My trip to Arizona 2012

Good morning!!! =)

Awwwwwwww doesn’t that look beautiful? Blue sky, barely any clouds, and temperature in the high 60’s. That is what I woke up to every morning while I stayed at my cousins house in Arizona. Now that may not sound as great as being in Hawaii (which currently without checking I am sure is between 75-80 degrees all week long), but for someone who has lived in the NW all of his life it was perfect for February. 

So to explain why I went to Arizona I will have to give you a bit of back story. Besides the wonderful weather and just being able to travel to somewhere new. The biggest reason I have had to go to Arizona is because someone that is very special to me lives in that state currently. Someone that has been in and out of my life since I was old enough to remember. His name is Jason Heine. He is one of three sons from my fathers first brother Nelson Heine. Over the years we have spent many many many....MANY good times together. From when we were little playing over at my Grandma Heine’s house in north Portland to spending much of our teenage years together to the current days of seeing each other whenever he is in town and playing video games online as much as we can and such. Now the key part of that last sentence was “whenever he was in town”. See he still has family here and he comes back into town quite a bit to visit. I however have never made the trip down to see him. I had told him for years that I would one day make it down. Well, many years past and he has been living down there I believe 3 or so years. So I decided to do it. I mean all I really need is plane ticket and money for food right? I have no excuses. Sure I have plenty of medical bills and other stuff of that nature, but I can spare some money if I can find a good price for a ticket. So, I approached him about it. He was super excited when I brought it up. We actually started talking about actual dates and how much time he could get off of work. He even showed me a few tricks of how to get a good ticket price on Southwest Airlines. So after a little bit of patience I got some pretty good deals for tickets and then it was set. We started counting the days. See it was perfect timing too. He had around the beginning of this year broken things off with a long time girlfriend and moved into a house of his own. Yes, I said house. I have to bring this up because I am a bit jealous. Because of the housing market sinking there are many houses in Arizona that went way down in value. So he was able to rent a decent size house for not much more than I am paying right now. Yes, it was a bit further outside of Phoenix in one of the smaller suburbs, but if you were willing to commute a bit then you were definitely rewarded. Also, since this was a place for just him, he finally got to spread his wings a bit and take all his stuff out of storage. So he finally got to build the home he has wanted to for a long time. That might not make sense to you right now or sound like a big deal, but don't worry I will explain. See my cousin is a multi talented guy who has a love for video games, studio equipment, and anything electronic. So, with all this space in this house allows himself to build the studio he has wanted to build with all the things that he has and also to make a game room like he has always wanted too. Now the bigger part of the stuff he had in storage was video games stuff. He is quite the collector I would have to say. He use to sell quite a bit on eBay and still does. So over time has created quite the collection of video game stuff. He also has 5 arcade cabinets. Yes, you heard me right five fully working and excellently refurbished arcade cabinets four of which are in his living room in his studio. How awesome right. Ok well, I guess if your not into video games maybe not. I am definitely into video games and as he was explaining his new place to me before I went down to see him it sounded like video game paradise. Well, my cousin doesn’t like to disappoint and he definitely didn’t. It was amazing, but I am skipping too far a head so lets start at the beginning of the trip. 

Here we go....Oh BOY! =)

