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How Not to Play Life

8/11/2016

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(Haha I dunno why people hate airports. Airports are like my havens. It's like the only place where nobody is (almost) guaranteed to bother me since I'm "in transit" and I get to sit in peace for 45 mins before boarding.)

Amidst all the crazy of the last week, there was also this thing called GISHWHES (Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen) that ended up being THE EXACT SAME WEEK. I kind of gave up all hope on it as soon as I realized how it overlapped everything else, but I've always hated giving up on something before I even got out of the gate, especially when I had signed up ages ago and was already assigned to a 15 person team.

So, 12:30 am on Tuesday night, I skimmed through the 150 or so scavenger hunt item list that had been posted, and ticked off the (very tiny) handful that I could conceivably either do myself or arrange with someone else in like the 3 hours I had free for the remaining week. And then I started making a minute-by-minute schedule. (Omg I made all the schedules D:)

Buckle your seat belts ladies and gents, it's gonna be a bumpy ride ...

THURSDAY
MST 1:30 am - figure out how long it takes to get to airport with traffic, add in time to pick up breakfast, figure out to the minute when I have to set my alarm clock for, go to bed
MST 8:45 am - wake up, shower, pack up, check out
MST 9:30 am - leave hotel for airport
MST 10:00 am - driver misses the airport exit
MST 10:10 am - driver ends up making two detours D:
MST 10:30 am - finally arrive at airport, fling checked bags at the ticket counters, run through three terminals with 40 pounds of photo and electronic equipment, to arrive sweaty and out of breath after running a mile at a mile-high city and sad-so-sad about missing out on using my coveted A 01 Southwest boarding pass but grateful I still made it in time to snag the one bulkhead seat left
MST 11:00 am - I'm tearing through two bags of fruit snacks when a flight attendant taps my shoulder and asks, "Would you mind moving to another seat? There's a lady whose dog is way too big to fit into the other seat rows." Oooookay.
MST 11:05 am - After three tries they find me another seat, squeezed into a row with a young couple and their adorable little baby girl. (And in front of another baby who, I will find out later, has a VERY healthy set of lungs. Q_Q )
MST 11:10 am - flight departs Denver
MST 11:40 am - flight attendant asks if I would like a complimentary drink. I splurge on a cranberry club soda and ask for five bags of peanuts. Dig my earplugs out.
PST 12:30 pm - land in Orange County
PST 1:00 pm - get picked up and FINALLY A PROPER MEAL <33333
PST 1:45 pm - make it home, throw everything down on the spot, run upstairs and fling my clothes off (and put some new ones on - kinda >.>)
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GISHWHES item attempt #1: take a pic of all your team members dressed up in a manner representative of their state or country

Exhibit #1: And what is more California than beach-wear and shopping? (My one regret is that I forgot the ginormous sunglasses :( Also I had no time to explain to my dad all of what GISHWHES is and ended up just shoving my phone at him so he could take the picture and saying "It's for a joke!" Close enuf)
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PST 2:00 pm - try to find my bag of dragon plushies. I have a bag of dragon plushies. I SWEAR I DO D: But I don't find anything except a little dragon beanie baby that isn't anywhere near cute enough for my purposes but it's all I have so I drive over to Mailboxes to ship it. Except that I look at it again after I park and I just couldn't settle for it and end up frantically scrolling through Amazon Prime's stuffed dragon toys for 10 mins and shipping one of those instead (you'll all find out why later)
PST 2:15 pm - buy the baby sunflower arrangement from the local market [Exhibit #2]
PST 2:30 pm - drive to the nearest retirement home

GISHWHES item attempt #2: Go to a retirement or assisted living home and take a picture with one of the residents. But you have to be dressed as a pirate. And you have to put at least one piratey item on the resident too. You may want to bring a present for them of cookies or flowers or a game for the common area.

I was initially very nervous about this because I didn't quite know how community offices would take a random pirate walking up and asking to accost one of their residents. But I girded myself with my best piratey air, parked
... and discovered an elderly pair of ladies just a few feet from me on the curb.

