Detroit Zoo Wild Lights 2018 Experience

Hey there everyone. 2 years ago I went to the wild lights at the zoo with Mskate, and we decided to go to it again. We were going to see "Instant Family," but our schedules weren't able to line up with the movie times, so we instead went with something that doesn't require us to align our schedule to a movie that is on it's way out. Before the wild lights, we went out to dinner at a place where she and her family go frequently. It's just a small family restaurant, and it was fun. We chatted and caught up after not seeing each other for a while.

Now for the zoo. We parked off the property to save $10 on parking, and extra exercise. We were able to get in easily. Our ticket was for 7:30 and it was like 7:20. While there was a line, we went in really quickly. Right off the start we saw some jungle animal lights.

Quite fun. What was really interesting was what they were doing at the penguin house. They put in a new penguin house last year, and while I haven't been in it, I'm sure it's quite neat. However, they did do some projection on the side of the building.

There was also this cool jumping frog lights thing. I saw it before, but here it is again.

We also took a selfie in front of one of the trees. We kind of went off the official path to get to it, so don't tell anyone.

Now for the really cool thing. Last year the only exhibit that was open was the reptile house (because reptiles require constant heat lamps and sleep whenever they do, unlike mammals who have sleep schedules), but this year the otter exhibit was also open. I was able to see some and get pictures.

The beavers were also out, but I wasn't able to get any good pictures of them. 

We also saw this really cool display where the lights danced with the music.

After that cool display, we walked by a Coney Island in the zoo. That was new to me, and just shows how long it's been since I've been to the zoo. We didn't get anything (because we just had dinner), but I just wanted to see "is this basically a full Coney Island," and it was. There were also a lot of different stands (hot chocolate, smores, popcorn, etc.), but we didn't stop at them because the line was long and we weren't hungry/thirsty.

Before the reptile house there was this cool bug light display.

And now we're at the reptile house. Mskate was a little weirded out by the reptiles, but I had a lot of un looking at the various snakes and turtles and others. Plus we were able to warm up. Here are the different animals I saw.

 

After the reptiles we saw some more lights.

One I really enjoyed was seeing the Rackam fountain all lit up. Mskate asked "why do they call it Rackam fountain?" and I didn't have an answer. Chances are it was whoever paid for it.

We saw more lights after the fountain, and this really cool video light display. Unfortunately it didn't show up well on video.

We did some more walking, and saw some more lights. Not much longer then we reached the turn around. There were some Rudolf displays at the loop, along with some more lights.

I know a lot of what I'm saying is "look at the lights," but that's primarily what it was. Check out some more lights, and more animated lights.

Now for some stuff I don't have pictures of (lol). One of the new things at the zoo is a Buddy's Pizza (a local chain), and while we didn't stop there, it was quite interesting to see it at the zoo. In the conference building there was a Polar Express simulator ride. I'm sure it would have been cool (I've done similar simulation rides in the past), but we didn't want to spend more money (it was $5 for a 10 or so minute show). However, we did see this cool "photos of nature" art exhibit on the 2nd floor. I didn't take pictures because that would have gotten me thrown out, but I can say they were really beautiful, even if there were some that were kind of gruesome (like a hyena chewing on a monkey's head). Yeah nature isn't always pretty. Right outside the convention center was this ice sculpture of a moose.

There was also a little ice rink and mskate wanted to check it out (because she skates, go figure). Unfortunately the line was pretty long, and they use artificial ice. We saw some more lights. There was this really cool "ornament made of lights" photo op thing, but the line was really long so we decided not to wait. We did see some cool animal print giant ornaments close to it though.

After the ornaments we walked through this cool light tunnel. Here's another selfie of us.

This was getting close to the end of this little journey. Here are the remainder of the lights.

That was our little wild lights journey. It was really fun hanging out again. I didn't take nearly as many pictures this year, because a lot of them were the same as last time (you can check the old ones out on my myspace). Hopefully you enjoy this fun time. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Collaborating with Tom Green at his Comedy Show

Hey everyone, so if you don't know by now, I have a podcast I do with my friend Bio, and every episode I find some way to mention Tom Green and his career. You can watch the Peanut Butter Podcast here. Well I went to his website and checked out his tour schedule, and I saw he was doing a show in Muskegon Michigan (which while not "convenient," isn't unreasonable for a little weekend get away). So, I decided to book a hotel room and have a little trip. I was hoping to take a picture with him and maybe get him to say "peanut butter on a sausage" after the show, but what happened was SO much better (soon you'll find out the meaning of the title).

Now I've never been to a "real" comedy show before; the closest was a "last comic standing" thing my college did in one of the schools ballrooms with maybe 20 attendees, everything else is either comedy channels on Serious XM or Comedy Central specials. I didn't really know what to expect, but I was ready for a night of fun. The place that was hosting it is called "Back Alley Comedy," and it is one of the most interesting venues I can imagine. First off, it's not a comedy club, it's a bowling alley. I was trying to get the address by googling "Back Alley Comedy Muskegon" expecting a comedy club or bar or something, and I kept getting this bowling alley. After clicking on some links I realized "oh, this bowling alley does comedy shows too; that's interesting." Everything leading up to this wasn't that eventful (I drove for a good 4 hours, checked in, watched some spongebob on TV, that's kind of it). Now for the main event.

So I get to this place and the signage is like REALLY retro. I'm talking neon signs, the word "bowl" is on a disk thing that's spinning, it has this really old font; it was like something out of Fallout. I looked inside and saw they had Dance Dance Revolution and I knew afterwards I had to play, but first things first, I'm here for comedy. I bought my ticket there and ended up not having enough cash to pay (tickets were $30, I had $24). Thankfully they were able to ring me up at the bar with my credit card. They were quite busy, so it took them a while to ring me up. Since I was there I decided to get a Long Island. That took even longer, and it definitely wasn't one of the better Long Islands I've had (a bit too strong for my tastes, I enjoy more sours). Regardless, it still helped make sitting with a group of strangers easier. I sat up front, because I wanted to be right there with the action (and maybe get called on). I sat with a family whom after some small talk I learned the parents grew up with Tom Green and they were bringing their son to introduce him to his genius. That was cool.

Now for the main event; OK, the pre-show before the main billed act. The MC whom I guess is a regular came up and did some warm-up jokes. I gotta say, he was pretty funny. Then there was a lady comedian. I specify gender because she did some "I'm a woman, these are jokes about being a woman" jokes, but as a testament of how good she was she managed to make them funny to me, a single man. But that was only 30% or so of the act. The rest were funny regardless of gender. Now what was really awesome is she did some "play the audience" jokes, and being in the front I got to help. I don't want to say what the joke was, but my response to one of the questions was so bizarre it made her laugh. After she said the material she had written to the answer everyone else had, she worked my response into the punch line and asked me to elaborate more, and the end of my response she just lowered the mic, and walked over to take a drink, like "I can't build on that, that is just way too weird."

