I am back from a weekend of visiting my family in Cleveland, Ohio—the home of the Buckeyes and that mean roller coaster you see pictured above, the Top Thrill Dragster.  It was the single greatest roller coaster I have ever been on in my life.  It shoots you up a 420ft hill at 125mph.  You then scream back to earth twisting as you fall.  To give St. Louisans some perspective, Mr Freeze at Six Flags is a mere 226ft and only reaches about 70mph.  This is nearly twice as high and a little less than twice as fast.

I highly recommend that if you are ever in the area, take a detour and visit Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio.  The Top Thrill Dragster is the next best thing to being shot out of a cannon.  And, it is probably a little safer too.

As an added bonus, I added some video I took of the coaster taking off on flickr.

While, I am a little late posting. I thought I would write a brief entry about what it was like to be in the earthquakes today in St. Louis. According to the USGS, we had a 5.2, a 4.6, and a number of earthquakes ranging from 2-3 in magnitude. The first quake woke me up sometime around 4 in the morning. It was more surprising, than frightening. It came with a low rumble and a lot of shaking. It reminded me of a plane taking off, but the sound and shaking came in waves. In addition, there was an electrical component to the sound. You could hear the faint popping of far off transformers. The sound reminded me a lot of the ice storms we had during the winter, where the trees would fall and sever power lines. During the second quake, I was sitting in my cube at work. The building I was in was more substantial and the quake was less in magnitude, so it had less of effect.

Overall, I thought the experience was unique and it really put me in awe of the power of nature. I would not mind going through another 28 years of my life without experiencing another quake.