[Exhibit #3] The bonny lass Harriet (let's just call her Harriet) was tiny and curled over with a squeaky little walker, while her companion was a comparatively statuesque woman (taller than me) who was equally gray haired but still years younger. I went up to them with my offering, explained my quest, and extended the flowers with the proposition, "I am willing to exchange GOLD for the privilege of a photograph taken with one of you!"

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And then a life lesson is learned: spirit knows no age. The younger woman immediately held up her hands with a laugh and backed away, too shy. Harriet though, said, "I want the gun!" and promptly shoved her walker aside.
(And the second life lesson is perhaps we should all try to act a bit older! When you are young, you feel like you still have dignity to lose and peers to save face for. When you are old, you know there is nothing to lose and nothing to save.)

PST 3:00 pm - get home. Do emergency laundry. Test that all the prototypes still work and everything's charged. Re-pack everything. Take care of the errands my mom can't in her current state.

PST 6:00 pm - Get to Taekwondo (early cuz I'm taking over some of the technological and marketing needs of the studio and need to get a handle on the accounts before I left again)
PST 6:30 pm - take my last Taekwondo class (since 2 weeks ago) before the black belt exam
PST 7:35 pm - pick up dinner for the family
PST 7:45 pm - get a text from Southwest that the flight is delayed D: (For those who don't know John Wayne airport, it has a curfew. If the flight doesn't take off by a certain time, it doesn't take off at all)
PST 7:50 pm - get home, shower, repack one bag, drive to the airport (while trying to think of backup plans if my flight doesn't take off - Plan A, drive to LAX and hope there's a late night or red-eye I can take. Plan B, just drive all the way up to San Jose D: ... )
PST 8:05 pm - park, drag four cases into the airport, refuse to give them up to luggage check until they could give me assurances the plane will take off

FRIDAY
PST 12:00 am - finally make it to the apartment. End up working till 12:45 am on the presentations for next day's meeting before complaining I'm still on mountain time
PST 9:30 am - meetings. Meetings. More meetings. Lots of post-meetings debrief-meetings. Lunch happens somewhere I know this cuz I'm not hungry when I head to the airport.
PST 4:35 pm - land back in Orange County in time to help with dinner. Nearly face plant in dinner. Sleep at the ungodly hour of 10:30 pm.

SATURDAY

The black belt test! :D (More on that later if you made it this far ... ^_^)
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A (Remote) Father's Day

6/19/2016

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When my father came to America he already had a degree under his belt in political science from the top university in Taiwan. But he then finagled himself into a computer science program at Rutger's when he immigrated on a student visa because he thought it would be easier to support himself and a future family through this newfangled thing called programming.

I still vividly remember the arcane plastic box sitting in a corner of the study, back when the grind of the floppy disk (when it was still actually floppy!) in its drive reminded me of my mother's electric can opener. There had been one particular week in which my dad remained sitting in front of it all night after coming home (and to think, that was an unusual event back then!) and Mom told me not to bother him because he was 'adding work'. (I was too young to understand at that time that the Chinese (加班) - to work overtime - was not the same as the seeming backwards-homonym (搬家), 'moving house'. I had thought it odd that his business kept moving their office all the time.)

To show my support, one night I ran into the study to give him my biggest hug and a smooch on the cheek. As I left, I reflexively hit the wall switch because my parents told me to always turn off the lights when I leave a room. The space behind me was plunged into darkness for just a split second as I flipped the switch again with a "whoops" and turned around for my father's reaction.

He sat frozen, staring at the blank screen, hands still poised over the keyboard for a very long moment before he stated a mild-sounding, "Oh $#it," and then leaned over to turn the machine back on. As I crept out of the room, a mad flurry of typing started up behind me.

I learned later that the computer had been plugged into the same circuit as that wall switch. He had lost a good hour's worth of work when the power had been cut.

My only punishment from the incident had come from my own guilt.

In all my life, I can remember my dad raising his voice in true anger fewer times than I have fingers on one hand, and not a one of those times had it ever been directed at me. He has never raised his own hand in either anger or violence. He has always emphasized logic and reason over emotion, and while this had been excruciatingly frustrating at times as I was growing up, in hindsight I could only appreciate that I could always count on a level-headed discussion or debate with him no matter how difficult the topic was.

