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I haven’t done a lot of traveling these past few of years, but I’m easing back into it this summer.

I’m going to Seattle for a Madonna concert next month and hoping I can snag tickets for PAX for Labor Day weekend when they go on sale in an hour.

In August I’m leaving the PNW for the first time since 2015 and leaving the country for the 1st time since 2013. I’m going to Toronto and swinging by Chicago on the way back.

I already have ideas for next year. I’m just trying to narrow down where.

The first weekend in October my friend Matt A. from California came up to visit. I know Matt through podcasting and I met him in person at the Twin Peaks festival a few years ago, but hadn’t seen him since. He had presented the idea a few weeks earlier of him coming up here and traveling to Seattle for the GPB Festival. I was all for it.

Matt flew in from Denver (I think) on that Friday night, where he had attended another festival. From what I understand, Matt works for a chain of stores and helps decide which beers and how much they stock. So this is like work for him. We watched that Stephen King movie In the Tall Grass, which had just debuted on Netflix.

We got up pretty early Saturday and got some donuts from Voodoo Donuts before heading to Seattle. We stopped at a brewery at met someone Matt knows, I think it was the manager. We then went to the festival which was a lot of fun. We drank sample after sample of pumpkin beer for hours. Since Matt knew some of the people there (I think they worked for one of the breweries), we got extra drink tickets. There’s a giant pumpkin beer filled with beer. Later in the day they had a costume contest near this giant pumpkin and later on a parade. After the parade they tap the pumpkin and served beer from the pumpkin. Leading up to them tapping the pumpkin, the excitement is building up. They had music playing. People (including Matt and myself) were holding cornstalks, dancing to the music, and chanting “TAP THAT GOURD!” It was kind of crazy, but fun to be a part of. After we left the festival, we had dinner with Jonathon Pope, a Washington resident who I know from podcasting but had never met before.

Sunday we drove back to Portland. We visited a couple of breweries around here. I took him to Powell’s. At this point Matt was feeling sick, probably from all the traveling, and I was starting to get sniffly too. He tried to get his return flight moved to Monday instead of Tuesday, but it was going to be too expensive. Matt wanted to play board games on this trip. We played one game at one of the breweries earlier and we ended the night playing board games with some of my local friends at the Lucky Lab.

On Monday, we didn’t do much. I remember going to a brewery, playing a game there, and getting a tour of the brewery’s expansion. That night we watch Hereditary and Midsommar.

On Tuesday, I had an interview so I had to take Matt to the airport earlier than I would have liked. We stopped at the library in Hillsboro and played a couple of games before heading to the airport.

I’m so glad Matt got to come visit, see Portland, meet my dogs, and play some board games. I wish more people would come visit -hint-hint-. The only negative is that once the sickness he gave me fully kicked in, I was miserable and out of commission for 2 weeks. Oh well, it happens.

Life is busy. Guitar lessons. Exercising. Taking on more responsibility at work. Moved desks twice. Planted a garden. I want to go to Mexico. More detailed updates as time permits.

Three weeks ago, I was in my home state of Mississippi. I hadn’t been in Mississippi since December 2012, about 2.5 years earlier. It was past time.

I was there from June 3-7. I had planned on going to Mississippi for Super Bulldog Weekend in April. However, a high school classmate of mine passed away in January and a group of students decided to have a multi-year class reunion to commemorate those who we have lost. The span of years represented kept growing as time went on. In the end I think 11 years were represented.

I stayed with my friend John and his partner while I was there. I arrived on Wednesday night after a decent amount of time traveling. I didn’t have to leave early in the morning this time, which was good. Once I got to John’s we went to bed shortly afterward.

On Thursday, I met John and one of his co-workers for lunch. Afterwards, I drove around the Jackson area for a while. I drove past my old high school, went by my mom’s house (she’s in Georgia now), and went to my favorite Dairy Queen for some ice cream. I was a little disappointed not to see my favorite DQ employee who worked there for so longm even after I moved away. After ice cream, I went shopping. I got some Target clearance cloths, one of which was a shirt that I wore to the reunion. I also used a Best Buy gift card to buy a video game named Catherine for John. When John got off work, we went to his gym to go the one of the classes there. I think later that night we played that video game and watched Buffy. Buffy might have been the next night.

