Europe Trip Part 1: My London Visit

Two weeks ago, I traveled to Europe for the very first time. And as promised – I’m blogging about my adventure/experiences. This trip is a work trip and traveled with my boss Dona Sarkar.

WARNING: Lots of photos below! 

Traveling to London

Prior to going to London, the longest (single) flight I have ever been on was about 7 hours. The non-stop flight from Seattle to London was about 9 hours. So this was the longest flight I’ve ever been on. I checked a bag at the airport and in doing so – they verified my passport and printed me a boarding pass with that verification. This saved me a step at the gate. (I’m told the verification would also show up on the digital boarding pass in the airline app too.) The flight left Seattle at 5:30 and arrive in London at 11:30ish local London time. I  liked flying at night. It allowed me to decompress and then try and sleep a bit. I ended up finally watching a few episodes of the new Titans series from the new DC Universe service from DCComics and then took a nap. But flying like this also meant that Saturday and Sunday sort of merged together in what felt like a single day. That was a new experience for me so I was very tired when I arrived in London.

Tech I traveled with

For my trip, I took my new SurfaceLaptop 2, iPhone XS Max (on T-Mobile with international data roaming), Apple Watch (4th generation), iPadMini, and my Sonya6000 digital camera.

Why the iPad Mini? I use the iPad Mini as my reading device. Mainly – digital comic books. This last year, I switched to reading all my favorite comic books digitally via Comixology. The iPad Mini is perfect for this. In addition to that, I also use it to read books in Microsoft Edge thatI’ve purchased from the Microsoft Store and watch videos I downloaded for offline playback from Netflix and the DC Universe app.

Arriving in London

Arriving in London felt pretty normal at first. However, the process of going through customs was a new experience for me. You get off the plane like you normally do and then head toward baggage claim like you normally do (if you checked a bag) but in order to leave the gate area – you have to go through customs. To go through customs, I had to fill out a little form for the UK and declare anything that needed to be declared and explain why I’m visiting the country. Everything checked out so I got my very first stamp in my passport!

We stayed at the Paddington area of London (as in Paddington Bear). To get there from Heathrow, we took the small train that went from the airport directly to Paddington Station called “Heathrow Express”. When we arrived at Paddington Station, I was completely in awe over the train station. It was buzzing people, trains, and vendors and had so much energy. I had never seen a train station like this before. I absolutely loved it![

Paddington Station. 
Another view of Paddington Station. 

As I passed one of the vendors, I noticed they had Dr. Pepper! (In case you didn’t already know – Dr. Pepper is my favorite drink.) I didn’t expect to see any so naturally, I bought one. What does European Dr. Pepper taste like? Well… it doesn’t take like U.S. Dr. Pepper. It seems in Europe, they use different artificial sweetener sand use aspartame. So it tastes very different than what I was used to in the U.S. and I wasn’t a fan. I stuck to coffee.

Seeing London

Even though it’s a work trip, I wanted to make sure I was able to step away and do some sightseeing while I was here. I had 3 days in between work to see what I could see.

Day 1: Day 1 in London was pretty much a half-day due to travel. We arrived in the early afternoon from Seattle and I had to wait for my hotel room to be ready so I went out and explored a little on my own. I had a lot of fun seeing the double-decker buses and English taxis in person. For the first night in London, I went to my very first British pub for dinner where I had a cheese toastie which is like a grilled cheese sandwich and a delicious cider! I also tried a little bit of a meat pie too. It was all very good.

View of just outside Paddington Station with double-decker bus! 
A London cab. 
My first English pub – Fountains Abbey Paddington.

Day 2: This was basically a work day. But I took my very first *real* train ride from Paddington to the Microsoft office in Reading. It was about a 40 minutes ride. I remain so very impressed with the train stations and overall infrastructure in the UK. I’m sure for those who take these trains every day, it’s not always sunshine and rainbows. But I’ve been trying to get on a train in the U.S. for years and every time I do, the train is delayed significantly and they end up putting me on a bus (this has happened three times to me).

Riding the train to Reading. 
Train station at Reading.

Day 3: We had to work in the morning. We didn’t have to go back to the Microsoft office in Reading. Instead, we headed around the corner from Paddington to a hotel. For lunch, I tried Lebanese food for the very first time – it was delicious. After lunch, I was fascinated by some of the river boats we passed by that were actually restuarants. 

