Saturday, July 4, 2015

June 2015 Entry



June was, as predicted, had a few challenges. Definitely a trying month, but not full of low moments thankfully.

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- A lot of stuff came from Amazon on the first. I was just surprised that the 3 separate orders came together. All good stuff regardless.


- A rare weekend off of work (that I didn't know about until late) was given to the workers of HER. While I did still go to HER on Saturday for an hour, I did start reaching out to a few friends to hang out. The rest of that day was making plans for Sunday. The plan was for me to meet a friend in Austin for a couple hours and then continue driving to hang out with other friends in San Antonio and stay there over night. The morning of Sunday, the Austin part of plans got cancelled unfortunately. I still left at my original time for Austin, but just went straight to San Antonio instead on the 7th.

On the way there, I was listening/watching to the Royal Rumble 2010 PPV from the WWE Network. I was only able to watch the first half of it as my phone gave me a temperature warning (first time I ever saw it) that it was too hot, which it was. The rest of the drive was listening to music. It made the 3 hour drive alone easier.

I ended up at my friend's home and was immediately greeted by her two dogs (one was new to me). We spent time catching up and trying to figure out what to do. I threw out the idea of doing an escape room there, but we weren't thrilled about the high price...even though we ended up spending more at Top Golf (my first time doing that). Sure, I could have done Top Golf in Houston, but it was fun doing this with my friend. We actually dubbed the day a celebration of our 10 years of friendship similarly to how I celebrated 15 years of friendship last month. This included just doing random things and reliving past memories like when we used to date.


I did request that we stop by and meet with another friend of mine in San Antonio. She had not seen him in years and it was her first time meeting his son. They had a good time playing together while I caught up with my friend. We wish he and his wife could have joined us for dinner, but maybe some other time.

We went hunting for a Colombian restaurant she had never been to, but it was closed. So we picked up some Mexican food that wasn't too far away and went back home to eat and watch the latest adaptation of Annie (I enjoyed it). While we had plans to go out and do more stuff after watching Annie, we were tired. Most likely due to being outside for a few hours at Top Golf and the heat getting to us. It was okay. I was fine with just chilling and playing with her and her dogs.

While the dogs were fun, they didn't make going to sleep easy. They were both constantly moving around all night. It was topped off by the new one peeing next to me on the bed. That...was definitely a thing, ha.

I left the next morning. I did get teary eyed saying bye to the dogs and my friend. While we didn't do much, it was a much needed break from the norm that I needed. It was great being able to spend time with a great friend as well.


- The American Dream Dusty Rhodes passed away on the 11th. That was very unexpected. He looked like he still had more to offer. He did leave a great legacy and inspired many. He will definitely not be forgotten. 



- Adding more to the collection pile, I finally bought a copy of Aeon Flux. It arrived on the 17th. I haven't watched all the extras on it yet though.


- For the second year in a row, a friend of mine held Teacher KaraokaaaYYYY! Most of those invited were teachers in some way, which is why I was there. I didn't go up on stage to sing this time however. I was just in the mood to be around good people and sing at from the table. It was a damn fun night though. I was there from beginning to end with one other friend from 8:30PM to 2:00AM. It has been a while since I did something like that, ha. This was also the first time since I've started having Thursdays off at work that was actually a good Thursday. Very thankful for this fun night.

One thing that did happen is that another friend brought up how 3-5 years ago that I "had game" because I talked to this girl that looked like a Kpop star. He has brought this up every year we had gone to Spotlight. We actually did the investigative thing this time and "stalked" my friends on Facebook. I originally thought he was talking about one of my exes since she almost fit his description. But then it popped into my head with one other possibility that it could have been. Showed him a few pictures of her and we had our winner, another friend of mine slash another friend's sister, ha. It was a cool moment that reveled in finally figuring out who this mystery person was.


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- Got some new amiibo this month. First two to arrive (the 3rd) were Pac-Man and Ness. Next was Shulk (the 22nd). Unfortunately, while this was a great get, I got it on eBay...and at a higher price that I should not have paid. I'm glad I got it, but yeah...I won't ever pay too much for an amiibo no matter how much I want it.



- When I was in San Antonio, I picked a Majora's Mask pin that my friend got from buying Code Name S.T.E.A.M. He had meant to give it to me the last few times he came to Houston, but he would either forget or our schedules wouldn't work. but I have it now and it is cool.


- The new DLC for Smash Bros was announced on the 14th. While Roy and Ryu were leaked earlier, it was still awesome to see the official announcement. I downloaded them the next day as the first day had the eShop full of traffic as expected. I didn't play Lucas, Roy, and Ryu right away, but I did go through each character a day at a time. It was cool to play as Lucas and Roy again. Ryu is very interesting. It's weird and awesome to see him as a playable character in Smash. 


- In a fun surprise, Nintendo announced the release Earthbound Beginnings for the Wii U Virtual Console. It's basically the original NES Mother game under a new name since it was never released in the US. I downloaded it, but I'm not sure when or if I'll even get around to it. We'll see.


- E3 was fun to watch. Nintendo didn't show off a lot of stuff this year compared to last, but a few games made it to my "to buy" list especially a new list of amiibo that I want. You can read my impressions of their Digital Event with the proceeding link.

https://www.facebook.com/WingedVoX/posts/838253259596009

- I also played and made a post on my impressions of the nine Nindie demos that were available during E3.

https://www.facebook.com/WingedVoX/posts/839285372826131

- The announcement of Final Fantasy VII Remake and Shenmue III were amazing. I really contemplated whether I should get a PS4 for at least Final Fantasy VII Remake. The reason I bought an original PSX was to play Final Fantasy VII so that would be a fitting set of circumstances.

- I have invested more time into Xenoblade Chronicles 3D this month. As of typing this, I'm at 38-40 hours. While I like it, I'd rather just watch the story now. I have hit a few points where I need to level up because my team wasn't strong enough, but unless it's critical to the story, I actually get tired doing some of the fights. But I am determined to beat the game within the next couple of months.


