A Simple Camping Weekend

Hey everyone. A month or so ago my dad had the idea to get a cabin in May and invite his sons (my brother and I), and last weekend was that weekend. It was about 2 hours north of me and 1 hour north of him, and there wasn't much of a plan (just getting together for some guy fun). Getting set-up was a pretty simple affair. Primarily we just had to make sure we had enough food and all the camping equipment we would need. My dad brought eggs, hash browns, brats, bacon, and ground chuck and bacon steaks, and I brought homemade chili, biscuits, chex mix, and pringles. For fun I brought some board games and an analog TV tuner to see if we could find an analog signal, and prescription bottle stickers and paperwork that I wouldn't be able to put in my shredder to burn, and my dad brought a wood burning experiment. I got everything ready and out in the living room ready for the trip.

Friday was the drive up day. I packed up my stuff and kissed mskate goodbye. The drive up was long. I hit traffic, and it wasn't very fun. Another thing that happened is my subscription to satellite radio ran out as I was driving, so that wasn't very fun. I thankfully had some comedy specials downloaded to my phone so I listened to them. I got there around 5:30 and we immediately started heating up the chili. I unpacked all my stuff as they cooked. After it was heated we served it up. Everyone really liked it, which made me happy because this was a new recipe, one where I forgot the chili powder. After dinner we had some of the chex mix and pringles, and everyone was happy I brought the chili in a mason jar because we used the jar to transport dish cleaning water from the spigot to the camp site. Now for the fun wood burning experiment. My dad saw someone make a thing where you drill a main hole in a 4X4 piece of wood, and then angled holes along the side, pour in lamp oil, and then you get fire to come out of the holes. He didn't have a 4X4 or lamp oil, but he did have some birch logs and sterno, so we drilled some holes in one and tried some different things. Here's the video.

Once the wood experiment was done we used the burning wood to build our camp fire. It was a fun time. We chatted as we sat around the fire. Nothing super spectacular, just talking about life. We did this until about 11 PM when the fire burned out and we went to bed.

Saturday was our main day. We woke up and had the hash browns, bacon, and eggs. Dad and I also had a biscuit. Since the forecast called for rain we went to one of the cities that was close to the camp ground. We explored the city and looked for some stuff to check out. We went to a farmer's market and I picked up some beef jerky and dark chocolate raspberry bark. It then started to rain, so we took refuge in the freighter watching building (because the city was along a shipping rout). We sat at a table and just waited out the rain. My crocks were filthy from the rain mud and campground pickups, so I left them out in the rain to get cleaned off (it helped a little, but not much). We went close to the border see if we could pick-up a TV signal, so I pulled out the tuner, set it up, and started trying to get something.

I like to say I was trying to contact the mother ship. Unfortunately I didn't get a signal, and I went through the entire VHF and UHF band (2-89). We went back to the camp ground to eat lunch after I wasn't able to find a signal. We had the brats and some of the pringles. After lunch we decided to go on a little walk down by the lake. There wasn't much of a beach, but there was a shore line, one with a lot of rocks. My brother found some flat stones and started skipping them. I then started looking for some good stones and went skipping too. Dad just sat down on a down tree and watched us. We did this for maybe an hour, just skipping stones and chatting. I managed to skip one about 14 times, but most of the time I either got 2-3 skips, or failed just went plop. My brother had pretty similar luck. Then there was one stone that I found, it was perfect for skipping; flat, slightly convex bottom, completely flat top, almost circular, and light. I was talking it up, and when I threw it, it plopped, not even a skip. That got quite the laugh out of everyone.

After stone skipping we decided to explore the other city near by. This is when I went thrifting. I found a habitat for humanity restore and a goodwill. I looked at all the VHS tapes looking for lost media, and then I went to the toys looking for American Girl Doll stuff. Unfortunately I didn't find anything, but my dad and brother enjoyed the restore and all the home equipment. After thrifting we went to the main street. My dad had been there in the past with my mom on get aways, but it was always so busy that they weren't able to explore the main street. This time since it was before memorial day it wasn't very busy, so we were able to got to everywhere. There were a lot of cool little shops, mostly tourist trap like knick knacks, but since we were tourists it was fun. What was really cool though was the city general store, a place that sold a little of everything. I picked up some pickle hot sauce, and here's my quick review from later that night.

Another cool thing was Wimpy's Hamburgers, a little restaurant that is based off the Popeye character Wimpy. That was really cool since Popeye is probably my favorite golden age cartoon. I didn't eat there since we already had all the food plans made, but if/when I go back there I need to eat there (and get more of that pickle hot sauce).

