My son Drew is just starting the 7^th grade and has a fantastic teacher – Mr. Leonard. Mr. Leonard challenges his students, expects great things from them, and makes himself available when they struggle. On the first day of school, the first thing he taught everyone was the proper way to shake hands. That’s awesome.

This morning, Drew told me about the writing assignment Mr. Leonard had given the class a few days before. They were supposed to write about an epiphany they had recently experienced. He showed me the title of his epiphany-based paper: The Day I Discovered My Dad Was Good at Basketball. I was flattered, though, I would have been more so if he hadn’t used the past tense in his title. I’m a foot taller than that kid and I can still take him! What does he mean was good?!? That’s it – I’m getting my high-tops on. LET’S GO! RIGHT NOW! YOU AND ME, KID! MAKE-IT-TAKE-IT FIRST ONE TO 10!!!

Sorry, sorry…where was I? Right, epiphanies. A couple years ago, I had an epiphany of my own while covertly using Google Hangouts On-Air to record and stream Lawrence Sherman’s presentation at the Alliance conference so a colleague overseas could watch. Fast forward a few years (and a name change from Google Hangouts On-Air to YouTube Live) and we are now on our 6^th(!) iteration of the result of that epiphany – CMEpalooza. That is wild.

Anytime you do a conference this many times, there is a danger of it becoming stagnant and repetitive. It’s not easy to come up with new ideas, topics, and formats. That’s why Scott and I are particularly proud of the agenda for this version of CMEpalooza. We really tried to push the envelope and come up with a wide range of formats to keep things interesting. There’s a little something for everyone. We’ve got CE experts engaging in casual conversations. We’ve got our very own Jamie and Adam to bust some CME myths. One session is basically a reality TV program with our panelists only given 24 hours notice to resolve some common and not-so-common case conundrums in CME. And of course, we’re bringing back our CME Puntua Lortu for another round to close out the day. If you have never stuck around long enough to watch the previous Puntua Lortus, I highly recommend you do this time. They’re a lot of fun.

We also sprinkled in a few traditional panel sessions, though I have to say I’m a little disappointed that only one person caught the literary reference in the title of my The Brief, Wondrous Life of a Grant Request session. Mr. Leonard would be very disappointed in all of you.

So, if you haven’t already marked your calendar for CMEpalooza on October 19, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR please do so now. Watch all the sessions or watch a few, but however much you decide to watch, just remember what my Grandpa Warnick always said: You can pick your friends and you can pick your sessions, but you can’t pick your friends’ sessions (unless you’re watching with your friends and it’s your computer and you’re in control of picking the sessions you watch, which ruins my entire closing sentence. Thanks. Thanks a lot.)

We’ve had some good blog posts and we’ve had some bad blog posts, but I’m not sure that we’ve ever had a blog post with a more riveting title than this. I mean, just take a moment and read it aloud. “Derek & Scott Chat About the CMEpalooza Agenda.” Wow. Can you feel the excitement?

I don’t have too much more to say about this, really. The title pretty much covers it. It’s a 12-minute video of Scott and I talking about the CMEpalooza agenda. Why are we talking about the agenda? Well, we have a number of sessions this time around that are weirder different formats than we have had in the past and thought it might be helpful if we gave a little more description as to what to expect. What is CME Mythbusters? What are Casual Conversations in CME (if you’re like me, you may be disappointed to find out that it does not involve people sitting around in smoking jackets with snifters of brandy, talking about which level of outcome they find most charming)? Tune in to the video to find out!

Folks, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s hot out there. I mean real hot. It’s so hot, I cracked an egg on my sidewalk and it jumped up and ran away. It’s so hot, planets are starting to orbit around us. It’s so hot, my pet camel asked to go back to the desert to cool off. It’s hot.

My advice? Just stay inside. Don’t even bother to go outside. What’s the point? You’ll be sweating so much, the sidewalk will look like a fire at Madame Tussauds. You’ll be sweating so much, Captain Ahab will shoot a harpoon at you. You’ll be sweating so much, the Coast Guard will put up “No Wake Zone” signs behind you as you walk. You’ll be sweating a lot.

What’s that you ask? What can you do with all your free time while lounging around inside in the cool A/C? Well, just mosey on over to the newly updated CMEpalooza archive, where you can find hours and hours of free (FREE!) educational (and entertaining!) videos that you can watch to your heart’s content. I suppose you could binge watch old episode’s of Bob Ross’s “Joy of Painting” on Netflix like Scott does every night (that dude loves painting happy little trees), but why do that when you can binge watch over 50 episodes of CMEpalooza?

Every session from every iteration of CMEpalooza is now available for your viewing pleasure. That includes 2 PechaKucha/Puntua Lortu sessions, 4 QI sessions, 13 sessions on educational design, and 18 sessions on outcomes! What more could you ask for? (Don’t say a pony. My daughter has already asked for one and those things are expensive. I have a small backyard. Where would I put it?)

So grab your favorite internet viewing device, mix up a tropical drink with a little umbrella in it, find the nearest chaise lounge, and prepare to spend a little quality time inside with the CMEpalooza archive. You’ll be so glad you did, you might even start painting some of your own happy little trees.