TRAINER'S EYE #10 - "The Walking Poliwhirl" ft. TheTexasDuke

TRAINER'S EYE #10 - "The Walking Dad" ft. TheTexasDuke
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David: [00:00:00] My name is David Hernandez and you're listening to As the Pokeball Turns!

Hello, and welcome to new episode of As the Pokeball Turns. Today we have episode 10 of Trainer's Eyes, a segment where we get to hear from you, the community, on how your PokemonGo journey started, where it has been, and where it is currently going? If you open your game right now and glance at your Jogger Medal, [00:01:00] what would you see? Would you see a medal that shows how much you walked in the game? Would you see a medal that is easily abused through ways of phone rockers or Defit? Would you see how much mileage you put on your vehicle driving through parking lots and empty streets? Many players primarily see Pokemon go as a game to play, whether it be Shiny Hunting, Raiding, or PVP. However, for others, pokemon go is a way for them to exercise and work up a sweat. Exercise is even one of Niantic's core values that determines how they design their games and is commonly referenced with certain game decisions like the Daily Adventure Incense. Our guest today primarily motivation to play Pokemon go is exercise, and for goes the use of driving in a car, in favor of either walking or riding his bike, even when it is a hundred degrees in the middle of summer. From Grapevine, Texas, my friends allow me to introduce to you Drew AKA, TheTexasDuke! 



David: We are now live with the next episode of Trainer's Eyes. Today I'm joined by a former RAID leader for downtown [00:02:00] Dallas, Drew, AKA the Texas Duke. Drew, welcome to the show. 

TheTexasDuke: Hey, how's it going?

David: It's going pretty good, man. How about yourself? 

TheTexasDuke: Doing great. Doing great. Just been doing some raids. I got a baby now, so I'm pretty busy with life, I still play a lot of Pokemon Go. I don't go to Downtown Dallas as much, but I miss it a lot. . 

David: we talked about it off air and how, you wish you can kind of go back, but of course you've got a two year old to take responsibility for, So you know, unfortunately things change, right?

TheTexasDuke: Yeah, life does change, yeah. 

David: As you mentioned Downtown Dallas, before downtown Dallas, you had a journey that got you into Pokemon Go, so I gotta ask how did your journey in Pokemon go start? 

TheTexasDuke: It really started, like me and my cousin Lucas would go to Toys "R"Us over there by, Redbird Mall and just pick up some starter packs, you know, And then we started playing Pokemon and then, it progressed to video games and trading. I use to go to Oak Cliff all the time with my dad and we'd be working on rent houses and I would, start meeting the neighbor kids around the area, do some trades and whatnot, go to Bizarres, get some fake Pokemon cards, trade those. 

David: Do you know they were fake? 

TheTexasDuke: Yes. [00:03:00] No, I knew they were fake. Yeah. 

David: Oh, did they like have the bad attacks or like bad art? Or was this like, 

TheTexasDuke: It was like You could tell the font was kind of like messed up, but just like slightly to the left or right. It was copied, you know? 

David: Oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. 

TheTexasDuke: But yeah, I used to, I used to trade those like to a bunch of guys in Oak Cliff sometimes, and like I would get Holographics, so then I'd feel a little bad, but they fell for it. 

David: So you and your cousin would play with the card or just trade them or collect them? 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah, we just collected them. I didn't really ever get into the card game much. mainly just for trading and looks and put 'em in sleeves.

David: So you started with the Pokemon red, blue, and yellow, I assume? 

TheTexasDuke: Yes. Yes. 

David: Did you play through all the generations or was there like a gap in when you stopped playing? 

TheTexasDuke: I stopped playing probably when I started like skateboarding. And then kind of disappeared, I fell off the map for a while after like I think it was after Gen Two. 

David: So you did play Gen two? 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah, I got to G two, yeah. I picked it back up when Pokemon Go came out. 

David: What was it like when Pokemon Go came around for you? 

TheTexasDuke: Well, I heard rumors of the game coming out and I was like, " Sounds interesting" And I was really getting a little hyped up for it [00:04:00] and I was like, " Maybe it'll be good. Maybe it won't. Let's see." I was excited that I was able to like go outside. I've always been a gamer, like I love COD, But I wanted something that I didn't always have to sit on the couch and like the day passes by and you don't know where the day went and, sorry, sun's down, like I wanted to go outside and play a game for once. 

