Hey everyone, 2 weeks ago my mom and I went to Cedar Point, and while we had a lot of fun there was a lot we weren't able to do. Well we went back last Friday after I took a half day to try to do what we couldn't do the first time. We bought another all day meal deal and since it wasn't Halloweekend Saturday I was able to get her a discount bring a friend ticket. After work we drove the 150 minute drive and this time we took the toll road, and it went much faster than it did last time. We now remembered why we did the toll road when we were younger. What was great is that since it was a Friday the park wasn't super crowded, and more things were open. We still had some trouble finding parking, but no big deal. We also had our jackets in case it got too cold but didn't want to bring them around the park and so we left them in the car.
I was quite hungry so we wanted to get food first, and the restaurant we wanted to try was kind of in the park from the main entrance. I looked up where it was and the cable car sky ride would take us pretty close to it. This was great because we weren't able to ride that last time. We got in line and our first ride of the day was taking us to a new restaurant. It was pretty cool because it's so high up and we got to see all the things from a different vantage point. Once we got to the destination I realized I made a mistake in my map reading, because the restaurant was not actually that close. Whatever, we just walked over to the place. The restaurant we wanted to try was Derby Dog, a gourmet hot dog place, and unfortunately it was closed. That sucked, but thankfully another place we wanted to try was close by, the Coral. Mom looked it up and they supposedly had a Texas sandwich we thought would be like brisket, but unfortunately the website wasn't updated and it was chicken fingers and pizza, so we got the pizza. It wasn't very good pizza though, but the fries it came with were good so there's that.
After eating we made our way over to the boardwalk area to ride max air and windseaker, 2 rides we wanted to do last time but couldn't due to the wind. Since max air was closest we did it first. Max Air is this swinging ride that spins you around while swinging you back and forth really high up. It's quite a fun ride, and we didn't have to wait very long because it holds 50 people and the park wasn't that busy. It was really fun. After that we made our way to windseaker, the swing ride that spins you around like 300 feet in the air. As I said last time, it doesn't seem like it would be very thrilling but when you get up that high it's pretty wild. We had to wait for 1 ride and then it was our turn. We got our seat number, we got in the seat, we got fastened in, and then they had to close it down because of wind. So close, but no. Oh well. Because I wanted to see the arcade we went back to the Derby Dogs area so I could go to the Coliseum Arcade. I didn't want to play anything, just walk around, and it was pretty cool. It didn't have the video games and pinball machines I remember from when I was young, but it did have skeeball and basketball games, and many claw games and coin pushers. There was even a 9 hole minigolf course, which was pretty cool. Mom even thought it was pretty cool, but that was basically it. At this point we decided to make our way to the back of the park where it gets scary at night, We did the power tower on our walk back because it was a walk on and is a fun one, and where we sat we got a good view of the top thrill 2 construction. That was pretty cool. As we walked by we saw that camp snoopy wasn't running, which was too bad for the kids because it has a lot of fun rides. It also meant we weren't able to do the pipe scream, but that was OK. We went by the Gemini and it was closed, not sure why but it was. No matter, our plan was to ride the Maverick, a roller coaster with a 95 degree drop.
The next ride we were going to ride is the only other ride of note in the back there, Steel Vengeance. For some reason it won't allow you to have metal on you and you have to go through metal detectors and store all your stuff in a locker. We were ready to get the locker but since it had a visibly long line and my pants had metal rivets in it I said "better to check to make sure this is OK." Turns out the line wasn't all that long, it was just that people were waiting for it to open, because it was closed, again. That was frustrating, but we said "at least we didn't get a locker," and after a little research I found it used to be the mean streak (the ride that was too rough on Mom when she was young) and it used a lot of the old track, so it was probably for the best. With nothing else to really do we got on the train and road it to the next stop. This was a really popular ride when we were little, because my brother loved trains as a kid. On the train there's this scene of skeletons in an old west kind of town, and it's always there year round and has been the same show for at least 25 years (probably longer). The train took us to where the Millennium Force and Rougarou were, which was great because we didn't ride those the last time. The Rougarou was a pretty new roller coaster so we expected a kind of long wait, but it was basically a walk on, which was great. As a hanging coaster I couldn't wear my loose fitting crocks, and the ride said "no loose articles, you will need a locker," so we spent the $3 to get a locker. I put my shoes in because we already had the locker and might as well use it to it's full extent, and while it wasn't that bad walking on the cement it was kind of painful on the grated steel steps. That wasn't fun. We were put in the back row this time and it was a really fun coaster. Once we got back the ride operator asked mom and I if we wanted to go again since there wasn't a line, and we said sure. Twice was enough though. Next we were going to try Millennium Force, a ride that was going to be a 1.25 hour wait, but since Mom had trouble once with the seat we made sure she could fit in it. Unfortunately she couldn't so we didn't. Since we were close to the Panda Express of the park and it was about time to eat again, we went there. We got the platter of orange chicken, beef and broccoli, fried rice, and cow main. When I went to scan my band I had to wait another 30 seconds because it hadn't been 90 minutes yet, but then the cashier rescanned after 30 seconds and all was good. It was Panda Express, decent quality fast Chinese food.
So now we're kind of back at the middle front, and now for some other rides. I wanted to ride on Magnum XL but mom didn't since it was made in 1989, and with a 30 minute wait she decided to just sit it out and let me do it. Since I was by myself on this one I just watched some videos I had on my phone and basically just waited for the ride. It was a pretty fun ride, though mom was right, it was kind of jerky and wouldn't have been good for her. The exit to the ride was kind of far from the entrance and where mom was waiting, so she was starting to wonder where I was. Since we were close to back beat que we went to it for our next meal. We got pulled pork and potato wedges. It was pretty good, nothing special but still good and would recommend.