Thank you, Dad, for setting a lifelong example in this chaotic world, that there is never a situation that HAS to include anger or violence, and that I always have a choice of controlling my reactions or letting them control me.

Happy Father's Day! ❤️
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Shake, Rattle, and Roar

6/4/2016

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Putting this together took longer than trying to climb up and down in a dinosaur-shaped airbag, but it was all totally worth it.

Thank you, Ying, Ellen, Jonathan, and David! And, of course, the super-cool people at Mesa Rim, who not only didn't bat an eye at the addition of a dinosaur to their clientele on their anniversary date, but even loaned us a dino-sized climbing harness:
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Cabos - the trailer

5/22/2016

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All right, Bert, you asked for it ... selfies(-ish) galore! \o/ (As a stand-in until I get the real stuff sorted - in typical fashion, Kali and I squeezed pretty much every last drop out of a trip. Four water activities, an as last-minute-as-you-can-get horseback ride, and even arts <3 in a matter of 48 hours. We probably spent just as much time in the water as out of it this weekend. Everything is beautifully exfoliated and my hair is soft and fluffy like you wouldn't believe.)
Also, diving down with flippers is like my new favorite thing in water now after learning what I'm calling the mermaid flap (cuz I learned it secondhand from Kali and I totally missed what she said our guides called it). Large bodies of water was never an easy medium for me for all that I like to think I'm an excellent swimmer, what with all the motion sickness (I've gotten seasick snorkeling, much less boating) and ear pressure issues (even today my right ear is still not quite back to normal) and general dislike of wet and sand and salt (o god why even this trip you might be thinking - cuz I apparently like to bang my head against a wall in the same place several times to see if I can break through to the other side? >.>)

BUT!! The key here is apparently to distract myself with shiny new things to try out cuz I was literally the last one to crawl out of the water yesterday and even then it was only cuz poor Kali had a date with some dolphins. I'm pretty much fully onboard with this whole ocean thing now and who knew but if you do some things enough times you might actually get a different result after all! ^_^
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Have Cake, Will Travel (and save the world)

5/15/2016

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Want to know what REALLY went down this day of [REDACTED] in [REDACTED]? Read the director's commentary edition - to be posted soon!

​
April had been an awful, awful month, and the beginning of May hadn't been much better. Sure, a lot more (deserved) downtime, but it wasn't like we were actually enjoying it, being borderline comatose recovering. This weekend had been looking up, though - there had been intriguing rumors of a get-together, and maybe even a whisper of "cake" through the ranks - but I should have known anything that promising would not only be a lie, but was just the lead-in to something of equally opposite appeal:
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@#*^)$(^&#

Can the universe not find anything to occupy these supervillains for longer than a week at a time? Seriously, my 4-year old nephew has a longer attention span. (And I really don't get how the human race has not already irradiated themselves into extinction when all these "objects of extreme power" have just been literally raining out of the sky. Surely this can't have been the only time in human history this has been happening, especially if the Asgardians visited enough times in the past to have sparked an entire religion on Earth.)
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I've heard MC joke about Hydra recruiting its minions out of high school, but you'd think a decades-old world-wide secret organization that had nearly toppled entire continents would be able to afford spellcheck.

And ugh, if I've told JL once, I've told him a million times, he's got to set the record straight​ for that poor -
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Great. Yes, thank you, CL, for supporting the team spirit. Rah-rah.
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Still, it wasn't as if this situation wasn't exactly what we had all signed up for. In spite of the scant 8 hours' notice to prep and catch whatever sleep we could, we were geared up and ready to launch by the designated mission time.

Man, do I miss Stark tech. I'd offer to give Director Fury a pedicure for a month if it might bring the quinjets back. But considering that the relationship between SHIELD and Stark is more volatile than the stock market, I guess we should feel lucky we even got a nice view and an insertion point within a mile of the area of interest. (An extra 600 feet of elevation that we didn't have to scramble up on hands and knees with extra gear would've been nice too. Just saying, if Santa - or Stark - wanted to be early this year.)
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For all the forbidding approach, though, we weren't alone ... several times, we were taunted by not-so-distant echoes of, "Hail, Hydra!" ringing through the gorge. We tried to put off climbing - and becoming (easier) targets to pick off - as long as possible, but when we were forced to unpack our harnesses for the final ascent, Mission Control came through just in time with additional intel.
MC: SHIELD satellites online. Uploading visual scans to you now.

