Hey everyone. It's Mother's Day again, and I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't have another fun restraut story. Many years ago we had "the asparagus story." Now it is time for "the prime rib story." Once again, I love my family, but they can be a little crazy, and this time I'm kind of to blame. Here's the thing, we used to go out to a nice restaurant every year for Mother's Day, but recently celebrations have been "go to my parent's house spend time with the people that aren't my parents while they go crazy hosting. Part of this is because of covid, part of this is because it has gotten hard to move my grandma. 2 or so weeks ago my mom proposed "go to their house and have a pot roast for Mother's Day," and I said "I would rather go to the restaurant we normally went to on Mother's Day." Mom called them and was able to get us a reservation, and this is where the fun began.
First off, my grandma doesn't travel very easily anymore. She has REALLY bad arthritis, and has trouble with balance, making it very hard to get her in and out of cars. She also has no real turn radius with her walker, so areas need to be open and flat. The funny thing though is this makes restaurants and other public places better for her than my parent's house (parents have steps going up to their house, restaurants either don't have that or have ramps for ADA compliance). I know that's why my mom and everyone else always gets take out or delivery when taking care of her instead of going out to the restaurant, but this was special, and honestly if she was going to leave her house it might as well have been to a place that is completely level without any steps.
We had my parents, grandma, brother, the accordion friends, mskate, and I all at the restaurant. Since it was a holiday the menu was limited, and we had to find something grandma would like. Back in the day this wouldn't be very difficult; she would read the menu, pick one of the most expensive things on the menu, tell me to not worry about the price and I should get what I want (because I always happen to get one of the cheaper things on the menu, but that's honestly just because that's what I like), and that would be it. Maybe some crazy order changes when she missed something on the menu, but that would be it. However, she has become a lot more picky and confused with age, so whenever we go out someone has to order for her, and it's never guaranteed that she will like what she gets so our meals have to be tradable. Many years ago she liked prime rib, and as one of the more expensive things on the menu, the price was right. She also liked her steaks cooked medium (because she and grandpa would always be worried that my steaks were over cooked when I ordered it well done), so I assumed she would like her prime rib medium. I got the pork chops because I like restaurant pork chops (and of course they happened to be one of the cheapest things on the menu), and my mom got fried shrimp.
Before we get to the craziness, here are the gifts. We decided to do gift exchange before the meal because we only had the table for an hour and a half (they told us this much), and that ended up working out for the best. The day before mskate and I got gourmet cookies from a cookie shop that was close to where we were dog sitting that weekend (oh yeah, we were dog sitting Mother's Day weekend, nothing special though, just watching a friend's old dog while they were away). The cookies were $4 each, but if we bought 4 it was $13. For the extra dollar I got myself a gourmet cookie, but mskate wanted to get the individual boxes for everyone. We asked the cashier if we could get the the cookies individually boxed but at the 4 pack price. She said it would be a 25 cent upcharge, but it was loud and crowded, and she spoke softly and it ended up being a 25 percent upcharge (basically meaning it was full price for individual cookies). I noticed it shortly after seeing the price on the register and the price on the menu, but it was really crowded and mskate really wanted the individual boxes, so I didn't argue, but mskate agreed that next year we just get the 4 pack box, because it was silly to pay $1 for a box. We got cookies that would match everyone's personality; grandma got the basic chocolate chip (she's picky but likes classic chocolate chip), mom got a nutela cookie (she's a little adventurous and sometimes likes "young people fads," and I remember when nutela was a bit of a "young people fad"), accordion friend got pink velvet (a fancier fancier flavor for one who likes to cook and bake on an almost professional level), and I got lemon (because my unironic enjoyment of lemons and lemon flavor has become a running joke in my family). Mskate wrote nice messages on the boxes for everyone and they all enjoyed it. She also got my grandma a card that folds into a pot of flowers and my mom a card that has a pop-up bee hive. Mom was really happy and said "nice Hallmark cards, these are the kind of cards we get now that we have a girl in the family," and without missing a beat my brother said "no mom, you taught us to get dollar store cards."
OK, it's dinner time, the moment of truth. Grandma is skeptical because the prime rib is a little pink (that's what medium is), and it was quite big. Since my brother was sitting next to her he cut a piece and gave it to her. Unfortunately this was one of those "I used to like it but now I don't" things, saying "it was inedible." She traded with mom but felt bad because she didn't want mom to eat something so bad (it wasn't, it was actually really good). She ate some of the shrimp, but she wasn't really enjoying it. This is where my pork chops came into play. I ate one of my pork chops, but left the other to the side in case it was needed and ate my potato in the mean time. When it became obvious she didn't necessarily want the shrimp, I started cutting pieces of my other pork chop and mskate started giving it to her. We had to do this somewhat stealthy because she would have a fit if she saw it coming off her grandson's plate (because pretty much all my life she and grandpa would unsolicited take food off their plate and give it to me), but she never caught onto where the pork chop was coming from. Since she wasn't eating the shrimp mom took back the shrimp and gave me some of the prime rib. At one point the waitress came out and saw us trading food and got a little confused. Mom said "we'll help you with the checks later." At the end of the meal there was about 2/3rd of a pork chop left and maybe an ounce or 2 of prime rib with a good amount being stuck on the fat line, and 1 dinner role. I boxed the pork chop and gave it to my mom to give to grandma the following day for dinner, and I took the remainder of the prime rib after trimming off the meat from the fat and the dinner role for myself. We were able to sort out who got what (pork chop, prime rip, and mskate's salmon was on our bill, shrimp and dad's meal was on their bill). Mskate and I got grandma's meal as a mother's day gift, and at first she wasn't having any of that ("oh no, you can't do that, that's too much, I need to do something for you in return"), and that's when I reversed her logic on her ("no this is me returning the favor for all those Friday nights we spent with you"), and that ended up working.
So this wasn't AS crazy as asparagus, but it definitely reminded us of it (I leaned over to my parents and said "asparagus" a couple of times). I guess before I go I might as well mention that Dad and I saw my brother bartend the night before. He knows a guy that has a micro-brewery that sells their beer at the brewery, and he bar tends for them every now and then. It was fun having a drink with my dad while brother helped recommend stuff for us. I had a pint of one of their sour beers and alcoholic slushies, and dad had a pecan beer and something else, and we watched the Kentucky Derby (80-1 odds, that was quite a race). Brother asked if I wanted another but it was getting a little late and I was starting to feel it/ I said "no, I'm starting to feel it Mr. Krabs." Anyway, that was Mother's Day weekend. Grandma enjoyed her left over pork chop and half of the cookie, which is good to hear. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
Hey everyone, I went on a trip. This time it was to the Friends For Life regional conference in Indianapolis Indiana. Since mskate is working at the big Orlando conference and they had spare rooms, we were able to go for free, and that's why my mom and aunt were able to join us. Friends For Life is a type 1 diabetes organization through Children with Diabetes and every year they hold 3 different conferences, 2 small regional ones and a big one in Orlando at Disney World. At the conferences they have panels and lectures about navigating type 1 diabetes, and food and fellowship. Mskate goes to them every year and has friends through it and looks forward to seeing them in person every year in Orlando. The regional conferences are much smaller, but 4 of her friends were going to this and it was in this cool train themed hotel that used to be a train station, and it was within driving distance, and was free.
