How’ve you been?  Good to see you back here, reading what I have to write.  So, where we last left off, our rag tag bunch of hack designers (read: Me and Drew) were tossing some ideas around about where things will go moving on into the future.  A few decisions were made.  I ate a Snickers bar.  Something something In ‘n’ Out, bacon, something something.  Oh yeah! I remember now.  Let’s take a look at what’s happened since we last spoke!

So when I last left all of you back in late March, I had been evaluating some things.  Mostly some look and feel enhancements for the site.  (Someone really should come up with a better term than “look and feel”… I mean, you can’t really “feel” a website, can you?  I mean, unless you’re blind… but how would the pictures work? Maybe like magnets… freakin’ miracles.)

Sneaky peeky 1

So generally speaking, most of our development discussion is purely insane.  For every legitimate suggestion, 15 are pure lunacy.  We’ll suggest various color combos, sort through logo ideas, discuss who to ban (kidding, kidding!  Those days are long gone…).  But all sorts of boredom can ensue when you’re only really discussing the way a certain font looks on top of a different looking background.  It seems silly, it seems excessive… but when it all comes down to it, we really are very serious about the quality of the site.  Think of it in the same mindset of the saying “Dress for the job you want.”  If we wanted to give the site 50%, we could crank something out in an afternoon and be happy with it.  But we definitely take a lot of pride in the way the site looks and its ease of navigation and readability for you, the users.

Sneaky peeky 2

Once a few examples are found, I’ll post some ideas of stuff that the guys can consider when throwing the logo together.  I’m not entirely keen on these specific images, but they convey a good idea of the background colors that we should be using.  This all plays into one of the ideas I’ve really been excited about when it comes to the upcoming site tweak.  If everything works as planned, you’ll have several different looks and feels to choose from!  Instead of Andrew and I making a decision at some point where we throw the darts at the dart board to choose a color scheme for the site, why not give you a few different choices?  While I’m not 100% confident that this idea will work as planned, if we can, we will make it happen!  Kinda cool, huh?

Sneaky peeky 3

One idea I had was to use photos.  We have some of the best photographers on the internet when it comes to theme park photography, why not use some of their talents?  Again, it’s an idea that might not see the light of day, but you never know.  Stranger things have happened.  Most famously, Westcoaster 6 had a very stylized version of a few photos that we’d taken over the years.  This idea was to take the photo and maybe dress it up a little.  Oddly, as fun as some of the tweaks were, Albert wisely pointed out that the original photo was actually perfect as is.  An awesome shot by Luke that was taken during the fireworks show at Hong Kong Disneyland.

Sneaky peeky 4

And then, we have the inevitable tests… Andrew starts coming back with logo ideas.  Generally speaking, the background itself won’t survive, but the text?  The general consensus is that we love the “W”, the rest of the text… maybe not so much.  I don’t know just yet.  Again, keeping in mind that this is simply the first go at a logo of any sort.  The new idea is that the “logo” itself is the text that floats over the background images.  So we can float a logo text with the site’s title (or whatever we end up choosing, I ended up sending several test slogans off to Dan and Drew the other night) over pretty much any background we choose.  Fun, huh?

Sneaky peeky 5

And a second logo test… sort of goes back to a Westcoaster 2 look.  There’s a lot that I like about it… who knows.  But one thing that will stay pretty solid is the general look and feel of the logo to be unified through the whole site.  We’re still in the early stages of the planning, but generally speaking, with us we’ll go from zero to a million dang near overnight.

Sneaky peeky 6

And how about the boards?  Well, they’re already in test and tweak mode as well!  There’s still a lot to do here, but I am hugely pleased with how they’re turning out.  Many of the features I’d envisioned for them are fleshing out pretty well.  Nothing revolutionary, but it’s generally positive stuff.  I think you’ll be pleased with the outcome!

