The Crabby Daddy

The perpetual software license

2009-10-14T22:34:00.000-04:00

I would like to share my perspective from someone who has sold, supported, implemented and designed Healthcare Software as well as supported the associated Hardware and operating systems since 1984. I have seen a lot of Medical Software, Operating systems and Hardware come and go over the years. The only thing I have ever seen that is perpetual is change.
In 1979 when I first started using a “word processor” the gold standard was WordStar. Microsoft had not even thought of Word yet and the operating system for these Micro Computers as they were known was Concurrent Dos or Unix or something similar. No such thing as MSDOS yet and windows was more than a decade away. I purchased a copy of WordStar and I'm sure I still own it but I seriously doubt I could find the hardware to run it now or the patience to use the formatting “Tokens” to place simple bold, underline, italics or font formats in place.
Software and operating systems have usually had a set life cycle just like hardware. Yes you can limp along for 10 years on a Medical Billing system written in the late 80's for Late 80's hardware but in 2009 it is very antiquated and often difficult to maintain as well as keep up to date with the latest interfaces and functionality. If you are still running an old “Legacy” system consider yourself lucky and about 10 years past the expected lifetime of the software. You made a smart decision back then. Now it's time to move to a newer platform and get more functionality, speed and return on your next investment.
It would be nice if everyone could create a web app like what we now use to prepare our income tax online. But what had to happen before that could occur? The internet had to be developed and the browser had to become stable enough to support SaaS software. But more importantly you had to TRUST the website to stay around, to keep your information private, and to function flawlessly and quickly year after year as well as stay in business and not be bought out by a competitor. Of course I'm referring to Turbo Tax and not Kiplinger's Tax Cut in case you were wondering.
SaaS software is not new.. It used to be called Timeshare software. You rented the software and could care less what operating system or hardware it was running on since you did not own the hardware. We have come full circle from the Medical software of the Late 60's and 70's where it was too expensive for a Physician to purchase a mainframe or mini computer and run their own servers. The service bureau of the 70's is now the SaaS vendor of the 2000's. Why did service bureaus move from the forefront? Why did physicians purchase the infrastructure in people, software and hardware to do their own billing? Back in the 70's they used a peg board and ledger system and copied their ledgers as their monthly statement. So why are Physicians not using the ledger and pegboard system any more? Because there have been massive changes since the 70's and early 80's. Insurance is filed for your patients now, as well as more difficult to get reimbursed. With the changes coming in healthcare who knows if SaaS software is even a smart purchase now? If we go to one payor that would streamline your needs to file insurance to different clearing houses and there may be no need to bill a patient.
SaaS software might work for many physician's but is your data really your data? How do you keep it from getting “mined” without your consent?
So you can most likely purchase a perpetual license from any vendor. My father always said “Paper will sit still and let you write anything on it”. Meaning read the contract and know what you are signing makes common sense. Just know that your in perpetuity use is only as good as that vendors balance sheet, your willingness to loosen your grip on your data if it's SaaS, the financial viability of having your software hosted versus doing it yourself for less. But in the end make sure you are not buying a perpetual license of Wordstar.

What's Wrong with this picture?

2009-06-14T21:54:00.003-04:00

In 24 years of Travel I have yet to see a handicap spot painted with the customary handicap logo sporting spokes on the wheels. What next Craiger Mags! Too funny.. I went down the next morning and checked it out they were hand painted.

World Series Trophy on a south west flight from Tampa to Philly. The Trophy awesome. No I don't know the guy holding the Trophy so quit sending me emails asking...

Philly Hotel goes a little far in creative hand towel art in the Bathroom.

Biker with a skateboard strapped to his back. Is he called a Biker-Boarder or a Boarder-Biker?

Letter to Mo at camp from her pets stuck at home with Dad.

2009-06-09T21:55:00.000-04:00

Woof, Woof, Woof, Pant Pant Pant.. Chase my tale, chase my tail.

Hey Morgan that's what I have been doing all day today. In case you didn't know; this is Sophie, your Beagle. :-)

I woke everyone up at 7:30 today so I could go to the bathroom and then I enjoyed chewing on a bone while that tall guy worked at his desk where I like to chew all the small stuff on his desk.
Then I went on the run out back and had the best time. Oh my gosh that's my favorite thing other than sniffing the grass. I stayed outside for awhile and then that Kid Chris came out to watch me. He said there was an Alligator in the water. Are those fun to play with?
Any way. I hear you are at camp in the woods and can run around. Running is my favorite thing. Some times I get excited and run around the house, It's my favorite thing. I chased Tally and Pepper today. It's my favorite thing. I even tried to chase that old cat that pukes, but he just hissed at me. I love it when he hisses at me ... It's my favorite thing. Gotta go my paw is getting cramped and I see there is a chew bone on my bed. I love chewing bones … oh I tried to chew your new pink sneakers but that tall guy told me NO! And I ran around barking. That's my favorite thing to drive that tall guy crazy!!

Bugsy:
OK... enough of that stinky dog... This is Bugsy... YAK! I'm not pewking … YAK! I'm just allergic to cat hair... Yak! . Please tell me you.... why that tall guy put those dryer sheets on my favorite chairs? I can't stand the smell and won't go near them now. Hope you see lots of bird up there I love looking out the window at birds. YAK!... Oh man I hope I can sleep on those chairs soon I'm tired.

Tally:
Ah it's so relaxing on this glass dining table... Yikes ! The tall guy chased me away. How Rude. I'll just lay on this glass table in the family room. Dang! He chased me again. OK I'm going to climb on the counters and rub on the Mothers day plate. Wow.. That tall guy likes to tell me NO and to “Get Down” does that mean he wants to see me dance? I think I need to scratch on his door at 6:00am and ask if he wants to watch me get down now. Ok I'll go watch the frog in the window... Dang now that Beagle is chasing me. See you later. Love Tally...

Pepper:
OK I have basically been sleeping on your bed in your room all day loving the peace and quiet when this Beagle runs up and starts messing with me. So I ran around and hissed at her and she chased me downtairs. The tall guy gave us some Turkey in Gravy it was good... But Bugsy came and ate my last nice morsel. Dang... Then the Beagle licked the bowl. I'm not gonna say what the Beagle ate from the litter box... Yuck... I jumped on your desk but did not see my favorite website on your laptop so I jumped down. I think I'll go sleep on you bed again. Have fun at camp. Pepper.

Sunday on the Boat with the Boys

2009-06-07T22:14:00.002-04:00

Sunday the Boys and I went on the boat and had a blast. We went to Shell Island , Egmont Key and then anchored off of the Tradewinds for an hour or so and watched the Rays game at Ricky "T"'s. Had a blast and will post pictures.

Moriarty's Pub wings in Philly

2009-03-10T22:26:00.010-04:00

I'm in Philly this week and working with a Urology client up here. Arrived Monday and spent Tuesday working with a new client (or soon to be new client ) in King of Prussia. Afternoon was a kick off call with a new Palm Beach FL client for 30 mins and then training or basic navigation and progress note creation for my latest client at Hahneman hospital. Charley from Boston was in town and we decided to go to Moriarty's Irish Pub from a recommendation by the 10th floor grill bartender at the Hilton Garden Inn. Great suggestion! The wings are awesome. Definitely the best wings in Philly and best I have had in a few years. Very large and meaty and a nice sauce. Not too spicy and not too tame. We had some colorful Waiters tonight. She was in training and he was her mentor. He was funny and she was just plain smoking hot... Ok enough of that lets get back to the wings.

Nice Pub. Located on Walnut about 4 blocks from my hotel. Straight down 11th for 4 blocks then right on Walnut and cross over to the left side of the street and bada-bing there is the Moriarty's sign in nice bright French Blue neon. Charley and I both had the wings. They were large and filling we did not have room for anything else. The other nice thing about Irish pubs is they have 20 ways to drink Guinness. I had a Black Velvet which is Woodchuck Cider and Guinness. I first ordered a snake bite which I thought was Cider and Guinness but ended up being Cider and Sam Adam's. Oh well like all manly men I drink my mistakes. Then came the wings and the Black Velvet. Nice Combo if I may say so myself. I also had a call from Kip Kelly today. Kip is a friend from when was 15 and we were teen terrors at Wintergreen ski resort in Va. Was hoping to hang with him Wednesday but need to take a rain check till the end of the month due to his wife having a Lacrosse meeting. (Only in the Mid Atlantic). Had a fun night and highly recommend the Hilton Garden Inn at 1100 Arch Street as Well as Moriarty's. Might go to Dimitri's at 3rd and Catherine Wednesday night since i'm bacheloring it.

CD.

Famous People You meet on Layovers

2008-12-30T18:17:00.005-05:00

Yes my friends that is the one and only, Greg "The Hammer" Valentine. I had the most horrific layover in houston. Horrific because the bar closed at 11:30pm and the flight left at 1:30AM. Thus 2 hours with out bar service. :-)

But low and behold who did I meet but THE HAMMER. I actually saw this guy from across the bar and said. "I bet he is a pro westler" He just had that look about him and he looked vaguely familiar.

We had a blast and I bought him a shot of crown and he invited me to work out at his gym in clearwater/largo. (I think my gift was much better )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Valentine

Dinner at Whisques

2008-12-17T21:57:00.003-05:00

Tonight I had Dinner at Whisques. Nice restaurant on the West Side of ABQ. They have mesquite grilled steaks and seafood. Website is http://www.whisque.com/Menu.aspx The Kobe Sliders were great. I hear they make a great mojito. Did not try one tonight. Had a fun filled day of teaching customization. The Doctors are fun to work with and you can tell they love their job. You forget how dry it is here compared to Tampa. I wake up with a stuffy nose and dry lips Yuck! Guess you would acclimate after a few months. I really enjoy coming to Albuquerque. Nice people they have a very laid back attitude.

ABQ Bound... Look out Garcia's here I come!!

2008-12-16T22:03:00.000-05:00

Headed to Albuquerque New Mexico today! I'm excited! I get to see tall mountains, breath air from 6,000 ft. and eat great southwestern food. Man nice combo that is! Right!.

So I land and get my car from budget. The Bus driver was not talkative at all. She had on a Santa hat and I mentioned "Nice Hat"... Not a word. Hmmm Must be a deaf /mute? Not sure if that is even politically correct to use any more. Woman behind me by 2 minutes says the same thing and same reaction. Not a word. Guess she is tired of hearing "Nice Hat" Must be required to wear it and hates it I guess.... people are so funny.....

So I make the b-line to The Original Garcia's and order some green chili stew, Carne Adovada and fresh tortillas. MMM man what a nice reminder of why I like this town. The green chile stew is awesome and the Carne Adovada is nice tender chunks of slow roasted pork in a red sauce. Great to dip the fresh flour tortillas into the stew and the adovada. The tortillas are big and thick and fresh.

Website has their menu: http://www.garciaskitchen.com/

Worth a stop if you are in ABQ!!

Blog back online

2008-12-10T12:10:00.002-05:00

Wanted to let everyone know My blog is back up and online again. Check out my EMR Install map it's still growing.

Here is a nice link to a Christmas greeting.

http://ecard.ashland.edu/2004admission/index.html

Reminds me of all the great times spent in Virginia making snowmen and playing in the snow. No way to do that in Florida. I'm looking forward to a trip to Albuquerque next week to see some snow!

Panera in a Pinch for your corporate training center!

2008-05-27T22:31:00.003-04:00

Panera was turned into our corporate training center at my recent visit to a client in Deerfield Beach Florida. This client has such a secure site for their multiple businesses that we could not get an outbound connection to our training server hosted in Cary. We had to go "off Campus" to a Panera and use their free wifi. I think I drank more Lattes that one day than the past 4 months combined.. Thanks to the quick thinking of the office staff we saved the day by relocating to Panera. Yeah!

The Dr was a trooper through the whole process. We secured a training site for the next few days at a Hilton hotel nearby. The training was a success and we are well on our way to getting a nice install at this site in Deefield beach. Favorite hotel to stay at is the Doubletree in Boca Raton. Nice place and great rates for a newly renovated hotel. And you can't beat the free cookies either!

Great Local restaurants...

The Grill on Congress

http://southflorida.metromix.com/restaurants/american/the-grille-on-congress-boca-raton/127577/content

Neighborhood Sports Bar and Grill

http://local.yahoo.com/details?id=14428339

Blue Fin Sushi (Sushi and Thai... YUM!)

http://www.bluefinsushi.com/

A practice that lives up to their name!

2008-05-02T22:22:00.001-04:00

I had a great time implementing this practice! Two nurse practitioners at this Family practice are friends from high school and Nursing school. They have a fun office staff and take extra time to make sure each patient gets special attention from the all female staff.

I had to stay in in the next town over and commute 5 miles each day to the site but I also picked up a few new restaurant as well. golden Rule BBQ. A Local Alabama original with great ribs and sauces. Unique history as well.. May need to look at a Florida Franchise... Top O the River Catfish Restaurants. I ate at the Guntersville , AL store. Nice fried pickles... Great seafood! The Hampton Inn in Ft Payne is the only hotel worth staying in at this location. They also had a Ruby Tuesday's and a Steak restaurant.

Golden Rule BBQ - Great Ribs and sauces!

http://www.goldenrulebbq.com/

Top O the River Catfish restaurant in Guntersville, AL. http://www.topotheriverrestaurant.com/gadsden_tour.php

Plant City Florida known for great Strawberries!

2008-03-27T21:29:00.016-04:00

My two latest EHR prodigies! These two guys have a nice office in Central Florida. They are in an aggressively growing urban area in Central florida. Nearby Plant City is know for its' Strawberries in the Spring and Tomatoes all year long. They are also home to the Strawberry Festival in February. http://www.flstrawberryfestival.com/ (Check out the Strawberry festival site! Click on the Royalty tab when you get to the site... That's cracking me up with the Royalty tab.. !!)

The city had the parade down our street while we were customizing a few weeks ago. We were shut ins due the the parade going right down our street so we made sure a drug rep brought lunch that day to keep us nourished during the jam session of template production!

the Lead Dr. is no stranger to the Healthmatics EMR from A4. He went through Family practice residency with 3 doctors I took live on Healthmatics 3 years ago in Jacksonville. (Queue the "It's a Small World" music!) This is the fourth client I have had where they all had ties to the Same Residency class from St Vincent's in Jacksonville.

The Dr did the research for the other Dr's and chose Healthmatics. He has been instrumental in securing 3 or 4 customers for us without even owning his own EMR at the time! (He was still a resident at St Vincent's in Jacksonville) The Dr. recently left a large clinic in Central Florida who has been seeing a sudden decrease in their physician staffing due to a rough transition to their EMR. Seems like workflow was not well thought out and customization was not put in place soon enough to allow for a smooth transition. You hate to see that regardless of who the vendor is... Hopefully they get it turned around ... This has been the 4th Physician I have heard who left that clinic to go solo and purchased the EMR I implement.

Both Dr's were quick studies and they have learned to customize and are getting a nice head start while they are building their practice. We already have the LabCorp interface up and going at Go-Live and they just need to set their webpage up to get the Patient portal running. He should have fun over the next few weeks getting all the toys tweaked. The new practice also purchased all the bells and whistles from Midmark with the Spirometer and EKG that can interface to the EMR.

I'm excited for them I always enjoy working for a new start up practice. This is my 4th start up practice to install this year and I have had 10 or 11 start ups in the past year. I have 2 more new start up practices that I was just assigned this week so I'm looking forward to the initial setup of these offices and watching them grow. It's a nice change from the established offices withtheir mountains of patient charts on an intricate chart rack system and years of consistent scanning ahead of you. Nothing better than a new office with no chart rack in site!! Love those offices!!

Plant City Links:
http://goflorida.about.com/od/tampawestcoast/a/plantcity.htm
Parkesdale Farm the best Strawberry Milkshake in the world!!
http://www.parkesdale.com/
Record Strawberry Crop!
http://www.theledger.com/article/20071222/NEWS/712220457/1338/NEWS00
Winter Strawberry Capital of the world!
http://stickygooeycreamychewy.blogspot.com/2008/03/strawberry-fields-forever.html

Phreesia Tablets

2008-03-26T23:01:00.008-04:00

Wanted to share my experience with the new Phreesia Tablet. I'm doing an EMR go-live this week and the Dr. at this site in Plant City Florida, was contacted via a postcard mailer to try the Phreesia tablets. They are pretty cool Tablets that allow the patient to enter their medical data into a question and answer software. These Tablets are provided free of cost from Phreesia. They are supported by ads that the patient can watch after they are done entering their data. The tablet has a card reader built in. You may be able to see it on the right side of the tablet. They received two identical units that the Dr. configured and set up on his network. They are wireless and come with a wireless router you install in your network and software you place on a PC on your network. That software allows you to review and configure the application on the tablets.

Configuration is setup of the questionnaire which is basic patient history like allergies, past medical, Family History, Demographics, Insurance info, Social History, Medications, Review of systems, and a chief complaint you can pick from a list of most common complaints. Not sure if you can customize any templates or chief complaints. The patient swipes their credit card in the reader and it reads their information and provides a name. (Or they can type the name) Then they are asked for a Date of birth and a pin like the last 4 of your social security number. They are asked gender, demographics, etc. and the interview proceeds with the user touching buttons on the tablet or using a stylus to click through. After the interview the patient is shown an ad from the sponsor of the day. They can skip this ad and then get patient education provided which is linked to the chief complaint they entered earlier. If they had Headaches, it lists patient education on headaches, if they also entered High Blood pressure as an additional complaint, it provides that also. Pretty neat and gives the patient something to do and information to read prior to the visit.

The practice then either prints a PDF of the data or gets a CCR download. This looks like a good first step and is a great idea for practices with no kiosk, patient portal or waiting room kiosk like a Galvanon (which is expensive I hear)

A few draw backs I have noted.

The data is in text format and not "codified" so it's not discreet data yet.
The patients have had some resistance in using this each visit new and follow up.
The patient portion and the MA data entry time is longer than an MA interview while entering data.
The Medications do not contain dosages etc for a script.
They do not read Driver's Licenses yet.
Specific Complaints do not trigger special interviews geared toward those complaints.
The data does not interface to an EMR at this time.
The only data exchange is via a CCR record which has no standards yet.

Some Benefits

It is really cool technology to have!
It gets patients in the mode of using a wireless device to enter their own data
Easy to use and large buttons are easy on the eyes and on the Grandparents.
Lots of data ports on the tablet.
Prints off a nice PDF that you can scan in or use for data entry.
Second visit is easier since data is retained from each visit.
Prompts patients to provide information that they might not feel comfortable writing on a piece of paper.
Reduces spelling errors by patients.
Reduces reliance on poor penmanship by the patient.
Can prompt the patient for specific data needed.
Places the burden of data entry on the patient.
provides a PDF or CCR that can be loaded into an EMR at some point.
Can be used to collect co-pays and payment in a few months.
Does not feel guilty asking the patient to pay their portion of the bill or a bill in full.

It's a great first step and I think this company has a great idea they just need to codify it quickly and get it interfaced to an EMR where you can import the ROS, P/E and HPI sections of the note along with History, Demographics and Insurance data to match the power of a Kiosk or patient portal.

All in all it's a neat device and with a few modifications and additions in the software will make a great addition to any waiting room.

LINKS about Phreesia:

http://venturebeat.com/2008/03/06/six-health-20-firms-reinvent-doctor-patient-ties/

http://pharmexec.findpharma.com/pharmexec/E-Marketing/Turning-Patients-onto-Tablet-PCs/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/455791?contextCategoryId=43871

http://www.medicaltabletpc.com/content/view/592/29/

http://forbesontech.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/09/demofall-what-r.html

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Health-Care/WiFi-Devices-Bring-Drug-Firms-Messages-to-Doctors-Waiting-Rooms/

post deleted

2008-03-25T23:30:00.008-04:00

Common Ground Health Clinic Gets An EMR!

2008-03-24T19:08:00.009-04:00

It is with great pride and pleasure that I'm able to fill you in on the fact that Common Ground Health Clinic is now Live on an EMR. HIMSS helped in getting a donated EMR to this free clinic to help provide better care for their patients. They completed go live the week of February 18th. I was able to provide training and go-live support and attend Mardi Gras... At least I have my priorities straight right?

What a great experience this has been personally for me to take this client live. Great thanks to everyone at my company for allowing me to participate in this client’s project. I’m really humbled at how hard these volunteers work to provide FREE healthcare to the people of New Orleans.

When I was assigned this account in late December I was told we need to get them live prior to HIMSS the last week of February. I heard they were a free clinic staffed by volunteers and was a little worried about this project. They have a great staff and once I met everyone and saw how dedicated they were I knew they would do a fantastic job!

Common Ground Health Clinic was founded a few days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. This free clinic started as a street clinic and eventually moved into a local Mosque for a few months before moving across the street to a vacant store located in the Algiers section of New Orleans. Their reach is felt over a 20 mile radius. Healthcare and medications are dispensed from MD’s, NP’s and Nurses who are all Volunteers at the clinic.

Post Katrina many of the normal healthcare channels that provided free or low cost care to the people of New Orleans were closed due to the closing of many local hospitals and clinics. This clinic was started on September 9th by street medics who were basically EMT’s Nurses and Healthcare clinicians that decided to provide free care to people in need.

