Friends For Life Indianapolis 2022 Adventure

Hey everyone, I went on a trip. This time it was to the Friends For Life regional conference in Indianapolis Indiana. Since mskate is working at the big Orlando conference and they had spare rooms, we were able to go for free, and that's why my mom and aunt were able to join us. Friends For Life is a type 1 diabetes organization through Children with Diabetes and every year they hold 3 different conferences, 2 small regional ones and a big one in Orlando at Disney World. At the conferences they have panels and lectures about navigating type 1 diabetes, and food and fellowship. Mskate goes to them every year and has friends through it and looks forward to seeing them in person every year in Orlando. The regional conferences are much smaller, but 4 of her friends were going to this and it was in this cool train themed hotel that used to be a train station, and it was within driving distance, and was free.

Friday was our driving day. I took the day off work so we could have a good 3 day weekend. Mom met us at our condo around 8AM and after packing her into our van we started on our adventure. Driving to Indiana is nothing new to us (mom's side is from Indiana so we have a lot of stories about driving there), and we filled mskate in on so many of them. Mskate drove first and the first big fun memory was Exit 0 and Play N Trade. Here's the story, one year on our family trip we stopped somewhere outside Indianapolis for the night, and close to the hotel was this videogame store called Play N Trade, and they had old school video games (which was my big thing when I was a teen). The next year I said "we have to go back, I really want to go there," and my mom said "OK, it's on the way so we can do that." This is when mapquest was first a thing and car GPS was a luxury, so I printed out directions on how to get there from my parents house and everything seemed reasonable, except for the direction that said "get off at Exit 0" (as in, "1-1" zero). My mom thought there was a problem and we would get lost, but believed it when I showed her the directions. My grandpa was adamant that there wasn't an exit zero, and would not trust the directions. Then when we followed the directions, there it was, exit zero. He was like "I'll be damned, there really is an exit zero." I went to play n trade, got some games, and had a great time.

Then there's another play n trade story. Now that we know exit zero is a real thing and how to get there, we went there every year for the next few years. One time when we went there the store was closed. On the door was a hand written sign on the door that said "closed for a family emergency, sorry for the inconvenience." That was our "National Lampoon's Vacation Wally World" story (the store wasn't "exactly" on the way, it was a little out of the way, and I build it up every time). Good memories. I got video telling the story, that was fun.

The other stories aren't THAT entertaining outside the family, basically just "remember when we went to Holiday World" type things. If you want family vacation stories, you can read them here, and here, and here, and here. We stopped at a rest stop at about the halfway point where we went to the bathroom and switched drivers. We also got an allergen friendly cookie for mskate off the clearance bin, and mom was surprised with how quick the stop was. It was 8 minutes in and out, and mom said "if I was with grandma we would still be getting out of the car right now." We also filled up on gas. I had to drive because mskate didn't want to drive in the city. But before we went to our hotel, we were picking up one of mskate's friends from the airport, peels. Because it was a Friday of lent I had a can of vegetarian beans to eat, and I was a bit of a sight. At the airport we get into the arrivals line and we switch seats (mskate in driver, me in passenger). I pull out my pocket knife and open up the can leaving the lid a little on and sticking up. I pull the plastic fork I taped to the side off and start eating my beans right out of the can. Just sitting there with a can of baked beans, nom nom. Peels calls mskate and asks where we are. We flag her down and load her in the car. I had to stop eating my beans and get back in the drivers seat.

We drive to the hotel and unload our car. We fill the luggage cart and the women go to check in while I drive to the underground parking structure next to the hotel. Because this was "big city hotel" the parking wasn't free, but everything was within walking distance so we park for the whole weekend. They were waiting for me to return before going up to the room. There were 2 types of rooms, 1 that was in a train car and 1 that was basic. We got the basic rooms, but mskate's other friend J and his parents were in a train car so we got to see it. The room was really cool, we had a great view of the pool and the TVs had lodgenet pay per view (or whatever the current equivalent of lodgenet is, but the remotes are basically the same and that's what it was when I was younger, so I'll just call it "lodgenet"). We didn't order any movies (because they are WAY over priced), and they didn't have videogames so that's no fun, but it's been forever since I've seen lodgenet so I was really happy just to see this relic of hotel entertainment. It's also new movies, not like "the service just wasn't updated and lodgenet forgot it was there," so that's neat.

After unpacking mskate, peels, and I went to Old Spaghetti Factory that was about a block from the hotel. This place had something all of us could eat (me with no meat on Fridays of lent, peels with food allergies, and mskate with both). The fun thing is they have 3 courses and bread. Since mskate and peels can't eat bread because of allergies, I ended up having the entire appetizer loaf to myself, yum. We each had a salad and our plate of pasta dishes. I had a plate of spaghetti and marinara sauce, mskate had a plate of allergy noodles, and peels had salmon. After the meal we all got a little cup of ice cream. However, once again because of allergies, I got all the ice cream. I was REALLY full after that. I also did some exercise because it was nothing but carbs.

Our room was on the 2nd floor and it was close to the Indianapolis sky walk (I'll get to that later), and we were also sort-of close to where the conference was being held, but we didn't know it. Funny story with that, the hotel has 2 conference areas, and there was another conference happening in the other area (I think it had something to do with counseling). We had to go to "Indiana station," and the conference rooms we were finding on the first floor were "New York, Pennsylvania, Chicago," and other landmarks, but no Indiana. We asked around and searched everywhere but couldn't find it. Eventually mskate saw a conference person she knew and asked where it was. Apparently the way to get to it was on the 2nd floor and there wasn't access via the first floor. Go figure. We checked in and got our name tags. This is when mskate introduced me to J and his parents.

We had some time before conference activities started, and since I had so much fun last time exploring the sky walk I did it again this time.

Here's a selfie I took in an attempt to match what I did last time

Mom joined me and we started at our hotel entrance and followed it to the Indianapolis convention center. We walked around the convention center trying to find the rest of the skywalk, and I gotta say, it was eerie. Like, there were employees setting up conferences in various ballrooms, but it wasn't very full and it just kind of felt like we weren't supposed to be there. We were allowed to be there, no one kicked us out and it's part of the skywalk, but it just felt like we were trespassing.

I guess we did do a little "shouldn't have been there," because we found an empty ballroom and went inside and did some dancing. Since my wedding was a covid wedding we didn't REALLY get to have our "spotlight mother son dance," so we danced to imaginary music in an empty ballroom. We eventually found the skywalk and it eventually lead us to the mall. Now this mall was cool. It had 6 stories and was connected to the skywalk from multiple locations. We walked around some and there was this "family fun center" thing that was inflatable bumper car things and those electric riding animals. Not anything spectacular, but kind of cool. We walked to the food court to see where the skywalk continued, and found this atrium ampetheater thing, and after looking at our watch we realized it would probably be smart to turn back. While we were in the food court, I saw something that I thought was impossible, a Chick Fil A without a line.

As we were walking back, I saw something on the floor above us at the top of the escalator. It looked like an arcade, and I had to check it out. It was an arcade, TNT Amusement. I was in heaven. I LOVE arcades, and this had so much cool stuff. There were all sorts of coin pushers, this arcade bowling game where you control the ball through all sorts of crazy alleys, a Luigi's Mansion light gun game (technically not light gun, but that kind of thing), air hockey, crane games, and best of all, Dance Dance Revolution. When I was a teen and young adult the arcade at the mall sort of close to my parents had a DDR machine and I set high scores on probably half the songs on that machine (and was REALLY sad when they shut down). We didn't have time to play because the conference was starting soon, but after the conference events for the day we knew we had to come back.

Here's a picture of me with the mascot of the arcade.

The first event was an introductory talk by the founder. I watched maybe 10 minutes but then my allergies started acting up and I had to leave. I went to the room to get some air and let the allergy pill kick in. I was able to make it back for the last 10 or so minutes, so that was ok. It was time for dinner now. I had some cheese and crackers, and J pointed out how bad the tongs were. As a bit of a buffet expert I had no problem with them, but they were hard to use. I had the rest of my beans for dinner afterwards. There wasn't much for mskate and peels to eat, so after mom and Aunt G ate some food, we went to the mall to get some food for peels and mskate. Oh yeah, Aunt G drove up to join us in the festivities, so that was fun having her along. When mom and I said "the mall was a 30 minute walk," she said "what do you mean, the mall is 2 blocks away." Apparently the skywalk way is really far, but it's just a 2 block walk outside. We all went to the mall and entered from the outside (but we had a hard time finding the entrance). Turns out the mall closes early on Saturday, or every day because of the labor shortage, but the doors stay open because it's part of the skywalk. Mskate and peels weren't able to get food, and I wasn't able to go to the arcade. Mskate, peels, Mom, and Aunt G went to steak and shake to find some food, but I was full and wanted to do more skywalking so I took the skywalk back without them.

