Thoughts on Spades and New Jersey Redux

Rainy all day today. Played spades with mom, dad and grandma. Spades should be renamed "Stress". I am pretty new to the game, and my Grandma is, well, an advanced level player. She enjoys going nil just about every chance she gets and then I am freaking out trying to make sure I cover her. It is the most stressful thing ever. I am on vacation, I should not have to keep track of every face card and spade that has been played for like 3 out of 4 hands. Thankfully I had iced Coffee and Mt. Dew so I managed. Grandma and I ended up winning a bunch, even with her "riskier" play style.

I am up late, which is dumb. I have to get up early to depart this wonderful sunny state, back to good Ole' Jersey. I have been slacking on my GTL anyway. I sure missed frigid winds and insane traffic. The 85 and sunny has really been getting old. At least I can be reunited with my Vizio. I sure do miss the old girl. With the Montana trip and the Florida trip she must feel pretty abandoned. It's okay old girl...I can delay getting a job for a few days of Netflix. Goodbye Florida!!

-Kyle Griffith McChesney

Kyle McChesney's Thoughts on Grandmas

So down here in Florida is where one of my Grandmother's lives. I am lucky enough to still have both my grandmothers, and I love both of them dearly. My New Jersey grandma is the kindest, sweetest lady who knits and bakes cookies. I love her with all my heart. My dad's mother, the Florida grandma is a little bit different. She left this morning to go to D.C. to visit my Grandpa at the Arlington National Cemetery (rest in peace grandpa). So after she left I found a note she left for me. The note was a list of "chores" for me to take care of while she was gone.

"Kyle:

1. Daily: Pogo-

do the 1xday games.

2.Wed: Do the weekly games. 

Usually 2 plus personal (CHOOSE Cribbage) "

This note probably takes some explaining before the true humor comes out. So Club: Pogo is an online gaming website. There are hundreds of games on it from card games to puzzle games and everything in between. It cost like 15 dollars a year or something to be a member and get all the benefits. You win tokens playing games and supposedly can use them in cash prize raffles. So every week Club: Pogo releases Badges, usually two or three. These weekly Badges are the exact same thing as achievements on XboxLive. It says for example: "Earn three Bingos in Safari Bingo Bash". You go, play Safari Bingo Bash and once you earn three bingos you get the badge and some tokens. New badges are released every Wednesday along with two personal badges. The personal badges allow you to go back into the yearly albums and complete any badges you might have missed. My chores from Florida grandma consist of doing the weekly badges, the personal badges for the 2006 album (Yah she has every one since 2006 completed) AND they added a new thing since last I was here which are daily bonus challenges to earn extra tokens. I have been playing Bingo, Majong and Cribbage all freaking morning, I think I deserve the "Best Grandson Ever" award. I was thinking about it, and if she played Xbox her gamerscore would be like 10 million. She is the worst achievement hunter I have ever met and I think its super awesome.

Getting to the pool for quite possibly the most important component of GTL.....the tanning.

-Kyle Griffith McChesney