On Friday, John had to get his car fixed. We got some breakfast, but John slept a good bit of the day and I did some more sight-seeing. That night we went to a comedy show in Jackson. There were a lot of racist, homophobic jokes, which is okay if you’re funny. These guys weren’t that funny. We played the video game some more that night.

I don’t remember what happened during the day Saturday, but that night John and his partner went to see Mad Max while I went to my reunion. I had a great time at the reunion. It was more fun than I expected. It was great seeing people that I hadn’t seen in 18 years, though I keep up with some through Facebook. Some people have changed a lot, some not so much at all. A lot of people told me I looked exactly the same. Once I left, I went back to John’s for breakfast at dinner. We played that game until 7 am the next morning. We almost beat it. I just wanted to get some sleep before my flight.

I think I got about 3-4 hours of sleep before I left for the airport. I said my goodbyes to John and was off. After I left I got a text saying my flight was delayed an hour, so I could’ve gotten more sleep if I had known sooner. After a layover in Charlotte, I arrived home that night after a long flight.

The trip to Jackson was short, but great. I came back 4.4 lbs heavier. Ouch. The following week in the gym was rough. I hope it’s not as long before I’m in my home state again.

It’s been a fairly uneventful month for me.  I did  start a new podcast  – What We Make: A Terminator Podcast.  It was originally going to be an introcast on The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  Since we were planning on discussing pretty much the entire Terminator universe, we decided to make it a general Terminator podcast.

I’m a lot less optimistic about work improving than I was before.  I spoke to someone in the same position as me earlier, so I’m not the only one who feels the way I do.

Fitness is going well.  I got my measurements today and I’m down to 11% body fat.  My trainer told me it would be really hard to get lower than that, but I’m going to try.  I got a Fitbit Charge HR yesterday and it’s pretty cool to monitor my heart rate.  I don’t like wearing anything around my wrist, but this device hasn’t been a problem for me.

I’m so busy I haven’t had much time for video games, TV, or movies. That should change this coming week. I’m looking forward to going to Raleigh in April and Mississippi in June.

Until next time.

I’m at a point again where I’m doing almost everything alone.  The #1 reason that my friends around here give for not doing things is that they don’t have the money.

I always say that I’m far from rich, but I do well for myself.  I remember a time when a candy bar or an item off the Wendy’s dollar menu was all I could afford to eat in a day.  Anything more would mean running out of money before my next paycheck.  I had to walk to class and work because I couldn’t afford to put gas in my car. Now I’m doing better.

I not talking about taking trips to Europe or the Caribbean, though that would be nice.  I’m pretty sure I won’t do that unless I have someone to go with me.  Short trips to nearby cities or local activities where no trip is involved are what I usually suggest.  They can’t do any of that.  Sometimes I just want to go to a movie, but I hear the same excuse. I love my friends, but it’s frustrating.  I do like to leave home occasionally and doing stuff alone all the time gets old.

Maybe money is just an excuse and they just don’t really want to go.  They seem interested in the ideas I bring up and I’m not always the one bringing up the ideas.  Maybe they just don’t want to go with me.

I guess there’s no real solution to this problem other than them increasing their income or saving more.  Or making more friends, which can be hard when you’re a busy adult.  I’m glad to have Internet friends from all over the place.  A lot of them do like to do things and we can meet up in other cities from time to time.  This makes me happy.

This past weekend I went to New Orleans for Voodoo Fest. I met my friend John down there. We’d been looking forward to this since we last met up in Reno back in June. This was the first time I had been to New Orleans and Voodoo Fest since Voodoo Fest 2007.

