Back in 1979, when I was eight years old, my cousins and I piled into my aunt’s station wagon with a cooler full of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a half-dozen flavors of Faygo. It wasn’t our first trip to Kings Island, also known as the largest amusement park in the Midwest, but it was the first time we were going to ride THE BEAST–the longest, and arguably to this day, one of the best wooden roller coasters in the world.

I remember the anticipation lasting for the entire drive and during our ride on the “warm-up” coaster called The Racer. By the time we were finally in line for The Beast, our excitement was almost unbearable. We were terrified, we were giddy, our emotions were up and down like…well, like a roller coaster. The mood of everyone in line was positively electric.

And, that ride lived up to every bit of our expectations.

For over four minutes, we were sent screeching along the wooden track, hurled into the woods, thrown around deep banks and into underground tunnels. The fact that we were moving at a speed of 65 miles per hour on the track you see in this picture, made the ride all the more exciting. That’s not steel, folks.

It was a thrill-ride like no other. And, thirty-three years later, it still is.

Now, I take my own kids to Kings Island and this year my son was finally tall enough to ride some of the bigger coasters, including The Beast. Kings Island has an amazing area for young kids (and I’m not just saying that; Camp Snoopy has been rated the “Best Kids Area in the World” for 11 consecutive years by Amusement Today), but my son is ten years old and has been mentally preparing to move on to the big rides for at least three years.

But that didn’t mean there wasn’t fear in the air when he finally got in line for The Beast.

Don’t let him fool you. He loved it.

Not only did my little 48-incher ride The Beast, but also Vortex, which contains two vertical loops, one corkscrew, one boomerang turn, and a 360-degree helix. He rode that one three times. We were extra grateful for the wristband which identified that he had been measured at Guest Services, so we didn’t have to wait for them to check his height on every ride.

Then there was Drop Tower .

That’s my daughter sitting in unlucky seat #13 and our friends, on either side, who were brave enough to ride 315 feet up, only to be dropped down the tower at 67 miles per hour. I took pictures. With my feet on the ground

Fortunately, Kings Island has a rating system in place to help any visitor choose their park adventure, grading rides on a scale from Low Thrills (1) to Aggressive Thrills (5), so if you think that rides like Drop Tower (5) seem too adventurous, you can ride Scrambler (3) or take a trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower (2).

I love that Kings Island has been bringing me decade upon decade of fun and laughter. I love that my kids can experience and appreciate the same things I did when I was their age. I love that despite the generational gap, my teenage daughter and I both speak the same language when we’re on a roller coaster. But mostly, I just love The Beast.

And, I’m pretty sure I always will.

Are you a Aggressive Thrills rider or a Aggressive Thrills photographer when you go to amusement parks?

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In the five years that I have been blogging, this site has received tens-of-thousands of comments. Often, the comments are better than the posts. Stop it, people! You’re going to put me out of a job!

But, if I lose my blogging gig at least I know of an industry desperately in need of new hires; spam writing.

For every one of your comments that gets posted, I get one that hits my spam folder. If these people had better writing techniques, maybe they wouldn’t get so unlucky. Let’s review, shall we?

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The use of “wow” and “magnificent” are excellent choices, and I can overlook “particular of the most.” However, you lost me at “ever arrive across.”

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Is it one picture or are there pictures? “One pictures” is throwing me off and I can’t figure out which dump truck post with which you need help! It’s hard to decide between the ZERO dump trucks posts on this site. Note to self: More dump trucks.

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Dude. Thank you for the double-period, because it reinforces that I was doubly-excited for that sentence to end.

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Yesterday’s mail brought the first of, what will be many, back-to-school catalogs. It is jam-packed with deals on everything from pencils to gym shorts to flash-drives to three-ring-binders.

I think I heard my wallet scream.

Because back-to-school shopping can be pricey, I do my best to put my coupon-cutting, savvy-shopping skills to work. The catalog I received yesterday will be perused and used to compare against the next one. I am always looking for the best deal. I have even been known to stockpile.

You’re selling a bag of #2 pencils for $.49? I’ll take fifteen. Composition books for $1.00? Give me the whole lot. I don’t care what color they are, what company manufactured them or the store from whence they came.

And, the dictionary that I just had to use to look up “whence” wasn’t anything fancy either.

Of course, there are some products that I just won’t skimp on. I buy a certain brand of school socks, I never buy cheap pens, and when it came to the tools my kids would need for papers and projects, the only choice was Microsoft Office.

Not only do I use Word and Excel every day in my own work, but my daughter has become a PowerPoint pro! Her middle school presentations look like a professional made them, and from what she tells me, they’re a breeze to put together (I wouldn’t know).

And, when she found out that she could automatically create a bibliography from in-paper citations, you would have thought that I had given her the moon. I was happy to make that easier for her, because dealing with a 13 year-old is tough enough, but throw in a bibliography and they’re downright grouchy.

Trust me, Microsoft Office 2010 should be on every parent’s back-to-school list!

Because I love a good deal and I want to share some savvy shopping with all of you, I’m sharing this offer with you. Buy Microsoft Office today and save 15%. This promotion ends on 9/14.

Be sure to visit Microsoft Office’s brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ posts on back-to-school shopping.

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When I was in the fourth grade I painted a picture of a young soldier. He wore a red coat, white pants and a black hat. Apparently, when you’re nine years old and there hasn’t been a war in your lifetime, you take style inspiration from the Revolutionary War.

The painting was good. Was I a child prodigy? No. Did my mom think I was? Yes. Every person who came over for bridge club for the next two months had to see the painting. She was proud. I understand this now because of my daughter’s second grade gourd painting. Yes, gourd. I had it custom-framed and it hangs in our living room. Shut up.

Beyond the fourth grade, I lost my artistic mojo. Sure, there was the pencil sketch of a lion in the seventh grade and the envelopes I designed in order to get pre-sale concert tickets while in college, but it didn’t go beyond that.

Until I discovered Draw Something.

This little iPhone game is making my artistic mojo creep back. I have done a good job of drawing kung fu, spaghetti and crutches. I’ve sketched Barney, gardens and an orchestra. The little soldier in the red coat must be buried in there somewhere, too!

As NOT evidenced by my son guessing this, which I drew:

Him: Stares in disbelief. Looks at me, looks back at the phone. Says, “Mom, I have no idea what this is. I think the thing at the top of the picture is a gray banana, though.” In fairness to him, gray bananas aren’t an uncommon sighting in our fruit basket.

Me: “Let me give you a hint. The thing with the red handle is a tool.”

Him: “Oh! It’s a screwdriver stabbing a gray banana!”

I will not, in fact, be quitting my day job.

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