Hello, PAX West 2022 in Seattle, Washington

by   •   Conventions, Face
 

Back during my esports and influencer marketing years, I would go to events and conventions pretty much once every month or two. However, since the pandemic, as well as since Tempo‘s pivot of its primary business focus into game design, I haven’t gone to any conventions.

I had an opportunity to attend PAX West last year with some friends, but I heard that a lot of companies were withdrawing from attendance due to con­tinuing surges of mutations of the coronavirus, so I decided not to go and instead just continued on my road trip. When the opportunity to attend PAX West arose again this year, I figured that, considering I was already in the Seattle Metropolitan Area, I would give it a shot and go to my first con­ven­tion since PAX East 2020, days before the COVID-19 outbreak and quarantines across the United States.

I’m staying in various different locations across the Seattle Metropolitan Area while I’m visiting, one of which is with my friend Doug Wreden. Doug lives in the suburban outskirts of the Seattle Metropolitan Area, so we decided to use public transportation to get to downtown Seattle. More on that lat­er.

Once we got to downtown Seattle, we first headed to the Seattle Convention Center for the main exhibit halls. This was one of the very few conventions I’ve been to where I was just a tourist and not working as an exhibitor, so I was able to roam around freely and explore. Unfortunately, I didn’t really find PAX to really be that exciting. It was congested with visitors, and every single booth had a very long line waiting to participate in whatever game or activity they had.

I’m thinking it might be because I’ve just been slowly losing interest in video games over the past handful of years, considering that I’ve been finding a lot of museums across the country to be very interesting, and museums are sort of like extremely small and static conventions. Regardless, the PAX ex­hib­it hall just ended up being a lot of walking and squeezing past people, looking at video games that I could be trying but couldn’t because there were al­read­y 10 people playing and another 20 waiting for their turn.

The convention was too large to fit in just the Seattle Convention Center, so they partnered with some of the neighboring hotels, including the Sheraton Grand Seattle. Pretty much the one and only main reason why I decided to attend PAX for a day is to watch some of my friends run a panel, which we used as an opportunity to also hold a larger meet-and-greet session.

Doug and I got first-row seats to watch the panel, but before it even began, we had people coming up to meet us and asking us to sign things. Here is a photo of Doug signing a “contract” that was partially generated by an AI scriptwriter that integrated a lot of inside jokes and memes from Doug’s Twitch stream and his community (I also signed it right after he did).

The panel that we watched was called “Fight Mii,” hosted by YouTubers from the channels Failboat and JayMoji.

The premise of the panel was for Jay to go into the audience and select two contestants to build a Mii (which, if you’re not familiar, is basically like a cus­tom 3D avatar) within five minutes based on prompts given to them by the hosts.

The room wasn’t completely full, but it was still one of the biggest crowds that I had seen from a PAX panel. Here’s a shot of audience members eagerly vol­un­teer­ing to compete in the Mii-building contest.

I thought the panel was great, and the hosts did a great job adding clever twists and turns to keep things exciting and comedic. For example, one of the prompts was to build a Mii that resembles Sonic the Hedgehog, but instead of just announcing it, Dan took off his gold jacket and ripped open his white button-up shirt to reveal a Sonic t-shirt underneath.

This particular prompt had a very interesting result—one contestant properly made a Mii of Sonic the Hedgehog, but one of them must have missed the “the Hedgehog” part, because instead, they built a hamburger from Sonic Drive-In…

Another hilarious thing they did was give out completely pointless and impractical prizes. This one was my favorite—a literal air-circulating box fan. I bet whomever won that had a great time trying to take it on their flight to bring it back home.

After the panel was over, we held a meet-and-greet in a nearby conference room—Dan and Jay had one line on one side of the room, while Doug and I had a line on the other side.

People brought some very interesting things for me to sign, such as a broken blender, toy drill, miniature rubber chicken, catnip mouse, issue of National Geographic magazine, and computer science homework. One person mentioned that they tried to bring in a shovel for me to sign, but it had gotten con­fiscated by security because it was a metal shovel and could be used as a weapon.

However, my favorite thing that I signed, simply due to the sheer absurdity of it, was a mold of somebody’s teeth.

After a successful day at the convention, we stopped by The Cheesecake Factory, where I ate the driest and most shriveled chicken I had ever tasted in my entire life.

