pokematic's blog

Pokematic's Zoo Boo Adventure

2026-10-11T15:22:02.355-07:00

Hey everyone, it's spooky season which means different places are doing things for the season. My in-laws got some free tickets to the Zoo Boo last Sunday, an event where you can dress up in costume and get treats while also enjoying the animals. Unlike the wild lights or just going there, I haven't done the zoo boo in forever; my mom remembers doing it when I was real little, but we haven't done that since. Since it was Sunday mskate had to do learn to skate beforehand, and then we went right to her parents afterwards. Since there's a Chuck E Cheese close to the ice arena she teaches at I went there for about 40 minutes and used our 40 credits with our pass. The cool thing is on the Minion card drop game there was a rare peanut butter and jelly card that was next to drop, so I played until I got it. Before I left I checked the balance and we had 9,857 tickets, 143 away from 10K. After CEC I went to the ice arena and watched mskate teach. I sat in the stands around where other parents were sitting, and I kept thinking "mine is the really tall one in the light blue jacket."

Now that skating is done we went to the in-laws to get ready. I had some pizza circles for a dinner while I was there; they're kind of like bagel bites, but a much higher quality. I was Mr. Incredible and mskate was Zenon, and IRA was Ben 10 from Alien Force. Normally the in-laws park right outside the zoo for free parking, but the event had free parking so I parked us up at the 3rd floor of the parking structure so I could go down the bridge. I don't know if I've said it somewhere before, but when I was little we liked parking on the 3rd floor of the parking structure because there was a bridge to get to the main side with the zoo, and I would like to run down it. I ran on it a little with mskate, for nostalgia. The check in was pretty simple, just present the tickets.

When we got in we skipped over the penguin house and butterfly house to go to the special event tent, because that's why the in-laws got the tickets. On our way to the tent we got our first treat, rice krispy treats. The event tent was not very exciting, they had some free donuts and cider, but all the speeches and stuff were over when we got there. Oh well. Around where we were there were some pumpkin displays, which were kind of cool. Some had fog machines and were fogging, and there was this one with a face that was talking that was kind of creepy. The first real animals we saw were the river otters, and this is when it was clear tonight was going to be more interesting. The river otters were really active, and they were fighting. That was pretty fun to see, and everyone was crowded around watching them. It was really cool.

After the otters we made our way further into the zoo. We saw some cool Star Wars pumpkins, with the real characters. We also passed by the vulture and camel enclosure, but they were just kind of there. We passed by Rackam Fountain, which is kind of a big photo op, with many pennies of mine in there from back in the day. We also saw some cool marvel pumpkins, and got some candy from the treat spots.

Now for a real experience kind of thing. We're about halfway into the zoo, and that's where the arctic exhibit is, with the polar bear tunnels. There weren't a lot of people there so we were a little concerned it was closed, but it wasn't. The polar bears were not out, but the sea lions were, and they active. When we were in the underwater part we saw the toys they had for enrichment, and they were dog toys. IRA thought that was pretty funny, because they were basically the same toys that his dog had. While we were going to the arctic base station part of the exhibit we saw our first free roaming peacock, because that's what they do at the zoo. I was able to get kind of close, which was kind of the boldest I've been, except for the time there was one that stole my peanut butter sandwich when I was little. In the base station thing they have a thermal camera to show how they track things, and dad-in-law was making a big deal about how his head was the high heat red, and I made the joke about how it was because he's a hot head, which got a good laugh. That was basically all for the arctic exhibit.

After this we went to the farm section. On the way we saw the wolverines, and the wolverine was running around in circles, very active like. Again, this is very rare, most of the times the animals are sleeping or otherwise not very active. We also got some popcorn bags from the treats. The farm kind of changed since I was little. Now there's a play place thing, and they got rid of the barn owl and horses, but they have donkeys, alpacas, and chickens, as well as goats that were kind of off in their own area. The fun thing is the goats were making noises, and I would have tried to record them for my second stock audio library, but there was faint music and the family wouldn't have been able to wait around for me to try to do that. Oh well, still lots of fun.

I don't want to say "it was getting late" because it really wasn't, but some of the family was getting tired, but IRA and I were ready to do some more exploring, so we went ahead of everyone deeper into the zoo while the others rested. I wanted to do the kangaroo experience, because it's really cool. Unlike a more traditional exhibit where the animals are separated from the humans by a big fence, glass walls, or chasms, the kangaroo exhibit is an open walk through exhibit where the kangaroos are walking around with you. I don't know why they're different from all the other animals, maybe they've evolved to not interact with humans but know how to push a human away without seriously injuring the human, but for whatever reason it's a walk through. Unfortunately though, it must have been past the kangaroo's bed time, because they were closed. Oh well. We continued on and there was sloth bear in it's exhibit, and it was just sitting against the wall looking kind of derpy. It was really funny looking, and there were a lot of people looking at him. IRA and I decided to maybe start making our way back to catch up with the family, and as we were walking back this toddler kept staring at me as he was walking, trying to make sense of me while also keeping up with his mom (and kind of falling behind). I let my presence be known by rather loudly saying "yeah I'm something aren't I?" I wanted to let the parents know their baby was getting very distracted by me and was struggling to keep up, and I could tell they appreciated it as they friendly pulled him back to their attention.

As IRA and I were walking back we caught back up with the rest of the family, they were on their way to the sloth bear with us. Unfortunately the sloth bear decided it was time for bed and was lying down like it was asleep. Oh well. Right close was the giraffes and they were really close, which was pretty cool. As we made our way forward we saw the ostrich and rhino. The ostrich wasn't doing much, but the rhino was kind of active. It was walking around, maybe on it's way to the night house. IRA and I both reminisced about the loss of the elephants, because they used to be here but aren't anymore. We also saw the zebra off in the distance, would have gotten closer but the in-laws were a little tired.

Now for something pretty fun, the lions, or as I kept saying "the kitties." Typically the lions aren't very active, just kind of sleeping off in the distance of their enclosure. Well, that wasn't the case this time, they were still mostly asleep, but they were sleeping right against the glass real close to us. Everyone was gathered around, and that was why. The male lion was sleeping on the rock that was close to us, and I think his favorite lionesses were sleeping with him, and the other lionesses were sleeping right against the glass barrier, like if we it wasn't for the bullet proof glass we could pet them. That was really cool. As I was walking away IRA got to see one of the lionesses walking around, drinking water, and jumping onto a platform. He got it on video and showed the family. That was OK by me though, because there was peacock walking around where I was, and I like the free roaming peacocks. It was a great experience.

After the lions it was time for one of my favorite things, the great apes. I like them because their mannerisms are so similar to humans. Last time it was the child chimps playing with each other and the baby chimp trying to keep up, and this time it was building a bed. The chimps weren't doing a whole lot, just kind of walking around, with one climbing all over the ropes, but still fun to watch. The gorillas on the other hand, they were trying to get ready for bed it seemed. One young gorilla was climbing on the ceiling, swinging from the reinforced vent grating, because of course the adventurous nature of gorillas would have one thinking "what if I climbed on a functional part of the habitat." The adult gorillas though, they were gathering up straw to make a bed. There was a mom gorilla holding a baby with one arm while gathering together straw down on the base floor, and another adult gorilla gathering up straw on one of the upper levels. Not the most "human mannerisms," but the way the mom was carrying the baby with what was probably the non-dominant arm while trying to get bed ready with what was probably the dominant arm, while walking bipedal upright, that was pretty human. Then at the exhibit there's a pretty cool thing where they have the hand print and skull of a chimp, gorilla, human, and orangutan (at least I think it's an orangutan), with it to show off how similar we are. It's a really cool thing, and while the in-laws were kind of "I'm tired, I just want to be done," they were like "OK, that was fun, I'm glad you dragged us to the great ape exhibit." Close to the great ape exhibit was the flamingos, so we just kind of looked at them real quick, because the flamingos are kind of funny with the rapid looking around, but they don't really do much.

The great apes were kind of close to the entrance to the artic exhibit, which is close to the center cafe area. I hadn't had dinner, so I decided to get a little something, cheese fries. Seeing that this was a "sit down and rest" kind of activity, the family was open to taking a little break. Mskate and IRA each got a fountain drink, and everyone else just enjoyed having a little break. After our little break we started making our way to the front, and as we were walking we came across a really cool pumpkin display. There was a thing where it was Miyazaki with most being Totoro and the skull things from Princess Mononoke, The Muppets, Project Hail Mary, Toy Story 5, Coraline, and Angry Birds. They were really cool.

My next stop was the event building where they have the 4D theater, because they sometimes have art exhibits on the top floor. Unfortunately they didn't have it this time, but oh well. Outside there was a treat stop where they were giving out Pepsi and juice boxes. Everyone got diet Pepsi's for mskate since they were out of regular. This was also right by the reptile house where there was a fire spinner doing tricks. That was really fun, and right afterwards we went to the reptile house, where they had a warning that said "decorations may be scary for younger guests" on the door. That peaked my curiosity. What did they do? They put Halloween decorations inside the habitats. You had novelty skeletons with the snakes, dragons with the lizards, haunted swamp signs with the alligators, and all sort of stuff like that. That was hilarious. I loved it. The funniest thing was a snake just chilling on the head of a novelty rat. It was great.

There's not too much else after this since it was getting late and was kind of close to the entrance. We went back up the main track to the entrance, passing by a cemetery thing with novelty head stones, things like "here lies Morgan who donated an organ" and "my name was Nate, and my problem was I was late." We stopped at the 2nd to last candy place and got some apples. We tried to do the butterfly house and the penguin house, but unfortunately they were closed for the night. That was a bit of a bummer since both of them are pretty cool. Oh well. As we were leaving we got our final candy from a stop at the exit. We went back to the car after going up the ramp to the bridge, took the family home, and then made our way home. All in all, great time, we'll probably do it again. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

My Church's Oktoberfest 2026

2026-09-27T17:43:07.932-07:00

Hey everyone, it's that time of the year again, where my church has their weekend long Oktoberfest celebration. Last year mskate and I basically ran the basket raffle tickets all the time, and this year wasn't that different. Mskate and I each made a basket, each based on some things we really enjoy. Mskate made a basket of Disney princess soaps from bath and bodyworks and some other accessories like tumblers and ear rings from TJ Maxx. I made a backet of Chuck E Cheese fun, with 2 reusable drink cups, a play card with 3000 points pre-loaded onto it (that I won myself), some chuck e cheese brand prizes, and a $60 gift card which is enough to buy a 2 month bronze pass. Mskate's mom also had a brand new loungefly bag that she didn't want, so she made a basket with it. For the past month or so mskate has been selling tickets before and after mass, and then my job was to enter the names in a spreadsheet to make it easier to look up the winner when it came time to draw the winner. In total there were 136 baskets, and some highlights of ones we were interested in was this new American Girl Doll basket, lottery tickets, a cedar chest bench, some sports memorabilia (gift for IRA), an ice cream Sunday kit thing (a gift for my mom), squishy things that are super popular right now, and a bird feeder thing (gift for dad-in-law).

I took Friday off to help with some set-up, and that helped with a thing I wanted to do at the new house; just wanted to drop some food and drink at the house while we're getting it set-up before getting the certificate of occupancy. It's about mid-afternoon and I went over to the church where I helped move baskets from the social hall to the tent. Basically go to the catechism room where the baskets were being stored, carry them out to the tent where the tables were being set-up, occasionally loading them onto the flat bed golf cart we had. The big challenge was how do we get 136 baskets of various size onto 7-9 tables. I did some good organizing utilizing my tetris packing skills. One of the guys who was helping said something like "I know how to organize for maximum space because my dad was military and that was a skill he drilled into me," and I said "I just played a lot of tetris" and he got a laugh.

Some hours later and it was getting close to event time. All of the volunteers were there and ready, and they wanted to buy raffle tickets before the official start time because that would be their only time to do it. Unfortunately for them, our register hadn't been set-up yet, which meant I couldn't sell yet. I told them to ask person responsible for setting up the cash registers. We got ours set-up like 10 minutes before the official start of the event, so I was able to sell some tickets to volunteers before it started. Friday night is family night, where they have costume characters taking pictures and putting on shows, a minigolf course, pumpkin painting, pony rides, face painting, balloon animals, and a videogame truck. Last year I was a bouncer for the videogame truck, making sure people were taking turns and playing nicely. This year though I just sold tickets, occasionally getting food from the food vendors. I had a pretzel and Italian sausage, and nutrl drinks. I brought my laptop to fill in some tickets the night of. A fun thing about this night was the DJ who does or music bingo was DJing the night, and the guy is really good and was able to keep the energy going well. The walk around characters were really good, it was Glinda and the wicked witch of the west (I asked if they were original or wicked, and they said original, so that wasn't Elbatha) from the Wizard of Oz, Jack Skellington and Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas, and the 3 witches from Hocus Pocus. They're not like "professional theme park" costumes, but they were pretty good and they were really playing into it well, which is what really made it work. I think they're like a local theater troop or party actors, which is why they're so good at it. Later in the night the Hocus Pocus witches did the song they did in the movie, which was pretty cool. Then at the real end of the night there was a "Taylor Swift and K-pop Demon Hunters concert," basically actors like before dressed as the singers and lip synching to some songs. Last year we did the Taylor Swift concert and it went really well, but it did get a little weird when they started playing Katty Perry songs. I don't know K-pop Demon Hunters at all (I don't have Netflix), but I do know their one song since the kids bop version was played at chuck e cheese all the time, so that was kind of fun. At the end of the night we got security to watch the baskets all night so we didn't need to move them all into the social hall again, which was really great since that's really annoying. At the end of the night our register made $3K or something crazy like that. During the night one of our old lady friends helped us sell tickets, and she and mskate shared a chicken dinner, and gave me the bread. The air bubbles in the slice looked like a mask, I'm breadman.

It's now Saturday, the BIG Oktoberfest day. Saturday morning was pretty low key, basically just entering the tickets in the spreadsheet while watching Ranma 1/2. Around 4PM we went to the church and set-up. Again, people were asking for us to sell them tickets, but again they didn't set-up our register until about 15 minutes before the event started. This is when a lot of people wear their leiderhozen and durndles, and there's live polka music, and some competitions. I noticed the beer stein holding contest, which I was a part of last year but not this year because I was busy with the tickets, but I'm assuming there were others. When they did the zikki zakki I chanted along since I love doing that. Once again I had some pretzels and brats, and mskate had the Vietnamize meat skewers, and we had a couple Nutrls. Since we were going to be up pretty late we brought a couple caffeinated cokes, and those helped, but we needed to buy some more in the night. We kind of rotated between entering tickets and selling tickets, and it went well. While we were selling someone wanted 50/50 tickets and our register could take credit card. We also had to tell kids to stop squeezing the squishies in the basket, so I did get to be a bouncer again. There was also a girl that wanted to put all her tickets in the squishy basket, but she accidentally put them all in the WWE bucket, so I told her mom about it and she was like "oh man, you didn't pay attention." All just a bunch of fun. Near the end of the night we had to get some people to buy the golden backet raffles, one for the video game grand prize of a switch 2, large screen TV, and I think some games, and another was a trip to Cancoon with a $1200 gift card to help with travel and resort fees, and there are only 100 entries and we need to sell all 100. I bought at least 1 for the videogame (maybe 2), but had no real interest in the vacation. Mskate, one of her friends, and I were going around with the big board trying to sell people on the trip, and I had lots of fun being the salesman. We ended up selling the last 6 tickets, and one person was quite happy. We also had our grand raffle for big money, and the wrist band raffle (which had a prize of a vacation to our little Bavaria, which mskate and I won last year). At the end of the night we had to bring the baskets in since we were drawing the winner Sunday morning, and because there was something going on in the catechism room we had to put the baskets in one of the other rooms. Thankfully we had a lot of people ready to help us, so it didn't take too long to move it all, and we had some young men who were able to move the cedar chest and the back relief machine.

It's Sunday, faith day where everything is faith based like all the contemporary music that was played and the praying of the rosary in 5 languages, it's just a little family day again. Mskate and I watched mass at home so we could enter the tickets didn't get entered the night before; wake up, watch TV mass, then spend the next 2.5 hours entering names and numbers into the spreadsheet. Not the most traditional way to do Sunday mass for a Catholic couple, but since it's in service to the church we decided it would be the best way to do it. After entering the tickets and organizing them by number so it would be easier to find if there was a problem, we went to the church and set-up our laptops in the social hall for us to do the raffle lookup. I also set-up my laptop on the TV they put by our station for presenting. Well, we would do that, but my 15 foot HDMI cable from college called it quits, but thankfully had an extra one we could use. Mskate's mom and IRA also came for the fun, which was kind of cool. As we were drawing the tickets and looking up the numbers, some people kept asking us when we were going to get the baskets drawn. I told them "tell them 'the more they ask, the longer it takes,'" and we got some privacy after that. 136 tickets, only 1 problem where the person didn't turn in their stub and we had to redraw. Mskate and I won the sports stuff (that we then put in IRA's name so he could see his name on the winning board and not make it look like we won everything), and the bird feeders. Unfortunately we didn't get the doll or cedar chest, or the legos that I entered, or ice cream thing, or other things, but at least we won something. Mskate's family took it all home with them, with holding the bird feeder stuff for dad-in-law while hiding in IRA's room. We put all the winners in a slide show that I put on a loop on the TV, and I just sat by it to let people know where to go. One lady said "my name is on there, but it's spelled wrong." I told her "yeah there were a lot of misspelled names in the list, it was all what I was able to read, just go in there and see if they can tell you how to verify it's you." We were able to get 30-40 baskets picked up, so that makes things a little easier. I packed up our laptops and power chords right at the end and went home. Well, actually I went to the grocery store first since it's kind of close to church and I wanted to get some ingredients to make chili this week (needed a can of pork and beans, an onion, and tomato sauce, and in the clearance section I found canned hot peppers so I picked those up for a little extra heat), and then I found some tortilla chips in clearance as well so I got those and a jar of salsa, and mskate wanted eggs so I got a dozen as well.

That was my weekend. It was pretty fun albeit kind of exhausting. Now I'm just sitting here writing this blog watching Animation Domination on FOX. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Laboring on a Funeral Day

2026-09-07T12:26:51.179-07:00

Hey everyone, not exactly a "big adventure" here, but it is kind of a crazy set of sequences that happened over labor day weekend. First on Thursday there was a major storm where I live, super rain and tornado warnings, all while I was at the doctor. Right after I finished my appointment and checked out, everyone's cell phones went off with emergency alerts, so I hung out at the doctors and pulled up my local news channels on my phone. It was kind of crazy. I didn't suffer any damage, but a lot of people did, which will lead into big things of the weekend.

The main thing for the weekend was mskate's great aunt's funeral. She had dementia and was failing. One of my favorite memories of her is Easter 2024 where she and my grandma, who also had dementia, just talked the entire time and had a lot of fun together, enjoying each other's confused company. She passed earlier this week and her funeral was held on Friday. After my doctor's appointment I went up to mskate's parent's area and went to the church where we were having the funeral. Everyone was setting up the social area for the luncheon and my job was to scope out and test out the live streaming set-up (because live streaming funerals for the family has kind of become my thing). Well, they had a lot of storms and it took out the power at the church, which meant everyone was setting up the decorations in the dark by flash light. The funny thing is her daughter took her to the dollar store before she went to assisted living to pick out the decorations she wanted for her funeral, and everyone was putting those up. For my thing I took my laptop up to the balcony of the church to see if it would work, and it was a good place to do a set-up, but the lack of power meant I wasn't able to get on the church wifi, or see what I was REALLY doing. I did some tests using different hot spots and they worked, but we were hoping that the power would come back in time for the funeral. After the test things were pretty low key, just watching movies with IRA.

OK, it's funeral day Friday, and the power is still out. I get to the church and there's no power, so I said "OK, I guess we can do this off battery," but my batteries were kind of low for some reason, so I went back to mskate's parents house and charged my laptop and video camera. Here's where things got weird, my video camera had 40 minutes of charge when I checked while it was charging and then let it charge another 20 minutes or so, but then when I got to the church it said 17 minutes of battery, which was really weird. I ask vikingpolak to see if he can get a battery backup, and our dad has one for his cpap, so both of them go to my parents house and get the battery backup like 10 minutes before the service starts. So because my video camera is basically dead I'm running the live stream off of my built in web cam, which being in the back row balcony seat is not great for the start of the funeral, but thankfully they get back quickly so I'm able to set up my camera and do a good feed. The funeral itself was pretty basic, but then right at the end my laptop battery decides to give out, so I have to plug my laptop into the power inverter on the battery backup and because the power draw was so great the power inverter was kind of whaling. In general though, it went off pretty well, just was a rather frustrating process of live streaming due to the lack of power.

The luncheon was pretty good, we had chicken, ribs, sausage and kraut, macaroni and cheese, potato wedges, bumpy cake, cookies, and some other thing. The funny thing is I had 2 plates of food because I kept hearing my grandma saying "you need to eat more." I guess one of the great aunt's things was punch bowls, so they had that. Can't say I've had "authentic punch" before, so that was kind of neat. Everyone else had a good time as well, and everyone was thanking me for the live stream. I didn't know a lot of people there, but there was one guy I went to high school with who kind of knew me and knew vikingpolak better (because they were the same age).

The afternoon was pretty low key, but around 3PM we went to see the Cars rerelease. For the 20th anniversary Disney gave it a wide rerelease, and IRA really wanted to see it because they had special popcorn buckets and drink cups; the popcorn bucket was Lightning McQueen and the drink cup was the Piston Cup. I'm pretty sure I saw this movie back when it was first released, but it's been so long and wasn't like a "core memory" so I don't remember seeing it in theaters. Since there was a local festival going on by our normal theater we went to one that used to be a cheap last run movie theater by my grandparents. We got to the theater and they only had the popcorn bucket. We still saw the movie, and got the jumbo bucket of popcorn that came with the novelty bucket, and I ended up eating most of the popcorn since IRA and mskate didn't want much. It was pretty fun watching the movie on the big screen. After the movie we went to another theater (one my grandparents took us to frequently and mom-in-law would take after school care kids too on field trips) to see if they had the cup, but they didn't. In a last ditch effort we went to the normal theater but with a twist. Because of the festival the parking lot was closed to normal parking (but you could park for $25), so I dropped IRA and mskate off close to the theater by pulling into a blocked off area so they could go in while I could get moving without causing , and then I drove around the square mile of where it's located so they could have enough time to wait in line. Thankfully they had the cup, so I drove around and got back to the same place I dropped them off, and got them to jump back in the van and got home. I had a single taco for dinner since I had so much popcorn earlier.

Saturday would have been a simple "go home" day, but I don't know if I would be writing this for pokematic's blog and not your 3 minutes if this didn't also happen. With all the storming, something must have hit the windshield of the company lease car, which caused a chip on the top of the windshield, that became quite the crack as it grew down the windshield that I first noticed after the funeral and just grew throughout the day. Since it's a company lease with full insurance, including windshield replacement with Safelite, I called and set up an appointment at my in-laws, so we're hanging out until the tech comes and replaces the windshield and calibrates the safe driving features.

After getting home mskate went to sell raffle tickets for our church's Oktoberfest, and I went to chuck e cheese to use our fun pass. Recently they removed some games and put up signs saying "new games coming soon." Well, they added the new games, and they're really fun. There's a minions land the token game, a "knock the balls in the holes" game, an elephant ball drop game, the fidget spinner game, a "bounce the balls in the dog's mouth" game, a paw patrol "stop the spinner on a location" game, and my grandma's favorite "spin the pirate wheel and land on the jackpot like wheel of fortune" game (she loved wheel of fortune, and when we took her to chuck e cheese for an outing she loved that one). I played all the new games and some older ones, and got 2 cards from the minions game.

Sunday was really low key, pretty normal Sunday for us. Mskate sold raffle tickets since it's Oktoberfest at our church and we have basket raffles. Mskate and I each made one; I made a chuck e cheese basket, she made a disney bath and bodyworks basket, and mskate's mom donated a loungefly backpack that she didn't want. Our baskets aren't going super well, but her mom's is doing well, and hopefully we win a couple of things we could use for our new house. I bought some things we need for the new house from Lowes. We went to CEC and mskate really liked the new games. I watched a fair amount of cartoon network and adult swim, didn't really plan to but good to use my sling subscription. I especially "needed" to do that because there weren't cartoons on FOX tonight, so I watched Bob's Burgers on Adult Swim.

Now for Monday Labor Day. Mskate and I spent the day doing some furniture shopping, since Labor Day is when furniture stores do their sales and we have a new house that needs some furniture, and we just like going to IKEA and the chuck e cheese that's close by. We got a Billy media shelf, Trofast cabinet thing, an as-is Kallax (came from the display sections or something, fully built), and some containers for the Kallax and Trofast. We were going to get a couple of other things, but they didn't have them. We also got lunch at the cafe, and I really liked their pasta and marinara, and the sparkling raspberry drink. IKEA is fun because the display sections are so well crafted, and some of the things are so fake. Like, they had a gaming set-up, and it was an empty XBOX 360 shell.

Chuck e cheese was fun. They have some games that we don't have at our local CEC, and those are fun to play. I got a couple jackpots, and our pass had 500 free tickets for labor day. We used some of our tickets to buy unique prizes for the easter egg fundraiser we do every year. On our way back we stopped at BJ's Wholesale and got gas and frozen broccoli. It was a fun time. Once we got home I unloaded the stuff to our garage to move later.

Labor day is normally a day for grilling. However, I grill very often so it's not too special of a thing; plus, I want clear out my freezer which means my tenderloin, and when I grilled that last time it didn't turn out great. I "slow" cooked it over a period of about 1.5 hours in the oven, and it turned out really good. I made some of the broccoli while I waited for the tenderloin to cook. I also made mskate an omelet. It was a good dinner. Now I'm just enjoying some TV and calm night stuff. Overall a pretty good weekend. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Family Camping 2026

2026-07-27T17:01:55.293-07:00

Hey everyone, it's kind of that time of year again, where my camping family gets together for camping over the weekend. This year was kind of different, not just because the parent generation has been doing this for 40 year, but also because Canada was on fire and the smoke was coming down to the northern states, which included us. It started Wednesday from what I remember, I went outside and smelled something burning, and I'm like "Canada's on fire again, isn't it," and sure enough it was. The smoke was so thick the air quality was at the worst levels and was like over 500, where 3 minutes outside was like smoking a pack of cigarettes. This was also a week after MMT's wedding, so I had a lot of packing to do, and since the air quality was so bad we prepped for basically spending the whole time in our hotel (because mskate and I were just going to visit while staying the night at the hotel). I basically brought our entire game shelf and some lego and puzzle kits. This was also 1 week after mskate got back from Friends for Life, which meant I had to move all the stuff from the small car to the minivan at her parents house since they took the van on the trip. Whatever.

We head up on Friday night, and it was super uneventful. On our way up we went to the outlet mall and got some stuff from our favorite stores; crocks for mskate from the crocks store, gold fish crackers for me from the pepridge farm store, and disney princess soaps for mskate from bath and bodyworks. I got special fast food from the restaurant that's by the outlet mall. On our drive up we found a radio station that played 90s to now, which was fun to listen to. We checked into our hotel and got everything unpacked, and checked out the amenities. Something interesting is that they had Boomerang in their cable package. I had ramen for dinner and mskate had easy mac. We made a stop at the camp ground to drop off some 40th anniversary stuff. Because it was the evening the line to check in was super long, so we parked over by the boat launch and had to walk about a mile from the boat launch to where everyone was camping, and because the air was so bad we were doing it in KN95 masks. We kind of just said hello to everyone, dropped the things off, and went back to the hotel. I got some McDonald's after that to finish off the day.

Saturday started off pretty basic, just having continental breakfast at the hotel. We loaded up some stuff to take with us to the camp ground (food cooler some activities). Since it was more early morning and people weren't checking in, we were able to check in no waiting. We had met up with everyone and had some fun with everyone. One of the activities we brought was spot it, and that went over REALLY well. We played that for like 2 hours. For lunch I had a hamburger, and I shared my ketchup with our friends who I used their stove to cook with. We were able to hang out for about 4 hours before we had to go back to the hotel because the air quality was just that uncomfortable.

We hung out at the hotel for a couple hours, just watching boomerang and playing webkins while breathing clean air. Around 4PM we went back to the campsite where we started to get ready for dinner, pizza with the group. Mskate, mom, and I went to get it for everyone. We had a big van that could hold all the orders. We normally got it from a place called BC's pizza, but they closed down and according to my dad, the restaurant was completely leveled, so we got it from a place that was right next to a gun store (and had some jokes about that). Once we got back we divided up the orders to each family by what they ordered. We all ate together and had good fellowship. After dinner I worked on building the fire, just laying the foundation and using up some of the pizza boxes we had. That night we made smores and I brought out the peeps. Those went over really well, because they're marshmallows but with some extra flavor, and they ended up being really great. Mskate and I weren't able to stay very long, because of the air quality, but it was still a fun "make our presence known." When we got back to the hotel we just hung out for a couple hours before going to bed.

It's now Sunday morning, and just kind of our final day. I got some continental breakfast 2 hours before mass, and made a couple of waffles for later. Mass was pretty good, the homily was about a saint that shares the name with one of our camping friends, which was pretty cool. Breakfast was the big thing though. On the Sunday of our vacation we all come together and have a communal breakfast, sharing what we [still] have. I brought freeze dried hashbrowns, spam, ketchup, hot sauce, the 2 waffles from the hotel, and a slice of cheddar cheese. I wasn't exactly sure how popular my things would be, but they all went pretty quickly. Multiple people said "I haven't had spam since I was a kid, this is great to have some again." I put the waffles on the griddle to heat them up, and they basically got picked right when I took them off. I made the hashbrowns kind of late in the breakfast time and mskate said "I don't think people are going to want them," but when I put them out they got picked really quickly. We left after breakfast, and the drive home was pretty uneventful. We got home and I unloaded everything with a little relaxing, and the next day I unpacked everything. Great little time. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's cousin MMT gets married

2026-07-16T19:08:29.326-07:00

Hey everyone, it's time for another wedding in my family, this time it's MMT to Cowboy. The last time on this side of the family it was going to Tanman's wedding, but I never finished writing that one, so here's the link to turtlegirl's wedding. Mskate didn't join us for this one, she was busy at friends for life, but it was alright since my family is a little wild for her, and when I'm with her at FFL I guess I stress her out, so it was all great on both ends. Since I've done wedding videos for other cousins, I offered to do it for MMT as a wedding gift, and she wasn't really planning on having a videographer so she welcomed my offer. I was special, I had a job to do in the wedding. The first day wasn't all that special, vikingpolak and I both worked half a day and then drove down together, him picking me up on the way down and then alternating between drivers on the way, listening to ALT2K on the satellite radio and reliving our high school days. We got there around 7PM their time (8PM our time), which meant we missed the kickback at the hotel, but mom saved us food.

Before getting into the stories, I just want to remind everyone of who everyone is and some new names.

vikingpolak is my brother
everyone past this is my second cousin once removed, or whatever it is where you share great grandparents and your grandma's are sisters; my only first cousin on this side of the family is tanman and he didn't come because he's busy with his new daughter flower
my oldest cousin is MMT, she is getting married to Cowboy
my second oldest cousin is pepperBC, and she is now in a serious relationship with who I will now call pepperAD, and is first cousins with MMT
my next cousin is turtlegirl, who is married to who I will now call turtleboy, and is first cousins with MMT
my youngest cousin is MMT's brother, who I've struggled to find a name for (I've called him "R" and "boy cousin" in the past), but now that he has a defined mullet I will be calling him "mullet," and he's engaged to someone I don't have a name for yet (hopefully I'll figure out something by the time I go to their wedding next year).

We didn't get to visit with our cousins since they had all left for the night, but we did get to see our aunts and uncles who were still there and hanging out in the conference room. Once we got there I started my video duties and got everyone to with MMT and Cowboy a happy wedding. While we were all visiting mskate called and I put her on speaker phone so the whole family could say hello. Once that was all over and we were saying out goodbyes, I told my great uncle "I want to see the 25 diamond ring my great grandpa got for not having an accident in 25 years of trucking." At first he didn't know what I was talking about, but then he picked up on what I was talking about and said he'll look for it (I'll give more details when I get to that part of the trip). Mom heard Mullet was thinking about doing something with everyone before the end of the night (probably bowling), but when I texted him he said MMT was really tired so we didn't go out. Before the end of the night turtlegirl came up to the hotel and visited. It was pretty fun seeing her, and telling her about how at my grandma's 85th birthday I wished she was there to break the tie in what we would do. I also told her the story of the ring, something she hadn't heard before (I guess my great aunt wasn't as much of a story teller as my grandma). I started the story with "our great grandpa," and my mom interjected "not just your great grandpa, he's her great grandpa too" and I said "I know, I said 'our' which includes [turtlegirl]."

Our first day in started pretty crazy. We were going to have a pretty calm day before the rehearsal and set-up, and that's how it started with breakfast at the hotel, but then mom came into the room saying "get ready, MMT thinks she has bead bugs, we need to go over there to check now." Back in 2013, or whatever the summer after my sophomore year of college was, my family got bed bugs, and so we know what dealing with bedbugs is really like. We drove over to her and Cowboy's apartment, which wasn't all that far from the hotel, and inspected. Yeah, it was bed bugs, so mom and I start frantically packing up their entire bedroom in thick garbage bags and storing it in the bedroom. Cowboy was helping me put the clothes in the garbage bags, and this was the first time I really spent time with him (I didn't have a lot of time with him at the fall festival, and I wasn't at my grandma's 90th birthday since I was in Hawaii for my oldest cousin's wedding), so I jokingly introduced myself and he got a laugh. Funny thing happened next (that I can laugh about now), the apartment called an exterminator and he was supposed to call MMT to give further directions, but he had the wrong number and called an ornery guy who was all "I don't know who the *** you are, but I don't want to hear about no *** bed bugs, never call me again." Turns out that since the infestation wasn't that large, the exterminator could have just bug bombed the room as is and not have to put everything in garbage bags, and if he could have gotten ahold of us he would have told us to wait. Whoops, but we were just going off our experience with a really bad infestation. We sprayed ourselves down with 91% isopropal alcohol, and I told mullet "if you can't breath for 2 seconds because the alcohol is so strong, you know you've done it right." When that was all over, we went back to the hotel and took a little rest.

For lunch dad, vikingpolak, and I went to the Hilltop Inn for lunch, where I had a brain sandwich, like I do every time I go to Evansville. I love those things, and took a little video of me eating it. Dad had a burger and vikingpolak had chicken fingers. Well, chicken fingers is an understatement, these were so large they were more like "chicken hands." He had a 4 piece, and there was so much that he had some left overs.

After lunch we went to see my great uncle at his house. This is when we got to see the pin. When I was young, my grandma told me about how her dad was a great truck driver, and because he had 25 years without an accident he got a ring with 25 small diamonds in it, 1 for each year of no accidents, and it was entrusted to her brother (my great uncle) after my great grandma died. Now that my grandma is gone I had to see it. It actually wasn't a ring, it was a lapel pin, and it wasn't 25 diamonds, it was 17. Regardless, it was an award for great truck driving. The way that the pin was, it could have been turned into a ring; it was a small circular pendant, that is about the same size as the stone in my grandpa's ring, and when I pointed that out my great uncle pulled a tie tack he had made into a ring that he had on a shelf. In addition to the pin, he had a trophy for being trucker of the year, that my great uncle pulled out to show us. This award never came up in the past; maybe it's just because "diamonds are a girl's best friend" or my great grandpa wore that pin on special occasions whereas the trophy just stayed somewhere else, but my grandma never talked about the solid brass trophy when talking about her dad, so that was a really cool addition to "look at what my dad, your great grandpa, achieved," and I could tell my great uncle really appreciated having someone appreciate it. I took pictures and sent them to both my mom (who heard the story of the ring/pin), and turtlegirl (who never heard of it until the night before). Both of them were really excited to see the pictures. Such a great bit of family history that was finally truly shared with other generations.

After that visit we went to the reception venue where we did some set-up. As the videographer I took video of all the decorations while there weren't a lot of people in the way. The reception venue was looking pretty good. After that we had the wedding rehearsal where my main job was figuring out where to best set-up my camera. I ended up being pretty limited in where I could set-up because it was an old church without a lot of power outlets. I brought 2 extension chords and a power strip with a long chord, so I had a fair amount of reach, but I still could only set-up on the side with the piano since that's where the power outlet was. I was able to note where to set-up by noting which Station of the Cross I could stand by (#10, Jesus is Stripped of His Garments).

The rehearsal dinner was fun. It was catered pasta from Olive Garden in the cafeteria of the school Aunt G and Uncle D work in. This is where the pokematic fun begins. I pulled out my pink wig (because I had pink hair at Aunt A's wedding back in college) and put it on. MMT laughed, Cowboy laughed, everyone laughed and had a lot of fun. I took pictures with Aunt A and turtlegirl since they had the pink hair for their weddings. I had pepperBC take my picture with turtlegirl and turtleboy, and turtleboy said "you need to get your picture with [pepperBC]" since she and pepperAD were sitting across from them, but I told him "no, this is just for those that have had the pink wig at their wedding, and she hasn't had her turn yet." Dinner was olive garden pasta. I had spaghetti with meat sauce and Italian sausage, and the other options was Alfredo sauce or tomato sauce, and meat balls. I saved some sausages and meat balls for the reception the next day, because dinner was chicken and I don't like chicken. The rest of the night was pretty calm before bed, just everyone getting ready for the big day.

OK, it is now wedding day. We had breakfast at the hotel and saved some for later. I had waffles and breakfast potatoes, and saved some waffles for later. Around 11 I got dressed in my suit and got the camera equipment all packed up. Vikingpolak pulled up to the hotel to pick me up and we went to the church. As we were going down to the car, something pretty wild happened. In the lobby there was someone sitting with a big German Shepheard "service dog." I was dropping a plate off in the dining area and as I was walking past the dog jumped at me and grabbed onto my suit jacket in a very agressive way; it had all the mannerisms of a guard dog on the attack. The owner called her off like 1 second later and no damage done, but I was almost mauled by a dog. When we got to the church I set-up all my gear and gave some directions to my dad on what I wanted him to do from his seat (because he brought his video camera), and had vikingpolak tape down the extension cords since that's the responsible thing to do. We just waited for people to show up, and I took some pictures and video of things beforehand. My great aunt looked very regal, kind of like Queen Elisabeth. The ceremony was really good. My aunts did the music and did a phenomenal job. Filming the wedding was rather challenging. When I filmed the other weddings I was just holding the camera from my seat, whereas with this one I had a tripod off to the side, and 2 of the guests were kind of in my viewing angle, so I had to zoom around them for some of the things, and at one point I just picked up the tripod and moved it. My 10th grade video production teacher would have been rather angry and taken points off, but I did what I had to do and it turned out well. Once the ceremony was over we all gathered outside and blew bubbles at them as they left the church, which I also got on video.

Now it's time for the reception. We arrived relatively early, enough for us to get our seats. I brought in the camera, took some B-roll of the hall all ready for the night, put on my second pokemon tie (because dad got us clip on bowties with pikachu or eevee), and was ready for the night of fun. Where I happened to be seated ended up being the perfect place to watch the grand entrance, so I got all the video of that. After the grand entrance there was a little confusion as to who was going to say grace. MMT and Cowboy invited the priests who officiated to come to the reception, but it wasn't certain if either would make it, so they asked vikingpolak to say grace if needed. Here's the funny thing, the priest that did come has a name very similar to vikingpolak's real name, so when the DJ said "will [vikingpolak] come up to say grace" he got up to do it but then the priest also got up, so it was some funny confusion, but no problems. Dinner was really good, because they had southern green beans. It's green beans with bacon and what I think was molasses, and it is SOOOOO good. I had a big plate of those with some macaroni and cheese, and then my meatballs from the previous night. I was up with pepperad, and warned him not to get the green beans since they weren't vegetarian (he's vegetarian). As I'm walking back to the table Aunt T asked if I was vegetarian now too, and I said "no I just don't like chicken, don't you remember," and she was like "...yes, I just didn't know you were still like that." I'm not sure exactly where in the events this happened, but at some point around here the bride and groom cut the cake, and everyone was allowed to come take pictures (or in my case, video) so long as they didn't interfere with the professional photographer. I videoed the whole thing, including MMT's little dance at the end. Aunt G asked me if I got that on video because she wasn't fast enough, and I confirmed that I did.

Once dinner was over the real fun started. First we had the maid/matron of honor speeches (because MMT had 2 I guess), and the best man speech. Unfortunately cowpoke as junior best man didn't give a speech (to which cowboy later told me he was hoping he would), but oh well. The speeches were great, very flattering with a hint of roasting, like all good wedding speeches are. After those they did "the shoe game," where the bride and groom sit back to back each with one of each other's shoes, the DJ asks questions about who is more likely to do what, and they raise the shoe of who they think most fits that. It was good light hearted fun, and everyone had a lot of fun with it, and I got it on video. After that was the bouquet toss (just bouquet, no garter). Because MMT and cowboy are "on the older side" (early 30s), there weren't a lot of single women at the reception. This is where it was fun though, my aunts (and some general guests) convinced my great aunt who's 89 years old and has been a widow for at least 50 years to stand with the single women. That was fun.

Now it's time for the dancing. MMT and Cowboy had their first dance, followed by MMT having the father daughter dance, with cowboy having his mother son dance, and because it's a southern wedding, the dollar dance. For those who don't know, the dollar dance is a novelty dance where wedding guests can pay a dollar to ensure they get to dance with the bride or groom. At turtlegirl's wedding someone paid to have great aunt dance with turtleboy, and I tried to do the same thing this time with cowboy, but she was all "no I'm too old now." Before the general dancing started, the photagrapher wanted to get a picture of everyone, so we're all trying to figure out how to best organize ourselves so everyone can be seen. I'm on the taller side so I'm in the back, and I see 2 boys kind of trying to figure out where to go while on the head table stage, and I said "young bloods, you got to get up to the front." Right after the picture was taken the DJ started playing Cha Cha Slide, and we broke into dance.

The dancing was great, a good mix of slow songs, fast songs, hip hop, rock, and country, and I got msot of it on video. I've found a good technique for taking video on the dance floor, there's some moving to give the impression of dancing but not so much as to be jarring. After a bit of warm up with the cha cha slide and a slow dance, we did the anniversary dance where married couples dance and leave once the DJ says "only couples who've been married X years now" as we see who in the crowd has been married the longest. At turtlegirl's wedding it was my grandparents who just had 60, and this time it was a tie between my great uncle and someone on cowboy's side who both had 46 years. I gotta say, I was missing mskate with these. However, she's not too much for the wild and the goofy, so some events to come would have not worked well for her. Since my wedding was a covid wedding and my mom and I didn't get to have a "real mother son dance," we said "when there's a slow song and not a lot of people on the dance floor, we're having an unofficial mother son dance." Thankfully that came up pretty quickly, I noticed and said "now's our time, [vikingpolak] take the video," and we had our dance. We didn't dance the entire song, in part because pepperad, turtleboy, and mullet decided to start dancing together, arms on each other's shoulders swaying to the music, and mom said "go join your cousins" and I did, with vikingpolak joining in shortly after, and then not to be left out Aunt A, Aunt K, and turtlegirl started doing the same, all of which made it on video. Speaking of pepperad, he got pepperbc to do some dancing; not much, just waved her arms some while standing there, but it's a lot more than we got her to do at other weddings. One really fun thing was one of cowboy's groomsmen had a baby and he brought the baby out on the dance floor in a baby Bjorn and was really getting into the music while decked out in his denim and big cowboy hat (he was "cowdad") and stole the show when he was out there. I made sure to get some video of that. The only other "noteworthy dance story" was when some guests started doing the rockytop, and the DJ started playing rockytop so we could really do it, but it only ended up being the 5 of us no one else wanted to join in. It's too bad because at Aunt A's wedding we had a big rockytop group going. I guess the other noteworthy story was when I got the DJ to play Grillz, a song that we liked to have dance parties with back when we were pre-teens. Unfortunately I didn't get all the cousins out to have a big dance party like when we were young (it was kind of late in the evening), but the rest of the guests had a lot of fun with it. Also, here's a picture of me from the photo booth.

After about 3 hours MMT and cowboy had the last dance of the night and then it was time to pack it all up. Because we were still there at the end of the night, we helped with the clean up and pack up that we had to get done before midnight. Gathering up all the table settings, packing up all the decorations, cleaning up the spilled drinks and outside mess, and similar. Mullet and some guys were watching the Connor McGregor fight since I guess he was fighting that night, and he apparently went down like a punk in the first 5 minutes (they were not too happy). Pepperad and turtleboy were going around "peddling rolls" trying to get people to eat a left over roll and butter. I had one because they made me a great offer, the low low price of free and butter included. While cleaning up we found a sparkly pair of women's shoes, and no one knew whose they were. I said "I thought only the bride was allowed to wear sparkly shoes to a wedding," and MMT and aunt G thought that was funny. We packed them up in a bin saying "someone will say 'where are my shoes' and will come get them." Everything was going to MMT's and cowboy's appartment, and had to go in someone's car. We were able to get it all packed up with like 10 minutes to spare. This is where things get funny though, aunt A said "where are my shoes, I left them right here, they're silver sparkly heels," and MMT and I are like "those are packed deep in a car, we didn't know whose they were so we just said 'someone will contact me tomorrow.'" Luckily she's the same size as mullet's girlfriend so she wore her extra pair of sandals. We got them home and MMT is like "I'm starving, I didn't get to eat my plate, I want some of this food from the wedding," so she made herself a plate before bed. I got back to the hotel at like 1AM and just passed out tired after showering.

Sunday was pretty low key, had breakfast with the family at the hotel, and after saying goodbyes to those who were awake (because all of my cousins were still asleep) vikingpolak and I went home. It was an 8 hour drive, pretty uneventful, but we did see a Mennonite group at the taco bell we stopped at. I unloaded my stuff, watched sunday night cartoons on FOX like I do every week, and then watched mass on youtube before going to bed. I took Monday off so I didn't have to worry about being too tired, and so I could do the editing for the video. I spent basically all day pulling together the videos and pictures I took, organizing it in the editing software, and then cutting it together in a good way. There were some set-up and rehearsal stuff, but it mostly ended up being the wedding ceremony and reception. There ended up being some "slide show over music" like other videos I did since my aunts were very proud of their singing before the ceremony, and cowboy jokingly asked for a sing-along like I did for my grandma's video, so I sang some songs from our youth while putting pictures and b-roll video over it. As I was putting it together, I realized just how "millennial" it ended up being; a lot of people were pointing at the camera and making faces when we were dancing, others were lip syncing in a funny way, and while I was doing the ending song compellation there were some clips where it was "person talking over their shoulder, but they're muted because of the music" that was common in like all the millennial video yearbooks. Because the video was so long it took 2 hours to render, and after I finished rendering it and did some review of the footage I realized I left a clip on the timeline I didn't want to have on it, so I went back, removed it, and then spent another 2 hours rendering. I was able to get it uploaded to google drive before going to bed, so I was able to share it with everyone who needed it (MMT, Aunt G, Aunt A, Aunt K, my mom, and Mullet), after clearing it with MMT. It was a great weekend, great seeing everyone again, and another family wedding. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's America 250 Celebrations

2026-07-05T12:31:11.860-07:00

Hey everyone, going to be a little short, but I feel like I want to do a "proper blog" for this. It's 2026, America's 250th birthday. America 250 has been kind of everywhere, and as Bill Whittle put it, one of the great gifts we've gotten is world cup tourists experiencing normal America for the first time, and just loving it. "Air conditioning, it's everywhere." "The food is so delicious, I now see why America has a weight problem." "Buckees, it's 100 gas pumps and real food, the bathrooms were cleaner than my apartment, these beaver nuggets are addicting." It's great. Mskate really likes her sugar-free coke (diet and zero), and she bought these glass bottle cokes with 250 on it. I bought some pins on Amazon for the 250, and they're pretty cool. Mskate has this national parks passport thing where you can get stamps at different national parks, and we got some on our Smokey Mountains trip. Then this isn't really

Friday the 3rd I had off, and I didn't have much of anything planned. I did do a funny, I set my alarm out of muscle memory, woke up at 5:30 AM, and as I'm about to take my bite guard out I remember that I have the day off, so I climb back into bed for another 3 hours. Since my parents are really "coming to grips with their mortality" and getting things all planned out, and so they had me over so I could be a signer on their bank account. Afterwards we went to see Minions and Monsters, which was a pretty fun movie. Afterwards we went to Applebee's intending to get the all you can eat riblets, but they didn't have that anymore, so I just had a platter, and for some reason it took forever for our food to come out. Here's where it gets kind of wild. As you may know, there's a global heat wave going on, and so I haven't been able to do a whole lot outside without getting super hot. Well, while we were out to dinner there was a big wind storm with some rain, and while we were waiting for our food the lights flickered some and a lamp post was shaking. That's pretty wild. As I was driving home there were 2 down trees, and on the free way there were construction signs that were knocked over. That's pretty crazy. With all that though, I was pretty happy with it. We were getting low to mid 90s for the week prior, and this harsh weather brought it down to the low 80s, which was very nice. That night I did a little "pregaming" on fireworks. I had a kit from last year that I just held onto, and I lit off probably around 10 of the fireworks, and lit my very first roman candle. That thing was BRIGHT! Like, blindly bright. I didn't really know what it was at first, so I just lit it on the ground.