Having some delicious Lebanese food.
The river boats behind me are restaurants! 

After lunch, we took the Tube (London’s underground transit system) to Piccadilly Circus in London’s West End. I found that Piccadilly Circus felt a lot likeTimes Square in New York City. There were lots of stores, theaters and even casinos – and lots of people. We stopped by TWGTea where I saw more tea in a single place than I ever have in my entire life.

Piccadilly Circus. 
More of Piccadilly Circus.
Lots of tea inside TWGTea!
The Hippodrome Casino.

As we continued to explore the Piccadilly Circus area, little did we know that on this day was the U.K. premiere of the new Fantastic Beasts movie so a bunch of the area was blocked off for the film’s stars to arrive and walk the “blue carpet” (instead of “red carpet”).

The blue carpet U.K. premiere of the new Fantastic Beasts movie. 
After getting in trouble for standing on the blue carpet. 

We circled back and walked through London’s Chinatown where they had amazing lanterns hanging across the road.

London’s Chinatown. 

 After Piccadilly Circus, I wanted to see Buckingham Palace so we decided to walk. Originally, I wanted to see Big Ben but the building is under tarps for renovation. On our way to Buckingham Palace, we dropped by Trafalgar Square which was beautiful! Trafalgar Square includes Nelson’s Column which stands in front of the National Gallery.

The National Gallery.
Trafalgar Square.
Waterloo Place.

It was stunning to see Buckingham Palace in person. This is where the members of the British Royal Family such as the Queen live. The building started off as a townhouse built in 1703. Sotechnically, the building is older than pretty much all of the U.S. governmentbuildings in Washington D.C. including the White House.

Buckingham Palace.
The Queen’s Guards.

And finally, to end the evening of playing tourist – we visited Abbey Road Studios. Abbey Road Studios is where many famous bands and musicians have recorded music. Including my favorite band The Beatles. It was so surreal to be at the location where so much amazing music was recorded by The Beatles. Because it’s a working studio still – you can’t go inside. But their giftshop was amazing! 

Abbey Road Studios. These are the stairs where The Beatles took photos on for several albums.
The Abbey Road Shop sign with all kinds of hand-written notes. 
Close-up shot of some of the hand-written notes on the Abbey Road Shop sign. 

What’s next?

In part 2 of my Europe Trip, I head over to Munich, Germany! Stay tuned for that post soon. 

Cheers! 

My first trip to Europe

This Saturday, I leave for my very first trip to Europe! I am very excited about this trip. I’ll be getting to see London in the UK which I’ve always wanted to do and then also visiting Munich, Germany. It’s a work trip but I’m going to try and squeeze in some sightseeing! (If my boss lets me of course.) 

If you’re in London on November 11th, Windows Insider MVP Michael Gillett is putting on a small meet-up I’ll be attending. Stop by and say hello! 

We’re looking to do a meet-up in Munich as well but don’t have the details yet. Details for the Munich meet-up which is being put on by Insider MVP Raphael Koellner are included below! 

I’ll be blogging about my experiences as I travel next week! 

The Tale of 2 Niners Caps

20 years ago*, the episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine called “Take Me Out to the Holosuite” aired on TV. In the episode, Captain Sisko is challenged by Captain Solok, an old Vulcan rival from Starfleet Academy, to a game of baseball in the space station’s holosuite. Captain Sisko is a HUGE baseballl fan and refuses to be beaten by Solok and has to train his crew to play baseball. TrekCore did a great article looking back at the episode which I highly recommend reading. But in the episode, Sisko and his crew call their team the “Niners” based after the name of the station and wore baseball uniforms and caps with the following logo on them: 

“Niners” Baseball Team Logo
Captain Sisko wearing his “Niners” cap.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – the official Star Trek Shop has a bunch of new merchandise including a baseball cap with the “Niners” patch on it. Excited by this – I bought one. Then ANOVOS announced at San Diego Comic Con this summer they were also doing “Niners” gear to celebrate the DS9 annniversary – also including a baseball cap. So I bought one from ANOVOS too. 

The two Niners hats side-by-side. Cap from the Star Trek Shop on the left, Cap from ANOVOS on the right. 

