Bosco Tech's Summer Shake Up 2024

[00:00:01] Hello and welcome to The Broke Bingo Addict. This is a podcast that ventures through the wild and crazy world of bingo. This is much more than your grandmother's bingo. My name is Shari and welcome to this week's episode, which as always is for entertainment purposes only.

[00:00:28] Hi everybody and welcome to this week's episode of The Broke Bingo Addict. Now for this week's episode, it's going to be a breakdown of the recent Bosco Tech Summer Shakeup 2024. I should say the long-awaited Bosco Tech Shakeup 2024.

[00:00:47] I don't know about anybody else, but it was definitely long awaited for me and I was really happy to finally have the opportunity to participate because it was really, really, really good. He can't be everything to everybody, but I think for the most part that expectations

[00:01:02] for this were absolutely met. Just so you know, this is happening again out in Rose Meade, California and the manager there is Paul and he's got a wonderful staff of some regular people in addition to the parents who also help out because of obligations toward the school.

[00:01:18] But this was a big, big event. So it was a big deal and it took a lot of work getting it organized and definitely had to put a shout out there to Big Venn, the cash cow, to Sassy Sonia, to Mama Guam, to Margie Bear.

[00:01:31] So there were a lot of people who put a lot of work into trying to make this a really, really exciting event and it was a two-day event and because of that I'm actually going to break this review out or this overview out into each day individually.

[00:01:44] Okay, starting with day one, there was so much going on and I'm going to try to be as clear about this as I can be. So the main thing was is that for the initial day, Paul breaks it up into two separate buildings.

[00:01:57] There's a building to the left of the main hall where they set up different booths going around the room. I guess it would be a gymnasium and they have all these little locations set up so

[00:02:08] people can go in there and they can buy their packs, they can buy extras that they want to get, they can get all the pool taps. They've got different sections for pool taps for those of you who love those.

[00:02:18] They've got the 2398 pool taps, they've got the regular dollar ones but they have all of these locations set up so you can just go in and buy all those things. But in addition to those technical things still, you can play bingo. They also have some things for fun.

[00:02:33] Paul likes to have fun. So the main thing that I was attracted to is that they had a little camera set up for videos and it's one of those cameras that is situated so you stand in the center and then the camera goes all the way around you.

[00:02:48] And then you get to dance and you get to do whatever and they have props for you to use. They have fans, they have fake money, they have sunglasses, they have a little balloon thing that you could bow bubbles with.

[00:02:59] So I was drawn to that and I dragged my friend Pam to go do that too. If you have a chance to see my TikTok video, you can absolutely see that Pam was dragged to do this because she was not getting into it at all.

[00:03:12] Pam wouldn't stop opening her pool taps. I think the girl thought she was going to get an instant or something but she was so not into that video. But I thought it was pretty cool and what was nice about it is that the video, when

[00:03:24] it was downloaded, it had a frame going around it that looked kind of like the Western Wanted Poster frames because that was kind of the theme of all the artwork that was done was this little Western Wanted Poster frame thing that was going on.

[00:03:38] So I thought it was really cute and nice that you could download it really quickly and it would go straight to your video. So that was cool. And another thing that they had was like a still camera.

[00:03:46] I thought there was a person standing in the room that had a camera set up that she could go over to. And when they took a picture of you, they did the same thing. Like I said, with this Western motif type thing going on, you would put

[00:03:57] in a frame and you were in a Wanted Poster and it had like your name or your TikTok name or whatever. So you'd have this picture of you looking like a Wanted criminal from the old Western day. So that was pretty cool too.

[00:04:07] A lot of people did that. Unfortunately, like I said, for whatever reason, I got distracted and I didn't get to have one of those. So then on the outside, what Paul had set up was one of those bronking bulls is that what's called a bronking bull.

[00:04:19] You've seen those when you go to the saloons they used to have those and it's the little fake bull and you get on it and it, you know, it bucks and does all that stuff and has the cushioning around it like a boxing ring or whatever.

[00:04:30] So that was really funny. But unfortunately, I hate to say it. It was so hot. I mean, it was a beautiful, beautiful day, but it was so hot that a lot of people didn't stay outside and really take full advantage of this thing. So I felt bad.

