Tag Archives: pokemon go

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Who my Emily was named after

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Last week Pokémon Go had a special event where if you did a certain task you got a Pokémon with a heart on its face. I came up with this blog and tracked down the task. However I was unable to throw five great balls in a row to catch the stupid thing. This morning I realized I have friends in a chat group that I am in who were successful and caught them. So I reached out to them for a screen shot. I also asked them to call it Emily, because had I actually caught one I was going to name it Emily Valentine. So here is the picture.

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In case you are wondering what this is about, you know I always have a story. Way back in 1990 the TV show 90210 started and I pretty much watched it every week. Brian would sometimes watch it with me. After I became pregnant I decided if I had a girl I would name her Emily after Brandon’s girlfriend. So this is how Emily got her name and the only information I gave her about the show.
Fast forward twenty-three years or so and Emily is now in physical therapy school. Somehow it came up about her namesake. One of her classmates who was on his second career turns around and says Emily Valentine who burned down the school float. Yeah I might have never told my Emily that her namesake went nuts, doused the float with gas, was sitting on top of it with a lighter and Brendan’s sister had to talk her down and off the float.
I’m my defense I thought that happened long after I came up with the name but I was barely pregnant when that happened. However, Emily was by far my most favorite character on the show so that makes it all ok. My Emily doesn’t take crap off of anyone and who knows if given the chance she just might burn down a school float.
Mole Moral~Always disclose the full story about how your child was named because otherwise at some point someone else will do it for you.
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Running Down Memory Lane

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As most people are aware Pokemon Go is still my current obsession and it’s turned out to be one of my better ones if I am really honest. For starters, it really makes walking and running way less boring. Thanks to one of the guys that use to work at U-Gas I found a Facebook group for it that is fantastic. Tony who runs the Raid Bus decided to start a facebook group chat for people to talk smack. I joined it because I am almost childless and it gives me something to do. So this weekend I was home alone and started talking-to the girl who sat by me on the bus twice. Her first time, I think Tony twisted her arm to come and she was afraid it would be weirdos. And so so happened to sit next to me, the biggest weirdo of all. SUCKER. Ha. No actually if I don’t know someone I really am shy and don’t talk a whole bunch. I must have been OK because she sat by me the next bus too. I really liked her and thought maybe she was twenty-four at the oldest.

Anyway we are talking and she asks me if I by chance live in Arnold/Imperial area. I knew exactly where this was headed. Yes, she sees me almost every day running or walking. This debunks my “Im invisible when I run” theory. I wouldn’t be able to run without thinking no one can see me. It’s part of my mental disorder called low self-esteem, not an athlete, and not wanting to be noticed. So she told me where she lived and the next day on the way home from Kimswick (yes playing Pokemon) I decided to see if I had the right street. Oh yes indeed it was the way we always went to Emily’s friends house so I decided to drive out the other way through the subdivision. I then started naming off in my head all the cool people who I went to high school that lived there. Scott Hart, Steve Underhill, Pam Bridges, Mike Hammers and then when BJ Bock got married he and his wife moved into the subdivision. It’s so weird how I can remember this stuff but not be able to keep daily life straight. Anyway, after that I remembered the summer my sister and I raised money for Muscular Dystrophy.

My sister and I went skating almost every Saturday night at Rock Roll-O-Rena. I always wanted my own pair of roller skates like the cool kids but they were a luxury and too expensive. However the skating rink did a fund-raiser for Muscular Dystrophy and if you raised two hundred dollars you got a pair of roller skates. It was game on for my sister and I. It seemed like every night for two months my mom would come home from work and drop us off at different subdivisions and come back a couple of hours later to pick us up. Imagine this is back in the day of no cell phone how did we survive. Anyway I was super shy back in my middle school days so for me to go door to door and ask people if they wanted to donate shows how badly I wanted my own roller skates. As I was driving through the cool kids subdivision I remembered the lady that gave us a couple bucks but also told us that we were probably lying and using the money for candy. My feelings were hurt because I am not that kind of person. When my mom came to pick us up we told her the story. She asked which house it was and drove to it. She got out of the car knocked on the door and made the lady take her money back. It was awesome! I am sure the lady felt like a real piece of work after that! Crazily enough I can still point the house out even though I have maybe driven through that part of the subdivision a handful of times since high school.

We hit our goal and I picked out a pair of white skates with blue wheels. I had them probably until my mom pitched them long after I was married. I can’t remember what my sisters looked like. We also made it into the drawing for a ten speed bike and I ended up winning that as well. I’ve been back to the skating rink a few times in my adult life. I think the last time I actually skated was almost nineteen years ago at Emily’s skating birthday party. As long as it is not in line skates but the old-fashioned four wheels, I am pretty sure I could still skate. The skating rink looks the same. I mean it’s updated but the same people still worked there and owned it and they remembered my sister and I. Heck we probably paid their bills back in the day. My sister was the Pac-Man expert. She was really good at the game and used her extra money for that. I of course hoarded mine or got a drink with it. My girls really never got into skating which is just as well since it was never over until ten. It use to drive my mom crazy because she would get stuck picking up instead of taking and my friends lived all over the school district.