OK, now it is time for the reason I booked a hotel and drove 4 hours, Mr. Tom Green. Oh man, that was amazing. I was basically sitting right in the middle of the front row, and Tom Green walked down the middle of the event hall to the stage. He was within 1 foot of me, it was neat. Now out of respect for the art of comedy club comedy, I won't go into details about what his jokes were (which he made a joke about, there was a woman who was taking a picture with her phone and he joked about "the Instagram look at me I'm watching Tom Green" before going into a creative way of saying "don't record this"), BUT seeing that I was PART of the show, I want to talk about how I collaborated with Tom Green. Now even though I've not been to a real comedy show, I knew "if you sit up front, you're basically asking for the comedian to make fun of you," and that's exactly what I was hoping for, and it happened. There were 4 times when Tom Green spoke directly to ME, and made fun of my responses. And it's not like he was just "what's your name, here's a joke about your name," or "oh so your single, how hairy are your palms, I see you found a way to transplant the hair to your face" or something like that. No, there were a couple of times where we had a little bit of a back and forth; brief, but I still threw back some more material for him to work with. If you want to hear the full details, they're in this video here.

But what REALLY made it awesome, is after his routine he came walking down the middle and he patted me on the shoulder in a way that said "thanks for playing along so well loud guy." Then after the show as I was on my way out there were some people that said "hey you're the loud guy, that was good;" some more verbal than others. So yeah, there it is, I collaborated with Tom Green. Yeah, it's not like he was on the Peanut Butter Podcast or brought me on stage, or anything like that, but I've had yet another brush with fame. I know the title is a little click-batey, but when else am I going to be able to make a title like this again. Plus, I did give him at least 2 minutes of material directly at me, and in the world of internet videos that gives you a collaboration credit.

Now for the remainder of my little trip. After the show I played 2 games of Dance Dance Revolution in the arcade of the bowling alley, and I did pretty good. I'm not one of those "super heavy, my feat are barely touching the ground" kind of players, but I regularly set high scores on medium difficulty. And now my name is enshrined on at least 4 songs in the DDR cabinet of the Sherman Bowling Center (at least until someone plays perfectly on the songs I played, I got some combo breakers unfortunately). Then I filmed a Peanut Butter Podcast with Bio when I returned. We were both quite tired, so that meant things got a little weird.

The next morning I woke up early enough to eat the continental breakfast. Normally that doesn't happen, but the bed was so uncomfortable (super firm) and people were walking down I managed to wake up before they closed. Yay. I packed-up my stuff, checked out, and went home. It was REALLY fun. I hope to be able to do it again sometime. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

A Short Vacation

Hey everyone, I have some vacation time and I wanted to take a little trip. I hadn't visited my godfather in a while, and I haven't seem mskate in a while either. Since they live in the same state and there was a holiday weekend, I worked it out with them to take a little trip to see them. Here's the adventure I had.

Friday I took a half day off work. I had a half day of vacation time and I wouldn't have made much better time if I took a whole day. I packed up all my stuff the night before and left from work. It's not like it would have been that much more of a drive since I live close to work, but I didn't want to get tempted to "take care of some stuff at home" because I tend to do that. It was a 4 hour drive with some stops along the way. Not many, but still some. I stopped at a Walmart and picked-up special beer for my brother and dad. There's this one beer they really like that's not available in our state, so I picked-up a case for them. I also wanted to see if there were any videogame things I can't find at my own stores (amiibo, DLC cards, etc.). Unfortunately they didn't. A funny thing was I was asked by a salesman if I had one of their local utilities suppliers (trying to sell me theirs). I told him which I had and he was confused, because it's out of state. He did recognize it though, so that was funny.

After some more driving I arrive at my godfathers house. My godbrothers (age 10 and 4) and godsister (age 7) were out playing, so they were the first to see me and really happy. I got out and gave everyone a hug. They helped me unpack my stuff and take it in. After all my driving, and difficulty sleeping the night before out of excitement, I needed a break. I just lied down for about an hour. Not really a nap, just "clear my head." After that I played monopoly with the kids, because my oldest godbrother loves monopoly. We had dinner later, and did some more playing. My youngest godbrother enjoyed climbing on me, because he's at that age. It's come full circle, because at that age my godfather was my human jungle gym, and now I'm the human jungle gym for his son. After the kids bedtime, I visited with my godfather and his wife for maybe an hour. It was nice having some adult conversation after kid time.

Now for Saturday. We went to daily mass as part of their daily routine. After mass we played more monopoly, because that's what they like. After lunch we cut down some dead trees. That was interesting. I remember last time I visited we did some demo work. It was pretty fun taking down the trees; demolition with chain saws, I felt so manly. The kids also enjoyed it, because it's not every day you cut down a tree. We originally were just going to take down 2 of the dead trees, but we ended up taking down all 4. After taking the trees down I suggested we take a break. It was cold, and while we weren't FEELING tired, I knew we needed to take a break because one's body does not get fatigued the same way when the environment is cold (I find it's a "go go go go go then BAM! can barely move" as opposed to a gradual fatigue with all other temperatures). What was really cute was my godsister wanted to make everyone hot chocolate. That really hit the spot. After our little break we chopped up the trees into logs for their log cabin project, as well as chop the limbs up for disposal.

Dinner was quite fun. We had a camp fire weenie roast. They have a little above ground fire pit with a cooking rack. I helped build up a fire. One of our traditions is our families go camping every summer (I've talked about it before), so having a little camp fire at home was fun for everyone. I did a lot of the cooking, because I like camp fire cooking. I had like 3 hot dogs, it was good. After dinner and the fire it was time for the kids bedtime. After they went to sleep we got the surprise tucked away. My godsister is getting a new bed for Christmas. Right now she shares a room with her brothers, and here's another cool full circle thing. When I was growing up my godfather had a bunk bed for when he had guests with kids stay with him (and with our camping friends, that happened kind of often); now his kids are using that bunk bed. Back to the story, their mom found a bed on craigslist and we had to find a way to keep it hidden. The headboard and footboard weren't that difficult but the part the mattress sits on was going to be difficult (it was the size of a twin mattress). Since we played hide and go seek the night before, I knew some of the good hiding places. I found we could stick it behind the deep freeze and it would blend in with the wall and shelf already there. Hopefully it lasts until Christmas.

Sunday was a quick day with them. Their oven went out so I helped move the new oven from the garage to inside the house. After church I said my goodbyes because I had to go see mskate. They didn't realize I wasn't going to stay for lunch, but they understood I had other people to see on my trip (well, everyone above the age of  9 for sure). The drive to mskate's wasn't that bad. She's about an hour from my godfather's. I gave her a call when I was maybe 30 minutes away and we made plans on what movie to see. The options were The Nutcracker and the 4 realms or Illumination's Grinch. She wanted to see Nutcracker more than Grinch (she doesn't care much for Dr. Seuss), but being a good friend she offered an alternative in case I didn't want to see Nutcracker. However, since I will probably see Grinch on my own and probably wouldn't see Nutcracker alone, I said we should see Nutcracker. On the rest of my drive I came up with a funny Seuss rhyme about what we were seeing.

