Hello 2011!

It's been a while since I've last posted. Life's been busy, but I guess it's precisely these moments when writing is important; it gives me a chance for some much needed self-reflection. Sometimes I get lost in the details of life..

Let's see...

The readjustment from Ecuador was slightly difficult, something that I didn't expect. One minute I'm in my board shorts and flip flops speeding down an unlit mountain road and clenching the handle bars of my bike for dear life... my eyes are wide open and I'm peering into the pitch darkness of night, desperately trying to make out the outlines of a road.

I'm silently praying that the next pothole won't knock me off and that cars can see our bikes' reflectors. I can see myself there, thinking how a grueling three hour ascent was less than a half hour decent. And the moment where I finally realize our speed when we surpass a gas powered scooter going downhill...

Then the next moment I'm sitting with a dozen other analysts in a meeting room discussing the rating and ranking of our hospital in the U.S. News and World Report. I'm sitting there watching how quickly and efficiently the group dissects the report and appropriates out tasks. Conversations lasting 30 seconds went like this:
Person 1: "Question X"
Person 2: "I'll get it. I can pull X data from Z system."
Person 3: "Is A data included in Z's system? I can pull from B system to get A data, you need that to calculate X"
Person 2: "Does A get pulled if happens?"
Person 3: "A gets pulled if + "
Person 4: "Ok, pull patients from both and cross reference discrepancies"
Person 5: "Don't forget C data was added to X system last month. Contact D person, he can pull C data from W system. Clients are probably in both systems so be sure to find unique"
Person 6: "Person D is new, he replaced E and can verify those numbers"
Person 1: "Great. Next Question"

I'm finally catching up to the incredibly fast paced work schedule. I'm currently working on three system implementations (helping lead two) and I'm learning how challenging it is to juggle multiple projects successfully.

One of the projects is to switch to a new physician referral system and put it online; what it means is that if you're trying to find a doctor, now you can search for one yourself through the web site (instead of having to call people at the hospital). There's so much involved from data scrubbing to testing.

Anyways, I'm rambling. Work is good. Let's see what else...

Christina and I are still together; we're trying our first long distance relationship. She moved out to New York City last week and I plan on joining her there in 9 months. Living in New York City is one of those things that I've always wanted to do, but always had some excuse not to. Now I can't wait to get there.

I also got my 2011 Burning Man tickets! It's another one of those events that I've wanted to experience, but never followed through. Tickets were either out of my price range or unavailable by the time I remembered. When tickets went on sale at 10:00 am, there was an immediate server failure.

A few hours later, there were over 40,000 people in the queue. Thanks to Christina for waiting 'in line' online for me. She was able to buy them at a little past 8:00 pm. Christina and I will be meeting up with my friend James Laske there.

That's it for now. I'll have to remember to update more regularly since I'm sure I missed out on a lot of other things.