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Hawaiian Vacation 2019

In July 2019, I flew to Hawaii to meet Anela and visit Jordan and Christin. I hiked a lot, putting my recently healed foot to the test, ate a lot of foods, snorkeled, and more! But for some reason, I didn’t blog about it for a long time. This has been in my drafts in various levels of completion, but it’s time to publish!

Saturday

I flew in Saturday, Anela and I both arriving at nearly the same time. Our AirBNB driver had never heard of milk tea or boba and didn’t think there was any in Hawaii. But he did suggest bubble tea. *facepalm*

We checked out our AirBNB in a touristy area of Waikiki. Anela instantly liked the stairs, and we stopped for a picture. We did a little shopping across the street for things we’d need before meeting up with Christin and Jordan.

They knew a ramen place they liked, so we went to Volcano Ramen in Yokocho Village for some delicious ramen. Is the ramen served in bowls or in upside-down volcanoes?

After dinner, it was time for tea because of course we needed tea. And look at the mustaches on the cups! We bought some drinks on the way back to our AirBNB, where we ended the night talking and hanging out.

Sunday

Sunday was a day for pineapple shorts!

We started the day with tea from Starbucks near the bus stop at Jordan and Christin’s.

Our first adventure was Waimea Arboretum and Botanical Garden, which was beautiful!

After exploring on land, we decided to explore in the sea at Waimea Bay Beach park! We started by jumping off a big rock. I don’t know where the footage of that went. But then we went snorkeling!

Here’s a video with some clips of the snorkeling! I put a few together; the clips of me were filmed by Anela.

For dinner, we got some pizza at Spaghettini. Tasty!

There were a lot of lizards hanging around the pizza too 🙂

Monday

Monday started with Teapresso and Mitsuwa for breakfast with Anela!

After meeting up with Christin, we headed to Koko Head Crater for a hike to the top! Jordan worked during the days Monday-Friday, so it was just the three of us during the day.

The views were beautiful! I was pretty much soaked in sweat by the time we got to the top. It was quite the hike! Runkeeper said it was a 2.07 mile hike with 1334 ft total climb that took 4:31:33 and burned 1075. I say it it was gorgeous. There were definitely breaks on the hike to rest and to take a ton of photos.

Once we were at the top, Christin and I hiked a bit out to the ridge and back while Anela stayed at the top. It was a bit narrower, which wasn’t great for Anela’s lack of love for heights, but it wasn’t too crazy. The hike was a relief for me because I now knew that my foot could handle hiking. I had recently broken my foot, and while recovery was going nicely, I was a little worried.

This was also at the top, so we took some photos with it and on top of it!

Time to head back down!

After hiking back down, Jordan joined us and we went to OMG for Mexican food. After dinner, we had another Teapresso run before heading back to our AirBNB.

Tuesday

Tuesday started with a bath tub shoot for Christin and Anela. Nope, I didn’t get in the tub! I mostly zoned out and killed time while they did their shoot.

Christin, Anela, and I had lunch at Fatboy’s, but I was pretty focused on the chicken hanging out in the bushes.

No day is complete without tea it seems, so we after lunch we got tea at Bee & Tea.

Then we headed to Cash Beach in Lanikai to enjoy the water!

I also did some photographing of Anela and Christin, although I still haven’t edited them! I think we spent much more time with photos than swimming. I was a bit reluctant leave.

Walking back, we stopped for a photo in front of this beautiful gate!

After Jordan joined us, we walked around their neighborhood to check out the cool murals and spent some time in their apartment before going to dinner. We enjoying some food at Waikiki Brewing Co. Oh, and I caught a shiny Koffing that evening too!

Wednesday

Wednesday was tide pool day, but first we stopped Makapu’u Point Lookout for some beautiful blue views.

The tide pools were next! They did require some hiking on a nice trail that felt like nothing compared to the previous day’s hike, and then we went off trail a bit and trekked down a hill.

Floating in the water chilling with fish!