There is one thing about traveling really far away I don’t really like and that is flying. I wish it were the olden days with more trains going places. Because taking a plane has turned out not to be my favorite thing to do. I really only put up with flying because when I get on a plane it usually means I am going somewhere cool. Which is always funny to me because for the longest time as a kid I wanted to be a pilot. Oh how humorous life is sometimes. So, my flight to Phoenix is scheduled to leave about midday. I wake up early because I am just so damn excited to see my cousin, get some sun, and play some video games. I woke up and finished packing. I left my house about 10 o’clock to catch my flight at 1:35pm. I left so early because for the first time I decided to take the MAX directly to the airport on my own. No one dropping me off or flying with me. Feels good to do that sometimes. To remember the power that you have within yourself. Riding the max to the airport went so smooth it’s a bit scary to me. My last plane flight I believe was 2005 when I took a trip to San Diego with my sister for her birthday. So I was a little nervous I was going to do something wrong. The security checks are different now then they were then. So from a refresher course my cousin gave me over the few days before I left I was instructed exactly what I needed to do. It was great from the ride in to the airport on the MAX, to the wonderful woman checking in my bag (who was giving much praise for my progress on my weight loss after looking at my drivers license lol), to boarding the plane. Believe it or not I actually sat by the window. Why would someone who is afraid to fly and afraid of heights do this? Well, because I am trying to get better at flying and by putting myself next to the window I have to confront my fears. Also, from what I could tell from the woman that sat near me was having a way harder time than I was. I didn’t have it quite as bad as she did. She seemed a lot more nervous. I realized on this last flight that I really don’t mind the in air part so much. It’s the take off and landing. That is where the plane moves a lot more and from the moment that plane leaves the ground I can feel every movement the plane makes in my stomach. So for every landing and take off I try to close my eyes and relax. I have done so much better these days than the past flights I have taken. I even took a few pictures out the window that are pretty damn cool. Yes, I spent some good time looking out the window in between reading. Both snacks they handed out on the plane had wheat in them... I thought to myself...typical. I understand with the pretzels, but the honey roasted peanuts? Jesus people there is no need for wheat in roasted peanuts!!! I love honey roasted nuts too! Well, no matter I planned a head anyway and brought lunch with me. Stacey made me a wonderful wrap. I also brought honey dijon kettle chips and a Mahalo candy bar (which if you don’t know is a vegan imitation of an almond joy. WHICH by the way is way better than an almond joy ever was period!) to eat and the flight attendant gave me some water. Perfect meal on a pretty decent flight. I bring this all up because its part of my life now with where I am at in my life health wise and with eating. I have to pack food ahead where ever I go. The rest of the time in flight I read the book Game of Thrones. 

Pretty cool huh? =)

Just a little snow on top of that mountain.

We land in Phoenix... I am always happy to hit the ground again. Such a land lover I am. I get my bag and right after there is my cousin to pick me up. Then we go out to where his car is parked on the top floor of the parking garage. I bring this up only because from the top you could get a good view of the surrounding Phoenix area. First things I noticed about Arizona was it’s very flat and very brown I mean pretty in its own right, but very different to the green hilly area of Oregon that I have always know. So we take off towards his place with a few stops a long the way. Before arriving in Arizona Jason had done some research to find some place like New Seasons Market in Arizona that was at least somewhat close to his house so that we could do a little grocery shopping. Out of the two places he took me Sprouts I think was fairly close to being a New Seasons Market. I got many of the things I needed to have food around that I could eat while being at his place. So after a little grocery shopping then continued on to his house. Now another thing about Arizona as my cousin explained is that the streets are very grid based and so it makes it hard to get lost. It also makes for a boring drive in my opinion. So we make it out to my cousin’s house in a suburb a little farther out from Phoenix in a place called Queencreek. It was really not way out in the sticks, but a bit farther out. Now I know we all would like to rent our own house to have all to ourselves, but this was a huge thing for my cousin to do. My cousin has had to move quite a bit over the last few years so finally being able to grow some roots in one area I know means a lot to him. I have already said it, but I must say it again my cousin has lots of COOL stuff. It’s awesome to see because of leaving his girlfriend of many years and being able to spread his wings. I am happy to say he did it in a big way. He is now able to have full access to himself and all he owns. We are talking the ultimate bachelor pad. A full studio in the living room with 4 arcade machines on the far wall, a full game room up above the living room, a room next door to the game room with more video game stuff, a room next to that one for guests (like me although I thought about sleeping in the game room lol), a master bed room for himself,  and even a place next to the kitchen to set up his very nice drum set. Now to say my cousin has stockpile of video game stuff is an understatement, but he doesn’t have every game or system...yet. He definitely has more than most of us would dream of. So that is a big reason why I came down to see him and do what we have done for years when he lived here in Oregon together. I'm talking about having a real face to face game night. In this day and age with xbox live and even video games we play together over cell phones there isn’t as much actual visiting friends and family in person. Every time my cousin and I get to see each other since he moved away that is exactly what we spend our time doing. This vacation brought all that back. Sitting in his game room and looking through his games asking questions, wondering what games were good enough to play, and just thinking back to all the memories we have from the video games that we have played in the past. So many great times at all sorts of different times in my life. I am not going to sit here and tell you all the games we went through because there was just way too many. I do want to mention a few. First off, the first night we ended up in front of his arcade machines. They all are just so awesome. All of his arcade cabinets have been redone from the ground up by my cousin and they truly are just amazing. Out of the 4 I really fell in love with Killer Instinct 2. I had played the first one with Jason quite a bit over the years and we did play on that cabinet before the second one, but the second one really caught my attention. The original Killer Instinct cabinet has an upgraded sound system put in by my cousin which took the sound to another level. Still the Killer Instinct 2 arcade machine sucked me in. We also ended up playing it on Jason’s N64 as well. Next up, Conker’s Bad Fur Day...wow where do I start with this game. I had watched a review about it a while ago on Youtube and was very interested to play it in real life. It’s definitely not a kids game and it amazes me what someone got nintendo(normally very strict as to keep their family image) to approve this game on their console. It was really fun and funny. I would definitely like to own that game one day. Lastly, was a more current game that Jason had been telling me about recently. It’s called Motorstorm: Pacific Rift which is only on Playstation 3. Wow, what a great racing game. What is more important was there we were like the good old days trading off the controller back and forth as we tried to progress through the game. Each of us trying to help the other find better ways to beat each level. That right there my friends is what I like about gaming. From board games, card games, sports, and video games. It’s the team effort. It’s the competition with that collective effort. Being there with my cousin and every time we get to spend time with each other these days we realize how much we miss that connection. We play games a lot online too, but being there next to each other opens up a lot more options to play older games as well as newer ones. So enough about all that I don’t want to put you all to sleep with all my video game talk.

Castles and Coasters! =)

Main floor of Castles and Coasters. HEAVEN! =)

Retro

Jason playing a racer...lol never. =)

The second full day of being in Arizona we actually made it out of the house and he showed me more around Arizona. One of the first places we went was a place called Bookman’s. I guess the best way to describe Bookman’s is to say it’s like a used media store that is only in the state of Arizona. They have used CDs, books, music equipment, and video games. Jason has told me lots about this place before I came down and I was very excited to go there. Although after the money I spent there maybe I shouldn’t have gone there. By taking me there though my cousin revived the collector in me. There was so many games there I wanted. It was lots of trouble for both of us and also something we love to do together is hunting for video games. It’s the hunt for that special game or a great game at a great price. Again I won’t bore you with all that I got, but it was a ton of fun to say the least. Also, on our day out in Arizona he took me to two awesome arcades. The first arcade he took me to was called Castles and Coasters. It was a mini amusement park with rides and such, but we didn’t bother with all that...we headed straight into the castle and inside would make anyone that is my age or bit older shoot right back to 1980’s-1990’s. See people of my age and older really know what it was like growing up with arcades. Way before the arcades made their way into our homes. It was awesome it had classic arcade machines upstairs, more current stuff on main floor and a wonderful selection of pinball machines in the center. I was in heaven. I mean between Jason’s video game palace and this arcade I didn’t ever want to leave. We played quite a few machines and got to meet up with friend of Jason’s named John who he met over Youtube from their video game channels channels. I got to see John in action on the Donkey Kong arcade machine  he talks a lot about which was quite awesome. I also watched Jason get in the zone with Miss Pac-man machine. He didn’t get the high score on the machine, but definitely did the best he has ever done. It was quite intense to even watch. Then before we left he went and ripped it up on the Batman returns pinball machine. So after a while of playing games at Castles and Coasters we had to venture out again to the other Bookman’s that was near by. I did better at this store and only spent a a little of my money. Then it was off to another arcade found in a place called Golfland. Because as great as Castles and Coasters was they were missing a very important machine that is in my opinion the best arcade machine to come out for this generation and that is H2O Overdrive. It's one of Jason and I’s favorite arcade machine. Its a boat racing game very similar to one I loved growing up called Hydro Thunder. Well, of course because some of the same people created both of the games. H2O Overdrive is everything Hydro thunder should have been and an awesome upgrade for this day and age. So we played that till the arcade shut down. Literally I played till the last minute before the machines shut off. 

