The plane landed at Newark right on time at 12 midnight. From that point, I had to catch a train at 1:00am back to the Long Branch area where I live. My buddy and I grab out baggage from the carousel at about 12:30am I notice that the entire left wheel of my bag is missing PLUS the casing for the wheel is cracked and missing, too. Welcome back to New Jersey!

I dragged my bag over to the Continental Baggage Assistance area and told the woman behind the counter that my wheel was broken and it needed to be replaced or repaired. She said, “I don’t think we cover wheels.” To which I responded, “You’re covering something because I’m exhausted, tired, and I don’t want to get loud because you guys broke my bag.” The woman then waited for the manager to come out and after the manager affirmed that I was correct and Continental would repair the wheel, the woman began filling out my voucher.

Seeing that she was taking her time, I told the woman that we had a plane to catch in 15 minutes and she suggested that this process was going to take more than 15 minutes. Not too big of a problem – another train was supposedly coming at 2am. Of course this woman didn’t realize the complexity (or lack thereof) involved in her job because she was finished in 10 minutes. So my buddy and I go through the airport (me dragging my 50 pound bag) and we get to the place where you have to buy tickets for the train. After dropping $14.25 each for train tickets, we had to wait an unGodly amount of time for the AirTran system to take us from the airport to the RailLink where we could catch the 2:00am train.

At around 1:30am we finally make it to the RailLink station and before we can use our tickets to go through the little turnstyles, the woman asked us which train we were going on. I responded that we were headed for Long Branch to which she said the train already left. I told her that I knew, but we were hoping to catch the 2:00am train. At this point, the woman showed us on the train schedule that the 2:00am train only runs on Fridays and that the next train was coming at 4:45am.

For those of you that know me, you know that something clicked in my head after the woman told me this…

My buddy and I went back to the Continental counter (near 2:00am at this point) and a different woman behind the counter was complaining to no one about how tired she was. Really? She was tired? REALLY? Because I just got off a fucking plane from California where I was wedged in a seat next to some pompous prick who decided that about 15% of my seat belonged to him, found out that my bag was broken (and now it falls on ME to get it fixed), and that I missed my fucking train home because Continental broke my bag. YOU’RE FUCKING TIRED? You know what? Blow me, asshole. I’m fucking tired, not you.

The woman then says to me, “You’re still here complaining?” Being exhausted, I said to her that I now missed my train and Continental needs to find a way to get me home. She said that she didn’t have the authority to do anything about that so she told me to wait for the Manager to get back. Which I did… When the Manager came back I tried to wave him down and he walked by me. He came back a few minutes later and I tried to suggest to him that we need to talk and he didn’t even regard my presence. After about 10 minutes of him being the back room, he came out a third time at which point I said, “Hey! I was told to talk with you!” His response was nonexistent as he walked right by me without even flinching an eye.

Not wanting to act like a lunatic in the airport (those fuckers are lucky that there are extra security regulations now or I would have tackled that son of a bitch and screamed in his fucking face), my buddy and I went outside and caught a cab. After a $120 trip, we arrived at our cars at 3:00am. Fucking fantabulous.

I am in the midst of drafting a really biting e-mail to Continental asking why I should ever fly their airline again. They didn’t do a fucking thing for me and they even cost us an extra $120 to get home. How dare they!? Folks, for what it’s worth I advise you to stay away from Continental. Rude service, poor customer support representatives, and Manager who don’t give a crap about their clients.

To start, this was my first time in California and the minute that we touched down, there was a 5.4 earthquake! How crazy is that? Luckily, we really didn’t feel the earthquake in the plane, but there were a lot of people huddled around television screens in the airport. It was pretty weird, but definitely a fortuitous event in terms of how my delegation and I fared at the national convention.

As for Long Beach itself, I wasn’t overly crazy about the location. Granted, the temperature was nice and there was nearly no humidity, but there was no “beach” in Long Beach. The closest beaches were 20 minutes away north or south by car. There was a nice tourist area with a Hooters and an Outback and some other places that you can find across the country, but only a few places with local flavor. We did spend one night in something called GameWorks and that was a blast. However, I find that as I get older at these events I want to go to the bar less and less and I enjoy the time I get to hang out with my friends from far away more and more. The last thing that I’ll say about the location is that the convention two years ago was about a 3 minute walk from Bourbon Street in New Orleans and I don’t know how anyone can top that scene!

Once again, my undergraduates and alumni volunteers wiped up the awards. I have 7 chapters out of some 130 that are under my direct supervision. Of those 7, THREE were awarded as among the Top 25 chapters in the nation! Better yet, of those 3, TWO were listed as among the Top 12 in the nation. The culmination of the event came when my chapter at The College of New Jersey won an award for being the #1 chapter in the nation. Absolutely amazing.

I was extremely proud of my chapter at Rowan University which won the Most Improved Chapter Award. In 2002 when I attended the convention as an undergraduate, my chapter won runner-up for the Most Improved Chapter. It only took four short years for us to rise to be the number one chapter in the nation and I expect the same thing will happen with our young men down at Rowan University. They have great leaders, great brothers, and a plan for success that is unmatched.

Our alumni volunteers also did a magnificent job of bringing home some awards. Each of our chapters has a direct advisor which we call a Chapter Director and the gentleman who advises our group at The College of New Jersey won the award for being the #1 Chapter Director in the nation! Each chapter is also required to have a Faculty Advisor and the professor who serves for our Monmouth University chapter won the #1 Faculty Advisor in the nation award! And the hits just kept on coming as I was honored and humbled to be awarded the #1 Province Archon in the nation award (we have 33 different regions in Sigma Pi, each with a Province Archon). We didn’t expect to receive so many awards and even though we’ve been building a history of success in New Jersey, this was a beautifully shocking event.

Also, I decided to run for a seat on the Board of Trustees on our Educational Foundation and thanks to the support of my brothers from around the nation I won the election. Once again, I am in debt to my fraternity brothers both local and far and I thank them for their support. I pledge NEVER to let them down so long as I serve on this Foundation!

Two more somewhat significant events took place for the New Jersey guys at Convocation. First, our delegate from the William Paterson University chapter proposed (and passed) a major new merit reimbursement program for the fraternity. That’s awesome. In a world where costs are going up and responsibilities are increasing, Sigma Pi Fraternity has decided to provide financial incentives to those chapters which adhere to their commitments to our National Organization. Second, our delegate from Monmouth University proposed (and passed) a new awards program that awards those chapters which perform the most outstanding events for the Sam Spady Foundation, our international philanthropy.

For some pictures of the event, you can check out my galleries on Facebook or on Google’s Picasa Web Albums (both have the same pictures in them). And, as I always say at the end of these events, this was one hell of a good time and I can’t wait to go to the next convention in 2010 in Boston!