The rest of the night was low key. At some point around one of the meals we looked at the exhibit hall booths (but it was more like "exhibit corner" since there were 5 people). There was dexcom, tandem, a health insurance company, omnipod, and this special pajama company with pockets specifically designed for insulin pumps and their tubing. Everyone had swag, and it was really cool. The pjs people were giving away a pair of airpods to one lucky contestant. We got a tin of jelly beans from the tandem people and the tin looked like an insulin pump. Dexcom gave away pens and folding flying discs. I saw one boy having trouble folding it back into the little pouch it came in, so I told him how to fold it and he appreciated it.

OK, Saturday fun time now. Breakfast was good; bacon, potatoes, and bagels for me, and there was fruit, yogurt, and scrambled eggs for those who wanted it. This time the tongs were better, lol. I piled up and was ready for the day. The first talk we went to was one about continuous glucose monitors, and with how it was titled it sounded like it would be "how to feel comfortable sharing your numbers with your loved ones," but it ended up being "this is what a CGM is, it's a device you wear on your body for consecutive days and it reports your numbers to a device." It didn't tell us anything we didn't already know, so we ducked out after 20 minutes. Oh well.

We had a big gap in the schedule, so Mom, Aunt G, and I went to the mall to enjoy the arcade. We got there right when they opened and the guy was like "not everything is warmed up yet, so it might be a little bit before you can play everything," but that was OK because DDR was ready. I bought a $30 game card we had loads of fun. I played probably 3 games of DDR, some coin dozers, the video bowling game, this curved air hockey game with my mom, and tried to play this spongebob game. I say "tried to" because it said "how to play," but I don't think I ever really played the game. Oh well. The DDR was really fun, the first time I accidentally paid for 2 player which meant I was playing double pad (the extra hard one), that wore me out pretty hard, but still fun. After that I played normal single pad. We had fun for maybe 2 hours, and then it was time to go back for lunch.

Lunch was good; lunch meat sandwiches. I had a ham, pickles, lettuce, onion, and potato chips on my sandwich. After lunch it was time for another talk. We tried this one financials of diabetes class (because I'm interested in financials stuff), but it ended up being more of a political activism talk, and a rather liberal one ("insurance companies are gouging you, we need legislation to force cheap insulin"), and mskate realized if I stayed I was going to start a big debate and start a scene. We ducked out and went to the other talk about coping mechanisms with diabetes burnout. Not exactly something super relevant to us either (we both deal with the craziness well I'd say), but it's better than me saying "how much does it cost to make a vial of insulin? How much did it cost to get that new brand of insulin on the market? Are you sure you want to take away all incentive to make new types of insulin by legislating away all profits and then being stuck with what we have now if anyone is still willing to make it?" Oh well.

Now another break, so back to the arcade to finish up the card. I played some more dance dance revolution, and after 5 total games I said "OK that's enough." Mom and I had a little skeeball contest where we each played a round and saw who got the higher score. I can't remember who won though, because the final score didn't last very long on the board. I played the Luigi's Mansion arcade game after that, and that was REALLY fun. I love the Luigi's Mansion games, they're really fun Nintendo horror games. Art style, level layout, and ghost types, I think this was based on Dark Moon. It's a really fun on rails shooter, and if you ever come across one I highly recommend it. I also played the Star Wars Arcade game, but the screen brightness was really turned down so I wasn't able to see the enemies really well in the space fight and didn't get to the 3rd stage. We played 2 rounds of Deal or No Deal, but it ended up selecting deal when we said no deal so we gave up on that. That emptied the card pretty much all the way and without much time left before dinner starts we went to the ticket counter to redeem the tickets. I had enough to get a TNT Arcade shot glass, TNT Arcade lanyard, and a rubber duck turtle (with 1 ticket left over). I gave the turtle toy to J and he really appreciated it.

Dinner time. They had ribs, roast beef, red-skin potatoes, and salad. That was REALLY good. I ate a lot after my big exercise day (plus it was REALLY good). I also had some of a super rich brownie, and then Mom and Aunt G had the rest (because I could only eat about 1/3 of it). After dinner we went swimming. J's parents are old and not able to swim with him, so mskate and I went swimming with him. He's at the age and energy level where it's really fun to have someone throw you in the pool, and so mskate and I tossed him while in the pool. That was fun. On a similar note, mskate, peels, J, and I all took a photo at one of the backdrops and J was like "I'm too heavy, you 3 can't lift me," and I said "oh yeah," and picked him up and the 3 adults were holding him sideways. He's fun.