Since this is a free clinic, this was a radical change from the standard install we do every week. First of all they do not bill the patient. As an Implementer that has implemented EMR’s for over 10 years I’m programmed to naturally seek the best path for our client to seek maximum reimbursement from the insurance company. Everything in our daily life is geared towards coding, and I mean everything. At his clinic there is a completely different approach, everything is provided free of charge and donations are accepted but not necessary. All staff are volunteers which means new people every day. They are staffed with 5 Volunteer MD’s one Full time Nurse Practitioner and 5 volunteer nurses as well as volunteer front desk and office staff, 18 staff in all. The client’s website is located here. http://www.cghc.org/

Also a You Tube Video that provides insight into the process of how the clinic started. And the feelings in New Orleans that prompted volunteers to do something for their fellow neighbors. Their Slogan is “Solidarity not charity”. The little clinic that could video shows the Narrator Anne who is the Nurse practitioner. Ed is the Man in the video that works at the front desk now. Both are great people to work with! http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=a9f880e1527ab17b6c3b1c04e937a6ddb8b280d6

The clinic opens at 8:30 AM and is a Walk-in clinic where healthcare and medications are provided on a first come first served basis. Walk-in charts are assigned a number 1 to 30, etc depending on how many people show up and they are seen in sign up order.

The patient is taken through “Intake” where a nurse triages the patient and uses our intake FastTrack to guide them from screen to screen to capture vitals, chief complaint, Allergies, Social History and provide basic labs of a glucose check, if Diabetes is in their Family history, or provide basic immunizations or other in office labs. The patient is then placed back in the waiting area until the MD or NP can see the patient. The MD takes over the chart and provides the additional care. They utilize the Wal-Mart $4 prescription list as their “Formulary” for medications. They also dispense free meds from supplies attained from Drug companies and other health clinics that send in their overstock of free samples. If you are affiliated with a drug company make sure you contact the clinic to see how you may contribute to their project.

The Volunteer doctors are thrilled to be using E-prescribe. They all work in other clinics for their Day job and many use EMR’s but none had e-prescribed before.

Thanks to the Assisting Dr. who mentored the Staff during go live. The Dr. was on site a few days and saw abut 10 patients each day himself in the EMR, and provided a tremendous amount of education and advice to the clinic from his 10 years of using an EMR. David Collins from HIMMS was onsite also and was responsible for gathering donations from my employer and other vendors like Dell, HP, and Fujitsu etc for all the donated equipments to the clinic. http://www.himss.org/ASP/ContentRedirector.asp?ContentId=66788&type=HIMSSNewsItem

McKesson donated $20,000 in cash. Great Job Big Mc! They have since received a grant to provide health services and with that grant of course comes the need to provide information.

I’m very proud of my company for their role in this project. It was a great day to wear RED when this client went live on our donated EMR system. From the server to the software to the desktop PC’s, Hand Held Fuji tablets, Fuji scanner, HP Laser printer, Cisco Access point etc… All were donated by my company and individual vendors to get this project going. HIMSS took this clinic under their wings and mentored them through to the finish. This is a great example of how my company is giving back to the community.

I was onsite for staff training last week and trained 5 MD’s, 6 Nurses, and 7 office personnel, for a total of 18 volunteers. We started seeing a few patients in the EMR last week and then saw all patients Monday and Tuesday of this week in the EMR. Totals were 18 patients for Labs Monday morning, 20 patients Monday afternoon, 28 patients Tuesday in the clinic. All notes were completed in the EMR 100%!!

The office is doing great and I’m so proud of all the staff and how hard they worked to get this accomplished. This clinic has done a fantastic job of getting ready for the EMR tidal wave that hit them this week. It’s great to work with people who are excited and LOVE what they do every day and are doing it out of compassion rather than for a paycheck.

The clinic is so thrilled to be using a top notch EMR! They marvel every day at just how far they have come from a street clinic on a sidewalk to a full fledged clinic with 5 exam rooms 4 intake areas and even Herbalists on site to provide Alternative medicine.

We are waiting to hear from LabCorp to see if they will supply a Lab Interface… If you have contacts with LabCorp in New Orleans ... Please drop a note and let them know how great a result interface will be for this group. OR better yet a donated LabCorp Phlebotomist and a Bi-directional interface.

If you have other stories similar to this please post them to comments so we can share how EMR companies are giving back to help those clinics who are not able to afford an EMR.

I return the end of April and first of May to complete their project. This just happens to coincide with the Jazz and Blues Festival. Let the good times roll!!

Comparing Oysters in Nawlins

2008-03-23T19:33:00.002-04:00

Acme Oyster House in the French Quarter is where these beauties came from!. I sat on the corner of the oyster bar next to the front door and ate a half dozen raw. Man were they sweet! I also had the Grilled oysters which were great. They are comparable to the Famous Drago's grilled oysters. I had Drago's grilled the night before. Loved the multiple Tabasco Sauces. The smoked one was new for me and it was just right on one of the oysters. I also love the Trio Oyster Sampler at Bourbon House Seafood and Oyster Bar. The Fonseca is the best for me. The BBQ oysters at Redfish Grill on Bourbon street are very unique and surprising ly not as hot as I thought they wuld be very good appitizer.

http://www.acmeoyster.com/
http://www.dragosrestaurant.com/
http://www.bourbonhouse.com/index.php
http://www.redfishgrill.com/menu_detail.php?menu=7

Allscripts- Misys Merger

2008-03-21T23:28:00.000-04:00

Having spent the past 25 years in Healthcare IT. I have seen a lot of companies come and go.
The past 19 years of my career have been spent at +Medic (Misys) and A4 Healthsystems (Allscripts). I have to admit I had an inkling this merger would occur for the past year. I went through the +Medic – Misys merger and the A4 – Allscripts merger and have seen great benefits from both.

Announcement day I did feel a little like Luke Skywalker when he found out Darth Vader was his father! The dark side had now become one with the force.
Reflecting on this merger for the past week has lead me to believe that it is a very important first step towards a more effective approach to solving the Healthcare EHR adoption rate in this country while fast forwarding the “interopability” rates of the current EMR’s/EHR’s.

Yes there are a ton of products and yes there will be some sun setting of current EHR’s take a look around HIMSS and see how many little companies are doing the exact same thing with little or minimal differences in their software. I think we tie ourselves to a product or brand name and derive our sense of personality and who we are from a piece of software. We should step back and analyze more from the stand point are we helping or harming the Physician and how they practice medicine. I also realized how many of my friends are still at Misys and how many family members we will now have at Allscripts, once this merger completes. I think Dr Morrow summed it up well in his article. Free registration gets you the article.

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080321/REG/199294076/1031/FREE

I think we need to re-evaluate our emphasis on what we are really trying to achieve here. We should have less focus on my software can kick your softwares ass... and more focus on what service are we really providing for our providers. Are we first seeking to do no harm?

Much has been said here about workflow and how we can’t change an offices workflow and have the software adapt to the provider and not vice versa.

Let’s take a look at a few examples of where workflow should change. Option A (antiquated) vs option E (EHR) I can list 20 or 30 of these off the top of my head but lets start with this simple one.

A. Patient calls to speak to the Dr to get results on a lab test. If you are lucky enough to talk to the Dr you get your results on that one call. (We all know this rarely if ever happens) What usually happens is the phone operator without an EMR writes a hand written message then passes that to a medical records clerk who pulls the chart and paper clips the message to the chart and places the chart on the provider’s desk. The provider who is busy with patients may see the chart and make a call back at Lunch (if there is no drug rep chatting them up at lunch) or after the day is done, which usually means a message on a cell phone or answering machine. The patient meanwhile sits and waits and worries for hours or days until contacted. Once contacted, and usually by an MA or front desk person, who may not have the results in front of them or know how to interpret the results, they are told they are WNL (Within Normal limits). The patient then asks for a copy of the results (so they can Google them to get some answers for a change) and are told they can not be faxed to your home since it is not a secure fax but you can pick up a copy at the office. You pick up a copy the next day or whenever you can get by the office and notice a few lab values at the upper limits of normal. You call again to ask about these values and you now start this whole process over again. Now if you are happy with that work flow continue to seek out an office with no EMR. If you prefer a more modern approach try this.

E. Your results come back via a lab results interface and the physician signs off on the results within minutes of receiving them and publishes these results to their patient portal. The patient receives an email that they have results posted to their portal and can access their secure login to the portal from home or office and receive the physician’s message as well as the results. The results can then be printed on their home computer or exported to their personal health record. You reply to the physician about the top end normal’s via a secure direct email to your physician. Your physician replies within minutes to your concerns. This is all completed in less than an afternoon. So take your pick which workflow works best for you versus works best for the Doctor? Why preserve the paper version?
I was providing follow up training at an OB/GYN practice this past week in rural Georgia. We are talking a tiny, tiny town here people way up in the mountains. This practice is 100% EMR after being on the EMR for 2 months. I’m talking GYN patient and OB patients. (If you are not familiar with this specialty and the trials of going on an EMR then let me tell you that’s a remarkable feat!) They get how this product can change their ability to provide service to the community. The Hospital meanwhile maintains a paper chart.

While I was training a provider on a template design tool on how we can process their Hospital Short Stay report from our EMR and fax to the hospital while in the Hospital rather than complete it by hand in the hospital…. The Caregiver received a call from Labor and Delivery in regards to an OB patient who was in the ER and the nurse had a few questions. The Caregiver without getting up from her chair… Pulled the patients chart, accessed her pregnancy record, (ACOG form) reviewed a few items, reviewed the online fetal monitor Real time, and was also able to have her discharged in a few mins. She even e-prescribed an antibiotic to the pharmacy which would be ready for the patient once she arrived. This all took about 3-5 minutes, if that. Most was taken up by conversation to the Nurse.

When she hung up I asked how long that transaction would have taken on paper. She replied, “Hours.. and that’s if I could find her chart… I also would have had to drive over to L&D and review her monitor tapes and her chart there.” Again, which workflow do you want to preserve? Keep the mother in the ER for hours needlessly on a fetal monitor and IV etc., or let her go home and pick up her script while on the way home and be done in 15 minutes??? How much was actually saved in ER time and valuable Nursing time not to mention supplies etc with the new workflow? We may never know but you can guess hundreds or thousands of dollars a day.

I routinely contact every client I take Live on our EMR one year and two years after their go-live and ask how things are going and would they go back to paper. Every client has answered no way. Now if you ask this question at 2 weeks or 6 months they may say heck yes take me back! But once they make the move to a total electronic record they rarely if ever want to go back to paper. You have to put in the effort and the results will come … some immediately like e-prescribe, lab interfaces, completing charts notes in the same day, no more lost charts, and faxing consult letters at the end of the visit etc…. Others benefits take a few months or years.

I think this is a bold first step towards a much needed consolidation of the EHR Market place. Many more will soon follow and I can’t wait to see how 10 years from now this will be reflected back on as the starting point of a great expansion in beneficial Healthcare technology. Working toward a common benefit rather than erecting competing fiefdoms that do little to advance EHR adoption.

Allscripts and Misys need to remember that a company is made up of people. Those people provide the companies reputation. People enjoy working for a company where quality of life and a fun factor are present. How the company treats its employees and how much of a fun factor they maintain will go a long way in determining their future and their reputation. Which will also lead to more clients and higher revenue.

The US is taking a beating

2008-03-15T16:05:00.000-04:00

OK ok... I have to admit . When I saw this article in Forbes it shocked me. I have to tip my hat to you guys from India and Russia. You are rocking it when it comes to new Millionaires and total Millionaires / Billionaires. Keep up the good work and share the wealth.

Cadiz and everyone who commented on my blog. Smile for a few minutes and then go make friends with a new Indian or Pakistani or Russian who is new to your company, neighborhood or church. We are all American and that's all that matters.

Here is the impressive chart from Forbes.

First the Article. http://www.forbes.com/2007/03/07/billionaires-worlds-richest_07billionaires_cz_lk_af_0308billie_land.html

And secondly the entire list.

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/10/07billionaires_The-Worlds-Billionaires_Rank.html

8 out of the top 24 are from the US.
4 of the top 24 are from India

BNA Bound

2008-03-05T06:20:00.005-05:00

Headed to BNA today (Nashville) I'm providing Follow up training to a Family practice that is a new office in Murfreesboro, TN. I have a ton of great stories to tell and will blog my butt off when I get to the hotel in Murfreesboro Tonight. The flight leaves at 6:50am. So another 4:00am wake up call to catch the first flight up. The kids have games this weekend first day of Spring baseball and softball. Michael and Katie are doing well and they are standouts on their respective teams. I met with the Oncologist today for my 3 month follow up they drew blood and I'll know results in a day or two. Going in for another MRI Friday AM. Hoping to find no difference in the spleen. Looking forward to getting back to NOLA later in the spring. Common Ground is doing well and I checked on their server last night and it looks like they are maintaining their ability to enter progress notes. I had to add this Picture of the Tennessee Scrubs. My Wife Went to UT in Knoxville and when you are in Tennessee you can't escape the big orange or the power T. Go Vols! The Medical Assistant at Genesys Family, Valerie, had to show them off.

Hangin with the captain

2008-02-04T16:51:00.002-05:00

A Little fun time prior to my Install at Common ground.

Here is a quick vidoe on the little clinic that could... My next install.

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=a9f880e1527ab17b6c3b1c04e937a6ddb8b280d6

Lunch at mothers

2008-02-04T16:19:00.000-05:00

Just plain Lazy?

2008-02-01T00:27:00.001-05:00

I had a very long, verbose reply from Cadiz12 to my most recent blog. Her reply to me that America was not fair on its Visas and immigration was to point to a young Korean Girl in New York who is stuck in limbo... Evidently this Korean girls parents moved to the Miami area when she was 3. Her parents came here on an H1 Visa for her father to work in the country. H1 Visas allow you to work in the country but you are not granted citizenship. She's now in her twenties or thirties and laments how her younger brother was born into citizenship while here in America. Yet she is now stuck in Limbo as a Legal Alien since she did not get citizenship via her parents getting citizenship or getting it on her own.

Sounds like she has forgotten that she was able to take advantage of the Public school system while here as well as a better standard of living and not to mention a little better weather in Miami than her home country of Korea. If her parents obtained citizenship prior to her 18th birthday she would have been grandfathered in with them and the issue is closed. You would think a little urgency may have set in if she intended to stay here and achieve citizenship. She seems to have lost her lucky brake by letting so many years go by comfortable in the life that America offers. Now she laments basically her laziness of not taking care of an issue for what 15 years? Looks like she needs to look no further than herself or her parents...

Of course she is complaining about not getting jobs due to her status. This does not prevent her from starting her own business or consulting? Not sure where we need to feel sorrow for a person who basically lacks drive or desire to map out a strategy to stay here. Genius is not the first word that pops into my mind when I read her whiny post. FYI Cadiz... I interviewed a Peruvian National today who moved here with Her Asian Peruvian Husband about 20 years ago and went through the same situation. Her husband came here on a Student Visa to attend Med School. They however, understood the importance of obtaining citizenship prior to her oldest son turning 18. She remarked that 9/11 was the impetus of her conversion but is now glad she did it since her children are all now citizens. (In this same office is a German Native who has desired to retain her German citizenship and continues to renew her Visa.) This woman also has a brother from Peru here on a business visa. He has a business in Peru and opened one here in the US. He maintains both as a requirement to retain his Business visa. Her Uncle stayed in Peru to run the Peruvian Branch for her brother while he is here to run the US branch and obtain US citizenship. She has brought her niece over and plans to bring another niece as well as her mother and uncle. She stated this process will take about 10 years. So there are many routes available to US Citizenship.

I have a few Indian nationals I know (And often go out with for stimulating conversations, bowling etc.)that work on H1 Visas at my wife’s company and they are very diligent and precise on when they need to do specific paperwork etc to go to the next step. All of these people learned the rules and mapped out a strategy rather than rely on a future Amnesty program and just hit the bars partying rather than get their homework done.

Cadiz also posted a link to that interesting Youtube video about how shift happens. In this video it states some remarkable predictions... Many I think are a little off... but pay attention to the slides that state that China and India have more Honors students than we have students... Hmmm what the hell do they do with all these gifted people? If this small little country we call the United States of America can generate a robust economy so awe inspiring that these gifted students all flock to us maybe we need to again contemplate what is not working in their country? Especially since the 25% to 28% of their country has higher IQ's than all of the US.. Hmm Guess Freedom and hard work are paying off over here. What the hell are all these High IQ geniuses doing over there? Booking flights to America?

Cadiz also rants about racism and the wrong side of the tracks and how poor kids are stuck joining the military. Sounds like a Kerry Supporter... You forgot to mention that your Korean Girlfriend could also join the military and through her service to this country obtain US citizenship. If she is so against doing her homework a and getting her citizenship herself or marrying for citizenship maybe she can serve her adopted country with Military service and get the gift of citizenship in return? Sounds fair to me. I live in Tampa where we have MacDill airforce base. I work and socialize with many friends who are in the Army, Marines, Navy or Airforce. I've yet to meet one person in the military I would consider from the wrong side of the tracks. Many have Masters Degrees or higher and are hardworking family people who also volunteer their time for Scouting, Baseball etc. Many are deployed for months or longer yet I never hear them complain about it.

Check out the wikipedia entry for some sobering stats... at just how many people worldwide are flocking here for a chance at a better life. Did you forget that 9/11 occurred? We have to restrict our immigration policies due even more due to an attack on our sovereign nation. I think Bill Clinton said it best when a heckler screamed at him that 9/11 was an inside job. Hope you are not a follower of these whacky theories, which are obvious stunts pulled by america haters....
The US of A should be special and dear to you, to become a US Citizen should mean something. You should not be able to steal citizenship by sneaking in the back door.

I think the Korean girl with the immigration problem should be thankful that she is here. If not head back to South Korea and help take care of Kim Jung Il so we don't have to clean up her old neighborhood for her. Cadiz you may want to remind you friend Jinius that there is a DMZ that is staffed by the greatest of American citizens, whom you denegrate by referring to them as from the wrong side of the tracks, that stand point to protect Jinius's former homeland from the Mad man to the North.

How embarrassing that she sits here and complains while taking full advantage of all America has to offer. I'm sure Millions would trade places with her. At least a few million REAL geniuses from India and China....

Boom Shac-a-lack-a

Open Arms

2008-01-29T22:13:00.000-05:00

OK to those of you who have read and commented on my blog entry about India and China. Know that it was a form of comic relief... Come on you have to admit many were funny. This was written in the space of 45 minutes.... And was due to an email I received. I'm tired of hearing how today's kids are not going to compete against kids from China and India. I have 4 very intelligent kids and know they will face awesome competition for college etc... But, we are not the Greatest Democracy on the face of the earth because of luck. It takes many centuries of hard work and mostly an entrepreneurial spirit to get to where we as a country are today. Many brave people explored, this country, raised families and gave their life's work to create companies and advance ideas that were once dreams of theirs.

America has always had open arms and accepts all people of any country... NOT just the best and brightest. America is a GREAT country due in large part to our Freedom, the constitution, and the ability for free people to be creative and grow, by not being under the thumb of an oppressive empire.

Neither China nor India have been able to duplicate this effort. And for that matter Russia and any other country.

I'm not saying we are better. Just different in a way that encourages growth, and the entrepreneurial spirit. I don't see where this has been duplicated anywhere with the exception of maybe Israel. The UK has bounced back recently too. And this is THE MAIN attraction that brings many of the worlds best and brightest to our country to learn and live and raise a family.

There are many industrious people who bring great talent and knowledge to this country but you have to wonder why they are not as successful in their home country?

I think there are obvious reasons and some that are not so clear. China is not a free society. You are property of the state over there. India has too much ingrained racism. I know they call it a Cast system.. But come on it's just another name for racism. Apartheid was similar. We had similar prejudice in this country back in the early years of the 1600's-1800's and the 1900's were where a change started... We have a way to go as well.

Ask any Indian and you will understand why you can almost always tell what a person does for a living and what Cast they are in depending on their last name. Also the cast determines who you may marry. I often did genealogy with my mother as a young child and there were similarities with this in America and Europe as well. Last name of Miller meant you created mills etc.

Now I do like the fact that marriage is often delayed till later in your 20's or early 30's in India. I still don't understand the need to get married and raise kids right out of high school but we still have millions that do that over here.

If my mother and Father lined me up with 6-10 women to pick one to possibly marry that would have been pretty cool... But I can tell you I would have had nothing to do with it... When I was in my 20's.

If you operate from a stand point that anything man can conceive he can achieve.... you get close to the entrepreneurial spirit that makes America great. If you give freedom and stand back and watch creative people do what they do best you get amazing results. From freedom comes great industry and invention.

I admire poeple from all countries who come here to make a better life for themselves. I just can't help but wonder what is hampering this same person from doing the same in ther home country. IF we could raise the level in all countries what a great future we would hold indeed.

I meet many Indian and Pakistani Doctors and professionals who have come to practice Medicine in America. I like them alot... Friendly, polite as well as well educated, and very strong family values. I have never shared a bit of knowledge with an Indian or Pakistani and been told I was a smart alec. They thirst for knowledge and seem to understand that all knowledge is good and openly share this with whomever they meet. I often found that throughout my life I was so proud to share my knowledge with others.. only to be considered arrogant or a know it all... All I wanted to do was share knowledge not make you feel like you were not as smart or to be a show off.

I just wonder how much their country could benefit if they brought back what they have learned here. You just can't stop asking... Why can't they do as well at home?