We’ve still got some fun stuff up our sleeves for the coming weeks and months.  Some cool tweaks and changes… and some additions too!  It’s going to be a fun ride! 10 years into it and we’re still expanding, growing and changing.  This has been a fun hobby so far, and I’m just glad that all of you have been along for the journey with us!

Have any questions or suggestions about the site?  Please shoot them over by using our Formspring account: http://www.formspring.me/westcoaster

Thanks for reading!

-Jim

So here’s Westcoaster’s first logo.  And by first logo, I mean this was actually our second logo if I’m not mistaken.  Our first logo was so painful that if any of you remember it… stop.  Seriously, erase that memory from your head.  The site itself had a god awful color scheme that just wasn’t good (my fault).  The logo didn’t “pop” from the background.  Instead, the colors I’d chosen actually made it so painful to try and read the site.  Alas, these were the days when we were all still trying to figure out what this internet thing was all about.

So this version came along and stuck around a while.  It saw features like Westcoaster Imagineering and saw us through the early days of construction coverage.  But being us… it didn’t last too long.

This version didn’t really get used much on the site and was pretty short lived.  But anyone with a business card from 2001-2008 would’ve been very familiar with this logo.

By this point we hadn’t yet killed off the SCCC just yet either.  This logo actually saw use on the separate website for the SCCC for a time.

Next up was 2002’s Version 4.  This one had familiar elements to it, but started to grow a bit.  Also, a bit of a fun fact on this one was the surfer.  The original version that never got used on the public site actually had Hugh Hefner’s face over the surfer’s animated head.  Something I wish we’d actually followed through on, it could’ve been fun.  But there’s the whole headache of using someone’s likeness without their permission.  Stupid legal crap!  Legalities be damned… here’s the logo!

Also in this logo you see the navigation bar… lots of stuff that’re long gone.  The Southern California Coaster Club, Bear-y Tales, a site that we took over in a merciless hostile acquisition from Bob Barber.  Well, by hostile… I’m pretty sure all it cost me was a Long Island Iced Tea at the Cove Bar.  In the years since, Bob’s actually re-opened Bear-y Tales as a new/old site.  Which is awesome since it never really fit the Westcoaster mold.  The truth of it was that Bob just didn’t have the time to keep the site up in those days as he juggled work, school, etc.  So we offered to take it over from him.  But in the end, Bear-y Tales was really his baby and it was best if he was the one to run it…

Then came version 5.  This would’ve been late 2003 or so.  It started the slide towards more understated logos… but still retaining some flashy appearances.  I always liked this one a lot.  The site itself retained basically the same layout as version 4, but I’d really pushed Andrew for a more slick logo… not to mention one that’s a bit shorter than the previous version.  The background of the site was really the only change apart from the logo.  It went from a dark blue to a baby blue.

Then in 2005, we debuted version 6… while the site layout changed very little, the color scheme got a pretty big overhaul.

This one got away from the constant barrage of roller coasters and theme park elements.  The intention (as has always been the intention of the site) was to focus on the “West Coast” aspect of things.  Sort of a laid back lifestyle approach rather than just being a bunch of theme park geeks (which, facing facts is basically all we are).

Being that we only hold on to a logo/layout for 2-3 years at a time, in 2008 we started kicking around the idea of Westcoaster 7 in early 2008.  Actually, I can tell you it was February 8th, 2008 to be exact.  After a long discussion with Andrew, I posted a message for the staff to mull over what sort of fun things we’d do for version 7.  Out of about 500 ideas I think we implemented 4.

Why does Westcoaster change from time to time?  I can hear you asking it.  Well, a few reasons.  Andrew and I always end up getting antsy and get a creative hair up our collective butts.  Not to mention, we like to shake things up here and there to keep things fresh.  Besides… imagine if you had to still look at Westcoaster version 1?  How out-dated and hideous would that be?  Yeah, pretty bad.