On Friday, I flew to New Orleans. It is a LONG way from Portland to New Orleans. My first stop on the way there was at L.A.X. My plane landed around the time of the L.A.X. shooting that was in the news. We did sit on the runway for a while before we parked. Maybe the shooting was why. Everything was calm in the area I was in. I didn’t even know about the shooting until I got on wifi and checked Twitter. Once we made it to New Orleans the local news interviewed some of the people on our flight about it. John picked me up at the airport. He was worried because one of the flights from L.A. to New Orleans was delayed because of the shooting. After taking my stuff to the hotel and catching up a little bit, we headed to Voodoo Fest. We missed Macklemore & Lewis, but soon it was time for Pearl Jam. They put on a great show! They are an excellent live band! They played a few songs from the new album, but it was mostly older favorites. They played the songs I would’ve been disappointed if I didn’t hear: “Given to Fly” and “Do the Evolution”. I was surprised to hear “In My Tree”. John’s not as big of a Pearl Jam fan as me. He really likes “Do the Evolution”, so I’m glad they played it. After the show, I think we drank before calling it a night. We slept for 11 hours. I blame it on the jet lag and staying up late.

On Saturday I think we got something to eat and then headed back to the park. While walking around the park, we heard the end of Paramore’s set, but after that it was time for Nine Inch Nails. They started a lot earlier than the schedule said, so I’m glad we got there early. They also put on a great show. I’m not as big of a NIN fan as John. They played the song he really wanted to hear: “Reptile”. I think they played a lot of new songs, or maybe just songs that I’m not as familiar with. I got more pumped up during “Wish” than I did the entire night. They played one of the songs I really wanted to hear: “The Hand that Feeds”. I wish they would have played “Closer”, but it was still a great show.

On Sunday, we skipped Voodoo Fest entirely. We had talked about going to see Kid Rock and The Cure that night, but decided against it. It was too much of a hassle going to the park and back. We did some shopping and then hung out with one of John’s old friends, Elizabeth. She lives in New Orleans. I’ve hung out with her a few times over the years. She’s very cool. We did a little bar hopping and lost some money at the casino. Then we went to a club where Elizabeth’s boyfriend was DJing later in the night. We ended up leaving before his 2:30am performance because we were all tired.

On Monday, I flew back to Portland. It’s always sad coming back after having a great time with friends. I’m grateful that I got to go. Both Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails play in Portland later this month, so I’ll get to see them again. I got sick on this trip like I did at P.A.X. John is suffering the same symptoms I am. I think my next trip will be February at the earliest. It’ll be nice to spend time at home on weekends.

This past weekend I went to PAX Prime in Seattle for the second time. I probably said this last year, but I want to make this an annual trip. If you’re a gamer of any kind, you should try to attend PAX at least once.

The trip to Seattle on Thursday took 5 hours (it should be around 3) due to an accident and rain. After I dropped my stuff off at the hotel, I went straight to an Xbox Meetup that was held at a Microsoft Store a few miles away. They were showing off the Xbox One. The line to get in was long. Major Nelson hosted the event. I got a chance to play Ryse: Son of Rome, which is a launch game that I had already pre-ordered. The little bit I played was co-op, and it was okay. They’re still working on it, so I’ll wait until closer to launch to decide whether or not to cancel my pre-order. Later that night, I went to a pre-PAX party. I didn’t stay long because I felt out of place there.

Friday was the first official day of the con. First I went to the Queue Room to get in line to go to the exhibition floor. If there’s something that you really want to get hands on time with on the floor, you get to the Queue Room early to get in line. Once I got onto the floor, I was mostly snapping pictures because I didn’t want to wait in another line to play games. After exploring the floor, I went to watch the League of Legends competition to get some skins that a friend wanted. The only panel I went to was the Rooster Teeth panel, which was good. The best part for me was when they played the latest episode of an animated series they do called Rwby. I’m going to check it out when I get a chance. I went to the Final Fantasy XIV launch party that afternoon. I didn’t know about this party until that day. I got to shake hands with the producer of the game and get the autograph of the composer. The last thing I did was go to the PAX Pink Party where played a game of Cards Against Humanity with a bunch of strangers. By the end of the day, I was tired and couldn’t believe I had 3 more days.

On Saturday I didn’t wait in line for the queue room. I just went in after the floor had already opened. I got a chance to see more cool costumes and some booths I didn’t see the day before. I went to the WildStar panel and the Major Nelson Radio panel. After those I went to the Guild Wars 2 Anniversary celebration, which had different events throughout the day. It was a lot of fun.