David: It sounds like you were more of an outdoorsman. 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah. Yeah. I love being outside. I was super stoked when PokemonGo announced that it was gonna be a GPS game.

David: what do you like doing outdoors? 

TheTexasDuke: I do a lot of landscaping, irrigation work with my company that I run over at Landscaping and Irrigation in Grapevine. I like baseball and volleyball, soccer. tennis. I ride my bike a lot. 

David: Do you ever play Pokemon Go while bike riding? 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah yeah. I got, the bikes for the whole fam I got, electric bikes recently. We love it. We got a little phone holders and cruise through the park system.

David: And do you like use the Go Plus or do you manually catch, like how does it work riding the bike and playing Pokemon Go? 

TheTexasDuke: I got my phone holder right next to my throttle, so I just hit the throttle or put it in Pedal Assist and like start chunking balls straight or I got the Gotcha. Either spinning stops only or [00:05:00] catching Pokemon. 

David: And was that how you played Pokemon Go, walk around and ride bikes all the time? 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah. When it first came out I was even just riding my bike and playing through the park system, but there wasn't a lot of Pokestops at that time cause it was just Ingress people that were adding stops at that moment. 

David: What park would you try to go to? 

TheTexasDuke: Just my local park down the street, I'd either go to like Euless, Bob Eden, or I'd go to my park down the street in Grapevine, which is the bark park. Over in Hurst, it's a Bedford Boys Ranch, people were just like, circling that pond and it was just chaos, it was just, it was insane, like I've never seen many people playing a game at once. 

David: What made it so chaotic? 

TheTexasDuke: It was like the cops were out.

Like there was signs that said no Pokemon go playing and like there was mud everywhere. , it was just trampled, you know. 

David: City outlawed, Pokemon Go Or like what do you mean 

TheTexasDuke: they didn't out law it, they, Well they did, yeah, like to a point, cause they didn't let us go to like certain areas around that park.

David: So if you try to go out there, the cops show up and telling you to get lost kind of thing.

TheTexasDuke: Pretty much. Yeah. It was like parking. It was mainly parking. It was like, you can't park here. You could [00:06:00] park elsewhere and then walk.

David: Seems kind of redundant to have a park or a trail and not allow people to walk. It seems kind of- 

TheTexasDuke: oh yeah. It was nuts though. There was, I mean, we're talking like at least 300 plus people were walking around that pond. 

David: Wait, 300? 

TheTexasDuke: 300 or more. I have pictures of it. It was nuts. 

David: Oh my gosh. That's a lot. But even still, like, It's hard to imagine a city wanting to discourage that.

TheTexasDuke: It was kinda ridiculous. 

David: Right. Was it or was it because people were like trespassing where they weren't supposed to? 

TheTexasDuke: It was, the park was just, it was overrun and it was really good water spawns like Dratinis were popping up, Gyarados all sorts of wild stuff. yeah, the cops got upset because I think we were damaging the park. I guess, cuz the grass was all being turned to mud and it was a new park. 

David: So you're obviously known by the Texas Duke, that is your in-game name, where did that name come from? Like you're not just a Texas Duke, you're the Texas Duke 

TheTexasDuke: The Texas Duke . So it's actually really funny because I'm a huge Green Day fan, right? My cousin would always call me Dookie cause you know, the album Green Day has [00:07:00] Dookie 94, it was kind of like that, but also, Dookie, Duke, whatever, but the main reason actually is because my grandpa. My dad, when he named me, he went up to the nursing home that day and he was like, " Hey dad, I'm gonna name, my son, Drew. Can you say Drew? And he was like, Drew, he said it, you know? And then he named me Drew. But then when I went up there to the nursing home later on, he couldn't say my name and he could just say Duke. So he could only say Duke at that moment, so the Duke part kind of just stuck my entire life. But yeah, my name's Drew, but Duke is kind of the nickname. 

David: And this cousin of yours who, uh, named you Duke, or sorry, calling you Duke? 

TheTexasDuke: Dukey, Duke, 

David: Yeah, Dukey, but this cousin who started calling you Dukey, is this the same cousin you used to play Pokemon together as well? 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah. Lucas. Yeah.

David: Do you still keep in contact with your uh, cousin at all? 

