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.

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- 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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