January 2002-April 2003: Behind the Weekend: Journey Past & Present and the Bammies Walk of Fame (part 5)

And So It Begins
Thursday, April 24, 2003

The alarm goes off-same time as any other Thursday-6:30 a.m., time to get up and start another day. Of course, it's not any other Thursday; Journey Past and Present 2003 starts today. I crawl out of bed already feeling a little sleep deprived. Wednesday had been a hectic day of last minute details. I'd also picked up Rob from the airport and took him to dinner at Pier 39 as part of his compensation for all the hard work he'd done for us designing artwork, which meant I got home from San Francisco a little later than I had anticipated and I just couldn't go to bed without attempting to start packing for the weekend. But, no rest for the weary-it was time to get things rolling and try to get up to the hotel by early afternoon (I knew already that my original goal of noon wasn't going to happen.)

After a quick shower and breakfast I start running down the list of things that need to be done before I load my car for the trip to San Francisco. Most of the "goodies" had been put together on Saturday and stuffed in to my trunk, but I still had a TON of stuff in my living room that needed to be packed up. Better start with the clothes for the weekend-except for one new outfit, I hadn't even figured out what I was going to wear!

Once the overnight case had been packed, it was time to get the JPP supplies together-tickets (check), key chains (check), name tags (need to make a few more-check!), pens, paper, markers (check, check, check). One by one the supplies and items I was responsible for bringing (which was pretty much everything but the T-shirts and AV equipment!) were put in a box and I could load the car. The big surprise is that there weren't more things to load out! I had anticipated needing to bring 4-5 boxes out to my car, but it was just two, plus the big box that held the Gibson guitar that had been donated for us to raffle off.

It was nearly noon by this point and I knew I'd better have lunch before I loaded the car and drove up to San Francisco. So another quick bite and I'm off. A brief stop at the grocery store to pick up some supplies for the suite (and a birthday cake for Leslie!) and I'm on the road by 1:30.

By the time I had left I had already spoken with Leslie, Cheryl, and Darla at least twice each. Leslie had made it to the hotel by noon (with the box of T-shirts) and she and Rob went out and scouted for a place to bring the group for our informal dinner. When I arrived at the hotel it took the bellmen 10 minutes to unload all the things from my car-there were about a dozen boxes and assorted sundries that needed to be brought to the room! I stopped at the front desk to get my room key and headed up to the thirty-first floor to meet Leslie and Rob.
 

The JPP Commitee (and friends) getting things assembled.
From L-R: Jeff "RawkDawg" Barnes, Mary Anne Bohne
Michelle Murray, Rob Rennert, Leslie Forsythe,
Cheryl Simien. Kneeling: Emerson Dong & Darla Ellis

When I arrived, they were just finishing folding the T-shirts for the goodie bags. I snuck the cake in to the kitchen area of the suite (thank goodness Leslie was busy when I walked in!) and waited for my bags and boxes to arrive. Over the next hour or so, the rest of the committee arrived, as did two more of our indispensable volunteers-Leslie White and Jeff "RawkDawg" Barnes.

With so many hands in the room, finishing the goodie bag assembly was fairly quick work, if somewhat chaotic as the room was a frenzy of activity. All the activity was a bit noisy, but when there was a knock on the door we all stopped to see who it was. Strange, there wasn't anyone at the front door. Then we realized that the knock had come from the door to the adjoining room! Lo and behold when we opened the door there was Michelle Aheron (augerifan) who was sharing the room with Caryn Sinagra (Journeycat)!! Well woo hoo-friends we won't have to worry about keeping awake with our chatter!

My cell phone would erupt every 5 minutes -- someone new had arrived, someone was lost, and the questions started pouring in. We were all in a fairly jovial mood -- okay, we were a little bit silly -- so after the tenth call in less than an hour I answered the phone laughing "JPP nuthouse, this is Michelle." I about fell over when the voice on the other end of the line replied "Hello? This is Margaret Dunbar, is this Michelle?" YIKES! Aynsley's wife had called to let us know they would be attending the reception at the hotel Friday night. I frantically waved everyone to be quiet while I tried to recompose myself and switch into a more professional mode. Why is it when ever you're goofing off something important happens??

Soon it was 4:30 and time to start heading down to the lobby to meet up with everyone who was going to dinner. This is when it began to feel real-35 people waiting in the lobby ready to head to Tony Roma's for dinner and kick off one unforgettable weekend. And not everyone had arrived yet!

We marched ourselves over to Tony Roma's a block away and took over the back of the restaurant. Fortunately, Leslie and Rob had warned them in advance that we would be coming. Unfortunately, they only had one waitress for the whole lot of us!

Dinner at Tony Roma's

Once we were all seated, someone requested that people introduce themselves to the group since nametags had not yet been distributed. I started the round and by the time we were finished I was laughing to myself-it was like an AA meeting! "Hi, my name is Michelle and I'm a Journey nut…."

More of the gang at Tony Roma's

Dinner was ordered and much talking and laughing ensued. One of the highlights of the evening was when Deen's mother, who was part of our group for the weekend, pulled out baby pictures and started passing them around! (Awwwwww!) As is typical of any fan gathering the chatter around the table was almost exclusively Journey related. It never ceases to amaze me just how much grown adults can wax poetic on their favorite band!

Handing out goodies at registration
photo courtesy of Susan Ulm

After successfully paying the bill (with no major hassles or shortages!) and not totally driving other customers out of the restaurant, we trekked back across the street to open up registration. Our original plan had been to have registration in the second floor lounge, but due to an event occurring at the hotel (Ted Turner was addressing the Commonwealth Club) we were moved to the third floor to set up. I spent a lot of this time riding up and down the elevator getting things from our suite and bringing them back to the registration table, but after the initial rush of people I was able to plant myself at the table and assist the rest of the committee for the check in.

Keep looking for those goodie bags
photo courtesy of Susan Ulm

People remained in the registration area for a while - visiting with friends new and old and looking through their goodie bags. Soon people started to break off in search of other things to do, while Cheryl, Leslie F., Leslie W., Mary Ann, and I remained to keep the registration table open until 10 p.m. Darla and Emerson had left to pick up one of the attendees who had flown in to the San Jose airport.

By 10:00 everyone who was coming in on Thursday had checked in, so we packed our things and headed upstairs to the suite. Time for a little break for the committee-and to break open a few of the bottles we'd brought. We all felt good about how things were going to this point and ran through the names of the people we had met. We were all tired and ready for bed, but we couldn't go to sleep just yet.

Just a couple of bottles of wine

Once we had returned to the suite it was time for a glass of wine and to work on the speeches that Cheryl and Darla would be giving the next day. They had both jotted down some notes and I had passed along some suggestions, but the fine tuning still needed to be done. After the first draft run through, we sat around making suggestions and wordsmithing ever so slightly-without a thesaurus on hand we had to come up with all the different ways to say "celebrate" without actually saying "celebrate" ten times! Finally happy with the final results around midnight, we forced ourselves to stop talking about how things had gone thus far (very well) and about what we expected for the next day (is this really happening?) and headed off to bed.