Another East Coast Trip!

I typically try to visit my friends on the east coast every other year and you might recall, I did a tri-visit two years ago visiting Chris in New Jersey, Nate in Connecticut, and Mike in Washington D.C.

This year, I had a couple good reasons to make it out again this year (not that there's ever a bad reason to fly out there). 
1) My friend Jen had just moved from Tucson to Jersey City in February to look for a job and for a change of scenery.  Because nothing is guaranteed out there for her, I wanted to make sure to visit her before she moved back, if that were the case.
2) Mike, Nate, and Chris all planned to go to D.C. for a Washington Nationals game, so anytime this crew can all get together in one place at the same time is a great reason to join!  Especially since it's less likely that Mike and Nate will be flying back to Arizona as often.

Traveling Pains en route to the East Coast: July 1

I chose a flight on American Airlines that was to leave Tucson at 1pm on Monday and arrive in Newark at 11pm.  When I woke up Monday, there was an e-mail waiting in my inbox telling me I was rebooked to another flight because my 1pm departure out of Tucson would have made me miss my connecting flight in Phoenix.  The new flight would leave at 6:45pm and get me into Newark at 5am...yuck!  I decided to select a new route through Dallas-Forth Worth that would leave Tucson at 3pm and get into Newark at 1am...only a 2-hour delay. 

When I arrived at the airport, there was a 45 minute delay due to maintenance.  When we landed in DFW, we could not taxi to the gate because there was too much traffic caused by the rainy weather.  I ended up missing my connecting flight to Newark, which was the last flight out of DFW for the day.  American Airlines rebooked me on the first flight out the next morning and put me up in a hotel 20 minutes away from the airport.  I had to call an Uber because the Holiday Inn wasn't picking up the phone and thus there was no courtesy shuttle from the airport to the hotel.

I ended up getting to the hotel at 11pm, but I didn't have any of my things except my laptop because I had checked my bag.  I almost never check my bag, but I was feeling nice before the flight out of Tucson and wanted to save cabin space since I was boarding last group and it was a full flight.  UGH.  I ended up having to go to the gas station to buy contact lens solution and by the time I went to bed it was 1am.

I woke up the next morning at 5am to catch a shuttle to the airport for my morning flight.  Unfortunately, there were direct flights to Newark out of DFW all of Tuesday and they had me landing in LaGuardia, which is 90 minutes away from the house I'd be meeting Jen at.  When I landed, Jen was super nice to meet me there and had a Sapporo and BBQ pork buns waiting for me.  We took a bus and two trains to get back to Jersey City and I finally arrived at my destination some 14 hours behind schedule.  Funny thing is, our friend Matt left Tucson early Tuesday morning and arrived just a couple hours after I did.

I would eventually write to American Airlines about my frustrations and asked for a travel voucher for the inconveniences.  I was awarded $175, which is about the cost of one leg of a round-trip flight.  I guess that will have to do.

New Jersey / New York: July 2-4

The first night in Jersey, Chris and Priya met myself, Jen, and Matt and we all went out to New York to try North River Lobster Company, which is dinner on a boat that goes around the Hudson river.  The food was average, but you are going for the experience.

We would end the night on Grove Street where Chris and I usually hit the bars whenever I visit him, although we didn't make it out to our usual spot O'Hara's this time. :P Regardless it was a good first night, even though it was a pain to get to this city.

The next day we relaxed around Jersey City and found ourselves a pool hall to shoot at in Jen's neighborhood.  It was an interesting hall because it didn't serve alcohol and was a bit of a hole-in-the-wall sitting above a car mechanic's garage.  It was only $6 a person per hour though, you could BYOB, and there was even a pool hall cat roaming around...my kind of place!  We also ran into an APA league that was playing there and got to spectate how Jersey players shoot.  Free scouting for Nationals. ;)

That night we would end up in Hoboken, which is always an entertaining experience.  Lot of young people in Hoboken.  Jen and Matt proceeded to get very drunk and the night ended with a stop at Taco Bell before bedtime.