Friday was our driving day. I took the day off work so we could have a good 3 day weekend. Mom met us at our condo around 8AM and after packing her into our van we started on our adventure. Driving to Indiana is nothing new to us (mom's side is from Indiana so we have a lot of stories about driving there), and we filled mskate in on so many of them. Mskate drove first and the first big fun memory was Exit 0 and Play N Trade. Here's the story, one year on our family trip we stopped somewhere outside Indianapolis for the night, and close to the hotel was this videogame store called Play N Trade, and they had old school video games (which was my big thing when I was a teen). The next year I said "we have to go back, I really want to go there," and my mom said "OK, it's on the way so we can do that." This is when mapquest was first a thing and car GPS was a luxury, so I printed out directions on how to get there from my parents house and everything seemed reasonable, except for the direction that said "get off at Exit 0" (as in, "1-1" zero). My mom thought there was a problem and we would get lost, but believed it when I showed her the directions. My grandpa was adamant that there wasn't an exit zero, and would not trust the directions. Then when we followed the directions, there it was, exit zero. He was like "I'll be damned, there really is an exit zero." I went to play n trade, got some games, and had a great time.
Then there's another play n trade story. Now that we know exit zero is a real thing and how to get there, we went there every year for the next few years. One time when we went there the store was closed. On the door was a hand written sign on the door that said "closed for a family emergency, sorry for the inconvenience." That was our "National Lampoon's Vacation Wally World" story (the store wasn't "exactly" on the way, it was a little out of the way, and I build it up every time). Good memories. I got video telling the story, that was fun.
The other stories aren't THAT entertaining outside the family, basically just "remember when we went to Holiday World" type things. If you want family vacation stories, you can read them here, and here, and here, and here. We stopped at a rest stop at about the halfway point where we went to the bathroom and switched drivers. We also got an allergen friendly cookie for mskate off the clearance bin, and mom was surprised with how quick the stop was. It was 8 minutes in and out, and mom said "if I was with grandma we would still be getting out of the car right now." We also filled up on gas. I had to drive because mskate didn't want to drive in the city. But before we went to our hotel, we were picking up one of mskate's friends from the airport, peels. Because it was a Friday of lent I had a can of vegetarian beans to eat, and I was a bit of a sight. At the airport we get into the arrivals line and we switch seats (mskate in driver, me in passenger). I pull out my pocket knife and open up the can leaving the lid a little on and sticking up. I pull the plastic fork I taped to the side off and start eating my beans right out of the can. Just sitting there with a can of baked beans, nom nom. Peels calls mskate and asks where we are. We flag her down and load her in the car. I had to stop eating my beans and get back in the drivers seat.
We drive to the hotel and unload our car. We fill the luggage cart and the women go to check in while I drive to the underground parking structure next to the hotel. Because this was "big city hotel" the parking wasn't free, but everything was within walking distance so we park for the whole weekend. They were waiting for me to return before going up to the room. There were 2 types of rooms, 1 that was in a train car and 1 that was basic. We got the basic rooms, but mskate's other friend J and his parents were in a train car so we got to see it. The room was really cool, we had a great view of the pool and the TVs had lodgenet pay per view (or whatever the current equivalent of lodgenet is, but the remotes are basically the same and that's what it was when I was younger, so I'll just call it "lodgenet"). We didn't order any movies (because they are WAY over priced), and they didn't have videogames so that's no fun, but it's been forever since I've seen lodgenet so I was really happy just to see this relic of hotel entertainment. It's also new movies, not like "the service just wasn't updated and lodgenet forgot it was there," so that's neat.
After unpacking mskate, peels, and I went to Old Spaghetti Factory that was about a block from the hotel. This place had something all of us could eat (me with no meat on Fridays of lent, peels with food allergies, and mskate with both). The fun thing is they have 3 courses and bread. Since mskate and peels can't eat bread because of allergies, I ended up having the entire appetizer loaf to myself, yum. We each had a salad and our plate of pasta dishes. I had a plate of spaghetti and marinara sauce, mskate had a plate of allergy noodles, and peels had salmon. After the meal we all got a little cup of ice cream. However, once again because of allergies, I got all the ice cream. I was REALLY full after that. I also did some exercise because it was nothing but carbs.
Our room was on the 2nd floor and it was close to the Indianapolis sky walk (I'll get to that later), and we were also sort-of close to where the conference was being held, but we didn't know it. Funny story with that, the hotel has 2 conference areas, and there was another conference happening in the other area (I think it had something to do with counseling). We had to go to "Indiana station," and the conference rooms we were finding on the first floor were "New York, Pennsylvania, Chicago," and other landmarks, but no Indiana. We asked around and searched everywhere but couldn't find it. Eventually mskate saw a conference person she knew and asked where it was. Apparently the way to get to it was on the 2nd floor and there wasn't access via the first floor. Go figure. We checked in and got our name tags. This is when mskate introduced me to J and his parents.
Here's a selfie I took in an attempt to match what I did last time
Mom joined me and we started at our hotel entrance and followed it to the Indianapolis convention center. We walked around the convention center trying to find the rest of the skywalk, and I gotta say, it was eerie. Like, there were employees setting up conferences in various ballrooms, but it wasn't very full and it just kind of felt like we weren't supposed to be there. We were allowed to be there, no one kicked us out and it's part of the skywalk, but it just felt like we were trespassing.
I guess we did do a little "shouldn't have been there," because we found an empty ballroom and went inside and did some dancing. Since my wedding was a covid wedding we didn't REALLY get to have our "spotlight mother son dance," so we danced to imaginary music in an empty ballroom. We eventually found the skywalk and it eventually lead us to the mall. Now this mall was cool. It had 6 stories and was connected to the skywalk from multiple locations. We walked around some and there was this "family fun center" thing that was inflatable bumper car things and those electric riding animals. Not anything spectacular, but kind of cool. We walked to the food court to see where the skywalk continued, and found this atrium ampetheater thing, and after looking at our watch we realized it would probably be smart to turn back. While we were in the food court, I saw something that I thought was impossible, a Chick Fil A without a line.
As we were walking back, I saw something on the floor above us at the top of the escalator. It looked like an arcade, and I had to check it out. It was an arcade, TNT Amusement. I was in heaven. I LOVE arcades, and this had so much cool stuff. There were all sorts of coin pushers, this arcade bowling game where you control the ball through all sorts of crazy alleys, a Luigi's Mansion light gun game (technically not light gun, but that kind of thing), air hockey, crane games, and best of all, Dance Dance Revolution. When I was a teen and young adult the arcade at the mall sort of close to my parents had a DDR machine and I set high scores on probably half the songs on that machine (and was REALLY sad when they shut down). We didn't have time to play because the conference was starting soon, but after the conference events for the day we knew we had to come back.
