The Story

This was my first time traveling during the holiday season, and boy was it a horrifying story that had a happy ending. I've told this story probably 10 times to numerous people already, and each time I get better at telling it. I think I've gotten the final version down, so here it is... in all it's glory (no exaggerations, I sware).

I had purchased my plane ticket home for Christmas and New Year's way ahead of time, sometime in the middle of October. I had planned ahead, and gotten the reservation (including the extra accommodation for Apollo that the airline needs to know ahead of time) taken care of. My ride to the airport that December 19th morning was Jaclyn's sister Leslie... who also happens to live in my apartment complex (no she is not my roommate and does not live with me). I had called her the night before and agreed on when she would pick me up the next morning.

I got up in the morning, finished packing, and had a few minutes to spare. I took my bags outside and waited in the parking lot with Apollo for Leslie to drive over from the next parking lot. 5 minutes went by. Then 10. I didn't wait for 15, and picked up the phone and dialed her. It rang and rang and then her voicemail picked up. I called again, and this time she picked up. Turned out she had turned her alarm off and went back to bed. By the time she drove over, I was already about 15 minutes behind schedule.

I've flown out of the St. Louis airport at least 3, if not 4 times in the past. It's never taken me more than about 20 minutes to get my boarding pass, check my bags if I have any, get through security, and arrive at my departure terminal. Thus I usually give myself about an hour ahead of time when I am flying anywhere. Well, that day I only had 45.

However, as Apollo and I got dropped off at the airport and walked through the first set of doors... I knew I wasn't going to make my flight. Had I been smart, I would've taken into consideration that it WAS, after all, only 6 days before Christmas... so there was going to be extra people at the airport on that Friday morning.

What I did NOT and almost COULD NOT possibly have anticipated was that the military base here in St. Louis chose that same day, December 19th, to dismiss all of their troops home for the holidays. As I walked into the airport, for every civilian I saw - there was a person dressed in army fatigues. The airport was 1/2 civilian, 1/2 military. Mathematically, this meant that the airport had TWICE the amount of people there that morning.

I started to wait in line, it was the same line to not only check-in your bags but also to get re-ticketed in case you miss your flight, and by the time I got up to the front counter... my plane was already gone. I waited 45 minutes in that line... and during that time I only got more nervous. Not because I felt that I still had a chance to make my original flight, but because of what I overheard someone else saying. I was talking to this guy, who was supposed to take off the day before, but had his flight cancelled due to there being too much ice on the runways. So that day, December 19th, the airport had EVEN MORE people there (due to the cancelled flights from the night before) than there would normally be. It didn't stop there. I continued to hear bad news that told of all the flights leaving St. Louis today being already booked.

Finally I got up to the counter, tell the lady that my flight had already left, and she asks me my final destination - and I replied, "Sacramento, California." She starts typing stuff into the computer to rebook me... and I added, "I'd be willing to upgrade if that would help." After a few seconds she asks me, "Would you be okay flying into San Francisco? I have a direct flight." The plan was to originally have my brother Will pick me up in Sacramento (where he was going to College, would've been a 10 minute drive for him). My mom would have to end up picking me up if I flew into San Francisco, but at this point I'll take anything I can get... ESPECIALLY if it's DIRECT. Hell, I didn't even know American Airlines even had direct flights into anywhere into Northern California (and I've looked for a long time, I dunno how I missed it). I told her "Yes!!! I'll take it!" and she said "your flight's leaving in about an hour."

An hour later I was sitting at the terminal, having called my mom and arranged for the pick-up... of which she was skeptical about because 1.) she has to drive over an hour to get to the airport 2.) she's not very familiar with the airport 3.) she had to leave work early. Anyways they started to board the plane: first class, business class, priority, group 1, group 2... then they stopped. 5 minutes went by, then 10, then 15. Finally I see someone wearing airport security uniform come driving up in a Segway machine, and go into the gate. The guy at the front desk finally gets on the loud speaker and says to us that someone apparently slipped and fell while getting onto the plane. Then I saw someone who was probably a doctor go into the gate, and about 5 minutes both he and the security guard comes back out. We finished boarding, and by the time we took off... we were about 20 to 30 minutes behind schedule.

