Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Bad Company coming

Bad Company is coming in on Sunday night along with Lou Gramm and The Voice of Foreigner.  Great concert for a holiday weekend.  Get your tickets at Ticket master only!  Best price you will find.

Weather is looking prefect for this one, nice cool evenings.  Great for Popcorn!  If you are here Sunday night, stop by the popcorn booth and say hello.  

Pokemon Part Two

The Great Adventure begins!  First step is to download PokemonGo to my phone. It's a free app and quickly moved me through the customization of my game personality, sex, hair color, eye color and a few selections of outfit colors.  Pretty basic options, nothing exciting there, and here I was ready for a magenta spike cut with a turquoise cape to charge right out on my new and educational adventure. Not happening here, maybe later?

Capturing Pokemon and checking out stops has been fun while on my walks in the mornings.  Actually learned a few things about the town I live in that I didn't know. The Pokestops normally are historic locations, public areas, plaques and such. The app gives you a nice description and history of the stop that you can read while spinning the photo for items you will need to continue the game.  

Leveling through to level 10 is fairly easy and quick. Then, I went on line and read all the "advice" posts on how to play... I don't need to go into all that here. Take my advice, there is a ton of information on this game on line. Lots of opinions on how to play a better game and earn more rankings, win at the battle towers ... 

The advice I found most useful,  between levels 10 and 20, just take your time, capture pokemon and enjoy the walks and pokestops.  This I can do.  Since I can't get out all that often as I live away from pokemon hot spots, I need to make an effort to get there and take walks around town. I've been walking more and meeting great people out there.

I have discovered you can fill your "bag" with so much stuff, you won't have room for the pokeballs that you need to capture the pokemon. I had to do some battles to use up the revive potions and wound potions to make more room... there is a limit on how much stuff you can have in your item bag.  Doing battle at this stage is a loosing proposition as none of my Pokemon are strong enough to win... just to lose and empty my "bag" of potions healing my failed pokemon.  Oh well, at least I am enjoying the walks and learning more about my community... 

I will touch back on this when I reach level 20 ... later






Monday, August 22, 2016

PokemonGo through the eyes of a novice.

After a weekend of random iphone incidents with Museum guests wandering seemingly aimlessly and blindly through the Museum without lifting eyes to the stunning displays, I had promised myself to expostulate the merits of PokemonGo here in our blog. 

Those of you unfamiliar with the term PokemonGo, it is a game you download to your phone, based on the ever popular classic role playing game developed in Japan in 1996. http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/History_of_Pok%C3%A9mon

This new version is an interactive, location based reality game played on your phone.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Go

Here in the Museum, our first big rush of players happened on Wednesday, July 27th.  The day of the Sublime w/ Rome, Dirty Heads, Tribal Seeds and Bleeker Concert.  4 bands in one night all here early in the day to enjoy Ironstone and play PokemonGo. 

Between the bands and the stage crews, we had a constant flow of iphone engrossed figures checking into the Pokestops to stock up.
When I inquired as to what in heaven's name were they doing, I was deluged with excited exclamations of the importance of Ironstone, the variety of pokestops and the existence of two towers right here at Ironstone!  What?!?  But don't you know it's NOT REAL!  Look at the 44 pound gold piece!  Check out the meteorite slabs, how about that prehistoric cave bear?  LOOK UP!

Throughout the next few weeks, we witnessed a growing number of visitors with eyes glued to their phones. My immediate reaction was to clear all below eye level displays and post bright colored signs in attempts to avoid head on collisions with static posts and walls. This is ridiculous! I have to write something!  I kept muttering under my breath, "but it's not REAL, can't they see that?", "Oh Wait, no they can't cause its not on the screen!".

With a sigh of relief, most did take a moment up from the phone to examine the gold. Some even wandered through the store and checked out some of the art and jewelry. Take a deep breath ... 

Then came the first bend in my thought process... a family trio came in to the Museum, father, son and grandfather. Father & son were glued to their respective phones while grandfather browsed through the museum and shop. I approached him in my anti-pokemon mode, and asked if the other two were going to stop and look up.  His reply was "eventually ... want to know something?" 

Without waiting for my replay, he continued with a story of a household of strangers, father in front of a TV or off with friends and a son in his room on his computer with friends. Both in their own worlds, very much apart. Then along came PokemonGo..

Grandfather explained to me how the game has brought them together into the same world.  They now travel, the three of them, to places he never imagined they would visit, conferring on their captures, the sights they see and the fun they are having. 

Time to start my research ... 




Tuesday, August 16, 2016

24 hours of lemons car rally coming through!

24 hours of lemons car rally coming through!  What a hoot.  With a toy in hand, each team is charging in for a photo shoot with the Gold Crystalline. As if Pokemon Go weren't enough, now we have a parking lot of clunkers and laughter.  And yes, some are also playing PokemonGo as well.  

As explained to me, signups are online, cars can't cost more than $500 and they earn points for photos of their "mascot" at designated side stops as well as a whole list of extra point items.  You really must check out their website. Pretty fun group.


https://www.24hoursoflemons.com/rally