The Times from Munster, Indiana • 38

The Times LIVING WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1999 D-5 American Coaster Enthusiasts follows coasters on wild rides across the country need something on the other end of the spectrum," she said. "I don't want to come home and play chess. So I do this." When she met Warren, her future husband, 11 years ago, she didn't hide her passion. Their first date was at Magic Mountain, where she made him ride all the coasters with her. "I married into this," he said.

"He knew what he was getting into," she replied. He still knows. He brought a magazine with him to the GhostRider event As his wife rode and rode and rode, he found a bench in the sun and read. First ride Samuelson tried not to get his hopes up. "So many times I've walked up to a coaster and thought, "This is going to be and it turned out to be ho-hum," he said.

"Other times Tve expected very little and been very surprised." After his first ride, he pronounced GhostRider a winner. "There were quite a few nice surprises," he said. "The stunner was on the block brake, about halfway through, where all of a sudden you dive down into the timbers." He added, "The pacing was real flocking to ride." Knott's Berry Farm would benefit, too provided the ride was a hit. "Letting 100 ACE members be among the first to ride GhostRider is an excellent way for the park to get the word out about their new ride," Turner said as the day approached. "The Internet will be immediately flooded with every detail of the ride experience." The moon was still shining as ACE members drank coffee and ate pastries while awaiting the go-ahead to board the 118-foot-tall GhostRider.

It came at about 6 a.m. and brought cheers and applause. There were 24 people on the inaugural run. They rolled out of the station and toward the first hilL the distinctive clackety-clack of the chain pulling them and their anticipation up, up, up. Gravity and the unknown awaited them.

They returned from the two-minute ride beaming. Many raised their arms in triumph. Others showed thumbs up. Most raced out the exit to get back in line. They had four hours before the general public would be allowed into the park and they wanted to ride as much as possible.

(Many would go on GhostRider more than a dozen times.) home to dozens. As with any club, some take their enthusiasm to extremes. They utter proposals of marriage while riding coasters and take honeymoons to this or that coaster paradise. They even build small coasters in their own back yards, hidden from view so the neighbors won't object And when a new wooden coaster opens as one did recently at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, Calif. -they drop everything to be there.

They gathered at 5 a.m. in the cold and dark and traded rumors about the coaster, GhostRider. Several said they expected it to be the best "woodie" in California, better than the Giant Dip-per at Belmont Park in San Diego, better than anything at Magic Mountain. Most of the early risers live in Southern California, but one family came from Fremont in the San Francisco Bay area. Two guys even traveled from Florida, 2,400 miles away.

Just for the opportunity to be among the first ever to ride the Ghost. Again and again and again Dale Samuelson, a San Diego resident, was there. He drove up in a car bearing this personalized license plate: RLRCSTR. His fascination with coasters dates back 43 years, to when he was about 2. He's been told by his parents that the first time he went to a kiddie amusement park, he didn't have much of a reaction.

He seemed sullen. On the way home, he explained to his startled folks that he had been studying how the rides worked. Copley News Service Most of us get introduced to roller coasters as kids. Our parents take us to amusement parks, and we gawk at the skeletons rising from the ground, big and mysterious and noisy. We feel afraid and excited at the same time.

For some, the fear fades but the excitement doesn't. They grow up with a passion for roller coasters that unlike the rides themselves has all ups and no downs. They plan their vacations to cities that have roller coasters, especially wooden roller coasters, which have nostalgia and banked turns and personalities that change with the weather. At conventions and on the Internet, they visit like-minded fans. They talk about "air time," those moments when your rear end rises off the seat.

Serious air time is one of the things that separates a great coaster from a mediocre one. They fret over their "Top Ten" lists of favorite rides, forever arguing about the merits of, say, Shivering Timbers in Michigan or the Mean Streak in Ohio. And what about Coney Island's venerable Cyclone? They absorb the history of coasters, tracing the roots to Russian ice slides and Pennsylvania coal trains. They stalk abandoned coasters and take photographs amid the ruins. Crazy about coasters they may be, but they aren't crazy, not in the strictest sense of the word.

They will, when asked, point to normal lives with normal jobs like architect, doctor, engineer. They prefer to be called enthusiasts, which is the name systems engineer. "rve always been fascinated by the intricacies of roller coasters," he said. "When you're on one, you can't always see where it goes. That's interesting to me, where it goes and how.

