For today's conference, Gov. Edwards will be accompanied by Lafayette-area hospital officials and Joe Kanter from the Louisiana Department of Health.
Summary
Today Louisiana passes the 100,000 case benchmark with 101,650 cases being reported. These are only the cases we know about. These are cases with a positive test result. There are undoubtedly more cases out there, not everyone who is symptomatic has been tested, and we know that between 20-45% of people with COVID19 are asymptomatic and do not generally get tested. We know that there is more COVID out there than those that test positive.
2,408 new cases reported since yesterday.
Today we report +16 new deaths, for a total of 3,574. Yesterday we reported 60 new deaths, the highest single-day report of COVID-19 deaths since May. We know deaths sometimes lag behind other numbers. No matter how you slice it up these numbers are very troubling.
In the month of July, we have reported over 400,000+ tests and have greatly expanded our testing in Louisiana and are #1 for the month of July for testing per capita in the country.
We know we have a high prevalence of COVID19 across the state of Louisiana.
I hope that hitting the 100k benchmark shows people we are in a public health emergency, not one that was declared by the Governor himself on his own accord, but one that is happening. This number should be sobering.
Cases are increasing across the state and this is why we are remaining in Phase 2. The mask mandate, limitation of bars, reduction of crowd size limitation to 50 people for social gatherings will continue.
We are nowhere we want to be in Louisiana. We do not want to have to go back to Phase 1 or Phase 0. However, we cannot lose our capacity to provide life-saving healthcare in our hospitals, which his why we have restrictions in place.
We have every reason to believe that if we can get universal compliance with face coverings, social distancing, washing hands, cutting down on travel, with people staying home more often, Lousiana can flatten the curve without having to go back into Phase 1 or Phase 0.
You can recall how previously I said that 3 parishes met the were not considered an area of high-incidence of COVID-19 by CDC's standards, and thus met the qualifications to opt-out of the mask mandate? There are currently no parishes that are not in the high-incidence of COVID-19 category.
The latest resurgence has impacted the ability of our healthcare systems.
OLOL has taken a two-week pause in performing non-emergency medical procedures that require inpatient beds to makes sure they have the beds, and more importantly the staff, they need for COVID19 patients.
Hospitalizations have increased all over the state in Louisiana there I, not one region where it decreasing. Especially concerned for Regions 4,5,6.
Hospitalizations have increased by +4 for a total of 1,585 COVID-19 positive patients hospitalized across Louisiana.
Dr. Amanda Logue, chief medical officer at Lafayette General Health System
Lafayette General Health is the largest healthcare provider for Acadiana but with the volume, they are seeing of COVID19 cases, they are not able to take care of their own community let alone expand services outside.
Actively taking care of patients, and surging as they need to, but are quickly running out space.
Had to transfers patients to Rapides, Baton Rouge, Northern Lousiana, even Mississippi.
Had to decline 87% of requests of transfers into our health system. That is not normal. Do not have the capability or space to take care of them.
Please come to the ER if you need to, do not be afraid to come to seek medical services. We will be here if you need us.
Main campus, largest hospital, Lafayette General Medical Center 1/2 of ICU, and 1/3 of non-ICU beds have patients fighting COVID19.
On May 27th we had 15 COVID 19 patients and yesterday we had 105.
In our whole 5 acute hospital system, we have had 143 patients and that number was only 20 six weeks ago
Seeing the rapid increase in community spread and hospitalizations that follows the community spread.
Please to Acadiana to understand the impact of widespread community outbreaks impacts the hospital system.
Moving elective surges off of the main campus and canceling some altogether. This is the last thing we want to do, some patients are still waiting for surgeries that were canceled in April.
Hospitals are full and the ICU is full.
Some beds are closed due to illnesses to staff.
Do not have enough nurses to staff the beds right now.
Thankful for the nursing teams but the level they are working at right now it unsustainable.
COVID19 has not replaced the typical volume of pattens we normally have like health attacks, strokes, etc. but when you add COVID on top of that it is unsustainable. Normally we can do both, but not when there are surges to this degree.
The only way to prevent recurring surges is to truly flatten the curve once and for all.
Follow the guidelines. Wash your hands. Physically distance from one another. Avoid large crowds. Wear a mask when you leave the house
If you are elder or high risk be especially careful and stay home if you don't have to be out.
Impacting not only COVID19 patients but anyone who wants to seek care in Acadiana.
Dr. Henry Kaufman, chief medical officer at Our Lady of Lourdes
OLOL the hospital is full and ICU is near complete capacity.
This significantly affects normal operations.
for 2 weeks OLOL has almost completely eliminated elective surgeries.
This means if your cardiologist recommends you need a heart bypass or early-stage cancer those operations will be deferred.
Still dealing with the aftermath of people coming in with later stages of diseases due to having to wait from the first surge.
Some people weren't able to get tests they would have, like mammograms, and now they are at later stages than what they would have been caught if these elective procedures weren't postponed.
100s if not 1,000s of women have not been able to get their mammograms and he is worried there is the hidden impact completely unrelated to COVID that we haven't appreciated yet.
This is a real and present danger, the secondary effects of COVID, but how it affects our hospitals and community.
Physicians and team members are doing an amazing job, but they are getting burned out from overwork. Fatigue is a very real problem and this current wave is taxing our abilities for us to provide services.
Thought the second wave would come in the Fall and that there was more time to prepare.
The community needs to realize how compelling and dangerous of an issue this is.
This affects not only the people who are seeking treatment for COVID but also those seeking normal medical services for other needs.
OLOL has 19-20-year-old healthy kids in the ICU without any comorbidities.
Also seeing an increase of 50-60-year-olds without comorbidities in the ICU.
There is no way to tell who it will affect in a severe way. Fortunately, it doesn't affect most people, but it is a very real problem.
Wear your mask. Be smart. Good hygiene. Do not expose yourself to unnecessary risk. Avoid large crowds. Physically distance. It is extremely important right now.
Gov. John Bel Edwards
Testing available in EBR, no symptoms needed, no exposure needed. Please take advantage of the FREE test while testing the available.
You can pre-register at DoINeedACovid19Test.com - please do not register multiple times.
Thanks to the WH Taskforce for putting surge testing in Louisiana.
Working to establish a new surge testing site in the New Orleans area.
Deliberate misinformation campaign about the state inflating numbers by counting every positive test as a positive case. That is not the case, only your first test is counted. Every individual who tests positive only counts as one case regardless of the number of positive test results they may get.
If you have COVID19 in your state you will see cases go up, then hospitalizations, then deaths. It doesn't make sense that you would have hospitalizations and deaths going up without cases having gone up as well.
We have people being irresponsible and we are asking them to stop. No one should pay attention to what these individuals are saying.
We are not perfect, but we've put in multiple redundant systems to make sure the data is accurate, timely, and that we are sharing in a manner to be as transparent as possible.
Encouraged today by the vast majority of businesses and local leaders who are taking this seriously and masking up to protect their loved ones, employees, and the state of Louisiana to make sure we get back on top of the virus as soon as we can.
Asking everyone to take this virus seriously and do his or her part.
No one wants to go back to Phase 1. It shouldn't be necessary to go backward, but the only way to keep us from doing that is if everyone wears their mask when they are outside their home. It is a small price to pay. Be a good neighbor. If nothing else has respect for our healthcare workers who are working months on end.
There is not a safer place than at home. If you go out do so as little as possible. You do not need to go to the grocery store 3 times. Just go one once. If you go do not bring your entire family
If when you'd o go out you practice social distancing, washing your hands, and do not go out when you are sick. We will turn this around.
Comment on the weather
Watching the tropics. We're in hurricane season.
TP 8 is moving across the Gulf Coast towards Texas but there is a risk of heavy rainfall in the S, SW, and Central parts of the state.
Areas south of I-10 could receive between 2-4" of rain and tides are running higher than normal.
Flash flooding is a possibility. Do not drive on any street that could be underwater.
Will monitor Storm Gonzales.
Go to GetAGamePlan.org and prepare for a hurricane.
Preparing for a hurricane is different this season because of COVID19. Encourage everyone to check GetAGamePlan.org to get prepared.
Questions
What's the plan if we run out of space, is the plan to shift them to Morial? First off, we are going to make sure that doesn't happen that we don't run into a situation where we cannot provide healthcare. We still have 250 beds at the Morial Convention Center with staffing for 60 with 28 beds currently being filled. We can expand to 60 more beds quickly. Further, much of the investments we made early on created new permanent surge capacity at various hospitals around the state. So we are in better shape than we were before. Frankly, my bigger concern is not about beds, but about staffing. We believe we will be able to make the adjustments necessary and open the surge units, but the bigger challenge is around staffing. It is bigger this time because the surge we are seeing is happening in multiple parts of the country at one time. Hard to draw upon out-of-state staff because of those areas and not willing to give them up because they need them too. We discussed it with the VP last week after a phone email with hospital staff prior. Submitted a request through FEMA and it is currently pending. Looking to us the existing footprints of our hospitals, because it is easier to solve the staffing challenges than open up a new facility that isn't part of the existing footprint. No plan to currently create new facilities, but are working to fill staffing shortages. How much did you request from the FEMA As best as I can recall it was 300 Request to FEMA ranged from phlebotomists, ICU nurses, respiratory therapists, and so forth. I will get you the exact information. Some people in Acadiana and Lafayette, in particular, feel the local agencies and parish governments are not doing their parts to enforce the mandates. What can we do on the state level to drive home how important it is to follow the mandates When you watch Fauci or Birx speak and see what is coming out the CDC, that speak to you about the importance of these mitigations measures and you accompany it with the numbers we are seeing in Louisiana right now, not just cases but hospitalizations and deaths, you would hope the people would be responsible enough, take that into consideration, and they will comply because they understand it is important for those who are valuable, to help the medical community. Even if for some strange reason that is totally incomprehensible that you don't care about COVID you should care about there being capacity in the hospital if you get into a car accident or a family member has a stroke, you want that care to be available. We just need people to focus on the task at hand, do their part, be good neighbors. It is not that we won't force these things but if the people of Louisiana are going to make us enforce all of this we will not be successful. There are 4.6 million people in Louisiana, 10s of 1,000s of businesses if the people of Louisiana are going to sit back and say we will make you enforce every part of this we are doomed. As I mentioned the vast majority of businesses and people are being responsible but there are still too many that are not. So I am directing these comments to those individuals. IF you want to be mad at me, and disagree with me be mad and disagree but do so with a mask when you are outside of your house. Where do you think the deliberate misinformation campaign is coming from? I do not know. I am not personally investigating it. I am doing what I can to make sure no one attaches any credibility to it. This not just happening in Louisiana. This is happening in all of the other states that are having this tremendous resurgence. No one is out there "cooking the books". One thing we would do, if it was safe to do, is open our hospitals up so they could see with their own eyes the people who are fighting for their lives. They would know this is not a made-up number. This is grossly negligent and irresponsible. I am asking people not to do it and for others not to believe it. Are you surprised that bars are the top location for an outbreak of COVID I cannot say I'm surprised, bars were one of the last things opened because we knew the environment is not the easiest to control so people do things safely. It's just the nature of that establishment. Many people go to a bar to stay for several hours, have multiple drinks, and relax their inhibitions. They may have one mindset going in and another coming out. Then there is loud music and so you need to speak louder and release more particles if you happen to have COVID19. Then if you're listening you tend to get closer to hear than you should be. We were hopeful restrictions would work, but for the vast majority of bars, it proved to be too much. This is not just here in Louisiana. It is a WH Taskforce recommendation for our state and other states with high rates of COVID-19. It isalsoa worldwide recommendation. Once South Korea came out of its lockdown they had to shut down every bar in Seoul because they had a similar experience. With staffing being an issue is the Morial Convention center a viable option as a field hospital Dr. Henry Kaufman, chief medical officer at Our Lady of Lourdes: We have physical space, we have beds that are used during the day for outpatient surges. Those can be converted into hospital rooms. We have beds that are typically used for other purposes, and those have been converted to rooms. However, as we see an increasing number of transferrable cases in the community we see our nurses become infected. When a nurse becomes infected the quickest they return to work is 10 days. As a result, there is a huge pool of nurses who are currently out right now. This puts a strain on other nurses and staff in the hospital. So far it is working out, but our nurses are tired. The problem is not needing physical space, it is having enough people in our community to staff those beds to keep our nurses healthy. One way you can prevent yourself from getting COVID is to stay active and healthy, well-rested, and that your immune system is working well. Nurses, physicians, and staff are tired and not taking care of themselves as well as they need. This is a vicious cycle. Everyone is looking for staff right now. We are not at the point of reaching out to non-traditional areas for staffing. We have disucssed calling in retired nurses or those who have moved to other careers who still hold their licenses who could help. Have you thought of reaching out of state for staffing? Dr. Henry Kaufman, chief medical officer at Our Lady of Lourdes: We have contacted local staffing agencies, not many people available, anyone who is employable is employed. Everyone across the country is seeking nursing right now. Yes, we have considered that. Governor John Bel Edwards I've had requests to take national guard soldiers in a medical unit and have them available at the hospitals. But guess where the national guard soldiers in our medical unit work? In our hospitals. So I would be pulling them from one hospital to send them to another hospital around the state. The first thing we did was put out an EMAC request to all other states to see if they had anyone they could offer to address what we need. Exactly zero states offered any staffing. So then you start looking at staffing contractors and we are working that angle now. That is proving to be difficult as well, which is why we continue to work with FEMA on staffing. In regards to the Morial Convention Center, remember that facility is for the less acute patients to allow hospitals to free up space sooner than they would. So once a patient reaches that level of care where they don't need an acute bed, but can't go home, they can go to the Morial Convention Center for care. Having hospitals sending their less severe patients to the convention center is something we are considering. With the testing shortage issue in terms of a turnaround.. I just want to be clear we are doing an extraordinary amount of tests, but it is not a shortage of collection kits. There are reagent issues in the lab that are contributed to longer turnaround times, as well as the sure volume of tests. So of all the tests, we reported today 65% were within the last week. 30% were from the week before. That gives you an idea of the percentage of tests. This greatly impacts our ability to fight COVID-19. If someone waits 7-10 days to find out they are positive and did not curtail their activities, we know they are out there spreading that disease. Plus if it takes too long to get a test result back the contact tracing is too hard. So the turnaround time at the labs is the current challenge, not the testing supplies itself. with turnaround times does this challenge testing congregate settings In congregate settings, we are testing 100% of residents and staff every 2 weeks. We are seeing some delays in getting those results back. Anytime you see that it interferes with our ability to quickly get on top of the situation and appropriately quarantining patients. It is also true for the staff member who goes home at night and interacts with their family. Over the next approx 8-12 weeks it is the goal of the Federal Government to send a rapid point of care tests to every nursing home. We are starting to see those machines arrive in small numbers this week and that will continue. That way tests are administered with results being known within 24 hours. It sounds too good to be true, so we need to make sure the machines come and we have all the testing materials that are needed. Why are casinos not facing additional restrictions? I'm not going to tell you we haven't experienced any issues at casinos but I can say they have been few in number and much more easily removed because you only have only a small number of them operating. Plus it is the most regulated industry in Louisiana so if you go in there and tell them a problem the corrections get made. We know they have been very responsive to any remedial measures we have told them to take. That is why they are open. We believe they can safely operate at the level of occupancy we have described. We want as much of our economy opened as possible consistent with public safety and the health of our people. Where we can operate a business safely we want to do that. Under the limitations, we currently have in place with casinos they can operate safely.