TL;DR – the ANOVOS Niners cap is a thousand times better than the official Star Trek Store cap. First issue: the bottom of the bill is green while the bottom of the bill for the cap used in the episode was grey. ANOVOS got it right. Second issue: the patch style of the Niners logo doesn’t match on the cap from the Star Trek Shop while on the ANOVOS cap it matches perfectly with what was seen in the episode. Third issue: the overall quality of the official Star Trek Shop cap is really low while ANOVOS is of high quality. The ANOVOS cap is essentially a exact replica of the one caps used in the actual episode. 

I call the issue of the 2 Niners caps out for a couple of reason. The first is I continue to be extremely disappointed at CBS for the quality of merchandise in the official Star Trek Shop. Marvel or Star Wars don’t seem to have this problem. In my view, the lack of quality of merchandise CBS puts in their official Star Trek Shop reflects a lack of respect for the fans on their part. Instead of selling a cheap Niners cap in their store why aren’t they selling the ANOVOS version? The second reason I call this out is because I think the work ANOVOS does on their products is AMAZING. And I thank CBS for continuing to allow ANOVOS to produce amazing Star Trek products. 

Want your own Niners cap? I highly recommend the ANOVOS version which is currently in stock here. In addition to the cap, ANOVOS also has Niner baseball jerseys for pre-order! 

10 years ago I was interviewing for a job at Microsoft

10 years ago today I was celebrating my 25th birthday. I was also on the Microsoft campus here in Redmond interviewing for a full-time position to run the company’s Windows blog as a Communications Manager on the Windows PR Team. This was my dream job. I completed my interview loop shortly after lunch (I was interviewed by 3 very awesome people).  By mid-afternoon – I got the call from my recruiter that I got the job and outlined my offer. I accepted on the spot. I didn’t care about how much I would be making or whether they would pay for relocation since I was living in Oregon at the time. I had been telling people I wanted to work for Microsoft since the 4th grade. And this was the moment I achieved that. The above picture is the visitor pass I wore when I went through the interview loop 10 years ago. I framed it and have kept it here in my office. It reminds me of how lucky I am to be working at Microsoft today. I literally STILL have my dream job! 

My official start-date was on November 3rd, 2008. So much has happened in the last 10 years. I’m planning to do a follow-up blog post highlighting my most favorite experiences working at Microsoft to-date that I hope to publish on November 3rd to celebrate my official 10 years at Microsoft. 

REVIEW: McFarlane’s Captain Picard action-figure misses the mark

McFarlane Toys is kicking off a new series of 7-inch Star Trek action-figures starting with Captain Kirk and Captain Picard. These figures just hit stores and my figures arrived today. I collected all of Diamond Select’s Star Trek figures previously (and loved them) so I was naturally curious about what McFarlane’s versions would be like.

I’m going to cut to the chase: their Captain Kirk figure is amazing. So I’m not really going to talk about that figure much. But they really missed the ball on their Captain Picard figure. Details matter on figures I collect and they got a bunch of the details wrong which really disappointed me.

Close-up of McFarlane’s Picard figure.

You can see that they didn’t do a good job getting Picard’s eyes quite right. The rest of his face seems quite a match. It’s his eyes that bug me. But my biggest problem is with the uniform they used for their Picard figure. During the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, they transitioned away from using the form-fitting one-piece uniforms seen in Season 1 and 2 and went with a two piece uniform which consisted of pants and shirt that unzipped in the back for all the male cast members (and other male supporting characters like Lt. Barclay). But during that transition, Picard’s uniform was a bit off during the first few episodes of the third season. You had these two seams that ran down the middle of his uniform shirt.

Captain Picard as seen in the first episode of Season 3. Notice the two seams?

This weird uniform style for Picard was seen until the 6th episode of the third season called “Booby Trap”. In that episode – Picard has the uniform shirt that he will have for the remainder of the series.

Captain Picard as seen from the 6th episode of the third season called “Booby Trap”. Notice no seams?

So why did McFarlane Toys choose to model their Picard figure in a uniform style that was used in only 5 episodes of the third season rather than the more familiar uniform style he’s most recognizable in for the series?

Back of the Picard figure.

The other issue is the back of the Picard figure is also not right. It includes no zipper seam going down the middle and the lines are not right.