At this point I should've probably called my mom. But I had flown before and pilots have always "made up lost time" when running late by taking shortcuts or going faster in the air. That's why I didn't call my mom, because I figured that's what they were going to do. Whether they attempted to do that or not, we didn't get to California any quicker. It took us the same amount of time to get there, if not even longer... because by the time we landed (and I factored in the time we were already behind schedule when we first took off) we were somewhere around 40 to 45 minutes late.

I want to take a few minutes to pause and tell you how lucky I was to even get out of the Mid West that day. While I was still sitting at the airport in St. Louis, I was watching the news and weather report on the TV screens and every few minutes they were talking about the "huge storm" that was headed our way East-bound. Airports that have already been hit (or are starting to get hit) have been delayed by an average of over an hour, and the storm was to last a couple/few days. Had I not gotten out of St. Louis that Friday morning, I probably would've been delayed a minimum of at least a day or two.

That was a problem which compounded immensely and had an exponential affect. How? Well, by being delayed meant that it would be December 20, 21st, or 22nd... any day getting closer to Christmas means more hell and more time spent in airport terminals. It also means fuller planes, and most likely MULTIPLE connecting flights just to get back to California. This continues to GET EVEN WORSE, as I am traveling with A DOG. Now, Apollo has a "bladder of steel" that can hold it in for 12+ hours... but putting him through a full day of travel is torture and hell for him. What would we do if we got stuck at an airport? I don't even want to think about it.

Getting back to the story (yes, it's not over), I had finally landed in California. No, I haven't been able to contact my mom and tell her how the plane was arriving almost an hour late of schedule - remember, this was a direct flight and I couldn't get signal while in the air. But I called her as soon as the wheels were on the ground and assured her that we were alright and that I was at the airport. I told her I would be about 10 minutes as I still had to pick up my checked bag. Easy right?

I was in the front 1/3 of the plane and so Apollo and I got off the plane and headed to the bag claim area. As I waited for my bag, I noticed more and more people from our flight showing up at the bag carriage but no bags were coming through. About 15 minutes later we hear an announcement on the overhead speaker: there was a bag-jam. Finally the bags started coming out, and eventually mine popped out as well. It took about 20+ minutes from the time I got off the plane before I got my bag. All-in-all, my mom had to circle the San Francisco airport for about an hour and 15 minutes before I was in her car and on the way home. She was glad to see me, and I said to her...

"An hour and 15 minutes (plus the hour it took for you to get here) is surely a hell of a lot less than 2 or 3 days from now.... or even sometime AFTER Christmas. Let me tell you my story..."

My 25th Birthday - October 3rd, 2008

(Warning!) Before you start reading, I should give a fair warning that this is pretty long. It took me almost all of Saturday to compose and rearrange my thoughts and feelings that I’ve experienced in the last couple of days. I’d suggest either you dedicate about ½ an hour to read all of this or just pick the section from the below links to read the corresponding portions.

(Warning!!) A second warning should be given – and it’s about me. I have an innate habit (sometimes I do it on purpose and sometimes subconsciously) of making people feel sorry for me. It’s the self-centered part of me that does it, and I’m warning you right now to not fall for that trap as you start reading this.

Click below to skip to:

My normal day
My work
My birthday
My life so far
My “friends” and friends
My disappointment
My loneliness
My happiness
My thoughts

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My day...

... started just like any other day. Except today was… Friday. I use my old cell phone as an alarm (simply because I haven’t figured out how to use the alarm on my Blackjack) and it rang promptly at 7AM. As usual Apollo was still asleep – he was under the covers that morning on my left.

I got up, and checked my phone to see what kind of messages I had waiting for me. A couple of e-mails, nothing out of the ordinary. I remembered it was payday so I hopped online to make sure the money was there before I hopped in the shower. Apollo had gotten up by the time I got out of the shower and we went for our morning walk. This was a quick trip down the sidewalk outside of the apartment complex next to the road. After we got back I promptly got dressed and headed out the door but not before I threw a banana and yogurt cup into a plastic bag.

As I drove towards work, I noticed that the high school that I pass every morning was empty. There were no school buses, no early marching band on the softball field, and no traffic at the usual intersection. I guess they had a school holiday. Maybe I should've taken the day off to celebrate my birthday.



