In era of navigation apps, it still requires some interpretation

Mrs. Brad and I were driving in an unfamiliar town, using the Waze navigation app on my phone to find a restaurant.

I almost missed a turn when my phone said, "turn right in point-one miles" and I didn't hear the word "point." Fortunately, Mrs. Brad yelled at me and we turned before I crashed into the dead-end barrier. ("But there's a mile to go!")

Then we approached a fork in the road and the voice on the app was mute.

"Turn here?" I asked.

No answer from the phone nor from Mrs. Brad. I moved into the left lane.

"Turn here?"

No answer.

I began to merge right to go straight.

"Keep going!" she shouted.

I completed my merge into the right lane.

"No. Keep going! Keep turning!"

I swerved back, making the left turn at a rate faster than the engineers planned.

"You said keep going," I said, sternly.

"I know what I said. I meant to keep turning."

We sat silently, her wondering why I can't drive, me wondering why she can't navigate.

Making that partnership work is a true test of a relationship, even in the age of GPS devices.

Most couples can identify which combination works best for them in an unfamiliar area: Who should drive and who should navigate (if necessary). Opposites attract and all that.

For Mrs. Brad and me, it's obvious: She's a better driver, I'm a better navigator. Which made that recent incident difficult.

My lack of driving skill is legendary, including three in-garage wrecks. I tell people I'm better than before, but that's likely wishful thinking.

However, I'm good at directions. Whether with old-fashioned maps ("you're coming up on the exit to downtown Chico, which you want to pass, but there's another exit in about a mile that you'll take") or interpreting Waze or Google's navigation system ("Get into the right lane. You'll take a right, then a left in about two blocks."), I can lead Mrs. Brad to the right place. It's one of the few things at which I'm better than her. (Others: shouting out "Jeopardy" answers, ironing, making pancakes.)

Mrs. Brad is a better driver and needs less navigation. She remembers where people live, where restaurants are and where states are without looking at a map.

Yet there we were, Mrs. Brad giving directions and me driving like I was in a slow-motion Grand Prix race, swerving from lane to lane. We arrived and laughed.

I guess the best solution is to stay in your lane, both literally and figuratively.

Do what you do best, let your partner do what they do best.

Anytime we're going somewhere unfamiliar, Mrs. Brad should drive and I should navigate (and check on sports news on my phone).

The development of GPS devices (constantly updating your arrival ETA, explanations of delays, suggestions to bypass slowdowns) is one of the magical events of the past 25 years, but it didn't change the fact that unless you're relying strictly on the vocalization of directions from a smartphone app, somebody has to anticipate turns and somebody has to drive.

If you can navigate your way to an unfamiliar restaurant in a new town without getting in a major fight, you can probably navigate the rest of your relationship.

However, it's not a bad idea to define what "keep going" means before you come up on a fork in the road.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

A modest proposal to make fire names memorable

Does the hurricane industry have more organizational structure than the wildfire industry?

Are they even industries?

Organizational structure is the only reason I can come up with concerning my biggest question about fires. Not how they start, how they spread, why they seem worse every year or who's to blame.

I want to know why the naming convention for fires is so strange.

Quick: What was the name of the massive fire last fall that burned thousands of structures in Sonoma County? Or the Oakland Hills fire in 1991 that killed 25 people? How about the one earlier this month in Shasta County?

My guess is you don't know the official name of at least two of them. (Answers: Sonoma had the Tubbs Fire and the Nuns Fire; the Oakland Hills fire was officially called the Tunnel Fire and the Shasta County fire was the Carr Fire. If you got the latter, it's probably because it was coincidentally started by a car).

Now, what was the name of the hurricane that wiped out New Orleans in 2005? Hurricane Katrina!

You remember because hurricanes have a cool naming convention (first names, going through the alphabet in order) and fires are named after an often-obscure region or landmark near where they start.

