Roller Coaster

Lynn Sarkisian admits he's afraid of riding in big roller coasters. But he's not afraid to build them, albeit on a miniature scale. "I've been on a couple of real roller coasters," he said, while standing next to his miniature creation, "and I was scared to death." His biggest fright occurred years ago on the old Long Beach roller coaster when he slid off the seat and had to hold on for dear life. "I didn't enjoy the rides then, and I still don't enjoy them," he said.

All the playoff combinations and permutations can be reduced to one statement: If the Lakers beat Houston on Wednesday, they finish seventh in the Western Conference. "I know my math," Pau Gasol said Tuesday. It makes total sense, given the way the Lakers' season has tumbled and unfolded, lurched and lolled, only to flip upward in the final week. The Lakers, winners of four consecutive games, want to beat Houston for numerous reasons. Momentum, obviously, could be carried into the postseason, but the Lakers would also match up better against San Antonio than top-seeded Oklahoma City in the first round.

PIGEON FORGE, TENN. - Set against the Great Smoky Mountains, Dollywood is surrounded by a green canopy of hardwood trees and colorful blankets of flowers that envelop every ride and attraction in the Tennessee wilderness. Photos: Top 10 Dollywood rides and attractions The 150-acre theme park in Pigeon Forge traces its origins to the 1961 debut of the Rebel Railroad, a five-mile steam train ride into the foothills of the Smokies, complete with Indian attacks and train robberies.

The gig: Tim Burkhart, 54, is corporate vice president of maintenance and construction for Six Flags Entertainment Corp. , the parent company of Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia and 17 other parks in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Burkhart's resume is pretty short. He has spent his entire career at Six Flags, starting in 1977 when he was in high school and worked as a ride operator on Revolution, the first looping roller coaster. It was meant to be a temporary job to raise money for some senior-year fun. Instead, Burkhart said, he fell in love with the park and its employees.

MASON, Ohio -- With 14 roller coasters, Kings Island ranks just behind North America's coaster capitals: California's Six Flags Magic Mountain (17), Ontario's Canada's Wonderland (16) and Ohio's Cedar Point (15). Photos: Top 10 Kings Island roller coasters Kings Island, just outside Cincinnati, traces its history to Ohio's Coney Island park, which dates to 1867 as one of the oldest amusement parks in the United States. Many of Coney Island's rides -- including Scrambler, Dodgem and Monster -- were relocated to Kings Island when the 364-acre theme park opened in 1972.

Two men who say they were barred from riding a roller coaster at Universal Studios Hollywood because they are missing limbs have sued the theme park. Angel Castelan, whose forearms were amputated after an electrical accident as a child, and Marvin Huezo, whose legs were amputated after a car accident, say they were kept off Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride, an indoor roller coaster. The suit, filed last month in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, contends the men were kept off the ride in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. A spokeswoman for Universal Studios Hollywood said the park does not comment on pending litigation.

Well, that didn't last long. Six Flags Magic Mountain will relinquish sole ownership of the coveted title of " Roller Coaster Capital of the World " later this year when the Valencia, Calif., amusement park removes one of its record-setting 18 coasters. Magic Mountain boasted of nabbing the coaster title when the Green Lantern: First Flight spinning coaster officially opened in July. The removal of Deja Vu will move Magic Mountain back into a statistical tie with Cedar Point in Ohio, which also has 17 coasters.

Thrill seekers will have to wait a little longer for a big new ride as Knott's Berry Farm unveiled plans for a trio of family attractions in 2013 aimed at bridging the gap in the Buena Park theme park's collection of kiddie and extreme rides. > Photos: A trio of family rides coming to Knott's in 2013 Knott's plans to add a wild mouse coaster, a flying scooter and a classic scrambler ride in summer 2013 to the Boardwalk section of the park, reusing a man-made lake left over from a water ride removed to make room for the new additions.

Quarterback coaster UCLA quarterbacks, and their coaches, have experienced ups and downs this season. A summary: UCLA started 3-0 -- including a 19-15 victory over Tennessee, after which starter Kevin Prince, who had suffered a broken jaw, sat in the training room listening to Coach Rick Neuheisel dissect his performance. Kevin Craft directed UCLA's Game 3 win over Kansas State but couldn't come up with the needed plays the next week against Stanford, a loss to the Cardinal starting a five-game slide by the Bruins.

California's Great America has announced plans to remove the third coaster in less than a decade – a period in which no new coasters were added to the amusement park in Santa Clara, Calif. Invertigo , an inverted shuttle coaster that made its debut in 1998, will be removed to make room for a new attraction planned for 2012, officials said. In 2002, the Greased Lightning looping shuttle coaster was removed from Great America and relocated to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo in Northern Caifornia.