JL: We're going to do Monkey Dance.

MC: Acknowledged. Update when object is secure. Agent S****** is currently tracking other similar energy signatures.

JT: Copy that Mission Control.

​JT: I'll forego forwarding Agent L**'s non-mission critical inquiry for Agent S******.


(Because it's not as if we're on some world-critical mission here and can reliably make appointments for dinner. Really, JL, I'm saving you the trouble of having to make up excuses.)
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MC: Exercise caution: satellites have detected HYDRA activity in the area

JT: Copy. Agent on approach.

MC: Roger that.

JL: We are all going to go up a route.

MC: Good thinking Agent L**. Safety in numbers.

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We took turns heading up - it was slower than all of us tackling the ascent at once, but this way at least we could give each other some minimal cover during our most vulnerable moments.
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MC: New communication intercept, message as follows:

May-: ztomzhz mzvydibn di qdxdidos ja njpoc atmopiv nphhdo. Pnz xvpodji, ncdzgy cvn wzzi ndbcozy di hdnndji omvdgn, da zixjpiozmzy ozmhivoz rdoc kmzepydxz.
A (classified) number of analysts sitting at their desks in some (undisclosed) location, and they leave it to a handful of field agents clinging to some rocks (by their literal fingertips) to decrypt the message. Did we really need to start include pencil and paper (or an Emacs app) as part of the standard field kit?

I'll give JL this much, though. He may be easy to distract at times, but he's no slacker - he jumped on the code before I had even managed to turn around to rappel down again:

JL: Partial decryption:

Eytreme readings in vicinity of South fyrtuna summit.

MC: Those crafty HYDRA agents with their typos are trying to deceive you again.


​(If I had a quarter for every time MC threw in a dig on HYDRA's minion education ... well, I'd be on some private beach somewhere. Lounging, mind you, rather than storming the sands on some moon-less night, thank-you-very-much).

JL: Full decryption:

Eytreme readings in vicinity of South fyrtuna summit. Use caution, shield has been sighted in mission trails, if encountered terminate with prejudice."


Well, that certainly made me feel all warm, fuzzy, and welcomed. Thankfully, it was soon followed ​by a much more decisive victory:
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MC: Congratulations Agents, you beat HYDRA to the first piece of the object!

MC: Maneuvering satellite to scan South Fortuna summit.

MC: Scanning. High energy readings detected ... Object located. It appears to be the jeweled tip of the scepter. 
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MC: Zooming in ... Object appears to be located some 25 paces east of South Fortuna summit.

MC: Based on available data, Agent S****** calculates there should be a third piece of the staff.

​JT: Agent S****** seems to be quite snappy with her analyses today.
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Me? Engage in adolescent silliness?

(You bet your sweet tush I would, particularly after the news of an added 7 miles and few thousand feet of elevation to scramble through while ducking HYDRA agents in a non-major-denominational god's equivalent of a scavenger hunt.)
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MC: What's your status? We show HYDRA activity near the Fortuna Saddle.

JT: Performing clean up and final sweeps. Moving out in ten.

MC: Have you planned your route to ascend the summit?

JT: The river crossing trail starting from the secondary spillover parking lot by the visitors center. Requesting confirmation that this is most efficient route, over.

MC: Sat nav confirms that as most direct route from your current location.
JT: Copy. Have reached extraction point. Dumping and resupplying at visitors center.

JT: At checkpoint. Gearing up.

​MC: Double-time it agents, HYDRA is on the move!


Yeah, yeah, it wasn't as if we were loitering in some air-conditioned sedan chowing down on chicken sandwiches and chocolate bars. Still, the faster we wrapped this up, the faster we got to go home to hot showers and hot food.
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Cover in the new area was scant, but things were gratifyingly quiet after the hounding we received in our last ascent. But just because the HYDRA agents chose not to take a direct approach this time didn't mean that it was easy.

​
JT: Navigated two of HYDRA's traps.

MC: Good work, agents!
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JT: Resynchronizing GPS ... continuing on

MC: Advise you follow signs for "South Fortuna Stairs."