TheTexasDuke: I do. Yeah. Yeah, I still get to hang out with him.

David: Now you were a part of the Mystic Group out in Grapevine with Listy and everybody else. Can you tell me like how you got involved with them? 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah, so that all began,

Let me go back a little bit.[00:08:00] Alright, So 2016, Pokemon Goes is great. Not really , uh, the servers, are crap. there's a lot of issues going on, and the game is just basically beta still and it's just not working that well. My Pokemon won't even load up. So I was just like, I'm gonna take a break for a minute. Took a break. Came back as soon as they announced the T-Tar raids. When Tyranitar came to raids, I came back in 2017. I took about a six month hiatus from PokemonGo in 2016 like many, I think did as well. I started doing the T-Tar raids, that's when I ran into the HEB, Hurst, Euless, Bedford Group, you know, Listy, Dewey, a bunch of people that were really hardcore players. They got pretty intense around here for a while with the gym control and fights were breaking out almost. 

David: Really?

TheTexasDuke: Just verbally, not physically, but verbal fights and people speeding off and even some of the gyms got shut down where they couldn't even have raids. It was that bad. I got two gyms down the street right now. I'm trying to get reactivated, but I don't know if I'm gonna be able to pull it off. 

David: Is it the [00:09:00] city, either the building owners that requested the raids not to happen or, 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah, the building owners, Yeah. It was a wedding venue. Grapevine has a little vineyard down the street, but they're changing it to a Chicken and Pickle on the other side. Anyway, when I started playing with them and riding around town with them, I ran into Deverock and I was like, "Okay, cool," I'm actually in downtown Dallas now playing Pokemon. And then did some raids flying around town, insane speeds, blowing through intersections almost, but yeah, it was fun. We had a good time. 

David: So that first time that you came to downtown Dallas with Listy and the crew, was that the first time you ever hung out with them or did you have, experience with them before that? 

TheTexasDuke: I had experience before with them. I would just hopping cars and just head out for raids, like we'd do Moltres, Articuno raids, all the birds after T-Tar.

David: And you said that they were hardcore, like, what do you mean by hardcore? Can you gimme like an idea? 

TheTexasDuke: We actually had a nickname. It was a group of guys. We were called four deep. 

David: Four Deep. 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah. 

David: Why y'all call Four Deep

TheTexasDuke: It's [00:10:00] kind of a sexual innuendo, I guess, but Four Deep, anyway, we just, they called us four deep because we were always just cruising around in the Prius, just like taking out raids. Listy was not in that group though, this is just like four guys and me included. But yeah, that was a, that was a wild journey. 

David: With all your experience in Pokemon, like, do you have a favorite Pokemon at all?

TheTexasDuke: I do actually, yeah, it's, one you probably wouldn't think of, but it's, uh, Poliwhirl. 

David: Really? Why Poliwhirl? 

TheTexasDuke: That's my favorite. I just love the art on it. Poliwhirl or Poliwrath, one of the two. 

David: I would've never guess that, usually everybody else likes the strong ones like T-tar or a Legendary, but you're probably the one and only one I've met who said Poliwhirl for sure. 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah, Poliwhirl or Poliwrath, but I just, the art gets me. I like it. 

David: We got T-Tar raids and that's when you returned to the game, describe to us what your approach to the game was. 

TheTexasDuke: I got active on Discord in my local area and when a raid would pop up, I was on my bike. I played on my bike, I did not like wasting gas and I wanted to be active and exercise and sweat, like that's, that was my [00:11:00] thing, a lot of people don't play like that. My playing style is different than probably 98% of the community. I don't like to drive and play Pokemon, it's not my favorite at all, even though it's hot in Texas. I just play, usually just very organically, either walking, speed walking, or riding my bike in this area.

David: It also helps cuz you like to be outdoors, you like to be able to experience whatever little wind we do get out here. 

TheTexasDuke: Exactly, yeah. And like the adrenaline rush, like racing to raids and like on my bike, it was intense, it was good though. 

David: Describe to me how you started becoming a raid leader for downtown Dallas and started hosting raids. 

