Thanks to Sameer Hinduja for taking the time to write this up...

Pictures added (05-05-02).

This is a journal of our (Justin and my) experience to, in, and from San Francisco for the American Society of Criminology Conference. We left for Chicago at 11:20am on Monday, November 13, and we were told it was 240 miles to Midway airport (where we were flying out of) and about 3.5 hours to the city of Chicago. We = Justin and me. We made pretty good time - it was really cold though, snow flurries were happening and I was like, whoa, the first snow of the season. I remember the first time it snowed last year in East Lansing, MI was also near the end of November. Well, after we found the airport, we decided to look for a place to sleep. We could have either stayed at a national-chain pretty nice motel, or we could have stayed in some dinky Mom & Pop establishment. We were concerned about the cleanliness of the sheets and the rooms in general, and we also wanted peace of mind because we were in a city foreign to us, and so we decided to spend the extra dough and get a room at the Best Western. After we brought our luggage up, we went downstairs to the hot tub for a bit, and then came back up, and got ready to explore Chicago. It was initially recommended to us that we take public transportation from the motel to downtown Chicago because it apparently is a nightmare to find parking downtown...and so we began to follow that advice by hiking out to the nearest bus stop, which was perhaps half a mile away. Well, it was freezing cold, and the wind was biting into all of our body parts, and so after standing out there for about 25 minutes with no bus showing up, we were like, forget this nonsense, we have a car, we will just drive. So, we walked back to the hotel, and got into our car, and proceeded to drive downtown. We really had no idea where we were going, so we just kept driving, and got to see the subway system, and also got to see the projects - the low income level housing where there are these tall, bland buildings with many windows, close in proximity to one another, where those who were not well off financially lived. It was a very depressing site, and served the purpose of putting our own lives and situations and circumstances into perspective. It forced me to once again realize how truly lucky I am. Thank God. Things could be worse, always.

Anyway, we began to see the skyscrapers, and saw more people, and shops, and restaurants and businesses...and then we saw the Sears Tower, and just kept on driving slowly...We were not aimlessly proceeding, though...we were trying to find the House of Blues because of my favorite secular ska bands - Catch 22 was playing a show on this Monday night. I think they are extraordinarily cool - they have such a good crisp sound and great lyrics and really fun to listen to. So - that was our mission - find the House of Blues. It was about 6pm and we didn't know whether the concert would start at 7 or 8 or what...and, we didn't even know if we could get in as it might have been sold out...but, I had faith, and just had a feeling that things were going to turn out okay. We had prayed earlier in the evening and I know that God is faithful and is looking out for us. So...at a stoplight, I rolled down my window and asked a (very nice) bus driver where the House of Blues was, and so he told us graciously, and I was like, sweet...we are going in the right direction. Well, we finally found it, and there was a throng of people outside, waiting to get in. Now, I must say that these are my kind of people - kids who are into ska and punk rock music - it's like a culture all to its own - and so I was really pumped and just getting giddy with excitement. I called out the window to one of the people we saw whom I assumed was going to the show (based on the dude's clothing - punk rock kids dress in a certain way), and asked what time the show began, and she said 7:15. This was at about 6:30pm. We had 45 minutes to get a parking space and get to the venue. Well, as we were warned earlier, parking is horrendous downtown. We must have driven about for approximately 45 minutes before finding a spot, for which we ended up paying 14 dollars for a three hour excursion.