Wanda Ferrin fills her husband's prescription for the generic antibiotic doxycycline at a Target in Simi Valley. For years, the medication has cost her $6 a month. In February, however, the price tripled to $18 for 30 pills. And this month, it skyrocketed to $133. This is noteworthy enough. But what happened next makes the entire business of drug pricing a study in lunacy. "A pharmacy clerk at Target suggested running the prescription through the company's discount program," Ferrin, 61, recalled.

In the three decades since the Museum of Contemporary Art opened in a temporary space downtown in 1983, it has been variously flush with money and desperate for a bailout after having squandered its endowment. It's had great directors and controversial ones, good shows and bad shows, dissension in the ranks of its board, years of high attendance and periods of anemic crowds. Although its ranking among museums internationally has been somewhat diminished by the rise of newer, more ambitious institutions and its curatorial staff is a fraction of what it once was, its permanent collection remains one of the most acclaimed in the world.

A $12-million roller coaster at a Scandinavian theme park will take riders on an off-road trek aboard all-terrain vehicles through a Mayan jungle in search of lost treasure. Photos: Juvelen launch coaster at Djurs Sommerland The dual-launch coaster themed to look like 4x4 quads is set to debut May 4 at Djurs Sommerland in Denmark. Juvelen, Danish for jewel, will take coaster riders on a four-wheeler journey in a hunt for lost gemstones. Reaching speeds of 50 mph along 3,330 feet of track, the ATV-style coaster trains will travel through a jungle setting dotted with waterfalls, stone totems and Mayan temples.

Ride enthusiasts are already drooling over a multi-launch roller coaster coming to a Swedish amusement park that promises six inversions and a series of near-miss encounters with other rides dotting a wooded hillside terrain. Photos: Projekt Helix megacoaster at Liseberg Dubbed Projekt Helix, the $30-million coaster is set to debut in spring 2014 at the Liseberg amusement park located outside Gothenburg, about equidistant between Oslo, Norway, and Copenhagen, Denmark, along Sweden's west coast.

Shares of Los Angeles nutritional products company Herbalife Ltd. went on a wild ride Monday, falling 12% on news of a law enforcement investigation, only to close with a gain for the day after a regulatory agency cast doubt on such a probe. At least one thing is clear about Herbalife: Its investors are extremely jittery. The New York Post reported Monday that an unidentified law enforcement agency is investigating Herbalife, which has faced intense scrutiny since billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman accused it in December of operating a pyramid scheme and bet $1 billion that its shares would fall.

At dusk, driving north on Interstate 15 near the California-Nevada border, Loren Gill descends a graceful mountain straightaway and sees before him the twinkling lights of the Promised Land. But this isn't Las Vegas - that's still 40 miles away. Instead, Gill spies the stopover at Primm, Nev. With three casinos and sundry services, it's a roadside curiosity turned welcome mat to Nevada's casino culture. As the district manager of Affinity Gaming, which runs the three gambling establishments, it's Gill's job to make sure that a good number of the 40,000 cars, pickups, RVs and semis that pass here each day ignore the siren call of the Strip, if just for a moment.

Most Disneyland visitors would describe the old cars on the Matterhorn ride as aging and cramped. The chairman of the National Roller Coaster Museum and Archives is calling the cars "the holy grail" of roller coaster artifacts. Disneyland announced Tuesday that it had donated two of the cars from the Matterhorn Bobsled attraction at the Anaheim theme park to the museum in Arlington, Texas. Museum officials couldn't be happier. “The Matterhorn started the modern era of roller coaster design and launched the themed ride industry,” said museum Chairman Gary Slade.

A racing wooden roller coaster debuting this spring at a Chinese theme park will feature a first-of-its-kind element in which riders in dueling trains reach out toward each other and attempt to exchange high-fives. Dubbed the High Five by the American ride designers, the wooden coaster opening in April at Happy Valley Wuhan will be officially known as Dragon Wings. Riders traveling in parallel trains along banked tracks during the unique High Five element will tilt inward 90 degrees, allowing their upward raised hands to almost touch during the near-miss moment.

Kings enforcer Kevin Westgarth went through the same emotional extremes felt by everyone else who had an interest in the labor talks held last week in New York between the NHL and the players' association. But Westgarth was a member of the players' delegation that met with owners and had a first-hand experience of all that went on, including the euphoria that blossomed on Tuesday when it seemed the sides were moving closer and the deflation on Thursday after the league broke off talks.

About this time each year ride manufacturers and theme park operators gather in Orlando, Fla., for the International Assn. of Amusement Parks and Attractions trade show. > Photos: Ride makers unveil new attractions at IAAPA show Ride makers use the annual IAAPA show to announce attractions for the coming year and unveil ride concepts they hope will become the next big industry sensation. You can catch in-depth video and photo updates from the IAAPA show floor at Theme Park Review and Screamscape . Here's a roundup of the biggest attraction announcements to come out from IAAPA this past week: Gravity Group will add a barrel roll to the Hades wooden roller coaster at Wisconsin's Mt. Olympus in 2013.