An Essay by Big Al

I got an email from a friend of mine who wrote an essay about my homeless adventure for his English class... so I thought I'd bring back the blog for one day to add this. Thanks Big Al!

“Is a house really a home when your loved ones are gone?” This question asked by Diddy in a pop song brings up a very debatable subject; is a home really all that it is made up to be? Anna Quindlen attempts to show that a home is “everything” in her essay Homeless. She proposes that a home is the only source of “certainty, stability, predictability, [and] privacy.” However, a personal friend of mine has proven this incorrect.

Her name is Hilary Zak—a common engineering graduate from Purdue University with a job in Connecticut. However, she soon became uncommon when her job required her to travel to Russia three weeks out of the month. In this hectic lifestyle, she decided that it would be a money saver to let the lease on her apartment run out and live out of her car and hotel rooms. While receiving much ridicule from family and friends, she started a blog in attempt to prove that her life was just as normal.

In her blog, www.hzhomelessadventure.blogspot.com, Hilary’s main goal was to prove that her life was just as “certain” as one with a home. She successfully did this with many humorous postings showing how her life was still the same as when she lived out of an apartment. She proved that she still knew just as much about her day as she did with a home.

Furthermore, she also proved the point that nobody’s life is perfectly certain. She relates to how her being homeless and not knowing what she was going to eat for the night was no different than at her apartment. Even with having a roof to eat under, there was still nothing completely set in stone for dinner. She still had to make night-of decisions based upon her cravings. This proves that not having a home does not make one’s life any more certain at all.

Not only does Hilary also demonstrate how her “new life” is just as stable, predictable, and private as her “old life,” but she also claims that the homeless life is even better. In her posts, she claims that she has the same elements of having a home, and the added bonus of excitement and fun. In her defense to everybody thinking she is crazy, Hilary proves that in no other housing situation would it be possible to change on the shoulder of a freeway. By adding humor to this situation, everybody can agree that it would actually be a fun challenge to overcome.

As Hilary puts it, “If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” And it is in this risk that she has proven that a home does not mean “everything” to life.

RIP My Blog

Well friends and family, I have absolutely loved the past 9 months of vainly writing about myself and knowing that you would all continue reading. I contemplated continuing my narcissistic ways and transforming the blog into the funny things that happen to me while traveling (clearly, they are plentiful), but finally I came to the decision that if I'm not homeless, then the blog address hzhomelessadventures doesn't exactly apply.

The quantity of my travel won't subside, however, in case I haven't told you, I signed a 6 month lease to use for the winter. I decided on a Monday morning when I was standing outside in the cold, barefoot, searching for a pair of socks to wear. I realized, being homeless in the winter isn't fun, and from that moment in time, I became fixated on the idea of finding an apartment.

Since I can't commit to anything, I only signed for 6 months so that I can reevaluate the situation once again come June.

I sincerely thank you for reading!!

- Hilary

This is why you should live out of your car

You never know what's going to happen... this wouldn't be an issue for me :)


http://www.vancouversun.com/Snow+strands+hundreds+Ontario+winter+storm+heads+east/3978319/story.html
SARNIA, Ont. — The snow squalls that stranded hundreds of motorists for more than 24 hours along a southern Ontario highway were headed east Tuesday evening, following a day when much of Eastern Canada faced extreme weather conditions.

Read more: http://www.canada.com/Snow+strands+hundreds+Ontario+winter+storm+heads+east/3978319/story.html#ixzz189K4jY8v

Change of Plans

I was driving to New York today to go to a meeting in Moscow, and the next thing I knew I was turning around and leaving for Russia on Saturday afternoon.

Bad weather in Frankfurt delayed my flight and I was going to miss my meeting even if I went. Somehow though, even though my flight was delayed, everything fell into order perfectly:

- I had decided to drive myself to JFK even though I have NEVER done that before. I always take a car.

- I made a stupid decision when I was 45 minutes into my drive to turn around and to back to CT once I got the phone call my flight was delayed. I say stupid because what did I think I was going to do once I got back to CT? And once I got back, I was going to have to drive to NY at 10pm (which is waaaay past my bedtime)

- Ammie was headed back to the office late so I was going to be able to meet up with her to figure out the schedule.

- Ammie accidentally dialed the normal travel agent instead of the after hours travel

- Our amazing travel agent, Dee, was there 2.5 hours after the office was technically closed, which was lucky because we had no idea what to do.

So all the stars aligned perfectly, and now I am going to have my meeting in New York and leave for Russia on Saturday.

No Clothes

A few weeks ago I went to my storage unit to dig out my winter clothes. Turns out that my box of winter clothes is buried behind my mattress and box spring as well as my kitchen table. I’ve desperately been trying to recruit help to move things around, but so far have been unsuccessful.

Since the weather turned cold, I (not exaggerating) have worn the same 4 outfits to the office every single day: a grey and black striped sweater, a grey hooded sweatshirt, an ugly brown sweater that looks like I stole it from my Grandpa’s closet in the 90’s, and a blue fleece zip up. I refuse to buy a whole new wardrobe out of sheer stupidity.

My theory is that maybe since I’m on the road a lot, no one will notice? Although, since a few of my coworkers read this.. I think I just gave myself away.

Sleep on a Plane

Yesterday I got a 20 minute chair massage and the massage technician said (about my back), "Oh my god, in my 5 years of doing this job this is the biggest knot I've ever found" That's what 3.5 years of stress and sleeping on planes will do to the body..

NYC Thanksgiving

No Address.

Great. I just received notification via email from the Post Office that I forgot to pay my biannual fee to keep my PO Box open. They closed it, and now I temporarily have no mailing address.

Welcome to Russia.

Near Death Experience #1: From Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod I flew on S7 Airlines. The “S” stands for Siberian, which means it’s a Russian plane and Russian pilot. Having worked in Russia, I know that this cannot be that safe of a combination. While on board the 50 minute flight, we abruptly hit the most violent bout of turbulence I have ever experienced. There was no warning from the pilot or anything. The lady behind me was crying, the flight attendants were looking scared, people were muffling their screams, and I was literally praying because I thought that it was going to be the end of my life. I am by no means a person who is scared of flying, but I truly thought this was the end. It lasted maybe 3-5 minutes (which felt like an hour) and then it stopped, just as suddenly as it started, with no word from the pilot. Welcome to Russia.

Near Death Experience #2: Maintenance guy was welding something for us and didn't remove it from its location. It was too close to a machine that had oil lubricant.. sparks flew, and the machine caught on fire (had a vacuum sealed part on it -- which is explosive) and neither of the two fire extinguishers we could find worked. We had to find a bucket of water to dump on it, and after wards had to clean out the entire machine because the oil was now mixed with water. It's the second fire that's started within the last 3 days. Welcome to Russia.




By the way, are we sure history books are right when they say that it was Russia and the USA who were a part of the Space Race?

A little bit of panic never hurt anyone..

So you had to of known when I typed the previous itinerary that there was no way it would go that smoothly.

I started the day at 6:00am in Chicago, flew to LaGuardia, and took a taxi to the Visa Processing office in Manhatten to pick up my passport. When I got there, they acted really surprised to see me. They didn’t expect to have it until tomorrow due to last week's holiday in Russia (despite their conformation that it would be ready Thursday).

After going through my paperwork, they realized that it was their mistake and sent a liaison over to try to negotiate with the Russian consulate to pick it up. However, there was some kind of bomb scare, so the Russian consulate was closed for approximately 4 hours. I got a call from the office that it was very unlikely I would get my passport tonight.

In the mean time I was walking around NYC and ran into the Veteran's Day parade, met an old college friend for coffee, and walked and walked and walked.



I almost never get stressed about things going wrong traveling, but this one was causing me some anxiety since I really need to be in Moscow tomorrow. If I missed the flight, that would mean I would miss the meeting altogether since we are both meeting in Moscow en route to someplace else. Luckily for me, Murphy's Law proved wrong for once and the story ends well since I am now enjoying some relaxation in the Lufthansa lounge before my flight..


Anyways, I say things are good.. but it's only been 15 hours since I left this morning, and it'll be another 11.5 before I arrive at the airport in Moscow.. so there's plenty of room for more adventures.