If you haven’t noticed already from the blog post I put up at the end of last week, I am traveling to Los Angeles, California for the
ESL Heroes of the Storm Global Championship, Spring 2016 Circuit, North American Regional.
My morning started with my martial artist and stuntman buddy Josh driving me to the airport.
The drive to the airport didn’t take as long as I had anticipated, and I had calculated way too much time to accommodate for the rain, and I ended up getting to the airport about two and a half hours early.
After about an hour of waiting, I heard the fantastic news that my flight was delayed.
While I was waiting, I walked over to a nearby McDonald’s to get some breakfast (which was technically lunch because it was in the afternoon, but it was the first time I had eaten, so it was breakfast for me).
After buying the food, I realized how much more expensive McDonald’s is at the airport than anywhere else, with prices around 30% higher. I immediately regretted my decision, not only because of the cost, but because I proceeded to smell partially-digested hamburger every time I burped, and it kept on coaxing me to vomit on the plane.
While eating my Quarter Pounder, I overheard some great conversations, such as “Oooh just thinking about flying out of here makes me want to eat some carrots.”
After a second delay, the plane finally arrived.
Of course, humans are slow, so we had to wait another 20 minutes after the plane arrived for all the previous passengers to get off the plane.
At the time I was originally supposed to land in Los Angeles, I was finally on the plane with three hours left to go.
Here’s a photo of some ice crystals that formed on the window not long before landing. It was something around -30°C outside at that altitude.
After hours upon hours of traveling, I had to wait and travel even more to get to my hotel. Apparently, there were no flights today that went from O’Hare to Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, so I had to go to LAX and take a shuttle to Marriott Hotel in Burbank, CA (near the ESL studios).
This is the photo I took while waiting at the airport for my shuttle. It felt a little strange going from rainy, cold weather in Chicago, to a pretty cool airplane, to burning hot and humid outside in sunny Los Angeles. I kept my jacket on though, because my mind was too busy being confused that it didn’t really send a signal to my arms to take off my jacket.
After riding on the shuttle for over an hour in the dreaded Los Angeles traffic, I finally made it to my hotel. I was the last member of Tempo Storm to make it to California, so I went around chatting with the players and getting to know them a bit better, seeing as this was the first time I would be working with them in person.
As the day came to an end, Kaeyoh, So1dier, Mel, and I went to Target to do some shopping. Mel bought a 24-pack of water for her team, then proceeded to pick up this bottle and say “… and this one’s for me.”
I’m pretty exhausted from the traveling, but hopefully I’ll be able to sleep it off, because we’ve got an early day ahead of us tomorrow.