Have you ever bought Pokemon Cards?

Glad to see I'm not alone out there. I only bought the first 3 or so series of the cards, traded a bit and played a bit while also trading/fighting on the Red/Blue games. Collecting cards used to be a big hobby for me, collecting a few dollars here and there when I could and bought some cards(not just Pokemon, I bought Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh and of all things, original Digimon cards too). You feel so proud when you make your first little deck of the most god awful nooby cards in the entire game and challenge anyone to play. Then you slowly gather so many the boxes start to pile up and you have like 3 small cardboard boxes crammed full of cards. Then you think to yourself, well, if I spent $3 for 12, and I multiply that by these many...oh pineapple. I could've bought an awesome car.

Anywho, have any of you tried to go to any tournament/event put on by some hobby shop? Or maybe even thought of starting one up at a library or something? Maybe get some use out of those dusty old cards >.>