I’ll let everyone read today’s blog headline and ponder for a moment.

I can see the wheels spinning in your head now. “Hmm, CMEpaTrivia? TriviaPalooza of CME? Lotsa Looza Trivia? OK, I give up. Surely, you guys are more creative than I am and have come up with an incredibly creative and witty solution to this challenging conundrum.”

While that is very kind of you, you give us too much credit. In fact, we were unable to come up anything more creative than “CMEpalooza Trivia Night” for what is bound to be one of the most memorable evenings in CMEpalooza history. True, our live broadcasts always end at 5 p.m. ET so there have been few evenings in CMEpalooza’s history, but this one will be memorable nonetheless.

Here are the important details:

• WHO: Derek and Scott will be your hosts (duh), with some special guest contributors
• WHAT: CMEpalooza Trivia Night
• WHERE: Philadelphia Free Library’s Central Branch (1901 Vine St, Philadelphia, PA 19103), Skyline Room. We’ll have someone in the library’s lobby to show you how to get up to the event.
• WHEN: Tuesday, September 17, from 6-7:30 pm ET
• WHY: This event is being held in conjunction with the Alliance Industry Summit (AIS), which is being held only a 5-minute walk from our event.
• HOW: This event is being supported by a generous anonymous donation in memory of longtime CME professional Jason O’Grady, who passed away earlier this year

There will be Philly-themed snacks and drinks (note: the Free Library is an alcohol-free venue, so you’ll need to get your craft cocktail fix either before or after trivia, We are happy to provide recommendations.), as well as generous cash prizes for the winners. There will be mostly CME-themed trivia questions (many based on AIS presentations), but we’ll have plenty of pop culture and other quirky topics to ask about as well, so don’t feel like you need to study in advance or anything like that.

This event, as with everything CMEpalooza-oriented, is free to anyone who wants to come along. Please note that you do not need to be in town for the AIS conference to attend — this event is open to anyone and everyone in the CME world. While no one expects you to fly in from, say, Sri Lanka, especially for this event, if you do live in the Tri-State area and want to sashay in, you are certainly welcome.

To get a sense of overall attendance, we have created a very short registration form that you can access by clicking this link. While it is not required that you register to attend this event, it will be helpful for our planning. Plus, there is a clue to one of the questions on the form.

Before I wrap this up, I wanted to leave you with a brief story from my family’s recently-completed vacation to Italy. I won’t write 1,000 words like Derek did about his family summer vacation, but since we’re talking about libraries here, this is tangentially relevant.

I have written plenty about my love of libraries in the past, and I usually carve out time in whatever city I am visiting to check out their biggest and best library. Consequently, on our last day in Naples, I set aside time to walk to the Vittorio Emanuele II National Library, which was only a 10-minute jaunt from where we were staying.

Here is what happened when I walked in the doors.

Snooty Italian Library Guy: “Ze library is not open during the summer. You can only see it during our daily tours at 10:30.”

Me (Checks his watch): “Yes, I saw that on the website. It’s 10:27 right now. So I’m ready whenever you are. I love libraries – super excited to see this one. I bet it’s amazing – it was built in 1700, right?”

Snooty Italian Library Guy: “Zere is no tour today.”

(Snooty Italian Library Guy turns his back, walks away, and mouths to his friend — “Silly American”)

Me (Shouting and flailing my arms): “I won’t let you get away with this! I flew thousands of miles for the sole purpose of seeing this library. You are crushing my soul! Please, please let me in!”

Snooty Italian Library Guy (slowly closing the door to his office): “Arrivederci, Rocky Balboa.”

Grrrrrrrrrr

(note from Derek: I like this Snooty Italian Library Guy!)

There has recently been a lot of chatter in the news about two old men past their prime who continue to hang on and chase yet another run at glory. I understand that you might not have caught this important information with all of the wall-to-wall coverage of the political upheaval we’re currently going through, so I have transcribed the audio feed from Public Access Channel 78 in Oshkosh, WI, for you:

NEWS ANCHOR #1: In other national news, the agenda for CMEpalooza Fall was released last week. It’s pretty amazing, dontcha know..

NEWS ANCHOR #2: Is that still those Derek and Scott guys? Haven’t they retired yet? I mean, I don’t want to offend anyone, but I believe they both were around when you mailed out CME certificates to learners. Like, in the mail.

OK, fine, Derek and I are now “old man joke” punching bags since we both passed the half-century mark, but that’s OK. Our doctors tell us we are mentally “capable” (it is weird that our doctors both used hand quotes when they told us? I didn’t think so), so we are soldiering on with another iteration of CMEpalooza Fall this October.

