I've Been in Beantown

Patient Reader, you've been wondering where I've been, haven't you? Yes, Pensive? No, Just Thinking has been quiet for a while, in part due to my recent trip to Boston, MA. I attended the annual conference of NASPA, the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, March 8-12. At this conference last year, I was impressed with the sessions that I attended. This year, not so much. I happened to select sessions that were delivered by people with minimal public presentation skills, unfortunately. Nevertheless, I gained much valuable information as well as access to additional resources that I will be able to apply in my work. Here are highlights from my time away:

• on the flight from Denver to Boston, a seatmate who did not stop talking the entire four-hour flight! I heard about his past jobs, current position, and future career plans; his romantic woes and current engagement; his upbringing; his world travels; his educational history; his recent home purchase; his political stance; his religious beliefs; and perhaps much more that I simply couldn't retain from the verbal onslaught! He was a clean-cut professional gentleman my age to whom I said, "Hi," as he took his seat in Denver . . . and that proved to be my undoing. At the luggage carousel in Boston, a woman approached me to ask if I was the man to whom this other dude was talking the entire flight. She said that I deserved a medal! She said, "My husband and I have been married for over 30 years, and I know he hasn't said that many words to me in all that time!" I didn't mind meeting this fellow and visiting with him, but it was a decidedly one-way "visit"--and I had been looking forward to four hours of uninterrupted reading time. Alack and alas.
• wild taxi rides fro and to the airport
• luxurious accommodations at the historic four-star, four-diamond Omni Parker House, the longest continuously operating hotel in America, located on the corner of School and Tremont Streets across from Old City Hall (map)
• scenic walks around downtown Boston, where a skyscraper is next to an historic church next to a colonial cemetery next to another modern office building--wild!
• daily rides on the subway to and fro the Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center, where most conference events were held
• browsing, shopping, and dining at Prudential Center, an architecturally beautiful and conceptually clever enclosure connecting the convention center, adjacent hotels, an office complex, and numerous stores and restaurants under one series of roofs
• hearing Soledad O'Brien deliver the conference's opening address
• walking around the Back Bay neighborhood and seeing its many old churches, new buildings, apartments, shops, and restaurants--beautiful!
• eating at all sorts of places I've never been before: Au Bon Pain, Tossed, Boston Chowda Cafe, and Grill 23 & Bar, an upscale joint where I ate a Maine crabcake, fresh halibut, mushroom ragoût, bleu cheese mashed potatoes, and a lemon meringue miniature pie--delicious! (also had a wonderful crabcake and a slice of superb vanilla bean cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory, a restaurant I've eaten at once before [in Denver])
• visiting with my relatively new boss, who drove us to and fro Bismarck (out of which we flew on the very same airline that would have taken us directly out of and into Dickinson, had that crossed the minds of our secretary and travel agent!)
• returning to my family!