We're not going to see Dr. Seuss
I know you don't like him because his words are too loose
Instead we'll see the cracker of nuts
A movie I know we will like luts.

When I arrived I told her my little rhyme. It got a chuckle. We said hello and I set-up her Christmas tree timer. It wasn't too long before we went on our way to the movies. The Nutcracker was alright, I'd say worth a rental, but nothing really worth going to the theater for. After that we did some charity Christmas shopping (she had to get play-doh, and I helped pick out a fun set) and explored the down town. She wanted to explore there kind of since she moved there but didn't want to go alone (and since she's a smaller woman and there were some slightly sketchy stores, I don't blame her). It was a nice little downtown though. We went to a used book store where I got a batman and superman compilation comic. She wanted to get something for her brother but wasn't sure what. Since I like a lot of the same things as her brother, I picked out a comic book adaptation of Batman Forever. I don't remember what she got for herself, but she liked it. It was a cute little book store, full of all sorts of books, and a trap door that lead to the cellar. After the book store we went to the goodwill across the street. Unfortunately I didn't find any unique VHS tapes, or videogames, so goodwill was a bust. At the end of the street there was a music store, with CDs and vinyl. I looked through the vinyl comedy section and found a Steve Martin album and a Monty Python album for cheap. I bought them. We also saw the Coco soundtrack on vinyl, and it was a really cool picture press. Neither of us bought it, but it was cool to look at.

After our adventure we had dinner. We considered going to this Irish Pub that was in the down town, but after looking at the menu online we decided against it. Instead we went to one of the bars we found on our little adventure. I had a super grilled ham sandwich with fried onions and barbecue sauce and one of the house cocktails. Mskate had a cheeseburger with a gluten free bun and a diet coke. When she ordered the options were red, pink, or no pink. She got a little confused and said red. After ordering I made sure she really wanted a rare burger. Turns out she got a little confused because she's only used to rare, medium, and well done and she really wanted no pink. When our waitress came back with our drinks I told the waitress about the mistake. Our dinners were good, and so was my drink. When we got our bills she was kind of surprised my dinner was cheaper than hers even though I got a drink. Well the hamburgers are more expensive and the gluten free bun added some money. After dinner we went back to her place and watched The Greatest Showman. I hadn't seen it, and it was really good.

After the movie I left for my hotel. I booked one that I thought would be close, but turns out it was on the other side of the city (and it's a wide city). The fun thing about the hotel was they had on demand, and nickelodeon. Since I have playstation vue I no longer get nickelodeon, so I was able to watch season 9 SpongeBob. Yay. During the middle of the night the smoke alarm in my room started chirping, so I had to change rooms, at 2AM. That was an experience, but at least I got a bit of an upgrade. I left the luggage cart in my room all night.

Now it's Monday morning. I slept in and had some continental breakfast. I got fruit loops and ate them while I watched SpongeBob in my room. Afterwards I checked-out and went to the videogame store that's close to her. I bought 16 PS2 games and a PSP game. They were cheap and kind of all over the place in terms of genre. The guy behind the counter asked if I was filling out a collection. I told him how I'm working on a complete north American set, and how I'm 20% of the way there (2100 games for a complete set, and I have 400). He asked if I have one of the most expensive games yet (which came in recently and was on their ebay page); I chuckled and said "no, right now I'm working on getting all the cheap stuff." I always enjoy bringing a big stack of PS2 games to the counter and seeing what the clerk says. After the store I went on my way home. I wanted to check out this entertainment center with arcade and go carts and more that I passed on my way down, but when I got there I found out they're closed on Mondays. Oh well, I needed to get home anyways; not because anyone was expecting me, but I had to get ready for work on Tuesday. I did find a goodwill on the way home, and found an interesting collectors edition of Jurassic Park and The Lost World Jurassic Park; what makes them interesting is they're a 2 tape set with the movie on one tape and bonus features on the other tape. All in all it was a really fun trip. I look forward to the next little adventure. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

My Smoky Mountains Tennessee Trip

Hey everyone. I went on an adventure with my family last week. My aunt arranged for a little family reunion in the Smoky Mountains. This blog is going to be in tandem with a series of vlogs that I will be embedding (which will be indicated with a [vlog coming soon]), so be sure to check back regularly. Anyways, my aunt organized for all of us to spend a week in a 3 story 20 person cabin in the smoky mountains. You may recall MMT, TanMan, PepperBC, and TurtleGirl from previous blogs, well TurtleGirl wasn't there this year, but MMT's brother Cheeto and TanMan's girlfriend MF was there. All my aunts and uncles on my mom's side were there, along with my great aunt. The cabin was really cool, but time for stories.

On day zero my brother came over to my place after work and crashed with me so we could leave in the morning. He lives about 40 miles from me but only works 20 miles from me, and my place is 40 miles closer to our destination than his, so it was better for him to spend the night on my futon than to drive back and forth. I went to Toys R Us to get some scraps, which was a strategy guide, an emoji movie coloring book (a gag gift for a friend that HATES the emoji movie), and a sealed shipping box of skylanders figures. I apparently just missed him because he was at my house for about an hour and I was gone for about an hour. Oh well. We went out to dinner and hung out until he wanted to go to bed (he works really early, like from 5AM to 2PM). He crashed at like 8PM. He said I could stay in the living room (where my futon is), but I didn't want to disturb him, so I hung out in my bedroom. I have a TV in there, and I brought my laptop to play my computer games. This was a bit of a blessing in disguise, because while I have a lot of computer games I got through twitch, I don't play them much because I don't want to close out all my programs just to play my games at a steady frame rate. Since I didn't have my PS4 or XBOX ONE, or other consoles, I played my computer games. I had a nice little night.

OK, so day 1. I eat my muffin, we pack-up our stuff, and get on the road. About 5 minutes out, I realize I forgot my HDMI cable for if we were going to play my Super Nintendo classic. I run in and grab it. Then as we're about to leave my sub-division, I realize I forgot my phone. We turn around again, I run in, and grab my phone. We went to a coffee chain so he could get a coffee. Now we were REALLY on the road. I set-up my laptop to watch Cowboy Beebop (which you can watch my review of here). I started watching it on his graduation trip and got about halfway through. My goal was to finish it with this trip, and I did. That went on and off for a couple hours, because I also wanted to spend some time with my brother. We talked, had some fun, and eventually I fell asleep. He said my hands were "very twitchy," and I do recall having the dream where I'm dropping something and I throw my hand out to catch it, only to throw my hand in real life and hit it against something waking me up momentarily. Along our journey we stopped for lunch at a Waffle House, and it was GOOD. We both had steak and eggs, and I really liked it. Because he bought the gas I bought lunch. After more hours of driving we make it close to the cabin. We pass by a moonshine distillery and agree we need to stop there at some point in the trip. We almost make it to the cabin, but then we made a wrong turn and ended up in Dollywood. It was a 1-way "no exit" situation. The parking booth lady understood that we made a wrong turn had to get out, so she pointed us in the write direction. She had a very thick accent, and that marked the start of our Tennessee fun (well, I guess the real start was when this one guy was waving at us to let him in and then gave a thumbs up when we did, but this was the first time hearing the accent). Apparently the cabin was very far out off in the woods, at the end of a backwoods road, behind the Dollywood park. Anyways, we get to the cabin and say hello to everyone. It's a regular reunion. Unpack our stuff and visit with the family some.

