taz_39 | Dallas 2014 Week 2 - A New Game (Reply)

Monday was a bust for me.

I got up early, excited because the circus bus was supposedly going to Northpark Mall. It's a big mall with a movie theater and three levels of shops, and a Whole Foods next door (you KNOW this is what I was REALLY excited about). I got dressed and packed a lunch and hopped on the bus. Twenty minutes later we pulled up to a small mall on the east side of town. Apparently it had been decided that Northpark was too far away.
Gosh, that would have been nice to know.

I got back to the train by noon and ate lunch, then got back on the bus for a Wal-Mart run. It was very crowded, with people standing in the aisles. All of us were wondering how on earth we were going to fit ourselves AND our groceries on the bus for the return trip. Fortunately Daniel (bus driver) sent for a second bus, as there definitely wouldn't have been enough room for all of us on just one bus.

That was Monday. Tuesday we only had one show at night, so it was almost like another day off. It was very hot out and I had nowhere to be, so used the time to relax and catch up on chores. The evening show went well. We found out that our new show is to be called "Circus Extreme". Oh excuse me, that's XTREME.

On Wednesday auditions for new clowns were held. Not sure when we'll hear results of that, but I hope everyone did their best and had a great time! For me it was another day of not much, enjoying a late morning and messing around, practicing the big trombone at the arena and playing Ingress with Jameson.

On Thursday I got up early to take myself to the Northpark Mall since I'd missed the trip on Monday.
I was surprised to see a large group waiting for the 9am bus...apparently there was CPR training at the building that morning!

(photo courtesy Claudia)

But first we had to get to the building. The bus was 1/2 hour late.
We got there, and everyone rushed off to make it to training. I was tempted to go too but hadn't signed up :/
I dropped some things off in the dressing room, then walked to the nearest DART light rail station. Once on the train I took out my phone to play Ingress. There are many portals along the light rail, and I hacked them for items. At the Park Lane station I got out and walked 1/2 mile to the mall, where I spend a little time window shopping but mostly continued to play Ingress for two hours :P This game is dangerous for someone like me who enjoys exploring, because now I have something to DO every time I set out! The mall was a great place for me to acquaint myself with the game.

Here are some pics of what I was doing. The portals are the glowing blue/green/white spots. Green are enemy portals, and white are unclaimed. Blue are portals already claimed by someone else on my 'team'. The portals are located at landmarks such as statues, artworks, or monuments. In this case most of these were sculptures or paintings placed throughout the mall. The little white dots are energy deposits that you can pick up and use to recharge portals or complete other actions. The blue triangle in the yellow circle is me. On the left you can see how the mall looked when I arrived, as viewed through Ingress. The pic on the right is from about an hour later when I stopped for lunch, after having claimed the white portals and linked most of them together.
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This last pic is taken from the opposite side of the mall, after I had finished playing and was about to leave. I've made a big blue triangle. There's one green portal left because it was a high level and I couldn't take it out alone without killing the last 5% of my battery.
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I walked over to Whole Foods where I did some actual shopping :) Specialty groceries are always a treat. I got some muesli bread, candied ginger, tasty organic soups, and some lemon coconut body soap. Then it was time to get back to the arena for our show. When we are only doing one show per day, the time flies!

Friday I did laundry and cooked, terribly exciting stuff. Another evening show, another day down :)

This weekend was our last six pack of the year! WOOHOO!!!
The Wheel act was back in all weekend. It was a normal two days of work.

After the last show Jameson and I had a date night involving Ingress and sushi. We went to Kenichi right down the street. It was a very trendy place and the sushi was delicious! We both had the Hawaiian roll (spicy whitefish, asparagus, pineapple in rice paper) and flavored sake (he had raspberry 'Purple Haze' and I had Midori 'Green Dragon'). It was delicious! No pics because it was dim. After the meal we took a quick walk down the street to hack some portals for items, and try attacking some green portals. I was able to get to level 5 and was surprised at the damage the weapons do at that level. Jameson is only a few thousand points away from level 5 tonight.

We walked back to the arena and caught the bus to the train. There was a beautiful full moon.

(photo courtesy Jameson)

Now it's off to Fort Worth, only a 3.5 hour drive by car but by train it's sure to take all of Monday :)

Other stuff:

From Nicole Feld's twitter, our white model meeting for the new show. Note that the Wheel act will be around as shown by the double wheel hanging from the rigging, and notice the terrace attached to the portal right above the bandstands. In the bottom picture you can see some guys holding bikes, that's a BMX troupe that will be joining us. And the big dudes wearing black are a Mongolian troupe.