Closing Remarks
We have flattened the curve before and we can do it once again. We can do it without going back to Phase 1. But everyone must do their part. So if you want the economy open then we must all do our part. Please wear a face covering. Social distance. Stay home when you are sick. Wash your hands often. Watch out for the most valuable. The safest place you can be is at home. Lift one another upon prayer and focus on our blessings. If nothing else let's be thankful for our healthcare workers. Everyone has a healthy and safe weekend. God bless. 👉 NEXT PRESS CONFERENCES Will be Tuesday and Thursday next week at the Capital. If there is a reason to meet at other times, whether related to weather or COVID19, I will let you know.
Why $TOMZ Could Be The Next 200-400% RUNNER DD & Charing
I’m still new to DD so please don’t burn me. The stock I’m going to be going over is $TOMZ (OTC) and why I think it has the potential to 2X, and possibly 3X in the coming month, this is a long swing (At least a month). Since this is an OTC there will be some Dips here and there and some times where the stock absolutely Rockets. The reason why I want to talk about this stock is because of Earnings and everything below will explain: What TOMZ is, why it should/will rocket, chartings, news etc pretty much everything you need to know to get locked and loaded (I recommend you read everything because this is actually some pretty interesting DD and I promise it’s not boring :D ). What is TOMZ: TOMI Environmental Solutions, Inc. is a global bacteria decontamination and infectious disease control company, providing environmental solutions for indoor surface decontamination through the manufacturing, sales and licensing of its SteraMist brand products. SteraMist is an EPA registered sole active ingredient Hydrogen Peroxide based product line that uses Binary Ionization Technology (BIT). The four primary divisions of TOMI include: Hospital-Healthcare , Life Sciences, TOMI Service Network (TSN), and Food Safety. TOMI offers a variety of products and services to fulfill the disinfection needs of those industries. SteraMist Surface Unit is a fully portable, hand-held, point and spray disinfection and decontamination unit. The SteraMist Environment System is a complete room decontamination fogging system. In all of its divisions, TOMI remains committed to a focus on both customer satisfaction and client retention. They are continuously growing and are expected to keep growing as the Pandemic gets worse and worse. Because of lack of volume TOMZ didn’t move much during its earnings but this time I believe that TOMZ is going to not only obliterate earnings again but have a massive bull run, the volume is definitely increasing going from 100k-400k volume per day to over 1 million in volume consistently and I also believe that they are going to beat earnings by more than 400% again (Possibly even more because of bad the Pandemic is getting). Tl;dr They manufacture antibacterial sprays to fight diseases pretty much those big sprays that people spray in trains, stadiums, food markets etc to clean. You can use these anywhere and these are used in food markets, schools/police stations, casinos, stadiums, subways, schools etc almost everywhere. It's safe for the environment, drys fast etc and it’s 100% safe for plants. They are based on the US meaning no weird Chinese stock pump and dump scheme. Their products kill 99.99999 (yea 5 9’s % of bacteria) Why TOMZ Can Rocket Massively: They have a product line called Steramist which is used to fight off bacteria, and clean places (like I mentioned before) which is perfect because obviously were in a Pandemic, and this product is needed EVERYWHERE. Their products have insane profit margin and one product costs between $20,000 to $53000! This company is from Beverly Hills California and is available Internationally. Their steramist is patented and one of the best antibacterial sprays in the globe. They are the LEADER in the US when it comes to antibacterial sprays. They are found in continents such as South America, Europe, and even Asia. About Their Stermist (Why it's SO good): Their product is possibly the best on the market and perhaps in the world. Not only are their profit margins INSANE they are one of the only antibacterial spray manufacturers that have a product that requires no mixing with other liquids/chemicals, no special cleanup/wiping and leaves no residue. Their product does not contain any hazardous DOT restrictions meaning it does not need to be transported with any special vehicles or special products. Their products can be stored perhaps anywhere and do not to be stored in a special room or contraption. These products are EXTREMELY needed right now for obvious reasons, constantly being used everywhere and their company is the leader in this. Charting:✅ +1000% over the year +OTC Market +Expect a nice 10-40% dip soon since the RSI is overbought. HOWEVER there have been times where the RSI on TOMZ have been at 90+ +MACD is curling showing possible continuous gain +Volume is picking up surely +Support is around $1.20-$1.03 (So expect a dip somewhere there) +”Top 1% of all short term signal directions” by Barchart: https://www.barchart.com/stocks/quotes/TOMZ/overview +Authorized Shares: 250,000,000 a/o Jul 10, 2020 Outstanding Shares: 133,537,083 a/o Jul 10, 2020 Restricted Shares: 32,054,629 a/o Jul 10, 2020 Float: 63,271,197 a/o Mar 31, 2020 Last earnings was on 3/31/2020 and they beat it by almost 500%! The reasons why they did not move was because it was literally unknown and the volume back then was around 200-400k which is nothing. Now the volume is starting to spike up, instead of getting 200k-400k volume we’ve been having 700-4mil volume since June 25thish. Earnings Soon: ✅ The earnings is the main play of this stock. With record breaking sales and up over 500% in sales since last earnings, and with higher volume, and more hype this is bound to not only CRUSH earnings but Rocket to the galaxy. But let’s hope it doesn’t pull a CJJD on us. If Volume increases and there are much more buyers and earnings are absolutely ridiculous TOMZ can rocket, and on top this Earnings are a full month away (August 24th) meaning that there is still lots of time to load up, look for a dip etc so you really can’t miss out :). Infact I just realized that the amazing Timothy Sykes is recommending $TOMZ and it’s on his watchlist which is very nice to see. News/Potential Catalysts: ✅ *They have earnings coming out soon (August 24th so lots of time left, and they are going to absolutely SHRED the earnings) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tomi-environmental-solutions_county-spotlight-steramist-decontamination-activity-6683792430644518912-4dhO (About their Steramist Products *https://tomimist.com/about/ihp/ (Scientific Ingredients in their Products if you care) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **Added another manufacturer facility to produce their SteraMist Spray on June 25th to mass produce these (Shows the sprays are in mass demand and are not only growing but selling more) https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tomi-adds-additional-manufacturer-produce-133010434.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *https://twitter.com/nyc_joe638/status/1263936387973353473 (Glimpse of their Potential Q2 Earnings Which Sounds like it’ll be astronomical) “6weeks into Q2 & CEO states more Revs than Q1 & all of the past 12 months” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Earnings on August 24th (Main Play) *TOMZ First Quarter 2020 Financial Results: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/05/18/2035005/0/en/TOMI-Environmental-Solutions-Inc-Reports-First-Quarter-2020-Financial-Results.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Could have Revenue over 15-20MILLION Which is 1/10 of their total Market cap in a single quarter *Their product line: https://tomimist.com/products/ https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/03/02/1993575/0/en/SteraMist-Declared-Official-Decontamination-Technology-of-Seoul-City-Metropolitan-Transit-Systems.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Each niceEach unit can cost between 18,000 and 53,385 USD. Trained individuals in the hospital, biomedical, and food service industries *financials/balance sheet/cash flow https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/TOMZ/financials --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.aviseanalytics.com/tomi-environmental-solutions-is-leveraging-its-patented-technology-to-combat-covid-19/ “Furthermore the Company has entered into an agreement with Thailand’s Clean Environmental Solutions to combat cases of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in the country, besides being declared the official decontamination technology of the Seoul City Metro Transit in South Korea.” “In February 2020, the Company received a CDC registration in China after undergoing a 3-year long submission process, for both of its SteraMist equipment registration and BIT solution registration, officially making it the industry standard for disinfection in China. The approval is even more significant in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak, which necessitates decontamination of public places throughout the community.” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tl;dr: TOMZ aboutta go to a whole different multiverse :') Jokes aside I really have faith in this company, there is just so much good about it. It reminds me of WKHS, SOLO etc and I have good vibes with this stock. I'm in at $1.24 and not selling till it hits $3 at least (or when the earnings hits). This company is gonna obliterate earnings which means , chart looks and company is great and actually know and here's why: *”Each unit of Steramist can cost between $18,000 and $53,385 USD. Trained individuals in the hospital, biomedical, and food service industries.” (profit margins) *****Great solid financials *Stated that 6 weeks in Q2 they have more revenue than all of Q1 and all of LAST YEAR TOO I will add more and EDIT if I find any mistakes/more info! To the galaxy we go hopefully EDIT: Financial Results for the Three Months Ended March 31, 2020 compared to March 31, 2019 ● Total net revenue was $7,053,000 compared to $1,253,000, representing an increase of $5,800,000, or 463%. – SteraMist® product-based revenues was $6,638,000 and $1,029,000, respectively, representing an increase of $5,609,000 or 545%. – Service-based revenue was approximately $415,000 and $224,000, respectively, representing a year over year increase of 85%. – Domestic revenue was $3,569,000 and $1,136,000, respectively, representing an increase of $2,433,000, or 214%. – International revenue was approximately $3,484,000 and $117,000, respectively, representing an increase of $3,367,000 or 2,878%. ● Gross margins were 63.6% compared to 60.6%. The higher gross profit is attributable to the product mix in sales. ● Income from operations was $2,659,000, compared to a Loss from operations of ($868,000), representing an increase of $3,527,000, or 406%. ● Net Income was $2,619,000, or $0.02 on a per share basis compared to a Net loss of ($935,000), or ($0.01) on a per share basis, representing an increase of $3,554,000, or 380%. ● Cash provided from operations of $3,316,000, compared to cash used in operations of ($649,000). ● EBIDTA was $2,831,000 compared to an adjusted net loss of ($691,000). A table reconciling EBITDA to the appropriate GAAP measure is included with the Company's financial information below. Balance sheet highlights as of March 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019 ● Cash and cash equivalents of approximately $3,756,000 and $897,000, representing an increase of $2,859,000. ● Working capital of $6,365,000 and ($1,266,000), representing an increase of $7,631,000. ● Conversion of $4,500,000 in convertible notes into 8,333,332 common shares. ● Shareholder equity of $8,324,000 and $890,000, representing an increase of $7,434,000. Current Business Highlights To Date Revenues ● First quarter revenue of $7,053,000 eclipsed total revenue generated for the full calendar year of 2019. ● Year over year growth in overall revenue to date of 496% (unaudited). ● Year to date growth in equipment and solution revenue of 485% and 933%, respectively, compared to the same prior year period (unaudited). ● Sold 241 machines to date in 2020, representing an approximate 551% increase over the same prior year period. ● Sold 16,000 gallons of solution to date, representing a increase of 834% when compared to the same prior year period. 1 Customers ● Added one hundred and forty-one (141) customers to date in 2020, representing a 571% increase over the same prior year period. ● Added thirty-one (31) new facilities in the hospital-healthcare division to date in 2020, representing a 94% increase over the same prior year period. ● Added fifty-nine (59) new TSN providers to date in 2020, representing a 1,833% increase over the same prior year period, creating a total of 161 providers throughout 40 U.S. States and Canada. ● Added twenty-nine (29) new customers to our Life Sciences customer base, representing an increase of 263%. ● Added one (1) new Food Safety customer who purchased and implemented our SteraMist® technology into their facility, bringing to a total of six (6) customer food safety customers.
