Day 123 - Maybe a Bit Further

Upon arriving in Vermilion City James was ecstatic! He immediately asked for directions to Diglett's Cave and headed that way. The mouth of the cave that would take him home to the conclusion of his journey sat across from the Vermilion Port. James noticed the luxurious S.S. Anne sitting in the harbor and remembered the party invitation and ticket Bill had given him. James thought a party was perhaps the perfect way to celebrate the conclusion to his journey.

While aboard the cruise liner he met some of the partying guests from around the world. Many of them were Pokémon trainers and invited James to battle. His Ivysuar Vine Whipped, his Graveler Rock and Rolled'Out, and his Pidgeot Regusted onlookers. His Pokémon preformed magnificently and won him every battle on board the ship.

After his impressive feat, other guests crowded about him asking James about his travels with Pokémon. When he explained he had two badges and that his journey was at its close people were flabbergasted. They insisted he was too talented to conclude his journey and pointed out how engaged and energetic he had been during each and every battle! Even the captain of the ship complimented him. James was surprised by their praise; perhaps he wouldn't return quite yet. After all there was a gym in Vermilion City, he might as well challenge it while he was in town.

My new project shiftingexpectations.com is live now! The project is exploring essential movies or more specifically examining so called "must watch movies" and what we can learn from them about film, about life, and about society. You can find the project's podcast on the website and basically anywhere you find podcasts (I usually use player.fm so I can listen to shows at triple speed). I am so excited to share this project and invite everyone to watch the movies along with us and share your experiences with us as we go!

Day 121 - Running Shoes

James's mom had sent him running shoes. It was the type of passive aggressive thing that she often would do. James liked how the shoes looked, but he was not going to run in them. Or at least that is what he had told himself. Then again he already had one gym badge and running to get a second one would get him home to his games quicker. That was the logic he used to justify running at least.

James ran to Cerulean City and ran a beeline to the Gym. He ran across the Gym's pool decks up to Misty and handily defeated her water type Pokémon with his Ivysaur. He was done! he had completed his Mother's minimum requirement and could go home. Unfortunately, Mt. Moon's Cerulean entrance was unreachable without a surfing Pokémon, which James did not have. He asked around and learned that in Vermilion City there was a tunnel dug by Digletts to Pewter City that could get him home. So he took off south towards Vermilion, he took off running.

I have been very busy and stressed lately with work and that other new project. It was meant to launch in fullness today, but we hit some technically difficulties. The website is live, but the first episodes will launch sometime tomorrow... If you want to visit the mostly empty website it is: ShiftingExpectations.com

Day 119 - Pokémon FireRed Begin

James's mother had had enough of her son. Quite frankly she was fed up with him. He was very lazy and spent every day cooped up in his room playing games on his NES and his computer. His neighbor Blue used to invite him to do things, but the constant rejection had caused a rift between the two children and the invites had stopped... James had no motivation to do anything and his mother wanted to change that. She had heard that the local Professor Oak was employing his grandson to help create a Pokémon encyclopedia. She begged the spry old man to put her son to work as well. He had begrudgingly accepted the proposition, thinking he could use this as an opportunity to study the impact of spending time with Pokémon on an individual's personality and temperament.

With a plan in mind now they just needed to push James out of the nest. And push they did. Without telling him why his mother had sent him over to talk with the professor. By the time he was back home with a Bulbasaur in tow his mother had locked him out of the house. She left him a note on the door saying he could come back after filling 25 pages in his new Pokédex or obtaining at least 2 gym badges. James was not happy about it, but what could he do. He agreed to help the Professor, but he refused to be diligent or efficient about it.

Day one of my new schedule. Unlike James I am very excited about this new adjusted approach. My challenges right now are quite different from his. I am struggling to make the decisions I need to make about how I will continue to participate with my current church congregation. It is a stressful thing for me to think about, but my current participation is not working for me. My family has been told and shown that we are not fully welcome at church and that has been a quite painful thing for me to accept and adjust to. I am sitting here in my favorite church meeting writing this as I wrestle with the dissonance of the things I want and what is realistically available. I'm open to suggestions so long as you are willing to take the time to talk with me long enough to understand my current situation.

