Pokematic's Santa Fe New Mexico Adventure 2, Electric Boogaloo

Hello everyone, it's been less than a year and I'm returning to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Unfortunately Aunt P passed but it was a rather sweet departure. As you know (or can read here), Mskate, mom in law, and I went to see her over the 2023 new year, and about 1 month later her son (Cousin M) went to see her, and then a month or 2 later her sister and nephews went to see her, and then her other brother was there for her final breaths. She had at home hospice and her last expressed thought was a happy one, someone played flight of the bumblebee and she said "I used to play that." RIP Aunt P.

This time mskate and I flew alone since the in-laws were driving, and since they were driving (along with it being a short trip) we didn't have to pack much (2 backpacks and 2 small carry-ons). When we got to the airport I grabbed one of the abandoned luggage carts in the parking garage just to be my goofball self with the 2 easy carry-ons (super overkill) and hopefully pull a Tom Hanks and get the deposit for the cart. Unfortunately there wasn't a cart rental kiosk thing so I just left the cart by the TSA. The really crazy thing is I ran into a coworker while in line, which was fun introducing her to mskate. Once we got through we basically just hung out at the terminal. Since Paul Rubins (aka PeeWee Herman) died recently I watched PeeWee's Big Adventure on the plane, and it was quite entertaining. I see why people enjoy it and love to quote it. After that movie I watched a Pink Live In Concert thing, which was ok but wasn't great. I like her music and all, but the story of the concert was very sexually charged and I just don't associate Pink as a sex symbol. Like, if it was Madonna or Katy Perry I would understand since they are kind of "I'm sexy and I'm flaunting it," but Pink always struck me as "I'm attractive, but I'm more about the punk rock and roll" like Avril Lavigne. Whatever.

So here's a funny thing, we stopped in the same Utah airport we stopped in for mskate's grandma's funeral where we had to run through the terminal and barely made our connection. Thankfully this time we had an hour between, so it wasn't crazy this time. Unfortunately there still wasn't much time to explore the airport, but there wasn't a whole lot to explore anyway from what I could tell. Here's where it got frustrating, the flight was overbooked so they were offering people $500 to wait for the next flight 2 hours later. This wasn't "$500 flight voucher," it was "$500 visa gift card to use anywhere." I wanted to take it, but I couldn't because we had people waiting for us. Then it went up to $700, which was really hard to turn down but I had to go to see my family. As our flight was getting closer they announced it was $900 per person, which would have come out to $450 an hour for both of us but I had to hold strong. The flight is starting to board, and now they're offering $1000 per person to wait for the next flight. I look at mskate with the look of "this is REALLY hard to turn down," we could REALLY use that $2000, like pay off all the credit cards and put that to a house, but our family was worth it. Then someone stepped up and claimed it, so it wasn't even an option at this point. The flight was super basic and didn't have the TV, so I just watched videos I had downloaded on my phone the whole time, just pokemon and static shock episodes.

Just like last time, here is some stock footage of the plane flying I'm uploading with creative commons licenses.

We land in the Albuquerque airport no problem. We were getting picked up by Uncle J (the brother who was with Aunt P when she died), and this was kind of funny. Mskate hadn't seen him in close to 20 years, so she didn't really know what he looks like anymore, just that he's a man in his 60s and the car he was driving, so we're just waiting at the ride share pickup location looking for an older man driving a black Nisan SUV. We saw a lot of people driving the same car he was driving, but they all were the wrong age or already had people with him. This is when it got wild, there was a single older man driving a black Nisan SUV that was pulling up to where we were standing (he knew the pillar we were standing at), and we thought that he was Uncle J, but then he started shooing us away as we approached mouthing "no the other guy." Not too much longer Uncle J showed up and it was a good ride. I sat in the back seat taking b-roll of the scenery while mskate caught up with her uncle. This was good for them because it was an hour long drive from the airport to the house.

I didn't have anything to offer to the conversation, so here's a bunch of video I took of the drive and landscape, also uploaded with creative commons licensing.

So here's the "extra sad thing" that happened. The reason the in-laws drove is because they were bringing the dogs, including Duke the really old dog who we kept thinking might leave us any day now. We told dad-in-law to leave the dogs home and this would do Duke in, but he wouldn't listen. Unfortunately we were right, and this was it and they had to put him to sleep. Someone that knew Aunt P knew a traveling vet that was able to take care of Duke. When mom-in-law went to get the door she knew it was the vet and brought the younger dog Delilah to greet the vet, and the was thrown off saying "this isn't the patient, right?" We're told it was a good little service since it happened while we were flying, but it definitely was weird having Delilah sniff me without having Duke jump on me.

After we unpacked it was time to go to The Video Library with IRA. Quick refresher, The Video Library is more than just a video rental store that is managing to stay open in 2023, it is the oldest video rental store in the United States and the second oldest in the world with hundreds if not thousands of titles, and the original owner is still running it 42 years later and gave me a little interview last visit. IRA wasn't much of a "rental store kid," so he didn't REALLY get it, but still enjoyed seeing all the titles. That's OK though, because I was having a great time. About a week prior I asked some people around different discord servers I'm on if they have any questions they want asked if I can interview the owner and this is when I got my interview with those questions. She remembered me from last time and was happy to see me again and do another interview. I'm really glad she has a giant store that kept IRA busy for finding movies to rent because I spent probably 30 minutes just interviewing her and having some conversation. I also didn't leave empty handed, because I rented The Adventures of Prince Achmed (the oldest surviving animated film) and Disaster The Movie 2021 (not to be confused with Disaster Movie 2009 or whatever).

After the video store we went to dinner. It was a pizza and Mexican place. I think I ended up having a burger because that was like all they had for me (didn't really want more tacos), and it had something special like brisket or friend jalapenos or something like that. One of the things that was weird was like a methane vent, so I pulled out the book of matches I had with my camera that I picked up somewhere and lit a match. It helped make the place not smell for a moment, which was good. The main thing that I need to point out is the bathroom wallpaper. It was a rather awkward pee.

The rest of the night was pretty calm. I remember I primarily watched Disaster The Movie. I'll give a quick little review, think Celebrity Death Match and Robot Chicken made a movie about the end of the world and they could do things they couldn't do on TV (namely nudity and strong profanity). It was quite funny, and really used the whole stop motion animation to it's advantage with really wild scenarios that were still somewhat grounded in reality (like gruesome deaths that are played for laughs). The even wilder thing is at least at the time of writing there isn't an IMDB or Wikipedia page, and it had some decent size actors and director as part of the production (like they have IMDB and Wikipedia articles, but no mention of their work on Disaster The Movie). Really wild.

It's now Saturday and the big day. Mskate and her dad walked down to the cafe to get breakfast for everyone, which mainly consisted of chocolate croissants. Before the family arrived we went to Kakawa's Chocolate House and got some specialty chocolates for everyone. I had to get my spicy Aztec chocolate, this time in both ice cream and brownie form; ice cream to share with the family and get their reactions, brownie to take home.

