I was born in San Diego, California in 1970 and I knew I was obsessed with theme parks from a young age. Like so many parents do, mine took me to Disneyland several times before I could ever remember even going. The end result is that even on my first true memory of going to Disneyland, I already knew that I had been there before. It wasn’t a strange place… it was a place of comfort and warmth. A few years later Disneyland opened a little ride called Space Mountain which scared the hell out of me. As a result I developed a childhood phobia of roller coasters, even though I had already been on the Matterhorn several times. The next year Disney ended up putting the monster in the Matterhorn and I refused to ride it anymore. Yes, I was quite chicken as a child. For some reason Roller Coasters used to strike some kind of primal fear inside me, which apparently led to an obsession with them later in life. I used to watch them as if I was hypnotized, entranced by their wonderful movements through the air. As I got older and thought I had conquered my childish fears of coasters I visited Knott’s Berry Farm and Magic Mountain only to have it start all over again when I discovered looping coasters. Then there was Colossus at Magic Mountain… it just frightened me by pure size alone. Hey, I was only 12

Website: http://www.screamscape.com/html/hong_kong_disneyland.htm