Now it's the big day, July 4th 2026, our 250th birthday. I wore my America 250 Buckees shirt and just relaxed some. I walked over to McDonald's and got a happy meal, hoping to get Dolan with the Fifa toy promotion. I unfortunately didn't but oh well. I did a little last minute shopping, where I bought some more firework kids, and drain cleaner because I was at an everything store. I told the cashier "I'm picking up some last minute supplies" and he was like "yeah boy." The drain cleaner was "we'll get rid of the clog or your money back. My clog was super stubborn, I used the entire bottle doing 3 different runs, and while it is better it still isn't clear, so I said "I'm only partially satisfied because it only partially removed my clog." After getting the fireworks I went to the super market and picked up some meat to grill. I initially just got some sausages, but then picked up some clearance steaks and beef chunks, and some ice cream since you kind of need to have ice cream with a cook out. It was pretty great. I was going to go to chuck e cheese, but they were out of power so I wasn't able to play my games. Here's a picture of the damage.

Ok, now it's the main event. I had at least 50 fireworks, and I was ready to do it. I had the remainder of my kit from the previous night, an identical kit with the same fireworks with different names, and whatever I picked up earlier in the day. I planned on starting at around 10:10 since that was when it got dark the previous night, but then I heard some neighbors shooting off fireworks around 9:30, so I figured it would be a good time to start. I started with some small fountains and a spinning flying one. It flew up, hovered, and then went all the way up before burning out. On the first 4 I kicked them out of the launch section in my parking lot thing, but then I just kind of left them out. I kept getting bigger and bigger fireworks, and some next street over neighbors were firing off mortars, which contributed to the fun. As I was lighting them off, one of my neighbors came home and had to wait for one of the fireworks to finish before driving past my pack. As I was lighting some off I sang songs kind of badly; star spangled banner, America the beautiful, happy birthday, and st. Elmo's fire (because one of the fireworks was called st. Elmo's fire). In total I lit off 42 fireworks over the course of like 35-40 minutes. It was so much fun. In the past I would leave the 3-5 shells out over night and let them cool, but all but one was already cool (and the hot one I just had to pour some water on), and since there were so many I figured I should probably clean these up tonight. I was able to fit them all in a double bagged large grocery bag, which went right in my dumpster can. After the fireworks I pulled up the firework and drone show on ABC, which was really cool.

Sunday the 5th was pretty chill. I was going to go to church and give the $8 off $80 coupon to the coffee and donuts substitute (mskate and I do coffee and donuts on the 2nd Sunday of the month, but we're both going to be on vacation next week), but then the subdivision was all flooded and I wasn't about to drown another car, so I just watched mass on my computer. That wasn't the end though, after mass I checked the subdivision again and it wasn't flooded, so I made it to coffee and donuts and was able to give the coupon to our substitute. After that I went to a firework store to get some clearance fireworks and use my coupons (which I couldn't use because they ended up being for things I wasn't interested in, the BIG single shot fireworks). I did get some tanks and parachutes, which are like my favorites, in addition to a kit that should last me next year. All in all, it was a great way to celebrate the 250. The only way it could have been better is if I was able to watch the city fireworks from my balcony, but those are next weekend when I'll be traveling. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's Smoky Mountains Adventure, The Married Sequel Reboot

2026-06-16T13:43:25.529-07:00

Hey everyone, I don't remember exactly how it came up, but mskate wanted to do a vacation with me over Memorial Day and we decided to go to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, the same place I went to with my family 8 years earlier. This was going to be fun, I knew a lot of things that would be fun to do, like the dinner shows, and we were going to do Dollywood which we didn't do last time, and we were staying at a Drurry Inn where we would be within walking distance to major sites. Plus, this was going to be our first road trip together (every other trip we've done we flew). We spent a week or so getting things gathered and ready for the trip, Saturday night going to mass and fill up the van, and Sunday driving to Tennessee. This was also the weekend my godbrother was having his graduation party, but since our plans were made over a month prior to finding out about that we had to decline. This will come up later, foreshadowing. Oh, and we have a satellite radio tuner in our van, and this happened to be a free preview week, so we had our commercial free jams on this trip.

We woke up at my normal work time of 5:30 AM so we could get going early and beat some traffic (assuming people would be traveling for the holiday). We loaded up the car with the final things (snacks, drinks, electronics, and toiletries) and hit the road. Along the way we stopped at Buck-ees where we got gas and lunch (and went to the bathroom where we had to pee to believe), and at other times we stopped at rest stops to switch drivers. Buck-ees was fun to stop at since I haven't been there in over a decade, the last time I saw my aunt and uncle in Texas. We had brisket and home made potato chips, which is kind of crazy from a gas station. I also got a pressed penny that was specific to the city. Mskate's family is more into Buck-ees and stops whenever they can, and now she's going to try to get more when they stop. They also have stickers for the passport book (which will come in later), so mskate picked up one. The gas also wasn't too bad, at least compared to everywhere else. This was kind of funny, whenever mskate was driving the weather was nice, but when I was driving it was raining. She swears she didn't plan it that way, but that's what ended up happening. When we got to Tennessee we stopped at the welcome center where I got this picture with a Dolly Parton standee, and we got some brochures and coupon books to see if there was anything we'd be interested in doing. As we were driving in we noticed a BJ's Wholesale, the same wholesale club we're members of, and while we were planning on getting Buck-ee's gas at the start of our trip home, we decided it would be better to get gas from there since it's definitely cheaper.

As we were coming in, we started seeing things that were familiar; the Hatfield McCoy dinner feud, the Titanic thing, different store fronts, and such. It was cool seeing everything again. We got to the hotel, checked in, and all went well. We got our keys, parked in the parking structure, unloaded the car, got to the room, inspected for bed bugs, and then got settled in. I thought I charged my video camera the night before but I guess I didn't because when I tried using it the battery was dead and it seemed like it wasn't holding a charge. I figured the aftermarket battery I bought before my Hawaii trip went bad, so I ordered a new one to be sent to the hotel. It was about time for the evening kickback where we had dinner. It was a pasta night, and it was alright though I think I mainly had the hot dog and nachos. I found a drink I really liked, the cherry vodka sour just with tequila. I originally wanted a basic tequila sour, but the bar tender made the hotel cocktail with tequila instead, and it was really good to the point where I always had one when I could (because some nights we weren't there). I left my camera to charge over dinner and when I came back it had a charge (not a lot, but some), so my battery wasn't bad it just hadn't had enough time to charge. I canceled the order and I didn't end up with an extra battery.

That evening we went down to The Island in Pigeon Forge. There was a walking path behind our hotel that took us there, and we didn't exactly know where we were going, but we made it. It was...a tourist area. Lots of shops, lots of tourist trap attractions, very similar to a Downtown Disney, but it was fun. We went to the arcade that was there, I bought a $45 card for $35, and we played games. I mostly played the coin pushers and mskate played the crane games and won ticket disks on top of some other things. We didn't get any prizes that night, but we still had fun. After that we walked around the place some more, but mskate was having a diabetic low and the troubles with that, so we didn't spend a ton of time there. I went up to an information desk and while they were able to get us some information, they mainly existed to try to get us to do the time share/vacation club tour so we could get some free experiences. They almost got me signed up for the tour, but then I got scared off with "and we need a credit card for a $40 deposit." I'm like "no, I don't feel comfortable with that." The only other thing we did that evening was watch the fountain show. They have a fountain in the center of the district that plays a little audio show with fountain choreography every 30 minutes or so, so we watched it. I wanted to do the distillery tasting, but I had to get mskate back to the hotel. Oh well. On the way back there was a flock of geese with goslings on the walking path, and I'm like "we need to avoid these guys, they'll fight us." That night we watched Toy Story on the fire stick.

It's now time for our first real day. We have breakfast at the hotel, which is breakfast potatoes and pancakes with peanut butter for me, and oatmeal with peanut butter for mskate. The first thing we do is go to the mountains to get stamps for her America 250 national parks passport. For the 250th birthday of the country, national parks and historic sites are doing a thing where you can get stamps for the location for a stamp book, and there were 2 in the area, one at a welcome center and one inside the park. We drove from our hotel through the Pigeon Forge main drag and through the Gatlenberg main drag, just kind of enjoying the mountains and future sites, while also telling mskate about the things I did last time. We didn't really know the one welcome center had stamps so we passed by it on our way in, and we got to the park ranger station before they opened. We walked around a little but couldn't really go hiking since we didn't have good shoes (both wearing crocks). While there mskate saw that they had a little zip bag for the passport, and since we were getting some maps and such she decided to get a bag as well as her stamps. On our way back to Pigeon Forge we went to the welcome center, which required some looping around turns since it was a very divided highway. We went through the tunnel that I remember going through 8 years ago, so that was fun.

[videos of mountains to come]

After the mountains we drove down the main drag of Pigeon Forge. Normally this would be a "passing through" thing, but I wanted to stop at some the places pepperBC and I went arcade hopping last time. We went to a place that advertised live sharks that I thought was where they had live goats, but it wasn't. We drove by some of the arcades, and I wanted to stop at the place with mini-bowling. We stopped there and played a round of bowling. Mskate wasn't exactly excited at first, but she saw how much fun I had with it and got into it, so it was all good. On our way to the next place we drove by the Hatfield McCoy Dinner Feud, which was fun to remember.

The main thing we were going to was the Disney outlet store at the outlet mall that was outside the main drag. Mskate wanted to get a Bullseye doll for her costume at friends for life this year, and while we were there we picked up a new autograph book since ours is getting kind of full and I think a pin. We were like 1 item away from getting 30% off, but there was nothing else we wanted so the 30% wouldn't have saved us anything. Right close was a Boxlunch store, which is a less edgy hot topic that focuses mostly on geek stuff. There wasn't anything there, but it was still kind of fun. Afterwards we went to the Ripply's Farm Arcade which was right there at the opening of the outlet mall. It was mostly a look around, nothing really interesting that made us say "I want to drop some money here." We also walked over to the starbucks that was there to see if they had the Tennessee travel mug or any that were specific to the region (because those exist), but they didn't. After all this we went to publix (a southern grocery store) and got some sandwiches from the deli counter, along with sun screen since we didn't plan on that from before. We watched Bugs Life at the hotel while eating our sandwiches.

After our break we went back to The Island to finish off our arcade card. I mostly played the coin pushers winning a bunch of chips and some cards while mskate played some crane games and some other things. While I was sitting there someone walked up and asked if we were playing for tickets, I said yes, and he gave us his card with like 100 tickets on it. In total we won like 1500 tickets, and the big thing was an LED cupcake along with some little toys to put in the egg hunt fundraiser. After that I went to the Old Smoky Moonshine store where they had all sorts of flavors and testings. I wanted to do a testing for $5, which was 3 less than the premium tasting for $3 less. I was the only one in my sampling group that did the basic, so the bar tender took some pity on me and let me do a little sampling of the premium ones; I think I got a cherry and one other. Each of the samples was done in a protestant communion wine cup (you know the little cups). When I had the apple pie moonshine I raised it in honor of my one friend's dad who loved apple pie moonshine. Like 1 or 2 before the end of the sampling someone broke one of the rules of sampling and they had to shut down the bar for legal reasons, which resulted in all of us having a free sampling. I tipped the bar tender for his time though. When I told my family about it my mom said "get a jar of apple pie for the friends, I want to give it to them as a gift." On the call I asked if I should get the 70 proof or 100 proof for the America 250, and dad said "just get the 70 proof." After all this we went to a sock store because we needed socks for Dollywood and didn't think to pack any. We got the cheapest socks we could, but they're still nice.

Our next big adventure was The Dolly Parton Stampede, a dinner show competition between the north and south with animals. The funny thing is the north is blue and south is red (instead of historic north is blue and south is gray), so my joke is "ok so now we're the bloods and the crips." Since we're both yankees we wanted to eat on the north. We also got dressed up in our cowboy hats, America 250 shirts, and mskate put on her cowboy boots with me in my Tommy Bahama flip flops I got for Hawaii. We got there early enough for the pre-show and to get all our specials, along with seeing the horses in the stable outside the place. We got a special souvenir mug in the shape of a boot, with the special mocktale of a buckboard bash (lemonade, sprite, pineapple juice, grenadine, and a cherry), and we also got a flag to wave at the show. It was quite good. The pre-show was a pretty good bit of live music. They sang a state song which was all 50 states, and rocky top, and some others. As we were getting ready to go in someone asked us if this was it and if there would be horses since that's what her son wanted (I guess we just looked like we knew what we were doing). We told her "no, this is just the pre-show, there's going to be horses and food."

Now it's time for the main show. We got seated for where we were going to be watching, and we were kind of grouped with people who had dietary problems since our neighbors also had a lot of things. When we walked in you could smell the horses, but then you went nose blind to it after like 10 minutes. The show started before dinner, which was with horses doing tricks. There was a trick rider who was riding 2 horses standing up, and going through fire. There was also a little story with settling and settlers dancing. And the story was a competition between north and south with games, and there was this guy who kept crashing the story. Dinner was pretty good; a cornish hen, pulled pork, mashed potatoes, a biscuit, and vegetable soup (without a spoon), with desert being an apple fritter or some kind of chocolate cheesecake thing. Mskate and I traded our meats and starches since she really likes mashed potatoes and I really like pulled pork, and I don't care much for chicken and she doesn't care much for corn. During the show there was also pig racing, pony racing, a magic trick with an audience plant, balloon popping, and some other things that I don't want to spoil. The south won, but that might have been part of the show with home team winning. Afterwards we went up and met one of the performers and her horse, and we got them to sign our mug.

On the way back from the stampeed we stopped at food city, a grocery store that was right by the hotel. The main reason was to go to the starbucks in the store to see if they had the mugs (which they didn't), but we also got juice boxes since mskate was going through her low supplies pretty quicky and the following day was Dollywood where we had to be prepared. Then on a whim, we checked the cereal aisle. For Toy Story 5 Kellogg's was doing prizes in the cereal again, special spoons and trading cards, but that wasn't a main thing or something because everywhere we checked all they had were trading cards, and we were thinking they just chickened out and went with the cards. Well, food city must have not gotten the memo, because they had boxes of frosted flakes with the toy spoons in them. We don't really eat cereal, and of the "participating" cereals frosted flakes are like my least favorite (froot loops, lucky charms, apple jacks, then frosted flakes), but I like them enough to get the prize. We were quietly freaking out that we found a place that had the prize in the box, mostly mskate but I was also happy. Then what got me excited were the off brand cereals, like hokus pokus (lucky charms), fruit frenzy (froot loops), cinn-amazing crunch (cinnamon toast crunch), cocoa crisp rice (cocoa krispies), and very berry crunch (crunch berries). I paid for it with cash to break the 20 since I had like 3 20s and 4 singles. When we got to the car we opened the box and we got Buzz Lightyear. After the grocery store we watched Princess and the Frog before bed.

Today is the main event of sorts, Dollywood. We woke up and had breakfast, and got to the park like 10 minutes after it opened. Getting there wasn't too difficult, just follow the maps, and we parked in section C where the trolly picked us up. We went through security and because I know the things that tend to buzz, I pulled out my umbrella and video camera. I still buzzed, so I just went over to the security guards like "yep, not my first rodeo, here are my things, unzipping my bag," but it was just my umbrella so I didn't need to do the "go through all my stuff." Since mskate has diabetes we got the disability pass so we don't need to wait in the line; still need to wait with the "come back times" so it isn't completely unfair, but we aren't standing in the queue line. The neat thing about Dollywood is that they do it where you go to the disability entrance, they give you a "come back time" based on the line length, you ride on the next set of trips (like, they wait for the people who were right in line to ride), and then you have to wait that amount of time before doing the next ride. Honestly though, we kind of didn't need it; there were large projections of rain and bad weather, but aside from being hot and like 1 shower when we were in a show, it wasn't bad at all, so I think a lot of the people with flexible tickets went on a different day and the lines weren't bad at all (come back was always like 1 or 2 minutes later, with only once being 20 minutes). We looked around the opening gift shop and found some things we'd want to get at the end of the day, and a set of bear ears for mskate to wear all day (because it's the Dolly Parton version of Minnie Mouse ears and she loves Minnie Mouse ears), and on our way to the rides we went under a bunch of umbrellas that I guess change throughout the year.

This is when things got a little intense for mskate. My mom and I love thrill rides, it's why we go to Cedar Point every year and ride everything, but it's not exactly mskate's thing. We started with a big swinging ride called Barn Stormer that takes you up like 120 degrees (to where you're kind of hanging), and mskate didn't really like that. Next was Blazing Furry, a mix between roller coaster and dark ride, with a lot of scenes with mannequins and some drops (which hurt our backs since the seat only went up like half way). Next we did Tennessee Tornado, a roller coaster that loops you 3 times. After that we did Wild Eagle, a ride that made it look like we couldn't bring our backpacks or pockets with us, so we did 1 of us sit with the bag and one ride, and switch. And soon after that we did Mystery Mines, a roller coaster that lifts you straight up and loops, which was the straw that broke mskate's nausea to where she was almost ready to go home. We hadn't even been in the park for an hour, so that wasn't great. I walked her through it and we stayed in the park the rest of the day.

Before going into the details of the actual next things, during our "too many rides" we stopped at a gift shop where we got an ornament and saw some Dolly Parton sights. The ornament is fun, it's a bus with bears and the wheels spin. We also went to the chapel in the park; it's a real chapel that does a Sunday 11:30 service. We also saw Dolly's school house.

OK, back to the main timeline. After giving mskate some snacks we went to do a show, Dreamsongs. This was REALLY cool, because Heidi Parton, Dolly's niece, hosts the show. Yeah, we didn't see Dolly in person (though she was on the big screen where she sang with people in the show), but we saw a real Parton sing, which was super cool. After that we went to a museum of Dolly's life and career. It started with here early years, and went to her early touring, and then her super success, and her movie career, and ending with her book charity. They showed off her gold and platinum records, which were many. After this there was a little museum of her outfits, and I couldn't help but notice that they had to get some "custom mannequins" for her outfits. We were going to look at her tour bus (because they have one on display), but because of the rain they didn't allow it to the public so they wouldn't track water and mud in it (like I said, there was a brief shower). After we road a roller coaster called The Lightning Rod, which was pretty fun, which was followed by lunch at Red's Drive-in. It's a pretty standard 50s themed amusement park restaurant, pretty similar to coasters at Cedar Point. Since we had a rather big breakfast at the hotel and amusement park food is super expensive we split 1 meal and 1 side; I got chili cheese fries, mskate got a burger with a gluten free bun, and we split her fries (I also finished her burger, she didn't want all of it). The bun was a quality gluten free bun; a lot of the time it's not that great, but this time it was good.

Our first ride after lunch was Rockin Roadway, a little car ride thing. Because we were on the disability pass we got fuzzy dice with our car, which we realized was to indicate to the ride operators that this was a disability rider and we had to get off with the same place we got on. It's a fun little track, driving around a loop with a bridge, while they played country music on the car radio. We only really had time to ride that ride, because next was Play On, a music show of different tunes from the last 70 years with quick costume changes for each era. It was a great way to cool off, and they sold snacks like these pretzel butterflies. Before the show there was a group of veterans and they recognized a world war 2 tank driver, which is pretty impressive because he had to be close to 100 at this point (my grandpa was a world war 2 vet, on the younger side, and he was close to 100 when he passed 2 years back). These were good things to do because now mskate was all ready.

Jumped in the cab here I am for the first time.

With mskate all happy again, we road the bumper cars. These bumper cars had the island so you drive a loop while bumping into people. Mskate said she never did bumper cars before, so that was pretty cool. I guess not everyone does that when going to amusement parks as a kid. Our next thing was the train. It's just a 30 minute train ride through the park, just a calm ride while the conductor tells us stuff. We got to see a new roller coaster under construction. After the train ride we went to get cinnamon bread for me and a diet coke for mskate. We went to the mill where I got my bread and mskate got her drink. It was pretty neat, you buy your bread at one register, and then go in the mill to get the bread, and along the way they have fountain drinks. Before mskate got her diet coke I had some sprite, because I was thirsty. I tried the bread and it was pretty good, cinnamon bread isn't exactly my thing, but it was still pretty good.

At this point I'm hot and tired, it was a hot day and there wasn't much shade or air conditioned places, and with only like 2 hours left in the park and mskate's general tiredness, we were finishing up. The next ride we road was Fire Chasers, a roller coaster where you go forward, and then it goes backwards, which was much better than Good Gravy in Holiday World. After that was Big Bear Adventure, the most recent coaster that was very smooth and fast but not super intense, so it was a good way to end the day. Mskate was noticing people with a first time button, and while it was pretty late in the day I still asked where we could get them, and it was up at the front of the park. We got our buttons and wore them for the rest of the trip (or at least I did since I put it on my camera bag strap). Mskate got a tulip rice crispy treat, and a Dolly Coat of Colors bear, and a couple other souvenirs. When we got back to the hotel I went to the pool because I wanted to cool off. I'm normally not one for hotel pools, but I needed to extract the extra heat, so I just kind of waded around for 15 minutes. Afterwards I went through the splash pad just because I could. We also made it back in time for the kickback dinner, so that saved us some money. That night we watched The Princess and the Frog.

It's now day 4 of our trip, and our big plan was to go to Gatlinburg and walk the strip. We had our breakfast at the hotel and filled up ready for a full day. We parked at the $15 parking structure that I parked at the last time. We were a little early, most everything opened at 10AM and we were there at like 9:30AM. There was a subway that was open, that had a 2nd floor with some video arcade machines, which was pretty cool. We didn't play any, but it was fun to look around. This is when we had an exchange that completely changed some of our plans. Last time I got really into one of the arcades down there, and I brought my game card from last time so we could bring the same card and play with it. Well, since this was a subway and we had subway cards in our gift card bag, mskate told me "we can't get stuff here because I left the gift cards back at the room." Well, that was where I kept the game card, so that was kind of a problem, because part of the fun was bringing the old card and using it again. Oh well.

One of the cool things about the Gatlinburg strip is there are "little walking neighborhoods" with shops that are only accessible via path. It's kind of like a small European market thing, or something quaint like that. Our first stop was the Old Smoky Candy Kitchen, which was a pretty cool candy store; they had mixing pots for the fudge and other creations, fresh fudge and fancy chocolates, specialty honey, and various other things. We didn't get anything, but it was fun to check out. After that we walked by The Donut Fryer, a place I got a donut from last time and it was really good. My favorite stop though was The Spice Trader, not because I have a love of spices or anything, but it just smells amazing; at least in my opinion, when I brought mskate in she said it was too overpowering. We found a Life is Good store and thought of some things to buy later because dad-in-law really likes that brand. Then before we left, I did a gag I did the last time, where I was a periscope with the camera, and I had mskate do a video of me doing it while I did it.

This is a little periscope gag. Watch these videos together.

We walked some more down the road, looking at different stores. We made it to the arcade that I spent so much time at last time and it changed quite a lot. They still had quite a lot of coin pushers and the same sign from last time, but they didn't have the same spongebob coin pusher that I won all my cards from last time. I would have really enjoyed playing the popeye coin pusher or smurfs coin pusher if we did, but we didn't. The funny thing is for the prizes one of the options was DeWalt power tools. After the arcade we walked around where they had another "village path," but it was just to mini-golf. It was a pretty impressive mini-golf, like it was playing on the mountain with a lot of cool trick holes. That would have been fun to do, maybe next time.

We walked a little more down the strip, passing Johnny Rockets (where I ate lunch last time), and Ripley's Believe it or Not. Ripley's is really popular here, with so many different branded attractions. We didn't do anything this time, but it was still pretty cool. We went into the Ripley's arcade next to the Believe it or Not museum, which was pretty small and uninteresting, except for the fact that the virtual bowling skeeball game was glitching and had static on the screen, which I didn't think was possible with a digital display. As we walked down the street more we came to a major arcade that's attached to a space needle. I kind of wanted to go here, SOOO many coin pushers, so many fun games, so many options. As we were walking around I found a set of claw machines and all the stuffed animals were set-up in a way that it was impossible to win anything. They looked really good all lined up, but the claw was no way strong enough to pick one up. Mskate decided she didn't want to support a place that was going to scam it's players like that, and she wanted to go to Arcade City, the same company we went to at The Island.

That arcade was at the end of the strip that was interesting, so we crossed the street and started the other side. Right close to the start was a 7D shooting range. What's a seven dimensional shooting game where we are only able to really perceive 3.5 dimensions? I don't know, because we didn't do it. Right close to it though was a non-redemption arcade. This is an arcade that was mostly pinball, video games, air hocky, and some crane games, but no tickets for a prize counter We didn't play there, but it was cool to look around since I do enjoy those games. We stopped at a Walgreens for fun since so many are closing by us and Walgreens used to sponsor the diabetes conference. It was a pretty standard drug store, but we did find Disney branded bicycle playing cards, which was something we hadn't seen before. They had princess cards, stitch cards, and general Disney cards. There was also a distillery right close as well, and while we didn't take the tour it was fun to look at the pots and stills, and smell the yeast. As we were going to the area there was a tour bus that was parking to let the tour out, and as we were doing that there was a guy directing everyone going "bus parking on sidewalk, out of the way, bus parking on side walk." I also came across this colorful restaurant name, Dick's Last Resort. I don't know what it is (wikipedia said it's an obnoxious server novelty place), but I liked the name and took some novelty photos.

This next thing was unexpected and really cool. I wouldn't say that I'm a big fan of Moonshiners on Discovery Channel, but it is a show I enjoy watching. I went into Sugarland Shine just as a thing to do, and as I walk in I'm greeted by a standee of Mark Rogers, one of the moonshiners on Moonshiners. I thought that was pretty cool, but figured it was just a bit of a brand deal. As I went in a little more, I found standees of Mark and Digger, with jars of Mark Roger's American Peach Proof, Jim Tom's Unaged Rye, Mark and Digger's Hazelnut Rum, and loads of sipping creams (which they like to make). Oh man, it's the place where you could buy stuff from the TV show. I didn't do a tasting there since I already did one and mskate was getting tired, but man that would have been fun to do. I still had a lot of fun walking around and looking at all that they had. And I almost didn't go there.

Now it's time for Arcade City, if the games were good we would see if we could use our card from The Island and drop our $35 there. What was cool about it is they had an old school movie theater marquee advertising the arcade. We weren't able to use our card from The Island, but it still had a bunch of games we would like. They had the crane game mskate was good at, wizard of oz coin pushers, Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory coin pushers, and a wheel of fortune game that actually spun the wheel. One of my grandma's favorite TV shows was wheel of fortune, and when we took her to chuck e cheese before she died her favorite game was the pirate wheel (which was basically the wheel of fortune wheel), and while she didn't completely like the wheel of fortune video arcade game since there wasn't a real wheel spinning it was still pretty entertaining for her. We HAD to do the wheel of fortune game in memory of her. They also had the bean bag toss game (a game I'm pretty good at) and a giant hungry hungry hippos game (a game that looked cool) among other things, but the bean bag toss jackpot was set at a score that I don't regularly score at and the hungry hungry hippos game was $2 per play which was probably a rip off, so we mainly stuck to the good crane game and coin pushers. Since I have a full size coin pusher at home I found the machines that were ready to pay out, and we got quite a lot of chips and cards (one of which we kept as a souvenir and to mark mskate's first time winning cards, that one's going in the coin pusher at home). I also got mskate set-up on a coin pusher and showed her how to aim and go for it, and she started getting into it when she was winning, so that was great having something we can bond over. One of the games had a problem with the aimer, so the tech had to fix it and he gave us another dollar's worth of play for our loss, which was great. Then I knocked a card off and it got stuck on the prize roller, so I had to call him over and get the card out for me. I apologized for having so many problems, and he said "don't worry, it's my job to do this." I also won a fair amount of bonus plays and got 50 at least once, which is always great. Because I didn't want to JUST play the coin pushers, I did this baseball pitching game and light up the squares Ping-Pong ball game. In total we won 4529 tickets, and had a store room to pick from which is really fun since it's kind of like shopping and not just going to the prize counter. We didn't get enough for a REALLY big prize, but enough for a fair number of good things. and got some stuffed animals, candy, a travel backgamon game, some army men and egg stuffing prizes, and to finish it off a slinky. When we were done we went to the bathroom that was on the 2nd floor, and they had some crane games up there. While up there I looked over the city since they had a window overlooking the strip.

These were capybara prizes, a reference to a youtuber I like.

After the arcade and walking down the street we came across a Donald Trump MAGAstore. They had shirts for Trump, shirts for Charlie Kurk, hats and shot glasses for both of them, and some other things. They also had a mannequin dressed up as president Trump, and I did the Trump YMCA victory dance with it while singing the song, and the cashier got a good kick out of it. After the store we walked around another little village place while mskate talked to her mom and told her about my Trump meme dance. While there we found a Kilwins Ice Cream and got Gatlinburg Mud to split. It was pretty good. This was also when we went back to Life is Good to get some shirts since we were on our way back, and passed by the Ripley's Mirror Maze, a place I spent a lot of time at last time. Our last stop was the Mountain Mall, a 5 half-story mall we looked around just for fun. We also passed by the Ripley's Aquarium, which was fun to point out since we spent a day there with my grandparents.

Now is probably a good time to talk about what we didn't do. Because Gatlinburg is kind of a tourist area they have a lot of attractions. Mskate had some interest in doing something "in the mountains," one of those "ride a cable car into a resort area thing and do stuff there" things. They had 2-4 on the strip and looked kind of interesting, and the one that looked most interesting was Anakeesia. From the brochures and website it's like "take a skyliner vehicle up a couple hundred feet to a little village thing that is 'only accessible via the cable car' (at least for the normal people, I'm sure there's a service entrance for the things available to buy up there), and then there are different activities and shops up at the top." Plus the "enclosed skyliner car" was more appealing than the ski lift we saw with other attractions. However, after she read some reviews it seemed like it wouldn't have offered much for us, and since mskate isn't like a "true travel influencer yet" (she wants to, but struggles to find motivation to post), we couldn't justify the probably waste of money. It was for the best anyway, she was getting tired. There were also a lot of roller coaster things that were around the mountain side (mountain coasters), and the hard thing with those is that they're kind of expensive since it's "pay per ride" (though if one factors out how much it costs to go to an amusement park and how many rides you end up doing, it kind of is the same amount) and they look kind of sketchy (I'm sure they're legal and safe, but they look like something bubba and jimbo made in their backyard out of things they found on the side of the road). We also got a little turned around as we were trying to leave Gatlinburg and drove up a mountain and back down (first time using low gear) and saw all the motels around the main strip. Kind of cool.

After our time at Gatlinburg we did resort exploring. Since Dollywood has 2 hotels that have transportation to the parks, we said "lets go explore the hotels just like we do at Disney." Mskate was a little concerned about a guard stopping us as non-guests from going to the hotels since that's what they do at Disney (only resort guests or meal reservations are able to park there), but Dolly Parton hotels are "not that special," so we were able to park there no problem. First we went to Heartsong, and the location and parking lot reminded me of Bavarian Inn Lodge; just kind of out on a hill away from things, but very big so not a problem. I'll put it this way, if you like exploring hotels and resorts, just looking around at all the decorations and such (like us), you'll enjoy this. However, if you don't like that, there's not much for you at Heartsong if you aren't staying there. There was some cool artwork hanging on the walls. There was an America 250 chocolate display. In the lobby lounge there was a giant portrait of Dolly playing a guitar. The most interesting thing was a room with some of Dolly's guitars and outfits in a mini-museum. We had fun because this is the kind of thing we enjoy, but it didn't offer a lot explorers.

Our next stop was Dream More, and if you had to choose a hotel to explore, this is it. Like Heartsong, it too is kind of "off in the forest on a hill," but it has WAY more on offer. First, before you even enter the hotel, they have one of Dolly's tour busses that you can stay in for your visit, and I think they do tours; they weren't doing that while we were there, but I think it's an option. Second, they have some of those novelty oversized anorondeck chairs for giants that guests can take pictures with. Then when you walk in right at the front there's a little display with a plank from "the stage of Dolly's first performance" (the porch of her childhood home) and her dream box time capsule to be opened on her 100th birthday. Right close by there's a hall with the album art of all her records (of which there are a lot), and since she's on the album cover it was kind of easy to see that it was listed in release order and see how she changed over the years, and at the side of the wall there's was a giant picture of Dolly singing into a microphone. Then in another hallway they had one of those changing pictures thing, where from one perspective it's a picture of the train in Dollywood, and as you walk past it the picture becomes Dollywood's logo. As we were walking down the hall we came across a "do not disturb" sign and it said "dreaming more," which was fun. They also had a little arcade, and if the games were better we would have played some so we could get the game card (because they probably would have had a cool logo on it), but they didn't have any redemption games or good video games, so we decided not to. It was around lunch time so we had lunch at the hotel. I had a cheese burger and mskate had a steak plate (with seasonings and feta cheese that was only available for a limited time). The special sauce on the burger was quite good and mskate absolutely loved her steak, saying "can you figure out how to make this at home." There was enough for her to take home and had it for dinner that night. Before leaving we went out the main entrance and there was this giant Dream More fountain sculpture. Great way for us to finish with the greeting.

Before going back to our hotel we stopped off at Food City to get another box of Frosted Flakes for the spoon. We got a Woody spoon this time, so that was a win. I also got more pictures of the off brand cereals. We took a little rest before we did one more thing, and that last thing was going to The Mill, a place that was in the other direction of the walking path; instead of walking to the right to go to The Island, it was walking left to go to The Mill. There is actually a little story with the walking path. Because it's spring time and animals are getting born, there was a mother duck and some adolescent ducklings that were right by the side of the walking path. Mskate walked ahead, but I wanted to have some fun with the ducks. I pulled out my phone and took some photos, and took out the video camera and took video of the ducks. Since they were adolescents the mom wasn't super aggressive and keeping them away from me, but I also wasn't making myself look too intimidating. The mom was making some kind of noise that I could tell was some kind of "stay back" sound. That was fun.

The Mill was a quaint little tourist town. The Mill itself is a restaurant that I guess was once a sawmill or flourmill, it looks like one of those big wooden mill buildings. There was a general store gift shop that we looked around in, but nothing all that interesting. After that we went to another distillery. Again, we didn't do anything there, but I liked the smell of the yeast. Our next stop was a stone cutter store, where you can buy stone tablets and get engravings. If we lived closer we would think about getting a memorial stone thing for the in-laws dogs, but we live many states away so we didn't do that. We also stopped in a leather store, with gloves, bags, smithing aprons, and stuff like that. It smelled SOOO good. The other store we went to was a blacksmithing store, and we found a great present for my brother; he's kind of hard to shop for but he likes blacksmith stuff. We got him a Damascus "tuit" coin, a Damascus coin with "tuit" embedded in it. I didn't know what "tuit" meant, but I know Damascus is high quality and kind of expensive when making knives, and this wasn't too expensive so it'll make for a good gift. One of the guys behind the counter explained what "tuit" means; it's a redneck term, "when will you do it" "I'll get tuit." That's actually kind of perfect for vikingpolak, because when we need him to reply to messages, he'll get tuit. Our last stop was at the ice cream parlor where we each got our own kid cups. My butterfinger ice cream was really good. We walked back to the hotel in time for the kickback (I think it was something where I had the hot dog), and then in the evening we watched Pixar's Brave. This was my first time watching Brave because the marketing for the movie back in the day was absolutely terrible. Everything was "I'm a strong independent woman, I'm not going to get married," and it had nothing to do with the fact that the movie is actually about a mother and daughter learning to understand each other with the mom as a bear. [Full analysis here.] Before going to bed we did a night drive down the main strip of Pigeon Forge since there are a bunch of neon-like lighting. It was really fun, all the lights were great.

Now it's our first travel home days. We ate breakfast and got everything packed up. Nothing extra special, but since we were only going half way we took our time. As we left we stopped at the BJ's Wholesale to get gas. We also went in the main store to see if they happened to have the fiber brownies I like, but they didn't; I guess BJ's just doesn't stock them anymore. Mskate drove from Tennessee to Kentucky, and continued until we went to the same Buckee's we did on the way there. I had a lot of time to watch the scenery and get some nice creative commons videos. When we got to Buckee's there was a cool old Chevy 3100, it was kind of rusty but still really cool. We got our gas, and our "gas station" brisket and chips. Before we left there was an army convoy leaving, which was really fun to watch since it was like the humvees and water trucks (or whatever). One of the drivers waved to me, it was kind of a parade. I drove after Buckee's and we drove into Covington Kentucky, almost staying at this circular hotel, but it got a bunch of bad reviews recently so we decided to stay at a Cincinnati Drurry Inn.

[additional videos coming soon]

When we got to Cincinnati we stopped at the William Howard Taft historical site. It's a museum for the 27th president and has his house available for tours. It was pretty neat, we don't talk about WHT much in school, so I learned he was a supreme court justice after being president, and his entire family was in politics. There was an animatronic of his son that when pressing a button tells a story while out fishing. We also watched a video presentation, which was fun. The main reason we stopped though was so mskate could get her stamp for the national parks passport. We also bought something from the gift shop, and the guy at the desk said "please be patient, the credit card machine runs on dial-up." I said "really, I didn't know that still exists" (because AOL shut their dial-up service down last year), and he said "yes it does, and they recently changed the number so now it takes even longer." I thought that was really weird, but then as I thought about it some more it made a lot of sense; the credit card machine is the only internet connected thing I could see there (everything else was off line), and they probably don't get a ton of traffic, so pay-per-use dial-up is probably cheaper than unlimited high speed.

We got to our hotel and it was another Drurry Inn. We unpacked the necessities and things that would get ruined in the heat, but a lot stayed in the car. The kickback was pulled pork and beans though, so I had an elevated hot dog. There's a bit of a meme in the Bar Rescue sub-reddit where people post "elevated hot dogs" since that's common thing on the show. It starts with a base of a normal hot dog, then there's a layer of pulled pork, a layer of baked beans, a little more pulled pork, a line of mustard, topped with jalapeños. "The heat makes people stay 30% longer and use all 3 of their kick back drinks." I made a little joke video of it. Right next to our hotel was a cracker barrel, which was good because we needed to get a graduation card for my god-brother and they had them, so we went there and got him one. After dinner I got mskate set-up with the fire stick before doing my evening activity.

Here's my evening activity. Right across from the hotel was a video game store and all you can play arcade. Unlike Level One where it's "just buy some drinks," Arcade Legacy was $10 admission, and not all the pinballs were on free play (mostly the newer ones, I wanted to play the pokemon one but it was like $1 per game). No big deal though, there were still some vintage mechanical pinball machines that were free, and that was pretty fun. The video games were where it was at though. I played some standards like Donkey Kong, Tetris, Crazy Taxi (which was in Japanese and I did a lets play of one level), Q-bert, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Turtles in Time (which I played 100%, I have to do that every time I get the opportunity to play at at free-play arcade because of childhood memories), but there were some others. I found this more obscure 80s arcade game called Zoo Keeper, where the the goal is to keep the animals contained by running around the outside and building up a wall. It's really fun and made by Taito (a pretty recognizable game company), I don't know why it isn't more well known and popular. I also played this drum game where I had to give them my drivers license to borrow the drum sticks, and that was really fun. There was also this Japanese school competition game with cheer leaders and minigames. I didn't to all that great, but part of that is because I didn't exactly know what my goals were. There was also the Star Wars Trilogy Arcade Game, and I did great on Hoth, ok on the Death Star run, I think I failed Endor, I beat Boba Fett, I failed Darth Vader, and then I failed the Death Star 2 run. Something kind of neat was in the basement they had console games with all the controller ports occupied and multi-player games (like smash bros and mario kart). I didn't participate, but it was cool they had it. The last thing I did was I played a modified DDR game, it had all the songs in it, and they were organized in a folder. I mostly played DDR Extreme songs, and then went back to the hotel after getting thoroughly exhausted.

Time for our final day. We packed up our stuff and ate a lite breakfast since we were going to have brunch with my god-family. We drove to that cracker barrel and arrived before everyone else, so we looked around the strip mall some. We found a farm supply store, and I heard the peeping of chicks and ducklings. We went over to it and found the little baby birds. I think it's fun looking at the baby birds at tracker supply, and this was it too. Next door was a grocery store. We looked for the cereal, but didn't find any. We finished up there and went to restaurant. It was fun to see all of them and celebrate my god-brother's graduation. He's going to go into the seminary and be a priest. He seemed to have thought through everything and be prepared for "a new kind of life dedicated to faith," except for the fact that he was now going to be "the family priest who does all our sacraments" (baptism, wedding, and funeral). When I said that, he was kind of "...oh, yeah, I guess that's going to be my life now." This was a funny thing, my other god-brother, the youngest sibling, he's impulsive and kind of irresponsible. He wanted the super sugar chocolate pancakes and one of his parents was like "I don't know, that looks like a lot of sugar" and he said "I know, that's why I want it." It was a good visit, and now we'll see them at camping.

After cracker barrel we went up to Dayton where they had a Write Brothers museum that also has the national parks stamp. They had a write brother glider replica. They had this demonstration of different aviation principles (like lift). They also had a general store replica of the Write Brother bicycle shop, where they had an actual check written by one of the brothers. The last thing of note was a display about parachutes and ejection seats. There was this really cool video display where it was a steering wheel that advances the frames of a video of an ejection seat demonstration, that can also go backwards. This way you can see exactly how it ejects. There was also an ejection seat you could sit in, which was cool. Dayton has a lot of cool stuff.

After that it was drive home. We made one more stop, the Dayton Buckee's for gas, and they didn't have a penny press, darn. Overall, really fun trip. We saw and did so many fun things, relived great memories, and just had a fun vacation just the 2 of us. This was really good because right when we got home my grandma figure had to go on hospice for her anurism. She was waiting for us to finish our trip before mskate had to go take care of her, it's kind of funny how that ended up working out. For the next 4 days mskate had been with her at her house with my mom and her son as they help her through end of life, and I called every day to tell little stories. Before mskate left we printed out a picture of her great grand daughter so we could get a picture of her holding the picture. Now we're just setting up funeral arangements, and I'm going to run the live stream like I did for her husband. Enough sad talk though, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Also, be sure to follow my twitter and/or blue sky to keep up with the vlogs that are coming soon.

Pokematic's 2026 Easter Holiday

2026-04-06T18:16:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, Jesus is risen and it's time for all the fun things I've done. First, I'll talk about my Lent. For Lent I gave up white bread and opted for wheat bread or no bread, and this was quite the sacrifice for me since I REALLY like white and have it basically every day for lunch (peanut butter sandwich) and pretty regularly with dinner (hot dog or hamburger bun), and don't like wheat bread. Then with church we as a parish gave up donuts for our after mass fellowship, having just coffee and juice. We also for the past year have been collecting little prizes for the Easter egg hunt that we put on (lots of stuff from Chuck E Cheese). There's also "the April Fools prank" that happened with my utility bill. I check my balance on April 1st and expected my normal range of $100-200 normally around $125-150, but instead it was $1600. I call my utility company and they say "we noticed the implausible bill, we're looking into it, just pay what you normally do and the remainder will be sorted out next month." I'll also throw in Holy Thursday here, basically my boss let us leave a little early and we went to mass.

Good Friday was a rather low key day. We packed up the car with everything and dropped off at my in-laws for the weekend. Mskate and I joined my parents at their church for mass where we heard the passion according to John. After mass we went to my parents to do our Easter celebrations and making. Like every year, we we dyed eggs and made pretzels. I brought the vinegar and egg dying stuff, and this year was the first year where we had done enough egg dying and saving of materials where every egg dying set had it's own wire egg grabber, and I still had the specialty egg dying cups from previous year kits. We made some very nice deep color eggs. While making the eggs we rolled and twisted homemade pretzels. We used the normal premade bread dough like we do every year, and then we used this specialty pretzel dough that my parents got on a trip, in addition to a gluten free recipe that mom wanted to try. The gluten free didn't work out well (it would be better if we used a dough hook mixer instead of hand egg beaters), but the other pretzels worked out great. For dinner we had French toast and some Easter candy. We also got the Easter baskets my parents put together for us. Mine was mostly peeps and resee's, but there was also a lottery ticket and some other small things. Mskate got peeps and jelly beans. The rest of the night was pretty calm, just watching some TV and such.

Holy Saturday was eventful. I had to get my allergy shot, so I did that pretty early in the morning, and then went to Wendy's for breakfast since I couldn't have a white bread bagel at my in-laws like I normally do when I see them. I had a breakfast burrito. After eating breakfast I decided I was going to do some stuff on my laptop, and I didn't have enough room at the table because grandma-in-law's crystal cake tray was in the way. I picked it up from the top to move it, and that was a big mistake, because that caused it to break and slice my left ring ringer REALLY bad. I won't go into the details, but I'm bleeding bad and we wrap it up really good with like 6 bandaids. I said "I need to go to urgent care, because this hurts like a ***********" (which is not really in character for me, I don't swear much in my productions just because I want to keep it safe for work, I just don't swear much, so that just says how bad it was). I drive myself to the urgent care, check in, and am seething in pain. When I get into the room the doctor asks how I am and I said "I could be better, I sliced my finger really bad on a glass tray." She asks me if I probably need stitches or if she needs to investigate, and I say "I need stitches." She starts to take my bandages off and it hurts because she's pressing in the wrong way, so now I have to take it off. One of the bandaids is stuck to itself and doesn't want to come off, so I pull out the scissors on my pocket knife to cut it in such a way to make it weak, and the doctor said "oh please don't hurt yourself any more;" I didn't though, I'm an eagle scout and am very skilled in how to use a pocket knife. Once I got the bandaids off it starts bleeding and hurting really bad. She gives me gauze to put on it and apply pressure until the doctor that does the sutures could come in. I'm kind of making a lot of noise pains and one of the nurses comes in and asks if I'm OK. I say I'm in a lot of pain and he offers me a pain shot in the butt. I got it and it started not hurting as bad after a couple minutes. The suture doctor comes in and kind of struggled to get it to stop bleeding enough to make a decision on how to fix it. There was a lot of cauterization and special clotting gauze, and at one point she had me hold my hand above my head for as long as I could for 10 minutes (a thing I remember from my time in the scouts with first aid), and I held it for the whole 10 minutes which she found impressive. Eventually I had 3 stitches, and a tetanus booster. What was really rough was the nerve block the doctor had to do when fixing me up, that was some super pain, probably scaring people. All the while mskate keeps trying to call me to see where I am, and didn't want to hear "I'm still at the doctor, I'll call you later." She kept asking me why I thought it would be a good idea to hold the tray like that and didn't want to accept "I've never had to move one of these before, I didn't know it was weak like that," and kept trying to lecture me about how I made a bad mistake and I'm like "woman I know that, 2 hours of agonizing pain has taught me quite a lesson and was more than enough punishment for breaking grandma's favorite cake tray." I get home and then just rest for a while.