- At the beginning of the month, I used up my Club Nintendo coins to download 4 games; Super Mario Land, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, Super Mario Bros., and Super Mario Bros. 3. It was mainly for collection purposes, but I do plan to play and beat all of them. I did get Super Mario Land out of the way first towards the end of June. It took maybe...40 minutes to beat. I still enjoyed. It had been decades since I last played it on actual Game Boy so it was good to go back to and beat.


- I bought another game that was played on Game Informer's Super Replay, Raw Danger. It came in on the 29th. I do plan to get a few more games that were played on Super Replay, but some are really rare and expensive. Plus I really want my favorites that they played, not all of them.


- I've said it many times before, but it's more of a reality now. I have been pulling back on content for my WingedVoX gaming account. It's going to continue that way before it eventually fades in time.

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-  On the 2nd, I had to deal with an angry customer over email. To be fair though, I did screw up at one point and did have to hand it over for Agent Ro to finish. I got very flustered and felt like crap. We've dealt with tough customers over the phone, over email, and in person, but this was the first time I really felt like a screw up. Not fun...

- The first of new agents in training started on the second as well. He named himself Agent Tiny. He and I got along well especially since he was a fellow wrestling fan (we started doing New Day claps together, ha). He was able to pick up things pretty well, but his biggest fault was that he was slow on his speech. It was something I had to remind him about several times. The players' time and our time is precious so he needed to get that information out faster to them. Unfortunately, he did leave us after a couple weeks for a job he applied for before working at HER. He had the potential to be a really good facilitator, but we'll never know now.

- I had mentioned before that I have bad traffic incidents that make me late to work. There was one day in particular (06.03.15) in which it took 100 minutes for me to get to work...and almost the same amount of time going home. Had it just been going to work, that's fine. But hitting bad traffic on the way home, that sucked.

- We had our 1 Year Anniversary last month. During the beginning, we had a fun time answering questions from a hat and eating dinner. I actually put that video together for the agents to watch or listen to again if they wanted to on the 5th. It was a long video (over an hour). I didn't do any fancy editing (increased the volume mostly), but I did spend a good hour on 10-15 minutes into 15 seconds. I actually was pretty proud of that and think it looks cool. I doubt any of them got to see it though.

- Agent Ro ordered company shirts for all the agents. They're cool and comfortable. I want more of them and possibly different versions (like with the lock logo on the sleeve or back etc).


- We were going to have a corporate booking on a Monday (06.15.15). Unfortunately, there was a flash flood warning. And more unfortunate for me, I met the heavy rainfall as I was on my way to work. During that time, Agent Ro was calling me and the other agents that were to work that day and the corporate team about possibly cancelling as we don't want anyone to risk going out in the bad weather. I was stuck in the rain for about 90 minutes and even lost a windshield wiper along the way. But we had cancelled that session. I did end up going to HER though to talk and show some 3rd room stuff to Agent Ro. Agent Z and Agent Scarlet were able to show up to do some work as well and it was good to see them despite the bad circumstances of the rain. It wasn't that bad weather-wise towards the end, but at least I got to talk to Agent Ro a bit more before he left.


- The flood warnings continued onto the 16th. Those that were to work that day were assigned to call and email customers informing them that we would be closed and offer rescheduling. It wasn't that bad to do, but it is disappointing to have to change the plans of others especially if they planned way ahead of time.

- We gained an extra agent in training on the 18th. This also fell on Agent Yeti's birthday.

https://instagram.com/p/4GKgB5IXfw/

- And two days later, it was Agent Ro's birthday.


- I forget when she started because I wasn't there for it, but we gained another agent in training. She is one of Agent Audrey's friends so I had met her when they went through Grandma's room, but didn't officially meet her until July.

- In another string of unfortunate work incidents, our a/c had been acting up. On the 27th, it was completely down. We tried to keep operations running by installing fans in almost every area of the building as well as providing bottles of water for our customers. While the customers all had fun, most did comment that it was hot. It was decided towards the middle of our bookings that we were just going to cancel the rest of our sessions so that the rest of our customers and the staff wouldn't have to suffer in the heat. We spent time calling up the last half of our bookings letting them know we were going to reschedule or refund them due to the inconvenience. Once we got that out of the way, we started to close down as normal.

I ended up blurting out that we needed to go to one of our competitors (the newest one) and try one of their rooms now that we had the rest of the day off. Everyone agreed and we bought tickets for an 8:30 session. We all met up there all wearing our HER shirts (we all thought it would be funny). The owners of this escape room had been through ours and recognized us (I was actually their facilitator). They were actually just coming back from dinner and didn't know they had a booking since we booked last minute, ha. Just like any other time we go to another escape room, we were all taking mental notes on how they had things set up and how they were running their operations.

After a few minutes, we were lead into our escape room. We made it out with 9 minutes left (if I remember correctly). Afterwards, we went to Tiger Den to eat and talk about the room. It definitely was like a typical escape room, but we all liked it. Some things were done were pretty clever, some were blah. I think we all liked that this was a smaller room for up to 6 people at most with only 45 minutes.

So while the day started really hot and unpleasant, it ended on a fun high note. Yay, unexpected team building, ha. My record for escape rooms is now 5 wins and 2 losses.


- The next day, the a/c was still down. We were hoping it would be fixed, but we prepared ourselves just in case. We basically handled it like we did for floods by calling and emailing customers from home offering rescheduling and refunds. I'd say about half of the customers were understanding, but I had the unfortunate "honor" of being told how we "handled this terribly," "messed up their plans," and "ruined my daughter's 17th birthday," and maybe a few other things. It's not like we were doing this on purpose, but yeah...that's how some of them felt.

I was hoping to probably go out and do stuff that day, but the emails and phone calls needed to be monitored throughout the entire day. I was able to at least get a few hours of Xenoblade Chronicles 3D in between handling calls and emails. But yeah, an interesting "off" day to say the least.