After we eventually decided to leave and trek back up the hill, we moved on to Alan Davis Beach. We enjoyed the water as well as watched a group of guys try to get their huge, inflatable multi-person lounge thing into the water.

Time to jump into the Pacific! While the rock wasn’t huge, it was bigger than the video makes it seem.

Jordan joined us for dinner at what my notes say is “Ramen Village.” I’m fairly certain it was Shirokiya Japan Village Walk, a huge food court with many different shops, some small stages, and rows of gashapon machines. Anela certainly seemed happy with her ice cream. I’m really surprised I didn’t take photos of the building itself, but it seems I only have this one and a close up of my sushi.

Thursday

Thursday started with doggos while we headed to our first real destination.

I found a mermaid! We visited the mermaid cave at Zablan Beach at Nānākuli Beach Park.

If I remember correctly, it was a little tricky to climb into and out of it. There wasn’t an easy way to do it without getting a little scraped up, but it was worth it! How cool was this place?! The walk was very rocky, and here’s where I learned what my foot didn’t enjoy – very uneven terrain. The hiking we did so far was relatively flat despite being an incline or decline. The very rocky terrain caused my ankle to move at weird angles and the pressure on my foot wasn’t great.

We tried to get to cat cafe after our mermaid adventure, but we didn’t make it back in time. Someone got hurt on our bus. I don’t remember the specifics, and maybe we didn’t fully know. I think he tripped getting on the bus and cut his leg. There was a decent amount of blood. I think there was a medical professional on the bus who helped him.

In the evening, we got some tea again, and Anela and I had some Korean food near our AirBNB. Before turning in, I bought and wrote some postcards!

Friday

Unicorn Cafe, which was a block or two from our AirBNB, had a cute sign that pulled us inside. Obviously we needed more tea this trip.

Fueled by tea, Anela and I visited Epic Aloha, a nearby selfie museum. I still haven’t gone through these and posted, but it’s on my list!

After enjoying Epic Aloha, Anela and I stopped at Coffee Shop 831 for a panini and tea! It was right across the street from our AirBNB, so it’s surprising it took us this long to have lunch there.

After lunch, we joined Christin and went on a quest to hike to the pink pillbox!

As usual, the view was great. The structures were pretty cool and, as you can see, had quite a bit of graffiti.

When the sun started to set, it was time to go. We hiked down and headed back toward home to join Jordan and grab some dinner at McDonald’s!

Saturday

After a quick stop at Mitsuwa, likely for sushi but I don’t know for sure, Anela and I met up with Jordan and Christin and we headed to Aloha Stadium swapmeet.

I had to get this cologne, right? It’s not really possible for me to walk past it even though I don’t wear cologne. Plus, I got a couple magnets and such as small souvenirs.

Once we had our fill of shopping, we filled ourselves on BBQ at Dixie Grill, which was pretty tasty.

At the end of the day, Anela and I went back to our AirBNB and then spent the last evening in Waikiki.

Since we were wearing pineapple clothes, we stopped for photos with a giant pineapple statue! We explored some shops, and I specifically remember Anela doing some shopping in a Christmas ornament store. I might have spent a little time catching Ralts for community day too!

We also caught some hula dancers!

It was a nice way to spend our final evening in Hawaii 🙂

Sunday

I had a nice morning on Sunday even if it was time to leave. After trying a few times to get a bagel breakfast sandwich from the place across the street, Coffee Shop 831, we managed to get some! This is a tasty avocado, egg, bacon, and cheese bagel sandwich! There wasn’t much time to do anything Sunday morning, so we talked a little and relaxed at the AirBNB before it was time to go.

By the time I got to the airport, it was time for lunch. The mushroom chicken hit the spot!

And then it was time for my bear that transforms into a neck pillow to join me for the flight home. Aloha, Hawaii!

Edit: And then Duncan picked me up from the airport! Alas, I didn’t take a photo. I’m sorry Duncan.

