Thanks Pap for this review of our trip to Chicago for ASC.

This is a review of our trip to the American Society of Criminology Meeting in Chicago, IL from November 12-14, 2002. It was an interesting time, to say the least, with never a dull moment. Justin (Patch) and I left East Lansing at about 3:30pm on Tuesday, November 12th, and enjoyed some Dashboard Confessional and some 90s Country music on the way down to Illinois. Patch even tried to get some reading in while I was driving and learning how to use a digital camera we borrowed for the trip. We stopped for fuel and an early dinner in Valparaiso, Indiana and shared five Arby's melts between the two of us. Generally, we wouldn't allow ourselves to eat such crap, but we forgo normative conventions when we are on "vacation" (which is any trip away from campus for more than a few hours). The girl who served us looked about our age, and was really personable and funny, and kept coming over to us and chatting. She even offered us a plastic knife so we could neatly divide the last Arby's Melt between us, and was quick to identify the fact that we were not from around there. In fact, she even pegged us as Michiganders. I have no idea how - something must have given us away. Anyway, she was memorable, and so was this group of police officers who ordered their food right before us. Did you know that cops are given sizable discounts at fast-food establishments all the time? I feel really weird about that, but apparently it actually happens more often than not. I thought it was just an urban legend, but nope, there are definite perks to being a law enforcement official in uniform. Anyway, while we were taking a picture of the Arby's sign, they kept looking at us weirdly, wondering what on earth we were doing. It was so funny, with the befuddled look on their faces, and Justin and I just laughing so hard at them.

We rolled into Chicago around 7:30pm or so, and luckily did not have to deal with much traffic. We picked up Mike Alper - the longtime friend of ours who currently works as a federal probation officer in the city - and he found us a parking space alongside Lake Shore Drive, quite close to Lake Michigan. We then grabbed our stuff from the car, and walked over to Alper's place. After a few moments in his awesome bachelor pad, we decided to head over to the local Costco to get foodstuffs for the party we were hosting the following night. This party was to follow an MSU reception at the conference hotel, and we hoped to provide an atmosphere of good times for our past and current MSU students and faculty members. After purchasing chips, pop, beer, and pizza, we went back to Alper's and unloaded the party paraphernalia. Then, we decided to hit the town and find a nice place to have dinner. We ended up at a Mexican restaurant called Tarascas, and Justin ordered a 45 ounce Margarita to start his night off right. Mike, not threatened by the size of Justin's alcoholic beverage, chose to order a smaller one and not go overboard, considering that he had to work the next morning (even though Justin had to give a presentation with me next morning as well). Throughout the appetizers and dinner entrees, we enjoyed reminiscing about the times we shared as Masters students at MSU, and laughed a lot about our friends and the funny things that we did and they did over the years. It was great to be able to spend time with Mike, whom we hadn't seen for about four months. After dinner, we took a walk deeper into the downtown area, and took in the sights - some of which were quite alarming. I won't go into details, but it at least exposed us to the seedier side of a big city. It also strengthened my and Justin's adamant view that we will never ever live in this type of place. It's just not for us at all. In fact, we maintain this mental list of reasons why we dislike/hate/avoid big cities like Chicago, and added a handful of items to that list over the course of the trip. After our walk, we headed back to Alper's and I enjoyed a bowl of ice-cream-sandwich-flavored ice cream. It was amazingly good. We got to bed about midnight, and knew we had to get up around 6am in order to be ready to leave with Mike to get to the conference hotel.

On Wednesday morning, Justin and I had to present our paper entitled "Dilapidation and Drug Incidents" at 9:30am, and I was to serve as the chair of the panel and therefore had to make sure we were there early to set up and have everything in place. We actually got there around 7:30am, and saw Christina and Amanda getting ready for their presentation at 8am. After playing with Christina's son Max for a while, and chatting a bit with Mike and Kristy - who also were presenting at 9:30am, we moseyed around and located an unoccupied couch where we were able to set down our stuff and prepare for our presentation. I was glad for the opportunity to review my notes, and to clear my mind. A professor from Illinois State University sat down next to us, and we talked to her for a few minutes about life following graduate school. Then, we headed into our presentation room at about 9am and set up our laptop and LCD projector. Interestingly enough, two of the three other presenters also had laptops and LCD projectors, and so we joked how we should have coordinated the bringing of the equipment! I was very pleased with how well our presentation went - I talked for a while on social disorganization theory and the variables we employed in our research project, and Justin followed with the statistical analysis and crime mapping that demonstrated the relationship between vacant housing units and drug crimes in the areas of study. The other presenters were extremely intelligent and enthusiastic about their work, and our panel was heavily attended. It couldn't have gone any better, as far as I am concerned.

