A Day of Travelling

Haysi still has no power. So, I left my cousin Misti's on the 27th and went to Tazewell to stay with my friend Joni and her family. We got up early on the 28th and got all of our stuff ready for our trip to England. We left around noon and met my friend Cody and his friends in Bluefield to eat lunch. It was a good time.

We drove straight to Washington, DC where we stayed with my good friend Jordan for the night. He is a volunteer with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and I'm pretty sure I have mentioned him in previous posts. It was good to catch up with him.

We woke up yesterday morning and got ready. We went to Gravelly Point, a park in DC, to watch a few airplanes take off. It is one of the best places in America to watch planes take off because they do it right over your head! The park is literally right at the end of the parkway! After figuring out that it was too cold to watch planes, we headed south of Washington, DC into Maryland to visit my grandpa for a little while. We stayed with him for about an hour then headed back into the city to pick up Jordan.

STORY: On the way to pick up Jordan, I was attempting to find a set of spare keys in my center console. Not paying attention to what I was doing, I ended up rear-ending a lady. It did nothing at all to either of our cars and she was extremely nice about it.

We picked up Jordan then we were off to the airport. I agreed to let Jordan borrow my car while I am in England so he could visit some friends, so he took us to the airport and dropped us off. We said our good-byes and headed inside. Jordan used his lunch break to drop us off and we were at the airport at 12:45...our flight didn't leave until 6:15! So, we had around 5 hours to spare. The British Airways counter didn't open until 3PM so we just sat around and read for a while before we checked in. We then dropped our bags, got our tickets, went through security, grabbed our lunch, and arrived at our gate.

STORY: Around 5:15, the sunset was beautiful. So, I decided I was going to take some pictures of the sunset from our gate. Security is really tight because of the incident that happened last week with the Northwest Airlines flight in Detroit. I was standing near the window taking pictures of the sunset and a TSA agent came up to me and this is how the conversation progressed:

(Zach is zooming in on the sunset with a happy face)
TSA Agent: Sir, what are you taking pictures of?
Zach: The sunset.
TSA Agent: Are you sure you're taking pictures of ONLY the sunset?
Zach: Yeah.
TSA Agent: ONLY the sun?
Zach: Um, yea. Would you like to see the picture?
TSA Agent: Actually, I would.
(Zach shows him the picture and comments on how the sunset is beautiful.)
TSA Agent: And you're sure you were photographing only the sun?
Zach: Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
TSA Agent: Thank you.
(Zach walks away laughing.)

We boarded the plane. British Airways was amazing! Me and Joni made friends with the girl who sat beside us so we talked to her for a while. About an hour and a half into the flight, I took a Xanax my cousin gave me to sleep. Needless to say, I feel asleep and slept until we were descending into London! It was great.

We arrived at the airport, went through customs, our friend Eddie picked us up, and we headed north to the village of Raunds where his sister lives. It is a neat little place! We slept from about 9 this morning to 2 this afternoon then woke up and explored the village some. So far, it's great.

Tomorrow, we're headed to London for New Years! I will update again soon.

Until next time, Zach will leave it at that.

A Good Song

This song is at the top of my playlist right now.

From the Desert to Disaster

Yes, it's been a few days. I've led a rather hectic life since December 12th. I finished up with all my exams and ended up with a 3.5 GPA for the semester. I was satisfied with that.

I left Emory on December 15th and headed towards Charlotte. That night, I met up with my friend Annelise who went to the same Spanish school as me in Ecuador. We went to McAdenville (Christmastown USA) and then we went to the airport overlook at the Charlotte Airport and watched some planes take off and land. It was great to hang out with her.

I got up at 5:00 on the 16th and headed to the airport for my trip to Tucson. The plane rides were good. I like to sit beside people who I can talk to and learn things from (refer back to my entry about learning from strangers), but I was not lucky enough to sit beside another social person during my flights...so I sat there in silence.

Colton picked me up from the airport and we had an awesome 5 days. We did some hiking, his brother Lance took us jeeping, we hung out in some book stores, ate some good food, had some good talks, and it was great. Here are some pictures:

I had a very, very interesting flight back. First off, my flight was like a flight to a retirement home. Tucson is the Florida of the west. All the old people go to Tucson in the winter because it is the warmest place in the west. Anyways, on the way back I flew into Minneapolis. I ate dinner and got to my gate a few minutes early. My flight to Charlotte was delayed 40 minutes so I just sat around and people watched. And then came the big moment...the gate agent said they had overbooked and wanted to know if any volunteers had flexible travel plans. I basically sprinted to the counter because I knew if I gave up my seat there would be great incentives. Well, there was. I got:

• A one night stay in a Hilton in Minneapolis
• Free dinner and free breakfast
• A first-class ticket on the flight to Charlotte the next morning
• and, a $300 travel voucher to use on a flight in the future

I was hoping the overbooking situation would happen all along so I could earn all of this stuff. It was great! As we were flying from Minneapolis to Charlotte the next morning, we flew right over my neck of the woods! Below is a picture of the Tri-Cities Airport. I was able to see South Holston Lake and everything, but we were a little bit too far south for me to see Emory or Haysi or anything. Since I am an airplane fanatic and such, I was able to identify Tri-Cities Airport by the layout of the runways and that's how I knew where we were at.