Well, we hoped out of our car, and then ran towards the House of Blues, which must have been about 9 blocks away...and it was biting cold and snowflakes were falling here and there...but, alas, we finally reached there, and there was still a ton of people outside waiting to get in, but we got tickets and then entered the venue and worked our way through the mess of individuals right in front of stage so that we could be pretty close to the front and pretty close to the middle. We succeeded. Midtown was the first band that came out, they had a pretty good sound, I was impressed...a lot of people knew the words to their songs, but I wasn't too familiar with them at all. Well, then my favorite band of the evening came out - Catch 22 - and played an intensely rockin' set. I don't think I have ever rocked out so hard in my entire life. There were SO many people crowded together in front of the stage, you were being pushed on from EVERY side, it was nuts...if a few people got leaning in one direction, everyone got leaning in that direction...there was a small area a little bit back from the stage where people were moshing violently together...the rest of the crowd pretty much just jumped around....anyway, Catch 22 played all of my favorites from their first two albums, such as Day In Day Out, On and On and On, As The Footsteps Die Out Forever, Dear Sergio, Hard To Impress, Bloomfield Ave., What Goes Around Comes Around, 9MM and a Three Piece Suit, 12341234, One Love (Bob Marley Cover), and perhaps one or two others I can't recall….dude, people were going absolutely wild...everyone was crowd surfing, so many chicks were lifted up (by their own volition) and carried across the top of the people. Many guys too, but Justin and I didn't go up because we weren't really dressed for it. We had our jackets and caps and stuff that we couldn't put down anywhere, so we just pretty much rocked out vertically. I couldn't believe how great their stage presence was...they are soooo good live...and I just love their music a lot, their horns are so sharp and punchy...man I can't wait to go home and listen to them again. Justin's shoelaces became untied and he almost got trampled trying to retie them in the middle of the pit, but he managed okay :) Nothing else too exciting happened - it was an electric atmosphere though, everyone was totally wrapped up in the music and had been taken to another mental level, in a way, as their bodies were seemingly separated from their mind and were controlled solely by the music. As you know, music is very powerful, and can have that transforming effect on an individual.

The third and final band came out after Catch 22 played for about 45 minutes. Reel Big Fish. Well, I was familiar with them, and they never really did anything for me, for some reason, but I knew a ton of folks liked them....and, they were headlining that night, which also indicated their level of popularity. They were fabulous. While not as many people knew the words to Catch 22 (I was able to scream the lyrics for all of their songs, of course), the vast majority of individuals knew the lyrics to Reel Big Fish's songs. It was really cool to witness. Everyone was jumping up and down and slam dancing and crowd surfing and singing along and the band was dancing around the stage and it was quite a scene. I was like, whoa, this band is exceptionally good. They played most of their best songs such as She's Got A Girlfriend Now, Ex-Girlfriend, Trendy, I'll Never Be, Everything Sucks, All I Want Is More, Sellout. Their lyrics are really good as well. I think the best song performed was their cover of A-Ha's Take On Me - the horns were spectacularly tight - it was so cool it made me giddy. Justin and I were in the pit, going crazy, making sure people who were crowd surfing were appropriately passed on to other individuals and not allowed to fall to the floor...we had an absolute riot of a time. At the end, we were completely drenched in sweat, horrifically exhausted, but tremendously psyched. We had a such a remarkably good time. I got myself a rad Catch 22 sweatshirt, and got to talk to a few of the band members, and just basically reveled in the wonder of our experience that night.

After the show, we walked out to where our car was parked, and interestingly enough, the ticket from the parking garage had turned into mush while being in Justin's pocket during the moshfest of a few minutes ago. Everything we wore, from our head to our toes, was soaked in sweat, and so the parking ticket had just deteriorated into this mangled unreadable mess. So we were like, ah crap...because we knew the lady at the gate would have to scan the ticket in order to calculate how long we had been parked there, and by extension, how much to charge us. Well, she was the same lady who had watched us come in and who I had asked directions to the House of Blues from, and so we went up to the window, gave her our ticket mush, and she was like, what the heck am I supposed to do with this, and so we were like, please lady, this was an unfortunate occurrence which we had no control over, can you just cut us a break, we had only come in a couple of hours ago, remember how I asked you where the House of Blues was, and she was like ah yeah, I remember...okay, what time did you guys come in, and so we told her, and were charged an appropriate $14.50 for parking for the couple of hours we were there. Whew. Otherwise, we would likely have been charged the maximum daily rate which probably was in the high $20s or even low $30s. Geez, some people make a killing on parking.