- I wasn't there the day it actually happened, but we had the Houston Chronicle come in and write an article on HER. I posted it on our social media outlets on the 29th. Please take some time and read it as it is something we were really proud of.

With an account: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/life/article/Escape-Room-brings-out-inner-Bond-MacGyver-6351406.php?cmpid=gsa-chron-result

Without an account: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzqBFEsLDgGhd2FLaDdYSUx0Mjg/view

- On the 30th, we had another agent in training join the team. Not only that, it was the official last day of the Library Club as our Agent Audrey was going to leave at the beginning of July. In honor of this day, Library Club members brought books to recreate a past photo we made. Agent Yeti also went out and got us bbq to eat for dinner. We didn't have a last session (due to cancelling on account of the flash flood) so we had lots of time to celebrate. I don't recall exactly how it was brought up, but we started asking which agent we would let eat us. It was hilarious. It was then followed up by the question of who we thought tasted the best, ha. And thanks to the dinner conversation we had, the Cannibal Club was born. After dinner, we tried our best to recreate our previous Library Club photo and have it slowly morph into a Cannibal Club photo, ha.


- A lot of work has been done on the 3rd room. I'm very proud of what Agent Z and Agent Scarlet have done. Those two have been absolutely amazing. There was one day that I walked into the 3rd room in the morning and could not help but smile and be giddy at what I saw. I immediately texted Agent Z about it. Later in the day, I bought both of the girls macarons and expressed how proud and happy I was of them. I did invite them to Teacher KaraokaaaYYYY and offered to pay for the meal and drinks as a form of thanks, but they already had prior commitments. I will eventually treat them out because they deserve it. Thank you, Agents Z and Scarlet.   

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- One odd thing that happened over the past couple of months, any time I used the words "catch up" with someone, that ends the conversation and there is no follow up. I can recall that happening 4+ times with different people. It is very weird. I don't know what to do about it, but I can't always be the one attempting to reach out to try and stay connected. Sure, I left a lot of people over time and that was my choice, but I left the door open to keep contact with the ones I really cared about. 

- I didn't need it, but I bought the extra Kiss My Lips album card of BoA (06.17.15). I didn't know I needed it until I randomly searched for it on eBay. I have it now. I am happy that I have it.


- For those that don't know, Jessica of Girls' Generation was forced out of the group last year. On the 22nd, a version of the latest SNSD music video Catch Me If You Can with Jessica was leaked online. I actually enjoyed it and smiled watching it. I was inspired to make an mp3 of her version for myself. In doing that, I also felt the urge to blend the music videos together. I made two versions; one with the version of Jessica overlaid on the one officially released and the other showing one video directly over the other for a direct comparison. I ended up sharing it online on my WingedVoX accounts since those accounts were originally for videos I made and not just games.

Each video had close to 200 views before I was given my first ever copyright strike claim on YouTube on the 24th. I had to take watch a video and take a short quiz over copyright claims in order to just use my YouTube account at all. That strike will go away by the end of the year. They also removed my video, the one that was a comparison. The other just had a warning on it, but I decided to delete that one myself just in case I was handed another strike. My video actually got pulled down days before the originally leaked video finally got pulled down as well.

That strike really hurt. While I knew I was risking copyright issues, I really wanted to make these videos and share them with SONEs. I also got "yelled" at for sharing it on Soshified (they weren't allowing the leaked video to be posted anywhere and I didn't know that before sharing) when I thought they would like it and understand that I made it out of love for my favorite member of the group. It reminded me that I am far removed from that fan base. Even the ones I became friends with, I barely speak to anymore.  Since it was received well by few and I was given a strike, it reminded me of why I quit making videos for personal purposes. This reassured that I shouldn't make any videos for myself and just do it for work, which have been doing until now. It was actually about 2 years since I made a video for myself. So...I will go back to not making videos for myself (unless proper inspiration comes its way) and enjoying Kpop the way I used to and had been reverting back to. 

- On a lighter note of SNSD, they're having their comeback in July. They look fantastic.


- What do I expect from July? Not too sure. Only thing for sure is the 3rd room at HER. Other than that, I have little to no expectations of things happening. June was very up and down. I'm at least hoping for more ups in July.

Thanks for reading. Be healthy, be safe, be thankful, be bold, and be loved.



Take care. DFTBA.

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Wednesday, June 3, 2015

May 2015 Entry



May 2015 is over. Many things, good and bad, happened.

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- Went to watch Avengers: Age of Ultron at the beginning of the month with the usual super hero movie crew. We met beforehand to eat and have stupid conversations as we normally do (I got the waitress involved in some as well). The movie itself was fun. I enjoyed the first one more, but the second one was very much enjoyable. It was a late show and I had to work the next day. Although I am glad I kind of left early because one of the people that was invited (met for the first time) was going on a tirade about the movie when I was getting out from the bathroom. I wasn't in the mood and I do tire of hearing about how a movie "should have" been. Didn't need that to ruin my liking of the film.


- Got some new NXT gear on the 11th. Even though Paige has been on the main roster for a while, I still consider her NXT. I've always liked her gloves and I just need more Finn Bálor stuff. The armbands are cool.


- Girl's Day released a new song called Hello Bubble. They didn't promote it though. It's an okay song, but also on the short side. My favorite part is Yura's rap close to the beginning. So good.


- Since March, our family had been taking care of my dad's friend's puppy while he was on vacation in the Philippines. The 14th was its last day here. As I previously mentioned, I didn't speak to the puppy at all (maybe a few sentences through the whole duration). I mainly used gestures and sounds (grunts, clicking, etc) to communicate. During its last week, I made sure to spend more time with it and treat it better.

