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!!!

Tower Trek

I've made mention of the Catalina Chimes Tower a few times here, from it's origin story to it's prevalence over the town of Avalon. But for all the years of seeing and hearing it, I've never seen it up close.

I started checking into going up there and checking it out up close. Several people had posted about taking rented golf carts up there, and several about hiking up to it. There are a few ways up, from taking the road around the back, to taking the stairs that parallel some of the houses along the front of town.

The stairs is the way my son and I opted to go. They look like they go straight up to it, but they only go about halfway, then the foot path takes a left, then there's more stairs. After that, you are out on the streets.

None of the streets from that point are especially steep, so it's a fairly easy walk.

And there it is!!! Actually not much to it, once you get there. It has a nicely tiled roof, nice classic lines, and matching terraces around the front side.

It's closed off for renovations and preservation, but I honestly didn't see much that should really be accessable anyway!!!

You can see the chimes from the front gate. It's pretty impressive looking. We were there as it struck 6:00 PM, and it wasn't nearly as loud as you might think it would be up close.

As I told in the Chime Tower Story post, it's right across from the Zane Grey compound. Finally got a chance to see that up close, too!!! It's been converted into a hotel, and I actually looked into getting our room there, but... it's way up a hill!!!

The forward portion looks fairly original, and the back portion looks like all new construction.

The best part, though, is the views!!! Naturally, it's over it all, and what a panorama!!!

There's looking towards Descanso Beach...

And overlooking the harbor...

The sunlight fading over the hills beyond the town...

And, finally, an overhead shot of the Casino!!!

Range Day

A month ago, a friend of mine asked if my son and I would like to go to the gun range with a bunch of the guys. It's been years since I've gone shooting, and my younger has never fired a gun, so I said yes.

It was on a Monday, and I've got more than a month of time off per year now, and with the stupid restrictions it's not really a great time to be using them. Thus, I have a good amount of days I'm able to take off, and in my current position it's easier to get days. Just recently they've changed procedures to where you can carry over up to a week of vacation days. I had carried over most of a week last year, and was planning on doing so again this year, so one day less doesn't bother me at all!!!

The range is up in they canyons. It had also been years since I've driven up this one, and I don't think the boy ever had been that way. On the way up, there's a dam and reservoir. Looks like it's running a little low!!!

The range is a really nice place!!! It's actually the most structured firing range I've ever been to, and the range masters take things serious, as they should.

One of the guys had a couple of AR-15's, as did another guy.

Another guy had a .308 and a Mossberg 12 gauge. At the range, shot shells aren't allowed, so it was packing slugs.

This was at the first area we went to at the range, all long guns. One of the guys had a .22 rifle, and the ladies who came with us liked that one the best!!!

They rent the target stands there. We didn't get the deposit on this one back!!!

After a while there, we headed over to another area for pistols. I don't remember what all pistols were there, but I know one was a 9mm.

And, another stand we aren't getting the deposit back on!!! I think I'll make some of my own next time.

Since it wasn't too far after Halloween, there was a pumpkin down range. It was pretty Swiss cheesed!!!

It was fairly fresh, still had firmness to the meat of it, but with all those holes, it was pretty jiggly!!!

Being as the targets are set up a ways down, it isn't always easy to tell where you're hitting, but I know that hole was my shot!!!

All in a Day's Work

I've been wanting to get the engine pulled out of 3 for a while, but as always happens,life gets busy. The plan, of course, was to swap it into Scruffy. Well, smog check time is coming up, and the P0410 air injection code has been coming back on and off. Took it over for the check, it had been a good spell without the light coming on. Less than a block away, it comes on. Sigh. I pull off onto a side street and reset it, then for the check, it hadn't gotten enough data to re calibrate it, so it failed. He checked the exhaust afterwards, and it's got a little smoke coming out, and he says it fails for that, too, but I think he wouldn't have gone there if the computer check had passed.

So, this weekend took it down to my parents' house where there's a big, flat driveway and went to work. It drove way better than I'd thought it would, with the steering wheel all tweaked. To make things easy, the hood comes off first, and since it was tweaked, pulled the whole front bumper cover off, as well as the headlights. The bumper core had an amazing crease down the middle, and the side of the frame rail was nicely accordioned, but I didn't get a shot of that.

Of course, it's not a one-man job, at least not for me!!! I enlisted the younger boy, and he comported himself quite admirably, considering he has close to zero experience working on cars. There's a multitude of little stuff to disconnect and remove, and he helped with a good amount of it, as well as the actual removal. Pretty much got all but one thing disconnected, the connection from the steering rack to the column. Started lowering it down, and that side wasn't dropping.

Speaking of dropping, that was the method I elected to go with, disconnect everything, unbolt the subframe (only 4 bolts!!!) then lower it out the bottom. I'd heard of people doing it with lifts, and figured I'd have to drop it, then the weight would shift more to the back, and I'd probably have to raise the body some more. Got it dropped, and it's within a couple inches of clearing. Got on the back bumper and bounced on it, and it looked like there was close to enough room to slide it out. My son couldn't get it moving, so we switched, and got it rolled out!!!