The quality of these figures is great but its the detail that is lacking and as a collector, details really matter to me. The next two figures in the new McFarlane Toys Star Trek 7-inch action-figures series is Michael Burnham from Star Trek: Discovery and Spock from the Original Series. I’ll definitely be picking them up but I really do hope they pay special attention to getting the details right.

Crafting my story and building my personal brand

Spin Your Tale

This month, I did a small “reboot” of my blog here in an effort to redefine my personal brand. People know “Brandon LeBlanc” as the guy who works on the Windows Insider Program at Microsoft that also used to run the Windows Blog. A large part of my personal brand is tied to Microsoft – which is ok because I’m more than happy to admit I’m a self-professed Microsoft fanboy. But there’s more to “Brandon LeBlanc” than just Microsoft. I also care about other things – ranging from what Ford is doing with their car line-up to the in-development new Batman movie to the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies as just some examples. I also care about equality in the workplace and space exploration. This is where I can talk about all that stuff. This is where I can craft MY STORY and be in control of driving my personal brand.

What really motivated me to do this little reboot of my personal brand through my blog was my manager Dona Sarkar. She has a huge passion for helping others develop their own personal brand in addition to putting a lot of effort into maintaining her own – independently of her job as the leader of the Windows Insider Program. Matter a fact – Dona just recently released a brand new book called Spin Your Tale which talks about how you can craft and control your story which is the thing that leads to your brand. I highly recommend buying her book.

Get busy crafting your story and building your personal brand. And watch me craft and build my own!

Latest details on upcoming Batman movie

News broke today that Star Wars star Oscar Issac is in talks for a role in the new Batman movie – possibly as the film’s villain. If this turns out to be true, I’m all for this as I believe he’s a fine actor and could be a pretty good Batman villain. But which villain? That’s the mystery.

To catch folks up to speed – Warner Bros. is currently developing a new Batman movie, tentatively called “The Batman”, with director/writer Matt Reeves signed on. Reeves previously directed the last two “Planet of the Apes” movies and “Cloverfield”. He’s been hard at work on finishing the script for the movie.

I was surprised at some of the sloppy reporting seen in many of the news articles that hit the web with the Oscar Issac news. For example – many of the articles are reporting that Matt Reeves’ Batman movie would be (loosely) based on Frank Miller’s “Batman: Year One”. No – it’s not. Many of the articles also state this is the beginning of a standalone trilogy that would stand separately from the already existing DC Universe movies such as Man of Steel, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Wonder Woman, and Justice League. No – it’s not. It’s not hard to go out and do a little fact-checking on what’s been said by the movie’s director/writer.

Here is what we currently know about Matt Reeves’ “The Batman”:

  • It won’t be a origin story. This is the direction Matt says his Batman movie will take: “We’re doing a story that is definitively Batman though, and trying to tell a story that’s emotional and yet is really about him being the world’s greatest detective and all the things that for me, since I was a kid, made me love Batman.”
  • It will be a story that is all about Batman. Matt wants to avoid having the movie filled with cameos servicing other stories.
  • It will be part of the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) of movies. However, that doesn’t mean the movie won’t take place in the “early days” of Batman and feature a younger Batman than what we saw in Justice League.
  • Ben Affleck is still involved – per Matt Reeves.  In which capacity he’s involved remains unknown. Even if Matt goes for a younger Batman for his movie, Ben’s involvement could be at the Executive Producer level. Or perhaps the movie starts with Ben’s Batman telling the story of an earlier adventure.
  • Production looking to begin late spring, early summer 2019. But it’s all depending on the script.

I am a huge Batman fan  – of both the movies and comics. I am really looking forward to seeing what Matt Reeves has in store for the Dark Knight. And I’m also a fan of Ben Affleck as Batman. He fits the version of Batman seen in the comics. I think we haven’t had a chance to see him truly *be* Batman yet on the big screen  and hopefully we get that chance. (There’s been some good scenes but I don’t think the storylines in Batman V Superman and Justice League really gave both actor and character “justice” – pardon the pun.)

I suggest following Matt Reeves on Twitter to stay updated on the latest going on with “The Batman”.

The “Way of the Warrior” Star Trek Mission Crate

UPDATED on 8/20 to include tweet from Loot Crate on their new Shipping Status page. 