On the last day, I remember coming home from work and seeing that it was gone, but finding it weird that its bed, leash, and bowls were still around. I just figured the owner forgot all of it and was going to return the next day to get all of it. The next morning, I was backing out of the driveway to do errands when I see out of the corner of my eye the dog at the neighbors home. I waved it over and it ran right up to me. I led it back to the backyard and noticed that we had a hole in our fence. Yeah, the puppy actually ran away via that hole on its finally night with us, crazy. I patched it up with its bed and did my errands. Came back and played with it a bit more. Went to work and came home to see that the dog and all its stuff was gone. And that was it.

I do wish I played with the puppy more while it was here. It really did serve as a boost of energy especially after a long and late night of work. Plus it was just really fun to have a dog to play with. It was different from the usual that I was used to. Hope you've been well, puppy.


- Lots of wrestling happened in May. There was the Payback PPV on the 17th (Shield triple power bomb), NXT Take Over Unstoppable on the 21st (eye of Bálor, Lynch VS Banks made me emotional for some reason, and Samoa f'n Joe), and then Elimination Chamber at the end of the month (Fight Owens Fight and Ambrose' "win"). Definitely a great month of wrestling action.

- Going home early from work on Sundays has been nice. On the 24th, I texted my friend who owns Bite Macaron to see if she was working. She was so I stopped by to catch up with her since it had been a while. We spoke until closing and then her and her fiancé asked me to join them for dinner. We went to a Korean restaurant I had been to years before and had a delicious meal. My friend and I also made plans to meet up the next day.


- We decided that this day would be our 15 years of friendship celebration. I doubt either of us could remember the exact date we became friends, the 25th of May sure was not it, ha. We had nothing planned out (other than our first location) and just played by ear. Picked her up from Bite and went to Path of Tea. We shared some peach tea (they didn't have Princess Peach tea available) and caught up in more detail on things since it was just us. Next stop was Tea Bar just to get some snack foods and drinks. A few suggestions for our next destination were thrown out, but we ended up on going to the Edwards theatre near Bite to play DDR. We first met each other at a theatre playing DDR so it was fitting.

We were both a bit hesitant to play as we knew we weren't in our prime, but we played. She stayed on Normal and I moved up to Difficult after a song. We were tired after our first set of 3 songs. We played 3 sessions of DDR (9 songs total) within the 90-120 minutes we were there. In between each session of DDR, we tried winning things from the crane games. So close on many occasions, but we walked out with nothing in the end. Playing DDR was definitely memorable for us.

I forgot when it happened, but we received flash flood warnings while we were in the arcade. As we made it out to the parking garage around 9PM, we got our first glimpse of the rain coming down. We decided to wait in the garage for a bit for the storm to calm down. Needless to say it did not. I think it was an hour later that we decided to try the streets to get her back home thinking that the freeways were jammed. Unfortunately we hit pretty flooded roads. We had to reverse through a few of them and even forged through one that was pretty deep before parking in a parking lot along the feeder. Parked facing the highway so we can see the progress of the traffic flow, but the heavy rain pouring down was more than enough of an indicator as to how the traffic would be.

During our parked time in the rain, we reminisced over old songs we used to listen to (classic Kpop from SES, BabyVoX, HOT, etc), I showed her BoA's latest music video, we talked about songs we used to perform to, and just talked more in general. Overall, we had a great time. That filled up at least 3-4 hours of time. I'm not sure I could do that with many people I know, but that might just be a testament of our 15 year friendship. There really wasn't anything else we could do due to the flood and rain. But we did decide to attempt to make the trek out around 1AM as things had died down. The feeder itself was fine. The freeway towards downtown was flooded at parts, but manageable to drive on. Soon enough, I was able to drop her off at home.

Unfortunately for me, neither of us looked at how the other side of the freeway was doing. Soon enough, I was stuck in traffic that was not moving. It took a while before I ended up 3rd from the front of the traffic in which a large area of 59 had been flooded. Many had gotten out of their cars to go see what was happening. I rolled down the windows to ask a few people passing by what was going on. The kind ones mentioned the flooded area and that cars were getting stuck attempting to cross it. I eventually got out to look myself and yeah, it was bad.


I think I got out at least 3 times just to walk around and talk to a few people. Hours had passed and I was parked on 59 for 3-4 hours. I was tired, hungry, had to pee, and just wanted to go home. To help pass time, I used the WWE Network to catch up on the episode of RAW I missed that night. Funnily enough, towards the end of my time there, I was watching Game Informer's Super Replay of Raw Danger (game about a flooded city). I did befriend one person who was looking for a car charger for his phone. Once he found his cable for it, I had him sit in my car while it charged. We were just swapping comments about work, our cars, family, etc. At some point, tow trucks made a path amongst the traffic. We were then told that we were all going to reverse and go backwards on the highway to get out. While others had attempted to do that within the last few hours, it was impossible as traffic was extremely backed up. But we were finally getting out.

Since there was no known path to get home safely, I ended up going to the Houston Escape Room to spend the night there. It was close to 5AM that I reached the building. I'll save the details of what happened there for the HER section of this entry. The following day, I asked the same friend from the last few days if I could go to her place because I just needed to be around people after all that had happened. Her fiancé got us McDonald's from nearby and we watched Tommy Boy. After the movie, we looked up to see if the paths were more clear because before then they weren't and another flash flood warning was in effect for the area I lived in. I saw a small window of opportunity. My friend and I pondered if it were safe to go or not. She was already prepared to have me sleep over just in case the weather ended up being bad again. But I decided to try it. I left around 5:30 and made it home close to an hour later with little trouble. It just felt good to take a shower and be able to relax in my room.

That flood was something else. It reminded me of a situation a year ago. The only reason I remember it was a year ago is because Comicpalooza was happening at that time also. I had to travel back from San Antonio in horrible rain by myself and that was hellish much like this flood. I don't wish that anyone else has to experience these situations alone. It really would have helped to have someone in those situations just to have someone to bounce alternative solutions off of and just to stay sane.

