Holy crap, it’s been a while since I’ve been here. How’s everyone doing? I hope your Christmas was good, I hope your New Year is kicking off with a great start. It’s been a few months since I’ve logged on and written much of anything for Behind the Thrills. Truth is…I really haven’t wanted to. It’s not your fault, you’ve been great, and I can’t say thank you enough for sticking with us. It’s just that on a personal level, the past year has really just sucked. Yes, 18 or so days into the new year and I’m still complaining about LAST year.
So, as we move into the new year, we have to look at what made last year so terrible…briefly. For us, we had three car wrecks, graduations that we barely made, a few people we knew passed away, a few people we know are fighting terrible illnesses, broken bones, hot summers, work that sucks, and just all around a bad feeling.
As a site, we lost quite a few people who worked on the site. From people who just got bored of writing and covering theme park stuff, to people who decided that they wanted to be a little shady and start their own site. We’ve lost friends and writers over personal reasons (mostly because I can be an asshole). But, not all of it is gloom and doom. We’ve had a few writers for the site who have moved on to greener pastures. We are proud to see some of our writers actually do good by themselves and use the site to get actual PAYING positions (we work on a volunteer basis here) either with other sites, or places we cover. But ultimately, for the past few months I have been slacking. There was even a lot of talks of selling the site, and we even came within one document of selling.
And I guess that’s the point of all this. I had some great friends urge me not to, or if I truly wanted to end my involvement…give the option for the name to live on. Such amazing friends, and a testament to the closeness of the theme park community. To them I give a very humble and gracious thank you. At the end of the day though, as I told my family (the ones that have truly been through it all with me) to think about it. Actually my daughter said “You can’t get rid of BTT…It’s OURS, the WHOLE family’s…not yours”. And she was right. This has been the rallying point of my family for the past 8 years now. We may not always be family friendly, but a lot of times we have done all the things that I write about and make videos about as a family. It’s brought us together, and has made us stronger. It’s given us the opportunity and bravery needed to try new things and step outside our comfort zones. Apparently it’s inspired, even though I’ve had a hard time seeing it. There are still some amazing people that still hang on, including Kyle, James, Omar and Kurt. All of whom I couldn’t do anything on this site without. While we have lost people, such as my wife Racheal due to a busy school schedule and a new direction on life, I can’t be mad. I also can’t forget those who keep hanging on.
As 2017 rolls on, we have many great things to look forward to…and a lot of rebuilding to do. We do have some new things in store…I don’t want to tell you, because I have a great habit of telling someone and then leaving it flat.
There’s a great story that we share personally…I always refer to ourselves as “the silly little blog”. That’s not something we call ourselves because it sounds cute, or because we think we are actually big. That comes to us from a PR rep at a Central Florida theme park about seven years ago, when we first started out. We broke the story about some really juicy rumors, and had a little evidence to back it up. That PR rep had a public meltdown on their Facebook page and went on about how rumors from a “Silly little blog” shouldn’t be trusted, and cited our rumors. The point is, that we did things that pushed buttons, boundaries and limits. We had fun doing it, and didn’t play it safe. We’ve been playing it safe this past year….so what I want to do is be a little more daring, write a few more things that don’t fit conventional theme park reporting…and most importantly, have fun. More rumors, more blood, more guts, more horror, more everything…more fun. Oh, and that PR rep doesn’t work for that park anymore, but we are still here. The silly little blog is a badge of honor to me. We earned it.
But bottom line is, we are here to stay. We do have more writers coming on, especially good long time friends. We are always looking for more.
We are family. Welcome to it.
