Pokematic's Florida Wedding Adventure

Hey everyone, in less than a year I have another cousin getting married, this time in Florida. Yay. This time it was just going to be my parents, brother, mskate, and I. Our craziness started a little before the trip, because we neglected to buy a gift from the registry and had to bring one. Mskate bought a Nora Flemming bowl with a palm tree charm and I gathered birth year penny rolls. We were planning on only bringing carry on bags (because checking a bag is expensive and we could pack everything necessary in 2 carry ons for our 2 night trip), and while we still managed to get everything in 2 bags it was tight. I also had to make the tough decision to not wear my pokemon tie to the wedding and instead wear my grandpa tie (because he can't travel anymore). It's unfortunately that my grandpa can't travel anymore, and by extension my aunt who takes care of him, but that's life and I told them I would take lots of video so they could still see it (I did that for my last wedding as well). Since the wedding was going to be in Saint Augustine and there would be a lot of free time, we also packed ready for a fun adventure. OK, onto the adventure.

Day 1 Saturday. Our flight was kind of early so I fried up a pound of bacon the night before to eat on the way for breakfast (though only half seemed to make it to morning, funny how that happens). The drive to the airport was pretty uneventful, and we somehow managed to not spend a ton of time looking for a parking spot in the parking structure. TSA also wasn't that big a deal thankfully, and once we got through we met up with the family shortly afterwards. While the airport is kind of cool, there wasn't much left to really do aside from battle at the gyms in pokemon go, but it was still nice hanging out with the family. The pain ride was ok, and I got to watch A Christmas Story Christmas on the flight. Now any followers know that I'm kind of a big fan of A Christmas Story, watching it every year on TBS at Christmas (sometimes to the annoyance of my family), and I've had some...let's say run-ins with attempts to cash in on the original's success, and with HBO "doing some dumb things" and desperate to not completely lose the streaming war, I went in guarded. With that in mind, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It actually was quite good and felt like a real continuation of the story. Unintended sequels like this have a really tough job; capture what made the original so good while not being a lesser copy of the original. A lot of the time they either do something so different that it's like "the only reason this is a 'sequel' is for brand recognition" or "you're just trying to make the same movie again but failing." This one though, it follows an adult Ralphie and his family as they visit his mom for Christmas, and he deals with adult challenges of Christmas while still being optimistic. It's about equally as edgy and equally hopeful as the original, does just the right amount of callbacks that are also work as stand-alone gags, and the way it ends is dare I say perfect. Since I still had time on the flight I watched about 40 minutes of The Last Samurai, knowing I wouldn't be able to finish it this time but assuming I would be able to finish it on the return flight. I also got some more flight video I'm uploading with creative commons rights.

We are now in the airport, ready for our vacation to start. Mskate ordered our uber and we found our way to the ride share pick-up location. I wanted to explore a little more, hoping to find a candy store that sold Spongebob surprise chocolate eggs, especially if they had prizes I don't have yet, but unfortunately there wasn't any that I could find at least. The uber ride was looooong, 60 minutes from the airport to Saint Augustine. On the drive we were stopped by police assistants to block off the road so the Hero Ride could go by. It was a motorcycle parade thing where I guess a bunch of veterans and first responders ride their motorcycles on a 5 mile stretch of highway and it's blocked off so they can go unimpeded. It was kind of cool since it was an unexpected event, and only lasted 4 minutes since it was an "actual 50 MPH ride" and not a "5 MPH parade" so no big deal there (though Uber did call us and the driver to make sure we were both OK since we were at a stand-still for a long period of time).

The hotel we stayed at was pretty nice (nothing super fancy, but still "downtown" within walking distance of everything and the usual amenities like a pool and mini-fridge). Since this was in a tourist area there was a stand with a bunch of coupons for attractions. I picked up a book and looked for places to eat since it was around lunch time. I found Auggie's Draft Room in the big downtown area where we had 3 buy one get one free coupons in the booklet, which was almost perfect for our little group of 5 (6 burgers total, 5 for now 1 for later). The restaurant was about half a mile from the hotel, and that gave us some time to take in some sights and points of interest. We knew we wanted to go to Our Lady of La Leche since it's a major church (relative to the original from the Spanish settlement I think), and it was right across the street from the hotel. We also had to find a drug store or dollar store, or something to wrap the gift with since we didn't want to risk damaging the wrapping while in transit, but unfortunately that didn't happen. We did see some cool stores like a Christmas Shoppe and an antique store, and the welcome center was pretty cool with a little museum in it. I can get to those later though, time for the restaurant. I also got my picture with this fun sign.

Auggie's was pretty neat. It was kind of a mix of "table service" and "counter service," where you order your food at the counter but they bring it to your table. The burgers were your standard fair (1 or 2 patties, pick your toppings from ketchup, mustard, mayo, lettuce, pickles, tomatoes, etc.), but there was one topping that caught my attention, datil ketchup. I had never heard of datil ketchup before, and I wanted to see what this was, so I ordered it on my burger. This was a spicy ketchup, and as someone that likes to mix hot sauce with his ketchup, this was good. Then what was most interesting was the self service beer taps. My brother did this, apparently you get a card and swipe in front of the beer you want, and that keeps track of your tab as you self poor. Pretty neat. The prices were a little steep at $14 for a meal, but we were in a tourist area so a premium is to be expected and the buy one get one free coupons made it a reasonable $7 per meal. After lunch mskate and I went to The Original Likit for a frozen desert; soft serve vanilla for me and allergen free pineapple dole whip for her. This was kind of expensive, because of the tourist premium, but it was the heat of the day and I wanted something cold. We ate it on our way to our next stop.

With our hunger satisfied, we made our way to the other hotel people were staying at, the more fancy one where the rest of the family was staying. This is where we met up with Aunt and Uncle B (parents of my cousin who was getting married), and Aunt and Uncle C (parent's of my "big cousins" who weren't able to make it). It has been years since I last saw them, so it was really great getting to see them again, and since covid kind of made our wedding limited this was the first time they got to meet mskate. That was really fun, and when we told Uncle B about mskate's book he said "I want to see that, can you bring it to the meet and greet tonight?" I said we would and that made him happy (he's had 2 strokes, so we're always on the look out for things that will make him happy, and I always like to bring her book to family events since people are always impressed that she made a "real book" and figured he would enjoy it). Then before we all dispersed my cousin and her fiance came walking down the big staircase in the front of the lobby like something out of a princess movie (no ball gown, but still a "big reveal" like thing), and that was great being able to see them for the brief moment. I managed to get it on video for the home movie I was going to make and it really was like something out of a movie (just not perfectly framed and no background music). This is where I got my direction of "the ceremony is unplugged, leave that to the professionals, but everything else is fair game." OK I can work with that. 

