The MedCon adventure culminated with a massive banquet on Saturday night, complete with a fabulous meal and the obligatory convention banquet banter from the podium filled with inside jokes I didn't get. I didn't care, though, because I was full of good food and decent wine and an assortment of tasty desserts.
On Sunday, the wife and I lit out around noon and headed up to Georgetown so I could introduce her to Five Guys Burgers. She agreed it was a tasty burger, but I suspect she didn't find the journey nor the crowds nor the near obscene lack of parking to be worth the trip. We didn't stick around very long after lunch, preferring to get the long journey back to Borderland underway.
The whole trip home, we kept talking about how we really wished we could go pick up Sadie from the vet that evening. I knew this was a futile wish, as the vet was closed, but despite knowing she was well taken care-of, our parental guilt at having left her with strangers for six days was overwhelming. I told the wife that I'd promised Sadie I would be on site at 8:30 when they opened to pick her up. Unfortunately, the vet told me that pickup time for the kennel didn't start until 10 a. Add to that the fact that this was also daylight savings time weekend, which added another hour and then add that I neglected to set all the clocks ahead and it was nearly 10 a by the time I realized it, and Sadie had a bit longer of a wait than promised.
I brought the new video camera with me to document her release.
The staff said she had been kind of freaked out for the first day of her stay, but settled down after that. One of the vet techs who worked there had even befriended her, for she went right over to him and licked his hand when he came out to say good bye. He mentioned that he thought she was too smart for her own good, as it had taken him 20 minutes to corral her back into the kennel after one of her five or six daily yard-sessions.
After leaving the vet's we headed for the wife's office for a reunion visit. After that, we had a good long walk in the park, which is where I noticed that Sadie was attempting to take a whiz about once every two minutes. I knew this wasn't normal behavior for her, but didn't know if the exposure to the no doubt stratified layers of dog urine in the vet's exercise yard had blown a territorial fuse in her, causing her to pee on everything, or if she was suffering from what I suspected was a urinary tract infection. Turns out the latter, which I learned after returning her to the vet's office that afternoon. The vet said that such infections were common in stressful situations, such as a first time away from home and owners, and a couple weeks of antibiotics would knock it out. They did.
Showing posts with label Med Con. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Med Con. Show all posts
Friday, April 10, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Our Med-Con Con Adventure, Part 6
On Saturday, I announced my determination to find me a comic shop or two. I had addresses for the one in Georgetown and another one in Herndon, VA, that I found in the phone book, and was going to find them if it killed me. And it almost did.
I gave my addresses to the concierge at the Gaylord National and she printed out Google Maps directions. Unfortunately, the set that was to take me to Georgetown was defective and called for me to take a road that did not seem to correspond with any of the signage I saw and instead of winding up on the 295 loop, took me onto what looks like Old 295, the Anacostia Freeway, which leads out east away from D.C. proper. And shortly after I turned around and headed back, some asshole nearly ran over me going 80 mph in a 55 zone. Eventually, I saw Pennsylvania Avenue and decided to take it as I knew it would lead me in the right direction.
Once I made it to Georgetown, the shop was easy enough to find. Parking on a Saturday morning, however, was thin on the ground and I eventually had to park way back in a neighborhood.
I'd heard Georgetown was one of the cooler, hipper neighborhoods in the country and other than the parking situation, I'd have to agree. I got to walk around and see a good bit of the Wisconsin Ave section of it, cause the comic shop didn't open until 11. It has a really great atmosphere that I'd liken to a much larger-scale version of downtown Tri-Metro, or the Little Five Points section of Atlanta without the riff raff. I popped into a pet store to buy a new toy for Sadie, hoping to pay her off for ditching her for nearly a week (a factor we still felt guilty about).
The comic shop, Big Planet Comics, was well worth the wait. Huge trade paperback selection, including lots of indys, not to mention the last few months worth of all the current issues. I was able to find the first three issues of Top Ten Season Two, which my local shop managed not to get for me, as well as the 5th Goon TPB and the Tick 20th Anniversary Issue, which my old old shop back in Tri-Metro didn't get for me because they were in the process of going out of business and neglecting to tell anyone.
After nearly an hour in the shop, I was hungry and decided to walk across Dunbarton street to Five Guys Burgers. I'd never been to a Five Guys Burgers before, but it struck me as the sort of neighborhood place that made a damn fine burger. From the crowd there, I knew this would be true. (I'd later learn that Five Guys Burgers is pretty much a national chain, now, but this particular location was one of their earlier ones.) I ordered a bacon cheeseburger, that turned out to be a double. (You can order the "Little" bacon cheeseburger, if you want a single.) The guy at the counter didn't hear my fries order, so I had to come back and reorder them, asking for a regular fries instead of a large. After he'd already put the order in, though, I heard someone else order Cajun fries and I asked if he could switch mine to Cajun, too. This seemed like it might not be doable at first, but he wound up grabbing a different bag from the finished orders counter and passed them to me. On looking at them, I thought he must have made a mistake and given me a large order of fries, for within the paper bag was a very large paper cup filled to overflowing with hand-cut fried potatoes. Then, below that, the bottom of the bag had at least two inches of more fries, atop which was a small cup of Cajun seasoning. Now, while I thought I'd been mistakenly given a large, this was actually the regular size. I know this because I brought the wife there on Sunday afternoon and we opted to share a large, which turned out to be a big-gulp cup filled with fries and then half a bag worth below that. The burger and fries were outstanding and the experience of sitting at their bar and eating them while reading a free newstand copy of The Onion was even better. I highly recommend the experience.
Even though I'd had my fill of burger and comics in Georgetown, I decided to head up to Herndon and check out a shop up there. This involved following more Google Maps directions, which turned out to be accurate this time. Unfortunately, I wound up on a partial toll road and found myself hemmed in on both sides, in the EZPass lane and was forced to blow through the first of the toll booths. I was instantly terrified that my infraction at this 50 cent toll booth would come back to haunt me in a major way. Virginia, after all, is now infamous for issuing excessively priced tickets compared to other states when it comes to traffic violations. I was seeing figures in my head upwards of $500. I asked at the next booth if I could pay for the previous one, but the guy just pointed to a toll free number on a sign and told me to call them. As of this writing, things seem to be okay and I was able to call the number and pay my 50 cents over the phone. They didn't even seem to have my infraction in their system yet, but assured me that if it did come up the license plate associated with it would be flagged as paid.
Then, to add insult to injury, when I finally found Phoenix Comics & Toys, it was a closed up storefront for an out of business store. Maybe it will one day rise from the... well, you know.
I gave my addresses to the concierge at the Gaylord National and she printed out Google Maps directions. Unfortunately, the set that was to take me to Georgetown was defective and called for me to take a road that did not seem to correspond with any of the signage I saw and instead of winding up on the 295 loop, took me onto what looks like Old 295, the Anacostia Freeway, which leads out east away from D.C. proper. And shortly after I turned around and headed back, some asshole nearly ran over me going 80 mph in a 55 zone. Eventually, I saw Pennsylvania Avenue and decided to take it as I knew it would lead me in the right direction.
Once I made it to Georgetown, the shop was easy enough to find. Parking on a Saturday morning, however, was thin on the ground and I eventually had to park way back in a neighborhood.
I'd heard Georgetown was one of the cooler, hipper neighborhoods in the country and other than the parking situation, I'd have to agree. I got to walk around and see a good bit of the Wisconsin Ave section of it, cause the comic shop didn't open until 11. It has a really great atmosphere that I'd liken to a much larger-scale version of downtown Tri-Metro, or the Little Five Points section of Atlanta without the riff raff. I popped into a pet store to buy a new toy for Sadie, hoping to pay her off for ditching her for nearly a week (a factor we still felt guilty about).
The comic shop, Big Planet Comics, was well worth the wait. Huge trade paperback selection, including lots of indys, not to mention the last few months worth of all the current issues. I was able to find the first three issues of Top Ten Season Two, which my local shop managed not to get for me, as well as the 5th Goon TPB and the Tick 20th Anniversary Issue, which my old old shop back in Tri-Metro didn't get for me because they were in the process of going out of business and neglecting to tell anyone.
After nearly an hour in the shop, I was hungry and decided to walk across Dunbarton street to Five Guys Burgers. I'd never been to a Five Guys Burgers before, but it struck me as the sort of neighborhood place that made a damn fine burger. From the crowd there, I knew this would be true. (I'd later learn that Five Guys Burgers is pretty much a national chain, now, but this particular location was one of their earlier ones.) I ordered a bacon cheeseburger, that turned out to be a double. (You can order the "Little" bacon cheeseburger, if you want a single.) The guy at the counter didn't hear my fries order, so I had to come back and reorder them, asking for a regular fries instead of a large. After he'd already put the order in, though, I heard someone else order Cajun fries and I asked if he could switch mine to Cajun, too. This seemed like it might not be doable at first, but he wound up grabbing a different bag from the finished orders counter and passed them to me. On looking at them, I thought he must have made a mistake and given me a large order of fries, for within the paper bag was a very large paper cup filled to overflowing with hand-cut fried potatoes. Then, below that, the bottom of the bag had at least two inches of more fries, atop which was a small cup of Cajun seasoning. Now, while I thought I'd been mistakenly given a large, this was actually the regular size. I know this because I brought the wife there on Sunday afternoon and we opted to share a large, which turned out to be a big-gulp cup filled with fries and then half a bag worth below that. The burger and fries were outstanding and the experience of sitting at their bar and eating them while reading a free newstand copy of The Onion was even better. I highly recommend the experience.
Even though I'd had my fill of burger and comics in Georgetown, I decided to head up to Herndon and check out a shop up there. This involved following more Google Maps directions, which turned out to be accurate this time. Unfortunately, I wound up on a partial toll road and found myself hemmed in on both sides, in the EZPass lane and was forced to blow through the first of the toll booths. I was instantly terrified that my infraction at this 50 cent toll booth would come back to haunt me in a major way. Virginia, after all, is now infamous for issuing excessively priced tickets compared to other states when it comes to traffic violations. I was seeing figures in my head upwards of $500. I asked at the next booth if I could pay for the previous one, but the guy just pointed to a toll free number on a sign and told me to call them. As of this writing, things seem to be okay and I was able to call the number and pay my 50 cents over the phone. They didn't even seem to have my infraction in their system yet, but assured me that if it did come up the license plate associated with it would be flagged as paid.
Then, to add insult to injury, when I finally found Phoenix Comics & Toys, it was a closed up storefront for an out of business store. Maybe it will one day rise from the... well, you know.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Our Med-Con Con Adventure, Part 4
On Friday, I decided to attempt my comic-shop search yet again, this time on foot. Armed with a map of downtown D.C. and my previous Mapquest directions, I once again took the shuttle to the National Mall and began my hike over toward Union Station. My Mapquest directions said the shop was located at 50 Massachusetts Ave, which seemed to be in the vicinity. And while Union Station's interior is quite mall-like, I didn't find any comic shops within. (Their website still claims its there, but I didn't see it.)
