Thursday, December 04, 2008

360 Days of the Year I'm a Geek...

...but for 5 days in early December, I get to be a Rock Star.

RSNA 2008 is wrapping up. By this time tomorrow we'll be just about done. I met some great people here. I saw some good (and some not so good) lectures. I ate over $1000 of food (not an exaggeration) and paid for almost none of it. I made business contacts and I really feel like my small radiology corporation is going to take off because of things I've learned from this meeting.

Things I will miss:
  • Obviously, I'll miss being treated like a Rock Star. By Saturday I'll be back to being just Dad and a regular ol' doctor.
  • I'll miss the food.
  • I'll miss the free drinks. I had Johnny Walker Blue for the first time (maybe a little better than average, but you won't find me spending $200 for a bottle anytime soon).
  • I'll miss the sun. Seriously. It's been sunny almost every day.
  • I'll miss the flirty booth babes. We met one at a bar last night and she introduced herself as Mandy. "Like the song!" I replied. She leaned in close and said, "You know. You came and you gave without taking." It was 10 minutes later that my buddy Mike said, "You know, I think she was hitting on you."
Things I will not miss:
  • Apparently, I insulted Mandy at some point. She told me her brother is in residency to be an ER doc. I may have called him an idiot (my apologies to your brother, Brad). She began striking me repeatedly. Honest, honey. These bruises on my arm are from a crazed booth babe.
  • I didn't need anyone to tell me that she was hitting on me this time.
  • I will not miss hearing the phrase "Deep Dive." As in, "If you want to get a deep dive into the inner workings of our new Dual-Phase detector, I'll have to call over our Physicist."
  • I'll will not miss the bitter cold.
  • Mostly, I will not miss this miserable hotel. The Congress Plaza should be demolished - preferably with the striking workers still under the building. We are right across from Grant Park (where Obama made his victory speech), but they didn't even give me a view. The shower randomly turns off - usually when you have soap in your eyes. They need to drill into the wall behind my headboard every morning at 8am. The strikers are fond of yelling, "Shame on you!" into your face with their bullhorn. And the heater cannot be controlled. Enough already! You get the point. If you come to Chicago, sleep on a park bench before staying here.
Okay, now I'm really starting to sound like an over-privileged rock star. I'm sure The Wife will have a few ideas about how to bring me back to Earth.

2 comments:

BamBam said...

I have the last drink of Johnny Blue, sitting in the bottle, still tucked away in it's litte case.

It was a parting gift from an Uncle in-law who held Diplomatic status. His price, sans every tax along the way to us the buyer, $44.00. Now you and I both know, that is one of those things that really deserves a WTF ????

I found it wonderfully smooth and rich, pleasing to both the lips and the pallet, but it'll be the coldest day in Hell when they rip the $250.00 it takes to get a bottle around these parts from my hands!

Now having said that. I hit Quad's nearly back-to-back, (trips in the middle!) in Let-it-Ride at the local casino last Summer. I had no issue what so ever then, parting with, (GULP) $49 of my $3800.00 profit, for a double of that schtuff.

Oh and yeah! I can see the whole "Rock Star" thing coming to a crashing halt, within about 88 seconds of you walkin' in the door!

:)

***edit***

Who the Hell do you know at google? Word verification = yamika?

Seriously !

Anonymous said...

Nothing worse than going on a business trip and having to stay at a lousy hotel. Not wanting to shower where the water stops periodically, not wanting to wake up to drilling near the back of your head at 8am, and not wanting to deal with the strikers yelling and bitching does not make you sound like an over-privilidged rock star. You are paying good money for a hotel, it should be good. Never be ashamed to expect what you have rightly earned. HOO AH. Your Wife will be happy that you got $1000 worth of good food that you didn't have to pay for! Still a net-net loss, sis??? :)