After our little reunion we went back to the tourist area where we went to city gate spirits, a distillery with 10 different liquors available to sample. They had peanut butter whisky, smoked maple whisky, salted caramel whisky, apple pie moonshine, cola moonshine, orange cream moonshine, sweat tea vodka, tropical rum, and 2 others I'm forgetting. When we went to the distillery in Tennessee we only had the option to sample 5, but we got to sample all 10. My favorites were the cola moonshine, peanut butter whisky, and sweet tea vodka, but they were all quite good. When mom and I had the apple pie moonshine, we had our picture taken with it and said "this one's for D" since he used to make his own (I think he just mixed in the flavors to white lightning and didn't actually distil, but that was one of the things he would make). I sent the picture to his wife and kids and said "thinking about him with apple pie moonshine," and they really appreciated it. If we weren't flying I would have bought the sweet tea and cola liquors, but unfortunately we were flying and couldn't bring them on the plane with us (and wouldn't you know, those are two of the flavors they don't sell online). Oh well, we still have the memories. After that I think we just went back to our hotel for a little rest. I watched some of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On in the hotel room and think I took a nap, but it was just a simple relax time.

Since the meet and greet wasn't a dinner (more of a cocktail hour after dinner), we had to figure out what we wanted to eat. Mskate and I went to Mojo's barbecue in the downtown area while the rest of the family went to the Denny's just down the road from the hotel. I think they were more tired than us and just wanted to eat something easy, but we had more adventure in our spirit and wanted something different. First I want to say that our waiter was great. With all of mskate's allergies he was very thorough in making sure her food was safe, and that was really appreciated (I normally tip 20%, but he got 25% for going above and beyond). Next, the food was quite good. Since I was still a little full from lunch I just ordered a bowl of chili, and mskate wasn't planning on being able to eat her entire meal so I would be able to finish what she started. The bowl was quite big and was definitely enough for me (I didn't even finish it), and mskate ordered baked beans as one of her sides for me but she ended up liking them so much she ate them instead (her main course was brisket and her other side was green beans, which she also really enjoyed and from the sample I had was quite good). Atmosphere was standard fair for a BBQ place (a lot of western theming), but everything else was great.

Now for the meet and greet. We left right from the restaurant to the meet and greet which meant we had to bring the book with us to dinner. Mskate being a little shy about things didn't want me to bring the book, but Uncle B said he wanted to see it and I didn't want to let him down. I'm quite glad I did because the first thing he said to us was "did you bring the book?" I pulled it out of the bag we brought it in and he was really happy to see it, as was the rest of the family who hadn't seen it yet. Here's where things get kind of funny for me; at a big family reunion thing like this my parents would always tell me "let the distant family have time with the family you see all the time, you need to share," and I was prepared to do that again, but then it hit me "this time I am the distant family, this is my time to say 'spend time talking with me.'" I didn't get a ton of time to chat with my cousin (it's been close to 10 years since we last saw each other, kind of hard to condense that into the 5 minutes she had for me as one of her 50 or so guests), but it was still fun to share some of the things we've been up to. Then the really cool thing was Aunt C called her son in Japan (my "big cousin" who's 11 years older than me) and he got to talk to everyone. Once again my "you're not the spotlight, let the distant family have their limited opportunity" conditioning kicked in, but he kept wanting to talk to my brother and I so again it hit me "oh yeah, I AM the distant family with the limited opportunity this time." There weren't any big speeches or a lot of mingling with other guests for me (I mostly wanted to catch up with the family), but that's OK, the important thing was I got a message from the soon to be bride and groom for our grandpa and aunt.

When we got back to the room it smelled bad, kind of like a skunk. Since the AC was going we figured there was something with that, so we turned it off and turned on the bathroom vent. Thankfully the smell dissipated rather quickly, but it was still annoying, and we didn't turn the AC back on so we were a little hot that night but since it was a hotel with a connected hall it wasn't too bad.

Day 2 Sunday. The wedding was kind of late in the day (6PM I think), so we had a lot of time to ourselves. Mskate initially wanted to go to a restaurant that would have had things for her, but it was too expensive, so we went to the Farmhand KCHN down the street from the hotel somewhat close to the Denny's the rest of the family went to the night before. She got a vegan allergy friendly sandwich and I got the farmer's breakfast plate. Both of them were REALLY good, especially the potatoes, and while the atmosphere was pretty hipster it was ok (plus, they used a tool cabinet to hold all the condiments and utensils, which was pretty funny). After breakfast we walked down to the Christmas Shoppe to do some shopping and hopefully get something to put the gift in (like a bag). We found this really cool hand made nativity ornament where Mary and Joseph are oyster shells, the manger is a clam shell, and Jesus is a tiny pearl. They also had a big checkout bag that we decided was as good as we'd get, so we got that as well. We were going to buy it for like a quarter but the owner just let us have it. After the Christmas Shoppe we walked down to the fort and water just to see it (we didn't go in the fort since that costs money, but we looked from the outside and it was pretty cool). We walked along the river and while it was kind of cool, I've walked down enough rivers that it's not a super big deal to me. After walking the river we went to the main street to go to the tourist district we were at the previous day, this time to walk the entire street. While there were some cool places like a taffy store where we each got to sample 1 flavor (I don't remember which I got, but they were good). We went into a shopping arcade and checked out some of the stores. There was a candy store and I looked for the spongebob egg, but nothing. We did find a penny press and got one that said "I love you...Saint Augustine," but the press and die wheel were too far apart so all we got was "I love you." Also funny was the last person's penny didn't fall so we ended up getting 2, yay. The only other thing of note we did was go to a hot sauce store, where I sampled at least 8 different sauces. The sampling method was kind of funny, just take a spoon, put a dab on it, and lick it. My favorite was the Scandinavian Gold, and while I couldn't buy it to take on the plane, there is a store in my state that also sells it so I'm definitely picking it up next time I go that way.