It's getting late at this point so we're starting to get tired. Our next ride was Raptor, one of the older rides from at least around when I was really little. Last time it was a long wait, but since this was a not super busy day it was only like a 20 minute wait. While we were waiting there was a maintenance room with a roof that had a bunch of live strong bands and hair bands shot onto it. Oh man, live strong bands were so crazy to see; those were probably close to 20 years old now. So wild to see. When we road on the ride it had the ride pictures. I tried to do a Gene Simmons (tongue out), but I missed the photo so it was just me smiling. After Raptor we went to the grand pavilion and had steak and lobster bisque, and just rested for about 30 minutes in the warm restaurant. After that we went on Wild Mouse, one of those roller coasters that has like 4 people per car. Mom said she never road one because it's such a slow loader. Mom really enjoyed it, but it was kind of jerky. The next ride was the Atomic Scrambler. It's a fun spinning ride, and was quite fun. We also did the dodgem cars, and I forgot how much fun they are, Since we were right by max air and it was a walk on we decided to ride it again, and I took my shoes off to make sure they didn't fall off and it was cold. Someone else who was wearing crocks did the same thing and after the ride said "bro your feet must be freezing, I know because mine are." At this point we had rode pretty much every ride we could have except for the carousels. We decided we were just going to do the Cedar Downs Racing Derby, a carousel that goes really fast and is meant to feel like a race track. Mom was like "you need to help me get on and off." She sat on one of the inner horses and I sat on one of the outer horses (because that would be the fastest one). It was kind of crazy since it isn't that much unlike a normal carousel, and by that I mean "you're just sitting on it without any safety restraints." Since we were getting tired it was kind of wild, like we felt "make sure to hold on and don't fall off," and there were some times where I felt like I was going to fall off. Mom was like "wow that was crazy, and all the while I was thinking 'I've made it this far, don't get hurt by falling off a horse on a carousel.'" At this point we were done, we got one more meal at Hugo's Italian Kitchen where we got pizza and a Caesar salad.
OK, it's like 11 at night, we are tired and cold, we found our way to the car and just sat in it with the heat on for some minutes. Mom put in the directions for the motel and we made it there before midnight. Mom checked us in and got our room. As we were unpacking I realized I forgot my overnight bag at home, meaning I wasn't going to be able to change my clothes or brush my teeth. I finger scrubbed my teeth the best I could, but it didn't do a whole lot (my teeth felt really dirty the following day). I slept pretty long, long enough for Mom to go for a swim at the motel pool. After I woke up and Mom went swimming we packed up our stuff and went to McDonalds for breakfast. This is when I learned there's a pokemon promotion going on right now and now I need to get all the toys. We drove for a while and stopped at the turn pike rest stop mostly for old times sakes. I played one of the games and won a bouncy ball (because playing the games was a big thing when I was a kid).
Once we got home I said my goodbyes to mom, saw where the bag was, and showered and changed my clothes and really brushed my teeth. It felt good to not feel so gross. In terms of food we saved $95.43, though it might be less because I now realize I have the all season pass instead of just the all day pass. I might have to go back one more time just to make sure I get all the food. Maybe mskate and I can go one day since there's a lot of food she would be able to eat, but if not maybe I'll just go by myself. It was really fun, and highly recommend. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
Hey everyone, so because I grew up within a reasonable driving distance to Cedar Point in Sandusky Ohio, and that meant that I went to Cedar Point rather frequently for special events; my mom's side of the family would go once a year with everyone (Aunt, Uncle, Tanman, Grandpa, Grandma, Mom, Dad, and VikingPolak), my school would go there for special field trips (I went there with mskate for a physics class trip and I went there with my band class), and some times I went with the boy scouts. Since I was able to get a decent deal on a season pass I decided to get one for the 2023 year and not just for the summer. I'm very glad I did because I was very busy over the summer and only was able to get there at the end of September. I asked my mom if she wanted to go and we went over the weekend. I thought I could get a reduced ticket due to my season pass, but because it's special Halloween Saturday events (called "Halloweekend"), mom had to get a full price ticket, but that was OK because we got a special bundle of "all day dining, ticket, and parking" (my pass already had parking, but it was cheaper to get this bundle than to get the 2 separately, like "all day dining and a day ticket was $110" while "ticket and parking and dining bundle was $100"). Whatever, we were going to have 13 hours in the park for food and fun.
Mom got to our condo so we could get to the park right when it opened, and we got going almost right when she got there. We ended up having a problem because traffic put us like 30 minutes later than expected. That sucked, not just because it was less time for rides but also meant the all day meal was going to be less than we could fully maximize (we can get another meal 90 minutes after the previous meal), and while there is 1 hour of leeway for max use that gets eaten up by the lines. Oh well, we got to the island and scanned my QR code for the parking. We parked at row 33 section C, kind of far from the entrance but it was OK. As we were going in there was a marching band that was parading around the parking lot. It was kind of interesting. As we were going in I saw some people in costumes and I didn't really connect that people were going to be wearing costumes, then mom told me and it made sense.
Once we got in we got some pictures with the 150 year sign and other memories, and I made a dash to the first restaurant, Hugo's Italian Kitchen. I got a slice of pepperoni pizza and cheese bread and we split it. Since this was kind of close to the entrance we'd come in from the Breakers (the on property hotel), our first ride like always was the Ocean Motion (or "Ocean Potion" because it was Halloween themed). This is the ride where you get on a ship and it swings you back and forth. It was a pretty short wait, only had to wait about 10 minutes which was pretty great. The next ride we wanted to go on was the Sky Ride (cable cars), but unfortunately it was closed (get used to this statement). Oh well. After the ride we found our way to what used to be Bearenstain Bear Land and is now Peanuts Land. When I was little this was THE place, and my favorite think was the sandbox backhoe thing (or as we called it, "the digger"). I apparently spent hours playing on it, because I wanted to make as big a hole as possible, and my uncle tried to bribe me to go do something else. Unfortunately the sandbox (or maybe it was a gravel box) wasn't there anymore, so mom and I spent time an appropriate amount of time looking for it but unsuccessfully. We did get to meet Sally from the Peanuts, which was fun.