JT: Interviewing locals for intel
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After a while, there came another ping from Mission Control, but since I was on point, I let the others field the communication. Not 5 seconds later, though, JL was exclaiming: "There's no way for me to solve this one!"

That brought me hustling back. The guy liked to decrypt things in his downtime for fun. What on Earth or Asgard could have made him give up so quickly after just a single - 

MC: New HYDRA intercept:

統系換、侵入客駭牌盾被統系星衛頭蛇九

Ah, JL's one achilles. ​EL gave him a sympathetic pat and took over. "HYDRA's detected SHIELD's electronic incursions," she translated. "They're switching communications networks." Then a funny look came over her face and she added, "They messed up their name."

Well. Nice to know that HYDRA was so consistent, even across language boundaries. 
All jokes aside, though, we were now dependent solely upon what our Eye-in-the-Sky could see on its own - not to mention that the land itself had its own hazards besides what HYDRA agents may be scurrying about.

​Swampy crevices where run-off had gathered and stagnated, hidden by lush patches of greenery until your next step was sucked into slime and mud. Vegetation that was an inconvenience at best, perhaps even lethal at worst - both JL and CL fell victim to one, though thankfully with only minor wounds. Rattlers and other poisonous fauna that could be more dangerous than any HYDRA - at least the latter were much easier to spot in this arid landscape. Navigation was challenging with only a few distant peaks to act as landmarks, and making course corrections for straying even just a few hundred feet was becoming taxing as we ran low on adrenaline and water.
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When we finally reached our next waypoint, the sight was both gratifying and daunting. It was one of the first concrete, unequivocal signs we were on the right track since we lost our electronic taps, but this was definitely not going to be an easy trek.

JL: The stairs are in view.

MC: Proceed with caution. We are detecting HYDRA activity on the slopes of both north and south Fortuna.

​MC: Third piece found. Uploading visuals.


The visual confirmation was a bit of a mood-lifter - we now knew what we were looking for and where (albeit in a very limited sense).
Both energy and alertness were beginning to flag, though. It was a slow, grueling march, even if it had its own little perks. With a literal bird's eye view, it wasn't difficult to have the gaze roaming for more reasons than just spotting potential enemy agents.
Then there were the occasional reminders that we weren't exactly out on a nature hike ...

JT: Overhead surveillance detected - keep to cover

JL: Nice job

MC: Good catch
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But then it all paid off - EL, in particular, seemed to have a special affinity for zeroing in on the pieces once we were within a certain range:

JT: Target acquired

MC: Excellent! Proceed to final objective.


Here, we came to a crossroads. Time was short - we were in a very tight race with HYDRA for the last piece. We had also been woefully unprepared for the sheer length of the mission - we had started rationing once it was confirmed there was a third piece, but it might still not be enough to get us through, especially if we ran into HYDRA during the retrieval. But after an intense discussion, we decided that the objective was important enough to justify the risk.

JL: OK heading to north Fortuna summit.
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Still, our conviction that this was the "right thing to do" was little comfort when we rested eyes on the next distant peak, where we would have to race HYDRA after what was already a long and difficult day.
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JT: Waypoint check

MC: You're on track. Watch for that rock outcropping where the sat image showed the last piece. It didn't seem to be quite at the summit.

JT: Copy that.

JT: Posted a scout as lookout.

MC: Nice thinking.

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This was the last sprint. We were all becoming a little sloppy, allowing ourselves to be strung out along the ridge in our haste and exhaustion. We caught ourselves every so often, tried to reestablish proper procedure when we remembered, and were lucky we never encountered an ambush during the times when our attention lapsed.
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Or so we thought. But it turned out luck had very little to do with it - Hydra had simply already come and gone.

EL: Hydra got to it!

MC: Oh no! How could they have bested you!

MC: I'll have our Sat Techs see if we can trace them. Our surveillance teams are tracking their communications since they switched systems, but we haven't been able to capture anything yet. Head back to the safe house and we'll send you updates as we have more information.
There was nothing more to be done. Looking out over all that we had traveled - and had to travel again, if we wanted an extraction - with the knowledge of an incomplete retrieval hovering like a pall over us, I could feel my shoulders slumping. But then JL looked at us and said, "Come on, there's one more thing we can do while we're up here."
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JL had been right. The short detour had been worth it. Reinvigorated in spirit somewhat, we prepared ourselves for the long trek back.