OK lunch time. We went to the Farmhand KCHN again, this time for lunch and with my parents. We weren't super hungry so we split a phily cheese steak sandwich without the cheese. Once again, it was really good. I don't remember what my parents got, but it wasn't what they would have wanted since they ran out of chicken (which is like 70% of their menu) and pork, but whatever it was they enjoyed it. After lunch we got dressed for church and went over to Our Lady of La Leche. There was still about an hour before mass, but there was also a museum and gift shop so we explored that beforehand. As we were walking in I smelled the smell from last night, and figured there must be something with the lake around the area. The museum was pretty cool, talking about how this dates back to the 1500s or something. The worship space was OK, kind of your basic small Catholic church. I half expected a grand cathedral or something else more since this was like "a big landmark," but I guess everything else in the area was more of the "landmark." After mass we went to "the landmarks," namely the giant cross. Mskate wanted to get her picture with it for a new profile picture, but the wind wasn't cooperating so we just got a picture together. There was also one of the many old cemeteries on the property (because there are so many cemeteries in Saint Augustine there's a tram tour), stations of the cross, a crucifix in the garden, and a statue of Mary breast feeding. I've never seen that before, but I guess it was something Mary had to do, and given that "leche" is "milk" in Spanish it only makes sense to have a statue recognizing the life giving milk a mother makes for her child, especially the holy mother to our lord and savior. I think we mostly relaxed after that and just hung out at the hotel until it was time to get ready for the wedding (or maybe it was time to get ready and prepping took up until wedding time).

OK it is now time for the main event. Everyone is all dressed up, I'm wearing my grandpa tie and the socks my grandma gave me years ago, the bus to the venue is here, let's go. The control screen was broken so the music volume was set mid-high, but that was OK since the driver had a party mix going and the music was fun. As we were almost to the venue mskate realized we forgot the gift, so we were trying to figure out to get back to the hotel and then get back to the venue some time before the end of the night. I'll spare you the suspense, we weren't able to get back and get it that night and delivered it to their hotel the following day, so whatever. They ended up getting married at the Lighthouse Museum in what used to be the swimming pool. They had a picture of what it was like with the pool filled, and I did a comparison video showing it off.

When we got there the first thing we saw was the "celebrating in heaven" table, where we saw grandma with the other family members who've passed on. Very nice. The first relative we saw was uncle B, and I told him how I was wearing things given to me by his parents (my grandparents) who weren't able to be there and he really liked hearing that. We met up with Aunt and Uncle C, and at some point I said hello to my soon to be cousin and shook his hand wishing him luck (once again asserting the "I'm the far away family, it's my time to have a turn" thing). I took some video of the area and then we found our seats. The ceremony was pretty short (some nuptials and vows), and then it was time for pictures. Aunt and Uncle C didn't think they would be requested for the family photos and so they left the photo area, and then when they were called we were like "where are they, take our photos and then go find them." Bro and I ran up the stairs to where the cocktail hour was being had and found them, bringing them back down to get their photo taken. That was the only hiccup, all went well. After that we had drinks and visited, I took some video of everyone for the home movie and got both Aunt and Uncle C and Aunt and Uncle B to make messages to my grandpa and aunt who couldn't be there. Aunt B thought we were going to call them but when I explained it was just a video message to watch later she was able to think of something. I also got my opportunity to shake my new cousin's hand again, and said "did it before and did it after." This was also the time when I told everyone about how I was wearing gifts from both grandparents to have a little piece of them there and they all thought it was great. I also got a little interview with the grandpa that was able to make it, and he had just the best old man response to my short questions.

Pokematic: Hey there grandpa, how are you doing?

Grandpa: pretty good, but I'm tired.

Pokematic: Good ceremony right?

Grandpa: oh yeah, but I am pretty tired.

After the cocktail hour it was time to go to our tables for dinner. My family sat with Aunt and Uncle C, and we filled the whole table. The grand entrance was grand and the bride and groom had their first dance together. After the first dance Uncle B gave his father of the bride speech and prayer for meal, citing how the thing that kept him motivated through physical therapy after his second stroke was "I need to walk my daughter down the aisle in 6 months." It was pretty motivational. For dinner it was a Caesar salad, roasted potatoes, sautéed asparagus, some kind of chicken, and beef. I loaded up on basically everything but the chicken, and later on went back for seconds with what was left (I finished off the 3 remaining pieces of beef, and had some more of the vegetables). A fun thing they had was a photo booth thing, and since our table was so close to it mskate and I were able to be the 2nd people to use it and help them get set-up. We didn't get the print outs until later in the night (because the printer wasn't working initially), but we did get them texted to us. Our second picture in the set was going to be a kissing one, but we started too early and mskate pulled away right as the camera took the picture, so it looks like I'm leaning in for a kiss and she's trying to get away from me. It's quite funny. So then our 3rd picture was a kissing one that we didn't start too early. Later on in the night we did another round, this time with us using the props and being goofy.

After dinner (or kind of during it) the bride and groom cut the cake. There wasn't a lot of attention given to it, the professional photographers and videographers and myself were on it, but there wasn't an announcement of "OK everyone, please direct your attention to the desert table as the bride and groom will now cut the cake." I think they kind of wanted it that way though. After that it was time for the best man and matron of honor speeches, followed by the father-daughter dance and mother-son dance, and it was visibly emotional for my cousin, with her wiping many tears halfway through the dance. After those special dances it was time for the dance floor to open. There wasn't a lot of dancing since it was like already 9PM and the reception ended at 10:30PM, meaning I don't think we got a complete song, but that was OK it was still a lot of fun. Uncle B really got into it on some songs and that was some great video for the family back home, and on one song Dad was getting into it but lost track of where he was going and where his feet were and fell over. Thankfully he didn't hurt himself too badly (just a small cut on his nose where his glasses pads are), but it still was unnerving. I was taking video at the time and I actually got him falling over, and right when he hit the ground my gears switched from "fun time camera man" to "first responder eagle scout," and I stopped the camera and got down to his level making sure people kept their distance. Again, all was good and he joined the dance floor later in the evening.