Here's a picture of me with the mascot of the arcade.
The first event was an introductory talk by the founder. I watched maybe 10 minutes but then my allergies started acting up and I had to leave. I went to the room to get some air and let the allergy pill kick in. I was able to make it back for the last 10 or so minutes, so that was ok. It was time for dinner now. I had some cheese and crackers, and J pointed out how bad the tongs were. As a bit of a buffet expert I had no problem with them, but they were hard to use. I had the rest of my beans for dinner afterwards. There wasn't much for mskate and peels to eat, so after mom and Aunt G ate some food, we went to the mall to get some food for peels and mskate. Oh yeah, Aunt G drove up to join us in the festivities, so that was fun having her along. When mom and I said "the mall was a 30 minute walk," she said "what do you mean, the mall is 2 blocks away." Apparently the skywalk way is really far, but it's just a 2 block walk outside. We all went to the mall and entered from the outside (but we had a hard time finding the entrance). Turns out the mall closes early on Saturday, or every day because of the labor shortage, but the doors stay open because it's part of the skywalk. Mskate and peels weren't able to get food, and I wasn't able to go to the arcade. Mskate, peels, Mom, and Aunt G went to steak and shake to find some food, but I was full and wanted to do more skywalking so I took the skywalk back without them.
The rest of the night was low key. At some point around one of the meals we looked at the exhibit hall booths (but it was more like "exhibit corner" since there were 5 people). There was dexcom, tandem, a health insurance company, omnipod, and this special pajama company with pockets specifically designed for insulin pumps and their tubing. Everyone had swag, and it was really cool. The pjs people were giving away a pair of airpods to one lucky contestant. We got a tin of jelly beans from the tandem people and the tin looked like an insulin pump. Dexcom gave away pens and folding flying discs. I saw one boy having trouble folding it back into the little pouch it came in, so I told him how to fold it and he appreciated it.
OK, Saturday fun time now. Breakfast was good; bacon, potatoes, and bagels for me, and there was fruit, yogurt, and scrambled eggs for those who wanted it. This time the tongs were better, lol. I piled up and was ready for the day. The first talk we went to was one about continuous glucose monitors, and with how it was titled it sounded like it would be "how to feel comfortable sharing your numbers with your loved ones," but it ended up being "this is what a CGM is, it's a device you wear on your body for consecutive days and it reports your numbers to a device." It didn't tell us anything we didn't already know, so we ducked out after 20 minutes. Oh well.
We had a big gap in the schedule, so Mom, Aunt G, and I went to the mall to enjoy the arcade. We got there right when they opened and the guy was like "not everything is warmed up yet, so it might be a little bit before you can play everything," but that was OK because DDR was ready. I bought a $30 game card we had loads of fun. I played probably 3 games of DDR, some coin dozers, the video bowling game, this curved air hockey game with my mom, and tried to play this spongebob game. I say "tried to" because it said "how to play," but I don't think I ever really played the game. Oh well. The DDR was really fun, the first time I accidentally paid for 2 player which meant I was playing double pad (the extra hard one), that wore me out pretty hard, but still fun. After that I played normal single pad. We had fun for maybe 2 hours, and then it was time to go back for lunch.
Lunch was good; lunch meat sandwiches. I had a ham, pickles, lettuce, onion, and potato chips on my sandwich. After lunch it was time for another talk. We tried this one financials of diabetes class (because I'm interested in financials stuff), but it ended up being more of a political activism talk, and a rather liberal one ("insurance companies are gouging you, we need legislation to force cheap insulin"), and mskate realized if I stayed I was going to start a big debate and start a scene. We ducked out and went to the other talk about coping mechanisms with diabetes burnout. Not exactly something super relevant to us either (we both deal with the craziness well I'd say), but it's better than me saying "how much does it cost to make a vial of insulin? How much did it cost to get that new brand of insulin on the market? Are you sure you want to take away all incentive to make new types of insulin by legislating away all profits and then being stuck with what we have now if anyone is still willing to make it?" Oh well.
Now another break, so back to the arcade to finish up the card. I played some more dance dance revolution, and after 5 total games I said "OK that's enough." Mom and I had a little skeeball contest where we each played a round and saw who got the higher score. I can't remember who won though, because the final score didn't last very long on the board. I played the Luigi's Mansion arcade game after that, and that was REALLY fun. I love the Luigi's Mansion games, they're really fun Nintendo horror games. Art style, level layout, and ghost types, I think this was based on Dark Moon. It's a really fun on rails shooter, and if you ever come across one I highly recommend it. I also played the Star Wars Arcade game, but the screen brightness was really turned down so I wasn't able to see the enemies really well in the space fight and didn't get to the 3rd stage. We played 2 rounds of Deal or No Deal, but it ended up selecting deal when we said no deal so we gave up on that. That emptied the card pretty much all the way and without much time left before dinner starts we went to the ticket counter to redeem the tickets. I had enough to get a TNT Arcade shot glass, TNT Arcade lanyard, and a rubber duck turtle (with 1 ticket left over). I gave the turtle toy to J and he really appreciated it.
Dinner time. They had ribs, roast beef, red-skin potatoes, and salad. That was REALLY good. I ate a lot after my big exercise day (plus it was REALLY good). I also had some of a super rich brownie, and then Mom and Aunt G had the rest (because I could only eat about 1/3 of it). After dinner we went swimming. J's parents are old and not able to swim with him, so mskate and I went swimming with him. He's at the age and energy level where it's really fun to have someone throw you in the pool, and so mskate and I tossed him while in the pool. That was fun. On a similar note, mskate, peels, J, and I all took a photo at one of the backdrops and J was like "I'm too heavy, you 3 can't lift me," and I said "oh yeah," and picked him up and the 3 adults were holding him sideways. He's fun.
Sunday was low key. The only mass around us was at like 7AM and I think was in Spanish, so I watched our local mass online. Breakfast was the same as Saturday, breakfast meats, potatoes, scrambled eggs, and toast. Aunt G checked out either right after breakfast or before breakfast, so she missed the closing key note. It was a good key note from what I remember, and it was really fun to meet everyone that I hear about all the time. Peels was supposed to bring her switch and we could visit each other's islands, but she forgot it and so I missed out on that. After the key note we checked out. We returned our 4th set of room keys (because the keys kept losing their code), loaded up the luggage cart, and packed up the van. Because we were still city I drove the first leg, and after 100 or so miles we stopped to get gas and switch drivers. Aside from the boring speeches it was a great trip, fun to get away. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
Hey everyone. Last year mskate and I went to a holiday light display some weeks before Christmas, and it was really fun and we decided we would go to it every year as a new tradition. Well it crept up on us this year and mskate basically texted me "let's go to the holiday lights tonight" while I was at work and I'm like "yeah let's do that." When I got home I relaxed a little while we waited for it to get dark, and after some relaxing we made us some popcorn for the night and got some other snacks together. The lights are about 40 minutes from our house, so we were able to leave before it got completely dark. I got some fast food on the way since we didn't eat a normal dinner that night, and that was baked into the "wait for it to get dark" plan. This year since there wasn't as much construction as there was last year, and we used a different GPS to get there, it wasn't as hard to get there like it was last year.
