Now those of you who followed the blog in the past may expect me to say that my flight was dismal,
San Diego Marriot
dreadful, delayed, there was some malfunction with the plane, but I had an unusual stroke of good luck and was able to board my plane at XNA and make my connection in Dallas with no problems at all. I had a very pleasant flight out to San Diego. The conference hotel was the San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina on Harbor Drive in San Diego, and there were several hotels very near by to house the large number of participants for the conference.
Just a little bit of background about this conference, for many years it was held only in three locations, New Orleans, San Francisco and Washington, DC. So as you might imagine, it was a nice change to have the meeting held elsewhere. I think the problem before had been the lack of hotel rooms. The theme for the AALS meeting for this year was “Institutional Pluralism.” John Garvey notes in his welcome in the conference brochure: “Institutional pluralism is a good thing for our students in the same way choices are good for consumers in other fields. It may also contribute in an important way to a healthy intellectual life. Progress in the life of the mind is a cultural achievement. A community of scholars working on the same problem, or in the same idiom, may accomplish things a group of disconnected individuals could not. (Think of the Manhattan Project, or fin de siècle Vienna.) The Association should cherish the interests of its members in pursuing these ends.” This was the second most well attended AALS annual meeting.
Edgewater grill
I arrived at the hotel in mid-afternoon and after unpacking and checking e-mail, I went down to register. The line was very, very long so I decided that I didn’t really need to register that evening. I found my friend, Mike Green, and he and I ran in to Dean Jim Chen from the University of Louisville. He’s also been mentioned on the blog before. He’s been out to visit the law school for our Day with a Dean program. He is a good friend and a real football fanatic. He’d traveled to the meeting with his Development Director, Robert Micou, and Matt Williams, his Assistant Development Director. Now, if you know Jim Chen and since you do know me and you’ve read about Mike and my adventures before, you can imagine that going to dinner was, well, an adventure. We started out with directions from the concierge and headed out of the hotel, but by the time we got to the door we had greeted and hugged and talked with so many people that we forgot the directions. So, once we got downstairs to the door that we were supposed to leave out of, we asked one of the employees of the hotel and his instructions were completely undecipherable. It was very funny. Everybody was like, “Didn’t you get the directions?,” ” I thought you had the directions,” and “I’m following you.” Anyway, to make a long story short, we headed off towards an area where there were many, many restaurants right along the water and we walked and walked. We did know the location of the restaurant recommended by the concierge, so we stopped a jogger and asked him where the restaurant was. He said, “It’s way up there where you see the light.” At that point, we decided it really wasn’t as important to go to that restaurant, so we turned around and went into Edgewater Grill. When we got to the restaurant I said to the host, “You know, you
Edgewater Grill
probably want to seat us away from families and children. This is a pretty rowdy crew.” He took me quite literally and sat us in a private room by ourselves where we sort of lived up to that warning. It was quite a hoot to be with Jim again and his staff. It was a very funny, rollicking conversation and great food. I’d put this on the plus list of the recommended restaurants and it was reasonably priced. I had a New England Clam Chowder and a Seafood Fettuccini with shrimp, scallops and crab. It was delicious. Everyone enjoyed their meals and the portions were large enough that no one wanted dessert, so we just walked back to the hotel. We said goodnight to Matthew and Bob who were staying at a different hotel and headed back to our hotel and called it an evening, or so I thought.
When I arrived in my room I had a phone call on my cell phone from my credit card company saying they had flagged a number of unusual transactions – and they were unusual. I did not know what those businesses were, so that credit card got canceled. After working through all that, I called to make a hair appointment while I was there. I got on the internet and Googled “black hair salon in San Diego” and got a number of numbers, many of which were out of order or no longer in service. I did reach this young guy (at least seemingly young) and he said, “Hello, this is Jesse,” and I was like, “Are you a stylist? Do you style black hair?” and he said, “No, I’m a financial planner.” I told him that I got his name off this website and he was kind of tickled about it. He offered to give me a free certificate for my Honda or some other kind of car to get serviced as thanks for giving him the tip about his name being on the website. We ended up having a long conversation. It was very strange. Anyway, as you know I tend to accumulate adventures and the first night of San Diego was no different. A shout out to Jesse who can be found on AM radio out in San Diego with his financial advising radio show. I don’t remember the call letters, but I bet you can find him. Link
Nancecy 