Last time when I did a wedding party video for my cousin I tried taking video on the dance floor as I danced, and I did the same thing this time. The artistic intent was to give the audience the feeling of actually being there dancing by having the camera gently bob and swing with the music. The professionals do their thing with the steady cam, and while that's good and proper for "showcasing the scene," it doesn't feel immersive because when you're on the dance floor your view isn't steady like that, you're head is moving along to the music. My video production teacher would probably have some things to say about it, but the amount of camera movement I give is not jarring and really makes you feel like you are there with everyone. I ended up getting some good video of this, with the best man REALLY getting into Don't Stop Believing by Journey, the bride and bridesmaids squealing with excitement when dancing queen came on, and multiple other fun things. To any amateur filmmakers out there, if you're going to film a dance or party scene I highly recommend the bobbing but not jarring POV; it might be a little disorienting but it will make the audience feel like they are in the party especially if the subject is a little tired and disoriented.

At the end of the night the bride and groom had a private dance together as we all went outside to do a sparkler exit. Like with tanman's wedding, we were all getting kind of antsy waiting for them. A lot of people were struggling to light their sparklers off their neighbor's and I was able to really help since I played with sparklers a lot as a kid and experimented with lighting a sparkler off of another sparkler. Once it was time they came out under the sparklers and went to the drive away car, a convertible corvette. After that mskate, my parents, and I went back to the hotel.

Day 3 Monday, travel home day. We once again went to the Farmhand Kchn for breakfast. I tried the steak and egg bagel and mskate once again had the beyond breakfast sandwich. Mine wasn't that great (ok but not as good as the other breakfast), and mskate's sandwich wasn't as good as it was the day before. I picked up some more ketchup and hot sauce for the fries from the Auggie's left overs and that helped them go down later. After breakfast mskate and I took our present down to the hotel where our cousin was staying. We left the gift for them at the front desk, and lucky for us they were staying 2 more days so we knew they would get it. After that we just kind of hung around, too tired to really explore any more. We packed up, checked out, and ordered our uber. Nothing big on the ride back, just a long drive.

Once we got to the airport it wasn't super crazy. TSA was different, the bins were pre-conveyored and everything had to go in a bin. It took longer than normal to go through since my bins got stuck behind someone who had a problem with their bag. That was kind of annoying, but whatever. I thought the conveyor was kind of cool because it took the bin to a sensor and when the bin was empty it went to a return conveyor. Once in the terminal I did a little bit of exploring and got sabarro's pizza for lunch. I looked around for a candy store and spongebob egg, but unfortunately none. I played pokemon go in the terminal and did a bunch of gyms. The flight was OK. I was going to finish the Last Samurai but they didn't have it. Oh well, they had Clerks 3, a movie I somehow missed the fathom event for. I watched about half of it before we got to our layover, but figured I'd finish it on the next flight.

OK, now we're in the Georgia terminal. I had only an hour but that was enough for exploring. I ended up having Wendy's for dinner, and looked for something for mskate but unfortunately nothing worked for her. I also looked for chocolate eggs but once again no luck. Oh well. I played some more pokemon gyms and got ready for the plane. I was ready to finish watching Clerks 3, but like with the last flight it wasn't available and so I wasn't able to finish it. Damn. I ended up watching about half of Fantastic Beasts the Secrets of Dumbledore, because I sat that one out after Crimes of Grindlewald let me down bad. This one seemed a little better, there was more action, but from what I saw it didn't exactly wow me. Once we got home we just drove home and went to bed basically.

Day 4, Tuesday a day of recovery. This is the day that I just spent resting and recovering. Did I REALLY need this? Probably not, but I took it as my opportunity to get caught up on my shows and edit the wedding video I took for all my family. I spent probably 10 hours putting it all together, and it ended up being a really good video. It took a while to render and then upload (something I had to do on Wednesday), but it still went great and no problems.

This was a great trip. I'm quite happy for my cousin and happy I was able to see all my family in the oldest city in the United States. I also got a lot of great feedback from all my family after they watched the video. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

My Smoky Mountains Tennessee Trip

Hey everyone. I went on an adventure with my family last week. My aunt arranged for a little family reunion in the Smoky Mountains. This blog is going to be in tandem with a series of vlogs that I will be embedding (which will be indicated with a [vlog coming soon]), so be sure to check back regularly. Anyways, my aunt organized for all of us to spend a week in a 3 story 20 person cabin in the smoky mountains. You may recall MMT, TanMan, PepperBC, and TurtleGirl from previous blogs, well TurtleGirl wasn't there this year, but MMT's brother Cheeto and TanMan's girlfriend MF was there. All my aunts and uncles on my mom's side were there, along with my great aunt. The cabin was really cool, but time for stories.

On day zero my brother came over to my place after work and crashed with me so we could leave in the morning. He lives about 40 miles from me but only works 20 miles from me, and my place is 40 miles closer to our destination than his, so it was better for him to spend the night on my futon than to drive back and forth. I went to Toys R Us to get some scraps, which was a strategy guide, an emoji movie coloring book (a gag gift for a friend that HATES the emoji movie), and a sealed shipping box of skylanders figures. I apparently just missed him because he was at my house for about an hour and I was gone for about an hour. Oh well. We went out to dinner and hung out until he wanted to go to bed (he works really early, like from 5AM to 2PM). He crashed at like 8PM. He said I could stay in the living room (where my futon is), but I didn't want to disturb him, so I hung out in my bedroom. I have a TV in there, and I brought my laptop to play my computer games. This was a bit of a blessing in disguise, because while I have a lot of computer games I got through twitch, I don't play them much because I don't want to close out all my programs just to play my games at a steady frame rate. Since I didn't have my PS4 or XBOX ONE, or other consoles, I played my computer games. I had a nice little night.