Subscription boxes have become popular with different fandoms over the last few years led by Loot Crate and others like Funko. These subscription boxes usually come every 1 to 2 months with a bunch of nerdy exclusives and other goodies based on a theme. I had been a subscriber for Loot Crate’s main subscription boxes – or “crates” – but canceled my subscription because I was finding the contents and themes for the crates hit or miss. Then late last year, Loot Crate announced they would be doing Star Trek subscription boxes. As you can imagine, I jumped on board immediately and bought a subscription for their Star Trek Mission Crates. How could I turn down getting a subscription box filled with Star Trek exclusives in partnership with Quantum Mechanix every 2 months?

Their first Star Trek Mission Crate subscription box was “Wolf 359” themed. It shipped in January in a box that looked like a shuttlecraft from the Original Series. Inside, it came with an exclusive “Locutus” limited edition statue from QMx and some other goodies. I didn’t blog about it here but this post here does a really good review of the box. 

Today I received the second Star Trek Mission Crate subscription box which is “Way of the Warrior” themed. “Way of the Warrior” was the title of the 2 part episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that saw Michael Dorn join the cast as Worf after war breaks out with the Klingon Empire. (Despite taking the theme from DS9, I had a little giggle when I noticed the box was labeled as “The Next Generation”.)

Opening the box revealed all the goodies!
Klingon socks, badge, and sticker with Mirror Universe tribble and Worf!
Worf looks pretty badass!

The box included:

  • A Worf “Master Series” Limited Edition Statue from QMx.
  • A Mirror Universe Tribble from QMx. 
  • A pair of Klingon socks.
  • A Klingon emblem badge from QMx.
  • A Klingon sticker. 
  • A Star Trek: Discovery Lapel Pin. 

Everything is this subscription box was awesome. I believe the Discovery lapel pin was handed out at the 2018 Office Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas earlier this month and since I couldn’t attend – I was glad to score one through this way! I have no complaints about the box. This Star Trek fan is impressed.

However, I do have a general complaint about my overall experience with the Star Trek Mission Crate subscription. I feel like Loot Crate is struggling a bit to fulfill the promise of shipping these boxes every 2-months. The second Star Trek Mission Crate subscription box was supposed to arrive in March. And it was supposed to be “Dark Frontier” themed after the 2-part Star Trek: Voyager episode “Dark Frontier” and feature Seven of Nine in some fashion. In May, I received an email saying this box was delayed and was expected to ship mid-July. That’s the last thing I heard about that box. Then in early July, I received an email saying that the “Way of the Warrior” box was delayed until late July. No word on what happened with the “Dark Frontier” box. Then on July 31st, I got another email saying the “War of the Warrior” box was delayed again to mid-August. The box finally arrived but still no word on the “Dark Frontier” box. It has been almost 7 months between boxes. I really want to see Loot Crate be more transparent about what’s going on with these boxes, which boxes are supposed to ship when etc. 

Overall though, I’ve been very impressed with the 2 Star Trek Mission Crates I’ve received so far and really excited for more!

UPDATED: Loot Crate responded to my tweet about this blog post alerting me to their new Shipping Status page. It just launched. 

Chris Pine walks away from Star Trek 4

A follow-up to 2016’s Star Trek Beyond is in development at Paramount with S. J. Clarkson on board to direct. “Star Trek 4” will be the 4th in the series of new Star Trek movies that began with 2009’s Star Trek directed by JJ Abrams. However, the new movie may be in trouble as both Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth have reportedly walked away after negotiations have stalled over money according to the Hollywood Reporter. Pine would have returned to the iconic role of Captain Kirk while Hemsworth would be returning to play Captain Kirk’s dad George Kirk which was announced in 2016 just after Star Trek Beyond his theaters.

Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk from Star Trek Beyond.
Chris Hemsworth as Lt. Cmdr. George Kirk from Star Trek (2009).

In 2009’s Star Trek movie – George Kirk was the first officer aboard the U.S.S. Kelvin as it was attacked by Nero who’s ship was thrown back in time. This resulted in the creation of the Kelvin Timeline. George Kirk died as he collided the U.S.S. Kelvin into Nero’s ship (the Narada) in order to help the crew of the Kelvin (including his wife and newborn son James T. Kirk) escape. 

