2025 International Auto Show Adventure

Hey everyone, it's that time of year again, the Detroit international auto show is back again, and this year I went with my parents after getting some discount tickets. We were there for the first day that it was open to the public, and boy was it fun. This year they had off-road driving demos from Stellantis and Ford, and there was a speedway thing with 3 of the car brands (Volkswagon, BMW, and I think Ford). This was possible since the vehicles demonstrated were electric and electric vehicles don't have combustion emissions to put into the enclosed area. I'll get to the details of those when I get to them. Electric vehicles were kind of the big thing at this show since this is what all the industry is pushing for. I'm not super interested just because our grid isn't ready, I don't have charging in my garage and getting wired is not something I want to go through, and public charging isn't very common, but good for you if it's your thing.

The absolute first thing we saw was a drifter van, a van with a kitchen, shower, bed, and storage, perfect for those weirdos on youtube that live out of their van. We saw it because it was on the way to the Stellantis display.

First real exhibit we went to was Stellantis. I liked sitting in the Jeep Wagoneers and Fiat 500s. Some of the jeeps were hard to get into, which was fun. There was this one car with LED trim with an option to change the light colors, which was really cool.

It was also the 20th anniversary of stow and go, and there was this game to see if you could fit everything in the stow and go van, and I was part of the game. We did it with 12 seconds to spare and so we won trucker hats with the brand on it, and I wore it on top of my fedora. Now for the big thing, the Jeep off road experience. We went up and down an uneven hill, up and down steps, up and down a  45 degree incline hill, through a narrow passage with us riding the edge of the wheel, on a 30 degree tilt leaning over, and sopping on a peak. We were able to ride in the pink jeep, which made my mom happy. Since it sits so high up my dad had a little trouble getting in and out, but it was really fun. When we were going down the steep incline I was being held in completely by the seat belt which was a pretty crazy feeling, like something out of an amusement park ride. I took a first person video from the front seat, and then afterwards I took some video of the obstacles so I could overlay them. Check it out here.

Also, while we were waiting in line, there was this cut-out hanging out in the trees to startle people. Kind of funny. I also got a soft pretzel around this time, with a pitiful amount of cheese sauce for dipping. I don't know if the vendor was running out or was just being stingy, but oh well.

Right by the stellantis exhibit was a switching gears show, where they play the first episode and have some give aways or something like that. I had already seen the episode at home so it wasn't a big deal, but it was pretty cool that a TV show had a presence at a car show.

By this time dad was getting tired, it was maybe an hour and a half into our time there but he expires kind of quickly now. All he really had to do was sit in the back seats of some cars, but that wouldn't have been the most sustainable thing. Mom and I looked around at some different exhibits looking for a place to sit, and we found the DTE electric car display. There was a trivia scavenger hunt that once all answers were found would get you an opportunity to play plinko to win a slinky, ice scraper, tire gage, tire stress ball, or a tote bag. Where the prizes were set-up the ice scraper was the hard one to get, but I ended up winning it. Cool I guess, even though I would have liked the pressure gauge more. Still pretty cool.

We were pretty close to the Ford exhibit, so we looked around at some of the fords. They also had an off-road demonstration for their off-road vehicles, and we would have done that as well but the line was super long (like at least an hour), and while I wouldn't have minded it would have been too much for my parents for what would have largely been the same experience we got from jeep (only real difference was this bridge thing, video below). We mostly just looked around at different trucks and watched a little swag giveaway. One of the cool things was the Detroit Lions football helmet car and a pickup truck with some Lions decals.

This is about when dad sat down at the DTE display with the nice seats. Mom and I got him a soft pretzel and bottle of water, and I got dipping dots. Dad got a fair amount of cheese, so much that it was spilling over. Mom and I went around to some of the other displays. I was able to sit in a BMW, and right close to it was some prop cars from movies and TV shows. The big ones for us were the Jurassic Park jeep, station wagon from National Lampoon's Vacation (complete with Aunt Edna on the roof, a leash out the back from Edna's dog, and a Wally World bumper sticker), and Magnum P.I.'s Ferrari. My mom's family used to go on a lot of family road trips and when National Lampoon's Vacation came out they saw it multiple times since it reminded them of all their family trips.

