Kalos Calling

Last month, just a little before the younger's birthday, Pokemon GO was doing a live event near us, at the Rose Bowl. The GO Tour Kalos. Right around this time last year they'd had one, and I had been thinking of going, but by the time I looked into getting tickets, it was sold out. Since it was near the boy's birthday, I figured this would make another good present for him (and me)!!!

They had three areas, the City Center, the Coastal Research Laboratory, and Mountain Manor. This was the City Center, it had a fountain with water flowing out of the middle of a Pokeball.

There was some theming like that, and cut outs of team leaders set up around the area, but mostly the attractions were in game.

It had been raining that week, so some of the areas were a bit muddy, but it was mostly clear on that day. A really nice day to be out!!! Started out chilly (there was snow up on Mount Wilson) but warmed up as the day went on.

Most of the play area was on the surrounding golf course.

A couple of screen shots of the play area, the first showing the actual stadium...

And another on the golf course, on the other side of the river. You can see, there are a lot of gyms and stops, several of them for the event.

Did I mention the river??? It's the northern portion of the Arroyo Seco!!! Just a little north of there is the Devil's Gate reservoir, one of these days I'd like to check it out. You might be able to hike to it from where we were, but there were other activities afoot!!! I had an Ampharos as my buddy at the time, because it mega evolves, and having it as your buddy gives you more mega energy. It was a poffin day!!!

There's the cabin they had for the Mountain Manor area. When we were first there, there was a big line to go in. We had no clue what was going to be in there, so we weren't eager to get in a big line.

Later on the line was considerably shorter, and we checked it out. It was cool, but nothing that great.

The Coastal Research area had white boards and a computer terminal set up, as well as the three team color cylinders shown in an earlier picture.

Eggs in incubators, and shown on the white board here is something they were rolling out, link charges. They're used in mega raids, but I don't quite understand how they work...

And there's my Ampharos next to what appears to be a mossy lure module, it appears to be much larger than I'd pictured in person!!!

They had several things they rolled out that day, one of them was the super mega raids. You've got to have something mega evolved to get through the shields to defeat them, and the 'mon you catch after has a fourth level of mega evolution that you can achieve. We only did one super mega raid for a Gardevoir, which I didn't have the required amount of mega energy for it yet. I took this screen shot of the waiting queue for it, with 796 participants!!! It wasn't hard to do with that many, but they rolled out the Dragonite mega evolution afterwards, and we were unable to defeat the super mega raid with our normal wrecking crew of 4.

Another of the debuts on this day was the shiny Honedge. We did several raids (the pass we bought came with several passes, I'm not sure exactly how many, but we ran through them all!!!) and both got our shinies. Also pictured, one of the other things they've added recently is backgrounds (that only show in your own game, so...) and for the event, you could get some with the Los Angeles skyline as a background!!! Looks great!!!

Another one that we did a few raids of was the Yveltal, and the first one I got a shiny!!!

Caught in the wild was a shiny Pancham, and since it's kind of that color, I've renamed it Tancham!!!

Two mega evolutions were also debuted, one of them was the Malamar. I had a shiny Inkay already, but during one of the raids I caught a shiny Malamar.

The other mega evolution released was for Victreebel, another one that I already had a shiny of. I think I got another.

Another wild catch, a shiny Skiddo!!! Don't see many of the non shiny ones even, so this is pretty cool!!!

Another thing they were doing for the event, there were various stops with different trims of Furfrou that you usually can't get in our area. While you're near them, you can get the trims. I had two shiny Furfrous, and while we were there I caught two more!!! I was able to trim all the shinies with trims not normally available. One of the tasks that came with the ticket was to visit all the various trim stops, in a specific order. Hadn't picked up on that at first, so we ended up doing a little more walking than we would have!!! I applied the Kabuki trim to the first shiny Furfrou I'd caught!!!

Looking Back: Ultra Beasts

Back in November, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, there was another Pokemon GO local event. We had gone to Stufful Community Day, and it was a great event, with tons of players, and had gone out to another, Litwick Community Day, that was also supposed to have brand ambassadors in attendance. There were no brand ambassadors, and it wasn't nearly as well attended, but it was good.