After the bust with the digger we went over to what is kind of "the pier area," where it has a bunch of rides that are reminiscent of pier rides and carnival games. The funway arcade was in the area and while I didn't have any a lot of desire to spend the day playing arcade games, I might have wanted to play a round of pinball since I love pinball and it's not exactly easy to find anymore, and I remember it having a pretty good selection of games. Unfortunately they downsized A LOT and was more a mirror maze now. Oh well. The main things we did was ride "scrambler type" rides; troika and calypso. Troika is basically the normal scrambler but also goes up in the air in a fun way of the 3rd dimension. Calypso is also like the normal scrambler only it's on an angle and can only hold one person. It's pretty cool. We were going to ride MaxxAir, but unfortunately it was closed. After the rides it was time to eat again, and since we were close to the new Cedar Point Grand Pavilion Restaurant and Bar, and we had unlimited food, we decided to give that a try if we could. It presents itself as a high end restaurant and we were unsure if it was going to work for us, but it did support the meal plan and it was really high quality food. This time we got the steak and lobster bisque; I had the steak and mom had the lobster bisque. It was really good, and not just for amusement park food. We both thought "Gog and Pop (the grandparents on mom's side) would love this place."
Next ride I wanted to do was windseaker; the amusement park swing ride that goes up 300 feet in the air. Like, the amusement park swing ride is kind of "a step up from the carousel" where it lifts you up like 20 feet in the air and swings you around in seats on a chain, and while it's fun it's a very calm ride. Windseaker on the other hand is that, but they strap you in like a thrill ride, then it lifts you up 300 feet and swings you around high above everything else in the park. Like, it's scary because the only thing between you and death is a heavy metal cable. It's not even that fast, it's just "I am actually hanging high above the ground, this isn't an illusion like a roller coaster." Oh well, maybe next time. Since this is Halloweekends and we don't like getting scared, we worked our way to the "scary section" before it got scary. The "scary section" was in the back of the park so we started going back there with the plan that if there was a walk on we would ride it. While walking to the back in true Halloween fashion there was a graveyard decoration set-up, but the headstones were very creative. Instead of puns or famous people, it was rides that are no longer there. I got my picture with my favorite gone ride, the Demon Drop. It's a ride that puts you in a cage, drops you in a free fall that then angles into a slope, and then brings you back. When they were selling it a friend wanted to buy it and put it in his backyard. His backyard was really big (like a triple lot), so it's possible it could have fit, but there were probably zoning laws that would prohibit it, plus, it is probably a major power consumer and expensive. Here's my picture with the tomb stone.
On our way we road Iron Dragon, the smoothest and easiest roller coaster in the park probably. It's a fun hanging boat cart roller coaster, and it didn't take very long for us to get on. After Iron Dragon we found our way into frontier land (the start of the scary part), and while there wasn't much there we did find a fun family joke with pony rides (my my, aunt, and her cousins were at some place with pony rides and my one aunt didn't want to ride the pony, and it's been something everyone has teased her about for 50 years). There was also a peting zoo, and I petted a camel and a llama. One of the llamas had an underbite and I tried to do an impression of it.
We didn't find much else in frontier land, but we did find the wave swinger; the amusement park swings. Sure, it wasn't super great, but it was still a fun little ride. After that it was time to eat again, and we went to the Frontier Inn where we got pizza on a half role and a salad cup of grapes. It was good to have some fruit and split pretty well. After eating we went to the cedar creek mine ride; a mine cart themed roller coaster. It was a 20 or so minute wait, and it's an old ride that didn't really work for "modern American bodies" where we weren't really able to fit (mom couldn't get in and I barely got in and was rather uncomfortable the entire time). Oh well, wouldn't recommend. After that we made our way to the back of the park and there wasn't much for us. There were only 3 rides, Maverick, the train, and Steel Vengeance (Maverick and Steel Vengeance are both roller coasters). Maverick is a pretty new ride (12 years now) and has a 95 degree drop, but the fast pass line was a 45 minute wait and the stand by line was like 2 hours. Uhh no. Then Steel Vengeance was closed, and the train had to wait for the ride to get there and was just a train, so this area was kind of a bust.
We made our way over to the Camp Snoopy area where they have Gemini, Soring Eagles, Monster, and the Happy Fryer. We walked around Camp Snoopy because Camp Snoopy is great, a place for slightly older kids. We almost met Lucy in her witch costume, but it was right as she was leaving. I did get a picture with the therapy desk.
Camp Snoopy is mostly kids rides that we wouldn't be able to get on (camp bus, woodstock express, red baron airplane ride), but then there was Linus's Beetle Bug which is just the tilt-a-whirl. Mom was like "we don't have a kid" and said "it's just the tilt-a-whirl, they'll let us on," and they did let us on. I got kind of dizzy and remembered "I don't really like the tilt-a-whirl." After the ride we went to the Happy Fryer, a restaurant that specializes in French fries and corn dogs. I always wanted to try it since the mascot looks so friendly, but could never justify spending that much on fries. However, since we had the all day meal deal, we got the mini-corn dogs and fries. I'm not a big fan of corn dogs (if I eat a hot dog I want some char), but these were pretty good, and the fries were amazing. We each ate about half of the mini corndogs and half the fries.
After food we went to the pipe scream. It's a ride where it spins you around and goes on a half pipe back and forth. The other time we went on one of these rides was at Universal Studios in the Nickelodeon section. I remember my cousin didn't want to go on it because "it was in the little kid section," but we managed to convince him that it was an actual ride for big kids (because it is). It was quite fun. After that we went to the eagles ride, a kind of swing ride but where you control the beak and control how high and low you go. We were going to go on Gemini but it was closed. While waiting for the eagles we saw them test Gemini, and mom heard someone saying that the Gemini was opening up, and since I wanted to go on it I decided to get out of line and wait for it to open since it would be a walk on. Unfortunately it was just a rumor, and I waited around for about 20 minutes for it to not open. Oh well. After giving up on Gemini it was time to eat again and we went to BackBeatQue, a barbecue place. We got brisket and a salad. While I was getting the food Mom met a nice family and started dancing with them. It was the kind of fun thing that her recently deceased friend would have done, and she made a good temporary friend with the mom. The food was pretty good, a decent "normal restaurant quality." Cedar point is doing REALLY good with the restaurants and having "real food."