Now since we were going to be there for a week, we needed food. We needed to get a weeks worth of groceries. That was fun, trying to get 20 rowdy adults to focus and give what we want for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That took about an hour. My one aunt wanted us to use Walmart pick-up because that's what she has, but that ended up not happening because we took to long. I wanted to go to Walmart to do the shopping (because while Walmarts are generally the same everywhere, the stock is sometimes a little different and I can find PS2 games or download codes that I can't find at my local Walmart). Basically it was 2 of my aunts, my mom, and I, all gathered in my Dodge Journey (or as my one uncle calls it, my "grocery getter"). We plug "Walmart" into my GPS and start that mini-journey. We split up the list and my job was breads (buns, sandwich bread, bagels, etc.). Bro wanted me to pick-up Yingling beer (since we don't have it in our state, but Tennessee does). I got all my stuff, and then went to check out the electronic section. While there was a PS2 game or 2, I already had them, and they didn't have Unravel 2 download codes or whatever, so I just got the groceries. I go up front and wait for my relatives to arrive. While I waited, I decided to get some exercise, by doing lifts and lunges while holding the cases of Yingling. One guy that was passing by said something like "yeah man, get that exercise." Also while pushing my cart I started thinking about this commercial and started pushing the cart like this guy while poorly singing Rubberband Man.


One guy saw me and was friendly. People were so friendly in Tennessee. Anyways, my relatives show up and someone realized we didn't have any paper plates. So it was up to me to go get them. I activated my "dodge and weave" mode, where I quickly move in and out of crowds to get to my destination without bumping into anything. Some people saw me doing my dodge and weave, and decided to have some fun acting like they were about to get in my way. Tennessee is friendly. We check out and take our stuff to the Journey. Well, we stop outside the store and wait for mom to pull the Journey up front. We fill it, full, and I get in the drivers seat because I'm the only one comfortable driving in the dark (I actually really like driving at night, it's so zen). We're pulling out of Walmart and heading back, but then we realize we didn't pick-up bottled water and charcoal for the grill out. I pull into a store to flip around, go back to Walmart, and get the stuff. This time my aunt and I just carried it out to the car. Driving back was fun. It was so dark, and my family is fun. When we got back, I had to make sure my uncle saw my grocery getter full of groceries. He chuckled. Seeing that I did the buying and driving, I didn't have to unload. Mom did the math to find out what everyone owed. Seeing that the charcoal and water cost the same as what everyone owed, I was off the hook for paying. After that I played some pool with my other uncle, Cheeto, and PepperBC (because we had a pool table). I did surprisingly well, even though I had some nerd rage at missed shots. Nothing crazy like breaking pool queues, but saying "damn." My uncle joked around with "watch it boy, your mother like that language" (nothing serious, but just a joke). I'm like "OK, kuso." To which I explained "that's damnit in Japanese." He laughed kind of hard at that. A little while after that I went to bed. I was tired.

I woke up at about 7AM. I was one of the first people up, so I pull out my travel laptop, connect to the wifi, and watch Mighty Magisords. When my uncle woke up he asked what I'm watching and I just said "cartoons." "Ahhh, Saturday morning cartoons, it is Saturday after all." I didn't realize Cheeto and MMT were sleeping downstairs on the couches, so I felt kind of bad for disturbing them. Anyways, I had my breakfast, and decided to have a glass of tea with my muffin. Before leaving for the day, we had to make our sandwiches for the picnic lunch. I had roast beef, ham, and salami, with pickles and lettuce. Mmmmhhmmmhmm so good. We had our lunch, and then went on our way to explore the park. See below.



Now in the vlog I mentioned how I got lost, but let me tell you some more details. My mom took the Journey which had my GPS in it. I did not think to grab my GPS, and that wasn't a problem for Kate's Cove, but getting back was difficult. First, I went through Gatlinberg, the major tourist place with people walking everywhere. Really stressful. Then that ultimately took me to an intersection that I didn't know which way to turn, and ended up at a supermarket. I called my relatives asking for help, and one suggested I ask someone how to get to Dollywood since it was so close to the cabin. That worked, until I made yet another wrong turn and ended up at a Dollar Tree. The lady that was working there gave me directions again, apparently I turned too early. I eventually made it back to the cabin, and everyone was so happy I made it back.

We had dinner, grill out. Oh man that was good. I had a burger and a hot dog, and a salad. Mmmmhhhmmmmhmmhmhm. 2 of my uncles and brother decided to do all the grilling. I offered to watch the food so they could come in and eat, but they said "no we got this." They were enjoying the man time away from the craziness inside, because we're a crazy fun bunch. We were supposed to go to church after the mountain, but the traffic prevented us from doing so. Plus, I did enough praying while lost to have a religious experience. Anyways, we stayed in the night, and had this fun, karaoke. My aunt pulled up the song I parodied for a work event so I sang my parody. That was fun. I also sang hooked on a feeling hoping my brother would join me like he did at my cousin's wedding (he didn't). I also sang the goldfinger cover version of 99 Red Balloons and did surprisingly well on the German part. I recall singing something else, but I can't remember. Regardless, my voice was starting to give out, getting kind of raspy. So, I ended it on the perfect song to go out on with a raspy voice, Twist and Shout by the Beetles. Why, because I was able to mimic John's raspy shouty sound without any trouble. It was fun. I went to bed soon after that.

OK day 3. This was the day my brother and I were going to go explore Gatlinberg and go to the distillery. We were originally going to start in Gatlinberg, but then there was crazy traffic and an accident, so I said "lets cut our losses and go to the distillery. That ended up being a great idea because we got there right as they were opening. The distillery was great. They had like 14 different flavors of shine and you could sample up to 8. I found 3 shine flavors I really liked, and bro found 2. We were just 1 bottle away from getting 15% off, so bro bought a bottle of wedding bells for a wedding gift.



