Philly a la Carte

It seems all I've been doing lately is work and with the Time Spiral Prerelease this weekend, that trend isn't going to change anytime soon. I'll save the deatils of my endless work for another post. Right now, as always, I must continue the tradition of posting about my exotic trips. This time around I went to a place not so exotic - the city of brotherly love. Interestngly, the last time I was in Philly it was for Pro Tour Philadelphia which was held in the same place as my conference. I've always liked Philadelphia, but this time around I just wasn't feeling it.

I went to Philly for the annual ASBMR conference which is normally quite good and much more enjoyable than the ORS meeting (which tends to have too much clinical material for my taste). As usual, the exhibit hall was fun. I managed to get all the cool freebies including a 120 MB flash drive, a blank writing book, and of course forzen yogurt at the Lilly booth. The talks and posters at the conference weren't nearly as entertaining. I found myself rapidly losing interest and on the last day of the conference I couldn't bring myself to even enter the convention center. This apathy became coupled with frustration as I wound up having to pay for nearly everything "individually" during this trip. It's totally unacceptable to pay $200 a night at a hotel and have to also pay an additional charge for using the fitness center and internet access. So, yeah, if you're thinking of staying in a Loews Hotel - don't.

Fortunately, the social aspect of the trip was good. My friend Vijay from High School who lives in NYC had been in Philly that weekend visiting his girlfriend, so I managed to meet up with them for some Tapas at Bar Ferdinand (highly recommended). I also got to spend time with the folks from my lab. The ASBMR Social Event was enjoyable as always, despite being inside the Frankling Institute (the huge statue of Ben watching us as we danced was sort of odd) and despite being straddled with the worst party band ever.

By far the highlight of the trip (and this pretty much canceled out the disappointment thus far) was a visit to the Mutter Museum. This is hands down the coolest museum I have ever visited. Basically it's a medical museum filled with specimens and information highlighting the pathologies and abnormalities that you seldom see. Sadly I couldn't take pictures in the museum, but it's probably just as well, for if I did, you would be seeing pictures of two-headed babies in jars, a petrified body, a 40 pound colon, a gangrene hand, and much much more. I felt like one of those teenagers that accidentally walks into the house of a serial killer in a B horror flick. Good times!