Rewatched Black Panther due to recent circumstances and I was impressed by Coogler's direction. He has a great eye for visuals and his script hits hard with the dramatic moments and the characters. The scenes in the ancestral plane are beautiful with the way the dialogue unveils so much about the characters. I especially loved T'Challa's scene where he calls out his father. The action outside of the messy third act is top notch. The Seoul Casino long take was masterfully done and avoids the usual quick cut nature of the Marvel movies. Coogler felt like he was making a movie with a vision unlike a lot of other Marvel directors. I think Taika Waititi and James Gunn have strong cases to make but I think Gunn's talent is more as a writer than a director.
[AMA] I quit my gamedev job and travelled the world (no antarctica sorry) for 18 months AMA
hi guys I wanted to do this for a while but finally convinced myself that some people might actually be interested I'm 31 (29 when I started the trip), male, originally from Austria. I lived and worked in Germany and England as a game developer before quitting my job early 2017 to travel the world. Over the course of 18 months my trip took me to all 6 inhabited continents. I started in southern Africa, flew to east Asia, went down to New Zealand for christmas and new years, back up to South East Asia, over to South America up the west coast from Chile to Colombia and on my (long) way home visited friends in USA, Canada, UK, Netherlands and Germany before coming back home to Austria. (amazing pic of my route) touristy highlights included driving the coast of South Africa, seeing all kinds of animals in Botswana, amazing beaches in Fiji & NZ, getting amazed by the likes of the Shwedagon Pagoda, Angkor Wat and Borobudur, seeing otherworldy landscapes in Vietnam and especially in the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, getting a taste of the Amazon in Bolivia, hiking a lot all over the world with highlights being the 4 day Santa Cruz trek in Huaraz in Peru, the 3day Quilotoa Loop in Ecuador and 2 days in Myanmar from Kalaw to Lake Inle. personal highlights include living with a local in the middle of nowhere in Botswana for 3 weeks, watching the GSL (Starcraft 2) finals in Seoul in Korea, playing the last game I worked on in a gaming cafe in Penang in Malaysia, conquering my fear of heights doing the 3rd highest bungee in the world in South Africa, winning over $1k in a casino in Sihanoukville in Cambodia, seeing wild dolphins (South Africa & Chile) and whales (Ecuador), and on top of all making friends from all over the world (short term, but I still msg quite a few of them regularly and semi regularly). the top lowlight of the trip was crashing my scooter in Taitung in Taiwan with the exact low point being the paramedic answering my "am I gonna lose my finger?" question with "maybe". In Malaysia a scooter drove into the door of our Uber when I opened it which resulted in a few angry indian malay men asking me to pay for it (I did in the end, 500rm). other than that nothing really too bad happened so I guess I got kinda lucky. I had a few points where I thought about going home early but thinking about how much I would hate myself when at home and I still had money from my budget left and thinking "what would I do at home now" always kept me going. it was an amazing experience and I would recommend it to anyone. If you have any questions about any of the destinations mentioned or pretty much whatever I am more than happy to share my experience (not enough people in real life care enough anyways, so it really makes me happy to share it) the proof I have is my blog (it's not amazing writing or anything more like so people at home know I'm alive) and my instagram
Spike in South Korea virus cases shows perils of reopening
This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 82%. (I'm a bot)
SEOUL, South Korea - As Mediterranean beaches and Las Vegas casinos laid out plans to welcome tourists again, South Korea announced a spike in new infections Wednesday and considered reimposing social distancing restrictions, revealing the setbacks ahead for other nations on the road to reopening. The EU move came as the International Labor Organization reported nearly one in six young people have stopped working during the pandemic, warning of long-term fallout that could lead to a "Lockdown generation" if steps aren't taken to ease the crisis. Across the Atlantic, the pandemic claimed new victims as the confirmed U.S. death toll approached 100,000 - the highest by far in the world - and nations from Mexico to Chile to Brazil struggled with surging cases and overwhelmed hospitals. India saw another record single-day jump, reporting 6,387 new cases on Wednesday as the government prepared new guidelines for the next phase of a 2-month-old national lockdown that ends Sunday. Mexico's health department reported 501 deaths from the coronavirus - a new one-day high. U.S. officials are pushing hard to reopen even as more than a dozen states are still seeing increasing new cases.
GTA Online Diamond Casino Heist prep mission tips and details
Disclaimer: this is WIP and locations are for the La Mesa arcade, might be different for others in certain missions.
General tips:
In most missions where you don't pick up a bag (duffel bag visibly on your back, or an item such as a briefcase), you can enter the back of the MOC, Avenger or Terrorbyte to instantly lose wanted levels.
When wearing some kind of prep outfit, do not linger close to NPCs or they will realize you are not one of them and start shooting at you / give you a wanted level.
If you need to steal a vehicle, doing so without killing usually saves you from having to lose the cops before progressing to the next step (not always though).
If you need to kill someone, doing so without firing a shot (sometimes silenced shots don't work either so basically you are supposed to do a sneak melee attack) will usually save you from having to fight more enemies and/or getting a wanted level.
Most missions don't have a visible timer but if you take too long to finish them (10-15+ minutes, not sure of the exact time) you get a 5 minute countdown to finish or it fails.
Scope vault contents
Possible locations for guard: Legion Square, Del Perro Pier, Galileo Observatory, Rockford Hills, Vespucci (at the Binco), ?
Quick method: drive your Terrorbyte to the target, kill them, pick up the phone, enter the back of the Terrorbyte to remove wanted level
Camera feed order: vault, vault security, staff lobby, staff entrance, staff corridor, hotel floor, vault
go left on camera feed if you are on STAFF LOBBY or VAULT SECURITY by default
go right on camera feed if you are on STAFF CORRIDOR or HOTEL FLOOR by default
Eddie Toh: Sultan Classic, Gauntlet Classic, Ellie, Komoda
Chester McCoy: Zhaba, Vagrant, Outlaw, Everon
Possible prep missions:
Support crew
Unmarked weapons
Elysian Island police raid on a ship. You can do it without being spotted by being stealthy, easier to finish.
Steal flight manifest from Merryweather compound, then shoot back door of flying Titan while being chased by respawning Buzzards until it drops weapons, then pick them up. Doable with a Buzzard. Not sure what happens if the back door of the Titan is shot with rockets.
Possible locations: Palmer-Taylor Power Station, ?
Weapon smugglers off the coast: kill them then steal a Tula, being chased to the Sandy Shores air strip by Froggers.
Possible locations: Palomino Highlands, ?
Steal from The Lost MC clubhouse, uses the player owned clubhouse interior
Possible locations: Paleto Bay, ?
Steal from the Vagos Clubhouse.
Possible locations: La Mesa, ?
Steal from military
Possbile locations: Fort Zancudo, ?
Search NOOSE vans moving across the map, then steal the one containing weapons (have to lose cops first).
?
Getaway vehicles
Valet job at a random hotel. Wait for the owner to exit the car and walk away then drive the car back to the Arcade. Easiest one.
Unlocks: Valet outfit
Possible locations: Rockford Dorset Hotel, Opium Nights Hotel (LSIA), Banner Hotel & Spa (Del Perro), ?
Steal cars from LSPD lockup. Doable with stealth inside, prevents a shootout in the lockup. There are two policemen standing outside who can spot you. You can try your luck and after exiting moving to the right lane of the ramp and tearing off, they might not see you or if you want to go for sure: you park with your Terrorbyte across the street, then you take one car outside, move it to the right lane but do not move forward, then go back for the other car, taking it out to the default left lane, killing the two guards, entering the back of the Terrorbyte to lose wanted levels, and deliver the cars to your Arcade.
Possible locations: Rockford Hills, ?
Steal racing cars at air strip. You can wait for them to finish the race or steal during (you have to shoot the driver then). Cars chasing afterwards.
Possible locations: LSIA, Sandy Shores
Steal illegally imported cars from the importers. A Cargobob Jetsam spawns so if you watch what you shoot at you can use it to fly the cars back (a bit slow though, so unless the cars themselves are slow it's probably better to drive).
Possible locations: Chupacabra Street (Elysian Island), Paleto Bay railyard, ?
?
Chester McCoy vehicles only:
Elysian Island, Merryweather testing, 1 armored NPC with railgun, multiple turreted cars, explosives next to getaway cars (not a good idea to shoot rockets or grenades), helicopters and cars chasing afterwards.
Guarded convoy in LS or Blaine County.
?
Hacking device
Steal from FIB HQ. First go and kill a couple crooked FIB agents, get their badges and then enter the FIB HQ. Use phone app to find the item by its signal. On the way out when you pass the entrance gates in the FIB building, they will start shooting and you, so you may as well start by shooting them. You will receive a wanted level anyway.
Unlocks: FIB outfits (no badge)
Possible agent locations: La Puerta (at the Bay City apartment), Strawberry / Strawberry Ave, West Vinewood / Laguna Place, ?
You can tell you got this mission by having your outfit changed to a messy FIB suit.
Dialogue start: "You might remember I directed your attention to some keypads when you were looking around the casino. Yeah, if we wanna hack them which we do, we're gonna need some FIB technology from their building on Pillbox Hill."