OK, now for the fun stuff. We found the entrance easy. Mskate downloaded a playlist of Christmas music from spotify and that set the atmosphere, but first I wanted to listen to the information loop that they were playing over the radio on I guess the city's AM station. It was funny, mskate saw a sign and she thought it was an FM station, and told me "103.6," and I'm like "babe, the FM band is on the odd number," so we're dialing through all the FM frequencies on what she thought she saw, but when we got to the entrance we saw it was an AM station and then it made sense why it was an even number. OK, now for the lights.
Halfway through they had a rest stop with a food cart selling pop corn, hot dogs, and hot chocolate. The halfway point came faster than I remember last year. Maybe people were just moving faster this year, maybe it was less crowded than last year and so we moved faster, maybe it was because so many of the displays were the same as last year and therefore not as exciting as they were the first time, maybe it's because they didn't have a "stated halfway marker" and so it was just "start and end." Whatever the reason, I was glad they had it open because I needed a bathroom break. While we were there we got a picture with the reindeer stable lights. Now onto more lights.
After the lights we drove home and just enjoyed the night. It's a great little activity that we can do every year. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
Hey everyone, it's that time of year again, the time when I give thanks for all that's great and fight some people for $10 off a microwave, Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Before I get into things, I just want to say taking a month off was not intentional; it was just my first anniversary around the 1st weekend and we celebrated by going to Disney World, so there was a lot of planning and prep that went into that, and then I had to recover from that the next weekend, and then it's Thanksgiving, and then mskate went to see her aunt so there was work with that, and work is a little crazy so when I get home I'm tired, and it's just been crazy. Now that I have some time to myself I figured now would be a good time to get back to things.
OK, so it's the second Thanksgiving as a married man, and we've basically agreed that mskate's side gets Christmas and we stay with her parents for overnights, and my side gets everything else. This is because the only holiday they get really into is Christmas and mskate's parents kept her room a bedroom, whereas my parents get into every holiday and my dad turned my old room into his home office. We had 3 days of festivities planned so we packed for 2 nights. We left shortly after waking up and got to our parents around mid-morning. We unpacked and did "Thanksgiving Ornament Presents" with her parents. When I say mskate's family is into Christmas, I mean they would be "our lawn and house is covered in decorations" people "if it wasn't so gaudy," and as such her dad bought us a bunch of ornaments and wrapped them up for us. His logic for giving them to us on Thanksgiving is "if I'm going to give you Christmas decorations, I'm not going to give it to you after the decorations are no longer needed, this way you can keep them out for the season." That's actually some pretty sound logic. We got some cool Disney Hallmark ornaments, and some Christmas Lego sets and crystal decorations (like the REALLY fancy kind, but her dad got them used for a good deal). After presents mskate and I made brussels sprouts for our contribution to Thanksgiving dinner. It's not a very complicated recipie, just sprouts cut in half with olive oil and garlic salt.
Anyway, food is cooked, now it's time to head to my parents. We were the 2nd to arrive I think, and it was just visiting. Not soon after that pepperbc and her family arrived and then my grandma got there, and then grandma's friends got there. A lot of visiting, talking about the different things we're working on. It was fun time. I had a bunch of hors d'oeuvre before dinner for lunch time, and got a paper for us to look at circulars for black Friday. It was a little difficult since they didn't have a lot of ads due to the supply chain shortage, but the website was up to date and got a lot of information from them. My family went through them and found some things for everyone (details later). Around 4PM we had dinner. I had ham, green beans, brussels sprouts, and rolls. Everyone else had turkey and stuffing with all that good stuff. We had no brussels sprouts left so that's a good sign that everyone liked them, yay.
OK, dinner's over, now it's time for the accordion, because that's part of our traditions. We sang some polkas, Christmas songs, and Small World for mskate. We had a lot of fun. After the accordion we had deserts; home made chocolate cake, chocolate pudding pie, apple crisp, and some other things. Since we had 3 people celebrating birthdays around this time we sang happy birthday and had some birthday candles in the cake. Really fun time. We did some more visiting, and then it was time to go. Mskate and I returned to her parents house and got some sleep for IRA and I to go black Friday Shopping.
OK, it's 5AM. I get up, grab some pop tarts, and tell IRA "get up, time to go shopping." The first store we went to was Best Buy. We got there before the store opened and had to wait in line. We were both cold but it was managable. The main thing I wanted there was an outdoor antenna that I can use for now while we're living in the condo and then get it installed when we move to a permanent house. I got it and IRA bought some DVDs and BluRays. Our next stop was Walmart. I wanted to get sonic colors ultimate on an 8th generation console (because I hate the wii) and jedi fallen order, and I was going to get a $20 roku at ABC Warehouse for my aunt but they had a $15 roku at Walmart so I got it there. IRA got some more DVDs. Our next stop was Macy's where we got a Minnie Mouse stuffed animal for mskate and slippers for my mom. IRA enjoyed the adventure even though he didn't get anything there. Our next stop was Meijer where we were going to get a Disney welcome mat and dog toys, but the dog toys were all made in China and the dogs we were buying for only have toys made in America (or at least, not China), but we were able to find pop sockets at Meijer and wouldn't have to get them at another store. Finding the welcome mats were difficult because I was looking for them in the seasonal section since they are seasonal mats (Micky wishing Merry Christmas kind of things) and the stock person saying "it's somewhere in seasonal," but they were actually standing alone in the outdoor section. Lucky for me IRA was there because he found them. Now it's time for the big one, Target. We went to the target that was close to Meijer and had to stand outside for this one. The employee was funny, he was walking around with a baby Yoda strapped to his chest counting people and then said "OK, now we're not going to shove or fight, and we're going to have a good time, otherwise baby Yoda is going to have some problems." This is the picture I got of him.
There weren't any problems. IRA bought some Super Smash Bros Ultimate DLC packages and I bought $100 worth of apple gift cards to get a $15 target gift card. The cashier didn't understand how the DLC receipt worked and she thought it was something for the store. I stopped her and explained what it was, and how that was IRA's. Good thing I was there. After this Target we went to another Target that was close to best buy and here IRA found some DVDs and I got Skinny Pop popcorn for mskate. Technically it was for our parents and my grandma to have at their houses for mskate since her allergies make snacks a little difficult to have on hand for her, and Skinny Pop is something she can eat. I was looking for 5 feet apart since mskate loves that movie but doesn't have it yet and it was on sale, but this target didn't have it in stock. It was getting to 8AM normal morning time, so we had maybe 1 store left. I had some things to look for at Menards (well just the hope of dog toys), but it was too far away. However, on our way there we found another Target that I forget about and this one had 5 Feet Apart. IRA bought it with some other movies (because the deal was buy 2 get 1 free), and he's going to give it to mskate for Christmas. IRA and I probably could have gone longer but mskate wanted us home for breakfast and shopping show and tell. IRA and I showed off all our finds, and it was fun.