We then drove back to our hotel, and basically crashed for the night as we were wiped out. It was about 1am before we got to sleep, and then I woke up about 5:30 am to pack again and get ready for our flight out to San Francisco. So, we went downstairs after getting packed and ready, ate some of their continental breakfast (why do they call it continental?), called a cab, paid $11 to get to Midway which was about 2 miles away, and then proceeded to our airport gate. We boarded, and then took off. Justin was somewhat worried as this was only his second time flying in his life, the first time occurring about 8 years ago when he flew to Miami for a cruise with his family. Plus, it was funny because they were de-icing the plane next to us before we took off, and Justin was like, uh, why aren't they de-icing our plane too? Justin sensed disaster. Plus Midway airport is a pile of crap, and quite decrepit and just not very aesthetically pleasing, and the runways are really short, and well, all these factors coupled with Patch's inexperience flying made him quite uneasy. Luckily, he did not orally jettison his breakfast, and for that I was quite pleased. It was a good flight - not any turbulence, very smooth, prompt, easy. Justin was very glad when we landed and pumped that it was actually a piece of cake and a relatively tame and innocuous experience. Hopefully now he will feel more comfortable flying as we are probably going to have to go to a lot more of these conferences as part of being a graduate student and then a professor. On the way over there, I decided to ask a fellow in front of us who was reading a sociology book whether he was a professor, and he introduced himself to us...he was Gregg Barak, a professor over at Eastern Michigan University, and also a very good friend of my mentor back home, Mark Lanier. In fact, it was Gregg who had first hired Mark while he was still a doctoral student to teach a few classes over at Eastern Michigan. So, we talked a bit, and it went over real well...he is a nice guy and I'm glad that I had the opportunity to meet him.

We landed in sunny San Francisco at about 11:30 AM PST. We stepped off the plane, got our bags, and then took a rental car shuttle to the location where we were supposed to pick up the car we had rented. Well, here we had all sorts of problems. I had reserved a car for $24.99 online at Expedia.com, and then had also signed up for a Student Advantage card which would negate the $20 charge they would have had to tack on to the daily rental rate because neither Justin or I was 25 years of age or older. Well I had called both Expedia and the rental car place to make sure that I would be able to use the student advantage card with this rate that I had reserved online, and both said yes. So, I was like, sweet, this is going to work out nicely. But when I went up to the rental car counter, they said that I cannot use both the Expedia rate and the Student Advantage card, and that the Student Advantage card underage fee waiver would only apply if we accepted a daily rate of $51.99. I was like, heck no, you have got to be kidding me. I then proceeded to explain to them my situation, and how I had verified verbally with both Expedia and the rental car place about how this was going to work. So I basically talked to the dude up there and he got his manager, and then I explained the situation again to this guy, and all of this took about an hour to get resolved, but thankfully it finally did and the manager was like, okay, I will give you the rate you reserved online and will waive the underage fee as you were told it would work. I was very appreciative because I didn't want any problems at the start of our San Francisco experience. We got hooked up with a Plymouth Grand Voyager white minivan, which isn't exactly what two college students in their early 20s wanted to be driving, but it is a really nice automobile and so we acquiesced and got out of there as soon as possible.

Then we drove out to our hotel room. It was at this time that both Justin and I realized that I am incapable of reading a map. I don't know what the problem was, but I just stunk at it and caused Justin to make like three U-Turns because I just was clueless about where we were going according to the map. It was quite embarrassing. So, after a while, Justin grabbed the map and figured out where we were going, after commenting of course on how easy the map actually was to read, and we got to the hotel after about 45 or so minutes. I have to say, without Justin behind the wheel our entire trip would have been disastrous. He handled the roads and the city beautifully. We unpacked briefly, and threw some clothes on, and went to get some grub, and then came back and crashed pretty early. I ended up falling asleep right about 9pm PST, which of course was about 12AM in the time zone my body was used to. We woke up Wednesday at about 6:30am PST, and just relaxed a little and then got dressed and ready to go to the American Society of Criminology conference, the main reason we were in San Francisco in the first place. I was presenting the findings of my Masters thesis today, at 4:20pm. We found a parking garage, and walked 6 blocks to the hotel where the conference was at, and attended a few panels throughout the day and saw a few MSU faculty and colleagues we knew. About midday, we went to go get something to eat, and found a nice little restaurant about 5 blocks away, where I got some pancakes and was able to spend about 45 minutes preparing for my presentation. Then, we headed back to the conference hotel, and went to another panel, and then finally, it was time for my session. I presented fourth out of four people, in front of an audience of about 15, and it went well. I was nervous at the beginning, according to Justin, but then settled down nicely throughout the rest of the presentation. A noted academic, Richard Hollinger from the University of Florida, came up to me afterwards and said that he was really interested in my research and so we talked for a bit. That made me feel good. Well, we then had to bolt because our "Early Bird Special" at the parking garage necessitated our return by 6pm so that we would only have to pay eight bucks. It was now about 5:55pm. So, we hustled and ran the six blocks back to our car, and got there at 6:01pm. And the parking dude was like, $18 please. And I was like, get out of town, man, I am one minute late. And so we talked him out of it and only were charged $8. Whew. He was a nice guy.

Well, then we headed back to our hotel, and I had a splitting headache, but Justin wanted to go running, and I really wanted to as well, and so I was like, okay, let's do it. So, we began our run and headed down to the Marina...and then ran along the Marina...and we saw the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, and had talked earlier about running it sometime during our vacation in San Francisco...well, we just kept running towards it, and then asked a fellow jogger how to get up to it, and she told us, and by this time we were already like 30 minutes into our run, which is the usual length of our runs when we go back in Michigan, and it was cold and raining and pitch dark but I was like, dude, it is so close, we have got to do this, right here and right now....and so we kept running towards it and found a walkway of 131 steps up a hill and along a path through a wooded area and then we turned a corner and bam! there it was....and so we just kept on going and started to run the Golden Gate Bridge. Justin ran along the inside on the sidewalk closer to the traffic, and I ran along the outside, closest to the water...and I can't even express how picturesque and awe-inspiring the view was....the entire skyline was lit up, and the water of the bay shimmered and reflected back so many lights, and we could see Alcatraz in the distance, and we breathed in the invigorating air and were basically just mesmerized by the entire scene before our eyes. Justin has a small fear of heights and so didn't frequently look out over the bridge, as that would have caused him to remember how high up we actually were, but I am extremely proud of him for running it, and for being there with me to share the experience. We ran across it, and then turned around, and ran back....and then just kept on going, all the way back to our hotel. We went on an hour-and-a-half run. I have never ran for such a continuous length of time in my life. It was liberating. What a grand time. We had conquered the San Fransisco Bridge, in the dead of night, while it was raining and cold, and in the middle of an already lengthy run! Woohoo!!!! We felt on top of the world. We were bad to the bone. I am so glad we went out and actually did it. I hope my words are doing an adequate job of describing the fantastic event, because it truly was something I will never forget.

Well, we got back home to the hotel at about 8:30pm, and I peeled off my wet clothes and socks, and realized I had bloodied up one sock, which was way cool because it was like a genuine war wound inflicted during our bridge conquering. Then, we watched some ladies' tennis, and I fell in love (so to speak) with this 19 year old Russian named Elena Dementieva, and so it was a ton of fun rooting for her and watching her win her three set match against Lindsay Davenport. She is a cutie, that's for sure. Anyway, we crashed pretty early again that night, and woke up on Thursday at about 8am PST. We then decided that we were going to go to Muir Woods, which is this national monument/park with mammoth redwood trees, most between 500-800 years of age, and many over 1,000 years old. One tree in Muir Woods was 252 feet tall, and another was 14 feet wide. Interestingly, the world's tallest living thing is a coast redwood in Redwood National Park (not where we were), and one identified by the National Geographic Society in 1963 was 367.8 feet tall. Holy cow. We took a picture of each of us (Pap | Patch) standing inside of the trunk of a Redwood...it was pretty neat. After spending about 45 minutes walking around in the forest, we hopped back into our van and drove up the long winding roads back to civilization. Justin kept saying how these roads needed guard rails, because seriously if a person was driving along these roads in the winter, and his or her wheels slipped a little, and maybe drove off the road even the slightest bit, it was a very very long way down as the cliffs were quite steep. We wondered how many people had been killed driving down or up these long, narrow, windy roads.