With this we're now out of the scary part of the park, back sweet dreams. There were some pretty cool pumpkin art pieces, and no more "scary clowns" things. There wasn't much in terms of rides on our walk for a while, but there was a lot of cool decorations, like the pumpkin art. The first ride we road was another classic, the Corkscrew. It's a really simple roller coaster, a hill and dip, a loop, and a cork screw that goes over the walking path. Can't say for certain, but it was likely one of the earliest looping rides in the park. After the corkscrew we went on the Super Himalaya. It's a ride that spins around going up and down while playing a vintage pop song. Really fun ride. Then we next ride was the Power Tower, a ride that drops you or shoots you up. It's also one of the few rides that can be seen from the Breakers, I remember watching it from our hotel room when I was little. Years ago I did the "shoots you up" one and didn't like it, so we did the "drop you" one. Since mom and I were 2 riders, we got pulled ahead of the line because there was an opening for 2 people. As we were riding it I regretted keeping my crocks on, they didn't fall off and if they did they would just fall down where there weren't any people (because safety zone for falling objects), but they didn't fall off so I was good. After Power Tower we went to Coasters, a diner themed restaurant that sells hamburgers, fries, onion rings, and some other things I don't remember. Mom and I got the cheeseburger and frings (half fries, half onion rings), and a pile of pickles from the condiment bar. Quite good. After dinner we watched a little bit of the live show just to say we did. In the past it was a laser light show and I really enjoyed it, but because Halloween it was a live stage concert. It was pretty good, the music was Halloween themed I think, and if it wasn't the costumes sure were.
Now we made our way over to the first "really big ride" of the day, Valravn. I think the story of this ride is it's like Norse or something, but whatever. It had a posted hour wait, but we were OK with that since we were kind of getting to the end of the rides we haven't done anyway, and the queue line time estimate didn't seem like it was getting updated. The wait was shorter than that, maybe like 45 minutes, so that was a bonus. However, even if it was an hour it was worth it. It's kind of an "open train" ride, where your seat is isn't in a ride car and there isn't much of a floor. But the real thing is that there's a 90 degree drop and multiple spins and loops. REALLY fun. After that I road the Blue Streak, probably the oldest roller coaster in the park and maybe one of the original ones. It's a very basic wooden one, big drop with some bumps and turns, but it's history and I had to ride it. Mom didn't join me though because the old rides hurt her, and I wasn't feeling the best afterwards either, but still fun. Since it was time to eat again we made our way back to Cedar Point Grand Pavilion so Mom could get the funnel cake shrimp, and I got the baked sweet potatoes because I like sweet potatoes some and wanted to see what these were like. They were a nice sweet side, but I'm not sure I'd get them again (texture was kind of weird for me). Once again, real food with the meal plan.
This is when things got pretty lucky. GateKeeper, one of the newer roller coasters which is another "open train" coaster with a left and right view of either Lake Erie or the park depending on which side you're on, had a 5 minute wait. Earlier in the day this had like a 1 hour wait, but now it was basically a walk on. We road on the one side that gave us a view of the park, and then we road on the side that gave us a view of the lake. It was really cool. After that we had maybe 1 ride left in us (it was like 11 PM now), and so we ended the day by riding the Giant Wheel (generic name for Ferris Wheel). Since it's a nice calm ride and everything would be lit up, we wanted to do this as our last event. It ended up being a good way to end the day since we were right, there was a lot to see. Because of science and balance we ended up riding around multiple times, but that was OK, gave us a lot of time to see things. After the wheel we went to wild mouse to see if it was a walk on but it wasn't and we were done. I got one last meal for the night back at the same restaurant we started at, Hugo's Italian Kitchen. I got a pizza pocket thing and a Caesar salad with the intention of eating it the following day. However when we got to our hotel I'm like "I want to see what this is like," and so I ate the pizza pocket thing and it was great, and then after showering I passed out because I was so tired.
The following day we had some continental breakfast and headed home. I was still really sleepy so I mom drove home while I slept. The only thing of interest is we didn't think about checking our gas so we had the fuel light come on and had to find gas quickly. Thankfully there was a gas station within eyeline of where we were and made it. Once we got home we said our goodbyes and went about our Sunday. It was a really fun day trip. We rode a fair amount of rides and gorged ourselves. I kept track of how much we saved using the dining plan, $109. Considering the meal plan was $33, we ate $142 retail worth of amusement park food. Granted, ever meal was like $16.50 or $21, and "not captive customer" prices would probably be $10 or $15 for what we got, but it's still an amazing deal. Multiple times I asked mom "I wonder what the high score is." And the Sunday after our fun I had like 1 actual meal because I was so full. Definitely worth it if you ever go to a Cedar Fair amusement park, but only get 1 band for 2 people. Even if you don't split everything like Mom and I did, alternating works well too. We basically paid for the hotel with what we saved in food, yay. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
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.
Hey everyone, in less than a year I have another cousin getting married, this time in Florida. Yay. This time it was just going to be my parents, brother, mskate, and I. Our craziness started a little before the trip, because we neglected to buy a gift from the registry and had to bring one. Mskate bought a Nora Flemming bowl with a palm tree charm and I gathered birth year penny rolls. We were planning on only bringing carry on bags (because checking a bag is expensive and we could pack everything necessary in 2 carry ons for our 2 night trip), and while we still managed to get everything in 2 bags it was tight. I also had to make the tough decision to not wear my pokemon tie to the wedding and instead wear my grandpa tie (because he can't travel anymore). It's unfortunately that my grandpa can't travel anymore, and by extension my aunt who takes care of him, but that's life and I told them I would take lots of video so they could still see it (I did that for my last wedding as well). Since the wedding was going to be in Saint Augustine and there would be a lot of free time, we also packed ready for a fun adventure. OK, onto the adventure.
