My first experience with Final Fantasy XIV was terrible. It was a while ago, so I don’t exactly remember the intricate details, but basically, I tried to install it, it failed not-so-gracefully, then I asked Square Enix for help. I sent a support ticket letting them know exactly what the problem was, linked to a knowledgebase article on their website explaining how to solve the problem, and let them know that I tried those exact steps and indicated why that solution didn’t work.

Their response? They linked me to the VERY EXACT SAME KNOWLEDGEBASE ARTICLE that I linked to them – the one where I specifically indicated that it was not helpful.

I ended up going into some of the game’s configuration files in the installation directory and figuring out how to fix the problem myself. My technical background helped me with that; anyone not so adept with coding most likely wouldn’t have been able to fix it.

When I finally got in game, I got extremely frustrated with the map system. It’s tiny, poorly designed, and unintuitive. I couldn’t really ever figure out where to go to do particular tasks, and the map was awful at telling me where I would end up if I took a particular exit out of one area. To me, navigation is extremely important (even in real life, because I get lost a lot), and their map system was one of the worst I’ve ever seen.

But somehow, one of my good friends convinced me to give the game one more try. I made a Miqo’te twin with her. I named mine Pink Lemonade; she named hers Salted Caramel. They’re both named after each of our favorite sweets.

Things still aren’t looking that great right now in terms of the game keeping my attention, and I may end up just no longer playing after this month of subscription time is over. But hopefully, I can stick with it long enough that I’ll actually get close to the level cap this time, instead of just giving up after a few days or a week, out of frustration.

One of the things I was pleased about when moving to California was the nice weather. After living in the Chicagoland suburbs in Illinois for nearly my entire life (and when I didn’t live there, I lived one state up north while attending undergraduate university in a location that had the exact same weather as Chicago), I got sick of rain and snow. I still appreciate rain once in a while because of how much it helps all natural living things, but I still want some long-term nice weather.

If you’re not aware already, southern California is in a state of moderate drought. It’s getting nowhere near the rain it’s apparently supposed to be getting, and most of the rivers have dried up to be long strips of sand.

But not when I’m here.

I’m pretty sure it has randomly rained and stormed an average of at least once a week since I’ve been here. Such as today, when I dropped off one friend to Los Angeles International Airport and another friend back home, for a total of approximately 2.5 hours’ worth of driving. But because it’s raining and Californians are so unused to having wet driving conditions, I’m pretty sure the trip took over 4 hours.

Because it rains so often in Illinois and it pretty much blizzards every winter, everyone there is pretty comfortable driving in poor weather conditions. Californians, who normally drive around 80 MPH (130 KPH) on the freeway, slow down to 45 MPH (70 KPH) in the rain. I’m pretty sure the real danger isn’t actually in the rain, but rather, in the fact that everyone is moving so unexpectedly slowly.

Having been from the Chicagoland suburbs, only traveling to big cities, and now living near Los Angeles, I’ve only ever been in huge airports. I’ve frequented O’Hare International Airport (ORD) in Chicago, IL and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in Los Angeles, CA the most, while also being to other decently-sized airports like Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) in Austin, TX.

Earlier today, I dropped off one of my friends at the airport – Ontario Airport (ONT) in Ontario, CA, to be exact.

It was 3 PM PST, and the airport looked deserted.

Huge airports like ORD and LAX have a constant flow of cars trying to get in and out of the lanes next to the airport. Often, you have to arrive through departures in order to avoid having your ride struggle through massive amounts of traffic. No matter what the time of day, the airport has a lot of people walking around. Sometimes, during the middle of the day, the traffic gets so bad that it starts flooding out into the streets and highways.

Growing up, I’ve only ever been exposed to airports like that – airports where paying US$85.00 every five years for TSA PreCheck to get through security more quickly is well worth the money. Then, I drove to this airport today.

As you can probably guess, my first reaction was whether or not I was even at the proper location, because I thought I had accidentally found myself to an abandoned and no-longer-used airport. My friend laughed at me for my reaction; I didn’t realize that an airport could possibly ever be peaceful.

In my surprise, I had the desire to travel at a peaceful airport like this, and looked up airline tickets to and from Ontario Airport. Unfortunately, the prices were astronomically high – literally double the cost of flying in and out of Los Angeles International Airport via oneworld Alliance (which, in United States domestic travel terms, would be American Airlines).

My friend was traveling to northern California, so I guess it was only logical that an airport like this would have cheaper inter-state flights. But, for me, I generally only travel out of state to other big cities, so unfortunately, it seems like I’m going to have to stick with the bustling international airports.

I realize it might be a little bit strange that I’m talking about visiting a pet store, considering I had been blogging about food non-stop for a few weeks earlier this month, but to clarify…

NO, I am not going to the pet store to look for dinner, and

NO, I am not getting a pet, because I don’t really have enough time to take care of one right now.

(Yes, I know that the “are you going to eat that animal” phrase is supposed to be a joke making fun of the fact that some Asian cultures ate modern-day pets, like dogs, in old, traditional times. I tend to respond to those jokes very flatly and literally because that usually takes the fun out of the question for the person inquiring.)

Now that we got that out of the way, here are some photos:

One of my friends who I met during a random event at eSports Arena in Santa Ana, CA while I was in California in November is an employee at Blizzard Entertainment. He works at the Irvine, CA headquarters, and invited a friend and me over to tour the campus.

I took a lot of photos there, and decided to share some here. A bunch of them include my friend looking at the item I am photographing – I think it adds a more personal touch to the pictures, as I’m sure there are already tons of photos out there already of just the actual item of interest. She was wearing an oversized murloc sweater that she received from Blizzard as a Christmas present.

And of course, a Blizzard tour wouldn’t be complete without a photograph of myself standing in front of my favorite character in Heroes of the Storm, Nova.

Now that I live in California, I have the nice benefit of not having to suffer through snowfall every single winter. People who have lived in sunny, warm areas all their lives say that they would love to experience snow sometime, but when they say that, I make sure they are aware that the keyword there is sometime, not every day of the winter.

Either way, it seems like, no matter where you live, people still celebrate the holidays. Now, having grown up in the Chicagoland suburbs where it pours snow every winter, I sort of associate the holiday season, lights, and Christmas trees with snow and freezing cold temperatures, and it makes me feel not so festive. Now that I’m in California where I know I won’t be seeing any snow unless I climb thousands of feet up onto the peak of a mountain, the holidays don’t necessarily have to be the equivalent of suffering. But, that association got drilled into my brain for over two decades, so it’s a little bit difficult to snap out of it right away.

People have lights set up all around the new neighborhood where I live now, as well as out in public as well. I stopped by Westfield Santa Anita yesterday, which is supposedly the biggest mall and shopping center in San Bernardino county, and decided to share some of the festive decorations here with some photographs. The quality isn’t so great because I didn’t go there until the evening and my phone’s camera doesn’t have great low light compensation, but at least you can still see the lights.