We booked back to town and parked at the Marina (which cost us $28 bucks - they really sock it to tourists, man, it is maddening) and met up with a few fellow MSU faculty and colleagues to go on the tour of Alcatraz. We got in line, and then boarded the boat, and sailed away to the island, which was about 1.5 miles away. We reached the island, disembarked, and proceeded to take the audio tour through the prison. It was *extremely* interesting, and the audio tape was exceptionally well done, with great sound effects and a very real depiction of what it must have been like back when the prison ran from 1934 to 1963. Then we heard this talented park ranger speak for about 45 minutes on various things that went on in the prison, and about attempted escapes, and about notable prisoners who were locked up there...we all truthfully were hanging on her every word. She did a great job and was obviously very interested in the information she was disseminating. Then we finished up the tour, and learned more about the institution and other inmates, and went into the cells, and basically explored the entire innards of the prison (Boss Bynum behind bars). A fantastic learning experience, to be sure. Then, we boarded the boat back to San Francisco, and decided to look around Fisherman's Wharf once we had arrived back on shore. There were so many shops and so many eateries, it was amazing. They really cater to the touristy crowd. We also hung out for a bit right by this legion of sea lions who were sunning themselves on floating platforms right inside the bay - and it was such a sight to behold, as they lazily wasted their day away (as they should have been doing!), just soaking in the sunrays and making their animal noises, and keeping each other warm by laying on top of and very close to each other, and some other sea lions were fighting playfully on another platform, and some were being booted off of the platform, and kerplunked into the water, and some seemed to be interested in the tourists who gazed fixedly upon them and played to the crowd - it was just really rad. I wonder if they are there throughout the day, and even throughout the seasons, or if this day or this week was just one where they decided to occupy those platforms. Imagine that, real, live, wild, sea lions! How cool is that? Very, I must say.

Well, then we decided to walk around Ghirardelli Square, and purchase some chocolate for ourselves and our loved ones - man, it couldn't be any more delicious. Talk about a delectable delight, Ghirardelli chocolate is sensational. We then went to a bar with renowned Irish Coffee drinks, and so most of our party sampled those, while I drank some pineapple juice and (apparently) bit right through the glass (don't ask me how) and the rim broke in my mouth. Luckily, I did not eat any glass, as cool as that might have been, and I didn't cut myself either. Woooo. I really am a beast, being able to bite through glass. Everyone was proud of my herculean prowess! Well, then we headed out to eat at this dive called the Golden Spike, that my professor Dr. Tim Bynum recommended (he was with us), and sat down to feed on some yummy Italian food. There was me, Justin, Sean (fellow doctoral student), Beth (fellow doctoral student), Tim (professor), and Michelle (Tim's wife, and a Domestic Violence expert and someone with whom I work down at the Office of Drug Control Policy). We had a blast, just talking and laughing and making fun of each other, and reminiscing and just enjoying one another's company. I had a marvelous dish of Penne Pasta and Italian sausage (Yum! Italian Sausage!)...which was flanked by onions and peas and other vegetables....it was soooo good, especially since we had walked so much that day, I had really worked up an appetite. I also polished off two and a half pitchers of water (I love water), and just relished every bite of my meal. What a good time. These people we hung with, they are really awesome. They are what make this arduous doctoral degree process much more bearable. And these friends are who I am going to be in touch with throughout my career, as we are all Criminal Justice scholars. Well, after we ate and took some pictures, Justin and I decided to head home so that Justin could prepare for his presentation on Friday, and so we parted ways with the other 2/3 of our gang (Team Bynum is what we refer to ourselves as). I crashed again pretty early (big surprise) and woke up around 8am on Friday.