After dinner, we started making our way back to the train station to head back to Doug’s house.

I looked up the Westlake light rail station on Google Maps and led the way. Unfortunately, I led us straight to the coordinates on Google Maps, which were underground… and I couldn’t remember where the entrance was. Doug really didn’t want to miss the next train and have to wait an additional 15 or so minutes for the next one, so we started running around trying to find the entrance to the underground.

We eventually found the entrance right near the infamously dangerous McDonald’s at the corner of 3rd Avenue and Pine Street, and we made it to the light rail stop with a few minutes to spare. My stomach was very unhappy with the fact that we ran, considering that I had just eaten a bunch of really dry chicken, then consequently drank a lot of strawberry lemonade and water to make the chicken easier to swallow.

We got on the light rail, and I continued having an upset stomach, but I just kept my mind off the stomach pain and tried to take a nap (which was pret­ty much impossible, because I am always conscious of how, on public transportation, dangerous situations in a confined space can unexpectedly e­rupt without warning, so I always impulsively keep my head on a swivel). However, once we got about halfway to our destination stop, there was an an­nounce­ment that said that it was the final stop and everyone had to exit the train.

Apparently, there had been an emergency on the train tracks, so they froze train transport beyond a certain point and replaced light rail service with bus shuttle service. This was not ideal, as my stomach had gone from upset to infuriated, and now we had to go find the bus stop and basically take a layover.

After several minutes, the bus arrived, but it was obviously nowhere near as large as the train, so we all sardined on board, probably exceeded the ca­pac­i­ty of the bus, and made our way to our final destination.

… That is, the final destination for the public transportation portion of the trip. After we got to the station, we got into Doug’s car, which we had parked in the commuter lot, and drove the rest of the way back to his house.

We took public transportation because we didn’t want to bother finding parking in downtown Seattle, but it seems like the hassle of finding parking would’ve been worth it—a drive that would’ve only taken a little over 20 minutes in a personal vehicle took almost 2 hours on public transportation due to the obstacles faced throughout the whole process.

We finally got back to Doug’s house at almost 2 AM.

Needless to say, my sleep schedule is broken again.

 

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Hello, Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden in Federal Way, Washington

by   •   Hiking
 

On the same day that I went to the Pacific Bonsai Museum, I also went to the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden right next door. The botanical gar­den was a far more open and unstructured exploration area, as opposed to how formal and curated the Pacific Bonsai Museum was.

I received a map when entering the botanical garden, and I tried to route my path so I would be able to visit as many of the areas as possible, but due to how complex the area was, how winding the paths were, and the seeming outdatedness of the map, I got incredibly lost. I ended up just wandering a­round until I saw enough interesting things, then I ended up back and the entrance and returned to the parking lot.

The first point of interest was the Rutherford Conservatory.

There were some flowers planted right outside the Rutherford Conservatory. I enjoyed the contrasting irony of there being blossoming sunflowers in one area and completely shriveled sunflowers right next to them.

Next, I visited the gazebo.

Not too far away was the Alpine Rock Garden.

From this point began my utter aimless confusion. I attempted to visit the Magnolia Grove, Stumpery, Pond, Blue Poppy Meadow, Big-Leaf Rho­do­den­dron Garden, Upper Woodland Garden, and Azalea Collection. However, I kept feeling like I was going in circles, and I wasn’t entirely sure whether I was actually at those points of interest that I saw on the map, or whether I was anywhere near them at all to begin with. Regardless, it was a very tranquil walk through the flowers, plants, and trees.

Overall, between the two tourist attractions, I walked a little under two miles (almost three kilometers), at a very leisurely pace of almost an hour per mile.

 

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Hello, Pacific Bonsai Museum in Federal Way, Washington

by   •   Tourism
 

There’s been another heat wave in the Seattle Metropolitan Area lately, but the weather finally eased up today, so I seized the opportunity to go outside and explore the Pacific Bonsai Museum in Federal Way, Washing­ton, down by the intersection of Interstate 5 and the western starting point of Washing­ton State Route 18.

This has been a recurring sentiment every time I go to a specialty museum, but I did not realize that bonsai was so intense and involved. Prior to today, I just thought that bonsai was a method of tying up tree trunks to make them grow in unnatural ways. However, after going through the museum and read­ing a lot of the placards explaining the art of bonsai, I realized that it’s far more complex.