I watched the Adventures of Prince Achmed until the cousins showed up. When they did we all visited for some hours. We then played bananagrams. It was pretty interesting, though I'm not super good considering I'm not the best speller. After a lot of visiting we went to the cemetery where they did the memorial ceremony. The chappel was very interesting, because on the ground they had the symbols of the 4 elements (water, earth, fire, and air), and they were all the same as found in Avatar The Last Airbener.

There were also pictures of the zodiac constellations. I thought I had some pictures, but I guess I don't; here's a small part.

It was definitely unusual, especially in the very "Mexican Catholic" area we were in. There was also a quartz fountain that was pumping chlorinated water that made our fingers smell when we touched it, which was something "us boys" were having some fun with. The ceremony was pretty good. Most of it was stories told by loved ones; family, close friends, and business partners. Aunt P knew a very many people and was very accomplished, and had a lot of different perspectives and stories which was very interesting to mskate. Speaking of mskate, she didn't think she would get up and tell a story, but she did and did well. After the ceremony we had the luncheon, which was mostly hour d'eurves (or however it's spelled, the appetizer things served at parties), with a lot of things I didn't care for, but whatever, not my celebration. Then this happened, I was tasked with helping the male in-laws with packing up things to take home and mom-in-law said "get the water." The funeral service provided little bottles of water that were everywhere so we gathered those up and was getting ready to leave. Mom-in-law then chases us down "not THOSE waters, THESE waters" (as she holds up a package of grocery store mini-water bottles). We brought them back and one of the directors (who definitely had "the mortician vibes") said "you could have taken them, it's part of the service we provide." Whatever.

When we got back to the house we set-up for the party. There wasn't much that needed to be done, but we also had to relieve the dog sitter, and the funeral luncheon was winding down already so it wasn't like we were there for a long time. This is when I told the one care taker about Aunt P not letting me join her in her own world (one time she was spacing out and her care taker that day asked "[Aunt P] are you in your own world?" and she said a drawn out "yeeeessss," then I asked "can I join you?" and she said "nnnnooooo"), and that got a good laugh with "she had a way of speaking her mind." The main fun thing from the party was getting all the cousins to to try the Aztec chocolate ice cream. One took a spoon full and was "mmmmm, it's good ice cream but I don't see - WOAH now I can feel it." The other cousin was "wow, that's hot and unexpected, my son would really like this, too bad he wasn't able to make it." Cousin M thought "this is not my thing," and IRA was reluctant to try it but then was like "it's OK I guess but not for me." I think one of the "adults" (the generation of our parents) tried some and thought it was OK, but it was really my thing and I finished it the following day. Then the rest of the party I basically spent it talking with Cousin M's friend who flew from like Chicago about videogames. It ended up being really good for both of us because we were both "outsiders" since we were like the only non-blood family members there at this point and it was more of a family reunion than it was a funeral. Near the end of the night we did group pictures since this was like the first time in decades everyone was together, and probably will be the last time for another many years. After everyone left I finished my movie.

It's Sunday now, and that means it's the sabbath and time to go to mass. We went to the Basilica like we did last time, but there wasn't a memorial for the Pope and fallen officers nor was there a special blessing for the governor this time (again, I don't think I will ever go to a more interesting mass than that one). It still was pretty neat though since it was in both English and Spanish, with some of the hymns having English and Spanish verses in the same song. After mass we walked back to the house and took an alternate route that saw other things. There were some cool gift shops and street vendors (one with some REALLY funny hot sauce), and we walked by what is labeled as the oldest still standing church in the United States. I thought that was Our Lady of La Leche, but I guess Saint Augustine is just the oldest settlement and the original church building wasn't still standing. Whatever, it's still pretty cool.

The rest of the day was kind of do our own thing, and after some rest I returned some of the movies and spent more time at the Video Library. I wrote many more questions and further interviewed the owner. I think I have at least 1.5 hours of material now, and hopefully soon I'll edit it into a feature length documentary interview thing. She expressed interest in carrying any movie I end up making, which would be really cool. Hopefully I can find the time after some life commitments to get it done. After all the time she gave me I ordered her a copy of Rewind This since she never saw it and since it's a documentary about the VHS format that has a section dedicated to video rental stores (2 things that interest her) I know she'd enjoy it. I also bought a cool T-shirt and got this great picture with her. Again, if you're ever in the Santa Fe area I highly recommend checking it out.

After that I went over to The Drurry Inn and got some video with The Meem Room, a conference room that was made by the architect who's last name was Meem. One of the concierge saw what I was doing and said "yeah we get a lot of people taking pictures with The Meem Room, it's where all the memes come from," and then told me how it's actually named after one of the architect who designed the hotel. Here's the video.

After that I walked back, and I just kind of relaxed for some hours. At some point I had lunch, which was left overs I think. Part of the relaxing was watching Nickelodeon on Aunt P's TV since they still had the cable set-up. There was this really interesting thing where the TV remote had accelerometers to select the options while pointing at the TV, kind of like a Wii but for comcast digital cable (or whatever it was). After relaxing we went out to dinner at a restaurant where Cousin M got catering from for some kind of fund raiser thing, and they have an outdoor patio where we could bring dogs (where Delilah made a bit of a friend, or tried to since the family wasn't letting her see the other dog, but I'm getting ahead of myself). Since the restaurant was in the downtown area I decided to explore some parts of the city I hadn't explored yet while the rest of the family waited for the table. I wasn't avoiding them, I offered for others to join me but no one else wanted to see what Santa Fe had to offer. I walked by the city's historical museum and would have really enjoyed seeing it, but unfortunately I wasn't going to have the time to do it, so instead I just enjoyed the adobe architecture and found a neat toy store. Unfortunately they didn't have the kind of toys I'm interested in (such as Pokemon and pop culture puzzles), but it was still pretty cool to see. I didn't have a lot of time there because the table was ready.

The patio was pretty cool, it was like "the back yard" of the restaurant, with wood fences and such. There was another patron with a dog and Delilah wanted to meet him because she's a very friendly dog, but dad-in-law and the other people didn't want the dogs to see each other probably because strange dogs could be best friends or they could get too rough and hurt one or the other, or just start fighting. Oh well. Dinner was pretty good. I think I had a beef enchilada. There was a problem our waiter, getting things wrong and taking a while, where I think the manager stepped in and took care of us. Since it was an authentic Mexican place I sad "gracias" when he brought me my food, and he just smiled and said "de nada." Then when we left we saw the dog in a dog house that was probably the owner's. The dog saw us but I think this one was a little more aggressive and probably wouldn't have gotten along with Delilah.

Later that night when IRA finished all his movies I walked them back to the Video Library. While on my walk I took some ambient sounds for the audio library I'm putting together (specifically flowing water on some fountains and crickets chirping). I also explored some of the art at dusk, which was pretty cool. While there I took a bunch of video and pictures of the Video Library for whatever use I might need. I spent probably a bit too much time just admiring the store because eventually mom-in-law called me and asked where I was. That was basically it for the night.

