2018 Year in Review

Big event this year was going to Miku Expo in Los Angeles. It all started early in the year when I was talking to a coworker at lunch. He mentioned Miku was coming to the US this year and if I wanted to go. Without hesitation I was like hell yeah. I'm not so much a fan of Miku herself but the idea behind it fascinated me as well as the tech that was used to have her appear on stage. So we get back to work and he messaged me an hour or so later he bought the tickets. Being super excited I asked what the date was and where at and said he booked the first concert and it was in LA. My initial joy turned in to panic. I live in Ohio. Los Angeles is about 2,400 miles away. It's about a 5 hour flight. The last time I was on a plane was back in 2006 when I went to Japan. I've never traveled anywhere west of the Mississippi other than in airports. Main concern was dealing with TSA and making sure I have everything packed properly. Well after he said it was in LA we both came to this realization that now we have to work on flights and hotel and such. So we got all the details figured out and a few grand later we were all set.

It's also worth mentioning that while I've been over this persons house before to watch movies and such I haven't spent an extended amount of time. As the trip to Japan taught me two people that seemed to get along fine once you're stuck with them for extended amount of time can get annoying. But at the same time if this did work out maybe I can pick up traveling again and have someone to go with me as stuff like hotel rooms cost the same if it's one or two people so you can individually save half the cost vs going by yourself.

There were several firsts during this trip. Aside from what I mentioned thus far it was also my first time using a ride share service and we were going to use it the entire time we're there. I live fairly close to the airport and didn't want to bother anyone to come out and take me so I even used it to go from house to airport. I used Lyft the entire time. I installed both Lyft and Uber and comparing the two Uber always seemed to be slightly more expensive or not a lot were around me. At any rate I highly recommend using ride sharing if you ever visit LA. Not dealing with traffic was absolutely worth it. Plus it really wasn't that expensive.

I've already been going on about this but all I'll really say about the concert itself is it was far better than I realized. Like I wish we got VIP tickets and be all the way up front. The projection technology looks way better in person. There's several times where I forgot I was seeing a character being projected on to a piece of special glass. Far and away this was the most spontaneous thing I've ever done in my life and I'd absolutely do it all over again. Maybe this will be the kick I need to travel more?

One other interesting thing we didn't realize at the time we booked everything but the following week was Anime Expo which is one of the biggest anime conventions in the US. If we realized it we would have stayed another week but to make the changes while we were already there would have cost way too much. Also if in LA check out Little Tokyo. We were there pretty much every day eating some place different. Anyway maybe I'll expand on this all in a later post but in summary, it was fun.

While I got some pictures and video we were further back on first floor. But someone recorded the entire thing from the VIP area to give an idea of what it was like. Like I said the display technology doesn't translate well to videos, guessing the higher frame rate isn't captured right or something.

Didn't do many shooting competitions this year. No real reason other than wasn't too motivated so just took a break this year. Maybe I'll get back in to it next year.

I just did the final step for coralize.net and killed the hosting service for it. Hopefully anyone that has used it has reverted back to using a direct url.

Notable things I mentioned last year that I said I was going to do. First off I haven't done anything to this website. The captcha form still seems to work I think. Still not sure what I want to do with this site. Don't want to move it to wordpress because I'd have to constantly keep it up to date. May try one of those site generators that generates a static site.

Check back as the end of the year came up really fast it seemed so I'll likely be updating it (and rss reader isn't going to see the updates. Assume I'll have everything said I wanted to by first week of January).

As always I'm on twitter and github.