Kill a corrupt NOOSE agent (wait for it to walk away from the other two, then take him out with one melee hit from stealth to prevent the others from shooting and possibly a wanted level) take their badge and enter the NOOSE HQ (same interior as DDH, Act 1 Server Farm). Use phone app to find the device's signal. You can do this part without killing by sticking to the safe side corridors and avoiding guards and cameras. You get a wanted level after exiting though. You can not enter a Service vehicle's cargo area to remove the wanted levels and if you drive to the North you get wanted levels when you drive by the NOOSE HQ again, so start driving towards your Arcade and don't mess around.
Possible agent locations: Davis City Hall, Los Santos City Hall, at IAA building at Pillbox Hill, ?
Dialogue start: "You'll remember I directed your attention to some keypads when you were looking around the casino. Yeah, their tech is some of the best in the business, government level."
General prep work
Vault keycards
Two guards, randomly found in Los Santos or Blaine County, on the streets or in a motel/apartment room. This is definitely the easier mission though you have two targets.
Possible locations: starts walking in front of Hornbills on Eclipse Boulevard (West Winewood), The Motor Motel (Harmony), Perrera Beach Motel (Del Perro), Mirror Park Tavern, ?
Steal a prison bus then drive it to Bolingbroke Penitentiary. Maintain your disguise and drive to the mentioned tower. Your target is either outside (lucky) or inside the tower. If your target is inside and facing away from the stairs, do a sneak melee attack to kill it. If it's facing the stairs, you are very unlucky. Try to do a headshot from below or wait for it to turn around but do not linger for too long or they will start shooting at you (with two snipers from the adjacent towers) and you also get a 4 star wanted level. The only way out of the ring is the way you entered.
Unlocks: Prison Guard outfits
Patrol routes
What does it do? Displays patrolling NPCs on the same level on the map (both minimap and pause menu map).
Mission: Duggan security meeting in a parking lot. You need to take a photo of the patrol routes roster in the back trunk of a car. Lester sends a text with the licence plate of the target car. There are two patrolling guards in a mirrored pattern. The car will always be on the less crowded side of the parking lot in the way of one of the two moving guards, where no stationary NPCs can see the back of the cars. Once you found the target car (just by walking past them) wait for the guard to pass it towards the more crowded part of the parking lot and open the trunk. After opening it move into a safe spot immediately becuase you don't have time to take a photo of the roster, the guard is on it's way back. You can take a photo of the trunk from farther as well, it only checks which side you are taking the photo from, it doesn't actually have to be legible on the photo (gg rockstar). Or you can go in loud and kill them all (the Stone Hatchet with its Rampage mode is really good) but you will receive a wanted level if you choose this method.
Possible locations: Galileo Observatory, Little Seoul or Pillbox Hill
You don't have to be right next to the trunk to take the photo of the roster you can take it from farther away, the only thing that matters is to take it from the proper side.
If you take a photo of the routes in the trunk of the target car then destroy the car, the prep mission fails, even though you already sent the stuff to Lester.
Duggan shipments
What does it do? Weakens the equipment of the Casino security, such as bulletproof helmets.
Mission: 10 targets have to be taken out, across the whole map in 10 minutes. They are not armored, 1 homing rocket is sufficient to destroy them, the Oppressor Mk II (with maxed out performance upgrades and rockets equipped) is really good for this mission if you are doing it solo. You can not get wanted levels during this mission. Usually 3 ground (gruppe sechs van), 3 water (dinghy) targets and the rest are aerial (1 target and 1 escort helicopter). If you shoot at them but miss and they survive they will start chasing you. Helicopters may rarely crash on their own, one target less for you.
Security intel
What does it do? Show all cameras and their cones on the map in the casino during the heist.
Requirement Own Casino Penthouse/do Casino missions (Ms Baker) as host.
Mission: Meet Vincent at Rockford Plaza and follow up with him. This mission is unlocked permanently though there is an option to replay it later from the second prep board. You have to chase a car and shoot the driver so it might be a good idea to not drive a vehicle that only shoots rockets.
Power drills
What does it do? Gives you the ability to drill small deposit boxes in the vault. You won't have time for this with two players so probably not necessary. You can carry multiple drills at the same time so you don't have to drive back for the second one.
Mission variants:
Steal a hardware store van leaving a construction site (you don't have to go to the marked location as it will start moving away from it once you are in spawning distance). Or you can just destroy it and take both drills. Killing them gets you 2 wanted levels.
Possible locations: Dunstable Lane, Redwood Lights Track, ?
Go to a construction site and search boxes of equipment (i.e. look at them). You can put on a disguise if you are careful but if you linger near the workers they will attack you (along with the security guards).
Possible locations: Vespucci Canals, ?
Security pass lvl1
Penthouse owners can steal a level 1 pass from the cleaning trolley in their penthouse if the maid is present.
?
OR
Security pass lvl2
What does it do? Lets you skip the pattern hacks by swiping the security card.
Mission variants:
Dead casino valet: steal a Hearse and funeral director clothes from Hill Valley Church, go into morgue, get badge. If you enter a room and the green blip doesn't appear on your map, the pass isn't in that room.
Unlocks: Undertakers/The Ominous outfit
Croupier: knocked out at a party in a random garden. Go to party, wait for Lester to send the photo of the target, find target (laying or sitting somewhere out of sight), search them then if they don't have the pass on them, look for it on a nearby table or under some foliage.
Possible locations: Vinewood Hills, West Winewood, Pacific Bluffs, ?
Tips and bugs:
you can walk into the garden, walk out and wait around 1.5-2 minutes then walk back and lester will almost always send you the text right then, you can avoid having to "blend in" while he is searching for the croupier
the croupier will always be someone unconscious
looking at a "blend in" prompt will automatically start doing it, therefore standing under the tent on PC makes you stuck in dancing, it says pressing Esc will allow you to you quit the animation but it's actually right click and you gotta spam it a bit to break out of the loop (because you are looking at the prompt)
when approaching the area of the party with a flying vehicle, try not to fly over or you will get a nice 3-star wanted level.
Approach specific preps
Stealth
Nano drones
Shoot down 5 LSPD nano drones, everyone in Org/MC gets 3 star wanted level, doesn't clear upon death but can be lost. Pick up drone parts. You can pick them up after losing wanted levels too.
Vault laser
Steal from military or Cliffford mercenaries, instant 4 stars, not removed upon death. Take an armored vehicle and lots of snacks if you want to make sure you do it as quickly as possible.
possible locations: Fort Zancudo, El Burro Heights, ?
EMP device
Steal EMP from USLA with a Cargobob (you have to steal that from LSIA but maybe you can bring your own?) and deliver it to Vinewood substation of Los Santos Department of Water and Power. (stealing EMP from university is an Ocean's 11 reference)
Infiltration suits
Has to be stolen from Humane Labs. You can either parachute in and take a sneaky approach or go in and kill them all then hack the door also hacked in Deliver EMP of Humane Raid heist. Two duffel bags have to be taken, if you are alone you have to come back. A couple NPCs respawn but not all of them. Wanted level upon breaking in of course.
Big con
Entry disguise (2 parts for each)
Bugstars gear
Part 1: Steal a Bugstars Burrito, containing the outfits as well
Possible locations: Richman, ?
Part 2: Steal a Trashmaster full of insects to create a reason for Bugstars pest control being called to the Casino
Possible locations: Rogers Salvage & Scrap (La Puerta), ?
Unlocks: Refuse Collector outfits
Maintenance gear
Part 1: Steal two bags of equipment and outfits from a maintenance crew
Possible locations: Rockford Hills, ?
Part 2: Steal an LSDWP van and take it to the Casino, then pour chemicals into a broken ventilation unit on top of the building. Take van to Arcade.
Possible locations: Cypress Flats, ?
Gruppe Sechs gear
Part 1: Steal damaged Stockade (armored van) from an auto repair shop (drive there with a Service vehicle to remove wanted level)
Possible locations: Harmony, Beeker's Garage (Paleto), ?
Tips: You can enter the back of a Service vehicle to lose wanted levels. A Vigilante can push the Stockade to make it go faster if you get a location far from your Arcade.
Part 2: Infiltrate security meeting of the Duggans (somewhat similar to Patrol routes) and take a photo of the licence plate of a security van plus steal two duffel bags from its back (outfits)
Possible locations: underground garage in Little Seoul, parking lot under the intersection of I-2 (Del Perro Freeway) and I-4 (Olympic Freeway) in Murrieta Heights, ?
Quick complete: drive Terrorbyte really close, kill dudes, enter Terrorbyte to lose wanted level, take photo and grab the bags.
Vault drills
Steal from bank robbers robbing the Fleeca branch on Great Ocean Highway (nostalgia)
Steal from police who just caught a couple bank robbers
Possible locations: Del Perro, Terminal, ?
?
Yung Ancestor preps if host scoped out the terrace, unlocks Yung Ancestor fan entry disguise
Part 1, "Dead Weight": take care of a vehicle, with a corpse in its trunk (allegedly), you end up going to the Altruist camp after a couple changes in the destination
Part 2, "After Party": chase down paparazzi and destroy their cameras
Exit disguise
Firefighter gear: go to a reported arson incident and steal the Firetruck. Wanted level guaranteed but can be removed by entering a Service vehicle's back area.
NOOSE gear: two duffel bags, stolen from an LSPD (or possibly LSSD) station. Wanted level guaranteed. This is an Ocean's 11 reference, as they leave the casino disguised as SWAT.
Possible locations: Mission Row Police Station
Aggressive
Breaching charges
Steal them from thieves. Two bags, have to be delivered one by one. Chasing hillbillies.
Possible locations: Cholla Springs Avenue (Sandy Shores), Zancudo River, ?
Steal from SecuroServ warehouses (big warehouse interior). They give chase with sedans and Buzzards when the second package leaves the warehouse.
Possible locations: LSIA (westernmost building in the corner), Popular Street (Cypress Flats), ?
?
Vault explosives
Steal them from smugglers. Underwater, 2 boxes, can only carry one at a time, lots of waves of helicopters spawning. I suggest equipping a scuba based outfit before starting it (as it locks outfits as soon as you start) and going in as a CEO to call in a Dinghy and to use BST (or you could just steal another boat if you can). Kill everyone beforehand until the waves stop. Then dive down and find both of them. Pick up one and swim out to the shore, aim for an area with a bit of cover. Drop a BST and kill the waves of helicopters or get in your vehicle and tear off. Alternatively you can use a Stromberg to pick it up undetected, helicopters will still spawn after the broadcast timer is gone.
Possible locations: Catfish View, Paleto Cove, North Calafia Way (Alamo Sea north shore), ?
?
Reinforced armor
Steal from Humane Labs, swim through underwater entrance with scuba suit you put on at the shore (mandatory objective, plus Style menu gets locked on mission start), steal armor, go up with elevator. Don't dawdle in the elevator or it will take you to the surface. After you picked up the armor and go back to the surface with an elevator, get into cover immediately, there will be a couple armed guards with machine guns and deadly accuracy. Take the Buzzard and don't stop to fight.
Steal from a Merryweather bunker. Uses the player owned bunker interior, there are a couple Insurgents and a Brickade inside, you can use these to drive out but it will force you out of the vehicle shortly after. I don't think you can take a sneaky approach to find the boxes containing the armor as the guards cones of vision overlap and most of them don't move, so just kill them all, which will result in Mesas and Buzzards chasing you back to the Arcade when the second armor has been picked up.
Possible locations: Route 68 Bunker, Farmhouse Bunker, ?
?
Boring machine
Steal and drive to the Sewer entrance. Don't follow the GPS if you know where it is (end of the storm drain, just south of the race track at the Casino), it's really dumb and wants to take you to one specific legal entry of the storm drain when in fact you can enter it nearly anywhere. Wanted level most likely.
Possible locations: driving on the freeway, parked in El Burro Heights, north of the Grapeseed airfield, Davis Quartz, Terminal, ?