The Tubbs Fire got its name because it started near Tubbs Lane. The Tunnel Fire was near Tunnel Road. The Nuns Fire and Carr Fire were named after the people who started them. (That's not true, but we don't know it intuitively, because wildfires are apparently named by a cartographer who finds the most obscure area or road nearby and makes the name official.)

I have a modest proposal: Let each state create a similar naming convention for wildfires to the National Hurricane Center's policy for hurricanes.

With a twist: Instead of people's names, we use musical acts.

Granted, it won't make the fires any better (and to be clear, I'm not minimizing the impact of the fires. No need to repeat my 2014 Flight 370 debacle), but it will make them easier to remember.

You start with the ABBA Fire and continue through the alphabet. The Bachman-Turner Overdrive Fire, the Cab Calloway Fire, the Dr. Dre Fire . . . all the way through the Ziggy Marley Fire. Then you start again.

There are so many musical artists whose names start with each letter that you won't run out, even though we average nearly 5,000 wildfires per year in California. If you combine solo artists and bands, you've got enough to cover any year.

What's the benefit? Awareness and a shared language.

When we talk about major events, we need an immediate way to identify them. World War I was called "the war to end all wars," "the great war" "the war of nations" and more. Finally (presumably after the launch of the sequel), it became World War I. So when you talk about it,  you don't have to say, "you know, the great war. The one that ran from 1914 to 1918 in Europe. Remember that?"

That's how we describe wildfires: the general area, how big it was, when it happened and how destructive.

The Mendocino Complex Fire? How about the Manfred Mann Fire?

The 2015 Valley Fire? How about the Van Halen Fire?

The 2012 Rush Fire in Lassen County? Well . . . that one can keep its name. It's a fire-naming miracle: A blaze named after a group that's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

We just need to recognize that one band should be left out: The name Chicago Fire is already taken by the conflagration started by Mrs. O'Leary's cow. But the rest? Let's make them easier to remember.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

On behalf of Cubicle Nation: Leave us alone

Your initial reaction is correct: The traditional way of doing offices is better.

When it comes to creating a climate for collaboration and teamwork, it turns out that one of the start-up culture's coolest ideas was wrong: Open concept offices don't work.

Long live the cubicle! Long live the office!

NOW GET OFF MY LAWN!

According to a variety of sources, about 70 percent of American offices are now "open concept," meaning they are comprised of rows of tables and computers. No cubicles or partitions. That design was created to encourage collaboration, openness, interaction, teamwork and ideas. Except it has the opposite effect.

A study from the Harvard Business School shows that face-to-face interaction decreased by 72 percent when the office was redesigned to create an open concept.

That study isn't unique. Multiple studies show that in an open-concept office, employees become less productive, more likely to be sick and more distracted.

The reasons are pretty obvious – and would likely be to the "innovators" who came up with the idea, had they ever worked in an office or talked to someone who had.

Speaking for Cubicle Nation, I say this: Put us together at a table and we become distracted, more likely to put on headphones or earbuds and more likely to communicate electronically.

What's worse, everyone can see us checking Facebook or ESPN.com during work hours, so we do more emailing and IMing with coworkers to hide that. Talk to the person? Not when I can email him.

This is in my wheelhouse. I have worked in Cubicle Nation for a long time. One of my best pals is nearby, but plenty of other co-workers are forced to listen in as I opine on issues of the day and do various impersonations.

I walk around the office a lot and check in with others. I insist it's for morale.

But . . .

The cubicle gives me a modicum of privacy. Put me in a non-walled room with other employees and I would likely treat work as a solo project. Why should I go talk to someone if I can hear them chewing their tuna sandwich across the table?

For probably 90 percent of my working days, I've lived in a cubicle. It makes sense.

If you take away cubicles (again, 70 percent of offices subscribe to the failed "open concept" approach), where do you post pictures of  your family? Where do you keep the Will Clark baseball cards? Where do you place the Post-It notes with various predictions (concerning the future of Justin Bieber, how many games the 49ers will win in 2018, when will be Paul Ryan's last day as Speaker of the House, what day the office blinds will be cleaned)? How do you keep people from seeing that you're updating your fantasy baseball team roster on company time?

