The Christmas Blog, 2019 Edition

Hey everyone. Ahh another year another Christmas which means it's time for another Christmas blog. Unlike other years where I broke up certain things, I'm just going to combine it all. You'll see a lot of similar things, but this year the big new thing was mskate and I dating, which added another layer of fun.

I suppose things kind of really started back at Thanksgiving where I did black Friday shopping (technically amazon prime day, but the only point of note was I had a box of presents in the middle of my bedroom for half a year). Normally I would do a big Black Friday blog like I've been doing for the past, 8 years? Well this year was pretty uneventful. I hung out with IRA as we went to various stores. He really enjoyed the adventure since I've gotten it down to a science (there's a 10 mile loop that I follow every year to hit the stores I want to, and it's always the same order). Since he's much younger than I his mom, my mom, and mskate said "pay close attention to him, DON'T LOSE HIM!" Having heard this, he played a little joke on me and hid at one of the stores. I picked up a lot of things for my family and self, including 2 fry pans that I originally was going to get for myself, but then decided to gift to my dad and brother (brother recently bought a house and needs things, and I know at some point in the 24 years I lived with my parents I destroyed a pan at some point). I also picked up some gloves I plan on donating to various "keep the poor warm" campaigns. It was a fun night and a lot later than IRA is used to, struggling to stay awake as we were finishing up. I also bought some wrapping paper at Black Friday that lasted almost all the presents. Mom and dad had 1 with news paper and a strip of left over wrapping.

Now for the start of Christmas things. Mskate and I have made a small tradition of going to the wild lights at the Detroit Zoo (read the other blogs here and here). For the most part, it was a lot of the same as previous years, so I won't retread everything (plus the pictures would be very similar as they were last times), but it was also different enough to warrant the new visit. So in the same vein I will try to showcase some similar but different. Once again we went to the restaurant that is close to the zoo beforehand, and then parked in double secret locals only free parking. A lot of the lights were similar, but were in different locations. Like last year there was a cool display on the side of the penguin exhibit, and there were cool animal lights.

One thing that was a little different were the beavers weren't completely in bed, so I got to see one swimming in the exhibit. Yay. The otter exhibit was also open, but they were all asleep. Oh well. I did get to see some reptiles at the reptile house because since they have heat lamps that need to stay on constantly they don't have the same kind of "we need to sleep" schedules like the mammals. We stopped at the artic café just to get our bearings and warm up a little, and I saw on the menu they had a "wild bacon stack." That got me excited, until I saw it was just a bacon cheese burger.

Oh well, I wasn't hungry anyway. We also saw this really cool "light decahedron" thing, that projected onto the ground and surrounding areas. There was also the "choreographed light field" where the lights danced to the music, which I think was there last year. Video of both below.

We also went to the wild life photography exhibit, which was really good. I can't show any images of it, because "no photography," but there were some really great images. One that really sticks out to me was one taken from the bottom of a lake looking up at the lake weeds to the surface of the water. It gave off this feeling of being in a forest looking up at the sky, but it was different because of the lake weed. We also bought some kettle corn, which was really good. After the zoo I hung out with her family for a little bit, then I went to my parents for the night.

Now for the festivities with my dad's side of the family, I spent the night because the next day (today) we were going to see my aunt and grandpa. The big gift I made for them was raspberry jam with my late grandma's last raspberries that have been sitting in my deep freeze for years. I made probably 4 different trial batches to make sure I figured out how to make jam, and from those trials I made jam for my family. I even strained out the seeds and pulp for my grandpa since seeds don't like him. Mom brought up how it was just like grandma picking out the onions from the beef broth because "I don't like onions." Some more fun was my cousin recently had a baby and we were able to facetime with them so everyone could see the new great granddaughter/great niece. We also set-up my aunt with the special photo sharing app they use, so she and grandpa can see the baby. It was a great little visit.

The 23rd was my "break day," and it wasn't a great day. Long story short, things broke down on me and I wasn't able to "rest." You can read the full story here. Back to fun.

It's December 24th, and it's time for Christmas with my mom's side of the grandparents. They paid for a lot of the things I bought for myself on black Friday, and I got them each a little gift. I also gave mskate half of her presents then, the clothes ones. They gave me candy, some movies, a cordless mini-vacuum, and Kingdom Hearts 3; and some scratch offs, but they also gave my brother and mskate the scratch offs too. I got mskate a yellow dress and pink fuzzy sweatshirt. She liked both of them. I got my grandma afresh dish washer cleaner with a build a bear gift card taped to it (she likes build a bear), and I got my grandpa afresh washing machine cleaner (no gift card). The reason I got her something else and not him is because we made grandpa's real gift a new 43 inch 4K TV. We realized his current TV stand was too small, so I'm trading him one of my TV stands. One of the funny things was since my mom worked for the mall Santa she was able to get the boxes that the "Santa Snow Sticks" came in (a little present for the kids after getting their picture taken). Since we were getting so many boxes grandpa kept asking "where did all these boxes come from?" and no matter how many times we explained, he still didn't get it.

We went to church afterwards for Christmas Eve mass and mskate went home to go to mass with her family. It was a Catholic Christmas Eve mass, nothing super special. After mass we went to the restaurant my grandparents always go to on Christmas Eve after mass. Normally my family has Chinese food, but my grandparents wanted us to join them this time. Normally drink orders aren't THAT interesting, but ever since I was of legal drinking age my grandparents insist I get a glass of wine when we go out because they know that's my alcohol of choice, even though wine is overpriced at restaurants, and most of the time I just plain don't want a glass of wine with my meal. Mom knew they were going to insist I have a glass of wine with dinner and that I shouldn't get it "because it's too expensive," and I told her "no worries because I don't want a glass of wine with dinner." Well that wasn't good enough for them because when I said "I'll just have water," "no [Pokematic], you can have a glass of wine, we're paying for it." "No, price isn't the problem, I just don't want a glass of wine." I had some difficulty figuring out what I wanted, because they have a very limited menu on holidays and nothing was really "speaking to me." The brisket sounded good, and had sides I would have liked (broccoli and a potato gratin). Initially when I said "I'll get the brisket," they said "oh no, you like prime rib don't you, get that instead," probably thinking "because it's cheaper that must mean it's inferior, and [Pokematic] is only looking at price." I said "no, the prime rib doesn't come with sides I want, and I like brisket as well." Well, as we were ordering our waitress got the message that they were out of brisket, so I reluctantly had a steak. I say "reluctantly," because it was an expensive cut I normally can't justify cooking to my liking (well done) and it came with sides I don't like (baked potato and asparagus). I asked if I could substitute, but unfortunately that wasn't an option. Well this put my grandma in a tizzy, "because I want my little boy to have food." She offered me her sides, and I had some difficulty explaining "that won't do me any good because you're getting the same sides I'm getting, which means I won't like those sides." I was able to trade with other people in my family though, because they preferred asparagus to broccoli and baked potato to gratin, and the steak was good, just not worth that much in my opinion.

My grandma got prime rib and ordered it medium well, and for some reason my grandpa wouldn't stop talking about "how it was cooked how she liked it," like she wasn't sure she would like it. Mom got frustrated because 5 minutes of "this is how you like it, this is good, they did it right," was getting annoying and obnoxious, like he was implying that it wasn't done right. Well after dinner and time to box everything up, grandma didn't want to take home the half of a prime rib she had left. For people that love food so much, they sure do struggle with the concept of left overs and finishing the good food you paid for at a later time. It's not like it was all cut up or anything that would "harm the structural integrity" or something, just "she didn't eat half of it" and it looked like a complete meal. Mom tried to explain "this is enough for a lunch or something, it's a good piece of meat," which to her meant "this is something you should give to your starving grandsons" (which for the record neither of us are starving). Well because she was adamant, my brother took it. Good to see some things never change.