We walked a little more down the road and went to the brewery. Dad and bro wanted to go there and have a beer, but unfortunately they were closed down, so we just went back to the car and went down to the pier. They had a beach and a wave breaker set-up, and bro and I walked the wave breaker while dad just rested in the car. It was pretty cool, there were waves crashing on the boulders and it sounded like something from a pirate cove in a movie. When we got to the end of the wave breaker there was a light house beacon thing, and it was covered in graffiti. I was expecting the standard, "Jack and Diane 4 ever" and "Tim was here," and while there was some of that, most of it was religious inspiration, like "you're looking for a sign of God's presence, here it is" and "Jesus loves you." I was very conflicted as to how I felt about that, because while it is vandalism and that's something He generally frowns upon, there's also something about painting over this form of evangelization that just seems wrong. Whatever, not my moral dilemma to solve. We walked back to the car and went to an antique store on the drive back to camp. I like to go antiquing, and even though I typically don't find stuff there's always that "what if." Plus, I like to just look at all the nifty old stuff. There was a lot of decorations and toys, but what caught my attention was the room of records. Normally I'll find a half-full apple crate of albums at antique shops, but this was like an entire mini-record store, so that was cool. Then there was one thing that REALLY caught my attention, Mad Magazine the board game. I played this back in kindergarten in latchkey, and I remember the satirical humor being way above my head. Now that I'm an adult and developed a taste for Mad back in highschool, I wanted to play it again and see what the humor really meant. Unfortunately I didn't have $30 worth of want, so I passed.

Now we're back at camp, getting dinner ready. We had hash browns and the ground bacon chuck steaks my dad made. What it was was ground chuck roast with bacon ground in with it, shaped into a patty. It was really good, but could have used more bacon. I put some of my new pickle hot sauce on it and that gave it some really good flavor. Now it's time for day 2 of the fire project. Since we tried some different things the night before, each of us got a log and had the opportunity to do what we wanted. I wanted to try 4 holes a 12, 3, 6, and 9, each of different sizes. Bro wanted to try some holes on the side in addition to the top. Dad just wanted to put a bunch of holes in his, and drill in to get more sterno. One thing we all agreed with though, is we needed something to cover the main hole that we put the fuel in. Lucky for them my alcohol of choice comes in bottles, so I flattened out some bottle caps and made little lids. Here's the video of the events.

While we were having fun with our logs, we built up a fire, this time using proper technique so it wasn't quite as tedious as it was the previous night. Then when the logs were done, we just kicked them into the fire. I burned all my prescription stickers, so that was good to get done with. Like the night before, we just talked about life and how great this campout was, and that we need to do this again (but maybe get a cabin with an attached toilet). This went on until about 10, then Dad and I went to bed. Bro handled the fire for another hour since he has some trouble sleeping.

Sunday was packup day. We ate the rest of the hash browns and bacon and biscuits, and then we packed up all our stuff. After we said our goodbyes I went to the church that was right there down the road from the camp ground, and their mass was at 10 AM which was right about the time I got there. Talk about convenient. After mass I began the trip home, until I had the bright idea of going an hour out of my way to go to a city that the FCC has listed as having 2 analog stations. I put the college that's close to the city in my GPS and started my detour. I got there and tried to contact the mother ship, but nothing. I then put the GPS coordinates of the broadcast tower into my GPS and it took me to nothing. I went to one last open location and tried it on the 1980s TV I brought with me, and nothing. That's when I drove home defeated. On my way home I got mskate a beanie baby happy meal toy. They didn't have the owl she was looking for, but I got her a penguin and she liked it. All in all, great trip. I had some great guy time with my family, and the only thing that could have made it better was finding one of the last analog TV channels. Oh well. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Oh, and thank-you Max for your continued patreon support.

How I Spent my Spring Vacation

 Hey everyone, so at work we had some major slow time and I had 3 weeks of vacation time, so I decided to take a week off from May 3rd to May 7th. I didn't have much planned, but I had some chores and fun activities to do, so here's what I ended up doing.