Trip Report: Honeymoon to Tokyo, Kyoto, and Seoul (875k pt spend)
My wife and I just returned from our honeymoon to Japan and Korea. We booked all travel accommodations using points to book a luxury vacation to Japan and Korea! Overall, we used a total of 875,000 points. I would have loved to make it a "million point vacation", but I couldn't find a way to spend our AA or MR points to add extra value :). Since this is the AwardTravel subreddit, most of this trip report will focus on the travel accommodations booked with points, but I'll still include a short description of other activities we enjoyed since I know there's a lot of other travelers looking for an opportunity to visit Japan and Korea.
The Flight - Korean Air First Class
Our travel began with a first-class flight on Korean Air leaving from IAD. Normally, KAL first-class passengers would be allowed access to the AirFrance/KLM lounge. Unfortunately, this lounge is currently closed for renovation so we were instead directed to the Virgin Atlantic lounge (although it looks like AirFrance and KLM passengers get to use the Etihad lounge). This lounge was nothing exciting. We were there for breakfast, and although they did have some hot options, the food was pretty bad. I tried a small bite of everything, but the only food there that I enjoyed was an apple. On the bright side, they did have cold beer, wine, and a small selection of hard liquor as well as a nice view of the tarmac and plenty of comfortable seating. This was our first time travelling anything other than coach/economy, so both of us were very excited to see if first class was everything it's chocked up to be. Compared to every other flight I've had, this flight was unbelievably enjoyable. I was worried that 14 hours of flight time would be uncomfortable regardless of which class we were flying, but by the end of the flight I was disappointed we had to deplane. Korean Air uses the Boeing 777-300ER for the IAD-ICN flight, which features the new-ish Kosmo Suites 2.0. These first-class suites are huge. They have plenty of storage compartments, a USB charging port in the in-flight entertainment console, and an international-compatible AC outlet on the floor. As most reviews of Korean Air flights say, the in-flight entertainment is pretty lacking. Luckily I had the first 7 seasons of Game of Thrones downloaded to my laptop which I happily watched with the noise-cancelling Bose headphones they provide. I think what I was most surprised with was how many flight attendants they seemed to have devoted completely to first-class guests. It seemed like they had 1 flight attendant for every two passengers, but maybe some of them sneaked away to serve business/coach when I wasn't looking. Regardless, I was very impressed with how briskly I was tended to each time I pressed the call button. The food service was great considering we were eating 40,000 ft in the sky. As soon as we left the ground, our flight attendant showed us the drink menu and took both meal orders ("dinner" as the first meal, and "lunch" as the second). Nether my wife nor I drink, but my uncultured palette thought the champagne tasted great. The meal service started with an amuse bouche of cream-cheese stuffed tomato and mushroom, followed by a serving of caviar with traditional accompaniments. For my first meal I chose Korean Air's famous Bibimbap served with soup, banchan, and a side of bulgogi. For how simple this meal looks, it was excellent - especially the bulgogi. For dessert, they served very good fresh fruit, cheese, and crackers followed by an unremarkable chocolate pound cake. After watching a few more episodes of Game of Thrones, my flight attendant asked if I would like my bed made. She grabbed a mattress topper and a nice comfy blanket, fully reclined my seat, and made my bed into what felt like a normal twin-size bed. I changed into the pajamas they provided and slept very well for a few hours. As a midnight snack I decided to try a bowl of spicy ramen, which lived up to its namsake of "spicy" by being a little too hot for my enjoyment. Luckily they also had cookies and milk on the menu, which I was very delighted to hear from the flight attendant when she said "I'm sorry, it will take about 8 minutes for me to bake them fresh for you". No worries - I have never been disappointed to wait for freshly baked cookies, and they certainly did not disappoint this time. After sleeping for a few more hours, my wife woke me up to let me know I only had a couple more hours until we landed. For lunch, they offered a nice "build your own salad" station with a blend of greens, veggies, and anchovy. It was nice to have something crisp and refreshing since I was feeling groggy after waking up. For my second meal I chose the Chilean Sea Bass with veggies. I really enjoyed it, but my wife wasn't too impressed. For dessert they served fruit and cheese again. Upon landing, we weren't able to enjoy any of the lounges at the ICN airport since we only had 45 minutes to catch our connecting flight. After spending about 10 minutes looking for a lounge with a shower, we decided that we didn't have time and proceeded to our gate. The ~2.5 hour flight from ICN to NRT was on an Airbus A300-330. The first-class seating on this flight actually looked identical to the business class. The seats were still lie-flat, but it was about two-thirds the size. Again, I got the Bibimbap for my meal, even though it didn't come with the side of bulgogi this time. The flight was over before I knew it, and again the customer service we received was excellent.
Tokyo - Ritz Carlton
After getting our bags and going through customs and immigration, I had to figure out how to get to our first destination: The Ritz Carlton Tokyo. There's normally a "limousine bus" that leaves from the Narita airport that stops at our hotel, but because we weren't ready to depart from the airport until about 9:30pm there were no more buses for the day that stopped at The Ritz. There's also a train that goes directly to Tokyo Station, the "Narita Express (NEX)", but we also missed the last train for that. A quick Google search showed that it would cost about $300 to take a cab from the airport, we instead took a bus from the airport to a hotel about 2 miles from our hotel and took a cab from there. This was especially daunting considering my cellular data only worked for about 10 seconds every 10 minutes, it was getting late, and there was an obvious language barrier that made me wonder if we were headed in the right direction. But luckily, we made it to our hotel without too much effort. As expected, the customer service at The Ritz was great. Our bags were immediately taken for us when we stepped out of the cab and we were escorted to the main lobby on the 45th floor. When we stepped out of the elevator we were met by the live music of smooth jazz saxophone and a vocalist that made me think "god damn this is a swanky hotel". It got even better when we got to our room and were met with this view. They must clean the windows every day, because when you walk into the room you can't even tell there's a pane of glass there. It almost looks like an optical illusion. Having this great view was one of the highlights of the trip, and one of the biggest reasons to choose the Ritz Carlton when staying in Tokyo. Again, I cannot believe how excellent the service was at this hotel. The concierge was great (for the most part - more on that later), turn-down service twice daily, spotlessly clean room and bathroom, etc. What really made them surpass my expectations were the little things. On Day 1 we used up all the complementary espresso pods, so during turn-down service the housekeeper left an extra box of espresso with a note (picture taken after we used some). Similarly, after a day when we used both complimentary bottles of water, after turn-down service we found two extra bottles of water with another endearing note. And one day when we mentioned to the concierge that we were celebrating my birthday and our honeymoon, we found this nice gift of chocolates in our room when we returned for the night (the heart and sphere were filled with chocolate covered almonds). Somehow I forgot to take pictures of our room. It was standard size as far as hotel rooms go, but the bathroom was exceptionally large. There was a bathtub, shower, two sinks, and a separate small room with the toilet. Speaking of the toilet, it seems like many toilets in Japan have built-in bidet systems with warm water and heated seats. This one was especially nice and had a "power deodorizer" that seemed to vacuum up the fumes directly from the bowl. Wouldn't be a deal-breaker if they didn't have it, but we enjoyed having a high-tech toilet for the first time in our lives :). Like I said, the concierges were great with most of their recommendations. All of them were fluent in English and we enjoyed every activity/restaurant that was recommended, with one exception. For my birthday dinner we wanted to try some Japanese fine dining. We told the concierge our price limit of ~250/pp, and were recommended to try a traditional Japanese kaiseki at the Ritz Carlton's restaurant Hinokizaka. As expected, the view from our seats was excellent, and we were very happy to have some origami to take home with us as souvenirs. Unfortunately, those were the only things that we were impressed with. We've had the pleasure of dining at a handful of fine-dining restaurants and have never regretted splurging a few hundred dollars on a meal - until now. We were presented with two menu choices - one for $180 and the other $240. Without really looking too closely at the difference between the two menus we decided to get one of each. I still don't understand why the $240 menu was more expensive. Most dishes were nearly identical, but the $240 menu had one less course and there were no "ultra-luxury" items that would normally expect an upcharge like truffles, caviar, foie gras, etc. Without diving into detail on why each dish was disappointing, I'll just say that most dishes seemed poorly balanced - either too salty or too bitter. There was an herbal lemon jelly that several of the dishes used that completely overpowered the dish with a sour, bitter flavor that was, bluntly, disgusting. Maybe it's just that I don't like Japanese fine dining, because the restaurant seems to be well-reviewed elsewhere, but I will certainly not be going back for a ~$500 dinner. At least the presentation of the food was pretty.
Tokyo - Sightseeing Highlights
Tokyo was our favorite destination. Everything was surprisingly easy to navigate once we figured out that there are actually several distinct rail companies that share some of the same stations. At each of the rail stations we used, there was always staff that spoke English well enough to help us, and we were always made to feel welcome to the country. Every time we asked for help we were politely greeted and treated respectfully. Overall, it seems like Japan strongly encourages foreigners by having multi-language maps, easy to decipher pictures, and multi-lingual customer service to answer questions. The one really annoying thing that surprised me was the lack of trash cans. There were several times where we wanted to throw something away but instead just tossed it in our backpack because we walked for blocks without seeing a garbage can. The same thing goes for buying snacks in marketplaces - eat it and give your trash to the vendor you bought it from, otherwise be prepared to carry the trash with you all day. Somehow, the city seems pretty clean regardless. While we were in Tokyo, we saw beautiful gardens and temples, and ate amazing food. Most of our time here was spent browsing for souvenirs around the various shopping districts (such as the famous Shibuya crossing area), falling in love with dogs at "puppy cafes", and playing wacky Japanese arcade games. We also spent half a day at DisneySea because my Wife is a Disney fanatic and she originally wanted to do DisneyWorld for our honeymoon.
Kyoto - Hyatt Regency
Compared to the Ritz Carlton, there's not really much to say about this hotel. Compared to most hotels, this was a very nice hotel. Compared to the Ritz Carlton, it was exceptionally normal. The service was pleasant and the concierge was able to recommend how to make the most of our time in Kyoto. From our second story window, we had absolutely no view - we could only see the wall of the building next door. Instead of a 65" top-of-the-line Sony Bravia, we instead had to watch Game of Thrones on a plebeian 42" display. We did not get gourmet chocolates left for us in our room, nor were any thoughtful handwritten notes left by the housekeeper. I know it's not fair to compare this Hyatt to the Ritz Carlton, so to be fair, this hotel was very nice. It was clean, comfortable, and conveniently located. Although I wouldn't recommend it at its cash price of ~$564/nt, I was happy to pay 20k Hyatt points to stay there.
Kyoto/Osaka - Sightseeing Highlights
We purchased the 7-day JR RailPass since I knew we'd use it for a round-trip to Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka and a trip from Tokyo Station to Narita Airport. At ~$260 each, it more than paid for itself. You need to purchase the JR RailPass voucher while you're still in the United States, then bring the voucher with you to Japan. Exchanging the voucher at Tokyo Station was straightforward, and we were able to reserve a seat on the Shinkansen "Hikari" to Kyoto. After just under 3 hours, we arrived at Kyoto Station and took a complimentary taxi to our hotel. Again, we saw some beautiful temples and ate lots of food. We took a day trip to Osaka using our JR RailPass. We decided not to get reserved seats and just hopped on the next available train, but unfortunately had to stand for the entire 45 minute journey. Osaka was an awesome city and probably deserved more than just a day trip. My wife loved the shopping areas there, and we also took a trip to Osaka Temple at night. While we were there they had an event going on called "Sakuya Lumina" where you stroll along the path to the temple and follow along with a short story of a girl from the future who's trying to get home. Along the way there are beautiful light shows and short movies, and a great photo spot where one of the employees offers to take photos with your phone. At the top, you get a great view of Osaka Temple close-up, where we also found some adorable and friendly stray cats. Back in Kyoto, we had our most enjoyable day of the vacation. We took the subway to Arashiyama - most well known for its beautiful bamboo forest, temples, and most of all - the Iwatayama monkey park. It's a small hike and about $10 to get to the monkey park, but it's well worth it. When you reach the summit, there are dozens of Macaque monkeys just running around. There are a lot of employees around to stop tourists from touching the monkeys, but you can get pretty much as close as you want. The monkeys here are completely desensitized to humans are will walk right past you, even with their babies. There is a small hut with a fence for a wall where you can feed the monkeys potatoes and peanuts for $1/bag. We happened to be there during "feeding time" where one of the employees walks around and throws chestnuts and seeds on the ground which the monkeys go crazy for. I don't think there's anywhere else in the world where you can experience this, and it's a must-do during a visit to Kyoto. While we were in Kyoto, we decided we had to try "real" Kobe Wagyu beef. I've had A5 wagyu once before at Cut in Beverly Hills, but I was excited to compare it to what Japan has to offer. And since my steak-loving wife has never tried it, I was especially excited to see her reaction to biting into the best steak shes ever had. The restaurant we chose, Premium Pound Gion, absolutely killed it. Each course was excellent, the ambiance was great (the whole restaurant is just a "chef's table" style seating), and steak was just as good as I remembered. If you've never had Kobe beef (note: the term "Kobe beef" has no significance in the USA, but "A5 wagyu" does; if you want to experience this type of steak in the USA, look for that designator) and aren't a vegetarian, you need to try it. It's worth it. Here are some pictures of the dinner.
