve been through some shyte.

some throwdown, knock down, crying, yelling, I HATE YOU AND HOPE YOU DIE! shyte. the kind of shyte only a brother and sister can experience. and even then, only if they love each other. the kind of shyte that’s led us to not talk for umm, oh, i’d say about the last two years.

except of course, at great america.

at great america, we’re the same.

we ride in the front seat of vertical velocity. we pressure people into going on rides even if they’d rather live in a freezer for seven days than experience them. we even hate the same people – those stupid losers who use the flash pass to cut in line.

and because really, i love him deep-down crazy style, i eat it up.

so when he started suggesting i go on the dare devil dive with him yesterday, i didn’t say a firm NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! like i normally would.

instead, i considered it.

the ride is basically a drop to your death that stops just short of landing you in a casket.

i’d say, about six inches short.

you hook up to some wires and then, while linking arms with your partner, are jerked up about 10 stories high. after a quick confirmation from the people safely on the ground telling you it’s time to FLYYYY!!, you have to pull the rip cord so you can drop to the cement.

did you hear me?

YOU HAVE TO PULL YOUR OWN RIP CORD!

scariest. thing. eva.

let’s be honest, my brother was in charge of that crap. if it were up to me, i’d just make a nice little house up there complete with a loofah and live in it forever because WHY WOULD I FLING MY OWNSELF TO DEATH?

my brother is the kind of guy who’s never scared. the kind of guy who talks casually while in the front seat of a coaster that shoots you toward the sky at 100 mph in less than 2 seconds. the kind of guy who the signs reading “PLEASE STAY SEATED ON THIS RIDE” are meant for.

but on this ride. he was scared. actually, he was terrified.

and so, he was terrified. and i was terrified. and for this moment, we were exactly the same.

while looking down at the cement they had lifted us over, building up to the official “rip cord moment” we examined the little tiny trees, held our breath and tried not to pee right there from 150 feet above the ground.

then, he said to me “why the (swear word) do i have to be the one to pull the (swearing word) rip cord?!” with a panic in his voice i didn’t know was possible.

two seconds after that, he pulled the cord.

and two seconds after THAT the worst was over.

we had done it.

holy fricking crap.

we had just fallen to near death and lived to talk about it.

HOLY CRAP!

wow.that.was.crazy.i.can’t.believe.i.did.that.and.didn’t.die.omg.omg.omg.we.did.it!!

FOR REAL!

the two of us flew back and forth for a few minutes, and each of realized then that we really COULD do anything in life we wanted to.

and i finally felt at peace with him again.

nobody else we know has done that. nobody else we’re related too can understand that moment.

just him. and me.

and in this way, we are again, exactly the same.

i’d say it was totally worth it.

Lessons from Six Flags: People do change / being stubborn is lame

Published: July 10, 2009 / Updated: July 10, 2009 Crystal great america, im cool, Six Flags lessons

Instead of one post listing all the life lessons I learned at Six Flags Great America, I’m going to break it into multiple posts, because seriously people, THERE’S JUST SO MANY!

So, one of my lamest moments on this earth happened when i was 13 years old. I was at Great America with my friend Heather and she was begging me to go on the Batman. except i had heard some crazy story about people getting stuck on that ride for like 13 hours UPSIDE DOWN!

that’s crap, i thought in my little eighth-grade brain. and i did NOT want to take any chance whatsoever of that happening to me. so i refused to go on the ride with her.

let me tell you though, that girl begged me for like two hours straight, and i just stood there like an idiot repeating the word no. Despite the fact that i sat in the little seat on display and made sure it was totally safe, and the fact that the chances of me being on the ride when it got stuck upside down were about 4,000,000,000 to .5.and HOLY CRAP THERE WAS NO LINE! AND WE COULD LITERALLY JUST WALK ON! i still said no.

i was a stubborn little twit who refused to listen to reason. who refused to hear the facts and evaluate them and then change my mind.

and two years later, while riding in the front seat of the WAY SCARIER ragging bull, i knew that i had made the wrong decision to say no that night.

lucky for me, people do change.

i changed.

and i started listening to reason.

and when my friend shari had asked me to on the ragging bull, i listened to the facts and went on it. and it was SUPER FUN! and i’ve been totally hooked on roller coasters ever since.

my friend heather wouldn’t recognize me.

which i can only assume is a good thing. i mean, thank God i’m not the same person i was in junior high. that would totally suck.

having fun all the time is kinda exhausting

Published: July 3, 2009 / Updated: July 3, 2009 Crystal humor, im cool

wow. im SO tired today.

went to six flags great america with a crapload of people yesterday. mostly family members who are in town from new orleans.

and about half of us went on vertical velocity. That ride is CRAZY.

you’re sitting in the seat and then BAM! you’re going 6 million miles per hour up a hill about the height of the sears tower. then just for kicks, it pulls you backwards up another hill, so you can see exactly how far you’d fall to your death if say, the seat belt stopped working. then you go forward again, only this time it’s higher, so you basically surpass the sears tower, then back again, then forward once more before you come a screeching halt and have a heart attack.

fun times guys. FUN TIMES!

also, my aunt, mom and i did the water park, except it was like 70 degrees, so nobody else was stupid enough to stand in line for any of the rides and we did like every slide in about 8 minutes flat.

one of the slides was a family-style raft that could hold up to two adults. there were three of us though, so i was planning to go down alone. except the crazy life guard lady was spouting off about some weight distribution crap. luckily (?) there was a random teenage boy up there whose friends had ditched him and went down without him.

and my mom was all “CRYSTAL RIDE WITH HIM!” and i was like “SHHH! MOM! NO!” in a loud whisper.

alas, the only other choice was to walk down the stairs again, so he and i sucked it up and went down together. and im telling you that boy lept out of that raft quicker than a kangaroo at the bottom of that slide and walked away from me.

i didn’t take it personally though, because im cool like that.

later i want to share a post about how everything i need to know in life i learned at six flags, but i haven’t quite finished it, so you’ll have to wait a bit for that.

in the meantime feel free to watch this video that some crazy person took with what i can only assume is a cell phone camera on the vertical velocity and then posted on youtube. no it wasn’t me, and yes, it’s WAY scarier in person: