Pokemon Go Fest: Day 1
Saturday, July 13th, 2024 02:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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89F and sunny this afternoon.
Back in late May, when I began the long process of packing, still working my final week at Cloud, I fixed my dashmount phone charger in the car so I could start playing Pokemon Go again, at least while driving, and changed my buddy to a Ledian.
My goal was to be, "best buddies," with Junebug Jake by GoFest, and be playing while living downtown.
And we actually became best buddies around 2AM this morning while taking down the gym I can hit from here in the flat... David Yano Memorial Bench.
I got up around noon today and, with the game open, walked up to Aurora Pancake House on Lake Street to get buscuits & gravy with scrambled eggs... and a touch of tobasco.
The restaurant itself is a pokestop so I was spinning and catching as I ate.
On the walk back, I passed two mural pokestops I'd submitted a few years back; Lovestruck Snail, and Aurora Wall Mural... and hung around long enough to spin both twice and get two gifts from each to send to friends in game.
But it was too sunny and hot to stay outside for long, so I came back to the tower via Downer Place.
But just a minute ago I got invited to raid remotely with Colleen & Justin, who are playing right now in Connecticut.
With it having been around since 2016, playing this game always brings back a ton of memories from working at the hospital and/or living with Dad.
I've submitted dozens of pokestops over the years, many of them right here downtown, so whenever I spin them I think back to the day I first took the photo of it.
One of those forrays to find new pokestops was with Colleen & Justin on a visit back in... I think 2018.
But in January & February of 22 I went on another big spree, driving around town and jumping out to snap photos and sumbit in the cold, with fingers freezing.
There wasn't much else to do that winter. I was just waiting for it to warm up a little, before I officially went into business as Pat's My Guy Handyman Services... the sole proprietorship that bombed miserably.
GoFest used to be a special event in just one location, before the pandemic, and the first three, in 2017, 2018, and 2019, were all in Chicago.
I went to the very first one alone, in Grant Park, but that was a technical disaster, where nobody could open the game, because there wasn't enough cell bandwidth to handle the huge numbers of people all in one place.
The next year I went again with Colleen to Chicago, and it was actually fun.
I couldn't go in 2019, because Dad had spent a week in the hospital just before the event and that used up all my PTO... so I had to work the day of GoFest.
In 2020 it was global, and I played mostly from sitting upstairs at the house, with a little walking around the neighborhood. Nobody was really hanging out in public that year, because of Covid.
In 2021, I was determined to do it right by walking downtown to play, and I almost couldn't because Dad had just come back from the hospital with a foley bag, and he wasn't thrilled with the idea of me being gone all day, but I stuck to my guns, and after walking Yvette in the morning, I walked downtown to play for several hours.
That was the first year I walked to Aurora Pancake house and had buscuits & Gravy on GoFest.
I did it again in 2022, walking downtown to play all day, and walking back home... going to the pancake house again.
But then last year I was too busy with the house to do GoFest, which is sadly ironic, given that I was going to lose the damn house in less than a year.
I just did a raid in David Yano, where when I entered the lobby it suddenly filled up with other players!
That's the first time that's ever happened for me!
I think it may have been other people living in this building!
Ooh!.. and I just got invited to another remote raid by somebody!
This is shaping up to be a fun day!
Okay!.. day one of GoFest just ended.
I caught three shinies, and did 13 raids!.. mostly Necrozma, who everybody wanted the worst because it's badass, and it can also do a weird fuse evolution that's new to the game... though you need one of two other legedaries to fuse it with, and I don't have either one... I'm not sure they're even in the game yet.
Also got Pheromosa, Celesteela, Stakataka, and Xurkitree... who'd already been out for a while.
Most of the raids were romote raids I was invited to, but two of them were local that I invited remote friends to.
And one, as I said, was just... a bunch of locals in the gym at the same time as me... which never happens.
By far, the most mysterious thing that happened today was getting a friend request from somebody called, MoxieGirl96.
You can't request a friend unless you have their friend code, and I haven't put mine out there online on a list for ages!
But after I befriended her, and sent a gift... she sent a gift back from right here in downtown Aurora!
She also invited me to a ton of raids, one of which was at Dino Dave, a gym, again, right here in downtown Aurora!
So I don't understant at all how somebody right here in downtown knew who I was, and that I'm also downtown, and knew my friend code?
(???)
Also, it's a bit strange that my handle is, Ptolemy97... and hers is MoxieGirl96.
Like is her 96 a reference to my 97???
Whoever she is, her avatar has an extremely well coordinated... kinda, girly-girl, pink and blue outfit!
And it's not easy to coordinate colors with the clothes available in the game!
But, as if referencing her own mysterious nature, she's wearing a mask, and holding a magnifying glass!
Also weirdly wearing earmuffs?
She kept inviting me to Necrozma raids, but I would invite her the pheromosa raids and she wouldn't respond.
Then when I looked at her profile, I said aloud, "Oh, so you're buddy is pheromosa, but you won't do a pheromosa raid with me?"
And then three minutes later, she invited me to a pheromosa raid!
It was so weird!
Like, do I have a stalker?
Colleen told me tonight that you can automatically friend people you've been in a raid with... without knowing their trainer code or anything.
So MoxieGirl96 must've been somebody in the David Yano gym today, populated by locals... who friended me after that raid.
But it's still very possible that MoxieGirl96 lives in this building... cuz David Yano is the one gym you can interact with... from inside the building.
So there's still a little intrigue here, cuz if she's a neighbor, I may eventually figure out who she is!
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