After about an hour IRA and I went to the Super Mario Galaxy Movie. We were going to go to the 11 AM show, but then my finger had other ideas, so instead we went to the 2:30 PM movie. Mskate ordered us online tickets because it was approaching a sold out show. When we got there we were going to maybe get snacks, but the concessions line was full, the snaking line went all the way to the entrance of the queue. IRA and I both said "I don't need snacks that bad." Our show was in theater 7, and we went to theater 7, or at least we thought so. We're sitting there watching the previews and then the studio logo came up, Amazon studios and MGM. "Wait, that doesn't make sense, this is Illumination and Universal," and then the opening shot of Project Hail Marry started playing (which I had seen earlier in the week). I look over to IRA and say "I think we're in the wrong theater," and instead of being at screen 7 we were at screen 1, which because they do fancy numbering the 1 looked like a 7. Thankfully we didn't miss anything, just some more previews. It was a pretty funny movie, full of references and simple "good vs evil." However, it doesn't leave much for non-fans, which is why the critics don't like it.

In the evening it was time for the big egg fundraiser. But first, there was a tornado warning. Everyone's phones got an emergency notification, and then the sirens went off, so all of us had to go to the basement. IRA has a little TV corner with some chairs for the summer when it's hot, and we all found chairs. I pulled up a local news station and we just waited it out. This was an hour before we were going to start hiding the eggs. Come the time for the eggs was fun. There were 3 groups with 6-7 houses each. I reached out to my old boy scout troop to see if they would be interested in service hours (because this was all for charity) and we got some takers. I told them to come get their assignment at 7 but mskate wanted us to start hiding at 8, so we just had some conversations about scouting for an hour, which was pretty cool because we'd mention the names of some of the boys that were new when I was aging out, and they were the older boys to one of the boys when he was new who was now and older boy himself. There were 2 takers, a 15 year old who is approaching eagle and a new cross over who was still getting used to being a boy scout, and their parents. I told them all that they had to do, and gave them a choice on which 2 houses they wanted to do, and then mom and I did 2 houses. Afterwards we joined mskate and her dad to do a house, and then we did the neighbors by her parents house. Mskate was a bit uncertain about how the boy scouts would do, but then they did great and the young boy's mom told me he's looking forward to doing it again next year, so it sounds like one of his first service hour project was a success. Now that we have at least one more team (probably more) with the scouts, we're willing to take on more houses next year.

Easter Sunday was a big day. Halleluiah, He is risen! I have a bagel with peanut butter and it was so good. Mskate and I get ready and go to mass with my parents at the local church with the earliest mass. Nothing spectacular to speak of, and we didn't get a call about coffee and donuts having problems so we assume it went well. brunch with the in-laws went well, and the Easter baskets were quite impressive. I got a little lego, seas candy, a Babylon Bee movie on DVD (which apparently has 4 hilarious ways to watch it), and some pokemon Hershey bars. We just relaxed until it was time to go to my parents.

My parents were kind of weird this year. Instead of the normal big family celebration that went on for hours with lots of singing, it was my immediate family (parents and brother) with mskate and I the entire time with 3 people (aunt, and 2 of my mom's friends) popping in separately. It was good to see my aunt because she doesn't come visit often (we normally have to go to her) and we used to spend Easter with that side of the family growing up. Dinner was good, especially the blessed bread and ham. We're Polish and do the blessing of the baskets tradition, and mom and dad got ham and bread blessed. Mom confused her friend that stayed for dinner, she made the announcement that we would be eating in 10 minutes and to go to the bathroom now before it started, which is something we had to do when we had our old people, but unfortunately 3/4 of them passed and the accordion friend still standing is, well, not standing all that well as she's recovering from a surgery and didn't want to come, so it was kind of "why are you announcing it like that." I remember that was kind of a thing with the first couple of holidays after my uncle passed, since we would have to set up the dining room and serving around being able to get his wheel chair in the room (which was a bit awkward) and then we were like "oh, I guess we don't have to do that now." Whatever. After dinner mom's friend left, and since we didn't have singing I set up my laptop on the TV to watch our Disney vacation videos. Because their TV is 4K and my gaming laptop is capable of 4K video the laptop and TV wanted to do a 4K output, but my cable is a cheap 15 foot basic information cable (and so not 4K capable), so there was a lot of screwing around with settings to get it to work. I almost just set-up our 480p projector just so I wouldn't have to deal with it. One of mom's other friends stopped in during this, and we also had desert which was lemon pie and chocolate sweet rolls my aunt made (which was a recipe my grandma used to make based on what my dad said when talking about it). After all this we just went back to the in-laws for the night.

Things weren't over come Holy Monday, because we went to the different stores for after easter sales. We got some plastic eggs and prizes from Walmart and Target, including some big prizes that we're going to use as "premium options." We now estimate we have about 600 eggs and maybe 100 prizes. Some of the eggs came with candy, so we took the candy out and are going to donate that to the church food pantry. After that we went to the accordion friend's house to visit her after Easter. I told her that I missed having her at Easter, so hopefully that gives her some drive to come to the next one. It was just a calm little visit. After the visit we went home and I fixed the auto pay on my storage unit, and then I unpacked, went to Chuck E Cheese for the first time in about half a week, and here I am typing out. Tomorrow I'll do some organization of things we got. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's New Years 2025 and some other things (and a small Year Review)

2026-01-04T16:32:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone. So 2025 was kind of a crazy year. I lost my grandma (my last biological grandparent) and my grandpa-figure, and my in-laws dog. On a positive note, I went on a cruise, to Universal Studios, and Disneyland. I also saw some cool movies and won some stuff at our Oktoberfest celebration. I also paid off my mortgage in full, which is great to get that monkey off my back and not having to worry about having $900 in my account every month. I also managed to save $1686.46 by couponing and buying sales this year, so yay. If you want to see more, just scroll through past blogs. Now for some New Years festivities.

On the 29th I had a little Christmas visit with my aunt (this happened far enough after the Christmas blog after I posted it, so I'm putting it here). My parents were going to go with us, but they both got a little sick so they didn't join my brother, wife, and I. Here's the funny thing, we live south enough to where our weather can be different than my parents and even more my aunt; it wasn't snowing or all that cold at our condo, so I wore my crocks, but when I got up to my parents there was snow on the ground, and my aunt was not sure about us coming up because the weather was getting kind of bad (heavy snow). It made things kind of annoying, but it went OK. We loaded up our van with the albums mskate scanned in, the gift we were giving my aunt, and some food to have while we were visiting. The drive up wasn't that bad, just everyone driving 10 mph under the speed limit and having 20 feet visibility. When we got there we unloaded everything but the albums. We gave her her presents and she REALLY liked the photo frame. It took some time to get it connected to her wifi, but once it was on we spent like 20 minutes just watching the slide show, looking at the photos we uploaded and the photos mbear uploaded. Hopefully my other cousins upload some. That was the big gift from the entire family, but mskate and I also got her a little something, something we found when camping. It was a box of mason jars since she likes to can, and she really liked them since she likes to can. Kind of funny thing with the food, we couldn't find what my mom sent up with us, so we just had the cheesecake factory rolls and salami I brought up, and the from scratch garlic bread and soup my aunt made. Before we left we moved the albums to her garage, and we brought back soup for my parents. I gave them my rolls since those were really good with dipping in the soup.

The 30th wasn't super special, we just got a chuck e cheese year long pass and I went to the dentist where I used up the last of my FSA. New Years Eve is when things kind of picked up. We went up to our parents neighborhood to get my allergy shot and spend some time with the parents. I got my kroger coupons from my parents (because they mail to my parents and my account is so sold I'd have to go through a long process to move my address, I think I'll do it when I move though). We went to mskate's parents and did a little birthday celebration for her dad. We gave him a Donald Trump paint by stickers book, and he really liked it. We got some pizza for lunch, which was a good little lunch. Afterwards mskate and I went a chuck-e-cheese up by them. We played some games and got some prizes for mskate's easter egg fundraiser. Later in the evening we went to the New Year Vigil mass. Afterwards mskate and I went home and rung in the new year by ourselves (I invited mizorlover over but he was busy). I made a 500 piece pokemon puzzle in one evening. Normally a 500 piece puzzle will take a week, but because there were 38 characters it was like 38 small puzzles with 4-30 pieces each. I typically dump all the pieces in 1 half of the box, go through it trying to find like pieces (a character or edges), then go back through, again and again for at least10 times, but this time I only had to do it like 4 times. Fun. Around 11:30 I pulled mskate into the living room where we watched Dick Clark's Rocking New Years Eve since I've always used that, and then when the new year hit I lit off 4 fireworks. Those were a little hard since it was windy, but I got them lit and they flew off.

New Years day was kind of eventful. We did some after Christmas shopping (because there is still clearance sale stuff) and while out mskate ran into a family that goes to her catechism, and mailed out an ebay item, but the big thing was going to a hibachi restaurant by us. I've never done hibachi before but it definitely seemed like fun. "I've never done it before" is going to play in big. The chef put on his show, light the grill on fire with a heart, flip and spin his cooking utensils as the grill heats up, flip an egg into his hat and then pull out a toy chick, crack the eggs and make the fried rice, toss some vegitables into my mouth (I caught a piece of broccoli), spray sake in our mouths, do some fun flipping of the foods, and then do the onion volcano. So the sake thing was where "I don't know what I'm doing" came in. He kept spraying me and I just keep taking it, expecting him to stop "when I got the serving that's included with the price," but apparently I'm supposed to close my mouth when I'm done, so I just keep getting sake until it all spills out of my mouth. He thought that was kind of funny. Our meal was quite good, and I'll definitely go there again (dinner and a show). The main thing though is this is when I learned I'm allergic to shrimp. I've never had shrimp before (it's an expensive food and I don't particularly care for seafood, so I never felt like I was missing out on something), and I'd normally give it to mskate, but because he cooked it with gluten soy sauce or something she couldn't have, I decide to give them a try since I had them and didn't want them to go to waste. Shortly after eating though my upper lip started to swell and I was kind of dizzy, with a couple hot flashes. I look ups shellfish allergic reactions and yep I was having one. I had mskate drive me to the emergency room and they gave me an IV with antihistamines and steroids for the swelling. I then slept most of the observation period since they gave me benedril and it made me sleepy. Now I'm going to get an epipen, so when people ask me "what did you get for Christmas" I'll say "an epipen" before going into the real list.

The 2nd was pretty calm, only big thing was going to Chuck E Cheese and disassembling some omnipods using my new table vice. The 3rd was also kind of calm. We went to mass since mskate is traveling for skating nationals. We went out to dinner with her mom before setting them up in the 1 night hotel that is close to our house. The 4th was also pretty nothing. We apparently forgot to put in the donut order for coffee and donuts for church, but the ushers (who were in charge this week) found a work around. I went to the meat market and restocked the freezer, we basically ran out of meat in the deep freeze at the end of 2025, so I bought a bunch of steaks, pork chops, and stew meats, got them processed, and resupplied the freezer. I went to chuck e cheese and BJs to get some additional stuffs. I'm also keeping up on my new years resolution of "watch at least 30 minutes out of my DVR a day so I can get back down to the smaller cloud DVR on sling. Yay. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's 2025 Christmas Extravaganza

2025-12-28T12:56:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, it's that time of year again, the time when I talk about my Christmas fun. Things kind of started on the 15th when my department had a little Christmas party; nothing super big, just some people from various other locations coming to our place. I did get a poinsettia flower for our friend since they had extras after the party and I knew someone would want it. Nothing too spectacular though, but it was technically the start.

Things really started on the 20th when I went to my parent's house to do chocolate dipping with my mom, and help our accordion friend set up her life alert and give her her gifts. We got her a bag of hot hands hand warmers since those are good for her arthritis and a PF Chang's gift card since she likes to take us there. She got mskate socks and me a Pokemon Time magazine. I had 2 of them and now I have 3; Pikachu, Charmander, and now Arcanine. In addition to helping her get the life alert watch set-up I also installed a lock box in her door frame. She was really happy to have us all over.

After that we went to my parent's house. I started the chocolate in the double boiler, and as I'm melting it down it was getting kind of clumpy. That was not great since you can't really dip pretzels and potato chips and cookies in clumped chocolate. Mom pulled about half of it out and we tried adding water according to multiple sources. Well, that only made it worse, so we made what we call "Christmas crap;" when chocolate gets ruined, it still tastes good, so we clump it and stick pretzels and m&ms in it to make something fun that looks like poop (hence the name). We put it between parchment paper and flattened it out to add the stuff. We were able to melt down the other parts by putting it in the microwave. With that done we cleaned the pot and dried it REALLY good before melting more. That went along much better. It was a fun time and we made a lot of treats for the upcoming festivities.

After our dipping fun we went back to our accordion friend and finished setting up the life alert. We didn't know her son already got everything and we just had to activate. We showed her how it works and tested it. It worked in the house, so that was great. After that she took mskate and I out for pizza. We got a salad to split and it was quite good. Instead of pizza I got the barbecue cheese burger, and our friend was surprised I was able to eat it all. Mskate had some left overs so that was good for her. That was the end of that little fun.

It's now the 23rd, and I used my final vacation day. I had the day off, but not mskate, because she works for Santa at the mall, and I was going to see her, but only at the end of her shift. This meant I had some time to myself before I had to go up to the family. Well I filmed a "food review" of building a snap together model that I got last year and has been sitting on my dining room table waiting to be built. There was also a 2 hour window where bio and I could record a podcast, and so we did.

Going to the mall to see mskate was fun. She does stuff for the mall when there's a seasonal thing, and apparently I was wearing the same thing I did when I saw her last time. Kind of funny. After that we went to her parents house and got set-up for the half week. In the evening we went to the bar vikingpolak works at some time. It's a little local microbrewery where they make their own beer; and I really like their sour blueberry beer. They also have some pinball machines and a couple arcade machines. I got $5 in quarters and played the pinball machines. I also kind of accidentally ended up paying for everyone's drinks; I originally opened a tab just for mskate and I, but then she put her mom's drink on the tab (no problem there, I am staying at her house this half week), and then IRA got added (again, unexpected but his parents are putting us up), and then my parents showed up and they ended up on the tab as well (which is fine, they're my parents so I'll buy their drinks), so I guess I ended up starting the giving lol. There was actually something kind of funny with the pinball; I was playing the x-men table and the ball got stuck in the ramp. I told vikingpolak about it and he said he'll let the guy they rent their machines from about it. I could have fixed it myself, but that could have voided their warranty or something. That was it for the 23rd.

It's now December 24th, Christmas Eve. The morning at my in-laws was pretty calm, nothing super exciting. Noon is when things really started. Just a reminder, on Christmas Eve we go to McDonald's for lunch because when I was little that was when Santa would come to my grandparents, and we keep the tradition alive, even though my grandma is no longer with us and that was her thing. Mskate wanted to get a Grinch Meal but they were all sold out. We still got a happy meal with my points, and then got deals with everything else; a $2 large fry, a $6 10 piece mcnugget meal, and 20% off $10 or more (which we used with a quarter pounder meal and value cheeseburger meal). In total we saved $17. The food was good, fast food, nothing special but filling.

We now did the gift exchange with my parents on Christmas Eve since we didn't have my grandma this year. We set-up the living room moving the coffee table and positioning the presents with everyone getting in their positions. We got my mom a helium tank at the Party City going out of business sale since she likes balloons, and since it was big and would require a lot of wrapping paper we put it in a bicycle bag, along with all her other presents that were wrapped. Since it was a bike bag and was called a bike bag the joke we said was "we got you a bike since that's what comes in bike bags, some assembly required." We also got her some mylar balloons to inflate with her tank, and that was fun. We also got her a box of variety coffee pods since they recently got a kcup coffee maker and like the options now and princess plates and napkins, and a Disneyland sweat shirt. For my brother we got him some things that were of his interests; a power bank thing for camping, emergency blankets, a VHS copy of Strange Brew (he loves Bob and Doug McKenzy), and a Hot Wheels Barbie McDonald's cup based on a story from when we were kids. For my dad we got him some Peanuts comic things (socks and a magnet), decaf coffee pods, and speed racer. Now for my presents; I got peanut m&ms, peanut butter m&ms, spongebob socks and Patrick socks, Napoleon Dynamite socks, nerds clusters, a drone, a puzzle vase, some switch games (epic micky, hello kitty, and pacman world), a tigger jersey, some different PS2 gmaes that I bought on black friday, sunflower seeds, bullets, and star bills.

Christmas mass was Christmas mass. We went to my parent's church since we were in the area. Apparently at our home parish the priest gave the children snow wands, nothing like that at my parent's church. Mskate and I got there first so we found space for everyone. After mass we went back to mskate's parents for diner and some early Christmas. We had the spring rolls we got from a church acquaintance and meat balls. The spring rolls went over very well. Early presents went well. I got a voice modulator microphone, a gameboy lego, and a spongebob mug that IRA bought me when we went to Universal Studios. Funny thing, he bought it when we went to the Spongebob store and I was busy playing in the musical pineapple. The big winner present of the night ended up being the Go On DVD set we got IRA. I watched it back when it was airing and thought it was entertaining, and I knew he would enjoy it. Little did I know he would REALLY like it as does my father-in-law; we watched 3 episodes before bed time and the laughter was heavy. I also made my vase puzzle and it looks quite good. Before going to bed I started my "watch A Christmas Story on TBS" tradition. I came in with about 30 minutes left, and watched the first hour of the next airing, so all I had to do was watch the 3rd quarter to have seen it all.

Now it's Christmas Day, we slowly wake up as IRA is super excited to open presents. I watched the remaining quarter of A Christmas Story after waking up, so now I had completely watched all of A Christmas Story on TBS. We all gather in the living room and start passing out the tree. We got a letter from Santa about how the dogs were gone now. A lot of the things we gave were from Disneyland, and everyone was happy. I got gift cards to McDonalds, Chuck E Cheese, and Visa, a capsule machine lego, a table vice, a Gaston shirt, Rocket Power the complete series on DVD, warhead candy, chocolate marshmallows, some other candy, a Disney pressed penny book, a stitch rubber duck, a rabbit Ralphy stuffed animal thing (that I initially thought was a labubu), and many socks (popeye, kirby, snorlax, and yoda). One of mskate's highlights was a stuffed animal tower since our stuffed animal hammocks are getting kind of full. Afterwards we had breakfast, eggs and bacon with some cut fruit.

After playing around with some stuff and just relaxing, we went over to my parents for Christmas. Mskate and I went to CVS to get a present for our friend's Aunt Bird; she specifically asked for coloring books but all the coloring books were really expensive, so we got her a little lego creator stocking stuffer for $5. Mskate looked up the set online and it's going for a lot more online, and then because it was CVS I had a coupon on the receipt I was able to get another for 72 cents. We went to my parents and it was kind of different. My dad came down with something on Christmas Eve so he spent the entire evening upstairs in his rooms. It was still a good time. Our accordion friend came and our other friend with their Aunt Bird. PepperBC's family was going to join us, but they decided against it since my dad was sick and they have some health problems. It was really fun, we put on A Christmas Story to just let it run in the background, and we facetimed TanMan since accordion friend is his grandma and they're expecting. Dinner was pretty good, we had ham and chicken, green beans and green bean casserole, corn, and rolls. After dinner we did our sing-along with the accordion. The fun thing is we have these bell sticks that we made back in cub scouts with the other friend as our pack leader, so that was fun to say "look, the bells are still working." Whenever there was a song that mentioned bells we all shook the jingle bells. Then there was one song where I pulled out my new voice modulator microphone, which got a good laugh from everyone. IRA and mom-in-law came over for this as well. After the sing-along we gave the gifts to IRA and Aunt Bird, and they really enjoyed them. IRA got a special disneyworld football that was signed by the characters that was found while cleaning out another aunt's house, and a Courage the Cowardly Dog DVD set. It was a really fun time. Afterwards we just went to my in-laws and hung out until the end of the night.

The day after Christmas was pretty calm. Mskate, IRA, and I went to different stores for after Christmas sales. We went to CVS, Meijer, Target, and Walmart. We found some things, but nothing too spectacular. Later in the day IRA and I went to see Spongebob Squarepants the Search for Square Pants, and mskate and mom-in-law went to see Wicked for Good. It was a pretty funny movie. We had dinner at the movies, I had a Freddy Fasbear spicy pizza (pepperoni, jalapenos, and a "sweet drizzle" whatever that was). It was pretty good, and they delivered it to our seat. IRA had loaded French fries (fries, nacho cheese, and bacon). The next day we loaded up the van with all our presents and I'm loving having a minivan, and now it's just finding places for all our new stuff. I've found a place for about half of it, yay. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic Goes to the Toledo Zoo Lights

2025-12-14T17:17:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, back in the day mskate and I would go to the Detroit Zoo Wild Lights, and this year we decided to go to the Toledo Zoo Wild Lights. It's been many years (maybe around 2 decades) since I was last there, but it used to be a pretty common thing; my family would go to the Toledo Zoo when I was little, and in cub scouts we would stay the night in the zoo sometimes, but we haven't been since the cub scout sleep overs. This was a fun thing, mskate and I get a little date get away while enjoying a place that's familiar but not. I also had some vacation I had to use up, so this was a good way to use up the day. Mskate and I left for the hotel, and checked in at about 2 PM. We got suited up for the cold northern Ohio winter night, with 2 pairs of pants and 2 jackets.

Our tickets were for 3PM, and we got there at basically right when the tickets let us in. The parking lot was REALLY empty, which meant we could get a spot right close to the entrance. The Toledo Zoo has this kind of weird set-up, the parking lot and the zoo are on opposite sides of a major freeway; I assume there was a weird thing about where they could get land back in the day, so to go to the zoo one has to go through the tunnel or over the bridge. I'll get to that details later, but first something new, because the zoo has developed things on the parking lot side. It's like an artic exhibit; artic foxes, polar bears, seals, and some other things. This is also where they have the giraffe encounter, the train, and the carousel. Since we got there while it was still day some of the animals were still out. The foxes and polar bears weren't, but we got to see seal swimming and the giraffes in their inside enclosure. Even though we didn't see any polar bears or foxes, the exhibits were pretty cool; the polar bears showed off artic life and explorations, and the foxes was an artic cabin that had a working fireplace (wasn't in use, but there were signs that it has been used and signs that said to be careful).

Now it's time to go to the main zoo. As I said, we could take the tunnel or the bridge. So here's my history with this. When I was REALLY little (like 3 and 4), all they had was the tunnel, and I thought it was so cool because it was like themed to a subway and felt like I was exploring a secret passage (at least that was the faded memories I had of it). There's a story that my grandpa watched me run back and forth in it. Well when I started "really having memories" they installed a bridge and from then on the only option was the bridge (the tunnel was still there, but it was always closed). This bummed me out because while the bridge is interesting (you can see cars go under you, and there are animal prints in the wall), I grew up in a place where highway overpasses were common and "walking over traffic" was "a normal thing," but tunnels were rare so being able to go under ground in a dark tunnel was novel, and now every time I went to the Toledo Zoo "the subway" kept taunting me. Well 20 years later both the tunnel and the bridge are open, so I had to go through the tunnel. Mskate didn't really get why I was so excited to go through the tunnel, but we've been married long enough that she knows I just kind of have my things that are important to me for no real logical reason. Well going through the tunnel was kind of like when I went through alternate entrances at the zoo during covid. As an adult, there's nothing all that special about it; there is "branding" as a subway station with tile words on the wall and murals on the wall, but it is "just a walk way." If I was any other adult, I would probably be disappointed that "it's just a tunnel, there's really nothing special about it," but I am not "any other adult," and when I went through the tunnel I was in awe of "subway theming, murals, I'm under the cars, there's a service grate above me, this is what 4 year old me remembers and was denied all the times I have vivid memories of," and I finally felt closure on that. Woo hoo.

Time for some animals. Before crossing over we saw the bald eagles on the parking lot side of the zoo. They were at the bridge, so we went up the bridge ramp a little to see them. On the original animal side we saw tigers and dingoes. The tigers were really cool, they were active and walking up to the front of the enclosure where we could see them up close. Then there was one that was making noises; it wasn't like a mighty roar, but it was like some kind of grunt. I was really happy since there wasn't any music playing and it was a "natural wild sound," so I got a sample for my next audio library. That was really cool. Afterwards it started lying on the ground like a house cat, and one of the other guests said "aww, I want to play with the murder kitty." Yeah, it's really funny how similar big cats and house cats are; if we were 20 times larger we would have pet lions and tigers, or if our house cats were 20 times larger they would eat us like a lion or tiger. After them we made our way to the elephants. There was an exhibit for the hippos, but they were away, same with the otters. When we got to the elephants they were not out, but we could hear the zapping of the electric fence. That was kind of interesting, reminded me of something out of Jurassic Park, and makes perfect sense since the elephants are giant animals. The elephants had an inside exhibit where we saw a baby walking around and probably a mom eating hay. I was happy since one of my favorite zoo animals when I was little was elephants. Close by was the rhinoceroses, which also weren't outside but were in their inside enclosure. The rhino was playing with a ball, and his horn was all filed down for safety.

After the animals would have been a great time to go to the reptile house (it's right by the elephants), but unfortunately it was closed for renovations. Too bad, I think that's where the cub scout sleep overs were, and I like reptiles. Oh well, the next place we went was the museum of natural history, where they showed different taxidermy natural history exhibit things. There was also some private event going on there, which might have closed off some exhibit, or it was just an open hall. There wasn't much security to keep regular guests out, but maybe at the food station they had a wrist band. Whatever. The 2nd floor was really cool, it had a bunch of reptiles and amphibians, which was really fun. They had a poison dart frog exhibit, but the poison dart frogs were hiding. That's annoying to me because poison dart frogs are my favorite zoo animal these days; they're bright pastel colors, like the only animal that's pastel colors, and I like bright pastel colors. Oh well, there were plenty of other animals. There was also a bug exhibit, and it was pretty cool because they were like bugs from Animal Crossing. It was pretty cool. We initially went there to see the model train exhibit, but that was next door at the kid fun zone. The train was pretty cool; there was one that was all Disney themed box cars, and one that was Charlie Brown and Lucy on one of those hand cars, and they had a drive in movie set-up where they were playing The Polar Express on a portable DVD player screen. The kid building was also kind of cool, they had gunnie pigs in the craft area, and in the play trees they had some frog things that mskate knew as a child.

After the kid building we had dinner. I had pulled pork nachos and mskate had a gluten free personal pizza, where we ate at the indoor seating area. After dinner we went to the petting zoo. We could pet anything except the rabbits and chickens. The rabbit wasn't a "tiny bunny," it was a large hare, I'd guess 15 pounds. This meant we could pet the sheep and goats. I didn't pet any but mskate did. The sheep were funny looking since they were all sheered. After the petting zoo we went to the aquarium. That was really fun. There was a tank with sting rays and sharks. There was a tank with jellies. There was an anemone with clown fish, and I said "look it's nemo." There was a kid looking at that exhibit and the mom got a laugh. We also saw a leopard shark and there were these old ladies who were asking what it was, and I read the sign and she was like "oh yeah I guess it does say that, if only I could read it." She also asked me if that was the largest they get, and I said "yeah that's typically how zoos do it, they have the full grown animals on display." I don't know if she thought I worked there (I do regularly get mistaken for an employee especially when I was a teenager, but I was bundled up in my winter coat wearing a yellow beanie and my yellow night glasses so I don't think I looked like an employee), but she did ask me and I did my normal "make my best educated guess and say so with confidence." There was also a "pet a sturgeon" exhibit, and I tried to but they were down at the bottom of the tank, and if it wasn't 20 degrees outside and I didn't have my man jewelry on I would have stuck my arm down to the bottom of the tank, like I did in Tennessee. There was also this cool bioluminescence exhibit where there were these flashlight fish that were blinking on and off. I tried to get photos and video, but they didn't show on camera. There was also an octopus, that was suctioned against the window so we got to see the suction cups and it "walked" along the window which was cool. The aquarium was just so cool, maybe my favorite part of the zoo (at least at night when a lot of the animals are asleep).

It's now after sunset, and basically all the animals are sleep now. We go down to the amphitheater where Santa is and the winter slide. The slide would have been something I really liked, it's a tube slide where you ride down ice. After looking around we found the reindeer encounter. We didn't pet them, but it was kind of neat. After this, lots of lights. There were a lot of simple animation scenes, which was really fun. There was also a tree that changed colors. We walked around some more and we found an owl that was out, and when we went to a bear or fox enclosure or something, and there was a rat nibbling on the food pellets. Mskate thought that was the exhibit, but I'm like "no babe, that's vermin" and she was like "really, but he's kind of cute, like your parents hamster." Yeah, we were rodent people, but she was right, the rat wasn't mangy or scarred, and didn't get scared when I shown a light on it or approached it from the other side of the glass (which is a trait of domesticated rats), so he was kind of cute. We also went to the great ape exhibit, which was closed but had this cool statue.

This was about the end of the night, having done basically everything and having spent 4 hours at the zoo, and getting cold. We walked the bridge back, which was about what I remember, and was kind of neat walking over the traffic. Now for the difficult thing of finding a souvenir shirt for mskate. She saw one where it was "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas," but all they had were child sizes and 3XL. We looked through all the gift shops, but nothing. Leaving was pretty easy though, our car was up front and we just had to jump on the free way to get to the hotel. I was still a little hungry and mskate needed a drink, so we went to the burger king that was right next to the hotel where I got a spongebob kids meal. I got a Mr. Krabs toy, a spongebob box, and a spongebob paper crown. The rest of the night we just watched Everybody Loves Raymond.

The next day wasn't super exciting, but the hotel breakfast had this cool pancake machine. The drive home was just a drive home. Later that day I went to see Kill Bill The Whole Bloody Affair, a movie that had been living in mystery for about 2 decades. Really great to see. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's Annual Thanksgiving and Black Friday Blog, 2025

2025-12-01T17:45:00.000-08:00

Well it's that time of year again, Thanksgiving and Black Friday. This was kind of a rough year, first without any of my grandparents. Because of this, my mom wanted to go to a big parade, so we went to one. Mskate and I went to my in-laws on Wednesday since we spend the night with them, and it was pretty calm Wednesday.

Thursday morning my family showed up at the in-laws and we all piled into our minivan. We loaded up the chairs and wagon and blankets, and all got in our assigned spots; vikingpolak and I in the front, both moms in the middle, and mskate and IRA in the back. The drive down wasn't too bad, and we were able to find parking really close to the parade route. We found a great spot in front of the art museum that was right in the front row. The turkey trot was still going on while we were setting up, so that was kind of fun to watch since some people dress up in funny costumes. Vikingpolak knows someone who works for the parade and we were going to see if we could find her, but she wasn't right there at the start of the rout so we didn't see her. I did get to see some floats and balloons being set-up, which was kind of cool behind the scenes. We also saw a balloon that ended up popping. It was some big ball, and was secured down, but the wind was really strong and it blew it into a street sign that ended up popping it. Too bad.

Mskate and I did a little walking around, and this is when something REALLY scary happened. I look down at my hand and notice my high school class ring is missing. This is bad, I'm downtown and if I can't find my ring it's gone for good. I'm frantically looking on the ground where I walked, nothing. Vikingpolak tells me to check the car, and as I'm walking back I reach in my coat pocket and find it in there. Yay, crisis averted. I think I noticed while taking the picture below. Before the parade I went to the college welcome center that was right by where we were sitting to go to the bathroom. That was a pretty good idea since I finished like 5 minutes before the parade started, and had to run back to my seat, but I made it.

The parade was pretty good. Lots of floats, some balloons, and some marching bands. It opened with the mounted police and pooper scoopers following behind. Some of the cool things were the Elmo balloon, Captain Underpants Balloon, Pet Supplies Plus float, Ford float, Delta Dental float, Shrek Balloon, and Rainbowfish balloon. In total there were like 60 displays, for which I got pictures of all the floats and balloons. I uploaded them all to shutterstock and thankfully they all got accepted for editorial use (how I classified them). Here are some samples. The balloons were kind of weird, not fully inflated and kind of dragging. Later when watched on TV the balloons were full, probably added helium later in the parade rout when there were more buildings to act as a wind screen. Something cool is that the clowns were passing out marti gras beads, and we got a fair amount. This will be great for when we do our Easter Egg fundraiser since we can fill the eggs with them. About halfway through the parade stopped for like 10 minutes and we were just looking at the Ford float, but the waiting was OK and then it picked up no problem.

After the parade we went back to the in-laws and just kind of hung out until it was time to go to my parents. I spent most of the time working on uploading all my photos from the parade. I got about 65 of them uploaded before we had to go to my parents. When we got to my parents we had some snacks and visited with the family. Dinner was pretty good, turkey and ham, green beans and corn, and dinner rolls. Great meal. After dinner we had the accordion sing along. At some point in all this we called my aunt and had a good conversation. Vikingpolak and I spent like an hour talking to her, dad was for 30 minutes, and mom for 20. We were calling in the sun room where the drink refrigerator is, and at one point the accordion friend's son came in to get some drinks. They are from completely different sides of the family and I don't know if they've ever met each other, and when he came in we said "hey do you want to say hi to [aunt]" and he was all awkward with "uhhhh, hi." One of the last things from the night was mskate and I showed some video from our Disneyland trip. Mom really enjoyed watching it. We showed them day 2 where we went to Disneyland. Later that night we just went to bed and got ready for Black Friday; going through all the ads and making my list.

It was now 5:30 AM Friday morning, I'm up and eating a breakfast bagel, and IRA is up and getting ready. We get out and the main thing I want to do is go to Walmart, and IRA wanted to go to a used media store (games, DVDs, and comic books). There happened to be a walmart close to that store, kind of far off the normal Black Friday loop, but all good. Walmart had a bunch of toys and games for cheap, all of which went to toy drives. There were a couple of videogames that I was interested in, but they didn't have them. It was pretty empty, gone are the days of "crazy black friday" it seems. After Walmart we still had a fair amount of time before the media store opened, so we went to a Target. They still had some door buster give aways; roll a die and you could get a pin, trading cards, or some other things. IRA and I each got trading cards. IRA got some wrestling action figures since they had a sale on them. I think I ended up getting some toy drive toys here as well. I also got some baby clothes since there's always someone doing a baby clothes drive around this time. They also had some good deals on videogames, but all the videogames I was interested in were already sold out. Oh well. I was going to get some stuffed animals since mskate has those to throw at skating, but all they had were large animals so I didn't get any since those are hard to throw.

Now we went to Best Buy. I didn't have a lot noted here, just hot wheels for cheap (which they were sold out). I did end up finding some switch games though, that I forget what they are, so I guess we'll just have to wait until the Christmas blog to find out what those are. IRA found a couple things as well, so that was good. I was hoping to run into Zeldamaster93, but he wasn't working that day. One day I'll be able to go "heyy Dante" where he'll give me his sarcastic look, but not today. We went across the street to another Target, but it was a bust on both shopping and door buster giveaways. We then went to the mall for Bath and Bodyworks. The mall was a bit weird. Sears is now a Hobby Lobby, that doesn't have mall access. We parked by it since that was close, and the entrance was blocked off. We went into Hobby Lobby, but no mall access. We then had to drive to the other entrance by the food court. The mall wasn't fully open, like only 1/3 or 1/4 of the stores were open. When we walked in there was a kind of neat small arcade in a small store front area. Everything was turned off so I wasn't able to enjoy it, but it was cool to look at. We also went to the gotchapon store, which was also closed, so that was unfortunate. Bath and Bodyworks was really great, buy 3 get 4 free. I got a lot of hand soaps and pocket hand sanitizers since all the women in my life (mom, mom-in-law, aunts, and wife) all really like their stuff. They'll really enjoy it. We walked around the mall some more and went to where the arcade used to be. When I went there, it was now a pinball museum with a $22 all you can play deal. This is a phoenix, for over a decade it was a token arcade that I would go to every time I went to the mall, it closed down, and now it's risen to a pinball museum. I REALLY need to go there some time, probably do a vlog. That was that area.

It's now past 8AM, which means the media store was open. I was pretty tired, but this was IRA's big interest so we went there. They had buy 2 get 1 free on videogames and buy 2 get 2 free on dvds and blurays. I found some PS2 games to fill my collection, but that was basically it. After that I waited for IRA to finish his shopping, which was REALLY long. He found 11 movies and the clerk told him "you can get 1 more for free," so then he went back and found 5 more. It was alright for me, I finished getting caught up on Level Up Super Mario animations while mooching wifi off a neighbor store. We had one more store, CVS. They had a deal on shampoo and toothpaste, 2 things I needed. I also found chocolate covered marshmallow treats for mskate's catechism class, which was great. They also had a sale on 3 musketeers bars, so I got 2 of those. At some point we also went to BJs, where I got discounted gift cards and a Disney tracing toy. When we got back to mskate's parents house I just took a nap, like 2 hours since I was pretty tired. After my nap I watched Everybody Loves Raymond. I accidentally cast it to IRA's TV and apologized trying to turn it off, but then he was like "no, come here and watch it with me," so we watched a couple hours of Everybody Loves Raymond together, remembering his aunt who really liked the series. That night we had a take and bake pizza, which was really good and might now be a regular thing we get when we stay over. Later that night we watched some of our Disney vacation video, particularly day 3 and day 4.

Saturday and Sunday were pretty chill. We brought all the stuff home, unloaded, and on Sunday we "raided the giving tree" gathering tags that match the things I bought. After mass we pulled together a majority of our items matching to tags, and then took them to church. We we found a home for most of the stuff, now we just need to find a toys for tots collection so I can drop off the rest of the toys. We also got a tag for a stuffed animal, so mskate is going to get the largest stuffed animal in the give away supply at her parents house when she sees them next (which is the next week). We also got a thing for playdoh, and while I didn't get playdoh at black friday we had a bunch of small playdoh for the easter egg fundraiser so we just got 4 things of that and got a little playdoh stocking stuffer toy at Target to round it out. We also got a poster board for our Christmas movie marathon, so that was good. That was Thanksgiving and Black Friday this year. Kind of different from previous years, so that was alright. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

An Anniversary at Disneyland

2025-11-17T13:41:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, mskate and I have our 5 year anniversary this month and we wanted to do something special. We've both been to Disneyworld in Orlando many times, but mskate had only been to Disneyland Anaheim once and I have never been. Mskate is a major Disney vacation fan and loves to do all the planning. We were going to go over our actual anniversary but our anniversary falls during Disney Christmas, which like doubled the price of the tickets, so we ended up going right between Halloween and Christmas, which was significantly cheaper. She also looked into the Disneyland hotels, but they were significantly more expensive than the "good neighbor hotels" (local hotels that partner Disney) and since Disneyland is far more condensed than Disneyworld it's much easier to stay at the good neighbor hotels since they're all within walking distance. For the past many months we had been saving up gift cards from family and minor discounts from BJs. We packed up everything in 2 carry on backs and back packs, which saved a fair amount of money on checked bags. Yay. Mskate did a lot of planning of things to do, and one of the things that was pretty cool is the characters just kind of walk around, and there are a lot more. There is also this "key to Disneyland" thing, where if you put your key into 10 different key holes throughout the lands, collect lights for the lands on the key, and you get a special mystery pin at the end, and this was something that I thought was really cool and I wanted to do.

First day was the travel day. We loaded up the van and got to the airport. No real difficulty there. The TSA wasn't that big of a deal (unlike the next time, which you'll see at the end). We got on the plane and watched some movies. I watched Karate Kid Legacy, Smurfs 2025, and Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind. Karate Kid was really good, merging the original with the Jackie Chan-Jaden Smith reboot. I need to review it. We got an uber and went to our motel, the Castle Inn and Suits. It was a pretty nice motel, lots and lots of theming to medieval castles. There were lion statues on the entry, a suit of armor in the lobby, a stained glass window, turret tower style stairs, and such. There was also an outdoor pool with a hot tub and kiddie pool, so that's great for all the toddlers. We got this motel with a good neighbor package that included a pin trading lanyard and discounts on some vendors at Downtown Disney, but the main thing was the lightning lane fast pass and professional photo pass.

We unpacked everything and got set for the trip, and then went to the local stores to get some stuff we didn't bring. Something really cool about Disneyland is that it's "in the middle of a city," with like actual stores and restaurants close by, unlike Disneyworld which is "the parks and hotels separated by large sections of empty undeveloped land." One thing I forgot was my sunglasses; when I got in the terminal I realized I forgot my sunglasses in the car, which is kind of a problem because my eyes are sensitive to light. We walked a block to the "souvenir store" (it just said "souvenirs and sunglasses"), and I bought myself a $10 pair of sunglasses. Normally I wear cheap plastic sun glasses that we get as booth swag, but this trip I wore sun glasses with a metal frame and either glass or acrylic lenses. After the souvenir and sunglass store we walked another block to the Walgreens on the corner. We picked up juice boxes for mskate's diabetes, distilled water for mskate's cpap, diet coke, small bottles of wine, and stick sunscreen because lotion gives me sensory problems. That was really convenient. We went back to the room and dropped off our stuff, and did a little extra unpacking and sorting.

Now for the first "real trip thing." We were kind of hungry so we went down to Downtown Disney to explore the area and get lunch-dinner at one of the Disney hotels. It was super weird "just walking to Disney from a non-resort hotel;" like, Disney Contemporary and Disney Polynesian are within walking distance to Magic Kingdom, and Animal Kingdom Lodge is within walking distance to Animal Kingdom, but every other hotel requires transportation to get to, especially the good neighbor like Swan and Dolphin. However, we just walked like a quarter mile down the street and we were at one entrance to "Disney Way." Then with Disney there's a security checkpoint and after that you can choose Disneyland, Disney's California Adventure, or Downtown Disney. It was pretty similar to Universal Studios in Orlando in my opinion. We walked past the park entrances and went to Downtown Disney. We took note of where the churro stand we got a discount was and where the wetzels pretzels where we also got a discount was. One thing that was kind of cool is throughout the downtown area were these signs saying "Disneyland 70th Birthday" with different characters. We also got our lanyard from the pin trader stand.

After walking the whole of Downtown Disney we went to The Disneyland Hotel for our meal. It was right outside Downtown Disney, which was pretty neat and convenient. When I say "right outside," I mean literally "here is the edge of the resort building, an exit from the outside walk ways" and then in less than 100 feet "here is the security check point for Downtown Disney." Even with the Disneyworld hotels that neighbor the parks require a fair bit of walking. We went to the quick service at Disneyland Hotel, Tangaroa Terrace. TT is a Hawaiian themed restaurant, where I had a Hawaiian "platter" with brazed short rib and sides and mskate had a chicken and rice bowl. I use sarcasm quotes because it wasn't exactly big; 2 chunks of meat, about 2/3 cup of rice, steamed vegetables, and grilled bok choy. It was really good, like the meat was exceptional and the vegetables were cooked to the way I like, but for $25 it was kind of not much; like $15-$20 would be more reasonable in my opinion. Mskate liked hers as well. After our meal we went to the front desk of the hotel and got our free celebration buttons. Mskate and I each got an anniversary button where the front desk said "5 magical ears," and I got a first visit button. I also asked about the find the resort character button and the front desk clerk didn't know what I was talking about, so I explained what they do in Disneyworld and she said "that's so cool, I wish we did something like that." Dang, I wanted to fill the strap on my camera bag with buttons like I did at Disneyworld, but unfortunately it was just my celebration buttons. After the buttons we went to the hotel gift shop and hotel cafe to do a little shopping. We got mom-in-law her coffee present since she loves Disney coffee. We also got some pressed pennies and the 70 year penny book for the collection. It was a good way to finish off the little trip.

After the hotel we went to Downtown Disney to do the shopping. Downtown Disney has some weird stores. I guess Disney Springs in Orlando does too, but I just found it odd that there was an entire store for Pele the soccer guy. We went to a fancy card store where they do pop-up cards and such, and mskate got a card for her college friend since she gave her a card from the store once and we had a discount for it. We also went to the world of Disney store where we got some pressed pennies and medallions. We were going to get my key to Disneyland here, but then the cashier told me about how they were selling the old revision and that if I wanted the new pin I would have to buy inside the park, so we put it back and said "we'll get it tomorrow." We also went to a Disney Home store, where they sell things like kitchen stuff. We checked out the candy store where I hoped to get a cool candy tin since I kind of collect them, but alas they didn't; there were some tins but they were all really big and I like the little pocket size tins. We also went to the lego store, which was a pretty standard lego store, except for the Disney themed murals. I bought a pretzel to have later for dinner in the motel room. On our way back we stopped at cold stone for desert. I had vanilla with heath and a kitkat, and mskate had vanilla with sprinkles. The rest of the night was just calm, getting ready for the following day and dealing with the plane ride. Later in the evening I had my pretzel and one of my ramen bricks for dinner (because I brought ramen for saving money on food).

Here's the vlog I cut together so you can see everything as well.

Now it's day 2, our day at Disneyland park. We woke up pretty early, like 5AM since that was 8AM home time and we went to bed at like 9PM local/midnight home (this is going to be a bit of a running theme). I had a cup of pancakes that I brought from home. We went in about an hour early since we could go into main street and buy things before going into the main park. We had a small problem with the magic bands so mskate went to customer service to get it sorted out. While she was waiting I walked around the front of the park to see what kind of things we could get into (because about half the stores were closed, only opening once the park opens at 8AM) and found the first place to do the key, the fire station. I also came across a locked memory, The Disneyland Main Street Magic Shop shorts on The Disney Channel back when I was a toddler at my grandparents house. Between episodes there would be a little short where a magician would do a magic trick at the Main Street Magic Shop in Disneyland. I took some pictures of it because this was so cool. Mskate got the magic band sorted out, so we were ready for use with the lightning lane and photo pass. I also bought my key, so that was good, but we decided to save the fire house key hole for when we were going back to take our break. We walked around main street to see what kind of things we could find, and there was this theater where they were showing a Disney plus special about the brothers who wrote the Small World song. It was in a little theater thing where they showed it on 6 different screens, and there was a ticket booth where if you scan your magic band you get a ticket souvenir (which we did and I stored them at the bottom of my camera bag, like all the small souvenirs we acquire on our vacations). We also found that they had real US post office mail boxes in the park, so we had the idea to buy post cards and send them to family from inside the park.

The park had now opened, and we were at the front of the park. One thing that was really cool is that right when the park opened officially Micky in his 70th outfit came out to main street as there was a small parade of vehicles. We weren't really planning on trying to get a picture with Micky since we've gotten loads of pictures with him, but there was basically no line so we got in and met him. I like to play with the characters and Micky is always so extra animated, so I was waving my arms and doing poses while talking to him, saying like "you're always so animated, so I'm going to be animated too." He thought it was funny and did the laugh gesture. I also asked the handler where the pickle cart was so I could get the pickle button, and she said they didn't do that, so mskate must have gotten some bad information. Oh well. I got some pressed pennies and color Christmas medallions at one of the stores as we were going in. While walking down main street after things opened we found the Main Street Penny Arcade. I assumed it was just a store with the old timey theming, but there were like actual penny arcade machines in there that for the price of a quarter would play. I would have maybe done that, but I could get penny arcade things at Marvin's, so we just made our way into the rides part of the park.