8:02AM (Central Time)…


… was when I walked into work, and little did I know I was going to be there for a while that day. My mentor (on my team) recruited me Thursday morning to help him with a HUGE project that some people at work have been spending a lot of time on. I wanted to contribute to the team, which is why I worked late on Thursday – I stayed until about 6 – and came in early on Friday. And I worked really diligently on the project the whole day. I skipped lunch (like I do about 3 of the 5 work days) and continued to work until about 5:30. Yes, I worked until 5:35PM on a Friday… which also happened to be my birthday.


Here is a picture of my car in the parking lot at 5:40PM that afternoon (you can see my mentor Dave’s truck in it as well)

I got home...

... around 6PM and decided to take Apollo to the nearby lake to catch the sunset and to get out for a while. In my haste to get to the lake – and probably because I was so tired from focusing all day – I forgot Apollo’s collar and only brought his leash. So when we got to the park, all we could do was walk along the lake and had to avoid walking the trail. It didn’t turn out to be as bad as I thought.

After we got home, I made Apollo dinner before running out and grabbing some fast food. The thought of sitting along at a restaurant, on a Friday night, on my birthday, was just too depressing and I didn’t want to give anyone the chance of laughing at me. I finished my dinner and had some blueberry cake + peach ice cream while watching TV with Apollo as we celebrated the final hours of my birthday. I started falling asleep around 11, but ultimately ended up falling asleep right around midnight.

So Friday was my birthday...

... October 3rd. I turned 25 this year. 1 quarter of a century. 1/3 marker of my whole life (assuming I make it to 75). Recently I’ve been looking back on my life up to this point and reflecting on what I’ve accomplished – and you know what?

I’m not really happy/satisfied with where I am in life after 25 years.
I’m quite disappointed actually. When I was in Denver about 2 weeks ago and got to catch up with Beth, whom I hadn’t really seen since high school 5 (or 6) years ago… I started thinking about what I have to show for myself if our 10 year high school reunion was tomorrow. That was what led me to reflect on where I am with my life and ask myself a couple of questions.

Am I happy… with what I’ve done since high school?
Yes, I suppose. Actually, no… not really. I’ve graduated from a very reputable college and landed a great job. But what else will I have to show for it? In other words, what will I be walking around with at the reunion? I’ll have nothing but a nice suit, a fair-sized bank statement, and a dog in a lonely 1 bedroom apartment in the Midwest. No house, no family, no wife, no fiancée, not even a girlfriend. Just a bunch of boring stories about school and work that no one will care about except me. I might have accomplished what I wanted to on the financial side, but we all know money can’t buy love and happiness.

Am I happy… with my day-to-day life?
No. Leo actually asked me this question and I was almost dumbfounded when I couldn’t answer his question of, “what do you do after work?” And that’s the problem: I work Monday through Friday, come home to my dog, maybe go out and get some exercise, and watch TV or spend my time in front of the computer. No friends, no extra-curricular activities.

This pretty much got me thinking about all the people I’ve met and become “friends” with up to this point in my life. When they are around, it really makes living worthwhile because they make me laugh, happy, and makes getting up in the morning worthwhile.



My friends...

... have always been a big part of my life. But as I continued to get older and move on to different things – so have my friends. And it’s hard, VERY hard, to keep in touch with those people who were at one point such a big/important part of my life. I started thinking about how many of these people were really people that cared about me.

Technology and the internet these days allow for superficial friendships to emerge out of thin-air. These are meaningless, and people have started taking advantage of things like Facebook to compensate for their laziness and un-thoughtfulness for their friends – those friends who they “claim” to be so close with. Here is an example of something I find to be extremely shallow:

- Person A is good friends with Person B
- Person A has a birthday, and Person B is reminded of it by Facebook because Person B doesn’t take the time to remember it
- Person B uses Facebook to quickly write a “Happy Birthday Person A!” on their wall, in place of a friendly (perhaps short) phone call, birthday card, or thoughtful present
- Person B walks away with a sense of accomplishment – they believe they’ve fulfilled their social obligation to Person A as a friend, without ever making personal contact or giving it any thought.

Think about it. How much time did it really take for the whole process of Facebook-birthday-wishing? 10 seconds to log-in, 5 seconds to read the birthday reminder, 15 seconds to write a generic birthday message on their wall. UNDER 30 seconds… and that is supposed to replace a phone call, personalized birthday card, or meaningful birthday present?