Now it's Monday and fly home day. We didn't need Ron to the Rescue this time because the in-laws had their van and took us to the airport. We packed up everything and loaded it up no problem, making sure I got my brownie. We said bye to Cousin M and IRA and set out on our hour long drive to Albuquerque. Delilah joined us on the drive, because she likes to drive. Since we see them all the time it wasn't a big thing like when we saw mskate's uncle, but I still got a lot good b-roll footage. We got through security no problem and we explored what small amount of the airport there was. I wanted panda express but unfortunately they wouldn't open until our plane started boarding, and that wasn't going to be OK. I had some kind breakfast, but I don't remember what specifically. While on the plane I watched "the man who saved pinball," a biopic about a man in the 1970s that proved that pinball is a game of skill and isn't gambling in the sate of New York. It was pretty cool, especially since I had a vague knowledge of the story already since I'm a pinball fan; I knew some places thought it was gambling and regulated it as such, until some big court case where an expert player called every skill shot and made the score counter roll over due to it being a game of skill.

This took us to a Georgia airport where I was able to get Sabarro's pizza (or something like that with the big slice). There wasn't a ton of time to explore the airport, but we still had our fun. Unfortunately I didn't find a candy store where I could get a Spongebob Finders Keepers egg, oh well. We got on the plane no problem, and I watched Ravenfield, the "Nick Cage is Dracula movie." It wasn't very good, mainly because there wasn't nearly enough "Nick Cage as Dracula." I was expecting super wacky Nick Cage doing a weird Dracula all the time, but it was primarily about his underling which was OK but I came here for "wild Nick Cage." Oh well. When we landed it was quite late, but no big deal. We left pretty close to where we came in on Friday, and when we walked by the TSA we saw the cart that I had left there 3 days prior. Pretty funny.

Overall it was a really good trip. It was sad of course, but it was the first time all the siblings had been together in decades and we were all able to be there for each other, and Santa Fe is such a cool city. Hopefully you can find The Video Librarian at the Video Library sometime soon. Since Aunt P was cremated she's going to be scattered in some very special gardens; her best friend's garden in Santa Fe and the church garden her mom is scattered in. There's probably going to be another little ceremony in Tuscan that mskate and dad-in-law are going to go to, but it's not going to be a big thing for everyone. I'd definitely like to go back to Santa Fe in a year or 2 just for purely leisure, but we'll see. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's WWE Summer Slam 2023 Adventure

Hello everyone, I have quite an interesting adventure that happened. So IRA my brother in law is a pro-wrestling fan, collecting the action figures and watching the events, and having gone to a big event in Texas some years ago. And despite having a lot of similar interests and people saying "you seem like the kind of person that would like wrestling," I'm just not into it. In my youth I stayed away "because it was all fake" like they were trying to deceive their viewers with sport (and maybe my parents had a hand in it because I wasn't allowed to watch things with immitigable fighting), then when I was an adult I watched a match with IRA and see "of course it's fake it's obvious stage fighting, they aren't even pretending it's real, it's no different than the sit-coms and prime time drama series I watch," but by then I'm like "it's a soap opera arc, trying to get in now would require catching up on years of story lines and there just isn't enough plot to engage me," so it's still not my thing. Nothing against anyone who enjoys it (a quick glance through my past content shows I'm not one to cast stones at "unconventional entertainment"), but I'm just not into it. So when my father-in-law basically told mskate "I need Pokematic to go to Summer Slam with IRA in Detroit, I'll pay for everything," I was kind of conflicted. On the one hand, stay in the good graces of my in-laws, bond with my brother-in-law, and have an all expenses paid weekend trip to a major event while staying at a "luxury" casino hotel that was sure to be a great story. On the other hand, I don't enjoy pro-wrestling or gambling, and as the weekend grew closer I kept having commitments to where I wasn't able to relax, and then the "concert in my parent's back yard" party my college friend throws every year got postponed to this weekend and I was really looking forward to that, which sucked (plus, even though Detroit has gotten better somewhat recently, it's still "dangerous Detroit," there's a reason IRA needed someone to go with him this time even though he did one in Texas without help). Oh well, I took it as an opportunity to see what it would be like to travel with me when I'm excited about a thing (because I get very excited about things).

Friday was the "get there" day. I went to work like normal, packed up my electronics and snack foods, and drove to the Motorcity Casino Hotel. This is the second time I've been to Detroit for a big event, and it wasn't super easy getting to the hotel. I struggled a little to find where to park, because my GPS didn't do a great job of taking me to the parking garage and the parking garage didn't make it easy to distinguish what was the VIP entrance and what was the normal entrance. I got a bit turned around and had to drive into a bad block, turning around in a parking lot of some abandoned building, and found my way to the parking garage. I technically parked in the casino garage and not the hotel garage, but it didn't really matter since it's all the same property and casinos are open 24 hours. Mskate and IRA got worried I was going to get toed, but that didn't happen.

Now for a problem with semantics. I was going to get there first and mskate told me "the reservation is in your name, see if you can check-in." I did arrive first and so I tried to check in, and I was able to check in but had to put a credit or debit card on file. This was going to go on my father-in-law's card but I didn't have it with me so I put my card on file. When I book hotels I always pre-pay with hotels.com gift cards I get through swagbucks, so I assumed dad-in-law did something similar, but he didn't and then I had a $900 pending charge on my account. When mskate and IRA got there she was all "I told you to wait," and I'm like "no you told me to see if I could check in, and I was able to." I was able to transfer the charges to the right card, and the receptionist was kind of confused annoyed that I was changing the card less than 10 minutes after checking in, but whatever. Dad-in-law also didn't get a room with 2 beds so we had to get a roll away, which I can't remember the last time I had one in a room (it was one of the last times my grandparents, mom, brother, and I shared a hotel room when I was a kid, but I don't know when that specifically was since we did that a lot). All's well that ends well though.

Aside from 1 king bed, the room was pretty OK, but definitely not $450 a night in my opinion though. The bed was decent, and there was a chromecast in the TV which meant we didn't need to bring our fire stick which was cool, and the shower was nice and tiled with a cool bathtub that was separate from the shower, and there was a big whole wall windows that gave you a nice view of some bad parts of Detroit (there's the Ambassador Bridge to Canada, the GM corporate building, a burnt out wearhouse, some drug dens, overgrown vacant lots, perfect encapsulation of Detroit). When my dad and I went to Sault Saint Marie to find one of the last analog broadcast TV channel where we also stayed at a casino hotel the price was like $250 a night for a room of pretty equal quality (no "wall of window" or fully tiled bathroom, but better view and better neighborhood). Maybe it's because this was because there was a big event and supply and demand, maybe I'm too caught up on location and the rest of the amenities made up for it, maybe the other hotel does more business as JUST a casino and this one gets more business of people coming without throwing their money away in the casino, but whatever the reason it didn't seem like it was really worth what was charged. Whatever though, not my money.

