It was announced today that demolition of the legendary Texas Giant will start on Monday. The Texas Giant closed on November 1st after nineteen years of operation.

It is not often that hurricanes form this late in the year. The latest hurricane on record to form this late in the season was an unnamed storm on November 30, 1925. It made landfall near what is today Tampa, Florida. We are counting our blessings that Ida rapidly deteriorated before making landfall. The conditions simply were not there for a strong storm to develop. I am proud to report that our clients business’ sustained little to no damage. Both will be resuming normal operations on Friday.

For just a little more then fifteen thousand dollars in expenses, we transported and secured just over a half million dollars in amusement ride equipment, supportive tools, and business instruments. Equipment, that if Ida had intensified or was left unsecured during the storm, would have been destroyed. Up to seventy five percent of that “rescue expense” is covered under negotiated insurance terms. It cannot be stressed enough that your business have a solid emergency plan and adequate coverage for any infrastructure which is immovable.

Because of the storm we have delayed the much anticipated announcements about our new products and services for 2010. You can expect those announcements to be made late next week.

CEO Michael Jordan:

At approximately 7:50 PM CST, Hurricane Ida turned north northeast and entered into the 400 mile activation zone. In response to this event, the Theme Park Innovations emergency response unit has been activated. At 11:00 PM CST the ERU departed Dallas in route to a staging area outside Mobile, Alabama. Current forecast show Ida to make landfall as a category 2 hurricane in between Gulfport, Mississippi and Pensacola, Florida.

To all customers affected by this storm:

- Please complete your hurricane emergency checklist prior to our on site arrival.

- Unless conditions worsen, be prepared to evacuate by 10:00 AM on Tuesday.

- Category three or higher storm warrants immediate evacuation.

Last update : 1:57 AM CST 11/9/2009

CEO Michael Jordan:

For the last year and a half, the TPI team has been aggregating data from various theme parks to test out a new tracking and trending system we are developing. Our goal is to be able to create an algorithm that takes into account the weather forecast. This will allow parks to adapt and adjust staffing and park services accordingly, potentially saving parks thousands of dollars in otherwise lost revenue . This has been a five year project for TPI involving numerous parks around the country. In June of this year we started noticing weird trends in the weather data from Six Flags over Texas. Two things consistently stood out, the temperature and the weather patterns. The temperature was always eight or more degrees hotter than the surrounding area, and when it rained, storms always seemed to linger and intensify over the park. We checked and triple checked instruments, and verified temperatures using different types of thermometers and sources of radar images. The instruments weren’t wrong, there really was something weird going on.

Late one night after pouring over the data for the hundredth time, I asked myself “What has changed in the park in the last year?”. The only thing that was added was the Glow in the Park parade. And then it hit me. The audio for the parade is synced up using encoders buried in the concrete, they would have had to tear up the concrete to lay the electronics in the ground. After the install Six Flags resurfaced most of the concrete in the park with a thin layer of black tar. The color black absorbs the light energy emitted from the sun, unlike white which reflects heat. The entire park has turned into a giant convection oven, which is in turn heating up the surrounding atmosphere. When the hot air rising passes over colder air it condenses. When this happens violently it produces thunderstorms. Or in this case, intensifies ones already in the area.

The problem goes much deeper then just affecting local weather patterns. The increased temperatures could cause the park to see an increase in guest dehydration and heat exhaustion cases. This would no doubt culminate in financial losses at the ticket booths as result of increased rain days or heatwaves.

CEO – Michael Jordan:

This week we announced the release of our No limits – USB Control Panel and launched our new weekly TPI blog.

The Nolimits – USB Control Panel

One of the many services we offer here at TPI, is automation and control system consulting. The USB Control Panel was originally created so that we could mock up control systems for various rides. When we build a control system, we put a lot of time and effort into making it robust, user friendly, and most importantly safe. We recently used this prototype to develop improved operator panel layouts, research new safety interlocks, and as training tool. It is a tremendous advantage to be able to show a potential customer a working copy of a proposed control system long before any work is actually done. This product could even be used in a simulator format to train new operators on a ride. It is no different then technologies developed for airlines, railroads and the military.

Going into the public launch of our nolimits version, we knew that there was little chance that a reasonable retail price could be achieved. The control board, relay module, and buttons alone make up a significant portion of its cost. Nolimits has no software API, so a significant amount of time went into the development of the relay driver. Given the limited interest in this product by the general public, it has been decided we will only be producing ten publicly available units. So far, we have orders for almost half of those. Far more then we had hoped.

The TPI Blog

Today we officially launched the TPI blog, we plan to update it once a week on Friday. We might even be coming to a social networking site near you, stay tuned!