TheTexasDuke: So it was the end of 2017 around October, I think it was getting cool outside. My wife got a new job working at Ross Tower. I just decided to go down there a few days a week and eat lunch with her, I didn't have any work at the time, my work was slow. I would go down there, eat lunch with her, and, I got outta the car that morning and I turned on Pokemon for the first time in downtown Dallas. And I was like, "where to begin?", I was at Belo Fountain and I remember I was like, this was really cool, this [00:12:00] is great. there's gotta be a lot people that play Pokemon down here. And I just started thinking about it and I was like, " This could be a really fun thing, you know?" And I thought about, all the raids and if I started doing in downtown Dallas and I was like, I wanted it to be exercising, fun, friendship, building an event, you know? That's what it kind of turned into over those years, you know? Yeah, 2017, 2018, 2019, I was down there and then February, 2020 hit and then Covid came. It disrupted everything. 

David: How many people would join you in these raids around downtown Dallas? 

TheTexasDuke: Well see Juan with " My Downtown Dallas" helped me give out some free items here and there and sunglasses and whatnot for the meetups we had at uh, Main Street Garden, and we meet up there. That would be, god, it started off really small, probably like 20 people would show up and those were different people than the corporate people in downtown Dallas that would join. I think it was Lapras, that's what it was, yeah, Lapras Raid Day.. That was the first event I hosted and it blew up rapidly after that. We're talking like hundred people, 200 people, some people I don't even know. [00:13:00] And there was people in cars, there was people all on foot following me, it was just like, I've looked behind me once and I was like, Am I Forest Gump? I started feeling like Forest Gump, I mean running the raids. It was nuts. It was really fun though, and I miss it so much. So much. 

David: Were people able to keep up with your pace? 

TheTexasDuke: I speed walk. I'm super tall, I'm like six four almost and when I walk it was hard for a lot of people to keep up. On the event days, I would go at a slower pace and you know I try to make a lineup of gyms, but I mean, there were so many people anyway. I mean, you can't have more than 20 people in a lobby at once anyway, so I was like, just stagger out, here's the list, we can meet up at the end and have a beer, whatever, say hi.

David: Would y'all have any kind of meetups after these events? 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah, a little bit. They're kind of small though. A lot of people didn't usually stick around after the events, they just head home. After they got the shiny, of course. 

David: Do you remember what's your favorite experience running these raids? 

TheTexasDuke: A favorite experience. It was just not being or feeling lonely. It was like I, I had such a cool community around me and I loved it, and I was starting to really love [00:14:00] Downtown Dallas. I think other people were too cuz you know, downtown Dallas isn't like Austin. It never will be its own platform, you know? But I think what makes a city awesome is the people and it was so cool that I could bring them all together and have that experience in my life, you know? 

David: Do you have feelings of being lonely whenever you play both PokemonGo by yourself?

TheTexasDuke: Sometimes, yeah, yeah. I feel a little lonely sometimes when you're playing Pokemon GO alone, yeah, just like a park. It was just fun to have common relations, you know? Y'all are all going for the same shiny, you know, you're taking the Raid Boss out, doing a duo, you know, with Machamps. It was good times though, I'll miss it so much. Meeting up with the same people every day in downtown Dallas, outside of the events was really great. 

David: Do you still keep in contact with any of them? 

TheTexasDuke: I do, yeah. Most of them. 

David: Obviously Covid, stopped the RAID group, it's been about two years almost. Have you ever thought about trying to restart it again? 

TheTexasDuke: I have thought about it a lot. I mean, I got a baby now, but she's with her grandma and grandpa during the day anyway. My wife is back in downtown Dallas now working again [00:15:00] and she doesn't like being downtown, eating alone. She would love for me to come back and, have lunch with her, but in the same aspect, you know, I need to be working, but I wanna do events again, and I would love to bring it all back together, if there was a way to do it. But I don't think there is now with Remote Raids. 

David: Really. You think remote raid are a big barrier for you? 

TheTexasDuke: I think so, yeah, completely hosting, you know, remotely and people don't have to leave their couch. The game completely changed aspects. 

David: Do you think remote raid are healthy for the game?

TheTexasDuke: I do not. Even though a lot of people disagree with me, but they aren't healthy for the game because I don't meet up with anyone at a gym ever. Every once in a while we'll run into someone randomly I'll be like, "Hey dude, what's up?" You know, and we'll do a raid, maybe on Community Day, of course. I don't agree with it to a point. 

