What I hate the most about Pokemon GO.

One of the biggest challenges that I face in life (other than the fact that I have six children), is that I am an extreme extrovert.
I love to listen to other people's stories.
I love to share my stories with other people.
This is one of my biggest rules:
Rule #1. Always be safe or take the safest option.
Rule #2. As long as you're being safe about it, always choose the option that will ultimately have the best story.
I don't know if this was a choice that I made early in life, to be an extrovert, but I do know that most of my life this has pretty much been thrust on me. What I mean by that is; I'm always the guy in the DMV office or any large public groupings (concerts, the mall, a line for ANYTHING) that everybody ends up talking to. I always seem to be the guy that people just flock to and they tell me about what a horrible day they are having or share a great experience they just had and I enjoyed this very much. I see it as an incredible honor that people are willing to share these things with me.

Now with that said, here's the problem; most of the things that I enjoy doing in my spare time and as a profession are designed or centered around the introverted lifestyle. for instance I love creating programs writing code or writing apps or creating databases etc.. But you have to do this sitting alone in a dark room most of the time concentrating on the couch trying to not sit in a social environment and be able to be productive as a programmer.

I also love fishing. Fishing seems to relax me, there's something about the pull of the line letting you know you have a fish on and the fight is has begun. But even if you are out with your buddies this experience is very much a personal one YOU are reeling in the fish, YOU fight the fish and YOU caught the fish. they may watch but this is not a social event <as it were>.

I am also a lover of video games. I have been playing video games since they FIRST came out. but again most video games are designed for one person to achieve such and such or beat a certain boss. now I do play World Of Warcraft (an MMORPG or Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) and although you do get to interact with other players in the game you are still behind a keyboard and inside and stuck to your computer.

All of the things I have chosen as hobbies or my profession try to guide or even push me to an exclusive and often lonely environment.

Then 2 days ago my son (a burly, 6.5, 250lb monster of a man) came into my front room and said "Hey dad, have you checked out that new Pokémon GO? I totally thought it would suck, but I am addicted. you gotta check this out" he then proceeded to install it on my phone. I didn't really do anything with it until yesterday while I was waiting around for something or other and I opened it up to see what all the fuss was.

Basically the idea is there are all these cute little "Pokemonsters" around you that you can not see without the app and you have to catch them. You can then level them up and once they (or you) are a high enough level, you can meet up with other people and battle your little monsters against others.
Ok I have to admit this thing is a lot of fun. For me the greatest draw is that it is deigned to interact with others IN PERSON. this is a huge game changer (excuse the pun) for those of us use to being stuck in our homes or on a mobile game (game on a tablet or on cell phone). We now HAVE to talk to each other to play.

You run around town and try to catch thee little guys, but you MUST be safe and aware of what's going on around you. it would not be difficult for instance to chase one of these things into oncoming traffic if you are not paying attention.

But isn't safety and awareness always important? I mean there are more then a hundred ways to hurt or kill yourself just going out fishing, if you aren't paying attention or acting irresponsibly and as a parent I have to monitor my kids online video game play for a myriad of dangers there. So to those who might safe the game is unsafe I say it's not the game teach yourself and/or you children to BE AWARE OF THEIR ENVIRONMENT.

But the thing I hate and I mean I HATE the MOST about this silly little game is..... I didn't think of it first. You can bet there will be following games that will require you to interact with others and run around outside and do ... something (and I will design one of them). Just be careful, watch out for dangerous situations and never... I mean NEVER EVER meet up with ANYONE without friends or parents with you.

Thank you for reading, cast a big net and keep tight lines.
Until next week.