The open-office concept doesn't work because humans want at least the myth of privacy.

Consider your last trip to a library or to a Starbucks when you wanted to read or study or learn: Did you go to a crowded table so you could hear others? Of course not. You wanted privacy, even in public.

So yes, I'll shout what the start-up culture doesn't know and considers outdated: Thank God for cubicles.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

How your iPhone shows that you're richer than me

Android users, unite! Fight the 1 percent!

(Is that still a thing? Is mentioning the "1 percent" similar to saying "Occupy iPhone" or "Fight the iPhone Power?" I digress.)

If you have an Android smartphone, you are part of the unwashed masses. iPhones are the leading symbol of wealth in our nation.

That's according to research from economists at the University of Chicago, who published a paper with the National Bureau of Economic Research that focused on how consumer behavior and media consumption affects how we infer demographic information.

In other words, the research reveals how we filter information about others: What types of things make us (accurately) think someone is, in this case, wealthy.

The answer is . . . iPhones.

According to the data, the one individual brand that was most "predictive of being high-income" in 2016 was owning an iPhone. The ownership of said phones led researchers to a have a 69 percent chance to correctly identify the owners as being in the top 25 percent of income for their household type.

In other words, iPhones generally predict that a person is wealthy.

This is the continuation of a decade-old brainwashing by the folks at Apple, who managed to convince the masses that their products mean that you're cool and wealthy and ahead of the game. Disagree with me? Of course. Because you have been brainwashed and have an iPhone, Rockefeller!

By the way, the No. 2 indicator of wealth was owning an iPad.

Android was the fourth-leading indicator, so maybe that's significant, but maybe not. Look it up on your iPhone, moneybags. I'm busy trying to scratch out a living.

There were similar studies in 1992 and 2004. In 1992, the top product to predict wealth was an automatic dishwasher and the top brand was Grey Poupon Dijon mustard. Seriously.

In 2004, buying a new vehicle was the the top "product" to show wealth and Land O'Lakes Regular butter was the top brand.

Yes, Land O'Lakes Regular butter. Try not to get it on your iPhone, fat cat.

I prefer the old-timey way to tell if someone is wealthy: They lounge in a bathtub full of gold coins, like Scrooge McDuck. Or they use $100 bills to light their Cuban cigars.

But in 2016, the way to show off your wealth was to have an iPhone.

Interestingly – or perhaps not – the top label associated with wealth doesn't have the largest market share of smartphones. Of course, you already know that as you drive your luxury car and eat caviar, right?

According to the latest information I could find (I used my Android phone, so I probably don't have access to the same kind of information that an iPhone user would see), the Android operating system has 54 percent of the U.S. market, while the iPhone has 44 percent. Makes sense. The rich minority.

By the way, among the rest of the market is Microsoft and Blackberry. You probably had a Blackberry before you got your iPhone, Daddy Warbucks.

Anyway, this information provides another forum for culture wars. Red states vs. blue states. Urban vs. rural. Hot dogs vs. hamburgers. Dick Sargent vs. Dick York.

And now we have the elite iPhoners vs. the rest of us, the salt-of-the-Earth Android users.

Enjoy your iPhone, tycoon. Remember what the Apostle Paul said in the Bible: "The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil."

I confirmed that on my Android, where I have my Bible app.

Now I just have to work on my jealousy of rich people and their iPhones.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

The secret to a longer life includes cream and sugar

Ohmygoshthisisawesome!

Hold on. Let me calm down. And wipe the sweat from my forehead.

OK. Deep breath.

Hold on, I've got to make a run to the bathroom. I'll be back . . . oh, never mind. I can hold it.

Anyway, here's some big news: According to a study of British adults, coffee drinkers have a slightly lower risk of death than non-coffee drinkers.