Dinner was pretty good. There was a food court with a Little Caesars, burger place, taco place, Chinese place, bar, closed breakfast place (it would be open in the morning), and the buffet. I would have enjoyed the buffet, but I wasn't hungry enough for it, plus the Chinese place had beef and broccoli with a side of fried rice, which ended up being the better option for me. After eating we went to the casino. Mskate and IRA had never played casino games before, so it was kind of interesting for them. We put $1 in a penny slot and they played some without knowing what was happening. After winning 3 cents we went to the fountain drink station and got some drinks. We walked around some, played another slot machine that ended up being a 2 cent machine and went down by 7 cents. Mskate and IRA were like "I don't get this, I'm done." We walked around some more and found a keno machine. I like playing club keno every so often at restaurants so I decided to try it. Unfortunately the game wasn't very user friendly and I ended up losing 60 cents. Oh well. IRA wanted to play "the game with the ball" but social anxiety stopped him, so we found the cash out machines, found our way back to the room, and that was basically it for them for the rest of the night.

After some rest I decided to explore the hotel and casino some more. I don't know what I was hoping to find, but I figured I'm here might as well. I wandered around and decided to play a couple slots. I put in $1 and lost about 40 cents. I wandered around and found an automated roulette table. I saw I could make bets of 50 cents, so I decided to give it a shot, placing 50 cent bets on black, red, odd, even, first half, second half; just the ones with the highest odds. After about 5 minutes I realized that the minimum bet was $5 and none of my bets were being placed. I cashed out my nothing and wandered around some more. I got another free drink at some point and that made wandering around feel less awkward. I found myself at the lounge and listened to one of the live songs. I think it was Motown. After the lounge I found another automatic roulette table, and this time I decided to do a full bet. I put it on red and the ball landed on red, so I ended up being up about $3.50. I decided to quite while I was ahead, get another drink, and go back to the room. The whole adventure took about 1 hour, which was a nice break from the family. The rest of the night was just hanging out and then bed.

Saturday was the day of the big event, but first we had the whole day to ourselves. We went to the breakfast place that was closed the night before. Mskate had oatmeal, IRA had pancakes, and I had eggs and hash browns. It was pretty good, and IRA had left overs. After breakfast we went to the casino so IRA could play the automated roulette. He put $10 in, lost the first bet (I think he bet on high and it was low), then won on the second bet (I think it was odds), so he broke even. Better than losing, and now he can say "I played roulette." After some light gambling and some resting it was time for an event, the WWE pop-up store. It was a place to get official merchandise for the summer slam, and IRA was really into it. He got 2 t-shirts, a program, a stuffed slam buddy, an action figure, a hat, and an autographed Asuka funco pop. Now I think funco pops are stupid, but autographed is pretty neat I guess. They also had other funco pops (signed and unsigned), signed photos, toy championship belts, and high quality replica championship belts. IRA wanted a champion belt, but we convinced him that it was too expensive ($500) and he hadn't budgeted for it. If he goes to another one he'll probably get a belt, but not this time. The only thing I got was a picture with the Elton John walk out costume. It was pretty neat. Here's some video.

The pop-up store only took us to about 11 AM, and the doors to the event wouldn't open until 5:30 PM. I walked mskate out to her car (after proving that my car was still there), and that was OK. At some point IRA and I went back to casino to watch the roulette table just to watch the ball run while getting more free drinks. I made 4 hypothetical bets and "won" 3 of them. I could have won $15, but I didn't put money on the line so I didn't win anything. At some other point we got a personal 4-corner pizza from Little Caesars that we split before the event. I had half of it and my left over fried rice. At another point I went to the work out room and got in a good 30 minute work out. I played a game on an exercise bike that was pretty fun, then I did some high incline treadmill walking.

OK, now it's getting time. We got down to the lobby and were trying to order the uber. For some reason when we typed in "Ford Field" the app wanted to take us to somewhere in Dearborn. I looked up the address and that got us to the stadium. The uber got us to a service drive about a block away from the stadium because all the roads were blocked off, but that was fine. IRA and I got to the outside and he wanted to just get in line, but I said "no let's walk around some." I'm glad we did because there were 4 cars from other shows, and IRA was really excited to see them. Then we got in line and I ended up running into someone from my company. I didn't know him, but he saw the logo on the shirt I was wearing (my neon yellow work shirt) and that was pretty neat.

We had a little trouble getting the phone to see my ticket, but that wasn't a problem. We found our seats and dropped our signs off so we didn't have to lug them around while exploring. From there we walked around, took in the sights and looking for BigAl2K6 (because he said he would be there, and I wanted to meet one of my inspirations to getting into online content). Unfortunately I didn't see him, but if I end up being in the same building as him I can be happy (though hopefully I am able to meet him one day). This is when things got a little crazy, there was 2.5 hours until the show really started; the pay-per-view coverage started at 7PM, but the fights started at 8PM. I got nachos for a dinner-type thing, and then basically noodled on my phone. There was a good DJ, and the stage lights did some cool dancing, but there wasn't much else.

OK, now it's time for the main event. The first fight was between Logan Paul and Ricochet, and even though I don't care for pro-wrestling, I was into this one. For those who don't know or are reading this blog years in the future, Logan Paul was a very controversial youtuber. He and his brother Jake were popular on the dead platform vine, and then moved to youtube when vine died. Logan made a video where he went to a Japanese suicide forest and filmed a dead body, who's video ended up causing major monetization restrictions on youtube (called "adpocalypse"). He's also done a lot of other bad things from what I've heard, but the main one I know about was "the dead body incident." He now does pro-wrestling and is a major heel. I booed him like everyone else, and was yelling "go film a dead body." When the crowd was yelling "*** you Logan," I decided to have some political fun and yell "*** Joe Biden" some times. Logan ended up "winning" the fight, and that sucked but oh well, it was kind of fun being in the same room as someone that famous that I knew of.

The other fight that was interesting for me was the battle royal where if anyone was thrown out of the ring they lost, mainly because there was a giant wrestler that did some impressive throws. With my martial arts knowledge of the body and physics a lot of the throws the wrestlers do are "easy;" not "anyone can do it," they still require a lot of strength, but they use a lot of the "stronger core and leg muscles" and are a lot of "balance you on me, then we fall." Kind of think of the difference between carrying a child that is holding onto you and the difference between carrying the same child that is asleep and not grabbing on at all. Well, the big guy lifted someone above his head and then just threw him out of the ring, basically using nothing but his arm muscles. I imagine the guy he threw was probably the lightest guy in the battle royal, but even then the lightest guy is probably at least 200 pounds so it's still really impressive. He was my favorite to watch just because he was generally doing things that "can't be faked."