Golfland Main floor 

Golfland Main floor

Back to the house and we went through our Bookman’s stacks of goodies and cleaned them and took off all the stickers. Then we played more Motorstorm: Pacific Rift. The next day filled with a stack of N64 games. I have been very interested in the system of late because I never got one growing up. I have been interested in getting a N64 so we went and played some games I didn’t know about for the system. Had so much fun doing so. More laughs and more memories created. Tuesday night John came over and I was guest on their video game podcast called “All Gen Gamers”. http://gamester81.com/all-gen-gamers-podcast-episode-82/ That was a so much fun and a blast to do. I love talking about video games and talking in general I guess. After that we played a game on the Kinect for the xbox called You Star. It’s a fun game where through using the camera on the connect it puts you into scenes in famous movies. My cousin streamed it on his TwitchTv account so you can go watch me mess up lines and look silly if you want. http://www.twitch.tv/theemureview/b/309410116 =) I had a hard time reading my lines on the screen because what I forgot to mention was I think it was the second night when I was getting into bed I somehow got my glasses under my bed I was sleeping on and broke my glasses. Regardless I had too much fun playing the game with those two guys they were too funny and a lot better at the game than I was. 

The next day and final day I was there we just did a bit more game playing and just hanging out with each other. Left for the airport little early to avoid too much traffic and to get In and out Burger one last time. Yes, I didn’t mention it, but I was so excited to be able to go and have In and Out burger even for my gluten free and Dairy free diet. It was an excellent treat. What I like about In and Out burger is that is didn’t feel like too much it was just the right about, everything is consistent, they didn’t ask me to super size it, and they didn’t hand me a 64 ounce cup when getting a small drink. That is very refreshing and although I really don’t eat at fast food anymore this really is the one exception. ALl I really had to ask for when ordering my burger was no cheese and wrapped in lettuce instead of a bun which is called "protein style". So awesome. 

YUMMY!!! =)

So we said our goodbyes on the ride over too the airport. Both of us very glad that I had finally made my way down to see him. We both agreed that this wouldn’t be the only time instead it would be the first of many. He is doing his thing down there and I am doing my thing up here so I don’t see either of us moving closer to the other anytime soon. So our face to face game nights will have to wait. The ride home on the plane I think was quite a bit better than the ride down there to Arizona. The pilot was also a lot funnier and cracked a few jokes that helped me and I found his humor very refreshing for someone who gets a little nervous on planes. 

So what did I learn? I got to see another state that puts me at 11 states of America that I have visited. I definitely need to increase that number. After thinking about how many I had actually visited that doesn’t seem like much. I realized how much I love the company of my cousin with just every time we actually get to spend quality time together. I will probably be asking him to move back to oregon for as long as I am living. Since the early days at my Grandma’s house we have always been close and I don’t see why we wouldn’t ever be. I have talked about it before about the need to take time to let those that are important and meaningful in your life know that as much as you can. None of us are here forever so lets appreciate the time spent together and not take them for granted. Love and laughter are essential in life so never stop trying to get them. Also, Jason awoke the collector in me was reborn with this trip of video game madness...lol oh no! There is just “TWO MANY GAMES!” because remember “two” video games is to many to play. For you can’t play two games at the same time and enough them, but I will just keep stacking them and get to them when I can who is up for another game night? =) I also need too stop talking about doing things and start making them happen I much coming soon so stay tuned. I had told him for years I would come see him and following through felt very good. So get out and explore and see the ones you love so dearly because those are the real things in life that matter. So get out and see the world! 

Till next time... =)

As always I bring this to you with Love and Pure D-lite. =)