It doesn't look that nice, but it works. Eating dinner in the back yard.
Wow, that's really cheap for outdoor furniture. When we have some time we'll have to buy some and make the back yard nicer.
Gotta wait behind the tractor.
Cows in the hills.
Some more.
Very foggy.
We've played with the water heater temperature over the past few days to try to get it so it's not burning hot coming out of the shower and faucets but not too cold, either.
I bought one of these garbage cans off of Craigslist years ago and really liked it; I think I'll buy another one.
Even on reddit, there's not really free speech; this guy was banned from a Russian subreddit for providing facts.
Also, the subreddit wasn't even following its own rules for bannings.
A 100% IV Pokemon! Unfortunately it's a really crummy one.
Since the same company made Ingress and Pokemon Go and they used the same underlying data for both, you can use Ingress to find Pokemon spawns.
Staying in someone's house via AirBnB again; this guy has Calvin and Hobbes books.
An almost-empty claw game and one with toys inside Chinese food boxes; that's not very appealing.
It's never good when your car is facing the wrong way on the highway.
Glow-in-the-dark volleyball.
The Santa Monica pier behind.
There were two courts playing.
The group.
Aw, come on. It looks like free drinks, but it's free water, cheap drinks. That's rather sneaky.
Palm trees and skyscrapers.
To volleyball on Saturday afternoon.
Me setting.
From the other angle.
Diving.
I ran after this one and until I realized it would be out of bounds. My teammates were worried I was still going to hit it.
Reaching hit.
Setting up for another one.
Our team, which did really well.
Fun painting.
Prescribe Jesus.
Google Navigation has a new feature where they tell you how much earlier than predicted you arrived. That could be dangerous; people racing to see how much they can beat it by.
This car has been in this exact same spot for a while now. Lots of writing on it.
Pokemon players at Long Beach. You know you're serious when you have a folding chair to sit in.
Although the point of the game is to walk around more, not just sit.
There are a couple of scanners to tell you where the Pokemon are.
And also Twitter feeds that announce when the rare ones pop up. Ooh, a Gyrados! I don't have one of those yet.
However, you only have 15 minutes until they disappear. Can we make it over there by then?
A bunch of other people chasing it down.
There it is!
Got it.
Right afterwards all of the players were walking back to the other side of the hill. Might as well follow them. Ooh, a Lapras! Another really strong one.
Got him, too.
Didn't even see it on the Twitter feed until we had already caught it. Good to follow the crowds.
Everyone's running again. I wonder what it's for this time?
A video of everyone headed over there.
Aw, just a Charmander. In the La Brea tar pits there are tons of these things, so not that special for me.
All of the people trying to catch it.
Level up.
Up early the next morning to get a sunrise pictures at the Huntington Beach pier. There are lots of people out fishing.
And also lots of surfers.
Pretty reflection of the sun on the water.
The volleyball players are just starting to come out; the surfers have been here for hours.
There's a little art show there as well. Although it's here every other weekend, so it's not a giant one that's only once a year.
A guy who takes beach sunset pictures.
While I'm out there, I might as well play Pokemon. The game has biomes, where certain types of Pokemon are more likely to spawn. Lots of sand ones around the beach.
Ooh, a Dragonair, which I haven't caught yet, as you can tell by it just being a shadow, not filled in.
I don't see it yet, though; the sightings just means it's nearby, but it can be up to a block or so away.
However, it doesn't show up on this tracker...
... or this one.
Well, it's probably around the pier, so just keep walking. There it is!
Trying to catch it.
Got it.
Fun little restaurant to grab breakfast from.
One of the most confusing signs; 605 and 405 look so much alike.
The new Wilshire Grand in the middle is now a part of the LA skyline.
Eating late lunch / early dinner and watching all of the football games at Chevy's.
The parking lot there is too squishy, though; you can barely fit cars into the spaces.
Pretty drive back home.
Watching the SNL presidential debate. This was the funniest part: Trump said something and Hillary's mouth fell open.
She had to physically push it shut.
Good thing Ogii can read Russian; honey, which of these words is "unsubscribe"?
Spanish, Mandarin, sign language, and Arabic languages are the big ones in demand right now.
Ooh, a wild Snorlax, nice!
A lot of the Pokemon have three levels of evolution. For example, it takes 25 candies to evolve a Charmander to a Charmeleon and then 100 candies to evolve that to a Charizard, so it takes a total of 125 candies, which can take a long time to gather up.
This was the first Charizard I evolved, which was before I was paying attention to IVs, or individual values. The higher the IVs, the stronger it will be in the end. As you can see, I got really unlucky; it only had a 8.9% IV, which is horrible.
This is one I just happened to find already evolved out in the wild, which is pretty rare. Again, though, pretty bad IVs, 27-40%.
However, when you evolve Pokemon, they keep the same IVs. So what you want to do is keep the highest IV Charmander you can find and keep him to evolve. I had a 97.8% IV one, which I first evolved to a Charmeleon...
...and then into a Charizard...
...which then had the same 97.8% IV, nice.
There are different programs which will read your screen and tell you the IVs of your Pokemon. However, some, like Gastly, have smoke or tails or something that cover up the numbers, so it's hard for the program to read it.
Vaporeon is a very common overpowered water Pokemon, but there are other Pokemon that have the same attacks, such as Golduck and Starmie, which people often forget about.
There are three Pokemon gyms near our home. However, they are always switching back and forth between the teams.
This one is pretty strong. It's level 7, and it's filled with only Snorlaxes, which are a real pain to beat because they don't have any weaknesses.
Level 2.
Level 3.
Level 5.
Level 6.
And level 7. Someone eventually took it down, but it had to be a bit of work.
Google's suggestions it puts at the top of the search page are getting better and better. Here are sights to see in Carmel-by-the-Sea.
How in the world can the 3-pack be cheaper than the 2-pack? And half the price of the 4-pack?