The interesting part is that a few of the ideas from the planning for Westcoaster 7 will actually see the light of day in the next version.  But for now… there you are.  I figured it was kind of fun to look back over the past 10 years of Westcoaster after we last looked forward at what’s to come!

Thanks for reading!

-J

Welcome to that part of my brain that seems to wander off on little tangents and get me into 20 different kinds of trouble.  This is a good and bad thing all at once.  Why?  Well, let’s start at the beginning.  (And when I get to the end, I’ll probably just continue on like a fool…)

Step 1: Starting 10 years ago now, we spat out a little nugget of love onto the interbutts; Westcoaster was born.  A site that began as the Southern California Coaster Club.  We started small with the concept of a regional coaster club to rival things like ACE Hardware American Coaster Enthusiasts.  It was a noble concept really, but one we were ill equipped to carry out.  Now with new groups popping up like Club TPR and others, what had originally been a concept we’d considered is being carried out by others who have decided the hegemonic atmosphere of theme park and coaster clubs has had its time.  Now is their time to shake things up a little and offer alternatives!  Something I’ve been very excited to see.   Alas, this was never the direction I think Westcoaster/SCCC was meant to take… and I’m okay with that.

Step 2: Westcoaster begins.  Soon after the beginning of the SCCC, I’d began tossing around other ideas.  One thing you’ll notice with me, and I’m sure this would be echoed by those who’ve been along for the journey, is that I’m never fully satisfied with nearly anything.  The second I finish one project I’ll have a week of bliss, then I turn around and start thinking of why it’s not good enough.  10 years and several versions of Westcoaster later (including a couple so awful I don’t even have a screen shot of them), we’re still meddling and tweaking things left and right.

Step 3: ???

Step 4: Profit?  HAH!  What a concept.  You’s a funny man, Charlie Brown!

Sneaky peeky 1

Step 5: Okay, back to  being serious.  One major issue I’ve had with the current version of the website is actually the front page.  Dan and I have always had an issue with it… not that it’s bad, there’s just always been something about it that drove us nuts.    The result of our 2 years of discussions was that we needed to tweak things a little.  After all, there’s a lot about the current incarnation that we really like.  The logo for instance is one good part.  Then there’s the message boards.  Many aspects of the system we use are nice and make for a fun environment for everyone to participate, but there’s a lot of things that’ve been promised over the years that’ve never really been 100% on delivery.  As you might imagine this has been very frustrating for those of us who want to offer different things for all of you to enjoy.  Re-launches of things like galleries and blogs have been put off time and again because I’m waiting on developers to get off their butts and implement systems they promised.

Sneaky peeky 2

So here we are now… doing incremental upgrades to systems only to have skins and functions break, all the while, these same systems became bigger and bigger resource hogs.  For the money we pay, you’d think things would work a little better and would be slightly more user friendly.  So what started as an incremental fix to the front page has turned into a tweak of slightly… well, it’s a little bigger than that.  The look and feel of the site might see a bit of a tweak for the better.  But a lot of the functionality will remain, and we’ll be returning other functions that have disappeared over the last few years as well.

Sneaky peeky 3

So what now? Well these few images are only the beginning.  They represent the roughest possible point in the process of development.  But if I was to give you a hint as to where things are going… think back to version 6 (the yellow/orange/grey) Westcoaster mixed with the best parts of the current version.  It’ll be easier to read, and if we’re able to carry out one concept… you (the readers) will actually have a say in how the site looks.  This is a fun one!