OK, so day 1. I eat my muffin, we pack-up our stuff, and get on the road. About 5 minutes out, I realize I forgot my HDMI cable for if we were going to play my Super Nintendo classic. I run in and grab it. Then as we're about to leave my sub-division, I realize I forgot my phone. We turn around again, I run in, and grab my phone. We went to a coffee chain so he could get a coffee. Now we were REALLY on the road. I set-up my laptop to watch Cowboy Beebop (which you can watch my review of here). I started watching it on his graduation trip and got about halfway through. My goal was to finish it with this trip, and I did. That went on and off for a couple hours, because I also wanted to spend some time with my brother. We talked, had some fun, and eventually I fell asleep. He said my hands were "very twitchy," and I do recall having the dream where I'm dropping something and I throw my hand out to catch it, only to throw my hand in real life and hit it against something waking me up momentarily. Along our journey we stopped for lunch at a Waffle House, and it was GOOD. We both had steak and eggs, and I really liked it. Because he bought the gas I bought lunch. After more hours of driving we make it close to the cabin. We pass by a moonshine distillery and agree we need to stop there at some point in the trip. We almost make it to the cabin, but then we made a wrong turn and ended up in Dollywood. It was a 1-way "no exit" situation. The parking booth lady understood that we made a wrong turn had to get out, so she pointed us in the write direction. She had a very thick accent, and that marked the start of our Tennessee fun (well, I guess the real start was when this one guy was waving at us to let him in and then gave a thumbs up when we did, but this was the first time hearing the accent). Apparently the cabin was very far out off in the woods, at the end of a backwoods road, behind the Dollywood park. Anyways, we get to the cabin and say hello to everyone. It's a regular reunion. Unpack our stuff and visit with the family some.

Now since we were going to be there for a week, we needed food. We needed to get a weeks worth of groceries. That was fun, trying to get 20 rowdy adults to focus and give what we want for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That took about an hour. My one aunt wanted us to use Walmart pick-up because that's what she has, but that ended up not happening because we took to long. I wanted to go to Walmart to do the shopping (because while Walmarts are generally the same everywhere, the stock is sometimes a little different and I can find PS2 games or download codes that I can't find at my local Walmart). Basically it was 2 of my aunts, my mom, and I, all gathered in my Dodge Journey (or as my one uncle calls it, my "grocery getter"). We plug "Walmart" into my GPS and start that mini-journey. We split up the list and my job was breads (buns, sandwich bread, bagels, etc.). Bro wanted me to pick-up Yingling beer (since we don't have it in our state, but Tennessee does). I got all my stuff, and then went to check out the electronic section. While there was a PS2 game or 2, I already had them, and they didn't have Unravel 2 download codes or whatever, so I just got the groceries. I go up front and wait for my relatives to arrive. While I waited, I decided to get some exercise, by doing lifts and lunges while holding the cases of Yingling. One guy that was passing by said something like "yeah man, get that exercise." Also while pushing my cart I started thinking about this commercial and started pushing the cart like this guy while poorly singing Rubberband Man.


One guy saw me and was friendly. People were so friendly in Tennessee. Anyways, my relatives show up and someone realized we didn't have any paper plates. So it was up to me to go get them. I activated my "dodge and weave" mode, where I quickly move in and out of crowds to get to my destination without bumping into anything. Some people saw me doing my dodge and weave, and decided to have some fun acting like they were about to get in my way. Tennessee is friendly. We check out and take our stuff to the Journey. Well, we stop outside the store and wait for mom to pull the Journey up front. We fill it, full, and I get in the drivers seat because I'm the only one comfortable driving in the dark (I actually really like driving at night, it's so zen). We're pulling out of Walmart and heading back, but then we realize we didn't pick-up bottled water and charcoal for the grill out. I pull into a store to flip around, go back to Walmart, and get the stuff. This time my aunt and I just carried it out to the car. Driving back was fun. It was so dark, and my family is fun. When we got back, I had to make sure my uncle saw my grocery getter full of groceries. He chuckled. Seeing that I did the buying and driving, I didn't have to unload. Mom did the math to find out what everyone owed. Seeing that the charcoal and water cost the same as what everyone owed, I was off the hook for paying. After that I played some pool with my other uncle, Cheeto, and PepperBC (because we had a pool table). I did surprisingly well, even though I had some nerd rage at missed shots. Nothing crazy like breaking pool queues, but saying "damn." My uncle joked around with "watch it boy, your mother like that language" (nothing serious, but just a joke). I'm like "OK, kuso." To which I explained "that's damnit in Japanese." He laughed kind of hard at that. A little while after that I went to bed. I was tired.

I woke up at about 7AM. I was one of the first people up, so I pull out my travel laptop, connect to the wifi, and watch Mighty Magisords. When my uncle woke up he asked what I'm watching and I just said "cartoons." "Ahhh, Saturday morning cartoons, it is Saturday after all." I didn't realize Cheeto and MMT were sleeping downstairs on the couches, so I felt kind of bad for disturbing them. Anyways, I had my breakfast, and decided to have a glass of tea with my muffin. Before leaving for the day, we had to make our sandwiches for the picnic lunch. I had roast beef, ham, and salami, with pickles and lettuce. Mmmmhhmmmhmm so good. We had our lunch, and then went on our way to explore the park. See below.



Now in the vlog I mentioned how I got lost, but let me tell you some more details. My mom took the Journey which had my GPS in it. I did not think to grab my GPS, and that wasn't a problem for Kate's Cove, but getting back was difficult. First, I went through Gatlinberg, the major tourist place with people walking everywhere. Really stressful. Then that ultimately took me to an intersection that I didn't know which way to turn, and ended up at a supermarket. I called my relatives asking for help, and one suggested I ask someone how to get to Dollywood since it was so close to the cabin. That worked, until I made yet another wrong turn and ended up at a Dollar Tree. The lady that was working there gave me directions again, apparently I turned too early. I eventually made it back to the cabin, and everyone was so happy I made it back.

We had dinner, grill out. Oh man that was good. I had a burger and a hot dog, and a salad. Mmmmhhhmmmmhmmhmhm. 2 of my uncles and brother decided to do all the grilling. I offered to watch the food so they could come in and eat, but they said "no we got this." They were enjoying the man time away from the craziness inside, because we're a crazy fun bunch. We were supposed to go to church after the mountain, but the traffic prevented us from doing so. Plus, I did enough praying while lost to have a religious experience. Anyways, we stayed in the night, and had this fun, karaoke. My aunt pulled up the song I parodied for a work event so I sang my parody. That was fun. I also sang hooked on a feeling hoping my brother would join me like he did at my cousin's wedding (he didn't). I also sang the goldfinger cover version of 99 Red Balloons and did surprisingly well on the German part. I recall singing something else, but I can't remember. Regardless, my voice was starting to give out, getting kind of raspy. So, I ended it on the perfect song to go out on with a raspy voice, Twist and Shout by the Beetles. Why, because I was able to mimic John's raspy shouty sound without any trouble. It was fun. I went to bed soon after that.