My mom took my grandparents home after that and we put out the luminaries. My parent's neighborhood does this really cool thing where everyone gets 6 white paper bags and 6 tea candles with a little note that explains what to do, except for the people on the end of the blocks or with large lots who each get 10. I know this because my mom was block captain for 3 or 5 years and it was my job to assemble the kits. Anyways, the instructions are to fold the end of the bag over some to keep it open, put something in the bag to keep them upright (like rock salt or kitty litter), put the candle in the bag on the stabilizing material, and light the candle. We figured out that if you put the candles in a dixie cup they have a better chance of staying lit and make it easier to light them and put them in the bag. We made ours and the across the street neighbors. A day or 5 earlier I had to take apart the couch to look for something that fell in it, and I found one of my brother's lighters. I initially put it along with a pocket knife of his I found as well in his stocking as a gag, but then we needed it for the luminaries. Nothing more to say on that. I spent the night at my parents house just so I wouldn't have to drive all the way back to my place and all the way to my parents house in a 12 hour period.

Now for Christmas Day. I put my family's presents out the day before, and I wanted to make sure I got done before mass. It was kind of funny how eager I was to open presents, just like a kid. I got more candy and chocolates, movies, and super monkey ball on switch. I got my brother a pocket knife (which he added to his pocket immediately), a tactical flash light, and a frying pan. I got my mom parchment paper, chocolate chips, and oatmeal. I got my dad a grill cleaning thing and frying pan. Because I couldn't remember who I bought them for, I got my dad and brother a set of plastic beer glasses. I also got my mom and dad a year supply of foaming hand soap. Everyone enjoyed their practical gifts. My brother got my dad and I...well I'll just let the picture speak for itself.

He's going to email us amazon gift cards, and he wanted to have some fun with it. Next was mass. It was a good mass.

After that was Christmas with mskate's family. I bought IRA a target gift card and a star wars happy meal toy, and gave mskate the last of her gifts (an instant camera and accessories, and I Want To Eat Your Pancreas). Her family also got me some things, more candy/chocolate and Spiderman Far From Home. It was a re-gift since IRA got it and already had it, but that's OK with me. Her mom also gave each of us a kinder surprise egg, and it just so happened that each of our toys was just right for us (mskate got a little pony, I got a little bike, and IRA got a little alligator). I also had brunch with them, over easy eggs. After gifts mskate and I went to get her grandma from her assisted living facility. Getting her out of the assisted living, into my car, out of my car, and into their house was very similar to helping my grandparents. She even gave me a little card, which was really nice. After that I had to get back to my family festivities.

PepperBC and her family had already arrived, and it was fun catching up with them. They recently got new phones which means they're able to play Pokémon Go, and Aunt K is really into it. Apparently we had some pokemon in our front yard, so she was playing when she came in. A little bit later my grandparents showed up, and we had to help get them into the house. It was just like earlier today. Not too much later their friends showed up with the accordion and pies. We basically spent 2 hours hanging out and then it was time for dinner; ham and pulled pork, with green beans, corn, rolls, and mashed potatoes. I had it all except for the mashed potatoes (because I don't like mashed potatoes). We all had to squish into the dining room table, and my grandpa and I didn't get to use the good China since we can't be trusted with it.

After dinner mskate joined us for dessert and sing along. I had 2 slices of pie, 1 lemon meringue and 1 chocolate, and 1 scoop of ice cream. That was about as much as I could afford to eat. After dessert we had our sing along, singing various different Christmas tunes like we do every year. After the sing along my great aunt called and wished my grandma and grandpa a happy birthday. While she was talking to them mom got her present for mskate and I. She got us matching warm ponchos. It's a cute little couples thing for us. Not to much longer it was time to open birthday presents for my grandpa, because he's a Christmas baby. It was a fun little time. Then there was some fun excitement with my grandpa getting a major cramp in his leg. He stood up and then it was crazy pain. He felt really embarrassed over how he couldn't do much and needed us to hold him up. After 5 minutes of holding him up I told someone-anyone to get the walker. We got him to the good chair and had him rehydrate. It wasn't very good. Mom got them home, PepperBC and her family got headed out, my grandparents friends got headed out, and I got headed out.

The 26th and 27th weren't much to talk about. I wrote a "your 3 minutes" blog for the 26th. On the 27th I went to see Star Wars Episode 9 (read review here) and went grocery shopping. I made the mistake of going grocery shopping when hungry, so I bought $180 worth of food on sale, saving $50. I also had to figure out which TV stand I could give to my grandpa for his new TV. I realized my garage TV stand would be perfect (right size, can hold the cable box and DVD player, and grandma's knick-knack decorations).

Now for the final "Christmas" event on the 28th. Mskate and I went to see Frozen 2, dad and I set-up grandpa's new TV and TV stand, and hold our Christmas party with my mom's best friend and her family. Frozen 2 was really good. I saw it already but mskate hadn't, and she really enjoyed it too. The TV went well. Grandma was worried that a new stand wouldn't be able to hold her knick-knacks, but when we brought the stand in and started setting it up she was happy. It was a little difficult to explain "no, you're getting this new stand and I'm taking the old one," but eventually they understood. The TV was also a little difficult for grandpa since he couldn't use the cable remote on his TV, so I ended up doing the "put tape over the buttons you don't use" thing. Now for the final party. It was a pretty calm event, basically everyone hanging out and talking. We had pizza for dinner and leftover sweets for desert. We also did a little gift exchange where I got a "make your own bouncy balls" kit, and I'm going to have fun with that. After gifts it was getting late. I drove mskate home and we said our goodbyes.

And there you have it, Christmas 2019. I guess I also saw zeldamaster93 on the 29th, but all we did was get pizza, give each other gift cards, and hang out for like 2 hours. All in all it was a really fun time. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

A Historical SpongeBob Weekend

Hey everyone. Back in August I saw that SpongeBob The Musical would be playing in Dayton this weekend (November 22nd) and I asked mskate if she would be interested in seeing it together since I was interested and Dayton is close enough for us to go to. While SpongeBob isn't really her thing, she knows it's something I enjoy and would enjoy having a little date weekend. Friday was SpongeBob, Saturday was all mskate's choices, and Sunday was travel home day.

Friday was a simple day. I took the Friday off work and left 7AM after eating a quick breakfast. I drove all the way to mskate but since she was still working I had some time to myself. I went to the videogame store in her city and spent about an hour there, looking for PS2 games I don't have. I picked up 12. After shopping I went to the thrift store in her city and did some thrifting. Unfortunately I didn't find anything there. Oh well. I still had some time before mskate got home to let me in, so I sat outside her apartment and watched some hulu and youtube with the end of the range of the wifi. When she got home she needed a rest, so I just watched Home Improvement in the warmth. After the rest, we watched I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, and she really enjoyed it.

Now for the main event, SpongeBob the Musical. I got dressed up all special.

Slightly kidding, I wore that under my pants and jacket.

Mskate wasn't too thrilled about me, being me about it, but once she saw I wasn't the only one wearing very casual and SpongeBob stuff she was cool with it. The souvenir stand didn't have any posters, so I unfortunately didn't get something from there; I have enough t-shirts and don't use buttons and bags and such, but I like getting posters to hang in my nerd cave. Since we got there early the doors weren't open yet, but thankfully there was a guy giving a talk about the history of SpongeBob and the musical. Here's a brief clip I took.

It started with Stephen Hillenburg's start in a tidal pool park and his creation of a comic book of the marine life in tidal pools and went all the way to the creation of SpongeBob the Musical. I didn't know he created a comic book, or worked on Rocco's Modern Life. When he said "Rocco's Modern Life," I gave a small excited fist pump and he said "oh I see you're a fan, anyone else fans? No, you should check it out." Also when he said "SpongeBob has been on the air for 20 years" I thumb pointed to myself saying "fan since the start." Then at the end there was a little trivia question for "how many times has SpongeBob failed his driving test." I was thinking about the season 1 episode where he failed 38 times, and the speaker said "superfan, let's let the kids have a chance." When they were saying "1000 times" and "that's too low," I thought "oh no, it's the episode where Mrs. Puff gets replaced, that was...9,256 times," so when he called on me I said "well if you're going off the season 1 episode it was 38 times, but later it was 9,256 times." I was still off, because it was 1,258,058 times, but because I was such a super fan he gave me a consolation prize of a reusable bag.

