I’m at the airport with just an hour until my flight leaves and I am starting to get really excited.  I understand some of the boys had a few hiccups getting to LA but its all good now.  I look at the “golden ticket” inside my laptop bag and smile.  As I go to a news website to see what’s happening in the world, an eyebrow raises as I read about a 5.7 quake near the California-Mexico border.

“This ain’t gonna be Texas.” I think to myself.  This is only the second time I will be in California, the first being a forgettable trip back in college to a conference I really could have gone the rest of my life without attending.  I think the amount of suck involved makes it more of a “symposium.”  Any way you slice it, it was a waste of a weekend and I also didn’t get to see much outside of the hotel.

It wasn’t for lack of trying, though, I remember the Saturday night when we all hopped into a cab to go somewhere.  Upon asking the driver what was in the area, he told us that The House of Blues was nearby. I was excited, I have never been to The House of Blues and it sounded new and exciting.  If nothing else, live music is always a treat.  Sadly, it was not to be, the jackasses I was with wanted to go to a crappy club that was just like every other crappy club I’ve ever been to in my life.  I don’t know, maybe I was supposed to be excited and be all “Oh my gosh, we went to a crappy club but its a crappy club IN LOS ANGELES!”

Whoop-dee-freaking-doo…okay, maybe I’m just a little bitter.

Luckily, I have more in common with the crowd I will be hanging around with this time.  That is to say, we’re all a bunch of socially awkward weirdos.  Actually that probably isn’t completely true, I think we have one or two “cool kids” in the group, you know, balance of the universe and all that.

The thought of occupying the same place with over forty-thousand other socially awkward weirdos is a pleasant one, though, and I can’t wait to get there.