That is the very reason why I decided to do what I did this year on my birthday. I turned off my wall and all instant message programs so I can prevent (at least to a certain extent) that impersonal birthday-wishing. This way, instead of being able to reflect back on my birthday in a very fake way and say “oh man, what a great day… I had 50 people wish me happy birthday!” I can instead look back and say “these are the people who actually cared about me enough to not forget.”

However, being that it was Friday and I still had to work, I had to leave my e-mail turned on – and a side note should be made that Anne decided to broadcast her birthday wishes via e-mail to my 2 old teams (intentionally reminding everyone else) about me. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate her for doing that at all… just that it kinda screwed up my experiment for the day because it reminded about 25-30 people.

So who cared about me yesterday? Well, here are the results:

Call log:
12:06AM – Alex Butnareanu (missed, left voicemail)
09:55AM – Mom (18 seconds)
10:28AM – Jon Weeks (1.5 minutes)
11:36AM – Alex Butnareanu (2 minutes)
04:18PM – Leo (5 minutes)
06:24PM – Nicole Soloko (missed, left voicemail)
08:56PM – Greg Williams (19 minutes)
09:25PM – Nick Lathrop (3 minutes)
11:48PM – William (29 minutes)

Text Messages:
Nicole Stiver, Jennie Floyd, Leslie Kollar

Honorable Mentions:
Jaclyn Kollar (says she didn’t need Anne’s reminder) – e-mail
AJ DeLaFuente (on his way to Munich) – Facebook e-mail
Kara York – very long e-mail including 1 picture
Anne Steinhardt – first to write e-mail and reminded everyone else

My experiment and intentions proved to be as expected. Those who really knew and cared about me gave me a call (my closest friends and family) or at least wrote me an e-mail with some substance and meaning. That broke it down to just about a dozen people.

A dozen people who cared/knew about me – and Facebook says I have 538 “friends.”

I’m not sure...

... whether I want to laugh at or shake my head in disappointment at what our world has turned into. We’ve been reduced to mindless drones that click buttons and tap on keyboards to communicate with each other. In 2007, when I had my birthday last year – over 40 drones wrote a birthday message on my Facebook wall. However, I also had 3 birthday cards, 1 decorated cube, several balloons, 2 birthday presents, and 1 really great party.

This year? I had less than 1 hour total of phone calls, and about a handful of e-mails that were actually more than a simple “happy birthday.” There’s a banner in our break room at work that reminds everyone who’s birthday it is for the month (see picture) – yet I received 1 verbal “happy birthday” throughout the entire day. At this point some of you might be thinking to yourselves (if you haven’t already) why I am so self-centered and egotistical. Why am I expecting so much from other people?

I suppose it is somewhat rude and self-absorbed to expect more. But I want to take a second to explain that I’m someone who takes birthdays pretty seriously. To my family and my friends I have typically done something meaningful on their days even when I can’t be there. Flower bouquets, hand-written cards, soccer jerseys, concert tickets, chocolate and candy, stuffed animals, figurines, taking them out to dinners, flying across multiple states… are all just examples of what I’ve done for people this year.

I don’t care about the material possessions… it’s the thoughtfulness and caring messages that people send that counts. I didn’t get too many this year, but I think I got them from everyone who matters to me anyway.



0 cards, 0 presents, 0 parties...

... but most importantly: 0 friends this year to spend my birthday with me. It was a very lonely birthday spent (with Apollo) in my living room.

I might have given a lot of people the impression that life here in Missouri isn’t that bad and everything’s going great. But the truth is: work is going great, and I have my good health. But life itself is pretty damn lonely. I’ve come to the realization (I suppose this is my 25th birthday epiphany) that up to this point in my life I’ve taken friends and the opportunity to make them for granted. It is pretty damn hard thing to do; to pick up your life and leave everything and everyone you know behind. I’ve had to do that once when I left high school, once when I left college, and once again when I left North Carolina. However this last time was the most difficult because I was no longer surrounded by people and faces who were eager to be your friends – they all had their own friends (and family) already.