By now it was about time the doors opened, but first I went to the bar to see if they had any SpongeBob themed drinks. When I go to the movie theater it's not uncommon for a big movie to have a themed cocktail, and I like to try "the cliffhanger" and similar. Unfortunately there wasn't "the fry cook" or "Texan squirrel" or similar, so I didn't have anything. Just like with The Monkees we went to a higher floor thinking "based on what I paid we're probably up higher," but then the usher told us "no you're on the 1st floor." After finding our seats I decided to walk around some and take in the sites.

After doing my blogger/vlogger thing, I sat down and enjoyed the band.

It was pretty fun. Mskate got a little frustrated when they just kept going beyond when the show was supposed to start. Anyway, about 5 minutes or so before the show started there was a guy dressed as Patchey that was walking around taking pictures.

Appreciate the pictures, because I almost got in trouble for them. One of the ushers came up to me and said "no pictures." I thought he was just a super fan cosplaying as Patchey, but apparently he was part of the show. Anyway, the show started not much longer after that and you can check out the companion review podcast.

It was a really fun day. At the end of the show they shot streamers over the front of the audience. The last time I went to a show where they shot streamers over the audience I stuck around to collect the streamers. Then again, the last show I went to with that was Sesame Street Live when I was 7, so there's that. Seeing that it's almost 20 years later I didn't do that. We left the theater pretty much immediately after the show. We went to our respective sleeping locations and that was it for the night.

Now comes Saturday. We went to our favorite breakfast place once we were both up. I decided to try something different this time, super breakfast sandwich; scrambled eggs, bacon, and cheddar cheese on white toast. She had an omelet. After breakfast we went shopping. We went to TJ Maxx to get clear nail polish and a picture frame. The clear nail polish was to seal the decal I put on a hair brush for her birthday gift, and the picture frame is for a Christmas present for my grandma. After TJ we went to Bath and Bodyworks for a little Christmas soap present shopping for the ladies in our life (moms, grandmas, and her) since all the hand soaps were on sale. We did some more walking around the mall, but there wasn't anything else worth noting. We just hung out at her place and watched Home Improvement for a few hours until our next activity. It was fun watching it with her because we were both little kids when it first aired and our dads really enjoyed it. "I remember watching this when I was really little, my dad really liked this show," "mine too, I remember watching it at our old house." I had soup from the grocery store that's across the street from her for lunch. We also made a gingerbread turkey as a little art and cooking project. The turkey turned out good.

Now for the next activity, Christmas village thing at the Dayton historical village. The historical village is a bunch of different buildings and such that was around Dayton for the last 200+ years, like from the time before electricity to the late 40s. They were making gingerbread cookies, roasted chest nuts, and hot cider in the pre-electricity area, and I had a gingerbread cookie. It was a good cookie, and the first one I had this season. After the cookie place we walked around the village some more. We went to a working printing press, and it was cool to see all the old equipment and old way of doing things. They also had the backgrounds on some old sayings. Like, "mind your P's and Q's is based on how lowercase p and q look similar, and with print mirrored it's easy to mess up," and "dingbat is actually fancy way to fill empty space." We also went to a history of bikes from this factory. Here are some pictures.

Bicycle built for 3, and a bike with a radio. It was neat.

The next place was this train museum. They had cabooses, trolley cars, high class train cars, and souveniers. There was also a little train we could ride on. Like, it was this mini-engine that could pull 4 cars with 5 people to a car around a little track. It reminded me of this part that was by my house we called "the train park" because they had the same kind of thing. Mskate and I had a fun little ride. Here are the pictures of the train car.

We also went up this observatory tower thing. The sign said it was 120 steps, and by the top we were tired and I felt like I had a good work out. However, we did get a really nice view of the lights, and it was worth it for the exercise. After that we went to a Wright Brothers museum. They had the work shop they worked in, some prototypes, a 13 minute video of the history of their experiments and journey to flight, and the piece de resistance, the actual plain the Wright Brothers made their flights on and the final project of Orval (bring the plain back home and build a museum around it).

I had some cheese fries after the Wright Brothers, and after that we looked around the historical museum. Apparently cash registers were a big industry in Dayton, as was prohibition.

We're definitely going to go back there for a day trip sometime, because there is a LOT to see, and we were getting pretty tired. We had take-out for dinner, and I made it romantic with candle light, and watched more Home Improvement the rest of the night.

Sunday wasn't too spectacular. I had my left overs from dinner for breakfast and went to church. After church we packed up my stuff and I went home. It was a really fun weekend, full of a lot of fun things. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Family Campout 2019 Fun

Hey everyone, it's that time again, family campout with my camping friends. It's always fun seeing the camping friends considering we only see each other a few times a year (not because we're anti-social, but because we all live so far away now and it's like the only time we can see all get together). I packed everything on Thursday and went over to my parents house for the night. When we were planning things on Wednesday my mom asked me what time I would get there on Friday, and I said "well I was planning on coming over on Thursday night," and that made things a little easier because we were able to practice pack. Then at night I watched SpongeBob using my parents slingTV subscription. I have playstation vue and don't get Nickelodeon, so it's great watching Nickelodeon at my parents house. I watched SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout, and I need to do a review of this, because it's the 20th anniversary special and it's basically an apology for Truth or Square, one of my first reviews. [Editor's note, I did do a review, here it is]. We went out for pizza on Thursday for family fun. That was basically Thursday night.

Now for Friday. We packed-up the perishable things (cooler food) and that was it since we packed all the other things the night before. We drove a while and stopped at the outlet mall. Normally we stop at the pepridge farm store because I like goldfish crackers and millano cookies (and it's always fun to see what kind of other things they might have), but since I still have a bunch of stuff from last year we didn't stop there. We did stop at the Colman store and I got a cooler and my parents got my aunt a cot. After that I just kind of played my switch and slept while I waited for us to get to camp.

Now we get to camp. We were squatting on my godfather's site this weekend. We arrived before them, so we spent the time waiting for them to show-up visiting with the others that were already there. We gave my aunt the cot and not too much longer my godfather and his family showed up. I helped them set-up their tent, and being the tent expert I am, it went up quite easily. While I was working on the tent, my godbrother was on top of the car helping to unload the cartop carrier. Watching him do that, I was quite jealous, because my parents never let me climb on top of the car for any reason. After helping them set-up camp, we had lunch. I had a hamburger and spam sandwich, with cheese. Yum. This year I didn't have to share my burger with my cousin's dog Louie, because he was far more comfortable this year. Here's a picture I took with him.

After lunch we went to check into our motel. It was pretty uneventful, just unload our night bags, sleeping stuff (my cot and sleeping bag), and electronic stuff for at night. After check-in we went back to camp. Since it was so hot and I brought my gold rush nugget buck, and I read there was trace gold in the area, and that it's recreational gold panning is legal in my state, I put on my swimsuit and went swimming for the first time in years. My goal was to go into the lake some, dig down to what I thought was black sand (I remember from as a kid if you dug deep enough you'd get to black colored sand) and hopefully find some gold. If nothing else, just have fun playing on the beach. I didn't find anything. A lot of my camp friends asked me what I was doing and wanted to watch, and I have experience panning the dirt I buy online so I kind of know what I'm doing, but there wasn't any gold in the lake. Doing a little more research on where to pan for gold, I figure a lake is a pretty bad spot since you want basically "1 way water flow to wash away lite sediments" instead of "2 way waves layering the lite stuff on top of each other." Oh well, it was all for fun anyways.

