28,636 Christmas Lights.

I've finished installing my christmas lights for 2008. I believe I have 28,636 lights this year, although I could have lost count somewhere so I could be off by a few hundred one way or another.

I guess I could demand a recount.

Coming to Kings Dominion

One side-effect of being a theme park junkie is that new rides are not always so new.

In 2007, we spent two days at Geauga Lake in Ohio. It was a lovely little park -- I even wrote a column about it.

At the end of that season, Cedar Fair Properties (which owns many parks) shut down the Geauga Lake theme park, leaving only the Wildwater Kingdom water park.

They actually had been sending rides from Geauga to other parks even before they shut it down, but in 2008 Kings Dominion got the "Dominator" roller coaster, which we had already ridden in GL.

This year, Kings Dominion will get, for the first time ever, a ferris wheel. When Kings Dominion first opened, they vowed to never have a ferris wheel, which they associated with country fairs. I love ferris wheels, so I always wished they had one.

This spring KD will get the ferris wheel from Geauga Lake, along with another interesting ride shaped like a huge Cadillac.

Here is a picture I took of the ferris wheel when we visited GL: