We’re now well into the Dog Days of Summer. Pretty much wherever you are reading this, it’s hot (unless you are reading this in Antarctica, which would be pretty fricking cool).

Turns out that the origins of the phrase “Dog Days of Summer” have nothing to do with baseball, summer carnivals, or beach vacations. It dates way, way back to a time before Derek was even born – the ancient Romans dubbed the 20 days before Sirius (the brightest star in Canus Major, or the “Greater Dog”) rose with the sun and the 20 days after it rose with the sun as the “Dog Days.” Seems that they believed the fact that Sirius was brightest in the sky on or around July 20 meant that it gave off heat that added to the sun’s warmth, thereby causing the hottest days of the year on the ground. And here you thought only Derek would give you useless information for your next cocktail party (note from Derek: I can contribute, too! The Harry Potter character Sirius Black was named after this same “Dog Star,” which means his name roughly translates to Black Dog. Sirius Black’s animagus form was, of course, a big black dog. Scott died from boredom while reading this.)

But you know where you won’t find any useless information, but rather extremely useful information? No, no, not on “X” (so weird to write that). We’re talking about CMEpalooza Fall.

I know, I know. Every since we teased the release of our Fall agenda in mid-July, you’ve been frantically refreshing your browser every 10 minutes to see if it’s on our website. You’ve probably let out a few “C’mon guys, is this really that hard?” expletives. I’d tell you to blame Derek and that my sessions have pretty much been locked down for weeks, but that wouldn’t be nice of me to point fingers at anyone else. So let’s just say that we’re both to blame (Note from Derek: Yes, let’s go with that.)

The blame game ends now (well, sort of) as we’re proud to unveil — FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!! – the agenda for CMEpalooza Fall. If you’ve been following our saga for these last 10 years, you probably won’t be surprised that there are still a few “TBAs” with some of our sessions that will be filled in eventually, but there is still a lot of meat for you to gnaw on right now. We’re bringing back some old ideas and introducing some new ones. There will be some faces you’ve seen in CMEpaloozas past and some that will be new to us all. Which is the way we like it.

So check out the agenda, clear your calendar on Wednesday, October 18 (it sounds really far away, I know), and stop poking those needles into your Derek voodoo doll.

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.