I'm amazed at how quickly all that America has to offered is absorbed by many who move here to better their life. Multiple jobs, schools, degrees... Etc. I think they are on the right track by emphasizing education. Now if we could just get that Lame Charlie Crist from Florida to get education as his top priority maybe Florida could graduate 90% of it's young people instead of the paltry amount we do now. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2007/pdf/24_2007.pdf

USA - China - India

2008-01-21T22:36:00.002-05:00

Ok... I'm REALLY tired of hearing this crap about how much better India and China are than the US of A... Ok? I get bombarded every friggin day about how we are going to be losing major industries to China and India and how we the US of A will end up being a third world country in just a few short years.

First ... This is BULLCRAP!! And I will take a few minutes of my very valuable time to discuss this with you few unfortunate souls reading my blog at 4 am.

We are inundated with how stupid and unprepared all our kids are out of high school going into college and how we will end up being second class to India and China.

Here are a few irrefutable points to mull over.

1. I have yet to meet ANY person who is heading over to India or China to open an Office as a Doctor, Dentist, Veterinarian, engineer, etc, etc because he / she can make more money in India or China.

2. I have never heard of a break through Medication discovered in India or China.... or even Russia, Mexico or Canada for that matter.....

3. I have yet to see an industry changing surgical procedure or mathematical formula that was credited with an Indian or Chinese discoverer. OK Russia had an eye surgeon that was cool.

4. When we have a mad Exodus of Physicians and intellectuals (Engineers, Mathematicians, Scientists) going over to India or China and they start standing in line waiting for H1 Visas to get into that country to be an indentured servant for 5 years ... Let me know because we might have 20 more years before we have a trend.

5. I have never heard of 1 person who sells everything to go to the promised land of India , China, Mexico, or Russia to live the good life and leave the squalor of America. Not 1!!

6. Bill Gates did not even graduate from college.... !!! He was a dumb, stupid retro bate according to some new criteria now that says you have to have a masters degree or better to amount to anything.

7. Every day I hear about all the top colleges in India, China and Russia that students are lining up to get into... So much so that Brigham Young University, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, USC, UCLA, The Ivy league in general, the Pac 10, Big 10, SEC, ACC etc etc. Colleges don't even compare. Give me a break. you can get a better education at a community college than most non USA Colleges.

8. All the rich Saudi kids are going to India and China now to study, computer science, engineering, medicine etc. ( Yeah right .... Dream on brother.... ).

9. The Global economy is reacting to market trends in India. Hmmm. Whats the name of their stock market? London is Footsie, France is CAC, I know Hong Kong... Yang see or what ever... Never heard of the Indian Stock Market and all the earth shattering IPO's going on over there.

10. When will Europe be concerned that an Indian in India, can't buy a house due to a credit crunch or a housing market fluctuation???... Give me a break!!...

11. The world shudders when India and China have off years at the hectic Christmas shopping season over there... (Yeah right!!)

12. What ever happened to Japan? They were going to kick our ass and take names later... Did they fall off the map? Are they on Mars now?

13. Kids in India or China say.. "Daddy is everything made in the USA"?? since outsourcing to the USA is cheaper than making it in China and India due to labor costs.

14. The Indian film industry just blows away all American films and grosses more than any American Film Company. (Actually insert any American industry and you get the same question)

15. I'm a China man In China and I call my electronic gadget support desk and get some hayseed in the middle of Alabama who trys to answer my question but I can't understand them due to their outsourcing accent.

16. That Indian Software conglomerate ______, which I hate so much, gets another $200.oo out of me so I can buy their latest operating system, upgrade or newest gadget... ( Insert favorite Indian or Chinese company).

17. Hot American Women are marrying all these Filthy Rich Indian and Chinese men and are moving to India and China to raise passels of kids because they are such hot catches ....

18. Business news channels are now broadcasting 24 hour a day and 365 days per year from China and India....

19. The hottest sports car is made in India and the most admired CEO is a Chinese CEO of a company that is Chinese founded, funded and deeply rooted in the business history of China. (And it does not have it's root in slavery... etc.)

20. Paris Hilton moves to China or India to be with the cool hip people.

21. India and China are constantly bailing our ass out of natural disasters like Hurricanes,( tsunami's) and earthquakes... Because we are too dumb to even train a cadaver dog....

22. All Major Industries in America can trace their origins back to an Indian or Chinese Company.

23. The international jet set flocks to China and India to Ski, Gamble and relax at their million dollar villas for a few weeks.

24. More Billionaires and Millionaires are being made every day in China and India than the good old US of A....

25. I know the name of the leader of China and India. ... Nope never heard of them... Guarantee they all know George W is the leader of the free world.

26. Israel starts buying military armaments from India and China because they are more high tech, hot and sexy than the US stuff.

27. The Indian and Chinese Military are routinely mentioned in US Military training Videos and are the ones to look out for and not mess with since they are so well trained....

28. People in India or China have a cork message board in their office with the first Indian/Chinese dollar bill they ever made pinned to it....

29. The best place to send your kid after graduating from high school to get a world class education is India or China.

30. Michael Moore creates a documentary in China or India out lining how much better the health care is in the USA than India or China....

31. The Indian and Chinese $100.00 bill equivalent is the most forged currency in the world.

32. There is a black market in the US funded by Chinese and Indian currency since it is more valuable.

33. Indians and Chinese are coming to America to Adopt American children and save them from a life of poverty.

34. The UN moves to India or China.

35. Osama Bin Laden declares Jihad on the Great Satan of China or India....

36. American speak Chinese or Hindu since it is the international language of business.

37. The best quality aircraft are made in China and India. (Please give me a break!!)

38. Hugo Chavez ships free oil to the inner cities of India and China to embarrass the leaders of the free world.

39. When China or India need a great programmer at bagain prices they turn to the USA to get that filled.

40. Chinese and Indian computers blow ones made in the US of A away.

OK that's Fourty... I'll take a break now.

I agree we need to tweek the education in the country. I also agree the Middle school and High school years are the most important.

DeRidder Bound again

2007-12-18T05:47:00.000-05:00

Well here it is 5:30 am and I'm at the TPA airport. Flight leaves for Houston Hobby at 6:40am. I have a 3 hour to 4 hour drive once I get to Houston. The town DeRidder is just over the Border of Texas and Louisiana.

I'm doing a follow up there to make sure we have the Lab interface working and to complete customization on the Sleep center and the Nuclear studies. If we can get that done then I will be happy.

Sorry for the lapse in posting. I was worn out from the Nablopomo posts of each day back in November.

This was to be my last trip for the year but We have decided to take the kids to Nashville to See Grams and Papa and I have a client there who agreed to training on Dec 27-28th. It will be nice to let the kids see Grams and Papa. They have missed seeing them. I think it's been almost a year.

I'm looking forward to some down time over the next few weekends and Friday starts it off with a game of Golf with Dad and Matthew. We are going to Country Club of Mt Dora to play 18 this Friday.

Hope I don't embarrass myself too much. I have not played since the outing with Dad, Matt, Chris and Michael a few months ago. Definitely need to get more golf in my life.

Oh Amy, Myself, Amy Brother Mark, Chris, Michael and Morgan all ran the Reindeer Run 5K a few weeks ago. I took a break form jogging for about a week to recuperate. I'll post some pics tonight. Morgan got Third place for Girls under Nine. Yeah Morgan!! And Morgan and Michael both ran the 5K faster than Mom and Dad did. I finished .001 seconds behind Amy.

Morgan and Michael also ran the Kids Fun Dash for 600 yards AFTER finishing the 5K. One of the Dad's was next to me was watching the races and he said man those kids are fast... I commented yeah and they just ran a5K too! "Holy Cow!" that's awesome was all he could say. I agreed... Holy Cow. Michael and Chris have been jogging this week and last so Hopefully the bug is catching. I hope Chris starts working out with his Fottball friends from school. They are all doing so well in scholl. I'm so blessed to have such smart children. I'm going to try to jog again three times this week. Depends on how cold it is in DeRidder.

I have a new client in NOLA !!. I think I can convince them to go live during Mardi Gras!! so Amy and I are Mardi Gras bound. Can't believe it took 46 years for me to be able to go to Mardi Gras.

Common Ground Health Clinic is a free clinic that was started during Hurricane Katrina. They have a website. They are not too fond of FEMA or the current Administration so this should be a fun few weeks there. Rubbing elbows with ultra Liberals. Blech I need a shower just thinking about it. Should be fun we will have to see and reserve judgement till the project is done. This was all donated Software and Hardware by Allscripts, Dell, Fujitsu, HIMSS, and is the second project I have the privilege of installing in NOLA for the "Phoenix" project that HIMSS set up last year at HIMSS New Orleans. We are looking to get them live by the Next HIMSS in Orlando the end of February.

I have a few Florida accounts now which is a great wat to break up the weekly travel out of town. It was nice to be home last week and drive to a client. I have a new cliet that is less than 5 miles form home... MAn that will be nice. I will defenitely milk that one for all it's worth.

Take care catch y'all later.

NOLA to TPA

2007-11-30T21:53:00.000-05:00

Woke up this morning at 8:00am it was the first time I did not have to be onsite at 8:00am and training and being responsible for the past few days.

I got some office work done from the Hampton. The wireless was SLOW!! Man that's some annoying stuff ti have to get caught up with slow wireless.

I got My client in DeRidder caught up. I then took to the Airport and I hated giving up my caddie at the rental car drop off.

Took the Southwest flight to Tampa and got there in time to pick up the kids and give them their M&M's from Vegas and the CSI hoodies I got at in Vegas as well.

We had dinner at Applebee's and headed home for some football.

Cub Scouts has Rocket Races tomorrow and Katie's Parade at 4:00, Amy's Company Christmas party at 7:00pm and we are staying at the Rocky point hotel after the Party. Should be a fun Saturday.

WOO HOO!!!! My thirtieth POST!!! Thanks NABloPoMo for the push to blo everyday for 30 days. I loved it!!!

Crossing my mappings

2007-11-29T23:56:00.000-05:00

Holy cow you forget how much work is involved in mapping a Lab interface. I think I'm seeing double now that we finally have the process down. The Lab group has some work ahead but we are getting the mapping completed and the Dr will be able to get his labs sent over.

The task is always a little more difficult than you expect. We had to not only make sure the panel had numbers that matched but that they were in the correct order with the correct number of line items. They also are getting the demo and charges interface to the PM system so that will help later in the month to eliminate duplicate keying.

We had lunch in today but it was again from the Thai restaurant. Man that is a great spot to eat if you are ever in DeRidder. Thai Basil is the name of the place and it's a family run establishment.

Great service and they can make many tasty things off the menu as well. The Stagecoach inn was the only real hotel as a choice. They charge $60.00 p-er night and had a free breakfast. I had mainly bananas and yogurt but he pays out a nice spread if you wanted more. Not use to paying less than $100.00 per night now that the hotel prices are so high.

Wal-Mart has no Nintendo Wii's anywhere to be seen. I have checked at a few places and no such luck. I think I;m going to hit Dell for the Presents later this week they came out with another EPPS coupon but it's for higher priced laptops. Might wait till after Dec 6th... not sure.

The ride here to LaPlace was long and tiring last night. I left the practice about 7:30 or so got gas from Wal-Mart and checked once more for a Wii and then headed to LaPlace. It was about a 3.5 hour drive. I stopped at a Wal-Mart in Moss Bluff and no such luck on Wii's he said Lake Charles was out too.

I hit Pat's of Henderson for one final meal. I had the Grilled Red fish with Crawfish Etouffee on top. Man it was good. The Stuffed potato looked over cooked so I saved the calories.

I-10 was low volume so I made good time hanging around 75-80 mph. I saw 5 or 6 troopers so it paid to stay under 15 over. I got VERY tired after about 2 hours and had 70 miles left and I was getting sleepy and noticed some times I was doing 80-85 so I stopped at a Luv's to get some Caffeine and an energy drink . I bought a Starbucks double shot light, a large Starbucks frappaccino in the bottle and a Full Throttle Blue Daemon. I down the double shot and then hit the large frappaccino. I felt much better and refreshed ... I decided I may still need the Full Throttle so I popped it and drank about 2/3. I was up for good after that. I made it to the hotel and had to put up with the rude front desk lady. Man I felt like I was getting a loan she was asking me all of these questions. She asked me what company I worked for and I was tired and not in the mood and did not want any more of her crap so I replied. "It's on the Card" I felt bad but she deserved it.

I got to the room and of course could not get to sleep so I logged online and did some work on my flights and directions to the airport and read emails etc. It was too late to call Amy.. or so I thought she later told me she was up till 2:30am.

Go-Live in DeRidder

2007-11-28T23:52:00.001-05:00

Today was go-live day. I spent most of today working with the nurses and the Dr to get the patients scheduled, seen on time. The clinical group did very well. One thing that is hard to forget is that there are not many breaks in the work flow here. If the Dr wants an X-ray it's done on site. If he wants stat labs they are done next door. Sleep study ... no problem... Nuclear study... Yep got that too.

There is not much time to rest between patients. We did get the Lab interface people talking finally so we should have the interface done after we complete the cross mapping.

I jogged last night at the Hotel. It felt great but was kinda weird running in circles around the Stagecoach inn.

We got a lot of customization done but there is still a lot to complete. When we came back from lunch the power was out. The whole EMR was down and there were a few workstations that came back up quick. I finally traced it to a switch that was under the front desk. It did not power up after the power outage. I cycled power to it and it came right up.

I let the Dr and staff know we should probably get the Modem, Switch and firewall on a battery backup to keep it from going down during a brown out. They had one there in about 2 minutes. I have spent a lot of time getting the hardware running at this location more so than any other client...

Small Town Louisiana

2007-11-27T22:26:00.000-05:00

I'm in DeRidder Louisiana this week. The Practice I'm working with is pretty awesome. The staff are great and the nurses are really smart. The Dr never ceases to amaze me. He is an internist with certifications in just about everything.

In addition to internal medicine he is also and Opthalmologist. So he does normal vision tests etc as well as more advanced eye laser surgery. He also has a full Lab that services not only his patients but all the Dr's in town as well. He has a sleep study room with 2 beds to perform sleep studies. He also has a nuclear camera to do adenosine and persantine stress tests prior to imaging the heart. Most of his patients are not able to run on the treadmill prior to the imaging so he ends up doing mostly adenosine stress tests. He has the normal X-Ray, and bone density tests but he also performs bone marrow biopsies as well as Lumbar and cervical epidurals. The list keeps going on and on I'm amazed. They are like a mini - ER.

Travel day from heck

2007-11-26T06:45:00.000-05:00

Today started early with a 7:00am flight to Atlanta on Delta. I woke at 4:00am after doing laundry last night from the Vegas trip and finished packing my bag and folding the dryer contents this morning. I left home about 4:30am and started the commute to the TPA airport. About 5:00am I got a call from an 800 caller ID number. I ignored it and stopped to get breakfast at Mickey D's. I got another call and after thinking it over I answered and it was an automated call from Delta letting me know my flight from Tampa to Atlanta was delayed and I have been rebooked. Crap... I got the airport and hit the delta Line to get rescheduled or rebooked. The line was huge and they only had 2 customer service agents. I called Delta and they let me know it was a mechanical problem... (Right..... sure...) This moved me back to 9:30 departure and this of course placed me to late into ATL to make my connectring to Alexandria , Loisiana to get to my client by 3:00pm to start training. ( I was defenitely kicking myself for not flying direct from Vegas to my client Sunday night) I called Southwest and they had 2 flights available. One to Houston thet left at 6:30am. ooohhhh tight fit on that one at it was now 5:45am. I asked about the next one and it was late in the afternoon... not good. I then asked about MSY (New Orleans) they had availability on the 7:30 am departure arrive 8:30am . Only one seat left. I asked her to hold that and I would then move over to Southwest. I called delta and asked about addl options and nothing was looking promising so I brought ut the laptop and checked online as well. Nothing better than MSY... I cancelled my Delta and Booked the Southwest flight to Nawlins. I then switched my Avis rental from Alexandria to Nawlins, hit mapquest and emailed directions from MSY to the client to my cell so I could have good directions handy in the car. My flight back is on Friday and gets in about an hour earlier so that's a bonus. I might stop by Harrah's Thursday night and see if Pap's craps lessons pay off later this week.

Today is Cyber Monday. In case you have misse dit the past few years the online retailers have been sending out deals on the Monday Following Thanksgiving to drive up business similar to Black Friday after Thanksgiving for the brick and mortar retailers. I looking to get a few deals for the kids and family for Christmas this year.

Money shot from vegas

2007-11-25T06:30:00.001-05:00

Leaving Las Vegas with more money than you came with is defenitely a great feeling! It took some time but I finally hit a few runs on rolls at the craps tables. It took me from 11:00pm till about 3:00am and I had to graduate from Papa's Craps 101 course to craps 202.. but I finally made it!!

The ride to the airport was a nice surprise.. Papa and Grams got a limo to take us to the airport. We left in style and Morgan was excited that she got to ride backwards in a limo. Thanks to Grams and Papa for a great week in Vegas and a fun ride home in style. What a great trip. I can't wait to come back and see the sights I missed on this trip.

You never know what to expect some times when you go to a city you have never been to before. I knew Vegas had tons of entertainment and I was aware of the competition between Vegas and Orlando for Total Hotel Rooms available. I never knew how luxurious and extravagant these hotels are in Vegas. I think I need to volunteer for Vegas Clients whenever available.

Sports Saturday

2007-11-24T00:36:00.000-05:00

Today we watched the games in the Sports Lounge. All the right teams won so everyone was happy for a few hours.

We toured the Strip and Walked to the M&M Store. I got a few sample bags for the kids and headed back to the Mirage.

Kokomo's for dinner. Nice steak, I had the Kansas City Strip. It was huge. I heard Vegas was big on large steaks. The wine and conversation were a great respite from the football of earlier.

I hit the Mirage shop for a few memorabilia prior to the Flight home tomorrow. The 8:15AM flight will require a 6:00am departure. I think I'll pack and hit the hay early. I'm up from the craps game last night... so why risk it.

Shopping Vegas Style

2007-11-23T11:35:00.000-05:00

We toured the Casinos and shopped the malls today. The Ballagio, Venetian and the Wynn were on the agenda today.

We took lots of pictures. The shopping was confined to the Venetian Shoppes for myself and Amy. Grams charged onward and did the Mall too while we got Oxygen.

The Venetian has a booth in the mall that is an oxygen bar. You can sit for 5 mins and get a stream of oxygen that has 4 different aromas added. This is to lift your spirits and provide energy. Amy, Mark, Deborah and myself all sat and had a session.

Unfortunately it took over 30 mins to get a stool and much tension and crabbiness was emitted by me when we had a few line intrusions... Let's say their workflow was not up to par on getting a place in line.

It was very relaxing with a nice eucalyptus scent to rub on your palms and inhale as you inhale the other 4 scents. They attach a calendula to your nasal passages. (Shovesd in your nose like a geezer

LAS Mas

2007-11-22T11:45:00.000-05:00

More Vegas fun as we toured the Ceasar's shoppnig complex. IT was amazing. Nice fountains and we saw the 2 shows from th anamatronic fountains. I ttok a few pictures to post here.

I bought a SinCity Las Vegas T-shirt. We watched some football and Played Roulette and craps. A fun time ws had by all. Larry gave us a few pointers on craps.

Viva Las Vegas

2007-11-21T11:38:00.000-05:00

We hit the Southwest Trail and Flew to Las Vegas Today. We had a nice flight and the flight attendant made it fun with a few trivia games.

They were asking sports trivia for a few of them and I was too busy wearing my noise canceling headphones to get teh first few questions.

Once I took off the headphones Amy let me know it was for free drinks so I buckled down and took it seriously. The first question was which NFL team has no logo on their Helmet. I knew it was Cleveland Browns but did not get my Flight attendant call button on first. The next few were difficult but we finally got one that sounded like we could answer it.

"What year did Coca-Cola Come out with the TV commercial I'd like to buy the world a coke?" We guessed 1976... Nope, So Then I guessed down... 75, no , 74, no ,73 no, 72 no, 70 no, Arrrrgghhh... Then 71? Yes...!! Woo Hoo. The Same year my wife was Born. It was also her birthday so the whole plane sang happy birthday and we got free drinks. Morgan webkinz got a hold of my Bacardi... Picture posted is When webkinz go bad.

We took a taxi to the Mirage and met the parents and had some fun taking in the Casino.

To Jax and Back

2007-11-20T23:53:00.000-05:00

This morning started at 4:00am with a quick morning routine and then jumped in the truck and headed north for Jacksonville, FL. I ended up taking I-75 to I-10 since it was so foggy and I got to Gainesville about 6:15 which would mean morning traffic in g-ville. I prefer to take the "Long way" when the weather is inclement rather than risk getting stuck on the short cut through Starke and Waldo. I got to JAX at 8:15 even with some traffic and stopping in G-Ville for breakfast. 3 hours and 15 mins is pretty good.

The group I'm working with today has been live since August. They have struggled a little and I feel we made a ton of progress today. I taught one of the DR's how to create a really nice Chief Complaint and we cleaned up a few forms and streamlined some workflow processes. I have a little work to do over the next few weeks to get them going towards great.

The ride home was uneventful but I was glad I had XM radio to listen to CNN Headline News and Fox News. Got to listen to Glenn Beck and Britt Hume. Laura Ingram was substituting for Bill O'Reilly. She had some heated discussions.