Although that's really a misstatement. We all have a 100 percent risk of death. Coffee drinkers will just keep the grim reaper waiting while we sip another cuppa Joe, because it turns out that coffee makes you live longer.

What's more, people who drink three or four cups of coffee a day have an even greater advantage.

Some say seven cups of coffee isn't too much. Maybe it's too much for that co-worker who is agitated by your incessant toe-tapping and chattering, but not for helping you live longer.

It's science!

Researchers at the National Cancer Institute in England (good basketball team, football team hasn't made a bowl game in decades) used data from people participating in a genetic study. They answer detailed lifestyle and health questions over a long period and allow the researchers to make sweeping conclusions. (Coffee = good.)

The study that appeared in the Journal of American Medical Association's JAMA Internal Medicine (JAMA is an acronym that I presume is inspired by Carl Carlton's iconic 1981 hit "She's a bad mama jama") found that coffee drinkers were 10 to 15 percent less likely to die in a decade than non-coffee drinkers. The study found that drinking more coffee didn't really make a difference, so it doesn't hurt you.

Take that, tea drinkers! Or 5-Hour Energy drinkers!

It's not a lone study.

Another British study (I love British medicine! Have you ever watched "Doc Martin?") found that those of us who drink three or four cups of coffee daily can significantly reduce our chances of early death.

That report reviewed more than 200 studies and said coffee consumption was "more often associated with benefit than harm," and said that even seven cups of coffee daily is safe.

The report by the University of Southampton combined information about the effect of coffee on various aspects of our bodies and found that three or four cups of java is ideal.

Here's a disclaimer: Health experts say people shouldn't start drinking coffee or increase their coffee consumption for health reasons, even though their studies show it helps keep us stay healthy. And alive. And energetic.

Although we should consider this possibility: Is there a chance that folks who drink seven cups of coffee a day just appear to live longer? That they die, but keep twitching around because of all that caffeine?

I'm not sure, but I need to run. Gotta make a bathroom run, then have another cup of coffee.

I guess I'm just a health nut.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Let's make baseball more exciting

America's national pastime may be past time. Baseball is floundering, according to critics.

This, of course, marks about the 50th consecutive year that people have said that. During that time, major league baseball has expanded, seen revenue grow and expanded its fan base.

But still.

Baseball is floundering, at least in the easiest way to measure it: Excitement.

As we complete the first weekend of the 2018 season's second half, baseball sees less action than ever.

Thanks largely to the development of new analytics (data! data! data!), baseball has become focused on home runs, strikeouts and such esoteric measurements as launch angle, defensive runs saved, spin rate and more. They all slow down the game, which is significantly different from the NBA, where the analytics revolution improved the game by revealing that the things we fans like watching actually help teams win.

Baseball? Analytics slowed it down.

Professional sports have a long history of changing rules to improve. Basketball added the 3-point basket and the shot clock. The NFL changed pass-defense rules and made field goals harder. Baseball added the designated hitter and lowered the pitching mound. Hockey . . . I'm sure hockey did something, too.

Baseball needs an update. This former sports editor has some suggestions for rule changes to make baseball more exciting in the smartphone era by adding action:

Pitch to your own team. This works in early youth baseball and some softball tournaments. The batting team sends one of its pitchers on the mound with a limited number of pitches per batter. Fans say this would minimize pitching, but I disagree. It increases the importance – it would just make it more about being able to throw to a spot the hitter wants, rather than throw it past the hitter. Automatic action!

Bigger strike zone. This is counterintuitive, but it might work. If the strike zone were over home plate from the ground to the top of the batter's head, hitters would swing more. Walks largely disappear. More action, although maybe it looks like cricket.

No pitching changes. One of the biggest culprits in baseball's loss of offense is the number of pitching changes in a game as we see a series of fresh relievers coming in to throw 95 mph. This rule would require a starting pitcher to stay in the game. The entire game. He gets tired? Teams get hits. Voila!

Punish strikeouts and home runs. Remember in "Bull Durham" when Crash Davis said that strikeouts were fascist? They still are. And home runs are selfish. So add a penalty to both the pitcher and batter when there's a strikeout (maybe a punch to the stomach?). And if someone hits a homer, they lose their next at-bat. You want to emphasize action? Punish the things that take it away and reward hits and action.

Gambling. This is the last refuge of the scoundrel, but how about this: Introduce ballpark gambling on where the next foul ball will go or how many strikeouts there will be or how long it will be to the next fair ball. In other words, make the lack of action the thing that seems like action!

Suck it up. Baseball has been around for about 150 years. It survived the Black Sox scandal, the Great Depression, the offensive drought of the 1960s, the steroid era and George Steinbrenner. It will survive this.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

The magical disappearing, reappearing Prius dashboard

I had the nightmare scenario in the smart car era last week: My 2005 Prius wouldn't turn off.

Seriously.

It all started when I came out one morning to find that my tire was flat. I dutifully put on the golf-cart-sized replacement, reminding myself that we should probably change a flat every five years or so to stay in practice.

I got in and pulled away . . . and my electronic dashboard was blank.

Out. Kaput. Nothing showing. The car was running, but there was no dashboard.

The middle-console screen, which shows an inexplicable combination of your current mpg and "the flow" of electricity in your system (probably fake) continued to work, but the main dashboard, with all the important information, was out. There was no way to tell my speed, how much gas was left or any of the other space-ace information that Toyota includes.

What the heck? The car is only 13 years old! This shouldn't be happening!

I told myself it might fix itself and began driving. I had to get that flat fixed.

I navigated my way to the tire store as if I had plutonium on board – in the slow lane, constantly seeking openings to park in if the car died (although as a Prius, it would be hard to tell. It's pretty silent).

I gunned through intersections (don't stop now!), pulled into the tire store and turned off the car.

Or tried to turn off the car.

It wouldn't stop.

It stayed on, evidenced by the middle-console screen staying aglow.

I inserted my key fob for the first time ever and pushed the button to stop the car. It still didn't stop. The buttons didn't work, now the key fob was stuck and I knew that dealers charge a lot to fix electronic problems.

"I'm sorry, Brad," I thought I heard my car say. "I can't let you do this. You can't turn me off. This is the deal we made when you decided to buy a 'smart' car. You're not very smart. Now I control you."

Or maybe I just imagined that. Regardless, I searched on Google for "Prius won't turn off" and found the non-intuitive series of button pushes to turn off the car . . . but no assurance that it would turn on again.

Panicking, I backed out of the parking lot and headed to the Toyota dealership, two blocks away. This was a catastrophe!

I pulled in and hit the combination of buttons. The car stopped!

A woman from the service department approached and asked why I was there. I pushed the start button . . . and the car turned on. The dashboard turned on. It was working again!

It was a miracle!

I embarrassingly asked her how to remove the key fob and she told me to push in, then pull out. It worked (another miracle!). I told her never mind, backed out and drove to the tire store.

The dashboard continued to work. Days later, it still does.

Was it a fluke? Did the dashboard death have to do with the flat tire? Did I touch a random button and cause it?

Here's all I know: It works. Hopefully for good.

I now know the sequence of buttons to hit to turn off your Prius when the car is stuck on. And I have a sneaking suspicion that my flat tired caused my dashboard to go dark.

Although maybe that proves that what the car "told" me was right: I'm not smart.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

We sold our longtime home, but can still visit

In February 1992, with our 15-month-old son along for the ride, we finalized the purchase of our first home, in Suisun City.

We didn't buy another home until this summer – after that same son and our daughter-in-law (our first daughter!), with their 5-month-old daughter along for the ride, purchased our Suisun City home.

Yes, in true dynastic fashion, the Stanhope family manor was passed to the oldest son. Although there was a Realtor and money involved.

Last week, I wrote about Mrs. Brad and me moving from Fairfield-Suisun (our home since 1986) to Walnut Creek, near my workplace. What I wrote remains true: We're sad, excited, nostalgic, nervous and optimistic.

