I’m sitting here at my desk after having just returned from the symposium that I went to in Philadelphia. As many people who are participants of conferences know – work in the day, party at night. This was no exception. And, as we all know, I’m somehow a magnet for both a good time as well as the weird.

Monday

My Monday was spent traveling, registering and working from my hotel room. The evening, on the other hand, got off to a pretty good start. I met up with my friend and former colleague, Matt, and we went to Philly’s version of Fado. We enjoyed a few good pints and I got to do my favorite meal at Fado: a corned beef sandwich with fries. Our bartender, Steve, was a lean fellow with lots of tribal tattoos and an Irish accent. He was a pretty good guy and he took pretty good care of us when two more of our friends swung by to enjoy more beers and cider.

We wound up at an open bar shindig. It was pretty ok but this is where I ultimately wound up in this particular state of inebriation. Matt was like the mighty bar hopping ninja. He was feeling fairly oogy so he grabbed one beer and then pulled the ‘I’m looking at my watch and slowly backing out of here’ move. Me? I mingled, met more people I knew, slipped the bartenders some pretty hefty tips (always tip your bartenders no matter what). I finally came to the conclusion that I better head home so I left the bar and started making my way back to my hotel.

Which is a problem. I’m directionally challenged. I even have problems reading maps. To exacerbate things, even if I could read my Google maps on my phone it wouldn’t help. Why? My battery was completely drained. Which is why I was ecstatic to run into a couple of locals who I was pretty sure would know the area. Before they brought me to my hotel they had to tell their boss that they’d be gone for a few minutes so they brought me to a bar called Big Bang’s Bar & Grill. It was pretty funny being the only Asian in the place. As the girls went to go find they’re guy, they led me to the bar. I accidentally bumped into this gigantic mountain of a man who was sitting at the bar and he quickly turned around and stood up. My face was literally in his chest. He was completely ripped and ginormous. I thought he was going to kill me. Instead, he looked down at me and grinned widely and said ‘Hey, there, little man! Here, have a seat!’

So I wound having two drinks with some of the brothers. And I was known as ‘Little Man’ to them for the time I was there.

My tour guides finally came and got me and we started walking back to my hotel. It was a pretty good time as we walked and talked about the music at the bar, the benefits of wearing flats over heels and which female celebrity had the biggest ass. When we finally reached the hotel I thanked the girls and asked them if I owed them anything. We had a good laugh over that one.

Ok, this is turning out to be pretty long. I’ll save what happened Tuesday for tomorrow…