OK, now it's time for 2nd Thanksgiving, this time with my grandpa and aunt. We all drove up together (or maybe we drove separately, I don't remember) and it was good. We arrived around mid-morning and it was a good little visit. We told grandpa about our trip to Disney and gave him the souvenir smashed penny we got him. He really likes Jiminy Cricket, and with it being the 50th birthday of Disney World they had Jiminy Cricket pennies.
He didn't want anything special (he's 95 years old and doesn't want any more possessions), but it's a $1 token gift of his favorite Disney character that I also got as a souvenir so he liked it. I gave my aunt the roku but she didn't know what TV she wanted it installed on so we'll install it another time. For lunch-dinner we had left overs from the day before. It was a fun little visit.
Afterwards we went back to mskate's parents house and visited with them for the evening. We also went to see Encanto, the latest Disney animated movie. I really enjoyed it, a lot of fun music and it strayed from "the animated movie" trope of "buddy roadtrip film." IRA didn't really care for it because there wasn't a grand adventure like so many other animated films of recent years, but I really enjoyed that aspect of it, and mskate was kind of in the middle. Mskate and I had a cuddle couch and IRA sat behind us. We spent the night again, and then in the morning mskate and I went back to our house. The rest of the weekend was pretty tame, just our normal weekend stuff and finding some things on cyber Monday, and planning for mskate's trip to see her Aunt the following weekend.
OK, on Wednesday morning I took mskate to the airport and Thursday and Friday were pretty basic, only special thing was I made a lego gingerbread house for our Christmas display.. Mskate suggested I go see a movie because I don't do that very often anymore now that we're married (because our tastes in movies only really overlap with Disney films), but I realized "actually, this is my opportunity to eat at restaurants we normally can't eat at because of mskate's allergies, I'm going to eat at restaurants that have a bunch of gluten and dairy." On Friday I walked to the takeout pizza and subs place that's a block away from our house and got a side of cheesy garlic bread to go with the pork roast I made. The city did a small firework show in memory of the school shooting that happened earlier in the week, and I happened to catch it as I was walking to get my garlic bread. That was a good way to start the weekend. I also watched 2019's Joker and ate pop-secret buttered popcorn, 2 things I don't really do with mskate around (she can't eat the buttered popcorn, and doesn't like movies like Joker). On Saturday I had a personal pizza from Pizza Hut for lunch and Chinese food from the Chinese takeout restaurant that's also a block away for dinner (mskate isn't confident there wouldn't be cross contamination from there). Sunday was really fun. I went to my parents house to do Christmas chocolate dipping with my family and get pizza from our favorite pizza place (more gluten and dairy). It was just a fun half afternoon. I also did some straightening up for mskate's return this Sunday night. It was a fun weekend. I was going to film a food review, but I got busy with a bunch of things so I ended up not. It's been a crazy busy month. Hopefully December has more opportunity to do content. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
Hey everyone, it's Labor Day weekend here in the US, and with the amount of work I did it most certainly was a laboring weekend. On Friday I had my highschool reunion, Saturday was full of shopping and errands while mskate was on a trip with her best friend, Sunday was my friend's daughter's 3rd birthday, and then Monday mskate and I were hosting a labor day party with my side of the family. I'll go through it day by day.
Friday was when I had my 10 year highschool reunion. Yeah, apparently I've been out of highschool for 10 years, and one of my former classmates organized a reunion. Mskate and I went to highschool together, but since she was going on a trip on Saturday she decided to sit it out. I was really excited to go though, and when I saw that some of my old ilose friends were going I knew I had to go. I pulled out one of my safety vests (because I wore one daily junior and senior year) and got ready for a night of fun. I'm glad I left an hour early because it was kind of hard finding the pavilion we rented. I was one of the first to show up, and a lot of people appreciated that I wore the vest because they wouldn't have found it otherwise. One of my friends said "[Pokematic], I'm really glad you wore the vest, that was the only way I would have found this." Since only about 10 people were there in the first 30 minutes the girl that organized it said "hey, let's go around and say our name, what we're doing now, and what our highlight of the last decade was." When it came to me I said my highlight was getting married to our old classmate [mskate] last year, and my lowlight was selling 30 shares of gamestop for a $200 loss 2 years ago and converting 80K dogecoin to $5 worth of bitcoin 5 years ago. I basically spent all night hanging out with my ilose friends, catching up on 10 years of lunch conversations; things like our jobs, tabletop games, videogames, 3D printing, and our general geek hobbies. It was cool because we had everyone except zeldamaster and Trusdale. I also saw some other highschool friends that I kept a little contact with, and we caught up some as well. Dinner was unfortunately chicken, so I ate a lot of collard greens and corn. I'd guess that there was about 60-80 people that showed up, but I only recognized some. It's not that I wasn't paying attention or anything (like mskate likes to point out that I do a lot), it's just that I haven't seen a lot of these people in 10 years and people change a lot in that time, and there were only like 4 people that look almost the same as they did back in highschool. At about 8 before it got dark we took a group photo, and after that it was more hanging out. Before we left for the night we decided to exchange discord names so we could keep in touch. It was a great night. A number of people asked about mskate and I let them know she was going on a trip on Saturday and wanted to be well rested, but I said I'd see to it that she made it to the 20 year reunion.
OK, now it's time for Saturday. This was my "day to myself" with lots of errands. I had to get my allergy shot this week, so I went up to my parents area for my appointment. Nothing supper special, except that I took a long way home so I could stop at Ollie's and the meat store on the way home. Since we were hosting a grilling party on Monday I wanted to make sure we had enough potato chips and snacks, and meat. I picked up some spices and a power bank as well as chips, and got a variety of chips because I didn't know what everyone would like. Then I went to the meat store and bought over 50 pounds of meat. Over August we decided to try to not buy groceries or spend other money, and got our freezer pretty low. Now that it was September I decided to stock up again, and get hamburger meat for our party. I pulled all our meat in the house and reorganized the fridge to hold all this meat. I processed about 40 pounds on this day (which means taking it out of the butcher packaging and putting it in labeled freezer bags in single servings). I also had to move some stuff around the deep freeze as well, and it's about as full as it can get now. After the shopping and processing I did some more cleaning and prepping for the party on Monday, but otherwise pretty chill. Also, the replacement battery for a PS4 controller arrived so I finished that fix from a week ago (I bought a controller for $4 at a garage sale, but the battery was shot and needed replacement, so I bought a replacement on amazon for $15 and brought this controller back to life for under $20). I bought a replacement battery years ago when I thought my main controller lost it's charge but it wasn't the right type (battery was for an older model, and this controller was the newer model), so the controller laid on our coffee table disassembled until the battery came. Now it's assembled and working, so win (plus mskate is happy that the controller is no longer on the coffee table).