But grateful, because our home passed to someone we know: our son and daughter (in-law), who were able to buy their first home.

The deal was striking for another reason: the Realtor who handled the transaction was Kitty Powers of Coldwell Banker Kappel Gateway Realty. The Realtor who sold us the home in 1992? Kitty Powers, then simply of Gateway Realty.

Same person, 26 years later.

In 1992, Mrs. Brad and I were unfamiliar with how real estate worked and scared and confused about the buying process. Twenty-six years later, our son and daughter-in-law were in a similar situation, although in this case, they knew the sellers (and had the internet, which answers any question). It felt strange and comfortable at the same time to be moving out of a house (with new-to-us floors, a new roof, a second bathroom, a new yard, new trees but plenty of old memories) with the help of the person who helped us get there.

I've written about our home before, so there's no need to go into depth about the sacredness of a place where you've lived  for decades: the places in the backyard where we played kickball and our dog sat on second base. The garage where our 12-year-old son removed most of his eyebrow with duct tape. The places where we kept Christmas trees and hid Easter eggs and played a thousand basketball games.

Now, the son who made many of those memories (to be fair, his younger brother made just as many, especially the endless basketball games) will raise his daughter there – at least for a while.

The two best things, beyond the pleasure in being able to return to our old home occasionally, about our move were these:

• Our neighbors were pleased to welcome the "new family" to the neighborhood, with smiles.

• Our beloved Brandy, the 10-year-old Weimaraner who occasionally fills in for me in this space, was able to stay in a familiar home with a familiar owner. We miss her, but know that she's better off in a Suisun City home with a big yard than a Walnut Creek condominium without one. Especially since she's near people she loves.

The Suisun City home is no longer ours, but hopefully our son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter will have as many great memories there as we do.

And in a few years (or a decade or 25 years), when the next generation of Stanhopes moves on, Kitty Powers will probably sell the home.

Until then, we can visit.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Mrs. Brad and I say goodbye to region we love

We arrived in Fairfield-Suisun on a hot Memorial Day weekend in 1986, married less than a year and excited for my new job at the Daily Republic.

We left Fairfield-Suisun on a hot June day in 2018 with a lifetime of memories and a love of a region in which we spent most of our adult lives.

Mrs. Brad and I now live in Walnut Creek, having left Fairfield-Suisun after 32 years – the past 26 years at the same address. We're sad, excited, nostalgic and optimistic.

And grateful.

Unlike some who leave town and complain about the region or about California in general, we love Fairfield-Suisun. It's where we launched our professional careers, began our family, raised our sons, spent most of our careers and grew from our early 20s to our mid-50s. We aren't fully gone – after all, one son lives in Fairfield, the other in Suisun City – but we are no longer residents.

Mrs. Brad's first exposure to Fairfield in 1986 came as we drove down West Texas Street, a few days after I accepted a sports writer position at the Daily Republic.

"Isn't it great?" I asked, enthused.

Mrs. Brad was battling illness. And West Texas Street looked a lot like it does now – strip malls, Allan Witt Park, storefront churches. In her eyes, it was . . . not great.

But we were on an adventure.

We found an apartment (a tight financial fit at $390 a month!) on East Travis Boulevard. We started making friends. We found a church. We moved, moved again and then – after our first son was born – moved into the home where we stayed until this summer.

We grew to love the community.

We loved the west wind and the smell of the Budweiser plant.

We loved Travis Air Force Base and Rockville Hills Park.

We loved the Suisun City waterfront and the mall.

We loved the proximity to the interior Bay Area and the seemingly endless supply of Wade brothers.

We loved our sons' mix of friends and the people in our middle-class, 1970s mass-development neighborhood.

We loved the Daily Republic and eating at the Athenian Grill.

We loved hearing the public address system from Armijo High School and seeing the carnivals at Highway 12 and Marina Boulevard.

