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!!!

The Road Less Traveled

Now the bonds are broken, but they can be re-tied

One more journey to the woods, the holes where spirits hide

~Bob Dylan

I've been trying to lead a less sedentary life. The transition to a desk job at my advanced age has caused me to pack on a few extra pounds. I've managed to get out and go on a walk several days the last couple of weeks. The constant rains ha been making it hard to do so.

At the beginning of the week, I went out to go on a walk. The first portion nearly always starts out the same, with a climb to the top of my street. It gets your heart rate up to start with. There's a little wall up there, and I'll usually take a little rest and catch my breath when I get there. That's how I started off. Just as I'm getting ready to head on, here comes another guy, heading the same way I'd been planning on going. I head on just a little behind, and when he gets to the end, he makes a left, the same way I'd been planning on going again!!! I don't like feeling like I'm trailing after someone, so I decided to go the other direction.

Going that way, you can do a loop on the streets behind our house, but at the end, there's a little short-cut trail to the next street down, and you can head down and across to the next major street over from there, after taking a little stairway down. I've gone that way before, but it feels like it's been a while. It climbs from there, sometimes gradually, sometimes steeply, until it dead ends into a park in a canyon, that I often get to going the other way, but on the downhill end. It has a dirt path through it, with a very steep climb at the end.

The foliage has really liked all the rain!!! The park is fairly overgrown, as are several areas around here. The path had been badly eroded, with a deep groove nearly a foot deep in several areas.

Just before the part where it starts climbing steeply, I came upon this wood nymph!!! Or whatever she was. She had a girl there taking the pictures, and a guy manning the light.

She was up on probably a six foot step ladder, and it was getting to be the part of the evening when it starts getting cool out. All that overgrowth no doubt makes for a great backdrop!!!

Birthday Delay

It's been more than a month since the younger's birthday. He was planning on inviting a bunch of friends over, and hanging out, mostly on the back patio. However, it has been one of the wettest winters in recent memory.

Coming up to the date he'd scheduled, it was going to be non stop buckets of rain that weekend. He let everyone know it was scrubbed, to be rescheduled on a future date. Furthermore, my wife had another surgery coming up, just a few days after the actual date.

Prior to the surgery, the hospital, in keeping up with the covid theater, required my wife to get tested, then isolate, along with the rest of the family until she went in. Not wanting the milestone to go unacknowledged, my wife got a cake mix and made up a cake. It's been a while, but I dusted off my decorating skills. He wanted his alter ego, Catnip, on the cake.

I added the medallion around his neck, because it was yellow cake, get it??? I put his new age in his favorite color, and had a lot of orange left, so I added radiation waves. I know, they are traditionally green, but who's to say they're not orange???

We gave him his gifts. I think it was last year we got him the game, 'Binding of Isaac: Four Souls”, and he's already gotten a couple of expansion packs, and we got him another one. Got him the funny cat shirt, also in his favorite color.

He also wanted this nine tailed fox necktie, and my wife found this other cool shirt.

Since there's been a fairly lengthy recovery going on, the reschedule hasn't occurred yet. More birthday to come!!!