There it is!!! Gotta do the same to Scruffy, and I'm planning on unbolting the engine from the transmission, and swapping it to the recently rebuilt transmission in Scruffy.

All in a day, I couldn't be more pleased with the progress!!!

Geo Tag You're It

Just recently my younger son has discovered geocaching. I had heard of it years ago, and thought it sounded interesting, but never went any farther than that.

He found one fairly close to our house, and a few down in the flatlands. There were a couple over on the other side of the mountain, so last weekend we trekked over to see if we could find it.

There's a wildlands park over there, and that's where we went. Things I always saw in cartoons growing up, but had never seen in real life, hollow logs, a hollowed out tree, and a bee hive in a tree!!!

It's a pretty wild place, for being in the midst of the city. We'd never been in this area before.

Of course, we hit a couple pokestops and Pokemon gyms on the way, one of them having a raid.

Came across a rope swing along the way.

There was a lot to see out there!!!

This weekend we headed out to hit a couple of raids in Pokemon Go, as well as spinning some pokestops. We each had two Team Rocket battles, too. After the second raid, he saw that there was a Snorlax a ways over from where we were at, and he was off!!! I caught up a little after, and fed it a golden raspberry and used an ultra ball on it. It was considerably higher level than the one I have (which I'd caught in a battle encounter), and after it broke out of the second ball, it ran away!!!

But my son finally got one of his own!!!

Yule Do Over

Remember two years back when the company had the Christmas Party at Universal Studios??? Apparently, it was so well received that it was deemed worthy of doing it again!!! Two years back, I took the day off so we could spend some time at the park before the party started. This year, when they were distributing the tickets, they tell me, "Oh, you do the Saturday shift, right??? This year, for your crew, we're giving out the wristbands, and instead of passes for that day, here's a pair that are good until the end of the year!!!" Cool!!!

So, after I got off work that day, came home and got changed, then my wife and I headed over there. It was a good time again, tasty English style foods, and all the butterbeer you can drink!!! Two years back, when we were on the way out, I grabbed a bottle of the pumpkin juice drink they had there, and brought it home for the younger. He liked it, and asked us to try and get some more. Got two!!!

So, most of the year since the announcement, the younger has been bemoaning that he's never even been to Harry Potter land. Since I had separate wristbands and passes, a plan forms...

I took the Thursday before Christmas off, and the boy and I went!!! It was a good time, and while we were there, we both played Pokemon Go a good amount!!! At the time I had a Bulbasaur as my buddy, and there he is!!! He caught a shiny Charmander, so that was cool. We, and several others, did a 5-star raid, and got a Virizion, my highest one.

The first thing we did was hit the Harry Potter ride. We used the single rider line, and the wait wasn't too bad at all. Got some butterbeer afterwards, and found out that all the butterbeer I'd gotten for free was pretty expensive if you were to pay for it!!!

Went to the Simpson's area, and got a shot of Homer and Marge from behind from inside the shop we were in. Surprise, they were out of "Bort" license plates!!!

We headed down to the lower lot, the only area with anything approximating a proper roller coaster, the mummy coaster. Just as we got to the entrance, out of it comes the mummy himself, flanked by two very tall acolytes or priests-priestesses!!! The female one stopped by my boy and was petting his head!!! Then we posed for a picture with them all.

Also down in that area are the Jurassic Park ride, and the Transformers ride. They have recently redone the Jurassic Park ride, but it's one of those where you will likely get wet, and being on the chilly side, we had no interest in doing that!!!

We had never been on the Transformers ride, though, so we went over to check that out. Single rider line again, with a very short wait time. and it's a pretty good ride. However, close to the end of the ride, it broke down. It wasn't that long of a break down, but I did get a chance to take a couple of pictures!!!

On the way out, they gave us a couple of passes to go on the ride again in compensation. We went over and went through the Jurassic Park gift shop, then doubled back and went on the Transformers ride again, before heading back up.

The plan was to go on the tram tour, but we had just missed the last one for the day, so we went on the Simpsons ride, which had the longest wait of any of the rides we went on!!!

We'd gone to the Waterworld stunt show earlier on in the day, always entertaining.

I like the way the arch lines up with my head in this shot!!!

Headed back to Harry Potter land, where they were now restricting people going into the area. Not long after they had their Holiday display light show, projected on Hogwart's.

We had noticed the flare of fire coming out of the chimney before, and finally figured out that there's a spot where you can use your fancy new wand to cause it to do so. Went on the Harry Potter ride one more time, and the boy bought himself a good looking Hufflepuff watch.

Back in the Simpson's area, there's Luigi's Pizzeria, and the boy was interested in getting a slice. They have good sized slices, but they were almost $10 for a slice!!! I averred that for less than that, we could get a whole pizza. He made mention of that garlic knots pizza, so we ordered that on the way home to cap off the day. Here I am in the shirt I'd worn all day, one of my recent acquisitions, that depicts an alien eating pizza!!!