Sunday was low key. The only mass around us was at like 7AM and I think was in Spanish, so I watched our local mass online. Breakfast was the same as Saturday, breakfast meats, potatoes, scrambled eggs, and toast. Aunt G checked out either right after breakfast or before breakfast, so she missed the closing key note. It was a good key note from what I remember, and it was really fun to meet everyone that I hear about all the time. Peels was supposed to bring her switch and we could visit each other's islands, but she forgot it and so I missed out on that. After the key note we checked out. We returned our 4th set of room keys (because the keys kept losing their code), loaded up the luggage cart, and packed up the van. Because we were still city I drove the first leg, and after 100 or so miles we stopped to get gas and switch drivers. Aside from the boring speeches it was a great trip, fun to get away. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Camping 2020 Fun

Hey everyone. It's been forever since I did a blog, and we all have the damn virus to blame. For those of you who may be reading in the future, I'm talking about the covid-19 pandemic/hysteria. That shot basically all the plans in the foot. Oh well, things cleared up enough for my family to go camping like we do every year, and boy was it fun.

This year was particularly fun, because mskate joined us this year. Why did she join us this year? Because we're engaged now. Yeah, I'll be getting married soon. Before I get to all that fun, first some pre-camp excitement. First off, my air conditioner went out, so I've been hot and have been taking cold baths to help with the heat. Normally I wouldn't be interested in swimming in the lake, preferring to sit on the beach and read my manga volumes, but because I've been SOOOOOO hot recently, I knew I would be going swimming. I also stayed with my parents the night before, because I needed a break from the heat and they had AC. It was a very quiet, simple night together; we chatted, ate dinner, and did some packing. Since I had been working 4 10-hour days that week instead of my normal 5 8-hour days, I was really tired and collapsed at 9PM. Mskate was asking what time we would leave, and I couldn't really give her an answer because my family "gets going when we get going, we're on vacation, no need to wake up early, the destination will still be there."

Now the fun starts. I picked up mskate around 9AM and pack her things in my car. Normally my family would just take 1 vehicle, but because we had an extra passenger with her own stuff, and I had a much smaller lease this year, we took 2 cars. For the drive up, mskate and I drove in my car and my parents drove in their car. I largely followed my dad up until we stopped at a rest stop. After that we went our separate ways as mskate and I wanted to stop at the outlet mall on the way. Her mom needed new croc flip flops, so we made a stop at the crocs store. They were having a "buy 2 get 1 free" sale, but since my current pair of crocs were still good and I had a back-up pair for when these give out, we didn't partake in the sale. We also stopped at the Coleman store primarily to see if they had pocket ponchos (we didn't have any, and they're good for camping). Unfortunately they didn't, but they had water bottles and mskate needed a new one. We got a 2 pack because that's what they had. Mskate wasn't exactly thrilled since she only wanted the one, but I told her it was good to have a back-up since she really likes those kinds and lost her last one, and if she didn't use it there was still packaging on it to indicate it's new so we could gift it. Since she loves giving gifts, that sold her on them. Around the crocks store I found a new store called "rewind." The name caught my attention, and inside was a millennial childhood paradise. They had Pokemon, Digimon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Sailor Moon shirts, stickers, VHS tapes, toys, original Jordans, original Supreme skateboards, and so much more. I really hope they can last, because that is an awesome store. I didn't get anything this time, but next time I go to the outlet mall I need to get me some stickers. We tried going to the Pepridge Farm store to get cookies for the group dinner, but they were closed. Oh well, we just got some from a super market instead.

After the outlet mall we continued to drive to our motel. My parents say "they're too old for tent camping anymore," so we get a motel room that's close to the camp ground and just visit for the day. Since we had 4 people this time, we got 2 rooms instead. Since mskate are not married yet and are traditional like that, my dad and I shared a room and my mom and mskate shared a room. My mom made the initial reservations so I had to call to change to my credit card on the way up. This is where I had to be very sneaky. Mskate has been begging me to get a new phone to follow her on dexcom, or other thing and with her birthday the following weekend, I got a new phone; I just had to keep it hidden from her all weekend. I asked her to drive while I called the motel and that worked to keep her from seeing my new phone. Men were in room L and women were in room B. Mskate commented that we should have switched, so boys were in B and ladies were in L. We didn't though, and unpacked our "hotel stuff" (toiletries, clothes, laptops and devices).