This was the Ultra Beasts Arrival event, and it was held in Hollywood, in the evening. The amount of people admitted was supposedly limited, I think to 1,500, so we showed up early to try and get in. We find the place and get in line. As we are waiting, a guy comes along with the Ultra Beasts newspapers! Pictured along with the newspaper was my current buddy, a shiny shadow Pineco, which I have named Shineco.

At 7 PM the line starts moving, and soon enough, we've been given cards with the promo code, a wristband, and a WiFi log in. After entering the code (and restarting GO) all these densely packed gyms appear!!!

They had a couple of actual physical representation of a stop there, with a line if you wanted to take a picture with it, and not much else. Around 15 minutes before 8, they began projecting the countdown on the arch, synchronized with raid countdowns on all the gyms.

Once it reaches zero, they project an ultra beast up on the arch, and the gyms all have that ultra beast. Of course, the place is fairly packed with trainers, so the raids fill up quick, and go pretty quick once they start.

The raids are shorter than usual, and every 10 minutes there's a new ultra beast!!!

We caught 'em all!!!

Go Update

I know everyone has been wondering. Here's an update on my Pokemon Go play!!!

Since it's summertime, I've changed my outfit. Got myself a Team Aqua 'do rag, and changed into a t-shirt.

Just this week, they've added Team Rocket Go balloons, as well as Jessie and James in their Meowth balloon. When you battle Jessie and James, you end up having to do two battles. Interesting.

From a while back, I had the challenge to defeat Giovanni. Kept running into regular grunts disguised as him, that's what this was.

Finally had the showdown with him, and just today ran into him again!!!

Caught a wild shiny eevee. My boy was jealous. Just the other day, finished a task that got me another shiny eevee, and he messed up on the same task. It had two components to it, take a picture of a dratini, and evolve a dratini. He evolved it, and then didn't have it to take a picture of!!!

Evolved it into an Umbreon. Looks real nice!!!

Speaking of shinies, here's a couple more I've caught. Caught two swinubs, so I've named them as a set!!!

Caught a shiny roselia!!!

And a purple wurmple!!! Mostly it's included for the alliteration. I evolved it, and it came out as the less impressive looking dustox. I'd have kept it as a wurmple, had I known.

And finally, some funny pictures I've taken. Rhyperior, looking as huge as you'd expect!!!

Ride that eevee, boy!!!

And, right in the middle of a dugtrio!!!

Lil Irv

So, once again with the Pokemons!!! One of the daily things to do with your buddy Pokemon to keep your level up is take a picture with it, so I've got several pictures on my camera roll!!!

First up is from back when I had a Bulbasaur as my buddy. Back when we'd vacationed in Encinitas and had gone to Legoland, I'd won a stuffed Bulbasaur, so I posed them together. Back when the firstborn was a youngster, he had a Pokemon VHS tape that, of course, he would play fairly constantly. It had a scene of them stumbling upon an evolution ceremony of bulbasaurs, so that is permanently etched in my brain.

Then I've switched to Lil Irv, my buddy Flareon. Here he is, outside, after I've given him some berries.

And again, at my work.

Then, when I tried to see if I could get a shot of him from behind.

And there he is, just this week, you'll notice he has a best buddy badge now!!!

While we were out shopping, and he had found some goodies. My wife in the background, reminiscent of when she didn't approve of my Baja Blast!!!

One of my favorite pictures of 'em!!!

Then, I tried to get a shot of him with the cat, and was photobombed by a Smeargle!!!

This week I also came upon my first Flareons in the wild. Caught one, and it turned out to have a higher level than Lil Irv!!! There was, of course, some debate as to what would become of them, and I finally decided to re-name it!!! Meet Big Irv!!! This is now my top six, the Virizion (from the raid we had done at Universal Studios) had for quite a while held the top spot.

I'm generally not in the habit of re-naming my catches, but here's the only other one I've re-named!!! See why??? Do not vote for the socialist!!!

And, just today, caught myself a Snorlax!!! Went up to my younger boy and asked him, "You Jealous???" He asks why, and I show him and say, "You Jealous."