Usually, when you see bonsai trees, they are all the same very small trees with trunks and branches that are warped in strange ways. However, because this museum was a specialty museum, I was able to see a wide variety of bonsai trees, including some that seem like normal trees… but are a miniscule fraction of the size of the actual specie of tree.

My biggest takeaway from visiting this museum is that the art of bonsai is all about pa­tience, foresight, and forethought. Working with trees is far dif­fer­ent than other art forms or working with other living things. In many other art forms, you can generally get to your desired result with enough prac­tice and strategy, and other living things tend to be much more trainable and moldable. However, because trees grow at their own, very slow pace, it’s very difficult to get immediate feedback on changes you make to the tree, so it can take years or decades before you realize that you might have made a mistake.

The Pacific Bonsai Museum also had a lot of bonsai trees on display with extremely interesting backstories. My favorite one was a tree that had been sto­len, but because of the immense media coverage and pressure from the community, was magically found back in its place—presumably because the thief caved in and decided to return it.

If you’re ever in the area and have about an hour or so to spare, I recommend checking it out. Not only were the trees interesting to just look at, but if you also read the corresponding informational cards posted by each of the trees, it will be a fun learning experience. I wouldn’t say they’re particularly text-heavy compared to other museums, and they’re written in a way that will pique the interest of even non-enthusiasts.

As of my visit, admission was free, though there is a recommended donation of US$12.00 at the end of the exhibits, if you’re able to afford and are will­ing to contribute.

 

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Hello, Bellevue Botanical Garden in Washington

by   •   Tourism
 

Bellevue is a pretty nice city, and probably one of my favorite areas in the Seattle Metropolitan Area. I generally don’t like downtown areas of cities, but Bellevue has managed to keep their downtown clean, under control, inviting, and not overly congested.

The Seattle Metropolitan Area is fairly large, and while I was driving from one end of Lake Washington to the other, I decided to take a stop in between in Bellevue to check out some of the Marriott resorts and be a tourist.

One of the places I stopped by was the Bellevue Botanical Garden, a short distance east of Washington Interstate 405. There’s another heat wave that was expected to hit (and is here now), so I managed to squeeze in this trip right before when the weather was still tolerable.

For some reason, it was a bit tricky to keep track of where I was going—the trails weren’t actually that long, so only a short duration of walking would make me end up in a completely different area.

I believe I started near the Courtyard and Tapestry Hedge, went over to the Perennial Border, walked through the Fuchsia Garden, then started walking south on the Tateuchi Loop Trail. I connected onto Lost Meadow Trail, went over to The Ravine Experience Bridge, completed the Ravine Experience Trail, then circled back around and reconnected back to Tateuchi Loop Trail. I tried visiting the Native Discovery Garden and Bellville Arboretum, but I wasn’t quite sure whether I was actually there, or if the markings on the map were misplaced, as it just looked like the rest of the garden. For the last por­tion of my visit, I did a loop around the Yao Garden on the Yao Garden Trail, then went back to the parking lot.

 

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I spent another week surrounded by two dogs and a cat

by   •   Cats, Dogs
 

Around this time last month, I spent a week petsitting Bullet, Kaya, and Drake. Erin had another trip that she had to go on, so I came back to her house to take care of the dogs and cat again for another week.

Although I wouldn’t say the dogs have separation anxiety, Kaya still gets pretty sad when her parents leave. For the first several hours, she insists on sit­ting by the door awaiting their return.

Drake, on the other hand, as a fairly normal and independent cat, has full faith that they will eventually return. He instead decided to use the cat door to go out onto the covered balcony and take a nap outdoors.

Kaya noticed Drake and wanted to join him, so she went outside as well. She wanted to sunbathe, but managed to only get half her body in the sun, prob­a­bly because she got blinded by the sun and couldn’t see where she was.

I set up my computer workstation upstairs on a table near the living room, and Bullet decided to set up shop there as well. He spent a lot of time laying next to my chair and at my feet, making sure that I wouldn’t go anywhere without him.

On one of the days, I went into the guest room to change into my exercise shorts so I could take the dogs for a walk. Apparently Drake was sleeping on the bed, and he did not appreciate the interruption.