Flight - Tokyo to Seoul
After taking the Shinkansen back to Tokyo and going back to the Ritz Carlton to pick some luggage we left there while we were in Kyoto, we spent the remainder of the day at DisneySea Tokyo then headed to our hotel airport to prepare for a 10:30am flight. The Hilton hotel we stayed at did have a very good breakfast buffet that included both Japanese and Western cuisine. For us it was complimentary thanks to the automatic HHonors Gold status provided by the Amex Hilton Ascend. The Korean Air lounge at NRT was pretty unremarkable - similar to the Virgin Atlantic lounge we used at IAD. They did have an area sectioned off for first-class only, which was pretty unnecessary since there was plenty of seating elsewhere. However, it was nice to be able to walk past the "first-class only" sign to let all the other lounge members know just how baller we are. Just like the ICN-NRT flight, we were served a nice lunch followed be cheese and fruit. The same aircraft, A330-300, was used as well.
Seoul - Hilton Millennium
Unfortunately, with the exception of the Marriott Courtyard we stayed at in Dulles, this was the most disappointing stay of the trip. There wasn't anything awful about it, but this hotel just didn't have the same level of service as the others. When we arrived to the hotel, the doorman unloaded our bags for us but did not take them to our room. The concierge spoke English, but not very well. There was a doorman who assisted with taxis, but several times there were communication problems due to translation. Overall, the hotel staff seemed a little indifferent. In comparison to all the hotels I've ever stayed at, this probably still ranks in the top 50%, but is in a completely different category than the other hotels we stayed at for this trip. On the plus side, they give out free $10 vouchers per person per day to the casino attached to the hotel, which we were always sure to cash out before we left for the day. We also got free breakfast and "cocktail hour" snacks which were always mediocre. We had breakfast most days because it was provided for free, but I would not suggest paying for it if you're not an HHonors Gold member.
Seoul - Sightseeing Highlights
While we were in Seoul, we took a cab pretty much everywhere that wasn't within walking distance. The prices were cabs in Seoul are cheaper than any other city I've taken cabs (DC, NYC, Tokyo, Kyoto), and are barely more expensive than taking the metro. Most fares were less than $10, the most expensive being a ~22 minute cab to Gangnam costing about $13. Again, we love to try exotic food, so we made sure to experience as much of the local cuisine and street food that we could try. The highlights were the freshly fried sweet "Korean pancake" filled with honey and walnuts and the muskmelon bingsu with ice cream that was surprisingly delicious considering how pretty it looked. We also had Korean BBQ from a restaurant called "The Marbling" that we went to twice because we enjoyed it so much. We really enjoyed walking through the markets and buying junky souvenirs. We also took a guided tour that I would not recommend since it ended with a trip to a "ginseng museum" where they locked us in a sales room for 30 minutes where we were relentlessly pitched to by salespeople to get us to buy hundreds of dollars worth of "cancer-preventing, life-lengthening, energizing ginseng".
Flight - Seoul to Dulles
The check-in for KAL first class flyers is pretty unique at ICN. There's a "first class check-in lounge" prior to security where you're served beverages while your bags are checked. I thought this was a nice touch compared to the normal check-in experience, even though we only stayed for a few minutes before going through security. From what I understand, there's several different Korean Air lounges at ICN. There's the "normal" KAL lounge that anyone can access, the miler lounge that can only be accessed by million milers, and then there's the first-class only lounge. We spent all of our time in the first class lounge, which was the nicest lounge of the trip. We had an early flight home so they were serving breakfast - an assortment of Korean and Western options as well as ice cream, beer, wine, and a small assortment of hard liquor. They also had table service where you could order eggs or a couple other traditional Korean breakfast options. They also had a massage chair, but I couldn't figure out how to work it because all of the controls were in Korean. The flight was the same as the original IAD-ICN leg with some slightly different but equally delicious food options. After 14 hours of eating, sleeping, watching Game of Thrones, eating, and sleeping, we were back to real life in Dulles where we had a 3 hour drive home.
Award Redemption and Cost Analysis
Night #
Hotel
Avg Pts/nt
Avg cash rate
cpp
1
Marriott Courtyard (Dulles)
16,000
$270
1.69
2
In-flight
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
Ritz-Carlton (Tokyo)
48,000
$1155
2.41
4
Ritz-Carlton (Tokyo)
48,000
$1155
2.41
5
Ritz-Carlton (Tokyo)
48,000
$1155
2.41
6
Ritz-Carlton (Tokyo)
48,000
$1155
2.41
7
Ritz-Carlton (Tokyo)
48,000
$1155
2.41
8
Hyatt Regency (Kyoto)
25,000
$564
2.26
9
Hyatt Regency (Kyoto)
25,000
$564
2.26
10
Hyatt Regency (Kyoto)
25,000
$564
2.26
11
Hilton (Narita)
20,000
$130
.65
12
Hilton Millennium (Seoul)
55,000
$221
.40
13
Hilton Millennium (Seoul)
55,000
$221
.40
14
Hilton Millennium (Seoul)
55,000
$221
.40
15
Hilton Millennium (Seoul)
55,000
$221
.40
Total:
$8751
First class on Korean Air: 320,000 + $800 in taxes/fees (total for two passengers). Cash "value" is $39,541 (~12cpp). Total points used:
Brand
Points
Marriott
240,000
Hilton
240,000
Hyatt (UR transfer)
75,000
Skypass (UR transfer)
320,000
Annual fees paid to accumulate these points:
Card
Annual fee
Chase Sapphire Reserve
$450
Chase Sapphire Reserve
$450
Chase Sapphire Preferred
$95
Chase Sapphire Preferred
$95
Hilton Ascend
$95
Hilton Ascend
$95
Chase Marriott
$95
Chase Marriott
$95
Total:
$1470
Approximate spending during travel (note: these are rough approximations that I made by taking our total amount spent, $3336.39, and estimating the proportion spent toward each category other than food, then assuming that the rest was on food):
Category
Amount
Food
$2386.39
Transportation (taxi, subway, bus)
$250
Transportation (JRPass)
$560
Activities
$400
Souvenirs
$300
Total:
$3896.39
Cash spend (travel accommodations, including fees paid to accrue points): $2,270 Cash spend (expenses during travel): ~$3,900
Total cost of vacation: $6170
Conclusion
The many hours of accumulating points, learning from /churning and /awardtravel, and planning our itinerary were well worth it. I can't wait to build up our points bank in preparation for our next big redemption. Even though I'm glad we flew first class once, I don't think we'll splurge on it again. Business class seems adequate, even though the seats are a fair bit smaller. At least first class seats had plenty of availability so planning around our schedules and only flying non-peak season was not an issue. The Ritz Carlton Tokyo was amazing and well worth the points, but unfortunately due to Marriott award redemption change this hotel will now cost 85k points instead of 60k. It may still be worth it if you have the points to get the 5th night free. The Hyatt Regency was nice, but definitely not worth the cash rate. The Hilton Millennium was probably not worth the amount of points we blew on it, but Hilton points are pretty worthless anyway. The Conrad in Seoul may have been a better option - it's hard to say, they have similar reviews. If you go to Japan, go to Arashiyama and the Iwatayama Monkey Park! Also, early May turned out to be a great time of the year to travel to Japan/Korea. Every day was in the low 70s and mostly sunny - perfect weather!