 

Mole Moral ~ It’s amazing how much more your appreciate something when you work hard for it. And yes I really am shy until I know a person and then I don’t shut up!

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Not everyone knows my name

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Sometime within the last month the girls at work were giving me the business about my obsession with Pokémon Go. I was talking about the raid bus and one of the second year Ob/Gyn residents joined in the conversation. Let’s flash forward to yesterday my first day back from camp.

The same resident is at the desk and he was talking about how he was at Queeny Park on Saturday with his kids when a bus pulled up into the parking lot. He thought that was really random given the time of the day until he saw me get off the bus. Then he knew it was the Pokémon bus I was talking about. I was cracking up. He left and I went on to give out some pain medicine.

A few minutes later I hear Amy answer the phone and she says just call her Pokémon girl, everyone will know who you mean. Apparently he didn’t know my name. I was cracking up and this made a great day even better!!

 

Mole moral ~ It’s reassuring to know that I’m not the only one terrible with names and I always enjoy a good nickname.

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Pokemon Go Raid Bus

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For those of you that missed the Pokemon Go game release, I thought I had better start from the beginning. It is a game that came out almost two years ago as an app. It was designed to get people out of the house and out walking in the communities. It started off huge and then died down fairly quickly. However there are always die hard’s that stick with it. I downloaded the game about a week after its release when my daughters boyfriend at the time got pulled over at the Arnold Water tower by the cops and asked what he was doing. He and his friends showed the cop the game and they were let go. I honestly knew nothing about Pokemon. My girls never had much of an interest in it and I never played the game back in the Game Boy days. So when I first started my goal was to only catch one of everything.

About six months later on New Years Day my nephew showed me how to evolve Pokémon but I felt that was cheating if I didn’t catch them so I just continued looking for ones I didn’t have and hatching eggs. There are 2K, 5K and 10K eggs so when you walk that distance one hatches. The eggs remind me of Christmas presents because when one hatches, you never know what you are going to get. I then came down with the massive headache in February of 2017. During this time Emily’s boyfriend at the time was a Pokemon person and knew all about it and he started her playing. Now this made it way more fun because I’m super competitive. When Emily moved home in March for her last clinical we had a lot of fun playing together. Generation 2 was released at the time she started playing so I was now evolving and catching things for candy. I also learned how to walk with a pokemon to get needed candy.

Sometime after Emily moved back, I was at the gas station getting coffee with Pokemon running on the screen. One of the kids (anyone under 30 now qualifies as a kid to me) told me about the Pokemon Go Facebook groups. So I joined and Emily joined. This group was a lot of fun and I learned a lot of stuff about the game that I would have never had a clue about. So a guy named Tony decided to do a fundraiser walk to try to get Porygon. He received non stop grief in the group about not having one and took it like a champ. I got out of my comfort zone and did the walk and had a lot of fun.

This past February Tony decided to do a raid bus in which a group of people jumped on a party bus and drove around looking for raids. Now a raid occurs at a gym that you can only see on your phone. It takes a group of people to take the boss (Pokemon) down. I had never done them because I don’t know what I am doing. Most of these people know which Pokémon is stronger than others and who to fight who with. I am still in the I just want one of everyone. However the only way to get the Legendary’s is through raiding. I finally decided to go on the raid bus in March. The only person I knew was Tony and I told myself sitting next to a stranger would be no more stressful than the bus to Big Stuf. And on Tony’s bus we don’t have to play get to know your bus neighbor game. That game stresses me out every year because I have to talk to so many people I don’t know and try not to just stare at each them. Anyway a kid jumped on board and asked if he could sit with me. I looked at him and said “you have a 12 pack of beer, you better believe you can sit right here.” He offered me one but I said no thanks I would never stop talking. He showed me a trick about how to search for Pokemon by name instead of scrolling through the entire index. I will forever be in debt to him. So imagine thirty-nine adults and one kid driving up and down Manchester stopping at invisible gyms and everyone tapping on their phones.L

I am sure it looks crazy but it is a lot of fun. I caught my first legendary that day.

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Of course the minute seats opened for the April bus I signed up for that as well. Although it’s called a party bus, it’s not like a bachelorette or bachelor party bus. People drink a little but everyone is fun and respectful of each other. Tony was trying to take a picture in front of the bus and getting Mew (a special Pokemon that required a bunch of stuff to do before you could catch him) in the picture. He was spinning around in circles and we were all cracking up. The guy had an android and he handed him the phone and said make this thing go back, I don’t do Androids.  I am not sure if he ever got the Mew in the guys picture for him or not but we sure had fun while he was trying. Here is what it looks like if one looks at a legendary in the real world versus Pokemon virtual world.