After our presentation, Justin got to talk for a while with his mentor from the University of Wisconsin-Superior, and I sat down in pain as my stomach started aching incredibly. I don't think I've ever had such a bad stomachache, and I blame it on that blasted bowl of ice-cream-sandwich-flavored ice cream. Plus, I hadn't eaten anything all morning, and it was about noontime by then. Well, it slowly got better, and after Justin was done we headed out to Miller's Pub - a local eatery right next to the hotel. As soon as we entered, we saw Chris Maxwell beckoning me over to his booth, and he introduced me to his friend J.B., who does private security research work for KPMG. I had wanted to meet him for a year now, as he also earned his Ph.D. with Chris from Rutgers and made the decision to enter the corporate arena rather than academia. I hoped to garner some insight as to how he made that decision, whether he is completely happy with it, whether he has intentions to teach at a university in the future, and what types of projects he is currently administering. Chris invited us to sit down and talk, and so Justin and I had lunch with them as I learned about J.B.'s research interests and was able to ask him the questions I had for him. It was a great opportunity to meet and speak with him, and I hope to work with him in the future on sociotechnical studies and papers.

Following our fine lunchtime dining, we met up with Amanda in her room and then decided to go to a panel. Justin went to a school violence panel, while Amanda and I headed to a Strain theory panel, which was absolutely fascinating and full of empirically rigorous presentations. Then we reunited in the room where publishers exhibit criminal justice textbooks for consideration by faculty members from around the world, and talked with a few friends that were there at the same time. I would say that one of the best parts about going to these conferences is touching base with those whom we knew from days past, and seeing how their career, family, and life was going. Justin and I then met up with Mike - who got off work at around 4:30pm, and we took the subway back to his place. I got to catch a half-hour catnap while Justin fell asleep for about 30 seconds and Mike played ice hockey on his Playstation. We got the apartment ready for our party later that night, and then headed back to the conference hotel for the first annual MSU reception. Here again we were able to interact and reminisce with friends from the past, and basically spent a couple of hours talking and laughing. Then, a group of us hopped on the subway back to Mike's for our party. Not too many were able to come, which was a good thing because Mike was concerned about the well-being of his humble abode. It was mostly our closest friends, and we enjoyed ourselves for a while before heading out to the local Michigan State bar - The Gin Mill and then back to the conference hotel where I was to meet up with a professor friend from UCF. It was quite important that I got to talk to her, and so I'm glad we were able to meet up. Justin and I then hung out for a while longer before heading back to Alper's at around 1:30am. Absolutely exhausted, we crashed until around 7am, with morning coming way too quickly.

Because of a variety of responsibilities and deadlines, we needed to get out of Chicago on Thursday after Justin's second presentation, even though we hoped to spend some more time seeing the city and even taking in a concert or performing arts event. We simply had to get back to East Lansing in order to salvage Friday for studying and preparation for upcoming exams. As such, we quickly packed up our things when we woke up, got suited and booted for the conference, and then headed out to my car to load it with our stuff before venturing to the hotel. Just as I was filling the trunk with my suitcase and sneakers, Justin cried out, "Dude, your window's been smashed!" I looked up at him with a puzzled look upon my face...and then he cried out again, "Dang! And your stereo is gone!" Still stunned, I walked over to the passenger side of the car, and saw the hundreds of fragments of glass from the front window all over the curb, and then peered inside to see glass all over the passenger seat and my dashboard ripped apart and only wires hanging out where my car CD player used to be. I thought to myself, you have got to be kidding. This did not just happen. And I retraced my actions when I had parked the car - I had removed the detachable face of the stereo...I had locked the doors and alarmed the car...and this still happened. What an absolute nightmare. What a horrible way to end our conference, which to that point gone so well. "Oh no..." Mike pulled out his cell and called 911, and was told that for these incidents - which apparently occur way too frequently in this big (crappy) city, you just have to file a report over the phone. Well, to be honest, I wasn't mad, and I wasn't upset after a few seconds of the initial shock. I was like, okay, this is a small obstacle in the grand scheme of things. A token inconvenience. I could handle this. No worries. I actually had such a peace about the whole situation, and knew that we would get everything figured out. The police report. The insurance issues. The drive back to Lansing without a window. The foreboding rain and flurries that were expected later that evening. The cold weather outside. I could handle this. And God was going to help me through it all.