David: Do you think there's a world or a universe where both remote raid and regular raid can coexist? Or do you think that it's gotta be one or the other? 

TheTexasDuke: I think it needs to be one or the other. I don't know the backlash that Niantic would get if they took away remote raid, but it would probably be really bad. I think the, gym radius was [00:16:00] genius and they should never mess with that. That's fine! Leave it where it is. But the remote raids probably need to take a hike if we ever want to have a community game again. Otherwise, I don't think there's a point for me to come back to downtown Dallas and do what I was doing because I don't think anyone show up. I really don't. I mean, I could bring my guitar and play a show at Main Street Garden. Maybe they'll show up?

David: You could do a walking, you can play the guitar while you go from Raid to Raid. 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah. Play the guitar. 

David: Even better, if you could actually play the Pokemon theme song while you go to Raid to Raid.

TheTexasDuke: That be nuts! That'd be so hard. Hard to do though. I used to play with an iPad. I was walking around with this huge tablet, you know, like a TV screen. Even Brandon Tan, when I went up to, uh, Chicago GoFest was laughing at me. He's like, " Dude, your tablet bigger than mine." I was like, I got big hands. I can do this. He's like, " That's awesome," and I took a picture with him. He was laughing. 

David: Wait, so you got to meet Brandon Tan in Chicago?

TheTexasDuke: Yeah. Yeah, I got to meet him, yeah. When Listy was up there with me and Beaker, my wife, and my [00:17:00] dog. It was, completely worth the trip. I got to meet trainer tips and all the major dudes up there. 

David: Now tell me like what was it like going to Chicago? Was that your first ever GoFest? 

TheTexasDuke: That was my first go fest and the traffic in Chicago was insane. The park was super muddy, but it wasn't raining, so that was good. It was, uh, pretty overwhelming yet walking to the whole city, it was beautiful. The river, going through all of it was great. I did a boat ride with my wife. We took the little tour ride through Chicago and they talk about all the buildings and you could see the Trump Tower and all the other stuff. 

David: So when it was officially your day and you looked at your phone and you saw all the spawns and all the Pokestops, what went through your mind?

TheTexasDuke: Told my wife as soon as it starts, like I'm gonna be gone. I'm going disappear into a crowd of people and I may return like later on today. 

David: Would you ever do it again if you had the opportunity?

TheTexasDuke: Yeah, I think I would. I wouldn't drive all the way to Chicago again there for it. Little far. 

David: Would you fly, I assume? 

TheTexasDuke: Uh, I actually don't like flying. 

David: Oh, that's why. So how would you get to Chicago? Would you bike ride? 

TheTexasDuke: No! [00:18:00] Take a train? I don't know. 

David: Do what Forest Gump did and just walk up there?

TheTexasDuke: Just start walking. Yeah. Leave like a month earlier, just 

David: Right, right

TheTexasDuke: get some callouses on my feet. Gotta build them up. 

David: Gotta work for that one! 

TheTexasDuke: Right? 

David: If somebody was listening and was like on the fence about going to Go Fest or considering going to Go Fest or Safari Zone, would you recommend them going?

TheTexasDuke: Oh, definitely, yeah, it's a great experience. It's, really, fun and it's cool how they decorate everything and all the little areas that they have and the music. There's just so much to do, it's a little overwhelming. The best part of Go Fest for me was when I walked into the Mystic Tent and they were, they were doing special trades, right? And they were like, "Who has a really good special trade?" And I walk up and I'm like, " alright. I have a Pichu with a birthday hat," And everyone just straight up was like insane, like everyone went crazy. It was like, " just kidding!" They were freaking out because at that moment, like no one had the shiny Pichu with the birthday hat. 

David: Oh my gosh. You broke every single one of their hearts [00:19:00] away!

TheTexasDuke: Oh dude. Their eyes were just bawling. 

David: Wow. I'm surprised they didn't come after you dude, that's a mob, that's pretty, uh, dangerous. 

TheTexasDuke: They didn't come after me though. 

David: Well, you probably would've ran past them anyway. 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah, I I'd be dead. I wouldn't even be talking right now.

David: So obviously, you know, after Go Fest, you had to, unfortunately, due to Covid, quit the downtown raid group. How did your experience and play style with Pokemon Go changed? 