OK, now it's Sunday. I went to church and mskate got home a little later. I missed her friend when she arrived (I was already off to get my shot), but I saw her on the return trip. It was cool seeing her again since I hadn't since the wedding. Sunday day was pretty low key, but around 5 PM I went over to our friend's house for his daughter's 3rd birthday. This itself was also a little reunion, because this is my mom's godson and we would typically see each other 2-3 times a year, but haven't since 2019. What's also really fun is godson's wife's aunt was a counselor for my k-12 education and she was pretty involved in my educational development, so it's fun that she is able to say in my family's life beyond my k12 education. Mskate wasn't able to go to this one either (again, too tired), but she'll make it to the next one (which will probably be the son's 6th birthday). So this was funny, the mom decided she wanted to have a magician WAY to close to the party and didn't hire a real magician, so when I got there she asked if I could do some coin tricks, and I'm like "uhhh, I guess so, it's been years since I did magic though." She bought some plastic pirate coins, so I looked up some coin tricks after dinner and visiting with people. I learned 5 tricks but only managed to feel confident with 3 (2 of them required dense metal coins for the fast "toss the coin between hands," and the plastic was just too slow). I was summoned before I could find other tricks, so I did the "there's a coin behind your ear" tricks, and I rubbed the coin until it disappeared, and I rubbed the coin on my forearm to make it change color only to have it "accidentally" disappear. I was a little worried I wouldn't be very good (again, I probably haven't done magic tricks for 20 years), but I told myself "I'm entertaining 4 year olds, they're easy to fool." I ended up doing a really good job, everyone was fooled even though they were sitting all around me. Part of the success came from my ability to play a convincing character. I played an "incompetent magician who is always making things disappear." It ended up going over very well.
Not long after it was piñata time. Since they were little it was a pull string piñata, and that got a good laugh from my mom and I; when my brother and I were growing up, we reused the same pull string pinata for probably 6+ birthday parties, and I knew the winner string because it was always in the same spot. We joked about it and when it was getting low on strings I told mom "I think I know the winner." The parents handled it well though, because each kid got a whack at it before saying "OK now for pull string." If we did that I would have probably enjoyed it more, because I wanted to hit the pinata when I was little. Presents and cake were "what you would expect from a 3 year old's party;" the birthday girl was too distracted to really focus on opening more than one present, and the non-birthday brother wanted to open presents but it wasn't his day, but it was still fun. The cake was also nothing too special, except that it was a dairy free gluten free cake, which ended up being pretty good. After cake it was getting pretty late for the kids (8PM), so it was clean-up and go home time. I stayed behind after to help clean up some and maybe enjoy adult company after the kids were asleep. During this time when the other adults were busy one of the older girls (maybe 7 or 8) needed entertainment so I kept her busy by continuing to "screw up" the color changing coin trick. I did it probably 5 times and I was getting tired, so I'm just like "oh man I hope I don't let the trick slip," but I kept her fooled every time. Cleaning took longer than expected so I decided to leave not long after. Before I left though, I did the "color changing coin" trick for the dad since he missed the main show. I changed up the act before I left, and now instead of being incompetent I was just tired and "prone to accidents." After I did it he was very confused, looking for the coin, and asking "how'd you do that?" It was a fun time, and I said "next time I'll do balloon animals, I have a lot more experience at that."
OK, now it's Monday, Labor Day, and the first party mskate and I hosted at our house. Sure, our "first dinner party" was earlier this summer when camping, but this was the first time it was at our condo. We had been prepping for about a week, and I did all the final shopping on Saturday, it was now time. We had some hours to prep, and around 2 people started showing up. We basically talked for about an hour, and then prepared the burger patties and processed the ground beef. We pulled 2 pounds to make into tacos later, and pressed 11 patties since that's how many would fit on the platter with 2 levels, and rolled the remainder of the beef into meat balls. I grilled up 5 hotdogs and baked 5 potatoes in addition to the burgers. The fun thing is I grilled up everything on my little grill Dad called "the little grill that could." Everyone enjoyed it and the party went off without a hitch. After dinner my mom, aunt, brother, and I walked down to the park that's by us, just for a walk, while mskate and dad just hung out at home. Our park has a splash pad that my aunt and I splashed around a little in after some peer pressure. Overall, fun little party, and it was good to actually celebrate labor day for once instead of crying over it being the end of summer vacation (our school year started not long after labor day, and with mom as a teacher it wasn't a "fun holiday" for anyone).
Busy as it was, this was a fun weekend. Sure, it would have been better if things were spaced out a little more, but that wasn't the way things worked out. Since a lot of people missed out on the class reunion, I think there is going to be more of an effort to let people know for the 20th. I also know that the next children's birthday party I'm going to I'm going to make balloon animals, so that will be fun. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
Hey everyone, it's that time of year again, the time when I go camping with my family and friends. This is the first time I went camping as a married man, and got my own camp site. I would normally stay with my parents either in their hotel or on their site, but now that I'm married and we asked for camping equipment on our wedding registry I got my own pokematic site with mskate. In the week leading up I gathered up pretty much all the equipment and supplies, and mskate packed our clothes. I also took the Friday off so we could get there right at check in time, and do some shopping at the outlet mall on the way there.
Friday started out pretty basic. I loaded up all the gear in our SUV and treated it like pretty much any weekday morning. Around 11 we got on the road. I needed to get my allergy shot and pick-up some things from my parents, and since they are on the way we stopped there. It was just a quick little stop, nothing big. After the parents stop and an hour of driving we went to the outlet mall. We were going to stop at the Coleman store since we needed table cloth clips and wanted some spare tent steaks, but the Coleman store was no more so we had to skip it. We did stop at the Pepperidge Farm store and got some goldfish crackers and millanno cookies, and some iced tea bags. After Pepperidge Farm we went to the Adidas store because mskate needed new tennis shoes. I've never been shoe shopping with mskate before, but I know what the comedians say about women and shoe shopping, so I brought my Nintendo Switch in and sat at one of the benches. It didn't take her very long, but I wanted to be sure, and I did get some animal crossing in, so that was good. The last store we went to was a new hot sauce place. The clerk asked if I needed any help so I asked him for some recommendations. I settled on fusion garlic and pepper hot sauce, and that was our shopping trip. After shopping was lunch. We were going to go to this restaurant that gives you big portions and is good for getting camping food, but unfortunately they had a line out the door so we went to a burger place. I got a pizza and fried pickles to get left overs, and mskate had a bunless burger. After lunch it was back on the road.