After the Brewery we went to Gatlinburg. Our first stop was an arcade. I spent $20 at the arcade, and it lasted 2 hours, and I got some actually good prizes with the tickets I won, including the "unofficial prizes" that are my spongebob cards that I used to decorate my personal coin pusher. We explored Gatlinberg some more to see what other attractions people would enjoy. The Ripley's Aquarium looked good, and had wheel chair rentals for my grandparents. I found the Ripley's mirror maze, Guinness World Record Museum, a 5D ride, Johnny Rocket's burger diner, some different stores, an even larger arcade, and some other Ripley's attractions. I knew I could have fun in Gatlinberg given the time, especially considering I could get a Ripley's pass and enjoy all the Ripley's attractions. We went to Walmart to get more provisions, and we took the main street through Pidgeon Forge. That's when we drove by the arcades. I said "oh man, I need to go arcade hopping, Pepper BC would probably enjoy going with me." I had a plan, before the trip was over, I was going arcade hopping; like bar hopping, but only instead of going from bar to bar getting progressively more drunk, going from arcade to arcade having progressively more fun. That night I played Farkle with the family, and went to bed at around 11 PM.

OK, now for Day 4, the Ripley's Aquarium. After getting my grandparents fed, we got them into my Journey and went on our way to the aquarium. We got our grandparents out and up to the aquarium while mom parked the car. Bro and I got in line to buy the tickets while my grandparents sat down. When mom caught up to us, she took our spot in line while my brother and I went to rent the wheel chairs. We rented them roomy chairs, because I thought that would be more comfortable. Apparently that meant they were wide, or as my European meme companions would call "American." Eh, they worked though. So I was planning on buying the "$90 everything pass" (which ended up being the 1 year membership), but apparently I could just upgrade my aquarium ticket to do 2 other attractions for just $10 more. Well there was only 1 other attraction I REALLY wanted to do (Guinness) and the others I could enjoy, so that was much better for me (especially considering I spent so much time in Guinness, but that's for later). I would talk about the aquarium, but I'll just let the video speak for itself.



After the Ripley's Aquarium, we went to dinner, a dinner show at Hatfield and McCoy Dinner Feud. I saw advertisements when we drove in on day 1. I thought "oh man I want to do that." Now I'm not a big history buff (far from it), and I didn't know what the show was (or that it was even a dinner show), but a little bit about me and my family tree. While we don't know a whole lot about that side of the family, I do have "McCoy" in my family tree, McCoy's that came from Kentucky. I don't know if I really am descended from the McCoy's of the Hatfield-McCoy Feud, but I have probable suspicion. When mom booked our tickets, she made sure we sat on the McCoy side. It was fun telling all the employees "we're real McCoy's." I even got to be part of the show for the audience participation. The "mayor" came up to our table and asked "we need people for the audience participation, are any of you interested?" I said "sure, I'll do it" not knowing what it was. Turns out I had to shove a spoon down my pants. Luckily I'm a really good sport about these sorts of things, but I could see some people were really embarrassed with what was being asked. All in all, it was a really good show. A lot of music, dancing, acrobatics, story telling, comedy, and even diving and dog shows. Then the dinner was good; family style fried chicken, pulled pork, vegetable soup, corn, rolls, coleslaw, and pudding. Really great show and good meal, highly recommend.

After the show, we went back to the cabin and I made sure PepperBC was still up for arcade hopping. She was, and so we went out. We drove to the main drag, and just went down the street stopping at every arcade. Our first arcade was a bust; they didn't really have any good games, and used swipe cards with a minimum purchase of $10. After looking around, we decided to try a different one. After that bust, we went to a mini-golf place thinking it was an arcade. It wasn't, but they had mini-bowling (or "rollerball" as I came to find out). Basically it's bowling but at like 1/2 the size (the balls are about the size of softballs, the lane is 28 feet long instead of 60, and the pins are about half the size of a standard pin). It's also significantly cheaper than standard bowling, with this place charging $1 per person for 10 frames. That was a fun way to start the night. They also had a candy store as part of the location, so I picked-up some jawbreakers and sour ribbons. After that, we found a great arcade. They had an 80s videogame multi-cade with 50 classic games for 1 token a play, and skeeball (for which I found 2 free games and landed a 10,000 hole on one play, which will probably never happen again), some coin pushers, and some other fun games. Then on the next arcade, we hit the motherload. DDR, many different coin pushers, world's largest packman, classic arcade games, so much fun. We had a lot of fun on that one. After that we went to another arcade, but when we got to the door it was closed. Oh well, it was getting late anyways and the parents were beginning to worry (while we're both adults, and 2 of the more responsible "gen 3" people, they still worry), and we were getting tired. It was really fun though, especially since we like most of the same things and rarely get to see each other.

OK, time for Day 4. This was my "day on my own in Gatlinburg." I was going to use my Ripley's pass on the Guinness World Records museum and something else. I was thinking the 5D motion ride, or maybe the Believe it or Not museum. I drove to Gatlinburg and found parking. On may way to Guinness I decided to check out Cooter's, a store based on the Dukes of Hazzard's character Cooter. There was a go-cart track and mini-golf, which was cool, but I wasn't super interested. Now onto Guinness. I passed by the hall of mirrors, so I figured "that's a good back-up." Well, Guinness wasn't open yet, so I went over to some stores and browsed. I found a good donut shop. But after an hour, Guinness opened up, but was doing a TV spot so it wasn't open to the public yet. I decided to go to the mirror maze, because I haven't done one of those before. Boy was it cool. The video speaks for itself. I spent about 45 minutes just screwing around in the maze after finding my way through, going backwards throwing some other guests off. Now it's time for Guinness. I'll let the video speak for itself. Crazy thing is some people recognized I was vlogging and asked for my user name. That was cool.

[vlog coming soon]

After spending about 3 hours in Guinness, I went to Johnny Rocket for lunch. Really cool atmosphere, and good food. It was a tasty burger. After Johnny Rocket, I went to an arcade bro and I found when exploring Gatlinburg on day 2. They had SO many cool machines, especially pinball (my favorite arcade game genre). So many pinball tables I've never seen, and other arcade machine novelties like a Tomb Raider on rails shooter. I wanted to play them all. Only problem though is the games cost $1 or $1.50 each. A game of pinball cost $1.50. What!? Pinball costs 50 cents a game. Everything was WAY overpriced. I mean, even "everything's expensive at an amusement park" arcades are fairly priced at 25 cents for low payouts, 50 cents for medium payouts, and pinball and video fun games, and $1 for the potentially large payouts like deal or no deal. I still managed to spend a lot of time at it though, because I played the coin pushers (fair price, though I've seen better) and did well. I started with the Wizard of Oz, and figured out how to know when the game was ready to give you a bonus (up to 50 extra plays, which I got a couple of times). I tried playing spongebob coin pusher since I did so well at the other arcade, but it wasn't played much resulting in the tokens being REALLY stacked and not pushing far. I did pretty well with Wizard of Oz and Blackbeard though, figuring out which games were ready for a payout and getting a decent amount of the ticket chips and a couple cards. I wanted to get a Pokémon bank, but unfortunately I didn't have the kind of payout I had with the other arcade, so I got some Pokémon temporary tattoos and a roll of sweet tarts. Oh well, I still had fun and spent 2 hours there. Once I was done it started raining, and my car was on the other side of town. I hung out in the arcade for maybe 30 minutes, mooching electricity to charge my camera (I spent $40 in your arcade and got maybe $5 worth of prizes, I can have some electricity). Eventually it slowed to misting, so I figured I can duck under the awnings and get back without getting too wet. When it picked up some I stopped at this sword and "tobacco accessories" store. It was a neat little store, up a flight of stairs with all sorts of katanas and game character swords on one side and "glass tobacco accessories" on the other. It slowed down some and then I continued on my journey. I entered one side of a mall and looked around some stores before leaving on the other end, somewhat closer to my car. There was a pretty cool music and DVD store. It was just FULL TO THE GILLS with CDs, Vinyl, and DVDs, with some organization but not a lot of presentation. When I made it back to my car, it started raining hard. Dinner was just left overs. Seeing that PepperBC and I only did 1 side of the street with the arcades, I thought "maybe we might want to do this tomorrow night" (tonight). But then I was just too tired and wanted to just have a quiet night...a night in with the family (it's never quiet when all of us are together).