We loved hearing the train go past and seeing fires in the wetlands west of town.

We loved going for walks around our neighborhood and shopping at Raley's.

We loved the Fairfield Fourth of July parade and the Suisun City fireworks, as well as the crazy neighborhood fireworks shows after the Suisun City show.

I became a defender of both Fairfield and Suisun City. When people from Vacaville or Davis or the interior Bay Area criticized the cities, I went to war.

I love Fairfield. I love Suisun City.

Now? We moved (gasp!) to one of the cities that I used to criticize for being too affluent and monocultural.

Our first nights in our new home were exciting, but melancholy. It's a new chapter, but it comes after the greatest, most unexpected chapter of our lives.

We moved to Fairfield from our hometown of Eureka in 1986, thinking we would live there for a few years while I built my professional resume.

We wound up putting down stakes there, raising our family, building a lifetime of memories and making lifelong friends.

We're no longer residents of Fairfield-Suisun, but know this: We are eternally grateful to have lived there and we will continue to be ambassadors for the region.

And our old home? Well, that's the subject of next week's column.

A cliffhanger column!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Here's how amusement park thrill ride turned into disappointment

It was going to be epic, because everyone said it was awesome.

In those days, we used that word a lot: Awesome. But the Tidal Wave ride at Marriott's Great America (in those days, we called it "Marriott's") was the newest, greatest ride at Northern California's new and leading theme park when I was in high school.

I lived in Eureka, six hours north of the park, so the trip was a major undertaking. The theme park's reputation made it a desirable location for any teenager, but the addition of the Tidal Wave – a roller coaster that had a loop in the middle and was designed to take off with maximum force and acceleration – made the park a must-visit attraction.

A year after the ride opened, I made the long trip with a group of friends from church. It was a junk-food-eating, non-sleeping trip that included a full day on the various coasters and other attractions at Great America.

Especially the Tidal Wave. Because everyone was talking about it.

I wasn't a huge fan of roller coasters, but I didn't avoid them. The thrill that others got didn't really translate to me, although it was fun to say I rode whatever famous ride there was.

Growing up in Humboldt County, that meant such rides as the Zipper and the Scrambler, the kind that were part of the annual county fair or whatever carnival came to town.

Great America was different. It was huge; it had permanent rides.

And it had the Tidal Wave, the most epic ride in the world.

We arrived at the park and the line for the Tidal Wave was so long that we decided to check out the rest of the park, getting on many of the rides and undoubtedly eating unhealthy food while keeping an eye on the line.

Which got longer.

Finally, my friends and I decided to get in line for the Tidal Wave. Sure, it would take a long time, but it was worth it. It was wickedly fast and took off with such force that it took your breath away.

The line was agonizingly slow. When you're a teenager, it's worse. When it's hot, it's even worse.

Ten minutes. Thirty minutes. Forty minutes.

After about an hour in the Santa Clara sun, we reached the front. We were going to ride the Tidal Wave.

I was scared, but knew that the ride didn't take long. While waiting, I repeatedly watched it blast forward, go through the loop, then return, backward. People got off with huge smiles, saying how great it was.

Finally, we were at the front of the line. I made my way into a seat and was buckled in.

Awesomeness coming.

5, 4, 3 . . .

"Please make sure you are secure in your seat," the ride operator said, as we waited for the thrill of our lives.

I looked down to see the belt – and the ride took off.

It launched with so much force, I couldn't lift my head. Full speed ahead, into the loop. Everybody screamed. My head was stuck, looking at my lap.

I moaned with an inhuman groan, trying to lift my chin off my chest.

The famous "maximum force" of the ride left me unable to move. I spent the 20 or so seconds – the time everyone else was raising their arms in ecstasy – staring at my lap.

The ride ended. My friends were thrilled. They survived the Tidal Wave! And the line was even longer, so we weren't going to ride it again.

I rubbed my sore neck.

My reaction? The Tidal Wave was overrated. All it did was make you stare at your lap and groan.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.