My Adventure at the 2019 North American International Auto Show

Hey there everyone, I'm back with another adventure. This time, it's the North American International Auto Show. For legal reasons, I must say "I am not an official spokes person of the North American International Auto Show, the views and opinions are solely my own and do not reflect that of NAIAS or any of their partners, I went to the public show with a general admission ticket and all information I will present is open source and freely available to anyone who would want it." Some years ago I read I needed to include a disclaimer like that if I were to blog about it. I don't want to get sued, so here you go. With that out of the way, time for the fun.

First off, my video camera was dead. I didn't charge the battery enough and it wouldn't turn on. However, I was REALLY scared I broke my camera. I have a 12V DC to 120V AC power inverter for my car (allowing me to plug in normal wall outlet devices into my car) and I plugged my camera into it on the way to the show. Well, when I got to the show it wouldn't turn on, and then I remembered the manual said "do not use this for charging electronic devices." I was really afraid I fried my camera. I plugged it into an outlet outside the auto show, and it wouldn't charge. Thankfully I must have just been using an outlet they turned off, because when I got home it took a charge, and turned on, but that limited what I was able to record and capture (because all I had was my phone). I'm also not uploading all my photos here. You can see all I took here on my myspace (because yes, I still have myspace). With this explanation out of the way, here's my adventure.

So I got to the show about 15 minutes before they opened, and just waited around for the doors to open. I looked around at some of the outside promotions, but mainly just waited in line. When I walked in this was the first thing I saw.

A 1:1 scale Chevy Silverado, made entirely of Lego bricks. The sign said something like "25,000 Lego bricks, a team of 20, and 1000 man hours." That was super impressive. That's what I call a Lego set. I didn't go to GMC first, because I like to start on the perimeter and snake my way around the show floor and GMC was not on the perimeter. First was Ford, which was pretty neat. I sat in some cars, but the one I wanted to sit in was "locked for our protection." It was basically a commercial van that was a mini-RV.

I mean, I understand why, but man that looks like it would be fun to explore. I also saw a local news station set-up. That was really cool to have a little look behind the scenes.

What was really cool this time was they had vehicles actually running on the show floor. Granted you couldn't drive them, but Ford had this virtual reality thing where it took you over a course. Here are some things I managed to capture.

Then there was this. Ford unveiled some cars with this cool show thing. Cars came through the screen.

Unfortunately my phone died before the coolest reveal. They had a mustang drop down from the ceiling. I really wish I could have shown that to you good people, oh well.

Here's something that was fun. Last year they had a "build your own Lego figure" thing, and they did again. Here's me putting it together.

Then afterwards you could put the guy in some scenes. I had a little fun with it.

There was also a life size Lego racer. That was pretty awesome.

I saw some cool cars. I took a couple pictures, and enjoyed the cut-aways.

After Ford I went to Fiat-Chrysler. What was fun is all the awards they had out.

That last one was the truck of the year. Really cool. I also liked the engine displays.

I sat in pretty much all the cars, and one that caught my attention was how big the touch screen on this one was.

One cool things I did while I was there was I tried their driving simulator (sorry, no picture). It was a Forza race game, with shakes, and full cabin display with 3 monitors, that was a 2.5 minute ride. The annoying thing was the break wasn't working, so I couldn't make the turns without crashing. It was really fun though. That was basically Fiat-Chrysler for me. Before I move on, here are some pictures of cars.

After Fiat-Chrysler I went to Kia. The main thing I want to show off is this awesome off road demonstration.

It was really fun. I've never done off roading before, so it was really cool. I saw some other cars at Kia, but they didn't really impress me enough to take some pictures. I went to GMC after the Kia exhibit, and I sat at their one display because I needed to charge my phone. What they did was have a big truck display with someone talking about all the cool things it had, and they had chairs and such with phone charging cables. It was really ingenious marketing if you ask me; people need to charge their phones, so while you have a captive audience tell them all about the new truck. I gotta say, if I was a truck guy, I would be really impressed. I spent probably 20 minutes listening to the spiel while I waited for my phone to charge.

After I got my charge, I went to the "build your own Lego Silverado" thing. Here's the little adventure of getting it.

Apparently the sponsor was The Lego Movie 2. OK cool I guess. Now I have something for my Ford guys to sit in. I wasn't super interested in most of the cars they had on display, so I didn't sit in any. There was this virtual reality home run derby game. It was really cool; virtual pitcher throws you a ball, you swing the bat, and if you hit it so it doesn't become a grounder, you get a home run. I scored like 5-8. I would show you the video they took of me and sent me, but they screwed it up and sent me the kid that went before me. Oh well.

Now Toyoda, they had quite the display. They had some concepts for autonomous cars, which was awesome.

They also had their hydrogen filling station on display (or at least I think it was hydrogen).

I also saw this cool back-loading thing on display for people that have difficulty getting in an out of cars. I saw this the past couple of times I was there too.

I also did this thing where you're a news reporter out in the artic and the only car is the new Toyota Prius. I really got into it, and played it up really good. The lady that was running the display really liked how much I got into it. Unfortunately there was something wrong and they didn't send me the video. Oh well, at least you were able to see the Kia video. There were some other cars too.