Th kids finished the Christmas lists. Woo Hoo! They are getting older and it's hard to shop for them now. Michael and Katie want Laptops so I'm trying to get a few people to chip in and get one for each. They really miss their old desktops that died 2 years ago. I know my life will get easier with them not hogging my laptop for a change.

Packing for Vegas. We leave late Wednesday and come back Sunday. Thanks Grams and Papa for such a great suggestion. I have been to Vegas airport many times but I have never been to the City itself. Amy wants to make sure I ride the Roller Coaster with her on top of New York New York. We are staying at the Mirage. Wish me luck. I practice on my Roulette last week when I stayed at the Isle of Capri. i did pretty good. I played for 2 hours and was up $20.00 at the end of the evening.

Waiting in Vain

2007-11-19T23:09:00.000-05:00

This Morning I waited till 11:32am to get my laptop. So FedEx is now know as the ... " When it's absolutely positively has to get there overnight but later than we promised" company. We had even checked the 10:30am delivery time.

The Laptop was a little faster. evidently I was infected with spyware. Ooops.. Forgot to run spybot search and destroy since like April I guess.

I was wondering why it took so long to boot up. I got upgraded to IE 7.0 finally also. I now have all my favorites and auto settings in the process of getting entered again. bummer. I saw the post office delivered my expense report and another item I had mailed to my home office in these pre-stmaped pouches to my home for some stupid reason. DOH. Guess the post office sucks again. I sent them UPS to the home office today so they would get there. Maybe UPS needs to give an in service to FedEx and the USPS..??

Found out my Dr does not give a rats rear end about calling in scripts for you. I have been to the Dr a ton these past few weeks and I needed a maint drug refilled and the pharmacy had let me know the 3 mo script had expired. I called the Dr and let them know My script had expired. She had this smart alec reply of... "Well I guess u need and appointment huh?"

I replied nah not really if you check my chart you will see the Dr wrote me a refill and I had it on file at the pharamacy and they list it so I just need you to call it in for me. She gave me some stupid answer about how she will check on it for me and placed me on hold. I can't stand Dr's who write scripts on 3 months at a time so they can guaruntee office visits every 3 months. He better be doing some fasting labs and I'm going to get my money's worht out of him if I go every three months. He will be giving me x6 and x12 refills before long... :-)

When she came back she had a much different tone... I love these $7.00 an hour power trippers that only turn away business at these Dr offices. Give a High school flunky a little assumed power and they go nuts.... huh?

It finally got straightened out but it did not reach the pharmacy in time to get it when I stopped by it was still not called in. Guess that's why it pays to be in the biz so to speak and get samples of what you need in times like these... Take that you flaky receptionist... I was nice I found out a long time ago you get more with sugar than with vinegar.

A wier thing did happen today. When I left the UPS store I was waiting for a car to pass and she stopped and motioned me on. I nodded no that's ok... and waived her to go on. She waived me on so I stepped off the curb and started crossing and half way across the lot she revved her car and drove behind me. What a complete idiot! I was so mad I turned and yelled... You need to wait for me to cross Lady... Make up your mind you dork! I was so livid I'm glad I had a few seconds to calm down or I may have chased her down and caused a road rage incident. I was tempted to flatten her tire while she was in Publix but I was in a hurry and I did not want to appear on page 10 of the Laker next week. "Cubscout Denleader causes road rage incident on illegal immigrant housewife shopping for Thanksgiving Turkey" Just my luck it would twist into me being the bad guy.

I ran down to scouts tonight and we continued work on the Forester achievement pin. I had an ice cream party for the boys since they have worked so hard an got dissed by the pack meeting on the raffle tickets. They loved it. I even had an inactive kid show up tonight. He had been playing Volleyball and the games were on Monday night. So I'm glad we are back up to 5 now. Plus siblings makes 7 boys.

Well off to Jacksonville tomorrow so I'm heading to bed early.

Sleepy Sunday

2007-11-18T12:01:00.000-05:00

Woke up at 7:00 am and piddled around the house for a few hours. I found out that the reason the I-10 was closed was sue to a natural gas fire. The whole I-10 corridor is shut down. Amy woke at 10:00 she really needed some sleep to catch up from this past week.

We went running and I did the first run for week 3 couch 2 5k. The podcasts really help but this week was walk 5 mins jog, 90 seconds, walk 90 seconds, jog 3 mins., walk 3 mins., then jog 90 seconds walk 90 seconds, and jog 3 mins. Felt like I needed to jog one more 90 seconds and then do a 5 min cool down.

Amy let me know week 4 and 5 will take care of that..... You take quite a jump in week 4. You alternate 3 min and 5 min jogs. Wow.

The End of a Season

2007-11-17T23:49:00.000-05:00

The kids had their final games of the season today. I spent most of the AM waiting for a package to arrive. Amy was going to give me a ride when the Delivery Van pulled up at 11:00 and dropped of my keys. She took me to the airport and I got my truck and drove to The game. Yeah !! I got my wheels back.

The kids were ddefinitely worn out and you could tell they were ready for the game to end. After the game everyone had pizza and I was surprised that I was able to keep it to one slice.

Came back home and worked on the garage. Amy sold her Washer and Dryer so we had a nice big hole to fill with all our other garage stuff.

I went to Home Depot. (First time in over 2 months) and bought 2 of those workforce 18 inch shelves and installed them moved a few things around and cleaned the coolers and took the time to clean my white mail box. The neighborhood has these white mail boxes that mold over time and the home owners association will send you a letter if it gets too moldy.

I cleaned mine and the neighbors on my right and left last night. Wonder if they will even notice?

I'm getting up tomorrow to run the first week 3 run for couch to 5k. Should be interesting.

Amy let me know she was over the vegetable soup phase. :-) I think the last pot has lasted a week now and I'm still hitting it strong every chance I get. I had some Today for breakfast. The last recipe made filled a 20 quart stock pot. So I estimate at least 20 servings came from it we have about 5 left. Yum.

NOLA

2007-11-16T23:15:00.000-05:00

Friday was full of training and flying. I started in Gretna Louisiana and was able to get a ton of customization completed for the client.

The ride to the airport was interesting. I-10 drive was a mess. The Interstate is still closed between Baton Rouge and Lafayette. A gas well caught on fire. That's what I saw the other night that looked like the shuttle was taking off. Man it was bright.

The flight to Tampa was nice and quick. Amy met me at teh airport and we went to Channelside and had dinner at Stump's Supper club.

We hung out listening to the house band Jimmy James and the Velvet explosion. Good house band.

Waiting for FedExor UPS to deliver my brief case...

A Homer Simpson Day

2007-11-15T23:08:00.000-05:00

I'm definitely missing the laptop. I found out it took more than today to get virtual machine installed. The "Company Policy" is that we don't ship for Saturday delivery, and we don't ship laptops without signature required. So now to save $20.00, I'm going to sit idle all day Monday and not be billable at $180.00 per hour. This in order to save 15 mins of my billable time, on shipping costs. Not sure who is making that decision.

Anyway life gets better. I left my client in Lake Charles after a GREAT visit. I run into a shut down of I-10 to New Orleans about 70 miles into my trip. They just dump you onto a road with no explanation and no signs for a detour. So I follow the traffic and eventual we get on this small surface road with 4 lanes. Turns out we go 20 miles north to route 192 and then head east to Baton Rouge. I think there was a fire on I-10 and they had to shut it down. This takes a while as all traffic from I-10 is now on this small road... Large 18 wheelers and all.

I have to endure about 70 miles of this through small towns where the stop lights are still set to change to regular traffic patterns. So I have to sit sometimes for 5 light changes or more to get through one light.

I decide to stop and eat at an Outback on the way since the plans for a nice dinner in New Orleans are shot now. I stop and have THE WORST server Outback has ever given a staff shirt and name tag to. She was horrible. No silverware when the food arrived ... did not know the menu... never refilled my drink unless I asked, rang up my meal wrong... Blah Blah Blah.... you get the picture. So I'm walking to my car and realize at that moment I have left my Briefcase at my clients office back in Lake Charles. It's now 10:15pm and my keys to my truck in Tampa airports parking deck are in that bag. CRAP!!. I call the Dr and get his cell phone voicemail. I call the office and leave a message on their answering machinw. I guess the only thing now is to get them to UPS or FedEx my keys and a few other items and then come back in few weeks on my return trip to this area and retrieve it.

Oh Well... Insert a loud Homer Simpson DOH!!

I'm really bushed now and got to the Hotel in New Orleans late and checked in.. All I feel like doing is blogging and then it's straight to bed. It's now 11:18pm so I need to get to bed in order to get up and be on site by 8:00am. I printed my boarding pass and got an A group.. thanks Southwest...!!

Oh well things can only get better tomorrow.... Later yall.

NOLA Bound in Laptop seclusion

2007-11-14T08:34:00.000-05:00

I ran the couch to 5K with Amy this morning and It was easy to do the week 2 3rd run this time. I remember how I felt like passing out the first run last Wednesday. Sunday was better but today felt like I was ready to move on. It's amazing how these podcasts keep you motivated and on track once you get the drive to run 3 times a week. I graduate to week 3 now where there is a 5 min walk, 90 second run, 90 second walk, 3 min run, 3 min walk, 90 second run 90 second walk, 3 min run and 5 min walk.

I downloaded them all from Itunes just search for Couch to 5K on the podcast section they are free. I loaded them on My son's Nano... He is wanting to run them at home or on the weekends.

We are all planning on running the Gasparilla 5K on the 9th of February. I'm going to register all the kids once the laptop gets back from Cary. It's going up to get Virtual Machine Installed on it. So I'm busy erasing non-sanctioned programs and backing up my Pictures and Itunes Songs on a USB Hard drive. This Western Digital Book Drive is hot. It's a USB Drive I bought last year and it's so quick to install and back up on things. I just switched my Itunes to run on it so I can store all my Songs on this drive rather than on my Laptop Drive. I have over 5 GB now so it will impact performance of the Virtual machine install If I don't erase them off my Laptop.

A Haven from winter

2007-11-13T23:22:00.000-05:00

The Drive to winter haven was a replica of Monday for the first 90 miles. Winter Haven is a small town in Central Florida it used to seem so far away. Now that Tampa and Orlando have spread toward each other it's more like a suburb now. The Polk County parkway has made getting to this part of the state easier than the 90's. I noticed that the toll loop around Orlando is mostly complete as well, minus only the North east section from Apopka to Sanford.

The Urology group was excited to see me and they were very anxious to get started. We completed system admin training and I laid out an install plan for them so we have dates on the calendar. I have Most of January and February in Florida now. YEAH!!! So I FINALLY get to enjoy a Florida Winter in Florida for a change.

I'm headed to New Orleans tomorrow and will see two accounts for follow up. One in Lake Charles Louisiana and the Other in New Orleans.

I'm staying at the Isle of Capri Casino instead of the Hampton Inn. It's $50.00 cheaper per night and You HAVE to save the client money whenever possible right? :-) This should be a nice warm up for Vegas this Thanksgiving. The family is doing a Vegas Vacation this Thanksgiving. Thanks Grams and Papa!!

This is Citrus Country

2007-11-12T23:17:00.001-05:00

Had a nice drive to Ft Pierce today. It's about 2.5 hours from Tampa. I traveled a few back roads and got to see the HEART of Central Florida. Bartow, Lake Wales, and passed through Yeehaw Junction. Definitely the city that is the most fun to pronounce!! I had not been through this part of the state in 5 years or more and it was great to see the changes as well as all of the industry in Citrus and Phosphates that takes place in this part of the state and is the backbone of the Central Florida Area.

I passed through Indian River County, and Port St Lucie County which are part of the Indian River Citrus district. Which gets it's name from the Indian River that runs along the East Coast of Florida from Daytona Beach down to Port St. Lucie. The Indian River is more like an inter coastal water way than a river.

There were quite a few trailers with Grapefruit and oranges loaded up headed to the juice extraction plants. The trailer you see is full of Pink Grapefruit. You can get stuck behind these guys for miles if you are on Route 60 and some of the smaller roads. There is no real main Highway or Turnpike that you can take so I did back roads from 39 to I-4 to the Polk County parkway to 98 to 60 to the Florida Turnpike to 70 and 2.5 hours later you hit Ft Pierce. 80% of the citrus in the Unites States comes from Florida Citrus. You pass roads like Minute Maid Drive Tropicana Blvd. Etc. Minute Maid and Tropicana have Massive Groves as well as many independent groves. They stretch for miles and miles in rows upon rows of neat trimmed citrus groves.

It's hard to imagine this huge industry got it's start from a couple of explorers back in the 1500's who carried citrus on board to prevent scurvy. They are credited with the first groves near

St. Augustine and Tampa over 500 years ago.

Capella Triple c is one of the independents that has a nice website.

Picking season is here in most places but when they trim the trees that is something to see. They use large bush hogs that trim the trees. The irrigation systems look like large Fire Hoses Nozzles mounted on street poles. They also use large fans mounted on poles that look like a large propeller on a light pole. These fans are used to move the cold air from the ground and mix it with warmer air when the cold weather settles in prior to picking the fruit. They also use water as well as coat the trees during a freeze to keep the fruit from freezing. Click here for citrus facts...

Citrus and the groves that produce them have always fascinated me. I guess it stems from my childhood dream of owning an apple orchard.

The Internal Medicine Group in Ft Pierce were nice and eager to get started implementing the EMR/EHR... The Dr looked really familiar... Must have worked with him when I was at Misys (+Medic) .

Nice day full of great sightseeing. I'm headed to Winter Haven tomorrow. Similar area but mainly interstate to get there.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

2007-11-11T21:12:00.000-05:00

Nice sleep in until 10:00am. We got up and the whole gang Me, Amy and all 4 kids went on the couch to 5K run. The boys hung with me and the Girls jogged with Amy. We all did a great job and finished strong.

I got the cooking bug again so The Kids and Amy and I cooked 2 pots of soup. I went to the grocery Store and got fresh veggies and the ingrediants we needed and we made Taco Soup and Vegetable soup. The kids helped and they had a blast the whole afternoon makign the soups. They all liked both and wanted more. The Taco Soup is pictured here... <-----

Here are the soup ingreeds:

Grams' Taco Soup
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp table salt
1 cup cooked onions
1 1/2 cup water
2 cup canned kidney beans (drained)
2 cup canned pinto beans (drained)
2 cup canned lima beans (drained)
6 cup canned diced tomatoes
3 cup chopped green chilies35 oz
raw lean ground beef
2 cup canned hominy (drained)
1 Packet McCormick Taco dry seasoning mix
1 packet Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing Packet
Brown onion and beef.
Add all other ingredients.
Simmer for 1 hr.
Makes 12 servings - 6 points a piece.
Serve with chips and cheese (optional)

Mike's Vegetable Soup
2 Tbsp curry powder
2 1/4 Tbsp olive oil
4 cup cooked green beans
3 cup carrot(s)
5 small stalk celery
1/2 clove garlic clove(s)
2 cup onion(s)
16 cup water
4 cup canned diced tomatoes
1 Tbsp dried basil
8 uncooked Bliss potatoes
1 can Bush's Black Eyed Peas,
1 can Thifty Maid Sweet Corn
10 serving Wyler's Instant Beef Bouillon Cubes
1 CubeCut up Veggies
Saute the onions and celery
Stir in garlic and curry powder and basil Saute until onions are transparent
Add carrots Add 16 cups water
Add Buillon cubes
Add green beans
Simmer 1 hr Add potatoes, and cook for30 min
Add canned veggies and cook for another 30 mins
Makes 20 servings - 1 point each

Enjoy... The points are weight watcher points.

Fred Clause Delivers a Double

2007-11-10T21:24:00.000-05:00

Great day of kid time and lots of fun with everyone. Started at 8:00am and we were in Brandon within 45 mins. I even convinced the boys to eat bagels so we could skip the stop at Mickey D's. I'm trying to stay away from fast food when possible.

I fell on the floor when they both said OK!.. We got to watch Katie's softball game. She had a great day and her team won. She had a great hit between second and Short and it went into the out field. She scored a few times and had a few plays where she threw out the hitter running to first on her fielding. We had snack for the team today so Michael and Chris went with me to Sweetbay's to get a cool snack since we were the cool parents.

We decided on 3 ft Fruit roll ups and Gatorade (Red and Blue). And Slim Jim's for the adults. I jokingly said, in my best southern redneck accent... "We got some slim Jim's... Powk rhyns... and Yoo-Hoos" ... That was a friggin hoot. I cracked myself up with that.

We headed to the Movie theater after the game and a quick change of clothes. The Movie was GREAT. I highly recommend Fred Clause. Its the best Christmas spirit movie I have seen in a few years. It even has funny Elves in it. We all know everyone loves funny Elves now ... come on.... Willie is a hoot. Esp when he smooches Charlene in the last part. I still think the song where the elves were all dancing with Fred in the workshop and it was like a concert atmosphere and Fred's up on stage dancing with some elves and he just grabbed one by the belt in the small of the back and tossed him head over heels cartwheeling through the crowd and they caught him like a mosh-pit and passed him around on their upraised arms.

The Group all headed to the ball field after that and watched Michael's game at 4:30. It was a NICE Day. These awesome days you just love to be in Florida. Beautiful Blue sky with hardly a cloud and the Sun was nice and bright and the Temp went from 54 to 68 in just a few hours this morning. I was comfortable in a T-Shirt and Shorts all day. It was funny to see how thinned blooded these Florida people are. I think my frequent trips to cold weather are getting me acclimated sooner to the drops in Temp. It was down in the 30's in The Georgia Area this week. Definitely a day you are glad you decided to move to Florida all those years ago back in 1989.

Michael had a great game he played catcher 2 innings. He was called in to finished off the last batter in the second inning from his short stop position. And he pitched the final inning. He only gave up one run in his inning....and he fielded the first hitter in the inning on the first pitch from Michael. With that out the other coach gave a look like... This is going to be a tough inning.

Michael then struck out the second batter and there were a few walks and hits and then Michael ended the game with a second strike out for the third out. He got two doubles and a walk on three at bats.. And one kid on his team got an inside the park home run. Michael even had a great tag at the home plate when he was catching. There was an over throw by the pitcher and he got the rebound off the backstop fence and he rushed up the thirdbase side and dove at the runner as he was nearing home plate. Michael made the out when he lunged and tackled the kid before home plate. He made the play on the third base side Like I had been telling him for a few weeks now. It was something to see he seems to be more willing to give up the body on the play more now this year. IT makes watching more fun now., Too bad next Saturday is the last game.

We all went to Olde Towne Pizza and had a great meal and enjoyed the pizza rolls with mozzarella and marinara sauce and then some nice hot extra large pizzas. Amy had somw flex points left over rfor the weeka nd I had not had Pizza in over 3 weeks I think neither had Amy so we figured what better way to use up the flex points. Man it was good but I'm going to have to run tomorrow to compensate.

We are now home watching the Florida South carolina Game and flipping between that and the UVA Miami game and the Oklahoma State and Kansas Game. I turned on the Hawaii SanJose State game and Colt Brennan was tearing it up again...

Home Again Yeah! and Way to go Southwest Airlines!!

2007-11-09T21:28:00.000-05:00

Today started at 6:00am when I could sleep no longer with that annoying voice nagging me to get up and get some work done. I awoke with a ton of items on my plate and decided to get up and do something rather than lay in bed. I logged in to the clients site and attempted to download a few updates to their software. I was not able to work from the Hotel last night due to the clients system running slow. Hampton Inn was not the culprit for once... I think their backup may have been slowing down performance..

None of the downloads worked until I got on site and started it from the clients server. I did get to the practice early and worked on getting some notes together prior to them opening at 8:00am.

I cleaned up a few loose ends and got their immunizations in nice shape. I'm finishing notes to email now.

I left at noon with plenty of time to get from Athens to the ATL airport.. I had that same feeling before when I missed my plane. I was pretty nervous with a 3:16pm flight and a good 1.5 hour drive with good traffic. The ride on 316 Atlanta Highway was nice and quick till I-85... Slowed a little and then I-85 was light. I got to the downtown section and we were in stop and go past the curve. I made it to Virginia Ave Shell to fill up at about 1:50 0r so. I was fleeing good. I hit the turn to the airport and boom there was all the traffic for some reason.

This was the worst back up I have ever seen at ATL. GREAT... Dropped the car at Avis and I was still in good shape. Checked a bag and then realized the line was horrific. worst I had ever seen for Security. It was 2:00pm now and I had and hour and 15 mins to get to the gate. I can't believe how rude people can be at cutting in line at the Atlanta airport. This really was looking bad. I made it through security and it was now 3:00pm.. Thanks Delta for going out of T2 today. I just had a short walk to the gate from Security and did not even have to get on the train. I heard rumors that the C gate had lost power so that may have added to the chaos but I think it was just a Friday in Atlanta and i will try to avoid these 3:15 flight from now on.

Got the boys and met Amy for Dinner. We had a nice family dinner and even had some fireworks while we ate. I'm looking forward to a nice quiet weekend with baseball and softball games and helping the kids get some homework projects done.

News of note this week:

BlogWorld in Vegas kicked off the first Blogger convention yesterday and today in Las Vegas.

The Best News of the week for me has been Southwest finally implementing their changes for business travelers!! Woo Hoo!! I'm on the A-List and I'm 5 credits form a companion pass right now. Sweet!