[00:04:42] It didn't stay the whole day. It was only there, I think until the bingo games started. But it was a really nice thought and it was really cool. But unfortunately, it didn't get the love that it really should have had. Although Paul did try to get people out.

[00:04:54] Paul had a thing that if anybody could get Tory and Tory is the bingo collar there, Paul said if anybody could get Tory to go out and go on that little bronking bull, bucking bull, whatever that's called, that he would up the payment for the strips to.

[00:05:06] I think it was $2,500. So anyway, they were playing 2000 and he was going to up that. But as unfortunately nobody was doing that tour wasn't getting out there. I don't know what that was. I don't know if she was hiding or they just couldn't find it.

[00:05:18] But luckily Paul went ahead because he's a nice guy and he increased the price anyway. But that said, I was I felt really bad about that. So you had the one room that had all the buy-ins and had all the pull tabs.

[00:05:28] You had the lovely little bronking bull on the outside. In the inside, you also had a young lady who was trying to get everybody up and dancing. So there was a DJ and this young girl who was dressed like in a little cowboy outfit.

[00:05:40] And she was doing her absolute best to try to get people to get up and go dancing and do the wobble or the slide and all this stuff. But unfortunately, her mic was just not that strong.

[00:05:50] I don't know if it was her mic actually or just her voice, but the people in the back and it was a big, big room. OK, there's over, I think, 300 people in that room. So it was a very big crowd.

[00:05:59] And those of us who were sitting in the back really couldn't hear her that well. So I think she didn't get the participation that really she should have deserved. But I will say that at one time, though, she did get some people up there

[00:06:09] doing the shuffle or one of those dances because I looked up and my friend Pam was up there leading the dance. It was funny. I'd gone out to go get something. I came back. I was like, where's Pam? Where's Pam?

[00:06:19] And my lovely 74 year old friend was up there shaking her booty with a lot of other people. So that was really funny. They also had food, by the way. So if you weren't dancing, if you weren't buying pull tabs and if you weren't on the little bull outside,

[00:06:34] there was a nice barbecue meal that was served for everybody. Mine was delicious. It was a barbecue chicken and you got corn and mashed potatoes and a roll. It was really, really good.

[00:06:44] But in addition to all the things that Paul set up to make it a really fun day for everybody, what was really cool for me is seeing all these people, you know, to see all these Tik Tokers that I chat with online

[00:06:55] or that I just watched Play Bingo or also to see a lot of people there that I hadn't seen that were regulars. You know, it was like this massive room of people who were just in a really good mood.

[00:07:05] And it was amazing. Some of the gifts that people brought. OK, I got some of the most amazing things I'm still kind of tickled about. Bingo bling glam made me the coolest ticket holder. It's got my logo on it.

[00:07:17] So it's like a little round ball if you're not aware. And it's got like a clip on it so you can hold papers and whatnot. But she decorates them so, so cute. And mine, like I said, had my logo in the middle that said broke bingo attic.

[00:07:29] And it also had a bunch of microphones on it because of my podcast. So it was really, really cute and totally unexpected and so sweet of her to make that for me. Everyone was so generous with their gifts and so thoughtful.

[00:07:41] But another one that I have to mention was Mary from Lovin' the Mix bakery. And she is such a good baker. And she told me, she's actually said, you know, you're going to love this bag because it was in a bag.

[00:07:52] And she said, you're going to actually love the stuff that's in it. And I was like, oh, cute, wonderful. I'm going to get some cupcakes. I'm going to get some cookies. It's got to be nice.

[00:07:59] And it's not that I didn't get those kind of things, but Mary had gone all out. OK, Mary also gave me some silver and turquoise earrings. I got some little tiny tags to put on strips so you can cover your strips

[00:08:13] when you don't need a particular section anymore. Oh, the coolest thing I got a key chain, which I didn't even notice at the time. She made a key chain that looked like a boot, like a little cowboy boot. But it was a clear cowboy boot.

[00:08:26] And I didn't notice at the time. But when I did take a moment and look at it, I realized it actually had my TikTok name in it, it had broke bingo addict in there. So she'd taken resin and taken the time. And I mean, these are little letters.