TheTexasDuke: I believe it was December, we all started hearing about it 2019. They were like, "Oh, there's some virus overseas, yada, yada, yada, spreading rapidly." I, I didn't think anything of it. Fast forward to February, 2020.



TheTexasDuke: My wife was like, " They're sending us home cuz of COVID and I was like, " What? What you mean?" I was like, " Really?" And she's like, Yeah, we're not coming back to Dallas. We're done. I just drove us home and that was it. It was nuts because as soon as COVID hit, my tooth started hurting. My wisdom teeth, I left them [00:20:00] in and they were like, rotting out and I was like, "Damnit, I should have got them pulled." And I completely forgot about it, you know, just kind of put it off and all the dentists were closed and here I am in like excruciating pain. So yeah, recommending everyone gets their wisdom teeth pulled. and then I, I lived in the garage for like 14 days after that. That was horrible. So I was probably poking Pokemon Go in the garage and it was like in the fifties in there. You know, obviously everyone's like, "What the hell is going on?" Then Remote Raids came out, and then, We were like, "Oh wow, remote, right? This is great. We can sit on our couch and remote this stuff." You know? And that's where the game, you know, had to change. It was cool that they did it, for Covid because it was too risky at that moment to get a group of people. 

David: Right. 

TheTexasDuke: And the whole game changed to meet the needs of safety.

David: Were you still able to walk around and bike around at the time or...? 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah, I still went to the park. It's kind of weird because I was worried about it a lot, so I didn't really like get near people on the trail, I just kinda walk to the right really far in the grass or something, but I'm still playing. But this is what I did beforehand. [00:21:00] This is going back a little bit to 2019. So I decided I'm gonna start building my park and making it better. So I got a cell map. The dog park had just been added onto my park. It was brand new trails and stuff, and I was like, " Hell yeah!" So I started pinpointing GPS points and setting up nominations. I would have friends come over late 2019 and I would use their nominations, my nominations, more people's denominations, more friends in the area around Grapevine. I turned my park into a freaking, Downtown Dallas kind of set up like I had all this, I had my cell and my park is blacked out. I put 20 stops in one s 14 and I made the third gym and when I blacked that out I was like, "Oh my God, I can't believe I just did that!" but I really worked hard on the nominations and I was glad I did it. 

David: What kind of nominations would you submit for your park?

TheTexasDuke: Oh, it was, uh, like artificial turfs for the dogs, signage, pavilions, a lot of pavilions, footbridges, 

David: Now, would you let these run naturally or would you actually review as well? 

TheTexasDuke: I would review. During COVID, I reviewed a lot and I upgraded a lot of my [00:22:00] nominations so they would go faster to the system and it worked. I would have nominations go through within seven days, sometimes or less. 

David: How did you go about learning about the criteria and everything for Wayfarer?

TheTexasDuke: I had already studied it so much, you know, being downtown, what would go through and what doesn't go through. 

David: So on April of 2021, you actually hit level 50. What was it like when you hit level 50? 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah, when I hit level 50, I was like, " Holy crap." I already knew I had the XP to do it. I had to do all these task and the whole 99 throws, that was the one that killed me the most. But got through it, got to 50.

David: So with all that you experienced in Pokemon Go, with the introduction of raids, your time with the Mystic Group and even hosting downtown Dallas Raids, what motivates you to keep playing Pokemon Go?

TheTexasDuke: It's a great hobby of mine. I enjoy the exercise and the Pokemon and the game in general. 

David: You have a daughter, I believe she's about three years old. Do you plan on like introducing Pokemon Go to her? 

TheTexasDuke: Oh, I already have. 

David: She has her own account?

TheTexasDuke: She does, she can throw the ball too. 

David: Really? Can she hit like a, Nice, Excellent, and Great throws or [00:23:00] She just can throw the ball. 

TheTexasDuke: She just chunks it. Yeah, just a straight, just a straight chunk.

David: Okay. Okay. You can teach her the way to do curve balls when she's gets a little older, I suppose.

TheTexasDuke: Yeah. I'll, I'll teach her the, the sniping trick for the excellence and stuff. 

David: There you go. There you go. She's gonna take after her old dad.

TheTexasDuke: Wait for the attack. Zoom in, wait for the attack. True. 