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- The Splatoon Global Testfire demo/trial happened on the 8th. I had a blast playing it more than I thought I would. You can read my thoughts on it with the proceeding link. In the end, I did not buy the game. I just don't have as much time for games. But everyone else that has the game, I know they're enjoying it.

https://www.facebook.com/WingedVoX/posts/818226364932032

- A month after buying it, I finally started playing Xenoblade Chronicles 3D. I was still skeptical about jumping into it since it's a 60 hour game. But I have been enjoying it so far. I'm trying to make more time for it, but (as of typing this) I'm only about 15 hours in. I don't have any other games I want coming soon, but E3 could change that and I feel some possible titles will push Xenoblade Chronicles 3D will take a backseat. We shall see. I'll try to put more free time into the game if I can.


- The wave 4 amiibo released on the 29th. I had some ordered and to be shipped to me (Ness, Pac-Man, Jigglypuff). I also had the Splatoon 3 pack ordered, but Walmart cancelled it. But I still thought to try and find some of the amiibo I did not reserve at a few shops. My local GameStop had plenty of Silver Marios as well as one last Splatoon 3 pack so I got those. I checked the nearby Walmart (nothing) and then a nearby Target (only Pac-Man) and then went home. I was glad to have found these 4 amiibo. Now to wait for the others to arrive.


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- We did something nice for Mother's Day at HER. It was a last minute idea I thought up. We take pictures of every group that comes through our facility. What I wanted to do was take an additional photo with just the mothers in the group and have them hold a heart (left over from Valentine's Day). All groups were receptive of it and I think it was a hit with the customers and staff.


- Not to say that there are never any bumps in the road with HER. I've mentioned in previous entries that it sometimes takes longer for me to get to work. Normally, I leave an hour early because I always hit a patch of traffic. on the 15th, it took 110 minutes to get to work. I was sour until about an hour after I arrived. I even left early because of light rain fall, but yeah...not fun.  

- On the 16th, there was a couple that came in that were celebrating their anniversary. They actually came straight from dinner. They explained that they didn't even eat since their food came out late. They pretty much got their food and came over, but were just going to throw it away before offering it to the staff. I'm usually cautious about accepting food from strangers, but everything was fresh and mostly untouched so I accepted it. The rest of the staff didn't want it so I ate as much of it as I could after my session. Yay for nice customers.


- Production on the 3rd room hit a stand still. To make a long story short, almost nothing was done in the first month due to multiple reasons. One of those reasons was not having someone to help build some of the big set pieces I was thinking of having. That was until the 18th when we met with who I will refer to as Agent Scarlet. Agent Ro and I interviewed her, looked over her portfolio (very impressive), and made a plan for what we are going for. She was very much on board and even provided some great insight. Agent Z joined later as she was the one who recruited her since they are working on production together. Needless to say, we were all very glad to bring Agent Scarlet on board.

On the 20th, all of us got together again to discuss things in further details. Agent Ro left and the rest of us continued. Ended up treating Agent Scarlet to lunch and got to know her a little better. She stuck around for a little bit before we parted ways and resumed normal building hours.

- The Houston Escape Room had its 1 Year Anniversary on the 19th. We closed our normal retail hours to celebrate together (minus Agent Valentine who could not attend), but we still did a few corporate teams at the beginning of the day, which I was there for.

The rest of the agents started arriving around 5. The first thing we did was sit in a circle and pulled questions from a hat that were written by Agent Ro and Z. It was just to help break the ice and to get some honest answers from each other. Some questions were funny, some serious, but we all answered them. Then we did a round of everyone contributing a question and pulling them from the hat to answer. It was pretty funny that time around. The last few questions spilled into our dinner (6:30) we had catered from Berry Hill. We ordered quite a bit, but it was delicious.

Then we started setting up for a presentation that Agent Ro and M were going to give at around 7:30. But Agent Ro decided to take a break in the middle to do our "chalkboard fun activity" that was scheduled at 8. However, we were surprised as someone knocked at our door. Even more to my surprise, it was a friend of mine and I could not stop smiling. She came in the guise of a special agent seeing if we were all qualified to be agents for another year. She split us up into teams (I was in charge of one with my team consisting of Agent K, Audrey, and Yeti) and gave us all nicknames. Agent M wanted to be Hot Cop, but my friend said she knew Hot Cop and that he definitely wasn't him (you damn right). The best one was for Agent Yeti as she said she looked a secret pervert, ha. The teams then went to separate rooms (we went to the 3rd room) and were given secret messages we were to interpret through dance. So we spent the next 20 minutes coming up with simple dance routines trying to convey the messages given to us. Then we convened at the couch area and performed our pieces. I think everyone was just surprised in general with how we all did and everyone had fun, which was the most important thing (yay, different form of team building). I've told everyone since then that my team was better on a technical performance scale and that Agent Z's team was a better crowd pleaser. In the end Agent Z's team won. I was chosen to be "exterminated" on behalf of my team. However, my friend (through "random phone call") said I was lucky and that me and my team survived this time, ha. Afterwards, we all thanked her for her time and got some insight into how it was all put together. Emails had been going back and forth that I was a part of and I knew she and Agent Ro had a meeting to plan a future activity. After their meeting, she and Agent Ro put on acts for me showing different spectrums. She was really excited and Agent Ro wasn't too thrilled about collaborating. Yeah, I was fooled, but overall surprised. I spoke to her for a bit before she left and thanked her for what she did for us.

The presentation continued on. After the business part of it wrapped up, we all shared stories of what we were doing a year ago or at least before we joined HER. I was of weary of my turn as I knew what I was going to say and it ended up being the most negative out of all the stories shared. And it was the most emotional. I cried, which I tried to fight back, but talking about the events leading to me joining HER were not the best. Recalling all of it out loud made it harder. It was something I had not shared with the staff before (or only 1 or 2 knew prior), but I hope they have a better understanding of why I'm very happy to be where I am with them now.