Sure, things could be worse. I could’ve moved somewhere where I knew absolutely no one – at least here in Missouri I have Jaclyn’s family. Or what’s left of it anyways. Jaclyn is in Arizona, her younger sister Jessica is at college, her older sister works 2 jobs, and her parents tend to travel a lot. When I first moved here, I practically lived there on weekends, but now every member of their family is living their own lives and I’m left to live my own. Even when they all come home visiting sometimes, I have to give them their space and they don’t necessarily always call – and I don’t expect them to, they really shouldn’t.



But what I do have is my own family.

I was pleasantly surprised by my 2 brothers this year. Both gave me a call, and Leo was first. I’ve got to give him credit, he’s always somehow managed to find the words when it counts. He called to wish me a happy birthday and asked about how I was doing. I told him I was doing alright, but the smart kid knew that couldn’t really be the case. He knew I must feel pretty lonely here and told me that I could call or talk to him online more often. He even suggested that we play some online video games together like we used to. It really made me feel good inside to hear all that, especially something he said near the end: while friends might move on and not always be there, we’ll always have each other (brothers). Thanks kiddo.

Will called a bit later at night. I almost thought he had forgotten, but he made it. We talked about life in general and Mom back home. Afterwards we chatted for a good while about a bunch of random things, which just goes to show you that while we may be brothers – we are also good friends that have all of these on-going jokes and similar interests ever since we were little. We talk about the same TV shows, games, online videos, etc. and it’s great to have someone like that who can pick up the conversation at any time. I’m proud of him for finally getting his life in shape and having a good time at college – I’m even more proud of the way he helps Mom back home and the way he has (in the past, and I’m sure in the future) unconditionally lending a helping hand to me when I ask.

Mom was the 1st person in the morning to call me. Albeit it was only for about 20 seconds because she was on her way to work (sounded like she was heading out the door or maybe walking into her office), she said something that caught me off-guard – but in a good way. She said “love you” before she got off the phone. She doesn’t say it a lot, and it surprised me to the point that I didn’t even get a chance to say it back before we hung up. Well, I owe her one “love you” and I’ll repay my debt on Sunday night when we have our weekly chats.



I’ve written a lot...

... because there has been a lot on my mind – and if you’ve read it thus far, I thank you.

If you knew me as well as I know myself, you probably know that I’m someone who is sometimes very self-centered, egotistical, and narcissistic.
If you’ve been around me long enough, you probably know that I complain and bitch about a lot of things.
If you knew me really well and have talked with me late at night, you probably know that I’m a fairly emotional and sensitive person.

I know about a lot of my many problems and faults. How else would I have been able to express them to you – my patient friends – who have read it or listened to me in the past? I know about them and I know what I need to do to better myself and the life I so currently despise living.

But have I done anything about it?

No. No I haven’t. It’s a pretty self-destructive cycle that I tend to play over and over in my head which just sends me on a depression spiral sometimes. The self-pity and the constant criticism about the unfairness of life constantly brings me down. I suppose that’s why I’m so pessimistic when I wake up each morning and expect to hit every red-light on the way to work.

One of my final thoughts is on where my life is going right now. If you were to ask me what direction I’m taking my life and my near-future ambitions – I wouldn’t have an answer for you. I honestly don’t know what I’m doing with myself, which is where one would expect to find themselves when he’s living in the middle of no where. Things used to be so simple: go to school to get into a good college, then do well and get a good job so you can live a good life. Well I’ve gone to college and I’ve gotten a good job so I should be living the dream right? Not really, my head is pretty messed up regarding my priorities and life issues.

I guess you could say I’m going through a one-third-life crisis (versus a mid-life crisis).

But how the hell did I make it to 25 years? I suppose in the past things haven’t been as bad and they haven’t all piled on yet. That and also because I’ve had people to talk to – and I don’t mean people I can call on the phone. There were people who I saw on a day to day basis that understood me and/or listened to me. They were my support system and an outlet for my troubles. But now I don’t quite have that anymore in my life and I can feel things accumulating. I’m pretty sure I’ll eventually drown myself in my own destructive self-pity and loneliness unless I do something about it. I suppose I should continue to write here and express more of the things that I’m feeling and going through in order to vent a little bit.

At least I’m pretty sure that’s what the therapist will say to me and suggest I do at my next session anyways.

Thanks for reading.

- GS