A Cliff Notes Summary of the First One Out Interviews
If you haven't had time to listen to seven hours of podcast interviews, or you didn't retain everything you heard, here are some key points. I didn't think to do this until just now, so I'll be posting it as a work in progress and updating it throughout the afternoon. That way more people will have a chance to read up before the premiere. Karishma Patel, 37, Personal Injury Trial Lawyer, Houston, TX -First generation Indian-American Her mom was as a legal assistant, and got her a filing job at her law firm when she was 14. "I didn't have other options. I was basically told I was going to be a lawyer and I didn't disagree."She has watched every season and regularly listens to RHAP. She sits close to the TV to study the inflections on people's faces when something is said to them, so that she can think about what that means. But, her parents and husband don't share her enthusiasm for the show. Asked if it's her dark pleasure she says, "It is completely bright. It is a beautiful pleasure of mine, but it is mine and mine only. I haven't been able to find people to share it with." -Doing the show has caused her conflict. "Not only is it not expected, it's not allowed. It's kind of like being a disobedient Indian girl. You're not supposed to be doing this. What you're supposed to be doing is having babies. But I don't care. I'm a risk taker. I'm here to prove to myself that I don't need to listen to anybody else. I don't need permission from anybody else. This is my journey and I'm going to take it. I hope that people watching out there can see that an Indian woman's value does not come from doing what she's told." -She doesn't currently have children, and she says she has some decisions to make as she enters a crossroads and the next stage of her life. -Her law firm told her they'll replace her if they're able to find someone, and she can have her job back if they don't. "I didn't flinch." -Her strategy is to be non-threatening and play a social game. She doesn't look 37, and she wants to use that youthfulness to be disarming. She wants to build relationships other people believe in. She defines success by other people vouching for her loyalty when they go off and have private conversations with one another. "That means I got 'em, because it's actually the other way around." Asked if she wants to find someone she can trust, "I'm not going to be capable of it. I'm too skeptical for that. I overthink things, so I'm not going to be able to trust somebody the way I want to be trusted... If I do, that's the end of my game." My take: Oh my God. Poor Karishma. Her story hurts my heart. She reminds me so much of myself in her isolation, her defiance and her deep feelings. I worry that her fear of trusting people could get in the way of her forming genuine bonds. But, there's nothing she can do. Society has made her the way she is. I hope she gets a lot of screen time so she can be a star of her favorite show. Missy Byrd, 24, Military Veteran/App Developer, Tacoma, Washington -Originally from Georgia. Her family was 'decently poor.' She played basketball for the Air Force Academy because she thought it was her ticket out. -She had a brain tumor. She stopped menstruating for a year and two quarters. "I'm not dating anyone but I have breast milk. I'm a literal cow... I would look down and my shirt would be wet, and I thought, 'Dang you're clumsy. I knew you were clumsy, but you're clumsier today than you were yesterday. But it was - it was - uhh - milk." She had crying fits. She developed a stutter and couldn't look at people. Doctors told her she was just stressed. When her dad died she couldn't process emotions normally. She was about to go to the French version of the Air Force Academy, École de l'air, after graduation but because of her mental instability she was removed from school. The military shipped her to the same Air Force base as Sandra (Fort Lewis.) "I don't want to be there. Super sad. Check into the post office - fuck this. Check into the dorms - hate that." The doctor there found the tumor. She got an MRI and all weekend she believed she might have cancer. Over the next year and a half she eliminated the tumor and the symptoms using vitamins. She enlisted and worked logistics. -She made a list of the things she wanted to do now that she was going to live. "The first thing was go see Beyonce. Beyonce costs way too much money for a normal person to go see, but if you've just almost had a near death experience you go see Beyonce, bro!" She was feet away. She drove across the country. She tried weed. -She had an idea for an app, but didn't even have the computer literacy to use social media. She found a veteran's association and asked if she could intern. "They said, 'No, you should build this out yourself. We want to work for you.' I said, 'No, the fuck you don't. Okay, lemme call my grandma.'" She wrote a grant proposal and won a $1,500 office space in the center of Seattle. "Just to do whatever I want. It was like a laboratory for a child. I had Play-Dough up there. I had a white board... Just mind blowing shit when I could have been dead." -She'd seen every episode of Survivor at least three times. She started watching because her Air Force Academy basketball team was getting decimated, and she related to Foa Foa getting decimated in Survivor: Samoa. She added the show to her list. Josh suggests, "The bugs are eating you because they want some of that magic." -She isn't going to tell people her story until she's in the Final 3. "That's that Final 3 magic." She doesn't want to overly rely on strategy. She doesn't want to win individual challenges. She to build a social game and find ways to relate to everyone. My take: She's so full of exuberance. There's not a negative bone in her body right now. She's too young and her life experience is too necessarily limited to talk around three years of her life. If she shares her story, the beauty of her perspective will cause everyone to fall in love with her and want her to do well. If she doesn't, people will sense that she's hiding a lot. I think she'll figure that out and course correct within the first day. Since she was at the same Air Force base as Sandra and she was a massive fan, does that suggest she knows her? Ronnie Bardah, 35, Professional Poker Player, Henderson, Nevada-Born and raised in Brockton, Massachusetts, 20 minutes south of Boston. They were the only Israeli family in town. 50% of the people in Brockton were from Cape Verde, and he considers himself an "honorary Cape Verdian." A couple of his friends were shot and killed at a young age. -He was a good kid and had a good heart, but he was always hustling. In Junior High he was flipping Oatmeal Cakes and Fudge Rounds for a profit. Slinging baseball cards. Both his parents gambled. They were always at the dog tracks or Mohegan Sun. He had his friend make him a fake ID and got stuck with the name Alaja Jones. He went by Al and started playing the casinos. Quit his job at Sears Automotive to play poker full time.-He played Atlantic City, Vegas, then internationally. He had his first big score in 2010 when he took 24th place in the main event for $320,000. Got to keep $150,000 after taxes. "Poker's a hard way to make an easy living. Lots of people try. We risk every day. You have to get to a point when you can manage your bankroll and I've never gone broke in the 16 years I've played." -In one of the most viewed poker hands of all time, he was bluffed out of a million dollar pot by a supermodel on a poker TV show filmed in Monaco. "She made a sick play. She had no idea what she was doing but all the stars were aligned."-He watched Borneo when it aired and got back into it when fellow poker player Anna Khait was on. He calls Jean-Robert, "kinda a lazy guy...He's really good at befriending multi-millionaires." "Anna Khait... is probably the least poker player out of all of us. She played for a couple years." "And then Garrett - He's a very, very smart, smart kid... Self-made millionaire. One of the very, very few." -He only drank water for 7.5 days and lost 25 pounds for his health and to get an idea of the conditions of the show. He thinks he'll thrive in the survival situation. "People like being around me. I like to fucking bust balls and joke." He thinks old school alliances are a good plan, but you have to adapt. He says that like in poker, Survivor players can have every advantage, but they have to really smell it. -He wants Vince out. "There's an Asian Zeke in there. What value does he bring besides ruining people and getting in people's heads? He's a liability in challenges. He looks like a little corn puff. We gotta get him outta here. Sorry to sound so mean but it's the truth." My take: Ruuuuude. He has no way of knowing how other people on the cast are talking in their interviews, and may assume the trash talk is standard. If he were playing on some seasons it would be. But, in this particular season it sets him apart in an unflattering way, and it seems a part of the tough persona he's built up to escape a scary situation growing up and enter a fantasy career. We'll see whether his tribe thinks he's a straight talking character or a jerk. Tom Laidlaw, Former NHL Player, Brampton, Ontario, Canada -He was with the New York Rangers for 7 years and the LA Kings for 4. Now he has his own podcast, True Grit Life (truegritlife.com). Does it with a friend, Kevin Allen, who writes for USA Today. Does motivational speaking. -Growing up on a dairy farm outside Toronto there was a pond to water the cows. It froze over in the winters and he'd play hockey because there wasn't much else to do. Went to Northern Michigan University - four year hockey captain, ranked #1 team in the country. Drafted as a 20 year old. "My buddy had a horse farm. We were cleaning horse shit out of the stalls. There were no cell phones back then. This is 1978. My father got a call at our farm house from the New York Rangers at the draft. Back then nobody went to the draft - it was just teams. They said I'd been drafted in the sixth round. He calls the farm house where I'm working. They bring me up. He says, 'Son, you've been drafted by the Rangers.' I said, 'Great. What do I do now?' He says, 'Finish cleaning the shit out of the stalls.'" -When he played intimidation and fighting was strategy. There were guys tougher than him, but he could fight and he could also play. Problem was, he fought a guy once, and from then on the guy wanted to fight him over and over. -Jerry Bruckheimer, big hockey fan, called the NHL and wanted to get some players on the Amazing Race. Tom had kept himself in shape, he had his passport. They ended up asking him about Survivor. He'd watched it before but not for a while. He wasn't so sure he wanted to play a game where you hurt other people, but friends helped him get his head around it. He was very impressed by Christian's toughness in the endurance challenge. To prepare for the show he studied how he reacted to different situations, how to control his heart heart, etc. He wants the mental challenge. My take: Tom really ticked me off when he spoiled a couple of outcomes of this season. That's a betrayal of the producers, his cast and the viewers. But, if that hadn't happened I would like him. He's an easy-going, charming guy. His life experiences are a bit different than anyone else who's been on the show, which is what you want. Vince Moua, 27, Admissions Counselor, Merced, CA -His family is Hmong. His parents lived in Vietnam in the destruction left by the war - dead bodies, guns, people who wanted to kill them. They went to refugee camps in Thailand. Then his dad became a Montana farm hand. He met Vince's mom in the US, but she came from the same place. -Vince is from small town Merced, California - the 209. Few people he knew went anywhere but the UC system and community college. He went to Stanford, one of only 7-10 Hmong. He realized the significance someone can bring to people from the same community. He tried to be pre-med but realized "no, not today." The issues of access he cared about came well before people got to the hospital. He ended up going with education. His mom was a teacher, "But when I was growing up she said, 'Yo, if you become a teacher Imma disown yo ass.' To all of us. But, that's always kinda been my jam." -He lived in South Korea for five years. He taught English in a town. Then in Seoul ahed worked with low and middle income students who wanted to study outside of Korea. -He's a Survivor superfan, who even mentions on his Tinder account that he plans to be on Survivor. His parents were worried about him doing TV because he's not out as gay to his extended family. He comes from a clan where his dad is the "top dog" and Vince is "the next top dog." In the Asian American/Pacific Islander community when you come out, it's your family who faces - in a sense - dishonor. For a long time he distanced himself from his family, hoping they'd all be less hurt if they found out and disowned him. He always tried to find friends who would be there for him should his parents not be. A year ago his mom asked him rhetorically if he was gay. "I was try'n to go around it. I was like, 'Gurl, you don't wanna know! Yo ass keeps asking!' But she kept asking, asking. So finally I told her 'Yeah, I am!' and she was crying. My dad was like, 'Oh, my son!'" But, Vince is fine with who he is and wants to show kids like him that "let's hope that it gets better." Now his parents just want him to win. -He'd like to play an old school strategy but "I'm not afraid to cut a bitch." With the tribe he's going to be Homeboy Vince from the 209, but when he talks to the camera he's going to tell people "Don't underestimate your narratives." This past year with Crazy Rich Asians, he wants people to know that there are some Crazy Hood Ass Asians. My take: What a character. Vince has a clear point of view - Hmong, blue collar, gay - which is unique to him in Survivor lore. Even though double minorities have sometimes had trouble fitting in socially on Survivor I think somehow he's going to pull it off. As unlikely as this sounds I could even see him being a Cochran-esque winner. Aaron Meredith, 36, Personal Trainer, Warwick, Rhode Island -He's very keyed up at Ponderosa. Rambling so fast it sounds like you're listening to 1.5x. He's read four books so far - Relentless by Tim Grover, Can't Hurt Me by Dave Goggins, Iron Cowboy by James Lawrence, Harry Potter. -He was an engineer at a building insulation plant. He was miserable, too antsy sitting at a desk. Couldn't focus. So, he drove up and down the East Coast popping kettle corn - from Maine to Florida - traveling with carnies. Bartended for a while. He'd played college football and baseball, lifted since high school, and he and his friends wanted to get "huge and jacked and ripped." The owner of the gym suggested he become a personal trainer. He ended up working mostly with middle aged women and it taught him empathy. Now he owns two women's-only fitness studios. He puts supportive women around one another and offers them the positivity to seek self-growth. -He's also a party boat emcee. Lights, DJ, bar, drinks. He's an extremely social person. -He'd first applied at 23 - 6 or 7 times over the years. He was in the mix for Cook Islands and David vs. Goliath. -He's been married 7 years and has a 5 year old son. His son is a huge fan of Survivor. Libby Vincek is his favorite player. Kara Kay was his next favorite. Aaron is already sure Molly will be his son's favorite. "He has a type. He He likes the attractive blondes. He says, 'I like them because they have a nice face.' I like mommy because she has a nice face too." The boy was very concerned about his dad going on the show. He said, "Dad, I don't want anyone to laugh at you and make fun of you." Aaron said he wanted to win. His son said, "But you might not win." When they watch the show he'll always ask, "Do they like him? Do they like her?" If Aaron is portrayed in a negative light he'll have to sit down with his son and talk. He doesn't want to play a