I then noted that Union Station is not located at 50 Mass Ave, but 40, so I decided to move down the street a bit and find 50. Trouble was, Union Station is at the intersection of 8 different roads and I wound up going down the wrong one. By the time I realized it, I'd committed too much to the road I was on and decided to cut over a block and hit Mass. Ave a bit further down. When I emerged onto it, I was in the 250s and nothing back the way I'd come looked very comic-shoppy.
Abandoning the initial search, I decided what I would do was to find the second shop on my list, which according to the Mapquest directions was not terribly far away, located on Dumbarton Street, which is in Georgetown. I found that on my Map, noted that it wasn't too far north of some of the more westerly National Mall attractions and decided it was a doable walk. I decided to cut over to Pennsylvania Ave, take it all the way to the White House, check out the sites as I walked around it and then hit Pennsylvania on the other side taking it all the way up to M Street and then down to Wisconsin Ave and on up to Dumbarton. However, by the time I reached the not quite half-way mark of my journey, I realized that while I could indeed make the trip all the way to Georgetown on foot, I wouldn't make it back on foot. My feet hurt way too much already and I could foresee a cab ride for which I did not have cash to pay in my future. Furthermore, none of the public transportation options listed on my map seemed ideal. So, I popped into the Ronald Reagan Building (actually, "popped" isn't the right word, as I pretty much had to go through a cavity search in order to gain entrance) and had lunch in the food court.
After this, I strolled semi-painfully near the Washington Monument and then down to some more of the Smithsonian museums. This time I checked out the American History Museum, where the most impressive things I saw were Dorothy's Ruby Slippers, and early Kermit the Frog and Oscar the Grouch puppets.
After this, I decided to take the shuttle back to the hotel and drive our car up to Georgetown. This involved walking a goodly distance, with my feet hurt increasingly more as I went. I was thankful that I'd not decided to walk all the way to Georgetown after all.
Only after I'd arrived at the shuttle stop in front of the capitol did I check my shuttle schedule and noted that while the shuttles ran every half hour from 8 a.m. until 12:30, they took a nice long break and resumed frequent service only at 3p. At that moment, it was around 1p.
Now, what I should have done in retrospect was hoofed it over to the Air and Space Museum and checked out their planetarium shows for the next couple of hours. Or gone back to the IMax theater in the Museum of Natural History; neither option occurred to me, though. Instead, I went back to EFFing Union Station and tried to find Massachusetts Ave again to see if I could find that EFFing comic shop. After successfully skirting around a rather large and scary gentleman who was screaming angrily at passersby, I found my way on to Mass. Ave and to what I thought was the vicinity of 50, where there clearly was no comic shop to be found. My feet hurt so much by then that all I wanted to do was get off of them, so I hobbled back to the capitol, collapsed in a shady patch of mulch and listened to Adam Carolla classics on my mp3 player. When the shuttle came, an hour and a half later, it was all I could do to climb aboard.
That afternoon, once the wife was free from conference sessions, the wife joined me back in the room and announced she'd won me a prize. She'd been the winner of a door prize drawing during one of her sessions and came away with a JVC Everio digital video camera. It's super sweet and is probably a better video camera than I would have picked out had I been shopping for one. I immediately set about recording everything.
Friday night we went to see Watchmen. This is probably the movie I've been itching to see for the longest time and is one I'd been convinced would be a horrible tragedy of a film until seeing the early trailers for it, which looked very promising. Everything I'd seen up until I saw the actual movie had led me to believe it was going to be pretty darn faithful to the original book and I had long since announced to the wife that we would be seeing it opening night.
Being in D.C., we had IMax theaters at our disposal, but they were all sold out for Watchmen, so we reserved tickets for a normal theater showing.
Because of some conference commitments, we didn't get out of the hotel until nearly 6p and only had an hour to find the theater, find parking, find someplace to eat, eat and then make the show. We managed to do it, (though the finding parking was the major obstacle, it turned out) and wound up eating at a wrap-sandwich place across from the theater.
Then we saw the movie.
I have to say, there were some moments from the book that I would have preferred they left in the movie which they could have accommodated by trimming some of the lengthy fight scenes a bit. (I'm thinking of an Ozymandias/Dr. Manhattan conversation toward the end, in particular, and maybe an actual scene at the magazine stand to give us the slightest reason to care about those two characters dying later--maybe that's all in the Tales of the Black Freighter DVD, though.) And there were some minor elements (sugar cubes, nostalgia perfume spilling on Mars, etc.) that would have been nice to see, too, and wouldn't have required much in the way of time.
All in all, though, I really dug the movie, particularly Jackie Earle Haley's performance. It seems to me that Zack Snyder's Watchmen is about the best Watchmen movie we could have expected to receive from Hollywood and is a far cry better than just about anyone else would have given us. Sure, we all might have a different version in our heads, and somewhere there's an alternate universe where the whole thing was done as a 12-part HBO mini. But I thought it was a very loving tribute to the original source material. I now await the director's cut DVD with the restored Black Freighter material.
We got royally lost on the way home, thanks to a wrong turn into road work, which turned into an even wronger turn when we tried to turn around and head back the way we came only to have the workmen pull a baracade into the very road we needed to take and rudely wave us in the other direction. Fortunately, the road we were forced to take did eventually cross a street that showed up on our tiny, underdetailed atlas map of D.C. and we saw that it would soon intersect with the beltway we needed.
I then noted that Union Station is not located at 50 Mass Ave, but 40, so I decided to move down the street a bit and find 50. Trouble was, Union Station is at the intersection of 8 different roads and I wound up going down the wrong one. By the time I realized it, I'd committed too much to the road I was on and decided to cut over a block and hit Mass. Ave a bit further down. When I emerged onto it, I was in the 250s and nothing back the way I'd come looked very comic-shoppy.
Abandoning the initial search, I decided what I would do was to find the second shop on my list, which according to the Mapquest directions was not terribly far away, located on Dumbarton Street, which is in Georgetown. I found that on my Map, noted that it wasn't too far north of some of the more westerly National Mall attractions and decided it was a doable walk. I decided to cut over to Pennsylvania Ave, take it all the way to the White House, check out the sites as I walked around it and then hit Pennsylvania on the other side taking it all the way up to M Street and then down to Wisconsin Ave and on up to Dumbarton. However, by the time I reached the not quite half-way mark of my journey, I realized that while I could indeed make the trip all the way to Georgetown on foot, I wouldn't make it back on foot. My feet hurt way too much already and I could foresee a cab ride for which I did not have cash to pay in my future. Furthermore, none of the public transportation options listed on my map seemed ideal. So, I popped into the Ronald Reagan Building (actually, "popped" isn't the right word, as I pretty much had to go through a cavity search in order to gain entrance) and had lunch in the food court.
After this, I strolled semi-painfully near the Washington Monument and then down to some more of the Smithsonian museums. This time I checked out the American History Museum, where the most impressive things I saw were Dorothy's Ruby Slippers, and early Kermit the Frog and Oscar the Grouch puppets.
After this, I decided to take the shuttle back to the hotel and drive our car up to Georgetown. This involved walking a goodly distance, with my feet hurt increasingly more as I went. I was thankful that I'd not decided to walk all the way to Georgetown after all.
Only after I'd arrived at the shuttle stop in front of the capitol did I check my shuttle schedule and noted that while the shuttles ran every half hour from 8 a.m. until 12:30, they took a nice long break and resumed frequent service only at 3p. At that moment, it was around 1p.
Now, what I should have done in retrospect was hoofed it over to the Air and Space Museum and checked out their planetarium shows for the next couple of hours. Or gone back to the IMax theater in the Museum of Natural History; neither option occurred to me, though. Instead, I went back to EFFing Union Station and tried to find Massachusetts Ave again to see if I could find that EFFing comic shop. After successfully skirting around a rather large and scary gentleman who was screaming angrily at passersby, I found my way on to Mass. Ave and to what I thought was the vicinity of 50, where there clearly was no comic shop to be found. My feet hurt so much by then that all I wanted to do was get off of them, so I hobbled back to the capitol, collapsed in a shady patch of mulch and listened to Adam Carolla classics on my mp3 player. When the shuttle came, an hour and a half later, it was all I could do to climb aboard.
That afternoon, once the wife was free from conference sessions, the wife joined me back in the room and announced she'd won me a prize. She'd been the winner of a door prize drawing during one of her sessions and came away with a JVC Everio digital video camera. It's super sweet and is probably a better video camera than I would have picked out had I been shopping for one. I immediately set about recording everything.
Friday night we went to see Watchmen. This is probably the movie I've been itching to see for the longest time and is one I'd been convinced would be a horrible tragedy of a film until seeing the early trailers for it, which looked very promising. Everything I'd seen up until I saw the actual movie had led me to believe it was going to be pretty darn faithful to the original book and I had long since announced to the wife that we would be seeing it opening night.
Being in D.C., we had IMax theaters at our disposal, but they were all sold out for Watchmen, so we reserved tickets for a normal theater showing.
Because of some conference commitments, we didn't get out of the hotel until nearly 6p and only had an hour to find the theater, find parking, find someplace to eat, eat and then make the show. We managed to do it, (though the finding parking was the major obstacle, it turned out) and wound up eating at a wrap-sandwich place across from the theater.
Then we saw the movie.
I have to say, there were some moments from the book that I would have preferred they left in the movie which they could have accommodated by trimming some of the lengthy fight scenes a bit. (I'm thinking of an Ozymandias/Dr. Manhattan conversation toward the end, in particular, and maybe an actual scene at the magazine stand to give us the slightest reason to care about those two characters dying later--maybe that's all in the Tales of the Black Freighter DVD, though.) And there were some minor elements (sugar cubes, nostalgia perfume spilling on Mars, etc.) that would have been nice to see, too, and wouldn't have required much in the way of time.
All in all, though, I really dug the movie, particularly Jackie Earle Haley's performance. It seems to me that Zack Snyder's Watchmen is about the best Watchmen movie we could have expected to receive from Hollywood and is a far cry better than just about anyone else would have given us. Sure, we all might have a different version in our heads, and somewhere there's an alternate universe where the whole thing was done as a 12-part HBO mini. But I thought it was a very loving tribute to the original source material. I now await the director's cut DVD with the restored Black Freighter material.
We got royally lost on the way home, thanks to a wrong turn into road work, which turned into an even wronger turn when we tried to turn around and head back the way we came only to have the workmen pull a baracade into the very road we needed to take and rudely wave us in the other direction. Fortunately, the road we were forced to take did eventually cross a street that showed up on our tiny, underdetailed atlas map of D.C. and we saw that it would soon intersect with the beltway we needed.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Our Med-Con Con Adventure, Part 3
The Museum of Natural History was kind of neat, but mostly wasted on us. (Though I confess that the Hope Diamond was pretty impressive.) It's a place definitely geared for a school field-trip sort of crowd and there were plenty of those on hand that day. In fact, we quickly grew tired of that crowd and all the others and decided to get out.