Day 5. Bro wakes up at like 6AM and wakes me up to get on the road. I did a lot of packing the night before, so it was really just a matter of grabbing my stuff and putting it in the car. We ate some breakfast, and said goodbye to the family members that were up at about 7AM, and got on the road. I spent most of the ride home sleeping, because I was running on adrenaline and was crashing hard. I did manage to finish Cowboy Beebop, so that was good. While driving we saw a crazy car accident happen; we saw the car flip through the air like in a movie. It was scary. We ate at a Waffle House for lunch. Bro wanted to get fast food and keep driving, but I was able to easily convince him by saying "this is the last time we'll be able to eat at a Waffle House for a while, let's not miss this chance." We made it back to my place without much hassle. He picked-up his car and headed home. Apparently I left the door between my house and garage open for the week. It wasn't a problem since I turned off my AC for the week (because why cool a house I wasn't going to be in), but surprisingly my house was still pretty cool on my return. I unpacked my stuff for the most part and settled in for going to work the next day.

Now for some miscellaneous things. The cabin had satellite TV. Cheeto turned on SpongeBob one night, and I started saying word for word the entire script of Imitation Krabs as it played out on TV. That's one of my special talents, and my aunt found it "impressive." There was also a whirlpool tub in the master bathroom. At the end of our stay, we had to throw our towels into the tub. We pretty much filled the tub with all our towels. As I said earlier, there was a pool table in the cabin, 2 actually. In addition to the pool tables, there was an air hockey table, foosball table, and a hot tub on each floor. There were also some maintenance problems with some things in the cabin, so one of the maintenance guys came to fix them, while we were there one night. When he came down the stairs one of my aunts didn't realize he was there, so she was all "who was that?" Then the joke became that he was "some guy one of my girl cousins brought back." In addition to fixing, I think it was a door and fan, he brought us more air hockey pucks, because there weren't any when we got there. Also, because we were so close to Dollywood, we were able to see the Dollywood fireworks show from our balcony. We watched it every night at 9:30 PM. Another really cool thing about the cabin was it had an elevator, because that was the only way my grandparents would be able to do this. They can still walk and can go up and down stairs, but it's really hard for them. The elevator was really cool. Wow, what a fun time. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Family Camping 2018

Hey everyone, I went camping with my family over the weekend. This is the annual camping trip that we do with a group of friends every year. Here's the run down; my parents and this group of friends met in a singles group 32 years ago, one year they decided "lets all go camping," and they've been getting together to go camping ever since, bringing their spouses and children with them as they started appearing. Most of us "2nd generation" are close in age, so it's fun growing up together and catching up every time we have a gathering. Many of us 2nd generation are adults now, and some are married bringing their spouses with them and have kids of their own bringing in a 3rd generation. Now that you're all caught up, here's what happened.

On Friday I went over to my parents house early in the morning and we began our trip up. Since my grandpa is kind of on the way, we set-up a quick visit. Dad and I put salt in the water softener and had lunch with him. It's always fun seeing him since he lives kind of far away. After our visit we made it up to our motel. My parents used to camp in a tent, but as they got older they said "we can't do this anymore, there's a little motel not to far from the camp ground, we'll sleep there and just visit for the day." They sleep in the beds and I sleep on the floor on an egg crate mattress and sleeping bag, so it's kind of like camping.

Now for the big fun, seeing everyone. When we showed up one of the first people to greet me was my 10 year old godbrother (my godfather's son). He was quite happy to see me, and I was happy to see him. Soon after that I said hello to my aunt and her kids, and made my way to say hello to everyone. Our group has shrunk over the years, so it's a little easier to remember everyone and spend time with everyone. Last year we had our first 3rd generation baby; first of the 2nd generation to get married, and first to have a baby. This year she was a little older and able to stand (albeit assisted). What added to the cuteness is my 6'5" cousin rescued a chihuahua from under his neighbor's truck 2 weeks before. His name is Louie, and he's really friendly, with everyone. Like, I expected him to be at least nervous around all these new people, but no, just walk right up and asked to be picked up. He looks kind of funny when my cousin holds him, because he's like half the length of his forearm. Now, when we put our little 3rd gen toddler with Louie, it was something else. I think I was holding Louie and her dad was holding her, and both of them wanted to play with each other; like, both were reaching for each other and it was pretty clear they wanted to play. Both us "adults" were careful "our babies" didn't hurt each other; the dog didn't nip or scratch the toddler, and the toddler didn't squeeze or "pet" the dog too hard. But no, both were well behaved and enjoyed each other without problem. There was a little sadness when we said "play time was over," but whatever. It was really cute. There was a little problem with Louie though; because he was so new to his new life, camp was a little overwhelming and he didn't want to eat. Now seeing that chihuahuas are naturally tiny little dogs, and this guy was recently rescued, he really couldn't afford to not eat. Since he didn't want to eat his dog food, I said "lets try peanut butter, dogs like peanut butter." Mom was a little worried that peanut butter wasn't the healthiest thing for a little dog (there's a lot of added sugar, and it's not something dogs should have a lot of), but my cousin was in agreement that "it's better than nothing." Welllll...Louie didn't want to eat the peanut butter, even after we smeared some on his snout where he would instinctively lick off and show "see it's good." Since that didn't work, I suggested cheese, the go-to "hide a pill" for all dog owners. He didn't want that either. It was around lunch time, and I was having bacon with my lunch. I said "lets try bacon," and that thankfully worked. Granted, cured salted meat isn't all that good for anyone, but if it gets him some calories so he doesn't starve that's all we need to worry about. I also gave him some of my hamburger, so that was good.