I looked today on my Southwest login and see I made the A-list already. Southwest will give you an Auto A boarding pass 36 hours before your flight. Which negates Iboard A which I used for a few months. They also will Board you by the number assigned on your boarding slip . It's about time and totally does away with the Cattle Call standing in line for 45 minutes prior to a flight. Thank you Southwest Management. This should definitely draw more business travelers. I have always flown Southwest when possible just Please Please Please add Atlanta to your route map???

Here is a link to their changes. http://www.southwest.com/new/?ref=HP_hero_110707

Here is addl info from Southwest website:

Rapid Rewards A-List Membership
Effective Thursday, November 8, 2007
Introducing the Rapid Rewards A-List, where Rapid Rewards Members who fly 32 or more qualifying one-way flights within a 12-month period will receive reserved boarding privileges for an entire year. When you purchase your travel at least 36 hours prior to your flight time, we’ll reserve you the best boarding pass number available—most likely an “A.” And since it’s already reserved, it’s one less thing to think about. You can just print your boarding pass and go! Log in to your MySouthwest® account to see how close you are to becoming an A-List Member—because flying more always gets you more.
When you qualify for our A-List membership, you will automatically be added to Rapid Rewards' A-List, and we will notify you by e-mail (if an Account E-mail Address is designated on your account) or by postcard.
A-List qualification is based on actual revenue flights flown, not Rapid Rewards credits earned.
Once you qualify for Rapid Rewards’ A-List, you are entitled to reserved boarding privileges for 12 months, which means that Southwest Airlines will automatically reserve a boarding pass for you 36 hours prior to each of your confirmed Southwest Airlines flights to ensure you will receive the best available boarding pass prior to the start of regular checkin.
For a Member with Rapid Rewards’ A-List membership to receive reserved boarding privileges, the Member must include his/her Rapid Rewards account number in his/her reservation at least 36 hours prior to checkin. Reserved boarding privileges will be provided for A-List Members for both revenue and Rapid Rewards Award travel on Southwest Airlines-operated flights as long as the above requirement is met. Reserved boarding privileges are not available on ATA Airlines flights.
Southwest Airlines will “reserve” boarding passes for A-List Members, but Members will still be responsible for “printing” their boarding pass. Passengers who do not obtain a boarding pass and are not present and available for boarding in the departure gate area at least ten minutes prior to scheduled departure time may have their reserved space cancelled and will not be eligible for denied boarding compensation.

UGA (Uh-gah) Rules Athens Georgia

2007-11-08T20:10:00.000-05:00

UGA is this little mascot which I find quite ugly... (Sorry Georgia Fans). He definitely has found a home in Athens GA. Not sure how many of them there have been but you can check it out and tell me if you have time to waste.

This one carved from wood is in the Lobby of the Athens Hampton Inn.

He is on Car magnets, drug reps lapel pins, nurses scrubs, pens, key chains, signs, statues, larger than life fiberglass figurines, bronze statues, street signs, mailboxes, windshield sun shades, stickers, pictures, autographed pictures, blankets, afghans, throw rugs, coke cans, hats, shirts, underwear, t-shirts, Light switch covers, Georgia Fan parking only signs, barstools, neckties, ear rings, flags, posters, board games, dress shirts, golf shirts, golf bags, golf socks, sunglasses, tattoos, temporary tattoos, sweaters, hair bands, wallets, belts, and I'm sure hundreds of crazy things I have yet to run across in Athens but I'm sure I will "run into him" 20 more times before I leave tomorrow for the mad dash to ATL to catch my flight to Tampa.

I'm sure many college football crazed towns across America are just as bad.. There is just something about how an SEC town kicks it up... not just a notch.... but a far as you can go without tossing your cookies.

Now Knoxville is just as bad.. right Amy? :-) I just forget how wild and crazy and obsessed people can get over their mascot of choice. It just seems the longer it goes on the more crazy fans get. These Large Fiberglass statues are all over Athens.

More UGA Pics

2007-11-08T18:34:00.000-05:00

Leaves are falling and the Crabby Daddy is running

2007-11-07T20:46:00.000-05:00

Today I had a nice late wake up at 7:30 and was greeted with temps in the low 30's in North Georgia. Not quite freezing but there is a freeze warning for tonight in Athens. I was forced to fall asleep at 11:00pm last night due to the Hampton Inn in Cornelia having lousy Internet connections again..... and of course the writer strike which made TV lousy.

I had a great drive to Gainesville Ga through the winding mountains with lots of fall colors and was able to chat with Amy for all of 15 minutes this morning wow what nice commute....! :-)

I met with the Arthritis group in Gainesville and got them started on scanning patient charts into the EMR. The practice has a brand new office and it was nice to work with this group for a few hours.

I finished in Gainesville and realized I had no clue how to get to Athens from Gainesville... Since I have cancelled navigator on my CELL phone due to SPRINT wanting to have my first born in return I was left only a low tech option of looking at a map... The horror!! So I went over to Walgreens across the street found the Map rack and glanced at it for a few seconds and saw route 129 goes straight from Gainesville to Athens. SWEET! I drove through some great leaf country to Athens Ga via Route 129. Beautiful leaves and a nice fall day with El Rushbo on the AM 640 radio. NICE.... this is turning out to be a great day....

I even had the wonderful surprise of hearing comments that the President of France had to say about how great the US is as a country. This man has it right for a change. I'm so glad the People of France came to their senses and voted in a great leader. See his comments here to the congress. And how he has worked to normalize relations after they wised up and dumped Jacques Chirac's style of opposition to anything US govt for some common sense. Way to go President Sakozy!! He is known in France as Sarko the American... He actually brought tears to my eyes as I drove listening to his kind remarks and I realized how wonderful it will be to have an Ally that gets it.

I Got to Athens and went right to the Hampton Inn Athens and proceeded to try and check in. The front desk did not allow me since it was only 2:00pm they wanted me to wait 30 mins.

I grabbed my laptop and tried to access the Internet in the lobby. BUMMER no Internet. This was not looking good. I spoke with the front desk and they were CLUELESS... They gave me the phone number for the Internet support line. Not again.... I explained that I had just gone through 3 nights of crappy, slow and nonexistent Internet and got ZERO sympathy. I let the nice lady know that unless I could get Internet I was leaving for a nearby hotel that had it.

So since they were clueless and did not even know where the access points or Internet server were much less how to reboot then or reset them I decided to call the support line. Grab a sharpie and mark this in my Calendar. A time when some country folk in a small town in North Ga actually were more computer savvy than college aged kids in a college town where you would think High speed Internet is available on the street corner....

Working with the support person I finally got the access points reset and I got Internet access after a 15 minute call. Where do I send the support bill? I decided checked in and got room 509.. High floor non-smoking away from the elevator... WOW I never get all 3..

I got some work done in the room and it was about 6:00 at this time. I figured this was a great time to go to the gym downstairs and do my couch to 5k running. Hit the gym clothes secured the IPOD and my room key to access the gym and BANG there is a woman JUST stepping on the treadmill. GREAT!! This wait is 30 mins at least,,, and she looked like she was in great shape to... So it may be longer. I was tempted to suggest she run out on the parking lot to give the guys riding by outside a treat... But I decided a workout on the Universal gym was in order. I hit the whole circuit and she was still WALKING not even jogging... I went back to my room and came back in 15 mins. She let me know she had 5 mins left so I hopped on a bike and rode to get wormed up. At this point another guy came in and it was obvious he wanted to use the one and only treadmill.

The nice lady finished and said to me.. "It's all yours handsome"... (OK so I added the handsome part) So I hopped on and started my week 2 couch to 5K. This one was a little bit of a challenge as I had had a week off of jogging and hot chicks in Hotel gyms were calling me handsome so did i even need to jog?? I of course came to my senses and started the podcast for my run.

I completed it and had worked up a huge sweat... which felt GREAT. I headed to the room and decided to change and get dinner from Applebee's which was in the parking lot.

I entered Applebees and of course had to manuver around the huge carved from wood, University of Georgia Bulldogs Mascot known as UGA.. (Uhgah), who is everwhere here in this town. Sorry but Bulldogs are UUUUUUgly... I try to get a few pics of some and post them this week.

I sat at the bar and noticed the Weight Watchers section on the menu. Hmmmm should I be good or order Ribs... I swung towards good for a change and ordered Water, onion soup and Steak and Portobello mushrooms... Total was 10 points. Sweet!! The food was great although portions were small and Applebee's just went up a few notches on my preferred restaurant list.

I got to talk to Amy early tonight... WOW twice in one day... she let me know she went jogging this morning AND after work. Man she is kicking my tail! She is already on week 3 so I have some work to do to catch up and get on the same week. Guess I'll go again tomorrow and Saturday and try to get to week 3 by Sunday.... that way I'm still only one week behind Amy.

Well nothing else exciting tonight other than work, blogging and preparing to head over to the family practice in Athens to do my final training visit with them. They went live back in the first part of September... Nice practice and I'm looking forward to seeing them tomorrow.

Training and Scanning

2007-11-06T19:48:00.000-05:00

Today was a full day of training again. I taught the OB groups staff how to scan the old charts into the system and how to enter pertinent past medical history to get ready for our December Go-Live on the new software. Everyone took to the system very well and they had well over 20 charts completed by the time I left.

Dinner was a local Mexican restaurant. It was surprising when I looked at the menu for El Campesino in Cornelia Ga and noticed the EXACT same menu items with the exact same numbers from my local Mexican Restaurant in Tampa. Los Vallartas has a combo 20 that is a Taco, Chile Relleno and Burrito and El Campesino had the exact same number 20 menu item. Fabian the manager of the restaurant in Tampa used to live in Georgia prior to coming to Tampa. I'm going to ask him next time I see him if he knows the guys in Cornelia.

This is just too much of a coincidence. The Internet at the Hampton Inn was down all this week and it was excruciatingly hard to get my work and blogging done. Looking forward to getting to Athens, Ga tonight and hoping they have a better Internet connection. I was up till 2:30AM Sunday and Monday night. When the Internet went out last night I just shut down the laptop and went to bed at 11:00.

Today I'm headed to Gainesville GA to work with an Arthritis practice to get them started on the EMR install.

I think my next trip here I will stay at the Holiday Inn express. It's currently 33 degrees outside. Brrr get me back to Tampa. I'm waiting until Athens this afternoon to do my couch to 5k running.

The Gorge and I'm Stuffed

2007-11-05T23:58:00.000-05:00

The Crabby Daddy hits the Dillard house again. I'm in North Georgia and what better time to hit the Dillard House than tonight.
I'm working with an OB/GYN group here to get them up and running on their EMR software to keep their medical records on Computer rather then paper charts. This project will run till February. So I have at least 2 more visits to this area, one later this year and one early next year.

The Dillard House was great as always. Although I was finding the green beans a little lacking compared to Miss Ruth's recipe.

Here are a few pictures of the Menu, the spread they laid out on the table and a few sightseeing pics to boot... No pun intended on the boot comments. As usual most of the food ended up going home in a few to go containers.

On the way in Tallulah Falls I stopped to take a look at the gorge. There is a little Tourist store that has a nice view of the gourge from their observation deck. They had some unique potter/ashtrays made out of concrete. Cowboy boots and cider thought it was a neat picture.
I also got pics of the Menu from Dillard house for Moday night as well as the Sign from Athens Y camp where my kids go to summer camp.

Assorted Pics from North Ga.

2007-11-05T13:12:00.000-05:00

Travel to the middle of nowhere

2007-11-04T23:23:00.000-05:00

Sunday was fantastic as we started off with an extra hour to sleep in. Of Course the 9 yr old got up at 8:00am on the dot and did not understand the need for sleeping in. My list for today was

1. Do my expense report
2. Check in for my flight
3. Pack
4. Pay some bills
5. Watch Tampa Bay Bucs beat the Cardinals
6. Mail my expense report and bills form the Airport post office
7. Kiss the wife goodbye.
8. Enjoy the beautiful weather and the sunshine today.
9. Take out the trash
10. Load the dish washer
11. Do 4 loads of laundry.
12. Fly to Atlanta
13. Drive to Demorest, Ga.
14. Update my blog.
15. Jog to couch to 5k podcast.

I got them all done... with the exception of jogging to my couch to 5K podcast. Oh well I'll do that Monday in GA . I thought of about 20 more T-shirt designs for the website.

I'm working with an OB/GYN group for 2 days, then going to Gainesville to work with an Arthritis clinic for a day then Athens Ga to complete the Windridge Family Medicine install and fly home Friday late afternoon.

Catching and Mopping

2007-11-03T23:55:00.000-04:00

Ah Saturday. The day to relax and spend time with the kids. The Day started with a nice sleep in. I had only one game to watch today as my daughter had a bye week. Michael's game was at 2:00 so I headed down the interstate and got there just in time to see the first inning. He caught the first and third inning and played short stop the second inning. He was set to pitch the 4th inning but they did not make it to 4 innings before time was called.

I had Concession stand duty at 6:30 so I went to Beef O'Brady's and watch a few college games with the little buddy until my shift. I always try to get the late shift on Saturday's as my one volunteer shift. Reason being they usually close by 7:30 pm due to not many late games on Saturday. The plan worked like a charm again this week as all we had to do was clean up! Yeah Baby! I cleaned the griddle and mopped the floor and Michael showed up to help. He was so funny and wanted to mop for me so I spent 15 minutes teaching him how to mop an institutional kitchen with a full size mop and mop bucket. He was into squeezing the mop dry with the mop press. I also took the time to let him know if he was interested in being a chef he needs to understand that keeping a clean kitchen is part of being a great chef. You want to make sure all equipment functions well and is clean and germ free. He got a kick out of cleaning down the stainless steel wall guards over by the fryers and the griddle as they were COATED with grease. We took some greased lightning and nailed the grease in short order. That Griddle was so clean you could see your face in it. I make sure it gets nice and clean at least once a season. :-)

The Concession manager made me feel good when he asked Michael if he was 13 yet... Michael replied no I'm 10 and the manager relied dang ... I need a good worker like you. I told him Chris was my oldest and he let me know he was so thankful for Chris working the concession stand he saved him when he was in a tough jam and Chris is such a good worker. Better than many of the parents and most of the teens. Definitely made my day and I thanked him for his kind words Even though I knew it was true before he spoke these words. I have always made sure the kids know how to clean the dishes and load the dish washer and do Laundry and cook etc. My mom trained us when we were young and now I feel the need to pass that on to my kids so they will make great adults.

After the concession stand duty. We all went to Tokyo for a nice Japanese hibachi dinner. There were 8 of us. Me and Amy, The 4 kids my Ex, Dana and a Friend of my daughters. We were celebrating good grades by the kids. I'm so lucky to have smart kids. I hope they keep it up through Med School!

It's so weird to go to dinner with my wife and my ex... I would never have imagined it just a few years ago. We have been divorced for 7 years now and it seems that we have been able to toned down the drama and animosity... I'm sure the kids fell better about it too.

A Pot Full of Veggies

2007-11-02T23:11:00.000-04:00

I found myself longing for that tasty treat myMother used to make in the Fall when we were young hellions in Virginia. Vegetable soup or Vegetable Beef Soup. Mom used to make a big pot of this on Sundays and it would simmer for hours on the stove or all day in the crock pot. There were 8 kids so she used a huge oval Blue speckled roasting pan to cook this in. We would go to church and then rush home to devour a bowl full of this wonderful tasty treat. I don't remember mom's recipe but I will ask her and post it later this month. With the fall and cooler weather finally hitting my area I'm ready for some tasty soups. This is the first of a few I feel the need to share with you guys.

VEGETABLE and BEEF SOUP

To prep you will need some counter space, a cutting board, chef knife, paring knife, veggie peeler, measuring cups and spoons. Large pot with lid for soup, I use a wooden spoon to stir.
I use measuring cups but I was trained years ago in my chef apprenticeship program to use my hands to add spices and seasonings and eyball it. So I will convert when possible to tsp and tblsp. I have a few stock pots that I use but my main ones are an 8 Quart a 4 Quart and I sometimes use a 3 Quart for smaller quantities. The 4 Quart provided at least 10-14 servings in LARGE bowls. So you could get 10 servings easily from a 4 quart stock pot. I used this recipe in the 4 Quart and it was full to the rim. I used fresh veggies when available and only used 3 canned veggies. Corn, Black eyed peas and Stewed Tomatoes. You can substitute Kidney beans, lima beans, garbanzo beans or any other canned bean. you can use stew beef or pork. I used pork in my latest. You can get a small roast and cube it to save money.

Clean and wash your hands and place the pot on the stove and start it off with a nice saute of some of the veggies and beef. You will need 3/4 gallon water or beef stock 2 large onions, chopped, 2-3 lbs of beef chunks cut into 1 1/2" cubes2-3 tablespoons flour (for dredging)2 tablespoons olive oil 3 stalks of celery, sliced, strings removed 3 tablespoons beef soup base or bouillon most cubes are 1 cube per cup I used 5 cubes to 8 cups. (Optional you can add 2 tablespoons wine (sherry, port or marsala)), 6-8 red bliss potatoes, leave the peeling on and , cut into 2 inch cubes 4 large carrots, peeled, sliced into 1/2" coins, 2 bay leaves, 1 bag of fresh green beans, (About 4 hand fulls). 1 regular can Stewed tomatoes 14-16 ozs, 1 can of Black Eyed Peas or other Canned cooked Beans, one can of corn niblets (not creamed corn). 1 clove of Garlic peeled and chopped or 2 tablespoons fresh minced garlic from the jar, curry powder, basil, salt and pepper, to taste. I clean the fresh green beans by weashing them and then holding about 10 to 15 beans in my hand and then pinch of the ends of each side of the beans with my fingernail. then snap or cut the beans in half . Continue until you have snapped all of the beans. The Celery and carrots should be washed and peel the carrots. Then slice these two veggies on the Slant to make thin slices the carrots should look like oblong coins...

If you prefer all veggies and no beef then substitute vegetable broth for beef and add hearty tubers like parsnips and turnips.

Dredge beef in flour and sauté in olive oil until browned, add the chopped onins, celery and carrots and stir in 1 to 2 table spoons of Curry powder and sprinkle in a table spoon or 2 of basil. After the onions have appeared transparent or (sweated) add the garlic during last few minutes of browning. Add wine if used to remove browned bits from bottom of pot.

Add water or stock, bay leaves to the stock pot. If you have beef broth it can be used now if not then add the bouillon with either the loose bouillon from the jar like Knorr Swiss or the cubed bouillon; and bring to a boil. while you are bringing to a boil add the green beans. Cover and cook for one hour at a slow boil or simmer. (Small bubbles that lightly break the surface, a 2 on most electric stoves.) . Other seasonings may also be added at this time (a pinch of oregano or italian seasoning, a dash of garlic or onion powder, salt and pepper, etc - season to taste).

Once you have simmered for an hour, stir in cubed potatoes, simmer for another 30 minutes, and add the canned corn , Beans and Stewed Tomatoes. Continue cooking for 40 more minutes.

If using a slow cooker, set to low, add remaining ingredients at the start and leave to simmer for several hours or more, until ready to serve.
During final 1/2 hour of cooking, soup may be thickened, if desired, by sprinkling on and stirring in 1 tablespoon of flour; or stir 1/2 teaspoon of cornstarch into 1 cup cold water or broth, then add.
Remove bay leaves before serving.
Served either with thickener or without, as your family likes it. Refrigerated leftovers as this is even better the next day!

Pumpkin seeds

2007-11-01T11:53:00.000-04:00

I wanted to share how I Roast Pumpkin Seeds.
It’s pumpkin carving time and we all know what we get when we carve pumpkins with the kids? No, not a big mess. Pumpkin Seeds! Don’t throw them out. Here’s how to make a delicious and nutritious snack with those slippery little seeds.

Ingredients
Freshly plucked pumpkin seeds Butter – about 2 ounces of butter per cup of seeds Salt, to taste
Start by preheating the oven to 375º F
Separate the seeds from the pumpkin flesh. I use a colander under running water to make the job a little easier. It takes a little effort but once you get the hang of it, it’s easy. Be sure to remove all the flesh and the strings so they don’t burn in the oven.
Dry the seeds on layers of paper towels or dishtowels.
Some people soak the seeds in salted water for a day and that may make them taste better, but if you don’t have time for that. Boil the seeds in a pot of salt water for 10 minutes and this imparts a nice salty taste....

Once you are ready clean the seeds and dry them and they are ready for cooking.

I saute the Pumpkins seeds in butter and then add my seasonings, and pour them on a cookie sheet or baking pan and place in the oven.

Roast for 15 to 30 minutes until the pumpkin seeds are golden brown. Be sure to open the oven and shake the pan every once in a while so the seeds don’t burn. I use a large spatula to scoop and move them around and then flatten them out to a thin layer and place them back in the oven half way through roasting.

When done (about 20-25 min) remove the pan from the oven and let the seeds cool. You can also pick out ones that are done sooner so they don't burn.

Seasonings:

Here are a few I have tried. The classic is to boil in salt water for 10 minutes and then saute in butter and sprinkle with salt and bake. Here are a few my kids love.

Curry:

Add curry powder, turmeric, and saute and bake

Cajun Hot:

Add cajun spice and hot sauce and bake:

Ultimate Cajun:

Take the vinegar juice from a jar of penrose sausages and soak the seeds in the jar with hot sauce and cajun spice for 1 hour. Shake often. Saute in pan with butter until liquid is reduced. Bake in Oven.

Garlic:

Sprinkle with Garlic powder and bake

Old Bay:

Sprinkle with old bay and add Malt or Balsamic vinegar to the saute pan and cook till liquid is reduced then bake.

Classic taught to me by Kevin Stacks:

Sprinkle Lowry's seasoning salt and Worcestershire sauce on the seeds and saute in butter and bake.

Finished pumkins

2007-10-28T18:17:00.001-04:00

Here is the final product. They look great huh? My kids did these in a few hours. I used a few websites to help but the most useful were from Publix and one with free pumkin stencils. The Publix website was where we got the ideas for the Cat Stencil. I got the others from this website Spookmaster.com . I just hit Google and did a search for "Free pumpkin Stencils" and got a ton of hits.

These pumpkins were completed by my 9, 10 and 11 yr old kids. The process is pretty basic. Wash the pumpkin, dry it well. Cut open the lid and scoop out the insides. (Save the seeds for baking later) Print your Stencil from the PDF and then pin it to the best side of the pumpkin. Make sure it is the lightest side so you can see the pattern on the pumpkins skin. You then pin the stencil with straight pins (Like you use when you sew) and then take one straight pin and trace the stencil outline in very close pin pricks to make a dot-to-dot pattern on the pumpkin. This will take 5-10 minutes on the easy ones and 30 minutes on the harder ones... so be patient!!. After you are done remove the stencil and use the pumpkin carving tool to cut out the stencil and you are done. I then save the pumpkin seeds and make baked pumpkin seed snacks from them. They are great and delicious snacks the kids really like them too!!. They look forward to the seed snacks every year.

Punching in the downloaded templates onto the pumpkins

2007-10-28T15:26:00.001-04:00

The jack-o-lantern factory

2007-10-28T15:25:00.001-04:00

Perfect scrambled eggs!

2007-10-28T11:20:00.001-04:00

Michael made scrambled eggs this morning. My 10 yr old is very proficient in the kitchen just like his dad when he was that age. Chris and Katie do an awesome job also.. and can hold their own in the kitchen. Morgan prefers cold cereal and Chocolate Milk... Chocolate anything actually... She's not into eggs at all. Michael likes cracking the eggs and I think he enjoys this more than eating them. I'm working on getting him to crack two at a time one in each hand like Dad did back in his Chef days. Special thanks to Grams for the super cool and handy spatula from LeCreuset! It's the bomb and she got it for me last July 4th when we were in Hilton Head. It's the medium silicon spatula with a wooden handle.

Here is the recipe. 6 eggs cracked and scrambled with a whisk. Salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste (Small dash of each). Really whip the eggs until you get a frothy foam. This will make them light and fluffy. If you don't have a whisk use a dinner fork.Place a saute pan on medium heat like a six.. I prefer to get the hot plate hot on high then back off to 6 and then place the pan on the hot plate and let it absorb heat for about 3 minutes. Then place a small amount of butter or oil or pam spray in the pan and while whisking the eggs in your mixing bowl.. again.. pour them into the pan. You should hear a slight singe sound as the eggs hit the pan if the temp is right. Then use a spatula to constantly stir the eggs to keep them from scorching. We then add a hand full of shredded cheddar cheese and a hand full or shredded mozzarella cheese. Stir till no longer wet. Serve right away. Yum! Great with a little salsa or salsa verde sauce also.

I have been doing a lot of cooking from scratch this week and some of the recipes will appear later in my posts. Have a fun Sunday with your Kids!

The kids made suncatchers

2007-10-28T10:47:00.001-04:00

Dad? How many skulls is this Haunted House Rated??

2007-10-27T23:39:00.000-04:00

The Crabby Daddy takes the yung uns to Howl-O-Scream! Saturday was a great dad day for
The CD... (Crabby Daddy) The day started early with baseball games down in Brandon. I woke Morgan up at 7:45 and we took the Expedition down to Brandon and caught Michael and Katie's games. They were both at 9:00am. Thank you Lord!!

Both Katie and Michael pitched today. I watched Katie pitch for awhile and she was doing really well and throwing some strikes in there... I then went and watched Michael's game. Michael played catcher for 2 innings, Short stop for one and pitcher for the 4th inning. He struck out 2 batters and walked 3 batters in the final inning. Two runns Scored and the third runner was on third base and went half way from 3rd base to home plate. The third base coach had been sending his kids half way the whole game.. I kept telling Michael to run them back to 3rd as his coach just stood there the whole time and watched kids steal home. This inning Michael was the pitcher and Tommy the catcher. I had told Michael a few innings earlier that this play from home to third base was here all day for the catcher or the pitcher to run the 3rd base runner back up the 3rd base line and a fast kid could catch that runner and tag him out or get him in a run down... Michael whispered this to the catcher and the catcher soft tossed the ball to Michael and he ran the 3rd base runner back to 3rd base and about 2 feet from the 3rd base bag Michael Lunged at the kid and tagged him on the back for the Final out!!. It was more like a pile drive into the ground than a tag. The kid got drilled into the ground and Michael Landed right in top of him... Man that had to hurt... The poor runner laid on the ground for about 2 minutes before he got up and jogged off. These are ten year olds so every little touch or scratch is a MAJOR injury.... So we had 2 games down and time to head home to the WC.

Back to the House in the WC (Wesley Chapel) I had bought suncatchers from Michael's a few weeks ago when I was in getting supplies for Chistopher's homwork project and thought these would be good for a rainy day. They are the type that you place the platic colored beads in the metal outline and then bake them in the oven at 375 degrees for about 25 mins. They turned out Great!!. Michael did a sports theme one with a collage of sports balls... basketball, baseball football, soccer ball, and hokey stick and basball bat... etc. Katie did one with three kittens and Morgan did one with a little dog. So the Crabby Daddy breaks down and gets Morgan that dog she always wanted!!.

After the suncatchers were done... I rallied Katie, Michael and Morgan and we decided to go to Howl-O-Scream.. So I went online and got the tickets with the platinum pass discount. We had about an hour to get there as they closed the regular park hours at 5:00pm today for Howl-O-Scream. We got there in time to get in with our platinum pass. About 4:45pm. I went and bought tickets to the Fright Feast which is a dinner buffet and a show called Sweet Dreams. It's a Busch Gardens Tampa Halloween tradition now, that we go to Howl-O-Scream and do the buffet and dinner show from 6:00-7:00. The cool thing about it is, it lets' you get into the park 45 minutes before the rest of the crowd comes in from general admission tickets. Thanks Amy for recommending it last year!! Props to Amy as always.

We got to the Dessert Grill early and got our wrist bands that got us into the dinner buffet and haunted houses early. We ate dinner and saw the show and the food was yah.. you know that catered stuff you get at theme parks.... the show was good. We then left the show at 7:00pm and the plan was to promptly hit the first haunted house Called Trapped. The kids talked me into riding cheetah chase first and then we hit the haunted house Trapped which was right next to the Cheetah chase ride... This one was good. It was rated 4 skulls. The rating go from 3 skulls for the light ones and 5 skulls for the really intensely scary ones... they have 6 haunted houses in total. 3 rated 5 Skulls 2 rated 4 skulls and 1 rated 3 skulls. I kept giving the kids the advice of laugh at the people when they jump at you and wave at them and smile.... Remember they are only people hired as employees to work these haunted houses as a job... They are actors...
They of course all grabbed the back of my shirt and buried their faces in the back of my shirt. And hung on for dear life as they were the soon to be target of every ghost and ghoul in the haunted house...Katie and Morgan were both hanging on to me as I'm dragging them from room to room in the Haunted houses... No one wanted to be last... which was funny as you are so packed into the walkways that you can't tell where one group ends and another begins they all morph together in one big conga line of fear and screaming...

This went on for 3 houses by 7:30... We were having a great time... We then went to the scariest one Called After Hours Club Muse. Morgan kept asking me how many skulls this one was.. I told her 3... (It was a five... so I lied)... She had said she did not want to do any more 5 skulls tonight... so I HAD to lie come on... now... Besides a 5 skull with your face buried into the back of your Dad's shirt nets you a 3 skull haunted house anyway.

We got that one done and Morgan of course finds out it was a five skull.. and she's mad I tricked her... so she keeps grabbing the map from me to make sure of the skull rating for the remaining 2 houses. The Bummer was when we went to Montu to ride and I did child swap while Michael and Katie went through the line... Morgan's not tall enough to ride Montu yet. Michael and Katie got all the way through the queue and were 2 spots away from riding Montu when the ride broke down and maintenance had to come and fix it. It was about a 30 min delay and we waited it out. This of course gave everyone a headache and after we rode Montu twice (Platinum pass ) privilege... We limped over to the one place I knew where we could get both Liquid and Tablet pain reliever. Morgan needs liquid but Katie and Michael can swallow pills... The one place I knew would have them was the first aid stations in the park that Busch Gradens refers to on the Map as Medical Stations. They have 2 in the park and we were near the one on our side of the park... As a parent you learn these things over time trust me....

The EMT's that staff the medical centers were glad to see us I think anyone as they seem to get lonely in their little closet of a Medical Center. I asked for Motrin and they only had Tylenol... Which was ok with me.. I got some for everyone and 4 headaches were now on their way to being gone... We did one final haunted house rated a 5 skull called Catch your breath. This one was full of chain saws and motorcycles and then headed home. Everyone decided we had to stop and eat the leave the park ritual meal of dip'in dots for Katie and Michael and the "Large bag of pink Cotton Candy for Morgan... (And a sugar free Lemonade from Tropicana for The CD...) It was a quiet ride home as all three fell asleep and we got home at 11:15pm... It was a great day.. I'm looking forward to the Pumpkin carving contest ... tomorrow.

Normal never sounded so good

2007-10-26T21:34:00.000-04:00

I received the results of my Bone Marrow Biopsy this week. This is not one of those tests where you want to do your best and get a 100%. This is one of those tests where the results are somewhat murky and hard to discerne. The results are full of complicated phrases and long multi-syllable words like Lymphoproliferative Disorder. There was no multiple choice or all of the above option, and the answer was not one word or sentence but a paragraph that when read at once with proper pornunciation means.... "Normal" ... results are Normal.... Within normal limits. Here is how we got to that answer.

-Normcellular Bone Marrow with trilinear hematopiesis.
-No Evidence of a Lymphoproliferative Disorder or increased myeloblast Population.
-Decreased Storage of Iron.

Which is how you say normal in clinical speak. So one bullet dodged for now anyway.

I started jogging this week. I noticed Amy is doing some exercising and she asked me to go jogging . She is using the "Couch to 5k" program. I looked it up and it seems like a good program. The podcasts are at this site http://www.ullreys.com/robert/Podcasts/ or go on Itunes and search for artist Robert Ullrey and download the free podcasts. This Robert guy created a few podcasts one for each of the 9 weeks. I downloaded them from I-tunes and it walks you through the 30 min work out with a 5 minute brisk walk and then 8 sessions of jog 60 seconds walk 90 seconds. Then finish with a 5 minute cool off walk. I 've completed the first week and I'm on to week 2 which is more jogging and less walking each week until at week 9 you are running / jogging 3 miles straight. Now that's going to be impressive. I will enjoy seeing this progession and seeing if I can stick to it.

Boise State and San Jose state game is on so I'm going to watch these guys score 60 points on each other.

"The Crabby Daddy" Does Monday Night football

2007-09-24T21:15:00.001-04:00

Throw my Brain in a hurricane

2007-09-24T06:56:00.000-04:00

The title is from a John Prine song and sums up the crazyness that is going on now in Mine and Amy's weekend. The specific song being Please don't bury me. Now if I can just get someone to sing this at my funeral in about 60 years.... when I'm 105...

Amy had a Kidney Stone removed and is recuperating at home... (for now). I would like to thank Airtran for getting off the airline of the devil list. They were able to get me on standby with a checked bag on the 7:11 pm flight from Atlanta to TPA this past Friday rather than wait on my 10:20pm flight. I got to TPA and saw my bag come out on the luggage carousel adn was very impressed that I could check a bag with 2 standby reservations and make my first one and still get my bag on the correct plane.

Saturday started bright and early as Katie had a softball game in the morning and it's about an hour drive south. They did well and she has some new girls on her team who are learning. I took the time after her Game to go get my oil changed at Mobil and put 6 new quarts of Mobil 1 into the expedition. It also got a much needed wash and the sky promptly started pouring down 30 mins after my car wash. I ran Morgan back to the House and she got ready for cheer and then I drove her to cheer and worked on the free wireless a the gym and completed my expenses reports from last. week. After the practice was over at 4:30 I took Morgan to Katie's Birthday party that was in full swing by 5:00pm. I took her and 7 girlfriends to Gelee Beans for a two hour salon visit. Gelee Beans is a kids salon where they can host partied and do manicures and hair designed for the girls. The girls all got different designs for their nails and hair and had a great time. They were having fun... so after paying the tab I headed to Michael's baseball game. He did well but with Winterball they do not keep score... so it's hard to tell who is winning. After the ball game I went to Little Caesar's with Chris and got pizza;s for the girls sleep over. The birthday party all went back to Dana's for a pizza and sleepover Saturday night and I took the boys back to my house for the night.

The boys got a night out at Los Vallartas for dinner Saturday night and we were able to get caught up on the guy stuff.

We got up early Sunday and took doughnuts to the girls and then Michael and I got into our Cub scout uniforms and sold Popcorn in front of Port City Java in. I'm the Den leader for our cub scout den in and the boys all did a great job from 10-noon selling to the walk in traffic. I had 3 of 4 boys on site which was great participation. The 4 boys in our den are very active. I will miss them tonight but they are in good hands for the den meeting with Mrs Gail doing den duties tonight. After the popcorn sales we took the booth back to our pack popcorn sales coordinators house and I got Morgan and Chris and Michael and headed back to my house. I dropped off Morgan and took the boys to Wildwood which is about an hour north to play golf with my dad and Matt.

It rained quite a bit on the way up and we listened to Tampa Bay Buccaneers take apart the St Louis Rams on the way up. We were able to get in 7 holes of golf before the rain came in and it was no longer fun. Bummer because i was only 2 over and hitting the ball well for someone who has not played golf in over 3 months with no practice.

I took the boys back to Dana's and noticed I had traveled over 500 miles and used 2 tanks of gas this weekend. Whew when do I get to go to work???

I did my laundry from last week and packed for this week. Did some grocery shopping for lunches next week and Morgan helped me assemble the next weeks lunches so it will be easy to just grab the pre-packed lunches and head to the bus stop. I also printed my expense report and packed it in the pre-mailer envelope to send to Cary. I drop these off at the airport Post office next to the Tampa airport. The airport is the only local post office that's open 24/7 365... They are never close. I'm still amazed at how many people are up at 5:30am and at the post office at the airport. My reports got to Cary in one day from this post office versus 3-4 from my post office next to my house. Took the trash out and did some house keeping for the cats.

So I'm now at the greatest airport in the world (TPA) adding to my blog. They have FREE wireless here and plenty of power outlets to charge all my stuff. I have downloaded 10 new songs form Itunes with my Avis free downloads. Avis sends you a code for 5 free downloads for every 2 day rental you have with them . They send 10 for a weekly rental. I'm heading to New Orleans this morning and got up at 5:00am to head to the airport.

Should be a fun week as there is lots to do and see and many nice restaurants to report back on.

The Mountain Man Meals from The Dillard House

2007-09-20T22:34:00.000-04:00

A Little Shaky but this is the Dillard House. The original Dillard house is next door. The Menu changes each day and is also seasonal. I had to purchase a cookbook of course and then decided , the Hot Chow-Chow, Peanut brittle, and Vidalia Onion Relish were must haves as well. This stuff is hard to find back home. Vidalia onions are grown in Vidalia Georgia and are a large sweet white onion great for cooking and making Relish and preserves. Prissy's of Vidalia has some great products. Try the pickled Asparagus in a bloody mary. Man that's some good munchin right there now.... Next week I'm in Nawlins and will report back on the tasty Spicy Hot Pickled Green Beans they put in the Bloody Mary's down in NOWLA like Drago's. Look for the pictures and the postings.

Right now with the end of summer we are still in the fresh veggies season so lots of nice sun ripened tomatoes, corn, squash,

To Quote John Dillard... "We plan menus on a seasonal basis as best Southern cooks have always done. For examples in spring and summer you will find fresh tomatoes, half-runner beans, squash, fried okra, cantaloupe, and fried chicken. In the fall you'll find turnip greens, collards, rutabagas, fried cabbage, and turnips." John Dillard General Manager of the Dillard House.

"The Crabby Daddy" does The Dillard House

2007-09-20T20:55:00.000-04:00

Well I survived the commute from Corpus Christi.. Today I worked with an OB/GYN Group in Demorest, GA training the Dr and Nurse Midwife on customizing the Allscripts Healthmatics EHR software. This is the first step to prepare the office for their conversion from paper charts to the Electronic Medical Record which takes place in November.

Nice group, their building is impressive and rest in a mountain setting in the Northern Georgia mountains. These training sessions are long and tiring and I was ready to do a little snooping around in the countryside after we completed work at 5:00pm.

I remembered the Dillard House from my visit here back in 1992 with +Medic Computer systems when I installed the +Medic practice management system in a Family Practice office in Dillard.

The Dillard house has an 80 year tradition of serving "Mountain Man" meals. These are basically all you can eat southern food feasts where one of everything is placed in serving bowls on your table and passed "Family Style" around the table and refills are brought as needed. Make sure you are REALLY hungry before attempting this venture.

The Table you see set in this picture is just for one person .... Me. I counted over 11 vegetables or sides and 4 meats. The meats tonight were Country Ham, Roast Beef, Fried Chicken and Baked Chicken. Here is the list of vegetables on the menu tonight. The Menu changes daily and they serve breakfast lunch and dinner. The menu is also seasonal as well. All food is fresh and never canned or frozen. The Veggies... Sliced Fresh Vine Ripe Tomato's (Nice Red Beefsteaks or better boy's not sure didn't ask), Cole Slaw, Creamed Cabbage, Acorn Squash casserole, Yellow Squash Casserole, Lima Beans, Green Beans, Creamed Corn, Potato Casserole, Okra Dressing, Chow Chow, Horseradish sauce, apple butter, Cantaloupe, and honey dew Melons slices, and a basket of Yeast Rolls, Corn Muffin, and fresh biscuits. Wash all this down with Sweet Tea and finish it off with a choice of Chocolate pie, coconut cream pie or strawberry cobbler. HOLY COW. I had the Chocolate pie. Nice homemade crust, the chocolate filling was delicious and very creamy and the meringue on top was tall, firm, and browned nicely. I got to take the leftovers home with me for lunch tomorrow.

The kids went to Athens Y Camp earlier this year which is 15 miles down the road in Tallulah Falls Ga. Home to the Tallulah Falls Gorge. I always like visiting this part of Georgia and plan to come back with the kids either this fall or next summer to camp. The Hampton Inn in Cornelia GA is my hotel. The hotel is about 6 yrs old and has a style I have never seen at a Hampton. They have a courtyard in the middle similar to Embassy Suites but in a smaller scale. The hotel is hard to get to as it's entrance is hidden behind the Holiday Inn Express.

Corpus Christi

2007-09-19T00:06:00.000-04:00

Not sure why I do this to myself but I had another early flight today. I got up at 4:15 did the usually morning routine and was out the door by 4:45am. My destination? Corpus Christi Texas. I have not flown Continental in quite some time and today I was giving them a try since they get me to CRP sooner than Southwest would. I had no trouble finding my regular spot on level 5 purple behind the elevators at the remote parking deck at TPA. No usual drivers ether. I often get Coffee he is a great shuttle driver but I have not seen him lately. Checking bags was quick as most have the kiosk now. I had a few minutes to get some laptop time in on the free wifi at TPA. The A gate is where Continental flies out of in TPA and I had not been to the A Concourse in over 3 months or more. I was glad to see they got rid of the big bale of weeds that was hung from the ceiling at the security check point. That always bugged me that hard earned tax payers money funded some jerk-off artist to go pick a bunch of weeds and spray them and bale them and then hang it from the ceiling.

I got to go through the puffers on this trip. Still funny to hear the auto attendant say Air on. Puff, Puff Puff. Doors open please proceed. I got a window seat Bleech.... I slept most of the way to Houston and felt sorry for the nice lady stuck in the middle seat between me and another large man on the aisle who had to hear me snore the whole way. I asked numerous times if my snoring was bothering her and she answered no... So fair warning... I get snore approval I'm lettin it rip baby!!

I landed at IAH and only had a few mins to get to my connection flight. Maybe 25 minutes.. And I had to hoof it from C over to the B concourse and then to the commuter section. I was not familiar with this airport and had to take 2 people movers filled with people not interested in moving, a monorail train to concourse B and then walk a ton down to the commuter aircraft gates. The CRJ flown by Chautauqua seats about 60 or so . I had an aisle seat 12C but the guy in the window seat fidgeted the whole way. So I put on my Bose noise cancelling Quiet Comfort 2 head phones and read the latest book on my list. The 4 hour work week by Tim Ferris.

I got to HOT Corpus Christi at about 10:00AM Central Time 11:00 my time back in the Eastern time zone. Avis rented me their version of a premium car for Corpus Christi... a Toyota Camry... Wow that's definitely on the same level as a Buick Lucerne or a Lincoln Town Car. Grand Dad Cars as my wife would say.

