Players: United Airlines would be a player in this as they have a high interest in what their customers think about them, and they have the power to do something about it.

Context Setters: Employees of United Airlines would be the context setters as they have some power in how to treat the customers but they probably don’t have a lot of interest in it as it’s not their company and it’s not really affecting their pay.

Subjects: Other passengers would be subjects as they have a high interest in how airlines treat their customers, but they don’t have much power in changing that. Other airlines would also be subjects as they want to know what customers think about their competition.

Crowd: the crowd would be people that follow this persons Instagram but maybe don’t travel often and don’t care about airlines.

One of the best vacations I have ever been on was actually with my Air National Guard Unit. I was lucky enough to be chosen to go on a three week trip to Geilenkirchen, Germany. We would be going there to support the NATO operated E-3 Sentry for training purposes. I considered this a vacation as well because there wasn’t a lot of work to be done and more time spent on touring the local areas. We went to every little town that was near us in Germany and including Belgium and the Netherlands. Immersing yourself with the local people of those small towns and villages and trying the local beer and food was quite the unique experience.

There was one day when we went to a private World War Two museum in Belgium and the owners of the museum lived through World War Two which was absolutely incredible. One weekend, me and two others went to Amsterdam for the weekend and that was a blast. Seeing all the culture of that city and the riverboats cutting right through the middle of the city is something everyone should see. Another weekend six or so of us went to Normandy, France. It was an awe inspiring trip to see the exact beaches that the United States and other allied countries stormed over 70 years ago.

This is by far one of the best vacations that I had ever been on especially since I got to spend three weeks in Europe and made money from it? There’s nothing greater than that and I would go back in a heartbeat.

So probably the most exciting vacation I ever went on was during the summer of my senior year. My whole family went down to San Antonio Texas where my sister and I were born, and we were finally able to see the area, since a lot had changed since we had last been there. We stayed at a nice hotel right on the Riverwalk, and each day was a new experience. The first day we just walked around the city, looking at the different touristy shops, most of which had cowboy hats and boots so obviously we all got a pair of each. We ate at a different place for every meal, whether it was Mexican, classic Texas barbecue, or one of the many hole-in-the-wall places that exist in the city. The second day we got a tour of the Alamo, which was really special because in the middle of our tour, everything stopped around us and all the people outside stood still. There was no noise outside and we were wondering what was going on, when a funeral procession for a fallen firefighter passed by. Locals told us it was the first firefighter the city had lost in 20 years. Seeing how bonded the community was with each other that they all stopped for this firefighter showed me why I have an innate love for Texas and my home in San Antonio.

So, one of my most memorable trips was actually a trip within a trip, and to be quite honest I wish I could remember more of it. My family and I cruise quite frequently and a few years back had taken one down around the Bahamas. One of our stops was on Paradise Island which is known to be where the famous “Atlantis” hotel is. Unfortunately to all the cruise goers, we were not allowed into the building being as it was a private resort. Leaving the boat that morning I remember being excited to drink and sit on the beach since I was 18 and could drink on the island legally. This is where my trouble began, My family went to a Senior frogs and my decided it would be fun to get me involved in a drinking Compton in which I was suppose to help the waitress win by empting a bottle as fast as she could. End all I basically chugged a bottle of god knows what in a min or two. Needless to say much of the remainder of the night is foggy but to the description of my family, we hopped a bus that one stop was to the hotel. I remember that my dad said not to worry and he made a plan to enter the hotel buy following another family and pretending we were with them. It ended up working and we actually got in and spent the next few hours adventuring the water park and casino. Like I said. I wish I could remember more but some things are probably better left to the imagination.

One of my more memorable vacations was when I was able to go to Las Vegas for my brothers wedding. Now pretty much all my family is from Ohio or at least from this area of the United States. So going to visit family or going on vacations was typically spent on this half of America and never required us to go to far. My brother however, being in the military, was sent all over the place. He ended up meeting a girl on the other side of the US who had her family living over there. They ended up getting married and figured a go place to have the wedding was in Vegas. Being the brother of the groom, I was given the chance to go see Vegas and be apart of his wedding. I was around 14 years old so I wasn’t really old enough to do any of the normal Vegas activities but I still had fun exploring everything around there. My family and I spent the whole week before the wedding just site seeing and going to different places. I got to see the Strip during day and at night, I even saw the pawn shop from the famous pawn shop show. It was really cool to see this completely different life style over there compared to how everything is back here in Columbus. There were so many casinos and hotels that lit up the whole city, it almost seemed like an endless party. The wedding was also pretty cool. Although we were 2,000 miles away, my brother still wanted to bring a little bit of home with him so he convinced his wife to do Ohio State wedding colors. My favorite part were the scarlet and gray suits that we were given to wear. Although we couldn’t keep them, it was still really cool to wear. Being only 14 I couldn’t always hang out with my siblings when they went out and did stuff but I hope in a couple years I’ll be able to go back out to Vegas and have another chance to see everything and get the whole Vegas experience.