Then the only other fight that I really remember was the Ronda Rousey fight. It was "an MMA fight," and that just didn't translate to pro-wrestling which is defined by exaggerated stage fighting. Like, wrestling is elaborate throws, hitting people with folding chairs, breaking tables, climbing on the roaps and jumping onto each other, and well telegraphed punches, all things that everyone can see. Even though it's clearly fake, it's still entertaining because of how over the top it is (at least I think that's the reason, I'm not a wrestling fan). MMA is real fighting, real punches and kicks, real grapples, and all of that is done in close quarters. Even though it's hard to see when not right at the ring or on TV, people still watch because it's a real fight. So what happened hear is the worst of both worlds, the close quarters fighting of MMA and the choreographed fighting of WWE. Everyone was chanting "this is boring" and yelling about how much it sucked. I mentioned "Ronda lousy," but that didn't take off. Maybe it was better with commentary and close-up camera, but that wasn't the case when watching in the stadium (which I'll now go into detail about).

So as I said, I'm not a wrestling fan. I've watched some matches with IRA and the commentary and camera work really makes it entertaining from what I can tell. A lot of things are "here's a thing that can only be seen up close," and even for the big throws type of things it's made more entertaining by the commentary as they explain "here's why it's entertaining" (kind of like exposition). The big title match had a big reveal twist at the end that was made exciting by a face reveal, and they went out into the crowd, and while that's all visible on TV it's not exactly easy to see when in the stadium. I wouldn't recommend going to an event like this unless you are REALLY into it and want to see it in person and "be in the same room as your favorite wrestlers," because it's really weird being in the audience. It's like "silent;" there's a lot of "ambient noise" of the fans yelling, but there isn't any "monolog or dialog" from the wrestlers or commentators. It's rather weird, and I know I'm not the only one who thought that as I heard other people say the same thing. The pyrotechnics were pretty cool though, as was the stadium energy.

OK, now it's over and time to go home. The show ended at midnight, and now it's time to get an uber back to the hotel. So, Detroit has come a long way in terms of danger, with a rather large police presence and lights after events like this, but "it's still Detroit," I had 2 ladies try to sell me flowers, a guy try to sell me candy, and another guy try to sell me his CD. It was very busy and crowded, and this was peak hours for high prices, making it very difficult. It took us close to an hour and 3 canceled rides before we finally got someone. IRA wanted to just walk back to the hotel, and I'm like "no, I wouldn't even do that in broad daylight, there is a zero percent chance I am walking 30 minutes through Detroit at 12:30 at night." After 2 cancelations I messaged "I will tip you $15 to keep this ride," and the 3rd driver said "$15 isn't worth the crazy crowd," and the other said "go to the FOX theater, it'll be easier to get you." I originally wore the neon yellow shirt to make it easier to pick us out from the crowd on TV, but then it was even more helpful because I could tell the drivers "we're both wearing yellow." When we got back I showered and went right to bed, and IRA just went to bed, and we got home around 1:15 AM.

OK, it's Sunday now. We slept in until about 10 AM, and then quickly packed up because check out was 10:30 and I had to get to church. Mskate kept calling to see how we were doing, and I'm like "no we need to pack up so I can't talk." We got out around 10:20, checked out, and threw our stuff in the car. I got IRA back to his parents, and then went to my parents and we went to mass together. I had lunch with my parents at their house and told them all the adventures. It was fun. Then I went home and then got ready for the week. It was a pretty fun weekend, though I really wish I could have gone to my friend's party instead. Oh well, it was quite an experience. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye. 

Pokematic's New Year in New Mexico Adventure

Hey everyone, during all the Christmas fun mskate mom-in-law and I decided we would go to New Mexico to see her aunt that's on hospice over the New Year holiday. It wasn't going to be an easy trip for them, but it would be important since she doesn't seem to have much time left and the rest of the family was figuring out when to see her as well. Plus, this would be my only time to meet her and would basically be the only time I could see her, so it was pretty perfect. I took this as an opportunity to try out my new fire stick and luna controller (I basically bought it so I could have my streaming when traveling and so I could play my twitch prime luna games, and this was a great time to try it out). We basically spent the week between Christmas and New Years prepping for this trip, and while that was kind of stressful and ate all my time (I wanted to finish a bunch of blogs and videos, but that didn't pan out, though I did get my book published digitally, so win), it all worked out. Mom-in-law stayed with us the night before the trip so we could get to the airport easy.

It's now New Years Eve and we're getting ready to travel. Our bags were all packed and we loaded everything in the jeep. This time when we got to the airport we made sure to park in the cheaper long term parking structure (because when we went to Texas we parked in the twice as expensive short term parking structure). The craziness starts here because it was way hard finding a parking spot; we drove around 3 levels and just narrowly found a spot at the 4th level, and the navigations was confusing so that made things all the harder. TSA wasn't too difficult, but there was a problem with the TSA cares thing mskate applied to so she wouldn't have problems with her diabetes pump (they didn't know what it was so we had to go through normal security). After that we got to our terminal no problem, and just waited for the plane.

The plane ride was kind of interesting. Normally we fly Delta, but American was much cheaper so this was the first time flying that airline. The last times when I flew Delta the airplane had a screen in the chair in front of you to watch movies and TV shows, and the built-in nature made it pretty convenient and easy to use (just plug in headphones and select your entertainment on the screen). American was kind of different, since it was basically the exact same service (free movies and TV shows), but it required connecting to the in-flight wifi hotspot and going to the free section (not pay for in-flight wifi) in a web browser. The interesting thing is the plane seatbacks were then build with smart device holders. I was just a little fascinated by it. I ended up watching A Charlie Brown Christmas since I haven't watched it yet this year and then the apple tv plus episodes of Peanuts. The episodes were good, but definitely not worth apple having it's own streaming service. Next is where things got bad. After the Peanuts I found a 2020 version of Saved By The Bell, apparently a Peacock original. I wouldn't say I'm a "giant fan" of Saved By The Bell '89, but I enjoyed watching it in middle and highschool in the summer on TBS, and watched all 4 seasons, the college years, and the TV movies on hulu in like 2017, enjoyed the unauthorized story on lifetime that covered Duston's story, and enjoyed the people reunion article from 2009, so I'm definitely "a fan." I just like the cheesy sitcom format of characters getting into simple problems and everything gets solved at the end of the episode, it's just fun. So when I saw there was a 2020 reboot I was curious, and then when I saw it had the old cast reprising their roles as adults with us following their kids I was excited (because that worked so well with Girl Meets World). After 2 episodes I found myself incredibly disappointed. This wasn't a reboot, this was a cynical commentary-satire of the original series and it's fantasy elements, with the Zack Morris stand-in (Zack's son Mack) and a Jessie stand-in basically getting called out for their priviliage constantly while the inner-city kids struggle to keep up, it just wasn't entertaining. I'll probably go into deeper detail with a full review later, but this truly sucked and I do not recommend it. Like, there's a plot point about how expensive it is to hang out at a sit-down restaurant after school every day, and how unrealistic it is for kids to afford that. Uh yeah, it's escapism entertainment, that's why I like the original show. I don't remember what else I watched on the flight, but it was better than that. I also played Animal Crossing as I worked on catching up to reality.