I came home to Haysi being basically destroyed. The blizzard that tore through the area pulled down a ton of trees onto power lines and today makes exactly one week since most people around Haysi have been out of power. I have been staying at my cousin Misti's house since I returned from Arizona. Yesterday, I went to Haysi just to see things with the intention of staying a couple days but I ended up coming back. It is horrible. I'm sure it will be after the beginning of the new year that everyone has power again.

I am leaving for London in a few days. I have had the tendency to make my blog posts a little bit more, let's say, motiviating or something, but it just isn't in me today. I figured I would just update you on my trip to Arizona.

Until next time, Zach will leave it at that.

A Question For You

I typed 10 1/2 pages of my 15-20 page paper this morning in 2 hours. Wow. Tomorrow I will finish that paper, type another 5 page paper, take an exam on Tuesday, and then I am off to Charlotte to spend the night and fly to Arizona early Wednesday morning. I like to travel.

My best friend Colton has a habit of sending me YouTube links to songs and wanting me to listen to them. I have to admit...in the past, I have had a hard time listening to songs for their lyrics. I would like songs solely because they were pleasing to my ears...never because of the quality or depthness of the lyrics. Since Colton started sending me these songs, I seem to have become more apt to listen to lyrics.

I like to go for drives. I have always liked driving. Now while I'm driving, I spend much of my time paying attention to the lyrics that are on the radio. Tonight, I was kinda stressed. So, when I get stressed, I go for drives.

I hopped in my car and Kris Allen's song "Live Like We're Dying" came on. As I listened to the lyrics, as I have started to do, he posed a question in his song. This question is kind of creepy for me to be posing considering I'm gonna be a pilot, but oh well! Here it is:

"If you're plane fell out of the skies, who would you call with your last goodbye?"

You don't have to answer it on my blog, but I want you to take a minute to think about that question to yourself. Who would you call with your last goodbye?



Until next time, Zach will leave it at that.

The Day of No Power

I've thought a lot today about what to write on here tonight. Yesterday I had a pretty profound experience at the airport...but today, there hasn't been anything much that has happened. But, one has to learn to appreciate the little things I suppose.

I really enjoy all the guys that live on my hall. I've been an RA for nearly 3 years now and this is the first year I actually feel like there is a sense of community on my hall. Even though there are times when I know I should be doing work, I always enjoy my residents coming into my room and hanging out. I wanted to do something for them, so I decided we would go out to pizza this evening.

The wind has been terrible here today. We lost power around 1pm this afternoon and didn't get it back until around 10:15 tonight. They asked us RAs to be in the buildings at all time, so that shot the pizza plans into the air. I decided instead of going out to eat pizza, we would just order it and chill in my room.

As me and my resident Kameron were going to Glade Spring to pick up the pizza, the sunset was amazing. I stopped beside the road and got this picture of the sky. I thought it was beautiful.

We got back and a bunch of guys gathered in my room and just hung out and ate pizza. It made me think a lot though. Even though the guys on the hall all get along, it took a situation like the power going out to just sit around in my room all together and talk. We had no TVs, internet, anything. But we, a bunch of guys in college, just sat around and told ghost stories and stuff. It was enjoyable. It is a part of college I will miss. I am eager to graduate, but I will miss having a bunch of friends who live just right down the hall from me.

What did I learn from this experience today? We need to take time to be with our friends. Even if the power is on and everything is perfectly fine, turn off the TV, close your laptop, order a pizza, sit down, and have a good time just enjoying each others company. You may enjoy it more than you realize.

All this came from one simple happening...the power going out. Even though most people saw it as an aggravation, I saw it as a good time and hopefully the guys on my hall did the same. Maybe it will happen again sometime next semester.

Until next time, Zach will leave it at that.

Lessons from a Man at the Airport

I had a free day today. Since I finished my work at the Crisis Center, I didn't have anything to do. I ate lunch, then I told my friend Cody to put on a jacket because we were taking a trip.

We hopped in my car and headed down the road to Tri-Cities Airport. I checked the flight schedule before we left to make sure we would have a few planes to watch. Since Tri-Cities is so small, flights are few and far between.

