The drive to Seattle was more pleasant than I remembered. Though I have been reminded how much I hate driving Seattle's streets. Great city, stupid streets. That could be their slogan: "Welcome to the Emerald City: Great City, Stupid Streets!"
Anyway, the meeting. Took the bus. Jon showed me where to get off. Registered for an additional class. Classes I took today were: 1) Handbook of Ocular Disease Management: Cornea 2) The Doctor's Role in Setting Up and Running an Optical.
Wandered around most of downtown Seattle looking for a Wells Fargo. Here is what I found:
- 3 US Banks
- 1 Bank of America
- 4 Starbucks
- 3 Subways
Because of my lack of cash and lack of MasterCard (accidentally left at Jon's), I had to wander all around downtown looking for a restaurant that takes Discover. Finally found an Indian restaurant which turned out to be great. It was buffet style.
Found out I'm not eligible for the AOA Theater classes. I'm caught in a black hole between being a student and doctor. Found a friend in the exhibition hall and caught up with a friend of his, who became a friend of mine. That's right, we're like this. *crosses fingers* Just kidding. It was nice having someone to walk around with, though. We got most of our bingo card filled out. explanation: gotta visit certain vendors and get the card signed. Then turn in the completed card for entry into a drawing. They give out monster prizes at these meetings. I was 2 numbers off on a raffle for a navigator today. I already have one, so whatever. Other things they have drawings for: iPods - not cheap Shuffles, but the expensive Touches - $500, $1000 (yes, thousand!), $250 gift cards, etc. I got a $5 Best Buy gift card just for listening to a rep talk about her new contact lenses (no free advertising here, haha).
Here's the swag I've accumulated so far:
- 3 t-shirts
- lotsa eye drops
- flashlight
- gum
- yo-yo
- umbrella
- commemorative pin
- miscellaneous pins
- fist full of pens
- 3 glasses of wine
- 1 bottle of beer
- 1 bottle of water
- dinner
- 2 $10 food vouchers
It's kinda like a game trying to see how much free crap you can get. And the reps don't care, they just want you using a pen with their product's name on it. So far I've resisted all the sticky notes I've seen. Though I saw a green sticky pad that I might just have to go back and get tomorrow.
The night's final event was the Optometry Super Bowl. I thought I'd just show up long enough to claim my free shirt. I stayed for the whole thing and enjoyed more than I thought I would. Helps that I found some friends. Looks like I was wrong, by the way. There is one other person from my graduating class attending the meeting. PUCO had the privilege of making the video explaining the Super Bowl rules. They did a great job. They made a rockin' music video. Really rockin'. Good enough to be on MTV rockin'. All of the students wore matching shirts. I'm gonna have to get my hands on one. It's the coolest t-shirt ever made. I won't spoil it now. Maybe I'll post about it if I can get one. Again, I didn't get one due to my being in the black hole between student and doctor. Because PUCO is the closest school to Seattle, we played the role of "host." We had the largest turnout by far. We were easily the loudest and most supportive of our contestant (a good friend mentioned above). He didn't make it to the finals, but it was good fun anyway. PUCO won the spirit award and the rights to make next year's video explaining the Super Bowl rules. Next year's meeting is in Washington D.C. Don't think I'll be going to that one - especially at the full registration fee for doctors.
After the Super Bowl was an after-party. Food and drink and fire performers. The pasta was good. The drink was fair - I tried a local brew, Pike IPA. And the fire performers were good. Tame compared to Sinferno, but people were amazed nonetheless. g'nite!
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