After the plane ride we got to our layover in Dallas. This was kind of interesting since it's a really large airport, so large that we needed to take a people mover to get from our arrival terminal to the departure terminal. Before we took the people mover though I went to the candy store in the terminal we arrived at and got a Spongebob Finder's Keeper's egg with Sandy as the prize (I'm currently working on a full collection, and have a list of product codes with the corresponding toy, and one day will hopefully get enough to make an article on how to tell the boxes apart, but for now you can enjoy this food review). When we got to our terminal mskate and mom-in-law got Panera Bread while I got McDonald's. I was going to get points with the app but unfortunately my phone died so I wasn't able to get my points. Oh well. Something cool that happened was someone gave mom-in-law a food voucher which saved us $12 on their order (but they had some trouble entering  it so I had to do it for them). We ate our lunch and then waited for our plane.

The flight from Dallas to Albuquerque was generally uneventful. I decided to check the movie section and finished Minions Rise of Gru, and some other movie that I don't remember. The thing that was more memorable is I think the cabin lost some air pressure because I was getting altitude sickness and mskate's diabetes pump had an altitude alarm. That was uncomfortable, but I still made it through. One thing I did while on the plane was take some stock footage of take off and window views. I plan on releasing some as creative commons.

Youtube Link for Getting Video

Youtube Link for Getting Video

When we got to Albuquerque things were pretty calm. The airport had a lookout point and we made the note that we had to check it out on the way back. We also stopped at one of the gift shops to look around and they had something like chili lemon pistachios (or something else that was a unique flavor and sounded really good). I almost picked them up to try it out and would normally pay like $7 for the bag but would be willing to pay $3 airport markup (I want to say my spongebob surprise egg was like $1-2 more expensive than normal), but the bag was a whopping $16, no thank-you. Leaving the secure terminal was also pretty nifty. At most airports I've been to one takes an escalator down to a level and it's all 1-way traffic, but this had like an airlock system where one walks into a room to where there is a door gate style, and the gate style doesn't open until the back door is fully closed, and then the exit door doesn't open until the gate style is fully closed.

Now the fun begins, because we had a 1 hour drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, which meant a pretty large uber fair. We ordered it no problem and just waited at the ride share pickup location, and I ate snacks to hold me over until we got to the hotel. I packed a decent amount of snacks with a wide variety to make sure we had food for everyone when we needed it, and that was good because I needed some. Mskate was worried that I wasn't wearing my coat while we waited outside for the uber (despite being in the desert, it got kind of cold in the winter), but it was only like 50 degrees which when I have my warm winter blood for 20 degrees and below, 50 is cool t-shirt weather (which is what I happened to be wearing). The ride there was pretty neat, I got a lot of video of the mountains and roads, and our driver drove Dean Norris of Breaking Bad fame (Hank). His story was "I picked him up and he's wearing these large sun glasses and I said 'do I know you' and he said 'no I have a very familiar face, you're confusing me with someone else' and I said 'no, you're Hank,' and he said 'dang-it, you Albuquerqueans always find us Breaking Bad guys.'" That's pretty neat. Since mskate had the problem with her insulin pump we had to find a pharmacy to get syringes. Our driver stopped at a Walgreens that was kind of on the way and let us get some. We gave him a really big tip for how accommodating he was.

Checking into the hotel wasn't too difficult. I had the confirmation printed off just in case but all they needed was my ID. When we got to our hotel room I pulled all of the extra snacks that were packed in the clothes suit cases and put them on the desk for getting to. I also set-up the firestick and got set-up with that. The cool thing about the wifi is since it was a Drury Inn my phone recognized it from other Drury Inns so I didn't even have to add the network. That was pretty neat. Dinner was soon after unpacking and it was pork sliders and baked potatoes, and it was really good. I also had a vodka cranberry sour with my dinner. Best part, Drury Inns have free dinner and drinks. The cost might be a little higher than other hotels, or the room quality might be lower quality than other hotels for a similar price (the place mskate and I go to in Columbus is about the same price or cheaper than Drury Inns with higher quality rooms), but a continental breakfast, continental dinner, 3 free drinks a night, and unlimited fountain drinks and popcorn any time is a great value.

OK, now it's time for us to see Aunt P. We chose this specific hotel because it was within walking distance to her house (I want to say 4-5 blocks away), and even though it was getting dark we walked over to her house. I was pretty interested with all the adobe architecture, but I couldn't really take it in because I had to be very aware of my surroundings. In general Santa Fe seems to be a pretty safe city (with stories I'll get to later), but even then there wasn't a lot of street lights where we were (using our phone flashlights) and there were a fair amount of dark corners a mugger could hide in. I lead the way while carrying the semi-heavy bag that could be used as a weapon if needed (nothing to incapacitate someone, but enough to break their focus). Thankfully it didn't have to come to that, but there was still risks due to ice resulting in us taking an uber on the way back (but I'm getting ahead of myself). Getting there on the Saturday we did was really good because Aunt P was having a good day and was pretty animated. Mskate talks about her a lot so it was great to finally meet her in person, along with the care taker that is the favorite. Even though it was a good day for her, it was pretty late, so we only stayed for about an hour before she said "not to poo-poo you, but it's getting late and I want to go to bed." We said our goodbyes and when I gave her a little hug I also shook her hand, and Aunt P didn't want to let go of my hand. I asked if she liked my hand and she said yes, and I said "thank-you I've been moisturizing," the first of many silly exchanges between the two of us. Our Uber back to the hotel was in a Tesla, and we were all pretty impressed with it. We had some trouble opening the doors because you have to press on the handle to get the handle ready to open, and then it can be pulled to open, and I don't remember the door open from the inside but the ladies had some trouble getting out of the back so I had to open the door for them when we got back.

One detail that was a little "overlooked" I guess you could say, is it was New Years Eve, and I pretty much always stay up for New Years even if it's just me. The kind of challenge though was the 2 hour time difference on top of the traveling with a 1 room hotel room (no sitting area like last year), so I basically had to keep it down as I wrung in the new year. I watched Animaniacs on my phone for some hours while everyone else went to bed, and I intended to just stay up to watch the east coast NYC ball drop (because I live in eastern standard time and that's my normal new years count down and ball drop), but I ended up falling asleep at about 9:30 PM local time-11:30 PM normal time and missed the NYC count down, but I ended up waking up at about 10:55 PM local time-12:55 AM normal time so I pulled up Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve and watched the Puerto Rico ball drop (at least I think it was Puerto Rico, as I do the math while researching this blog they're actually 1 hour ahead of eastern standard time and normally the central time countdown is out of New Orleans, but whatever). Either way I had fun.