OK day 3. This was the day my brother and I were going to go explore Gatlinberg and go to the distillery. We were originally going to start in Gatlinberg, but then there was crazy traffic and an accident, so I said "lets cut our losses and go to the distillery. That ended up being a great idea because we got there right as they were opening. The distillery was great. They had like 14 different flavors of shine and you could sample up to 8. I found 3 shine flavors I really liked, and bro found 2. We were just 1 bottle away from getting 15% off, so bro bought a bottle of wedding bells for a wedding gift.



After the Brewery we went to Gatlinburg. Our first stop was an arcade. I spent $20 at the arcade, and it lasted 2 hours, and I got some actually good prizes with the tickets I won, including the "unofficial prizes" that are my spongebob cards that I used to decorate my personal coin pusher. We explored Gatlinberg some more to see what other attractions people would enjoy. The Ripley's Aquarium looked good, and had wheel chair rentals for my grandparents. I found the Ripley's mirror maze, Guinness World Record Museum, a 5D ride, Johnny Rocket's burger diner, some different stores, an even larger arcade, and some other Ripley's attractions. I knew I could have fun in Gatlinberg given the time, especially considering I could get a Ripley's pass and enjoy all the Ripley's attractions. We went to Walmart to get more provisions, and we took the main street through Pidgeon Forge. That's when we drove by the arcades. I said "oh man, I need to go arcade hopping, Pepper BC would probably enjoy going with me." I had a plan, before the trip was over, I was going arcade hopping; like bar hopping, but only instead of going from bar to bar getting progressively more drunk, going from arcade to arcade having progressively more fun. That night I played Farkle with the family, and went to bed at around 11 PM.

OK, now for Day 4, the Ripley's Aquarium. After getting my grandparents fed, we got them into my Journey and went on our way to the aquarium. We got our grandparents out and up to the aquarium while mom parked the car. Bro and I got in line to buy the tickets while my grandparents sat down. When mom caught up to us, she took our spot in line while my brother and I went to rent the wheel chairs. We rented them roomy chairs, because I thought that would be more comfortable. Apparently that meant they were wide, or as my European meme companions would call "American." Eh, they worked though. So I was planning on buying the "$90 everything pass" (which ended up being the 1 year membership), but apparently I could just upgrade my aquarium ticket to do 2 other attractions for just $10 more. Well there was only 1 other attraction I REALLY wanted to do (Guinness) and the others I could enjoy, so that was much better for me (especially considering I spent so much time in Guinness, but that's for later). I would talk about the aquarium, but I'll just let the video speak for itself.



After the Ripley's Aquarium, we went to dinner, a dinner show at Hatfield and McCoy Dinner Feud. I saw advertisements when we drove in on day 1. I thought "oh man I want to do that." Now I'm not a big history buff (far from it), and I didn't know what the show was (or that it was even a dinner show), but a little bit about me and my family tree. While we don't know a whole lot about that side of the family, I do have "McCoy" in my family tree, McCoy's that came from Kentucky. I don't know if I really am descended from the McCoy's of the Hatfield-McCoy Feud, but I have probable suspicion. When mom booked our tickets, she made sure we sat on the McCoy side. It was fun telling all the employees "we're real McCoy's." I even got to be part of the show for the audience participation. The "mayor" came up to our table and asked "we need people for the audience participation, are any of you interested?" I said "sure, I'll do it" not knowing what it was. Turns out I had to shove a spoon down my pants. Luckily I'm a really good sport about these sorts of things, but I could see some people were really embarrassed with what was being asked. All in all, it was a really good show. A lot of music, dancing, acrobatics, story telling, comedy, and even diving and dog shows. Then the dinner was good; family style fried chicken, pulled pork, vegetable soup, corn, rolls, coleslaw, and pudding. Really great show and good meal, highly recommend.

After the show, we went back to the cabin and I made sure PepperBC was still up for arcade hopping. She was, and so we went out. We drove to the main drag, and just went down the street stopping at every arcade. Our first arcade was a bust; they didn't really have any good games, and used swipe cards with a minimum purchase of $10. After looking around, we decided to try a different one. After that bust, we went to a mini-golf place thinking it was an arcade. It wasn't, but they had mini-bowling (or "rollerball" as I came to find out). Basically it's bowling but at like 1/2 the size (the balls are about the size of softballs, the lane is 28 feet long instead of 60, and the pins are about half the size of a standard pin). It's also significantly cheaper than standard bowling, with this place charging $1 per person for 10 frames. That was a fun way to start the night. They also had a candy store as part of the location, so I picked-up some jawbreakers and sour ribbons. After that, we found a great arcade. They had an 80s videogame multi-cade with 50 classic games for 1 token a play, and skeeball (for which I found 2 free games and landed a 10,000 hole on one play, which will probably never happen again), some coin pushers, and some other fun games. Then on the next arcade, we hit the motherload. DDR, many different coin pushers, world's largest packman, classic arcade games, so much fun. We had a lot of fun on that one. After that we went to another arcade, but when we got to the door it was closed. Oh well, it was getting late anyways and the parents were beginning to worry (while we're both adults, and 2 of the more responsible "gen 3" people, they still worry), and we were getting tired. It was really fun though, especially since we like most of the same things and rarely get to see each other.

OK, time for Day 4. This was my "day on my own in Gatlinburg." I was going to use my Ripley's pass on the Guinness World Records museum and something else. I was thinking the 5D motion ride, or maybe the Believe it or Not museum. I drove to Gatlinburg and found parking. On may way to Guinness I decided to check out Cooter's, a store based on the Dukes of Hazzard's character Cooter. There was a go-cart track and mini-golf, which was cool, but I wasn't super interested. Now onto Guinness. I passed by the hall of mirrors, so I figured "that's a good back-up." Well, Guinness wasn't open yet, so I went over to some stores and browsed. I found a good donut shop. But after an hour, Guinness opened up, but was doing a TV spot so it wasn't open to the public yet. I decided to go to the mirror maze, because I haven't done one of those before. Boy was it cool. The video speaks for itself. I spent about 45 minutes just screwing around in the maze after finding my way through, going backwards throwing some other guests off. Now it's time for Guinness. I'll let the video speak for itself. Crazy thing is some people recognized I was vlogging and asked for my user name. That was cool.