Looking back on 2016, and looking forward to 2017

I keep hearing about how awful 2016 was and how 2017 should hopefully be better. There were a lot of celebrity deaths in 2016, and I was devastated by the presidential election. More personally, I was laid off from Toshiba in a huge reduction-in-force, and my roommate had to put our two dogs to sleep. Yeah, there were negatives. And yet I’ll be lucky if 2017 lives up to 2016.

I traveled to Europe and saw eight countries with three of my closest friends, gem, Antonio, and Anela, and visited two great friends, Jessica and Andrew, who had recently moved to Paris. I saw Denmark, the UK (including England and Northern Ireland), the Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, and Sweden. It was amazing, and I swear I’ll get to sorting photos and blogging eventually.

I saw Disneyland Paris and our hometown Disneyland’s Season of the Force. I attended Devin and Lorena’s 30th wedding anniversary party that included a face-painted bar crawl and a 1920s speakeasy party. I saw Kristine’s first exhibit that she curated in LA – Firsts, Seconds and Thirds: African American Leaders in Los Angeles During the 1960s & 70s.

I watched Anela dance a few times, including Shimmy Shakedown featuring her and Melissa. I saw the Wet Silk art exhibit, met Jon Klassen at the LA Times Festival of Books, and watched an LA KISS Arena football game.

The Holi Festival was a colorful blast of fun. Here I am with gem, Tory, Sean, and Nicole. I also went to the Huntington Beach Cherry Blossom Festival!

I went to a number of photoshoots with Anela, including this Fourth of July shoot that I really enjoyed, a fairy photoshoot, cherry blossoms, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall and train tracks in LA where I also got to shoot gem!

I took a bunch of friends to the Alpaca Hacienda for Anela’s birthday, and we got to see feed and pet alpacas and a llama!

I watched Sherlock Holmes and the Time Portal as well as Sweeney Todd, and gem surprised me with tickets to see Patton Oswalt. I’d been wanting to see his stand-up for a long time, and he didn’t disappoint. I had the three most amazing meals of my life – two at Frame in Paris and one for Edward’s birthday at Alexander’s Steakhouse in Pasadena.

I participated in a high-altitude sleep and cognitive ability sleep study at Barcroft Station, White Mountain Research Center where I witnessed some of the most beautiful views of nature I’ve ever seen. I saw the B-52s and Flight of the Conchords live as well as a number of local ska bands that I see regularly. I went to Allison’s awesome gaybut party and finally made it to one of Bryan’s parties where I participated in some of the most stimulating conversation I’ve had in a while. Visit our lawyer site to find more info.

I cosplayed Luke while gem cosplayed Professor Layton at San Diego Comic-Con. I also cosplayed Fix-It Felix Jr., and a Pokemon Go trainer. I got to dress as a zombie later in the year as well! I attended the Sonic the Hedgehog 25th anniversary party and saw some improv such as Spectacles, ImprovCity, and more.

Two great friends, Gracie and Jon, got married, and I got to watch.

I worked for three months doing server and other hardware installation for California DMVs. While I was traveling across the state, I got to visit my friends Matt, Katie, and Marc. I also had the chance to have lunch with Chuck Sommerville, a game designer whom I’ve admired for a very long time. He’s incredibly fascinating and has done many interesting things, and he was every bit as nice as I could have hoped.

And I even got to meet Alex and Darnell’s beautiful new daughter, Meredith.

Now I’m sure I’m missing many awesome things about 2016, but that just proves my point. If 2017 is half as good to me as 2016 was, I’ll be very grateful. Happy New Year.

DMV server installation job and Nor Cal trip

I recently finished a temporary, contract job as a field technician for Form 10 installing computer hardware in California DMVs. Each day, two technicians would arrive at a DMV at 2:30 PM. We’d install new a new uninterruptible power supply and rack server, remove the old UPS and server, remove the old camera workstation, install and configure a new one, install new fingerprint readers at every window, and remove the old fingerprint readers. We’d leave whenever we were finished (usually between 7 and 10 PM), and then one of us would come the next morning to watch from 7:30 AM until 10:00 AM. And then we’d drive to the next DMV. As the team lead, I also had a bit of paperwork.

