And just like that…we’re back! Yes, it seems like just yesterday I was saying to Scott upon the conclusion of another successful CMEpalooza, “Thank god that’s over! That was our best CMEpalooza, yet!” Where does the time go?

Despite the quick passage of time, a surprising number of major events have occurred in our lives during the four months since CMEpalooza Fall. A brief summary:

• The Philadelphia Phillies played in the World Series! And lost.
• The Philadelphia Union played in the MLS Cup! And lost.
• The Philadelphia Eagles played in the Super Bowl! And lost.
• Derek went to his first Alliance conference since 2020
• Scott made fun of Derek for wearing a tattered baseball hat that looked like it was stained with tobacco juice to a “fancy hat” party at the Alliance conference
• Cocaine Bear was released in theaters

It’s been a wild couple of months, but we’re happy to get back to what we do best: putting together the best CMEpalooza yet!

Click here for the preliminary agenda for CMEpalooza Spring 2023. We will be updating final details for some of the sessions over the next few weeks, but this should at least give you a general overview for most of the sessions.

The response to our call for abstracts was amazing (double our previous record number of submissions!) and we want to give a big thank you to everyone who submitted. We easily could have put together a three-day CMEpalooza with the quality of the abstracts we received. The worst part about asking for abstracts is then telling people we didn’t accept their abstract (I wimped out and asked Scott to send out the rejection emails. He has a heart of stone [OK, that part is not true. I just didn’t want to do it.]) (note from Scott: Derek isn’t totally wrong. I like to tell people I have a heart of gypsum. It’s stone, but a very soft stone. Hey, I took two semesters of geology as an undergrad. I had to do something with that knowledge)

Our goal was to put together an agenda you will find interesting, informative, and entertaining. We think we’ve done that. Hopefully you will, too.

See you all on April 12!

 

 

 

 

Frankly, I think procrastinators get a bad name.

I was the kid growing up who would always wait until the night before to start that term paper, the one who would set his alarm clock a mere 5 minutes before he needed to leave for school in the morning, the one who would wait until 10 minutes before we needed to leave for vacation to pack his suitcase (OK, I still do this one).

I mean, why finish today what you can get put off for tomorrow? Who wants an perfectly-written A+ paper that you slaved over for weeks and weeks when a slapdash B+ effort written in 90 minutes will suffice just fine?

Procrastination allows you to develop those EMERGENCY EMERGENCY EMERGENCY skills, the ability to focus and work quickly under tight deadlines, the talent to be cool and calm under pressure.

And so today, fellow procrastinators, is your day! That email you wrote in your head to your professional friends and colleagues with that idea for a CMEpalooza session can be sent. That amazing idea for an entire presentation in pig Latin can be formalized (OK, maybe not). And most importantly, that brilliance you have tucked away can finally be put onto paper for the esteemed CMEpalooza abstract selection committee to review.

The abstract submission deadline for CMEpalooza Spring is indeed today. Click here for all of the details, including a link to the basic form you’ll need to submit your idea. Unlike some of those lesser meetings, you won’t be getting a blog post from us tomorrow morning saying, “Guess what? We decided to extend the submission deadline.” We said today, and we mean it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my flight is boarding. Where is that damned sunscreen?