The next thing we did was we went to the luxury car display. These were the Ferraris and Lamborghinis, and other super luxury brands. Mom and I aren't like super into these, but it is pretty cool looking at cars that are worth more than our house. Here are some of the pictures I took.

And then there was this James Bond car.

Outside the luxury car display was a place where you could get an alcoholic drink and some porches (at least I think it was porche). There was one that had this cool paint job that I took pictures of.

Since we didn't get enough time at stellantis, we went back and sat in a couple more vehicles. I got my picture with the utility van, which is always fun for me. I just think utility vans are neat. I also got in this pick-up truck and the rear view mirror wasn't actually a mirror, but was a screen that showed the feed of a rear view camera. Really cool. I called my mom over to look at it and she thought it was cool too.

I think our next thing was a combination of Volkswagon and GM. Not a whole lot of interest in VW, but they did have a van that was a little reminiscent of the VW bus. At GM we got a picture of the new Silverado for my mom's friend and I looked around and found another van life van.

Now I don't remember when this happened exactly, but at some point we went to this display that was the Detroit grand prix, and michigan science center. The science center was full of activities for kids; build a dinosaur skeleton, build a foam car thing, play mario kart for switch, build duplo cars, play with hotwheels and tracks, and some other things I'm forgetting. I know as a kid I would have really loved that "build a car" thing. The Grand Prix was pretty cool, they had racecars and a victory podium for taking pictures. They also had a real F1 racecar for kids 12 and under to climb into. I wanted to do that since once I was able to sit in a real stockcar racecar, but oh well, I did get a fun picture on the winner's podium.

This was also right by the car speed demonstration. I didn't do it because the lines were kind of long and it was getting late for date, but it was still pretty cool and I got some videos of cars going fast.

[insert picture]

Time for the last event of the day. Dad was really tired and ready to go home at about 4PM, but there was still the show car display (cars owned by enthusiasts in a local club that look cool). Mom and dad just stat down at the cafe while I went to the display in hall E. Lots of cool cars, check them out here.

And then there was this monstrosity of a license plate.

I promised them I would be very fast, and I think I spent maybe 10 minutes at most. After that we went back to my parents and then went out to dinner at Chilies using the gift card mskate and I got them for Christmas. All in all it was a really fun day time, even if there wasn't nearly as much swag as there was in previous years. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Gymnastics Exhibitions, Christmas Concerts, and Light Displays

Hey everyone, Christmas is coming quickly and there's a lot going on, including this weekend. I'll start with a little thing that started the weekend out. I have some vacation days I have to use up so I took Friday off and mskate and I spent the day with my almost grandparents (tanman's grandparents who we're still close with), the accordion friends. Since they're into music we watched the new John Williams documentary with them on disney plus and they really liked it. I also set up a call blocker on their phones since they get a lot of spam calls. After the movie we went to PF Chang's. It was a good meal. Great little day.

Now for the main-er events. The University of Michigan gymnastics is starting up again and we went to the first exhibition match just between the UofM team. If you've been paying attention, we never JUST go to the meet, we also go to Blimpy Burger. This time it wasn't just Blimpy Burger though, we also met up with my old highschool friend mbinski. He met up with us at Blimpy Burger and it was great fun catching up. He's doing HAM radio and vintage computer collecting, which was fun just talking about experiences with broadcast standards. At Blimpy Burger I got a double with grilled onions and banana peppers, and raw onions, lettuce, and pickles. and finally on a pumpernickel bun (I like pumpernickel and they advertise having it, but they never seem to have it). I also had fried broccoli because they have good fried broccoli and I like to justify it by saying "it's a vegetable so it's some kind of healthy" (I know not really, but I think it does have some fiber and vitamins). Mskate did some shopping while mbinski and I talked about our interests. After Blimpy we went to a coffee place and visited some more. After about an hour we had to get to the gymnastics meet, so we said our goodbyes and went on our way.