To my babies (children)

Hey everyone, sorry I have not posted anything in a while I was really sick for 2 weeks. Never been sick like that, for that long but I guess age has caught up with me. For all you young people ... do not grow old. The older I get the more crap my body will no longer put up with. Then once I was feeling better I really had no time to write and before I knew it there were camping trips and holidays and well... again sorry it took so long.
I love camping!! I can not say it enough. If I could I would camp every weekend over the summer rain or shine. There is nothing like looking at a pristine campsite once you have the tents and kitchen setup. There is nothing like watching that flame grow up into what will be a sustainable fire and starting the first campfire of the weekend. There are few sounds on earth quite as relaxing as listening to the wood pop as it burns. The smell of the burning wood. and I don't know of anyone that would not agree with that feeling of pulling up to a campsite after a long day of fishing or playing in the water. I believe there is something primitive about the experience. The idea that out of very little you have created (albeit just for 2 days) a place to live, a place to cook your food and place to connect with your friends and family. This is your spot and you built this (just stop thinking about the fact that you too will have to take it all down).
 So 2 weekends before the 4th of July weekend I took my kids camping. My middle daughter has been almost more excited for this trip than I was. I am a preparation freak. So badly so that I am sure it drives my son crazy. I have a list for the kitchen/cooking/food stuff (each thing with a check box of course), I have a list of bedding, I have a list for the tent and awning (yes these have parts), I have a list of fishing gear and I have a list of all the lists I have. On Thursday we go down the list and place each thing in it's proper place or bin, then check it off. I drive my kids nuts but we have a great time because we have everything we need and nothing gets forgotten.
I have a friend down at the Talley Bend Campgrounds and I had never been there. He invited me and the kids down for the weekend. I really like the campgrounds and the spot he picked for us was beautiful. I am really picky about my camp spots but he really knocked the ball out of the park with the area. I highly recommend checking out the Tally Bend Campgrounds if you've never been there. (I will try to link a map spot for the campgrounds if I can figure it out but here are the GPS coord.'s:  38.136355,-93.614428) My only real complaint was that I like to fish the dam and some spots on the upper part of the lake and they are just too far to drive on a budget weekend. Had I planned for the drive this would not have been even an issue to bring up.
We decided to take the younger kids tubing and try out a new pair of water skis (which wouldn't fit my feet even though I got them for me). It turns out that a 40 HP Force outboard motor does have enough power to pull a few people (kids) around in a tube but not enough to pull a 200lb man out of the water on skis (hope the 80 will).
The weekend before the 4th of July weekend I took just my youngest son out fishing at a smaller lake here closer to me (Smithville Lake | Little Truman). We grabbed 2 doz. minnows and hit the water around 7am. I had not expected the wind we got and if the wind had not been so bad I think we would have caught a lot more fish but I do not do well in the wind. It was kinda funny because with my oldest son and my dad we don't usually go through 1 doz. minnows in a day but my youngest son and I went through 2 doz. in about 2 to 3 hours. Not really sure how that happened but maybe the boy was just really hungry for fish...
The point I want to get to here is that both of these trips almost got cancelled. As a matter of fact, the trip with just my son, I had to fight myself to go several time the day before. Neither were almost cancelled because of work or house stuff getting in the way but just me saying to myself "I don't want to hassle with this, I can sit in the AC all weekend and do what I do every weekend.... nothing." but then I would say to myself "Then you'll get the same thing out of this weekend that you always do... nothing." I would not have the memories of my daughters putting up their own tent for the first time. I would not have the memories of my youngest daughter teasing me because I forgot to close the air vent of their air mattress and losing air that night as they tried to sleep. I would not have the memory of my middle daughter get one part of her leg sunburned. I also would not have the memory of taking out my little man, just the 2 of us, out and fighting the wind. In the end I would have ended the weekends with nothing.

Sometimes as Dads/Moms, Uncles/Aunts, Brothers/Sisters or Grandparents we need to consider what we will gain from doing things that may not seem to be fun or comfortable on the surface, if they are done for the sake of the other people they will always turn out to be more fun or at least memories that both of you can share and build you relationships. I know I am glad I fought the "lazy me" because I had a blast and more importantly I KNOW my kids did.

Thank you for reading, cast a big net and keep tight lines.
Until next week