It was nice experience installation the rack servers. The hardest part was the physical act of getting it racked. It was also interesting seeing the DMV from the other side. DMVs have a reputation for being slow and boring, but in reality they’re staffed by normal people who are for the most part trying to help customers. And some of those customers are pretty bad.

The real difficulty of the job was the hours. Every other day I didn’t work until 2:30, which sounds good. However, when you consider that I’m in a different hotel each night, waking up, eating breakfast, working out, checking out by 11, and then driving to the next DMV by 2:30, there wasn’t much time for anything. There were tiny pockets of time. Maybe I could work out quickly enough, check out early, drive to the next DMV as soon as possible, and get there by 12:30 or 1. That gave me maybe two hours, but those free hours were in an unfamiliar place without any physical space for me to use. It was tough, especially being in Northern California or the Central Valley for a few weeks without being home.

Surprisingly I ran into three emergencies. First, one of the security staff members at one of the DMVs was taken away on a gurney. I don’t know what happened to her, but she was able to walk to the gurney herself. At another DMV, I heard a bit of a commotion between the staff and found out that an ambulance came for a woman who fell in the parking lot. It was raining hard that day, and I heard she fell unconscious. I don’t know if she slipped in the rain, hit her head, and was knocked unconscious or if she suddenly lost consciousness, causing her to fall. What I do know is that I saw security coning off a part of the walkway the had a puddle of blood. Apparently she broke her nose. Lastly, my partner and I witnessed a woman pulling away from a man, yelling things like, “get away from me” and “don’t touch me!” I got security, and my partner brought her inside while the man followed. It seemed to be a domestic dispute. Maybe she was overreacting and he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Maybe he was doing something wrong. I don’t know. But I do know that at the end of the day, she was okay, and that’s what matters. The police came and talked to both me and my partner, and they reviewed the security footage right next to me as I installed the server. It was an interesting day.

There was some chance for fun as well. I had some down time one day and decided to visit the local university, Stanislaus State.

I had never even heard of it, but I enjoy universities, and this one was certainly beautiful.

I also saw some cool wildlife. Yes, this photo is terrible. But there are wild turkey in the center!

And here’s a terrible photograph a baby deer! It’s right under the bush in the center at the top.

While in Sacramento, I had the chance to visit the Capitol Building.

I had to take a photograph with the bear! Former-governor Schwarzenegger bought this and left it in the Capitol Building.

I met an interesting woman with whom I went out twice while in Sacramento too. She teaches fifth graders, including many who have hearing impairments. She uses ASL in the classroom. I found it particularly interesting to realize she has to watch for children signing during tests as a way of cheating. She also plays roller derby in Sacramento, which is pretty sweet!

Chuck Sommerville, creator of Chip’s Challenge, lives near Sacramento. I asked him if he’d like to join a fan for lunch, and he agreed. It was awesome. Chip’s Challenge is one of my favorite games; I have an autographed copy of the original Lynx version. The lunch was a pretty amazing experience. He’s a bit of a personal hero of mine and has done a lot of cool things. He always has fascinating projects and shares progress on Facebook. Over lunch he told me a lot about the development of Chip’s Challenge, Chip’s Challenge 2, and Chuck’s Challenge 3D. I also heard about some more of my Lynx favorites like Klax, Todd’s Adventures in Slime World, Gates of Zendocon, and California Games (Chuck designed the skateboarding game). He also told me about John Romero (designer of Doom) and how they were both huge fans of each other’s work.

Chuck now works with LEDs. One installation of which he was particularly proud was the “Sensing YOU” installation in San Jose, which I had a chance to check out. It interacts with the phone game, Ingress, and responds to the motion of pedestrians passing under it. He actually got me playing Ingress now too. It’s a location-based game made by Niantic, the same developer who later made Pokemon Go. Ingress and Pokemon Go use the same underlying data.