[time skip in writing]

Woops, I must have said "I'll come back to this after a break" and then 3 months go by. I'll do my best to recall what happened, but it's going to be a little more fractured.

After swimming we had dinner and a camp fire. It was a fun time hanging out. When it came time for the squatters to leave we went back to our motel. The rooms didn't have air conditioning, so we were hot. I remember waking up like 4 times throughout the night and drinking 4 cups of water because I was losing so much water. Breakfast was pretty typical. I had a muffin and bacon at the motel before we went to the campground.

Saturday was pretty eventful. The morning started out pretty tame, just hanging out, catching up. One of the gen 2 girls teaches Zumba and brought her music with her, so she led a Zumba class for anyone that would join in. My mom was one of them, as were some of the other moms. I also did some dog sitting for Louie while his owners went swimming. He had some separation anxiety (because he was rescued off the street), but when I took him for a walk he got really happy and enjoyed the exploring. I brought some manga with me (Splatoon volume 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest) and decided to read it after lunch. Well then it started raining, and I was REALLY glad I brought my manga because otherwise I would have been really bored. Everyone huddled under various dining flies, and some people brought out cards for different card games. I had a few people look over my shoulder to see the manga, and I had a little fun explaining why it read backwards. I think around 3PM my parents said "lets go back to our motel," and we did. I did some web surfing and watched TV, and we waited until it was time for mass.

Mass was a little different this year. Normally we go to this church that's kind of out in the woods on Sunday, but this year we went to a church that's in the city on Saturday. That meant I wasn't able to watch the sign language interpreter, because the woods church has ASL. Afterwards my mom ran into someone she knows, apparently an old friend of the camping group. She introduced me as "remember my eldest son? This is him now." That tends to happen quite frequently with me; not as much as when I was in middle school and such, but still happens occasionally. After church we went to the pizza place for dinner. We've been going to this place for about 10 years now, and this year we decided to eat in the restaurant. While we were planning to eat in the restaurant, it was really good since it was still raining. While I was there I found this little sign.

I thought it reminded me of Sarcastic SpongeBob. wE wAnT yOuR cOmEnTs

By now it had stopped raining. We had a camp fire with the wood we kept dry and the chairs we kept dry. We also burned some card board boxes. One thing I did was I brewed decaf sun tea all day, because that night I was going to make my special cocktail "backwoods arnie." I made up some shots for everyone that was old enough to drink and interested, and a lot of people were and thought it tasted really good. My godbrothers also wanted some to drink, so I let them have the decaf sun tea. I made sure to tell their dad it was just decaf sun tea, because I didn't want him thinking I was giving his 11 and 6 year old alcohol, or caffeine before bed. When we went back to the hotel we realized we should probably open the window, and that made things much better.

Sunday was pretty low key. Normally Sunday is church day, but since we already went we didn't go. We had a communal breakfast where we had pancakes, bacon, French toast, and whatever was left over that people didn't want to take home. After breakfast we said our goodbyes, packed-up our camp chairs and other things, and went back to check-out of the motel. After that we started our drive back home, and after unpacking all their stuff I made my way back home. It was great to see everyone again. This has been pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

My Cousins Wedding Adventure

Hey everyone, it feels like it's been a while since I had a good old adventure with my family, probably because it's been a while since I had a good old adventure with my family. Well my cousin turtlegirl got married over the weekend and that means it's time for an adventure. The first of gen 3 to get married, and it's all the way down in Evansville. Those familiar with my adventures will know that we've been going down there for many years.

Everything started Friday morning. My dad and brother showed up at about 6:30AM and we transferred their stuff from their car to my car. It was a very fast process. I already had my stuff packed, and they didn't have a ton of stuff either. Since we were picking up mskate about halfway through the drive, I agreed to drive to her place and they would drive the other half. Aside from dad spilling his coffee within 1 mile of leaving my house, things were pretty uneventful that way, it was just like all the regular trips I make to see her except it went a little faster since I had company.

Now we pick-up mskate and things get fun. I brought my laptop and headphone splitter so we could watch movies on the way down, just like when my brother and I were kids watching VHS tapes on the car TV on road trips when we were little. Same splitter actually, which I spent probably 10 minutes looking for. Together we watched Christopher Robin and Wonder, and on my own I watched the first 2 episodes of Pokémon Orange Islands. Mskate isn't into Pokémon, and when she saw I brought it she was wondering why I brought it, but she didn't want to watch movies all the time so I took that as my opportunity to watch it, and I'm glad I did. We stopped for McDonalds for lunch, and I learned they're doing a Pokémon promotion. Mskate and I split a happy meal, and I got an additional McRib, because that's apparently in season. McDonalds doesn't advertise like they used to, which is annoying because then I don't know what the promotion is. This took us to Evansville.

We get to our hotel, and they don't have our room ready, so we're sitting in the lobby with all our stuff on the cart. My grandparents were already there, and other relatives started arriving as well. It was fun seeing everyone again as they show up. We were able to get my grandparents set-up, and then my grandpa was able to get in the pool. He used to love to swim, but isn't really able to anymore because of stiff joints and such. Well this pool had a handicap entry chair that loads people into the water. This was quite a scene, because this was apparently the first time the hotel ever used it and none of the staff knew what was needed. My aunt, brother, and I were all gathered around the chair trying to figure out how it worked, and we realized we needed some kind of pendant to control it. Well, we knew there was some kind of controls, but we couldn't figure them out. We went to the front desk and they brought out the controller, and I was able to figure out which port it plugged into. However, when I turned it on and set it to lower it wasn't moving very fast, so we figured the battery was dying. The hotel staff went to the back room to get the other battery pack, but that one was completely dead. My aunt thought that maybe it was missing the contacts or they were dirty, but after putting my hand on it I could feel it was trying but just didn't have a charge. The staff then went and got the other battery and we put it back on figuring it just moved slow for safety reasons. My grandpa was already in the water by now after my mom and brother helped him down the stairs. However, this was good for getting him out. Unfortunately the pool wasn't very friendly to him, having a very steep drop-off and a rather small shallow end. He was able to have some fun, but not nearly as much as he wanted to, and he was really looking forward to it.

Once we were able to check-in I set-up my bitcoin miner and enjoyed free hotel electricity; the returns on mining doesn't compensate for the cost of electricity, but when I don't pay for the electricity it's all profit. Mskate and I went grocery shopping because we weren't going to like the wedding dinner, so I brought my crock pot to make us something on Saturday. She also wanted to get an Indiana Starbucks Cup, and I wanted to go thrifting, so we went to the goodwill that was right by Starbucks, and then went to Walmart to get food. I unfortunately wasn't able to find any rare or mystery VHS tapes, and I already had the videogames or they weren't worth the price tag, but she was able to find her Indiana Starbucks cup. At Walmart I let her chose between meatballs and pot roast. She chose meat balls, and I was able to find a ground beef and pork blend which was really good. I also picked-up BBQ sauce, and she also found some snack food she can't get elsewhere. I checked the electronics to see if there were any amiibo or PS2 games I wanted, but they didn't have either so it was only groceries. After that my brother, dad, and I went to the liquor store to get some drinks. I didn't really have anything I was looking for, having brought stuff from home, but then I saw moonshine pickles and I said "I can't get that at home, I need to see what that's like."

Now it's time for the rehearsal dinner. It was at a fire house banquet hall thing. Apparently this is where turtlegirl and hubby (I'll need to find a screenname for him) went on some dates, so it's important to them. However, it was way out of the way and kind of in nowhere, so it was kind of hard for us. Anyway, mskate, dad, bro, and I head over and we were the first there. Now long time readers may remember I had pink hair at my aunt's wedding (link if you don't remember). It was a college fundraiser for breast cancer, and my family wasn't super thrilled. I wanted to do something similar for turtlegirl (that was the first thing I thought of when I heard about the engagement), but as a professional adult I can't dye my hair crazy colors anymore. So I did the next best thing, pink wig.