Sleep through the night to New Years Day Sunday. I wanted to keep on my normal sleep schedule so I woke up at like 6AM local time 8AM my time, and after an hour of hanging in the room it was breakfast time; a simple continental breakfast with pancakes and hash browned potatoes. 9AM though is when things got really cool. The St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral Basilica is like literally next door to the hotel (there's some court yard area, but nothing significant between hotel property and church property), so we got to go to mass there. It is a really big and pretty basilica, with a lot of stained glass and murals, but it doesn't end there. Since there is a large Hispanic population all of the hymns were half English half Spanish, and the old testament reading was in Spanish with the English translation available with the hymns. Oh but it gets better. I don't know if this was his home parish or he was just there for the weekend, but the bishop lead mass while we were there, and since that happens about every 2 years or less at my home parish that was pretty cool; and if it ended there that would be enough but it just keeps coming. At this particular mass they were honoring 2 police officers that died in the line of duty, so there were a lot of police officers in dress uniforms and what I believe was a "police march snare drum beat" during the opening hymn (maybe that's just how they do it at this parish, but it had that "honoring a serviceman" sound). Oh but that's not all, to top it all off the incumbent New Mexico governor was at the mass as well because it was inauguration day, and she and her husband brought up the gifts and after mass received a blessing from the bishop in front of the basilica with a lot of media attention. It was quite ordeal. Mom-in-law said she saw people with ear pieces, meaning that her secret service security detail was there. Talk about cool. After mass we went back to the hotel and just rested for an hour or 2 before we went to see Aunt P.

Now that it was day time I was able to enjoy the walk over much more. There was a lot of cool Adobe and some interesting architecture.

Today was a lesser day for Aunt P. We planned on staying most of the day with a lot of non-visiting time so I had my switch and phone ready for wait around time, and I'm glad I did because I think about half of the time we were there Aunt P was napping (not in a row, but on and off she would just nod off). One of the funny things is she zoned out a lot and the caregiver was saying she was going to her own world. Here's a fun interaction from this.

Caregiver: [P], are you in your own world right now?

Aunt P: yeahh...

Pokematic: can I join you?

Aunt P: nooo.....

Just a funny little thing that happened. We had pizza together for lunch and that was good, and later mskate and I went to Kakawa a specialty chocolate and ice cream shop to get Aunt P a milkshake and us some specialty treats, but unfortunately they were closed, so we saved that for the next day. In addition to us one of Aunt P's friends that also lives in Santa Fe joined us for visiting, which was nice since I heard about her a lot as well, and that helped break up the time while we visited with Aunt P the whole day.

When it was time to go the friend gave us a ride back to the hotel and hung out with mom-in-law for about 2 hours while they caught up, and mskate joined them for some of the time, but since I had multiple degrees of separation on this I just hung out in the room until dinner (which was about 2 hours from when we arrived back to the hotel). Now as we were driving back to the hotel there was a sign that caught my attention, but you'll just have to wait until that part of the story. For now I'm going to tell you about Drury Inn dinner on Sunday night. I want to say it was some kind of chicken, and since I don't like chicken I had the hotdog. Now it just so happened that the soup of the day was chili, so I ended up having myself a chili dog and baked potato for dinner in addition to a whisky sour. 

After dinner mskate and I went a few blocks down from the hotel to downtown Santa Fe. For the most part we just walked around the various shopping areas and enjoyed the Christmas lights that were still up in the city square. It was really quite nice. We went into some mini-malls and "shopping arcades" (the Santa Fe arcade, with no coin-ops), and even though a lot of things were closed it was still fun. What gave me quite a laugh was going into the five and dime. I don't think this was a "traditional five and dime" since there was a lot of touristy items and souvenirs, and no one was wearing raspberry berets (and I didn't feel like giving the cashier a hard time by asking if he worked for Mr. McGee since I'm sure he hears that joke multiple times a day and I wasn't buying anything), but it was still fun. One thing mskate and I enjoyed doing when we were dating was walking around city areas and it's fun to still do that now that we're married.

Now it's Monday and after eating hotel breakfast mskate wanted to go to a local restaurant to get some breakfast food she could eat (food allergies). It was a little Mexican cafe 1 block from the hotel and she got breakfast tacos. Now because I live in the north and most of my experience with Mexican food is Taco Bell (blasphemy, I know), my perception of a "breakfast taco" (along with other "breakfast versions of lunch and dinner foods") is "a normal taco with scrambled eggs in it." Since eggs are one of her allergies she asked for them on the side (I ate them) and I expected a "pretty standard taco" after that. To my surprise it wasn't that, it had hash browns, sausage chunks, and bacon pieces, and not a whole lot of other "traditional taco ingredients." That was pretty neat. After breakfast we walked around some of the shopping that was closed the previous night, and as we were walking we found a place that had free dog treats, so we picked one up for the dog of the caretaker that would be taking care of Aunt P today.

Today was going to be our last day visiting with Aunt P, and it was pretty fun. Today for lunch we had Chinese food, and I had sesame beef which was pretty good. After lunch mskate and I went to the chocolate store again this time knowing they would be open. This was quite a cool place. First, they had all sorts of fancy and exotic chocolates, many of which were allergy free. Mskate said "I'm going to limit myself to 3 things, and I want 2 of the peppermint patties, and I can't chose between the truffle and raspberry filling." I suggested just getting one of each and that ended up being the right decision. Since it was expensive I wanted to get something I couldn't get anywhere else (sure, it won't be Kakawa quality, but I can get peanut butter cups and chocolate covered cherries anywhere); this is why I chose the Aztec chocolate chili ice cream. I knew about Aztec chili chocolate from The Polar Express and other sources and it seemed intriguing, but in my half a dozen or so adventures to border states this was the only place I've seen that had Aztec chili chocolate, and for it to be in ice cream (a food that is a "spicy food antidote") I was even more interested. And of course, we got Aunt P her milkshake since that was our primary reason for going there. It was quite a busy place, where I think we spent somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes just waiting for our milkshake and ice cream.

When we got back I sampled some of my ice cream and wow was that an amazing flavor. The Aztecs were definitely onto something when they put chili in the chocolate. For the most part it tasted like a rich chocolate ice cream and would be another "it's high quality but I can get this anywhere," but the heat added by the chili was a very unique addition that didn't change the flavor at all (like, it wasn't "chocolate and hot sauce," it was "chocolate, that was spicy"). It like, woke up my taste buds to bring more of the chocolate flavor in. Add on top of this that my mouth was very confused because it felt like it was hot due to the chili but was actually cold due to the ice cream. If you're ever in Santa Fe and enjoy spicy foods some, I highly recommend getting the Aztec chocolate ice cream from Kakawa chocolate, because it is an experience like nothing else I've had.

Aunt P really enjoyed her milkshake, and this is when this day's funny Aunt P interaction happened. She drank about 1/4 of it and then kind of "lost the straw" as mskate was holding it for her. After not going for the straw for a minute or so I said "I think she might be done," and then she gave me a look of "the hell I am" and started drinking again and had about half of the milkshake before putting it in the freezer. We visited for about another hour and then said our final goodbyes. I said "it was good meeting you Aunt [P]" and she said "it was good to meet you too," and that made mskate and mom-in-law quite happy since that was like the largest sentence she said the entire trip.