Friday was one heck of a day. We got up, got dressed, and headed over to the conference hotel to see a few panels. Then, we headed out to McDonalds (of all places) and got some crap food for lunch (gah, the things we ingest for the sake of convenience), and went back to the conference, and I went to go see this fascinating round table discussion on Cyber Cops - and was able to contribute from the audience some insight, which was well received by the participants in the panel, and I got to meet the Chief Security Officer of Microsoft (wow), who I need to keep in touch with, and I also got to meet a lady who specializes in forensic analysis of computer hard drives (which I already have some background in) and a few professors who are developing computer crime curriculums in their respective Criminal Justice programs at their universities. Well, then I met back up with Justin, and we went to go see our friend Beth's presentation - she did great, as usual...and then we went to go see Justin's presentation, who also did extremely well...Justin and I are getting better and better at presenting as we engage in more and more public speaking appearances. I imagine that it is just a process and that as time goes on, it will become second nature to us. Then we had to get back to our car, but on the way there, there was a fight breaking out in the streets (I am dead serious) between two fellows, and Justin thought that a woman was getting beat up (but it was actually two guys rumbling) and so he steps right in and holds one of the guys back…and is yelling at him and telling him to calm down and to be a bigger man and to walk away and stuff, and in effect prevents a race riot from erupting in downtown San Francisco. I, of course, was oblivious to the whole thing, and decided to ask two girls with multiple piercings who were standing on the sidewalk if they recommended any dance clubs downtown. So, while Justin was saving the world, I was engaged in witty banter with a couple punk rock girls. Fitting. After that, we hurried back to our car (Early Bird Special again, baby), and this time got there at 5:58pm, so the dude couldn't mess with us, and so we paid out $8 dollars (are you seeing a trend here with the inordinate amount of greenbacks we are having to shell out to park!) and headed back to the hotel. Well, this was going to be our night out exploring downtown San Francisco, and so we ordered some Chinese food (Chicken Fried Rice, and Sweet and Sour Chicken, and Egg Rolls) and watched Elena Dementieva win another three set tennis match (man she rules...Anna Kournikova - look out!) and then showered, shaved, and put on our dancing shoes (and clothes :)) and headed out. Well, we just decided to hoof it until we saw a cable car or trolley or bus or some form of public transportation, so we ended up walking 1.5 miles towards the conference hotel (which was three miles away, where they were having a CJ dance or something that we figured we might as well check out)...and we ended up walking all the way up and down Lombard Street ("The Crookedest Street in the World"), and I really had to go to the bathroom (like you wanted to know) but didn't, and then we finally saw a trolley, but it went right past us without stopping, and so we were like, Doh!, and then we went to the trolley station itself. After waiting for about 35 minutes (it was about 10:30pm now), we finally boarded a trolley and were taken to the ASC conference hotel. Riding a trolley was a great experience in and of itself...reminded me of that scene from The Rock where the trolley gets demolished during the Hummer and Ferrari car chase. Sweet.