I walk into the hall with this on my head and the grooms aunt, or whoever was setting up, called the grooms mom saying there was a suspicious man here, thinking maybe a vagrant wandered in. Once my family started showing up she could tell I belonged, and most of my family got the joke. My uncle who married my aunt when I really died my hair pink didn't get it, and neither did turtlegirl's father, but all my aunts and cousins got it. Mskate kept trying to get me to take it off, because she doesn't like it when I get eccentric, but turtlegirl had to see it. When she saw it she just shook her head with "of course Pokematic would do that." After she saw I took it off. Dinner was alright, catered fast food Italian food, nothing super special. Near the end of the party the grooms mom said "I got a call about a suspicious man that wondered in." That was my first time meeting his family, so yeah, here's "crazy cousin Pokematic." Nothing really happened after that.

Now for the big day.  I started up the meatballs and let them cook for 4 hours in our hotel room. Since the ceremony was at 2PM, we gave a tour to dad and mskate. First we picked up pepperBC from her grandma/my great aunt, and her mom gave us a tour of the house. Because great aunt got her hair done but it wasn't sticking, some of my other aunts had to find hairspray. The tour was fun, hearing all the crazy stories they had from "trips to the darkness" and "the murder that took place before great aunt bought it." The hairspray was called "big sexy hair," so we joked about how she now had "big sexy hair." After great aunt's house we went to this hill that is like the highest point in Evansville where you can see the whole city. It was cool. After that we went to see great uncle's house, the same house that grandma, great aunt, and great uncle grew up in. He has a very interesting house, like a street light in his driveway and a fire hydrant next to his garage. I lead the tour on that, because I really like his house. There was a split where the men played in the garage and women toured the house. It was just a quick little stop.

After that little stop, I placed a take out order for an Evansville delicacy, brain sandwich. I also ordered chicken livers for my grandparents, because they like chicken livers and the Hilltop Inn has some of the best according to my grandparents, and Hilltop is one of the few places you can still get them. We dropped everyone off except for msake and dad, because they wanted to see the place. When mskate stepped out of the car she said it smelled bad/funny, I said "it smells like fry oil." She didn't want to see me eat the brain, but I took some video back at the hotel if you want to watch a mini food review.

Now for the big ceremony. We got dressed and my grandparents in the car. It's always a bit of an ordeal getting them anywhere. It was Mskate, bro, and I in the car, and I was driving. I missed our turn, and that was kind of crazy. We got in and found our seats after saying hello to the family. It was a good ceremony, and my mom was a Eucharistic minister. That's important because she distributed the wine, and it's the Eucharistic minister's job to drink the leftovers in their cup, and there were a lot of leftovers. After the ceremony my mom said she was feeling tipsy and needed some carbs, and was glad she wasn't driving. We had about an hour before the reception, so mskate and I had our meatballs at the hotel and we just hung out for a little while.

Now for the reception. We had some fun trying to find the place, and find a parking spot. It would be another hour or so before the festivities started, but that just meant time to visit with the family and get mskate a new lock screen photo (because the last one was from the last wedding we went to). Now it was time for the wedding party to enter. The ushers were first, and they tried to do a group act that ended with one guy face planting. I ran into them in the dinner line (because I wanted some salad and rolls) and his friends were trying to fix his bleeding nose. However, they were all drunk/buzzed and were struggling. I offered to help since I was pretty sober (half a glass of wine, I wasn't feeling anything), but they didn't want it. Oh well, later in the night I saw he had a nice X of bandages on his nose, so someone helped him. I had green beans and corn, as did mskate.

Now that dinner is over it was time for dancing. The bride and groom had their dances with their respective dad and mom, and then there was the dollar dance. I remember great aunt wanted a dance with her new nephew. I didn't participate because I knew I'd have my dances with them later in the nigh. In addition to the dancing they rented a photo booth, which is something mskate and I enjoy doing when we find them. We did it twice by ourselves, and once with grandma. Grandma was fun, because we didn't really know what we were going to do, and the last picture involved mskate sitting on my leg while I kissed her cheek, which was a lot harder than anticipated because I didn't realize how much taller she would be when sitting on my leg, and while this is happening grandma is trying to get out of the way while mskate is trying to pull her back into frame, and we only had 5 seconds to figure out what we wanted.

Dancing for the most part was pretty standard. We did some line dancing, and the ones I knew were really fun (like cupid shuffle and cha cha slide). I was trying to do the line dancing for cotton eye Joe, but it was a little to fast for me and I kept tripping on myself because I kept trying to catch up. Then there was the macarena; when that happened, I started yelling with excitement and ran onto the dance floor. I love the macarena, it was the first dance I learned as a little kid back in the late 90s. The slow dances were pretty fun too, mainly because I had a partner. Even when mskate was sitting them out I still had fun joining in on the group hug slow dancers (because for reasons I'll get to shortly, there were many guests that got creative with some of the dances). The fast dances were also great; I'm not very good, but I have fun. About halfway through the night I was able to have a dance with turtlegirl when she was on the dance floor and didn't have a lot of people around. I was right, I didn't need the dollar dance. All the families were allowed to request 1 song, and my grandparents requested a slow dance. The DJ made a note it was a special request by "great aunt and uncle," and we got them up and out on the dance floor. Unfortunately because they move so slow the song was about a third of the way done, so I had the DJ restart it. It was really sweet to see them hold each other and dance after 60 years together without their walkers; surrounded by their kids, grandkids, and other family making sure they don't fall and no one runs into them. After their dance they took their walkers back, and grandpa stayed on the dance floor for one more, dancing to a fast song with people. It was all really sweet.

Now for some shenanigans. My mom and I were basically the DD for "our immediate family." Since neither of us really drink a lot, that wasn't a big battle. However, the same can't be said for the rest of my family, and apparently the same for the rest of the wedding guests. The dance floor had a nice layer of dry beer on the floor, which felt really weird since this was in a school gym. When we did RockyTop (a dance where it's like "make a bridge, go under the bridge"), mskate got a little upset since someone spilled beer on her dress (she's not a drinker either so this was extra upsetting, but she didn't want to drive at night so she wouldn't DD even if I was a drinker). After my brother had a few and a slow dance came on he wanted to dance with me, which I said yes to because I wanted to have fun, but we basically spent the entire time trying to figure out who would lead. Some of the groomsmen and other male guests started up a chorus line with one of the songs, which I joined in on. There was a guy that was double fisting them on the dance floor that always seemed like he was lost. Later into the night I saw my brother slow dancing with one of the groomsman, and they were both pretty smashed. I also did a fair amount of bad and excited dancing, but I do just because I like dancing. Since I'm just weird I don't need alcohol to do the silly things, so I basically had "drunk fun while sober," which mskate made a joke about. I was wearing my Pokémon tie, because I have a Pokémon tie, and everyone was complementing it (except for mskate, she doesn't really like it). I told her "I'm getting a lot of complements on my tie," and she like, "yeah, from DRUNK PEOPLE!" (I do get a lot of complements on it regularly though).

Now comes the end of the night, the reception is coming to a close and we need to get the grandparents back to the hotel, along with the rest of the family. By now mom just kind of "doesn't want to deal with drunk people anymore," so when drunk guests were hanging out in the hall on the way to the car, she just pushed them out of the way. "Out of the way, my mom and dad need to leave." She also told me I was in charge of my brother, and he needed charge. He took his boots off because they made it hard to dance or something, and I had to tell him to get his shoes. As we were driving back I was channeling my safe ride home skills from community service back in college. I got really good at driving nice and easy for the drunk passengers so they don't get sick, and he said I did really well. He also kept wanting to go to Denny's, and I kept telling him "no, mom said to get you back to the hotel;" "but Denny's." I told him I have meatballs at the hotel if he wants them, "but Denny's." "If you want to stumble down the block to it I won't stop you, but I'm getting you to the hotel." Ultimately he didn't need Denny's. I was supposed to sleep in the bed that night, but he laid down in it not long after getting into the room, and I realized "that ain't moving," so I slept on the floor again.

