craigslist come-up: vancouver

i just arrived in seattle a few moments ago and things are barely beginning to make sense. i had the whole row on the flight up here and the last thing i remember is the retreating santa monica shore line. the past 3 days ive worked 16-hour shifts so i dont know how i even managed to get up this morning. my alarm went off at 4am, the second at 4:35am and after changing my mind a thousand times i finally got myself up, showered, packed and hit the road. 

if you know me you know that i love my sleep. i cherish my sleep dearly so why you might ask would i subject myself to so much misery. well, 

if theres one thing i do love more or equally as much is finding a great deal. oh, and travel, travel also. so when these three passions of mine come together its a beautiful thing. unfortunately sleep had to take one for the team but its all good; ive never been to vancouver and i keep hearing great things. 

my darkest coldest week

a few weeks ago i found myself a few thousands miles south of home in patagonia, argentina and along the way i stopped to check out the perito moreno glacier. to those who never been, the experience is nothing short of magnificent, one that will definitely live with me forever. i remember how the ice fell, tiny bits at first. but as those pieces slowly began to fall, bigger and bigger ones also began to drop. the crowds quickly took notice and they all gathered with cameras raised high. they waited and waited, i waited but nothing happened; the ice held. so the people left and went about their business.


i stayed.
i just knew that there was no way in hell that mountain of ice was going to hold. i waited and nothing, i couldn't believe it! i studied the area closely, the pattern in which the ice fell, where the ice was chipping away from, saw how dark and dirty the ice around the area had become, this had to be it. all around me i could hear the gasps of others as more ice mounds fell into the murky lake. i was not impressed



 i waited and waited and began to lose hope that this was ever going to happen. but then the sun came out of the clouds, it was gentle and warm. the sun's rays must've helped because soon after this 60-ft wall began to fall. the sound was so loud and it created mini tsunamis across the lake. the awe was short-lived though, i don't know it all just became so sad to me. who knows for how long this giant sheet of ice had been standing for. it just seemed so depressing at the time to see it go under. soon after as the dirty wall laid waste in the murk, my eyes were instantly drawn to what was now before me. there was a new wall with no dirt with no imperfections, it was clear and pure. in it was one of the most beautiful blues that i had ever seen and i just could not get over it. the glow was unreal.


magnificent as all of this was, the foreshadowing of it all is even greater and it is now that i clearly see God's hand in all of it. two weeks ago my life began to slowly crumble and fall into a cold and lonely abyss. it felt as if the pieces would never stop chipping away but eventually the mountain inside of me came crashing down and with it my selfish and stubborn heart, the hate, everything, it all went down.

seven days ago i didn't know what kind of man i was going to be. i was in a dark place, i was alone and the lights were definitely out. so i did what i was taught as a young boy, i got on my knees and i prayed. the God of my youth, the one who would miraculously provide me with random rides back home from late night football practices, the one who kept me safe on a 10-hour train ride from kiev to odessa, the one who didn't let me drown and let the rip current take me away in busan, the one who had me be 10 minutes late to my lunch and miss the cross-hairs of the lax shooter, this same God began to do his mighty work in me. He is my master Surgeon and the only one that could ever get me through this.

i don't deserve the amount of grace that's been given to me but i'm definitely not mad about it. its easy to focus on what's on the outside but looking beyond and seeing what truly matters, what glows and what will last forever, that's what it's all about.
if you know me, keep me in your prayers, if you don't then please start and add me to your line-up. i most def need it

tight connections

friday, october 3rd, noon-ish. 

i'm currently on my third and final leg of my journey to marrakech, morocco and its been nothing but hail mary moves to get to where i'm at right now. yesterday began with me snoozing through all of my alarms and finally waking at around 8am for my 8:25am flight to philly; needless to say, i missed my flight. 

