June-iper Updates...

Keeping this short...or trying to at least!

Another eventful month has passed.  I started the first half of June by staying in Tucson for a change.  We actually had our 9-ball and 8-ball city championships on the weekends of June 4 and June 11 respectively.  My teams did so-so winning a round or two, but in the end we came up short in both tournaments.  Ho hum, pool league goes on.

E3 in Los Angeles!

I discovered last year that IBMers can attend E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo) for free!  This is largely due to the fact that IBM made the microprocessors for the Wii and XBox years ago.  Nonetheless, I signed up to attend E3 2016, super excited to see all the gaming corporations I've grown up loving as kid, teenager, and adult.

E3 started on Tuesday, June 7th and the line to the entrance was packed with people eager to into the convention's showrooms.  There were about 8 of us, most from IBM as well, and when the doors opened, I quickly scurried to the Square Enix booth, which company produces my favorite games and the most I play.  I was mostly interested in seeing and playing Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 2.8; both will be released later in 2016.

E3 is like an amusement park.  There's a ton of booths from all companies and there's a lot of waiting around in lines to see or play games, just because there are way too many people in the convention center (tens of thousands).  I went for all 3 days, basically checking out what every booth had to offer.  The longest line goes to Nintendo, waiting 2+ hours just to play the silly Zelda game.  I chose not to, instead going through the viewing line only for a 20-minute wait.  Fortunately you can purchase beers to drink while you wait in line, albiet they are not cheap!  But whatever, I got to go this thing for free, so I can't really complain.

At night, there were apparently E3 parties to go to.  It was funny watching all the nerds trying to dance, but we left shortly because there were hardly any girls in the place lol.

I stayed an extra night to fly out to Seattle on Friday, so I decided to check out a Dodgers game on Thursday night, inviting my friends Kavita and Chuck along.  It's always fun checking out new stadiums in different cities, even though the Dodgers lost the game.  Unfortunately did not get to see Kershaw or Maeda pitch.

Chris's Wedding in Seattle:

I flew directly from LA to Seattle for Chris's wedding on Saturday.  I really wasn't in Seattle for very long (just 2 nights), but I'm okay with it because this was my 4th time visiting the city in the last decade.  Apparently, I have a lot of friends who live there.

It was nice to see some friends from college I hadn't in a while: Sam, Matt, Charlie, both Justins.  Chris selected a really cool venue that featured a view of the entire pier from the rooftop of the building.

For some reason, I find it really challenging to get super drunk at weddings, even with open bars.  Maybe it's all the food, dancing, and chatting.  *shrug*  No more wedding for the rest of the year (that I know of).

That's about it for now.  Portland at the end of July.  See ya next month!