After about another hour of driving we arrived at the state park. Since I went camping with my dad and brother earlier in the year (link here) we didn't need to get a recreation pass. I checked us in and got our site. We pulled up and started the set-up process. This was the first time setting up our tent, and even though it was my first time I'm a bit of a tent expert so I did it no problem. Well, only slight problem since it kind of requires 2 people to get the poles all set right, so my godfather helped me with that. After the tent was set-up I pulled the air mattress out and started inflating it. Fun fact, I somehow ended up with the air mattress pump my parents used for 20 years when they camped, so I used that on our air mattress. After I got the air mattress inflated mskate set-up our sleeping bags and the clothes. Since we didn't have table cloth clips I improved with bungee cords. With everything set-up we visited with my godfather and his family. For dinner we had walking tacos, primarily because it has minimal clean-up (just need to clean the electric skillet after heating the taco meat). I forgot our extension chord, but thankfully one of our friends had an extra one I could borrow. My parents brought up an extension cord when they came up on Saturday. I also somehow forgot the dish soap. I don't know how, I had it out with everything, and I swear I had it in the car, but even after unpacking everything I couldn't find it. We got some from the camp store, and now that's part of our camping equipment.
Friday night was pretty low key. Mskate brought pot holder materials for making finger weaving crafts. She showed my god-siblings how to do it and some other camping friends, and everyone really enjoyed it. After dinner we went to the ice cream store that's just outside the camp ground. Mskate had a special vegan gluten free sunday, and I had a mixed ice cream thing with brownie bits. We had a camp fire at one of our friend's site later in the evening. Just a calm first night. I was going to take a shower that night but the water was too cold, so I said "I'll try this tomorrow." The air mattress was a little under inflated, so when I got in mskate shot up, and when I got off mskate sunk low. The following day I inflated the air mattress more so it would be more comfortable.
Saturday started out pretty basic. For breakfast we were going to have hash browns and bacon. I brought a box of freeze dried hash browns and basically figured hydrating them would be similar to other freeze dried hash browns I've had in the past (hydrate in the box), but they were "hydrate in the microwave." No big problem though, I just took a bowl of water and heated it in the electric skillet, and then when they were hydrated I took them off the skillet and fried up some bacon for the grease; who needs butter or oil when you have bacon grease. The hash browns and bacon was good. After breakfast mskate and I drove to some different showers and they had hot water. When we got back I told everyone in our group that the other showers had hot water. Between breakfast and lunch we primarily did the finger weaving and pot holder craft. I made us 2 pot holders and mskate made a 4 foot finger weave. Mskate and I also went on a little walk, just down the beach trails so nothing really big.
My parents got up to camp around lunch time, so we said our hellos and got lunch ready. Mskate had hot dogs and I had a ham and cheese mini-sub. They heated up something on our skillet, but I don't remember what. After lunch it was time for the beach. I didn't really feel like swimming, but I put on my trunks and went out to the beach. I brought my metal detector I bought last year on black Friday and combed the beach. Unfortunately all I found was 3 bottlecaps, but oh well, I helped clean the beach some. After metal detecting I read another chapter of my Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest manga novel. After a chapter I decided to join everyone else in the lake. It was REALLY cold and I only went up to about my waste. I visited with the group, but went back in pretty soon after. After some relaxing mskate and I went around trying to book a Disney vacation. We went to the camp store to use their wifi, but that wasn't working well, so then we went to my parent's hotel to use their wifi. We had to use my dad's laptop since mskate's ipad and both of our phones weren't working right with the website. We were able to book our trip and it's going to be over our 1 year anniversary. That will be fun.
It's now approaching dinner time. My mom and mskate went to pickup the pizzas that everyone ordered over the morning. This is when things got fun. No one really planned it this way, but everyone started to gather at our site, and mskate and I ended up hosting our first dinner party. After dinner I started setting up the campfire on our site. When I got the wood and paper set-up it was time for ice cream. Mskate got a different vegan ice cream thing in a gluten free cone, and I think I just got some basic seasalt caramel. When we got back I got the fire started, and then did a little treasure hunt with my youngest god-brother. I took the bottle caps I found earlier and buried them in the sand just below the surface, and we dug them up after finding them with the metal detector. I knew when I was his age I would have really enjoyed an activity like that, and he enjoyed it too. The fire was fun, and it was cool hosting everyone. I brought some potatoes wrapped in foil to make in the fire, so I put the potato in the fire and made a baked potato. Everyone was really impressed by it and the idea of doing a potato bar next year was floated. Before I went to bed I decided to give the showers a try, and they were warm enough to shower in, yay.
Sunday was a pretty low key day. I had a chocolate muffin for breakfast and then got dressed for church. We all went to the spot in the back that we always sit in. It was perfect for our group when we were much larger since we would pretty much fill the entire section, but now that we've shrunk significantly in size we only filled up about 1 pew. On our way to church I saw a garage sale advertised, so on our way back I decided to stop there and see if there was anything good. There was an Indiana Jones brand machete for sale, but I had to pass. When we got back I pulled out our food to share with everyone. I had a ham and cheese mini-sub and some bacon. I gave everyone else the rest of the sub buns, ham, and cheese (because I didn't want to bring it home). After brunch we packed up our stuff and got ready to go. Since we had the party at our site the previous night there was still a lot of other people's stuff at our site, so I made an announcement to get your stuff since we're checking out. I wasn't able to get the tent back in the original bag, and I tried when I got home but I just wasn't able to get all the air out and it just didn't fit back in the original bag. When we get a yard I'm probably going to try to get it back in the bag since I can do it on the grass, but for now it's rolled up as best I can and in our camp bin. Overall it was a fun trip. Next year we'll bring more finger weaving stuff and probably foil wrapped potatoes since that went over so well. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
Hey everyone. A month or so ago my dad had the idea to get a cabin in May and invite his sons (my brother and I), and last weekend was that weekend. It was about 2 hours north of me and 1 hour north of him, and there wasn't much of a plan (just getting together for some guy fun). Getting set-up was a pretty simple affair. Primarily we just had to make sure we had enough food and all the camping equipment we would need. My dad brought eggs, hash browns, brats, bacon, and ground chuck and bacon steaks, and I brought homemade chili, biscuits, chex mix, and pringles. For fun I brought some board games and an analog TV tuner to see if we could find an analog signal, and prescription bottle stickers and paperwork that I wouldn't be able to put in my shredder to burn, and my dad brought a wood burning experiment. I got everything ready and out in the living room ready for the trip.
Friday was the drive up day. I packed up my stuff and kissed mskate goodbye. The drive up was long. I hit traffic, and it wasn't very fun. Another thing that happened is my subscription to satellite radio ran out as I was driving, so that wasn't very fun. I thankfully had some comedy specials downloaded to my phone so I listened to them. I got there around 5:30 and we immediately started heating up the chili. I unpacked all my stuff as they cooked. After it was heated we served it up. Everyone really liked it, which made me happy because this was a new recipe, one where I forgot the chili powder. After dinner we had some of the chex mix and pringles, and everyone was happy I brought the chili in a mason jar because we used the jar to transport dish cleaning water from the spigot to the camp site. Now for the fun wood burning experiment. My dad saw someone make a thing where you drill a main hole in a 4X4 piece of wood, and then angled holes along the side, pour in lamp oil, and then you get fire to come out of the holes. He didn't have a 4X4 or lamp oil, but he did have some birch logs and sterno, so we drilled some holes in one and tried some different things. Here's the video.