the panic light inside my head began to blink as i aimlessly scrambled through my room. i opened the laptop and began to lookup all east coast cities i could fly to that could take me to madrid with enough connection time to hop on my flight to marrakech. i began to loose hope until i saw an iberia flight from jfk to mad leaving at 8:55pm EST. and wouldn't you know it, there just so happened to be a flight with virgin america to jfk leaving at 10:30am. 

i burned through almost an hour on my web quest so by the time i showered and had all of my gear ready, it was 9:10am. pasadena to lax at that time is not the prettiest drive but luckily i bought myself a fastrak transponder from costco a few months ago so i was able to get to lax by 10:00am. another smart investment i made a few months ago was getting global entry, which included tsa pre-check and had me in and out of security in under 5 minutes; worth every penny! i got to gate 36 by 10:15am and just in time for final call. 

a few hours and several sam adams later, i landed at jfk and hit the ground running. we landed in terminal 4 and iberia was at terminal 7, by the time i got on the airtrain it was almost 7:20pm. i didn't have much cash on me and i knew there was a chase atm in jetblue's terminal 5. it was going to be tight but i quickly got off and made the long walk across the sky-walk towards terminal 5. i spotted the atm but not before also noticing the dunkin donuts halfway down the ticket counter. precious seconds ticked away as i contemplated my decision, but in reality it wasn't even one, deep down i knew i was going to get myself a coffee and bagel, how could i not.

i raced back up the ramp and hopped on the airtrain towards terminal 7. i finally reached the iberia counter and all i can think of is the warm round gooey goodness that's inside my bag. i inhale my bagel in seconds and dashed towards the iberia counter: it was 8:06pm and jose, the iberia agent told me the flight was closed for check-in. i took a long sip from my delicious dunkin donuts coffee and made my case. he must've felt sorry for me because next thing i know, he's calling the gates and after a few spanish exchanges with his supervisor, he gives me a boarding pass with a row all to myself. i thank him and again i'm off to the races, get through security and get to gate 4: it is 8:35pm. 

once boarded, all good, mellow was what i thought up until we began our taxi to the runway. the ground traffic in jfk was bananas so we spent an hour in a conga line waiting to take-off, which ate away at my tight connection in madrid. when we finally landed and deplaned, the time was 11:10am and the flight out to marrakech left at 12pm. i didn't have a boarding pass for my flight, which usually means you have to go past security and re-check at the ticket counter; i definitely did not have time for that. just my luck, i came across an iberia full service counter and spoke with a kind agent who helped me out and was able to print me my boarding pass and also give me a seat assignment. i thanked her very much and sped walk towards gate s23. it was 11:30 by the time i reached the gate and not only did i get there with enough time but my two friends were there waiting for me.

so now i'm back, here, where i first began flying across the straight of gilbratar unsure of what will happen in the next few moments and looking forward to the next set of tight connections. cheers

 

lax t3 shooting: just another day at work

I can't quite describe what I'm feeling. 

My thoughts are incoherent at best. 

Im trying to keep these strange trail mix of emotions bottled in my chest but the more i think about them the more queazy and mad I become.

I was scheduled to take my lunch today at 9:30.

but at 9:20, someone else decided to murder a tsa agent in cold blood and injure a few more. 

at first it sounded like someone's tire exploded. I quickly realized that this wasn't the case when the 2nd and 3rd shots, quick in succession, made their murderous claps across the terminal.

the lobby was busy and when the shots rang, chaos swept across the floor.

some people dropped, others ran, I crawled.

the shots continued to ring. the terrifying part about it was that you didn't know from where. 

as the shots continued, my body kept stiffening as if I were being pumped with liters of embalming fluid. 30 yards away I began to crawl to our break room. 

people were screaming and yelling. next to me I saw my coworker marlowe. we looked at each other not knowing if we would make it to the door. we finally made it inside the office. 

a few more shots rang and then it stopped.

a few hours later, after the shooter was taken down, we were all reunited at tom bradley international airport. glad to report that nobody from our staff was hurt!