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.

New Plumbing Technology

So here was my itinerary for this trip:

Saturday: Fly into Chicago, IL, Drive down to West Lafayette, IN for weekend with friends and family
Monday: Drive to Champaign, IL for work
Wednesday: Drive to Chicago, IL just as a transportation night
Thursday: Fly to LaGuardia NY, pick up passport, fly from JFK to Moscow
Friday: Arrive in Moscow
Saturday: Meeting in Moscow
Sunday: Fly to Nizhny Novgorod

Now, you know on a stint like this.. something is bound to happen. I'm already at Wednesday (Chicago, IL) and things have gone pretty smoothly so far.

However, tonight when I got to my hotel near the airport after I flushed the toilet, and it just kept running and running. I'm not really into fixing toilets, so I decided if I let it run for a while it might stop on it's own... until I got a call from the front desk. They explained to me that the person below me was complaining that there was a noise that sounded like a radio. My only guess was that it was the running toilet, so I was forced to take action. I lifted the lid to see if the thing was stuck (yes, this is very technical plumber lingo) and much to my surprise, it was filled with doorknobs...



I'm not so sure what to make of this.

Halloween in Chicago

A weekend with two of my favorites in Chicago..

I typically hate halloween.. but somehow we managed to have some fun. I had two costumes because one was suffocating me..





At 5am I woke up to the sound of the fire alarm going off.. turns out we almost burned down Sara's apartment by leaving the pizza rolls in the oven overnight... if you ever wondered what pizza rolls looked like after baking for 9 hours, now you know:

I literally live at work.

I had put it off for about 2 weeks and just used my passport.. but finally this week I went to get my replacement license. It got to a point where I couldn’t put it off anymore because my passport is required for finishing the processing of my Russian Visa.

Not surprisingly, I needed to give them a permanent address, even after I explained my situation to the lady at the DMV and even after she talked to her supervisor. (I’d like say ‘told you so’ to the officer that pulled me over for talking on my cell phone and told me I could put a PO Box on my license).

They told me I could put an address of a hotel I frequently stay at (not normal), so I gave up and put the office address. People who work a lot always use the phrase “I live at work”, but now my permanent residence is at work... I literally live at work. If I ever get fired it’s going to be awkward.

Exhausted.

Well, I had been looking forward to last weekend for a long time. I decided it was my weekend to catch up on the past 3 months of sleep. I did a lot of relaxing and slept probably 10-12 hours a night. No Spike or 5 hr energy was consumed within this time..

After the weekend I felt great and ready to take on the week. Until Monday afternoon when I was tired again... So I started reading that it is impossible to repay sleep debt. Turns out I'm pretty screwed..
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/news/20100115/sleep-debt-hard-to-repay

I love this life, but it is extremely exhausting traveling every week for work and not sleeping and traveling every weekend for fun and not sleeping.

RIP Passport

05/07/2001 – 10/01/10

I am sad to say goodbye to a loyal travel companion and holder of many memories. The past 10 years we’ve laughed together, we’ve cried together, and we’ve created memories I will never forget.

Summary of my Passport’s life:
- Germany: Frankfurt – 8 stamps
- Germany: Stuttgart – 1 stamp
- Ireland: Shannon – 1 stamp
- Mexico: Baja Californai – 4 stamps
- Mexico: Neuvo Leon – 10 stamps
- Netherlands: Amsterdam – 1 stamp
- Norway: Oslow (Gardenmoen)- 2 stamps
- Peru: Cuzco – 2 stamps
- Peru: Machu Picchu park – 1 stamp
- Russia: Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow (I don’t know how to tell the difference between the stamps) – 60 stamps
- Russian Visas: 4
- South Africa: Johannesburg – 1 stamp
- USA – 24 stamps
- 12 pages more than a standard passport has in it because I ran out of room


RIP Passport

My new passport has a lot to live up to…

Guest Writer: KYLE ZAK

Kyle came to visit me last weekend, and there was so much that happened that I was too lazy to summarize it myself... so here's Kyle's entry:


Dumb and Dumber take on New England

Last weekend I had a long weekend so I decided to visit Hilary. I booked my flights about a week before, and that’s when the problems began. Turns out I booked a flight for Friday morning instead of Saturday (meaning that I would have to miss my classes on Friday). Luckily, Hilary caught my mistake and since I called Expedia 24 hours within booking, they took care of it without making me pay the nasty $150 fee.

The original plan was for me to get there Saturday, go visit Salem (where they had the witch trials), and then drive up to Mt Washington in New Hampshire. On Sunday we would climb the mountain and then head back to Connecticut.

This did not even remotely resemble our weekend.

The troubles began when we got to Salem and started walking around. It quickly became apparent that Salem is an awful place to visit. Something about the lack of historic buildings and the abundance of Italian sausage and Spongebob balloons really turned us off, so after meeting up with a couple of Hilary’s friends we decided to go to dinner.


On the way there, the navigation system took us through a light that decided to stay red through two whole cycles. We didn’t stick around to find out if the third time was the charm, and after the navigation system took us in a few circles we got to dinner.


Keep in mind that at this point I’ve flown out to Connecticut and driven to Massachusetts to go to a mall and eat at the Cheesecake Factory.

After dinner we left for New Hampshire, heading towards Mt Washington. On the way Hilary’s friends called to see if we wanted to go to a haunted house that was kind of on the way, so we decided why not. When we got to the haunted house we started calling around trying to find hotels in the area, only to find that they were completely booked in the entire “region.” A few phone calls later told us that “region” implies New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont, so after the haunted house we drove back down to Boston. The haunted houses were fun, and included Hilary squeezing my hand off, freezing in lines, Hilary’s friend Chris entertaining everyone around us with his stories, and being told that we “smell like Walmart.”