When Chris Pine signed on to play Kirk in Star Trek Beyond, he also signed on for Star Trek 4 with the deal locking in how much he would get paid for Star Trek 4. From what I gather from the Hollywood Reporter article – it seems that Paramount wants to re-negotiate that deal after Star Trek Beyond didn’t do as well as they were hoping at the box office. 

According to IMDB, Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond nearly had the same budget but Star Trek Into Darkness grossed $467 million worldwide while Star Trek Beyond grossed $343 million worldwide. I think Paramount was hoping Star Trek Beyond would do as well or better than Into Darkness. It seems Paramount’s expectations for Star Trek movies is that they will earn an estimated $400 million at the box office and that Star Trek isn’t at the same level as Marvel or Star Wars movies. As a result, they are looking to find ways to maximize their profit off these movies by (probably) lowering the budget and asking their lead actor to take a pay cut. 

I think this is a cheap thing for Paramount to do. If they want to make a 4th Star Trek movie, having Chris Pine as Captain Kirk is absolutely critical to the movie being even remotely successful. He’s a damn good Kirk and people recognize that. His appearances in major hit movies like Wonder Woman will also help. He’s *worth it*. In looking at things to cut from the budget, Chris’s pay (which was agreed on in a deal signed 2 years ago) should be one of the last things to try and cut.

I’m assuming a deal was signed with Chris Hemsworth when they announced he was returning to play Kirk’s dad in 2016. However, he’s not critical. Paramount can adjust the story if they don’t want to pay the big bucks for Hemsworth. Or they can go with a completely different story altogether. Take the time to develop a good story with the budget you’re willing to go with. There’s no sense in rushing a new Star Trek movie. 

But one thing is clear to this Star Trek fan: Paramount – you don’t have a Star Trek 4 without Chris Pine.


Frustrating online dating experience

I’ve been divorced for about 2 years now and I’ve dated a few people since the divorce was finalized. My last relationship was awesome but I called it off as I wasn’t quite feeling the connection on my end due to some things I needed to figure out on my own. So I took some time off from trying to date to figure that out. This was a few months ago. Recently, I’ve jumped back onto the dating apps – primarily Bumble and Tinder to casually look at meeting new people. I’m an introvert. And there’s the so-called “Seattle Freeze”. So it’s a bit difficult for me to meet women. The dating apps help with that. So that’s really my dating life in a nutshell. I don’t normally write about my dating life but wanted to vent. Who knows if I will actually post this (Update – I did.).

Up until two days ago, I had been messaging back and forth with a woman I connected with from Bumble. We hit it off (or it appeared we did at the time) and decided to move from messaging via the Bumble app to texting each other after exchanging phone numbers. We texted each other all day one day asking lots of questions and in general getting to know each other more. We even exchanged Instagram accounts which gives more insight into the kind of person I was. She even followed me and gave me permission to follower her (her Instagram account was locked down). I was going on vacation to Arizona but told her I wanted to meet up when I got back and she also wanted to meet up. The very next day – things were completely different. Texts were short and pointed. It felt like I was getting the cold shoulder. I asked if anything was wrong and she told me she was just at work. So naturally, I left her alone since she was at work. We had texted while she was at work the day before. But I still wanted to be respectful. Another day passed and I texted “Happy Friday” since it was Friday but I heard nothing back from her. I hesitated to reach out as I didn’t want to seem too clingy. I opened up the Bumble app and noticed she un-matched us. Then I noticed she un-followed my Instagram account. I still had permission to see her Instagram though. Things felt weird. So I texted her and asked if we were still on the same page about getting to know each other. She finally responded with a “not interested” message. I thanked her for her response but I am pretty sure I was blocked by then and she removed me from her Instagram. So that was that.

I totally get that in the process of exchanging messages with people, things can result in someone changing their mind about whether or not a match on a dating app is actually a good match. That’s kind of how the process works before you end up meeting in real life. But I’m frustrated with how things went down here.

First,  things went from seemingly really good to not good at all overnight with no explanation. I read and re-read my messages to try and figure out if I said anything wrong and nothing stood out. So I was really confused.

Second, it appeared that she never really intended to text me back that she had changed her mind and was no longer interested. She un-followed my Instagram and un-matched us on Bumble. It was only when I texted her asking point-blank if we were on the same page that she responded. She was just going to disappear – or “ghost” me.

Oh well. I’m frustrated but I wish her well. I just think I deserved more of an explanation.