Here’s a video of the installation that I took! I was with Matt and Katie, who I stayed with one weekend. They were very gracious to let me stay in their home and are truly terrific people. I had a wonderful time with them!

I’d never put up Christmas lights and enjoyed the opportunity to help them.

They looked great!

Matt has an arcade cabinet at home that his brother gave him as a gift. Here’s Matt and Katie playing Bomberman together. This photo makes me really happy honestly! They’re wonderful together, and I might have a soft spot for arcade cabinets too.

Visiting them was really fun. I got to see my friend Marc a couple nights that weekend as well. It’s practically unbelievable to me that I originally met these great friends through World of Warcraft!

That’s my trip! I got to add rack server installations to my resume, see all sorts of the more rural parts of California in which I had never stopped, visit Sacramento, and even meet Chuck Sommerville. It was a pretty good gig!

San Diego Comic-Con 2016

SDCC 2016 was a blast! I cosplayed as Luke Triton from Professor Layton for the first time while gem cosplayed Professor Layton herself. I also did a quick cosplay of a Team Valor Pokemon trainer as well as my Fix-It Felix, Jr. cosplay from last year. I saw a number of panels, met a lot of cool cosplayers, got some free books, partied, and did a whole lot more. I was also very exhausted 🙂

I was really happy with my Luke cosplay. gem and I stopped by the Capcom booth and took a photo with this picture of Phoenix Wright. There was a crossover Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright game, so we thought it was appropriate. I was hoping to run into a Phoenix Wright cosplayer, but it never happened.

Here’s a promotional picture of Layton and Luke if you’re unfamiliar with them.

We stopped by the Behemoth booth like we do every year. One guy running the booth, Larry, recognized us from last year when gem asked if Hatty was going to be in attendance! He remembered that gem wrote a note and gave it to him to give to Hatty in 2015. He was awesome!

We went to a number of interesting panels starting with “Retellings and Remixes” with Marissa Meyer, Renee Ahdieh, Colleen Houck, Anna Todd, Jodi Meadows, and Colleen Oakes. gem’s a big fan of Marissa Meyer. Although I hadn’t read her works, they sounded interesting, and she was a great speaker. I’m looking forward to reading more of her work in the future. The panel focused on retelling fairy tales and classic novels in a reimagined way.

“Nedist TV: The Boundary-Pushers” featured Bryan Fuller, Michael Green, Steven Moffat, and Alicia Lutes discussing the new acceptance of genre TV with a focus on American Gods and Sherlock. They also went into tangents about accepting all kinds of peoples it definitely went anti-Trump at times.

“A World After Harry: The Changing Genre of YA Fantasy” featured Sarah J. Maas, Jessica Cluess, Gena Showalter, Thomas E. Sniegoski, Soman Chainani, and Tobie Easton discussing how young adult fiction has changed after Harry Potter. It was interesting to hear how authors set themselves apart from J.K. Rowling.

In “Creating Immersive Game Story,” Chris Avellone, Leah Hoyer, and Elbert Perez discussed game narrative, going into how to really engage players well.

My favorite panel was “Cosplay as Storytelling” in which Adam Savage, Jay Justice, and Deborah Nadolman Landis discussed cosplay and how it’s a form of storytelling. Adam went into how cosplaying isn’t just wearing a moderne child costume, but it’s a type of performance. I definitely know what he means. Look at this awesome J. Jonah Jameson I met. He’s not just in a costume. He’s performing; he’s telling a story. And he’s great!

The last panel I attended was the “Spotlight on Marissa Meyer,” which was interesting. Unfortunately we were a bit late due to an autograph session, but it was still fun.

Did you hear about the new tokidoki x Peter Anargirou collaboration? I printed one of my photos and took it to Simone Legno’s autograph session. It’s fascinating how great artists and creative people of all types and collaborate, and I love collaborating with people in small ways. Having him draw on one of my photos was a cool way to collaborate with him, and since gem’s in the photo, she got to be in on it as well! Now it looks like gem is photographing the cute Kaiju!