Once the wood experiment was done we used the burning wood to build our camp fire. It was a fun time. We chatted as we sat around the fire. Nothing super spectacular, just talking about life. We did this until about 11 PM when the fire burned out and we went to bed.
Saturday was our main day. We woke up and had the hash browns, bacon, and eggs. Dad and I also had a biscuit. Since the forecast called for rain we went to one of the cities that was close to the camp ground. We explored the city and looked for some stuff to check out. We went to a farmer's market and I picked up some beef jerky and dark chocolate raspberry bark. It then started to rain, so we took refuge in the freighter watching building (because the city was along a shipping rout). We sat at a table and just waited out the rain. My crocks were filthy from the rain mud and campground pickups, so I left them out in the rain to get cleaned off (it helped a little, but not much). We went close to the border see if we could pick-up a TV signal, so I pulled out the tuner, set it up, and started trying to get something.
I like to say I was trying to contact the mother ship. Unfortunately I didn't get a signal, and I went through the entire VHF and UHF band (2-89). We went back to the camp ground to eat lunch after I wasn't able to find a signal. We had the brats and some of the pringles. After lunch we decided to go on a little walk down by the lake. There wasn't much of a beach, but there was a shore line, one with a lot of rocks. My brother found some flat stones and started skipping them. I then started looking for some good stones and went skipping too. Dad just sat down on a down tree and watched us. We did this for maybe an hour, just skipping stones and chatting. I managed to skip one about 14 times, but most of the time I either got 2-3 skips, or failed just went plop. My brother had pretty similar luck. Then there was one stone that I found, it was perfect for skipping; flat, slightly convex bottom, completely flat top, almost circular, and light. I was talking it up, and when I threw it, it plopped, not even a skip. That got quite the laugh out of everyone.
After stone skipping we decided to explore the other city near by. This is when I went thrifting. I found a habitat for humanity restore and a goodwill. I looked at all the VHS tapes looking for lost media, and then I went to the toys looking for American Girl Doll stuff. Unfortunately I didn't find anything, but my dad and brother enjoyed the restore and all the home equipment. After thrifting we went to the main street. My dad had been there in the past with my mom on get aways, but it was always so busy that they weren't able to explore the main street. This time since it was before memorial day it wasn't very busy, so we were able to got to everywhere. There were a lot of cool little shops, mostly tourist trap like knick knacks, but since we were tourists it was fun. What was really cool though was the city general store, a place that sold a little of everything. I picked up some pickle hot sauce, and here's my quick review from later that night.
Another cool thing was Wimpy's Hamburgers, a little restaurant that is based off the Popeye character Wimpy. That was really cool since Popeye is probably my favorite golden age cartoon. I didn't eat there since we already had all the food plans made, but if/when I go back there I need to eat there (and get more of that pickle hot sauce).
We walked a little more down the road and went to the brewery. Dad and bro wanted to go there and have a beer, but unfortunately they were closed down, so we just went back to the car and went down to the pier. They had a beach and a wave breaker set-up, and bro and I walked the wave breaker while dad just rested in the car. It was pretty cool, there were waves crashing on the boulders and it sounded like something from a pirate cove in a movie. When we got to the end of the wave breaker there was a light house beacon thing, and it was covered in graffiti. I was expecting the standard, "Jack and Diane 4 ever" and "Tim was here," and while there was some of that, most of it was religious inspiration, like "you're looking for a sign of God's presence, here it is" and "Jesus loves you." I was very conflicted as to how I felt about that, because while it is vandalism and that's something He generally frowns upon, there's also something about painting over this form of evangelization that just seems wrong. Whatever, not my moral dilemma to solve. We walked back to the car and went to an antique store on the drive back to camp. I like to go antiquing, and even though I typically don't find stuff there's always that "what if." Plus, I like to just look at all the nifty old stuff. There was a lot of decorations and toys, but what caught my attention was the room of records. Normally I'll find a half-full apple crate of albums at antique shops, but this was like an entire mini-record store, so that was cool. Then there was one thing that REALLY caught my attention, Mad Magazine the board game. I played this back in kindergarten in latchkey, and I remember the satirical humor being way above my head. Now that I'm an adult and developed a taste for Mad back in highschool, I wanted to play it again and see what the humor really meant. Unfortunately I didn't have $30 worth of want, so I passed.
Now we're back at camp, getting dinner ready. We had hash browns and the ground bacon chuck steaks my dad made. What it was was ground chuck roast with bacon ground in with it, shaped into a patty. It was really good, but could have used more bacon. I put some of my new pickle hot sauce on it and that gave it some really good flavor. Now it's time for day 2 of the fire project. Since we tried some different things the night before, each of us got a log and had the opportunity to do what we wanted. I wanted to try 4 holes a 12, 3, 6, and 9, each of different sizes. Bro wanted to try some holes on the side in addition to the top. Dad just wanted to put a bunch of holes in his, and drill in to get more sterno. One thing we all agreed with though, is we needed something to cover the main hole that we put the fuel in. Lucky for them my alcohol of choice comes in bottles, so I flattened out some bottle caps and made little lids. Here's the video of the events.
While we were having fun with our logs, we built up a fire, this time using proper technique so it wasn't quite as tedious as it was the previous night. Then when the logs were done, we just kicked them into the fire. I burned all my prescription stickers, so that was good to get done with. Like the night before, we just talked about life and how great this campout was, and that we need to do this again (but maybe get a cabin with an attached toilet). This went on until about 10, then Dad and I went to bed. Bro handled the fire for another hour since he has some trouble sleeping.
Sunday was packup day. We ate the rest of the hash browns and bacon and biscuits, and then we packed up all our stuff. After we said our goodbyes I went to the church that was right there down the road from the camp ground, and their mass was at 10 AM which was right about the time I got there. Talk about convenient. After mass I began the trip home, until I had the bright idea of going an hour out of my way to go to a city that the FCC has listed as having 2 analog stations. I put the college that's close to the city in my GPS and started my detour. I got there and tried to contact the mother ship, but nothing. I then put the GPS coordinates of the broadcast tower into my GPS and it took me to nothing. I went to one last open location and tried it on the 1980s TV I brought with me, and nothing. That's when I drove home defeated. On my way home I got mskate a beanie baby happy meal toy. They didn't have the owl she was looking for, but I got her a penguin and she liked it. All in all, great trip. I had some great guy time with my family, and the only thing that could have made it better was finding one of the last analog TV channels. Oh well. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
Oh, and thank-you Max for your continued patreon support.