deceitful game, but he will, because he doesn't care how he's portrayed. My take: His story about his son is one of my favorites from all these interviews. I hope he gets to work with Molly. His adrenaline is too high. I hope he calms down a lot when the game starts. But, someone so social and sweet hearted who can win challenges and take themselves to the end has got to be a contender to win. Chelsea Walker, 27, Digital Content Editor, Los Angeles, CA -Chelsea just took the cast photo and they put her in the third spot from the bottom, a good omen because a weird number of winners have been in that position. "Your girl's number three. I got this!" -She's a Jersey girl. She went to the University of Maryland. "I didn't do Survivor: Maryland or anything." She studied Broadcast Journalism. She knew the generic emails for NBC Universal and emailed random people until someone replied. Now she's been in LA a year. She did coverage of award shows. Now she works at IMDB, where she helps Kevin Smith with his show. She just interviewed people at SXSW. -She's been watching Survivor since she was 8. She's cried in every interview because this means so much to her. She's trying to explain that at the point she starts crying again. "It's been such a dream of mine and To be told no year after year after year - these past six years have been a total mindfuck. I've basically been called every single year. I've been to finals three times. Survivor is my one true love, but the one year they didn't call me I got really pissed off so I tried out for Big Brother. I ended up becoming the alternate and got my key being filmed and all of that crap. But I don't like that show anyway." -In September 2017 she was at a WeHo bar for her friend's birthday when, "Oh shit that's Jeff Probst." Her girlfriends all know she's obsessed, so she pulled the waiter over and asked what that guy was drinking. So, Chelsea sent another one over. "I told my friends, 'Take my credit card. Split the bill, because I can't come back after I do this. As soon as the waiter drops off the drink I'm like, 'Jeff, this one's on me. You can buy me the next one at finals.' And I just walked out of the restaurant... That was a big move!" They didn't call her again that year, but Jeff still remembered when they talked this year. -She's been working out at four different gyms - weights, pilates, yoga. Push ups. Memorized puzzles. Reading How to Win Friends and Influence People, which she keeps in.a Bible sleeve so people will think she's religious. She also carries Harry Potter because she would trust someone who read HP. She wants to keep it cool. Make one on one connections. Eventually find idols - and not tell anyone she has one - and make calculated moves. "I don't want to be a Jacob. No offense." My take: Hearing this girl cry from joy because she's so happy to be on the show makes me emotional. She's a real go getter. I wish I were that damn fearless. Truly, I wish I were more like her. I hope her pure zest for life comes across on TV and she doesn't get stuck with a purple edit just because of her age and gender. I also hope no one decides to get threatened by her as a competitive girl and vote her off premerge. I think she'll go far. Hope so. Dean Kowalski, 28, Account Executive, New York, New York -Referring to himself in the third person, "Dean is 28 years old. As we mentioned, he lives in New York and he prides himself on being a well rounded person when it comes to interests, abilities, personalities... If I'm listening to Drake and Lil Wayne, I gotta go home and cry to This Is Us.. I can play basketball but also think about our place in the universe." He likes to tag basketball courts with a peace symbol with a ball on it which he makes using a stencil. -He structures most of his interview with Josh around an Outwit, Outplay, Outlast format, explaining why he excels at each. -He grew up in an affluent suburb. His dream was to play in the NBA. He was 5"9 3/4, so he set his eyes on college basketball as a realistic alternative. In order to get looks from colleges he went to a school 30 minutes away - top five in the country, Nike would fly them around for games and give them free Jordan sneakers. He was one of only 4 white guys in the whole school and the only one on the team. He played with Kyrie Irving, the #1 overall draft pick. "My friend said you look like the Make a Wish Kid who just wants to be on the team for a day." He played at Colombia University, where he was co-captain his senior year despite averaging two minutes a game. He became a teacher, then did sales for a tech startup in New York. He now sells ads for Google. -He's a fan, but far from a superfan. He started watching Brenda's season. (He thinks it was Nicaragua, but it was actually Carmoan.) He works with a superfan who freaked out when they had a meeting at H&R Block with Carolyn Rivera and they went out to Bourbon Street with her. He kept watching for five years and thought he could do well. He hates when people are all talk, so he sent in a tape. For the video he interviewed random strangers on the street, who had never met him or seen the show, and asked them, "Why am I going to win it?" A barber, a construction worker. He's going to tell people he's in marketing, not sales - people have sales. My take: I'm just not that into him. Elaine Stott, 41, Factory Worker, Rockholds, NY -When Josh asks her not to touch the table she asks him, "You seen that Bart Simpson commercial, right? Don't touch my Butterfinger? I'm already hungry thinking about it." -"I had a pretty rough way to go growing up." Her single dad raised her and her three brothers. She was the youngest. "I was raised like one of the boys. Know what I mean? Daddy didn't know how to raise no little girl." He worked 16-17 hour days. The kids raised themselves. "When little children make their own decisions, they make poor ones." She was a hellion. -She's originally from Woodbine, Kentucky, Nick Wilson's hometown. Her god sister went to school with him and she knows him through the grapevine. "We rode on different sides of the track. 20 years ago he coulda been my lawyer, because I was on the other side of the law. I'm not bad. I've just done some things." Public intoxication several times. "I come from a dry county. It's like Footloose. We cross the state line to get a beer and when you come back you're in trouble." She stole a newspaper stand once and had to do community service. "I was a little bit mean." -She went to live with her grandpa and cleaned her act up, by which she means that she started smoking a little weed and playing sports - basketball, softball, track. She played softball and judo in college. "I couldn't do nothing real technical. We had Brazilians on the team who could do flying arm bars. But if I got these claws on you and got ya on the ground I'd waller you to death." In casting she put this guy Will in an armbar. She was gonna choke him but didn't know if she should. -When she graduated, her girlfriend was a college Freshman so she went to all the same parties and ballgames for four years. Then she realized she needed a job. Now she drives a Ford truck for a factory. She's been there 15 years. She works 12 hours, 7 days a week. -Growing up her mom "was always in my life in some sense. She'd never miss a birthday. She'd be homeless, but she'd still call." Elaine and her brothers bought her cars, and places to live, and got her jobs. "In a sense I've been mourning the loss of my mom my whole life." Once Elaine was homeless herself and there was snow on the ground. It was cold, and her teacher took her in. Gave her Christmas presents. Made her go to prom. Survivor was a thing they shared, and the teacher was gonna be Elaine's loved one. But within a one year period the woman lost her daughter, her husband, her dog and then had a stroke. Now "she walks like Frankenstein" and can't go. Elaine got Probst to talk to her, and she can't wait to watch. In October Elaine's biological mom went into a coma. She was on life support, but Elaine wouldn't unplug her. Her mom came out of it and seemed to be doing a lot better only to die very suddenly of a heart attack. -Her girlfriend and her girlfriend's two sons are gonna be watching. The 18 year old doesn't know because he can't keep a secret. The 13 year old helped her lose 20 pounds doing crossfit to come out here. She wants the money, but she really wants "some of that soul searching, that life adventure, that life changing - some of that. You know what I mean? Gimme some of that soup! Lemme eat some of that up! I want this show to build me up, because I feel like it can. I sure hope to hell it don't tear me down." My take: About 12 sobbing emojis in a row. She's my favorite. If she gets voted out premerge I'm going to go into mourning. And how can you not sort of expect that? I am going to be so upset if they just dismiss her because she's older and looks out of shape and sounds country. If that happens, I want another Second Chance season next year. Elizabeth Biesel, 26, Olympic swimmer, South Kingstown, Rhode Island -Josh says that Elizabeth was outright identified by one of the other contestants because they'd been watching YouTube videos about how to be a better swimmer. Others guessed she was an Olympian based on her rings tattoo. -She's from the Ocean State. They lived a block away from the beach, so they wanted her to take swimming lessons. She was a rambunctious child and swimming was the only way they could calm her energy. She started breaking records when she was 7 or 8. When she was 13 she made her first national team. At 15 she went to the Olympics. She got good early. Women peak around 22-23, and she ended her career at 24. You couldn't make much money doing it. She swam one of the longer, more grueling races, and her body said "no more." She listened to her body and retired. Some athletes lose their love for swimming because they're embittered by losing by 1/100th of a second, or they leave injured. She left on a good note. Still, if she could swim competitively for the rest of her life, she would. Now she doesn't know who she is or what she's going to do with the rest of her life. Every hour of the day used to have a purpose. Now her days are wide open. She can't keep eating 5,000 calories a day. "It's sort of like I'm mourning the death of Elizabeth Biesel the swimmer." -She was a Survivor fan as a kid because Richard Hatch was from Rhode Island. In her area "Every single household that had a television set was watching Survivor." When they asked her if she'd do the show, she felt pure joy. She said absolutely right away. She's excited about the competition of Survivor. No heated Olympic pools. You're stripped down to your core. She's amazed by the scope of the production apparatus. She's not a schemer. She wants to be a challenge beast - not the best woman but the best overall. She'd love to have a Wendell and Dom relationship with another woman. But, she wants to avoid the drama as long as she can. My take: Could Chelsea be Wendell to her Dom? She's so wholesome. She's just so "Olympics." I love her and everything she represents. I'd love to see her rocket through the swimming competitions, lapping everyone else. Go Elizabeth.
I used the leaked Steam data to compile a list of VR games and owners. The name links to the respective Steam store page.
Keep in mind, data was only leaked for games with achievements. This list was largely automated and only includes pure VR games (Games with a "VR headset required" notice on the store page). If you notice one missing, let me know and I'll add it.
Updates
July 7, 14:57 UTC Added Space Pirate Trainer and Fallout 4 VR.
July 7, 15:03 UTC Added The Gallery - Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone
July 7, 16:25 UTC Added Sprint Vector
July 8, 03:11 UTC Added Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades
B-Bets Casino - First Deposit Bonus. Wager. €320. Play Now. Bonus Calculator. 100%. Compare the best casino bonuses and free spins. Gamble Responsibly BeGambleAware.org. June 24, 2019. Friendly staff to help u chk in and in lobby area. Free shuttle to Seoul Train Stn n Itewon shopping. Free WiFi average quality. 7star Casino in the basement. Afew restaurants oppt the hotel if u wish to go out for meals. Best Casino Hotels in Seoul on Tripadvisor: Find 7,469 traveller reviews, 6,785 candid photos, and prices for 7 casino hotels in Seoul, South Korea. Largest Casinos in Seoul. The largest casino in Seoul, South Korea according to gaming machines and table games put together, is Paradise Casino Walker Hill. The Paradise Casino Walker Hill total casino square footage is 41,000 square feet. It has 140 gaming machines and 89 tables games. You will also find 10 restaurants. Beste Seoul Casino-Hotels: Auf Tripadvisor finden Sie 7 484 Bewertungen von Reisenden, 6.807 authentische Reisefotos und Top-Angebote für 7 Seoul casino-hotels. As luck would have it, you’ll find Seven Luck Casino Millennium Seoul Hilton Branch, Seven Luck Casino Seoul Gangnam Branch, and Paradise Casino Walkerhill here, plus much more to see and do. Tourists speak highly of the local cuisine, abundant cafés, and shopping. You might want to visit top attractions like Myeongdong Street and Seoul City Hall. Kasinos in Seoul: Schauen Sie sich Bewertungen und Fotos von 5 Kasinos & Glücksspiel-Sehenswürdigkeiten in Seoul, Südkorea auf Tripadvisor an. On this page, you will find a list of top casino sites in New Zealand that has been tested for security, fairness, and overall experience. Here, you will get all the important details that you […] read more . Bonuses 05-02-2021. The 10 Best Real Money Online Casinos Canada 2021. Seoul; Casino Resorts & Hotels in Gangnam Current page Casino Resorts & Hotels in Gangnam; South Korea may have travel restrictions in place, Top Gangnam Casino Resorts & Hotels. InterContinental Seoul COEX. 5 out of 5. 524, Bongeunsa-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Seoul. Free Cancellation. The price is $112 per night $112. This Hotel and Casino is by far the best we stayed at on our visit to Seoul. The hotel is amazing and massive. The staff were lovely and the rooms were perfect. This place is like its own city with many things to see and do all in one place. We loved it. Thank You
Top 10 Biggest Casinos in the World 2015 - YouTube
Nightlife in Seoul (Foreigner ... 9:44. Our First Time At SYCUAN CASINO & BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!!! Love Stacks and More More Hearts Big Wins - Duration: 17:34. SC Slots Recommended for you. 17:34. Top ... #SeoulSouthKorea #Top10PlacesToVisit #GyeongbokgungPalace #NSeoulTower #MyeongDong #BukchonHanokVillage #LotteWorld #Changdeokgung. Check out my Seoul travel guide and tips at this link: http://migrationology.com/2012/05/seoul-travel-guide/ - All my personal Seoul travel tips and suggesti... Whatever your purpose of visit, Hotel Peyto Samseong is an excellent choice for your stay in Seoul. #HotelPeytoSamseong , #HotelKDM , #hotel , #accommodation , #motel , #review , #discount Category Top 10 Biggest Casinos in the World 20151.The Venetian Macao (Macau, China)2.City of Dreams Casino (Macau, China)3.Foxwoods Resorts Casino (Ledyard, Connecti... If you are heading to Seoul in South Korea you can stay a night in one of the tallest hotels in the world. This is our experience staying at the Signiel Seou... Top Gun online slot game. Heavy rain and thunder sounds- black screen, dark screen, relaxing, relax, sleep, white noise, study - Duration: 10:00:01. Relaxing of sounds Recommended for you Here are the top 10 most protected people in the world. From tech billionaires, to world leaders.Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TopTrendingFol... Here are the top 10 most expensive private jets.Twitter: https://twitter.com/MrLuxuryBrandInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/MrLuxuryBrandFacebook: https:/... Seoul CASINO Tour JULY 2017 - Duration: 11:01. Take ... Slot Challenge Rematch & 10K Sub Celebration *High Limit* TripDlb 💎 Dlb Top Dollar& Jackpot Handpay - Duration: 13:10 . OldSchoolSlots ...