I think this is about when I got the half pound of fudge; salted caramel. Oh, it's good. I think this is also about the time when I had lunch. I had pizza. It was pretty good; not sure if it was worth $8, but definitely the preferred thing they had there. I'll also take this time to mention the donut maker. It was this automatic donut conveyor thing, where it drops some batter in the boiling oil, then drags it along, and halfway through it flips it, and finally dumps them in a bowl. I remember I saw one of those years ago when I was like 10. The lady saw I was fascinated by it, so she dropped a couple of donuts in for me to watch. Really fun.

Now there were some other concept car companies. They didn't have much to show off, so here are the few displays they had.

There was also this company that I guess specialized in off road. I say "I guess" because all I knew nothing about them but they had a bunch of off road stuff.

It was pretty cool. Around this time is when I started running out of steam. I mean, I'd been there for about 4 hours now. Here are some of the other things I saw. There was this really cool thing from, I think it was Honda. It was this flipping screen, that tracked your movements and such.

There were also some displays of classic cars. That was pretty cool.

After leaving the show, I went down to see if there was anything in the basement (sometimes they have the "enthusiasts and specialty club cars" in the basement). Unfortunately, nothing this time. I did see a local news reporter signing autographs.

It was a really fun time. I'm glad I was able to go and experience it. Again, this isn't everything. To see all I took, you'll need to check out the myspace mix. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Christmas 2018 Festivities

Hey there everyone, it's Christmas time once again. Ahh Christmas, a time for family, presents, food, specials, cold, lights, and all sorts of fun. My local city hall has this pretty neat light display on it's yard, everyone's in the spirit. So what did I do this year? I'll start with the wild lights with Mskate, because that's the first Christmas-like thing I did. I won't go into full details here (because I already made a blog about it), so here's the quick. Mskate and I wanted to do something together, and this was something we could do together. We saw some animals and nature art, and of course a lot of lights. It was really fun.

Now for Christmas Eve. As we do every Christmas, we exchanged gifts with my grandparents Christmas Eve. First we went to McDonalds like we do every year, and then we exchanged gifts. I got a monopoly game (Monopoly Empire), peanut butter protein bars, peanuts, various chocolate candy (mainly in the Reese's variety), Uncharted the Lost Legacy, and movies; Tag, Ready Player One, SpongeBob Sponge out of Water, Wreck it Ralph on 4K Bluray, Hotel Transylvania 1 and 2, and Shawn the Sheep Movie.

I gave my grandparents a red lobster gift card and chipped in on the build a bear present. After their house we went to church at my parents perish. It was a good service. Afterwards we had Chinese dinner at my parents house (because they're the only ones open on Christmas Eve). I played with my hamster at my parents house. He was doing really bad. I think he recognized it was me, but he didn't want to crawl, or sniff, or investigate, or anything. He was doing really bad, but I'm glad I got to spend some time with him (for reasons you'll find out soon enough).

After my parents I went back to my place. I went to midnight mass to get my Christmas Day needs. I also watched some "ready to expire" content on hulu and crackle. I got a good night's sleep and got ready for the following day.

Now for Christmas Day. I packed up my gifts for my family and read the birth of Jesus story in the bible. I made it to my parents house and we exchanged gifts. I'll get into what I got, but first what I gave everyone; I got my brother a roll of duct tape and Homer bucket from Home Depot, I got Dad a bottle of Rib Rack BBQ Sauce and a coffee tumbler, and I got Mom a gallon of hand sanitizer and peace of mind getting the sty on my eye checked out a month ago. Now here's what they got me; 2 ornaments, a robe, funnel cake maker, a set of A Christmas Story glasses, a nerdy wall clock (every number is a math expression), candy canes of unusual flavor (lemon head and atomic fireball), Reese's cups, amazon gift cards, lemons, and a star note $20 bill.

And now it was time for, as my mother put's it, "spring into action." They were hosting Christmas this year, and we had to prep the house for everyone to come over. Thankfully all I had to really do was put the leaf in the table. I was able to watch some of A Christmas Story on TBS thankfully. I don't think I saw the entire movie this year, but I saw at least 75% of it.

Now for some shenanigans. My aunt and her family weren't going to make it this year because of illness, and they are normally the ones that bring hour d'oeuvres. This meant we needed to get some, which meant finding a place that was open on Christmas. First I went to Meijer, and they were closed, then I went to Target, and they were closed, and then I went to Walmart, and they were closed. Eventually I went to RiteAid and got chips and dip, because that's what they had available. I got home and then my grandparents showed up.

This is where it gets kind of sad, with a little bit of "sitcom wackiness to lighted the mood." Remember how I said my hamster wasn't doing too well? Well, mom said "go pick up Upsilon and have him visit with everyone." I went to pick him up and knocked on the glass like I normally do. I picked him up, and he was cold and stiff. I held him close to my ear, and he wasn't breathing nor was his heart beating. After I broke the news to everyone, my family got what we needed and had a little funeral for him in our back yard. Well...not before other things happened. My brother went down to the basement to get his shoes and there was a loud crash with him yelling. Mom told me to ask if he was alright, and I did and he said yes...but he wasn't coming up stairs. Turns out, he knocked over his computer and it fell on the floor. I don't know if there were any problems, but it could be REALLY bad. By the time he finished setting up the diagnostics, the rest of our guests arrived, while we're trying to have a hamster funeral. It was like something out of a sit-com. We said our goodbyes and went back to the party. Now we were just visiting for the most part.