After escaping the museum, we had a sit down on the stone benches that surround the front of the place for a rest. Considering there'd been massive snow storms in both WV and the D.C. area only a couple of days before, the weather certainly had taken a turn for the better and we had gorgeous sunny skies and 50 plus degree temperatures of the sort that made our heavy coats less than ideal. There were several other people around us on the benches, but moments after sitting down we were approached by a not-at-all-shabbily dressed woman with loads of bling who quickly pinged on our We're-Being-Conned-O-Meter. While I've owned such a meter for much of my life, I only really figured out how to turn it on around 15 years ago during a trip to New Orleans with my buddy Joe. Since then, it's almost always on with the volume set to klaxon, warning me not to talk to strangers in cities. Even if I'd left my meter back home with my Gold-coated New Balances, though, this con-woman was so completely out of her depth when it came to playing the particular con she was attempting that it wouldn't have mattered.
It started innocently enough, with the woman, let's call her Connie, asking us if we were familiar with the area. We explained that we were not. Secure in the knowledge that we were not locals (and, therefore not likely used to people trying to con them) Connie then dropped all pretense of asking for directions and shifted into primary con-mode. And she did this so with such a suddenness that she couldn't have been more obvious about it if she'd adopted a Montgomery Burns voice and muttered, "Ehhhxcellent... now my true ruse can begin," while rubbing her talons together.
Then, displaying some of the worst acting I've encountered in the wild--I mean, she couldn't have done a less-convincing portrayal if she were reading from an index card--Connie explained to us that she had been visiting the museum with her elderly grandparents, but had gotten separated from them in the crowd and now could not find them and they were lost. Then, before our sympathies had a chance to get too revved up, Connie adopted a tone meant to assure us that the grandparents being lost part wasn't the part of her story we needed to be concerned about, for she had already contacted the police, who were even then searching for them. No, no, her real concern was her diabetes, which had been acting up on her that morning. And, unfortunately, her "diabetes medicine" (her words) was locked away in her grandparents' car which she couldn't get into, because her grandparents had the keys and they were, as she had previously indicated, missing. She then explained that because her diabetes medicine was locked in the car, she needed to get something to eat soon or she was afraid she would fall out.
Okay. I imagine this con might have worked on your average tourist, y'know, if she'd been even the least bit convincing. Unfortunately, Connie had chosen to pull this particular con in the midst of a veritable invasion of the National Mall by medical professionals. Sure, she happened to pick us, but the place was crawling with doctors in plain clothes trying to escape the conference with their families, and dozens and dozens of white-coated interns. Her odds, therefore, of landing a mark that didn't know precisely what the symptoms of diabetic acidosis look like, not to mention that she clearly wasn't suffering from them, weren't all that great.
Perhaps sensing our skepticism, Connie assured us that she wasn't asking for any money--just, if we could help her out a little, (and by "help her out a little" I inferred she meant give her money). I turned to my wife, waiting to see how long it would take her to start pointing out the flaws in this woman's performance; the wife, after all, has a finely-tuned We're-Being-Conned-O-Meter of her own, which doesn't even have an off button and is equipped with concert stack-speakers and a subwoofer. She has gained this expertise at bullshit-detection because of the practice she gets by having to deal with people trying to con narcotics prescriptions out of her multiple times a day. At work, she's very good at spotting such cons and even better at dealing with those who cross her. And when she's on vacation--even if it's kind of a working vacation--she does NOT want to put up with any bullshit.
I thought the wife might start Connie off with a patient history, just to try and draw her out of any comfort zone of lies she might have and make her dance a bit. Instead, though, the wife simply held up both hands, palms out and waved them in a slow circular motion--the international sign-language for "We've had all the horseshit we need, here; go sell it somewhere else."
Connie saw this and instantly became furious. Very loudly she called my wife a "stuck up bitch" and accused her of having no human decency. She cursed at us a bit more just to drive the point home. Then, with the eyes of the surrounding people telling her she'd burned all her conning opportunities in the immediate vicinity, Connie climbed the remaining museum steps and went inside, showing no weakness of limb nor confusion of manner usually associated with people about to go into a diabetic coma.
While the incident didn't dampen our afternoon, it certainly made it a little soggy. What really burned us, though, was that she'd singled us out from dozens of other people sitting around in front of the museum. What was it about us that attracted her attention? Do we scream Easy Mark, or do we just look like nice, gullible people?
The incident stayed with us, and for the rest of the day we kept coming up with Snappy Answers to Stupid Con Women that would have been far more satisfying to have said. I was all for offering her an impromptu acting class and perhaps a quick lesson on faking symptoms. (After all, I used to regularly earn money as a fake patient for medical students to diagnose back in Tri-Metro.) I think our favorite comeback, however, was to just say, "Well, we've got a couple of pieces of Dentyne and a lint roller. You're welcome to them."
After escaping the museum, we had a sit down on the stone benches that surround the front of the place for a rest. Considering there'd been massive snow storms in both WV and the D.C. area only a couple of days before, the weather certainly had taken a turn for the better and we had gorgeous sunny skies and 50 plus degree temperatures of the sort that made our heavy coats less than ideal. There were several other people around us on the benches, but moments after sitting down we were approached by a not-at-all-shabbily dressed woman with loads of bling who quickly pinged on our We're-Being-Conned-O-Meter. While I've owned such a meter for much of my life, I only really figured out how to turn it on around 15 years ago during a trip to New Orleans with my buddy Joe. Since then, it's almost always on with the volume set to klaxon, warning me not to talk to strangers in cities. Even if I'd left my meter back home with my Gold-coated New Balances, though, this con-woman was so completely out of her depth when it came to playing the particular con she was attempting that it wouldn't have mattered.