After that fun, I played corn holes with my godbrother. It's the picnic and camp game where you throw bean bags at boards and try to land on the board or in the hole. It was quite fun. I teamed up with his other godbrother and he teamed up with one of the other "adult 2nd gen." We had a lot of fun. After dinner we went to the ice cream stand that's not too far from the camp ground. I had a soft serve raspberry flavor of the week. It was good, but it was a "sorbet" and not "ice cream," and I wanted some ice cream. Because I didn't want to have another full ice cream cone, I got the smallest thing on the menu, a doggie sunday (little cup of vanilla ice cream topped with a dog biscuit). Since they don't give spoons to dogs, I didn't have a spoon to eat it. After taking off the biscuit I ate it like a dog (or like a cone, it's not completely against social norms to eat ice cream with one's tongue). I tried to give it to Louie, but he didn't want to eat it, so I gave it to a lady who had a dog with a doggie sunday. Our friends thought it was kind of weird I was eating a doggie sunday, but it's just an extra small vanilla ice cream dish. Fun time. After ice cream I brought out my moonshine. I made plans with a couple of the 2nd gens at New Years we would bring different alcohols since we didn't have much at New Years. I brought lemon drop moonshine and captain morgan long island. I like to make what I call a "Backwoods Arnie" with the lemon drop, but I didn't have any iced tea so I just shared some strait moonshine with anyone who wanted it. I didn't get many takers, but whatever. My 4 year old godbrother wore a Spiderman costume that night, and he wanted me to make him "fly like a super hero." I corrected him and said "Spiderman doesn't fly, he swings" as I picked him up by his hands and started swinging him around. He really enjoyed it. It's fun being the semi-responsible young adult; the one that pushes you really high on the swing and will have rough and tumble play, but at the same time is careful enough to make sure you don't get hurt. I had some adults like that when I was little, and it's great that I'm able to be that adult now. When it got late we left for the night and went to our hotel.

Now for Saturday. I started with breakfast, and it was good. Unfortunately it was rainy, so to pass the time Dad and I went into the local town. They have a St. Vincent DePaul thrift store, and sometimes there's good stuff. Unfortunately there wasn't anything this time. After St. Vinnie's we went to a grocery store. I wanted to pick up some iced tea and disposable cups for later that night, because I wanted to make Backwoods Arnies. I was able to find a half gallon of iced tea and little disposable shot glasses. It was perfect. Because of the rain, we went to Saturday evening mass, and then to pizza dinner at a local pizza place. We've been getting pizza from them for a couple years now, but it's always been take out. This is the first time we ate at the restaurant, and we overwhelmed them. They lost my family's pizza order, and it was like an hour before we got our pizza. At least we got to spend time with each other. It was good pizza, we got 5 toppings; ham, pepperoni, banana peppers, pineapple, and mushrooms. After dinner, I made Backwoods Arnies for whoever wanted them. I had more takers on the cocktail than the strait liquor. Unfortunately the iced tea was really thick and didn't mix with the moonshine well. It's a good thing I had the shot glasses because the only way to enjoy it was to just shoot it. It went over quite well, so come new years I'm bringing my own iced tea that'll mix better with the moonshine. It was fun. Once it got late we went back to our motel.

Come Sunday we had breakfast and said our goodbyes. On Sunday we basically pool our left overs and have a community breakfast. I brought the last of my bacon and some bread and an egg. It was fun. I said my goodbyes and it was alright. On our way home we stopped at a Pepperidge Farm outlet store and I bought $75 worth of goldfish crackers and other snacks. Since it's an outlet store, things were significantly discounted, which meant I brought home a lot of food. I ended up filling an entire cupboard. It was a really fun time.

Now for some miscellaneous. One funny thing was how the little kids entertained themselves when it was raining. I don't quite remember what I did when it was raining when I was little, but I know it wasn't "casually annoy the young adults." I mean, when I was between 4 and 10 all the "adults" were "parents." Now, all the "parents" are older, and most of the "kids" are adults. Then again, all the "kids" were also between 4 and 10, and a little older and younger, so we didn't have to "annoy the young adults." I mean, it's not like they were causing problems, we enjoyed their company because they're fun and remind us of camping at that age, but I know my parents would say something like "Pokematic, find something else to do than ask the same questions over and over again." Then again, we also had fun with the answers, so it was all good. I also finally got to finish my Mallard Filmore comic book. I started reading it last year, and haven't read it since last year. I should review it someday. I also finally delivered our friend's "home movies" DVD, after 2 years of converting and waiting for my editor to edit it. That felt good to finally finish that part of my unemployment project. I also didn't take a #vidmewashere picture this year, because vidme is sadly no more. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

My Brother Graduates College

Hey there everyone. My brother graduated from college over the weekend. Well, he walked in graduation over the weekend; technically he finished classes back in December, but his school gets so much snow in the winter they measure it in feet, and my grandparents weren't going to be able to make that trip. So instead of braving a frozen tundra, we went on a calm trip that was still a little nippy (there were mounds of snow, our hotel had a sign on the door that said "patio may be icy," and according to my brother there was still a fair amount of snow when he went back a week before to tie up some loose ends. Anyways, my brother, dad, and I took one car and my mom, grandpa, and grandma took another car. Mom left on Thursday and took 2 days to get there, whereas Dad, bro, and I took 1 day to get there.

Now for some stories. I took off the Friday because graduation was Saturday and we needed to travel all day Friday. The plan was I go to my parents house on Thursday, spend the night, and then we leave right from there house Friday morning at like 6AM. On Thursday afternoon, one of the project managers decided to hold a meeting 10 minutes before I was going to leave, and I was determined to get out of there. I came in, said "here's what you need to work on, I'm going on vacation now." He kept pressing the things I was saying his team needed to work on, and why I was bringing it up to him, and I responded "because that's what senior management wanted me to do, now I'm going to start my vacation." This went on for 40 minutes. Now, this manager and I have a good working relationship, and the kind of banter we were having is OK because of what we've been through, so it's not like I was causing any problems, but I did have a rocky start to this little trip. Once I finally got out of work, I packed up my stuff, and began my hour long drive to my parents house (because rush hour traffic). For dinner, "the men" had pizza from one of the local joints. I basically spent the night streaming playstation vue and trying to finish a project I started 2 years ago. I also cleaned off my video camera memory card, because I was going to film graduation and I don't want to run out of space (because that would be bad). I also wanted a drink after the day I had, but dad and bro don't like the same kind of alcohol I like (they like just beer, I like everything except beer), so I was really glad to find one of my Henry's Hard Soda's in their mini-fridge from the last time I visited.

OK, wake up at 5:45, load up my stuff into the jeep, eat my muffin, pack some drinks and snacks for the road, and get ready for a 10 hour car ride. I was finally going to watch some of my DVD box sets. I started out with Please Twins (which I reviewed and can be found here), an anime series I picked up at a thrift store on impulse (it was $3, and I like anime). Pretty funny series, even if it is a bit weird. After that I watched the first half of Futurama season 5. That was pretty much what we did for the drive. While we were driving, we stopped at a gas station, and it just so happened that we caught up with my mom and grandparents at that same gas station. What a coincidence. I also picked up some chips. I got dill pickle flavored chips and maple bacon flavored chips. The maple bacon flavored ones were REALLY good. I don't know how to describe them, except like the perfect blend of sweet and salty, with a hint of bacon. After 9.5 hours of driving, we reach my brother's college town, and we stop at his and dad's favorite bar. They each have a beer, and as someone that doesn't care for beer I had their house soda (a cherry root beer). Now, I'm not a big fan of root beer, but it was cool having a house brewed soda. After our drinks, we checked into our hotel and unpacked, and mom arrived at about the same time.

