Bacchus in Anaheim, CA

Pictures: (1) Me and Darren at dinner on Friday night. (2) The fabulous Joel Goldman with the crazy tarot card reader, same dinner. (3) Darren with the belly dancer. (4) Inside the lobby of the Hyatt Regency in Anaheim, CA. (5) Same hotel, different view. (6) Darren, TJ, and me in the Disney store, turning the turtles. (7) TJ, Shawn Decker, and Darren at the House of Blues in a moment of madness.

Last weekend (November 8) I attended the Bacchus and Gamma General Assembly in Anaheim, CA. I went with Darren from CAMPUSPEAK, primarily as an attempt to kind of see what's out there, meet some people, make a few connections, and help out however I was needed. It was a blast.

First of all, flying anywhere out of Denver is beautiful. As we headed west, I could look down and see ski slops and mountains and ski resorts... it was gorgeous. TJ was on the same flight we were so we were able to travel as a unit, the three of us, and per usual, TJ was exceptional entertainment.

The Hyatt Regency, where the conference was held, was gorgeous. Beautiful hotel, lots of excited students all of the place. There was so much to do, so many great speakers and interesting programs to attend. From CAMPUSPEAK, Shawn Decker (great guy and author of "My Pet Virus", check it out, stat!), Ross Szabo (amazing mental health speaker, Director of Youth Outreach for the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign, has a lot of valuable information!), Erin Weed (founder and author of Girls Fight Back, kicking off Stayin' Alive on Spring Break!, a safety program about spring break adventures, kick ass girl, and a rockin Alpha Phi), Christine Hassler (author of Twenty Something Twenty Everything: A Quarter-Life Women's Guide to Balance and Direction, an amazing writer and coach), Elaine Penn (east coast girl who has been speaking for a quite a while about all sorts of stuff, but specializes in leadership, athletes, and a plethora of material! very cool chick with a great singing voice and an ability to captivate an audience!), Joel Goldman (who previously traveled with TJ Sullivan doing an extremely impactful program called "Friendship in the Age of AIDS" and now does"Sex Under the Influence", a program educating students about the importance of makingg safe decisions and the impacts they can have on your life, super cool dude!) and Chad Crittenden (former Survivor superstar with a rockin story about "discovering the will to survive", beating the odds, overcoming adversity, motivation! super great guy) were in attendance. David Hellstrom, a speaker who talks a lot about alcohol, was there too but unfortunately I never got to meet him. Oh, and of course, our very own TJ Sullivan who is one of my favorite poeple- great sense of humor and knows his shit! Did an awesome presentation about the Apathy Myth, something I really wish I had heard when I was a student.

Anyways, so lots of programs we attended, lots of chatting with students about their campuses and their goals and hopes for their communities. HUGE props to Bacchus for presenting students with SO MUCH relevant, important information. And bigger props to those students for wanting change and progress. Best of luck to them!

Thursday night I got to venture into Downtown Disney with Shawn Decker, TJ, and Darren for dinner. First of all, that was a beautiful place! Being a Disney virgin, I pretty much walked around with my mouth hanging open, in awe of the lights and colors and beautiful scenery! We decided to hit up the House of Blues for dinner, where it so happened that Lisa Marie Presley was performing and Kevin Federline (the former Mr. Brittany Spears) was performing a few days later. (Let me tell you that TJ had a blast trying to fenagle a K.Fed tshirt out of our waitress, to no avail.) Anyways, it was a great dinner with some super fun people. We then took a stroll around to some of the shops just to check stuff out. It was a great night. The weather in Anaheim was beautiful; it was warm enough to eat outside that night! Loved it.

Friday night we had a group to go out with which was awesome. It was me, TJ, Darren, Joel, Ross and his awesome girlfriend Heidi, Erin and her husband, and Christine. Good times, great converation, and super cool environment. The highlight would have been when the belly dancer selected Darren as her partner, and he was dragged up there with her to do some quality dancing. (See pictures.) It was a very fun night. :)

Anyways, all that aside, it was really cool to get to see so many of our speakers and let me tell you that every single one of them rocked. If you're looking for a speaker of any kind, get on the Campuspeak website and check them out. There is a lot of really important material that they bring to the table. And to make matters better, they are totally great people. Really. Check them out. Now. Stop what you're doing and look up www.campuspeak.com.

Thank you.

So the only bummer was when we flew back into Denver on Sunday, not only were the Redskins getting spanked but we left short sleeve weather and returned to Denver in snow. NOT cool. Very funny, God. Very funny.