[00:08:40] OK, she took the time to put these little tiny letters into this cute little boot that I can have on my key chain that says broke bingo addict and really tickled by that. So another shout out to Mary. But like I said, everybody gave such wonderful gifts.

[00:08:52] And I was happy that I was able to give some gifts to you. And hopefully people appreciated them. But it was just a good time seeing all these people who were in such a good mood and spreading such joy and the love of bingo.

[00:09:04] Also kind of good that that was happening because it took a long time for Bingo to start, you know, those stores were supposed to open at 1130. And I think they kind of were on time, but the game didn't start till at least after four might have been 430.

[00:09:16] So that's a long day already. You've been there from what, 1130, 1230? You know, you've already been there about five hours, four or five hours before the game even starts. But once it did, it was a lot of fun. Paul had some great prizes.

[00:09:28] You're talking the 10 paper games he had each paid a thousand dollars. Then you had the strips, which again paid $2,000 till he upped them to 2,500. You also had some other specialty games that were paying, you know, hundreds or if not thousands of dollars.

[00:09:44] And oh yeah, at the very end there was a special strip. There was the Lucky Charm Strip that paid $5,000. Okay, you got three of those in your buy-in, which was really nice because a lot of people don't want to spend that kind of money.

[00:09:56] So you got that opportunity. And I actually bought three more of those puppies. I didn't win, which I have to mention if any people out there saw Big Vins live TikTok and that he and Italian bingo mom and I think

[00:10:12] Mary and a couple other people did, there were people out there who actually thought that I might be a favorite to win, a surprise favorite to win and the surprises on them. I did not win. At least, well, let me rephrase that. I did not win big.

[00:10:24] I did win. I actually won $120. I split a double action game with four other people. It was paying 500. Then there was an extra 100 because we bingled on a game that couldn't be reversed. Okay, I think it was like 90, excuse me.

[00:10:39] I think it was like 19 and you couldn't reverse it to 91. So we got an extra hundred dollars. So each of us got $120, which was fine. Okay, I didn't expect to win that because I haven't had a lot of luck at Bosco Tech.

[00:10:50] Sorry, but anyway, so it was a lot of fun to at least yell bingo, but I was absolutely positively not one of the big winners for the night. Okay, so anyway, that's pretty much it for the first day.

[00:11:05] It was a lot of fun, a lot of great people, good food, good games, good activities and everything and got out at a pretty reasonable time for Bosco Tech. I think we got out around 11 o'clock. It wasn't particularly late.

[00:11:16] So that was good, especially since we all knew we had to be back there. The next morning. So let's talk about the next morning. So a big problem with Sunday situation was that unlike Saturday, you couldn't buy anything online other than pool tabs for the initial day,

[00:11:35] for day one, for Saturday, you could get everything you needed. You could get your papers, you could get your special games, you could get your pool tabs, you could get any extra strips. So when we got there for Saturday, everything you need was in a bag.

[00:11:48] All you had to do was go up there, give you your name and they would give you your bag and you'd be all set unless you wanted extras. They had the extra hall where you could go in and buy extra things, extra packs, extra tabs, extra whatever.

[00:11:59] But for the most part, most of the items you needed were in that bag. So all you had to do was go, go to your table, sit down and get ready. But for Sunday, that was not the case.

[00:12:10] Everybody had to buy all of their packs in any of the extra games. OK, if you wanted to play, you had to stand in this line and get all of that stuff. And the problem came that unlike Saturday, you didn't have that extra hall where everything was indoors.

[00:12:26] This was outside and it was hot. Think I mentioned that about Saturday. It was freaking hot, an incredibly beautiful day, but way too hot to have that many people standing in line. And it just seemed like the line went on for ever and ever and ever.

[00:12:43] You'd go, you'd look and you'd say, oh, maybe I'll go back in a little bit when the line's gone down, but it was never going down. It just kept going on and on and on.

[00:12:51] And the sad thing was is I was getting things for myself and other people. I was also getting stuff for Pam because I didn't want her to have to stand outside in that line. You know, why should both of us have to do that?

[00:13:02] So I sit out in the line, had a good time talking to people, chatting, you know, socializing and you finally get up to the top of the line. I got a bunch of stuff. I went inside. I sat down and went, son of a freaking gun.

