Box Three For the Living Dex... DONE!

I'm beginning to get lazy.  For instance, I could have gone to the Friend Safari to catch another Ponyta, but instead, I just made an egg from my Rapidash and a Ditto.  I'm not sure which process is quicker per se, but I find the process of retrieving an egg and hatching it a lot simpler than catching a pokémon. Besides, I'm already hatching tons of eggs anyway. What's another one?  

Before the Oval Charm, I would NOT have said that.

This box had two pokémon that required trading to evolve — Golem and Machamp.  I wasn't sure if it would work, but I tried out trading Machoke for a Machoke on the GTS... it went off flawlessly.  I wasn't worried about keeping my original, and neither was my anonymous trade partner.  We both got what we wanted — Machamps.  Same thing worked with the Graveler to Golem process. 

Meanwhile, in my ongoing Box Superlative competition, Shellder wins Cutest Pokémon.  Seel is sticking his tongue out as well, four spots over, but Shellder just does it better. Looking at the icons, you just get the idea that Seel is sporting some attitude, while Shellder, well... his tongue is just really long! He can't help it!

Wow. Okay, this is what happens when you play Pokémon with an open imagination.  

Speaking of which, I've been getting this idea when compiling this Dex so far, that each separate poke that joins the living Dex is a sort of... type specimen.  

Let me explain.  In college, I worked for a biodiversity museum lab.  My (awesome) job was handling historic type specimens, scanning them.  What's a type specimen? 

So, take a certain species of milkweed that grows in Northern California.  Milkweedus LakeTahoeus, or whatever. In the scientific world, botanists harvest specimens from the field, preserve them, and label them.  When the specimen is used to officially record the species, it is a "type."  Often, the type is a really perfect specimen, or the first specimen harvested... ever!

So basically, this is what I'm doing with the Living Dex.  I'm collecting type specimens for pokémon! When I evolve a Rapidash for the Living Dex... it is THE Rapidash. Rapidash ZERO. It's going to go into storage, and I'm not going to use it in play.  

What I'm going to do once the Living Dex is done is stick it in Pokémon Bank and keep it... FOREVER! Or at least as long as the Nintendo Company lets me.

QUESTION FOR YOU: How does your real life work influence your attitude towards Pokémon?