[vlog coming soon]

After spending about 3 hours in Guinness, I went to Johnny Rocket for lunch. Really cool atmosphere, and good food. It was a tasty burger. After Johnny Rocket, I went to an arcade bro and I found when exploring Gatlinburg on day 2. They had SO many cool machines, especially pinball (my favorite arcade game genre). So many pinball tables I've never seen, and other arcade machine novelties like a Tomb Raider on rails shooter. I wanted to play them all. Only problem though is the games cost $1 or $1.50 each. A game of pinball cost $1.50. What!? Pinball costs 50 cents a game. Everything was WAY overpriced. I mean, even "everything's expensive at an amusement park" arcades are fairly priced at 25 cents for low payouts, 50 cents for medium payouts, and pinball and video fun games, and $1 for the potentially large payouts like deal or no deal. I still managed to spend a lot of time at it though, because I played the coin pushers (fair price, though I've seen better) and did well. I started with the Wizard of Oz, and figured out how to know when the game was ready to give you a bonus (up to 50 extra plays, which I got a couple of times). I tried playing spongebob coin pusher since I did so well at the other arcade, but it wasn't played much resulting in the tokens being REALLY stacked and not pushing far. I did pretty well with Wizard of Oz and Blackbeard though, figuring out which games were ready for a payout and getting a decent amount of the ticket chips and a couple cards. I wanted to get a Pokémon bank, but unfortunately I didn't have the kind of payout I had with the other arcade, so I got some Pokémon temporary tattoos and a roll of sweet tarts. Oh well, I still had fun and spent 2 hours there. Once I was done it started raining, and my car was on the other side of town. I hung out in the arcade for maybe 30 minutes, mooching electricity to charge my camera (I spent $40 in your arcade and got maybe $5 worth of prizes, I can have some electricity). Eventually it slowed to misting, so I figured I can duck under the awnings and get back without getting too wet. When it picked up some I stopped at this sword and "tobacco accessories" store. It was a neat little store, up a flight of stairs with all sorts of katanas and game character swords on one side and "glass tobacco accessories" on the other. It slowed down some and then I continued on my journey. I entered one side of a mall and looked around some stores before leaving on the other end, somewhat closer to my car. There was a pretty cool music and DVD store. It was just FULL TO THE GILLS with CDs, Vinyl, and DVDs, with some organization but not a lot of presentation. When I made it back to my car, it started raining hard. Dinner was just left overs. Seeing that PepperBC and I only did 1 side of the street with the arcades, I thought "maybe we might want to do this tomorrow night" (tonight). But then I was just too tired and wanted to just have a quiet night...a night in with the family (it's never quiet when all of us are together).

Day 5. Bro wakes up at like 6AM and wakes me up to get on the road. I did a lot of packing the night before, so it was really just a matter of grabbing my stuff and putting it in the car. We ate some breakfast, and said goodbye to the family members that were up at about 7AM, and got on the road. I spent most of the ride home sleeping, because I was running on adrenaline and was crashing hard. I did manage to finish Cowboy Beebop, so that was good. While driving we saw a crazy car accident happen; we saw the car flip through the air like in a movie. It was scary. We ate at a Waffle House for lunch. Bro wanted to get fast food and keep driving, but I was able to easily convince him by saying "this is the last time we'll be able to eat at a Waffle House for a while, let's not miss this chance." We made it back to my place without much hassle. He picked-up his car and headed home. Apparently I left the door between my house and garage open for the week. It wasn't a problem since I turned off my AC for the week (because why cool a house I wasn't going to be in), but surprisingly my house was still pretty cool on my return. I unpacked my stuff for the most part and settled in for going to work the next day.

Now for some miscellaneous things. The cabin had satellite TV. Cheeto turned on SpongeBob one night, and I started saying word for word the entire script of Imitation Krabs as it played out on TV. That's one of my special talents, and my aunt found it "impressive." There was also a whirlpool tub in the master bathroom. At the end of our stay, we had to throw our towels into the tub. We pretty much filled the tub with all our towels. As I said earlier, there was a pool table in the cabin, 2 actually. In addition to the pool tables, there was an air hockey table, foosball table, and a hot tub on each floor. There were also some maintenance problems with some things in the cabin, so one of the maintenance guys came to fix them, while we were there one night. When he came down the stairs one of my aunts didn't realize he was there, so she was all "who was that?" Then the joke became that he was "some guy one of my girl cousins brought back." In addition to fixing, I think it was a door and fan, he brought us more air hockey pucks, because there weren't any when we got there. Also, because we were so close to Dollywood, we were able to see the Dollywood fireworks show from our balcony. We watched it every night at 9:30 PM. Another really cool thing about the cabin was it had an elevator, because that was the only way my grandparents would be able to do this. They can still walk and can go up and down stairs, but it's really hard for them. The elevator was really cool. Wow, what a fun time. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Family Camping 2018

Hey everyone, I went camping with my family over the weekend. This is the annual camping trip that we do with a group of friends every year. Here's the run down; my parents and this group of friends met in a singles group 32 years ago, one year they decided "lets all go camping," and they've been getting together to go camping ever since, bringing their spouses and children with them as they started appearing. Most of us "2nd generation" are close in age, so it's fun growing up together and catching up every time we have a gathering. Many of us 2nd generation are adults now, and some are married bringing their spouses with them and have kids of their own bringing in a 3rd generation. Now that you're all caught up, here's what happened.

On Friday I went over to my parents house early in the morning and we began our trip up. Since my grandpa is kind of on the way, we set-up a quick visit. Dad and I put salt in the water softener and had lunch with him. It's always fun seeing him since he lives kind of far away. After our visit we made it up to our motel. My parents used to camp in a tent, but as they got older they said "we can't do this anymore, there's a little motel not to far from the camp ground, we'll sleep there and just visit for the day." They sleep in the beds and I sleep on the floor on an egg crate mattress and sleeping bag, so it's kind of like camping.