David: Do you ever take your daughter out to play Pokemon Go? 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah. I still take her out. Not all the time, but when I'm walking I take this is a little umbrella stroller. I highly recommend those because you can hold with your right hand on the hook and you can still play Pokemon on the left. 

David: Now you've had the actually interesting perspective of playing Pokemon Go as a single person and as a father. How has having a kid changed your play style for Pokemon Go?

TheTexasDuke: Well, honestly, I have to be here in the evening hours, so I can't play at night anymore. I still go out to the raids like yesterday I went out to a raid, you know, no one's there, but I used my pass. I still invite all my downtown Dallas peeps to my remote raid. And still that having a kid didn't really affect my Pokemon play [00:24:00] style or going to downtown Dallas in general. I could still go to Downtown Dallas. It's just a matter of would people show up? Would they actually show up and walk with me again? 

David: And that part, you're not too confident?

TheTexasDuke: I'm not confident in that at all and it may never, I don't know. I mean, my wife is working three days in downtown Dallas versus the normal five because a lot of people are working from home now. 

David: Makes sense. 

TheTexasDuke: I would love to fire it back up again, you know? Start the Pokemon Go downtown Dallas engine. 

David: So with everything you've done with Pokemon GO, with the Mystic Crew, with the Downtown Raiding and your hosting, with Go Fest in 2019, with the Wayfarer stuff you did in your park and even the stuff you get to do with your daughter, what do you consider your biggest accomplishment when it comes to Pokemon Go?

TheTexasDuke: I would think my biggest accomplishment, would be the, would be, be for my dad, honestly. He loved what I was doing, before he passed away last August. He would be proud of me, you know, and he was proud of me, he knew what I was doing and he loved Dallas, just like I loved Dallas. The accomplishment would be making my dad proud of me. Bringing people out of [00:25:00] their house and meet up, you know, to even a play game or just chat, you know. 

David: What would your dad say when you talked about the Pokemon Go stuff you did?

TheTexasDuke: Oh, he loved it. He was like, " Really?" And I was like, Yeah, look at these pictures. He's like, " Wow, you're, making a nice community." And I was like, Yeah", everyone loves it." 

David: I know that you talked about your dad passing away, do you still miss him at times?

TheTexasDuke: Oh my God, yeah. He didn't die of covid or anything, he got sepsis. But anytime you lose anyone it hurts, but losing a parent is by far the worst pain anyone can feel if you were close to them. I know some people aren't close to their dads or their moms or whatever, but tell them you love him every day and I would say spend as much time as you go in with your dad, you know? Throw the baseball, go fishing, play Pokemon, whatever cause when they're gone, it's over. 

David: It's a different type of loss compared to a grandparent because you got to see your parents, whether it be your father, mother, usually grow up with you. I remember when I lost my dad, my world shattered because. I didn't know what was going on with me. I was crying outta nowhere. It felt like I was by myself, in spite of I had some friends around me, but it changes you and [00:26:00] you don't come back the same and that's part of the mourning process. I remember when I went to Grief Share, and the one thing that they told me is the reason why you have that emotion is that you have love that you can no longer express. And the mourning process is trying to figure out how to utilize that mourning, utilize the feelings you feel when you lose a parent, whether it be a mom or a dad, or even anybody close to you, in a way that you can move on.

TheTexasDuke: Yeah, it's nuts. There's no way to really, Yeah, express the love anymore But they're still there and you can still dream about them and my dad lives on in my dreams, I dreamed about 'em last night, you know? 

David: Yeah, they live on, within our memories. They never leave us. They kind of, I would say they probably become more closer to us when they leave in an odd way to where when you do think about 'em, you think at some point you start thinking more fondly of them, it doesn't become a pain that you can't live through, if that makes sense. 

TheTexasDuke: Yeah, most definitely. I agree. 

David: The last message I will say, I definitely emphasize what he says. Tell your loved ones that you love them, tell them that you [00:27:00] care because as the old saying goes, tomorrow is never a guarantee.

Thank you all for joining me for another episode of, "As the Pokeball Turns! You can subscribe to this podcast on apple, Spotify, or your podcast streamer of choice. If you want to support the show, consider becoming a Patreon by going to patreon.com/asthepokeballturns or by sharing the podcast with your friends and family. Feel free to follow me on all my socials by clicking the link in the description of today's episode. Remember to give the show a rating of five stars and i'll see you next time!