On Sunday, I don’t think I spent much time on the exhibition floor. There’s not as many cool costumes, but this was the most panel heavy day for me. I went to the Queers in Gaming, Destructiod, Voice Acting 101, and Cards Against Humanity panels. This was the only night I didn’t go to an afterparty, but the CAH panel lasted pretty late.

Monday was the last day. There wasn’t a lot going on this day. The only panel I went to was Inside Gearbox. This was the only time I had to wait in line outside in the sun. The panel itself was pretty funny and they gave out some codes for some cool stuff to everyone in the audience. After that I went to the console free play area. I really regretted not knowing about this until the end of the con last year, so I made a point to stop by this year. I ended the con there. The Post-PAX afterparty was that night. I won a PAX scarf in a raffle.

Some notes:

John was here in Portland for 10 days.  He arrived on Thursday the 14^th and left on Sunday the 24^th.  He told me he wanted to come here for his 30^th birthday (the 21^st) about 5 or 6 months ago and we’ve both been looking forward to it since.  We had a blast!  I wanted to write as much down as I could recall to help remember the trip.

Thursday – John’s flight was scheduled to arrive late Thursday night, shortly before midnight.  I saw online that it would be arriving a little late.  At some point, I stopped my car while I waited.  Some security lady told me that I couldn’t stay there and I had to circle around.  When I tried to start my car, it wouldn’t start.  I waited for John to arrive and then went to get help.  The airport sent someone to jump my car and we were on our way.  It was a great way to start John’s trip.

Friday – John went out and explored the city while I was at work.  My company had a party celebrating the opening of our new office here in Portland.  After John and I went to get my battery replaced, we chilled at my apartment that night.

Saturday – We got up and drove to Vancouver, British Columbia.  It was my first time leaving the country and John’s first time in Canada.  The hotel was pretty cool.  We went out to some clubs that night.

Sunday- We went to Granville Island and had lunch with my married friends Michaela and Dave.  After that John and I drove to Cleveland Damn and went on a short hike before it started to get too dark. We decided to go ziplining the next day in Whistler. We were exhausted after that, so we went to bed early.

Monday – We drove up to the mountains to Whistler.  I believe they had some winter Olympic events there in 2010.  The zipline tour on Cougar Mountain was so much fun. We got quite a bit of snow. We spent the night at Michaela and Dave’s in Richmond.  We had a steak dinner and some great beer.

Tuesday – We made our way back to Portland.  We stopped in Steveston Village, which is where they film Once Upon a Time.  It was cool seeing some of places where they film the show.  When we got back to my apartment we watched the latest 2 episodes.

Wednesday – I went to work and John did some more exploring.  Later John went to dinner with Breck and Mickey, two people that we knew back in Mississippi but have recently moved to Portland, unbeknownst to me.  After that John and I went shopping at Powell’s and Buffalo Exchange before heading home.

Thursday – This was John’s 30^th birthday.  I got him a cake and an hour-long massage.  That night we went out to dinner at a pub and we went out to a club.

Friday – We had lunch at Little Big Burger.  They have delicious fries.  We drove to Tillamook near the coast for a wine and cheese tasting.  I discovered some great wines we both brought back something with us.  I don’t remember what we did that night.

Saturday – We went to the first ever Portland Comic Con.  We had 3-day passes, but I think we did everything we needed to in that one day.  We got to get Morena Baccarin’s autograph and see a bunch of stars.  That night we went to see Skyfall ant Baghdad Theater with Breck and Mikey.

Sunday – That morning it was time for John to go back to Mississippi.  I always hate parting from friends after having a good time. After he left, I cleaned a little, took a long nap, did some grocery shopping, and watched the Oscars.

I was glad that John got to visit.  I was worn out after being on the go for 10 days straight, but it was worth it.  I hope he’ll be here again soon.  I think he liked Portland and the Northwest enough that he wouldn’t mind living here.

This weekend I went to PAX for the first time. PAX is the Penny Arcade Expo, and it’s a convention devoted to nothing but gaming. I guess I didn’t know what I was getting into because I don’t hear as many people talk about it as San Diego Comic-Con. I figured I would have a good time, but it was many times better than I thought it would be.

