Adventures in Baltimore

It's good to be back home... I spent the last few days at Rite Aid's annual trade show and just got home this afternoon. It seemed to be a pretty good show this year although it didn't start that way. A number of other Rite Aid folks and I flew out of Toledo last Sunday morning and arrived on time at Regan National airport in DC at 1pm. I had trouble finding my bag so we weren't able to leave till about 2:30pm. Our bus driver didn't know where she was going so the expected hour long trip to Baltimore didn't get us to our hotel till about 4:30pm - too late to take a walk along Baltimore's waterfront but plenty early to get to the reception dinner at 6pm, right? Wrong! Fast forward to 7:15pm when our room is finally ready & we get the keys. Zip up to the room on the 12th floor, get ready quick, than back down to the lobby to catch waiting shuttle bus. Guess what. This driver also didn't know where we were going and our quick little 5 minute ride turned into a 20 minute tour of Baltimore instead. The reception was at the Maryland Science Center (think COSI only on the east cost). We found the food as soon as we got there and found a table next to the Center's centerpiece exhibit - a life sized T.Rex getting ready to take a bite out of a life sized Brontosaurs. The dinosaurs were even making lifelike angry sounds. At least I think it was the dinosaurs. It could have been our stomachs, as this was the first chance we had to eat since breakfast. We didn't have a lot of time to look around the Center but I did have a chance to lay on their bed of nails. I doubt that you'll be surprised to learn that it isn't quite so comfortable as the pillow top mattress at home.

Monday was seminar day. About what you'd expect. The High point of the Trade show came that evening. Dinner was at the area under the stands at Baltimore's football stadium. OK, I know, you think that eating at a football stadium isn't a big deal. Normally I'd agree but this stadium had great mounds of extra jumbo large shrimp laying on big slabs of ice - just waiting to be eaten - and fresh fruit too. I suspect there may have been other things around to eat but I "made do" with just the shrimp & fruit...Oh - and a brownie! After the feast we headed off to the Baltimore arena to see Joe Walsh & Glenn Frey in concert! Don't know who there guys are?? Both were in the Eagles and Joe was the guitar player for the James Gang. I played the groves off these guys records in college. They seemed to take great delight in the fact that they were playing for a drug store chain - Joe said that we were wise to have hired such highly medicated professional musicians. Great show!!

Tuesday was my day on the trade show floor, getting a chance to talk to a bunch of drug company reps and collecting a lot of really good information. I didn't collect any pens though, the reps said they couldn't hand them out this year. Bummer. Even more importantly I was able to talk to several of the folks that develop the computer programs we use in the pharmacy, not only learning about new developments but also giving them some input about some (hopefully) simple things that they could do to help us out. And - yet more important - I also got a free sample of Thrifty ice cream (chocolate crunch - double scoop) that had been trucked in from Rite Aid's Thrifty ice cream factory on the west coast especially for this occasion. The day's Words To Ponder came from my supervisor when he pulled me aside (on his way to get his second dish of ice cream - pistachio nut I believe) and told me that I was about to get a big challenge, that this was a good thing, that there was an element of risk, that he and his boss would probably be at my store on Thursday to talk to me, that he couldn't say anything more, and that "all would become clear soon". Well what the heck do you make of that??? I guess we'll find out Thursday......

Todays trip home was pretty uneventful. The plane was only a hour late. Sue and Andy were waiting when I arrived (Andy used that extra hour wait to invent a board game to play while waiting - ask him, I'm sure he'll tell you about it). We picked up my luggage, went out for lunch at Olive Garden, then on home. It's good to be back!

cheers - dj