Sunday wasn't super spectacular, just a drive home. Dad was the first one up and woke us up at around 7AM. We ate breakfast, packed up our stuff, said our goodbyes, and started our drive home. Mskate and I watched some movies again, finishing up Christopher Robin first and then watched Storks and Bandslam (which is a great film). For lunch we stopped at a McDonalds and shared 2 happy meals (I ate the burgers and 1 of the fries, mskate ate the apple slices and other fries), and we each got our own toy; Pokémon for me and Hello Kitty for her (because she likes Hello Kitty). That took us to her apartment. We unpacked her stuff and said our goodbyes. We then began the drive home. Because I took care of him after the wedding, bro drove about halfway, leaving me time to watch more Pokémon and take a nap. We stopped at a rest stop and switched drivers, so now I was driving. Dad and bro commented on how boring the drive is and how "there was nothing around." Yeah welcome to my drive every 2 or so weeks. We got to my place, swapped vehicles, and that was it, rather uneventful.

All in all it was a great trip. I really enjoyed seeing my family again, seeing mskate again, and with turtlegirl and her new husband the best. I'm glad my grandparents were able to make another trip, because it's getting harder and harder for them. Soon we may have a gen 4, and then trips may be a little more regular again. Time will tell, but until then, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

I go to the Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Roadshow

Hey everyone. When I saw Jay and Silent Bob Reboot with fathom events I learned about the reboot roadshow, a live show where Jason Mewes and Keven Smith introduce the Jay and Silent Bob Reboot live on stage and do a Q&A afterwards. I'm not going to talk about the movie itself because I already did that with the fathom reviews. Watch here. Instead I'm going to talk about my experience of going to the theater and the live aspect.


I looked up where the tour was stopping and saw they were making a stop in Detroit at the Fillmore, which was possible for me to make it to. I hadn't made my decision to see it yet, but I said "yeah it could happen." Well then I forgot about it, and if it wasn't for one of my facebook friends saying they were interested in it the day before I wouldn't have remembered. I bought my ticket online and was ready to see it. I was really glad I had a $20 bill in my wallet, because I forgot that parking costs money in downtown Detroit, and since there was a big show happening parking was $20, a quarter mile away in a sketchy area. Oh well, it was that or somehow turn around on a 1 way street to get to the $10 parking half a mile away, $30 for a somewhat closer lot that was only a little less sketchy.

Since I got there after the doors opened I didn't have to wait in line, which I kind of planned on because while there was quite a large police presence (because it was a big event), I still wouldn't want to wait around outside in Detroit. I had my ticket on "willcall," which meant they would give me my ticket at the box office after showing them my credit card and photo ID. I glad about that, because that meant I got a physical ticket, because the alternative was a digital ticket on my phone, which required the app, and I have windows phone. I got my ticket, and then got in line to get my drink wristband. I wasn't planning on drinking, but I said the same about The Mike and Micky show, and then I decided to get a drink. This time however, I decided not to drink. After getting through security I had a look at the merch table to see if they had a poster or something I wanted, but all they had were t-shirts and 1) I already have more than enough t-shirts, and 2) I'm not the kind of person that would wear a Jay and Silent Bob t-shirt; while I enjoy the occasional Kevin Smith film, the only one I would care to watch more than once (outside of a special event show like this one) is Clerks. Anyways, since The Fillmore is like a "serious historic venue" there was a lot of really cool architecture and posters, and since I was 30 minutes early I decided to explore the 4 levels. Here are some pictures of things I took.

After exploring I went to find my seat. Because I'm not a big Kevin Smith fan, and I'd already seen the movie with fathom events, and I need to save money, I got the cheapest available ticket. It ended up being in the lower balcony off to the side, 2 rows away from upper balcony. The seat also didn't have a lot of leg room, barely any at all, and it was pretty far from the screen.

Before I left for the show I charged my 3DS and brought it with me. I was really glad I did, because I had time to kill and they started 10 minutes late. Why did they start 10 minutes late? I'm going to guess it's because Kevin was smoking up back stage, and that's not me passing judgement, when Kevin came on stage he said he was getting high before the show and was "really happy to be in a weed legal state." Well the lights went down and out walks Kevin in his jorts and purple blazer. He gave a fun little intro and then brought Jason Mewes out. Jason brought out his phone and said he was live streaming on twitch. You can watch the rebroadcast here.


Watch detroit live just a quickie intro from jay and @thatkevinsmith Reboot Roadshow! from jaymewes on www.twitch.tv

After they gave their intro the show was apparently sponsored by audible. They made these commercials for audible as Jay and Silent Bob, and were pretty funny. Kevin also joked about how "like every podcast ever, we're sponsored by audible for some reason." Well, not ALL podcasts considering audible rejected me. OK, now the movie is starting, and I'm starting to get a hunger headache. While Kevin said I shouldn't miss any part of the show because it never stops, I'd already seen it before so I knew I wouldn't miss anything. I went to the snack bar and got some nachos. At first the clerk said "we're out of nachos" (the line was very long before the show, so it made sense stuff was running out), but knowing I had to eat something I asked what they had, and after asking the guys with the food he said "hotdogs and nachos, I guess we do have them." I got my nachos and had them on one of the standing tables on the first floor. I watched the movie from behind the bar glass, because I didn't want to take them back up to my seat and potentially drop them. After the nachos I went back to my seat and watched the movie.

Now the movie is over and Kevin and Jason come back out on stage for the Q&A. Since they only had like 30 minutes left on their rented time they only allowed 12 people to line up to ask questions on first come first serve, meaning the people with the really good seats were able to ask their questions. Here's what I would have asked if I had the option "hi, you can call me Pokematic [and yes, I would have used my screen name, hoping someone would hear that, do a google search, and find my stuff], a piece of trivia for Clerks is you sold half of your comic book collection to finance the film, I was wondering if when Clerks made a ton of money you bought back your collection." The questions that were asked were pretty good, including a little look into what older drafts of Reboot would have been like.

SPOILERS!!!!!!

Since Kevin and Jason were close friends with Stan Lee, Kevin was going to have him be in the movie, specifically, he would have been the director of bluntman v chronic that Shan Yu wants to kill, but because Stan died IRL Kevin Smith as himself had to fill that position. Also Ben Affleck was originally not going to be part of this, and Jay was going to get his dad inspiration from seeing a girl (his IRL daughter Logan) dressed up as Jay with her dad dressed up as Silent Bob at Chronicon, but because Ben wanted to be a part of it last minute (Kevin did launch his career), he wrote the Holden and Chasing Amy scene we see in the final product.

END SPOILERS!!!

I really wish I recorded this, but I didn't think to. I saw a lot of people with their phones out, so hopefully this shows up on the internet at some point, because I want sources to back this up so I can make a LMW article on it. Anyway, with the last question there was a loud noise and I think it was the stage manager cutting them off, to which Kevin joked about being shot and "scare the guy that had a heart attack." I left the theater, and I felt REALLY uncomfortable walking alone in downtown Detroit at 11PM at night down a dimly lit street to get to my car in a sketchy parking lot. I also had trouble finding my way out of the lot, because there wasn't really a place to turn around, so I just drove over the curb (it was kind of low down). I made it home safe though, but I'm thinking I won't do something like that again for a while. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Grandma's 85th birthday and 60th anniversary part with the family

Hey everyone, oh man do I have a story for you guys. So my grandparents have been married for 60 years and my grandma has been alive for 85 years, and because those are some serious milestones my mom threw a MAJOR party for them, inviting all the extended family for a weekend long celebration that for me basically lasted all week, and for my mom, a year of preparation. I'll start out with the little bit of prep that I had. For me I made a video slideshow of my grandparents throughout the years from marriage until about now. These were the songs we used, in the order of use.