I made it to the practice and got started early at about 11:00am. I was on a follow up visit to a previous Go-live so this was a cake walk. Had lunch at Hu-Dat... An Asian noodle/rice bowl restaurant similar to pie wei. Good stuff !! The afternoon was filled with more training of exciting stuff!!!.

At 5:00pm we decided our brains were mush and to stop for the day. I headed back to the Hilton Garden Inn and Changed into my throwin down clothes. Golf shirt , Shorts and flop-flops and headed to happy hour at La Playa across San Padre Island Drive.

La Playa came highly recommended by the DR's at the Internal Medicine practice. Guaranteed to raise my Lipids if I tried the Stuffed Avocado... so I was in luck Margaritas were on special for $1.95 till 7:00pm. I had an hour. I perused the menu and found out the Stuffed avocados were a meal not an appi... Bummer. Wanted a stuffed Avocado a stuffe Poblano and an enchilada or two with green sauce but they did not offer creat your own platters. The chip guy was the Bomb and had red and green salsa and chips on my spot of the bar 2 seconds after my stool cushion flattened out past comfy and hit pain full. .. Which took 3 seconds.

Chips were good and man the gren salsa was unique... it was almost creamy but it had a decent kick to it. I asked for hotter salsa and there was none to be found.

I ordered the Avocado stuffed with Shrimp. Now this is a quarter of a fresh avocados that is peeled and then shrimp is placed in the cavity and queso Blanca (White Mexican Cheese) is stuffed in and the whole thing is lightly breaded and then deep fried... ( Kinda reminds me of deep fried Mars bars at the State Fair... Do I really need to start deep fat frying my candy bars now. The candy bar alone is not enough I gotta now dip it in batter and deep fry it. Anyway it was good. So was the tortilla soup and the Fish Taco that came on the platter. Yum.. After dinner i headed back to the hotel and got 2 coronas "dressed" for the room and a late night of blogging.

How do you dress a Corona you ask? Take the long neck bottle and rub a lime all around the neck from top to bottom of the neck. Sprinkle Salt on that and THEN open the bottle and shove in a lime. Then you take a napkin and wrap it just so so it looks like a corona shirt. Now you just lick some salt squeeze the lime sip and enjoy... and repeat till the bottle is clear.

The next day I had the great pleasure of meeting a coworker how was in town and trained this client on the Practice management side of the software. The Dr's myself and the coworker went to lunch at Utopia's... Nice Asian fusion restaurant . I had the Shrimp wrap kyoto with Aeoli. Nice and spicy and they even had Sweet potato fries too!. Well my flight was at 2:30 and it was now 1:15 and that left little time to mess around. So I hightailed it to Valero and filled the rental up and headed back to the airport which was a 20 min drive. Visions of missing this flight were dancing in front of me. The weird thing is they have a security guard at the rental return who makes you pop the trunk and looks in the trunk... Guess they are checking for Illegals or something. Weird. I parked the car and hustled inside did the return and check a bag. Security was bus with 5 people it still took almost 10 mins to screen 5 people. The Main screen on the x-ray was like putting her right eyeball on the screen and moving it around to find some contraband. Guess at these border states they have to be vigilant. I made the commuter and got an aisle with no window occupant. YEAH!!. Made it to IAH in Houston in about 30 mins and it was a good thing because I had 30 mins to make my connection. (What's up with that Continental??) And I swear it was the longest connection I have ever had. I had to go from one end of the airport to the other. No lie. Gate C84 to E19... I made the 737-300 at gate E and had seat 23C.. An Aisle in the 3-3 configuration... I was sweating like a pick and obviously it was noticable because the Flight attendant got me an ice water and a hand towel.

MAn was I impressed. Never have I had such great service... Tony was his name and he was full of Hustle... unlike your normal I'm to sexy and busy to serve you Stewardesses they have at Delta or Airtran or American, or Northwest.... Need i go on? Tony was THE BOMB and he is getting a letter on his behalf at Continental. I hit ATL right after a thunderstorm and got my Buick Lucerne... (ATL knows a Premium car now don't they) and headed out for the 2 hour drive to Demorest. I had a conf call to listen to from 8:30 till .... so after the usually phone calls and test messages to the wife and kids I dialed in and prepared myself. This call lasted 1.5 hours. I actually stopped and ate dinner while the call was going on... Listening the whole time... I even finished dinner and got back in the car and drove for 15 more mins before the call was over... Thankfully so because cell service diede just after that.... Which means GPS navigation dies too. Bummer... Que the Deliverance song... Lost in Northern GA mountains...

I made it safely to the Hampton Inn after trying to check in to the Holiday Inn express first by mistake. They Share Driveways....

Fellow baseball parent from 2 yrs ago

2007-09-18T23:30:00.001-04:00

Aspen and "The Crabby Daddy" ... Our sons were on the same Baseball team 2 yrs ago.

A pilot and a ski resort

2007-09-18T23:14:00.001-04:00

Jayson from the Red Baron Pizza Squadron and Aspen.

What a long strange trip it's been!!

2007-09-18T22:24:00.000-04:00

Man this past weekend was one big whirlwind. Queue the Grateful Dead Song Now...

I left Athens on Friday about 12:30PM and had "Plenty" of time to make it to ATL airport with my flight leaving at 3:oopm.

Of course the highways' and drivers of Atlanta had other things in mind. It took me till 2:00 to get to the Rental care drop off for Avis due to a traffic backup. I used to be smart enough to drive the rental to the bag drop and check my bag and THEN drop off the rental but I of course pick this day to forget that. I had the 3:00 flight going to RDU (Raleigh) to join Amy and the Ex-Misys crew for a Misys reunion weekend at Rudino's rooftop grill.

I get to the ATL curbside and find out the Airtran (Which is Latin for Airline of the Devil) does not allow you to curbside check a checked bag at 45 mins prior to the flight. OF course this is a drop dead time so even when I try at 44 mins prior to the flight it tells me no. I ask customer service what I should do. They recommend (In indiscernible English.... )I need to start booking a later flight... No friggin way I exclaim!! So I try the outside curb check but the little bastards have thought of everything and do not allow that either. Definitely the LAST time I fly this airline EVER....

So I re-book for a 5:00pm flight that gets me in at 6:30pm. Not too bad I can be fashionably late... (Which means I don't give a crap if I'm late in man speak).

So I proceed to the C concourse to catch my airplane of the devil spawn. If you have never been to the C concourse in Atlanta's airport it is the main concourse for Airtan. This must also mean it is the concourse for Non-drinkers/dull non-partiers as there is only one bar on the whole Damn concourse. It's buried behind the food court and is called Paschal's La Carousel Bar. Hmm a little goofy for me all those Carousel horses... I have been here before,.. I remember they Do NOT offer the double shot for $2.00 more so I set myself up for disappointment. I do remember the bar tenders Tim and Kirby... Both were working that day. Of course there is a huge line waiting to sit at the bar and I of course get the corner seat which was all that was left.

My neighbor next too me promptly adds anyone who sits on the corner buys a round. I reply. Dang looks like everyone has a full glass. He likes this as much as I do so we hit it off. Kirby is very busy filling drinks from the wait staff.... but takes time to pour a STIFF Jack and Coke and It's so strong I feel I'm at a club... I look over the menu and remember this place is run by the 2 Paschal brothers. Robert and Jim they made millions providing the catering services at the ATL airport. They have a Nawlins theme to their menu.

So it's the Gumbo and I'm very pleased. Granted gumbo at an airport bar is a risk but it was very good. Just the right amount of rice and nice dark muddy broth and crawfish with nice spicy andouille sausage slices. Added a little hot sauce and it was the Bomb.!! Not as good as The Sauce Boss from Tallahassee... but good. (Sauce Boss adds Chicken, Shrimp, Oysters , Okra and Zucchini... makes it much better.

Kirby is now just "flavoring" my drink with Diet Coke.

The guy to my left leaves so I move down opening the corner seat. A new guy sits down and we promptly pull the corner guy buys routine... He Laughs it off and I notice he is wearing a bomber jacket. Kinda odd since it is the summer and its hot and rainy.

I find out that Jayson is a Pilot for the Red Baron Flight Crew Sponsored by Schwan's Foods and they do flight shows at the Gasparilla parade in Tampa... (Small World). I of course ask Jayson if he can get me tickets to the Parade and he is confirming this. COOL!! He is also headed to RDU and is on my flight. IF you have ever been in an airport bar it's always a good feeling knowing other people next to you are on the same flight.

I'm joined on my right by a blond who looks VERY Familiar. Jayson and I end up talking to her and turns out her son and my son were on the same Baseball team 2 years ago. (Really small world now)

Jayson and I end up catching the flight to Raleigh ... which was 2 hours late. So I arrive at about 9:00. I make it to Rudino's after getting the Explorer Rental car from Avis. We have a great time and it's great seeing old friends. Checkout Amy's blog for details and pic's We stayed at the Embassy Suite's across from the Crabtree Mall. Where "The Crabby Daddy" Shops... I did The Limited Too and Justice to get plenty of Girl Stuff for my oldest Daughter's 11th Birthday coming up.

We had a GREAT bunch at Tir Na Nog Irish Pub in downtown Raleigh. Really nice and they have a Blood Mary Bar where you can make your own Bloody Mary. We were exhausted after all the fun and collapsed on the flight home. Really happy to be home for 24 hours before I head out to Corpus Christi.

Here is the pic of my pretty pink shopping bag from Limited Too....

Athens Go-Live Southern Food for Lunch at last!

2007-09-13T22:42:00.000-04:00

Well the Windridge Family practice in Athens Georgia went live today on Allscripts Healthmatics EHR. They did a great job and even sent a few e-prescriptions today. We also had a few e-prescribe refills which was exciting.

The best news however was that I got to get my southern meal after all. I convinced the group at the office to all go to Peaches fine foods for Lunch. We all car pooled to Peaches fine foods and this place is something.

We were about 11 strong and when that many people come in to a place it usually provides some chaos. They serve cafeteria style so this was pretty fast for our group. They serve a meat and 2 vegetable lunch and it's all southern food. The Meats today we could pick from: Hamburger Steak with Gravy, Fried Chicken, Lemon chicken or pork chop.

I got the Hamburger steak on White rice with gravy. My sides? Mac and Cheese and Turnip greens of course. I also got the sweet tea and some Sweet potato puddin for dessert ( Sweet Potato pie where we come from). The food was great they had young girls who would take your tray and carry it to the table for you and then they would fetch tea or lemonade for you when you needed a refill. Nothin like a step and fetchit for dinner (Lunch for you and me.... and dinner here is supper)

We were all able to sit together which was great. They also had Bruce's hot peppered vinegar and hot sauce on the table... which were perfect on the turnip greens. They also had Green Beans (did not look as good as Miss Ruth's ) Lima beans and Yams. The sweet tea was good and not too sweet.

I would rate this a little higher than Weaver D's for setup speed of service and size to accomodate larger parties. Weaver D's did have yummy Broccoli Casserole and collards that were really good. Weaver also makes his own hot peppered vinegar and it is much better than Bruce's (Sorry Bruce's Louisiana peppered vinegar) and Weaver also has a great cookbook I highly recommend..... But I think I had a much better experience at Peaches than at Weaver D's. Peaches is much faster on the service line and they really get you through the line fast. Dr Earhart also filled me in that the owner of Peache's the dude working the register was a former Georgia Linebacker back in the early 90's.

When we got back at the office we all needed a nap.... but it was great!

I just did Applebee's next door tonight for dinner and watched the WVU-MD game on the big screen. They had a ton of Plasma TV's for an Applebee's.

Can't wait to head to Raleigh for the Misys reunion tomorrow. Worked at Misys for 13 years and that's where I met Amy. We should have fun and it's always good to see old friends from Misys.

Harry Bissett's

2007-09-12T21:06:00.000-04:00

Second day in Athens and the client here is doing great. When I came onsite they were already documenting in the EMR. This was a great sign as I needed a break this week. I still have not gotten my results from the MRI I took Friday at Tower Lois and it's really bugging me. I keep calling the Dr and no MRI report. They can;t seem to figure out why. Amy keeps calling me to see if I have anything and again she seems more worried than me. I'm looking forward to a nice southern meal or some soul food tonight to forget my troubles with the spleen.

So I drive around for one and a half hours and not a single southern soul food restaurant was open again. Chondell's was closed. Wilson's food for the soul was closed... so was momma's kitchen and Peaches fine foods and a few other places. So I drove down town and looked for some excitement. As I walked the down town area I noticed how much this small town had to offer in the downtown area as far as restaurants.

I walked up to DePalma's and perused the menu. Looked like some good Italian dishes but I was looking for more creativity. So I walked down to the old stand by Harry Bisett's . HB is Athens version of New Orleans cuisine. I ate here last time I was in Athens.

I sat at the bar and noticed no daily specials that jumped out and screamed order me. So I went with the HB oyster sampler 6 Rockefeller and 6 Bienville oysters. They were pretty good but the spinach was a little dry and stringy and I did not notice any Pernod on the Rockefeller.... The Rockefeller at Florida Seafood in Cocoa beach were much better. They however did not compare at all to the Grilled Oysters appi at Drago's in New Orleans in the Hilton Riverside.

I figured the Chicken Rochambeau sounded like it was worth a try since there was no Red Fish or any other soft white meat grilled fish (grouper etc.) I could order with the crawfish etouffe ladled on top... (This is my Favorite but hard to find unless you are in Nawlins. ) Pat's of
Henderson in Lake Charles Louisiana has the best out side of Nawlins. I'll tell you about the best inside of Nawlins later this month.

So what is Chicken Rochambeau you ask? a Breast of chicken lightly breaded and fried and then served on grilled Ham with a Marchand de Vin sauce on top of the ham with the chicken on top of that and then Bearnaise over the top. I got the side of Jambalaya and the cucumber salad. The Jambalaya was good but could have been a little more on the spicy side. The cucumber salad was just Julienne cucumbers with red peppers, onions and carrots marinated in vinegar. could have used a little white balsamic and some salt pepper and a dash of hot sauce or Bruce's hot peppered vinegar to give it a little kick.

Parking is a real bummer in downtown Athens. I headed back to the Hotel and decided to blog a little .

The Hotel in Athens I'm staying at is the Hampton Inn. They are under renovation and the weird thing was how different the soda machines are from one floor to the next.

I'm on the 5th floor (top floor) I always try to stay on the top floor... I just like being higher I guess. This is also the no-smoking floor but the Soda machine would not take one dollar bills. The Sodas are .75 cents ... love college towns and the low prices but there is only Diet Pepsi on the 5th floor. Took the elevator to the 4th floor and the bill reader took my bill and promptly spit it back at me. So I rubbed it on the machine to get the creases out like I have seen other people do and it did not work. I noticed they had Diet Pepsi and Diet Mountain Dew in this machine... but no luck so down to the 3rd floor in my pajamas and flip flops to get my soda. Jackpot !! 3rd floor had a working bill reader and it took my bills rejected by the 4th and 5th floor machines... guess the 3rd floor is into high risk soda sales... the 3rd floor also had more diet soda.... Diet Pepsi, Diet Dr Pepper and Diet Mountain dew. So I splurged and got a diet Mt Dew and a Diet Dr Pepper and hit the 5th floor for some heavy blogging and late night IMing of friends.

10:30 I fell asleep. My wife woke me at 12:00 and I talked for a little bit and then went back to sleep. Ding got an IM from a friend and IM'd with them from 12:30 till 1:50pm. Back to sleep again.

Hope I can find some Good Southern food tomorrow. Time is running out.

6 Years later

2007-09-11T06:05:00.000-04:00

Well today is the 6th anniversary of 9/11. Unfortunately I have an early flight this morning at 7:00AM. I figured the airport at TPA would be a nightmare so I woke at 4:20 did the morning routine and left a little earlier than normal. I got to the airport parking deck about 5:35. Of course there was a nice vacant spot for me on the 5th floor behind the purple elevators.
My favorite spot in the remote garage always an open spot for me on the 5th floor behind the purple elevators... Of course if you are reading this go to the 6th floor or the gold elevators and leave my 5th floor purple spots alone!! :-)

Good thing too as the Gold elevator people had to wait for the next shuttle bus as the beauty of the purple elevators is obviously getting around. OF course there was one exception ... a Fella... that was as they say light in the loafers who crashed through the bus doors when the driver opened them a crack to let everyone at the gold stop know the bus behind him was going to get them because he was full. This guy crashed the door with 3 carry-on bags and a guitar and said ... "I don't mind standing" Of course he had to stand in front of me and place all his crap in front of my luggage in the rack. What a dork. Never ceases to amaze me with how rude and narcissistic people can be. Of course he was in the way the whole ride to the terminal and made everyone wait 30 seconds while he gathered all of his "Carry-on" Hope they make him check 2 of them... :-)

Lovin the FREE wifi internet that TPA (Tampa Airport) provides. I'm confuddeld as to why.... Yes confuddeld... Confused and puzzled/Muddled well you get the point... As to why few other airport provide free wifi. Yeah Yeah Starbucks had free wifi... blah blah blah.... Over roasted coffee and overpriced.... as far as I'm concerned.
But there have been only 2 or three airports that have provided free Internet that I can recall. Everyone else charges 9.99 per day. Hate that. Tampa and Fort Wayne Indiana go figure...

Anyway. back to 9/11.. The airport was fairly light for traffic at 5:30AM... ( Imagine that) My flight is set for 7:00AM to ATL (Atlanta). I had to change seats at the check in kiosk because some dweeb decided she had to have the window seat next to my aisle seat on a friggin 2-3-2 airplane seating chart with over 67 available seats. Guess she has to look out dah window cause she never been in an aih-pane before.... I moved to the aisle across so I can get a look at this nut case. She looked like a feminazi liberal... Why can't I e er get an aspiring Pamela Anderson as a seat mate...???

The fly ass Delta coochie just announced we will board in five minutes. Of course they use this weird boarding zone method. I'm in Zone five which means good luck getting overhead. So I still have a few minutes before having to shut down the laptop and board.

Security was light too as not much traffic at 5:50 am either. I did notice about twice as many TSA agents standing around and a few more highly secure red vested Aramark agents. Yeah black slacks white shirt and a Red Aramark Vest and I be a photo ID checker momma... Hope they have all been vetted for background checks ... Wonder if that background includes their previous 20 years in Mexico??

Well my bag made it through. Did not leave my contraband toothpaste or other surprise liquid in my carry-on this time.

Well as I sit here I can't help reflecting back on that day 6 years ago. I worked for the Purple M&M and got an email from a co-worker that a plane had crashed into the world trade center. I of course went home to work from home and put Fox news on and saw the second plane hit live. It was freaky. We all thought it was a small private plane the first one that hit. It was just too surreal to see a full fledged bigass Boeing go straight into the tower and leave a shadow of an airplane hole in the side of the tower.

I of course would have preferred to spend this day in Cancun like I did on the one year anniversary. Which was also my 40th birthday week extravaganza.

Happy birthday to Miss Ruth. She was born on 9/11/1907 she would have been 100 today. I really miss you Miss Ruth and hope you are having a blast wherever you are. I'm going to go have a nice southern meal tonight in honor of you. Hope they have green beans made just the way you did them. I can still smell the wonderful aroma now.

Gotta close the laptop will beef this up once I get to the Hotel in Athens.

I'm taking Windridge Family practice live on Allscripts Healthmatics EMR this week. Should be fun. One MD and one PA at the practice with 2 nurses. Piece of cake. Look forward to the Misys reunion this weekend in Raleigh. Well they just called Zone 1.

Love you Mom and Dad and Family and Kids and Amy. Chat with you later tonight. !!

That last line was in case the plane went down. Thankfully it did not. When I showed up at the practice I was surprised to see that the Dr the PA and the nurses were already documenting in the EMR and were printing prescriptions etc. If you are in the EMR business this is a very positive sign and you know you have a VERY easy week of training and Go-Live support ahead of you. The stress level has gone form 9 to 1. The front office is already scanning paper charts and the nurses have entered historical summaries for the next days patients. Woo Hoo this is hot. Man I'm a good trainer... (Sorry could not resist). So I did some clean up tasks and trained on faxing, printing and did a 3 hour session from 3pm to 6pm with the Doctor the Physicians assistant (PA) and the nursing staff. It's such a pleasure to full teach each screen as the students already have the basic screen navigation down and now I can show them the cool stuff that I never get to show or I show and they never retain.

I went back to the Hampton Inn Athens on Broad street and checked in at about 6:15pm. This hotel is under renovation and they are about $90.00 per night. Not too bad but I remember when Hampton Inns were $65.00 to $75.00 per night and now they are routinely $100.00 or more now. This hotel has free wifi and it's a five story hotel. the rooms still have the old decor and they need a renovation in the worst way. I can only imagine the hard partying that goes down in these rooms on GA Bulldog football weekends.

