This past weekend, I was on a trip in lovely Northern MI. A trip my husband and I had planned six months ago, which kind of means “etched in stone” in terms of scheduling.

That being said, we thought we’d at least try doing a virtual Sporcle Events Globe game – knowing we’d have to find a good WiFi spot to do that, since we were staying in a campground for three nights. No, it wasn’t one of those fancy campgrounds with Yogi Bear on the sign that has swimming pools, washer/dryer facilties, game rooms, and…

WiFi.

We tried out the Mitten Brewing Company in Northport, MI, but for some reason my phone wasn’t liking things there. My husband’s identical phone was fine, but all I was getting was the blue spinning circle of death.

Clearly this was a sign we needed to find a better spot! We ultimately settled on the spot that came up in my Internet search of “best WiFi spots in Northport MI.” Sometimes the Internet is right?

I brought my tablet and phone out for this virtual game, thinking I’d use the tablet for the video requirements, and my husband would use his phone to submit the answers.We could use my phone as a backup to take pictures of questions.

Sounds perfect, right? A 5G WiFi spot with delicious looking sandwiches and drinks, and indoor and outdoor seating? What could possibly go wrong?

We arrived at the New Bohemian Cafe (no Edie Brickell is not associated with this place as far as I know) before game time to try getting our technology wrangled. We were sitting at a patio table outside, and I…could not see a damn thing on my tablet screen in the sunlight. Anyone ever see that recent Apple commercial with that sun drenched guy on the roof of a building using his laptop and being able to see everything on the screen? Yeah, the opposite of that!

So I put my tablet under the table in the darkest place I could so that I could attempt to change my screen settings so that I could…you know – see my screen. I already had Zoom downloaded on both my phone and tablet, so that was all good, right?

Wrong! Turns out I had to download the update on my tablet. Thank the gods for New Bohemian’s fast internet speeds (I highly recommend this place to anyone trying to be a WiFi pirate in Northport, MI). It’s a lovely lakeside town in Northwest MI where you can not only (allegedly) find Petoskey stones, but look out at the harbor where Tim Allen accidentally dumped oil from one of his boats a few years ago in Northport Harbor. It’s just the right level of touristy without being obnoxiously so, like Mackinaw City or Sutton’s Bay, a little bit south of Northport.

Thankfully the Zoom update happened in time, but that doesn’t mean that things went smoothly in this game! First off, the host said that it was a two-hour game, and every other virtual game I’d ever played was only one hour. We’d planned beforehand to meet one of my husband’s cousins, who lives in Traverse City, about a half hour after I “thought” our game was over. I had thought about pushing the meeting with him back an hour, but I thought better of it after things started going so sideways during the game.

Not being able to see the questions well, not being able to hear them well on top of not being used to using only mobile devices for a fully virtual game? All of that turned out to be a recipe for disaster. My husband was the question answer person, so he had screenshots of questions on his phone. But when he showed them to me, I couldn’t read them, but he has his phone set up for his f—-ed up eyes (he takes off his glasses to read things up close) – and not my eyes that are f—ed up in the other way! I keep things more zoomed in on my phone.

Still, I’m a trivia junkie, so I wasn’t going to pass up a chance to at least see the questions! Even if we didn’t actually answer them correctly. We knew that there was nothing but a possible random prize on the line for a virtual game.

I managed to capture/write down most of the questions in the first two regular rounds and first two mystery rounds.

I’ll do my best to put together some kind of recap soon. I just got back from a trip, so I’m enjoying being clean from my shower – and feeling the cool breeze of a fan on me in the AC on this oppressively hot day.

In other news, I hear that the hybrid team of a couple of players from my team and a couple of players from my friend’s team managed to be in fourth place heading into the final, but didn’t get it correct (I don’t think many teams did get it correct). I learned that my husban and I would have probalby helped out on some questions, so maybe I’ll have to plan my next vacation better so that it doesn’t conflict with a trivia tournament! 😂