We started with fantasy land after going through Sleeping Beauty's castle to Fantasyland. I kept calling it Cinderella's castle since I'm so used to that in Disneyworld, but that was wrong. After getting through we did the walk on ride Pinocchio's Daring Journey. It was a fun dark ride that went through the story of Pinocchio. Right after Pinocchio we ran into Peter Pan who was just walking around by the castle. We went to him and had him sign our autograph book and get our picture with him. I asked if he knew how to write his name and if he went to Neverland after learning that. He said "actually Wendy taught me how to read and write, she said if I would be walking around Disneyland I should work on my...pen-man-ship if that's the word. Wendy likes the big words." Great little bit of character immersion. It was getting close to time for our first fast pass, Indiana Jones Adventure in neighboring Adventureland. But first, there was a magic band thing at the castle where you scan your magic band and a little cut out animation thing plays behind shields. It was cool. Indiana Jones is one of those rides where the vehicle rocks around as it takes you through a story, very similar to Dinosaur in Animal Kingdom, but that ride is completely dark so the fact that the track is flat is much better hidden than here where it's pretty light. After the ride I got some pressed pennies and did my first key hole for Adventureland. It was pretty cool, the key lights up and makes noises, and the key hole plays some sounds and either blows bubbles or projects lights. This one projected lights.

Next we went to New Orleans Square where we were going to ride our 2nd fast pass, The Haunted Mansion Holiday Retheme, but first mskate did the New Orleans Square key hole. This one blew bubbles, BUBBLES! So funny story, on my first trip to Disney World when I was 6 I went on the Haunted Mansion "because it's not that scary, it's just fun optical illusions," but it was really scary and I was mildly scarred from it and refused to ride it since. Since this was Nightmare Before Christmas rethemed I was like "OK I'll do it." It was pretty good, Nightmare isn't a scary movie, so all the retheme was the fun of Jack Skellington and wanted to be funny and not scary. IRA loves Nightmare Before Christmas, and he would have absolutely loved this. I took video so he'll be able to watch it later. After Haunted Mansion we went to Bayou Country where we rode The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh. It's a dark ride that goes through the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh movie. It was kind of the same as the one in Disneyworld, but it was still fun to ride. We were going to meet the Winnie the Pooh characters, but they weren't coming out for another hour. After the ride we did the Bayou Country key hole where mskate did it and it was Winnie the Pooh themed where it projected lights that were bees, and the light on the key was a honey pot. We then walked our way through Star Wars Galaxy Edge to get our key hole. Galaxy's Edge is kind of lame; it has 2 rides with only 1 that's really worth it (Rise of the Resistance is pretty cool, but Smugglers Run is lame), and then it's themed after a planet that isn't even in a movie. Even the key hole was kind of lame. Every other key hole was projected lights or bubbles, but this just made a screen playing static show millennium falcon blue prints.

After Galaxy's Edge we went to Frontierland where mskate did the key hole that was right by the entrance to Galaxy's Edge. This was a stage coach and when the key was inserted bubbles came out of the barrel labeled soap. Frontierland was pretty close to Fantasyland, and Snow White's Enchanted Wish was a walk on and we had time before our fast pass in Toon Town, so we rode that. It's a fun dark ride that takes you through the story of Snow White. As we were going to Toon Town, we ran into Gaston. This was kind of my big event. I have been trying to get a picture with Gaston as I give him an egg for years, but I never got the chance. Well, now's my chance, I pull out my plastic egg and get my picture with him with it. I said "I've been trying to get my picture with you with an egg for years, but I always miss you." He said "yes, today I ate 5 dozen and 1 eggs." It was fun.

Now we go to Micky's Toon Town. Our fast pass was for Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin, but we had some time for the ride. As we were walking to Toon Town we saw some toys that IRA would be interested in. We also found a pop corn cart, and mskate really likes Disney pop corn, and at Disneyworld you can get paid refills for life if you bring your popcorn bucket, so we brought our Disneyworld popcorn bucket to get refills. Unfortunately they don't do refills at Disneyland. At first I thought maybe it was just the bucket since they were selling buckets like what we had, so I asked if I buy a new one will we get refills and she said no. Dang, the popcorn is a great deal at Disneyworld. Toon Town was really cool. The back drop is like a background of a sky that fades into the real sky, which was really cool. I did the key before the ride, it gave out bubbles and sounded like cartoon sound effects. Roger Rabbit was really fun. It's a dark ride that takes you through a unique story in the Roger Rabbit universe, basically just going through crazy situations, and the queue is the production of dip (the substance that kills toons). After the ride we went to some shopping to see what kind of things might be interesting, and we found a shirt for my mom. I guess now's as good a time as any to mention, but I forgot our $500+ gift card at the room, so we were just taking note of where we wanted to buy things later after the break (except for my key, we didn't want to back track over the whole park and carry it around at the end of the day). Anyway, onto the next land.

Our next land was Tomorrowland, where our next ride was Space Mountain. On our way there I got some pressed pennies and mskate met Geppetto. After Geppetto we met Pinocchio. He pointed at my anniversary button and I told him "actually, it's my 10th anniversary" and then gestured that my nose grew. The handler liked that, and mskate got a picture of me gesturing that my nose was growing. Space Mountain is a very iconic ride in both Disneyland and Disneyworld. The rides are very different though, like this ride train is a double seat train instead of a single seat train. It was really fun. After Space Mountain we went to Pizza Planet for lunch. Here's the thing, I knew it wasn't going to be great, but when I was little I loved Toy Story and Pizza Planet was so cool, and when I went to Disneyworld Pizza Planet I was too young to REALLY remember it (but do remember it was like a real arcade but wasn't able to really play it "because we were already paying a lot to be here and we can play arcade games at home," which was true but "it was pizza planet like in the movie I love"). I don't remember a lot from Disneyworld Pizza Planet, but I do remember them having a real claw machine for LGM stuffed animals. Before we went in I took video of the outside like my grandpa did when I was little, but for some reason he didn't film the inside. The inside was...well...REALLY uninspired. In the movie Pizza Planet is an arcade, like chuck e cheese, but this was just a place that was selling pizza. There was theming for planets and the LGMs going to different topping planets, but it wasn't anything like the movie. The pizza was also quite mid. Oh well.

After lunch we went to meet Tinkerbell. She did a meet and greet at Pixie Hallow, her own little place to meet people. It had some really good theming, looked like we down to her size and such. Since this was a dedicated meet and greet we were hoping this would be a place for photo pass, but for some reason it wasn't. The handlers agreed that this should be a photo pass location, but not their call. Tinkerbell was really fun, very expressive. She asked how we were doing and what we've been doing, and I said "we saw Peter Pan earlier." Her face then lit up "you saw Peter, that's so great, how's he doing?" because in the movie she was in love with Peter, and then I told her how Peter said that Wendy taught him how to write and then she started pouting because she's jealous of Wendy. Really fun. Afterwards we walked out to the front of the castle since Pixie Hallow was right by the castle, and we were going to try to get photo pass photos in front of the castle, but unfortunately for us there was a show going on. It was pretty cool, it was a marching band with the fab 5 dancing with the music. We did get our picture in front of the statue of Walt and Micky, so that was good. After that we went back to toon town since our fast pass for Micky's Runaway Railway was coming up, and before then we went to meet Clarabelle Cow since her line wasn't long (unlike Micky and Minnie). We also looked around toon town some, but nothing else of interest. Runaway Railway was pretty cool, the queue had all kinds of posters for different shorts, from Silly Symphonies to the modern Micky shorts that the ride was based on. We watched the opening short, entered the cartoon screen, and got in line for the main ride. Unfortunately for us, the ride broke down, like really bad, and they kicked us out and gave us a free fast pass multi-pass. We had already set-up our fast pass for the Matterhorn right after we got through the line, so we went over to the ride. I kept making jokes about Fairly Oddparents and how "it was the only adults matter horn." Mskate also kept talking about how when her mom rode it she lost her glasses. This is a ride with a little bit of water, and I don't like water rides outside of a water park. I had mskate sit up front so I wouldn't get wet. Other than the potential for getting wet, it was a pretty fun ride. Really fast, lots of twists and turns going really fast. Neither of us lost anything on the ride, so yay.

I'm not exactly sure of when this happened, but I think it was around this time. We were walking by the castle and we saw Anna. We just followed her as did a mob of kids. It was kind of funny, we saw her and went to her, and then other kids saw us and her and joined in, and she's all "oh hello friends, let's just go with this," and then when it was our turn she had to tell a girl "I'll be with you but I need to see another friend" and then she was a little thrown off by 2 millennials just having fun, but since she was also a young millennial or old zoomer she seemed to appreciate being able to look in the eyes of the guest without having to crouch down, and not having the guest get grabby, or it was just being able to interact with a happy adult instead of an exhausted parent (or it was just acting). Fun little interaction.

After the Matterhorn we finished up our key before our break, or so we thought. We went up to the front of the park and did the key hole at the fire station, which was a fun thing with bubbles. We then went to the front where they had the final key to unlock the door on the key to get the pin. Well, we did the key and it blew bubbles, but the key wasn't opening. I took it to a place selling the keys and they said we missed one. It was in like fantasy land, somehow we missed it. We went back into the park to find the final key hole, and then went back and did the actual ending. We got a cool pin, it was all sparkly and was a Disney D. I was hoping to get the one with the key, but oh well. Around this time I also went into the Main Street Magic Shop and it was actually a place that sells magic tricks, so that's cool. Also as we were walking out Minnie in her 70th outfit was taking pictures and we got there before the line took up. We weren't planning on doing so, but when presented with the opportunity we took it. After that we went back to the motel and took an hour break (just hanging out at the motel and watching youtube and TV). It was also when we dropped off our key and picked up our gift card.

When we got back to the park there was another marching band performance, this time right at the front of the park. Pretty fun, and we were going to ride the train so we watched it while walking up the train stairs. The train took us to New Orleans Square, and it was a fun little ride, and I saw some backstage. The first big ride we did was Big Thunder Mountain (which meant some walking since that's in frontier land), a roller coaster with some story, and a new goat (which was a big deal for the big fans). Then since Mirabel meet and greet was close and almost time, we met her. I told her to tell Lucena I know the pain of people just piling responsibilities on me, she said "yes I will." The funny thing is afterwards we showed IRA our picture and he was like "the actress is so old" and I'm like "yeah dude, they're not going to have an actual child play a character in the park," and he was like "oh yeah, that's a good point." We then went back to New Orleans Square to use our multi-pass to ride Pirates of the Caribbean. The cast member monitoring the line said "our line is so short, just go in and save the multi-pass for something else," so that was a little bit of "pixie dusting" as they say. It was pretty fun comparing it to Disney, with this one being like "more constrained" and there being a rather big drop (not huge, but noticeable and worth talking about). I held my camera up high just in case. There were also more skeletons from what I remember in Disneyworld. Great ride. After Pirates we did the Swiss Family Robinson tree house; it's just a little walk through thing, with a lot of water powered contraptions. We also saw Jack Skellington walking to his location, which was fun. He has this very floaty walk, which is very in character. We then had dinner at Bengal Barbecue. We had some meat skewers with different sauces, really good, except they ran out of rice. Mskate's diabetes also went low while we were having dinner because she was kind of counting on the rice to stabilize her glucose, so I explained the situation to the cashier and they gave her a cup of sprite. Great customer service right there. While mskate was waiting for the food I met Jack Sparrow. I commented on his rings and showed him mine, he said "how about I trade you none of mine for all of yours, how does that sound?" and I said "that sounds like a pirate deal."

After dinner we went to do Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster. It's one of those target shooting rides, where you fire the laser at the Z targets. I did quite well, scoring 81,500 points at a level 3, while mskate got 4,300 for only a level 2. It was basically the same ride as Disneyworld, but this time the guns aren't on a fixed pivot on the ride vehicle and instead are handheld tethered to a wire. After that we did Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, it used to be 20,000 leagues under the sea but now is Finding Nemo themed. It was pretty cool, the way the ride vehicle worked reminded me of the semi-sub I rode in Mexico. The bubble effects to simulate diving and surfacing was pretty cool, and and then it was all about the theming of Nemo characters showing up in the coral reef, with Darla snorkeling. After this we went to the Sleeping Beauty castle walk through, which is where you just walk through a hall in the castle that tells the story of Sleeping Beauty. Pretty neat.

Now for the big ending event, Paint the Night light parade. There was about an hour before the parade started, but camping out for an hour was the only way to get a good seat, and even with an hour before the parade there were not many open spaces. We were able to find a place on the curb though, right next to a light post (which was nice to lean against). Mskate and I took turns securing the spot, I did a little walking around main street and went to the bathroom, and mskate went to the Marry Poppins restaurant and got a gluten free raspberry macaroon in a micky shape. I had a bite and it was pretty good. While we were waiting we just watched videos on our phones. We were right outside the Starbucks and someone spilled their coffee, which was getting to us. We still had our spots and someone came out to clean it up. The parade was really cool. People were dancing in light up costumes; fairies, tron guys, cars, jellyfish, cowboys, and others. Then there were parade floats with characters; Sully, Woody and Buzz, Little Mermaid, and others. Then one that was pretty cool is that Lightning McQueen came driving by, followed by Mac with lights showing up with things playing on his side. Also music that matches the characters that were walking. I recorded the whole parade, and my video camera died with like 3 minutes left in the parade, so I pulled out my phone and recorded on that. It was actually at a pretty good time, there was a break in the floats so it was a good time to transition. While I was recording I zoomed in too far as an in joke to family videos. When we went to Disney when I was a kid my grandpa recorded the light parade, but it was super zoomed in and you couldn't tell anything in it, because he wasn't great at understanding how zoom works. Then at the end the fab 5 were driving around on little ball carts all lit up, with Micky in his sorcerers outfit waving to everyone. Afterwards we wanted to ride the monorail out of the park since the monorail goes inside to outside the park, but they were closed for some reason. We went back to the motel and just went to bed.

Here's the vlog I made for it.

Day 3 was a rest day with some resort exploration. I had a pancake cup for breakfast. We went to Pixar Place as our first stop. We went through Downtown Disney to get to it, and when we went through we did a penny press in Downtown Disney, and someone left 3 pennies in the machine so instead of spending $4 to get all 4 I only needed to spend $1 to get the missing penny. Pixar Place was pretty cool, lots of Pixar stuff with Luxo on the Pixar ball. The hotel was really cool. They had wire frame renders of characters on the wall (like Mr. Incredible) and then they had murals on the wall with concept art of the movies (like Luka), and clay reference models of the characters that are regularly seen in bonus features of Pixar movies (like Monsters Inc). In the middle of the lobby there was a statue of Luxo Lamp jumping on the Pixar Ball, really cool. We went to the Sketch Pad Cafe, the quick service restaurant at the hotel, where mskate got breakfast, an egg thing with breakfast meats. The restaurant was pretty cool, the wall was full of concept art sketches of different Pixar characters, really cool. After breakfast we met bingbong, who unfortunately didn't sign autographs. I asked the handler if this was because he was imagined before Riley could read and write, and she said "yes that's right, you must be a Disney adult," yes but I'm not one of the bad ones (I just know my childhood), and if I'm going to go on a Disney vacation I'm going to get into it.

After Bingbonb we explored the 30 years of Toy Story displays, because apparently Toy Story is 30 years old now. This was really cool, because as I said earlier, I was a major Toy Story fan when I was little. The first bit was a modeling chocolate display of toy blocks spelling out "toy story" with different toys on the 1st floor outside the cafe. The 2nd story was where it got really cool. They had concept paintings, story boards, early concepts of Buzz and Woody (back when he was a ventriloquist dummy), a model sheet of how Bopeeps cape works in Toy Story 4, and others. Really cool. There were character names on doors so maybe there's a meet and greet we didn't get to experience. We explored the 2nd floor some more, and saw some more clay models, which was cool.

We then explored the pool deck. There was a pixar ball on the astroturf section, which was fun, and then there were "pool deck activities" like shuffleboard and "follow the path" boards that had some pixar theming after the shorts. The snack bar had mozayic pictures of characters in the wall, which was neat, and by the pool deck they had fire pits that were the heads of different characters that are fire (Anger from Inside Out, Jack Jack from Incredibles, and Ember from Elemental), that was fun. Then the slide theme was Crush the turtle from Finding Nemo. It was a pretty cool hotel.

After Pixar Place we went to The Grand Californian, sort of. We left from Pixar Place and walked to the Grand Californian "from main street," but there was a guard that only let hotel customers in, which was a problem for us since we weren't guests there. Not a big problem though, we went to the hotel from inside Downtown Disney. It was a pretty cool lodge style hotel with rustic like chairs and fire place, similar to Fort Wilderness. We just hung out there a little, sitting in the chairs, and looking to find the restaurant we were going to eat at that night. Nothing super exciting, but it looked cool. Afterwards we walked around Downtown Disney some more. Mskate was going to get her Disneyland Starbucks mug at Downtown Disney since she didn't get it in the park, but didn't since it was really crowded and "I'll just get it at Downtown Disney," but that didn't end up working, dang. While we were out I got a churro with our discount, and here's my food review. We then went back to the motel and just watched TV and youtube, mskate probably watched some skating since that's her thing.

Now it's evening, and we went to Storytellers Cafe at Grand Californian for our character buffet anniversary dinner at. First, the atmosphere. It was based on reading stories and telling stories with books coming to life. There were silhouettes of people reading books and deer, murrels of children reading books, a mosaic of someone reading, books on posts, all cool. Since it was Grand Californian there was a rustic theme, but that was kind of it. Second, the food. Oh man, was it great. There were cookies and pumpkin pudding, tarts, pizzas, fancy dinner rolls, popcorn shrimp, french fries (the fancy kind with the crispy breading), macaroni, lobster ravioli (at least that's what I said in the video), prime rib, carved turkey, grilled vegetables, beef brisket, salmon, braised pork belly, salad, shrimp cocktail, and charcutier (the meat and cheese plate thing). I got brisket, pork belly, prime rib, and fries to start. After that plate I got more prime rib and fries, and some Brussel sprouts from the grilled vegetable pan. I got another plate and asked the carver for the thinnest piece of prime rib he could give me since I was nearing my end, and he enthusiastically said "yes I can, sharpen my carving knife, here's a real thin piece how about that," and I said "that's perfect." I then had some tarts. Mskate had a gluten free pizza and some of the meats, and some deserts.

Now for the main reason one does a character meal, characters. These were Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Pluto, and Clarabelle Cow, all dressed in camping/adventure stuff. They all came to our table and had a little interaction with us. Daisy was happy to take pictures with us, and she did her eye lashes in my camera view finder. Goofy enjoyed my impression of him. Donald liked my Donald laugh. All fun. Then there was the dance party where they all started dancing around the restaurant with a song, and Goofy kept falling behind. Great fun. We got buttons from the restaurant for the dinner, so I was able to get something for the camera strap. After dinner we just hung out in the lobby of the hotel until it was time for our next thing. I talked some with some other travelers, just a little "where are you from, yeah it's so warm here."

It's now evening and time for our meet up with friends. Mskate has an old friend from skating that got diabetes first that works for Disneyland, and she has a little 2 year old son that shares a birthday with mom-in-law. Mom-in-law bought a little present for him, and we gave it to them when we saw them. They were getting ice cream at one of the ice cream parlors at Downtown Disney, and we would have partaken too but we were very full from our buffet dinner. We had a lot of fun just walking around Downtown Disney with them and having some fun with their son. He was a little shy around us initially (the last time we saw him was his 1 year old birthday party last year), but he warmed up when he saw mom and dad liked us and we were fun people; mskate gets to his level and I could do character voices (he really liked Donald). We went to World of Disney and he liked looking at the toys. We also went to a home goods store where we got my aunt a soap dispenser. We went to the candy store where the little guy liked watching the train in the display. Mskate enjoyed catching up with her friend, and the husband and I enjoyed each other's company getting to know each other. The husband has a full head of hair, and the rest of his relatives on his moms side at least have hair too, so I showed the boy my bald head at one point. I was like "wanna see something funny, (takes off hat), I don't have much hair on my head." He giggled. At one point in the evening we were just sitting out by the fountains and some ducks came up to us. I got a picture with them, really close to them. A funny thing is the boy tried to feed mskate one of his goldfish crackers, and that was a bit of a problem since mskate is gluten intolerant. It was funny and cute though. After about 2 hours together we went our separate ways and went back to the motel.

Here's the companion vlog

Day 4, our day at California Adventures. We picked up post cards from one of the stores and bought stamps from our motel to mail to my mom and grandma figure from inside the park, because that would be cool. We were able to get inside the park about 30 minutes before rope drop, and we mailed our post cards first thing in the day. We got as close to radiator springs as we could because we wanted to ride Radiator Springs Racers (the big ride of the park that requires it's own fast pass), but unfortunately it broke down so we went to Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, a ride like Alien Swirling Saucers where it goes around in circles and swings you back and forth. This one's themed is Mater and the trackers, and there was a bunch of junk yard stuff to feed into it. It's a fun ride, and I think this one did more swinging than Alien Swirling Saucers. One of the funniest things for me is the safety instructions; Mater gives the instructions in English and then because Disney always repeats the instructions in Spanish Mater said it again in Spanish, which was just a funny sound since Larry the Cable Guy/Mater is like "perfect redneck sound" that is not really associated with Spanish. The second ride was Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters, themed after Luigi's tires. This was pretty cool, it's a trackless ride where you sit in a car and then dance with other cars. Like, if you know line dancing and square dancing and ballroom dancing, where there's structure with who dances with whom and where people stand and line up, that was it. I think there were 4 different songs and they all have difference routines, which is cool since it gives reason to ride again. We only rode once though, but it was still really cool. After the ride we spent some time looking around Radiator Springs, which was like walking into the movie. There was Sarge's bunker, Flow's V8 Cafe, Luigi's Tires (which was the ride), the Cozy Cones (which were different food stands that were all cone themed), the firehouse, and the single blinking traffic light.

We had to go to our first fast pass now, Increadicoaster at Pixar Pier. Pixar Pier wasn't too far from Radiator Springs. Pixar Pier was all themed after an ocean pier amusement park, which was really fun. There was a Mr. Incredible meet and greet but we already met him at friends for life so we decided no. There was also a food stand with Abominable Snowman lemon snow cones. I kind of wanted to get one but I decided to pass. Increadicoaster was really fun. It's a fast running roller coaster that has just enough time to see the theming of Incredibles as they're chasing after Jack Jack. Great ride. After the ride mskate got a Jack Jack cookie since they had a gluten free cookie, which was quite good. We walked by Jessie's Critter Carousell since that's for babies, and went to the midway games. This was pretty neat, because I don't think Disney has midway games anywhere else (maybe Animal Kingdom Dinosaur Land). We did a "fish out the star" game, where it was winner every time, and we got a small prize star that said "Pixar Pier." The star is from some short we don't recognize, but that's OK. The interesting thing is that to play it one has to buy a token for $5, and the token has different Pixar characters on it while encouraging you to collect all 4. I have a pretty good size token collection, and I would have definitely tried to get some, but it was a bit too rich for my blood to try to collect them for something I'll just throw in my coin pusher (which is a real arcade machine, yeah I'm just eccentric like that). There were some other games that looked interesting, but they were "you could lose" games or "need multiple people" games. There was also a giant granite Pixar ball on a fountain thing, which was neat. After the midway games we went to Bingbong's gift shop where I got some pennies and medallions, and mskate did some souvenir shopping. The last thing we did on Pixar Pier was emotional whirlwind, a ride where it picks you up in a bucket and spins around. Just a simple fun ride that used to be themed after Bugs Life. The funny thing is the emotions narrate the ride. Before moving onto the next land, we did the Little Mermaid dark ride, where it just kind of takes you through the story of little mermaid with animatronics. They cover going into the water with a decent and lights, part of your world, under the sea, Ursala's plot and Ariel's transformation, Kiss the girl, Ariel's kiss, and the happily ever after. The funny thing is animatronics are a little awkward looking.

Our next fast pass was the Monster's Inc ride, which was on the other side of the park. As we were walking we stopped at an animation thing with turtle talk with Crush and a learn to draw thing. We just looked, didn't do much. It was pretty cool, lots of animated movie clips around the wall. We then got to Hollywood Land, which was somewhat immersive, there was a theater marquee, which was alright. The main thing though was Monster's Inc Mike and Sully To The Rescue. There's a funny thing with this, it was once Superstar Limo, a really terrible dark ride where a bunch of poorly designed celebrities wave to you as you drive through Hollywood to get to your movie premier. The reason the ride was so terrible is because it was originally a roller coaster where you're a celebrity trying to outrun the paparazzi, but then they had to completely change it after Princess Diana was in a fatal car accident for kind of the same thing. Disney were able to change it to Monster's Inc themed while keeping the same ride track, and even keep some animatronics by just putting them in CDA outfits. When I got on the ride I told the cast member "I'm looking forward to riding Superstar Limo" and she was like "oh man Superstar Limo, I was there for it, that was so bad." The ride was pretty fun, it's the general story of Monsters Inc retold with animatronics. I do recommend. The ride queue was also really neat, like walking into the Monsters Inc scream factory.

On our way to the next ride we went through Avengers Campus. Our ride wasn't in the campus, but we were going through it anyway. While we were there we ran into Starlord from Guardians of the Galaxy. He wasn't someone we were really interested in meeting, but he didn't have a line so we decided why not. I showed him my video camera while pointing at his walkman and said "I use old technology too" and he thought that was kind of funny. He asked who mskate was and I said "she is my Gamora" and he liked the reference. He signed our autograph book, and when Groot came out I asked for him to sign but then Starlord jumped in and said "oh no, he doesn't sign after learning what paper is made of," so that was some fun explanation since that's a Starlord thing to do, didn't need the handler to do it. After them we ran into Black Widow who also wasn't a "need to see but she had no line" character. Since her thing is hand to hand combat and acrobatic fighting, I showed her how I can stand on one foot prepping to kick. We took a picture in an Avengers fighting stance, and then I posed standing on one foot ready to karate kick and she did an impressed pose. Afterwards she said "you need to talk to my dad, he could probably use your talent."

Now for our ride, Radiator Springs Racer. It was like an 80 minute wait, but mskate wanted to splurge on our anniversary vacation and since this is "the main ride at this park" we bought the individual fast pass. The ride was...good. It was basically the test track ride system of sitting in a car that moves you really fast, taking you through the story of cars to an extent as you train for the big race, and then at the end of the ride you race against another ride vehicle. It wasn't too high thrill and I was able to record it, but that's because I have a hand strap. There were also some neat animatronics with projected faces that were pretty well blended with the robot body. However, it was only like a 4 minute ride, and it was $20 for the fast pass. I wouldn't say it was necessarily worth it, but it was good to say we did it and not regret not doing it since we weren't about to wait in line for 1-2 hours. Since we were in Radiator Springs we looked around the land some more, taking in the Cozy Cones. One sold churros, one sold ice cream, one sold chili con queso, one sold frozen drinks, and one sold popcorn. We bought a post card for IRA we would send through the mailbox at Radiator Springs. We also got our picture with Lightning Mcqueen. There was a meet and greet where you could get your picture with Lightning or Mater (depending on who was out), and it's a full size car with an animated face that says things. He wished us a happy anniversary when the handler said it was.

After Radiator Springs we went to San Fransokyo Square. There wasn't much to do there, but we did get a Hiro and Baymax medallion. We could have met Hiro and Baymax, but they weren't out. The only thing to really do there was the bakery walk through tour. It was pretty cool, they make sourdough bread, and it is actually a bakery that makes the bread bowls for one of the restaurants. I like factory line kind of things, watching how things are made, and this was one of them. There was also a lot of trivia around the bakery about the bakery and sourdough bread. They also gave out samples of the bread, and it was great. Really fun. Afterwards we did a photopass with the front of Radiator Springs since it was close to the land and there wasn't a line. While we were in line mskate found a little Jesus figure someone hid for people to find. One of her church friends does the same thing around where we live, it's "drop item evangelization."

Our next ride was Tower of Terror, I mean Guardians of the Galaxy Mission Breakout. It's still a drop ride with a story, and I was a little uncertain about retheme to an acquired property that is a retrofit to a ride that's very specifically about a haunted hotel, but it was actually really well done. I've never ridden Tower of Terror in Disneyland (because I had never been before now) but I have in Disneyworld, and I really enjoy it and the whole Twilight Zone thing. This though, it was actually really good. The story is that the Guardians are in prison and Rocket is going to break them out, and he needs your help because you got security clearance and can open the cells. Unlike the pre-show video for Tower of Terror which is just the exposition dump played on a console TV on the wall with a cast member giving you instructions at the end, this is an animatronic Rocket interrupting a training video and then telling you what to do on the screen as he crawls around in the rafters. That's...pretty cool. Then the main ride, you go up the elevator and it jumps you around different floors as you watch the fight scene of the Guardians breaking out. That's also really cool since there's more story and interaction, instead of "just falling down the elevator shaft" in Tower of Terror. There was also a lot of different movie stuff in the queue, which was kind of neat, instead of "just walking into an abandoned haunted hotel." And at the end of the ride there was a dog crate for service dogs, that had one of the characters on it (that I don't recognize).

After the ride we went to Pyms Test Kitchen for lunch. The story here is the lab from AntMan makes normal foods really big or really small. There's a sandwich with a giant chicken finger, a taco salad that's served in a large taco shell, and a giant Bavarian pretzel with cheese (which is what I got). Mskate got a kids meal peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a cuttie orange (which was all small). The line for the restaurant was kind of neat, there was a conveyor chain that brought normal sized soft pretzels into a machine, the machine either enlarged or shrunk the pretzel, and then out came a big pretzel or small pretzel. Then at the drink and condiment station, there were giant bottles of ketchup and mustard from the ceiling with tubes going to the dispensers, and there were these giant cans of soda-pop in the ceiling with tubes that lead to the coke freestyle machine. I was happy for the condiments since the cheese wasn't that good, but mustard is always good with soft pretzels. I wasn't able to finish it all, so we got a takeout box to have later.

After lunch we went back to Pixar Pier to meet some characters. We met Joy and Sadness from Inside Out, which was really fun because we like both of them. The characters were really in character, Joy had the bubbly bouncy demeanor and Sadness had a slow sulky demeanor. They signed and we had some fun banter, and after our "real photo" we took an "imitate the emotions" photo where I was joy and mskate was sadness. Since it was close by and didn't have a line (and was closed earlier), we rode the giant Ferris Wheel. This was a neat set-up, there were gondolas that were on a track and would move around as the wheel moved around, and gondolas that were traditional fixed pivot. I wanted to do the tracked swinging gondola but mskate didn't want to so we did the fixed pivot. That was probably for the best since the gondolas have barf bags and the reason the ride was closed earlier is because someone got sick on it and they had to clean it. It was pretty cool because we were able to see the entire park. While we were on the ride we also saw the Army Men drumline, which was cool.

Now I'm not exactly sure of when this happened, but I think it was sometime around here. At some point we met Rex and Anger, neither of whom signed autographs. I thought Rex might since his arms had articulation, but the handler said "no he's a preschool toy and is still learning to read and write" so I guess his articulation wasn't enough to hold a pen. Anger on the other hand clearly couldn't sign, his arms didn't move and his hands didn't open, so I asked the handler "anger doesn't sign because he'd break my pencil, right?" and she said "yeah something like that." I did some voices and the characters seemed to appreciate it.

After the wheel we went to our next fast pass ride, Soarin' around the World. We had to walk through all the water rides which we didn't have interest in (mskate had some, but I don't like getting wet outside of water parks, so she was fine foregoing). We also walked by the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail, which might have been cool but it was "closed due to bear activity." This is also where the entrance for Grand Californian was, since that hotel has an entrance to California Adventures. I wanted to enter the park through there, but it didn't work out (but I'll save that for later). This left the only ride in Grizzly Gulch for us being Soarin'. I was hoping it was Soarin' over California since I've seen Soarin' around the world at Disneyworld, and it's the same video story as that one, but oh well, still cool. Soarin' takes you on these arial views through different sights, like the great pyramids, the rainforest, artic circle, African savana, and some other places, that ends on going to Disneyland where fireworks shoot over the park, all projected on a 4K/8K screen as you're lifted up, and for some clips they pipe in scents like ocean breeze and dust and perfume. Pretty cool effect. The theme of Disneyworld is...near futuristic travel I guess (it's just part of the life pavilion and is all about nature), whereas here it's all themed after aviation and old school hangers and such. I liked the theming here better. After the ride we went to a gift shop where I got a Tigger jersey for a future gift, and we went to Starbucks so mskate could get her California Adventures mug. After that we went back to the motel for a rest and to drop off our purchases. But first, there was a little show of 1920s music, which was fun to watch since it was like big band instruments. When we got to the motel I did some organization of the souvenirs in one of the suit cases. Mskate also wrote IRA's post card and we bought a stamp at the front desk, to mail from Radiator Springs.

After our rest we went to Micky's Philharmagic, a 3D show where Donald steals Micky's hat and he chases it through various Disney movies. I know there was Aladdin, and I think Little Mermaid, but don't remember them all. Great little show though. After that we kind of wanted to do the Disney Jr. Live show, but we had just missed the last show of the day. We then went to the animation place with an Anna and Elsa meet and greet, Turtle Talk with Crush, the learn to draw class, and Sorcerer's Workshop where it showed animation things. We unfortunately missed Anna and Elsa, and Turtle Talk would have conflicted with our next fast pass, so we just did Sorcerer's Workshop. It was just a little thing where they had animation loops on the mirror things, and showed animation in use. Kind of interesting. After that as we were walking out we found Donald in some kind of outfit; wasn't quite 1920s like the other characters and theme of the land, but it was something. As he was going to his location we started a little parade; we were following him, and then other people joined in, and then more, and it was an impromptu parade. We did a little meet and greet and got our photo taken, which was fun. We went back to Radiator Springs to try to find the mailbox that we swear we saw earlier, but couldn't find it. We asked around and no one knew where the mailbox was and said they only knew about the one at the front of the park. It was kind of cool looking for it, we saw some things we missed earlier, like the model of the town.

Our next ride was Spiderman Webslingers, an on rails shooter ride. The story is that Peter Parker made these spider robot things that are stuck in a self replicating program, and we had these experimental web slingers that we can use to capture robots. What was really cool is that while this is "a dreaded screen ride," the web shooting is just done by slinging your hands in the web shooting gesture, and it actually registers where you aim. That's some really cool tech right there. I did pretty good, getting 2nd in our vehicle. While leaving our magic band plus lit up with reg and blue, for spiderman.

After Spiderman it was getting dinner time, so we went to Flo's V8 Cafe for dinner. What was cool about Radiator Springs is at night they turn on all the lights like in the movie (called the shaboom), and it was really cool, like walking into the movie. I got a pastrami sandwich and mskate got a cheeseburger I think. The restaurant was pretty cool, it was all 50s diner themed, with some car garage theming as well. We considered getting a milkshake since it has a cool cars milkshake cup, but then we saw that the cup costs extra, so we decided against it. I was tasked with finding a seat while mskate ordered, and my camera was almost dead so I prioritized finding a seat with an outlet. In the entire dining area there was a single place with an outlet, and it was the outlet the Christmas tree was plugged into. Funny thing, in my decision of what to order I mixed up salami and pastrami, so I was expecting cured meat but instead I got sliced broiled meat. I'm not complaining, I ended up liking it, but it was not what I was expecting. I also got some charge on my camera, which was great, though we later noticed that we missed out watching Radiator Springs Raceway from the dining area. After dinner we walked around the restaurant some more and they had the piston cups on display, which was fun to see.

It's getting late, but we still had a decent amount of time before our big show and didn't have much else to ride at this point, so we just walked around San Fansokyo and Pixar Pier enjoying the lights. It kind of reminded me of Cedar Point at night. Pixar Pier was the best, Increadicoaster and The Ferris Wheel were all lit up, as was the Golden Zephyr and Goofy's Sky School. We did a lightning lane for Sky School, a small little roller coaster similar to the wild mouse ride if you've ever ridden that; lots of tight unbanked turns and rapid drops and rises. Mskate thought "it's a baby ride," and it is a ride that's "good for kids" but definitely isn't "a kiddie coaster." The theming was also pretty good, with Goofy in various different places as he shows his failure to teach. Next we did Golden Zephyr, a simple ride where it just kind of spins and makes you swing out using spinning physics. It wasn't a really exciting ride, and we probably would have skipped if it wasn't a walk on and we had nothing else to do, but it was fun. After that we rode Little Mermaid again, just because we wanted a calm ride where we could hold each other (which we did) and it was a walk on, and we had a lightning lane as part of our package so even though there was literally no line we still "skipped the line" because we "wanted to get our money's worth." After Little Mermaid we did Toy Story Mania, a shooter ride where one shoots the screen and tries to hit all the targets. We weren't planning on doing it since it's literally the same ride/game as Disneyworld, but we had nothing else to do and it's a fun ride, so why not. I am glad we did it since they had special 70th targets that gave bonus points, so that gave us a little more reason to ride it. After Toy Story Mania we found a place to sit and charge the camera before the show, because the camera was still dying and needed juice, especially if I was going to record the whole show. We found an outlet by a bathroom where I plugged in my camera for about 15 minutes. It was now getting time for the show, but before going to our place, we went on Little Mermaid one last time because I wanted to get pictures of "awkward Ariel animatronic."

OK, time for our big thing, the World of Color desert party. We checked in at the purple section and were taken to our table. We were sat with a father adult-daughter couple and they were good company. I don't remember their exact story, but it was something like "this was a special milestone" thing. Funny thing is the daughter kind of reminded me of my mom from old photos, and she would have definitely done something like this in her mid-30s like I think she was (but in mom's mid-30s she had me and I was a handful). The desert party was pretty good, we got a box of foods, one side was charcuterie and the other side was pastries. We ate the charcuterie first; cheeses, salami, peperoni, freeze dried fruits, and crackers. The funny thing about the freeze dried fruits, with the humidity and temperature they were becoming reconstituted. I saved my deserts for the show; a fruity pebbles rice crispy treat, a macaroon with a micky picture on it, a lemon tart thing, and a cupcake thing. Mskate being gluten free had a slightly different box, like she got an apple crumble instead of the lemon tart, Then we also got drinks with the party. I had 2 small glasses of sparkling wine, a hot chocolate, and a bottle of water. Mskate had a hot chocolate, a diet coke (in a can that she saved for the next day), and a bottle of water (and maybe one other thing, she might have gotten a small glass of white wine). We weren't really panning on having hot chocolate, but one of the waiters came around and said "I have too many cups of hot chocolate, would you like one" and we said "sure." Then in our box we got a special World of Color pin. We could get a full color one, a gold one, or a sparkly one. We got the full color and gold, which was great because it would have been annoying if we had duplicates. It was pretty nice being able to sit in a real chair for 30 minutes, and just watch the Disney Ferris wheel lights. I also had to go to the bathroom before the show, and when I came back one of the cleaners was drawing Disney characters in water using the cleaning wand, which was fun.

The show was pretty cool. 10 minutes before the show The Muppets gave a safety instruction video projected on the water screen the main show would be on. That was really fun, it was like a 10 minute video of the different Muppet characters saying "you will get wet if you stand too close, don't enter the lagoon while the show is going on, the lights will be turned off so you won't be able to see" in their own ways. I'm not the biggest Muppet fan, but I do enjoy them and I know Disney has done jack all with them since Muppets Most Wanted, so it was really fun seeing this video (especially since they directly referenced the 70th birthday of Disneyland, so it was a newer video). Then the real show started, and boy howdy was it good. The way this kind of show works is that water is sprayed in the air and that's the screen videos are projected on, and the water screen changes based on what is being projected, and sometimes the water jets are just sent with lights to make dancing color streams. Then something that's extra neat, during the show at some points in the show the the lights on Increadicoaster and the ferris wheel would synchronize with the show. But what was projected? Well the story of the show is the emotions from Inside Out are trying to figure things out, and as they're going through it they interact with different Disney movie characters as they deal with the emotion themselves, like Lucina from Encanto feeling anxiety about everyone relying on her to do things as she sings Pressure. The desert party was a great place to watch the show, we had unobstructed views and weren't so close that we would get wet (like the other VIP groups). I don't know what the price of this was, but the value of it was really good. I also managed to get the entire show on my camera with like 1 minute left of battery left on my camera.

Normally with things like this I would end the last paragraph with "and then we went back to our home base for the vacation, nothing special to say other than a sentence or 2," but there was actually some eventfulness of walking back to the motel. First, we were able to take our boxes home and they gave us a special bag to carry them, which was quite cool. We also left the park by going through the Grand Californian gate since I wanted to use "the unique gate" and this was going to be our final opportunity. This took us to Downtown Disney and as we were walking back to the front to go to our motel we were able to watch some of the Disneyland fireworks from outside the park entrance. We didn't stay long to watch them, but seeing that we didn't see any on our park day (because that was a week day and would make the neighbors angry) it was fun to say "we saw Disneyland fireworks." On our way back there was a street evangelizer, and he was "one of the good ones" that wasn't preaching fire and brimstone and instead was preaching the love and sacrifice of Jesus (I don't disagree with telling people about the fires of Hell and what awaits them without accepting the love of Jesus, but at the same time that it's the whole "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" and "repent or face eternal suffering" is only half of the story and unfortunately tends to scare people off). According to mskate this wasn't the only time there was street evangelization, early in the trip we saw some people handing out scripture and like on the first night there were was some event where people were proclaiming the rapture was near at like midnight local time (they woke her up but I slept through it). There was also someone selling empanadas on the corner right outside the resort entry, which was kind of funny. That's all for this, now time for bed.

It is now our final day, our day to head home. Our flight was in the afternoon, so we had some time at the motel to get things all ready. One thing was we ran out of room in our carry on suitcases to bring back all our stuff (even with all the food we consumed). We went to the different stores by us to see what kind of bag we could buy to make our 3rd bag. We first went to the souvenier and sunglass store and they had some backpacks, but they weren't what we were looking for (we wanted more of a hand bag). We went to Wallgreens and it was more of the same. Then we went to CVS and they had exactly what we needed, a rolling duffle that can expand into a full size bag. It was $32, which was $3 cheaper than if we brought and checked a bag on the way here, and now we have a collapsible bag that is perfect for travel. We put all our clothes and stuffed animals in it and made that our checked bag, and I got everything packed up in the suitcases and backpacks. Our motel also had a pool and laundry room in the parking lot. We didn't bring out swimsuits and weren't planning on swimming, but it was still fun looking around. They had a 1 foot kiddie pool, 3 foot hot tub, and 3-5 foot swimming pool, and a sun bathing deck with a shower. Then the laundry room which was just a small room with like 8 washers and dryers.

Before leaving we went to the Disneyland Hotel so mskate can get breakfast. We went back to Tangaroa Terrace where mskate got scrambled eggs and bacon. It was fun, we got some pictures with some things we missed and got one last time for Downtown Disney to make sure we did everything we wanted. After all this we organized everything, checked out, and ordered our uber. The ride to the airport was pretty good, and I got some video of the drive.

Uploaded with creative commons attribution, link available here.

Checking the bag wasn't a big deal, mskate bought our bag the night before (if not for the duffle we would have checked one of the carry on bags). It was also a full flight so they offered us to check a carry on bag, and we checked the bag that didn't have all the fragile things. I also got a tag to attach to my camera bag to remember the trip. TSA was interesting. First, the soap dispenser we bought got flagged as a possible liquid. The agent asked mskate if we bought soap and we said "no it's empty," and so she had to open it up a little to verify. Then I got flagged for something on my shoulder and...in my groin. The agent that flagged me was all "I need a male agent, male check, male check." The guy was like "oh this is awkward, do you have anything in your pants" nope, just get it over with. He's all "OK sir, do you have any pain in this location, here is what I'm going to do." I got felt up by the TSA, gotta say it wasn't my type. Once we got through TSA we walked around the terminal and saw what was available. There was this restaurant based on a famous flight attendant or something, and it was kind of cool looking. There was also a Carl's Jr., or as we say on the east cost, Hardy's. It's funny, Hardy's and Carl's Jr. are literally the exact same restaurant, same menu, same mascot, same website layout, but for some reason there's different branding depending on which side of the Rockies you're on. I got fried zucchini from them because we don't really have one around where I live; there used to be one a block away, but covid killed it. There was also a Starbucks, and mskate got an Orange County mug since she already has a California mug. We then just waited for our flight which was a little delayed, but that just meant more youtube videos.

Our flight was kind of interesting. First, there was a problem with the plane that prevented us from taking off, a problem with the GPS and something else, they were able to get it all taken care of but we almost lost our spot in the runway queue. That would have been very bad. The actual flight wasn't that eventful, I watched Lincoln (the 2012 biopic about Abraham Lincoln) and 500 Days of Summer. Once I got to the end of 500 Days of Summer I realized I had watched it before, probably on hulu, but I didn't remember it. Mskate also got the $14 snack box since she wanted to get one on our Hawaii trip but they ran out. I also ended up taking a little nap, which wasn't intentional but felt good. Once we landed we we had to let all the people with connecting flights off first since we were running behind. We've been there (which would normally give a link but I guess I didn't talk about the time when mskate and I had to run across the airport and just barely made it to our plane when we went to her grandma's funeral). We were sitting in the back some and the flight attendant was trying to tell the people with connecting flights to push their way to the front so they could make their flights, but she wasn't able to carry her voice. Me on the other hand, I have practice with projecting and told everyone behind me "if you have a connecting flight, let others know so you can get off the plane," and mskate added "the flight attendant said this is what you need to do." Once I made the announcement some people were like "that's me, let me through." Once everyone had gotten off we confirmed and then we made our way off. Once we were off we made our way to baggage claim and got our bags, then found our way to the yellow bus to get to our car. It was a little cold but not too cold, which made it not too bad to stand outside and get in our car. Overall, great trip, really glad we did it and did it how we did. I'm also really glad that we now have a collapsible bag that we can pack for 1 way and then use on the way back. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Uploaded with creative commons attribution, link available here.

Pokematic's Oktoberfest 2025

2025-10-05T18:21:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, so my church does an Oktoberfest every year as a fund raiser and social event around the end of September/beginning of October. It's quite a fun time, there's beer, polka music, dancing, games, and raffles. The raffles are the big thing for my wife and I, mainly because this year we were kind of in charge of the basket raffles. About a month prior to Oktoberfest parishioners donate baskets of things and everyone is given the option to enter raffle tickets to win the baskets. These cover all kinds of things; bird feeders, alcohol, american girl dolls, lego sets, luggage, lottery tickets, coolers, gift cards, action figures, activity zones, and others. There was also the premium raffles of a 65 inch TV with PS5 and game, and a trip to Mexico, each with individual premium tickets. We sold tickets before and after mass many weeks, and bought about $200 worth of tickets over the month. In total there were 103 baskets, which I think was a record. The cool thing about the tickets is that they are "buy a sheet of the same number, write your name once," which saves a lot of time. Leading up to the weekend mskate was doing lots of things to get ready, organizing baskets and setting up decorations.

Friday was family night, a night of activities more geared towards kids and families. We had a petting zoo, pony rides, Disney music bingo (from the same guy who does music bingo for us at other times of the year), a "Taylor Swift concert" with a look alike lip syncing to songs, a videogame trailer, a kid spa trailer, minigolf, and pumpkin painting. It also had some normal Oktoberfest things like the beer garden and sausages, and the basket raffle (which we were kind of in charge of). My volunteer shift started at 7PM, so I had time to come a little early and enjoy the festivities. Well, it was also VIP day at Chuck E Cheese, where pass holders got free dipin dots, 500 tickets, and 30 points (on top of the daily points they already get with their pass). I decided to go to chuck e cheese and get my VIP stuff, and "speed run" my points so I could get to family night. Normally 40 points lasts me about an hour, but I also play "longer games" and take my time, but I had to go through 70 points and so I played the "token eater" games, basically jumping from one game to the other before it fully registered. I made a couple hundred tickets on this, and kind of fulfilled a childhood thought of "how fast could I blow through my tokens." Lots of fun regardless.