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If you look carefully you can spot me. Especially if you know what my favorite color is. This game sounds as ridiculous as trying to explain soap operas if you never watched them. However, I enjoyed soap operas back in the day and I really enjoy this game. It is nice riding around with fellow players who both understand and love the game. The same bus driver has done all three events and she was telling us when she tells other groups about us they are shocked it is not kids but adults. This makes me think of Facebook in which the adults took over. The bus driver had never played the game but now when we would stop for a raid she would remind us to throw out a lucky egg for double XP. She even downloaded the game at the end of the trip. She is a blast.

 

Mole Moral ~ Once again stepping out of my comfort zone has led me to meet a lot of super nice people and have a really great time. And yes I have already signed up for the May raid bus. Don’t knock it till you try it.

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Pokemon Go 10K Walk

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I downloaded Pokemon Go probably a week after it came out but I only was interested in catching one of each Pokemon because I didn’t really know anything about the game. Around the time I got the major headache, Emily’s boyfriend at the time finally talked her into downloading it. I then learned all kinds of stuff, like how to evolve one Pokemon into another. I always had it up and running on my daily walk to U-Gas for coffee and one day one of the young kids told me they had Facebook groups for Pokemon Go . So I found the one for St. Louis and learned even more stuff, like where the nests were, what events were happening and who caught what. The group has a lot of really nice people in it. Emily joined too and we played a lot together until she moved away.

A few months ago, I noticed a kid with the screen name Tony Bologna had never caught a Porygon and he would make jokes about it.

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It then became the standing joke that anytime anyone caught one or hatched one he would get tagged in the post. He would always make the angry face in response. Some people even started naming them the Tonygon. He was a great sport who then asked the question would anyone want to walk with him while he attempted to hatch one. I thought this was a great idea and Porygon can be found in 10K eggs which meant a 6.2 mile walk. So after a bunch of talking in the group it was decided to do a walk to benefit Stray Rescue. I got the best dog ever from them so I was all in.

The walk was this afternoon and I skipped the Halloween 10K this morning because I was up half the night with stomach issues. I attempted to talk myself out of going to this as well but I had bought t-shirts which I needed to pick up. I didn’t know anyone that was going so I put myself way out of my comfort zone and showed up. Tony is a nice kid who never STOPPED talking. I felt like I was back out hunting with Emily who also never stops talking. He made me realize how much I miss her but since he kept on talking I got over that rather quickly. He started off by leading us down the wrong path so we all had to turn around. I love this guy as I would have done the exact same thing.

It was like eight loops around the lake or maybe it was seven. We started out with twenty-five people and ended up with five or six that did all of the laps together. Some of the others left early and some walked a little slower. It didn’t help that it started misting and continued on for a couple of miles. It didn’t bother me at all after the half marathon Emily and I ran with the first nine miles being pretty much a downpour requiring our phones to be in plastic bags. I was thinking I cannot believe we are doing this many loops until I reminded my crazy self my 50K consisted of a .8 mile loop and I ran 26 miles on a cruise ship and 336 laps (28 miles) at the rec center this summer. The kids walking with me had no idea what a total nut job they were with. They were probably thinking this old hag is in pretty good shape.

To hatch eggs in the game you have to put them in incubators. Tony had been saving his 10k eggs so that he had nine of them and could walk and hatch them all at once. The game gives you one unlimited incubator but if you want more you have to buy them with coins. You either get coins by buying them with real money or earning coins by leaving your Pokemon in gyms. (Ok I admit this sounds almost as crazy as trying to explain soap operas.) So we came to the end of the 10K and his eggs started hatching but prior to this he shared a really cool story with us and this is why he has made my blog.

This past week he was at Des Pair park and he came across a Porygon in the wild but he did not attempt to catch it. He walked on right past it as it would have ruined the walk since the whole point was help Tony hatch one. Here this kid has been trying to get one for a year and a half and he has the opportunity right in front of him and he bypasses it to make the walk legitimate. As soon as he told the story I texted Emily and said he’s making the blog. It’s a real good thing he’s already married because after spending two hours with him, I think he’d make a fantastic son-in-law. His wife’s parents are very lucky.

So his eggs started hatching and I was nervous for him. The first thing hatched was Dratini and then something else. However number three was a Porygon and so was number four, so he could evolve one into Porygon2. His wife’s reaction yay he can finally shut up about not having one. He then said no reason to play the game anymore except he doesn’t have an unknown or a shiny and neither do I. So I am pretty sure we will both keep on playing. He would like to have another event next year but is cutting it down to a 5K. I thought about suggesting a fifty mile and who ever finishes it gets all the prizes. Hahahaha, just kidding, I am not doing that again.

 

Mole Moral~ People can be whoever they want on the internet, some people are even cooler in real life than Facebook. Tony Bologna is one of them and even though I don’t believe that is his last name it was awesome meeting him today!