Not wanting to drive the 6-hour round trip to Mt Washington all in one day, we spent Sunday in Boston attempting to follow the freedom trail, which is a clearly marked trail that goes past several historic sites in Boston. Apparently following a red line is above our capabilities though, because we lost it several times.

We then drove back to Connecticut. On the way, Hilary managed to lose her wallet at a rest stop. So, we had to turn around, get back on the toll road, drive past the rest stop another 6 miles, get off the toll road and pay the toll, turn around, get back on the toll road, and drive back the 6 miles. They didn’t have it.

After checking in at the hotel in Connecticut, I went to the lobby to get some toothpaste from the front desk. The guy in front of me was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but unfortunately no underwear. And his pants were quite loose, so there was about a half to three-quarters moon. And the girl he was with? In a wedding dress. I love how these things happen to me.

Monday was the day for me to leave. However, at some point on Saturday, we realized that I had my flight back to Indy booked for Tuesday night. After the lady at the ticket counter told us that it would cost over $350 to get my flight switched, we logged on Hilary’s computer and booked a new flight for about $180. Ha!

Overall, the weekend was a disaster. Fun, but awful at the same time.

dumb dumb dumb dumb......

So I’ve noticed that this blog has shifted from “How to be Homeless” to “Stupidity in Traveling”.

Anyways, this morning I was arriving at the Eastern Iowa Airport with only about 20 minutes until the departure of my co-workers flight, so let’s say that I was driving like we were in a hurry. I made the turn into the terminal a little late, and over shot the turn. Turns out my little Mercury didn't have a good turning radius and I couldn’t make it into my lane. So next thing I knew, I was driving the wrong way down a one way street at the airport…

Well, of course my luck, I got pulled over.
As my coworker is grabbing her bag from the trunk and sprinting into the airport, the police walked up to the car:
“Ma’am, do you have a driver’s license?”
“No sir, I recently lost it… I have a passport in the trunk if you’re interested.”
“Ok, you do have an active drivers license, right?”
“Yessir.”
“Is this your car?”
“No, it’s a rental.”

“Have you been drinking?”
“Nosir, just stupid.”
“Ok have a good one.”

4 Month Homeless Anniversary

So I've been officially homeless now for 4 months..

Those of you who questioned (or discouraged me) from doing this, I'm going to have to say a quick "told you so".

I frankly can't say that I'm "saving money" so much as "freeing up money to do other fun things".

Here's a summary of some of the things I've done these past few homeless months:

- go boating in North Carolina
- get overserved after the Red Sox game in Boston
- turn day into night drinking in NYC
- attend weddings (Stephanie/Derek and Michelle/Jason)
- create Blackout Weekend 2010 in San Francisco
- see Ziggy Marley at a music festival in Boston
- take adventure vacation in Norway
- catch up with old friends for a night in Chicago
- go back to Purdue for a football game
- take a weekend trip to Disneyland

**sidenote: another contributing factor to all my weekend fun is that I have not gone to Russia for work since early July, which frees up a lot of my weekends.

and next weekend Kyle is coming to visit, and then I'm headed back to Michigan for my cousin's wedding. And after that, who knows what is to come..

I'm definitely going to continue being homeless, the question is whether I'm going to continue this blog or not. If you still read it, could you let me know (you don't even have to tell me your name).

A New Level of Random

When I got to the Dayton airport at 6:00am this morning, I was planning to fly back to Hartford via Chicago. I stepped up to the United ticket counter... but the reservation was not found. So I rechecked my blackberry and to my surprise, I was flying Continental (not United) .. oops. As I printed out my boarding pass, I found out I was flying through Cleveland (not Chicago) .. oops.

The flight from Dayton to Cleveland was so short and I was in such a deep sleep, that I was Grumpy Pants McGee when they made me wake up. And I was pouting that I didn’t have anything to do this weekend while I was waiting to board my flight to Hartford when I realized.. my sister lives here, maybe I should hang out with her for the weekend. So I frantically texted her and of course she said I could come. So I got out of line to board and headed over to Hertz.

Now unfortunately, my bag still went to Hartford, but I guess I'll just get that on Sunday when I am back.

been blog MIA

Well, I’ve been lazy about writing blog entries lately. So I’ll have to write it all at once, but I added pictures for all of you who prefer to read picture books over chapter books.

- Cornfields of Iowa – the only exciting part about this is I found out we can get day passes for the local gym from the hotel. Only problem now is I have no excuses for not getting up (at 3:45am) to work out.

- Windy City Apartment Tour– Thursday night I slept at Stacey-pin’s new condo, which is absolutely amazing and decorated to the T. It almost made me want to get a place…. Almost. Friday I got a chance to lounge around and drink coffee at Sara’s new place… she basically lives in a resort complete with indoor and outdoor lap pool, half-mile circumference track on the 3rd floor, outdoor fire pits, and a view of the city. Again, it almost made me want to get a place…. Almost.

- Family Sleepover in West Lafayette, IN- I joined my family at Purdue for the football game and tailgate. Since Kyle has an extra bedroom, my parents stayed there and the rest of us just slept on the floor 4th grade slumber party style. We stayed up late night gossiping about Jonathan Taylor Thomas and playing with the Ouiji board.



- Weekend at the Happiest Place on Earth - I spent this past weekend at Disneyland staying at the Grand Californian Resort, visiting Craig and Mickey Mouse. We packed as much in the weekend as possible including park hopping, black tie SETP dinner, Newport Beach, In and Out, etc...



- Back to Ohio - where they upgraded my room to a suite, which is a nice sentiment, but really... who uses a hotel room jacuzzi??