Monday was the "chore day." First thing was we went to our storage locker to get some shoes and bags for our upcoming trip to Arizona. The bins were a little berried behind my yellow store shelf, so that was a bit of an ordeal. We got her bag our, but unfortunately all the sandals she wanted were not in that bin. Oh well. Before we went mskate said she wanted a diet coke slurpee, and it had to be diet. I know I've seen them before, but 7-eleven rotates their flavors and they didn't have them at the 7-eleven that was on the way home from the storage locker. After the locker we went out to lunch to a local restaurant. Back when we were dating we used to go to all sorts of restaurants, but since covid we haven't done that. Well with things opening up we went out to a local restaurant. We wanted lunch but the place only had brunch available when we got there, so I had a brunch burger croissant sandwich and mskate had a salmon croissant sandwich with the croissant on the side (she can't have gluten, so if a gluten free bread isn't available I eat it off the side). We ate in an outdoor room thing, and I asked to turn the heaters on (and they let me). It was pretty good, I would go there again. After that we went up to our parents area so I could get my allergy shot and pick-up and drop off some stuff at the parents. I got my shot and then we went to a 7-eleven by the allergist. Unfortunately they didn't have diet coke either, so we went to my parents house. On the way to my parents, we went to the 7-eleven by their house and unfortunately no diet coke. We went to my parents house and picked up some muffins and said hi to my dad (mom was out, probably at grandma's). After my parents we went to a 7-eleven by her parents house, and again, no diet coke. She dropped off some snacks and other things for her parents to take on their road trip to Arizona (because it's a memorial trip for mskate's grandma, and we're flying). The rest of the day was kind of relaxed, but I did dishes and some other small chores. Oh, and because it was Star Wars Day May 4th, I made this little thing I posted to hugelol.

Tuesday was our fun day. Generally speaking things were pretty calm in the morning. After some breakfast we went to mini golf. There is a mini golf course some cities over and we wanted to try it out. It was a pretty fun course with a sea monster and ship theme. Here are some pictures I took.

Nothing super exciting, except I got some hole in 1s. I also found some golf balls that people hit into the water. Since it was still pretty early in the season only the little lake with the sea monster had water in it, and it was pretty shallow. I saw a blue ball in it and I fished it out. Mskate wasn't exactly thrilled, but I made the case that the place will appreciate it since I'm doing their work for them, and she said "OK, you can try twice." I only needed 1 try. Then in another where the water was completely drained I saw a pink and purple ball, so I jumped into the river bed and grabbed them. Below is my bounty.

At the final hole I did my yellow ball as a serious one for points, and I think it took me 3 strokes. Then while mskate was totaling the points I did this.

I won by 4 strokes. After minigolf we went to a 7-eleven, and alas, no diet coke. We did go to A&W where I had chili cheese fries and mskate got a diet root beer. We went home after that and just relaxed until it was time for the movie. We went to see Raya and the Last Dragon, and it was good. Want my review, here you go.

OK, that was Tuesday. Wednesday was a medical day. Mskate went to the dentist and I went to get my 2nd covid vaccine dose. I was actually supposed to get my dose on Friday, but the place had to cancel and reschedule. Lucky for me and them I took off all week so I could easily reschedule. I was a little late to the appointment, but because it wasn't very busy it wasn't a problem. I exercised my arm so it would hopefully not be very sore the next day, and one of the other people waiting in observation asked if that would help. I said "I don't know, but I always heard to exercise after an injection." I got home and ate some lunch. Mskate went to her dentist and I recorded this catholiccontriversy video (because I like to record in an empty house).

I also reorganized the shipping boxes and material in the storage room. I had to do this while mskate was out because if I didn't she would be saying "throw this out, throw this out." But now instead of basically filling half the room it doesn't take up much of anything. I also relisted some items on ebay and reorganized the games I have listed so I don't have to go far. I drank a lot of water and took some advil, and was good.

Thursday was the moment of truth, would I be knocked out by the vaccine side effects or be good. My dad and brother and mskate had reactions, but my mom and grandma didn't. I was lucky and all I can really say is I have a sore arm. Because of this mskate and I decided to take an impromptu get away to Columbus to go to the American Girl store for the 35th birthday promotion. We were only going to do this if I was feeling OK, and I was. I checked the FCC low power analog map to see if there were any low power TV stations, and since there supposedly are, I packed up the analog TV from the 80s. I'll let the vlog speak for itself, but I'll go through the details because I didn't capture everything.

[vlog coming soon]

First we went to the American Girl Doll store. We were going to check in first, but the hotel was 20 minutes away and the store would close in an hour by the time we got to the store. We parked and walked over to the store. This was the 2nd time I went there, and while I'm not into dolls I do appreciate the creativity of all the characters and accessories. Oh, and I REALLY like Courtney, the 80s doll, because I love 80s stuff. Back in highschool one of my classmates said "you were born 20 years too late, weren't you?" She has a working pacman arcade cabinet. Unfortunately they didn't have any of the floor models powered up, and the pinball machine for the 60s girl had the ball taken out of it, but it was still fun seeing these accessories. Oh, and now there's an xbox gaming set, and we're going to get that at some point because we both will appreciate that (I like the gamer aspect of it, and mskate likes the cute doll accessory aspect). We also got some mystery bags, and felt them to figure out what they are. (We also went to the candy store, I got sour ribbons, chocolate rocks, and candy bricks).

