Anticipation

Saw the USC Hockey Team at LAX tonight on their way to Oregon for the PAC-8 Championship Tournament.

The Trojan Hockey Player in the security line in front of me learned you can't take a Swiss Army Knife on an airplane anymore. The choice he faced was to go back downstairs, pack the knife in his carry-on bag and then check his carry-on bag OR give up the pocket knife. It took him a few seconds but he figured out the right answer: buh bye knife.

(Make up your own joke about a Bruin Hockey player in the security line at LAX. I think mine goes, "Are you kidding? The Bruins are on a bus to Oregon.")

As for me, I'm spending the night in Fresno at the brand-new Hampton Inn in order to attend a meeting in the morning.

But the best part about coming to Fresno is I get to have lunch tomorrow at one of my all-time favorite places: the Chicken Pie Shop. I expect to post some photos tomorrow.

Don't expect much. I don't know exactly why I love it so. I've taken a few people there over the years -- and they mostly seem to humor me about going there (although a few have been downright critical)

But now I have an even stronger emotional attachment to the Chicken Pie Shop than before. In 2004 my Grandmother Fliegner and I drove to Berkeley to watch my sister, Andrea Redewill, graduate from college.

Driving home to Victorville, where Grandmother Fliegner lived, we stopped at the Chicken Pie Shop for lunch. She, by the way, was as enthusiastic as I am about how good it is. Sadly, it was the last restaurant meal she and I ever had together as she died shortly after that trip.

(Note: She died several months later so I'm absolutely confident the food at the C.P.S. had nothing to do with it.)