Day 1 Saturday. Our flight was kind of early so I fried up a pound of bacon the night before to eat on the way for breakfast (though only half seemed to make it to morning, funny how that happens). The drive to the airport was pretty uneventful, and we somehow managed to not spend a ton of time looking for a parking spot in the parking structure. TSA also wasn't that big a deal thankfully, and once we got through we met up with the family shortly afterwards. While the airport is kind of cool, there wasn't much left to really do aside from battle at the gyms in pokemon go, but it was still nice hanging out with the family. The pain ride was ok, and I got to watch A Christmas Story Christmas on the flight. Now any followers know that I'm kind of a big fan of A Christmas Story, watching it every year on TBS at Christmas (sometimes to the annoyance of my family), and I've had some...let's say run-ins with attempts to cash in on the original's success, and with HBO "doing some dumb things" and desperate to not completely lose the streaming war, I went in guarded. With that in mind, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It actually was quite good and felt like a real continuation of the story. Unintended sequels like this have a really tough job; capture what made the original so good while not being a lesser copy of the original. A lot of the time they either do something so different that it's like "the only reason this is a 'sequel' is for brand recognition" or "you're just trying to make the same movie again but failing." This one though, it follows an adult Ralphie and his family as they visit his mom for Christmas, and he deals with adult challenges of Christmas while still being optimistic. It's about equally as edgy and equally hopeful as the original, does just the right amount of callbacks that are also work as stand-alone gags, and the way it ends is dare I say perfect. Since I still had time on the flight I watched about 40 minutes of The Last Samurai, knowing I wouldn't be able to finish it this time but assuming I would be able to finish it on the return flight. I also got some more flight video I'm uploading with creative commons rights.
We are now in the airport, ready for our vacation to start. Mskate ordered our uber and we found our way to the ride share pick-up location. I wanted to explore a little more, hoping to find a candy store that sold Spongebob surprise chocolate eggs, especially if they had prizes I don't have yet, but unfortunately there wasn't any that I could find at least. The uber ride was looooong, 60 minutes from the airport to Saint Augustine. On the drive we were stopped by police assistants to block off the road so the Hero Ride could go by. It was a motorcycle parade thing where I guess a bunch of veterans and first responders ride their motorcycles on a 5 mile stretch of highway and it's blocked off so they can go unimpeded. It was kind of cool since it was an unexpected event, and only lasted 4 minutes since it was an "actual 50 MPH ride" and not a "5 MPH parade" so no big deal there (though Uber did call us and the driver to make sure we were both OK since we were at a stand-still for a long period of time).
The hotel we stayed at was pretty nice (nothing super fancy, but still "downtown" within walking distance of everything and the usual amenities like a pool and mini-fridge). Since this was in a tourist area there was a stand with a bunch of coupons for attractions. I picked up a book and looked for places to eat since it was around lunch time. I found Auggie's Draft Room in the big downtown area where we had 3 buy one get one free coupons in the booklet, which was almost perfect for our little group of 5 (6 burgers total, 5 for now 1 for later). The restaurant was about half a mile from the hotel, and that gave us some time to take in some sights and points of interest. We knew we wanted to go to Our Lady of La Leche since it's a major church (relative to the original from the Spanish settlement I think), and it was right across the street from the hotel. We also had to find a drug store or dollar store, or something to wrap the gift with since we didn't want to risk damaging the wrapping while in transit, but unfortunately that didn't happen. We did see some cool stores like a Christmas Shoppe and an antique store, and the welcome center was pretty cool with a little museum in it. I can get to those later though, time for the restaurant. I also got my picture with this fun sign.
Auggie's was pretty neat. It was kind of a mix of "table service" and "counter service," where you order your food at the counter but they bring it to your table. The burgers were your standard fair (1 or 2 patties, pick your toppings from ketchup, mustard, mayo, lettuce, pickles, tomatoes, etc.), but there was one topping that caught my attention, datil ketchup. I had never heard of datil ketchup before, and I wanted to see what this was, so I ordered it on my burger. This was a spicy ketchup, and as someone that likes to mix hot sauce with his ketchup, this was good. Then what was most interesting was the self service beer taps. My brother did this, apparently you get a card and swipe in front of the beer you want, and that keeps track of your tab as you self poor. Pretty neat. The prices were a little steep at $14 for a meal, but we were in a tourist area so a premium is to be expected and the buy one get one free coupons made it a reasonable $7 per meal. After lunch mskate and I went to The Original Likit for a frozen desert; soft serve vanilla for me and allergen free pineapple dole whip for her. This was kind of expensive, because of the tourist premium, but it was the heat of the day and I wanted something cold. We ate it on our way to our next stop.
With our hunger satisfied, we made our way to the other hotel people were staying at, the more fancy one where the rest of the family was staying. This is where we met up with Aunt and Uncle B (parents of my cousin who was getting married), and Aunt and Uncle C (parent's of my "big cousins" who weren't able to make it). It has been years since I last saw them, so it was really great getting to see them again, and since covid kind of made our wedding limited this was the first time they got to meet mskate. That was really fun, and when we told Uncle B about mskate's book he said "I want to see that, can you bring it to the meet and greet tonight?" I said we would and that made him happy (he's had 2 strokes, so we're always on the look out for things that will make him happy, and I always like to bring her book to family events since people are always impressed that she made a "real book" and figured he would enjoy it). Then before we all dispersed my cousin and her fiance came walking down the big staircase in the front of the lobby like something out of a princess movie (no ball gown, but still a "big reveal" like thing), and that was great being able to see them for the brief moment. I managed to get it on video for the home movie I was going to make and it really was like something out of a movie (just not perfectly framed and no background music). This is where I got my direction of "the ceremony is unplugged, leave that to the professionals, but everything else is fair game." OK I can work with that.
After our little reunion we went back to the tourist area where we went to city gate spirits, a distillery with 10 different liquors available to sample. They had peanut butter whisky, smoked maple whisky, salted caramel whisky, apple pie moonshine, cola moonshine, orange cream moonshine, sweat tea vodka, tropical rum, and 2 others I'm forgetting. When we went to the distillery in Tennessee we only had the option to sample 5, but we got to sample all 10. My favorites were the cola moonshine, peanut butter whisky, and sweet tea vodka, but they were all quite good. When mom and I had the apple pie moonshine, we had our picture taken with it and said "this one's for D" since he used to make his own (I think he just mixed in the flavors to white lightning and didn't actually distil, but that was one of the things he would make). I sent the picture to his wife and kids and said "thinking about him with apple pie moonshine," and they really appreciated it. If we weren't flying I would have bought the sweet tea and cola liquors, but unfortunately we were flying and couldn't bring them on the plane with us (and wouldn't you know, those are two of the flavors they don't sell online). Oh well, we still have the memories. After that I think we just went back to our hotel for a little rest. I watched some of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On in the hotel room and think I took a nap, but it was just a simple relax time.
Since the meet and greet wasn't a dinner (more of a cocktail hour after dinner), we had to figure out what we wanted to eat. Mskate and I went to Mojo's barbecue in the downtown area while the rest of the family went to the Denny's just down the road from the hotel. I think they were more tired than us and just wanted to eat something easy, but we had more adventure in our spirit and wanted something different. First I want to say that our waiter was great. With all of mskate's allergies he was very thorough in making sure her food was safe, and that was really appreciated (I normally tip 20%, but he got 25% for going above and beyond). Next, the food was quite good. Since I was still a little full from lunch I just ordered a bowl of chili, and mskate wasn't planning on being able to eat her entire meal so I would be able to finish what she started. The bowl was quite big and was definitely enough for me (I didn't even finish it), and mskate ordered baked beans as one of her sides for me but she ended up liking them so much she ate them instead (her main course was brisket and her other side was green beans, which she also really enjoyed and from the sample I had was quite good). Atmosphere was standard fair for a BBQ place (a lot of western theming), but everything else was great.
Now for the meet and greet. We left right from the restaurant to the meet and greet which meant we had to bring the book with us to dinner. Mskate being a little shy about things didn't want me to bring the book, but Uncle B said he wanted to see it and I didn't want to let him down. I'm quite glad I did because the first thing he said to us was "did you bring the book?" I pulled it out of the bag we brought it in and he was really happy to see it, as was the rest of the family who hadn't seen it yet. Here's where things get kind of funny for me; at a big family reunion thing like this my parents would always tell me "let the distant family have time with the family you see all the time, you need to share," and I was prepared to do that again, but then it hit me "this time I am the distant family, this is my time to say 'spend time talking with me.'" I didn't get a ton of time to chat with my cousin (it's been close to 10 years since we last saw each other, kind of hard to condense that into the 5 minutes she had for me as one of her 50 or so guests), but it was still fun to share some of the things we've been up to. Then the really cool thing was Aunt C called her son in Japan (my "big cousin" who's 11 years older than me) and he got to talk to everyone. Once again my "you're not the spotlight, let the distant family have their limited opportunity" conditioning kicked in, but he kept wanting to talk to my brother and I so again it hit me "oh yeah, I AM the distant family with the limited opportunity this time." There weren't any big speeches or a lot of mingling with other guests for me (I mostly wanted to catch up with the family), but that's OK, the important thing was I got a message from the soon to be bride and groom for our grandpa and aunt.
When we got back to the room it smelled bad, kind of like a skunk. Since the AC was going we figured there was something with that, so we turned it off and turned on the bathroom vent. Thankfully the smell dissipated rather quickly, but it was still annoying, and we didn't turn the AC back on so we were a little hot that night but since it was a hotel with a connected hall it wasn't too bad.
Day 2 Sunday. The wedding was kind of late in the day (6PM I think), so we had a lot of time to ourselves. Mskate initially wanted to go to a restaurant that would have had things for her, but it was too expensive, so we went to the Farmhand KCHN down the street from the hotel somewhat close to the Denny's the rest of the family went to the night before. She got a vegan allergy friendly sandwich and I got the farmer's breakfast plate. Both of them were REALLY good, especially the potatoes, and while the atmosphere was pretty hipster it was ok (plus, they used a tool cabinet to hold all the condiments and utensils, which was pretty funny). After breakfast we walked down to the Christmas Shoppe to do some shopping and hopefully get something to put the gift in (like a bag). We found this really cool hand made nativity ornament where Mary and Joseph are oyster shells, the manger is a clam shell, and Jesus is a tiny pearl. They also had a big checkout bag that we decided was as good as we'd get, so we got that as well. We were going to buy it for like a quarter but the owner just let us have it. After the Christmas Shoppe we walked down to the fort and water just to see it (we didn't go in the fort since that costs money, but we looked from the outside and it was pretty cool). We walked along the river and while it was kind of cool, I've walked down enough rivers that it's not a super big deal to me. After walking the river we went to the main street to go to the tourist district we were at the previous day, this time to walk the entire street. While there were some cool places like a taffy store where we each got to sample 1 flavor (I don't remember which I got, but they were good). We went into a shopping arcade and checked out some of the stores. There was a candy store and I looked for the spongebob egg, but nothing. We did find a penny press and got one that said "I love you...Saint Augustine," but the press and die wheel were too far apart so all we got was "I love you." Also funny was the last person's penny didn't fall so we ended up getting 2, yay. The only other thing of note we did was go to a hot sauce store, where I sampled at least 8 different sauces. The sampling method was kind of funny, just take a spoon, put a dab on it, and lick it. My favorite was the Scandinavian Gold, and while I couldn't buy it to take on the plane, there is a store in my state that also sells it so I'm definitely picking it up next time I go that way.
OK lunch time. We went to the Farmhand KCHN again, this time for lunch and with my parents. We weren't super hungry so we split a phily cheese steak sandwich without the cheese. Once again, it was really good. I don't remember what my parents got, but it wasn't what they would have wanted since they ran out of chicken (which is like 70% of their menu) and pork, but whatever it was they enjoyed it. After lunch we got dressed for church and went over to Our Lady of La Leche. There was still about an hour before mass, but there was also a museum and gift shop so we explored that beforehand. As we were walking in I smelled the smell from last night, and figured there must be something with the lake around the area. The museum was pretty cool, talking about how this dates back to the 1500s or something. The worship space was OK, kind of your basic small Catholic church. I half expected a grand cathedral or something else more since this was like "a big landmark," but I guess everything else in the area was more of the "landmark." After mass we went to "the landmarks," namely the giant cross. Mskate wanted to get her picture with it for a new profile picture, but the wind wasn't cooperating so we just got a picture together. There was also one of the many old cemeteries on the property (because there are so many cemeteries in Saint Augustine there's a tram tour), stations of the cross, a crucifix in the garden, and a statue of Mary breast feeding. I've never seen that before, but I guess it was something Mary had to do, and given that "leche" is "milk" in Spanish it only makes sense to have a statue recognizing the life giving milk a mother makes for her child, especially the holy mother to our lord and savior. I think we mostly relaxed after that and just hung out at the hotel until it was time to get ready for the wedding (or maybe it was time to get ready and prepping took up until wedding time).