Day 118 - Forest

Forest had done what he set out to do, and he was satisfied. He had become Kanto's greatest Pokémon trainer. He had not let anything stop him since his initial standoff against his childhood friend Blue. Not the Rocket Gang, nor Professor Oak's Pokédex project.

The real Forest is a Great Great Grandfather on my father's side. Unlike so many of my protagonist namesake family members he was not born in Utah, but in Georgia. However, his life's concluding years were in Utah.

First was born at the beginning of the year in 1867. In his youth and young adulthood he worked hard to save money. By age 26 he had saved $500, a hefty sum in that day (about $14,000 in 2020). He used those savings to open a small storefront and that venture eventually led to him blacksmithing. Forest was always an entrepreneur at heart, although he consistently supported his family through farming.

In 1908 Forest lead his family in converting to Mormonism. That decision impacted the rest of Forest's life.  It sparked a curiosity in him about the west that had his family move between Georgia and the Rocky Mountain corridor multiple times before selling in Utah. Though originally enthusiastic about Mormondom, Forest was regularly disappointed in how unchristian his fellow saints treated him and others and at the end of his life he had stopped worshipping with his congregation.

His happiest times once he was old were when he was visiting his family back in Georgia. Late in life Forest took up bee keeping, which he thoroughly enjoyed. He was a good man and perhaps his greatest flaw was trusting others too much. He passed away in 1934, having worn his body out over the hard works of his life.

Day 116 - George

George had become a completely different person. He was no longer the scared neighbor of the Champion, but he was now the Brave Hero and Champion of Galar! He had stopped Eternatus and prevented a repeat Darkest Day, and he had defeated the formerly undefeated champion Leon. When George thought about all the self doubt he had been filled with when he left Postwick, he hardly recognized himself. He had made friends and grown so much over the course of his journey!

The real George is my father. He was born near Blacksburg, Virginia (breaking my ancestral Utah pattern) while his father, Whit, worked at Virginia Tech. He is in the middle of his 11 child household. He moved with his family to Michigan when 10 years old where he spent the remainder of his adolescence. As a young adult he learned Spanish while serving a Mormon mission in Southern California before attending Brigham Young University where he met and married my mother Amy. He got an Accounting Degree and then attended the Law School. He has worked in Tax Law Accounting ever since. Wow I sure made my father sound like the most boring person ever. I guess thus far I have only described what he has done, but not who he is. My father, George, goes by Wally. he loves babies and toddlers and they love him. His biggest hobby is gardening and given the option to work in his 9 acre yard or do just about anything else he will choose to work. He loves anything related to BYU sports. He is a deeply religious man and his faith comes to the forefront in nearly every conversation he has. He is very caring and loving and is good at listening wholly, to those he sees as in need, and after listening he acts in whatever small or big ways he can to help. He is a good man. He and I are different in most ways, I feel, but are the same in the most visible ways. I look a lot like my dad and I talk like him too. I can escape the comparison, so I try to emulate him in his best ways.

Day 114 - Detours

Forest had to take a detour from his beeline path to becoming champion and he was not happy about it. Team Rocket... or whatever they were called, just had to shut down a gym as a part of their takeover of Saffron City. If they hadn't, Forest would not have paid them any attention at all. Whatever, it was thier lose. Forest was the type to demolish anyone who got between gim and his goal.

My other project is launching soon, stay posted.

Day 112 - Shy

George had never been a very outgoing person. He had always felt the most comfortable on his own. However, this did sometimes mean he was lonely. He wished he had the courage to be less shy. In Hammerlocke he met a child who wanted to tell his girlfriend he loved her but was scared, so he asked George to lend him an Applin to act as a symbol of his love. With the Pokémon by his side he was able to awkwardly express his feelings to the girl he loved.  George was inspired by the kid's courage and wondered if with Pokémon by his side he could have that same courage?

It has been trickier than I anticipated juggling two games at once.

Day 110 - Pokémon Red Begin

My starter choices for nearly every
game came from this image.