I got to family night around 5 PM. I had a sausage for dinner, and played some minigolf. There wasn't a whole lot for me, but was kind of fun looking around. It ended up being a good thing I was there since the volunteer that was working the videogame trailer didn't show up and they needed someone to be "the rule enforcer." The videogame trailer was either 4 or 5 TVs set up with multi-player games (minecraft, mario kart, lego marvel, and something else I didn't see), and a long couch for everyone to sit on. Players were only to have 15 minutes if there was a line, but could have more time if there wasn't a line. I had to make sure the line was managed, kids weren't overfilling the trailer, don't let kids with food or drink in, and to pay attention to if kids have had their turn. A couple of times I helped set-up Mario Kart since I know Mario Kart. I didn't have to end the turns very often since it wasn't very in demand. Once I helped a grandpa get in the trailer to look for his grandson. It was a pretty cool thing. Some people asked me for business cards and I'm like "I'm with the church, I don't know the business, talk to the guy with the blue shirt." A little after 7 someone came to relieve me, it was his shift. Young guy, showed him what to do, and all went well. Hopefully he was able to be "authoritative" considering he seemed to be around the same age as some of the teens that would go in.

After that I went to help mskate with the raffle. I was going to help enter tickets, but there was some confusion over the numbers which meant we didn't enter the tickets that night. The POS system was square, which is what we use for when we do art fairs. This came in handy when I rang up some items wrong, which made canceling them easy. The Taylor Swift "concert" was pretty good. The impersonator looked pretty close to Taylor, and she had the sparkly jacket, and did all her mannerisms that I know. At first I wondered if she was actually singing, but then I heard the "studio production" in the songs and knew it was lip sync. Oh well, still a good concert. Eventually she joined the audience to dance with the kids, and this is when things got a little weird. The DJ "ran out of Swift songs" and started playing Katy Perry songs (firework and roar are the ones I remember). I'm like, "ok, now you're just breaking character." Oh well, I don't think the kids were paying that close of attention. At the end of the night we moved all the raffle baskets into the social hall, which was kind of involved since we wanted to keep the same layout as the tables while keeping all the ticket buckets with the baskets. Also at the end of the night the left over food was free, so I picked up some sausages to have for breakfast and lunch tomorrow.

Saturday was the big night, full Oktoberfest. During the day we figured out what was going on with the ticket numbers, and got all the tickets entered. We also were running out of tickets the night before, so we ordered more on amazon prime to be delivered to our house. We got to the church around 4PM and did the set-up. I set-up the computers for entering the ticket numbers in the look-up table, and as we were selling tickets I was entering them. There was a slight problem, I needed the wifi password and I couldn't find anyone to give it to me; well at least not immediately, I found someone who had it pretty quickly. Mskate also brought here laptop, and it was kind of funny how I had my gaming laptop next to her basic business laptop. Oh well.

About an hour into the night I got dragged into an event. They needed people for the mug holding contest, where you hold a beer mug out perpendicular to your body, and as the game went on they'd add beer to make it heavier. I wasn't really planning on participating, but one of the old ladies who knows us was like "come on I'm sponsoring you in the contest." I'm all "uhhhh, OK I guess." I get up there and I get this 5 pound glass mug. I was saving my arm for the competition, as was everyone else. Once it started I held up my arm, and my arm started cramping. Not quite sure why, I was shaking my arm out and warming it up, but I basically immediately started feeling the burn. I was one of the first people eliminated, and only had a little bit of beer poured into my mug. I was going to hang around and see what ended up happening, but there was a bit of a problem with my laptop and I had to run back to the table and fix it. I was able to fix it no problem, basically someone minimized the web browser or clicked off the tab and lost it among my sea of tabs, and all I had to do was pull my browser back up.

I think sometime around this time is when mskate went to our house to pick up the raffle tickets we had to amazon next day delivery order. The night before we were running low on raffle tickets and mskate said "I'm going to order more tickets because we're going to run out." That was good because we would have run out had she not ordered more. Well they were supposed to arrive before the night began at like 3:30, but they kept getting delayed and arrived at 5:45. Mskate ran home to get them when she got the notification that they were delivered, and that was really good because we ran out like soon after she got back. Later in the night I had a sausage for dinner, and then got a soft pretzel as a long snack while entering the tickets.

It's now nearing the end of the night, which means we were now doing the raffle drawing. After the ticket was drawn one of the other volunteers doing the drawing would give me the ticket and prize, I would look up the number, and mskate would write the name. One of the tickets was entered wrong and we had to have a completely different volunteer go through all the tickets looking for it. It was generally well organized, but not perfect. We figured it out though. As I was going through the numbers we ended up winning 3 baskets; one of the alcohol baskets, the crock pot basket, and the hands on science center basket. Also, with the admission bands there was a raffle for a trip to the Bavarian Inn, and mskate won, so in total we won 4 things. Unfortunately I didn't win the big screen TV and PS5, but here's the funny thing, it was our music director's 7 year old son. His dad was both happy and not happy, because while it was a great prize now they had to find a place for it. Some people picked up their baskets that night, but a lot didn't and we had to put the baskets in the social hall. We loaded our baskets into our car, and in the morning I unloaded them.

I'm going to go over all the stuff by basket.

The Crockpot Basket

A crockpot
A box of 3 crockpot liners
A set of salt and pepper shakers
A $25 Meijer gift card
3 cooking utensels (a slotted serving spoon, a non-slotted serving spoon, and a meat masher)
2 packets of crock pot seasonings
garlic salt
a cookbook or recipies

Alcohol basket

A bottle of strawberry wine
A bottle of tequila
A bottle of fireball whisky
A bottle of rum
A bottle of spiced rum
A bottle of of dry gin
A bottle of of vodka
A reusable wine bottle
A case of Local's Light American Lager
A case of smirnoff ice zero
A pack of solo cups
A pack of solo shot glasses
A novelty giant solo cup that was the basket
A sign that says "bar open proudly serving whatever you bring."

The hands on science center gift certificate
A $400 gift card to Bavarian Inn Frankenmuth

Sunday was a great end of the weekend. I went through the baskets and got some of the stuff put away, all the liquor and wine (and sign and cups) fit in my liquor cabinet, and the smirnoff ice fit in the fridge door (and the beer is just sitting in the hallway waiting for the next family party). The utensils went in the utensil drawer, the seasoning went in the seasoning and cooking cabinet, and the gift cards went in the gift card drawer. I still had to find a place for the crock pot and novelty solo cup, but those would go into the storage locker. Still haven't found a place for the cook book yet, but that'll come.

Sunday night was pretty cool, it was the big 50th anniversary dinner after the mass celebrated by the arch bishop. Since the arch bishop was there and there was an attack on a Mormon church earlier that day, there was quite a police presence and they secured the perimeter. It wasn't just the arch bishop, there were also all the past priests who came to celebrate, including the first priest from 50 years ago (he was in his 80s). It was a pretty cool mass, it's been a while since I saw a mass celebrated by the bishop. Dinner was pretty good. I had a rum and ginger ale, and for dinner I had green beans and beef tenderloin. It was a good way to end a good weekend. Mskate still had some work to do with the baskets, calling people to tell them "you need to pick up your basket," and one lady thought it was a scam since our area code is from our hometown and not where we live, but that's just kind of her story. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's 2025 Cedar Point Halloweekends Adventure

2025-09-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, it's halloweekends time again, which means my mom and I were planning our trip to Cedar Point. We aren't fans of the scary (even though we were stuck there once), but halloweekends is great because the temperature is great. This was going to be a great trip since Cedar Point had just opened 2 new rides; Top Thrill 2 and Sirens Curse, which means that all the other rides would be pretty open. Mom and I looked at the different available weekends, and we decided September 12th would be a good day. I bought our tickets, parking, and all day dining tickets some weeks prior, and mom got our hotel. We wanted to get there around opening at 11AM, which meant mom would get to the condo around 9AM. The drive there was pretty simple, and we got there around exactly 11AM. The first thing we did was go to Hugo's Italian Kitchen to start the all day dining, and we split a slice of peperoni pizza and Caesar salad.

First ride was Raptor, a roller coaster that's right close to Hugo's, always a fun start to the day. We kind of normally start with Ocean Motion/Potion since it's the first ride at the main entrance (that isn't the carousel) but we decided to kind of try to move in quickly before scary time. We went over to the boardwalk to do some of those rides and get close to The Pavilion (the big premium food place). We road Maxx Air, a big swinging arm ride that swings you and spins you, another great ride that . After that we road Gatekeepers, a roller coaster that's right on the Lake Erie shore. Here's a funny thing, mom didn't walk through the gate fast enough so I'm like "hey can we get the gate to reopen" and the ride controller was all "no, we'll get you on the next train." After Gatekeepers we saw that Windseekers was working, and after we missed it the one year we went there immediately since we didn't want the winds to pick up and then say "sorry, no rides now." Windseekers is a great ride, it's like amusement park swings, but takes you up like 300 feet and swings you around. You don't really know the thrill until you ride it. While we were in line we started talking with 2 older ladies who were riding everything, and they told us that Top Thrill 2 and Sirens Curse are really smooth (which is my mom's big thing, can't ride the rough rides anymore). After Windseekers we went to The Pavilion and got our steak and lobster bisque. Normally it's a pretty good size portion of steak, but it was pretty small this time, which was kind of lame and definitely not worth the $21 they otherwise charge (but "all day dining" so not too upset). After that meal we road wild mouse, a free spinning roller coaster that's a pretty slow loader and we typically skip, but because the lines weren't long we road it. Mom remembered it from when she was a kid, and it was pretty fun except for one spin that like made my right lung hit my rib cage. I think this was also the time we rode the dodgem bumper cars. I did a lot of bumping and don't remember getting bumped much.

After bumper cars we decided it would be a good idea to make our way to the back to do scary land before it gets scary. We walked through Planet Snoopy and reminisced on how it used to be Berenstain Bear Land. We also walked by Corkscrew, and decided not to since it was pretty rough. We walked by Top Thrill 2 and it looked pretty cool. Mom tested the seat to make sure she could ride it in case we decided to do it later (it was a 2 hour wait at the time, so it wasn't going to be now). The first ride we road was Super Himalaya, a ride that kind of spins you around on a hill. Since the ride rocks back and forth, mom needed some help getting out of it. After that I rode Magnum XL-200, but not mom. It's an older wooden roller coaster, which means it's a bit rough. It was a walk on, which was great. It is a little rough, but it goes right up against the lake which has a cool humidity thing. It's also a really high drop, which gives a good view of the park, and is kind of "fear of heights." I almost lost my phone though (left on the seat), which was bad but the employee noticed and called out "did anyone lose a phone?" After Magnum we went to Backbeat Queue, a barbecue place where we had brisket and baked beans. That was really good.

This was on the boarder of scary land, so that was our time to do that. We went to Camp Snoopy since that was in scary land, no real rides for us but we wanted to remember the old times. Well, there were 2 actually, the tilt-a-whirl (Linus's Beetle Adventure) and The Woodstock Express, a kiddie coaster. As we were looking around we saw Peppermint Patty and Woodstock meet and greet in their Halloween costumes (Patty as a mummy and Woodstock as a pirate). I told Peppermint Patty "that's a good costume sir" in my best Marcy impression, and the character gave a laugh gesture. I also did a Woodstock voice for Woodstock. After the meet and greet my mom rode the tilt-a-whirl by herself since I don't really like it (the spinning is too unpredictable for me). After that we went to the Woodstock Express. We saw adults riding it with their kids, and the line wasn't long, so we decided it was OK to ride it. Well, mom wasn't able to fit in the seat so it was just me. It was a pretty good ride, like one of the drops or turns was "real coaster" fast. That was it for Camp Snoopy, after that area we went to the main walk and rode Pipe Scream, a wave ride that goes up quarter pipes and hills. It's a really fun ride, but has 2 different height requirements; 1 to ride with an adult and 1 to ride alone. There was a group of kids that were riding alone, and the boy was too short to ride alone. The ride operator was in the process of denying him and escorting him to the exit, and my mom and I stood up and said "he can ride with us, we'll be his adults," and the man that was sitting next to us said "if you didn't do that I would have, I was a ride operator and know that the rules can't be bent." Now, "ride with us" isn't "have him sit in our own private car," it was "sit between us in the row with everyone" and right behind his sisters. The mom thanked us from the side of the ride, and he was a bit nervous but all went well. After the pipe scream we road Lake Erie Eagles, another swing ride that you control with the rudders. I've figured out how to do maximum swinging, and was doing that initially, but then I started feeling the food and I'm like "OK bad idea, tone it down." After that I rode the Gemini, a roller coaster that has 2 trains that basically race each other. It's another older wooden coaster so mom sat it out, and it was a walk on (like was basically all of them). Unfortunately they were only running 1 train, so it's kind of like "what's the point," but it was still fun.

After this we went to Frontier Land. There aren't a ton of rides in this section, but they do have some. The first ride was Skyhawk, a giant swing arm ride. This was funny, there were some guys in line with us, I wouldn't say "tough looking," but definitely not "wimpy," and one of the guys was freaking out a little because he didn't like heights and this was a big swing heights ride. It was kind of funny, but he enjoyed himself. After that we rode the Wave Swinger (amusement park swings), and that's always a fun time. After that we rode the train, my brother's favorite ride as a kid, and it's a real coal fired steam engine. We had just missed the train and waited for the next one. This is a fun thing, where they have a little skeleton show thing with different western town settings. It's kind of funny. We rode the whole loop and made it back to frontier land, where we then went to Farmhouse Kitchen where we had barbecue steak and Brussel sprouts. After the meal we went to Maverick, the big new roller coaster from back when I was in highschool, with the 95 degree inverted drop, and a super accelerator. Really fun ride, and like the first time we actually had to wait in line (all others were "wait for the current ride to be over"). After that we walked back to the front, going through the farm area. We stumbled onto a glass blowing show and decided to watch. It was really cool, we saw someone make a pumpkin, and then another person warm up with a flower and then make a ghost. We watched some and then moved on. We went to the petting zoo and I saw a goat that wanted to be friends. After the zoo we went to Panda Express where we got lo mien noodles and beef and broccoli. Good stuff, and now we're out of scary land at like 7PM.

We're now at the location with Millennium Force, Rougaru, and Iron Dragon. We rode Rougaru first, which is a fun ride even if a little jerky in places. Iron Dragon was next, and is a great calm ride. This one is a suspended coaster with a hanging car, and is a fun little thing. I then road Millennium Force, and mom would have rode with me but unfortunately the seat belt was too short on her, so she sat in the Millennium VIP Lounge (which she probably shouldn't have technically been in, but she didn't draw attention to herself so all was OK). It's a really fun ride, really fast, really tall. Normally it's kind of a line, but basically all rides had been walk on and this was no different. We were close to Siren's Curse, but it had a 45 minute wait and mom didn't want to do it and I didn't want to have her wait for me. At this point we said "hey, let's see what the line is like for Top Thrill 2 and if Power Tower is working now" (it wasn't earlier). Power Tower was working, so we rode both drop and shoot, which were walk-ons, and mom commented on how the ride queue used to be full when she was a teen, for this very simple ride. After Power Tower we went to Coasters and got a cheese burger and frings (fries and onion rings). Mmmmm, good amusement park cheese burger.

Now's the question, what about Top Thrill 2? We looked at Top Thrill 2 and it was a 55 minute wait, so we decided to do it. Why is it Top Thrill 2? Because this is the sequel to Top Thrill Dragster, the roller coaster with the highest hill in history that is all about shooting you up the hill (unaided, just kinetic energy going into potential energy), and was a really big deal when I was a kid. We had never ridden it since it was always a long line and prone to breaking down, but this wasn't that long and it was new. Top Thrill 2 is pretty similar to Top Thrill Dragster with "go over the giant hill," but now it shoots you forward some, shoots you back up a hill, and then shoots you over the hill. This is probably better all things considered, instead of "just kinetic turned into potential," this is "kinetic to potential, potential to kinetic with added kinetic, that kinetic into potential, that potential turned into kinetic with added kinetic, all to get you over the giant hill." It was really great. It is one of those "you need to empty your pockets ride and put everything in a locker" rides, so we got a free locker and put all our stuff in there. Afterwards I had some trouble canceling the locker, but then I figured it out so someone else could use it. The next ride was Valraven, a pretty new roller coaster that has a 90 degree drop. Last year it was kind of a long wait, but once again, basically a walk on; I think we had to wait like 4 rides before we could get on. Now for some shows. We watched the Ska-letons, a ska band that plays Halloween music. It was fun, I like ska like most millennials, and after watching the show I was wondering why we never played ska in jazz band in highschool since we'd play band covers of rock songs, but ska is "naturally school band instruments" and not "transcribed versions of rock band instruments to school band instruments." After the band we went to get the fancy nachos at The Pavilion; nacho cheese Doritos, taco meat, lettuce, cheese, and salsa and jalapenos on my side. We then watched the skeleton trampoline show while we ate our nachos. We weren't able to watch all of it, but we saw a lot. Afterwards I told some of the performers how great a job they did and one of them complemented me on my hat (a trilby fedora with some cancer memorial pins and a hand made hair clip with pikachu and gromit). Good stuff.

Time to finish up the day with some of the stuff we missed out earlier. We walked to the front and rode Ocean Motion/Potion. It's a fun "swinging ship" ride that goes back and forth. After that we rode the gondola ride to the center of the park so we could get closer to the midway rides we haven't done yet. First we rode Atomic Scrambler, one of those rides that spins you in one way around a minor axis and then spins you another way around a major axis, and is a good date ride since it throws the girl into your side. Funny story, when mskate and I were just friends we went to Cedar Point for a class trip and she wanted to ride it not really knowing it was a "date ride." She originally wanted to sit on the outside but I said "no I need to sit on the outside, you'll see why soon enough," and it was a bit awkward since she kept getting pushed into my side and "we don't like each other like that." Just a funny memory of our "awkward times." Mom and I each rode our own vehicle, don't need to be pushed against each other and likely hurting the one on the outside. Next we rode Calypso, another spinning ride. Nothing big there, but there was a boy that was in his own car that was having trouble unlocking his car, and we helped him since the ride operator wasn't helping. Third ride was Trokia, another spinning ride. We finished the night with the derby horses, a carousel that moves very fast and is themed after race horses. They kind of got rid of that "show" though, now it was like dance music. Oh well, still fun. I remember when I was a kid and teen this was fun but not exactly thrilling, but now that I'm an adult it's thrilling. I don't know how fast the horses are going exactly, but it's like at least 15 miles per hour in a circle and the only thing keeping you on the horse is your hand grip on the reigns, which when you're a 90 pound kid is not that big of a thing but when you're a 180 pound middle age adult that really is felt. I had to help guide my mom off her horse, which was not exactly easy because she couldn't see where she had to put her feet and she was pretty far off the ground. We finished the night with getting chicken fingers at The Coral Platter, at like 10 minutes before park closing.

After this we went to our hotel. It was a quality inn that was pretty far away from the park. Mom thought it was the quality inn we stayed at before that was pretty close, but it wasn't. No big deal though, just a longer drive at midnight and it ended up being closer to the highway to go home. The drive home was pretty plain, no big story.

In total, we got $160 worth of amusement park food (for $38 with the all day dining), rode 30 rides (including a new one), and saw 3 shows. I think in the future we might try to do this time again since there weren't any crowds. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's Friends For Life 2025 Universal Vacation

2025-08-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, it's time for Friends for Life 2025, of which I still haven't finished the 2024 blog despite just having to embed videos and pictures at this point. Whatever, it's time for me to write this year's blog, and you can find other blogs I wrote here and here. Quick overview, it's a conference for people with type 1 diabetes at Disney World's Coronado Springs Resort and Convention Center, and mskate has T1D and loves going to the conference, and since she wrote a children's book about T1D we sell the book at the conference. This year we did things a little different, instead of everyone flying mskate and her dad drove since her dad doesn't fly, and instead of going to a Disney park IRA and I went to Universal Studios and Island of Adventures since we were able to get discounted tickets through the conference. It was pretty nice having the car since it meant we were able to bring more stuff and drive to Universal instead of having to Uber. While I generally enjoy figuring out how to best pack all our book selling stuff (display stands, table cloth, pricing stand, signing markers and pens, collapsible stool, and of course the books), it was pretty nice being able to just pack up the bin we keep it all in throughout the year. I also generally enjoy figuring out how to pack all the food stuffs I bring every year (because why spend hundreds of dollars on foods when I can just bring $20 worth of food from home), but it was also nice being able to just put the food in some boxes and stick in the back of the car. We also put the big suit cases in the car which saved us quite a lot of money in baggage fees, and it meant we could bring our wagon which would make taking everything to the convention hall easier (normally we put things in the suit cases and wheel it down over multiple trips, but we could just throw it all in the wagon and do it in 1 trip). Also, this year mskate and I were staying in the tower (inside hall hotel) instead of in the various casitas (outside hall motel) since mskate won the volunteer raffle for the stay in the tower instead of just getting a free room in the casita. This meant not nearly as much time walking outside. Of course all of this meant that mskate had to leave much earlier, but it was fine. OK, all the "new and different" stuff is out of the way, time to start the actual adventure.

Things started out pretty simple. IRA and mom-in-law came to the condo to pick me up Sunday morning and drive to the airport. I packed up my backpack and carry on bag and started driving. Since the far off lot worked out so well for mskate and I last time we did it this time. We found our parking spot and got in the bus, and no big deal. We went through security no problem (except for how my chain always trips the security, I need to start putting it in my mouth so I can get through security without tripping it). We got to the terminal no problem, and after waiting around we got on the plane. Originally IRA and I were going to be together while mom-in-law was going to sit separately, but we were all put together at the last minute which was pretty cool. I watched Better Man on the flight (because I wanted to see the movie about the chimp man and why it was, I need to review it because I don't know why Robbie was portrayed as a chimp man). An annoying thing near the end is that someone turned on the announcement thing and stopped all the video monitors, and I barely was able to finish my movie. I also took some creative common and stock photos.

Creative Commons Video, Youtube Link Rumble Link

Creative Commons, Youtube Link Rumble Link

Creative Common, Youtube Link, Rumble Link

Once we got to Orlando things were pretty simple. We got off the plane and made our way to the ride share pickup location. I ordered the uber and no problem there. I was the only one with a carry on and none of us had big luggage (that was all in the car), so we didn't have to worry about picking up the luggage from the pickup nor did we have to worry about getting a car that was big enough to carry it all. The ride was pretty calm and easy, and once we got to the hotel we didn't have to do any unpacking since mskate and dad-in-law had already unpacked the car.

Since we were staying on property we were able to go to one of the water parks on check in day. We have been to Typhoon Lagoon multiple times so this time we went to Blizzard Beach, a park I haven't been to since I was a kid and the in-laws have never been to. IRA and I went there first by ourselves, and since we could do everything with our magic band and weren't bringing our phones, wallets, or changes of clothes we decided "we don't need a locker." It was a pretty frugal idea, but we forgot about our shoes. Luckily we were both wearing waterproof shoes (crocks for me and flip flops for IRA) and water safe shoes are allowed on rides, so we just wore them. After going in we went right to the chair lift to see if we could ride that, but the line was super long and we were hot, so instead we waded through the wave pool and enjoyed some waves. It's been a while since I wore shoes in the water, and boy was there a lot of extra drag when walking. The first slides we rode were the Downhill Double Dipper and Snow Stormer. I don't have a whole lot to say about them, just fun water slides. The next slide though was the Toboggin Race, a mat slide where one controls the speed of going down based on how much the handles are pushed down. I like to pull all the way up and see how fast I can go, and since there are typically bumps I can sometimes get air. Unfortunately I've put on like 80 pounds since the last time I rode one and wasn't able to go "super fast" but it was still fun. I think IRA managed to get some air. After that we went on Teamboat Springs, a raft ride with a bit of a story of a ski resort. IRA was a bit worried that we would have to sit with strangers and didn't really want to do it, but I got him to and we didn't have to sit with strangers, which meant that he really liked it and said "OK you were right, that was fun." IRA wanted to do the big slide, the Summit Plumet, but I didn't really want to and since it was a "major slide" I took his flip flops and told him to find me in the lazy river (since that was like the last attraction). I rode the river about 2 loops and then ran into mskate and her dad. It wasn't planned, it just kind of happened. This is when I got called out for losing IRA since there wasn't really much of a meet up plan. I rode the lazy river for about an hour going around 3 or 4 times, and eventually IRA found me. Everyone else was kind of done and ready to go back, but there was 1 last slide I wanted to do, Runoff Rapids. It was a walk on like every other slide, so by the time I rode the slide and showered I was able to meet up with everyone before the bus got back. There was some kind of scavenger hunt, but we didn't get very far with it before leaving. Pretty fun time even if it was short.

This night we went to dinner at Port Orleans Riverside with some friends. These friends have a 12 year old boy that has a lot of excitable interests, and likes flashier things, very similar to me. Last year he was admiring my rings and was looking at rings at one of the stores, so when mskate and I saw a stainless steel ring at a craft show we got it for him, and he REALLY liked it. We took a bus to Disney Springs to take a boat to Port Orleans. It was a pretty cool boat ride, I got a lot of stock footage. Dinner for me was pretty good, but not so much for everyone else. I got the BBQ sampler platter (ribs, brisket, and sausage) with good mashed potatoes (I don't like a lot of mashed potatoes) and green beans, and everyone else in our family got prime rib. Mine was really good, but everyone else didn't like theirs, it was too fatty or something. After dinner IRA and the boy went to the gift shop to look around. Since neither of them are "fully responsible," mskate told me to go to the gift shop to keep an eye on them. While there I did pin trading, and then we all participated in the trivia challenge. It was Disney movie trivia and we collectively answered all the questions, and got trivia winner buttons. I wore it with my other buttons and made for a great souvenir. Some time after the gift shop both the boy and I were eyeing the arcade at the hotel. I told him "ask your mom if it's ok that I be the responsible adult for us to check out the arcade." He asked his mom "if Pokematic will be the responsible adult can we check out the arcade" and she said we could if I was OK with it, to which I said "I'm the one that offered and said he needed to ask." We weren't planning on playing any games, sometimes it's fun to just look at the machines and see what's available. There were some cool machines, and there was a space invaders challenge mode game that had "Port Orleans" on the demo screen. It was pretty fun, a good way to start the trip.

Creative Common, Youtube Link, Rumble Link

OK, it's now time for Universal Studios. Since the conference had discount tickets on Universal Studios and Islands of Adventures, and with everyone at Epic Universe, IRA and I decided to do this. For breakfast I had my pancake cup and peanut butter, and packed my bag for snacks and park eating. We drove to Universal since we had a car, and parking would cost less than what ubering back and forth would have cost. Driving was not that hard, mskate was worried about the traffic and directions but it wasn't any harder than other trips. I did almost miss the turn, but no problem. We parked on the top of the parking structure, where we parked at spiderman. The layout of Universal is pretty cool. First there's a cross over to the security section (of which I didn't have any problems), which then has a cross over to "the Universal Shopping District," which then leads to one of the 3 parks. The shopping district was pretty neat, there were universal stores, restaurants like Hard Rock Cafe and Panda Express, and the NBC Sports bar. It was pretty cool. Today we went to the original Universal Studios, and we walked by the big Universal Globe as we walked through the Universal Arches. We walked in and were immediately greeted by minions. We started with Minions Mayhem, a 3D movie ride simulator where the seat moves you around, since it was right there at the start. IRA doesn't really know Minions and I admit that I'm not the biggest Despicable Me/Minions fan, but I do enjoy them and these kind of rides are fun. The story is that it's the girls adoption anniversary and we were turned into minions and have to get the present they got Gru back. Things got kind of interesting because we rode the ride 1 and a half times. As we were riding it the first time someone started getting out of their seat, and then eventually they had to boot the person off the ride. They had to restart the ride, and the ride operators said "you are going to experience deja-minion, you will think that you've seen this before but you haven't, have you been here before" and everyone played along and said "no." The ride itself was pretty good, very immersive.

After Minions we went to "New York" where we passed by the Jimmy Fallon race experience and went to a corner of the street. Now this particular corner has some strong memories for me. When I was 10 years old my family went to Universal Studios after our Disney cruise, and it was around Marti Gras, which meant that they had a Marti Gras parade where they threw beads and coins (which I think are still somewhere). We stood at this one corner where they were throwing the stuff to the kids and we had to yell "throw me something mister," and when we walked passed this corner I remembered those memories. I'm like "that's where I stood and begged for beads, and tanman didn't want any purple beads or coins since purple is a girls color." After that trip down memory lane IRA and I rode the Revenge of the Mummy roller coaster. This was one of four rides where we had to lock up our bags in a locker. It was a REALLY amazing ride, the story is that we go through the story of The Mummy and try to escape the demon mummy that we released. What was really cool is that the story was easy to follow, and there was fire effects that could be felt. IRA said "that was the coolest ride ever, it's my favorite, so much better than Guardians." After The Mummy we rode Transformers the Ride 3D. It's a 3D ride on a track that moves you around a city as the transformers fight. I got kind of dizzy, but it was still fun. When we were leaving we saw a Transformers meet and greet, with a costume character with face articulation and voicing which was really cool. We didn't do it because the line was long, but it was really cool to watch from away. As we were walking through Hollywood there was a parade show going on in our way, so we found another way which was like through an alley way. Kind of neat.

After New York we cut through Hollywood and made our way to the thing I was most excited for, Springfield USA, home of The Simpsons. I'm a fan of The Simpsons, it's a show I've been watching since highschool and watch every Sunday since college. Going to "real Springfield" was my destination. I'm seeing Lard Lad Donuts, The Duff Beer Brewer, Officer Wiggams, and best of all Moe's. I'm not a big beer drinker (I don't much care for "beer flavor"), but I had to have a Duff beer, served to me by Moe, on the bar that Homer drinks at. I used the love tester and got my picture with Barney, and watched show clips on the TV above the bar. Moe's was connected to the other restaurants, and for lunch we both had Krusty Burgers. That was REALLY good, the secret sauce was great and the use of cheese sauce was great as it had lots of flavor above normal cheese (it also gave it that gooey look to be more accurate to the cartoon). Overall the meal was like $30 and wasn't a lot of food and drink, but to "experience Springfield" it was worth it. There was also Cletus's Chicken Shack, Flaming Moe's, Frying Dutchman, Lisa's Teahouse of Horror, and Luigi's Pizza (all references to episodes), but Moe's Tavern and Krusty Burger are the main iconic places that I had to go to. All this came at the perfect time since it was lunch time and I was getting a little hungry. After lunch we went to the Kwik-E-Mart and I bought a Kwik-E-Mart name tag pin with my real name on it (because "pokematic" isn't my legal name, and that is so cool). After all this we rode The Simpsons Ride, a retheme of The Back to the Future ride. This was a pretty good retheme; in the original BTTF ride you have to drive through time in your own DeLorean to catch Biff after he stole a DeLorean, and in the new Simpsons version you have to chase Sideshow Bob to get Maggie back while riding in a roller coaster cart. It's pretty good. After that we left Springfield, there was some "spin around" ride but we aren't into those.

Right after Springfield is World Expo, which is just the Men in Black ride. This was a really fun ride, it's one of those "shoot the targets while on a moving vehicle ride, similar to that of Buzz Lightyear in Disney World. There are a bunch are animatronic targets that you have to shoot at, all looking like aliens that you have to shoot in the head. IRA and I had to share a vehicle but we still had the back row to ourselves, and since there are 3 to a row and only 2 of us I took 2 guns and shot them both. I did really well, I got a score of 143,650 and 134,265, which are both like middle level from what I remember. The ride was basically the same as when I was a kid. The only thing was they didn't have the alien at a cool down station outside promoting Coke. I remember it would spray you with a mist to help cool down, and this animatronic alien would say things like "you know what MIB really stands for, most incredible beverage, meaning coca-cola" and "if you really want to cool down, have yourself a coca-cola." That's all there was in the World Expo.

Now for "the big addition," and that is Harry Potter land, specifically Diagon Alley. It's kind of funny, the entrance is kind of hidden, like you have to go through an archway that's behind an obstacle, and then you're transported into Diagon Alley. Let me say, the theming here was absolutely perfect. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was the 4th DVD my family got (first was Shrek, second was Land Before Time the Big Freeze, and 3rd was Dr. Doolittle), so I watched it quite a lot as a kid, which means that I saw Diagon Alley many times and am very familiar with the way everything looks, and this was on point, it felt like I was walking into the movie. There's only 1 ride here, Escape from Gringotts, and boy was it cool. We got a locker (because it was one of those rides), and got in line. This was like walking into the bank in the movie, with one of the goblins taking notes and directing you, where you then go into the vaults with different news papers and wanted posters (with moving pictures), and then the ride is a big coaster like thing where there are screens talking to us and we have to escape from Voldemort, and I think we see Bill Weasley with the other characters. After the ride we went to one of the wand shops and got a wand (it wasn't Olivanders, but we did get a Hermione wand). We walked around the different shops, looking at Olivanders and the Money Exchange and Weeslies Wizard Weezes and similar. We also did the wand things, but had some trouble but others worked. Really cool place, a must for any Harry Potter fan. The only thing we didn't do was The Hogwarts Express, but that's because it's a train that goes between the parks and we didn't have a park hopper pass. Oh well.

Our next stop was San Francisco, where the only ride was the Fast and Furious ride. The entrance and exit are kind of far apart, and Harry Potter land is right next to the exit. I walked in and asked "how do we get to the front," and was told I had to walk to the end of the block to get there. I'm not the biggest fan of the Fast and Furious franchise, but I do enjoy how they're unapologetic action movies and that's what makes them good (like, you aren't going for some deep story you're going to watch good looking people drive good looking cars really fast). The entry theming was pretty cool, you're at Don's garage and are going to a party, and then the story is you're on a party bus that gets pulled into a high speed race and escape, and you're surrounded by a screen that puts you right in the center of the action without actually moving much. I know it sounds kind of lame, but it's actually pretty cool. Once we finished the ride it was a Florida rain, but we just hung out in the gift shop until the rain finished. The gift shop was pretty cool, lots of different things like the movie, fun to look around in.

After San Francisco we had kind of ridden all the rides, but there was still a fair amount in Hollywood to do. We went to the Universal Monster Makeup show, which was REALLY cool. What they do is show off the different movie makeup techniques to make monsters and otherworldly things, and some special effects like a knife that looks like it's cutting you but isn't really. The presenters were really animated and entertaining, but it is a little PG-13. After the monster makeup we did The Bourne Stuntacular, a stunt show set in the Jason Bourne film series universe. This was probably my favorite thing at Universal. First, I like stunt shows, it's just really fun watching someone do those kind of things. But the real kicker is that unlike Indiana Jones where "we're filming a movie" it's "this is the movie," and Jason is running through the city and fighting people on different set pieces all while a screen in the back shows real city things that are choreographed with the things that are happening in the real world. I just have major appreciation for the kind of things that had to go into making this show. This is an absolute must if you ever go to Universal. The last thing we did in Hollywood was E.T. This is an original ride, and it shows. I want to say the pre-show video is still shown on CRT screens, but if not it's still VHS quality video. Having somewhat recently watched ET this was pretty fresh in my memory, and it's a fun little ride about going through the city to get to ET's planet and restore life. A cool thing is you get an "interplanetary passport" card with your name on it and at the end of the ride ET should say your name. Channel Awesome's Walter was wrong, this was working. After ET we went to Spongebob Storepants, a store that is based on all things Spongebob. It's not exactly "perfectly themed," but they do have a pineapple that is playing the dance music from the Jellyfish pet episode while flashing different colored lights just like in the episode. I danced to it, and so did IRA, and it was fun.

Now it's time for Dreamworks land. I'll be honest, this is "the little kid area" and doesn't offer much for adults. There was a Shrek playground, a Troll's kiddie coaster, another playground, and a Kung Fu Panda's Kung Fu School show. We went to the kung fu school show mostly just as a place to sit down and see what it was. It was this mocap thing where someone behind the screen was acting and talking while Po was shown and doing what the actor did. From a technical perspective it was kind of neat, but it really wasn't for us. We did have some fun with the King Harold's Swamp Symphony, a set of pressure pads that made frogs sing a note. I also got this cool picture of me at Shrek's house.

After Dreamworks we kind of did some miscellaneous things we missed at the start. We started with Villain Con Minion Blast, an interesting ride thing where you get a blaster gun and shoot at a screen, while standing on a moving platform with a wireless blaster. This was pretty neat, I've never been on a shooting ride where you're not in a vehicle and the gun is attached to the vehicle. There were a lot of times where I wasn't standing on my circle and got all twisted when the conveyor belt changed. The next ride was a roller coaster called Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket. It's a pretty fun roller coaster, but it not only requires a locker but also requires empty pockets with metal detectors. We put our bags in a locker but then we had to get a small locker for our pocket stuff. That was annoying, but whatever. The ride is that you're making a music video and it records you as it plays a song. I wanted to listen to disco but it played rap, oh well still pretty fun outdoor coaster. This is when there were some problems. Somehow the locker with our pocket stuff forgot our ID, and when we scanned our ticket to get our stuff it opened a new locker. IRA is freaking out and saying "I didn't want to do this ride, it's all your fault" and I'm like "dude, relax, I'll get this taken care of." I find an attendant and he said he'll open the locker if we have ID in it to prove it's ours. He opens the first locker and it was our stuff, I pull out my wallet and show him my driver's license, and IRA pulls out his ID to prove he is who he is as well. With that out of the way, IRA changed his tune and said "OK it was actually pretty good." Our last ride was Race Through New York Staring Jimmy Fallon. Neither IRA nor I are a fan of late night, and IRA particularly dislikes Jimmy, saying Jay Leno was much better. We almost skipped it but still had a fair amount of time left in the day and decided to give it a shot. It was actually kind of cool, they had different histories of the Tonight Show, showing off Johnny Carson on an old console TV, Jay Leno on a CRT from the 90s, and Jimmy Fallon on a modern TV. Then the ride is get in a car and race through New York against a screen. It's funny, at the end Jimmy loses and is kind of a dirty racer, which made IRA happy "because Jimmy was the villain."

This is now the end of the day, it's about 6PM but we've already done everything and there wasn't like a fireworks show (there might have been something, but we weren't that interested). We did go to some different stores, looked at the Wicked display and saw some movie costumes (and dolls with the porn link removed). We also went to a store and got chocolate frogs, but after that we left the park. After leaving the park we went to America's largest McDonald's in Orlando. We weren't exactly sure if we wanted to do it since we were tired, but there was no other time we were going to do it so we went with it. We weren't the only people with this idea, the place was super crowded. We ordered a pizza because it was one of the unique menu items (the others were pasta), but it was kind of annoying. We used the self service kiosk because it was faster than ordering in person, but we got the kiosk with a broken card reader so we still had to stand in line in order to pay. We took turns waiting in line because we wanted to look around the restaurant and see the arcade and play structure. It was really cool, but we didn't have the energy to do the arcade. It was cool though, and I got the pressed pennies and medallions. Once we got our order number we sat at the counter and watched them make the more elaborate items. That was actually pretty cool, we both like watching food get made and they were putting on a show for us. Then the pizza was decent, not great but not terrible, think of the difference between a restaurant burger and fast food burger, and you have the difference between a real pizza and McPizza. After that we went back to the hotel and just settled in for the night.

It was now day one of the conference. I started out by looking for Bruno to get my sticker, which I did. I got registered, getting my name tag and wrist bands. Seeing that I'm an exhibitor I get a white band so I can get in the exhibit hall outside of normal hours. Before bringing our stuff down I did my looky-loo walk around the exhibit hall to see how everyone was setting up and getting some behind the scenes video. It's pretty fun to get this behind the scenes stuff, everyone sees the final product but very few people get to see the set-up. After that I went up to the room and got the wagon to bring the stuff down. It was a pretty easy set-up; lay out the table cloth and then organize everything to put under the table to make it easy to set-up every day. Everyone puts their stuff away when we aren't running our booths, the big guys put it in a free-standing locked room and us small guys put it under the table. I set-up some paperbacks on the big stand (because they need more support), some hard covers on the small stand (because they don't need support), the pricing display, the raffle box and prizes with the raffle tickets, and got the papers set-up (coloring pages, email sign-up form, and mskate's biography sheet). They were all set-up under the table in an easy to get and set-up location. I also set-up some snacks under the table since we would be spending so much time there and would likely need something to snack on while working the table. One of the cool things about having a table is that we have a place to put our exhibit hall pickups, which is great because there tends to be a lot of big things that we get.

After the set-up IRA and I went to Disney Springs to go to the movie theater. We went to see F1, a movie about a racecar driver who comes out of psudo-retirement to race for a team that's struggling, and he gets them to win. It's a pretty good movie, do recommend. The main thing was we wanted to go to the big AMC there, and while it was kind of cool it wasn't anything super spectacular. After the movie we walked around Disney Springs a little and then parted ways. I wanted to go to Goofy's Candy and buy one of those garbage can candy tins, but when I got there they didn't have any of those left. That was annoying, I wanted a go away green tin. Oh well.

With all this extra time, I needed something to do before we had our event that night. I think I googled "things to do at resorts for free" and I learned other hotels had "find a character" hunts. When I learned this I decided I wanted to find as many as I could. Since I was at Disney springs I went on whatever bus was next, and that was Polynesian resort where they had Hei Hei. I looked hard, like, REALLY HARD, looking everywhere in the lobby and upper level, but I couldn't find him. I asked for hints and I got hints but still couldn't find him. I then asked someone in the front desk and he said "Hei Hei is on vacation," so that meant I spent about 30 minutes in vein. Oh well. I then got on a bus to go to Animal Kingdom (since it was the next bus out), and then planned on going on the next bus to the next resort (which was Riviera). However, time was not on my side and once I got to Riviera I had to get to Disney springs to go to the next event.

It's now time to do the volunteer appreciation night at Splitsville at Disney Springs. It's a bowling alley that gets rented out and we have a private party on the 2nd floor. We all took charter busses to Disney Springs and we got on one of the last busses. This was not a good sign since it meant we would have trouble getting a lane and table, but IRA and I were determined. Once we got off the bus we ran ahead of everyone else and got in line for the party. Once we got in we went right to the back of the upstairs and were not only able to find a table but also find a lane. This was great, once we claimed our table IRA started setting up the lane, and I got some foods. They had pizza, chicken burgers, and cheeseburgers. I got some pizza and cheeseburgers, and got a drink. It was an open bar, but I needed water so I started with water, and because mskate likes diet coke I got her a diet coke. Bowling was really fun. I found that the 13 pound ball worked really well for me, and IRA found a ball that worked alright for him. Mskate and dad-in-law joined in some, but it was mostly IRA and I. We weren't really playing a specific player, just kind of alternating between 8 different players. I bowled 2 strikes and a spare or 3, and IRA bowled some spares but never got the strike he was going for. When I bowled a spare or strike I did a victory dance. Dad-in-law wasn't very good since he hasn't bowled in over a decade, and later in the night I set-up bumpers for some of the "players," mostly for dad-in-law and mskate, but I also bowled some frames with the bumpers. IRA was all "no I want to bowl for real, no bumpers for me," but then he saw how I was able to bowl the ball into the bumpers and make it go back and forth until it hit the pins, and then he thought it looked really fun and wanted to bowl with the bumpers. They were playing a lot of fun dance music, including a dance remix of Shiny Happy People (which I took video of). I was there for a couple hours, and then went to do some other fun things.

After bowling I went resort hopping looking for buttons. The first place I went to was Port Orleans French Quarter, where I had to find Louis the Alligator. I managed to find him pretty quickly, and with my phone dead I took the selfie on my video camera. The front desk guy thought that was kind of interesting. Once I got my button I went to the bus stop to catch the next bus anywhere. Maybe I'd catch the internal bus and go to Port Orleans Riverside or maybe I'd catch a bus to a park. I got lucky and the next park was Hollywood Studios, a part on the skyliner rout. I got on the skyliner and road to the middle, and then to Art of Animation and Pop Century. First I went to Art of Animation and asked which character they had. I was told Nala and was given the hint that "she likes to play games," which meant "the arcade." I looked around the arcade and found her on top of the "token machine." Since my phone was dead I took the selfie on my video camera. Getting the button was a bit annoying though, because a lot of people were checking in and only 2 desks were open. I didn't want to be all "I just want my button, can I cut?" though, so I waited patiently. After getting my button I walked over to Pop Century where they happened to be doing their movie night, which was Camp Rock. When I got there I asked what their character was and it was Goofy who was "enjoying a view in the windows," which meant he was in the windows of the gift shop. I got my button and got on the sky liner with the intent of going to Caribbean Beach, but then there was lightning in the near distance and I decided I should probably go back to the hotel before it got too wet. I made it back before the storms hit me, and then enjoyed the rest of the night to get ready for the real start of the conference.

It's now the first REAL day where things happen, meetups and focus groups and docudiabetes. I started with the significant others breakfast meetup at the restaurant. It ended up just being the leader and I, but that was OK, we just caught up and talked about videogames. I had an all American breakfast; eggs, breakfast potatoes, bacon, and something else like that. It was pretty good. After breakfast I went to look for Bruno, and found him among the t-shirts in the gift shop. I did a little hanging out in the exhibit hall getting more behind the scenes looks before my event. It's pretty cool watching it come to life and be built. I don't remember what I was going to do at this point, but I ended up doing a focus group for a new insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor. I told them about the kind of frustrations I had with Dexcom, mainly that the share doesn't always work and it's tedious to add followers (like, the videogame Pokemon Go is easier to add friends than with dexcom, and that got a good reaction from the host). After that it was time for lunch; salad, mac and cheese, tomato soup, and some kind of chicken thing that I didn't have. After lunch it was time for Docudiabetes, a showcase of short films made by guests. Mskate and I made one on the cruise we went on, and IRA filmed one in his basement (which he asked me to edit for him). I was like "I just don't want to lose to someone who is 'just a kid being cute' without much direction." Thankfully I didn't, I still lost but the people who won were "actual short films" and not just "look, kid being cute." After docudiabetes it was snack time, pretzel bites with spicy mustard and cheese sauce. That was good. Then it was getting time for the opening of the exhibit hall, which meant I had to get all the stuff ready to sell the books. I put the stuff out, and did a lap of all the booths one more time now that everyone was ready, and I forgot the ipad for POS, which meant I had to run back to the room before everything opened. I thankfully made it, and then it was showtime. Sometime around here is when there was the significant other's safe space event, where we just have an open discussion about how diabetes affects us and the challenges we face, without any influence from our loved one(s) with diabetes telling us "it's not that hard" or whatever. It's a great thing because we need support too.

The opening night went pretty well, I thin we sold 10 books over the course of the evening, and it was fun being a salesman. I had a pretty good salesman technique; I'd say "hello" to passer byes, they'd look and say "hello" back, that drew them in, and then I gave them the elevator pitch for the book. Seeing that I minored in business but don't use it much in my daily work, it was pretty fun using my skills for once. I also had some time to walk around the hall. I talked to some different people and got some freebies. I went to the Omnipod booth and got their comic book. They partnered with marvel to make a comic book about a diabetic super hero who uses an omnipod. I haven't read it yet, but it's cool they have it. While I was filling out my information I talked to the employee that I gave all the animal crossing items to, and she apologized for not having the animal crossing island like they had the past 2 years, especially after I gave them like 100 thousand bells worth of items that were all super hero themed (but I had beaten the game and had like 50 million bells in the bank, it was nothing). I won some cool stuff on the wheel, and got some other stuff like sunglasses and a card game, and played a diabetes racing game with a time attack high score. I went back to the table and worked on selling the book, and then when the exhibit hall was closed I packed up the stuff and went back to the room for the night. I don't remember what happened for dinner, but I'm sure I did something kind of neat.