The last day would mostly be spent in New York.  We rented Citibikes via the Lyft app and biked around Battery park with plans to watch the fireworks near the Brooklyn Bridge for the 4th of July.  It was super crowded but they had several fireworks going off around the East River, so there was plenty to see.  I don't think I've actually ever been that close to a fireworks show before, so that was something different.

Washington D.C.: July 5-8

On Friday, Chris and Nate picked us up and the 5 of us all carpooled to D.C., where we would all hang out at Mike's house in Arlington.  We went out to Old Town Alexandria that night and had dinner at this amazing seafood restaurant called Fish Market.  They had clams, mussels, amazing shrimp, the works.  Even Herman came out and hung out with us, who Mike had not seen since the last time I had visited!

After dinner, we found a bar that had trivia cards and we actually had a lot of fun guessing the answers.  We made an impromptu game off of the Smart Ass cards, in which Jen won barely over Herman.  Good times with good friends was exactly what we were hoping for and I was especially lucky having so many of my close friends all in one place at the same time. :)

The next day, several us went to attend the Nationals game (Royals at Nats) for an all-inclusive package.  This ended up being a good decision because there was all-you-can-eat-and-drink, but it was also a bad decision because it was all-you-can-eat-and-drink. I ended up eating so much that I passed out for a couple innings in the hot summer heat.  We'd continue drinking throughout the night, but by the end of the day I was just exhausted and tired.  Ready to move onto tomorrow.

The next morning, I skipped watching the Womens soccer match to sleep in and get a quick workout in before venturing out for what is always drinking when I'm hanging out with Mike.  I eventually met up with them in downtown D.C. and we'd basically bar hop for most of the afternoon.  In the evening we had pho back in Old Town Alexandria, but it was funny to witness the power go out and find ourselves eating in the dark, haha.  It would end up being a chill night back at Mike's because everyone else had gone back home, so we watched Shazam and Skyscraper.  I enjoyed the former and found it funny, but the latter was a little ridiculous. :D

I flew home the next day and no trip would to D.C. would be complete without a stop at Theismann's. :) Here's to another fun east coast visit and I had no problems getting home!  Until next time!

My first Twitch paycheck

You may recall that I got back into streaming last year and reached Affiliate status.  I haven't intentionally tried to increase my viewership, but I seem to have grown naturally just by supporting other streamers and making friends on Twitch.

I was shocked to see that today I had received my first ever paycheck from Twitch!  The money must have come from the small amount of bits, subs, and ads viewed from people who visit my channel.

As you know, I'm not in it for the monies, so this was a fun little treat to see in my e-mail.  It's really amazing to see that I'm actually getting support from many people while just chilling and playing video games.  Thanks to all of you and looking forward to many more chill streams!

End of Golf League!

Today is the last day of IBM Golf League.  Coming into the season, I had zero expectations on how well we finished, knowing I was one of the worst golfers in the league.  Fortunately, there's a handicap and that really helped my chances.  I am happy to report that we ended up finishing in 7th place and just a couple spots out of the 4-team playoffs, which is way better than I could have imagined!

In terms of individual points, I found myself in the top half of the league, which also exceeded my expectations.  Of course, my teammate Bruce was in the hunt for Individual Points Leader, which is a big reason we did so well this year. :)

And so ends the 2019 season!  I finished with a handicap of 18 and averaged 54.6 across the 8 rounds (9-holes per round) that I played this year.  The last two weeks were playoffs, but for the rest of us, we are doing some "President's Cup" formats for fun.

Here's hoping I an improve in the offseason and get better at this game!

Introducing Benzi!

It had been several months since Duncan passed away, and while the freedom of not having to get home to take care of a pet was nice, it was only a matter of time until I wanted to adopt again.  Come March, I was finished with travels and ready to find a new kitty to adopt!  I started by going back to the Humane Society, which is where I got Duncan.  Unfortunately, they didn't have any kittens, which is important to me because I feel like a cat is easier to train and develop attachment to you at a younger age, plus I want to spend together as much of their life as possible!  With Humane Society being a disappointment, I did some googling for other adoption shelters in town and came across one called HOPE Animal Shelter.