Dinner was pretty good. We had pork tenderloin and ham, and a bunch of other fixings. Afterwards we gave my grandpa his birthday gifts (because he was born on Christmas). We also sang Christmas songs played on the accordion. One song was Santa Clause is Coming to Town, and I wanted to sing the Jackson 5 version, lol. After the festivities I took the plate of goodies meant for my aunt and her family over to Mskate's family, because "they'll enjoy them," and that they did.

Now for the period between Christmas and New Years. I had plans, fairly big plans for my online presence. I was going to update my website (I still have some videos I need to link to my website, and fathom reviews to upload), film some of the more ambitious ideas I had, edit together vlogs I made that are years old at this point, and some other things. But then, I got sick. I don't think it was the flu or anything serious (my temp was either normal, or a little low), but I was REALLY lethargic and didn't feel like making anything. I was able to watch all the stuff I wanted on hulu and crackle before they expired, so there was that. I did film a review to something a friend sent me, so there's that. Hopefully it ends up being good. I drank a bunch of orange juice because I think it was a vitamin C problem, and that seemed to help.

Now for some more festivities. December 30th was when I went to see my grandpa. Here's something that was pretty cool. I was still a little congested when I went to church; not lethargic anymore, but still a little sniffly. Since my grandpa is 91 years old, our family is really careful about "don't see him when you're sick, you'll get better but he might not," so it was really touch and go if I would see him. Well when I took communion, my nose instantly cleared up, and all that was left was traces of being sick. It was a tiny miracle, and was too perfect to just be a coincidence. Visiting with grandpa and my aunt was really fun. He has the same career background I have, so I'm able to talk shop with him and he really understands what I'm talking about (unlike the rest of my family who just nods along at things that sound impressive). It was a fun time.

Now for New Years Eve. Normally New Years is hosted by one of our friends, but 2 of their kids were sick or injured, or something. Oh well. So that I wouldn't just watch Dick Clark's alone, I invited over ZeldaMaster93. I haven't seen him in a long time, so we basically spent 3 hours catching up with Dick Clark's in the background. We watched the ball drop, and it was the ball drop. We reminisced about our New York band trip and how we saw time square and the ball. I also made us cocktails of my own creation. He doesn't really drink, but that's because he doesn't like the bitter taste of alcohol in things like beer and wine. But when I make my mixed drink, you can't really tell there's alcohol in it, because it tastes more like the mixer. He was good to drive though; 1 ounce of alcohol over 3 hours, even for a lightweight that's nothing.

Now for New Years Day. Remember how I said I had family that wasn't able to make it to Christmas? Well my parents threw a make-up party New Years Day, and that was fun. I brought my NES Classic and SNES Classic, because my aunt and cousin are fans of 8 and 16 bit Nintendo. We played that for an hour or 2, mainly just jumping around between the 2 player games on the NES. We also talked about my cousin's doctoral program, because we're all impressed with the only doctor in our current family. It's not "medical doctor," so that makes things all the more interesting. While talking about how my cousin basically has her masters now, my aunt and mom started talking about how they got their masters and what they had to go through, and I just kind of joking said "I got my bachelor's." We did some gift exchange, and it was nice.

Faster forward to the 5th (everything else is just work), and it's time for another and final party with my parents. A little "last hurrah of the season" if you will. First thing my brother and I did was take down my grandparents tree. We took down all the decorations and such. It was OK. Then afterwards I went back to my parents house and waited for the final guests to arrive (my mom's best friend from childhood and her kids). While my parents and brother were busy straitening the house for the party, I watched TV. I didn't feel any guilt; none of the mess was mine, and I moved out so now I'm a guest. Since I have playstion vue I don't have all the Viacom channels (nickelodeon, nicktoons, paramount TV, etc.), so I watched the cartoons I don't get at home. It was just like going to my grandparents house and watching cable when I was a kid (we didn't have cable until I was 8 or so). When they got here we visited, talked about their dogs (because their dogs are fun and funny), and it was a good time. We did a gift exchange. My aunt got me some glassware and Pokémon stuff (including a vintage pin that she found when cleaning). Though the best was when she gave my dad something in this gag box. It was this "nap hood" thing that "covers your head so you can nap wherever you want." I saw the boxes on Shark Tank, so I knew what it was and that dad had to open it (and inside was a gift card and ornaments), but mom and dad were actually excited for it because dad likes to nap in the living room and pull his hood over his eyes. Yeah that was funny.

And thus marks the end of my Christmas season festivities. All in all it was quite fun. I also did this OC week thing on a meme website I'm a part of. I'll probably make a video or blog about those later. I also got my first patron, so right now I'm working on my first patreon backer milestone video (everything wrong with cinemasins Jurassic World). I'll catch you next time, but until then, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.