Yesterday we flew into Chicago via Southwest; which was a much needed breath of fresh air after after last month’s nightmare encounters with Delta. Southwest is hands down the kindest, cheapest, most accommodating airline I’ve ever flown.

After arriving and loading up our 46 checked bags** we grabbed some lunch and then went to the church. We had a record breaking set-up and sound-check time in the history of the Onething Regional Conferences: less than 3 1/2 hours! (Last month in Florida it took us over 8 hours.)

Once we were done at the church it was time to go downtown for some Chicago style pizza. Last year when we came to Chicago we all had heard the rumors of this glorious pizzeria, Gino’s East, and we were looking forward to some good (and I mean good) Chicago Pizza. However, our hosts had other plans and so our experience at Gino’s had to be put on hold. So after an entire year of planning the moment when we would say, “Please don’t feel the need to make dinner plans. We heard that Gino’s East had pretty good pizza so we thought that we would try and go there.”

And it worked! But why does it seem that something can never happen the way you want it to in order to be just right? It is supposed to be a 60 minute drive from the church to Gino’s. So we called ahead to order the 7 pizzas for our entire crew plus in-town friends and family. However, thanks to Chicago Grid-Lock our tour through downtown took nearly two hours, allowing our pre-orderd waiting-for-us pizza to get cold. How anti-climactic can you get? How many people can say they waited 12 months for a slice of cold “Meat Legacy” pizza?

But don’t let the story get you down: There was enough of us that we had to order a few more pizzas, so in the end I did get a slice of hot, thick, melted cheese, sausage supreme. And it was good (but, actually not that good.)

After we stuffed ourselves (**See Note Below) we went down to the Navy Pier, which is similar to a boardwalk but on a pier instead. After walking past many bars, shops, video arcades and funny mirrors (we stopped at the mirrors for a few good laughs) we heard some live music and some seriously off key vocals: Live Band Kareoke! Well of course our in-house diva, Sarah Motlong, had to sing. So after enduring through a few more acts, the final one being a guy in white tight jeans, and a short black t-shirt with the shiny silver letters: “AC/DC - Back in Black”, a few large silver and gold neclaces, a scruffy beard and shoulder length curly hair, singing ” “, Sarah finally get’s her chance. Singing “RESPECT” and recieving just that. It was out of control. The best part was towards the end when the song has those breaks the drummer would toss his stick in the air and let it do like 9 rotations and then catch it again:

“BRANT”
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
“BRANT”
Find out what it means to me
“BRANT-BRANT”
R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Take Care of TCP
Sock it to me, Sock it to me, Sock it to me…..

You get the idea…in fact maybe you feel like you were even there.

**Note about the 46 checked bags: We’ve never ever checked 46 bags before. But since more people were flying with us this trip we had more allowance so I think that some ‘rule’ or ‘law’ came into play that says, “You will consume and or use the maximum amount you have allowed.” It’s the same idea when a huge plate of food is before you; you eat the whole thing not because your incredibly hungry but because the food is there. You have to eat it.