The complexity of the design." He estimates he has ridden 300 coasters worldwide. He favors wooden ones to steel, and can name the first he rode -The Shooting Star at Lakeside Park in Salem, Va. His favorite is the Texas Giant, 143 feet tall, at the Six Flags park in Arlington. "There's just something about wooden coasters that's hard to put your finger on," Samuelson said. "The exhilaration of it, the almost out-of-control sense you get with a good one.

"There's a little bit of masochism, too, I guess. If I get off a wood coaster and I haven't been bruised up a bit, I feel cheated." Ric Turner, American Coaster Enthusiasts' regional representative, de1 scribed the attraction of wood this way: "The ride experience is wilder, more out of control and unpredictable. Wood is a living material that changes with humidity, heat and age. Woodies seem to have moods, a little rougher one ride, and faster the next. "Also on wood coasters, you only have a lap bar and sometimes a seat belt.

You are free to move and experience the world rushing by you on all sides. Wood rides always have railings and structure near the track enhancing the speed and often hiding the next twist or drop." It was the promise of this kind of thrill that had ACE members lining up for GhostRider's preview day on Dec. 8. Turner helped coordinate the event with officials at Knott's. Such events are not uncommon in the coaster realm especially not now, in what is a new golden age for rides, a harkening back to the roaring 20s, when hundreds of them were built.

i More than 50 coasters have opened worldwide in the past two years, bringing the total to almost 900; more are slated to debut in Several explored the new coaster methodically. They rode first in the front, where the wind whips the face and the cars seem to lift of the track on the hills, then switched good. For me, that part of what makes a great coaster. It can let up a bit, if the next thing is intense. And that's what happens here." Samuelson was especially impressed be "If I get off a wood coaster and I haven't been bruised up a bit, I feel cheated." Dale Samuelson This might help explain whv he or tneir cluD, American Coaster Enthusiasts.

r' .1" grew up to be They boast about 5,800 members nationwide. San Diego is Ai i 4 ts. 1999. Being first on one of the new rides carries a certain cache among coaster aficionados. "It's always a treat," 5r- said Tim Cole, anoth- er San Diegan who 7 IK drove up for the opening.

"You feel pretty special knowing you are testing what cause the coaster ran well on a cold morning. Come summer evenings, when the track warms and the grease thins, "it should really be flying." Top speed is 56mph. Standing outside the ride, he waited for a friend, Kim Pedersen, who brought his family from Fremont, for the debut. "Well?" Samuelson asked. "Air time!" Pedersen shouted.

"What did you think of the section after the block brake?" Samuelson asked. "What did I think?" Pedersen said, surprised that anyone would need to ask. He made his eyes go wide in an expression that said, "Wow!" Pedersen nodded his head a couple of times, looked up at the ride and said, "I like this. I like this a lot." And he sprinted off to join his 12-year-old son, Kory, in line. Later, during a break from riding, Pedersen said he, too, was drawn to coasters as a child, "but I was scared of them at first.

Finally I got up the nerve to get on one, and that was it." He estimates he has ridden 250 different coasters. He likes them because "they are one of the few public places where adults can scream and act like a fool." On this day he was wearing a jacket covered with cloth patches. They had the names of amusement parks and roller coasters from throughout the country. One patch had "Termite" stitched on it. Termite was the name of er Pedersen built in his back yard in Fremont.

It was about 13 feet high and dropped from the roof; the ride lasted about 30 seconds. "It was pretty good for a backyard coaster," he said. to the back, where there's more whip on the drops and turns. They sampled the middle cars just to be thorough. Lisa Scheinin and her husband, Warren, were among those making the back-and-forth circuit.

She works in the Los Angeles coroner's office and wore a black jacket with the white outline of a body on the back. He wore black, too, but his was adorned with the design of a coaster. This has been a busy year for them. During the summer, they went to Korea and rode 21 coasters in five days. Before that, Lisa traveled with other coaster fans to Japan, where they hit 70 coasters in 10 days.

"I always loved coasters as a kid," she said. "Fortunately, my dad did, too, and he took me to all the theme parks." For a long time, she didn't know there were others like her. Then, while in medical school, she was ordering textbooks and saw in a catalog a book called "Roller Coaster Fever." She ordered it, found the name and phone number of the enthusiasts' club and joined. That summer, she toured amusement parks on the East Coast to ride coasters. "And I haven't stopped since." Her lifetime coaster total exceeds 500.