So, we found where the CJ dance was, and it kind of freaked me out to see that academicians were cutting a rug on the dance floor, and I couldn't get past the mental picture of seeing that this is how they partied and enjoyed life, and I just couldn't grasp that they were normal people like you and me who were wanting to have a good time - it's hard to explain, but Justin agreed....and so we hung out for a few more minutes, and finally saw someone else we knew (Amanda and Meghan, two other doctoral students about to graduate and obtain great jobs because of how hard they have worked and all they have accomplished (with regard to published papers, classes taught, etc.) during their graduate school experience at MSU. We told them that we were going to go down to Folsom (which is where all the nightlife seemed to be) and check out "Club Nikita", touted as "the #1 club in America" and voted "best club 1997, 98, 99 and 2000".... And I am not into clubs at all, but this was once in a lifetime, so we figured, while we were in San Francisco, we might as well check it out. They said that they might meet up with us down there later on. Billed as "Interactive 21st Century Clubbing", and opening at 10pm and staying open until 6am, we didn't really know what to expect....we were frisked on the way in to make sure we weren't carrying any Ecstasy or GHB or weapons, and then were allowed in. The place was bumping. There were three levels, the first of which consisted of the DJ spinning great 80s and 90s hits, and the second of which was rockin' with House and Trance beats, and the third of which was jumping with quick, powerful, rave type music (I dunno what it's actually called). Justin and I mainly stayed on the floor with the 80s and 90s music, and proceeded to dance the night away. It was pretty cool, as I am usually inhibited and self conscious, but knowing that I didn't know anyone and wouldn't know anyone, I didn't care how goofy I looked and just basically drifted away and sang along to most of the songs and got my groove on (which, in any other environment, would probably be quite frightening to look at). It was just me and Justin, shaking what our momma gave us, from about 11pm until about 2am...and then Amanda, Meghan, and their friend Ed, who is a professor at another university came in, and we danced with them for about another hour...it was really fun...and by this time, even though I knew these people, I just continued to boogie and not care what anyone else thought :) Once again, very liberating. At about three in the morning, I realized that Justin and I had been dancing for over four hours and were starting to feel it and so when Amanda, Meghan, and Ed decided that they were going to head back to their hotel room, and invited us to go along, we agreed. So, we hopped into a cab, and got up to their hotel room, and basically just talked and joked around and wrestled (I am the ultimate warrior and pinned everyone who had the courage to go up against me) and tried to catch jellybeans that were tossed across the room in our mouth (Justin whooped up on everyone, he is like a seal, for crying out loud, just snagging everything thrown every which way, even the bad tosses he caught, it was incredible) until about 6:30 in the morning...then, as Amanda, Meghan, and Ed decided to go grab some breakfast, we decided it was time to bow out and head back to our hotel, as we would have to leave for the airport in three hours and we weren't even packed or showered and ready to go. So, we caught a taxi back to our hotel, and fell asleep for about 45 minutes before waking up again around 8am, and then a frenzy of showering, packing, and getting ready ensued. By the way, this was Saturday morning, November 18th. We would be home in East Lansing, Michigan, by the end of the night. We headed off to the airport, dropped off our rental car, and proceeded to our gate, where we chilled for a couple of hours (we were way early, just in case there was some problem, which we figured was not a faint possibility)...and then we boarded the plane at about 1pm, and sat back and headed towards Chicago.

Well, the plane ride back was great for me...and for Justin, I think it was decent, he just watched The Green Mile on DVD on his laptop and read a little of his Ted Nugent book...even though we had intended for both of us to catch up on our sleep on the plane ride home. Of course, that wasn't about to happen. But let me tell you why the journey back was great for me. I met this really cool girl. Don't get any weird ideas in your head, though, she is 14 years of age. But it was just a cool thing to talk to someone who shared a strong interest in what matters the most to me. She was reading a book, and I was like, hey, when you take a break, can I see your book for a second? And she said sure....and then when she handed it to me, I realized it was a book on one of the godly women from the Bible, one book in a series, each one targeting perhaps Ruth, or Sarah, or Mary, or Esther...and so I was like, whoa, you're into God? And she was like, yep, I'm a Christian...and I was like cool! Her name was Emily. And so we started talking about Christian music and so many artists and songs that we like, and concerts we've been to, and from there we talked about praise and worship at church, and about children's church (she is the daughter of a pastor of a church which has 800 members in Sacramento, CA, she plays the piano at her church, and also helps out with Sunday school, and conducts a bible study during lunch at her school) and about Christian books and authors and about school and the youth culture of today and what they are interested in and how they can be reached, and missions trips, and her favorite scripture is Philippians 3:8, and just basically everything under the sun related to Christianity. We must've talked for about an hour and a half of the plane ride home. It was just really refreshing to see a youth on fire for God, and to be so well versed and learned on issues relating to living a godly life, and who shared a passion for Christian music. It was really great and I am glad I had the opportunity to meet her and talk with her.

Well, then we arrived in Chicago at about 7pm CST, and got our luggage (which took a while) and caught a taxi back to where we had parked our car for four days, and headed home at about 8pm CST for Michigan. It was really blustery and frigid outside, but we were dressed pretty warmly, and made it home after listening to Garth Brooks for a while at about 1 am, EST. Thus ended our eventful and enlightening San Francisco 2000 excursion. I am really glad I went, and I am really glad I didn't take any schoolwork, even though there was (and always will be) tons to get done...I think I need to start experiencing life more rather than have it all pass me by. Justin and I had fun and also learned a ton. And, for the most part, that's what life is anyway - a fun, learning process. Thanks for reading along and sharing the experience with us.