Now for trying to figure out dinner. At first we thought "order in pizza," but we couldn't really find a good place. Them my mom had the idea of "lets get these local meat pies," because grandpa and bro really like them, and everyone else likes them, except me. Luckily the place that makes them also makes deli sandwiches, so I had an Italian beef sandwich. I had my sandwich, and everyone else had their meat pie. Now, it's been a good 6 years since I last had one of the meat pies, so my brother wanted me to try it again; I did, and still didn't like it. This confused my grandpa; "what do you mean you don't like it, it's good stuff." Because I like my potatoes fried not baked, I don't like the other things they put in it like peas, and they don't put nearly enough meat in it for my liking. Oh, and here's a real hoot; when we went to get the food, I ran into one of my old college professors. This was really unlikely, because my old college and my brother's college are nowhere close to each other. He must have been there for graduation as well. I made some small talk, and pulled out my challenge coin I got for completing the program. That impressed him some. Then when we went to pick-up some house brew beer from dad and bro's favorite bar, we ran into some of his old professors. That was kind of fun.

Now the real festivities begin. Bro's program was holding a little reception at one of the dorm ball rooms the night before graduation. My grandparents wanted to go, but they have trouble walking, and the ball room was down a bunch of stairs. That was not good, because that meant they weren't able to go, because this was held in a location that was not ADA compliant. Apparently there was a freight elevator, but that went to an office that no one had the key to. We found this out after getting my grandparents in the car and driving there. Needless to say we were not happy, and Mom made it known. I suggested we sue, to get some of our tuition money back, but we didn't go through with it. So, I took a bunch of the cookies they were serving. Mom asked me "why am I taking so many cookies," and I said "they're for the pain and suffering; if we aren't going to sue, I'm going to take a lot of cookies." She didn't argue with that; no "that's childish, grow up, let it go," because they had it coming. It was a nice little reception. They showed all the graduates in a slideshow, and bro's picture had him with scraggly hair and unkempt beard. Since my grandpa couldn't be there, I played his complaints; "hey, that beard doesn't look good, you knew you were getting your picture taken, why didn't you clean up your beard, and why didn't you get a hair cut." Just yanking his chain.

Now for the big day. Bro goes there early because he's part of the event, and mom went early to make sure they got a good seat. Now, my brother was only able to get 4 main stadium tickets, but there were 5 of us. So, the parents and grandparents take the main stadium tickets, and I had to sit in overflow. Overflow, means I had to watch it in the basketball gym on a projector. It was the same live stream my other grandpa and aunt watched at her house. Anyways, I was still going to film the important parts (even if it was a low quality boot leg, lol). Now, seeing that this wasn't my first graduation, I knew I needed to bring something to keep me occupied. Yes, the speeches by the university president and guest speakers are generally good (unless it's a 2 hour speech on the peace corps, like my mom experienced at another graduation ceremony), but I don't care about the 400 other students getting their names read. So I brought Avatar The Search Part 1 and Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man, 2 books that have been sitting on my shelf for years. I also had my 3DS, but I take it everywhere so it's not like that's special. I also had my camera bag, and safety vest, and cargo shorts full of my normal random stuff, and my fedora. Now the trick to looking so conspicuous is to subtly act like you're official and should look that way. Seeing that I like to casually dress like this and have been for 8 years, I've learned how to do that, but I was fully prepared to get searched. The bag checker asked to see inside my camera bag, saying "just looking for bombs, flasks, weapons, drugs, and such." Well, it's a good thing I don't carry my pocket knife in my camera bag. I found a good seat in the center. I played my 3DS, and read the dedications that were being shown. One student thanked Monster Energy Drink, and that was funny.

Now for the great thing. About 10 minutes before the ceremony started, a lady came in and said "OK everyone, we have about 200 seats open behind the graduates, anyone interested?" Sure, I'll take a better seat. I go there and "set up camp." The grads were all in, and I took some video. Here's something good. While taking the zoom shots, one of the people in front of me kind of kept getting in the shot. I thought "hey old man, can you stop getting in the shot" (he had white hair). After about 45 minutes, I thought "the back of those people's heads looks familiar," and then I realized that was my family, like 5 rows in front of me. How about that? So my mom got there 3 hours early to make sure she got a good seat for my physically challenged grandparents, and I get essentially the same seat by chance 10 minutes before it starts. The speakers were good, and they did it in alphabetical order. Though, it was a little confusing since one announcer was reading the graduates from 1 department, and the other was reading the graduates from another department; but I eventually figured out the rhythm and was able to read my books while I waited for my brother to get called. Then when he got called, I continued reading my books. Part way through the ceremony my grandpa had to stand up and turned around some, and saw me; then everyone turned around and saw me.

Afterwards I met up with them and helped get them out of the stadium. I also brought up how much of a hoot it was that I was able to essentially sit with them. We got everyone out and in the hallway while we wait for my bro. When he shows up we go to the photo op area and take some pictures. We even get some with the mascot. There were also some refreshments. Mom and I each had a $100,000 cupcake. And after some time, we happened to get our picture with the university president, because he happened to walk through the hallway at the same time we were. Cool. We also took some pictures outside. Being an ammeter filmmaker, I played with perspective to make really good shots of the family. After those pictures, my brother and I went around to some more places around campus he wanted to get pictures of. Again, good thing I know some things about photography, because I was able to take some well composed shot (well, as good as one can take with what I had to work with).

After taking pictures, we stopped at his frat house. He said hi to his frat brothers, I introduced myself as "his biological brother," and I had a hot dog (because hadn't eaten anything since breakfast). They weren't the kind of frat boys I'm used to from my college days. The frat boys at my college were the typical "frat boys," whereas his frat brothers were more laid back. An hour later we had dinner at the hotel restaurant. There were also a lot of prom kids that started showing up as the dinner went on, because apparently it was prom weekend too. That took me back. The rest of the night was pretty laid back. My brother spent the night with his frat bros, and Mom just couldn't sleep because he was out.

Now it's Sunday, and we head back home. I finished Futurama season 5, and started Cowboy Bebop. We stopped at the same gas station that had the maple bacon chips, and I was going to buy many bags. Unfortunately, they were sold out. Something tells me I'm not the only one that really likes those chips. After 10 hours of driving, we arrive back at my parents house. We unloaded my dad and brother's stuff, I loaded up some stuff to take to my condo, and then I started the hour drive back to my place. It was a really good trip. Short, but good. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.