OK it is now time for the main event. Everyone is all dressed up, I'm wearing my grandpa tie and the socks my grandma gave me years ago, the bus to the venue is here, let's go. The control screen was broken so the music volume was set mid-high, but that was OK since the driver had a party mix going and the music was fun. As we were almost to the venue mskate realized we forgot the gift, so we were trying to figure out to get back to the hotel and then get back to the venue some time before the end of the night. I'll spare you the suspense, we weren't able to get back and get it that night and delivered it to their hotel the following day, so whatever. They ended up getting married at the Lighthouse Museum in what used to be the swimming pool. They had a picture of what it was like with the pool filled, and I did a comparison video showing it off.
When we got there the first thing we saw was the "celebrating in heaven" table, where we saw grandma with the other family members who've passed on. Very nice. The first relative we saw was uncle B, and I told him how I was wearing things given to me by his parents (my grandparents) who weren't able to be there and he really liked hearing that. We met up with Aunt and Uncle C, and at some point I said hello to my soon to be cousin and shook his hand wishing him luck (once again asserting the "I'm the far away family, it's my time to have a turn" thing). I took some video of the area and then we found our seats. The ceremony was pretty short (some nuptials and vows), and then it was time for pictures. Aunt and Uncle C didn't think they would be requested for the family photos and so they left the photo area, and then when they were called we were like "where are they, take our photos and then go find them." Bro and I ran up the stairs to where the cocktail hour was being had and found them, bringing them back down to get their photo taken. That was the only hiccup, all went well. After that we had drinks and visited, I took some video of everyone for the home movie and got both Aunt and Uncle C and Aunt and Uncle B to make messages to my grandpa and aunt who couldn't be there. Aunt B thought we were going to call them but when I explained it was just a video message to watch later she was able to think of something. I also got my opportunity to shake my new cousin's hand again, and said "did it before and did it after." This was also the time when I told everyone about how I was wearing gifts from both grandparents to have a little piece of them there and they all thought it was great. I also got a little interview with the grandpa that was able to make it, and he had just the best old man response to my short questions.
After dinner (or kind of during it) the bride and groom cut the cake. There wasn't a lot of attention given to it, the professional photographers and videographers and myself were on it, but there wasn't an announcement of "OK everyone, please direct your attention to the desert table as the bride and groom will now cut the cake." I think they kind of wanted it that way though. After that it was time for the best man and matron of honor speeches, followed by the father-daughter dance and mother-son dance, and it was visibly emotional for my cousin, with her wiping many tears halfway through the dance. After those special dances it was time for the dance floor to open. There wasn't a lot of dancing since it was like already 9PM and the reception ended at 10:30PM, meaning I don't think we got a complete song, but that was OK it was still a lot of fun. Uncle B really got into it on some songs and that was some great video for the family back home, and on one song Dad was getting into it but lost track of where he was going and where his feet were and fell over. Thankfully he didn't hurt himself too badly (just a small cut on his nose where his glasses pads are), but it still was unnerving. I was taking video at the time and I actually got him falling over, and right when he hit the ground my gears switched from "fun time camera man" to "first responder eagle scout," and I stopped the camera and got down to his level making sure people kept their distance. Again, all was good and he joined the dance floor later in the evening.
Last time when I did a wedding party video for my cousin I tried taking video on the dance floor as I danced, and I did the same thing this time. The artistic intent was to give the audience the feeling of actually being there dancing by having the camera gently bob and swing with the music. The professionals do their thing with the steady cam, and while that's good and proper for "showcasing the scene," it doesn't feel immersive because when you're on the dance floor your view isn't steady like that, you're head is moving along to the music. My video production teacher would probably have some things to say about it, but the amount of camera movement I give is not jarring and really makes you feel like you are there with everyone. I ended up getting some good video of this, with the best man REALLY getting into Don't Stop Believing by Journey, the bride and bridesmaids squealing with excitement when dancing queen came on, and multiple other fun things. To any amateur filmmakers out there, if you're going to film a dance or party scene I highly recommend the bobbing but not jarring POV; it might be a little disorienting but it will make the audience feel like they are in the party especially if the subject is a little tired and disoriented.
At the end of the night the bride and groom had a private dance together as we all went outside to do a sparkler exit. Like with tanman's wedding, we were all getting kind of antsy waiting for them. A lot of people were struggling to light their sparklers off their neighbor's and I was able to really help since I played with sparklers a lot as a kid and experimented with lighting a sparkler off of another sparkler. Once it was time they came out under the sparklers and went to the drive away car, a convertible corvette. After that mskate, my parents, and I went back to the hotel.
Day 3 Monday, travel home day. We once again went to the Farmhand Kchn for breakfast. I tried the steak and egg bagel and mskate once again had the beyond breakfast sandwich. Mine wasn't that great (ok but not as good as the other breakfast), and mskate's sandwich wasn't as good as it was the day before. I picked up some more ketchup and hot sauce for the fries from the Auggie's left overs and that helped them go down later. After breakfast mskate and I took our present down to the hotel where our cousin was staying. We left the gift for them at the front desk, and lucky for us they were staying 2 more days so we knew they would get it. After that we just kind of hung around, too tired to really explore any more. We packed up, checked out, and ordered our uber. Nothing big on the ride back, just a long drive.
Once we got to the airport it wasn't super crazy. TSA was different, the bins were pre-conveyored and everything had to go in a bin. It took longer than normal to go through since my bins got stuck behind someone who had a problem with their bag. That was kind of annoying, but whatever. I thought the conveyor was kind of cool because it took the bin to a sensor and when the bin was empty it went to a return conveyor. Once in the terminal I did a little bit of exploring and got sabarro's pizza for lunch. I looked around for a candy store and spongebob egg, but unfortunately none. I played pokemon go in the terminal and did a bunch of gyms. The flight was OK. I was going to finish the Last Samurai but they didn't have it. Oh well, they had Clerks 3, a movie I somehow missed the fathom event for. I watched about half of it before we got to our layover, but figured I'd finish it on the next flight.
