The Vader has turned to the Darkside.....

So I had to work today. Instead of having it's normal "ups and downs" (haha i made a punny!) the elevator decided it didn't want to work. I got to work around noon today. I got there and they stuck me in the elevator. For those of you who don't know I work on the Eiffel Tower and Carousel at Kings Island. Anyway, they put me in the "vader" <---short for elevator and up i go. Every thing is fine for about 5 cycles (cycles are trips up and down). So about 10 minutes later (12:10ish) I we were rotating the person off the platform (the top of the tower) down to the bottom to go on break. So I'm taking Todd up to get Bart. When we stopped at the top the vader did this funny little "thunk" sound. I thought nothing of it, then Todd looked at me and said "I bet it'll go 2-9" (Signal 2-9 means that the ride broke and it needs a fixin'). Then he knocked on wood...So i let Todd out and Bart in the vader. I open the entry doors and let people in, and everything is just fine and dandy. I should also tell you that a full load is 35 people, including the operators. So I let 33 people in the vader. You can do the math. We had a full load, meaning that it was a bit tight in there. So I hit the "E" button (E means Earth) And we start heading down towards the ground, and we made it 269 of those 275 feet. That's right folks, the vader stopped 6 feet from the ground. So what do I do, try to call the base of the tower, but it's busy because Todd called down to make sure that i made it down because apparently it made a pretty nasty "thunk" noise when i stopped. My supervisor who was at the base said that I made it down until she looked up and i waved to her 6 feet above her head :) That's when she called communications and maintenance and all that fun stuff. Luckly i had no one in there freak out because that would've sucked. I had some boyscouts and jr. high age kids in there that made in kind of fun. We were laughing and making the best of the situation. They got us down by lowering us manually 6 inches at a time. All in all we were in there about a half hour, which really isn't too bad.
My conclusion: When you have a ride that's 31 years old...there comes an time when mechanically it's gonna need some new pieces and parts.....Ok, it's music history time for me! w00t!

Music for the Day: Typical Situation by DMB because Clearcreek Inn was open for the last day today :( And it was fnn while it lasted:)
Quote of the Day:"Uhhhhh.....had a slight weapons malfunction. But.....fine..... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine......How are you?"
-Han Solo
Get it? Vader, Darth Vader, Star Wars....ok, I'm done :)