My last concert, and some fun at the zoo

Hey everyone, well here's some possibly depressing news, but it was coming anyways. For the past month I've been playing with the high school Jazz Band, the same one I played with during my years in high school, well not the exact same since most of my friends graduated with me. Well last Wednesday was our last gig of the year, the annual JARC gig at the Detroit Zoo. We play for about an hour and then get to go into zoo afterwards for free. The gig went well. We played some good Jazz tunes, but my favorite was when we played 25 or Six to Four. It's the only piece I would solo on. I soloed and it was fun. I would have recorded it, but I would have had to set up my lat top, do sound checks, had someone run it, and then do something with it while I went in the zoo. My dad got some pics though.

It went well. Afterwards I went through the zoo with my brother. We had our fun. Unfortunately my favorite exhibits, the butterfly/bird house and penguin house, was closed. Oh well, still had fun. I saw a bunch of exotic animals. We had fun at the reptile house, especially when we saw some lizards getting it on. Some parents had to explain that "they were wrestling."

There was free food, well included because there was a charge to get in normally. I had a hot dog and a Pepsi, no product placement, because I prefer coke products, more specifically sprite. Coca-cola company, I'm willing, send me checks, or stock.

After I ate we went to other things. I got a picture of me in front of Rackam Fountain. Here it is.

One of the great newer exhibits is the kangaroo exhibit. It's open with the kangaroos running around. We have a path to stay on and the kangaroos just run everywhere. Once I had one kind of come up to me and since they can get dangerous, and they warn against it, I was being really cautious. But that was 2 years ago, and this time nothing.

We got to see them feed the Polar Bears and seals, and that was really cool. The seal was doing tricks. Then in the farm area, the horses were fighting, like with kicking and biting and stuff. That was interesting.

An exhibit I really like is the greater apes exhibits. Unfortunately they didn't have all them out, but I got some picks of my hand against the moldings of other apes. Here they are.

 

I had fun. It was fun. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

Family Camping 2012

Hey everyone, just came back from camping with friends that I have been camping with since, well forever. Mom and Dad were in a singles group, where they met, and they've all been camping together for over 20 years every year. We've grown and shrunk over the years, and this year seemed much smaller. I used to have trouble keeping tack of everyone's names, because we would have like 10-15 families all with kids and I only saw them a couple of times a year. This year we had 6 families, all of whom have been constant in coming to most gatherings. I know their names, except for a few who still trip me up.

Well now for the fun. We arrived Friday where we helped our friends who we were staying with set up their tent. Mom and Dad didn't want to do full camping so they stayed in a motel while we stayed with some friends in their tent. Friday tends to be a day where we all just kind of hang out and catch up. It's also the day when we go to the ice cream store that's right within walking distance, and is affordable, and as what happened a couple years ago, has onion water. I had crunchy munchy peanut butter. It's vanilla ice cream, with chocolate chunks and peanut butter. Really yummy.

Saturday is typically beach day, and this year was no different. We spent time at the beach, and since the friends we were staying with brought their dog, we spent time at the dog beach. The other time their dog came, 9 or so years ago, she was afraid of the water. This time, she went all the way in, with a little coxing, but fine, and had fun. I went toobing, and was able to stay in, until they made me turn around, then I kept falling off. The toobing was taken on the way to the sand bar with the drop off. It wasn't to too special. It was kind of on the other side of the lake with a bunch of people docked there. I swam off the drop off, and it's like a 45 degree angle. I did see drunk people partying on a pontoon boat. My friend that also went toobing didn't see much with the sand bar, so we just hung out on the boat and chatted about things. One drunk guy swam up to the boat and asked if we'd take him toobing in exchange for the rest of his beer. Friend handled it well with "this isn't my boat so not my call." He was like "OK I can respect that, but if you want to just find me." Well that was our fun on the beach and on the lake.

It was nearing dinner time, and Saturday dinner is always the big dinner with everyone. We have had different dinners over the years. This year, we had pizza and bread sticks. I had my pieces and we just had fun visiting. Our group has a Bob and a Larry, both dads, and they have young kids. As good Christian families, we all love Veggie tales, so Bob and Larry both have Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber T-shirts respectively, and their respective kids have shirts just like their dads. We got this really cute picture of Bob and Larry with their "little Junior Asparaguses." I would upload it but I don't know if they would want it up for the world to see. Just take my word for it.

Sunday, today, was go to church together, pack up, and say goodbyes. We're all Catholic, so we all go to church together. It's a nice church, and to my knowledge, we've all sat in the same spot since we can all sit in this one area. We normally go out to breakfast, like we did back when we all went to the same church and before everyone started moving away, but we had to get my brother to boy scout summer camp and had to miss it. To bad, it's normally quite fun. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

A dabble in lucid dreams.