OK, now we're in the Georgia terminal. I had only an hour but that was enough for exploring. I ended up having Wendy's for dinner, and looked for something for mskate but unfortunately nothing worked for her. I also looked for chocolate eggs but once again no luck. Oh well. I played some more pokemon gyms and got ready for the plane. I was ready to finish watching Clerks 3, but like with the last flight it wasn't available and so I wasn't able to finish it. Damn. I ended up watching about half of Fantastic Beasts the Secrets of Dumbledore, because I sat that one out after Crimes of Grindlewald let me down bad. This one seemed a little better, there was more action, but from what I saw it didn't exactly wow me. Once we got home we just drove home and went to bed basically.
Day 4, Tuesday a day of recovery. This is the day that I just spent resting and recovering. Did I REALLY need this? Probably not, but I took it as my opportunity to get caught up on my shows and edit the wedding video I took for all my family. I spent probably 10 hours putting it all together, and it ended up being a really good video. It took a while to render and then upload (something I had to do on Wednesday), but it still went great and no problems.
This was a great trip. I'm quite happy for my cousin and happy I was able to see all my family in the oldest city in the United States. I also got a lot of great feedback from all my family after they watched the video. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
Hey everyone, well I turned 30 over the weekend, and my family went pretty far out. Before I get to the fun I want to cover my third life crisis. I grew up in the 90s/00s, and extreme sports were a very big deal and had some interest in skate boarding, but never actually set foot on a skate board. In May I bought a skateboard at a garage sale and bought safety equipment online, and have been practicing it on the paved riding trails by my house. I've been getting decent at it and I'd say I'm at Squid/Sam level (that's a Rocket Power reference).
OK, time for birthday. Since mskate and I were going to see grandpa on my actual birthday on Sunday, all the festivities were going to happen on Saturday. We started by going to a semi-big local restaurant. They are most known for their burgers, but the Cubano sandwich looked really good (pulled pork and ham on Rye). I didn't want the sauces or cheese, so I tried ordering it modified, but unfortunately it was the single sandwich I couldn't modify. I ended up getting a burger with banana peppers and picked jalapenos. It was good, but nothing super special. While we were waiting for our food I opened my presents. My parents gave me some socks, a $50 star bill, nice pennies and quarters for smashed pennies, and Nickelodeon wrapping paper. My grandma gave me a card with money. IRA gave me a grilled cheese maker that puts pokemon shapes on the bread. It'll be fun to try at some point.
After lunch we went to Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. When it says "museum," it really is. In addition to basic coin op arcade games, there are penny arcade show machines and foreign import games, and loads of interesting things hanging up on the wall and on the ceiling. One thing I don't remember is how macabre so many of the historical machines were. There were like 3 or 4 machines that were just "figures getting executed," and others were it was like "crazy body harm illusion" machines. It wasn't all that though, there were also ones where it's puppets and little shows, which were fun. My favorite were these nickelodeon machines, one that was the Hindenburg Disaster and another about a husband cheating with his French baker. One of my favorite machines was a drum game, very similar to Donkey Konga. There was also this Disney Tetris that wasn't quite like normal Tetris (there were pieces with 5 and 6 squares, while standard Tetris rules are only 4 squares per piece). I'm decent at Tetris, but the 5 pieces really threw me off, and I kept losing. Oh well, just for fun. The only other machine of note was when my brother and I played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (not Turtles in Time, original arcade game). This is important because when we were little and went to Wheels Inn we played TMNT Turtles in Time all the time because my brother was a major Turtles fan.
After the games we had birthday cookie. It was just sharing the big cookie and sang happy birthday. Around this time mom won a free t-shirt at a coin drop game. IRA wanted to win one but it just wasn't working for him (and winning is very difficult which is why they give away a $15 t-shirt for winning). For the tickets we won I got a key chain for the museum, which was cool. After that we went home. All in all great celebration.
Now it's Sunday, my actual birthday. Since Grandpa had a bad fall mskate and I just stayed around home. Church was pretty neat, because we were asked to take the gifts up at communion. No one had planned that, it just happened that way. God gave me a little birthday fun so that's great. After mass we went out to brunch at a local restaurant. I got a Ruben sandwich and it was quite tasty (mainly because of the sour kraut). When we got home I opened my cards and gifts from mskate. I got a crumble cookie, lemon drop cocktail mixer, a lemon candle, chocolate koala snacks, a lemon ornament, and lemon pickles (notice a theme?). It was very thoughtful and appreciated.
In the afternoon we decided to go minigolfing since we weren't seeing Grandpa and we enjoy minigolf. On our way to the minigolf place we drove by a zap zone entertainment center, and since it looked like rain we decided to go there instead (they had minigolf and it was indoors). We were going to play the minigolf, but it was going to be $9 for 9 holes per person, which was a rip off, so instead we just played arcade games. This one was more modern (the tokens and tickets were all handled on a game card, and all the games were from this century), but it was still a lot of fun. What we enjoyed doing was stretching our credits as far as possible, and we found one game that was really easy to farm tickets on. It was a "press the dog bone plunger to try to toss balls in the dogs mouth," it only cost 40 cents (2 credits), and paid out like 40-60 tickets a game if you were good enough (and we were). There was also this "knock the clown over carnival game" thing that had unlimited throws in a set time, which was great for us because we were able to double team it and always won 40 tickets. We also played Deal or No Deal, and we almost won 200 tickets (that was our case), but the case came down to 15 tickets or 200 tickets, so I took the payout of 105 tickets. Oh well, better than other times. I also utilized my coin pusher skills to win a Grandpa George card on the Willy Wonka coin pusher. I'm just holding onto the card to maybe get a full set and get the big ticket wins, and then if nothing else I have a decoration for my coin pusher. After about an hour and a half I got fried pickles for a snack, and then we spent another half hour to an hour using the rest of our card. Ultimately with all the tickets I ended up getting a Nintendo Surprise Controller Key Chain, and I ended up getting a rare golden gameboy keychain, which was cool.
Overall it was a really great birthday weekend. The only thing I missed out on was tinkering with my Intelivision and recording some lines for Bio, but oh well. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