I also got a copy of Heartless autographed by Marissa Meyer as well as Red Rising autographed by Pierce Brown. I came out of the con with a few other few other free books as well – An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir, The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks, and Bombs Away: The Hot War by Harry Turtledove. I wasn’t a fan of the last book by Turtledove, but I’ll give this one a try.

The three of us attended the Sonic the Hedgehog 25th Anniversary Party at the House of Blues, meeting two new friends and running into an old friend, Pat, as well. It was a ton of fun – a lot more than I expected. It was sponsored by Totino’s, so we got to eat some greasy snacks, but we also took shots and I had a few White Russians. I took a photo with a cool Sonic the Hedgehog cosplayer, we got some swag, and I talked a lot. There were games to be played there too, but I didn’t touch them honestly. At the end of the night, the staff recorded the audience yelling “Sega” to be used as the intro for the next Sonic game. After the party we went back to the hotel for more drinks. There was live music at the bar, and I did a little Balboa swing dancing. It turns out that I’m a decent dancer (to a drunk crowd of SDCC attendees).

gem and I met our friend Mike for dinner at Pushkin Russian Restaurant. It was so delicious! I hadn’t seen Mike since New Year’s Eve, so it was good to see him. Afterward we checked out the Nerd HQ party, but it wasn’t that good honestly.

There was a Pokemon Go panel in Hall H, the largest hall at the convention. Previously, you’d need to line up over night to get into Hall H. This year, you could line up for wristbands, given out at 9:00 PM. We checked out the line around 8:30 PM, and it was huge. Absolutely huge. And then we found out from the guy working there and watching the line that the night before the line was that long, but he didn’t know if they got wristbands. He got off work at 1:00 AM, and the wristbands hadn’t reached that far back. Yeah, we decided to skip Hall H. However, there were rumors that Niantic would release something for Pokemon Go in the panel, so a ton of Pokemon Go fans congregated around Hall H or above it. Convention staff started yelling at people to leave. I’d like to add that they never once tried talking like normal, civil people, and they also made up lies to get us to leave. Not cool. What was cool was when people realized that if they line up for the Mrs. Field’s Cookies stand, they were no longer just loitering. Yep, that line pictures above was for cookies – totally not Pokemon Go. And by the way, nothing was released in the panel.

Pokemon Go was extremely popular. Here Professor Layton checks for Pokemon since there’re lures on the Pokestops near her.

This guy working in the Nintendo Lounge loved gem’s Ariel and asked for a photo with her. Look happy they look! This guy was awesome.

Here I’m in my quick Team Valor Pokemon trainer cosplay with a giant pokeball.

When meeting pikachu, you need to give him a big hug so that he knows you’re his friend.

Once he’s been lulled into a false sense of security, you bust out a pokeball and catch him!

Star Trek was also very popular this year as it’s the 50th anniversary. MAC had a building designed to look like the saucer portion of the Enterprise while they showed off their Star Trek makeup. I didn’t care about the makeup, but we took the opportunity to stand on transporters as Layton and Luke! Plus, Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura on Star Trek, was there.

I asked these two cosplayers if I could take their photo because I thought they had great costumes. The Harley Quinn cosplayer noted that most people don’t even ask and said they’d be happy to pose.

Professor Layton and the Curious Clowns

Actually, the Joker cosplayer recognized gem’s cosplay and asked us for a photo! How cool 🙂

Here’s a shot of me in my Fix-It Felix, Jr. cosplay along with a Boo cosplay from Monster’s, Inc. How cute is that cosplay?

This Akuma cosplay is great too. The cosplayer was nice enough to find a good spot to take the photos. gem noted that you could sense his personality and mannerisms change as he got into character just like Adam Savage said cosplay often does.

Last but certainly not least, this is Bernadette Bentley and Cathy Kutz as Xena and Gabrielle respectively. It was awesome to run into them and take their photo because I was already a fan. They were really nice!