We ended things by cleaning up and walking each other out as we were leaving. I ended up staying with Agent Ro for about another hour just to talk about things. Overall, it was a fantastic way for the whole team to bond. As close as we have all gotten, I think we learned more about each other than we thought we would that day. Happy 1 Year Anniversary, Houston Escape Room.


- In one of the few instances of doing any type of advertisement outside of social media, we were in the Houston Press.


- Continuing the earlier story of the flood earlier, I spent the night at HER. During that 3-4 hour stint parked on 59, I was actually typing out a work email because we were to have a corporate session at 10AM. I finished out when I got to the building, but basically, I cited the flood, the timing, the fact that we'd be asking customers and staff to attempt making it out there, and that I needed appropriate clothing if we were still going to do this. I think I went to sleep around 6AM after drinking lots of water and eating chips (our snack drawer is very empty, thank goodness for the leftover chips from our anniversary dinner). I used Grandma's room because I had napped there before and knew it felt comfortable. But I would wake up at least every hour to either check texts (staff, friends) and to check on email responses from the one I sent out. The next few hours were spent cancelling/rescheduling our customers that day as we declared we were closed much like many other businesses in town. The thing is, the area around us was actually fine, but enough customers emailed and called (yeah, I answered calls even though I didn't need to) inquiring about if we were still open or just expressing their concern. It was good that we closed up. I didn't want anyone else to risk any harm just trying to make it out there.

- There was a flash flood warning on the 30th so we took precautions and called customers that had later sessions and cancelled/rescheduled them. Better safe than sorry. We're next to Minute Maid Park and it was flooding there. The facilitators took the rest of the time there to rearrange the break room and move a few large pieces in and out of the 3rd room. Myself and Agent Blue were there an extra hour just to make sure the rain subsided before everyone headed out. I was ready to spend the night at HER again, but thankfully it wasn't necessary.

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- BoA's new album Kiss My Lips came out this month. Along with the album came two new music videos.  

BoA - Who Are You - MV


BoA - Kiss My Lips - MV


My copy of her 8th Korean album arrived on the 26th. The poster arrived two days later.



BoA - Billie Jean (Sketchbook)


BoA - Kiss My Lips - 05.17.15 (Comeback Special) 


BoA - Kiss My Lips - 05.23.15 


BoA - Who Are You - 05.31.15 


With extreme bias, I really really really like this album. It's one of her best. From the music videos to the tracks on the album itself, they've all been great. Her performances were stellar and she looked like she was smiling the most she had ever done during any promotion that I can remember. She genuinely looked happy and was having fun every performance.

I myself smiled a lot watching the videos and performances. It's like I fell in love with her all over again. I think I said that about her last album, but I know I was more giddy during performances of Kiss My Lips and Who Are You. While I enjoyed them all, the ones displayed above were my favorite performances. 

Who Are You is really fun and is cute overall. Kiss My Lips, there really is a lot of emphasis on her lips as she wore bold lipstick and I loved it. The fan dancers add to the overall set piece of it and it felt very appropriate. Her other performances she did during her comeback weekend were cool as well (Green Light, Fox, Smash). Her appearance on Sketchbook was great to watch. While I enjoyed all of the performances during that show, her Billie Jean performance got me jumping around with so much joy.

Overall, Kiss My Lips is fantastic. I could gush on and on about it, but I won't. Just know that I really like it and am very thankful for a performer like BoA. I love this woman so much. 15 years strong.

=========================

- PC is struggling hard now. I think it needs to completely melt before I actually get a new one, ha.

- Sleep has been good for May despite a few tough nights. I've been able to sleep without any background noise, which is always good. And I've been having a string of dreams lately around the same subject, but in different scenarios. It's...interesting...very interesting. I'm really hoping some of those come true. *UPDATE* Kind of jinxed myself as the first few nights of June, I've had to sleep with background noise...

- Ever since early April, I've been keeping a steady workout schedule. It's nothing big and doesn't eat up a lot of my time. I have just been doing exercises I've done in the past at home before some of the bigger health issues happened. So far, so good because the heart hasn't been countering me especially when I add more to my regimen. Depending on how a week goes (business, floods, etc), I do give myself at least one day to not exercise just so my body feels rested and not overly in pain. The results are there for me to see at least. It does feel great to actually be able to exercise and be able to push myself without havig the ticker go crazy. And in the cases it does feel like I'm pushing myself too hard, don't worry, I do know when to stop. Wouldn't want all the work so far be abruptly stopped just because I decided to test myself a little more than I should have.

- May felt long. You read a lot above. I don't have any predictions for June, but I expect a few challenges are on the horizon. But that's it for May.

Thanks for reading. Be healthy, be safe, be thankful, be bold, and be loved.



 
Take care. DFTBA.

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Friday, May 1, 2015

April 2015 Entry



April was filled with a lot of things. It felt like a slow month at times, but otherwise it was very active.

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- My copy of Girls' Generation The Best Live at Tokyo Dome arrived on the 7th. I ended up watching it on the 10th. This was the first concert filmed after Jessica's departure from the group. While the concert itself was fun, there was the air of something missing. The girls singing Into The New World was definitive proof of that. It was next to impossible to not cry during that moment.


- On the 9th of April, Girls' Generation released their first single and music video without Jessica, Catch Me If You Can. The song and video took some getting used to, but I'm liking it. Not a favorite by far. I need to see some live performances of the song though. My copy of the Japanese single arrived in the mail on the 24th for me.



- Had an adventure with a friend on the 10th. Windshield wiper/s came off, Thai food, running in the rain, Path of Tea and Princess Peach, catching up the whole time, and being bold. Definitely a memorable day. And now every time it rains, I think about this day.

- More Girls' Generation goods came in the mail. On the 13th, I got their Girls' Generation World Tour "Girls & Peace In Seoul" DVD. If I'm correct, this was the last one they did with Jessica before she left the team. Watching this one after the first one without her was definitely different. I have to say that this one felt like they were having a lot of fun together. Not that they didn't with previous concerts, but it felt more prominent in this one.