Mom scanned a bunch of their old pictures and that was a bit of a challenge, because pretty much all the pictures they marked as wanting them were from the last 20 years (grandkids). There were some wedding album pictures, and some with my mom and her siblings as kids, but most were grandkids. I'm like "uhhh mom, one of the songs is 'when your old wedding ring was new,' it doesn't match well if all I have is when the old wedding ring is old." She then found more pictures from the wedding and when they were newly weds, with bringing their kids home from the hospital and babies. I also found all the vacation slides of theirs I digitized for a Christmas present 12 or so years ago, from all the vacations they took with their kids (my mom and aunt and uncle) as kids. It worked out great.

Now for the start of everything. My girlfriend mskate came in for the party and she arrived Wednesday to stay in town with her parents (about an hour away from where I live). I also had a doctors appointment out that way, so we were going to have a little date night after the appointment. Well, I got caught in really bad traffic, and had to reschedule. I happened to be stuck about where we were going to meet up afterwards, so that just meant that we were able to spend a little more time together. We went out to dinner, and then walked around our little down town area for some fun. We went to the salvation army, and a jewelry store that was downsizing and had stuff that was 80% off, and a gamestop. We went to the jewelry store just for fun, and maybe I would find something deeply discounted that I could either flip in some years or make for a really nice gift, but it was all still out of our price ranges. The gamestop was mainly for me because she knows I like videogames, but she doesn't really care for them. We did find something we would both enjoy, a Wreck it Ralph 2 mystery figure. We decided to get one and depending on which character it was would determine who got it. She wanted a Vanellope, and I would have been happy with Ralph, Felix, or anyone else. It ended up being YES! and she decided she liked it for the in-joke and would rename her "yep." (I say "yep" when I want to acknowledge that I heard you but don't have anything to add to the current topic). As we were walking around, some kids decided to play the penis game as they drove by while we waited to cross the street. For those of you who don't know, the penis game is when you yell "PENIS" in a public area and/or at a complete stranger, commonly played by middle schoolers and immature high schoolers. We were just standing there minding our own business when this car drives by and this kid sticks his head out the window and yells "penis" at us. My girlfriend didn't know what the penis game was, and so I had to explain it to her, and how I didn't know those kids, and how it's kind of like a dare, and how he's probably not going to get in trouble with his mom because the driver was probably his friend, and how it was a game that some kids used to play back when we were in middle school and it's still around 13 years later. After our little date we went to my parents house so mom could fill us in on what we needed to do for the party. I'll save those details for when they come.

Now for Thursday night. All my family came in that Thursday, and so my grandparents hosted a dinner at their house. It was basically just at their house, because my aunt made the food and my mom organized the rest. With all the traffic and construction, it took me 2 hours to get to their house (it normally would take about an hour). When I got there PepperBC was already there, which was really fun catching up with her. My brother Vikingpolak was also there, but I see him far more often then all my cousins. My aunts and uncles were there, but I enjoy generation 3 (my generation). Not much longer before turtlegirl and her friend show up, which was more fun. An hour or so later MMT and R showed up, and we had fun catching up and making fun of each other. I might as well say this now so some of the events make sense; with this side of the family we make fun of each other to show we love each other. Light teasing and comebacks that are all based on personality traits and past stories is how we let each other know we remember things about each other and that we are close enough to have a little fun at each other's expense. It's not just limited to gen 3; gen 2 (my parent's generation) does that amongst themselves, and all the generations will engage in some light teasing across the generational gaps (gen 3 will poke fun at gen 2 and vice versa sort of thing). It's all healthy, we know when it's appropriate and when it's not, and is just something my family does.

Anyways, not long after MMT and R showed up we had dinner. Because it's my grandparents party, generation 1 ate first. After gen 1 got their food, gen 3 got their food. Someone in gen 2 asked "why is generation 3 eating after generation 1?" and I said "because gen 1 likes the grandkids more than the kids." That got a "savage" from my brother and my mom overheard the reaction but not what I said. Then in her own little teasing but could be scolding manner she asked if I was using "kind words." I repeated what I said and she thought it was funny and true. After dinner gen 3 decided to walk down to the liquor store and get some drinks. I remember back when it was a video rental store, back when I was like 4. We visited some more, and then I went home at like 8 PM, because I live an hour away from their house.

Now for Friday. This was our "fun day" where the different generations do what they want. Gen 1 and 2 went to visit with Aunt K, and gen 3 hung out around my parents area (except for turtlegirl and her friend, they went to a museum I think). Mskate joined us and got to get a little acclimated to my crazy family. Trying to find something to do was REALLY challenging. Here's how it went down, mskate, brother, and pepperBC said "I'll go with whatever everyone else wants to do," I'm suggesting all sorts of things (laser tag, zoo, barcade down town, my condo, bowling, minigolf, museums, other sight seeing, thrifting, etc.), and then R was being poopy all "I don't want to do that, I just want to check in at my hotel and get a good shower, and play fortnight while I wait" (he and MMT were staying in a hotel Friday and Saturday, but stayed with my parents Thursday night, and check-in wasn't until 3PM), and MMT was like "I'll do whatever R says, though I do want to do something." Looking back at past times, I guess it's normally Turtlegirl and I that break the tie of everyone else not having strong opinions on what we do. Eventually we decided to go bowling. I think I managed to convince my brother to vote hard yes on "lets go bowling" to break the tie, or maybe I convinced R to stop saying hard no, but regardless I got a single vote to break the deadlock. Mskate and I were both wearing sockless footwear, so we had to borrow socks from my family members; her from my mom and myself from brother.

This is where things get a little silly. Soooo, there are like 4 different bowling alleys in a 5 mile radius of my parents house, buuuuuutttt, only 1 was open. We first tried the one that is just down main street, but they apparently open at 6PM on Fridays. Bro, MMT, R, and pepperBC were driving together and Mskate and I were driving separately. We pull into the parking lot, I get out and start talking to them while they're in the car. Next we wanted to go to an alley that's close to their grocery store, but they've been out of business for over a decade (you wouldn't know it though, the place still has the sign and no notice of "for lease"). So then we called the combination bowling alley-movie theater 1 town over, and they thankfully were open. I haven't been there in a while, so I didn't know that they renovated and removed the lanes on the 1st floor, and neither did bro. So we get there, walk over to where the bowling alley was, and are all "where's the bowling, we want to bowl?" We were ready to give up, but then an employee overheard us and told us they're upstairs and we needed to pay at customer service. It was a great deal, $6 for an hour each. Mskate, pepperBC, and I played on 1 lane, and MMT, R, and Bro played on another. Apparently R was on his high school bowling team, and he wanted to show his skill to everyone. Well, this was the 2nd time I've been bowling in like 10 years, and I was never really good, but I found I'm pretty good when I go marathon. R was getting really competitive, and I'm like "oh whatever, I'm just here for fun." Well...I ended up winning. I scored something like 400 points over 3 games, and R only got like 380 or something. After our hour, he was lying down on the chairs saying "I can't believe I lost to [pokematic]."

