Rockford, in the Rain

Welcome back, readers.

So, weeks ago, Kris and I had planned on an overnight trip down to Rockford to hang out with my best friend, Black Paul, and his wife, Sam, and their daughter, Delia. Kris was set upon seeing some kinda lantern thingy (think Tangled, I guess) at the local zoo down there, but unfortunately with Alayna's end of the school year plans, we weren't able to head down there until Saturday (today.) At that point, the lantern event was over and done with, so she reluctantly relented on pushing for it.

Rockford Brewing - one of those places I'm always cool with visiting here. 

BP suggested going to the beach at Muskegon instead, making a day trip out of it, which we were totally on board with. Unfortunately, the weather ended up being downright crappy this weekend - it rained almost non-stop Saturday and Sunday, and so the beach idea, too, was shelved. We still planned on going downstate to hang out with them - they always come up to visit us, for our Halloween parties, etc. so it was only fair we return the favor - and basically resigned ourselves to just going along with the flow.

I had some roasted chicken falafel wrap thing that was super good. . .

Upon arrival, around 1pm, everyone was hungry and we ended up over at Rockford Brewing for some lunch, some beers, and some strategizing for how the rest of the day would pan out. I'll cut this short and just let the pics and video do the talking folks, you know the drill around these parts.

Enjoy. . .

So at lunch we decided that Kris and Sam would take Abby and Delia (Alayna stayed behind in Midland because her friends' annual, end-of-school-year party had been switched to Saturday, after all that re-planning on our part) shopping around downtown Rockford to hit up some local shops and boutiques. This freed up The Knights of Pokemon to head into downtown Grand Rapids to check out the area's greatest vinyl record store (which I was obviously totally cool with.)

Vertigo Music. BP's talked about this place before, and the last couple times we've hit up record stores in Rockford they've been the smaller, shittier ones. This one had a ridiculous selection to choose from, and I could have spent hours in there.

There's a sweet spot when it comes to buy records in a store, though. See, while this place had a ridiculous amount of new vinyl on hand, and they were below the Discogs asking price, they seemed to hover around what you could get them for on, say, Amazon. I have sooo many records these days that I'm only hunting down a few, elusive albums for my collection, so I can't just waltz into a place and come out with an armload of new records without purging once I get home. I couldn't find any of the albums I wanted off my to-buy list among the 'new' section, so I went into the 'used' vinyl. Their prices for used vinyl was beyond stupid - only a couple bucks cheaper than the new versions, which is absolutely absurd. I ended up walking out of their with one, new album (from Calexico), so it wasn't a total wash, but still - kind of a let down.

While BP (who ended up walking out with four albums) and I were shopping for vinyl, Kris and Abby and the DeBoers bounced around different shops, checking stuff out. At some point, I guess, there was some kinda loom or something? I'm not sure where this is, or what that's doing there, or anything - I just pulled pics off Kris' phone, folks.

After an hour or so, BP left Vertigo Music. I'd definitely return  to this one, but my expectations would be adjusted for sure.

Heading back to the car, in the rain.

We met Kris and the others back at the DeBoer residence, where BP and I re-sleeved his new acquisitions and tested the out on his turntable. His collection is coming along, but he's not looking to expand past the cabinet he has here, so he's more or less in the same situation as I am (just on a much smaller scale, obviously.)

After an hour or so back at their house, we decided to head back into downtown Rockford to do something else.

BP has told me before - multiple times - about this retro, arcade spot in Rockford that he and Delia frequent from time to time, and suggested we hit it up (knowing my affection for old videogames from my childhood.)

So this joint, Pinball Land, is a pay-by-the-hour venue, which is honestly way better than nickle-and-diming you to pay per machine (I wish Brinstar in Midland was more like this, honestly.) 

We all paid $7 per person for an hour's worth of unlimited game time, which - if you do the math - is cheaper than what you'd pay if you were paying 25 or 50 cents per play anyway (the fancier games sometimes charge $1 per play, too.)

Kris and Abby battle it out in Street Fighter II

Whooped Abby's ass in this head-to-head driving simulator (which, by the way, would have been one of those $1-per-play games back in the day, 100%.)

I was excited to come across this nefarious relic from my Showbiz Pizza Place days. Good to see it's still nearly IMPOSSIBLE to play as ever (I couldn't advance past the first five seconds of the game, still can't play it for shit.) You should Youtube this bullshit and see for yourself how emotionally scarring this game is.

They have a couple different rooms in this joint, filled with retro arcade games, pinball games, and larger more-immersive setups (like the head-to-head racing games Abby and I were playing earlier.)

Sam and Kris, playing some pinball.

Abby and Delia race each other on motorcycles. . .

Yes, they even have a game based on cornhole (or, 'bags' as they call it. . . for whatever stupid reason.)

This games was definitely harder than the real thing, and I'm not even all that great at that.

Kris tries out X-Men (the options for which X-Man you got to be were super lame, though - no Gambit?!)

Sam and Abby try out some Dance Revolution game thing.

I had Abby play me in one of the greatest retro arcade games of all time, NBA Jam. I'm not even a sports guy (as you know), but everyone needs to respect a classic.

After the arcade, Kris, Sam and the girls headed back to the DeBoer residence while BP and I ran out to pick up a couple pizzas (neither of us were that hungry, but womenfolk were starting to get there.)  Along the way, we snapped a pic to send to Kimmel - the third piece of our Triforce - who unfortunately couldn't be there to hang out with us

Back the house, as folks began to dig into pizza, we put on The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers ('cause it's BP and I, for Christ's sake), and BP and I cracked a couple beers. I had brought along my travel cooler filled with a couple hand-selected craft beers for this evening, the first of which being this one. It was. . . okay. Kinda pissed I spent money on it, actually.

BP used this time to continue working on one of his 'Treat Yo'Self' purchases from the last couple months - a Lego Rivendell (from Lord of the Rings) set, which consists of thousands of pieces and multiple bags of pieces. The price tag of this thing rivals some of my nicer swords, folks.

Abby and her damn selfies. . . she's as bad as her mom.

Nothing to see here, folks - just adult men in their 40's playing with Lego. . .

This set came with a dozen or so figures from the movie (the first installment of the trilogy, obviously) including these three - Sam, Frodo, and old-ass Bilbo.

This was a pretty run-of-the-mill pilsner - similar to a Bud Lite - but for $4 for a four pack of 16oz tall boys, and considering the cool can design, it was kinda hard to pass it up.

We went at this for a couple hours, things got dicey from time to time. I can't imagine these more deluxe sets are geared towards children, we were having a hell of a time.

About 20% done at this point, and we never came close to finishing the set while we were down there - we stopped shortly after this roof was accomplished. Around 11pm, the womenfolk all went to bed, with BP and I following suit about an hour or two later. In the morning, after a quick breakfast and coffee, we said our farewells to the DeBoers and headed back up north for home, a fun lil' day trip downstate in the books.

- Brian

A Night Out on Midland Commons

What's up, guys.

So our friend group is pretty big - ten families in total - so planning simple outings can sometimes be a pain in the ass.  Now, like I've said before, five of us families are much closer with one another, and this 'inner circle' generally gets together more often than we do with the whole larger group.  This evening, we decided to have a 'date night' with just those couples in our Fab Five group (as the wives call it.)  One of these families - Mitch and Kelli - sadly couldn't make it out, due to previous engagement, leaving just us, the Johnsons, the Larsons, and the Colliers.

We decided on an upscale Italian restaurant called Gratzi's for dinner, located right downtown, followed by some drinks at this new beer-and-retro arcade place that just opened up farther down the street.  A pretty fun time, and a nice little break before we head out for Florida in a few days.

Enjoy. . .

The Larsons were the first couple that made it downtown, and promptly sent out this picture to update the others of their status.

Kris and I, en route, responded with this.

When we arrived to their table, we dudes killed time between drinks with drawing weird pictures on the table in chalk.  You know, because we're all 13-year-olds at heart.

Live music down on the Midland Commons.

And one with the wives: Courtney, Danielle, Kris and Mees.

. . . aaaaaand one of them in. . . some kind of a frame.  I don't know.

Our table at Gratzi's.  The restaurant wasn't busy at all, but the service was appallingly bad.  It took forever to get our drinks, our orders put in, for our food to come in, etc.  It was unacceptable, and I will definitely never be eating there again.

Ryan demands more parmesan.

The food itself was just okay, definitely not worth the price point.  I was pretty pissed off about the whole affair and it took leaving and getting a beer somewhere else for me to calm back down.

Group pic in front of the wine selection before we headed out for the next stop.

After over two hours at Gratzi's - and very little of that time actually eating our meals - we started strolling down Main St. for our next stop: Brinstar Beer and Arcade.

This place is brand new, which you could tell because the walls were bare and there was little decor to speak of.  Still, the selection of drinks and the prices were good.

. . . and, better yet, the place was stocked with about two dozen old arcade games, each costing the old school 25 cents per game.  Erik said this used to be a bike shop back in the '80s and '90s, but I don't remember it.

The Pac Man table, as you can see, was incredibly popular.

This was never one of my favorites, I'm so-so at it.

The Dads spent most of our time there at the shooting games, which you'll see here for yourself.

Ryan takes this shit seriously.

Baby Driver

Erik the Red

After playing Hogan's Alley for a bit we graduated on to machine guns. . .

Meanwhile, back at the Pac Man table. . .

A loooooong, creepy hallway to the bathrooms.

Mees and Kris

The bar itself was pretty cool, back-lit with all these old circuit boards on top of it.

Finishing up drinks and ready to call it a night.

Downtown usually has a crap-ton of lights hanging up - you know, the trendy Edison-style bulbs everybody and their brother strings up in their backyard these days - but half of the block was inexplicably out.  We decided to voice our displeasure.

The other half was still good, though. . . so it wasn't a total loss I guess.

- Brian