- Jinusean came back after 10+ years with a new song Tell Me One More Time. The video released on the 14th. I really like it.


- Normally I reserve my one Sunday off a month for wrestling PPVs. This time I used it for the Japan Festival on the 19th. This would make it my 7th year in a row going (I think). I ended up going with a couple of friends (who I had not seen in over a year) and their two children. I never met their youngest until then.

The Japan Festival was what it usually is. I do feel they organized the positions of booths better than previous years though. Otherwise it was pretty much the same affair. I happened to run into some of the kids I taught my last flash mob to and one was actually wearing the shirts we had made for the flash mob, ha.

Ended up going back to my friends' place to catch up more and to play with the kids. The may not have remembered me, but he definitely wanted to play with me ever since the Japan Festival. It was good catching up with those friends too. Nice to see that they've been doing fine with the kids. I ended up leaving right as a heavy rainfall descended.


- Finally got my Connor's Cure bracelet on the 20th. It ended up getting shipped elsewhere and came a week late. I proudly wear it every day I go out now.


- Started watching Food Wars: Shougeki no Soma on the 21st. I remember seeing previews for it beforehand and it caught my attention. It's ridiculous and over the top for an anime based on cooking. Hopefully it stays fun to watch.

- Sure, I only came by this song because Bora from Sistar is in it, but I really dig it. These ladies have excellent rap skills (04.27). Feedback is a great song.


- BoA has started to release photos (04.30) for her upcoming 8th album, Who Are You. Of course I'm excited for it to come out. 15 years strong.


=========================

- Nintendo had a Nintendo Direct on the 1st of April. While there was a lot of good stuff mentioned, the amiibo announcement was what caught my attention the most. Reservations for the next wave were going up on the 2nd of April and I was supposed be at work early that day. I ended up calling my local GameStop (they recognize my voice already, ha) to ask if there was a way for them to reserve it for me. Ended up going there to put money down on another game (Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson). Then the worker said he would take money from that reservation and put it down for my amiibo that I wanted IF he was able to stating that customers in store get priority. I got a text message later in the day saying that he was able to do it, awesome. My Ness and Pac-Man amiibo have been secured. Seriously, my GameStop is the best GameStop. Those guys go above and beyond the call of duty and have done so for me multiple times.

As a thank you, the next day (after a brief stop at work) I ended up buying the worker macarons from Bite. I also ended up buying two more amiibo while I was there (Sonic and the SMB non-gold Mario). That brings my amiibo collection total to 17.


- Ultimate NES REMIX (3DS) - Review

Club Nintendo unveiled the list for Platinum/Gold status members for the final time (04.08). I ended up choosing Ultimate NES REMIX for the 3DS. The link provided above will let you know what I think of it. It was good to get back to.

- On the 10th, I picked up my reserved copy of Xenoblade Chronicles 3D. So far, I have invested 0 hours into it...yeah. Things have just been pretty busy at work that my free time has drastically diminished or I put other things in front of playing a new game. While I was excited to play the game, I kind of wish I didn't buy it as I probably won't get to it until late into the year IF nothing else good comes out by then.


- Even though I don't have a lot of time to play in general, I still made it a point to download and try Mewtwo in Smash Bros (04.15). It's cool to see him back in the game. I just did the usual routine of when I go through a character in Smash Bros.


- More StreetPass games became available to buy (04.16) as well as a few other things via new update. Ended up getting both Ultimate Angler (fishing) and Battleground Z (zombie beat-em-up). Both definitely add time to the casualness of StreetPass.

- Mario Kart 8 had their latest DLC and update available on the 23rd. I did make time to try out all the new tracks (all really well made) and try all the new characters and kart/bike parts. I haven't been able to complete the new cups on 150cc and higher and I haven't been able to complete a full cup getting first in each race on 200cc. 200cc is nuts, ha. Very much welcome additions to this already great game.

- amiibo Tap: Nintendo's Greatest Bits came out on the 30th. You can read my thoughts on it with the following link. Regardless, if you have a Wii U and some amiibo, get it. It's free so why not.

https://www.facebook.com/WingedVoX/posts/815041958583806

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- I was asked to come in early to work on the 1st. One of our agents was being promoted to Senior Facilitator and was asked to be part of it. Although once I got there, they said that I wasn't needed to be in it anymore. Odd, but they had a talk with me afterwards. I too got a promotion (Lead Facilitator). Not only that, but they gifted me the task of creating the 3rd room. It had been something I always wanted to do, but I just wasn't expecting it. Yay, promotions. Yay, 3rd room.  

- On the 4th, the whole HER crew (minus Agent Audrey) drove to Dallas for the Easter weekend. Even our newest recruit (Agent Yeti) joined us. I captained one car with Agent Valentine as my shotgun and with Agent Blue chilling in the back. Agent Blue soon tuned out and listened to his own music while Agent Valentine and I got to know each other better. She definitely moved up on my list of people I gravitate to easily as well as being someone who I can talk to about anything and everything with.

We actually arrived early in Dallas. The fellow agents didn't know I was driving at 90mph+ at times. We ended up eating at a nice Mediterranean restaurant with a very jubilant owner/cook. He treated us so well and kept calling Agent Valentine a princess, ha. We then went to our hotel nearby to wait for the rest. We all got settled in our rooms and met up in Agent K and Z's.

Other than just going out and bonding with the agents, we went to Dallas to try out the escape rooms there (Escape Expert). A new facility in particular caught our attention and we wanted to see how they ran things. Some of Agent Ro's family also joined us there so we split into 2 different groups to tackle 2 different rooms. Myself, Agent Valentine, K, M, Z, Yeti, and a few of Agent Ro's family members went to Chase Case while the others took on Secret Vault. Needless to say, we functioned well as a team and were able to escape with a couple minutes to spare. Not only that, but the other escaped as well. Very glad that we all got out. Much like it is for our customers, escaping is a thrilling experience.

