By Jeremy Harness

 

LOS ANGELES – First of all, for those of you who have had the pleasure of reading my columns/stories on this Web site for the past 10 years, thank you so very much. I greatly appreciate your support, and I consider it an honor and a privilege to contribute to Sports Radio Service on a regular basis.

 

With that said, for the next four days, I will take you on a journey through Rose Bowl Week, as No. 5 Stanford prepares to take on No. 4 Michigan State in the 100^th-annual Rose Bowl Game. And, of course, it will be through my eyes.

 

My flight down here to Southern California was greatly anticipated, as this was the first time I have flown in an airplane in more than five years. With the exception of a tad bit of turbulence as the plane was starting its descent into Bob Hope Airport in Burbank as well as the fact that I had to surrender a can of shaving cream in Oakland in order to carry on my luggage bag, the flight came and went without a hitch.

 

The most entertaining part of the flight was when the aircraft touched down in Burbank, the flight attendant announced to the passengers, “We have fulfilled our obligation to get you into Burbank. Our contractual agreement is now over,” to which the majority of the passengers (myself included) responded with wholehearted laughter.

 

From there, the trip was a lesson in discovery about the LA area, where I had not been in many years. During a conversation about the notoriously-gut-wrenching traffic in this metropolitan area, the driver of the shuttle which took me from the airport to my hotel educated me to the fact that most of the people that clog the freeways on a daily basis are actually inexperienced drivers. This was certainly news to me, since unlike my native San Francisco Bay Area, you almost have to have your own vehicle if you have any hopes of getting around Los Angeles and its surrounding cities.

 

Once I got to the hotel and got checked in at around 9:20 pm, it was determined that media registration had come and gone for the night, and that it would have to wait until tomorrow morning to become “official.” No worries, however, as a few hours were left to grab a bite to eat and, of course, check out the LA Hotel Downtown.

 

Boy, is it a beautiful hotel! The people here are quite friendly, and the hotel itself is very spacious, definitely a deserving venue to host the media during the week leading up to the Rose Bowl. I couldn’t have asked for a better place to be right about now.

 

That is all for the first night, but I promise you, I will have much, much more for you as we get closer to the big game, which is expected to be a knock-down, drag-out brawl between two hard-nosed teams until the final whistle.