Changes

The past week has been more of the same – work continues to be wonderful and I am blessed with a great team that gets along very well. They “GET IT”, with it being that what we do has a direct impact on how our Clinicians are able to serve our ultimate customer, the patient. What we enjoy the most is that for us no two days are the same – we can be at different facilities, meeting different parts of the hospital whether it is Talent Inquisition, OB-GYN, dentistry or the Executives. The diversity of our jobs is what keeps it interesting and challenging.

We will soon begin our busy season as after Labor Day many video meetings begin their sessions again. Our Residents and Fellows join us at that time and video conferencing is one of the many ways that they receive some of their education. You can understand how important it is to have this work every time.

Last evening my niece, Siobhan hosted a party at Annie Moore’s in Manhattan for her father’s friends to say good-bye to him. It was a “surprise” party and for once he was truly surprised at seeing what had been pulled together. He couldn’t believe that not one of his friends, his son nor I had ‘spilled the beans’ or even hinted at it.

This coming Tuesday I will stop at my cousin’s house and will take him, his daughter and son-in-law to a restaurant we have wanted to go to for the past year. With Gerry moving to Delaware on Friday it will be a while again before we have this opportunity. I believe in fate and this time it came in the form of Groupon – there it was $85 for dinner for four with 2 appetizers, 4 entrees and 4 glasses of sangria at Sofrito, a Puerto Rican restaurant. This is a fantastic price given that this meal would normally cost $200. Not only does the restaurant focus on Puerto Rican food; but, the last name of the Head Chef is Maldonado – same as my cousin and our mother’s maiden name. We are all looking forward to that time together.

Then on Friday morning I will head to Gerry’s house and be there at 7AM – I will drive down with him to help first settle his wife, Eilish in the new nursing home and then we will go to the house he is renting to get him settled in. He will stay at the rental until he sells his house in New York and he can have the house built in Delaware. Siobhan and her husband will come down on Saturday and we will stay with Gerry until Monday morning when I will come back with them to head back to work on Tuesday.

I keep going on to the Port Chester school district web site to find the 2012-2013 school calendar. I am trying to figure out when the boys (Gerry’s grandchildren) will have off so that I can plan a day off from work and take them down to visit their grandfather. As I said there are many changes happening – the one that will probably be most difficult is that Gerry is used to seeing his son and grandchildren every Sunday for dinner – this will no longer happen. I am hoping that we can still have our monthly family dinners if we can arrange them around the boy’s time off from school.

I am fortunate to get 27 days off per year – I also am able to work from home on Mondays and Fridays so I can easily take the boys down to visit their grandfather on Thursday evenings and head home on Sundays; or, if Gerard joins us on Saturday evening he can drive the boys home on a Monday and I can head home Sunday on my own. We will figure out a schedule that will work.

Regarding the Visual Communications Industry Group (VCI-G) we are entering the final phases of conference planning. We just need to confirm some panel speakers and become aggressive in our promotion to get individuals to come to the conference. This week we will start a “calling campaign” and I will need to place some posts on the various Linkedin groups that I belong to that are industry related. I know that we have pulled together a strong and interesting program – NOW to get the message out to everyone.

Lastly, I am looking forward to meeting up with two friends. One of them we will go away for a weekend – we haven’t decided whether it will be to a beach site or we may go to Rhode Island and visit the mansions. My other friend we will meet in the city and find a Broadway show that we will both enjoy – the new Broadway season begins in October so there will be much to chose from.

Well, I want to let you know now that I will not be writing a blog next week. As I mentioned I will be in Delaware with my cousin, his daughter and son-in-law coming home on Monday.

Enjoy this last unofficial week of summer, get the children ready for school and have a wonderful Labor Day.