Day 2/3 of the conference breakfast was provided. It was fruit, scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, bacon, sausage, and french toast. I had the hashbrowns, bacon, and french toast. After breakfast I did my Bruno hunt, and started playing a bounty hunter character when talking to the employees and camera. Some of them got it, others didn't and I had to drop the act. It was mostly a "sell books" day, I got to the exhibit hall and set-up the table. The conference photographer took some photos of our booth, and then I took some video of him. I generally just kind of waited around, invited people to the booth, and gave them the elevator pitch. For lunch it was Italian, salad, pasta salad, mostacholi, meatballs, and chicken parmesean. Good foods. After lunch was more exhibit hall, and it was Mickey Bar day; the day where they give out Micky ice cream bars, Mickey ice cream sandwiches, and diary free lemon ice cups for people who can't have dairy. They also had pizza spring rolls and gray stuff chocolate tarts. I got an ice cream sandwich since that's my favorite. Once the exhibit hall closed I went to a significant others meet up at the restaurant in the middle of the pond. It was a good hang out, I had a cocktail and hung out with some other SOs, some of whom came to the safe space meeting.

Now for the big night, the costume banquet. Since the theme of the conference was super hero, Mskate and I dressed up as Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, and IRA dressed up as teenage Ben 10. As the first Disney super hero family, I was expecting lots of Incredibles costumes, but surprisingly few people dressed up as them, or anyone in general (most people just wore one of the give away capes from a vendor like Dexcom or Medtronic). Dinner was really good, salad, green beans, mac and cheese, corn dog bites, chicken, and brisket. I had salad, green beans, and brisket. Really good. There was the big speeches and honors, and then they did the docudiabetes winners. As I mentioned earlier, I didn't win, but IRA did, people really liked his lego short film. After the showcase it was time to get in line to meet the characters. Every year the conference gets some mascot characters to take pictures with the attendees. I got in line real quick so we didn't have to wait long. It was the Incredibles, Mr. and Mrs. and Frozone. We got our autographs from Mr. and Mrs. Incredible and while one was signing the other challenged mskate and I to contests of our character. Mr. Incredible challenged me to "weight lifting" where we both mimed weight lifting and deadlift squats, and then Mr. Incredible challenged mskate to stretching. When we met Frozone I introduced mskate as "my greater good," and told him we have to go bowling some time, and after shaking my hand he acted as if I crushed it. Fun time, especially since it's the rare instance where guests can dress up as characters and get pictured with official characters. While on our way back to the banquet hall we ran into a dad dressed up as Captain Underpants, and when I went back in the banquet hall for the dancing I ran into another dad dressed up as Quail Man. I did some dancing, doing some of the line dancing and conga line, but I couldn't do it too long because my costume got hot.

Day 3/4, breakfast wasn't included so I made a pancake in a cup with peanut butter. More booth monitoring and before lunch I sold enough to cover the cost of our table. Lunch was soft shell tacos, I had both corn and flour tortillas, put some rice and beef in, and topped with lettuce and onions. I also found Bruno after lunch, so yay. At Omnipod I got a poster for the comic book, which will look really good on my poster wall once I get around to hanging more up. It was another Micky bar day, so I got another ice cream sandwich, yum. This was also the last day of the exhibit hall, so everyone started packing up what they could, and I put some stuff away. Here's a funny thing, we did a give away raffle every day of a toy we got from Chuck E Cheese or Ollies for signing up for our email list or buying a book (and we had some happy meal toys we gave away with book purchase early on), and on the last day one of our friends won. This made it easy for us to give the prize since everyone else picked up from the booth the next day. Once we were all done mskate brought the wagon down and I packed up our entire booth. It was a great time and we ended up coving all of my costs with the book sales. Yay. The rest of the afternoon/evening was pretty bland, for dinner we went to the restaurant in the hotel with some friends and it wasn't very good, I ordered a burger and it kept coming out undercooked, which really sucked. Oh well.

Now for my favorite part of the conference, the volunteer and spouse appreciation night with karaoke. Mskate doesn't really get it, but I really like it, especially since I get to flex my voice acting by singing as Goofy. The DJ said "I remember you from last year," which was great. I ended up singing 3 songs; girls (goofs) just wanna have fun (with a bit of Donald Duck), All Star, and Take On Me. I wasn't the only person in our group to do it, IRA tried to sing Life is a Highway, but he struggled and kind of bombed. I signed up real quick and was first (with Girls Just Wanna Have Fun), and was followed by an American Idol contestant, and he said "I don't know how I'll follow that but I'll try my best," and he did really well. There was also this young woman, kind of small, who sang Bodies [let the bodies hit the floor], and she was really good. Like, it's a really bass voice song, and she was very treble, but she managed to pull it off. I stayed a bit longer than mskate and IRA, and wanted to sing Goofy Goober Rock, but I was tired and tomorrow was my 2nd Universal Studios day, so I had to get rest.

Normally I'd upload video of my singing, but they kind of turned out bad. Sorry.

OK, it is time for our 2nd Universal day, at Island of Adventures. This is another part I went to as a kid but haven't been to since. Getting there wasn't that hard, and when I went through security I tripped the metal detector with my challenge coins (because I carry mine around like tradition is says to). Once you enter it has some great theming, it's like a port of trade in an undeveloped civilization, which is pretty cool. We started out by going to Seuss Landing, the Dr. Seuss land. As a kid I was a big Dr. Seuss fan, I loved the crazy worlds he created and stories he told. IRA not so much, his mom didn't believe in books that had fake words (and Ted was a master of making fake words). Oh well, one doesn't have to necessarily be a Seuss fan to enjoy Seuss land (but it does help). It's a great land, a Dr. Seuss book come to life, and I loved reading the different things and pointed out how the Zax were the first thing build in Island of Adventures (since that's how the story goes). Our first ride was the High in the Sky Seuss Trolly Train ride, a train that goes around above Seuss Landing and goes through the alphabet (with silly Seuss words), with some set pieces on top of buildings. It's a kind of fun ride, a good little thing to start the day. Second we went on the Cat in the Hat dark ride. It's an...interesting experience. Of all the rides, it's quite dated; lots of uncanny animatronics and "things on poles," but still a fun way to get out of the heat. After Cat in the Hat we did the If I Ran the Zoo walk through experience. This is not a great experience for adults, it's "walk through a play park and there are some little activities" (like a tick tack toe guy who to win I had to select the option on his crotch). We still had to do it, just to "own the libs."

After Seuss Landing we went to...technically The Lost Continent. Back in the day this had the Sinbad stunt show and Poseidon's Furry show, but they are both closed and now all they had was an interactive fountain and a restaurant. We went to where Poseidon's Furry was and it looked cool, but we couldn't find the entrance, until we found that the entrance was blocked off and it was closed. Oh well, all the theming was still pretty cool. My guess is they're going to put How To Train Your Dragon here, they already had some How to Train Your Dragon photo ops and movie prop displays.

Now it's time for a "real experience," a 2nd Harry Potter land, this time themed after Hogsmeade, the wizard village older kids can go to. While not quite as impressive of a set as Diagon Alley, it was still very movie accurate. The first ride we went on was Hagrid's Magical Creature Motorbike Adventure. The story was that you had to go somewhere with Hagrid and Arthur Weaselly was helping him out and the motorbike was going crazy, or something. Walking through the queue was really cool, lots of Harry Potter theming and it all looked like we stepped into the movie. There was also a group of friends all dressed up like the girls from the girl's school in Goblet of Fire. IRA and I complemented them on their costumes and in unison they all said "thank-you," which I'm sure they practiced since that was very in character. The ride itself was really cool. You either "get on the motorcycle" or "ride in the side car," and it goes super fast with some crazy turns, and IRA and I just happened to be in the front row. There's also some slow down "see Hagrid and the creatures" elements, which are quite immersive. After that ride we rode Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, a ride that makes you feel like you're on a broomstick flying through various set pieces in the castle. This was one of those rides with combinations of screens and set pieces, and when you're in the queue you walk under portraits of the house founders and Salazar is all "look at these muggles, who let them in" while the other founders are all "they're quite alright Salazar," and then there's a scene in Dumbledoor's office projected on a hologram. On the ride there was one time where Hermione's video was desynched with her audio. After the ride we happened to see a little show, ribbon twirling with the girl's school and gymnastic combat with the boy's school from the tri-wizard tournament. We weren't planning on this, it just kind of happened, and was really cool. After the show we went on Flight of the Hippogriff, a calm little roller coaster where we ride Buckbeak or something like that. For lunch we went to The Three Broomsticks and split a BBQ platter. It was really crowded, and we managed to find the only table left that happened to have 2 chairs. This place was great, the corn was really good, the potatoes were great, and the ribs were great "real restaurant" quality. Highly recommend for anyone going to Island of Adventure. It's "real food."

Our next stop was Jurassic Park, which had some really great theming. When you enter the land it's walking through the arch way of the original Jurassic Park. With how cool it was, there admitedly wasn't much for us here. The only thing we really did was The Velocicoaster, a roller coaster themed after escaped Velociraptors from the Jurassic World trilogy. Still really cool though, you like walk into the research lab and see the raptors being raised, and there's a pre-show video with Chris Pratt, and then the ride is running around the raptor enclosure with some on the ground, and I want to say it lets out at the Jurassic Park Discovery Center, which is just a gift shop and restaurant, but there was a thing with "move the eggs around" and it was like the gift shop in Jurassic Park, which was all cool. A ride I remember being really cool was Jurassic Park River Adventure, but it's a "you will get wet" water ride and while it can feel good in Florida heat it isn't fun in Florida humidity. We did watch the drop though. The only other thing is Pteranodon Flyer and Camp Jurassic, 2 kiddie locations. I remember wanting to do Pteranodon Flyer as a kid but mom wouldn't let me because it was a slow loader, but now that I'm an adult and can do what I want I was going to ride it. Well, I would if it wasn't "you must be this short to ride" and I was too tall. I remember Camp Jurassic being pretty cool, a very immersive place to explore, but without a kid of my own it would be too weird.

Next up was Skull Island, the land of King Kong. This is a very limited land, just Skull Island, Reign of Kong. However, it was a really cool ride if you ask me. The story is you're an expedition crew to Skull Island and you need to deliver supplies, and then you get thrown off course and have to have Kong rescue you from the various animals of the island. It's a screen ride where you're in a bus and things are projected around you, and there are some set pieces like a giant King Kong head. I really enjoyed it. After Skull Island we went to Toon Lagoon, a land dedicated to comic strip and 40s cartoons, characters like Popeye, Dudley Do Right, and Dagwood. As another land with mostly water rides, not a whole lot for us. I did eat at Wimpy Burger though, which was really fun to say I got a hamburger today that I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for, and IRA had some of my fries. I also went on Me Ship The Olive, a little walk through ride where you can explore Popeye's ship. As a big Popeye fan it was a fun little thing, even though it's mostly for little kids. The land was mostly just a look around, lot's of fun sights. Oh yeah, somewhere around here there was also this shirt.

Now it's time for the big one, saving the best for last, it's Marvel Super Hero Island. Of all the things, IRA was looking most forward to this since Universal Studios had to license the characters and "really do something with them," unlike Disney who is "just throwing their acquisitions in the parks willy nilly." He really liked the gift shops and almost bought an anthology book of comics, but decided against it because it would have been too big. The first ride we rode was The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman, a 3D screens ride where we follow Spiderman take on a Sinister 6 (it's not the "main cast," but it's a team of 6 villains"). The story is Jay Johnna Jamison sent us out on a mission to follow Spidy in a special vehicle, and then we get caught up with all the villains and their plans, and narrowly stop them. One of the villains is hydro man (a man who can turn into water) and IRA was asking "why wasn't it Sandman, he's a way more popular villain than hydro man," to which I told him "he wasn't quite as popular when they built this ride, it's older than Spiderman 3; plus if the villain is water they can splash riders with a little water (like they do in the ride), can't do that with sand," to which he said "yeah now that you say it that makes perfect sense." After the ride we walked around a little and avoided rain by hanging out in an arcade. We didn't play any games, but did enjoy looking at all that they had to offer. Afterwards we went to Cafe 4, a small restaurant themed around Fantastic Four. IRA was done and happy to just sit at the restaurant eating his pizza, but I still wanted to ride The Incredible Hulk Rollercoaster and Dr. Doom's Fearfall. It was good for me that IRA didn't want to ride the rides, he was able to hold onto my bag and all my pocket stuff since Hulk didn't allow riders to bring stuff (they had metal detectors), and because he wasn't riding I was able to go on the single rider line which got me on pretty quickly. It's a fun roller coaster, the story is Bruce wants to remove his Hulk but in the process he becomes Hulk and you go on a crazy rampage. Dr. Doom's Fearfall is a tower drop ride, one that shoots you up and then drops you. The story is that Dr. Doom needs fear, and you're going to give it to him. Fun tower ride, and then it let out in the arcade. Once I rode those rides I met up with IRA for what was next.

Before leaving we went back to Harry Potter so he could get a wand; he got a wand for mskate but he wanted his own, a Harry Potter wand. I told him we'd get one at the end of the day since it was annoying carrying the other around all day last time (and since he was getting it just because mskate got one I was hoping he would forget about it by the time we were done, but he didn't so his money and what not), and now that we were done we went back to Harry Potter land to get one. This is when something REALLY weird happened. We're walking through Seuss Landing, I'm talking to the camera, and these young college age guys start staring at us and pointing getting all excided. I'm thinking "oh no, someone recognized me and now I'll have to disclose my secret identity" (because I keep my real live separate from my online persona), but actually they were looking at IRA. One of them chases us down and is like "you're him, you're the guy" to IRA, and we're like "uhh, who?" and he's all "you're Josh Block aren't you" and he's like "no I'm not Josh Block," he pulls up Josh's instagram and is like "this isn't you!?" and I'm like "no his name is [real name that's not "Josh Block"]," and by this time his friends catch up. They ask if they could still take a picture with us and we said sure, they got their proof they met an eceleb doppelganger. After we realized what just happened IRA said "now that I think about it, that wasn't the first time people stared at me." IRA's not "online" so he doesn't know all that goes into internet culture and lolcows, but after looking up Josh he said "I think I might grow my hair out because I don't want to be mistaken for him." Well guys, you didn't meet WorldOfTshirts but you did meet pokematic. After that we got IRA his wand and he did some of the spell locations in Hogsmeade.

Once we were done with Island of Adventure we explored the Universal Studios shopping district. We looked at Hard Rock Cafe but didn't go in, but they had a concert that night so there were people waiting for tickets. We went to VooDoo donuts and looked at all the donuts available, but didn't get any. We also looked at the Burger King Whopper Bar, which wasn't anything special (I don't even have video to look at for reference). The last stop was the Super Mario World store. There wasn't exactly "exciting things" at the store, just lots of Super Mario themed merch in a bunch of Mario themed display stands. After that we just went back to the hotel.

That evening there was a Friends for Life party thing, a teen and young adult event where they have Mickey pretzels, arcade games, and a dance floor. I had a pretzel and played some pinball and ms pacman, and might have really enjoyed it under other circumstances, but I wanted to do character hunting. The next bus happened to be to Magic Kingdom, which was great for me because that meant I could ride the monorail to The Contemporary and others. I got there and rode the monorail, and then made it to Contemporary. I went to the big gift shop area and asked around, and got some hints of where Edna would be, which was the food court. I looked around but couldn't find it, and looked hard, but no. Eventually I talked to someone and they told me it was too late, so I missed out on getting another button. Oh well, I still got my monorail ride, and got to see a little of the light parade on the lake, which was cool.

OK, it's now the final day. We had breakfast with the conference, which was Micky waffles, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, and hard boiled eggs. They also have characters, Micky and Minnie, and Donald and Goofy. When I met Goofy I did my Goofy voice, and for Donald I did my Donald yell (because I can make something that sounds like him, but can't do his voice). The handler said "oh we need you to follow us around and talk for us." That's quite the complement. After breakfast we got everything packed, and those of us that were flying went to the airport. The plane ride back was pretty good even though I had to check my bag at the gate (because they ran out of overhead space), I was separated from IRA and mom-in-law but no big deal. When I got to my seat someone was sitting in it and asked if I could sit in her seat (the emergency exit row). That worked really well for me, a lot of extra leg room. My neighbor was in a similar situation, he was supposed to sit next to me in the normal row but someone was in his seat as well. It was kind of neat, because our chair was so far from the chair in front of us we had these pull out screens. I watched most of Second Hand Lion, and it was a pretty neat movie, not quite what I was expecting. I say most because I had to stow my screen on take off and landing, which meant I missed like the last 10 minutes. Oh well. We went to baggage claim and got my bag as I took some video, and then mom-in-law pulled out our parking lot ticket and we found our car no problem. Got home and rested. All in all, great trip with lots of fun. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Creative Commons, Youtube Link Rumble Link

Pokematic Cruises Central America

2025-06-19T07:50:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, after all that went on with my grandma my parents had been wanting to go on a major family vacation for their 35th anniversary, and they wanted to do it with a central American cruise to Mexico, Honduras, and Belize. Mom was a little concerned about leaving my grandma, but after the events of Easter she was fully relieved with it and ready to party. It started on Friday where we all flew down to Fort Lauderdale. Vikingpolak came to our condo the night before since he was going to drive with us to the airport. He hasn't slept over since Tennessee. I made ribs in the oven that weren't that great, but he appreciated them. He and I watched some MeTV Toons before going to bed. We watched an episode of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, and the episode was REALLY scandalous by today's standards. After that we watched the theatrical shorts they were airing (Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and Popeye). The Looney Tunes short just happened to be the short where Sylvester and Tweedy were on a ship and Sylvester got sea sick, where Tweedy said "and the boat rocked, and rocked, and rocked, over the side puddy tat." Great short to watch before going on a cruise (really though, we referenced that short many times throughout the trip).

It's Friday travel day. We wake up early, load up our car, and drove to the airport. My work gives me discount parking if I print out the coupon, $2 off per day, we just need to park in a far lot. It was not that bad, just had to catch the yellow bus that picks up the passengers. It was a pretty simple ride from the lot to the airport. We sent our luggage to check and then went through security before going to the terminal. As we walked to the gate we ran into my mom waiting to buy McDonalds breakfast (I didn't need any, I had my muffin on the way to the airport). We just waited around for the plane as we got caught up on planning the trip. On the flight down I watched Dustin Checks In, a movie about an orangutan in a hotel that I saw advertised on some VHS tape a couple of times and thinking "that looks interesting." It was a deep cut memory that came rushing back. It was actually a pretty good movie, nothing spectacular but it's a "mid-budget kids movie" that doesn't really exist anymore. That didn't take up the entire flight, so I watched half of DC Super Hero Pets (the flight would be over before the movie was). While on the flights, I took a bunch of video of the plane taxying and from the air. As always, uploaded with creative commons attribution.

Video of Directing the Plane

Youtube Link Rumble Link

Airplane Taxying on Runway

Youtube Link Rumble Link

Airplane Flying Above Clouds

Youtube Link Rumble Link

Airplane Taking Off Ground to Clouds

Youtube Link Rumble Link

Airplane Landing

Youtube Link Rumble Link

And here's Mini-grandma, you'll learn about her soon.

Once we landed it was a matter of getting everyone off the plane and through the terminal. My parents are getting slow, so they just got off the plane while we pulled out the carry-ons. The terminal wasn't super exciting, and we wanted to get to our hotel for the night. We got our luggage as it came out of the baggage claim and it came pretty fast. Mskate ordered us an Uber XL and we had to get to the ride share, which was kind of far away. My dad can't stand for very long so I had to go ahead to make sure there was a place for my dad to sit down. There was a bench somewhat close to where we were getting picked up but people were using it. Luckily though there were airport wheelchairs around it so that was good for my dad to sit in if needed. I called mskate and said "bring them over, I have seats." We thankfully didn't have to wait super long for the Uber to arrive, but in that time I did get video of a plane taking off (again, uploaded with creative commons attribution). My mom liked seeing that since when I was about 19 my cousin in Japan brought his son over where he met my grandpa (his great grandpa) and I put in some airplane landing stock footage to show him coming over to America and then transition to him with some videos of him back in Japan. OK tangent over.

Pigeons Walking

Youtube Link Rumble Link

Airplane Taking Off

Youtube Link Rumble Link

Driving around Fort Lauderdale

Youtube Link Rumble Link

Our afternoon and evening in Fort Lauderdale was pretty low key and kind of interesting. I'm an ebay seller and have been selling knickknacks that we got when cleaning out my grandparent's house, and someone bought some white cat figures the day before we flew out with the auction ending after all the USPS pickup locations were closed, so we had to take it to Florida with us and find a mail pickup place within walking distance of the hotel. Thankfully there was an Office Depot half a mile away, and so mskate and I went there to drop it off. I actually caught the mail carrier doing a pickup so I was able to just hand it to him since it was all prepaid. We also needed to get sunscreen. Mskate and I had a stick of roll on from when we went to Hawaii, but that wouldn't be enough for the whole family and had to buy more somewhere else. Thankfully there was a BJ's Wholesale close to the Office Depot and since we have a membership we went there to see if they had sunscreen for sale and if they by chance had the shirts my brother liked (they unfortunately didn't). We had the choice of 3 types of sunscreen: lotion, stick, and spray. We got the stick since it would be easiest to carry in our bags. On our way back mskate and I stopped at Taco Bell to get her a Gatorade and I got nacho fries. We had other options for fast food, but she needed the electrolytes and I knew Taco Bell would have an electrolyte drink, and I had a gift card in my wallet. After our little outing I looked through what our hotel had to offer and they had HBO Max, which meant I could finish DC Super Hero Pets.

When it came to dinner time, we went to a restaurant that was 3 blocks from the hotel. We could have gotten Panda Express (next door) or Door Dash, but the fun thing is that my dad's brother and my girl cousin on my dad's side don't live super far (Uncle B and I'll call her mbear) so we wanted to have dinner together with them and her baby, for now I'll call him Little J (he doesn't have a defining feature or nickname yet). It ended up being a really great visit. I got to spend some time with mbear, my parents got to spend some time with his brother, and I got lots of video of Little J being a cute baby that will make my aunt really happy to see.

After dinner mskate and I went to a grocery store to get some last minute items; distilled water for the 3 cpap machines this night, and juice boxes for mskate for low blood sugars. There was a grocery store not too far from the hotel and restaurant, and since mskate and I like to do that kind of "urban adventuring" we took care of that. On our adventure we found a unique store that got us excited. It was called like "American Discount" and it was kind of a department store but no clothing section. It was 2 stories with an escalator; upper floor large appliances like stoves and washing machines and furniture, lower level electronics, kitchen, bathroom, art, and some other things. Mskate and I ended up finding a 3 pack of USB-C charging cables which was good since we seemed to have neglected to bring enough. I also looked at the videogame section but nothing there for me. After that we went to the grocery store and got our groceries, and then went back to the hotel where we put our ship luggage tags on all our bags.

It's now Saturday morning. We had breakfast at the hotel. I want to say I had pancakes, and mskate had nutella. We got all our stuff together and ordered an uber XL. The uber driver was staying at the hotel because he knew people would be needing rides to the port. We were able to get all our suitcases in the back, and then we piled into the vehicle. It wasn't that big of a trip, and getting through the port was not a big deal. We piled out and gave our luggage to the porters. They were able to get it to the pickup place. We got in line to the entry which wrapped around the building. My dad has some trouble standing for a long time but thankfully we were able to get him on a bench inside the line and he just waited for us (kind of like the baby swap at amusement parks). We were taking a princess cruise and their big thing is NFC medallions that act as the room key and boat ID and boat card. Since we were so busy with my grandma only VikingPolak got his medallion mailed to him since he ordered it early enough, the rest of us had to pick ours up at the port. Mskate and I had a bit of a problem with ours, mom and dad were able to pick theirs up and get through, but ours were lost and things were complicated. We got room keys as a backup so we could get on the ship, and then we had to go to the customer service to get the medallions. Getting on the ship was a little annoying though, because part of princess cruise is they have your picture so they can verify that you are the owner of the medallion being used, and the rule was no hats, but mskate missed that and she submitted a picture of me wearing a hat (because I'm always wearing a hat and didn't think of it), and so when I tried to get on the boat I had to get my picture retaken. We got our medallions after going to the customer service, and that took a while, but after that things went...well I'll get to that.

Once we got on the ship we needed to find a place for dad to sit down, and that ended up being at the bar at O'mallies, one of the premium restaurants on the ship in the lobby. We kind of parked him and then looked around the place. One of the places we ended up liking is the little cafe on the 5th floor in the main lobby. Mskate got a gluten free ham sandwich and chocolate moose cup, and I got a pizza muffin and chocolate moose bar, and then dad got a ham sandwich. I started my booze cruise off with a raspberrying. I don't remember what it was, but it was a good drink. Our rooms weren't quite ready yet, but we were able to drop off our backpacks which was OK. I then had my 2nd drink, a sweet Annie, again, not sure what it was, but it was good. We did some walking around the ship, trying to get the lay of the land. We walked around the different decks, checking out where all the bars, pools, and performance stages are. I also had a seltzer water, because that was my main drink when I went on the cruise as a teen. I saved the can because I had to see how many I would gather. We spent a couple hours before setting sail, and our luggage was supposed to get delivered before setting sail but we didn't (I want to say it got there around dinner time).

Cast off was pretty nice. We were on the stern when we they sounded the horn and said "we're on our way." It was pretty fun watching the ship sail away, just slowly moving as we pick-up speed. I got some good video of us as we were going. During the little cast-off party they were singing Come Sail Away, an interesting cover of it. I had another drink, a Strawberries on Fire, a drink with Strawberries and Jalapenos and some other stuff (I later found out it was non-alcoholic, but it was still really good). Here's where things got kind of funny. Apparently the maritime rules are they only have to do a full emergency drill twice a year, once every 6 months. On weeks where they don't do the full drill all the passengers have to do is watch a video in their rooms, which would have been very good for both dad and mskate who get tired very easily and were ready to have a calm evening. Guess which training we had to do. With the way I was presenting the methods hopefully I was foreshadowing that our week just happened to be one of the 2 weeks where they do the full drill. We had to meet at our muster areas, listen to all the trainings, and sign in with our medallions to say that we got the full training. Our muster area was in the cassino, so we all sat at the blackjack table. Since the casino wasn't set-up yet I took some video and pictures of the slot machines. There was a "Sexy Red Riding Hood" slot machine that I thought was funny. I took photos while I could because I knew I wouldn't be able to once the casino was in full swing. I think around this time is when we checked out the arcade. It was pretty lame, some racing games and a crane game, but whatever.

Next point of interest was dinner. We all went to the main dining room and had a good meal. Where we sat there was a honeymooning couple and everyone wished them congratulations. I started out with a Hawaiian Tropics drink (which was quite good), and for dinner I had a pork tenderloin meal. Mskate and vikingpolak had a fish thing, mom had some kind of fish and eggplant bowl, and dad had chicken. For desert I had something I always wanted but kept forgetting and never had the opportunity to have it, because it was a trope in cartoons. That desert is a souffle; a desert that is always joked about in cartoons as super fragile, being unable to make any loud noise lest it fall. Once I got it I started loud whispering "OK everyone, be very quiet or else the souffle will fall." It was kind of like a really fluffy cake, and was really good. Mom and vikingpolak each got an after dinner drink, an irish coffee and some kind of hot chocolate thing maybe. After dinner we did some more exploring and went back to the room to unpack some stuff. Since I was still kind of hungry I ordered room service, chicken noodle soup. It was complementary, and I was like "I want to see what this is like." The room service took a while to get there, but it was good. Last cruise we had live TV and could watch Cartoon Network Latin America, and CN LA had completely different schedules and was still doing the CN City bumpers while the US was doing the Yes and Nood bumpers, and since I'm part of a search for a lost Nickelodeon bumper I was hoping to get Nickelodeon Latin America and maybe they would have it. Unfortunately the only live TV they had was ESPN and Fox Sports; series were available on demand, but not live. Oh well.

It's now late night activities time, which is mostly the stage show. This was a magic show from a guy who was a finalist on Penn and Teller Fool Us (or something P&T magic related). He was really good. I'm a fan of stage magic, it's always kind of fascinated me, and one thing I like to do is try to figure it out. After having taken some lessons on magic tricks and watching all of Magic's Greatest Secrets Revealed, I can kind of figure it out sometimes. This guy though, I was genuinely stumped. What I really like is how he did tricks where things passed through objects right in front of our eyes, without covering it in a handkerchief. Afterwards mom and I went to the buffet. We got some carved steak and potatoes, and I ended the day with a Long Island Iced Tea. Overall, great end for the first day.

It's now day 2, a day at sea. Mskate and I started out with room service breakfast. It was pretty cool, the day before we got a menu that we could fill out with our order and preferred time range of delivery and hang on our door handle, and then the following morning we'd get it. We had apple juice and a breakfast sandwich. As our first room service day with the gluten free requirement, it got just a tad messed up. It was supposed to be GF breakfast pastries for mskate and pizza muffins for me, but they gave us an entire gluten free meal, which was a ham and egg breakfast sandwich. It was still good though, and was fun having breakfast served to us. Since we're Catholic and try our best to keep the sabath, we watched mass on our phone on our balcony. It was a little odd that they didn't have a Catholic mass considering they had a Jewish sabbath service at the end of the trip, but oh well, the greater church has gotten better at offering mass for shut ins online that "counts in a pinch" to my understanding. This was pretty cool, as the online priest is offering the communion prayer a school of fish started jumping out of the water in the ocean below. I'm pretty sure that was a "Jesus said to cast out your nets and after they came back full he said to follow him" reference in real life, so that's pretty neat.

We also went to the buffet and I got these. On my meme site there's a joke about croissants, so I got these for them.

First day of exploration started out fun. I had a mamosa to start the day, and we got some video watching the sea, and playing with "Minnie Grandma." On our honeymoon [wait, I don't have a blog of that? maybe one day a vlog since I took a bunch of video] we got my grandma a Minnie Mouse numeo stuffed animal and she really liked it. When she passed we inherited it and we brought it on our trip since this was the first big trip without her and took some video of it looking out the window. She'll come back in the future. One of the activities they did was a zumba class. My mom likes to do zumba at home so she participated. One thing that happened throughout the cruise was "guess the weight" where they had a bronze statue figure and you had to guess how much it weighed. Each guess got a raffle ticket for the end of the cruise, and if you guessed the weight right you got a prize. I made some guesses throughout the trip and gathered tickets. It was a fun thing. I also went to some jewelry thing with the jewelry store on the ship, and the person said "I can see you're a man who likes jewelry" after admiring my hand of rings.

Video of the Ocean I took from the Windows

Youtube Link Rumble Link

An Insane Easter 2025, My Grandma's Last Month

2025-04-29T09:37:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, so 2025 has been a crazy Easter season for me. It all started with March 20th weekend when my grandma went to the hospital with sepsis from her bed sores. Yeah, that's very concerning, she's 90 years old and not in great heath, and has dementia and is on a puree diet because she's having trouble eating. We had many goodbyes and it was very touch and go, but she managed to pull through, making it the 7th time she beat death. I went to the hospital after work when she was in emergency and told her the story of when I didn't shut up the entire way to Pennsylvania for a family reunion, and she said "and he [me] just kept going and going and going," which was very good for me because it meant she remembered the story. When she got to her room her ring hand started to swell so we took off her ring and necklace, and I wore her ring and necklace Frodo style until she passed (keeping her ring and necklace safe). During her time in the hospital I texted her other grandson (the one who lives in Texas) and my oldest friends who she considered grandkids (she was at like all our major events since we had a lot of events, and went to many of their sports games) to call her because we don't know how much longer she has. They all called her that day and everyone was really happy that they did. The hard thing with the dementia is that we couldn't have "real conversations" and haven't been able to for over a year, so even with all the goodbyes and such it was uncertain how much she really got and if we really had closure. Well about a week later I had a vision where she came to me in a dream as her younger self and we had one more conversation, a real conversation where we went over things that haven't been said had real REAL closure. After all this she made it back to her memory care facility where my mom and mskate spent basically every day with her just in case "it was the end." I brought over our extra roku, set it up on her TV, and they were able to watch more than just MeTV Toons and PBS Kids (specifically Out of the Box on Disney Plus, because she loved kids and watching them play, and that's basically all Out of the Box is). A kind of funny thing with the hospital, my boss was very understanding and told me to do anything that I needed to, and one time I told him "this might be the end and I might not come to work tomorrow" but then she pulled through, I went to work, and he said "I thought you weren't going to be here today" to which I responded "I didn't think so either, but my grandma's a fighter and a trickster, so I don't know when."

Palm Saturday is when we had a big final event. Our family is about family celebrations and holiday parties, and we had been planning a party for my grandma at her memory care facility basically since we realized she isn't going to be able to make it to Easter at my mom's house. The plan was that on the Saturday before Palm Sunday we would take her down to one of the activity rooms and all of her family and friends would go there and we'd sing sing alongs and have pizza. Well she got even worse and couldn't get up and leave the bed, so we got all her family and friends in her studio apartment where we sang songs and had pizza. At the party we had my parents, brother, mskate and myself, her best friends, my mom's best friend, the mom of "figurative grandkids," and some of the old neighbors she was very close with. Here's the big thing, she had become semi-non-verbal while in the hospital; before then she didn't say much but would respond in a semi-appropriate way to what we were saying, but after the hospital she wouldn't really respond to much. When her best friend and accordion player came in and said "I'm here to play music for you" she said "thank-you," and that was like "the last real thing she actually said" (she mouthed words and "talked to visions," but saying "thank-you [for coming and playing music]" was the last thing she said). Throughout the entire sing-along mskate held my grandma's hand, and at some songs she squeezed her hand using what little strength she had, and during other songs she held her head up "looking at us" during the music instead of just having her head lay on the side. It was really something. Pizza went well, mom was worried that it would be too much of a smell and cause problems, but it was fine. Everyone said goodbye after the party and let her rest now.

After the party mskate and I went to the mall just because we were kind of in the area (not really, but there was "a need to go there"). When we were there we made her one last build a bear. My grandma really liked build a bear, she loved the cute outfits and the personalized messages. For her 80th birthday her grandkids and great nieces made her a bear. Mskate and I decided we'd make her one last bear, one she'll take with her in her casket to hold onto for eternity, and we'd make a shirt similar to all the "this grandma belongs to [each grandkid's name]" shirts that she would wear when we we were little. We also recorded a voice clip about how much we love her using the same words I said in her first bear. It was pretty emotional (because she was dying and this was "the end"), but I pulled through. It was a very cute cub bear, the smallest they had, and since we didn't know how much longer she'd have mskate played the recording for her over the phone as my mom held it up to her, and she perked up with it. We also got our picture with the mall Easter Bunny since mskate worked with them for Santa and we got little bunny stuffed animals and coupons for either ice cream or gourmet cookies. I got the cookie, mskate got the ice cream. It was good.

Now it's time for my favorite Sunday of the year, Palm Sunday. Why is it my favorite? Because I get "a toy" for mass (a palm branch). This was kind of extra, because it was also our week to do coffee and donuts (there are 4 groups that do coffee and donuts; the Knights of Columbus, The Women's Group, The Ushers, and then Pokematic and Mskate with 1 other lady). It wasn't a big deal, it's just that this was why we had to have the party on Saturday and not Sunday. After mass I told our priest why Palm Sunday was my favorite mass as a child ("I got a toy" as I wave my palm), he chuckled and said "there you go." Hey, it got me involved in mass and that's a big thing for kids. Some time after mass we went to Meijer with our build a bear and tried to find a shirt we could put cricut letters on (because mskate has a cricut); it wasn't going to be "the most sticky and secure" because it would be adhesive vinyl on fabric, but it "just had to last until the burial" and "wasn't going to be played with much." We settled on a yellow toddler swim shirt since it was about the right size for the bear and could get all that we wanted on it. Mskate made 2 sides, the front said "this [grandma's nick name] belongs to" with hearts on both sides of the words, and on the back it listed the grandsons and their wives, "just like the shirts she wore when I was a kid." The funny thing about "it doesn't have to last that long," she lived 1 more week, was able to listen to it multiple times, and everyone's name except for mskate's started to peel and loose letters. It was good though, because that meant she was able to enjoy her last gift.

Fast forward and it's now Easter weekend, specifically Good Friday. Because there was so much going on this weekend with Easter we were already planning on spending the weekend at her parents. The plans were Good Friday liturgy (because "Catholic's don't technically celebrate mass on Good Friday") up by my parents, pretzel making with my parents, and then dying eggs at my grandma's. There were 2 traditions there, we'd dye eggs with my maternal grandparents and we'd make pretzels with my paternal grandparents. The pretzels this year didn't turn out very well, I put too much baking soda in the boiling pot and I think they were a little under cooked, making them turn out VERY bitter, but I later found that if I squirt some lemon juice with every bite I get a good fizzy feeling and neutralize the excess baking soda. Then at my grandma's apartment we dyed eggs while playing out of the box and reminiscing about all the times we dyed eggs at her house. I don't know how much she actually remembered, but it was good for us. We told her "we aren't taking our shirts off and climbing on the table like we did when we were little." We also used some egg dying kits that were pretty old and some of them didn't work well (specifically red, for some reason red/pink is always tricky). The nursing home was also doing breakfast with the Easter Bunny that day and the plan was to have her go down and see him, but because she couldn't leave the bed the Easter Bunny came up and saw her in her apartment. She liked it.

After egg dying I did balloon animals. A little backstory here. When I was about 8 years old I said "I want to learn how to make balloon animals," and my grandma bought me a pump (because balloon animal balloons are very difficult to blow up by mouth) and a bag of balloon animal balloons, and I picked up on how to do it pretty quickly, especially after reading some how to books and experimenting. I'd do it for myself, and as a teenager I did it for people that needed someone to do balloon animals for birthday parties and carnivals. My late uncle had special needs and lived in a group home, and I would make balloon animals for him and the residents of his house all through my years of him being alive, and now that my grandma is in a home I started making balloons for her and residents once she got back from the hospital. Most of the time I just made balloons in her room and then brought them out to the activity room, but this time they were all sitting in a circle without much to do and so I went into the circle and made everyone balloons. I mostly made dogs and swords, and for one resident who didn't have much hand motor abilities I made her a giraffe hat. One of the residents asked if I could make him a gun; I actually kind of can (I once made a tommy gun similar to the one in The Mask), but that's a 2 balloon creation and I didn't want to make something that could be "extra mean" ("I'm going to shoot you" kind of thing), so I made him a sword instead. He then got creative by taking the bunny rabbit I made for his wife, sticking the sword through the ear loop, and he said "look it's a gun, bang bang bang bang bang." The funny thing is he used to work in the same department at the same company I work for now. When I found this out I asked the oldest employees that still work with me if they knew him, but they unfortunately didn't. When I talked to the resident I asked if he knew [this one guy] since he was the oldest guy I worked with and he retired like 1 year after I started, and he said "yes, I think I did," and it was in a way that suggests "I reminded him of something real" and not "I'm confused and just agreeing." Now for "the loud resident." Her big thing is to ask "are you my baby," and other things, and one time when she asked me that I said "no I'm [my grandma's] baby," and that threw off her script and gave her some lucidity where she said "no you're not a baby, you're too big." I asked her what she would like and she said "I want a man, can you make me a short man I can pick up." I said "no, I can make you a dog, a cat, a giraffe, a wiener dog, a poodle, a rabbit, or a sword." Her friend that was sitting next to her said "she can't be trusted with a sword, make her a poodle." She liked her poodle, which became her baby.

Here's where things get crazy. Mskate is doing a fund raiser of "egg my yard," where we set-up egg hunts for people who donate to the diabetes charity she really likes. Last year I bought a bunch of plastic eggs on sale the weekend after Easter and the plan was that we would do them on Holy Saturday, but one family had something going on and requested us to do it on Friday. We said we would, but then mom got "the hard call" that my grandma was on her end and we had to get over there now. Mskate and I, my mom and dad, my brother, mom's best friend, and grandson figure's mom all drive over separately. She was on oxygen and holding on by a thread. Since it's Easter and were going to be spending a lot of time there as we wait for her to go home to Jesus, I found the Ranken Bass Peter Cotton Tail specials on youtube and put them on the TV. She seemed stable enough, so around 7PM mskate and I went to do the house that requested we do it on Friday. We hid the eggs all over their yard and porch, hiding eggs in bushes, seat cushions, sports equipment, and everywhere. We asked if anyone needed anything while we were out and all that was asked was water. We picked up a case at Walgreens and were like 10 minutes from her apartment. When we were maybe 5 minutes away my brother texted us saying "forget the water, come back now, it's happening" (we already bought the water so that wasn't an issue). Apparently my mom called my great aunt and after she said her goodbyes my mom noticed the color draining from her face and she was like "no mom, you need to hang in there a little longer for [pokematic and mskate] to make it back." This is like 8:45 PM long past visiting hours so we were kind of locked out but vikingpolak was able to let us in. We all gathered around, said an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, and around 9:15 PM she passed. We called hospice and it took about 1 hour and 15 minutes for them to come and pronounce her. During this time the other residents were asleep so we were able to go into the activity room and just come to grips with what happened. One of the insomniac residents was walking around and sat with us as we were processing the passing of my grandma. She was showing us her stuffed animal dog she was carrying around, and it was comforting to have someone that "wasn't there" to be a little distraction. After about 15 minutes we went back in the room and waited for hospice. They came, pronounced her, and then we just had to wait for the coroner at the funeral home to take her away. While we waited we packed up her apartment, just packing up everything in the bins that we brought knowing it was a matter of when and not if. We wrapped up all her pictures, took down her command hooks, packed up her dishes, identified things we'd donate to "trash for treasures" (a thing the nursing home does so residents can get rid of things and pass them onto residents who could use them), put the things that would be going to the funeral home in a specific bin, and basically got the place ready to move out. It was kind of weird doing that while my grandma's body just laid there deceased, but that's what we did. Mskate and I left before the coroner got there because it was like 11 PM and mskate was REALLY tired and just wanted to go to bed. While we were taking things down I made a big deal that we had to be careful with the oil painting of the wedding dresses (grandma, mom, and aunt all in their wedding dresses), because I remember my grandpa always telling us "you boys be careful when playing in the house, that painting is very expensive and can't be replaced, and we can't put glass over it because of how it is." Some people were being less than careful with it and I had to be my grandpa and said "this isn't me, grandpa just REALLY beat into my brain that we need to be careful with this painting." We also wrote a note for her resident friend that would come in her room, say hello, and tell her the church is praying for her (didn't want her to try to go in the next day and get all confused why the door was locked).

Now it's Holy Saturday, a day that was supposed to be a rest day. However, with the whole "grandma died the day before" thing it ended up being our "meet with the funeral home and plan arrangements" day and "move everything out for final" day. I don't have a lot to really say about making the arrangements; we picked out a nice rose casket with rose accents on the corners (not like she was a big flower person but it would match her style), we picked out prayer memory cards, got the link to upload pictures to, and gave the funeral home her burial outfit, specific lipstick, and some things to send with her (the artificial corsage from her 60th wedding party and 90th birthday party, her "grandma's little angels" pin with our birth stones that she had in her jewelry box, and pendants of our pictures from when I was 4 and vikingpolak and tanman were 2 that we found in her purse the night before). We said "we don't have any specific requests, just make it look good." After the funeral home, we went to her apartment and cleaned out everything. She didn't have a whole lot left; 2 bins of photos and assorted things, a floor lamp, 2 end tables, a minifridge, and 2 standing lift chairs. Vikingpolak rented a utility van from home depot because of the standing lift chairs. One of the chairs was going to my parents house and one was being donated to a "pay it forward accessibility" charity. We moved the chairs in order of when they would be taken out (first the chair going to my parents, then the chair to be donated), and had our "rush out the door of memory care" sprint since they kind of lock the residents in so they don't wander out and get lost. Since we were moving we were able to use the employees only hallway and delivery doors. Here's where things got really lucky, apparently right after we loaded up the van and got on our way the power went out and they went on emergency generators for essential functions, and the elevator is not considered essential and therefore wasn't working. A tiny miracle if you ask me.

Vikingpolak and I drive to the place where we were donating the one chair and her 4 prong cane. It was kind of out of the way of everything, and since it was a holiday weekend no one was normally there so we had to have someone come in special to receive the chair. It didn't seem like it was that big an inconvenience though, he was just happy to get a stand-up chair since they seemed to primarily get power wheelchairs and walkers (at least from what I saw when we brought it in). Since we were kind of in mom's best friend's neighborhood, we stopped by and said hello. We went to McDonald's for lunch and had an extra diet coke (we each got a meal but vikingpolak didn't want his drink), so we gave it to her. She then gave us red and green M&Ms to give to my mom for her baking. It was a quick "hello, hug, exchange, bye" since she had work to do. After that we went to my parents and swapped out the chairs. I don't know if the chair we replaced was a stand-up chair or just a powered recliner, but the motor burned out and it was "just an upright chair" now. I tried to take the back off but that wasn't happening, but in the process of trying I found my brother's old keys he lost 5 years ago. We put it on the curb and my dad listed it on freecycle (a local "you want it, just take it" group), and then we moved the new to them hand-me-down chair in. Getting the old chair out and the new chair in was not easy, both had very heavy steel mechanisms and my parents have a vestibule that does not make moving furniture easy. We made it though, and now they have a good powered recliner with stand-up functionality.

Later that night it was time to "egg the yards." We had 14 houses to do, Mskate and her dad did one half and her mom and I did the other half (with 4 of them all being on the same block, 2 of them close to that block, and then 1 close to their house). For the 4 on the same street with each did 2 houses. As I was doing it when I saw a ring doorbell I held up some eggs and waved; not like I had to prove we were friendly, but just a nice gesture to say "we're here and this is what we're doing" and maybe give them some social media fodder. One dad said "thank-you" over the smart doorbell and I responded "you're welcome." It took us about an hour to do all 7 houses, and I want to say it took mskate and her dad about an hour and 15 minutes to do their houses. It was a lot of work but it was worth it and everyone gave us very positive feedback the following day. We'll definitely do it again next year and probably take on additional houses, but next year we'll enlist the boyscouts, girlscouts, highschool national honors society, and anyone that want to/needs to volunteer to stuff eggs and distribute them. It's funny, we originally said "just the cities our parents are in" but then we expanded to another neighboring city by popular demand; mskate was worried that we would get in trouble for breaking the rules and I reminded her "who would we get in trouble with, you're the one who made the rules and can change them if you want to" and she was like "oh yeah, I guess you're right." Then when I brought up enlisting people that need service hours she said "but who would we get to sign the sheets, the people who are in charge of the charity live out of state," and I said "honey, this is YOUR non-profit fund raiser, YOU would be the one signing the service hour sheet" and she said "I guess you're right, it's just such a weird thought of being the one in charge and signing the sheet instead of having to get the sheet signed."

It's now Easter Sunday. Things were a bit odd since we were planning on going to my grandma's apartment and just spending some time with her, but without her anymore we kind of didn't have plans. We went to mass with my parents and exchanged Easter eggs with people during communion. One of the people gave us a real dyed egg that had the egg stuff taken out and was just a shell with confetti inside it. After mass at my in-laws we smashed the egg outside and made a fun confetti cloud. At mskate's parents we got Easter baskets, candy and some presents; mskate got a region free bluray player (because last Christmas we got a region 2 DVD set of Disney movies but nothing to play them on), and I got a collection Godzilla movies. We also had Easter brunch. After that we went to my parents and had some Easter baskets with candy and ate some of the honeybaked ham dinner that one of grandma's neighbors got us for dinner. Nothing super special, just a nice calm day.