So why am I doing this?  Well, a few reasons really.  I need to write more (as to the rest of us on the site, but that’s a story for another version of Tracking Madness), and we’ve always been so silly about keeping things hidden for various reasons.  But at the end of the day, I don’t think there’s any logical reason why people need to be kept in the dark about what’s coming for the site.  We’re 10 years into this now… hopefully the best days are still ahead of us, and I’m pretty sure they are!  Thanks for reading…

-JD

Discuss this blog on the message boards

So being that we’re all gluttons for punishment… let’s take you through the process!  It started that day with me brainstorming about what we’d include, what wouldn’t be included.  A new idea about the structure and how the site works.  And of course… a color pallette…

The original swatch

We vetted out different systems for the backend but ended up deciding that if it ain’t broke… we’ll try to break it.  Thankfully, despite our best efforts, all the engines that run the site wouldn’t break.  Rather, we just added to them and of course, as you’re reading now… we’ve added a blog system!  Soon we started working on layout concepts and from early on, you’ll see that we basically landed straight on the idea that you see now…

Andrew’s first concept for WC7

One of the first looks where the site started to look as it does now…

Once we decided on the tree concept… we started adding other things to the logo

Then it was buildings…

And then… on February 14th… we had a winner…

What happened from there… well… we wrestled with trying to fit that over a Joomla backend!  Good luck to those of you who actually have the patience to make that software work for you.  Lord knows I didn’t have the time or patience to try and make that one work!  It is a fine piece of work when it comes to content management.  Unfortunately the way it’s set up and the way this site is set up… well, sometimes things just don’t and won’t work together.

So being that the site was in good shape, we weren’t in any rush to finish things.  Andrew, Ian and I all have families and other things that keep us from spending every waking moment working on the website.  So I set out and made a big list of “here’s what I want” and sent it to Ian… who, god bless him has always been willing to help me out with my hair-brained ideas.  For those that don’t know, Ian is really our man behind the curtain who makes everything go.  If you’ve ever read one of our updates, and now watch our videos, read the front page… you have him to thank.  Basically… what happens to make this site go… well it’s something like this:

1. I get a hair-brained idea and send Andrew a note…
2. Andrew comes up with something pretty based on my stupidity…
3. I then send Ian an e-mail saying “Is this possible or am I an idiot”…
4. Ian sends me an answer one way or another…
5. SEXY PARTY!

Okay, maybe there’s no sexy party… but you get the idea.  For the last 8 years or so now, Andrew, Ian and I have made a good team when it comes to bringing a good looking site to all of you so you can enjoy the articles over the years (not much recently, but that’s changing), and of course… the updates that Dan and I have been bringing you on a near weekly basis.  More recently we’ve had a lot of participation from our readers too… some of the site staff have contributed updates as well, and will be doing more of them now that we’ve changed the structure of how updates happen!

So thank you to Albert, Amy, Andrew, Eric, Ian, Luke, Matt, Wes, Ian Clark (of Theme Park Photography) and of course, my right hand man; Dan… these are the people who put up with my silly ideas and for some strange reason still come around when I ask for their help.  Without them, Westcoaster wouldn’t be what it is today.

So welcome to Westcoaster Version 7… so brazen it punched a nun in the vag!

-Jim

Most of you today know Westcoaster only as it is, and what it was shortly before we launched version 6. What you probably don’t know is how Westcoaster came to be, or how this talented, beautiful, big-wienered… and egotistical group of individuals managed to gather in one place for so long.

It started with idle chatter on a messageboard that’s long since gone dormant. Goose’s Realm of Insanity sat on a quiet corner of the internets somewhere. It was mainly a forum for the discussion of Six Flags Magic Mountain, and sporadically brought up conversation about other Southern California theme parks.
This is where I met Jim and Dan. How we met I don’t exactly remember. But I do remember that when Jim had an idea to launch a coaster club for the region, I wanted to be on board. But all I knew how to do was video. So I threw together a 30 second promo for the club and showed it to him. He promptly stuck a gun in my back (at least I hope it was a gun) and brought me on board.

Soon enough the Southern California Coaster Club had failed. It wasn’t for lack of trying, it was for lack of money. We had set our hopes a little high, only to fall short on the simple task of being able to provide membership cards.

But all was well. We had already talked about launching a site dedicated to the west coast lifestyle. Westcoaster doesn’t mean “Western Roller Coasters.” It means that we’re all Westcoasters… like everyone east of the Mississippi like to call themselves Eastcoasters, or socially-challenged.

