| What is your most memorable childhood experience? | When I was nine or ten years old, I was playing on my town's travel soccer team in the final match of a tournament. In the last five minutes of the match, our goalie got caught out at the top of the box and one of the players on the opposing team managed to dribble around him and take a shot. I was able to save the goal after sprinting across the box and sliding in the way of the ball, and the parents in the stands went nuts. We went into shootouts shortly after that and we still lost the match but I was still proud that I was able to make that play and get my team a little bit farther in the game. |
| What immediate family member do you closely identify with and why? | I most closely identify with my brother. Despite our age difference, growing up I spent a lot of time with him, playing N64, camping in the summertime, passing time during family occasions and playing around the house during our younger years. He always made sure to let me tag along on his adventures and I'd like to think that all of the time we've spent together has had a huge impact on who I am today. |
| What character traits do you admire in an individual? | If a person is trustworthy, has a good work ethic, and has a sense of humor, I tend to have a higher level of respect for them than I do for others. I find that anyone with these character traits is easy to get along with and you can always depend on them to get the job done. If you've got a good sense of humor, I also tend to like you more because you'd be fun to hang out with and generally you're probably easier to befriend. |
| What is the funniest thing ever to happen to you? | When I was working for a company in the northeast, they sent me on a twenty-four hour trip to England that was horrible from start to finish, but funny in hindsight. A customer was trying to sell a very expensive piece of equipment the next day and needed certification paperwork from our company to close out the deal. They shipped out the paperwork, but they weren't sure if it would make it in time so they put me on a plane with a copy of the documents to see who would get there first. They put me on a plane at the end of the work day with only an hour's worth of notice. To start off the trip I almost missed my flight because the plane left only three hours after I was told about the trip. I wasn't able to sleep on the plane because my seat was right next to the jet engines of the aircraft. After a delay between connecting flights, I landed in London but was extremely sleep deprived and could hardly function. A driver was there to pick me up and took me on a two hour drive through the British countryside to a manufacturing plant in the middle of nowhere. The drop went smoothly and I was ready to take the same cab back and crash in my hotel room after being awake for more than twenty-seven hours. But apparently that wasn't meant to be because my company only paid the driver to take me one way and I would have to find my own way back to London. The driver basically pointed me in the direction of the bus, wished me well and took off in his car. But the bus only went halfway to London, and I got the same treatment from the bus driver where he basically told me I wasn't his problem and now I would have to take the train to get the rest of the way. At this point I've been awake for more than twenty-nine hours and I can barely function, let alone navigate the public transport system of a foreign country where everyone is very British. I queue up and get my train ticket, hop on the train and take a forty-five minute ride into one of the main train hubs of London. At this point, my hotel room was only two blocks away from the train station, literally a stone's throw away, but my phone is dead and I only have a confirmation email with the street address of my arranged hotel accommodations. I have no idea where I am, and at this point I would have settled for a cozy back alley to fall asleep in but I've made it this far and I'm determined to find my way to the luxurious 3 star hotel my company graciously paid money in advance for (supposedly). I'm asking around to see if anyone knows where this hotel is and the first two couples I talk to haven't a clue. The Scottish cab driver I talked to next was convinced it was in a certain area of town, and pointing to a map, he indicated that it was all the way across town, which is fantastic news. So now I have to take the London Tube. I buy my ticket, hop on and ride it all the way across to the other side of London as far the line took me. I must have been awake for thirty-two hours at this point and the sweet release of death would have been preferable to the extreme sleep deprivation I was dealing with. I finally reach the end of the line get off and start asking around but the next Scottish cab driver I talk to tells me that first cab driver was an idiot and I was right next to where I wanted to be the whole time. So I get back on the Tube and ride back to my original destination but my body winds up giving in and I fall asleep before getting to my stop and the train keeps on going past my destination to the exact other side of the subway line I was on. One of the workers found me sleeping on the benches on the railway cars and shakes me awake, letting me know that I can't sleep here. Feeling a bit better after having slept for thirty or forty minutes, but now I have to transfer to another line to get back to the original train station I arrived at when I got into London. Fast forward to me finally finding my hotel room. It's about 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon and it turns out my room isn't ready for me to check into which was pretty much par for the course for what I was dealing with this entire trip. They sit me down in the lobby and fetch a freshly squeezed glass of OJ (which was delicious) and assure me that they are getting the room ready as quickly as possible. After people watching for a good half hour they finally have my room ready and I trudge up four flights of stairs to get to my room. The plan from then on was to make the best of things. I would take a quick hour-long nap, wake up and go do some sightseeing but that hour long nap turned into a ten hour sleep session, and when I wake up it's already approximately 1 am British time. I needed food but none of the bars I tried were serving food. The only place that was open and serving food that I could find in the immediate area was a Szechuan restaurant. And with my plane leaving in five hours the only thing I could really do was finish up my meal, and head back to my room to maybe nap for a few more hours to pass the time before taking a cab to the airport. The whole trip was absolutely horrible and I felt like I was dying the entire time I was stumbling around London and the English countryside. The entire experience played out like some masochistic Monty Python skit written by the devil, but it's funny looking back on the entire ordeal and what I went through. |
| If time and money were not an issue, where would you travel and why? | If neither money nor time were an issue I would travel to Japan. It's been a long-standing dream of mine and I might get the chance to go early next year if I save up some money. The country has a lot of history and it would be fun to explore some of the older temples and historical areas to get a feel for what it would have been like living in the area hundreds of years ago. Sushi and Japanese cuisine is also A+ in my book, so the food there during my stay would be absolutely delicious. Japanese culture at large is also very interesting and unique, so visits to some of the larger cities would be an adventure on its own. I also want to try out a legit hot springs because I hear they're amazing. |
| When and if you ever have children, what would you like to pass on to them? | If I ever have children, I would want to pass on my love for learning and some of the financial lessons I've learned over my short lifetime. I'm of the belief that if you pass on an interest in knowledge and teach someone to logically work through and solve problems on their own at an early age, it helps tremendously throughout a kid's lifetime. As for financial lessons, one of the biggest mistakes I've made was going to a private college for my degree, and now I have massive student loan debt. It really limits my savings every month and financial freedom, and I believe that I probably could have gotten the same education at a public college for 1/4 of the cost. If I ever have kids, I would want to teach them about the value of a dollar and sort of steer them in the right direction when it comes to making major financial decisions that could impact their lives for many, many years. |
