Headed up to Six Flags yesterday for a corporate event. The company I work for’s parent rented out the whole park for the day. Normally I really have no desire to go to Six Flags. It’s fun and all, but I’ve never been a fine of waiting in lines. Especially for rollercoasters, which I’m not really the biggest fan of to begin with. Plus you have to pay to park, pay for the tickets ($55), food, etc. It really becomes expensive for what you get out of it.
However, I’ll definitely go on a corporate event. There were no lines, it only cost $25 per ticket, and parking was free. Such a deal! I rode every ‘coaster there at least once, and there were points where you didn’t even have to exit the ride, you could just ride it two times in a row. There also weren’t that many people walking around. It didn’t feel swamped and the weather was nice (despite a few minute showers). There’s nothing like riding the American Eagle getting pelted with rain.
Next time I go, though, I need to wear contacts. There were a few times I felt a lil’ sick, but I think that had a lot to do with not being able to see. Superman definitely made me feel that way, but as JoeJohn pointed out, it was probably because of the orientation of your body which made you feel as though you were hovering over the toilet.
Best complete rides were definitely American Eagle which I rode 3 times or so and Raging Bull which I rode twice. The best single drop though was definitely the first drop of Deja Vu. It was the only ride with a long line, and it was closed for most of the day, but it was worth it. Well, that is until we got stuck on it and it wouldn’t let us off.
Rides we rode: Raging Bull, Superman, Batman (ugh, that one made me feel bad too), Deja Vu, Virtical Velocity (not really all the fun, but good on technical merit), Viper (snakes on a mf’in train!), American Eagle, Iron Wolf (painful for the ears), Demon, the bumpercars, and the Whizzer.
And my Dad thought that I wasn’t living in the real world because I was in IT; welcome to the world of pharmaceuticals.
Last night, Erin and I went to a dinner about Spiriva. This was both of our first adventures into this sort of setting.
Erin made it downtown a little bit early for the drinks & appetizers part of the evening (6:30 PM), so we started out at Petterino’s. I love that place. Ed is by far the best bartender, ever, but I could be biased, because he knows who I am. Anyways, after a Goose Island there, we headed over to Nick’s Fish Market. Yup, that is where the Spiriva Dinner was hosted.
Anyways, we walk in to Nick’s and they have the whole main dining room downstairs booked for the drug dinner. They have us sign in and specify if we’re physicians or just in the healthcare profession. I was tempted to check physician, but then they’d probably try to hunt me down to push their drug on me later. The representative at the table made some small talk with us and then we headed into the dining room. The main dining room encompased around 12 tables with 14-16 people per table. We sat down and immediately a waiter was over asking if we wanted wine or anything else to drink. We both had a glass of wine and waited for Erin’s friend from PT school.
Appetizers were served, the assorted platter, three to a table. However, there were only 5 people at our table, so we gourged on the yummy bites. Overall, the tables were about 75% full. Not a bad turn out, but quite a few short of what the apparently expected. We were asked what we would like for our main course at this time, Chilean Sea Bass or Filet Mignon.
By this time, I think I was on my second glass of wine, and one of the representatives grabbed the mic and introduced the presenter Dr. Nicholas J Gross from Loyola. He started into his speach and informed us that he was being paid by the pharmaceutical companies behind Spiriva to give the talk. During this time the second course was served: Manhattan Clam Chowder.
Dr. Gross (man, that’s an awesome name) gave his speech about COPD and how, basically, Spiriva is a miracle drug. All in all, his presentation lasted about 15-20 minutes. Needless to say, I didn’t know what he was talking about a fair amount of the time, but I had Erin there to translate for me. Not like it mattered though, it was purely marketing propaganda. Nowhere were we told what the drug physically does in the body, or how it increases the FEV1 of patients, just that it does. I was tempted to ask questions along those lines, but the food was too good. Anyways, nearing the end of his presentation course three was delivered: Ceasar Salad.
I think I was on my third or fourth glass of wine by now. It’s hard to tell because the waiters didn’t actually let you finish a glass before refilling. Talk about service. Our fourth course came out, and I had picked the Chilean Sea Bass, while Erin had the Filet Mignon. Talk about delicious.
Things started to wind down and Erin’s friend left, but we stuck it out for course #5: banana chocolate cheescake and coffee. By this time we were both more than stuffed, but it was so good we couldn’t say no.
It was around 9:00 PM so we headed home after we had both finished our entire piece of cheesecake. We stopped back by my office to grab my bag and then proceeded to walk home to try and burn off some of the food. Man was it good though.
Afterwards I told Erin, that whenever she gets an invite to one of these dinners again, we definitely need to go. Granted, I was just along for the food, but she actually wanted to go for the information. However, she was a little disappointed with the information in the end. It was quite funny to see the different types of people there though. The people that they were actually pitching the drug to were easy to spot. They were the nicely dressed doctors. Then there was everyone else, which mainly consisted of nurses, some of which were still wearing their scrubs.
It was definitely a learning experience, and you figure that if only one doctor prescribes this drug to his patients, the whole evening is probably paid for. I’m just hoping there’s some sort of mailing list that I can get on for other upcoming events.
Yeah to winning $150!
I was forwarded a hilarious link from Bud. It’s a little late for St. Patty’s day, but it’s well worth the watch. There are so many things wrong with this news clip, I don’t know where to begin.
So, you can view about half of the pictures we took in Puerto Vallarta! I know you’re excited to go see them, so I’ll wait here a few minutes while you go check them out.
If you want a fullsize picture, just click on the medium sized ones. These are straight from the camera too. I tried to filter out some of the really bad ones, but a few are slightly blurry when viewed at full resolution.
Anyways, now it’s time for some Puerto Vallarta statistics. I’ll create another post for when the other pictures get put up (have to develop them and then scan em in), and that will detail our adventures a little bit more. Right now I need to finish studying for my elective exam.
Aww yeah, going to Puerto Vallarta on the 24th of February!
It should be fun. Erin was looking at all-inclusive, but that really wasn’t what I was looking for. So, instead, I found this nice bed and breakfast that is about 3 blocks from the beach (and the tourists) that we both thought would be fun. I can’t wait! :cheese:
I saw this over at BoingBoing, and couldn’t resist sending it to everyone one I knew. However, I realized, there’s some of you I may have missed, so I introduce you to the Coyote Hat.