Forest was a non-stop person. When he started something he worked hard at it until it was done. What did that mean for him when he received a Bulbasaur from Professor Oak? It meant he was going to work hard until he was the best Pokémon trainer there was. Nothing was going to get in his way to achieving that goal! Jungle was already a Venusaur, and he was studying his opponents to know how to best complement his lead and round out his team. He had already caught a Mankey, but he had only just begun.

Pokémon Sword is on the Switch, and I have decided to not take it on my commute with me. If the system fit better into a pocket I would take it, but it doesn't. In its place I am also playing through Pokémon Red while out of the house and will play Pokémon Sword when at home. While playing these two games concurrently I will trade off on which story I post about. I was originally meant to begin with Pokémon Red so hopefully the game saves consistently this go through... so far no issues, but I am nervous.

Day 109 - Pokémon Sword Begin

George was a nobody, but his neighbors were real somebodies and that made him feel small. The champion Leon was undefeated and incredible, how would George ever measure up? And his brother Hop was so optimistic! He was surely destined for greatness! George only hoped that with his new partner Scorbunny he could somehow measure up.

So long as I finish this game by the end of this month I will have proven the case that I can complete all of the Pokémon games within a single year. That is 2 full weeks which should be more then enough time. I have projected it take 8 days and so far the longest game took me 10 playing days. I think I will be fine. Stay tuned because when I finish this game I will be announcing a few changes to this project!

Day 108 - Vilate

She had served and protected others side by side with the authorities of many organizations when she recovered Alola's light from Necrozma. She had solved the mystery of Lillie's Pokémon and worked with it to tear a hole into the mysterious Ultra Space. And she was the premier Pokémon League Champion in Alola. Vilate had three clear goals when she set out on her Pokémon adventure, and she has completed all three. She was well on the path to being a fantastic Pokémon Detective!

The real Vilate is the same person as the real Nina. I did not have time to write about her after playing Pokémon Sun though so I am here to rectify that. Nina Vilate was my maternal Great Grandmother. I met her a few times in my youth, but I mostly just remember her seeming very old. It was fun to visit her home in Kanosh, Utah; however, I never spent much time with her when we were there.

Nina was born in 1911 and passed away in 2008. Her father was Russell, who drowned when she was young which means she largely grew up without a father. As far as I know she was the first person in her family to attend college, attending LDS Business College in 1930. Also in 1930 she married Mark. Nina often volunteered with 4 H teaching young girls to sew and to cook. She was a a very active woman and her favorite hobby was to work in her yard. She even mowed her own lawn until she could not anymore at 90 years old. The other hobby she was passionate about was needlework, and she was well known by the community for her beautiful quilts. She also loved to read. I am grateful to have been able to meet this wonderful woman!

Day 106 - Rescue

Vilate finally got to do some real police work. Nanu, the Ula'ula Island police chief, had asked her to save a Pokémon from Team Skull. It was difficult, but Vilate had succeeded! She felt likew a hero!

Day 104 - A Great Poké Detective?

Vilate was not so sure about the man she met who called himself Looker. He called himself a member of the Global Pokémon Police, yet he seemed like such a simpleton. He had even shown Vilate his badge, but it still just did not make sense to her. There was one thing that Vilate was sure of though, if a man like this could work in law enforcement then she definitely could. Also meeting him checked off another one of her initial goals.

I'm on a roll right now this is day 4 of consecutive blog posts!

Day 103 - Mallow Special

Vilate had just completed her final Island Trial on Akala Island, with Mallow in Lush Jungle. You would think that would have her walking on cloud nine with multiple Altaria flying around her. But unfortunately for her the trial went about as poorly as she could have hoped. When she arrived and learned Mallow would have her collecting ingredients so they could cook a dish to summon the Totem Pokémon, Vilate had been intrigued. When Mallow explained that she would need to follow her clues and be careful in choosing ingredients as to not upset the wild Pokémon in the Jungle, Vilate had gotten quite excited! Finding the right one of each ingredient would be just like detective work!

