At 5:30 pm Friday, I along with a few of my peers walked across the street from our hotel to the NASW conference. Overcome with anticipation, we discuss our assignment for the evening. We are supposed to go up and introduce ourselves to complete strangers. When we arrive, we check in and most of us [...]

As the pilot announced our final descent into the Phoenix airport, I stirred from my much-needed nap. I rubbed my eyes and looked at my watch: 9:17 am (still Eastern time, of course). We’d been traveling for almost six hours now, and the sun was just beginning to crest on the horizon behind the left [...]

I’ve been on a plane trip before. I’ve gone to weddings in Connecticut, a vacation in Florida, and… well, that’s it. I haven’t traveled much by air, and those times have only been during the day, so I am both wide-awake and fully lighted through the window next to me. (I love the window seat!) [...]

I had no grand dreams for this trip. I was expecting average shuttles, average plane rides, and average hotel accommodations. But at 3:30 am Friday, my modest expectations flew out the window. As an ordinary limo and a Hummer limo pulled up in front of the IMU, I was positive they were not for us. [...]