It started innocently enough, with the woman, let's call her Connie, asking us if we were familiar with the area. We explained that we were not. Secure in the knowledge that we were not locals (and, therefore not likely used to people trying to con them) Connie then dropped all pretense of asking for directions and shifted into primary con-mode. And she did this so with such a suddenness that she couldn't have been more obvious about it if she'd adopted a Montgomery Burns voice and muttered, "Ehhhxcellent... now my true ruse can begin," while rubbing her talons together.
Then, displaying some of the worst acting I've encountered in the wild--I mean, she couldn't have done a less-convincing portrayal if she were reading from an index card--Connie explained to us that she had been visiting the museum with her elderly grandparents, but had gotten separated from them in the crowd and now could not find them and they were lost. Then, before our sympathies had a chance to get too revved up, Connie adopted a tone meant to assure us that the grandparents being lost part wasn't the part of her story we needed to be concerned about, for she had already contacted the police, who were even then searching for them. No, no, her real concern was her diabetes, which had been acting up on her that morning. And, unfortunately, her "diabetes medicine" (her words) was locked away in her grandparents' car which she couldn't get into, because her grandparents had the keys and they were, as she had previously indicated, missing. She then explained that because her diabetes medicine was locked in the car, she needed to get something to eat soon or she was afraid she would fall out.
Okay. I imagine this con might have worked on your average tourist, y'know, if she'd been even the least bit convincing. Unfortunately, Connie had chosen to pull this particular con in the midst of a veritable invasion of the National Mall by medical professionals. Sure, she happened to pick us, but the place was crawling with doctors in plain clothes trying to escape the conference with their families, and dozens and dozens of white-coated interns. Her odds, therefore, of landing a mark that didn't know precisely what the symptoms of diabetic acidosis look like, not to mention that she clearly wasn't suffering from them, weren't all that great.
Perhaps sensing our skepticism, Connie assured us that she wasn't asking for any money--just, if we could help her out a little, (and by "help her out a little" I inferred she meant give her money). I turned to my wife, waiting to see how long it would take her to start pointing out the flaws in this woman's performance; the wife, after all, has a finely-tuned We're-Being-Conned-O-Meter of her own, which doesn't even have an off button and is equipped with concert stack-speakers and a subwoofer. She has gained this expertise at bullshit-detection because of the practice she gets by having to deal with people trying to con narcotics prescriptions out of her multiple times a day. At work, she's very good at spotting such cons and even better at dealing with those who cross her. And when she's on vacation--even if it's kind of a working vacation--she does NOT want to put up with any bullshit.
I thought the wife might start Connie off with a patient history, just to try and draw her out of any comfort zone of lies she might have and make her dance a bit. Instead, though, the wife simply held up both hands, palms out and waved them in a slow circular motion--the international sign-language for "We've had all the horseshit we need, here; go sell it somewhere else."
Connie saw this and instantly became furious. Very loudly she called my wife a "stuck up bitch" and accused her of having no human decency. She cursed at us a bit more just to drive the point home. Then, with the eyes of the surrounding people telling her she'd burned all her conning opportunities in the immediate vicinity, Connie climbed the remaining museum steps and went inside, showing no weakness of limb nor confusion of manner usually associated with people about to go into a diabetic coma.
While the incident didn't dampen our afternoon, it certainly made it a little soggy. What really burned us, though, was that she'd singled us out from dozens of other people sitting around in front of the museum. What was it about us that attracted her attention? Do we scream Easy Mark, or do we just look like nice, gullible people?
The incident stayed with us, and for the rest of the day we kept coming up with Snappy Answers to Stupid Con Women that would have been far more satisfying to have said. I was all for offering her an impromptu acting class and perhaps a quick lesson on faking symptoms. (After all, I used to regularly earn money as a fake patient for medical students to diagnose back in Tri-Metro.) I think our favorite comeback, however, was to just say, "Well, we've got a couple of pieces of Dentyne and a lint roller. You're welcome to them."
Monday, March 23, 2009
Our Med-Con Adventure, Part 2
The wife was pretty much free of conference duties on Thursday. So instead of going to one of the breakfast sessions, we opted to dine at the Gaylord National's breakfast buffet. Now, let me tell you, I am not accustomed to paying $25 for a single breakfast, let alone the $50 it takes for two. But the way we looked at it was that since the hospital was paying for half of that, we were really only out $25 for the both of us, which we do regularly spend for both of us to break our fasts. And what a fine break it was, too! This was no continental muffin basket kind of place; this joint had pretty much all the breakfast items we care to eat and everything was top notch. I mean REAL eggs in the scrambled eggs (when's the last time you went to a breakfast buffet that had those?) and these tasty little apple-chicken sausages that were nearly worth the $25 alone. Yowsa, this joint was fantastic. We feasted heartily, as we knew we had a lot of walking in our future.
Instead of driving back to downtown D.C. and going through the ordeal of having to find parking, we opted to use the hotel's free shuttle service to the National Mall and just walk from there. The only bad part is that I knew I didn't have good shoes for walking, as the only pair I own that I'd trust to remain comfortable for a day's jaunt are my New Balances which I left at home cause one of them is covered in a layer of Goldcoat from our still ongoing bathroom renovation adventure. I figured my Rocket Dog's would leave me with hurt feet by the end of the day, but I was prepared to make the sacrifice for the sake of not looking like a rube with a yellow foot.
The shuttle dropped us and 30 other medical types in front of the capitol building. From there we visited the National Botanical Gallery, which was nice and earthy-smelling. Then we hoofed it to the air and space museum, which I'd been to before as a kid. From there we strolled across to the National Gallery of Art, where we dined in their food court before heading back to the Western building to gaze upon us some art. Among the highlights were some paintings by Edgar Degas, who is a figure I once played a man pretending to be in a production of Degas C'est Moi by David Ives; we also saw what is currently the only portrait by Leonardo Da Vinci in the Western Hemisphere, Generva de' Benci. I was excited to get to their photography displays to see some Ansel Adams they had, as I've never seen any in person. It was pretty underwhelming. Instead of the vast landscapes he's known for, this was a series of pictures of ocean surf which, sure, were all crisp and Ansel Adamsy, but not at all the dish I thought I'd ordered.
My major goal of the day, however, was to head over to some of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History so I could check out something I remembered from my childhood. See this was a museum I'd once visited with my dad and sister when I was probably around 10 years old and my sister was 6. The primary memory I have of the event was not even inside the museum itself, but out in the mall in front of it, where a life-size, fiberglass triceratops was on display. The triceratops was facing the museum itself and, in my memory, was nestled in or near a small cluster of bushes. Being adventuresome kids, it was easy for my sister and I to climb up the horned head of the giant dinosaur and then scramble all the way up to the crest of its back, which, in my memory at least, was probably eight to ten feet off the ground. There was plenty of room up there for a couple of kids, provided we stayed astride the spine. Any further out, though, and you risked falling off.
My sister, having no external gonads, took to sliding down the tail of the triceratops, landing in the dirt below. It was by no means designed to be used this way and made for a really steep slide for her, but she liked it. I wouldn't take the risk, cause it really was a long way down. I think this may have offended my sister, somehow, because about the second time she'd slid down the tail, she looked up at me from the ground below and announced that she was going to push me off. Maybe she was hoping I'd slide down the tail to get away from her. I don't know. Whatever the case, she dashed around to the front of our cretaceous beastie and began climbing up toward me, cackling with evil 6-year-old glee the whole time. I, being a wussy child, began screaming bloody murder. I had no escape other than the tail and I don't know how many dinosaurs you've ridden, but this one's ass was pretty slick and there weren't a lot of hand-holds. True to her word my sister reached me and began to push at me with her feet, kicking me until I reached the tipping point and slid off the back haunch, falling--again, to my memory--eight to ten feet. I landed feet first, in a heap, in the dirt below. And while it hurt, I didn't break anything. I resolved that my sister would not be so lucky, though, and began scrambling up dinosaur's head after her. I don't know why I thought I had a chance at flinging her off, as she had no fear of sliding down the tail and could have just run around and pushed me off again if she wanted. I also have no idea what my dad was doing during all this, but he only started paying attention when she was screaming and made us both get off the triceratops.
Perhaps fortunately, the triceratops of my memory is no more. There is still a triceratops skull on display in front of the museum, but no trace of the fiberglass one.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
Instead of driving back to downtown D.C. and going through the ordeal of having to find parking, we opted to use the hotel's free shuttle service to the National Mall and just walk from there. The only bad part is that I knew I didn't have good shoes for walking, as the only pair I own that I'd trust to remain comfortable for a day's jaunt are my New Balances which I left at home cause one of them is covered in a layer of Goldcoat from our still ongoing bathroom renovation adventure. I figured my Rocket Dog's would leave me with hurt feet by the end of the day, but I was prepared to make the sacrifice for the sake of not looking like a rube with a yellow foot.
The shuttle dropped us and 30 other medical types in front of the capitol building. From there we visited the National Botanical Gallery, which was nice and earthy-smelling. Then we hoofed it to the air and space museum, which I'd been to before as a kid. From there we strolled across to the National Gallery of Art, where we dined in their food court before heading back to the Western building to gaze upon us some art. Among the highlights were some paintings by Edgar Degas, who is a figure I once played a man pretending to be in a production of Degas C'est Moi by David Ives; we also saw what is currently the only portrait by Leonardo Da Vinci in the Western Hemisphere, Generva de' Benci. I was excited to get to their photography displays to see some Ansel Adams they had, as I've never seen any in person. It was pretty underwhelming. Instead of the vast landscapes he's known for, this was a series of pictures of ocean surf which, sure, were all crisp and Ansel Adamsy, but not at all the dish I thought I'd ordered.My major goal of the day, however, was to head over to some of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History so I could check out something I remembered from my childhood. See this was a museum I'd once visited with my dad and sister when I was probably around 10 years old and my sister was 6. The primary memory I have of the event was not even inside the museum itself, but out in the mall in front of it, where a life-size, fiberglass triceratops was on display. The triceratops was facing the museum itself and, in my memory, was nestled in or near a small cluster of bushes. Being adventuresome kids, it was easy for my sister and I to climb up the horned head of the giant dinosaur and then scramble all the way up to the crest of its back, which, in my memory at least, was probably eight to ten feet off the ground. There was plenty of room up there for a couple of kids, provided we stayed astride the spine. Any further out, though, and you risked falling off.
My sister, having no external gonads, took to sliding down the tail of the triceratops, landing in the dirt below. It was by no means designed to be used this way and made for a really steep slide for her, but she liked it. I wouldn't take the risk, cause it really was a long way down. I think this may have offended my sister, somehow, because about the second time she'd slid down the tail, she looked up at me from the ground below and announced that she was going to push me off. Maybe she was hoping I'd slide down the tail to get away from her. I don't know. Whatever the case, she dashed around to the front of our cretaceous beastie and began climbing up toward me, cackling with evil 6-year-old glee the whole time. I, being a wussy child, began screaming bloody murder. I had no escape other than the tail and I don't know how many dinosaurs you've ridden, but this one's ass was pretty slick and there weren't a lot of hand-holds. True to her word my sister reached me and began to push at me with her feet, kicking me until I reached the tipping point and slid off the back haunch, falling--again, to my memory--eight to ten feet. I landed feet first, in a heap, in the dirt below. And while it hurt, I didn't break anything. I resolved that my sister would not be so lucky, though, and began scrambling up dinosaur's head after her. I don't know why I thought I had a chance at flinging her off, as she had no fear of sliding down the tail and could have just run around and pushed me off again if she wanted. I also have no idea what my dad was doing during all this, but he only started paying attention when she was screaming and made us both get off the triceratops.
Perhaps fortunately, the triceratops of my memory is no more. There is still a triceratops skull on display in front of the museum, but no trace of the fiberglass one.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
Friday, March 20, 2009
Our Med-Con Adventure, Part 1
I've noted before that hauling my wife with me to a nerd convention such as Dragon Con would be about as fun for her as if she hauled me to a medical convention; i.e., none at all. Turns out, I could not have been more wrong. A couple weeks back, we went to my first medical convention and we both had an absolute blast.The wife first offered to take me to the MedCon a few months back. The hospital was paying for her whole ride, but for a little extra money I could sign up for the conference as well and tag along. While I figured it would be a pretty boring affair, I also thought there would be some fun things for me to do in D.C. while she was busy conferencing. I said, "Okay," expecting that the trip would involve a lot of me having to drop the wife off at her conference, get lost trying to find something in D.C. and then have to come back and get her for lunch, etc. I did no research into where exactly we were going. Barely did any research into what sort of things I'd like to do while there. My thought was, "it's D.C., there'll be plenty to choose from once I get there."
Five days before we were scheduled to leave, it occurred to us that we'd made no plans for what to do with the circus animals. Fortunately, our vet did pet boarding, so we signed Sadie up for that and decided to leave the cat at home with plenty of food, water, toys and litter. We felt terribly guilty about this; not for the cat, so much, as cats are pretty independent and Avie's the most well-adjusted animal I've ever owned. Sadie, however, is a pound puppy and we feared she would think we were taking her back to the pound if we boarded her. Granted, this was a place with spacious pens and half a dozen exercise sessions a day, amounting to what we explained to her was "doggie camp." However, we didn't feel much better knowing she'd think we were ditching her. I was also concerned that she would bite one of the vet techs taking care of her. Sadie has been getting a bit more suspicious in nature as she's aged and strangers are often woofed at and/or, on rare occasions, snapped at. For instance, she loves my parents cause she's met them before. But during a recent visit from my family, she was stand-offish toward my sister, snapped her on more than one occasion, and only seemed to finally make friends on the last day they were in town.
So a couple of Wednesdays ago, we went.
This was the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians Conference, a five-day event taking place this year near Washington D.C. at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, located on the garbage-strewn yet still scenic shores of the Potomac River in Maryland. The Gaylord National is not an easy facility to miss. It's gigantic, with a mostly glass face that covers the atrium area within. The conference itself would take place in the conference center, so my fears of having to drive the wife around were quashed.
The interior of the place was very impressive, with three different levels tiered one atop the other in the atrium. The upper two areas contained the massive front desk area and ballroom. The lowest level contained the garden area, with lots of plants broken up by a walkway that lead over small bridges that spanned a babbling man-made stream that pooled down below a wide fountain area. The atrium was so large that it also contained two double-storied buildings, each a retail shop. Surrounding the lower level were other restaurants and shops as well as corridors that led off to other sections of the hotel and conference center. It was like some sort of futuristic bio-dome city under glass. And while it is certainly a fancy place, it somehow fails to come off as hoity-toity.We checked in, found our room complete with atrium-facing balcony to be pretty damned amazing. There was little time to enjoy it, though, as the wife's first session was about to start and we had to go check in for the conference. Being signed up for the conference too allowed me to partake in some of the meals that were sometimes served during the conference sessions. These were often sponsored by drug and other medical-based companies looking to get their name out there now that the drug-rep swag they'd been known for previously has been legally curtailed. In fact, the first session was a lunch session with some truly impressive food. I'm sure it was standard catered faire for D.C. but it would have shown up most higher-priced restaurants I've ever been to. I was starting to like this already.
With the wife tied up for the afternoon, I decided to try and find a comic shop. I'd researched a few online and supposedly there was one on Massachusetts Ave. I'd printed Mapquest directions to it as well as from it to another shop in Georgetown and then back to the hotel from there. Unfortunately, driving anywhere in the D.C. area is a confusing and often dangerous proposition, especially without a navigator. Not helping matters, I made a wrong turn and wound up driving around in circles in downtown D.C. without a proper map to help guide me back to where I needed to be. I saw some cool stuff, but mostly I was frustrated and irritable. Eventually I gave up. Since I'd not reached my first Mapquest destination, I had no real starting point to get to the second one. So I had to figure my way out of there, which involved more going in circles and more frustration. Eventually I did get out, albeit going the wrong direction and had to turn back around. On my way back to the hotel, I spotted the road I should have taken.
That night, we dined with a med school friend of the wife's, at a sports bar tucked within the lower level of the conference center. (After all, it wouldn't be a proper con-experience unless I wound up in a sports bar eating tasty unhealthy food at some point.) Then we got to mill around and enjoy the night time atrium ambiance, including an impressive and colorful water fountain music-review that looked like something out of Vegas, before retiring to our room. As the room opened onto the atrium, we left our balcony door open so we could hear the trickle of the man-made babbling stream of the lower level. It lulled us right to sleep. (Ahh, such blessed sleep.)
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
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