Now for the big fun, seeing everyone. When we showed up one of the first people to greet me was my 10 year old godbrother (my godfather's son). He was quite happy to see me, and I was happy to see him. Soon after that I said hello to my aunt and her kids, and made my way to say hello to everyone. Our group has shrunk over the years, so it's a little easier to remember everyone and spend time with everyone. Last year we had our first 3rd generation baby; first of the 2nd generation to get married, and first to have a baby. This year she was a little older and able to stand (albeit assisted). What added to the cuteness is my 6'5" cousin rescued a chihuahua from under his neighbor's truck 2 weeks before. His name is Louie, and he's really friendly, with everyone. Like, I expected him to be at least nervous around all these new people, but no, just walk right up and asked to be picked up. He looks kind of funny when my cousin holds him, because he's like half the length of his forearm. Now, when we put our little 3rd gen toddler with Louie, it was something else. I think I was holding Louie and her dad was holding her, and both of them wanted to play with each other; like, both were reaching for each other and it was pretty clear they wanted to play. Both us "adults" were careful "our babies" didn't hurt each other; the dog didn't nip or scratch the toddler, and the toddler didn't squeeze or "pet" the dog too hard. But no, both were well behaved and enjoyed each other without problem. There was a little sadness when we said "play time was over," but whatever. It was really cute. There was a little problem with Louie though; because he was so new to his new life, camp was a little overwhelming and he didn't want to eat. Now seeing that chihuahuas are naturally tiny little dogs, and this guy was recently rescued, he really couldn't afford to not eat. Since he didn't want to eat his dog food, I said "lets try peanut butter, dogs like peanut butter." Mom was a little worried that peanut butter wasn't the healthiest thing for a little dog (there's a lot of added sugar, and it's not something dogs should have a lot of), but my cousin was in agreement that "it's better than nothing." Welllll...Louie didn't want to eat the peanut butter, even after we smeared some on his snout where he would instinctively lick off and show "see it's good." Since that didn't work, I suggested cheese, the go-to "hide a pill" for all dog owners. He didn't want that either. It was around lunch time, and I was having bacon with my lunch. I said "lets try bacon," and that thankfully worked. Granted, cured salted meat isn't all that good for anyone, but if it gets him some calories so he doesn't starve that's all we need to worry about. I also gave him some of my hamburger, so that was good.

After that fun, I played corn holes with my godbrother. It's the picnic and camp game where you throw bean bags at boards and try to land on the board or in the hole. It was quite fun. I teamed up with his other godbrother and he teamed up with one of the other "adult 2nd gen." We had a lot of fun. After dinner we went to the ice cream stand that's not too far from the camp ground. I had a soft serve raspberry flavor of the week. It was good, but it was a "sorbet" and not "ice cream," and I wanted some ice cream. Because I didn't want to have another full ice cream cone, I got the smallest thing on the menu, a doggie sunday (little cup of vanilla ice cream topped with a dog biscuit). Since they don't give spoons to dogs, I didn't have a spoon to eat it. After taking off the biscuit I ate it like a dog (or like a cone, it's not completely against social norms to eat ice cream with one's tongue). I tried to give it to Louie, but he didn't want to eat it, so I gave it to a lady who had a dog with a doggie sunday. Our friends thought it was kind of weird I was eating a doggie sunday, but it's just an extra small vanilla ice cream dish. Fun time. After ice cream I brought out my moonshine. I made plans with a couple of the 2nd gens at New Years we would bring different alcohols since we didn't have much at New Years. I brought lemon drop moonshine and captain morgan long island. I like to make what I call a "Backwoods Arnie" with the lemon drop, but I didn't have any iced tea so I just shared some strait moonshine with anyone who wanted it. I didn't get many takers, but whatever. My 4 year old godbrother wore a Spiderman costume that night, and he wanted me to make him "fly like a super hero." I corrected him and said "Spiderman doesn't fly, he swings" as I picked him up by his hands and started swinging him around. He really enjoyed it. It's fun being the semi-responsible young adult; the one that pushes you really high on the swing and will have rough and tumble play, but at the same time is careful enough to make sure you don't get hurt. I had some adults like that when I was little, and it's great that I'm able to be that adult now. When it got late we left for the night and went to our hotel.

Now for Saturday. I started with breakfast, and it was good. Unfortunately it was rainy, so to pass the time Dad and I went into the local town. They have a St. Vincent DePaul thrift store, and sometimes there's good stuff. Unfortunately there wasn't anything this time. After St. Vinnie's we went to a grocery store. I wanted to pick up some iced tea and disposable cups for later that night, because I wanted to make Backwoods Arnies. I was able to find a half gallon of iced tea and little disposable shot glasses. It was perfect. Because of the rain, we went to Saturday evening mass, and then to pizza dinner at a local pizza place. We've been getting pizza from them for a couple years now, but it's always been take out. This is the first time we ate at the restaurant, and we overwhelmed them. They lost my family's pizza order, and it was like an hour before we got our pizza. At least we got to spend time with each other. It was good pizza, we got 5 toppings; ham, pepperoni, banana peppers, pineapple, and mushrooms. After dinner, I made Backwoods Arnies for whoever wanted them. I had more takers on the cocktail than the strait liquor. Unfortunately the iced tea was really thick and didn't mix with the moonshine well. It's a good thing I had the shot glasses because the only way to enjoy it was to just shoot it. It went over quite well, so come new years I'm bringing my own iced tea that'll mix better with the moonshine. It was fun. Once it got late we went back to our motel.

Come Sunday we had breakfast and said our goodbyes. On Sunday we basically pool our left overs and have a community breakfast. I brought the last of my bacon and some bread and an egg. It was fun. I said my goodbyes and it was alright. On our way home we stopped at a Pepperidge Farm outlet store and I bought $75 worth of goldfish crackers and other snacks. Since it's an outlet store, things were significantly discounted, which meant I brought home a lot of food. I ended up filling an entire cupboard. It was a really fun time.

Now for some miscellaneous. One funny thing was how the little kids entertained themselves when it was raining. I don't quite remember what I did when it was raining when I was little, but I know it wasn't "casually annoy the young adults." I mean, when I was between 4 and 10 all the "adults" were "parents." Now, all the "parents" are older, and most of the "kids" are adults. Then again, all the "kids" were also between 4 and 10, and a little older and younger, so we didn't have to "annoy the young adults." I mean, it's not like they were causing problems, we enjoyed their company because they're fun and remind us of camping at that age, but I know my parents would say something like "Pokematic, find something else to do than ask the same questions over and over again." Then again, we also had fun with the answers, so it was all good. I also finally got to finish my Mallard Filmore comic book. I started reading it last year, and haven't read it since last year. I should review it someday. I also finally delivered our friend's "home movies" DVD, after 2 years of converting and waiting for my editor to edit it. That felt good to finally finish that part of my unemployment project. I also didn't take a #vidmewashere picture this year, because vidme is sadly no more. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.