I don’t mean to brag (which means that I absolutely do mean to brag), but CMEpalooza is kind of killing it these days. Our blog topped 1,000 subscribers earlier this year and we smashed our previous record with 1,668 individuals tuning into our Spring event. That means a large swath of the CME community is paying attention to what we’re doing and saying every single day. Yes, we’re just as surprised as you are.

Of course, along with our live broadcast date on Wednesday, October 16, comes our usual slew of sponsorship opportunities. This is the best chance to show the CME world how your company is rolling with the times, how supportive you are of your professional community, and how much you love old people like Derek (I am much, much younger than he is).

And as our events evolve, so do our sponsorship opportunities. While we have a lot of the “old standbys,” we’ve thrown in some new wrinkles once again this year, many of which we successfully piloted at our recent events. Don’t be shy about taking a leap of faith and committing to something new.

Feel free to take a look at the updated Sponsorship prospectus (just click the link). We make the sponsorship process simple – you just send me an email saying something like, “CMEpalooza is like a fine wine – it gets better with age. Please count «Company» in as a (Silver/Bronze/other) sponsor,” we collect some basic information from you, and VOILA! up you go on the CMEpalooza website. You get in on all of our promotions and special events, and you receive as much exposure as we can possibly offer.

Of course, if you have any questions or would like any additional information, please don’t hesitate to ask. We’ll be sitting on our rocking chairs out on the porch with our lemonades and will be happy to take a few moments to answer whatever questions you have. Just make sure it’s no later than 9 p.m. – we have early bedtimes these days.

I am a bit sunburned and my ears are clogged with ocean water after 2 days at the beach, so I’m a little crankier than usual this morning (and I’m usually quite cranky anyway). Plus, it’s still 95+ degrees here in Philadelphia, which makes us all a bit more on edge. I mean, I love the long days and nights of summertime as much as anyone, but it’s hard to enjoy being outside when you come back drenched in sweat after a quick walk around the block.

Derek was just whining to me about it’s been soo soo hard to readjust to the heat after spending the first part of July traipsing through the countryside of Ireland where the thermometer never cracked 65 degrees. Poor baby. Drown your sorrows in another pint of Guinness why don’t you, laddie? (note from Derek: excellent idea!)

Anyway, before my cranky-o-meter accelerates even more, let’s run down a few things that have been going on with CMEpalooza. But before we do, how’s about a quick top 5 list of the best ’80s songs with the word “summer” in their title, if only because I know how much I know it bothers Derek when I steal his “top 5” gimmick, especially with my questionable musical tastes:

5. Summertime (DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince) – Technically, this wasn’t an ’80s song since it came out in 1991, but I couldn’t find anything else for this list that I had heard of that wasn’t by Richard Marx, and I absolutely refuse to include Richard Marx.

4. Boys of Summer (Don Henley) – Even as a kid, this song depressed me. The book of the same title is quite good.

3. Suddenly Last Summer (The Motels) – I knew the song but have never heard of The Motels before. Let’s assume this was their biggest hit (note from Derek: it’s not. Their biggest hit was/is Only the Lonely.)

2. Cruel Summer (Bananarama) – The girl bands of the ’80s were the best. Love the outfits, ladies.

1. Summer of ’69 (Bryan Adams) – Bryan Adams was my favorite singer growing up (like I said, questionable music tastes), and this is probably his most beloved song. Even if it isn’t about the summer of 1969.

With that thought-provoking list behind us, let’s move onto a few announcements that are actually related to CMEpalooza.

First off, we’ve been working hard on the agenda for CMEpalooza Fall (Wednesday, October 16). We’re almost there. Hopefully, we’ll have something preliminary out in the next week or two. There are some typically quirky session concepts out there, and topics you won’t hear about in other venues. We march to our own beat (in other words, We Got the Beat).

Secondly, we wanted to announce a very special event that we are hosting this fall in conjunction with the Alliance Industry Summit (AIS) right here in Philadelphia. Thanks to an anonymous donation in memory of longtime CME professional Jason O’Grady, we will be hosting our very first CMEpalooza Trivia Night from 6-7:30 pm on Tuesday, September 17, in the Skyline Room at the Philadelphia Free Library’s Central Branch. It’s a short 5-minute walk from the conference venue and one of the coolest spots in the city, even if you are not as big a fan of libraries as I am. There will be Philly-themed snacks and drinks, as well as cash prizes for the winners.

Because this is the not-to-be-missed event of the year, we’ve invited some of Philly’s favorite sons and daughters to hang out with us on the outdoor terrace during breaks in the action, so this is what the general atmosphere may look like.

Derek is an introvert until the end. (note from Derek: Bryce Harper is allowed to come sit with me.)

Please note that you need not be attending AIS to come to our free event. We will have more details, as well as a link to registration, as the date approaches.