Let me first start off by saying there is one real good reason to love Six Flags Over Georgia. Namely, their games actually pay off. I won a Tasmanian Devil stuffed animal, a stuffed toucan and — more importantly — Zippy the Monkey Boy won an actual, real electric guitar paitned like the Batman [...]]]> by Richard

Let me first start off by saying there is one real good reason to love Six Flags Over Georgia. Namely, their games actually pay off. I won a Tasmanian Devil stuffed animal, a stuffed toucan and — more importantly — Zippy the Monkey Boy won an actual, real electric guitar paitned like the Batman logo.

And it didn’t take the normal three thousand, four hundred and seventeen dollars it usually takes to win anything substantial at those carnival games. He won it on his second try. It cost a grand total of $5. Okay, sure, it probably would have been made for a total of 23 cents, but he’s still almost deliriously happy. Amazingly, the love for this guitar seemed to take all the rest of the need for high-speed stimulation out of him.

Seeing as how Zippy the Monkey Boy is on spring break, we came down to Atlanta to spend a couple of days, just him and me, having some fun and doing stuff without any other little dudes.

We got to the thrill park just as it opened on a cold, drizzly Saturday. Of course, we loved it. The weather meant there wouldn’t be that many people there so we could skip a lot of lines. And we did.

The first thing we did was to hit the Goliath, a huge roller coaster that has at least a 100-foot drop on it’s first part. The coaster didn’t have any loops, but it had plenty of ups and downs and barrel rolls. After that first horrendous drop and blindingly fast rise to the next crest, all I could think of was, “How is this thing going to stay on rails?” Which is sad, really, since when I was younger my thought would have been, as I’m sure was Zippy the Monkey Boy’s, “Yaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”

It stayed on track and so did we. We hit the Goliath a couple of times, then ran to the Georgia Scorcher, a stand-up coaster, that had a couple of loops and a longer line. We also did the Mindbender and Batman: The Ride. The Batman coaster was great because it was one of those rides where you sit down and your legs dangle off into nothingness, so when you’re riding it lo0ks like there’s nothing between you and a very, very long fall.

And, of course, we hit the carnival midway games. We popped balloons and climbed rope ladders. At which I was totally gyped. I mean, the rules said nothing about climbing the rope ladder when you were upside down. I still think I should have won. Whatever. I mean, I’m not sure I really could have talked my wife, known to me as She Who Likes Her Stuffed Animals To Be A Reasonable Size, into housing a 10-foot bear, no matter how cute.

Overall, the place was clean and filled with friendly (seeming at least) employees. It was filled with places to eat and even had a pretty good variety available, Mexican, Papa John’s pizza, a Panda Express. I would definitely recommend you heading to it if you’re ever anywhere in the neighborhood.

I give this four (4) dudes out of five. A nice park.

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George of the Jungle was a little steamed yesterday. Well, I say a little, but I guess I really mean that steam was coming out his ears and he was grinding his teeth together so hard that we were using him to crack a few particularly stubborn walnuts. See, yesterday was the fifth time [...]]]> by Richard

George of the Jungle was a little steamed yesterday. Well, I say a little, but I guess I really mean that steam was coming out his ears and he was grinding his teeth together so hard that we were using him to crack a few particularly stubborn walnuts. See, yesterday was the fifth time he’s had to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT.

You know, now that I think about it, he might — just might — have a point. All right, he’s got a point. I think we might have maybe pushed this whole SAT thing a bit too much.

Really, though, it just sort of sneaked up on us.

The first time he took the SAT was in 7th grade as part of the Duke University Talent Identification Program. Basically he had to take it to see if he could get into the program. He did and he did and he enjoyed a lot of the weekend seminars they run for relatively book-smart kids.

It was at the end of his tenth-grade year that things started to get a bit out of hand. His mom and I decided he should take the SAT in 10th grade to see where he stood. He took it and did pretty well, especially for a 10th grader. Then he took it again during the fall of last year. Again, his scores increased pretty significantly. The thing is that he has some out-of-state schools on his possible list and those require a certain score level if he (that is, us) wants to have a small enough tuition for us to be able to afford to send him out of state.

So we sent him to an SAT prep course, during which he had to take a warm-up SAT. That was number four. Finally, hopefully, he sat down yesterday for his fifth crack at this thing. If all goes according to plan, this will be the last one because he’ll finally achieve what he needs in order to open up his options. We’ll see.

All I know is that before I left for my spring break road trip with Zippy the Monkey Boy, George of the Jungle was wandering around the house mumbling something about sine is to cosine as an eviscerated corpse is to a bloody butcher knife. Not that I’m worried or anything, but I did manage to hide most of the sharper kitchen implements before I went away.

Helping to create a future isn’t as easy as it sounds.

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Here’s another of the unexpected joys of having a child in a private school (and I’m not even talking about the wallet-emptying, money sucking void the tuition turned out to be): Every other year, the private school in which Zippy the Monkey Boy is enrolled has the same spring break as do other private [...]]]> by Richard

Here’s another of the unexpected joys of having a child in a private school (and I’m not even talking about the wallet-emptying, money sucking void the tuition turned out to be): Every other year, the private school in which Zippy the Monkey Boy is enrolled has the same spring break as do other private schools and, on the alternating years, it has the spring break that public schools have.

George of the Jungle and Speed Racer are in public schools. Which means that Zippy has spring break starting on Friday, while George of the Jungle and Speed Racer don’t have their spring break until April. Because we’re nice, wonderful people (and because I don’t want a bored, cranky Zippy the Monkey Boy underfoot for nine days) we decided to give the little dude a little spring break of his own.

Road trip!

Zippy the Monkey Boy and I are going down to Atlanta for about five days to give him some time away from video games and sleeping so late he gets up when his brothers come home from school. Believe me, that gets really annoying. He gets up, yawns and ambles down to make fun of his school-bound brothers. Sure, it will be reversed when George of the Jungle and Speed Racer have their spring break, but, for now, it’s all about annoying them.

So we decided to get him out of town for a while. Zippy the Monkey Boy being Zippy the Monkey Boy, we thought we’d spend time hanging upside down, falling from great heights and gawking at other animals. Yeah, we’re planning on hitting Six Flags over Georgia, the Georgia Aquarium, the zoo down there and anything else interesting that I can think of.

What he doesn’t know is that I’m also going to be making a little time to drop in on Georgia Tech, to give him an idea of what an urban university looks like. Consider it a preview of the college death march we’re going to be taking together come summer. We’ve already started talking about it and he’s told me he wants to visit schools in Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

Yeah, right.

Anyway, we’re planning on having a little fun and adventure this time around.

So, when you hear a distant scream, like a little girl about to be covered in daddy long legs, waft in on the wind from somewhere far away, think of me as I whip around the Six Flags park, praying for death and wondering what’s taking so long.

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