Whenever you have an event as large and prestigious as CMEpalooza, you expect that the masses will come calling when you are celebrating a milestone, as we are right now in the midst of 10 years of our biannual event.

And yet shockingly, The View never contacted us. Silence from the major news network. Heck, we would have settled for a guest spot on Inside the NBA’s pregame show (Derek has always wanted to yell at Charles Barkley for saving his best season once he left Philly) (note from Derek: true.).

Perhaps all of these outlets weren’t properly programmed into my phone, so when they came up as “Potential Spam” or “Unknown Caller” (which always triggers an “Ignore” response), they moved onto the next guest instead of leaving a voicemail.

I even bought a ticket to sit in the audience on Saturday night to watch Bill Maher at one of our local venues. I made sure to remind his booking agent via Twitter several times that I would be in attendance and available to come onstage to talk with Bill about the ways that CMEpalooza has impacted our big, bad, funny world. And yet, the show came and went with nary a wave. Perhaps they just couldn’t see me way up in the bowels of the venue? Yeah, yeah, that’s it.

Frankly, it was all a bit demoralizing. How will America survive without hearing more insight from Derek and I about the many valuable lessons we have learned over this last decade? Surely, a generation of our youth–struggling for sense and purpose in this big, bad, funny world–will be motivated by the story of CMEpalooza’s humble beginnings. But without an outlet beyond our own walls, how would we get this message to them?

Thankfully, our old friends at the Leading Learning podcast series came to the rescue. When they reached out a few months ago asking if Derek and I would do a reprise of the most popular podcast in their history that we recorded back in 2017 (we’re assuming – we didn’t actually ask), we didn’t hesitate to say yes. After several months of editing–you’d be surprised how much Derek can talk once he gets on a roll–we’re proud to announce that this latest podcast is now available. You can access it wherever you listen to your podcasts (but preferably not in the shower–that would be really weird).

If you don’t have the time to listen, or you simply cannot stand our voices, there is even a handy transcript available. I would tell you here about some of the topics we cover, but then you wouldn’t be quite as likely to listen to the podcast, would you? I can tell you that we did not discuss the following topics that are nonetheless near and dear to our hearts:

1. Delis
2. Richard Pryor’s best movies
3. The differences between the Amish and Mennonites (note from Derek: I’m an expert.)
4. Best arcade games in 1980s pizza shops
5. The NBA playoffs (yes, we’re still angry)

Thanks again to the big brains at Leading Learning for making us sound somewhat coherent. I know that ain’t easy.

Ben Franklin once famously said that, “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man ready to consume a full day of CMEpalooza” (look it up if you don’t believe me. It was in the August 6, 1768 edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette).

And where, pray tell, did our Founding Father utter these prescient words so many years ago?

Philadelphia.

So it is with the spirit of our city’s favorite son (sorry Rocky Balboa) that we’ll gather this coming Monday evening to learn about the history of Philadelphia in the revolutionary era, the stories of how our earliest capital city helped shape our country, and yes, lots about Mr. Franklin. We’ll meet at 7 pm (get there a bit earlier please) in the lobby of the Lowes Philadelphia Hotel and walk a few blocks to the historic district for the start of a 1-hour(ish) free walking tour. The Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions has their Industry Summit going on next week, so this is technically built into the agenda, but you don’t have to be attending the meeting to come along. You can just show up (shh, I won’t tell anyone).

I’ve been volunteering as a tour guide in Philadelphia for the better part of two decades each summer, so this will be a good refresher for me in preparation for the 2023 season. I like to think I’m reasonably entertaining (true story: I met my wife on one of my tours many moons ago, so apparently somebody thought so) (note from Derek: no comment. Too easy.) and won’t bore you with a litany of names and dates. Plus, in true CMEpalooza style, there will be cash giveaways for smart people who know their Philadelphia and/or pop culture trivia. If you want to give yourself a leg up, here are a few topics you can brush up on:

1. One of our earliest First Ladies met her husband in Philadelphia. She also really liked ice cream. Some of her favorite flavors were, let’s just say unusual. You might want to find out what they were.
2. There were no Halls of Fame in the 1770s, but that didn’t stop one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence from being posthumously enshrined as a sporting pioneer in one of them.
3. Not every colony and/or state participated in the biggest events in early Philadelphia history. Might be worth looking into these.
4. The First Family of American Theater is still an acting family. How is their most famous current thespian tied to her great-grandmother?

The weather looks fairly nice (bring a light jacket) so if nothing else, consider it a leisurely springtime stroll in the city.

Another CMEpalooza is in the books (this was CMEpalooza XIX if you are scoring at home) and boy, it was definitely a historic day. Historic how, you ask? Well, let me tell you.

1. We set a new record for viewership. There were a whopping 1,090 of you who watched at least one CMEpalooza session yesterday. Derek and I were skeptical that we would ever top our numbers from April 2020 (the very beginning of COVID when CMEpalooza was about the only thing happening in the world), but it only took us three years to get there. Thanks to everyone who tuned in. (Note from Derek: a quick peek at the YouTube analytics this morning tells me that we had over 200 live viewers for every session (not counting the last session — see Scott’s note below.) That has never happened before.)
2. We had our first weather delay…and our first weather-related postponement. We’re all hearing so much about the ways that climate change is affecting weather patterns around the world, and we can now proudly (?) say that CMEpalooza is not immune to these challenges. Two of the panelists for our 4 p.m. ET session were under a tornado warning in the late afternoon, causing us to delay the start of the session by 15 minutes until the warning expired. But then 10 minutes after we revved things up, their phones did the whole boop-boop-boop emergency chime and they were told to shelter in place once again. We’re working on a new time/date for this session since it was a really cool (and important) presentation. We’ll keep you posted. And just in case you were worried, we’re told that our panelists are both fine – just a lot of wind and rain in south Florida yesterday.
3. Derek set a record for the quickest update of our session archives. OK, he didn’t (no Spring 2023 tab yet). This is just my way of giving him a subtle nudge (note from Derek: a valiant, yet ultimately futile,  attempt at guilt-tripping me into action. Good effort.) That said, if you go to our Spring 2023 agenda page, you can find all of the archives from yesterday’s sessions. Those are pretty much automatically set for us, so it doesn’t take much effort. Feel free to go in and watch any sessions you missed. One word of advice: Please don’t submit questions via our text line to a session you are watching in the archives and expect a live answer from our panel. They aren’t there anymore. It’s always a little weird, but this happens from time to time.

Before we leave you for a few weeks of tropical fun (the corporate jet is on the runway and the pilot is tapping his watch to hurry us along), I wanted to share a few final tidbits of feedback that we received yesterday. As always, these are real comments from our viewers.

Kudos to you both. CMEpalooza is the most valuable industry conference to me, hands down. I took notes. Yep, notes.

That was a great day of CMEpalooza right there

A huge thank you for your epic efforts in providing quality education for CME writers that is accessible all over the world.

Did Derek realize he had a piece of spinach stuck between his teeth all afternoon?

Yup, these are our people.