JT: Secondary objective achieved.

EL: We are taking Saddle Back then Fortuna Trail then Valley Trail.

MC: That's a good route.
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Reminded that we still had two out of the three pieces in our possession and that HQ was busy trying to burrow its way back into the Hydra network, we were reminded that the mission wasn't quite over yet - enough that we remembered to start doing our jobs again.

​JT: Jon intercepted a suspicious character, but he knows nothing about the scepter.
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The less said about our journey back, the better. It had been a long, trudging, ignominious affair - of just wetting the tongue from our dwindling water supplies, but never enough to swallow a whole mouthful; of blazing wandering trails down dangerous washouts when we lost our way, legs numb and stumbling; of dodging Hydra patrols when they zipped by once we entered more familiar territories.

​Looking behind me, the two peaks that we had chased for over half the day seemed so small and insignificant - I turned back around, swallowing against the dryness in my throat.
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MC: Status update? Agents?

​JT: Made it to the extraction point


Finally. We had all fallen upon the extra water supplies and made ourselves nearly sick drinking our fill.

MC: Good. HYDRA agents detected in Roardrunner park. You'll need these:

Well. Maybe there was a god (who's not Thor) and they actually did want us to have nice, shiny things (for once).
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It was a rough match, after the grueling marches we'd already been on. With little cover nearby and advanced warning of our arrival, the HYDRA agents had been prepared with a veritable stockpile of munitions, simply waiting for us. Forced into a full frontal assault, even freshly equipped, we were nearly mowed down in the very first wave - except that JL lured away the one minion left to guard the stockpile in a risky maneuver that would have left Agent S****** swooning ... leaving me an opening.

I could hear the pounding footsteps of another Hydra agent at my five - far too close - but didn't let myself turn, just shot blindly over my shoulder to slow him down. I had my sights set on a veritable hand cannon that had been left oh-so-conveniently behind with their entire cache of ammo, and I swore by whatever gods were out there, they weren't going to steal something right out from under my nose again.

I dropped my near-empty sidearm as I swept the new piece up in a clumsy scrape of plastic on stone. Didn't even shorten my stride as I dove right into the stockpile for a recharge. Swung around, muzzle-first, as I felt the sting of a near-hit zip past my ribs - and blasted my tail at near point-blank range as he ran straight into the shot.

Hydra belated realized their mistake when I started to take them out with their own weapons.

In short order, the rest of my fellow agents rallied around me, and now the tide had turned as we stood our ground at the top of the proverbial hill, dropping Hydra agents left and right. I whooped, smelling imminent victory ... but it wasn't until EL yelled over the din, "He's getting away with the third piece!" that I even realized there might be an even more important objective than clearing out some random Hydra outpost.

Honestly, I still have no idea how I was able to cover the ground I did to catch up with her and the figure - hunched protectively over something in his hands - fleeing from the melee. The stand I had made over the stockpile had been one of half-stubbornness, half-practicality - I hadn't moved because I hadn't thought I would be able to move once my feet were planted and my knees locked. But it turned out that if you waved the cape in front of the bull enough, it didn't matter what shape the bull was in ... it was still going to lumber after you and do its bloody best to stomp you into the ground.

It didn't take long. The rest of the SHIELD agents were beginning to stream out with us, sensing our urgency, leaving a skeleton crew to handle mop-up. The few Hydra still standing were also making a weak attempt to help their comrade escape - all of us spilling out into the open, thinning into individual skirmishes. I saw the target go down, but had barely enough time to hope that one of our own was close enough to scoop up the third piece before I had to focus on keeping my own skin intact.
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And then, EL delivered the coup de grace. 

(I think that's pretty incontrovertible proof that she's the staff's favorite.)
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So, mission accomplished. Our little field team got to keep our (thus far) perfect record.

(And then there was CAKE! There really are happy endings.)
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Flying With the Greatest of Kung-Fu Ease

1/30/2015

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<3 West Coast Flying Trapeze

When in Canada, do as the Canadians do ...