We took a break for dinner at a BBQ place (I think) and to just talk about what we felt about the escape rooms. For me, I liked their rooms. I didn't like their customer service. After dinner, I wasn't feeling too well. I did take a quieter approach and just chilled for the most part as we were getting ready to take on one more escape room. Most of Agent Ro's family left us and there were 11 of us left for the Mind Matrix. While we were able to escape that room also, there were few hitches in the room that got us stuck (faulty equipment). We were complimented on how well we worked as a team (agree) before leaving. Agent Ro's family left us while the rest went back to our hotel. 


The agents all talked more about the rooms we went through and compared things to HER. After the business talk, a few agents retired for the night while Agent Valentine brought out Ticket To Ride to play. It was my first time playing and it was interesting. Ended up getting last place as I wasn't really trying for a win my first time playing. I did however complete one of the toughest paths in the game, yay. It was around 2 in the morning when we finished and called it a night. I would have kept doing stuff if others were up for it, but sleep was needed.

The next day, Agent Blue and I met Agent Yeti and Agent Valentine for breakfast. I didn't eat since we were going to have Dim Sum for lunch. We kidnapped Agent Yeti and met the others at the Dim Sum place. It was Agent Blue and Agent Valentine's first time eating Dim Sum and they enjoyed it. We also met Agent Ro's parents. They're cute. We got to ask them questions about their son and it was funny. During that time, I was able to get to know Agent Yeti a little better as we never had time to just talk since she had only been part of the company for a few days.

We then departed for Houston around 1PM. Same riding teams. Again, Agent Valentine and I got to learn more about each other while Agent Blue listened to his music in the back. The ride back was a little slower due to more cars on the road, but we arrived back at HER a little after 5 to drop off Agent Blue. I then dropped off Agent Valentine at her place and went back home. I was very tired as I didn't get a lot of sleep in our hotel (a/c was loud).

That weekend was an absolute blast. Made some great memories and met some cool people. I hope we do another HER outing some time soon.

- On the 16th, we reached a milestone on our YouTube video with KHOU. Over 10,000 views. That is something to be proud of.


- Unfortunately, there has been a lot of stress at work (at least for me) lately. A few of our agents were/are taking finals so they weren't as available for shifts meaning some of us had to work more hours. For me, I had to find a way to balance that with consistently working on the 3rd room. It really was a stressful time as there were other issues within the rooms themselves and some not-so-great customers.

To add to that, on the 25th, I had to assist emergency personnel for one of our upstairs neighbors that had assisted living. The emergency personnel asked me to open doors for them so they can get through and to help get the elevator working (which we couldn't get to work). We were able to hear noises from upstairs as this was going on. They were using a defibrillator on him. Unfortunately, I saw as they were wheeling him out on a stretcher with the defibrillator still pumping. While they were continuing to resuscitate him, they were also calling for a time of death. It didn't hit me until later that night that I saw a dead person in front of my eyes. They held memorial services for him on the 28th.

- A friend brought in another group of her friends to experience Grandma's room on the 26th. I was hoping the girls would get out and they did. They were fun to be around, but it was just great to see my friend there. The stressful week/s have been a bit much lately and just seeing her gave me a burst of energy that I needed. Thank you.  

- If you didn't know, we also do corporate events during our day hours before retail hours. I had never been sold on it before as I felt they were a bit boring and unnecessary. That changed on the 27th as a team from HEB came. While they didn't escape (very close), they were very energetic and into the corporate debriefing afterwards. I had never seen a team so invested and into it until then. Watching that unfold definitely opened my eyes.

The following day, we had another set of corporate teams come through (Unique Digital). One woman had done it previously with her family and got her work team to come out to try. They were enthusiastic and competitive the whole time. Not to say that previous corporate teams had not been, but there was definitely something about their energy that I enjoyed. So bring your corporate teams in so we can have fun and analyze you.

But not all corporate teams are great. While this wasn't an official corporate booking, another company (who I won't name) came in with a group of 30 to try out the rooms for a company outing. The majority had been drinking. Them just being loud in the lobby was a bit much to handle. Thankfully the person that put it together saw that and we were able to get the teams that weren't going in yet to get back on their bus. But once things calmed down, the teams were fine in the rooms. The first team enjoyed themselves as well as the team that I took in. During my debriefing, I did apologize for putting on a "stone cold bitchiness" face for them. They understood as they knew they would be a bit to handle. I was expecting the worse and was glad they shattered my early expectations of how they would be. I even spoke more afterwards with some of the managers about their experience and coming back with more employees. Unfortunately, their last team was not allowed into the room. The woman who put it together saw that right away that the final team was too drunk. They took advantage of their free drink offer and she didn't want us to have a bad impression of them or for them to cause chaos for us. I am so glad that happened because while I thought the other groups would have been a lot to handle, I knew whoever was to facilitate the last team would have been in for hell. It harkens to why I have reasons for customers that ask why we don't serve alcohol at HER. Never going to happen.

- In case you aren't following us on Instagram (or other social media platforms), we usually post silly behind-the-scenes photos there. We had a few silly ones this month.

https://instagram.com/houstonescaperoom/



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- My PC is running on its last legs. I'll need to look up something cheap and effective soon. I could keep using my laptop, but that needs to stay plugged in to use at all.

- Stress has effected sleep. I have had to revert back to playing background noise to help me sleep. Although my tiredness is starting to take that over making sleep a little easier.

- "A Reminder To Myself."

- Even though I knew before, looking for the proper Thank You/Greeting card takes time. Forgetting to write a few extra things after sending it out, nice, ha.

- More Houston Escape Room news as they develop. The 3rd room is starting to shape up so I'll be updating more on that as it happens...or not to keep more of the secrecy. Just know that it will be up (if there are no major hiccups) by the end of the summer.

- That is all for April. A lot of things, a lot of things. May will definitely bring more.

Thanks for reading. Be healthy, be safe, be thankful, be bold, and be loved.

 
Take care. DFTBA.

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