Hello Bullet.

While Drake was away using the litter box, Bullet swept in and took his spot at the base of the bed in the guest room. Drake was not very happy when he returned.

One of Drake’s favorite activities is sunbathing. However, when he is upstairs and far away from the balcony, but needs sun now, we have to make do with what’s available. Here is Drake using some of the natural light shining in during the morning and sticking his head into the sun strip.

Because this is my second time petsitting, the dogs are much more comfortable with me now than they were last time. They like to spend a lot of time around the guest room where I sleep, and when I got out of the shower one day, I noticed that they had repossessed my pillow.

Hello Drake.

I went to snap a photo of Kaya out on the patio, but when I kneeled down, she got up to walk over to me; I captured the photograph as she was getting up, and found it hilarious that she looks like an alpaca in this picture.

We have tentative plans for me to petsit again in September, so more photos to come soon…

 

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Hello, Upper Bristlecone Trail at Mt. Charleston, and Zumo the Keeshond

by   •   Dogs, Hiking, Las Vegas
 

During my routine once-every-two-months one-week-long air trip to Las Vegas to take care of all my errands all at once while road tripping across the country, I met up with two of my friends to go hiking at Mount Charleston, northwest of the Las Vegas Valley in Nevada. Also joining me this time around was Zumo, their Keeshond.

Before heading up to Mt. Charleston for our hike, we stopped by a gas station to get some beverages and snacks. Apparently there was a dog treat for sale at the gas station, so Zumo got a snack as well; if you look closely, you can see the small mess he left behind below his mouth.

As we got closer to the trailhead, we came across what appeared to be a wild horse. I’ve seen a ton of horses throughout my road trip, and even went to the Kentucky Derby Museum in Louisville to learn more about horses, but this is the first time that I saw a wild horse just roaming around out in the open.

Our trail of choice was Upper Bristlecone. We made it to the trailhead, which was right next to the Lee Canyon ski resort.

Near the trailhead was a large helicopter landing area. I walked over to the edge of the landing zone and snapped a photo of the mountains to the north­east.

The trail itself wasn’t too special for a majority of the hike—it was basically just a well-formed path cutting through forest. I did come across a few wild­flowers, like this red one.

Being a breed with a double-layer coat, Zumo got very warm very fast, and he had to take a lot of breaks to cool down.

In a sparse area of the forest, we found a little hut made out of branches and tree trunks. One of them even had a little entryway, so I climbed inside with Zumo for one of our breaks.

Eventually, we made it to the lookout point of the trail, which I guess you could consider the summit (there was no true “summit” because the trail con­tinued to an intersecting point of Upper and Lower Bristlecone, before turning into the regular Lower Bristlecone Trail). Immediately upon arrival, Zu­mo found some nice, cool rocks on which to lay down and cool down.

By this point, a thunderstorm had started to roll in. There was a decent amount of cloud coverage over by The Sisters…

… and clouds had completely engulfed Mummy Mountain.

The lookout point had a tree that was blossoming flowers with a very unique scent.

The storm clouds were rapidly approaching and it started drizzling, so we started making our way back down the mountain.

We arrived back at our vehicle just in time—with literally about half a minute to spare, it started pouring rain right as we got Zumo cleaned up and back in the car.

Unfortunately, my Fitbit activity tracker refuses to start tracking if I don’t have a data connection at the beginning of the hike (even if it can catch a GPS connection), so I wasn’t able to map this hike. However, based on other people’s maps on All Trails, it looks like our round-trip total was 3.2 miles (5.15 kilometers), with an elevation gain from base to lookout of 626 feet (191 meters).

Because the starting elevation was 8,692 feet (2,649 meters), the oxygen was sparse and it felt like much longer of a hike than it actually was. Even with the decent number of breaks we were taking to allow Zumo to rest up, I still got a little out-of-breath at times, and wished I had brought more than just a 28 fluid ounce (828 milliliter) bottle of Gatorade Zero.

There are a lot of great hikes at Mt. Charleston, and if it’s your first time, I’d recommend something like Cathedral Rock instead. Regardless, it was a good hike at Upper Bristlecone, and it was a nice opportunity to get away from the 100+°F (38+°C) heat of the Las Vegas Valley for a bit.

 

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