When Derek and I flew down to our multi-day, tropical, semiannual CMEpalooza retreat earlier this summer, we spent many days thinking and strategizing about the future of our wildly-successfully extravaganza.
Me (said silently): “We’ve come so far in 5 years, but we could go so much farther. How do we expand our footprint and impact on this world so desperate for our education?”
Derek (said aloud): “I wonder how many more banana daiquiris I can consume before Happy Hour pricing ends?”
Yes, we all get there in our own ways, but once our focus sharpened (the answer, Derek tells me, was five. Five more banana daiquiris), we did indeed come up a lot of exciting and innovative ideas. Alas, all of those exciting and innovative ideas unfortunately were forgotten the instant that our kindly cocktail waitress told Derek after banana daiquiri number 4 that, “You look like you need a vacation.”
Thus was born the International CMEpalooza Summer Promotional Road Trip.
In early August, I spent several days lugging my family around Montreal speaking to countless potential CMEpalooza consumers about our event. I don’t speak a lick of French, but just kept saying “Mon dieu!” every time a question was asked of me. “Mon dieu!” just seems like a catch-all kind of phrase although I admittedly don’t really know what it means. I only got a few questionable looks.
Derek meanwhile took on the more difficult task of traipsing through the United Kingdom spreading the good word about CMEpalooza (note from Derek: this is true, though technically speaking I drove, not traipsed. Nothing like hurtling down the narrow streets of Cornwall at 55 MPH to make you feel alive!). His sullen, slightly disgruntled personality seemed perfect for the task, and I’m told by reliable sources that he fit in just fine. Alas, his introverted personality restrained him from actually, you know, trying to talk to anyone about CMEpalooza, but I’m assured that he used some sort of Jedi mind tricks to do what he promised.
And now we’re back again, settled in to domesticity in our homeland, with at least 2 new subscribers to our blog and 1 likely new viewer of our Fall sessions. That’s the owner of the ice cream parlor, or café crème glacee (see, I did learn some French!), around the corner from our Montreal accommodations who I saw, oh, every 4 hours for 7 consecutive days before he finally asked, “What the heck is this CMEpalooza think you keep talking about?” Mon dieu, monsieur!
You’ll be hearing much more from us in these next few weeks – we promise – about our Fall meeting coming up on Wednesday, October 16, as we ramp up our preparations and connect with our panelists to see what kinds of kooky ideas they have spun off of our original concepts. Meanwhile, enjoy your last few hours of summer this Labor Day. Derek suggests a banana daiquiri.