Hey everyone, yesterday I read a thing on how to lucid dream. You know, controlling your dreams. Well the first step is knowing if it's real or dream. I already had that covered since I dream in 3rd person, and things are so weird all I have to do is look at it to know it's a dream. Now the next step is realizing it's a dream while dreaming. I've done that when it was a nightmare and was successfully able to stop it and go onto another. Before I did that in my dream, all 3 of us awakers, catholiccontriversy, happy gamer and I, were bracing themselves for going into the dream instead of just watching, hence the 3rd person perspective I guess. Well I tried calling out the dreams. The dreams didn't like that. The people in the dream would scold me and say that's not how it goes, reset. This happened many times until I realized that I need to just ride it, probably because the dreams got revenge. They were like "OK, you don't want a show, here's a field, there is nothing in this field, except for grass and small nuggets of aluminum. Go find the aluminum, in first person." Next thing I knew the sleepy time was over.

So now I'm awake. The 3 of us get a stern talking to by the dreams. They said basically that "this is our turf. We take a back seat to you guys during the day. This can give us ideas for dreams but we never interfere with the awake world. If you're going to interfere with our time, we're going to interfere with your time, and you know what we're capable of." The 3 of us were all "OK, we're sorry. We didn't know. Please don't screw in the real world."

Here's how I guess you could describe how it works with the dream. The dreams are magician. They put on a show, with things that are known to be not real, but you don't know how it's done. Even if you know how it's done, you don't let on to it. You don't say "well that's how you do it everyone!" The magicians don't like

Here's more reason why. We've had our issues when one of us spilling into the other's turf. When I made videos on catholiccontriversy's channel on youtube, he caused catholiccontriversy nothing but trouble. When I went on a journey with happy gamer and left CC behind, he got them banned from blip after 3 days. We have a yin-yang relationship, where each person has their place without the others interfering with the place unless invited to which we get the dots in yin-yang. Still even, just in different places. But when one tries to take area, bad things happen. Now have the yin-yang on 1 side of a coin, with the dreams controlling the other side. They have much more control but only exercise that when the coin is flipped, aka sleep. If they were to start coming over to the other side, bad things are sure to happen. I'd likely start hallucinating, not sure what is real and what isn't. I have a feeling I'm going to pay for my insolence tonight in the dream. I'm going to be invited up on stage for the craziness. No more trying to lucid dream, just going to enjoy the show. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

Evensvill trip 2012

Here's the compilation of all my daily blogs from the trip. If you read your 3 minutes, you will have already read them. Even if you did, read the forward for some background and some things I forgot.

Forward.
Here's some back ground. I have one female cousin who lives in Michigan, same state as me, who came with us down to Indiana. I have 2 female and 1 male cousin, 2 aunts, 1 great aunt, one uncle, and one great uncle. I had fun with my great uncle but I can't remember the day and I forgot to log it. He has an amazing garage and lives where my grandma and her brother and sister grew up. The old home stead. There was also a time when there was a thing about most people outgrow there awkward phase by the time they're in their late teens. I said I out grew that a while ago, but my aunt that I stayed with said that I'm still rather awkward. Yes but I'm not awkward about being awkward. Now for the fun time.

7/11/12 Trip day 1

Woo hoo, first day of family trip to Indiana. This time my grandparents didn't come so we were able to do the trip in 1 day, 10 hours. We watched bang theory season 1, and king of kong, fist full of quarters. There is this awesome video game store that was on the way, but moved so now it isn't. Still had to stop though. It's called Play N Trade, and they have everything, from NES to 360. It's amazing. Well when we got there, it was closed. When I checked the web site, there wasn't anything about it being closed today. There was a sign that said "closed July 11th, reopen the 12th." It's Wally World from National Lampoon's Vacation.

Once we got there, we visited and had fun. We went out to a local restaurant where I had a brain sandwich. Yes you heard me right, and no I'm not going zombie. It's deep fried pig brains, with pickles, on a bun. I can't imagine it'd be the healthiest thing, but it's my treat when I come down. Here is a picture

Here's something that was interesting that happened soon after we got back from the restaurant. There was a fight that broke out in front of my cousin's house. I didn't see it, just heard it. I then saw the aftermath with the cops. There were 5-6 cop cars at one time. And then there came an ambulance. It was crazy. Don't get action like this at home. It's scary but in a weird way cool. Until tomorrow.

7/12/12 Day 2

Today was fun. We went to Holiday World in Santa Clause Indiana. We've been going there, well the family has, since it was just Santa Clause world. We have video footage of the family on the couple of rides that were there when they were kids. Well a lot has changed since then. Here's what we did.

We went on the Legend, a fun wooden roller coaster. We went on the log flume after that. I rode with my girl cousins, and they didn't want to get wet. Well the right way to not get wet is to put the heaviest person in the back so the water flows under the boat, but they put me, the heaviest person, up front. Well since they wanted to use me as a shield, I decided to get them really wet, while still keeping my pants dry. I leaned as far forward as I could. I got them wet. We went on the Raven, world's number 1 wooden roller coaster. It was fun. Went around to different rides in fourth of July and Halloween. After lunch, we went to the water park that's there as well, and it's included. I enjoyed the park. There were some slides. One that is like a toilet bowl where you spin around in a funnel thing. It's fun.