Soon after the idea sprang up, we had a site. It wasn’t much at first, mainly a homepage for our messageboards. But the evolution of Westcoaster had begun…

Westcoaster 2.0
circa Aug. 2000

Since Wayback didn’t archive version 1.0, I’ll spare you the ugly details. 2.0 was a vast improvement upon Westcoaster 1.0, although a vast improvement on crap is just a better version of crap.

The header image was a file I ripped from a friend, pasted text on, and called my own. Don’t worry, I never stole other images at that time. This guy owed me money, so I figured I’d take it out of his graphic design abilities. A real testament to my web design skills back then is the broken image to the left of the content. That’s what we called ‘navigation.’ It was one huge image map that had tons of problems whenever we’d accidentally delete the file, or someone was using a browser that cut images.

The problems lingered with Westcoaster 2.0, so we began to work on a newer version of the site.

Programs Used: Microsoft Frontpage, Hotmetal Pro, and Paint Shop Pro..
Credits: James Disney, Layout | Andrew Traweek, Graphics
Site Resolution: 800×600

Westcoaster 2.1
circa Oct. 2000

Remember what I said about vastly improved crap being just a slightly better version of crap? Here is living, breathing, stinky proof. Westcoaster 2.1. This is the site that inspired our motto: “All New Layout, No New Content!”

But hey, at least you can navigate to such craptastic content like, Westcoaster Imagineering, Visions, and the always trusty messageboards.

Up until now, I had been using a web designing program called Hotmetal Pro. It cost $30, and couldn’t do the crap I wanted to do. I had yet to find the wonders of Photoshop, so instead used Paint Shop Pro. In fact, I think I remember having to use a web-based upload for all of the site files. It took literally decades to upload everything. What a pain in my big, hairy ass.

Wow, look how sparse it is. Isn’t that amazing? But it’s gray and not blue, so be happy.

Programs Used: Microsoft Frontpage, Hotmetal Pro, Paint Shop Pro.
Credits: James Disney, Layout | Andrew Traweek, Graphics
Site Resolution: 800×600

Westcoaster 4
circa Sept. 2001

We lost 3.0. She was short, sort of greenish blue, and answers to the name of “Recycled Crap.” If you see her, please contact the administrator.

Westcoaster 4 was an advancement nary seen since man set foot on the moon. As a web developer now, I stopped using Frontpage and Hotmetal Pro, and started to use a nifty new do-it-all program called Dreamweaver. I had also picked up Photoshop and started learning the basics. The logo is all me. Well, everything except the coaster track. I think I may have actually ripped that from an ACN pic, but I’d just got done making a new logo for Jeff, so I didn’t think he’d care. But in case he did, I edited the crap out of it so he’d never know it was a turnaround on Batman: The Ride, and that it was his image. Well, technically Chris Higgins’ image. Also technically not mine. Forgive me father, for I have sinned.

Now we had a metric buttload of new content. Andrew’s Junk had premiered on Westcoaster 3 with the Dysfunctional Park series of articles that chronicled my escapades while working at Santa’s Village as a teenager. Nash’s Glovebox was supposed to be another huge hit, and a harbinger of things to come. Nash covered non-coaster attractions around the country. Whatever fit his fancy, he would write about it. It fizzled after three or four episodes, and we had yet another dead duck on the site. Lucas’ Northern Exposure also started during the reign of Westcoaster 4, and has pretty much gone the same way as Nash. Rocky’s Roads? Yup, it fizzled and died too.

We had also recently acquired Bear-yTales, and proceeded to rape and pillage it until we grew tired of it’s screams for help. But hey, we technically had a park guide there for a while, so I don’t know what all you guys are complaining about. We had guides and you didn’t love them properly. When not loved properly, guides run away and join the circus. It’s just a fact of life.