A rainy, windy day doesn't make for a good day for plane watching. But, I'll take any type of weather so long as I get to see some planes take off and land. When we got to the airport, Cody headed towards the bathroom and I went up to the observation deck. There was a man standing on the deck who looked to be in his 60s and he struck up a conversation with me. "It's been 15 years since I've been to this airport. It's really built up!" "It sure has," I said, excited that someone wanted to talk about the airport with me.

I asked him if he had come, like myself, just to watch a few planes take off and land. "My daughter has a friend who is coming home for the holidays from Iraq today. His parents don't know he is coming, so I am picking him up so we can drop him off and suprise them." I thought this was cool. I almost teared up when he told me the story because for some reason, I imagined in my mind some worried parents who hadn't spoken to their son in days, and the joy that will be coming into their lives in just a few minutes when he arrives by suprise at their house. I just can't imagine.

We continued the conversation and the man told me about his work in the armed forces. He was drafted into the Korean War where he was wounded, and he later served again in the Vietnam War. He met his wife when she was only 14, and he won a bet against his brother saying that the relationship wouldn't last. They've now been married for nearly 40 years. He had an alcohol problem. When he was in Vietnam, one of his friends who was a pilot took him up in a plane one day. "I thought it was amazing," he said. "I came back to the United States and needed a hobby, so I started to take pilot lessons. My instructor knew I drank a little. He always told me, '24 hours from bottle to throttle.' I came to the airport one day to take my lesson, and he smelled whiskey on me from the night before. He told me I couldn't fly that day. I never went back to the airport after that."

It was at this point I started telling him about my dream of becoming a pilot and how I knew it was gonna make me happy. "Young man," he said, "you gotta do what makes you happy. You don't need to do something in life that you don't like."

I was sitting at the airport, watching airplanes, and I was talking to a man who was giving me lessons on life. It was a bittersweet moment. For some reason, this man has stuck in my mind for the rest of the day. Had me and Cody not gone to the airport today, I wouldn't have met him.
I learned a few things from this...how alcohol had ruined something he enjoyed, how I needed to pursue my dream, and how it is important to strike up important conversations with people in public. After all, you never know what you will learn from a perfect stranger.

Until next time, Zach will leave it at that.

A Fast, Crisp DC Visit

Yes. It's been a few days since I last updated my blog...but I have been very busy. I finished up my work at the Crisis Center a week back from today. Even though I was sad to leave, I learned a lot from my experiences there that have taught me a lot. I think I talked about this in an earlier post, but the Crisis Center was one of the big factors I decided to pursue my dream as a pilot. I know I wouldn't be happy working at a 9-5 desk job and my love to travel just cut to my core even more this semester.

This past Thursday, I left to go to Washington, DC with some classmates. For our practicum class (the class for which I worked at the Crisis Center), we had to go to DC and give a presentation to the Appalachian Regional Commission. We proposed that empty school buildings throughout Appalachia be used for community centers. Not to brag or anything, but we had the best presentation by far.

Thursday night, I was able to meet up with my friend Jordan from over the summer. If you read my blog or kept up with my pictures from this past summer, Jordan was mentioned or pictured many times. He has been a great friend to me ever since we met 2 summers ago in California and it was great to catch up with him. He is currently working with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Washington, DC. He has a good blog going about his experiences in DC...if you're up for some more reading, here is it: http://jodoggsblog.blogspot.com

Funny story. I have a fascination with airplanes...if you didn't already know this. It's bad. I could sit and watch airplanes for hours. So, there is this park in DC called Gravelly Point. It is at the end of the runway at Reagan National Airport and the planes take off right over your head! I was there about 10 years ago but never had the chance to go back. On Friday after we gave our presentation, I sat aside my whole afternoon to go to the Holocaust Memorial Museum and to ride the metro to the airport and go to Gravelly Point so I could watch some planes and take some pictures. Holocaust Museum...success. Gravelly Point...not so much. I ended up walking around the airport for an hour and a half. I finally found the trail that goes to Gravelly Point, but it was across a 4-lane highway. I walked around the airport on the verge of tears because I could see where I wanted to go but I just couldn't get to it. By this point, it was 5:00 and getting dark, so I just rode the Metro back into the city and roamed around some. It was very frustrating.

Tomorrow is my last day of classes. I only have one class left. Today, my time is going to be spent eating lunch, working out, writing a paper, and then relaxing! I have a paper due tomorrow, 2 due on Monday, and a final exam on Tuesday. Then...I'm off to Arizona to visit Colton and his family! I'm really excited about that. It's been over 4 months since I've gotten to hang out with him and I can hardly wait to Arizona to do stupid stuff and not have to worry about anything in Virginia.

I'll leave you with a few pictures from DC.

Until next time, Zach will leave it at that.