With my love of Cirque, how could I not attempt to take a flying trapeze class whilst in Canada? Had an AMAZING time at their Onesies Friday class, where I shuffled between time on the rig, molesting their adorable little puppy, and snatching catnaps in a vain attempt to fend off a cold.

It was a near miss on the class, as the entire week I had planned to be in Vancouver with a friend was abruptly commandeered by a work emergency and I had to fly to SF for the week on 48 hours' notice. Then I managed to get out of SF a day early - but only partly due to what felt like the beginnings of a cold caught from the conference, which I argued I should nurse while away from key personnel and in a stable location, traveling BEFORE it got too bad.

Prophetic words, because the "cold" eventually became bronchitis later in the week, but before we knew it would be anything worse, we managed to sneak in a flying trapeze class in the one night we had left in Vancouver. And boy, I have never been so glad to have been forced out of a nap and into the freezing cold. HEE-YAH!

I was absolutely incredulous when they verbally laid out this trick to me, and then claimed that it was catchable. I continued to be incredulous when they said that the catcher would hold ANOTHER bar which I was supposed to latch onto. Those crazy trapeze artists ... what will they think of next.

Richmond, BC Canada
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Where No One Has Gone Before

12/3/2014

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Flight from Las Vegas to Orange County, gliding over the first storm of the season to overtake the Southwest.
This is a beautiful but familiar sight by now, yet every so often, it strikes me anew just how extraordinary it is. 100 years ago, a view like this would have been literally unimaginable to the common man. Even after the first commercial flights started running, none would have flown at an altitude that could have provided a tableau like this.

Later this week, if all goes well, we'll be launching equipment that are the first steps for taking humans to Mars. I wonder what extraordinary photos future generations will capture that would be, in their eyes, just as mundane as this picture is to us now.


USA Southwest
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Debrief: Macau

11/4/2014

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So, I feel compelled to say a few things about my visit to Macau.

I had done no previous planning for Macau except to ask the concierge how to get there (I was told to just hie myself to the ferry port and they leave every half hour) for various reasons (some of them being that I had stayed up all night Thursday ostensibly to catch the sunrise but really was just cuz I wanted to, had made an impromptu visit to Disney on Friday, and simply given myself no time to do anything more than to just jump on the first random ferry that said it was going to Macau on Saturday).

It turns out that I hopped onto the one ferry that goes to Taipa instead of the Macau peninsula port. But that's okay cuz I saw that there were dozens of free buses from the major casinos ready to shuttle money-loaded tourists, and so I took the closest one to the Venetian. The Venetian concierge then kindly informed me I should have taken the Wynn Resort one instead, as that one actually goes to the peninsula, and then directed me to the City of Dreams, where I could take another shuttle to the Sintra Hotel. (At this point, my journey was beginning to sound like the modern equivalent of the Arabian Nights.)

I finally make it to the peninsula, and just a convenient one or two blocks from Senado Square which I had been aiming for. I literally take no more than ten steps before I end up loaded down with 2 giant shopping bags' worth of all the presents I had wanted to get but couldn't find in Hong Kong.

So then it was an about turn to look for the Wynn hotel (which took two inquiries because, forgetting this wasn't Vegas, it was a slow realization that the Wynn wasn't large enough to be seen past all the other gigantic casinos) since I figured I could drop off the shopping with their bag check and I could confirm the shuttles back to Taipa at the same time. After three inquiries (one in Mandarin, one in English, and one in who-the-heck-knows-what-but-it-sure-wasn't-Cantonese) for their concierge desk (which I never did find), I stumble across an atrium with a really cool eastern/western zodiac installment around which a whole crowd of people were loitering. Since it seemed like they were all waiting for something to happen, I waited around to see if something would happen too.

AND SUDDENLY THIS GREAT SMOKING GOLDEN ANIMATRONIC DRAGON ROSE OUT OF THE HOTEL DEPTHS.
And then the Chinese promptly proved that they'll throw money at anything even remotely connected with lucky/prosperous symbols in the hopes that their pocket change will magically multiply. Half an hour later, a gigantic golden tree rose out of the depths too. The Chinese promptly reinforced the stereotype.

