Los Angeles Days 1-3: CASL

April 6, 2012

Ok, so as many of you know, I was in LA for a week on spring break and with my leadership class for a conference.  On Thursday, I got up at 4:30 am and no, I didn’t watch the A’s game. I headed to school, where we got in cars and drove down to Costa Mesa, which is right next to Anaheim. The 6.5 hour car drive was not fun, trust me.

We made one stop on our way down and arrived around noon. After we checked in, we went to a meeting , then we listened to key note speaker Brodie Kaster. He was a great dancer and a funny guy. After some workshops, we checked into our rooms, which were pretty awesome.

One cool thing about our rooms was that If we walked outside onto the balcony, we could see and hear Occupy LA protests.

After dinner, we had more workshops and a dance. There were arcade games outside the room and it was all pretty cool.
The next day after breakfast, we had presentations from other students at the conference, then listened to some speakers about leadership. After we had lunch, we went to a place called Speed Zone, which had mini golf, go karts, and an arcade, where we got unlimited games.

On the drive there, we drove past Angel Stadium

And the Honda Center

When we got back from Speed Zone, we listened to another Key Note Speaker, this one Justin Boudreau. He was a really cool and funny guy. After that, we had elections for freshman director, and unfortunately, the candidate from our school was not elected.
On the last morning, after breakfast, we went to another workshop and then we learned about TOMS shoes and had another school meeting, then we went to listen to a final Key Note Speaker. Albert Mensah grew up in Ghana and it was great to hear his story. We also accepted an Outstanding Activities Program Award, which basically means I have an awesome leadership class. After that, my parents picked me up and we drove to our hotel from there.

We got settled into our room and went to dinner, swam in the pool, very relaxing. The next day, we headed off to Disneyland, which I will talk about in my next blog entry.

Nick Badders is a unofficial reporter for MLB.com. He writes the blog, 7000 Coliseum Way, and you can follow him on Twitter @nickbatters or his blog @7000ColiseumWay. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Written by Nick Badders Posted in A's, community, school