The 2013 ACR Meeting: Mad Macs at the Marina

Excerpt

San Diego, the site of the 2013 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) meeting, sits like a vision of the future at the far tip of the United States, just up the road from Mexico and smack next to the Pacific Ocean. Like its siblings in California, Los Angeles and San Francisco, San Diego is one of the geographic last stops of the American dream. For centuries, people have trekked across the country to find a better life in the Golden State, searching for jobs and opportunity but also a Mediterranean climate replete with palm trees and orange groves, cool breezes that sweep in from the ocean, and brilliant sunsets where gulls circle overhead to call out the arrival of night. What a great place to be! It is so beautiful that you forget the smog, landslides, earthquakes, congestion, an antiquated tax system, a mayor gone wild, and fractious politics that recently have made the Golden State sometimes less than golden. …