Her favorite part of any coaster is the first drop. "I love that feeling of your stomach jumping into your throat," she said. She also likes being able to "be a kid again," to "enjoy yourself and let it all out" For her, coaster chasing is an escape from the stress of dealing with death on a dai ly basis. "I is others will soon be 3 i Story by John Wilke to a Lipin WORKUFE Tired of those fridge raiders? Private eyes are recommend ways to nab lunch thieves Small Stuff." Among Carlson's workaday advice: Never, ever backlash; don't dramatize deadlines; accept the fact that every once in a while you're going to have a really bad day, and make allowances for incompetence. Seeking information Speaking of sweating, white-collar workers getting pink-slipped these days are younger and further down the food chain.

According to the Challenger, Gray Christmas job-placement firm, the median age of downsized-and-out job seekers was 46 for the first quarter of 1998, 45 in the second quarter and 44 in the third. And the percentage who formerly made more than $60,000 has declined from 73.2 percent to Knight Ridder Newspapers Driving him 'Psycho' A hotel security expert named Norman Bates? Is this some kind of joke? No, it's for.real and it's no laughing matter, says Norman Bates, president of Liability Consultants Inc. Getting hotel reservations is a pain. People hang up on me all the time-," Bates tells Business Traveler magazine. I was born 10 years before the release of the film so it wasn't deliberate.

And for the record, my mother is still alive and rocking!" Money, honey Oh, boy! Or maybe that should be "Oh, girl!" You see, the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange has ruled that the world's sexiest new money has no gender. But Russians who have to speak or write about the euro have issued a sex appeal, saying that unless they know whether it's masculine or feminine, they can't determine which of the Russian language's gender forms to Use. In dealing with the euro now, Russians are swinging both ways. No sweat "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff at Work." That's the latest book from Richard Carlson, author of the best-seller "Don't Sweat the tions on how they would nab a lunch thief. But be warned: Some of these tactics should be carried out by trained professionals only.

Trace Carpenter is a technical surveillance countermeasure with Counterspies in Dallas. His company motto is, "Because the fly on the wall might not be the only bug in the room." So he suggests catching pesky poachers by rigging soda cans orTupperware dishes with tiny video cameras. Shannon Gambrell, who works at an interior design the folks in her former office used a hidden camera to nab their office lunch bandit. "They (the bandit) wouldn't eat it all," she says. "They would take a bite and throw the rest away.

It's amazing what people will do to get free food." Installing a camera is a pretty good way to nab your thief, but it can be expensive and against some company policies. There are simpler (read: cheaper) methods, says Sissy Williams, a private investigator with Clue Investigations. Why not just give the impression the fridge is under surveillance? "People are so gullible, you could put up a sign saying, 'Smile, your picture is being taken' and theyd believe it," she says. Or you could take a more active approach, she says. "I would line everyone up and smell their breath." Phew.

Then there is the even less-glamorous task of rooting through your co-workers' garbage to find familiar wrappers, Williams says. Messy, but effective. For the more adventurous, there are chemical booby traps. "There's a chemical that if you put it in something you eat or drink, the next time you urinate it turns bright blue," Carpenter says. Linger near the bathrooms.

The culprit will be the guy zooming past scared witless. "There's dihydroxyacetone. That's a chemical that's clear, but reacts with sunlight," Carpenter says. "Coat a plastic sandwich bag with it, and when they step out in the sunlight their face and hands turn purple," he says. "It wears off in about three weeks." Now, about those chemistry experiments workers are conducting in the fridge with abandoned, moldy lunch leftovers.

i BY HALliyiAH ABDULLAH The Dallas. Morning News oucnow who you are. Sneaky thief of chef salads and last night's pasta. Poacher of tuna-fish sandwiches and yogurt. Innocent lurtch bags just aren't safe in some office refrigerators.

A recent Cathy comic strip even bemoaned the fact that co-workers are filching lunches. Not that Cathy's whining is new, but in real life as well, deprived co-workers are bellyaching about the problem. "I had one of those frozen dinners and it just kind of disappeared," says Jeanne Purdie, a customer associate at NationsBank. "People put a lot of the same dinners in there, so I'm sure it was just an accident." Hmmm accident, huh? Wanna make sure it doesn't happen again? Although they usually don't work on these kind of cases, Dallas private eyes, when pressed, offered sugges- I 70.7 percent to 68.5 percent. A grade A blunder Talk about hoof-and-mouth disease: The biggest public relations blunder of last year was a group of Texas cattlemen filing a $12 million lawsuit against Oprah Winfrey, according to the annual list compiled by Fineman Associates Public Relations.

It was a real beef jerky. Compiled by Marc Schogol of the Philadelphia Inquirer from wire reports and other sources. Write to him at the Philadelphia Inquirer, P.O. Box 8263, Philadelphia, PA 19101. 4 I.