Spring happenings

My favorite part of spring is getting outside to breath in the warm, fresh air and to walk through the neighborhood and see what's changed during the winter. The plants and the lawns are starting to turn green, the birds are returning, and the squirrels are back in full force. It's a great time of year!

This spring I decided to take up running. I'd like to get out and participate in some 5k's this year so I thought I'd start training. In the past couple weeks I've made it out for five runs, each a little longer than the last. My most recent run got me over two miles for the first time in several years. I was pushing the baby in her jogging stroller the whole time and felt great afterwards. I've never enjoyed running before, but it's been kinda fun this year. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it up through the summer.

I'm in a bit of a break from training at the moment. Last night I came down with some sort of cold or sinus infection and have been pretty miserable every since. I don't think there will be much jogging in my future until this sinus thing clears up.

American Idol Craziness

Well I've finally come to terms with the fact that I'm a fan of American Idol. It's by no choice of my own, but my wife is a huge fan so I often find myself watching the show. I've also just discovered a great new way to enjoy the show by keeping up with Vote For The Worst.com. This is a great idea for making the competition entertaining by gathering together a powerhouse voting group to keep the worst contestant in the competition around as long as possible. What could be more fun than watching the AI judges squirm in their seats as they're forced to listen to someone that they want to just go away?

Travel, travel, travel...

Well I'm on my second and final business trip for the time being. I spent last week in New Orleans for the HIMSS conference and am in Atlanta this week for an HL7 training course. It's quite a bit of travel lined up back to back, but it's all for a good cause. I'm learning more about hospital information systems and how to integrate data into those systems. It's a daunting task when you look at the scope of the systems out there. There can be hundreds of different software systems running at a single hospital, each with its own mechanism for sending data out to the others. I'm trying to understand all of these systems and how they comply with the existing and upcoming data transmission standards. It's very intriguing, but a bit overwhelming at the moment.

Last week was the first time I made it to New Orleans. I didn't see much damage from Katrina, but the cab drivers said it's still pretty bad once you get out of the tourist areas. New Orleans wasn't quite what I was expecting. My only other exposure to the city has been through reality TV (Real World) so I was used to seeing the cleaner areas of town. I was surprised to see all the sex shops and strip clubs mixed in on Bourbon Street. All in all the city was dirtier than I expected, friendlier than I expected, and bigger than I expected. I didn't realize there were so many skyscrapers!

Well, that's a bit about my trips. I didn't say much about Atlanta, I guess that's because there's not much to say. I've been here before and the area of town I'm in pretty much shuts down at 5:00. I've been basically hanging out in the hotel and going for short walks around the neighborhood. Can't say that I have much desire to live in a big city.

Hello World!

Hello World! This is the very first entry in my new blog, R's World. Actually, this is my very first blog. I had a pretty hard time trying to think of a name for this blog, but eventually came up with "R's World". I hope to have occasional postings about what's going on in my world for family and friends to keep track of me, if they'd like. Feel free to leave me comments whenever you'd like! I'm always open to feedback!