The Monday after was pretty calm. "I got the day off because Easter falls on a Sunday this year" (it's just a joke I tell), and we spent the day buying day after Easter Eggs and prizes. We bought about 600 eggs and many prizes. Since a lot were prefilled I spent an hour or 2 emptying them. We then packed up and went home. Then when I got home I uploaded all the pictures I had of my grandma for the different videos. On Tuesday I went to work for 1 day, and then took bereavement the rest of the week. Mskate had to help mom get different arrangements set up, and then I spent my time getting the live stream set-up. I used my new laptop to get that done, so that was getting OBS working with the elgato and making sure the camera could pick up audio, and deciding if I would do a facebook live stream like I did for my grandpa or if I would do it through youtube like I did for my wedding (or both since I have a restream account). Since it would be easier to share and access an unlisted youtube link instead of making sure everyone was friends with my mom (especially for people that weren't on facebook like various old people who couldn't make it to the funeral, because they're all really old like my grandma), we went with youtube. I did my tests through facebook live though and a lot of my facebook friends were like "I can hear you" since my test was "can you hear me."

Now it's time for Friday, the day of the visitation, and testing the live stream at the church. We went to the church around 11AM and brought in all our stuff. The decan said he knew people were coming to test but didn't know who, then after he got close to us he recognized who we were since we regularly took my grandma to mass and she was really close to the decan (he'd come and visit her at her house, and some times at the memory care). We asked him to turn on the microphone at the pulpit so we could test the sound. I asked mskate to get up on the pulpit and do a sound check while vikingpolak stepped outside and listened to the live stream. Mskate wasn't very good at doing a sound check, he sheepishly said "hello," and after some coaxing "Marry had a little lamb," and some other things after long periods of nothing. Then I told her to get out of the way and then rambled for like 20 seconds until my brother came in and said "yes it's good." After that we went to accordion friend's house and watched Dumbo with the husband while we waited until it was time to go to the visitation. Whenever we watch something Disney with him he always says "the first movie I ever saw was Dumbo, I was 6 years old on the army base and had to take my little brother with me, I haven't seen the movie since and don't know what happened to it," so we said "let's watch Dumbo with him" and he really liked it.

The visitation was really good. Mskate and my mom worked on making the photo boards and they turned out really good (3 different eras). My grandma was really into ear rings, every holiday and outfit had a pair of costume ear rings, in total 78 pairs that she still had. What do we do with 78 pairs of costume ear rings? We decided to give them away to anyone who wanted them; came to her visitation, take a pair of ear rings. She was also very generous, always making sure people had food and money, so my mom had the idea of making goodie bags for everyone who came; m&ms, lint chocolate, meiji pandas, rice krispy treats, and/or biscof cookies, and an envelope with a $5 bill to do with as the recipient saw fit. Afterwards a lot of people texted my mom a photo saying "got my favorite snacks on [grandma]," and that was really happy for her. The funeral home did a really good job making her look good; her hair was great, her lipstick was good, her nails were done well, and mom said she would have been happy with how she turned out. Since she liked balloons and we couldn't have real flowers due to my allergies, we had balloon flowers. They put the balloons behind the casket all together, but we wanted to spread them out (1 at each photo board, 1 at the ear ring table). We had to climb behind the casket, which was a little comedic (as it should be). We also put the bear in the corner of her casket and her little Minnie Mouse that we got her on our honeymoon. I spent a lot of time visiting with people, making sure people took a pair of her ear rings (a lot of people were like "where did these come from, did someone make them" and I said "no these were all her ear rings") and telling them the significance of the stuffed animals and some of the pictures (particularly how the one chuck e cheese photo was from her last outing with us and how she liked the wheel of fortune games at the arcade). At the end of the night we had given away 73 pairs of ear rings. It was really great, I saw a lot of people I don't get to see very often and it felt good seeing all the people that she touched. She was a kindergarten teacher and 3 of her students paid their respects, one even said that she inspired him to go into teaching. It was kind of funny because the students were "around my age" and after I thought about it a little I'm like "that checks out, they would have been 5 and were from like 3 or 4 years before I was born." A lot of employees from her memory care came and paid respects as well, which was really good. In the final hour we had a prayer service and then my brother gave a eulogy. A really perfect coincidence, when he was talking about how she got a college degree while raising a family his college graduation picture with her popped up on the screen. At the end of the night we packed up all the family snacks into our folding wagon and packed them into our cars. We packed up the stuffed animals and let her have the Cinderella doll for the night (one of her other stuffed animals from a Disney vacation). I told the funeral home people "she's sleeping with Cinderella tonight, keep an eye on her" (and they did, we got Cinderella back the following day).

Now it's Saturday, the big funeral day. Mskate and I got there about an hour beforehand and got the streaming set-up, after buying a roll of wide masking tape to tape down the extension chord. PepperBC asked if there was anything she could help with and I said "yes, you can tape down the extension chord so no one trips," and she did and did a good job. Once we got everything set up, my laptop decided it wanted to do a BIOS firmware update. This couldn't have happened 2 hours prior when I was just surfing the web? Oh well, while it updated I went and said hello to the people that were there and paid some respects, telling my grandma "I'm doing a thing on my computer that you don't understand so your family that can't make it can watch" (because whenever I'd do something with my computer she and my grandpa would be like "I just don't understand that"). I went and checked on my computer and the update was done, so I started the stream. I did my sound check and said hello to all the family that I knew would be watching. Sound came back good so then I just went and saw everyone. Zeldamaster93 made it even though he didn't know my grandma all that well. I offered him one of the last pairs of ear rings for someone in his family. He got the speech of how to be a pallbearer even though he wasn't planned on being one, but at the cemetery we didn't know for sure who would still be there so he might have to fill in (the people who were scheduled to be pallbearers were myself, brother, her 2 grandson figures, nephew, and my brother in law at the church with the accordion friend's son doing it at the cemetery). My godfather and his family made it and I offered them the last 2 pairs of ear rings and they took them. I also had my god-brother do the pack-up of the streaming stuff once we were done. I went over what he had to do and he said he would do it. We said our final goodbyes and took Minnie out, and I asked the funeral director to have her holding the bear when they closed the casket. I kind of wanted her to be holding the bear facing down so she would be hugging the bear like she would hug us, but the director did it with the bear facing up but then that meant that the grandkid names were over her heart. We walked her down the aisle and it was a good funeral. After receiving communion and praying, I saw her in heaven waving at me, and then I saw her with my uncle, and then my grandpa, and then some people I think were my great grandparents, and then my other grandparents, and my older sibling that miscarried, and other people. It was a very "satisfying" vision. At the end we loaded her into the hearse and all went well. After that I went and helped my god-brother pack up the streaming stuff and then we loaded it into our car and drove to the cemetery in procession.

As we were driving to the cemetery I noticed we were close to where my uncle's group home used to be. This will come back later. We lined up at the mausoleum by the final chapel and all us pallbearers lined up by the hearse. It was good zeldamaster93 was there because the accordion son wasn't there. Then since we were carrying her a fair distance my mom pulled my god-brother over and told him to help carry the casket (afterwards I said he was like Simon being called to help carry Jesus's cross). In total 7 people carried her. We all lined up by the casket in the cemetery chapel, said a final prayer, and said our final goodbyes. We pulled out the stuffed animals (Minnie, Micky, and Cinderella) and had them kiss the casket (my god-family thought that was funny). We all followed her to the mausoleum and watched her get put in the wall. After we watched her get put in the wall we went over to where her walker made tire tracks in the wet cement when we "buried" my grandpa 5 years earlier. It was kind of funny.

After the cemetery we went to the luncheon at the country club that was right by the cemetery. I'll give the food details because that's what she would have wanted. We had salad, chicken cutlets, roast beef, mostacholi (or however that small tube pasta is spelled), and roasted potatoes. All of it was really good, and she would have approved. We didn't have a bar, just soda pop and water, but since hers and my grandpa's drink of choice was a Perfect Manhattan, I asked if I could buy a single drink and was told I had to go to the bar that was attached but not connected. I got one and we passed it around to whoever would partake (mostly just my family and the grandkid figures). It was very high octane, and no one was particularly happy with it. We ended up drinking about 2/3 of it, it was more for the symbol than enjoyment. Afterwards we paid off the bill and it was the end (my mom did her "stick the landing" gesture). After the luncheon mskate and I drove by the rout to my uncle's old house. We went by the McDonald's that we always went to beforehand where we would get lunch for ourselves and take to him, and play in the play structure (we had a lot of adventures in the play place using the paper ketchup cups and whatever the happy meal toy was at the time). The McDonald's play place was really simplified, now it's just a small slide. A far fall from 2 stories of tubing with a videogame thing and later TV with mirrors that was sometimes turned on where the ball pit used to be. We then drove by his group home, and it was still there. Afterwards we drove home using the same rout that we used to take to see him, pointing out all the different sights from when we would drive there. It was a good trip down memory lane. Nothing else after that for Saturday.

Now it's Sunday, (my brother-in-law) IRA's birthday celebration. He and I started the celebration by going to see A Minecraft Movie. Neither of us were super interested in seeing it initially, but then there were all the memes and rowdy crowds and we wanted to experience it. The funny thing about that, there was now a warning before the movie that said "if you are causing a disturbance you will be forced to leave without a refund" using official movie art, so that's kind of funny that it got official. I can see where the rowdy audience like The Room would work, a lot of things would lend itself to that. After the movie we went to PF Changs since that's kind of how the family celebrates, and cousin M joined us. After that we went back to their house and gave IRA his birthday presents. We got him a mystery box ornament for Nightmare Before Christmas (it was Zero the ghost dog), a mystery plushy for Nightmare Before Christmas (it was Sally), All in the Family the complete 9th season, and a Power Rangers model car. After that we packed up the cars and went home. And now I'm writing the blog as I sort through all our Easter and funeral stuff. It was one crazy month for me, lots of ups and downs, lots of emotions. But now I know she's whole and we no longer have to worry. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Cedar Point, a Funeral, and Octoberfest, a crazy set of things

2025-04-11T19:22:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, this was quite a crazy couple of weeks/months in 2024 for me. Normally I would split these into different blogs, but they're all a little too interconnected for me to make them separate things.

It all started with my grandparents (maternal grandma and paternal grandpa) having a lot of really rough things happen. Earlier in the year we moved my grandma to memory care and that meant a lot of going through her house and getting it prepped for selling. Lots of things to go through, and one of the things I did was get the curio cabinet for our house (we have niknaks and such we want to display). I bought another curio cabinet many years prior and it was easy enough to move both carrying myself and hauling in my car, and I figured that I could do the same this time. Unfortunately my car is smaller and the cabinet is bigger and heavier, so I had to rent a uhaul trailer and get mizorlover to help me move it. That was the first time I used a trailer, and it wasn't that hard; not exactly easy but was easy enough. I also took 2 shelving units, one from the basement that I'm using in the garage and the shelving unit in my uncles room that we're using for storing our business stuff. Mozorlover and I went to one of the arcades by me afterwards and it was fun seeing him again. Also while cleaning out one of the dressers we found my grandpa's ring that we thought he lost. I liked it the most as a kid and I'm the only grandson that wears rings (my brother and cousin both have a school ring that they don't wear often, whereas I have 2 class rings and wear them all the time), so there wasn't any push back of "no I want that."

Well fast forward some weeks and my grandma fell and broke her hip. For a 90 year old woman that's pretty bad and concerning; it could be quick and easy, or it could be a death sentence, and all sorts of in-between. Thankfully it was "quick and easy," now it's just rehab. Rehab was not great, yes she got her hip fixed but she developed some bed sores and pressure sores, and they weren't very attentive to "dementia patient who can't verbalize there's a problem," which resulted in someone basically staying with her all the time (mostly my mom). That took quite the toll on her as it was like a month long process.

Once my grandma got out of rehab, my 97 year old grandpa somehow contracted covid. "Somehow" being the very key word, he doesn't go out much, neither did my aunt who he lived with, and he didn't get a lot of visitors. One grandparent out of the hospital, the other one in. My mom and dad looked after him while he was in the hospital since it was probably the end (because again 97 year old man), knowing full well they were going to get sick from him. Vikingpolak also went to see him while he was in the hospital because he wanted to see him as well, which of course meant that he got sick too, or at very least meant that he was at risk of carrying for a while. Mskate and I didn't see grandpa when he was sick, mostly because it meant that we were the only ones that could see my grandma since she certainly couldn't get sick especially since she is living in a nursing home with lots of other old people, and since we are her only family that's local (everyone else lives in other states) it was super necessary that we stay healthy. Even though she didn't need a family advocate we did visit her often since she needed our company.

Here's the crazy thing with my grandpa, he's 97 years old, his wife had been dead for 10 years, he personally met 3 of his great grandkids and has seen all 6 of his great grandkids, he saw all his grandkids graduate college, he outlived his older brother so his last goal was met, he had been losing his strength and independence while maintaining his mind for years, all of his friends died; he lived a very full life and was saying "I don't know what's taking the Lord, I'm ready to go home." Once he got out of the hospital he lived for about a week more, giving all of us time to say goodbye (and he stayed lucid the entire time). Mskate and I went to see him a day or 2 before he passed, he was really rough and was spending most of the time sleeping since he had no energy, we went in and held his hand and told him how much we loved him, and his eyes lit up and gave a little smile to us. Really great moment.

Around this time there was also a funny work story. My first boss was retiring and he's a character. One of his traits is that he always had a bottle of diet mountain dew with him, and I had the idea of "mountain dew cake." I don't remember where I first heard about it, but I knew there's a way to make mountain dew cakes. I looked up some recipes and asked my coworkers if they would chip in (which they did). I made 2 different recipes and shared it with people to get their opinion, and then made the recipe people liked most on his last day. On his last day we got him out of his office, decorated it with balloons, and then brought everyone back in. He really liked the cake as did everyone else. Great way to send him off.

Now for my Cedar Point 2024 adventure. Last year in 2023 my mom and I went to Cedar Point twice for some fun weekends since I had the season pass, and this year my mom needed a break from all the craziness she was dealing with. We had been planning this for a week or so before grandpa passed which was about a month after grandma got out of rehab. It's halloweekend mid-September which means it wasn't hot at all, and I took a day off on Friday so we could go during a weekday and less crowded. Mom got to the condo early in the morning so we could get there around when it opens, and we didn't eat much because of all day dining plan (eat a meal once every 1.5 hours). The drive down was pretty easy. I had a little trouble getting my account on the app because cedar point updated the app since last year and it required a complete redownload, but I printed off our tickets so no problem. We went to Hugo's Italian Restaurant first since it was the closest to the entrance, we needed to start the dining plan, and most importantly we were hungry. We split a piece of pepperoni pizza and Caesar salad. We then went on our first rides of the day, Ocean Motion followed by Raptor. Ocean Motion is a fun ride, it's a boat ride where it rocks you back and forth, really fun little ride. Then raptor is a fun roller coaster.

After the "opening things" we went to the pier area. We rode max air, a ride where it swings you back and forth as it spins you around. There are 50 seats on the ride so there wasn't much of a line (I think we had to wait until the current ride finished before we could ride). It was quite fun. Once done with that it was time to eat again. We went to The Pavilion and had roast beef and lobster bisque as we watched the waves crash on Lake Erie. We then went to the different small rides at the pier area; Calipso, Matterhorn, Troika, and dodgem cars. All of them are fun spin-around rides, and dodgem was really fun even though mom had a little trouble getting in and out of the cars. The big thing though was that we were able to ride Windseaker, the super swings ride we weren't able to ride last year. It's like 200 feet in the air and spins you around on big swings. It's REALLY fun, and kind of thrilling because of the heights. There's parasailing and small planes or something, and we were above them. Once we rode Windseaker we went back to the Pavilion and had fancy nachos; dorito chips, nacho cheese, taco meat, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, and I think sour cream. REALLY good. I also don't know exactly when this happened, but in my camera roll I have a guy with a really funny t-shirt, which was before a picture of an error/no signal on a TV monitor at the Pavilion, so they had to be here.

Now it's time for some roller coasters. We went to gatekeepers since it was close to the Pavilion. This is an interesting roller coaster where there are 2 different sides with the riders riding on either side, with 1 giving a view of the lake and the other a view of the park. The line wasn't long so we rode both sides. As we went through we rode Rougaru and Valraven, 2 really fun roller coasters. Valraven is a fun ride where it drops you down a 90 degree drop. It was about time to eat again and we went to coasters where mom had chicken fingers and I had the fries. Since coasters is close to the main stage we watched some of the Peanuts Halloween show that was going on then. Something that was funny was they did Time Warp, a song from an R-rated musical, in a stage show that's made for kids. Kind of funny.

This is when planning had to happen. During halloweekends the back of the park is scary land starting at 8PM, and it was like 4PM now or so, and since we aren't into scary we wanted to do those rides before scary started. We walked through frontier land and went on Skyhawk in scary land. Maverick was the next ride on our list, a really fun roller coaster with a 95 degree drop; yes, it's an inverted drop which is pretty cool. In my notes I have that we left the line for some reason when we were close to the end and then went back and the line was longer. I think it was for food, which is when we went to a hotdog and pizza place where I wanted to get the bratwurst burger but they were out, so I think we split some pizza (which wasn't very good). The maverick line on the 2nd time was pretty long, so it was time to eat again. We went to frontier farmhouse kitchen and grill and had brisket and Brussel sprouts. Yummy.

It's now like 7PM, meaning we have about an hour before scary starts. We rode like every big thing but there were some small things we would have enjoyed like the train that goes between scary and not. I had the idea of riding the train out of scary land, but it must have closed around 7PM so people don't accidentally go to scary, so we missed vikingpolak's favorite childhood ride. We walked our way through the back of the park to the side where camp snoopy is and the other rides we haven't rode yet. We wanted to ride pipe scream, a spin and wave ride in camp snoopy, but camp snoopy was closed down probably because it was in scary land. We were really close to the entrance to scary land when it changed over, we thought we'd get out but nope. When the time changed there were crazy sadistic laughs that started playing on the park sound system signaling the start of scary time. The scary was a lot of scary clowns that would get in your face and spook you. We got out before we got spooked, and on our way out we saw a girl that was crying from terror in a place where the clowns weren't going. Poor kid.

Now that we're out of scary land we went to Back Beat Que and got brisket and macaroni and cheese. This was a pretty good meal for what we did next. There was a trampoline show coming up soon and we wanted to see it, and the brisket and mac ended up being good food for us to have while watching the show. The show was REALLY cool. There were these stilt walkers that were leading the trampoline artists to the stage, and it was all morbid like evil spirit things leading them by the neck to their punishment, and it was going through the crowd that was gathering. Then they took off the robe hood revealing a skeleton costume and the funny thing was the costumes were on backwards. It was a bit uncanny since their knees would be backwards and they were clearly facing away from us but the skeleton was looking at us, but whatever still cool. What was neat about this is that it was all acrobatics, like they're jumping over each other and jumping together and doing jump rope with each other, and jumping in and out of the wall of the stage, and it was really cool. After the show the performers did a little meet and greet, and I told one of them it was a really good show. Also, one of the performers was a trombone player, and I took a photo because I played trombone in school.

Now its's like 2 hours before close, and we had some choices to make. One coaster we haven't rode yet was corkscrew, and we decided not to ride it since the ride is really rough. We did ride power tower, the ride that's either a drop or a shoot up. I think we did both because the line wasn't very long. We were also close to Magnum XL, another old ride, and mom decided to sit it out. This was definitely for the best since it was rather rough and probably would have hurt her a little. The thing that's kind of crazy is that it's a "just a lap bar" coaster and is kind of open on the train car, and it goes up super high. Like, I know it's safe, but it gave me some fear of heights or something. We watched a little of the last show of the night at the main stage, a jukebox musical about witches or something. After watching some of that we got a burger and frings (fries and onion rings) at coasters at like 11:50 PM (right before the park closed). Good way to end the day.

That was basically the trip to Cedar Point. We spent like 14 hours in the park until they closed and kicked us out, and ate $154.02 worth of food for like $40. We made it to the hotel and fell asleep really quickly. On the drive back we picked up a case of Yingling since Yingling was my grandpa's favorite beer (he grew up in the same city as the brewery and would watch them load up the kegs for fun), but it's not available in our state so we had to get it while we could because we needed to have his favorite beer at his luncheon thing we were doing. At some point during the trip we walked through the arcade in the park and I got this funny picture of me at one of the rides. I turned it into this meme.

The day after Cedar Point was my church's Octoberfest, where mskate and I were volunteers. It's a fun festival and fund raiser; there's a beer garden, brats, bavarian pretzels, polka music, and various games. I sold 50/50 tickets, just walking around yelling "50 50," and I think mskate was selling food tickets. Another fun thing was the basket raffle, people donate different baskets of things and parishioners put tickets in for a drawing. Mskate and I made a frankenmuth basket to donate and it got a fair amount of tickets. I normally buy about $200 worth of raffle tickets, but even so we didn't win anything. One of the fun games was the pretzel toss, which wasn't actually pretzels but ping pong balls with pretzels drawn on them. I ended up winning, my teammate and I were really good. It was a fun time.

Now it's time for the sad bits, my grandpa's funeral. Here's the rough thing, our family is REALLY spread out; my parents, brother, aunt, 1 cousin, and myself live in the same state as grandpa, and my other cousins and uncles live on other ends of the country (and 1 lives in Japan). Since I streamed my other grandpa's funeral and grandma-in-law's funeral I got all the necessary equipment and set-up to stream the funeral for all the family that couldn't make it. Vikingpolak came over a day or 2 prior to do some tests since my laptops at the time wouldn't be good for streaming, so he brought his laptop over and we did some tests after getting OBS set-up on his laptop. My aunt decided we shouldn't do that and so we didn't. We brought all the gear (camera, cables, capture card, and laptop) just in case, but it didn't end up happening. This was not ideal since only my one uncle and same-state cousin was able to come, meaning everyone else missed it, but I'll get to how we mitigated that in a bit.

The drive up was pretty surreal, because I had been up there many times as a kid but haven't been up there in at least 10 years and mskate had never been. We put the condo address in the GPS and it was going to take us a certain direct way, but I was like "no we need to go in the town way." We were early before the funeral so I had a little time to show her around the small town. I showed her the McDonalds with the play place that we spent a lot of time in. I showed her the small park that we would walk to and play at. We drove to the house with the friend with an indoor pool that we would swim at all the time (the friend isn't there anymore, had to move out because they were old and the house had a lot of regular maintenance since "indoor pool" and a really large property, and so we didn't knock on the door and say "I used to know the previous owner, can I see your basement"). We drove by the school with the big wooden play structure that we would drive to and play at. We drove by the local 1 screen theater that was always fun to see what was playing and maybe go see it (last one I remember seeing was Skyscraper). I don't remember what the movie was, but it wasn't super interesting. The movie theater is owned by an old couple, I'd love to interview them and get their story as a "real old time movie theater." I also showed her the drive through party store and got her a diet coke from there. Then we went to the local grocery store that has been there forever. Something interesting is that since there's an Amish community in the area the grocery store has a hitching post for a horse and buggy (because that's what the Amish drive). When we were there there was a horse and buggy parked at the post, so that was cool. We went to the store to see if we could get the elfwich cookies that grandpa loved (or maybe it was grandma, one of them really liked them and always kept them stocked), and one year for Christmas I gave him a wholesale box of them and he and my aunt liked them. It was a fun story to tell at the luncheon.

The ceremony was really great. He didn't have a "funeral home visitation," just a wake in the vestibule of his home church where we were having the funeral. We video called my cousin in Japan and I think also my uncle who lives in Florida. My grandpa was a carpenter by hobby and his main thing in retirement, and his casket was a really nice wood. I got to meet some of my extended aunts and uncles that were kind of local, which was nice. I also got to spend some time with my one cousin and let him know about when we'll be over his way for a catechism training thing and that we should meet up.

Now to start the ceremony. First off, my grandpa was a world war 2 navy vet which meant that he could get full military honors. However, there was a small risk that this wasn't going to happen since there was some paperwork problems; now there's some kind of form that says military career and such, but that started in like Vietnam and wasn't really a thing for WWII, but we were able to find something that counted and he got the full ceremony. It started with members of the VFW in military dress putting poppies on his casket and giving him a military salute. Afterwards active navy did a color guard presentation of the flag, putting it on his casket, and then presenting the flag to my aunt and thanking him for his service. After that he got a 9 gun volley (since 21 gun salute would be too much for even a rural farm town) and taps. Really great ceremony. After that it was time to go into the church worship space where my uncle gave a nice eulogy. Lots of stories of him at work and in the navy and his kids and grandkids and great-grandkids. Then for the funeral my brother and I read readings. After mass I was one of the paul bearers. The hearse had the military emblem and American flags on it since they were moving a veteran, really cool. We had a nice little final goodbye at the grave site and then went to the condo for a luncheon. Before I get to that though, even though we weren't doing "full filming and streaming" I did get mskate to record the military ceremony, my uncle's eulogy, and the final prayer at the grave site, and once mskate gets enough pictures scanned in I'm going to make a slide show over the eulogy (because we were filming the floor to not be conspicuous). I sent a rough cut with "the floor" to my uncle who couldn't make it and my other uncle who gave the eulogy since my aunt wasn't able to come and wanted to hear the eulogy, but once I get the full thing done I'll send it to everyone.

After the funeral we all went to the condo and had a luncheon type thing for anyone who wanted to join. 10 years earlier when my grandma died we had a thing at the church social hall, but they stopped doing that so we just had sandwiches at his condo. Mskate and shared the cookies with everyone, but I was kind of the only one that really got the significance (probably because it was mostly my memory). We hung out with the cousins that came, and I primarily hung out with the big cousin who came. We did a lot of talking about stories, like how my cousin installed quake on my grandma's computer and that was a big deal for her, and one time when they were over for a visit they were watching subtitled anime on her computer (this was before youtube). A great memory from when I was a kid is that change would fall out of my grandpa's pockets and fall into the chair, and if you lifted it up there would be a bunch of change under it, and every time we came up we would "check the money chair" and there was always money there (like maybe $5 in various coins), and then we would play with the money while we were up there. I lifted up the chair and there were 2 dimes, one for my brother and one for me. Even in death my grandpa gave us "magic money chair money." I have them in my money drawer with a little note saying "the final money chair money." We also went through some of this things to see who would want what. Everyone picked some tools and such that they would use (because he was a carpenter by hobby and had a lot of REALLY nice tools), and one thing that I found that really spoke to me was "the toy train assignment." In an introduction to drafting class one of the final assignments is to draw a toy train in isometrics using a top, front, and side view. Why is this the final assignment? Because it has slopes, overhangs, cylinders, and domes, some of the hardest things to draw in isometrics. My grandpa was an engineer and I'm pretty sure that he had to do this assignment as well, and because he's a carpenter he made it out of wood. I uploaded it to r/engineeringstudents with the title "my engineer and carpenter grandpa made it real" and it got 400 upvotes.

After the luncheon thing we drove home, and stopped at the McDonalds. You might say "it's a McDonald's, it's all the same, what's so special about it?" In this small town it's not just "a McDonald's" it is "THE McDonald's." When we were kids and my mom had to grade papers, she would go there before everyone was awake and do the school work there. Since she was so regular she became friends with other regulars that would go there, because it was like the only place that was open at 6AM on Saturday. They had an indoor play place and in the winter it was the only place where kids could run around. They also had those "Fischer Price play houses" in the play place, and we have home videos where my cousin and I are playing in them. When there was the Inspector Gadget and Beanie Baby happy meal toys my grandma and her friend would go there to get the toys (of which I still have my inspector gadget). We didn't eat there often, but it was "a place with memories." One of the funniest things I remember from when I was like 18 or 19, we were getting some food there and a "tig bitty goth girl" (platform boots, black leather pants and jacket, black corset, died hair, and black lipstick) and her 90s grunge boyfriend (ripped blue jeans, cutoff sleeve t-shirt, denim vest with patches, long hair with a manly headband), and it freaked out some of the locals that were there. Mskate and I went there for some additional food and because I wanted to have a visit at another memory. The play place was downgraded but still there, and it looked like there were some regulars that were hanging out. Great little way to end off this literal trip down memory lane.

Well it's now like a week later and it's time for Fall Festival in Evansville with my family. Mskate and I shared a room with vikingpolak and he went down with us. Mskate and I were really happy to go there since we missed seeing everyone at the 90th birthday party due to being in Hawaii, and there were some people we didn't meet yet that we would have met at the party but didn't. I packed up a cooler of drinks and foods for everyone, including cherry spite from the funeral. Vikingpolak got to our condo early in the morning and we each drove for about an hour and switched places. The drive down was pretty uneventful. We got to our hotel, checked in, and unloaded all our stuff. We had a suit where vikingpolak had the sitting room and pull out couch, and mskate and I had the bed room. Good spot for all the fun.

Time for the start of the festivities. We started by going to my great aunts house and visiting with her for a while. We just sat in her kitchen and talked. Eventually my parents showed up and they had the boxes of things we were giving everyone from my grandma's house. In the process of going through her stuff we picked out things that we figured people might like; different tchotchkes and knickknacks that had some meaning (like German beer steins for my uncle, hummels that match their personalities for my cousins), and clothing that would be meaningful (like the alumni clothes for my one aunt and the sweat shirts my other aunt made for my grandma and grandpa), and once everyone was together we were going to open it up at my great aunts. She keeps her house very clean and wasn't super happy with us putting a bunch of boxes on her fireplace hearth, but we told her it will be gone by the end of the day. After our little visit I scoped out the arcade that was right by her house, and it was a "single price admission, unlimited games included" with a good selection of all kinds of video arcades (I'll give details when I get there).

Now things are about to start for real. We went to my aunt who lives a couple blocks down from the big festival. Normally we just park outside her house when we come to visit, but parking by her was super full because everyone was at the festival, and so we had to park like half a mile away at a CVS. When we got there we saw aunt G and...you know I don't think I ever had a story with my boy cousin since I started blogging and so I never gave him a name. Anyway, we visited with them a little and he was all "I want to watch the video you made for [your grandma/my great aunt], specifically the final bit." If you forgot or I never mentioned it, I spent basically the first half of 2024 making a big video of my grandma's life for her 90th birthday party, with 6 different sections: youth and marriage to "It Was a Very Good Year," young adult married life from when my uncle was born until when my grandma started teaching to "Shake, Rattle, and Roll," her career as a kindergarten teacher to "What a Wonderful World," early grandkids (up through about middle school) to "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet," grandkids highschool to now (like Christmas of 2023) to "I Did It All," and then "the sing along" of assorted meddles sung acapella by me to a bunch of pictures I had left over (songs include bingo, skip to my lou, when the saints go marching in, ragg mopp, roll out the barrel, she'll be coming round the mountain, an "accordion solo," you are my sunshine, deep in the heart of Texas, it's a small world, let it snow, over the river, those were the days [all in the family theme song], danny boy, a luliby my grandma made up, and the pizza hut song). Boy cousin just wanted to watch the sing along portion because it was his favorite part. If you don't know the reference, just scroll through and find a thanksgiving, Easter, or Christmas blog.

It's now time for the main draw, the fall festival. Mskate and I walked around and got some ideas of places we might want to get food from, and got some food as well. Envision a "southern carnival," and this is it. There are food stands set-up across the entire main street from different local organizations (churches, sports teams, political organizations, scouts, and similar) all offering different things, and more than half of it fried. This time I had sauerkraut balls (sauerkraut wrapped in dough and fried) and fried zucchini. I think we also split a nachos. It was just getting the lay of the land if you will. We went back to my aunt's house and just hung out on the porch until someone with a key came back. "Boy cousin" came back with a giant 4 foot pronto pup stuffed animal (it's like a corn dog but there's something else about it). He's really good at carnival games (probably because he grew up playing them since they were so close to the carnival), and he had to win like 3 times in a row (which he did). The carnie was messing with him and on the 3rd win said "OK and now you just need 1 more win to get the grand prize" and he was all "look here you damn carnie, you said 3 wins and this was 3, now give me my prize before I slap your last good tooth out," and the carnie was all "man I'm just messing with you, here's your prize." Tough southern boy right there.

Now it's time for "Christmas in October at my great aunt's house." All my aunts, uncles, and cousins gathered at my great aunts house. Everyone found a seat on couches and chairs, some on the floor, and I helped out with handing out the boxes of stuff. This is pretty symbolic or something since when my mom and her family were kids they would go down to Evansville for Christmas and have Christmas morning with the cousins. This was very similar to what it must have been like when they were kids. After I passed out all the boxes I recorded it like one would expect when parents record their kids on video. Great little time with everyone saying "hey I remember this, hey this is so me, I'm so happy to have this from [grandma]" and seeing what everyone got. Afterwards we went back to our hotel and had dinner (Drurry Inn, free dinner). While we were there my great uncle and his wife came to visit with us. He's like 10 years younger than my grandma and great aunt and as such is able to do more than them. While we were there we asked him who the flower girl was at my grandma's wedding since she kept popping up in the wedding pictures and none of us knew, and grandma was too confused to remember. I want to say she was like a church friend or good neighbor, but it was like "no relation, we knew her and she was the right age for the job." Speaking of my grandma's wedding and the age gap, my great uncle was the ring bearer at her wedding, and when I first saw the photo I was like "who's the boy" and then it hit me that it was him. That was the end of day one.

Now it's day 2. We had breakfast at the hotel and then went to my great aunt's house. It was a bit early to get into the carnival and everyone else was all sleepy, so we went to the arcade by my great aunts house. Mskate, pepperBC, and I went down, paid admission, and enjoyed all the games; and then my mom and aunt K joined us shortly later. I played a teenage mutant ninja turtles arcade game (can't remember if it was turtles in time or the original) with the family and we played all the way through to the end since my brother loved TMNT and always played turtles in time at Wheels Inn (but being kids we never got very far). I also played some "line up the balls and clear the board before it reaches the bottom" game until I reached a level I couldn't beat no matter how many continues I did. This is a memory thing, because when I was on vacation with my grandparents once this same arcade game was at the hotel and my grandpa let me put like $6 worth of quarters into the game as I kept getting a game over. There was also some "driving and shooting" game which was really fun; the story is that you're like 2 cops on a chase and you have to shoot the bad guys that are shooting at you as you drive the car. I think I also played dig dug and pacman and similar games. Then there was dance dance revolution, and with how the free play was set-up it had 2 players worth so I ended up playing lite mode with 2 players (all of it was jumping). I got a good cardio workout on that one. There was also some Japanese import rhythm game with hitting the light up squares. Really fun, highly recommend. We spent a couple hours there before it was time to start the carnival again.

We parked at a lot that was for the girlscouts. This was the main event as it was the children's pet parade. It's where kids bring their pets and walk them down the main street as people spectate and it's all serious like (there's an announcer, categories, awards, and everything). VikingPolak walked Turtlegirl's dog in the "boy with pet" category (boy with pet, girl with pet, boy and girl with pet, family with pet, family with big pet aka farm animal). It was really fun, we met up with turtlegirl's parents as we watched kids and families walk with their pets. There were some families that got really into it, with them doing like a full wizard of oz costume, toy story group, beetlejuice, and others. There were also kids riding donkeys and ponies. The funny thing with turtlegirl's dad was he was walking their dog in a pet stroller, and it looked funny because he has a handlebar mustache, bald pony tail, and generally resembles a retired biker, while pushing a little dog in a stroller. We cheered really loud when our people passed by.

After the pet parade we met up with everyone; turtlegirl, her husband, her parents, the aunt who got married when I was in college, my aunt who lives close, my parents, and my great aunt. We went to the midway and watched some carnival games. They had some coin pushers set up (token in token out with prizes to knock off) and I played it for a little while. It was $1 for 5 tokens, $2 for 11 tokens, $5 for 30 tokens, and other "more than 4 for a dollar" conversions. I got just $1 worth and was able to play like 9 rounds; didn't win any prizes but I did knock over tokens to continue playing. After that was a very crazy game. In the middle of the booth was a roulette wheel type thing, a wheel with a bunch of holes with numbers over them, and around the booth were numbers from the wheel to put a bet on, 50 cents to play and if you win you get a stuffed animal. Pretty basic roulette, right? No, instead of a ball it was a live mouse. The carnie puts the mouse in the center of the table and whatever hole it scurries into wins. Well that's something you don't see every day, or every carnival. It's not very humane, the entire game is based on a mouse's fear that causes it to scurry away, and if the mouse didn't immediately run for a hole (just sat in the middle) the carnie would bang on the table using the box it was released from to scare it and make it run to a hole. After playing 2 rounds of live mouse roulette and watching some others my great aunt went home. There was a little trouble with that though, because she started feeling weak and needed to sit down, when there weren't any chairs. We went to the people who run the festival and their break trailer and they were able to get a chair for "this elderly woman" until she was able to get up again. After she left I got my brain sandwich. It's a deep fried pig brain on a bun served with pickles and onions, a specialty of Evansville that I get every time I go.

After my brain I got my aunt some fried green beans since I knew where they were and wanted to get some myself. Mskate then got us Donald Trump shaved ice (I think part of the sales went to his campaign). We then hung out with some of the family at one of the bars on main street. During fall festival the bars say "outside food welcome, but no drinks" and are a good place to hang out. I know my dad was there, and my mom and aunt showed up at some point, and I think vikingpolak showed up, but that was kind of it, none of my cousins. I can't remember if I had anything while I was there, but whatever. After an hour or so mskate and I went back to the hotel for dinner at Drurry. After dinner we bought our tickets to Holiday World and just had a quite night in (I played amazon luna and watched Pelswick I think).

Now I don't remember where exactly this happened during Saturday, but according to my phone camera gallery at some point we went to the city courthouse where my great grandpa used to work. He was a local politician and his primary station was at the court house. We didn't know exactly where he worked, so we just went to all the offices to say "one of these is where he used to work." One of the receptionists asked if she could help us and we asked some history questions she didn't know, and she tried to get someone who might but they didn't (because this was at least 50 years ago and things had changed since then). There's also a bit of gray area on if we REALLY were allowed to be there since all the doors were locked except for 1 and there was a guard to turn people away, but we didn't get kicked out so there's that. This is funny, in the corner of one of the windows for one of the offices was a very interesting sight.

It's now Sunday, our day at Holiday World, but since it's Sunday and we're all Catholic we had to go to mass. Holiday World happened to be very close to Arch Abby, a really big place where many priests live and learn. It's this giant place with a small hospital, school, large grounds, and of course the church. Normally I would just talk about how cool it was, but that's not where this story starts. The Arch Abby is like "not on a main road" and is "so large it has multiple entrances," and GPS can get confused on "where the entrance is" and "where the mail goes." Our GPS took to the very back at the hospital place, and we couldn't find the entrance. We got out and wandered around, found our way in the prayer garden and saw where the church was, but we couldn't find a way to get to the doors from where we were. We saw a line up of priests and monks in a glass hallway that led to the church, but couldn't find our way, and there were some that saw us and wondered what we were doing. All this resulted in us wandering around for like 30 minutes and resulted in us being late. Eventually we just got back in the car, followed streets to what seemed like it would be "the other side of the property," and eventually found "the main entrance." We rushed to the church and then made our best guess on what door would be the least disruptive. We went in what we thought would be "the back" and would be "least disruptive" but it ended up being "the front" and it was "most disruptive." Whoops. We missed the first 2 readings but we did hear the gospel, homily, and communion. Here's where things got even more awkward. The church isn't "a normal church" with the alter up front and then rows and rows of pews behind it; there were like "2 alters" with 3 rows of chairs on either side, and not a lot of chairs, and since we were so late there weren't any available chairs for all of us together, so we kind of scattered and one of us had to stand because there weren't any more chairs. The priests were not exactly happy with us. It was a really nice place though, but if you ever go there make sure go to the main entrance and not the back, and if you find yourself in the back follow the streets around until you find the front.

Now that mass is over we went to Holiday World. We got there basically right when the gates opened, and we went right to the Santa statue to get a group photo with it since it's been in the front of the park since forever (my grandma and great aunt have a picture with it from when they were teens). We weren't the only ones with this idea, and because I was kind of fast to get in I got in line for everyone. We got all 15 of us together and was able to get someone to take our picture. After that we went to a "haunted house" thing that was right close to the front of the park. Holiday World is a small family park and doesn't go hard core like Cedar Point, and so the "haunted house" was mostly "cartoony Halloween special" spooky and not "actual horror movie, legit try to scare you" spooky. This was mostly 3D paint and optical illusions, with the craziest thing being this "spinning room" illusion. It was like "walk on a cat walk, 360 projected screen with a spinning image," and it throws off your balance and you start walking sideways. I thought my family was just being dramatic when they were "falling over" but then I did it and yeah, you start to fall over because of how it messes with your senses.

Everyone has different interests and we didn't want to force everyone to stay together at the detriment of everyone's entertainment, but we did want to do something together, and so we were going to do the original nursery rhyme train (from back when the park opened, we have super 8 film video of my aunts and uncle riding it). It was kind of on the other side of the park, so we all walked together to go to it. After all the walking we got there, and it was closed. We were all "Wally World" (because my family loves National Lampoon's Vacation and if you know you know). After that disappointment we went to Thanksgiving land where they had a new ride, Good Gravy. It's like a roller coaster thing that launches you over some humps and turns before going up a hill and then dropping back going in reverse. The line was so long that it was out the queue and was like a 2 hour wait. Mskate has diabetes and can get a disability pass with it, so some of us were able to go past the line, but only some of us. I rode it and it was kind of lame. Like, it's supposed to be a "thrill ride" but it wasn't all that fast and wasn't all that wild and was just tame, and it took longer to load and unload than the ride, and because it was a "back and forth" ride instead of "run a loop" ride there could only be 1 train, and "potential-kinetic energy, dissipation of energy through friction, relative to inertia" stuff the train was only like 8 rows (16 total), so it just lead to "not a very fast line." It wasn't a "bad ride," but it definitely wasn't "wait 2 hours." So that's my review of it. Mskate and I want to get lunch now, but thanksgiving is "traditional thanksgiving dinner" foods and neither of us care for that much so we had to go all the way back to the front so mskate and I could get food at Kris Kringle Cafe. I got a barbecue bowl, which was pulled pork and mac and cheese, and maybe something else but I don't remember. It was pretty good.

We're close to Halloween land since that's close to Christmas, and so we rode the 2 roller coasters there; The Raven and The Legend. Both of them are wooden roller coasters, which means they are kind of rough. With mskate's disability pass we were able to get right on, and the funny thing is I kind of got stuck in ride cart. For some reason there was a divider between the seats and I don't remember it being like that before. Now here's the thing, I'm a little big but not that big, but for some reason these were "extra small" or something, and I swear this was new since my mom and aunts (who at one point were all bigger than I am now) could ride it without problem when I was a kid. I don't know, just kind of embarrassing. We then rode the hallowswings (big spinning swings) since they were right there and it's a fun ride. Again, weirdness because I could fit in the swings without problem and they aren't super big, but for some reason the roller coaster carts were small. I think around this time we did the other "haunted illusion house," but this was more of a maze. It starts with "go in a room and you need to find the flaps with the opening behind it instead of the wall," and a room with "door to nowhere" except for 1 that goes forward, and I think there was a mirror maze, and some other illusions that were "find your way out." Pretty fun. After this mskate and I go to the gluten free stand since mskate is gluten free. She REALLY wanted a funnel cake since she can't get funnel cake normally (because gluten), but unfortunately they were running out of batter and she had to settle for chicken nuggets.

With Halloween mostly used up, we went to 4th of July land and rode the liberty launch. This is one of those "reverse drop" rides where instead of "taking you to the top of the tower and dropping you" it starts you at the bottom and shoots you up. We tried to meet up with the family around this time, seeing if anyone wants to join us and the disability pass, but no one wanted to. After the Liberty Launch we did The Revolution; it's one of those "spin you around and feel the force of spinning push you against the wall" gravitron rides. I remember when I was a kid vikingpoak and tanman rode a rapids ride and got soaking wet, and then they rode that ride over and over again and dried off. Just a funny little story.

After 4th of July we went to Thanksgiving and rode The Gobbler Getaway. This is one of those "shoot the targets, get points" ride, kind of like Buzz Lightyear in Disney. The story of the ride is that the turkeys ran away and you have to use a turkey caller to get them to come out of hiding (shoot the target and then they pop out when the target is tagged), and SPOILERS, at the end you have pizza and the turkeys you caught put on a show. I think we rode that ride a couple of times. In Thanksgiving there's a roller coaster called The Voyage, but it's REALLY intense and jerky, and I'm like "I'm going to sit this one out," as did mskate. While we were in thanksgiving we went to a gift shop and found some things on sale. We got some clearance cotton candy for my mom since she really likes cotton candy. I think we also got mskate a stuffed animal of the park mascot since she likes stuffed animals. We went to the front of the water park since it's all part of the same park and included in the price. Back in the summer vacations we would spend the heat of the day at the water park and it was really fun, but because it was cold it was all closed so no fun there. They did set-up some trick or treat things for later in the day, but it was for kids under 12 so not for us.

Our next adventure was Holidog World, little kid land. There was nothing for us there, but mskate wanted to see what we were missing out on. It's inside the loop of the train. I want to say there's a kiddie coaster, a car ride, a splash pad, and a play structure, with a meet and greet stage for meet holidog. Since we were close to the gluten free stand we checked if they had more batter, and they did. Mskate was able to get her funnel cake, yay. The next ride we did was the antique cars, and we kind of met up with the rest of the family around this time. We went to the Christmas restaurant again and I had some kind of special sandwich. We went through the optical illusion house again and got our pictures with holidog and the cat character. That was the end of the day at Holiday World, we were only there for maybe 6 hours but it's not a very large park so we were still able to do everything we wanted.

After Holiday World we went to the hotel and had a little birthday party for everyone since there are like 4 birthdays in September - November (this was after Drury Inn dinner). We were able to get a conference room and had everyone together to have dinner, drinks, and cake. My uncle got candles that said "it's your day" and there was some trouble with the lighter, so we had to use the match book that I keep in my camera bag. I honestly don't remember where I picked up the match book since it doesn't have a logo, but it's been in the one pocket for years and has come in handy a couple of times. It was a fun little party, and afterwards we made sure to clean up really good. After the birthday party we were able to see MMT and her boyfriend Cowboy (not sure if he is one, but he's southern and wears a cowboy hat, and so he is "Cowboy"). This was really great because I haven't seen MMT since my grandparent's 60th anniversary party and have never met Cowboy despite hearing about him often. I would have met him at my grandma's 90th birthday party, but I was in Hawaii for my other cousin. It was a short little visit, but still good. After that we went to bed for the next day the trip back, and said our goodbyes until the next time.

Leaving was pretty uneventful. We packed up the car, checked out, and drove home. It was a really great trip, always fun to see the family again, even if it didn't end up being a whole lot (because they're all night owls and mskate and I are early birds, or something like that to where our schedules never intersected). It was also a good way to "end off" the craziness of all my grandparents and vacations for 2024. I use "sarcasm quotes" because as I write this my grandma is now on hospice, and we don't know how much longer she has, and that was a crazy adventure with all that went into it, but I already wrote that on my other blog. There was maybe a 2 month period where things were kind of calm, but then it hit the fan again. I hope you enjoyed my crazy long blog of everything interconnected. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's The Big 10 Men's Gymnastics Final Competition and the Ann Arbor Hands On Science Center Adventure

2025-04-07T13:37:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, after going to the big 10 women's gymnastics competition 2 weeks ago mskate and I went to the big 10 men's gymnastics competition. We had to buy both events so we needed to be in the area all weekend, so we got a hotel for the weekend and decided we would go to the Ann Arbor hands on science center museum during the day. It's a children's science center, but we're not embarrassed. Also, mskate has a history with going to this hotel by UofM and wants to go there, and she's trying to figure out if it was the hotel that she went as a kid (which it was). Our exchange was basically this meme come to life.