Time for gymnastics. Since Fred Richard and Paul Juda competed in the 2024 Olympics and the gymnasts sometimes sign things after the meets, mskate brought her 2024 Olympics shirt for them to sign. As I said, this was just an exhibition match within the UofM team, one was team blue and the other was team maize (the school colors). They split the Olympians between the teams to make it "fair." They also didn't do all 6 events, just floor routine, pommel horse, vault, and parallel bars. They also didn't have everyone compete, just split the teams. The first even was floor routine, and we were sitting in the front row and got some close up pictures. They also now do a new balance technique when doing floor, one of them is a splits like thing where you grab your foot and raise it up to your head, the other is standing on one foot and doing like an airplane pose. Because I took karate for many years and am very good at balance, I said "I bet I could do that," and yes, I can (maybe not with great form, but I can do it for about as long as they did).

After the floor routine it was pommel horse. It was fun because we got to see Fred compete. The somewhat annoying thing was that there was always someone standing in the way of us having a clear view. You could tell this was a little more relaxed of a match because there was a lot more falling. There was some with the floor routine, but we saw the most with pommel (they dismounted prematurely and some just fell on their butts). There were some chants when the freshmen did well (everyone chanted "he's a fresh-man" clap, clap, clap clap clap X3), and that happened maybe 3 or 4 times. I did get some pictures.

Between events they tossed free T-shirts. We won one another time and it was mskate's size, and this time the one we got ended up being my size. We didn't get one from the first give away, but after the second event we got one from "Chicken Nugget." I don't know if he remembered us from last year or not, but it wouldn't surprise me if we got it because "oh those 2" (because I do have a somewhat memorable/unique look). The next event was vault, and thankfully no one fell this time (or if they did it wasn't that big like the other events). After the vault they did the parallel bars, and that was pretty good but again there were some falls. What was really fun though is they had a lot of team comradery, team maize had a cape from last year that they made a flag out of (taped it to a dowel) they'd wave after victory, and they had an oversized novelty UofM hat that would be worn by the guy that did well. Team blue didn't have too much of that kind of thing, but they did cheer. Funny thing was because they were the same school and same team, they would cheer for either side whenever they did well.

After the meet they did a little ceremony to award victory, and there was a little trophy that the winning captains (or someone) signed. Afterwards the team did come out and sign autographs, and we got Fred and Paul to sign the shirt. We hope to get 2 more Olympians to sign that might show up at other events, but even if we don't it's still great. At some point we need to frame and display all the autographs that mskate gets at different sports things, because she has quite the collection and they're kind of just sitting in different places. Rest of the day was calm, just getting ready for the Sunday.

Now for Sunday. We started out by getting coffee and donuts ready for after mass (because we are one of the groups that does that semi-ministry, after the 9AM mass our church has coffee and donuts for fellowship and socialization). Nothing super spectacular, but our maintenance guy did end up setting up a lot of things "because he was bored." Since we were early and had a lot of things for the giving tree (a thing many churches do where parishioners buy things for children in need so they can have a good Christmas). We had a pokemon kid, lego kid, batteries kid, pajamas kid, and then some odds and ends that we picked up from closing rite aids (diapers, pull ups, pacifiers, bath tub cups, and some other toddler things). Mskate wasn't exactly happy when I filled carts and baskets with baby things at the going out of business sales since our condo was kind of full, but I knew it was going to end up at a good place.

Later in the afternoon my parents came down for the Christmas concert at our church. Before the concert we went out to an Italian restaurant that gets decorated nicely for Christmas, and is quite good as well. Dad and I each had ravioli, mskate had salmon, and mom had pasta alfredo. After lunch we went to the Christmas concert. It was like 1 hour before the show started, and it was already really pretty full. The concert was really great, lots of great Christmas music with some Trans Siberian Orchestra rock music. Really fun time. After the concert we went to the county lights. I've done this multiple other times, it's something mskate and I have done basically every year since we got married. It's typically the same thing every year, but they had some new light displays, things were in slightly different locations, and this year my dad was there. I didn't take any pictures since I've done that a lot already.

It was fun packed weekend, with lots of things. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.