After a few minutes of deliberation, we decided to throw our stuff into the trunk, lock it, and just leave the car where it was since we needed to get to the conference so that Justin could present. So, we did that, and when we got to the hotel, we headed up to Beth's room where I made a couple of calls to the police department and to my insurance company. I didn't receive any grief from either - both were extremely helpful and considerate towards my plight. Then, after saying hey to Jason and Jackson for a few minutes, the three of us (Beth, Justin, and I) headed over to the room in which Beth, Justin, Sean, and John were to present papers on juvenile justice in Michigan. Patch's presentation also went perfectly well, as did the ones by our other three colleagues. A group of seven of us - Ali, Pete, Sean, Cheryl, Brandon, Justin, and me - then decided to have lunch together at a well-known restaurant called the Italian Village. Amanda met us out there a few minutes after we had been seated, and it was a nice, cozy atmosphere where we got to enjoy each other's company and delight in some soup, salad, and hot Italian cuisine. We took a few pictures to remember the moment, as this was our last hurrah until the next conference, which is in Boston during the first week of March, 2003. Our waiter was awesome and treated us like we were special guests from out of town (which we were!), and went out of his way to make sure that our meal was enjoyable. He earned himself a nice tip for that, to say the least. Well, after we finished up and parted ways with our friends, Justin and I psyched ourselves up to tackle the problems that awaited us when we got back to my car. First off, we weren't absolutely confident as to how to get there, and so we just hoped that the subway rides we took would take us to the familiar vicinity of where we needed to be. Next, we needed to stumble upon a drugstore and pick up some duct tape to fashion some sort of solution for our lack of a passenger-side window. We didn't know how we were going to do it, but we knew it had to be done, as there was no way we could drive back to East Lansing with the loud wind and the cold air hammering us through that vast opening. Furthermore, it was beginning to rain, and so we were like, ah crap. Luckily, the subway ride put us in a good place, and there was a drugstore right outside when we surfaced from the underground rail system. We hopped inside and grabbed some duct tape and some candy (and Justin grabbed some pop) to keep us alive for the rest of our afternoon and night, because we were fried and knew that things were only getting started. Shocktarts were the way to go for me, Justin settled on some weird gummy peach-flavored ring-shaped candies. Yeah, I don't know either - apparently he was in a mood for them. We also asked the cashier if she had any empty cardboard boxes that we might use as a replacement for the window, but she didn't have any. So, we shrugged our shoulders and just left with tape and candy, and offered up some more prayers that something would happen to help us through this.

After a long walk to the car (which was still there, surprisingly enough), we put down our gear in the trunk and attempted to figure out a solution. As I was rearranging things in the trunk, I noticed my windshield sun-shade, and thought - hmmmm...maybe this might work if we could fold it around or tape it to the passenger-side door frame. Justin also saw some potential in that sunshade, and so he picked up a sizable shard of glass and proceeded to cut it in half so that it might fit the doorframe better. Meanwhile, I used the brush I keep in the car to wipe loose snow from the windows during the winter to brush the broken pieces of glass from the front passenger seat so that Justin could at least sit down. In about twenty minutes, we had successfully taped most of the sunshade onto the doorframe, in place of where the window used to be. And it actually seemed secure, and that it would hold on for at least part of our journey home. I was so thankful that we actually had what we needed in the car (the sunshade and the snow brush) - that was truly a blessing. God never gives us more than we can handle, that's for sure. Well, when we thought that it was as good as it was going to get, Justin climbed in and I shut his door carefully to keep from jostling or loosening our makeshift window (which, of course, we couldn't see though so I guess it was more of a makeshift windblocker). I then climbed into the driver's seat, started up the engine, prayed some more, and we were off.

It took us a solid hour to get out of Chicago traffic, but we eventually did and made it home safely in about five hours. I had to ask Patch if it was clear for me to move over every time I needed to switch lanes, because I couldn't see squat through the right side of the car. Plus, every now and again we would hear the wind a little bit louder, and so Justin had to reinforce it with some more duct tape from the inside. We kept thinking that all of a sudden we would hear a WHOOOOOOOSHHH!! and the windshield-sun-shade-makeshift-window would get sucked right off and go flying behind us, much like roofs are quickly torn off houses by tornadoes in movies like Twister or The Wizard of Oz. But it held. Even though it was pouring down hard rain through the vast majority of the trip home, and the duct tape was showing signs of weakening adhesion. Even though it was deer season and we had seen one freshly hit one the side of the road on the way down to Chicago two days ago. Even though we were so painfully tired and our bodies and brains just ached. My voice was also gone and I was feeling a little less than peachy (despite Patch's candy), and Justin's frequent sighing betrayed a similar physical state. Every now and again, I would start singing a country song, or Justin would start singing, and the other would chime in, and that's how we kept awake and alert. Or we'd attempt to psychoanalyze certain situations or people in order to bring some understanding to all that confuses us (and there is *so* much!), and so our conversations also helped. Overall, I was just thankful that we made it. After dropping Patch off, I slowly made it back to my place. And soon after, I was in bed. The next day, I would tackle unpacking and estimates for the car window and stereo, and do what needed to be done to restore things to their previous state. It had been a successful trip, despite the tiny calamity at the end. Our presentations rocked, we got to talk to the important people with whom we needed to meet, and we were able to see friends we hadn't seen for a while. We packed a ton of activity into two days, and there truly was never a dull moment. Of course, we wouldn't have it any other way.