After shopping we went to the hotel. I drove there and checked us in, and just barely made it for dinner and drinks. Drury Inn is awesome, they have continental breakfast, continental dinner, and each adult guest gets 3 alcoholic drinks. I had a tequila sunrise, gin and tonic, and glass of white zinfandel. Tequila sunrise is a house cocktail, and and I always like to try house cocktails, and since it was free I decided to try a gin and tonic. We unpacked the car and got in the room. There was a problem with the original, 1-room room, so they upgraded us to a 2-room suit. I set-up the analog TV and tried tuning into the low power tv stations, but didn't get anything. I also tried installing crypto mining software on my travel laptop (because mining at a hotel is free to me electricity), but I couldn't figure out how to get the mining software working, so that was also a bust. It was a pretty quiet night after that.

The next day was an impromptu event. I realized we were outside Columbus, and low power stations are "low power, and therefore don't have far range," so if I was to get anything we would have to go back into Columbus, so mskate got to have another trip to the American Girl Doll store while I played around with the TV at the top of the parking structure (because the best place to get a signal would be high up). I had some trouble with the power inverter in the car, so I decided to try mooching electricity from the outdoor mall. I tried plugging into the outlets in the stairwell, and then tried plugging into an outlet on the side of a store, but those outlets were all turned off. I'm carrying this 30 pound TV up and down the stairs, plugging into all outlets I can find and not getting anything. Serves me right for trying to mooch I guess. I went back to the car and read the manual. Turns out the engine had to be on, go figure. I tried the channels but nothing. This is when I had the great idea to go to the GPS coordinates of the towers, so I plugged them in and we went to one of the tower locations. It was of course way out of the way, but it's my vacation I'll do what I want. It just so happened that the tower was right next to a cemetery, so we went into the cemetery and got right up to the tower. It didn't work. Apparently it was the Columbus NBC affiliate, and they were all converted to digital. Mskate wasn't going to put up with going to the other tower, so we just went home. I did a little research and while the tower was just 1 mile away, if it was broadcasting analog I would have been able to pick it up from where we were. It was still cool seeing a broadcast tower up close and personal though, and I think there was something the TV was picking up because there was a pattern to the static. We got Sonic for lunch because it was right there, and then drove home. I did a little bit of grocery shopping that night but it was pretty low key after we got home and unpacked.

Saturday was pretty low key. We listed some items on ebay, specifically an American Girl Doll mskate got but ended up not being one she wanted; she thought she got a historical doll but it was a truly me doll. I had a major craving for take-out pizza from this place that's on the other side of town, so I put in the order and got it. As I drove there I realized that garage sale season has started, so after lunch mskate and I went out garage sailing. She was looking primarily for American Girl Doll stuff, and I was looking for my nerd stuff or things I could sell easily. Unfortunately neither of us found stuff we were interested in, but mskate found someone selling new clothes her mom really likes for a great price so we picked up Christmas presents. I did come across a guy selling license plates, and while they do sell, I've found they're generally more trouble than their worth since ebay has a habit of taking them down and they don't sell for a lot. Oh well, it was mainly for an outing. While out garage sailing we went to a 7-eleven and while mskate didn't get a diet coke slurpee, she was able to get a sugar free vitamin water slurpee, so that a success. After garage sailing we went to the grocery and picked up some maraschino cherries and a grandma card for mothers day, and some snacks for our upcoming trip. I ended up getting "hard cherries," so my grandma will have to pace herself when she eats them. After dinner we watched Hunchback of Notre Dame on Disney Plus, so that was fun.

Sunday was Mother's Day. We went to church like we normally do, and then we got ready to go to my parents house. We got all gifts ready, mskate wrapped the presents and after a little waiting we went to my parents house. We arrived a little early and that gave us some time to just visit with my parents. Then everyone showed up. Here's everyone that came; my grandma, pepperbc and her family, and my grandma's friends J&P. We primarily talked about things, like their upcoming trip to Evansville. While talking about things, I brought up how I'm looking for low power analog TV channels, and how PepperBC has some up by her house on the other side of the state, and that they will pass by one on their trip. My mom and aunt may humor me on their trip and try to get a channel, but time will tell. Dinner was pretty good, my dad made roast beef and J brought rolls and pies. It was REALLY good. After dinner we did our sing along with J playing the accordion. We ended up doing a video call with the Evansville relatives so they could enjoy the sing along too. After that we gave the gifts. Everyone enjoyed what they got, and we made a big point to say "the cherries are alcoholic, don't eat too many at once."

All in all, it was a great week. I'm really glad I took it off and was able to be so filled. Yeah, it would have been good to be a little more "productive," but that's OK, vacation is meant to be fun. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.