HOPE had a small selection of kitties, so I was again disappointed from the choices.  They told me kitten season was coming and that there was hope for me in the near future.  They also referred me to another place called Hermitage.  It was about 3:30pm and Hermitage closes at 5pm, so I figured I'd drive all the way across town and take a look.  WOW was I happy I did!  Hermitage is simply amazeballs!  It's basically a cat sanctuary where none of the cats are in cages, but instead are in a huge room where they are free to roam around and mingle with other cats.  They even have a room just for kittens.  When I walked into the kitten room, I was immediately enamored with a kitten named Mackenzie.  I played with her for about 10 minutes before an employee walked in and took her away...apparently someone walked in just before me and was adopting her. :( I then proceeded to look at the rest of the kittens, but I was too sad from losing the one I probably would've adopted that day, so I left the shelter kittenless.

I would return a week later hoping to find another cat I liked, but nothing really captivated me that day.  I was close to adopting a kitten named Kolb, but I kept making comparisons between him and Duncan.  I eventually left kittenless again and when I got home, I started thinking that next time I just have to treat this new cat as a new individual with a new personality and not look for similarities between them and my old cat.

A trip to Las Vegas kept me from visiting Hermitage for a few weeks.  On Thursday, April 4th, I finally made it back out there and was determined to bring home a kitty.  I walked into the kitten room and not shortly after, a 6-month-old black and white tuxedo cat began to smell me out and request for pets.  I pet him for a while and then proceeded to look at other kittens.  While looking at the other kittens, I noticed the tuxedo cat kept following me around.  He made it very clear that he enjoyed my company and not much later I determined that he was the one!

While his name at Hermitage was Carova, on the ride home I knew I would be changing his name, like I did with Max Duncan Lin.  It took me the whole ride home to decide on a name, but eventually I came up with Benzi! There's a reason to why I chose that name, but it won't make sense until I adopt my second cat, which I'm planning to later this year.

Fortunately I owned all the cat stuff to prepare me for Benzi's first night at the house.  I started him in the guest bathroom, a small and enclosed space, which is where you should introduce a new cat to their new home.  He was very nervous at first and would barely eat anything on the first day.  I would eventually introduce him to a majority of the house with lots of supervision, but come bedtime I had him sleep in the bathroom.

The next day, I worked from home to make sure he would get all the attention he needed.  He was still very friendly and affectionate towards me, but I knew he was still nervous because he had a messy accident outside his litter box on the carpet in the hallway. Yikers!  Nonetheless, one day at a time!  He was starting to eat the food that I bought for him too, which was a good sign.

After the first weekend, he was no longer having accidents and was feeling more comfortable at his new home.  I too felt comfortable giving him free reign of the house since he is not a destructive kitty.  He doesn't chew on anything other than his food and he was getting better scratching the scratchpads instead of the carpet.  Benzi also likes hiding underneath the bed, but he's doing it less and I'm starting to not care too much if that's where he wants to hang out.  Although I still encourage him to come out and play as often as possible by luring him with a kitty treat. :)

It's been almost three weeks at the house and Benzi is fully assimilated into his new life!  One thing that amused me is that I bought him a new cat bed that he never used.  He then found Duncan's old bed, which was sitting on a table in the guest room with Duncan's ashes in a box and clay pawprint in it.  Benzi loves Duncan's old bed, so I figured I'd just let him have it.  He now sleeps there often whenever he's not cuddling up in my own bed.

The next big step will be traveling with Benzi, as I'm scheduled to head up to Scottsdale in May and I want to take him with me.  We'll see how he handles that, but so far Benzi has been a delight!  I'm very lucky to have found him and I already love this kitty a bunch!