I researched Soul food and southern food restaurants from the room and found the Tuesday night in Athens is not that exciting. this website has some great reviews and links... http://www.dixiedining.com/dixie/georgia.htm Most soul and southern food restaurants in Athens close at 6:00pm on Monday and Tuesday??? What up whid dat??? So I wanted Peaches Southern food but it was closed. Weaver D's was closed. Wilson's Soul Food was closed I got a inkling that Chondell's might be open so I hopped in the car and drove there. Not easy to find. CLOSED... So I was out of options. So I started driving around and spotted the Hilltop Grille. Looked like a yuppie fern bar. I checked the menu as I was on a mission to get Green Beans for Miss Ruth's Birthday celebration.... No such luck but they did have Collard Green... Ding Ding Ding... We are getting close to southern soul food which I just call home cooking.... So I figured I would try it. Being alone and on business I did what most business travelers traveling alone do and I went to the Bar to eat.

The Braves were kicking the snot out of the Mets. I perused the menu and decided on a cup of crawfish gumbo. 8ozs vs 14 ozs for the bowl. Jenna the bartender rings me up and not 2 minutes later a piping hot BOWL of crawfish gumbo appears for me. Jenna promised me she rang in a cup but she will only charge me for a cup. $4.00 vs $5.00 hope they can spare that... extra dollar profit... As I'm eating the gumbo which is great... I asked for some hot sauce. I had the choice of Texas Pete or Tabasco. I asked if they had any Habanero and of course I got a no. This is the South so hot sauce is on the mild side.

Great Gumbo by the way nice seasoning and texture and the ingredients were all uniformly sliced or chopped. No big hunks in other words. Sausage was slightly spicy... which was great. Roux was nice and well caramelized. Nice dirty dark brown color. The menu offered the usual Caesar, House and and Iceberg wedge salads with crumbled Blue cheese. LOVE the iceberg wedge. I often ask if they can chop it for me so it's easier to eat and nice and tossed for me so I don't have to work so hard when the salad arrives. The menu had the prerequisite Steaks and seafood and pasta entrees... I noticed a chopped steak with mashed potatoes and sauteed onions and mushrooms. Ding Ding we have a winner for a southern meal. I asked if I could substitute the Salad for Collard greens and this was fine as far as Jenna was concerned... so I had my Quasi Southern meal to Share with Miss Ruth on her Birthday. The chopped steak was not bad... It had a hard crust for some reason??? Maybe the grill cook left it too long on one side and it got crusty on the grill. IT was hard to cut with a fork which is not a good sign on a chopped steak., The mashed potatoes were good but about 30 minutes past their prime. The Collard Greens were good but there were large crunchy stems which means a white boy cooked them.. and did not cook them long enough. They were not gritty which is always good and you can get them not gritty by washing them 4-5 times to get rid of the sand and dirt they are grown in. Tasted like they were boiled in Wateer with a bullion cube or 2 added. Salt pepper and some fat back.

I had my Southern style hot sauce to soak the Collards in and Jenna even had the Chef whip me up some gravy on the side. Can you believe they served a chopped steak with mushrooms and onions without gravy??? Even Outback back Steakhouse has gotten this dish right.

The Gravy hit the spot and I relished each bite thinking of Rudie (Miss Ruth) and how much I missed her cooking and her sweet smile. No desert as I'm watching the waist line.

Well that does it for me have a great one Miss Ruth Love you and look forward to next September 11th and celebrating your birthday. Take care and goodnight

A New Year for the Den

2007-09-10T22:44:00.000-04:00

Well we I had the first den meeting for the WEBLOS den tonight. It was great seeing all the familiar faces of the boys from last year when we were a bear den. Same boys and Same moms. What's up with the dad's? Anyway we got started off with the communicator activity pin achievements and everyone seemed excited about the scheduled campouts. Can't wait to see them all earn their eagle scout one day.

More to come tomorrow as I have an early flight tomorrow.

Football Sunday

2007-09-09T22:57:00.000-04:00

Well it's finally football sunday. The wife is at church being a greeter... Wings and beer are at a sports bar... now that I can be a greeter at.... +:-)

Tampa Bay Bucs lost to the Seahags.. Washington won over Miami.

My Cougars of BYU lost to UCLA... even though they wiped the floor of the Rose bowl using the UCLA defense as Bar Keepers Friend with their BYU offense as a rag. It was too hard to overcome the 2 turnovers for touchdowns. They lost by 10 points 27-17...

I was able to get caught up on laundry and posting to my blog today. Hoping to hear about my MRI results before I take my trip to Athens GA on Tuesday.

Per Mark my bro-in-law a call to GOD is a local call in Athens GA. I'm going to check and see if GOD is even listed in the phone book. I'm betting it's an unlisted number in Athens. And as we say back in Provo.... Call all you want the line's busy, he's talking to Bronco Mendenhall the coach at BYU about next week's game. =:-o

Looking forward to another dinner at Harry Bisetts and a few other local hangouts in Athens. I'll be sure to post the reviews and the outrageous travel stories.

The Invasion of Ft Desoto

2007-09-08T22:52:00.000-04:00

Today Morgan's Cheerleading team invaded Ft Desoto PArk. I made sure we had plenty of shade and brought the First up pop-up shade along. $79.88 at Wal-Mart. Can't beat it.

Of course everyone flocked to it... so make sure you set up your chairs first and use a few coolers to block out traffic and keep people to one side.

It was hot and the water was nice. The sand is very smooth once you get out a few feet. I have never been to the east beach .. I usually go to the Western beach. The East beach is more like being on a large lake since it is on Tampa Bay were the bay passes under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. I of course had to mention to Amy that there have been a number of people who have jumped off and died. Police offeicers often report cars that are stopped on the side with no occupants . They find the bodies washed up days later. They used to have a jumper pool. Still amazed at how many people still do it. the Western beach is full of Kite Surfers

Ft Desoto was named a #1 Beach at it was most likely the western beach that garneded this award.

Well back to more fun stuff. The picnic was great! However when I came back to my Shady spot there was a large hump of sand resembling a volcano and my daughter was in a chair watching. I asked if she said it was ok to do that and she replied no she tried to stop them.

I asked them why don't you go dig in the sun and make a sand castle. They replied "It's hot in the sun it's nice and cool here". I asked them to please stop and one replied we are not stopping until it is as tall as Kylie. I looked at the smallest girl in the group and said hey come here Kylie.

I then had her stand in the deepest pit that had been dug to fund the volcano and measured her head to the top of the mound. Look! I said mission accomplished it's as tall as Kylie. That influenced 3 of the 6 to leave. The little girl turned to me and said... "But I'm not Kylie" I replied "Well your Kylie from now on as far as I'm concerned". She seemed confused but left so that was effective and I only had 2 more diggers to go. I decided a dip in the water was in order to cool me off before I lost it. So I told the girls.. "I'm going in the water when I get back make sure this is flattened out". I left for the cool dip and they of course continued to dig.

I noticed from the water that my wife had shown up and she was letting some of the girls have it from the look on her face and how she was stomping around the canopy... I decided maybe I should head back and mitigate the destruction of the volcano. As I was walking up onto the beach the group decided that moving the canopy 12 feet closer to the ocean was the best solution. It was as it left the ugly mound in the back in broad daylight (Hot Sun) and the crowd of young misfits soon scattered. Leaving there shovels of course.

I'm thinking to myself now why does this place did not allow Alcohol???... I could use a beer or a shot right now. Well the day was fun and relaxing and I got to float for an hour or so in the soothing salt water. I need to find a way to do this more often.

Pin cushion

2007-09-07T18:25:00.000-04:00

The Second MRI was today. I woke up at 6:00 and showered etc and made the trek down to Tower On Lois. Unfortunately the Dr wanted to use the same MRI as the first MRI to get a consistent read with the same machine and tech and blah blah blah. you know the story. So I arrive at 7:10 am and of course the office is not open yet. 15 mins of AM Tampa bay on 970 WFLA as I wait for the people at Tower to arrive. It takes till 7:45 Grrr for them to show up. I'm of course the only person standing out side. The lady opens the door and When I walk in she asks me to fill out the same damn paperwork I have filled out at 3 different Tower Center. (Aren't they connected via the same database yet? ) I'm luck enough to have been here before so I'm granted a pass on the Patient information form ... However they can't find my script just yet. It was a last minute rush job scheduled by my smoking hot Nurse Practitioner Melissa at the Oncologist office. The front desk lady at tower said she would check the fax server ... Yeah it was there!!. I still had to fill out the same dumb questionnaire on why I'm having it done since my "Chart" was not pulled yet. (great time to mention I work for a company that sells EHR software Allscripts) Being a radiology site I was curious why they didn't use Radman.

We''ll they are happy enough to get me going on the MRI so you move to the changing room ... Small cubbie with a curtain and a bench with a locking drawer and tell you to take off your short leave your underwear on and t-shirt on and get a gown on. I of course had the same issue as last time with the "Gown" They suck and you can't tie them so you just walk down the hall holding the back together. I enter the room and Matt is there the same tech from last time. He of course recognizes me and asks why I'm back so soon. I go through the whole Dr wants to make sure the first MRI was read properly since all other tests thus far do not point to the Radiologists DX of Lymphoma or to see if it is in the spleen only, right now. (She also mentioned a bone marrow biopsy)

They want to see if the "Lesion" has grown I mention to Matt. He gave this puzzled look and said "They think it would grow enough to show the difference on an MRI taked 10 days ago?" Made me wonder how accurate these tests were at that point... So being a veteran of an MRI 10 days ago I hopped on the table and got ready for the IV. Matt attempted to get an IV started on my left elbow... No luck. He mentioned something about scar tissue and the IV needle bouncing off it. I of course had to let him know that The past 3 weeks had seen my elbows giving blood 7 or 8 times. So I could understand why there would be scar tissue... Maybe even a few old needles from the previous blood letting. I let him know the left Elbow was fine and he said nah... I'll try the hand first. (Never had an IV in the hand before.... Boy was I in store for a nice surprise...) So he proceeded to try the back of my left hand and tied the Tourniquet and started slapping the back of my left hand to get a good vein. He tried one and it was more than a little prick that he promised. Felt like someone had shoved a dart in my hand.. Now I used to be very competitive in darts in Washington DC back in the 80's and I've had darts in the back of my hand before... Of course much alcohol was consumed prior to the dart mishap.... I prefer the 2 pitchers of beer warm up prior to the dart in the back of the hand.

I mentioned my preferred prep of 2 pitchers of beer to Matt who chuckled and mentioned it may have helped since I was so dehydrated. I of course had to defend myself and let him know that the prep for the MRI clearly stated nothing by mouth after midnight. Matt let me know that was not 100% accurate as far as techs go... they just need an empty stomach 3 hours prior. So I could have woken up at 4:00 and chugged 6 beers..!!! Great now he tells me... Matt tries one more time on my left hand ...(were at 3 now) and they are getting worse because he not only shoves the needle in ... he also has to pull back and forth on it and shove it around to try to hit a vein. I think it drained Matt of his confidence as he went to get Gail the Nurse. Now Gail goes to the right elbow ..No Luck back of right hand twice... no luck.

Matt and Gail are trying both hands now... I have both wrists with tourniquets on and they are both just smacking away on my hands... At this point I asked if they were also a day spa because the hand massage was feeling good and did they do pedicures. Matt mentioned something about only having to go to the feet for an IV once in his career and he avoids it at all costs. I asked if I could still book a full body massage after the MRI. A few chuckles but they were determined to start an IV in my well dehydrated body. I thought back and realized nothing by mouth since about 9:00pm the previous night and I was at the football game in the stands sweating like a soon to be stuck pig..... Its going to be a long hard morning at Tower... I'm not even in the tube yet... That was my main concern when I drove down... You know the dreaded tube time. I'm beginning to wonder why I didn't ask for a Valium like my manager at work suggested... (Who is a nurse by the way)

So no luck on my hands on either side and it really is starting to hurt now. I'm trying to keep from jumping and reacting so I go to feet wiggles. Gail at this point tried to curry a few sympathy points by letting me know she was an IV Guinea pig for the new Nuclear Med tech at the Habana office. I said the young Blond female student from Tampa Tech... She said yeah .. I let her know she was watching while they started an IV last week on me with one poke... I kept mentioning that it has always taken one stick and mentioned that my daughter had had to get 6 sticks when she was 3 and it nearly killed me so I know how she felt now... Poor little girl having to go through that much pain with no blood given.

Well Gail goes and gets a special needle designed to get in a deep vein and trys that on my right elbow to no luck. It was deep too... Matt at this point finds a promising one on the back of my left hand. It proceeds to disappear when he gets the IV kit ready. He goes back to smacking and finds one in the middle of my hand. Tries it.... no... luck. I start praying please Lord let these two get a good IV from my dehydrated body in one more stick. Well it worked because Matt got a good IV in in only 2 sticks... Yes I asked for one stick.... but we can't always get what we want right?

So yeah... 45 mins later and 10-11 needle holes later I get to get shoved in a tube and be claustrophobic for 45 mins. I had Matt put the headphones on Smooth Jazz WSJT 94.1 to calm me down. He seemed to like that ... (Guess he is a jazz guy too)

OK so IV flowing, headphones pumping jazz and I'm now strapped down to the table and shoved into the tube. I hear Matt on the head phones telling me it will be quick maybe 15 mins. And we start. I start thinking back to how many times I had one stick for blood and how I only have had 3 iv's that I can remember and they were all in the past 2 weeks. :Matt says ok deep breath and hold it. The machine goes crazy with all these loud sounds for about 30 seconds and I can then exhale.... I also think back to when my brother Bubba and I used to make what we called Pygmy darts....

To make one of these little terrors .... you take the end of a shoe string and clip it off and get a sewing needle and thread it though the middle.. Then you put it in a straw and voila!! Pygmy dart.!! They were fun at school for a few days then we got caught... So Bubba and I took to pygmy dart battles against each other at home. He was especially envious of my large dart made from sneaker shoe laces and a large sewing needle. He was even more impressed with the sting it made when I shot him in the back with it... He of course had to pull it out and yell run for your life boy.... And I complied... I tore across the living room and he nailed me on the back of my right hand... Aha! That's why the pain seemed vaguely familiar.... I had a pygmy dart in the back of my hand too. I reminded myself to tell Matt the tech...this story.

Matt tells me to take a deep breath and hold it.... More noise. This goes on for 30 mins... I knew it was not going to take 15.... Wonder if I can still get Gail to give me a massage??

Anyway the process was soon over and I walked out with about 6 band-aids on me and the people in the waiting room all freaked when they saw me. I looked at them and said... Yeah your next.... and the IV chick is new...That was little mean I guess... But what the heck.

I of course had to reward my self with a breakfast at Chick-Fil-A... Which does serve breakfast now... Thanks to my loving wife for letting me know that. I of course had to argue that they don't serve breakfast about 7 yrs ago when we were in Raleigh and happened to pass one at that exact moment and Amy said... "So why are all those cars in the drive through at 8:00am?" I let her know they were getting a good spot for the lunch rush.... =:-)
(Good comeback with such little time to prep you have to admit)

Well the lady at Chick-Fil-A freaked on me when she saw all of the band-aids... She proceeded to wash her hands 5 times with hand sanitizing gel while she waited for the second opportunity to get a little skin to skin contact on me with the final pass though of my bag-o-breakfast.

The day was definitely looking up from that point on... Let me tell yah.

The First Football Game

2007-09-06T22:22:00.001-04:00

Well I just want to let everyone know how excited and proud I am of the latest football prodigy in the family. My oldest son Chris had his JV game tonight and he even saw some action on a few plays. He made me proud holding his own against those guys on the front line. He played right guard and was the only one to block on his downs it seemed. I'm looking forward to seeing more of his games and 4 years of High School Football... His buddy Christian was also active and the Game started out with some real excitement for a JV game.

The opening Kick-off was something to witness. Christian was on the receiving team and played on the front line. As soon as the kicker kicked the ball, Christian made a B-Line for the kicker. He proceeded to Wrap him up and throw him on the ground. Wow what a nice play...Only problem... The kicker did not have the ball of course. So penalty for what.... holding I guess ?? when you tackle a kicker? It was a riot and I could just hear the coach telling him 30 seconds earlier...
"Son I want you to take that kicker out you hear me?!! That kicker should be out of the picture.. no where near the play!!.. That's your assignment!!" OF course he forgot to add that you should knock him over not tackle him. So the ensuing kickoffs went about the same and the kicker finally got wise and started running away from him after 4 or 5 kick-offs. A few were in circles in the middle of the field and I could hear the kicker screaming "Get away from me"

It brought back so many memories of my youth... Doing the practices and lifting the weights and boiling a mouth piece till it's soft and making your imprint with gritted teeth, going to the pep rally and wearing the "Game Jersey" and all the girls paying attention to you in class... Friends promising to come to the game and cheer for you... Then the time comes where you start the pregame prep... pre-game meal.. the pregame rituals and superstitions, getting dressed for the game and feeling like nothing could hold you back... You get all pumped up and take the field with a pure adrenaline rush.... Of course I then proceed to stand on the sidelines and never get in on more than 4 or 5 plays that first game... I wondered for a week how the game would have been different had I played more and why didn't the coach put me in because I was pumped.... It's tough being a freshman especially when you are 2 years younger than the "average" freshman.

I graduated when I was 16 and have always wished I had done the normal path to graduation at 18 upon looking back at my experiences. Dating would have been much easier at 16 in high school rather than trying to date 19 year old college freshmen... That's for sure.

Well my Cougars of BYU won their opener... Guess I may need to pay attention to them this season as 2 winning seasons have brought them from the cellar of the Mountain West Conference.. Which according to my wife is still not a real conference compared to the SEC..

I had my birthday yesterday and enjoyed all of the attention I got from the Family. Everyone was calling to see how I was doing.

I've been working from home the past 2 weeks but am getting primed for a return to the road. I'll make sure to post all of my favorite Airport hangouts and restaurant reviews from the road. The Birthday dinner was at Sam Seltzer's ... Which was a new one on me. I had never been and had heard it was not that good. I was surprised at the quality of the food not bad. The Ribs were good and the Prime Rib as excellent. The Martini glasses were too small for my liking and they seemed to have a hole in the bottom of the glass.

Well I have an MRI first thing tomorrow so I'm heading to bed in order to get my full nights sleep. I'll keep everyone posted on the results and explain in detail the reason in a future post.
Goodnight

First Post And it's also my Birthday!!

2007-09-05T00:14:00.001-04:00

Well I was told i need to beef up my first post so here goes. Today is my birthday and I turned the Big 40! Plus 5 of course.... My son shares a birthday with me as well and now that I'm an old geezer the focus is on Michael as it should be.

It sounded neat when we were getting him induced 10 years ago to share a birthday with my son. But we also have the same first and last name as well.... so I'm sure it will cause him documentation nightmares in the future when he goes to get a licenses to drive and has to first payoff my old speeding and parking tickets... :-) Just kidding buddy my record is clean as far as I know.

It's been great watching the kids grow up and progress through the years. I still don't know how my parents raised 8 kids and we all survived (so far)...

Now I did not celebrate my birthday in Cancun like my 40th... Remind me to tell you that story a little later. I ended up taking Michael and the family to Sam Seltzer's at the Mall. My son's choice of course so I guess you could say Michael took me to dinner. (I didn't mind so much when I got there and saw the kid's eat free offer...) Now the only trick was getting them to order off the kid's menu and not the adult menu and make it sound fun rather than getting the short end of the stick and I was set... Of course my loving wife graciously bailed me out and picked up the check after all. Thanks Amy. How long till my next birthday?

Michael now fancies himself a food connoisseur and burgeoning chef so he is going more upscale this year with the slow migration from Chuck E Cheese to Joto's to Sam seltzer's Maybe next year we can go to my favorite of all mid level moderate priced eating establishments... Bone Fish Grill. Sure beats the past 2 years at Joto's the Japanese steak place with the Not so funny hibachi cook, $10.00 Mai Tai's and a guaranteed $150.00 Tab.

The Prime rib at Sam's was good and I also liked the Wings and Ribs appetizer. The ribs were baby back in a sweet sauce and the wing sauce was on the mild side. Of course I only got 2 of each as my Daughters Katie and Morgan professed a new found liking for Wings and Ribs and this was news to me but left me wanting more after sharing 75% of my appi with those 2 starved rug rats.... Love both of ya... Obviously I need to be more devious in my appi order next time... maybe get the Hot sauce on the wings and the dry rub on the ribs... or just lick all of the ribs as soon as the plate touches the table thus claiming the whole rack as mine... ( The international sign for I claim this food as mine and you can't touch it is to lick it we all know that folks!!)

The Ceasar salad was decent but as always had lots of stale bread. (Croutons... Satan spawned stale bread from the bottom of the bread bin and stored on top of the grill till it dries out to rock hard toughness) Croutons still cause me night terrors from when I was a Chef apprentice in Washington DC. Now... I.... prefer.... adding a little Crumbled Danish Bleu cheese ....a sliced Heart of Palm, Cherrie tomatoes and some Pine nuts and bang you got a nice Salad. (Wham is copyrighted by that chef dude) Yeah Baby! Maybe some pickled beets and feta to go the greek way.

Anyway the son picked an ice cream cake from carvel. It was a whale cake and the daughter's had to fight over who got the whale's eye... ( One Solo Blue M&M). Next time tell the cake maker to add 4 eye's. Michael of course said nah next time I'm getting an 8 eyed octopus... That'll work too of course. Well I'm all excited about my son's first football game tomorrow. That should be fun.

I have to say this was a great day.. I;m elated that I was home to share it with my family and not stuck in some hotel in a different time zone... I'm looking forward to many more old geezer day's to come.

Favorite Ski Picture

2007-08-20T23:51:00.000-04:00