Programs Used: Dreamweaver 3.0 and Adobe Photoshop 4.
Credits: James Disney and Ian Maki, Database PHP and Update Engine | Andrew Traweek, Layout, Graphics.
Site Resolution: 1024×768

Westcoaster 5
circa May. 2002

Has it been that long? Holy crap. It really was time for a new layout, wasn’t it?

Anyway, same old crap, new depressing blue layout. What was with me and the blue? Damn. I went almost three years stuck on blues in my layouts. I must have been going through a pseudo-depressive artistic state.

With Westcoaster 5, we took time away from finding the right layout and focused on offering the best updates on the internets. Yes, I said internets. You have to say it that way now if you want to be hip. So we plodded along. Jim focused on writing updates, Dan took the pictures, and I got drunk. That’s about it. By this time the site had become secondary to the ever expanding forums, and we started to slack off. But you’ll get no apologies out of me. You all probably deserved it.

Westcoaster 5 also saw the emergence of Jim’s Photoshopped updates. I have to apologize for that, people. I turned him onto Photoshop by teaching him how to cut elements out of a picture. Big mistake? Maybe. But he squashed my update Photoshops because they made his look bad. What a tyrant. So you never got to see my masterpieces; Kid With Downs Crashes Mom’s Truck Into Tower of Terror, Michael Jackson Baby Dangling from Tower of Terror, and our group shot at the midget wall at Knott’s with Wee-man.

Oh well. Around the end of 2003, I grew increasingly tired of the site. I felt we’d slacked off too much in the area of new content, and needed something to motivate us. Truth be told, I was also considering resigning from the site. Part of it just wasn’t fun anymore. But always loyal to my friends, I wanted to build one last site that would last them forever. This one would be easy enough to run that any of the moderators could contribute, or a monkey could take over should the three co-founders walk away or die in an exploding toaster incident.

Programs Used: Dreamweaver 4.0, Photoshop 5.0 and 6.0.
Credits: James Disney and Ian Maki, Backend | Andrew Traweek, Layout Design and Graphics
Site Resolution: 1024×768

Westcoaster 6
circa Feb. 2005

The first new layout in three years, and the first site overhaul since it began. Westcoaster 6 was roughly a year-and-a-half in the making, and was pretty close to it’s finished state when it was presented to Jim. He went flippin’ apenuts and started flinging poo and an unidentifiable white liquid around the admin boards… and I think he tried to make out with me. But I advised him that his girlfriend wouldn’t take to kindly to hot steamy man love, so he backed off. Thank God.

This incarnation of the site required a massive amount of natural resources to pull off. The code itself required the wholesale clear-cutting of thousands of acres of virgin rainforest. The shiny parts of the site required 2.5 cubic tons of liquefied Manatee ass. The images were all taken and processed by the truckload by underage Indian and Pakistani orphans. Time was so tight, we couldn’t even let them eat or do other unimportant stuff like learn, or poop even. Backend database design required the burning of the kelp beds located off the coast of California. Oh, and AIDS… that was our bad. We needed it to power the phrase generator in the head data.

All-new, all-powerful, Westcoaster 6 is going to last generations. We’ve pushed the limits of web design to it’s peak. If we designed one more piece of code, the world would blow up. This is the end, folks. This is five years of blood, sweat, tequila and tears. We’ve lost buddies, we’ve gained enemies. Jim lost his virginity, and Dan gave his life to the Cloth. Rocky disappeared into the Arizona desert to become a goat herder, and Mike is a Cuban gun-runner for the Puerto Rican army. But what we’ve lost in friends we’ve gained in notoriety and huge orgies with beautiful women. Yes, very beautiful women…

Programs Used: Dreamweaver MX, Adobe Photoshop 7.0.
Credits: James Disney and Ian Maki, Backend | Andrew Traweek, Layout Design, Page Generation, Graphics, Content Development.
Site Resolution: 1024×768