After bowling we went to the Mexican restaurant that's close to the theater-alley. This was another one of those "indecisive things." I wanted to go to the noodles restaurant that was down the road, bro wanted to go to the Mexican restaurant, R was saying "I don't want to go there," and everyone else was "I don't care." Because I didn't want another hour of deadlock, I changed my vote to the Mexican place just to make it 2 against 1 against 3 no opinion, because my hunger was greater than "I don't really care for Mexican food." I had a burrito, without much of the fixings that they include; "you can have 2 different proteins" just beef, "what 2 sauces do you want?" none, "what kind of beans do you want?" none, "you get up to 3 different vegie things" just lettuce, "you sure, I mean it's all included in the price?" yes. I basically had a $5 burrito for the price of $8, but that was worth the price of not having deadlock. We all got a table and visited while eating. After lunch MMT and R left us to go check into their hotel, so then bro, pepperBC, Mskate, and I hung out at my parents house for a while. We watched the 1980 Popeye movie on plutotv. Well, I watched Popeye, PepperBC and Mskate and bro took naps, though PepperBC and Mskate at least started watching the movie with me and then fell asleep where they were sitting. After the movie we walked down to the ice cream parlor, and then we walked down to the card and game shop my brother frequents. Bro was really in his element, and since pepperBC and I are both geeks we didn't feel too out of place (even though table top isn't our thing), but mskate felt very out of place since she isn't really into any of this stuff (though I'm slowly introducing her to things, and she enjoys some of it). We were there for a little bit, but thankfully bro realized we weren't that into it and so we left. After that we went to the minigolf place by my parents. MMT and R caught up with us, and I think turtlegirl and her friend joined us. I don't quite remember, but it was a fun time. Nothing really exciting happened, except that I did pretty well and I think beat R again, and he's really into minigolf. I guess because I spent so much time at that course I know the holes really well, even though I can't remember the last time I played that course. After the mini-golf I took mskate home and went home myself.

OK, now for the main event. And ho boy, this was something else. I picked up mskate and we headed over to the hall. We got there an hour early, so we drove around a little to find something to do, and we decided to go to Meijer. I found a smash bros Daisy amiibo, which was great. We went back to the hall, and mom exclaimed "please tell me you brought a change of clothes!" I was wearing my cargo shorts and a polo shirt, because it was a hot summer's day and the weekend (I have to wear long pants for work), so I figured I'd wear my cargo shorts. Apparently that went against mom's dress code of looking nice (even though all the pictures would be from the waist up). So mskate and I went back to Meijer and I bought a pair of kaki long pants. A lot of other men at the party wore shorts, and I was a little pouty about it, but not to the point that I was causing problems (because I'm better than that).

OK, so now for the 2nd crazy situation. Remember how I said I made a video presentation to project against the wall? So there was some miscommunication with that. I was under the impression that the hall had a projector we could borrow. I asked mom if they had a projector, and I guess she asked "would we be able to project a video," and the hall took that to mean "is there an open space to project an image on." I go to the office and ask for a projector, and they said they will give us a projection cart. 10 or so minutes later and I'm like "uhhhh, where's the projector? You were giving me the projection cart." Then they were like "yes, here is your cart, you can put a projector on it and project on the wall." And I'm like "no, I need a projector." "Oh we don't have that." I go over to mom and, let me just write out the script.
Pokematic: Mom, they don't have a projector. You said they had a projector.
Mom: What? Wait, you said you were bringing a projector.
Pokematic: No, I didn't; I said I'm bringing both of my computers so I'm covered no matter what inputs the projector has. I don't have a projector.
I know my mom thinks of me as a tech guy, and for the most part I am, but I wouldn't have asked "do they have a projector" if I had a projector. So now we have basically all my aunts trying to figure out where we can get a projector. Thankfully someone remembered mom works for a library and maybe we could borrow one of theirs. She called up her people at the library and she had z-man pick it up on his way over. Crisis averted.

So now the party is going. All the guests are showing up, and it was fun. MMT enjoyed hanging out with AG again. So fun story time. When I was a senior in high school and she was a sophomore, she came up for some event, and she said "hey [pokematic], invite all your friends over and we'll have a party," with the plan being "I'm going to meet some cute senior boys." Well, when zeldamaster93 and mbinski showed up, she quickly realized "oh yeah, Pokematic's a geek, of course his friends are also going to be geeks," and she was definitely one of the more popular girls at her school. Well, AG showed up and since he's a hockey player he was able to fill the "cute boy" desire, even if it was just for 10 minutes. So it was a fun little reunion for them, though he kind of stopped being a "cute older boy" in the 8 or so years since then. There were also a lot of picture taking, and my grandparents were so happy to finally be able to spend some time with mskate. The lunch was good, and I piled on the food. I played the video and everyone loved it; they told me how much they loved it and that I did a really good job on it. Some people shared some stories, and my grandpa said some that were a little inappropriate (because he doesn't understand the concept of "appropriate for mixed company" anymore).

OK, now for my little "I told you so" story. Because it has been a while since my grandpa last wore his suit and gained a lot of weight since then, his pants and belt didn't fit well anymore, and he really needed suspenders. Meijer didn't have suspenders in his size. AG had a pair of drinking suspenders in his truck (it holds shots), but those were too small on him. Mom is freaking out "how can we make it so his pants don't fall down at church?" Let me once again write out the exchange.
Pokematic: I have the necessary stuff to make a makeshift pair of suspenders.
Mom: Really, you have suspenders that will fit grandpa?
Pokematic: I have 2 straps that are 3 feet in length, and about 15 feet of elastic cord, I can make a pair of suspenders out of that.
Mom: Really? Where do you have that?
Pokematic: In my shorts. ARE YOU GLAD I BROUGHT MY SHORTS!? Be prepared. That's why I wear cargo shorts with all sorts of random things in it.
Mom: OK MacGyver, you and bro take grandpa to the bathroom and make him some suspenders.
After that, I rubbed it in a little. "See mom, it's a good thing I brought my shorts. We would be in trouble if I didn't wear shorts." Nothing too serious, but enough to let her know "I was right." I was, at church when they were renewing their vows his pants didn't fall down.

After church we had the after party at my parents house. It was pretty simple, but still kind of crazy. We had birthday decorations, a birthday tiara, and birthday brownies. Since my mom is into brownies, she frosted some brownies and stuck candles in it. We all just continued to visit, and enjoy just the family, and remembered the old days. There was some "musical chairs" because everyone kept taking "the good seats," and I remember one time there was just enough room on the couch for me to sit down, and so I did. It was a pretty chill night. After some time I took mskate home and went back to my place.

Now for Sunday. Sunday was basically "whoever's left, hang out at my grandparent's house." Well, first I stopped at my parents house. It was like the aftermath of a college party, with so many people sleeping in chairs, on couches, and the air mattress in the middle of the living room. In "my family likes to tease each other" fashion, my mom and aunt planned to make today the "surprise birthday party for my uncle even though it's in 5 months." The plan was to reuse the birthday girl banner and balloons from Saturday night, and put the birthday tiara on him. As they were plotting, saying things like "oh man, he's either going to laugh at this or hate it, either way it's going to be great," I told them "yeahhhh, I warned [mskate] that we like to tease each other kind of hard, and we do it to show we love each other," and they were like "yeah, it can come off as kind of harsh, but we all know it's in good fun." We packed up everything and went over to my grandparents house.

Everyone had what I call a sleep hangover (didn't sleep much the night before after tiring themselves out), all except me. I went to bed at around 11 or so, whereas everyone else was out until like 2. They went to some bars and did karaoke or something. Oh well. I wanted to do some things, but they didn't feel like it, so we basically just lounged around all day. My uncle thought the princess birthday was funny, so that was good. One thing I did manage to do was pick up the CRTs from pepperBC's parents. I took my uncle back up to his place and drove back with 2 CRTs for my future video wall (that way my aunt and pepperBC still had the car and could drive back). My great uncle didn't realize what I was doing with them and thought I was going to scrap them.
Great Uncle: I find people throwing them out all the time, I'll save them for you.
Pokematic: no, please don't, when people throw them out that normally means they don't work.
Great Uncle: well of course they don't work. Why do you want them working? Ain't you just going to take them apart and scrap them?
Pokematic: No, I'm going to use them to make a video wall.
Everyone was asking where mskate was, but she had to drive back home. I was telling everyone "she had enough of our family for a while," and they understood perfectly well.

So that was basically the weekend. It was great being able to see everyone again, and even if things didn't go completely according to plan, it all worked out. I also enjoyed introducing mskate to everyone. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.