Over this past summer, my 2 brothers and I went to Europe on vacation for about a week or so to Dublin, London, and Amsterdam. This was especially fun for me, as I had never left the country prior to that point. I had barely even been off the east coast more than a handful of times before then, actually. The trip itself was beyond incredible; every second I spent in each city was eye opening. But the real reason this trip will always be memorable to me came when we were on the way home from our last stop of the trip in Amsterdam. Long story short, due to some error checking into the airport, we weren’t able to make it onto our plane home and had to embark on a 40+ hour journey across the European countryside to make it back home to the US. To preface, this situation was far from fun at the time and caused a lot of stress, but I think it’s far enough in the past to be funny at this point. It was a comedy of errors

To start the journey off, we woke up around 9am local time in the Netherlands to go get a quick bite to eat before heading to Schiphol Airport for our flight back to the US. When we arrived at the airport, however, we ran into a problem that we weren’t even aware was occurring. As we got to security, we were unsure of which terminal we were supposed to enter to get to our gate, so we asked a woman at the security desk which way to go. She didn’t say anything back, just pointed towards a smaller security gate to the auxiliary terminals. So, we went through, got some food, and waited for our flight. But when the time came to board, we couldn’t find our gate. Eventually, we figured out we were in the wrong terminal entirely, and that the woman we had asked either sent us to the wrong terminal or we misunderstood what she had meant. And what’s worse, our gate was 20 minutes away, but the flight left in 5. In summary, we missed it. And because we flew on the most budget airlines to save money on the trip, we couldn’t make up the flight at all. We were panicking, because the cheapest seats we could find on flights home out of Schiphol were all in the realm of ~$1000. However, we found an airline in Denmark that could get us home for only a couple hundred dollars. So, we decided to go to Denmark. Low on money already given the situation, we had to hop on the European equivalent of a Greyhound bus to get there in what culminated to be a 16+ hour bus ride across the countryside of the Netherlands and Germany. In the middle it got kind of sketchy, when we had to wait for a connecting bus in Hanover, Germany, at a local bus terminal with nowhere to stay from just after midnight to sunrise. We ended up sleeping on some benches nearby. Eventually, we made it to Copenhagen, and made sure to do everything right to get on our flight home. And when we did make it on, I realized we were flying on a 787, so I was ecstatic to say the least. 10 hours later and we’re in New York, thankfully. But we still have to drive another 5 hours back home to D.C. All in all, we were non-stop travelling for around 46-48 hours. I had to work a good few extra shifts to recoup my losses, but I was beyond happy to have gotten back regardless.

The most favorite trip was visiting Thailand with my family in 2010. Thailand is located in South East Asia, and there are three seasons: hot season, cool season and rainy season. I was so excited about this trip because I used to live in Bangkok (the capital) when I was in kindergarten so basically, this was my second visit, and I just missed the food, culture, shops, weather, ocean and everything there. After arriving at the airport in Bangkok from Tokyo, we directly went to Phi Phi Island by ferry which was about 45 minutes ride and stayed there for five days. The ocean was as clear as a crystal, and we could see the bottom of it, and the view is so gorgeous I would say it is the Asian version of Hawaii. I enjoyed swimming in the ocean and seeing pretty fishes passing by us all day. When you drop a piece of bread in the ocean, fishes will come to you for more and that was a valuable experience for me. What made the stay in Phi Phi Island more special was that it was my birthday week. The hotel invited us to a pretty table on the beach on my birthday and served a special full course dinner and a birthday cake for us. The course menu was mainly Thai food and eating delicious foods and watching the sunset at the same time was a perfect combination. I loved it and had a blast time, yet this was not the end. When we went back to our room, my bed was decorated with flowers and green leaves! I was not expecting this at all!

We took a ferry back to Bangkok the next day and stayed there for three days. My sister’s friend and his family were also visiting Bangkok while we were there, so we met up with them and went around the local shops in town on the first day. These shops were still the same, but the city has grown rapidly and became so convenient in less than ten years. I had never seen a subway running in Bangkok before and I was so happy to see this city growing, thus at the same time, I felt kind of sad not seeing the same buildings around where we used to live. On the second day, my dad’s friend and his family invited us to their house for dinner and made new friends there. On the last day in Thailand, we went to the food stall and ate as much Thai food as we can. I would definitely go back to Thailand again and make new memories there sometimes soon.