We went to Ann Arbor after I got home from work. Mskate had everything packed so we could basically just pack the car and go. Normally when I do packing I pack our amazon fire stick so we could watch our streaming at the hotel, and I was planning on doing that this trip as well, but we forgot it and so we didn't have it. The drive was pretty easy, and checking-in was pretty easy as well. We got all our stuff unloaded and had some dinner stuff. There was a Wendy's across the street from our hotel, so I had a small fry and free jr. frosty with the free frosty tag. I had that with my vegetarian beans. We just kind of rested for a little before heading to the arena.

We got to the arena about 15 minutes before the doors opened, which is about 1 hour before the meet started. Unlike the women's meet the lines weren't very long, and when we found our seats the arena was pretty empty. Mskate pointed out that it's so much more empty than the women's meet. I said "that's because the men don't compete in glorified swimsuits, let's see what the attendance is like when the men are allowed to compete shirtless next year." As general attendance we could sit anywhere, and so we sat somewhat close to the floor (kind of like when we go to the meets at the small gym). After setting our jackets on our chairs we walked around the arena just because, and got mskate nachos. As we were walking around there was this guy at a table with a shirt hung up with a bunch of signatures on it. I asked him "so what's this," and it was a project his group was working on since 2018, he was getting as many signatures of current and former UofM gymnasts and they were going to present it to the head coach this year. The oldest signature he had was from the class of 1949 and the second oldest was from 1959, and when I asked he was finishing up with someone who was also a gymnast. It's a really cool shirt and I got a picture of it. Mskate and I are kind of doing something similar, we have a 2024 American Olympic T-shirt that we had Fred Richards and Paul Juda sign, and we want to get other former Olympians to sign it. We brought it in case we ran into others, but we didn't (the Ohio State coach was an Olympian and there was someone from UofM in the stands that was also an Olympian, but since they didn't represent the US we weren't as interested in getting them, if we ran into them sure but weren't going to seek them out and really try). There was also a beenie hat give away for big 10. I put mine on top of my fedora and mskate just held onto hers.

It started out with the walk out; the Illinois Fighting Illini, the Nebraska Corn Huskers, Ohio State Buckeyes, Penn State Nittany Lions, and University of Michigan Wolverines. I was laughing really hard at "the corn huskers." Like, that doesn't sound like a real mascot. It reminds me of the South Park Cows. This is a "multiple events playing at the same time" thing, it was "floor and pommelhorse, rings and vault, and parallel bars and high bar." The teams then rotated through floor, pommel, rings, vault, parallel bars, and high bar, with UofM starting on the floor. It was a good set of rotations.

This particular meet was broadcast on the Big 10 Network, a national sports package cable channel, On the jumbotron they showed what was being shown on the tv channel and we were thinking "maybe we'll be on TV." but the camera wasn't pointing towards us ever. I looked up at the jumbotron and saw that when they did rings the audience was in full view and no one was up there, so I had the bright idea to go sit there and cheer for UofM when they were on rings wearing my high visibility yellow jacket. I told my aunt about it and she tuned in, and mskate told her mom to make sure she was recording it. I had to test the waters to see how far I could push it. First guy I just waved our pom poms while sitting down. Second guy I started dancing in my seat. Third guy (Paul Juda) I stood up waving my arms around. Fourth Guy (Fred Richards) I started doing the YMCA and Macarena. If you watched the Big 10 network during the UofM rings contests, you saw me dancing in the background. My aunt and mother-in-law really liked seeing me, and she sent me some videos and pictures. It was really fun. After that I went back to my seat.

Mskate recorded it. I'll try to get better quality but it might take a while.

The rest of the meet was pretty good. Lots of good competition and acrobatics. All of this went on and ultimately UofM won. I guess I should talk about some other events during the day. The MC of the night went around and talked to different groups and we got different chants and fun. Between the rotations one of the contests was kids doing the "stand on 1 food" competition, and the boy who won clearly was a gymnast since he was holding his arms in a very "direct way." We also saw the UofM storm trooper, and when I ran into him I said "hey hey, uhhh...the wolverines strike back right?" He said "*chuckle* no it's the M-pire" while pointing to the university logo "M" on his chest. There was also a boy by us that was waving at the front of the stairs (we were 4 rows from the front) that would regularly go say something to his mom. We could tell he was trying to get on TV and his mom said "you can try but you can't leave my sight." 20 years later he'll look at where the camera lands for different events and go there after saying "I'm the adult and I say I can go over there." After the meet we went to Wendy's for a large fry for me and diet coke for mskate. There was a promotion where I could get a free large fry with any purchase in the app, so I did that and mskate was getting a little annoyed since it was taking a while for me to figure out the app and people were showing up, and she wanted to get back to the room to watch the woman's gymnastics meet that was going to start. Since we were right across the street I told her "just walk back to the hotel." I got her the diet coke and myself the fries, and after that we just hang out in the hotel room for the rest of the night.

It's now Saturday and we went out to breakfast at Anna's House, a local restaurant that works well for mskate and her allergies. I don't care much one way or another, it's an aright restaurant but nothing super big for me. For like 2 days she was saying "I'm going to get a lemon poppy seed crepe with cream cheese filing and blueberry sauce," and then when we got to the restaurant she was like "maybe I want this," and I'm like "no, you've been saying 'I want lemon poppy seed crepe with cream cheese filling and blueberry sauce' for days, you're not about to change your mind." She chuckled and said "yeah what am I thinking." I got the brunch burger; 1 beef patty, an over medium egg, bacon, caramelized onions, hash browns, and burger sauce. It was really good. While we were sitting in the restaurant a guy approached our table and asked how we were doing. I was thrown off because I regularly have people remember me (because I tend to make a big impression) but I don't remember them. He then said "I saw you cheering for Michigan yesterday, now I need to ask, were you just cheering for them or were you trying to distract them." I laughed and said I was just cheering for them, and wanted to get on TV. This was the first time I've ever had someone "recognize pokematic and approach me for it" (because "I'm going to dance to get on TV" is more of a "pokematic thing to do" than "an IRL me thing to do") so it was kind of surreal to be on the other side of "I recognize your work." I ate my entire burger and fries but mskate needed to save her other crepe for later. That was OK because we had a refrigerator in our hotel room, and it would work for a good meal like thing before the meet later. We spent about an hour afterwards just resting in the room watching online videos.

Now for the day activity. Ann Arbor has a hands on science center in the down town and mskate said "hey that would be a fun thing to do." She went there with her school once, and I went with my grandparents. When I was little we would go to hands on science centers regularly since I really liked them, and once my grandparents too me to this one. The main thing I remember was that it used to be in a fire house and they still had the fireman's pole, and there was a thing where it was "pull the rope and go inside a bubble. There were also some things that I remembered when I saw them, a laser harp (stick your hand in the laser beam and it makes the sound of a harp string being plucked), and maybe the water exhibit but that's kind of common at other science centers, and maybe this "make a maze and the ball rolls down" but that's also common (someone also took the ball, so I pulled one of the balls I carry in my pocket and ran it). At this other science center (I think it was Cosci in Toledo) there was this "giant marble run" where pool balls run on tracks and do different things, with switches that allow users to change paths. They had one at this science center too (they just weren't pool balls, same size but "non-specific" heavy solid balls), and I just stood there watching it fascinated watching every path and seeing what every switch did. One of the workers saw me and said "this is one of my favorites too, want to see something cool, every 2 weeks or so the chain gets jammed and someone has to climb to the top and fix it, this is what it looks like at the top" and he shows me some photos on his phone. That was really fun. Mskate really liked this "logic and follow the path" event. There was this little general store thing, and there was a hologram of "people coming into the store," and then I explained how holograms worked to the camera. There was a "this is how a tornado works" display that makes a little tunnel of fog. There was a thing that showed off binary, and having taken digital logic I had some fun with the binary. There was also a "crane game" thing where it was working with different axes, and I did pretty well with getting the balls to the staging area, but then I screwed up the y axis and z axis and knocked the balls off where they were supposed to be. We also went to the water thing and had some fun with the water displays, and one of the things was "ball pit balls" to help show how water moves as they float on the water, but it was just for 1 location and if used on another they would get stuck. Lucky for me I'm now tall enough to get the things out of the place they aren't supposed to be at a science center (because that seems to happen a lot). Mskate and I went down to the group lunch rooms since she went there with school once and that was her big memory. Here's a video of clips I took.

Before the meet we had our left overs. I had the other half of my beans and coffee maker ramen, and mksate had her other crepe. We got to the arena without problems and got in line without problem, but then there was a little miscommunication of when the doors would open with the guy outside telling us "the doors are open, go in" but they're still locked and we had to wait another minute or 2. This time we tried to sit a little more center of the floor routine, and the interesting thing is that unlike last night where they had 2 events going on at the same time, it was just 1 event at a time and full display on the TV (probably because it was just the top 10 competitors instead of 5 competitors over 5 teams). I went over to where I could be seen on rings and did the YMCA and Macarena when UofM was on rings and then just doing arm waves and such when the other teams were on the rings. Once again, I made it on TV, and they were cutting away from me when they had the chance. Later in the night mskate noticed some other people doing similar things to what I was doing, so maybe I started a bit of a trend. I don't have much to say about the events, it was good competitors doing well at their sport. Between a rotation the hypeman MC came over to where we were sitting but interviewed the big Michigan group that was next to us since they looked more the part. I did do a YMCA for him and he seemed to know what I was doing.

Now for the big award ceremony. Everyone paraded in and sat down with the podiums in front. Here are the different presentations.

Floor Routine

Pommel Horse

Rings

Vault

Parallel Bars

High Bar (this was presented by former gymnasts from like 40 years ago)

All Around

Top Coach

Second Team (top 11-20)

First Team (top 10)

All around

Top Coach

Second Team (top 11-20 competitors)

First Team (top 10 competitors)

After the awards we walked around the arena just to get a little exercise and wait for the traffic to die down. As we're walking a boy points to me and says "you were the guy in the clouds," and it took us a little bit to realize he was saying "you were the guy dancing and cheering in the crowd." That was fun being recognized by someone else. We made it out of the parking lot and got back to the hotel no problem. Sunday was a pretty basic day. I had a breakfast baconator from Wendy's for breakfast, and mskate got a takeout breakfast sandwich to eat on the way home. We made it back home with enough time to make it to 11AM mass. It was a really fun weekend. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's Big 10 Women's Gymnastics Championship Adventure

2025-03-30T11:59:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, amidst all the craziness with my grandma and dad mskate and I went to the big 10 women's gymnastics championship on Saturday. Since we like going to the UofM home meets and the big10 championship was hosted at UofM this year, we decided to go there. We bought the tickets before the crap hit the fan so we used this as a break. It was much need. But before the meet something very bad happened. On my right hand I have 3 rings; high school graduation, college graduation, and my grandpa's ring. When I left I was very certain I put all 3 rings on, and as we were driving to the meet I noticed my grandpa's ring was missing. I felt "comfortable" since I knew it was somewhere recent; the stairs by where I keep my hat and accessories, the stairs, the attached garage (possibly the recycling bin), or somewhere in the car. When we got to the meet we looked around in the car but couldn't find it, looked around the car to make sure it didn't fall out, and it wasn't there. OK, look when I get home. But wait, there's more. Since this is a long meet I brought our power brick to charge our phones and mskate's insulin pump, and because mskate has diabetes I had sugar snacks in my pocket, and because I have big pockets I happened to have a tin of almonds in my pocket. I also normally carry a pocket knife multi-tool, but I knew better than to bring that. We go through security and I get buzzed, I walk over to the side and upon emptying just 2 of my pockets the guy said "there's all your contraband, put it in your car or throw it away." I hurry back to the car and drop everything off, and all the while mskate is waiting just past security because the tickets were on her phone. I still got some sugars in (because diabetes, ADA says "this is medicine and overpriced stadium food is not a reasonable accommodation to prevent a diabetic from having an outside bag of skittles"), and I'm pretty sure it was the almonds since last time we got the charging brick in. Whatever.

OK, now we're in and we need to find our seats. Normally it's general admission so we found seats around where we were last time, but when mskate noticed people were getting kicked out of their seats she realized that seats were assigned and we were in someone else's seats and had to find our own. Ours ended up being wheelchair accessibility seats, and we don't have wheelchairs. Apparently this was kind of common since they were setting up folding chairs for people who needed them, and the seats were pretty comfortable so it wasn't a big deal. We wanted to make sure we had good seats for the vault and these were good. I got us stadium nachos to split as we watched the warmup. It was pretty good, and then there was the walk out and that was good.

The match was against UCLA, UofM, MSU, and some other school with an "M" for the logo. First UCLA was on vault, UofM was on uneven bars, MSU was on balance beam, and "other school" was doing the floor routine. All of them did really well, lot's of 9.9 and other high scores, but then something REALLY cool happened, Stephen of Michigan State scored a 10 on balance beam. That was SO cool, and I think afterwards she did a crowd surf with her team. During the rotations there was a hype man MC who went around interviewing people on the jumbotron and he started with MSU asking them what it was like to see a 10, and people were very happy. Then there was the selfie cam thing and mskate and I got on it with our signs and dancing. That was really fun.

Now in this rotation it was UCLA on bars, UofM on beam, MSU on floor, and "other school" on vault. I don't have a lot to say on this one, except UCLA did really well on bars with everyone scoring a 9.9 except for one woman who got 9.95. This time the hype man went to UofM where he interviewed UofM men's gymnast and olympian Paul Juda as he was in the crowd and cheering for his girlfriend and promoting next week's men's meet. This was also when mskate got us ice cream, chocolate peanut butter I think it was.

Third rotation, UCLA on beam, UofM on floor, MSU on vault, and "other school" on uneven bars. What happened? Oh just another 10, also on balance beam, Alipio of UCLA. The MC was celebrating and I got him on camera. Way cool, 2 10's in a single meet. After that win MC hypeman came to the UCLA section where we were sitting, and I got some good up close pictures since he was standing right by the accessibility section as they were getting ready to interview. Really fun. We were also in the background of the interview, not easy to see but my high viz safety yellow jacket was visible.

Now for the final rotation, UCLA on floor, UofM on vault, MSU on uneven bars, and "other school" on balance beam. I think we should either call this meet "the 10 meet" or UCLA "the 10 school," because they scored 2 10s on floor bringing their total up to 3 and the night's total up to 4 (Moors and Chiles got the 10s BTW). Yeah, they were some impressive routines. Rotations over and ceremony getting set-up, the MC went to "the other school" section and interviewed them, especially the guy in the fedora and beaver tail.

Now time for the award ceremony. There's not too much to say, but there are pictures to show. It was kind of neat watching 11 teams squeeze on the floor routine floor (why 11? because there was an 11th school that was added to the big 10).

Bars Winners

Beam Winners

Floor Winners (sorry, don't know what happened to vault)

All Around Winners

And then I forgot the context here, but it was "celebrate the whole team and cram them on the podium."

We were able to get home without much trouble. Once we got home I dug through the recycling bin looking for my ring and it wasn't there. I looked through the stairs and garage, not there. Mskate looked at the landing and stairs, not there. I dug through the little garbage in the kitchen and not there. I looked through the car again but not there. It wasn't until I completely cleaned out the car and moved all the seats the next day did I find the ring between the drivers seat and the center console unit under the rails that the seat placement adjusts on. I saw something a little shiny and round, so I reached to it and there it was. I exclaimed really happy. I was a bit worried that it might have fallen into the back seat vent that's under the driver and passenger seats, but when I saw that my fingers wouldn't fit in the holes I was confident that my ring that's larger than my finger wouldn't fit. It was a bright little event in an otherwise dark point. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

UofM Men's and Women's Gymnastics, Men's VS Ohio State, Women's VS Alabama University (And Some Other Weekend Events)

2025-03-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, we had another fun time with college gymnastics at University of Michigan. But first, Friday was a "sad gathering." My grandma is having problems with bed sores after her broken hip surgery among many other things, and the bed sores got really bad all of the sudden, so we had our priest friend come and give her anointing of the sick/last rites. We went to her assisted living facility and had cheese pizza and bread sticks (because Friday of lent). I brought my balloon animal stuff and made balloon animals for her and other residents; yeah, one of my many talents is that I can make balloon animals, I wanted to learn how to do it when I was a kid, got some how-to books and creativity of my own, and most importantly a pump since twist balloons are hard to inflate by mouth, and now it's something I can do. We also got her room all decorated for Easter and spring, and enjoyed some cartoons on MeTV Toons. She enjoyed the company and the anointing was really good. I wear my grandpa's ring and the class ring they bought me when I graduated college, and I had my hand with all the rings on her for the "family lay your hands on the sick" portion, so it was like grandpa and her past self was there with her for this. It was a long Friday night, but a good one.

Now for Saturday. We started out with going to Blimpy Burger as we always do. This time I had a double with a fried egg, salami, grilled banana peppers, onions, lettuce, and pickles with a side of fried broccoli. Mbinski was able to join us and he had an egg sandwich. We chatted for about an hour which is always fun. After lunch we went to the Joan Fabrics in Ann Arbor to see what kind of fun stuff we were interested in. Mskate needs to get stickers for the friends for life conference and we found a number of stickers that would be good for the conference. We also found some blanket yarn that is normally REALLY expensive; mskate likes to make blankets using the heavy yarn, but heavy yarn is quite expensive so she doesn't do it often. I got some command hooks just because we find a use for them and they are kind of expensive. We looked for patches since mskate needs to practice with sewing them, but we couldn't find any, oh well. There was a party city close by so we went there to see what bones were left. Very little was left, a fair amount of fabrics but not a lot of the kind of things we were looking for. In the same shopping center was a party city, so we went there as well to see what scraps were left. There were a fair amount of halloween costumes and balloons, but that was kind of it. I found an inside out 2 mystery toy since mskate is into that, and she found some other thing that I don't remember. Now we went to the meet.

Going to the meet was kind of crazy. Normally it's not that crowded but it was today because the men's gymnastics stadium shares a parking lot with the baseball field and there was a baseball game going on at the same time. As we're driving around the lot looking for a spot we saw the school grounds vehicle with a flat bed trailer taking up 6 spots, and then I found a bunch of soccer nets taking up another 6 spots. What jerk moves, don't they know that people need to park here. We had to park in the student housing, but because it's St. Patrick's Day weekend there were a lot of parties and therefore not a lot of available parking. We had to park like half a mile a way, but it wasn't that bad considering that the weather is nice and warm now. One thing that had me kind of laugh uncomfortably is that there were a lot of shoes on the power lines, and in some places it's a gang symbol of territory or where a member died. In reality it's almost certainly "mark of achievement" for students who graduated, but still, here's a picture of me with the shoes.

The men's meet was pretty good. Today was senior's day as the last home game. Mskate and I got pom poms and a poster for free and weren't able to sit in our normal front row spot because they were received, but we were able to set 1 row back. Why were they reserved? Because there was an assisted living facility doing a field trip to watch the event. It was senior day in more ways than one. Having so much experience with my grandparents I was on guard to help if needed. One thing that was pretty cool for mskate is that the coach for Ohio State is a 4 time Olympian or something. She kind of wished she brought the Olympian shirt, but he wasn't able to sign autographs anyway. When they did the t-shirt give away after the floor routine I went over to where people could see me and did the "stand on one foot" trick thing that they do for floor routine that I can do really well, and one of the gymnasts laughed and tossed me a shirt. I didn't take any event photos this time, so don't expect my "attempt at real photography" this time. The great thing is the shirt is in my size. All the "old seniors" left around the final high bar event, so we were able to go to their seats. That was good for me because my legs were getting cramped. UofM won which was good. After the competition the seniors were recognized with a framed singlet (or whatever their uniform is called). It was pretty cool to see. Here are the pictures I took.

With the senior day event it was a little late in the day, and mskate jokingly said "hey we could go to the women's meet now." I took it seriously and we went to the women's meet. We had a little trouble finding the car, but no real problem as we found the car. When we got to the stadium we were able to find a spot in the parking lot. Of course this is "a real stadium" and not "a gym with stadium seating," so we weren't "sharing a small parking lot." The women's meet also costs money, but we didn't expect to do this so we needed to buy the tickets at will call. We got the tickets no problem and now we have paper tickets for the event. Something cool about this event was that the first 2000 people got a free t-shirt and we were both able to get a free t-shirt. Since we had a lot of time before the event started we walked around the stadium and for their "show off gymnastics" thing they had Fred and Paul.

As we walked around there was a health care package thing that was being given out, and a tote bag that came in very handy with carrying the shirts and some other things. In the bag was a lot of good things; liquid IV, pimple patches, aspirin, bloating stuff, moisturizer, and a condom. I had a good chuckle with the condom. It was getting to dinner time and we had to find something to split. Mskate and her dietary restrictions kind of limited things, but lucky for us the burgers are served open face with 2 patties, so she was able to have the burger that wasn't touching the bun and the tomato.

We were able to get some good seats to see the whole event. We got there for warm-up and watched the warm-up. One thing I noticed was that the leotards were very sparkly, but it wasn't really coming through in photo. It was a pretty good meet. The set-up was one team did one event and the other team did another event and alternate between teams and events, unlike how with men's both teams compete on the same event. I think the order was vault and uneven bars, and floor routine and balance beam. I think floor routine is my least favorite women's routine, it's "too dance" at least at this level (according to mskate). Vault was pretty cool since we were able to see it better. Also, it was kind of funny how there was a fair amount of country music for the different events. My guess is it was "because Alabama." Here are photos I took.

Afterwards they had a recognition thing for the seniors as well. We weren't too interested in the ceremony, but mskate wanted to see if men's gymnastics Olympic medalist Paul Juda would walk with his girlfriend during the ceremony, which he did. At some point during the meet there was a "dance and get on the jumbotron" thing and we made it, way cool. Nothing too much else for the night.

Now it's Sunday, the day where we were celebrating my brother's birthday with the family. We went to a tavern close to my parents house and this is when I had my corned beef on a sandwich. I'm not sure where I could get corned beef by where I live for St. Patrick's Day on Monday, so I'm happy I could have it now. We gave bro a picture frame collage with pictures of him with grandpa mskate has been scanning in, and that was a very emotional gift for him. Then I wrapped him some specialty beers I got from a store when we went on a trip for mskate's training. Overall great weekend. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Men's Gymnastics, UofM vs Iowa University, and the Super Bowl

2025-02-10T16:07:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, more University of Michigan Men's Gymnastics adventures coming in. For those who don't know, mskate enjoys gymnastics and we can get to Ann Arbor without too much difficulty, so we go to the gymnastics meets regularly. Normally we go to Crazy Jim's Blimpy Burger before the meet, but this time we wanted to try someplace different that we saw driving to the arena, Cat Pizza Max. It had a cool exterior, lots of neon and pastels, looked like it would be fun and maybe have some arcade machines. Well we got there and the atmosphere left a lot to be desired, it was kind of small and didn't have any arcade stuff, more like a bar than a pizzeria. In the basement they had a dance floor and some boardgames and a NES classic on a TV, but not to appealing, and the bathrooms weren't exactly cleaned after last night (mskate said the lady's room was covered in trash from the previous night, and the men's room wasn't terrible but the garbage can wasn't in the garbage can location so I had to put my paper towel in the garbage in the can outside). The pizza on the other hand was pretty good. Their thing is "unique pizzas," like "bad breath" pizza which was heavy on onions and garlic and some other things, and "no THC" pizza which was a hemp crust with other hemp based foods. We got Carolina Brisket (brisket, Carolina barbecue sauce, and a cheddar cheese blend) on a gluten free crust, and it was a very good and unique flavor, something I might want to try to make myself. There was another variant with sweet sauce instead of tangy sauce, in case Carolina mustard based BBQ isn't your thing. The menu was also in a trapper keeper, and a real Trapper Keeper brand trapper keeper. They also had a nice cocktail menu that looked good, but it was a bit too early for alcohol. We ended up using just about the exact time purchased for our parking meter (1-2 minutes left), which felt great.

We got to the arena about an hour before the meet started, which ended up being the right choice because it was super busy today for some reason. We were able to get our usual seats front row right in front of the floor routine mat. This time the give away was light up bracelets which were really cool. They were all pre-set to turn on at blue, but they could be cycled to different colors and 3 different strobing effects. I set mine to soft transition. This became really cool at the opening when they turned the lights off. We watched the warm-up and it was good, saw a lot of people fall and tumble, but that's what you do during warm-up. There ended up being a problem with the floor routine floor, because the coaches had to keep straightening the seams. I don't have a ton of things to comment on for the competition, but I do have a bunch of photos I took of different events, and some of the team celebrating their teammate. When Paul and Fred finished an event the team would chant "he's an Olympian."

[insert photos]

Here's a photo of the coaches fixing the floor.

Now for some fun stuff. First off, the national anthem was sung by a little girl, maybe 8 or 9 years old, and she was wearing an American Flag dress. She was sitting behind us and mskate said "I bet she's going to sing," and she did and was pretty good even if she didn't sing loudly into the microphone (if she had a microphone). Between events the team throws out shirts to the audience, and last year we each won a yellow shirt. We weren't going to try but then noticed they were giving out blue shirts which inspired us to try. We didn't win, but I came up with a plan to get attention that I'll say in a moment. After the pommel horse there was a "stand on 1 leg doing the pose" contest for audience members, and I unfortunately wasn't asked to compete. Mskate thinks it was just for students. Too bad because I would have dominated, I once stood on 1 foot for over 30 minutes in a competition between MMT and I (and we probably would have gone longer if my aunt didn't knock MMT over because she was complaining about her foot starting to hurt). This gave me an idea, I'll get the attention of the teammates by doing the pose. Before the final event I went to where the coach was standing and did the pose yelling "t-shirt." They ran out though so I didn't get one, but I did get the attention of the coach and he did a pose with me.

After the meet we went home, nothing super special afterwards, but I did have my ribs that I had been brining for 24 hours. Now it's Superbowl Sunday. Mskate and I did coffee and donuts at church, something we do every 2nd Sunday of the month. The industrial coffee maker we use is a little broken, and I ended up overflowing the coffee pots. That made quite a mess. I let our maintenance guy know and he's going to look into getting it fixed. After mass mskate and I went to meijer to get special take and bake cookies for her allergies for superbowl snacks, but they didn't have them and we were disappointed. As for the game, it was football, a pretty crazy blow out with the teal team. The half time show was not that good; not a fan of mumble rap. As for the commercials, they were hit and miss. I liked the Lays commercial, Michelobe ultra commercial, sketchers commercial, and the Jeep commercial with Harrison Ford was very entertaining ("I like Jeep, even though my name is Ford"). Then there were the crappy AI commercials, the weird dunkin dohnuts commercial, and the hellman's orgasm commercial that's a parody of when Harry Met Sally (makes sense, but tasteless). There were also 2 commercials that went to very different places than expected, there was one where it was "boobs, look at the boobs, we all like boobs, boobs boobs," and then it was Wanda Sykes saying "if you like them get screened for breast cancer," and the other that was all "big pharma bad, it's over priced, designed to make companies richer, this is some kind of commentary on our healthcare system" and then it was for hims/hers mail order pharmacy. There also seemed to be a lot of ads for FOX shows and properties, which more power to them with the largest audience of the year but not a great showing for commercial creativity. Oh well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's Christmas and New Years Story

2025-01-21T07:37:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, Christmas time is here, time for joy and cheer. My last day of work was December 18th or something and then I was off until January 2nd. There were a lot of fun things that happened this year, and one of the fun things is that mskate worked for santa this year with my mom. I went to see her and my mom one day and it was fun seeing her. I also don't remember exactly when this happened, but at some point we went to see mskate's aunt who is now in assisted living for their holiday party. We got her a stuffed flag heart that is also an ornament. At the little party I sung Christmas song karaoke and did some songs in my goofy voice. That went over well with the residents. Mskate and I also went to see The Nutcracker as presented by the Royal Ballet and Orchestra at fathom events. Review experience here. We also did dinner with the accordion friends early in the vacation before the vacation where we gave them some small presents and one of the call blockers from my grandma's old house.

I think I should start things off with the Christmas party my mom has with her old college friends and their kids on like the 20th. All her friends had kids around the same time, so all of us are around the same age, and back in the day we'd all play together, great time. Now though, there's only like 3 of us that are still local; myself, my brother, and one of my mom's godsons. Still fun though, the godson has 2 kids, 7 and 5 years old, and they're really fun to play with. We played with the playmobile Christmas sets that my parent's have had since I was a kid that they still put out as part of their Christmas displays. Mskate and I also brought some happy meal toys for the kids that we got from our fast food meals (I try to not eat big meals when I go to fast food, which typically means kids meals with a toy that I'm not always collecting). The kids really liked the toys we got them, though a lot of it was probably just that it was a "new toy." The hospital by my parents does a community thing for the children that are hospitalized over Christmas, people come with flash lights and other lights and shine them at the windows (it's like 5th story 100 feet from the building, so it's not like people are sticking flashlights in the window and blinding the kids), and then they shine flashlights back at the people outside. Most of the time the police and fire department gets involved, bringing a car or truck to shine their lights since that's a fun thing for kids. Since my parents live 4 blocks from the hospital with a path to the hospital mskate, godson, his kids, and I walked there to shine the lights. Since mskate worked for santa she got a snowflake wand that we let the kids borrow for the event, along with the snowflake wand that my in-laws got when they went to see mskate. They really liked the wands, and I made sure to remind them that they were borrowing them so they wouldn't get too rough and accidentally break them (because they did get a little rough some of the time). We shined the lights but didn't stay the entire time because it was below freezing and snow everywhere and everyone was getting cold (I could have stayed a little longer, but everyone else didn't want to stay the entire time). Rest of the party was fun, but nothing else super worth discussing.

Not sure exactly when this happened, but I think it was between the college friend party and full festivities. We went up to my aunt's house and did some Christmas celebrating. It was the first Christmas without my grandpa, and was pretty hard on my aunt. Grandpa had lived with her for the last 7 years and died in October. It was a bit of a rough celebration, but we still had good dinner and some gift exchange. My aunt basically gave everyone some valuable-like things from my grandpa's condo (mainly super old ornaments). Then we were able to pick an animal wood carving from my grandpa since he was a master carpenter (maybe not "fully classified," but he was quite amazing). Mskate and I both chose the moose, and now he looks down on the front room from on top of one of our curio cabinets. Speaking of wood carvings, my grandpa would carve a Santa every year and instead of putting up a tree my aunt puts up a Santa village with little fake trees and cotton snow. Mskate and I made her 2 Santa ornaments to add to her village and she puts them up (not this year, but I think she just wanted to put up grandpa's this year). We gave her a banzai tree kit as a present this year and she really liked it (she gardens and this inside gardening kit is perfect for her). Hopefully there's a sprout next time we see her. It was originally going to be a present for my dad but then we had enough things for him and nothing for her, and afterwards mom told us that dad would like a kit as well (we ordered him one and had it shipped to his house).

Lets fast forward some days to the main Christmas festivities. Since mskate and I were in the same school district and met in highschool our parents are pretty close to each other, and since my in-laws have a "real guest room" while my parents have "a twin bed in the spare room," we stay with my in-laws for the Christmas festivities. We went to my in-law on December 23rd in the evening and unloaded all our gifts for everyone. Nothing super exciting this day, just packing up the car and organizing our gifts for who they go to and the different parties.

It is now Christmas Eve, the day we celebrate with my grandparents. This was a different than normal, since my grandma is no longer in her town house and is in memory care. Little backstory, this year my grandma moved out of her townhouse condo and moved into memory care since she can't live on her own anymore. We still did McDonald's lunch, and Mskate and I picked up the orders for everyone since I have the app and get points on orders. Little backstory on the tradition for the new readers, my grandparents lived 1 block away from McDonalds and on Christmas Eve we would go to McDonalds for lunch and then Santa would deliver presents to their house when we were out to lunch, and we continued the tradition up to when she moved out (and still do as I said). It was really good that we brought food because grandma wasn't eating her lunch at memory care since she didn't like it. We got her a happy meal and that was enough for her (she only ate about half of it actually). I got a mcrib since they have that again, and everyone else had different meals. It was a good time. After eating we did our gift exchange. We got grandma some noomio stuffed animals from our Disney adventures since she likes "her babies," one of her valentines day stuffed animals that somehow ended up in our gift stash, and some snack foods. She got me a crystal growing kit (because I want to see what happens if I let it sit for like a year), pokemon sun and moon DVD set, pretzel trail mix, a pin board for my pin collection, a lows gift card, krabby patty candy, and star bills. After all our gift exchanges we went to church at my grandma's home parish. She hasn't been there in a long time, and it was great for her to see everyone and everyone to see her. It was a little hectic getting her in the church (because she struggles with walking and sitting), but still good. After all this we went back to the in-laws and did a night before gift exchange. I got some lego sets and socks, and maybe some other things I'll explain in the tomorrow bit. I finished off the night by watching some of A Christmas Story on TBS (because I always watch A Christmas Story on TBS as part of their 24 hour marathon).

OK, it's Christmas day. We wake up and go out to the presents all spread out, everyone finding their presents spread around. IRA's favorite presents from this was the Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends DVD set we got him. Mskate really liked all the lulu lemon clothes and Disney animated movie DVD set she got (though it's region 2 since dad-in-law doesn't pay much attention to regions and he has a region free player). Delilah really liked the dog sweaters we got her, one a dragon costume and another a Christmas tree sweater. I got Pokemon megablocks both mini pokemon in balls (that I like to use to decorate my work desk), a dragonite, and pokedex, a magicarp nanoblock kit (a brick toy imported from Japan), a Tangled TV show DVD set, animal crossing lego sets, a Disney lego set, sonic shirt (specifically for the day after Christmas, you'll see why), a water ring game, and some candy. IRA also got a nanoblock kit (him blastoise), but he was having trouble building it so then I spent about an hour building it for him. Some time we had breakfast, and it was nice and relaxing because we didn't have to pick up mskate's aunt (the one in assisted living). It was a fun calm morning.

After the in-laws it was time for my parent's Christmas party. Mskate and I were like the last to arrive, meaning we didn't have to help get my grandma in the house. We started off just catching up with everyone. PepperBC and her mom where there which was great. I told them all about our Hawaii trip and they filled us in with how the cousins are doing. MMT may be getting proposed to before the end of the year, which means that my wedding streak is maybe still going. Our accordion friends also came, and we had a fun sing along with everyone. We sang all the Christmas songs, sleigh bells, let it snow, santa clause is coming to town, and so forth, and some Disney songs since mskate likes them and they're fun to sing. The accordion friends thanked us a lot for the call blocker since it blocks almost all of the annoying spam calls now. Cousin M joined us for dinner which was great, and dinner was pork tenderloin. It was a fun party with everyone. Getting grandma to and from the dinner table was something since she has trouble with the ups and downs. After the party was really difficult getting her out. We had to instruct her on how to get out of the chair and get into the wheel chair, and then when we got her out to the car how to turn around and sit down in the car. It was like a 30 minute ordeal. According to mom, when they got back to the assisted living facility the workers were able to get my grandma out of the car, in her room, and ready for bed before mom was even able to get the car parked and say goodnight. Professionals at work.

Now it's the day after Christmas, where we did a gift exchange with my parents and brother. My brother got a lot of different beers (because he likes beer), and a Coors Lite sign that I found. We game my mom a fancy silicon like pool noodle on season close out (normally like a $20 pool toy for only like $5), and lots of cotton candy (because she loves cotton candy). We got my dad some Peanuts Snoopy things since he loves that, a folding emergency shovel, gloves with flashlights in the fingers, a stripped screw removal kit, and some other things I'm forgetting. Mskate got lots of Disney gift cards. I got a Rokr globe lamp, rokr owl clock, a microwavable ramen bowl (because I like to have ramen when traveling), spongebob socks, elf goldfish, multi-connection charging cables (I call them "multi-taps"), a santa chocolate guy with a smashed penny, Fall Guy on 4K (great movie), a Power Puff Girls ornament, a chuck e cheese gift card, star bills, and silly putty. Later we had some left overs for lunch, great little time with the family. Later in the evening IRA and I went to Sonic 3. The movie was sold out (we got the last seats that were together) and someone was sitting in our seats, and that's because someone else was sitting in their seats, and so on like all the way down. Right before the movie the row basically did the wave of shifting down. Great movie, you can hear my thoughts here. Pretty calm night after that.

Following day we went home. I packed up all our gifts and travel things and we went back home. Once we got home I unpacked everything and began sorting where to put things. Some time during these days we went to different stores looking for after Christmas sales. We got some candy and chips, and some gift wrap and dog presents for next year. I also got my dogecoin migrated to my coinbase wallet. So fun story, back in college I liked to tinker with bitcoin and dogecoin because it was all new and I could get it from faucets and obvious ponzi schemes ("double your crypto in 100 hours," I'd deposit the minimum and 80% of the time would get in before it collapsed, making a decent amount). I used dogechain as my dogecoin wallet because it was an official cloud wallet and was easy to manage my crypto. I got an email from dogechain mid-November that they were going to fully shut-down and if your wallet wasn't migrated by December 31st your crypto would be lost for good. I missed my window to send the dogecoin through the wallet application but not to get the private key and back it up on a local wallet. I tried just putting it right into coinbase (since they now support dogecoin), but it wouldn't work so I installed dogecoin core on my old college laptop (because I wanted to use a computer that I wouldn't be worried about breaking), and it was running for like a month because it had to update the entire 14 year blockchain. Yeah... Whatever though, after a month of updating I was able to move my 220 doge to coinbase. If it wasn't a "substantial amount" (when I started it was worth about $140 and when I finished it was like $80) I would have just cut my losses, but I didn't want to lose out on that. Whatever.

Now for a little fun thing between Christmas and New Years. One of mskate's good childhood friends was in town and was having a 1 year old birthday party for her son. The funny thing is a lot of the friend's family lives out by us, but the party was at the friend's parents house an hour away from us. We went basically right after church. It was quite the drive, and rainy, and they live in the country nowhere with some dirt roads, meaning that our just cleaned car got dirty. Thankfully the rain washed off a lot of the wet dirt (it's the drying on that makes it stick). The party was pretty good. The baby really liked my hat, every time I was close he just stared at me. I asked his parents if it was my hat or beard and they said "probably the hat." I played galiga with some of the other party guests, and we visited with the people mskate knows. One of the party games was "guess the baby's month age in 12 different pictures." I only got one picture right, but I did better than my wife who got zero and follows the mom's instagram. Funny thing when it came time to sing the baby happy birthday and give him his muffin (no "baby crushes cake and makes a mess" scene here, he has allergies that prevents him from enjoying normal cake), he was more interested in the balloons than he was in the muffin. His parents kept trying to get him to eat the muffin but he just wanted to play with the balloons, and when the parents tried to take the balloons away from him he got sad and would cry. Pictures had to be taken between balloons. All went well, except for the lack of red meat sandwiches (it was all turkey and I don't like turkey), and the dog being territorial and not liking people (not violent, but very yappy and there's something about a dog's bark within like 6 feet of me that makes my right ear hurt). Otherwise it was a good little day.

2 days later it was now New Years Eve. Normally we have someone hosting a new years party but none this year. I got a promotional text from zapzone (a regional laser tag, arcade, and entertainment complex) that they were having a new years promotion, and we considered going to it, but on closer inspection it was a little too expensive for our preference decided just spent the night in. We did go driving around to Party City to get some things on sale since they're going out of business (got a helium tank for my mom since she loves balloons and some of those study plastic party cups that my in-laws like to use among some other things) and an upscale grocery store where we got some personal party supplies (spinach dip and chocolate moose). We watched The Emperor's New Groove together and I watched an IP Man movie and John Tucker Must Die on hulu before they expired. We also went to New Years Vagile mass since New Years is a holy day of obligation. I built one of my lego (mega block) sets from Christmas, the Pokedex. Mskate doesn't like to stay up late (and for that reason she kept asking "what are we even celebrating" and didn't really want to accept "it's just a reason to party"), so 10 minutes before midnight I called her into the living room and pulled up Dick Clark's Rock'n New Years Eve on ABC. Since I run our local channels through a networked over the air DVR that makes it's own server or something (along with digital not being "100% live" like analog was), the feed was like 30 seconds to 1 minute behind live so mskate was looking at her phone and saying "my phone is ahead." We counted down the minute countdown and kissed at midnight along with some sips of wine (I didn't have a small thing of bubbly wine and I didn't want to open a full bottle). Happy New Year. The Time Square ball is getting replaced after 17 years of use, and if my math is right that means that I saw the ball right when it was first used back when I went to New York back in highschool with the band.

New Years Day is just calm. One of the main things was we watched the Rose Bowl Parade. This was the first time I've watched it, and it was really neat, everything was made of roses. We also went to Meijer for a little more after Christmas shopping (we've been doing a lot of that recently). The main thing we needed to get was on sale sweatshirts that mskate and her dad could throw off to donate at the marathon they're doing next week, and an ornament box that was on sale. We got it and started taking some ornaments off, and it's going to work out well for us since it's all divided to individual holders. We also made one of mskate's lego, brick heads of inside out characters. I stuck them in the Lego Mario display, so now it's kaiju pixar characters in the mushroom kingdom. I also watched a lot of masked magician on youtube. It's also the return of Family Guy on Adult Swim. I tried watching some but then I remembered why I don't like Family Guy.

Now I need to go back to work. It was a really great vacation. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

2025 International Auto Show Adventure

2025-01-13T13:11:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, it's that time of year again, the Detroit international auto show is back again, and this year I went with my parents after getting some discount tickets. We were there for the first day that it was open to the public, and boy was it fun. This year they had off-road driving demos from Stellantis and Ford, and there was a speedway thing with 3 of the car brands (Volkswagon, BMW, and I think Ford). This was possible since the vehicles demonstrated were electric and electric vehicles don't have combustion emissions to put into the enclosed area. I'll get to the details of those when I get to them. Electric vehicles were kind of the big thing at this show since this is what all the industry is pushing for. I'm not super interested just because our grid isn't ready, I don't have charging in my garage and getting wired is not something I want to go through, and public charging isn't very common, but good for you if it's your thing.

The absolute first thing we saw was a drifter van, a van with a kitchen, shower, bed, and storage, perfect for those weirdos on youtube that live out of their van. We saw it because it was on the way to the Stellantis display.

First real exhibit we went to was Stellantis. I liked sitting in the Jeep Wagoneers and Fiat 500s. Some of the jeeps were hard to get into, which was fun. There was this one car with LED trim with an option to change the light colors, which was really cool.

It was also the 20th anniversary of stow and go, and there was this game to see if you could fit everything in the stow and go van, and I was part of the game. We did it with 12 seconds to spare and so we won trucker hats with the brand on it, and I wore it on top of my fedora. Now for the big thing, the Jeep off road experience. We went up and down an uneven hill, up and down steps, up and down a 45 degree incline hill, through a narrow passage with us riding the edge of the wheel, on a 30 degree tilt leaning over, and sopping on a peak. We were able to ride in the pink jeep, which made my mom happy. Since it sits so high up my dad had a little trouble getting in and out, but it was really fun. When we were going down the steep incline I was being held in completely by the seat belt which was a pretty crazy feeling, like something out of an amusement park ride. I took a first person video from the front seat, and then afterwards I took some video of the obstacles so I could overlay them. Check it out here.

Also, while we were waiting in line, there was this cut-out hanging out in the trees to startle people. Kind of funny. I also got a soft pretzel around this time, with a pitiful amount of cheese sauce for dipping. I don't know if the vendor was running out or was just being stingy, but oh well.

Right by the stellantis exhibit was a switching gears show, where they play the first episode and have some give aways or something like that. I had already seen the episode at home so it wasn't a big deal, but it was pretty cool that a TV show had a presence at a car show.

By this time dad was getting tired, it was maybe an hour and a half into our time there but he expires kind of quickly now. All he really had to do was sit in the back seats of some cars, but that wouldn't have been the most sustainable thing. Mom and I looked around at some different exhibits looking for a place to sit, and we found the DTE electric car display. There was a trivia scavenger hunt that once all answers were found would get you an opportunity to play plinko to win a slinky, ice scraper, tire gage, tire stress ball, or a tote bag. Where the prizes were set-up the ice scraper was the hard one to get, but I ended up winning it. Cool I guess, even though I would have liked the pressure gauge more. Still pretty cool.

We were pretty close to the Ford exhibit, so we looked around at some of the fords. They also had an off-road demonstration for their off-road vehicles, and we would have done that as well but the line was super long (like at least an hour), and while I wouldn't have minded it would have been too much for my parents for what would have largely been the same experience we got from jeep (only real difference was this bridge thing, video below). We mostly just looked around at different trucks and watched a little swag giveaway. One of the cool things was the Detroit Lions football helmet car and a pickup truck with some Lions decals.

This is about when dad sat down at the DTE display with the nice seats. Mom and I got him a soft pretzel and bottle of water, and I got dipping dots. Dad got a fair amount of cheese, so much that it was spilling over. Mom and I went around to some of the other displays. I was able to sit in a BMW, and right close to it was some prop cars from movies and TV shows. The big ones for us were the Jurassic Park jeep, station wagon from National Lampoon's Vacation (complete with Aunt Edna on the roof, a leash out the back from Edna's dog, and a Wally World bumper sticker), and Magnum P.I.'s Ferrari. My mom's family used to go on a lot of family road trips and when National Lampoon's Vacation came out they saw it multiple times since it reminded them of all their family trips.

The next thing we did was we went to the luxury car display. These were the Ferraris and Lamborghinis, and other super luxury brands. Mom and I aren't like super into these, but it is pretty cool looking at cars that are worth more than our house. Here are some of the pictures I took.

And then there was this James Bond car.

Outside the luxury car display was a place where you could get an alcoholic drink and some porches (at least I think it was porche). There was one that had this cool paint job that I took pictures of.

Since we didn't get enough time at stellantis, we went back and sat in a couple more vehicles. I got my picture with the utility van, which is always fun for me. I just think utility vans are neat. I also got in this pick-up truck and the rear view mirror wasn't actually a mirror, but was a screen that showed the feed of a rear view camera. Really cool. I called my mom over to look at it and she thought it was cool too.

I think our next thing was a combination of Volkswagon and GM. Not a whole lot of interest in VW, but they did have a van that was a little reminiscent of the VW bus. At GM we got a picture of the new Silverado for my mom's friend and I looked around and found another van life van.

Now I don't remember when this happened exactly, but at some point we went to this display that was the Detroit grand prix, and michigan science center. The science center was full of activities for kids; build a dinosaur skeleton, build a foam car thing, play mario kart for switch, build duplo cars, play with hotwheels and tracks, and some other things I'm forgetting. I know as a kid I would have really loved that "build a car" thing. The Grand Prix was pretty cool, they had racecars and a victory podium for taking pictures. They also had a real F1 racecar for kids 12 and under to climb into. I wanted to do that since once I was able to sit in a real stockcar racecar, but oh well, I did get a fun picture on the winner's podium.

This was also right by the car speed demonstration. I didn't do it because the lines were kind of long and it was getting late for date, but it was still pretty cool and I got some videos of cars going fast.

[insert picture]

Time for the last event of the day. Dad was really tired and ready to go home at about 4PM, but there was still the show car display (cars owned by enthusiasts in a local club that look cool). Mom and dad just stat down at the cafe while I went to the display in hall E. Lots of cool cars, check them out here.

And then there was this monstrosity of a license plate.

I promised them I would be very fast, and I think I spent maybe 10 minutes at most. After that we went back to my parents and then went out to dinner at Chilies using the gift card mskate and I got them for Christmas. All in all it was a really fun day time, even if there wasn't nearly as much swag as there was in previous years. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.