More Flags, More Fun

I had the pleasure of taking my kids to the local Six Flags, a ginormous amusement park in the area during vacation this week, and we had an absolute raging blast. Although I keep getting older and my life continues to build up more old-sounding things like two kids in full-day school, well more than a decade practicing in my field and more than my share of gray hair on the sides, I have to admit I still love a good roller coaster. And it's important to me that my girls don't grow up to be pussies when it comes to a good thrill ride. I mean, who wants to hang out with someone who's afraid to ride a roller coaster when they're a teenager? Just like I want my girls to learn how to throw a baseball and a football, I want them to learn not to be afraid to test their limits in relatively safe, controlled environments like an amusement park.

In our case, we had incredible luck that I imagine was not intended when Six Flags decided to add a huge new water park called Hurricane Harbor right on the adjacent property about a decade ago. We had hand-picked the day to head out to the park well in advance, assuming that right up against the end of August was likely to be a bit cooler and thus attract a bit fewer visitors than might otherwise be heading out to 6 Flags right before school starts up again. But then of course, the day arrived at it turned out to be well over 95 degrees and far and away the hottest day of the entire month of August in NYC metro. Not only did that make slogging through the day with a few young kids a lot harder, but we figured we were really going to be in for it when we showed up at the park to lines roughly ten million people deep for all the big rides. Instead, however, what we found upon our early morning arrival was significant traffic buildup even before opening for the water park on this top-ten hottest day of the summer, but next to nobody fool enough to spend the day outside at the main park on roller coasters in what my car said was 101 degrees in the shade during the peak mid-afternoon temperatures.

What ensued was literally the most fun two or three hours in my childrens' entire lives up to this point. I immediately took the group to the log flume, an old standby that I knew would be sure to please this group of girls (my two and an old friend of theirs also from nyc) who had never before really even ridden a real roller coaster or ever felt that feeling of their stomach rising up to their throats as the bottom falls away beneath you. And again, thanks to the attraction of Hurricane Harbor right next door, there was absolutely no line. So much so, that when we were done with our first run, the attendants didn't even make us get out of our faux log before just letting us ride right on again. We did the log flume maybe 5 or 6 times in rapid succession at the childrens' insistence, then the runaway mine train which the girls were all just tall enough to ride on with a parent, which was the first real coaster these kids had ever been on. It was so rough and fast that I was feeling awful all the way through, knowing the kids would be upset by it, and I was particularly concerned about my four-year-old, who is timid and reserved as it is and seems much less of a badass if you know her than her older sister. But I have to tell you, my girl K is absolutely fearless. These girls loved the coaster more than I could have ever imagined, and again with no lines, we were able to take advantage and re-ride as much as the girls wanted before moving on to the regular standards like the carousel, the tea cups, and of course the flying swings that I used to love to ride at Six Flags when I was a kid. By the time we hit the Buccaneer and Skull Mountain (a relatively new indoor-in-the-dark roller coaster), the kids were hot and thirsty and tired and actually didn't even put up a fight leaving, and we closed the books on what was like I said without a doubt one of the most amazing and consciousness-altering days of the girls' young lives thus far. Score one for the amusement park in being able to provide an unmatched day of fun and wonder for young, impressionable minds.

Seriously though, can somebody tell me why they would ever bother continuing to make new roller coasters anymore now that they've got this?



I mean, the coaster actually goes straight up, and then turns straight down for a 90 degree plunge directly to the ground. When I was a kid we always used to debate whether the Loch Ness Monster at Kings Dominion or that ride at Busch Gardens had the steepest drop in the world, but at this point we're kind of at straight-up 90 degrees here so it's hard to beat that. Although actually this new Kingda Ka ride at Six Flags is even more than 90 degrees, as if you're up close you can see that it actually plunges ever so slightly in towards the inside at the very beginning of that sickening drop, such that it's actually something more like 91 or 92 degrees. I mean, you're plunging even steeper than straight down. And did I mention it's also the tallest and the fastest roller coaster in the world today?

One sure sign I am indeed getting old: I am not sure I'll be taking the girls on this one once they achieve the 54 inches required to risk one's life on this thing. Straight down maybe, but I just don't think I see the point of suffering a 470-foot high drop of more than 90 degrees, do you?