After the water park we went to Thanks Giving. We were going to do the Voyage, voted America's best roller coaster. Unfortunately there were problems that caused us to not go on it. I went on the turkey gobbler, which is basically a moving shooting gallery. It's fun. There is this glass blowing shop in the park and it's fun to see what they had. My brother bought a glass sword a couple years back. They had drinky birds. Here's a picture.

After we got home I had a standing contest with my cousin who's a dancer. Black belt vs dancer, who can stand on 1 foot longest? We went on for about 10 minutes. My foot was killing me, but I worked through the pain. She on the other hand, her calf and hamstring were starting to hurt. Her mom interfered and just stopped her, since she knew I would win. I did win. Now we're watching lilo and stitch. Until tomorrow, later.

7/13/12 Day 3

Boy today was fun. First we went to Adventureland where we went go carting and mini-golf. When go carting I won both times. I lapped my brother and cousins both times. Then at mini-golf my one cousin won at 48, my brother right behind her with 48 1/3, and then my other cousin and I tied for last at 51. I watched most of Monty Python's and now for something completely different with my other cousin who likes the Pythons as well. After that we watched their turtles eat crickets. It was funny because the turtle was chasing them.

After that we went to a Chinese buffet. I had lots of Steak. They had good teriaki steak. I made myself a rice ball, or what is close to one that I make one. Just steamed rice and salt in a bowl because I don't feel like making a ball in front of my family. Afterwards I had an ice cream with a cone I dipped in their chocolate fountain. Great idea on my part. After the buffet I went to my aunt's who's cleaning out magazines. I looked through them to see if there was anything of value. I found that the children's digests had adventures of tin tin serialized so there is probably some money in them. After that we were going to watch National Lampoon's Vacation, but the DVD wouldn't work. My one cousin was all "I ain't watching no stupid vacation movie. Marty Moose, I hate that Disney Channel crap. Derp Derp Derp." I told him "this movie is rated R for swearing and sexual content." That shut him up quick. When the movie wouldn't work we watched this Betty White DVD of her series "Life with Elizabeth." She is funny. Untill tomarrow.

7/14/12 Day 4

Today we didn't do much. I hung out with my cousins most of the day. I looked up the prices and what not for my aunt's magazines. If we wanted to, I was going to rent National Lampoon's Vacation through Amazon instant video for $3, but there wasn't enough interest. I was the only one who wanted to watch it with everyone, but no one else wanted to, so I just saved $3. Oh well.

It wasn't until we had our picnic at my aunts did things become interesting. We had everyone over at her house where for starters the grill didn't want to light. So instead of grilling we George Forman Grilled. They were fine. I went to church with my other aunt and great aunt. They have a really nice church. The big highlight for me for the night was when my uncle thought one of my cousin's friends was my brother. Edited to hid names, here's how the conversation went.
Uncle: "[brother] I didn't recognize you."
Friend: "that's because I'm not [brother]"

It might have been a had to be there thing, but was funny none the less, and it's my blog so I'll say what ever lame story I want. We packed up to be ready to leave the next day. So until tomorrow.

7/15/12 Day 5

Today was head home day. We left at about 7:20 my time. My cousin who came with us and I watched big bang theory season 2 the full ride back. We stopped at play n trade. Turns out that the place is a family business and there was a funeral on the Wednesday that I was going to go initially. I got this Play Station pinball game for $3 and a set of 5 gameboy game cases for $1. It seemed like there inventory shrunk since the last time I went.

Now we're home. Cousin with us is really into video games. First I had to try my new game to make sure it works, which it did. After that she and I played super smash brothers melee. It's been forever since I played so I was quite rusty, and she's never played, so we were at rather even playing fields. We were called to dinner after about 30 minutes. When her parents came to get her, we all had fun talking about our trip for an hour or so. Now to put this all together in a full blog. Laters.

Alright, hope you had fun. I know I sure did. This has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

Happy independence day

Hey everyone, yeah that's right, independence day. I had the day off in honor of the independence of our great nation, or for you outside the US, the great country that is the US. Like many Americans, I would have likely celebrated with a Barbecue, but it was to damn hot and humid today. I had trouble walking to my car it was so miserable. Instead some of my family and I went to Golden coral, and I had steak, ribs, pot roast, cotton candy, and chocolate dipped things. Yummy. I went to the movies with my grandpa, like we did on Tuesday before I had a job. We went and saw the Amazing Spiderman. Review here. Now I would have gone to the sort of local fireworks display, but storms were on and off and right before the show started, or would leave for it, storms went on again. Thankfully I went to the fireworks I've been going to for years a week or so back. And the lightning caused some serious flashing, and people have been setting them off, so I can look out my window and see them. All fireworks were declared legal this year in my state, so people have been enjoying the freedom.

Now for a look at what Independence day is to me. As a proud conservative American, this is the birth of our great nation. While not quite as important as it is with veterans day, it's a day to remember the men and women who've died for this great nation. Fireworks celebrate our separation from Britain, even though we're cool now right British friends? Back yard barbecues, yet another way for us to celebrate independence with our friends and family. Listen to a rendition of the national anthem, but with so many versions out there, I won't pick it for you. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.