We went back to the hotel and rested a little bit, and this is when I had one of the coolest things happen on the trip. Remember that sign I mentioned some paragraphs back? The sign said "video library," and I was very curious to see what that was, and since it was just a block away from the hotel I decided to find out. It was kind of in the back of a tiny strip mall, out of view of the main road in a kind of unassuming store front (I think it just had a sign that said "video library" in basic font, and nothing in the windows), but some times that is a sign of something really special, and this was no exception. It turns out this is a 41 year old video rental store, the oldest in the United States and 2nd oldest in the world (the oldest being a German store that is like 3 months older). This place was SO COOL! And when it says "library," oh it means it. Most video stores have the cover of the movie facing you to try to get your attention and make it easy to see the movie you're looking for (or in my case when I would go to my local video stores, the movie I didn't know I was looking for). They have them on a shelf with the spine facing you to maximize the amount of DVDs they can have on the shelf similar to a library, and this place easily had thousands of DVDs on the shelves typically with only 1-4 copies of a movie that wasn't super popular like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or Hitchcock, so there had to be at least 1000 different movies on the shelves. They also had "check-out slips and return date stickers" like one would find in a library book, just adding to the whole "library aesthetic." I didn't rent anything because I had no way of playing them, but I did buy a T-shirt because I had to support this business. Then the thing that was super amazing was I asked the owner if she would give me a small interview for my vlog and she said yes. She told me about the history of the store and how she has all sorts of media, and off camera she said she I wasn't the first person to ask her since there was someone that was making a documentary on video stores that were still open long after many were gone. And then she gave me some stickers for the store which was really awesome of her probably because she could tell I was into it (and probably because I bought a t-shirt). If anyone is in Santa Fe, you need to check out The Video Library.

Dinner was pretty low-key. Mskate ordered a Frito salad from one of the restaurants in town since she couldn't eat whatever the hotel was serving, so we went there together and while we were waiting for our food we found the t-shirt store she went to last time she was there and got me a Santa Fe shirt. Hotel dinner was nothing super special, I want to say they had chicken so I ended up eating a hotdog again. Mom-in-law and I both got double drinks (her a wine, me another cranberry vodka sour) to help us fall asleep in prep for the early morning, and that was basically it. It just so happened that there was a Barbra Walter's special that the ladies wanted to watch on hulu, so I set it up for them on the firestick and got a lot of praise for bringing it (because before it was just me watching cartoons on it). I have a feeling the firestick is going to be a staple travel item in the future. After the special we got everything packed up and ready for the trip home. 

Tuesday morning had to be the most crazy part of the trip. Packing up and checking out wasn't a problem, but the Uber was. Despite reserving the ride 12 hours in advance and having multiple confirmations, the driver canceled on us leaving us kind of stranded. We didn't have a back-up plan since we haven't had problems with uber in the past, but that wasn't a great thing. I was the calm one in the situation so I asked the hotel staff if they had any suggestions. One of the valet guys said "I got you, call Rob he's very reliable, he has 6 or 7 guys and if they won't drive you he'll do it" as he handed us a business card. Within 15 minutes Rob picked us up and we called him "Rob to the Rescue," and he said he liked it so much he might start using that since he gets a lot of business from Uber and Lyft sucking. (his business is independent from major ride sharing and taxi services). If you haven't noticed, I normally don't like referring to people by their real names in my blogs unless they're a public figure like Tommy Wiseau, but his company doesn't have "a brand name," it's just "Rob," so ask your hotel for Rob if you need a ride when you're in the area because he's good. He also had some cool stories, like giving Dwite from The Office and Danny Trejo a ride once in addition to some singers I didn't recognize. I want to say he was a little more expensive than Uber, but the reliability was definitely worth it.

Going through TSA was pretty easy this time. We had the information for TSA cares and this time they actually knew what it was. We had a TSA officer specifically assigned to us, and she took us through an xray machine that was just for us and it was really nice. Mom-in-law forgot a water bottle in her bag so that got flagged and made things annoying. I also had my pocket bunched up from emptying it into the bin, and had to get patted down. It was cool being able to explore the airport some, like sitting in the observation deck and looking at the planes. I did a little exploring but as a small airport there wasn't much to look at, so I just ended up back at the terminal and waited for the plane. Something that was really funny to me was this one boy keeping himself entertained by talking about a game he had and how "if you have 15 things then you have 15, but if you have 20 things then you have 20" or whatever it was. To most people this would just be kind of cute and kind of annoying, but I thought it was hilarious because that reminds me of the "and you know what happened next" story. A little back story, when I was like 5 or so I went to a family reunion with my parents and grandparents, and supposedly I didn't stop talking over the entire 10 hour ride and like every other sentence in my recounting of the cartoons I watched was "and you know what happened next." When I heard that I was thinking "that must have been what I sounded like back then." The plane ride to Dallas was pretty uneventful, I just played Animal Crossing while watching Movie Money Confidential (a documentary on independent movie financing), and some of the Apple TV Plus movie Luck.

Dallas though is when things got crazy. I want to say that our gate changed 3 times (one as we were getting off the plane and going to the gate, two after we had made it to the gate and settled in for waiting); always in terminal C so we didn't have to take the people mover, but still "gather everything and move" while we were trying to get lunch (mom-in-law and I each had a cheeseburger from TGI Friday's quick service, and mskate ended getting Chick-Fil-A by the way). It was kind of interesting though, since we experienced 3 different types of gates; the first was kind of open with some modern design in the chairs, the second was a pretty basic gate with the "connected leather airport chairs," and the third was kind of a mix with "updated connected leather airport chairs" with power outlets and some with recliner leg rests. I also stopped at the same candy store from some days ago to see if they had any different spongebob eggs, but they didn't and were all Sandy. Oh well. On the final flight to home I finished Luck and watched most of an episode of Bell Air, the Peacock Original drama version of the Fresh Prince of Bell Air show. Unlike the Saved By The Bell show, this one was kind-of good since it wasn't trying to critique the original, and I guess the Fresh Prince story lends itself to drama stories more than Saved By The Bell (especially since they tackled some heavy plots in the original Fresh Prince), but it was just kind of lacking since it didn't have the original cast (Will Smith was Will, Alfonso Ribeirto was Carlton, James Avery was Uncle Phil) and I for one watched Fresh Prince for the comedy not for the situations.

When we got back things were pretty simple. We left the airport and went to the parking structure. It wasn't very hard to find the car, and no difficulties on the way back. The parking was a little expensive ($80), but whatever. Since the replacement xbox media remote for IRA and dad-in-law it came while we were away I sent it home with mom-in-law. This was a great trip. It was great meeting Aunt P, and then I saw the governor and bishop at mass, and then I went to the oldest video store and got an interview with the owner, on top of all the other neat things that happened. This was a great way to spend the New Year. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.