The Vacation That Wasn't

I may have failed to mention this last week, but I figure by now you guys are used to the routine, as the Hammer Family has gone to the beach for the July 4 holiday at least ten straight years and hopefully will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. So that's where I've been for the past few days, although under different circumstances I probably would have posted a few times during the vacation, or at least mentioned here that I would be disappearing for a few days. In reality, however, my wife and I had a very sad thing happen in the family where a very, very close relative suffered a life-altering injury out of nowhere around the middle of last week.

I got the word when Hammer Wife called me in tears at my office, having heard the news via an emergency voicemail left by a friend of the family. Although (of course) my work made it impossible for me to extricate myself a day earlier than the vacation I already had planned, we basically dropped everything and left for the beach a day early (where the accident also coincidentally occurred). As I look back, I guess I didn't have time to post before breaking my balls at work for 24 hours straight and then jumping in the car for the solo ride down to the beach to meet my family who had arrived the day before.

In a nutshell, we spent the week in and out of the hospital, visiting, worrying and just generally helping out where we could, but it really made the normally festive and relaxing July 4 week not a fun one for anyone this time around. One interesting aspect of the weekend was how we handled it with the Hammer kids. M and K are at interesting ages with respect to this, as K, like the baby obviously, is just barely too young to really understand that the person may never be exactly the same again after the emergency last week. But M is pretty much just old enough to start to get it. Hammer Wife and I really went out of our way to keep the gory details from both kids, and even though they had to join us at the hospital on two separate days because of circumstances this week, in the end we decided not to bring them upstairs to the room, preferring for them not to experience the image of this person so different from how they have always seen them in the past. Only time will tell just how much M really understands and appreciates what exactly happened this week with one of her favorite people in the world.

So innocence was spared for some at least this weekend. But what about our feelings? The grown-ups, I mean, and not necessarily just the old ones. I mean, to be honest, the fact that this happened to a formerly-no-real-medical-problems, trim, incredibly healthy-eating person of course freaks all of us out. How could it not? I eat generally like crap and for sure don't have even one-tenth of the fake food that this person keeps at the house almost exclusively -- imitation butter, egg beaters, fake tofu cream cheese, fake turkey lite sausage, extra special light peanut butter that has literally zero taste at all, etc. -- and although I may be a bit younger, I don't exactly consider myself a spring chicken at this point in my life by a long shot. If this person can suffer such a horrifying accident, then it seems for sure it could happen to any of us. Myself? Without question. Probably, even.

Instead of a real vacation and a time to get away from the things that weigh on me, this past week turned out to be one of the first times I've been literally forced to sit and ponder my own mortality while also being deeply concerned about the mortality of a close family member. I always knew I've been lucky to be able to say I've gone this long and gotten this old without ever having to deal with something quite like this before, but now having been through just the beginning of this situation I realize for the first time just how incredibly lucky that is. Maybe it's ok that I must be about 50 or 60 percent below my long-term expected value results at poker -- between my family, my health, and the life I've been privileged to lead so far in my time on the earth, I'm still running way way good in the end.

A Little Sister's Scorn

Funny thing happened today as Hammer Wife drove the girls to school this morning. As they drove down the main drag to my older daughter M's school, the girls see out the window M's friend J, but J has actually made M upset the last couple of times they hung out together by not paying sufficient attention to her. It's been the subject of some discussion at our house and we have spent a lot of time trying to explain to M that sometimes you can't be as good of friends as you want with everyone you ever want.

Anyways, so they saw J with her mother walking on their way to school this morning, and the following ensues:

Hammer Wife: M, do you want to say hi to your friend J? I'll roll down the window for you.

M: Yeah!

[Hammer Wife rolls down window]

M: "Hi J!" at the top of her lungs

And then...

M's younger sister K, sitting next to M on the ride to school, also at the top of her lungs: J, M hates you! You weren't nice to her at your party or ever! And she hates you now and i hate you too for being mean to my sister!"

Hammer Wife tried to roll the window up as quick as she could. But I think J got the point.

You go, K!