Last week I had the misfortune of attending the funeral of one of my friends. I’ve thought for the last week about what to write or even if to write about it. I’ve decided that I wanted to put some of my memories of JJ here for myself and our mutual friends to read and maybe share some of their own. This was my first funeral where I had to lay a close friend of mine to rest. I’ve lost grandparents and other relatives but something about a funeral for a guy only about six months older than me really troubled me. One of my friends said it best when he told me we’re supposed to be going to each other’s weddings and congratulating them on their newborns.
I met JJ in the Fall of 2001 when I decided to join Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE). He was initiated a year before me which meant I would be a member of the first pledge class since his he’d have the pleasure of initiating. Even though he had the upper hand on me being a member and me being a pledge he never really let it get to his head. He treated everybody with the same respect and friendship you showed towards him. A few of my favorite memories of JJ was a trip we made to Tulsa to help him move some stuff back to Tahlequah from his Dad’s house and learning you never bet JJ on anything.
JJ was our chapter’s social chair during my pledge semester and he would constantly remind me how important social chair was to the chapter. When I’m driving him up to his Dad’s to grab some furniture he once again reminded me of how I have such an important role of protecting the social chair he constantly referred to me as his secret service agent. An entire three hour roundtrip of him acting like the President of the US and me needing to jump in front of bullets for him. Goof ball.
My other memory is making the mistake of betting JJ. He was one of the biggest sports fanatics I knew. I didn’t always agree with his choice in teams but hey.. not everybody’s perfect. So my bet with JJ was I would play him a game of Madden football and the winner had to clean the other person’s car. I lost… horribly. Well before I cleaned his car I challenged him to a re-match of double or nothing. Second mistake, making this challenge while I’m intoxicated and he is not. He then proceeds to agree but on the condition that we play the game right then. I lost… horribly. To clear my debt with him I end up having to clean his car and go snack shopping for him using only a paper bag full of pennies, taped closed with a douche taped to the outside of it. Why he had all of this at his apartment I have no idea. Embarrassing? Sure… but I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything.
He was a good friend and I will miss the banter traded back and forth in regards to sports. He was a great guy and was taken from us way to early.
If you’re reading this and have some memories you’d like to share feel free to post them in the comments.
My buddy Dustin hits me up a few weeks ago and tells me about a TKE Alumni conference being held in Indianapolis the first weekend in August. With very little prodding he convinces me to go with him. The original itinerary is for me to leave Tulsa on Friday morning around 7:10am and be in Indy at approximately 1pm with a connection in Minneapolis. I arrive at the the airport and find out that my flight has been delayed which in turn is going to make me miss my Minneapolis connection, GREAT! So they shuffle me around and put me on a different airline heading to Houston at 9am and getting me to Indy around 4:30pm, SUPER! I love spending my entire day in airports.
The conference is from Friday through Sunday, a nice short weekend to network with other Tekes. The actual conference was great with a lot of good material for me to take back and hopefully use to help our chapter move towards a Top Teke chapter. So the conference was great I had a good time, learned a lot and all that jazz.
My departure is Sunday morning at 7:45am and no I didn’t book these flights! Who in their right mind would want to fly that early? I wake up Sunday morning around 6 o’clock to get packed and ready to leave. The hotel we were at was within walking distance of the airport so I take off on my morning walk to catch my flight. As I’m walking through the airport I see all of two people until I take the escalator to the second floor where I’m greeted with a line of about 100 people all waiting for the same airline I’m flying. There are all of 2 or 3 people at every other ticket counter with my counter packed to the gills.
I patiently wait for my turn to check-in only to be told that I can’t check-in. I was expecting this because for some reason I’m on a TSA watch list. I’ve had to go through extra security each time I’ve flown this summer which has been a total pain in the butt. This time however it’s not a you can’t check-in for extra security it’s a you can’t check-in because you have to check-in 30 mins before the flight departs, I was checking in with about 25 mins until departure. I’ve never heard of this and for this reason I will never fly Northwest again. They are zero help from this point on. Flat out YOU’RE NOT GETTING ON THIS FLIGHT. Gee thanks lady, do I have any other options? She offers to put me on standby which departs at noon but it doesn’t look good that I’ll make that flight either. I then pick up the phone and call Northwest’s reservation number. They offer to put me on a 5pm flight for an additional fee of $400 bucks, yeah right! She then says I can get on a flight the next morning for about $125. Which $125 plus another night in a hotel and having to call into work doesn’t sound like a great option either.
I do some quick thinking, which at 8am isn’t very quick. I call Heather and have her research a one-way rental car to Tulsa. This option is going to cost me about $145 plus gas. After weighing my options I rent the car and head home. I was dead tired so I stop for a quick hour nap somewhere outside of Indy in a lovely Mickey D’s parking lot. After the nap I’m ready to head out again…. 10 hours later I arrive at Tulsa International Airport, yea back to the airport where I was supposed to have arrived at 11am that morning. I drop off the rental car, catch a ride to the parking garage to get into my car and drive home.
This has to be the worst experience I’ve ever had traveling. I’m currently working on getting myself removed from the TSA watch list and I’ll probably do a write up of that process to hopefully help some other poor soul like me. On a side note… I did get to see the St. Louis Arch and the new Cardinals stadium.
Last week I had the misfortune of attending the funeral of one of my friends. I’ve thought for the last week about what to write or even if to write about it. I’ve decided that I wanted to put some of my memories of JJ here for myself and our mutual friends to read and maybe share some of their own. This was my first funeral where I had to lay a close friend of mine to rest. I’ve lost grandparents and other relatives but something about a funeral for a guy only about six months older than me really troubled me. One of my friends said it best when he told me we’re supposed to be going to each other’s weddings and congratulating them on their newborns.
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