I drove to Seattle Thursday night after working at home for the day. I didn’t know that anybody I knew was going until the week of the con, so I had already found roommates on the hotel share thread on the PAX forums. This was a mistake. I should’ve just ponied up the money to get a room by myself. The guy who booked the room asked for my share of the money soon after I responded to his post because he was short on money. When I got to the hotel, we didn’t have a room because his card got declined. He said that he was getting a direct deposit around midnight from his job and we would have a room then. He was there with his online gaming group. They were split into 3 rooms. Our room had 5 people and the other two rooms had 4 each. These people were freaking weirdos, and that’s coming from me. I hope they don’t see this. They even admitted that they were strange and apologized for how strange they were. The guys in my room were okay, but the others in their extended group were out there. I left my stuff in one of the other rooms and we went to a bar while we waited to get our room. As I expected, his money wasn’t available at midnight. He asked me if I had a credit card that I could that I could use and he would forward me the money later. I said something vague like “I can’t do it”, but the truth was I just didn’t want to. I thought about getting my own room somewhere nearby. I guess he found someone else willing to use their card. We finally got into our room around 1AM. One guy snored so loudly that it was hard to sleep. I think I got about 2 hours of sleep that night. At least somebody called him out on that. Not that it did any good.

The next day I got up to go the convention center. I had an idea of which panels I wanted to see, but I didn’t know what else I would end up doing. My roommates had talked about getting up early to get in line to play games, but I didn’t really know what they were talking about and I wasn’t really interested. When I got to the lobby, I asked the front desk to call me a cab. I saw some guys in Telltale Games shirts outside and they got in the first cab that came. It turns out that was supposed to be my cab. They invited me to share the cab with them and they paid for it. Neat, huh? When I got to the convention center, I just followed the flow of people. I ended up in the line for the Exhibition Hall where you can view and play games and see other stuff. While we waited in line here and everywhere else, the staff gave us stuff to do and entertained us. Comic-Con could learn something from this. I decided I wasn’t going to try to play any games because I didn’t want to wait a long time to play a demo I could play in a few months. Mostly, I walked around and watched other people play. I heard the wait to play Borderlands 2 was around 8 hours. I focused a lot on the cosplayers and props/decorations. I did see one of the Telltale guys I shared a cab with at the Telltale booth. The whole weekend I played maybe 2 or 3 games, but I did get cards with codes for games. I didn’t get much schwag other than this. There was so much to see. I tried to at least walk past every table. I spotted some guest stars from Supernatural at one point. Between visits to the Exhibition Hall I went to a couple of panels, like the Destructoid Live panel. I went to a party that night and had a great time.

The second day wasn’t as interesting because I had seen the Exhibition Hall. I went to the Major Nelson Live panel. There was stuff going on all over the convention center. Even though I had seen much of it the previous day, I was still discovering a lot of things. I found a dark arcade (the way it should be) and I played some board games. I really want to get into board and card games now. People were playing them in dedicated rooms and on the floor while in line. I bought 1 game at the convention and I’ve bought another 1 since I got back. I ended up going to a Harmonix panel late that because I wanted to sit down for a while and I didn’t want to go back to my room yet. It ended up being the best panel I saw the entire weekend. Right when I was about to leave the convention center for the day, I stumbled across the console freeplay room where they had tons of consoles setup and you could checkout games to play. I wish I had known about this sooner, because I would’ve spent a lot of time here.

I decided to come home Sunday instead of Monday morning. I had seen everything I needed to see and I wanted to give myself more time to recuperate. Also, I didn’t want to spend another night in that room. I was thinking about going to a popular museum in Seattle, but I’ll have to do that next time.

I had a great time at PAX. It’s a lot more relaxed that Comic-Con. I did learn a few lessons. Never go in blind on the roommate situation. That threatened to put a damper on the weekend and I’m glad it didn’t. Also, I shouldn’t go to cons alone. It’s a lot less awkward when you know someone there and have someone to hang with. I either need to make more friends who like to go to these things or convince more of my current friends to go. Lastly, this isn’t really a lesson, but I need to dress up for a con one time. I think it would be a lot of fun. I’m glad that I’m fortunate enough to be able to go on these little adventures. I’m looking forward to the next one.