After checking in and registering on my godfather's site, we went around and said our hellos to everyone. It was really fun introducing mskate, because I got to say "[friend] this is my fiance [mskate], [mskate] this is [my friend]." It was kind of the first time I really got to do this, and it felt great. After introductions I wanted to get in the lake and enjoy the cool water. It's been years since I went swimming, and it was really fun having my fiance there with me. One thing we did was have fun with the buoyancy of water, where she was able to princess carry me with ease. We also spent time visiting with our friends as everyone else was swimming too. Dinner was simple, just hamburgers, hotdogs, and brats. After dinner we went to the ice cream store that's just outside camp, and it was fun getting to see my little god-siblings eat their ice cream. Ice cream is a pretty common date for mskate and I, so this was nothing new for us. After ice cream I went to the liquor store that was close by and bought sunflower seeds, because those are fun to eat outside where you can spit them anywhere.

Evening activities were calm, just a camp fire. What happened next was really cool. Since I took an astronomy class in highschool I was looking forward to seeing the clear, country sky and all the stars. As I invited mskate and some of the friends to the beach, someone asked us if we were going to see the comet. I wasn't, but now I was. I looked through the sky and I eventually found it. I pointed it out to everyone and they were really impressed. It was a little hard to see, but if you were looking at it in your peripheral, it was pretty clear. According to some news articles, this was the Neowise comet. Some friends were confusing comets for shooting stars, but then I explained what a comet is and why they're so rare. It was quite the experience, especially for someone with a mild interest in astronomy. After that we went to the hotel for the night.

Saturday was fun. We had breakfast in the motel room and it was simple cereal and muffins. After dinner we stopped at the camp ground, but then mskate and I had a zoom call for couples with a diabetic partner. This was our first real "engagement seminar" since covid killed all our plans. It was really fun being among other engaged and married couples in this kind of capacity, and I learned some things. After the call we went back to camp for lunch. Again, simple hamburgers, hotdogs, and brats; and bacon ends and pieces. I have a meat market by me where they fresh cut the bacon, and they sell the scraps. It made for good lunch. After lunch was more swimming. What was really fun was some more friends came up for the day, the ones with Louie the Chihuahua. We tried to take him swimming, but he wasn't really into it. He did enjoy the raft we put him on though, and he looked very regal in his pose. We also jokingly did some water zumba since some people were playing music on their boat. It was fun. After swimming mskate and I were going to go for a walk to the boat basin and watch the boats launch, and maybe find a swing to have a nice nature date. However, I had both room keys and dad needed to go back to the room. He called me a little into the walk and this is when mskate found out about the new phone. "Happy birthday, I got a phone for you." After walking back and giving dad the key, she set me up on her dexcom. We decided to drive to the boat basin instead. The boat basin was fun, but a little crowded. We weren't able to get on a swing, but had fun sitting on the side watching people bring their boats in. We also went to the camp store, just to look around since it was close. Eventually it was time to head back for dinner.

For dinner we got pizza from a local pizza place, and mskate and I split a pepperoni, pine apple, and banana pepper pizza. Everyone enjoyed the cookies we got. After dinner we went for ice cream again. This time my little god-brother was really thirsty. Since his dad did these kind of things for me at his age, I gave him a drink from my water bottle. His mom didn't know me then, getting married when I was a teenager, so I said "after all the times your husband did these kind of things for me, I can repay the favor." It's fun having that whole "full circle" thing. After ice cream we went to the boat basin and were able to swing. Mskate was really tired when we were swinging, so I took her back to the motel afterwards and came back by myself. More camp fire fun. I stayed maybe another hour, then I went back to the motel for the night.

Time for Sunday. We had simple breakfast in the motel room and got in our church clothes. We went to church together like we do every year, but because of social distance requirements we weren't able to take over the back chair section like we've been doing for 30 something years, so we just spread out. It was a good sermon. After church we went back to the motel to change into camp clothes, pack-up, and check out. There was a communal breakfast were we share what we have left, so some of the bacon ends and pieces went, as did the ice tea I brewed the previous day. I intended to make my iced-tea and lemon drop moonshine cocktails, but I forgot so we just had iced tea. I also brought some of my home made bread, and everyone really liked that. After breakfast we went home. Mskate and I drove home separately, and I dropped her off at her parents house with all her stuff. Well, except for her camp chair; that got left in my car. Oh well, I'll return it later. All in all a great time. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.