Famous People You meet on Layovers

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

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!!

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

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!

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!

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!

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