[00:13:17] No, I forgot something, which meant I was going to have to go back in the line again. I was like really seriously. So anyway, I sucked it up, went back out in that line and stood out

[00:13:29] there for like another good 40 minutes or so to get the other items that I needed, but I just couldn't believe I got there. I have to write things down because I cannot remember from one second to another. But anyway, that was a problem for a lot of people.

[00:13:40] And I worry because there are people who are elderly, people who had health issues, people who had mobility issues and you've got to stand outside in a line where there was no seating or anything. So I definitely think if they're going to do the two day thing,

[00:13:53] or if it's going to be a one day thing, if people are going to have to stand outside in the hot sun, they need to think of a better alternative for having that done. So that took a long time for that to be done.

[00:14:03] So that was, I would say, one of the major snafus with Sunday. But the other issue that happened was unfortunately, because this was such a big crowd, Paul not only utilized the main hall tech hall that everybody was in,

[00:14:17] but he also had to use the overflow room, which is called the MPR. And there were people over there. And I think because they weren't having good connectivity, because the Wi-Fi was kind of shaking everything like that, it was causing problems with the system.

[00:14:31] And it kept going down. And at one point it went down for a long time. I was starting to get scared that it wasn't going to come back up because they were really having a hard time figuring it out.

[00:14:42] And when I say, they, I feel like poor little Paul was doing his best to make this thing come back. But I don't know how much technical expertise Paul has. And it's got to be very stressful. You've got all these people just sitting there looking at you.

[00:14:54] You know, what is it over 300 eyes or whatever? Or I guess it'd be over 600 eyes looking at you, waiting for you to figure this out and get the system back into controls so we can go back and play bingo.

[00:15:04] And, you know, what if you can't figure it out? And I think even, I'm not sure, but I think at one point Paul even stopped further sales of pool tabs because I think he was afraid that if something happened and he couldn't play those pool tabs,

[00:15:15] you don't want to have to think about giving money back from people or not being able to do that. So that's a thought. I can't confirm that, but I had that feeling about it. So those are the two big snafus for the day.

[00:15:26] I don't think there was anything else major that happened. I'm sure there were little run-ins here and run-ins there. But just something to think about next year, hopefully we can work on making sure that we've, I don't know, figured out how to sell those papers online

[00:15:38] or figured out how to keep that extra haul open for the second day and get that done and also seeing what you can do. I don't know if you can work with like your cable company to make sure you have a better Wi-Fi set up

[00:15:48] for that particular day. But again, hopefully that'll be adjusted by the time we do this next year because I absolutely plan on doing this again next year. And I will say my only kind of little caveat, my only kind of thing that I really wish

[00:16:01] that they would figure out how to do is to have an event where it's just socializing because it was really good and we had a lot of fun. And I know there were some long time periods here and there, but it was so many people.

[00:16:13] It was really hard to socialize with everybody. And I really wanted to chat with people who were, like I said, from Hawaii and from all the other places that I don't get to see in person that often.

[00:16:23] It would have been really nice to have some kind of like of a social event. Not quite sure how that's done. I think Forty Martyrs does something like after that when they have their events. And I've seen other people have like an after party or something like that.

[00:16:35] I know there are some people who play Bingo there and they get together and they go out. But I mean, something that encompasses the whole group of people, whether you're a TikToker or you're not a TikToker, I think it would be really great if you could have something

[00:16:47] that people could participate in afterwards or maybe at a lunch break or something to do that just to really have the opportunity to chat and get to know each other a little better. So now, in case you're wondering, nope. I did not win on day two either.

[00:17:02] OK, I didn't get the $120. I didn't win anything, but I had a really good time and it was great seeing other people when it was really cool that Reina who never won there before actually won. And she was going on a trip the next day.

[00:17:15] So it was really exciting for her to leave with some money in her pocket. And there were several other people who got really nice payouts. So it was good. It was fun. I can't wait till Bosco Tech Summer Shakeup 2025.

[00:17:28] And in the meantime, thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the Broke Bingo Attic. And I do hope that you'll come back for the next one. Thanks so much. Bye.