I have been in Las Vegas for the past week and was really hoping to make this post my swan song, bidding adieu to everyone as I ride off into early retirement on the back of my massive gambling winnings. Alas, that is not the case. Sadly, the $37 I won betting on the Flyers to beat the Penguins (quick side note: Wanna hear my impression of Penguins star Sidney Crosby? I think it’s pretty good: “Wahhhhhh! The Flyers are being mean to me!!! Wahhhhh!”)  is not going to be enough for me close my laptop forever. You’re stuck with me for at least another year.

Since I’m not sitting poolside lighting up cigars with one-hundred-dollar bills, I’ll instead remind everyone that the CMEpalooza STEPtacular Challenge wraps up Sunday night (click here for more info). I know everyone loves to wait for the last day (and sometimes after the last day) to send me their step counts — and that’s fine — but you don’t have to wait for the last day. You can send them to me right now, if you want. Or don’t. I’m not the boss of you. You’re an adult, you can do what you want. Just make sure you send them to me.

And just to prove that people do participate in our contests and that we do have actual winners, here is the list of winners of our CMEpalooza Pursuit contest:

• Melissa Ketchum, CHCP, FACEHP, Senior Director, Accreditation and Compliance, PVI, PeerView Institute for Medical Education
• Jess Henry, CHCP, Continuing Medical Education Specialist, Nuvance Health
• Cindy Davidson, Editorial Manager, Global Learning Collaborative
• Vanessa Gray, DHA, MHA, CHCP, CMP, Director of Continuing Medical Education, Center for Educational Enhancemen, Des Moines University Medicine and Health Sciences
• LeeAndra Buccalo, Grants Manager, MedLive

Have a great Friday, everyone! Get stepping!

no Kenny Loggins
but we’re still on the highway
to the haiku zone

schedule snafu fixed
Palooza Spring on track for
April twenty-nine

gentle reminder
STEPtacular Challenge ends
this coming Sunday

9 AM ET: Ready or Not, Change Starts Here

a young Mick Jagger
sang that time waits for no one
change, too, lacks patience

10 AM ET: Around the Pyramid: A Game Show on How Change Actually Happens

imagine outcomes
where pyramids are passé
and loops are en vogue

11 AM ET: Learners with Opportunities: Getting Your Activities to the Right Learners

question to be probed:
is supporter always right?
if it is me, yes

Noon ET: Focusing on the Trees but Missing the Forest: Rethinking Educational Impact

a single live tree
and one live activity?
both have low impact

1 PM ET: Barrier-Free Education: Let’s Talk Accessibility

unlike Aussie reef
CME should always be
free of barriers

2 PM ET: Independent by Design, Essential by Function: Delivering the Impact the Changing CME Ecosystem Now Expects

evidence to care
is The Prince That Was Promised
Game of Thrones fans know

3 PM ET: From Knowing to Doing: A Working Model for Skills-Based CME

“knowing” is fine but
“doing” is what gives us the
skills to pay the bills

4 PM ET: CME Buzzword! (Redux)

CME Buzzword
back and better than ever
JordoX in the house

Sponsors

research has proven
palooza sponsors are more
good looking and smart

Gold

look who’s back again
last year silver, this year gold
Daiichi Sankyo

Grzybowski & Frese
contacts for MLG or
new TNT show?

Silver

first on silver list
Academic CME
and first in our hearts

new silver sponsor
or SpongeBob SquarePants’ best friend
Bristol Myers Squibb

passion for fashion?
at CME Outfitters
med ed is in style

just like James Brown said
Global Education Group
can make it Funky

for a fab collab
check out the Global Learning
Collaborative

if Galileo
was a supporter, he’d be
Healio-centric 

Jon Bon Jovi sang
I’m wanted dead or Medlive
riding a steel horse

Pri-Med‘s primary
premise is primarily
on Primary Care

In his essay The Etiquette of Freedom, Gary Snyder provides the following life advice:

Practically speaking, a life that is vowed to simplicity, appropriate boldness, good humor, gratitude, unstinting work and play, and lots of walking brings us close to the actually existing world and its wholeness.

Snyder–who was friends with Wendell Berry, climbing partners with Allen Ginsberg, and the inspiration for Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums–famously practiced what he preached. And while we like to think that CMEpalooza embraces a number of these principles, I’m specifically writing today to help you with the last one: lots of walking.

Today is the start of the CMEpalooza STEPtacular Challenge, sponsored once again by Talem Health. Whether you’re looking to get closer to the wholeness of the existing world by walking a lot or just need to get away from your friggin’ computer screen for 10 minutes, all our welcome to join and participate. Here are all the details you need to know.

• The challenge begins today (Monday, April 20) and will go until the end of the day on Sunday, April 26
• The challenge is to record at least 10,000 steps in one day. For each day during the challenge period that you record 10,000 steps, please send in a screenshot of your step-counting device with the number of recorded steps, either by email (thecmeguy@gmail.com) or text (267-666-0CME [0263]). Please include the following information:
  • Screenshot of number of steps
  • Date of steps
  • Name
  • Email
  • Physical mailing address (we need this to send you merch)
• For each day you achieve 10,000 steps and send in a screenshot, you will be entered into a random drawing for a $50 Amazon gift card (there are five gift cards; you cannot win more than one.) Winners will be drawn during the week of CMEpalooza Spring. You can send them in each day individually, or you can send them all in at once at the end. It doesn’t matter to me.
• The person who records and submits the most steps in one day wins a $250 Amazon gift card
• Please send in your steps by 5 pm ET on Monday, April 27
• Everyone who enters even one day will receive this sweet Yeti mug courtesy of Talem Health.
  

Thanks everyone and good luck!

CMEpalooza STEPtacular Challenge sponsored by: