Flying to Connecticut and losing half my cameras the day before the wedding. A story of stress, a photographer named Asher, and the greatest starbucks I’ve ever had.

Last weekend, I flew to HPN (White Plains, New York) via Reagan National Airport (Washington, D.C.) to film a wedding in New Canaan, CT. It was at the Country Club of New Canaan, which I realized after I arrived is the perfect town to run in. There are hills, a beautiful track, and shade all over. The point of this story isn’t to praise the long distance running in New Canaan but to tell you about my recent travel blunders. As many of you from reading my blogs whenever I travel, chaos seems to ensue. My last trip ended early when a member of my group vacation passed away while sleeping and I came back to be the first to find him in the morning. I decided I had enough of vacation and promptly left. That’s a shortened version but I want to give you some context for the sorts of things that seem to follow me.

American Airlines took my carry on because the aircraft didn’t have overhead storage into Washington DC. They gave me a red valet tag and told me to basically not worry. I didn’t. They had my back. On the airplane I overheard on the intercom some directions being given for the valet checked bags. I listened. They stated that when I arrived at my final destination my bag would be returned to me. Wow, what a great service. They explained that if DC was my final destination to please grab the bag from the bridge as we were leaving aircraft. Easy!

I got to D.C. – hustled to my next flight, caught it, landed in White Plains and asked for my bag. “you should have grabbed it in D.C.” was the response. eerrrgggg. I was a little upset because the only reason I didn’t grab it in DC was because they told me to grab it at my final destination. I would have grabbed it except for the announcement. I explained that to the American Airlines baggage agent at white plains and she was really helpful. She told me this happens quite often and they need to stop playing that announcement. She then went on to contact the DC airport and let them know I had Video gear I needed for a wedding the following day and could they send it on the next flight. She said “I hope someone sees that message in time.” which made me really worried like it was a teams message sent to an employee working full time remote.

The next day in my hotel I realized that I had to take some action and my bag most likely wasn’t going to come to me without some prodding. I called and tried to get past the robo menu being honest with what I needed. No luck. I called and told the robo menu I needed to book a new flight – they connected me with a real live person and I explained my situation. They transferred me to a helpful person and he in turn told me the bags were in a back room- safe- and that they would be getting to me it just depended on which flight. I said I needed them tonight for a rehearsal dinner and he assured me they would be here soon. I hung up and tried to get some work done. It’s hard to work when you’re not sure if you’ll have your gear for the very event you were flown out to do. So I started chatting online with another american airlines agent and explained my situation. That seemed to get it a little bit more escalated. I worked some more and the deadline for the rehearsal dinner was approaching. I decided to take action. I looked up the nearest camera store carrying the Canon r6 Mark II. This is the same as my A cam and It allowed me to get 2 angles of the speeches and ceremony. I bought it and had it reserved for pickup. about 5 minutes later the airline called and said my bags would be arrive 6:15pm at White Plains airport. The rehearsal dinner was 45 minutes away from the airport and I needed to be there at 6:45. I texted the bride (Tara) who was so gracious and let me know that it was totally fine if I was late. I sprinted to best buy, grabbed the cameras that I had already paid for, drove to White Plains airport, and then grabbed my gear. It was the first bag out on the carousel. I hustled back to my car and started the drive to the Boat House where the rehearsal dinner was taking place. I pulled in and started to put together my gear. Got it mostly assembled after some flustered failed attempts at getting my gimble centered and the first person I saw was the photographer, Asher. I looked and said, hi, I’m Tim, I’m video, we should go outside soon the sun is setting for portraits. She said, I already took them out, I had no idea you were coming. My spirit broke. Asher really is a fine person and was a delight to work with, I think I just had enough obstacles for the day. Her work is splendid and I hope to work with her again under better circumstances.

The rest of the weekend went pretty much uneventful. I met up with an old friend in NYC for a day on sunday and just sort of walked around doing NYC things. The wedding was shockingly the least stressful thing out of the whole travel experience. Oh and the starbucks, yeah I ordered the Brown Sugar Shaken espresso that morning I was trying to find my bags and it hit better than any coffee I’ve ever had. Ty starbucks for making my trip enjoyable.

Loose ends: So to tie up some loose ends, I did return everything to best buy, they didn’t charge me a restocking fee (ty best buy) and I filed an insurance claim to have American Airlines cover the equipment I had to buy because of the baggage delay. They stated “it was not covered under their policy.” Luckily -as I stated earlier I was able to return it all to best buy. The moral of the story for me is 1. Charge for travel. 2. Travel is always stressful. 3. Make the most out of where you are even when you don’t feel like it. I went to NYC even though I was completely deflated from my luggage. My friend Sajmir said to me one time, “Tim I know it’s hard, but you must forget about these things and enjoy today” (in an Albanian accent). We only have today, and despite our feelings, or if things are going our way (or the opposite) we can choose to enjoy and take advantage of where we are. I hope you are all having a great Thursday.

Tim’s soapbox.

PPS. this is just very recent so it’s on my mind, Charlie Kirk was assassinated yesterday while speaking his mind on a college campus. Later this december I’m filming Melissa Hortmann’s sons wedding, she was the Minnesota Senator that was assassinated at her home with her husband by a radical right leaning man. Both of these people spoke and took action that upset people on the opposite end of the aisle. I don’t think either of knew it would cost them their life. I don’t’ think their families knew it would cost them their life. When the call came in for their bridal consult with Hortmann’s son’s fiance, and I realized who they were I felt sick. Humanity should always come before politics. This was in the news cycle for 1 week but it’s affecting these families for the rest of their lives. I think a bit of compassion goes a long ways and treating people the way we want to be treated could be a good way to go about life if we’re looking to enjoy it. I also fear, that (and I hope I’m wrong) these sorts of things will continue to happen. I think it’s important to weep when others weep, and rejoice when others rejoice, but never at the expense of someone else.