I found the bag check. I figured out the shuttle back to the ferry port. I ate. It was now something like 5 pm, I had seen almost nothing of Macau yet, and I was totally not bothered by this.

I finally limped out onto the streets (my knee was still bothering me, and I was still looking for Senado Square) and wandered for a good 30 minutes consulting a paper map and GPS, taking random snapshots along the way. For some reason, I was having a much more difficult time navigating than usual - partially exacerbated by the fact that for the life of me I couldn't find any street signs 99% of the time (as in, the 1% was earlier in the day when I was first dropped off and I hadn't been able to find any since).

Finally, I figured out the problem when I stood at a railing and stared out at BLACK OPEN OCEAN while GPS claimed that I was still 20 blocks inland. I had walked clear to the other side of Macau on foot, and it wasn't until I just stowed my phone away in disgust and staggered into a random Best Western that I finally found out where exactly I was on the map.

They got me pointed in the right direction. I might have been more afraid of all the back alleys I wandered through if I hadn't already determined that I was taller than and outweighed 95% of the population by a good 2-4 inches and 10-20 pounds (and that includes the men, never mind the women). This time, knowing I shouldn't trust GPS, I managed to find my way to Senado Square.

Only to find that I had passed it an hour ago. Not 10 minutes from the Wynn Hotel. I HAD EVEN TAKEN A SNAPSHOT OF IT AND THOUGHT OH WHAT A NICE PLAZA BUT IT LOOKS KINDA MODERN AND BORING.
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I'm glad I missed it. I actually had more fun poking around in all the old and broken down nooks and crannies of the city - I just loved all the beautiful, rich shadows stacked on top of the fluorescent storefronts, the crumbling faces hovering over corrugated sheet metal. I randomly found the ruins of St. Paul, where only the front facade survived a kitchen fire, and then struck out again into some other random middle parts of Macau. This became a problem again when I couldn't quite get aligned on the streets due to the lack of signs, but I wasn't too worried until it was time to get back to the Wynn in time for the ferry.
OK, so, of all things, a Pizza Hut delivery dude walks right by me at this point. He even had one of those empty pizza carriers hanging off his back. I figured who else would know their way around but for a delivery dude and immediately accosted the poor fellow for directions.

I learned his English name is Shine. I learned he is a 22 year old, last year student at the local college studying Human Resources. I learned he wants to visit Santorini someday. I learned he thinks HR is kind of boring. Why did I learn all this? Because this guy, after spending 5 minutes trying to help me figure out the best way to get back onto the main avenue of the city using my map (which was English) while cross-referencing his phone (in Chinese), offered to PERSONALLY LEAD THE WAY. What a mensch.

Thus, I followed a Pizza Hut delivery dude down and down one staircase after another and through what felt like the rest of the back alleys of Macau that I hadn't already gimped through ...

... and ended up right back at Senado Square. I now suspect that it is the Bermuda Triangle of Macau.

This time, I didn't care that I knew exactly where I was, I didn't take any more chances and caught a 2 minute cab ride. I not only made it to the ferry terminal in time, I was a whole hour early. At which point, thank you Chinese expediency, they simply handwaved me onto the next ferry instead of making me wait for my actual return ticket time. Woohoo, and there you have it, I survived Macau. \o/


Macau peninsula
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Twice Jipped

11/2/2014

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Awwww phooey. Just realized not only did I experience the DST roll-back twice this year (once in America and then again in Germany one week later) but now I've missed out on the extra hour from the DST roll forward cuz I'm returning the same Sunday and my time zones are all screwed up anyway. *fistshakes!*


Hong Kong International Airport
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Chinese Logic

10/31/2014

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I am discovering that though I have no problems communicating in Mandarin, I apparently don't think enough like the Chinese. Everything from finding that restaurant yesterday to finding the ferry terminal is taking me three times as long as I predict, and they're never where I'm expecting. There's apparently just a different logic to things I've not figured out yet.

There's a certain comfort to their laid back procedures though. "Oh they sold you an 11:30 ticket even though the boat finished boarding and left before you could even reach the dock? Here just stand in this line for the 12:00. Next!"

Here, also have a pet rainbow that followed us to Macau:
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Hong Kong Island
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