A vacation that was very fun and exciting for me was over winter break. I flew a small airplane from Ohio out to Montana for a ski trip. It was my first big trip since getting my pilot certificate. It was quite an adventure flying out there. We had to leave a night early because of bad weather moving into Ohio. We made it to Madison, Wisconsin and spent the night there, but due to the visibility of a quarter mile the next morning, we had to delay departure until noon. We continued until we decided to stop for the night in Wyoming. Finally, we were only several hours from our destination, but ironically, we could not leave in the morning again, this time because the surface winds were so high that the hanger our airplane was in could not be opened.

We eventually landed at our destination and enjoyed some good skiing. On our way back to Ohio we blasted our way home with a stiff tailwind. While we encountered a few weather delays, it was an amazing experience. I saw some beautiful terrain flying across the country including the black hills and Chicago skyline; I also had fun skiing.

For the most recent Christmas break, my family took a trip to southern California. We flew into San Diego, which was quite the approach to watch out the window. We came in landing towards the west, which would be on runway 27 there, which brought us in over mountains, and on short final really close to the elevated highway which is right next to the airport. We spent a few days in the San Diego area and did a lot of sightseeing activities and hikes. We went kayaking one day, but unfortunately the water was rougher that day and we couldn’t go near the nearby caves.

After spending about 4 days in the San Diego area, we left on the 5th morning very early to go north to the Los Angeles area to attend the Rose Bowl parade. We hadn’t yet bought tickets for the actual Rose Bowl Game yet as when we booked the vacation, the teams for the game were not yet decided. However, after watching the parade which is definitely as good as people make it sound, we started to walk more towards the stadium which ended up being quite a walk. When we got closer to the stadium, we found a spot to buy last minute tickets for the game and we ended up being able to buy some last minute tickets. The game was very exciting, and the best part about it in my opinion was the scenery in which the stadium is situated in. Looking around kind of messes with your head as it seems like you are looking at really high quality images of mountainous landscape that turn out to be the actual landscape itself. The size of the nearby mountains and the large houses built on those mountains, combined with palm trees and the always blue skies of southern California make it a spot that any college football fan should experience at least once in their life.

After the game and the shocking traffic and public transit jams we sat through, we made it back to where we were staying, which was now a beachside hotel in Oxnard California, which is technically northwest of Los Angeles. We stayed there for about 2 days, which was unlike any beach I had ever seen in terms of how nice it was. On our last day, we took a scenic drive through Malibu and Santa Monica down the Pacific Coast highway on our way to LAX. Once we got to LAX, we went to the famous In n Out Burger that is at the east end of the north runway pair at LAX. This has to be one of my favorite places to go, as you can enjoy a meal while watching airplanes of all sizes come in to land (I included a picture of this in my first post).

The southern California area is so nice, and if costs of living weren’t so expensive I’d definitely consider living out there one day after I got a job with an airline. However, I am eager to see where aviation takes me.

One of the best moments of my life was in 2012 when Super Bowl XLVI (46) came to my hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana. The main reason it was so awesome is because my family’s favorite team, the New York Giants had made it to the big game. My dad is originally from New Jersey and grew up a Giants fan and is still a die-hard fan today; he still has season tickets and goes to about 4 Giant home games a year while living in Indianapolis.

Me and my dad spent most of the week leading up to the Super Bowl in downtown Indianapolis because they had a bunch of tents, booths, and a lot more there. The biggest attraction was the Super Bowl Experience, and there was a ton of football minigames and uniforms and helmets from all 32 NFL teams.

February 5^th, 2012, the day of Super Bowl XLVI, will always be one of my favorite experiences. The day started with my family getting downtown around nine o’clock in the morning, even though the game did not start until six in the evening. Me and my family tailgated for hours and I remember it being a lot of fun because we threw the football around, played cornhole, and my dad was grilling food constantly. Finally, the time came to go into one of the best stadiums in sports, Lucas Oil Stadium, but of course I’m biased because the stadium is in my hometown. The walk to the stadium was incredible because I could not believe I was going to watch my team play for a championship in my city with my dad, mom, and sister. I won’t bore you with details of the game, even though it was a great game. I was not a fan of the halftime show because it was Madonna, and at 13 years young I was not a big Madonna fan.

When Tom Brady’s last hail mary attempt fell incomplete and the Giants players rushed onto the field, my family and I went nuts. At the time my dad worked for Reebok, they had the NFL in 2012, and he got early access to the Giants Super Bowl Championship shirt. He had been wearing it under his sweatshirt all day and proceeded to show off the shirt when the Giants won. That image of my dad in that shirt will forever be etched into my memory forever.

Lucas Oil Stadium will always have a place in my heart because I have seen my high school win a state championship, Ohio State win multiple Big Ten titles, my NFL team win a championship there, and my high school’s prom.