Unfortunately it did not go over very well for Vilate. The Mago Berry she had collected had been so plump and juicy and even a little sticky, she had been so distracted by how good it looked she hadn't noticed the Fomantis eyeing it in the bushes. The Honey she gathered was from the most beautiful flowers, Vilate had not considered if their beauty would matter in considering the sweetness of the honey. A Comfey had considered her messing with its flowers as not sweet at all. The tree she had dug up a Big Root from under had not even been a tree at all but a Sudowoodo, how had she not noticed the face on the tree? While they were preparing the Mallow Special all 3 of the Pokémon she had upset attacked. Her own team of Pokémon were worn out by the time the Totem Lurantis arrived and Vilate had needed to use a few revives to defeat the super powerful Pokémon and to complete the trial! And she still barely won.

This whole ordeal was making Vilate double think if she had what it takes to be a detective at all.

I made some predictions for the Pokémon Direct that aired this morning. Check out that nonsense via the link!

Day 102 - Phyco and Soliera

Vilate had met a lot of people since moving to and traveling across Alola, but no one seemed more interesting to her than Phyco and Soliera. These two people wore clothing that covered all their skin  completely except their mouths, and they discussed Pokémon as if they were only things to be feared. They were full of questions, but not too keen to answer the questions about where they came from when Vilate asked. They seemed so otherworldly Vilate couldn't help but wonder if they were somehow connected to the mystery around Nebby, Lillie's strange Pokémon. It was a lead Vilate had to follow.

Before tomorrow's Pokémon Direct I wanted to publicly declare that I think Game Freak will not release a mainline Pokémon game in the year 2020. That means no Diamond Pearl Remakes, no Gen 9, and no SwSh Deluxe versions. I think they will take the year off. In 2021 I predict they will release SwSh Deluxe editions, probably called MaxSword and MaxShield (MSMS), and in 2022 they will release diamond Pearl Remakes, likely called EternalDiamond and CelestialPearl (EDCP) or something like that. This is all recorded now so that if I am at all correct I will be considered a Pokémon savant of sorts. Also, by tomorrow morning the website's extra detail pages should be caught up to my current play status.

Day 101 - Many Mini Mysteries

Vilate was doing well at improving as a Pokémon trainer; she had already defeated the Melemele Island Kahuna. She was having less luck solving her mystery regarding Lillie and her mysterious Pokémon. She had collected a few minor clues and had finally gotten to encounter her alien creature, but that was about all the progress she had made. Yet there was a new mystery that she had been introduced to that had things going much better for. Perhaps it is better to say mysteries. She had been introduced to the Sub-Island Challenge of collecting Totem Stickers around each of the islands. Tracking down each sticker felt like solving a minor mystery and this silly task was at least partially scratching Vilate's detective itch!

I really should not have missed making a blog post on my 100th day... It was a milestone for my blog! Oops... I'm glad things have overall gone quite smoothly for this project. I have been having quite a bit of fun so far! I am over a 3rd of the way through the games and nearly a 3rd through the year. Things have been busy, but good this week. Alissa took me to try Acro Yoga tonight, that was a crazy and strange experience.

Day 99 - Pokémon UltraMoon Begin

Vilate wanted to be a detective when she grew up. Before moving to Alola she made a list of 3 goals that would help put her on the path to becoming one.

1. Become a strong Pokémon Trainer
2. Solve a mystery
3. Assist the real authorities

Now that she was in Alola she was already much closer to completing these goals. She had recieved a Pokémon, a Popplio she named Perry,  and caught another, Orrin the Inkay. Having Pokémon was the first step to becoming a strong trainer. She also had found a mystery to solve: her new friend Lillie had a Pokémon that she was hiding. Vilate had decided she would solve the mysteries of where the Pokémon was from and why Lillie was hiding it. 

I'm back to making regular posts. Over the next week I'll get the site in order. 

Behind

I have finally fallen behind schedule, well my adjusted schedule after getting ahead of schedule and finishing a few games early. All is well abs after defeating the elite four and champion, thus completing Let's Go Pikachu, I will have time to get the website back in order. Thank you for your patience.

Nevermind... I stayed up late tonight and finished it with Alissa's company and help. Thanks lover!

Catching Up

I am still largely getting caught back up with things at home and at work. Not only do I lack time for updating the details of the site I also have not had much time to play. Let's Go Pikachu might go longer than scheduled.