07-15-2017: Conference End

Christine spent most of Saturday talking with one of the people who she will be working with to receive some IT support.  And I mean talking!  They spent nearly 6 hours together.  I attended some of the sessions, but then escaped to spend some time walking in another section of the Riverwalk that we hadn’t explored.

I went north along the main channel of the San Antonio River.  It is just as beautiful as all the other areas that we have explored.  All along the way is interesting vegetation, nice walkways, beautiful buildings and lots to see.  The only problem is that at this time of the years it’s too darn hot!  The temperatures the entire week were nearly 100 degrees with very, very high humidity.  Within minutes of fast-paced walking, one is drenched in perspiration.  After an hour of walking, I was definitely ready for a cold drink and air conditioning.

The conference wrapped up at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday.  We arranged to meet up with some friends who we always look forward to seeing.  Karen Fox-Acosta received a Lifetime Achievement Award from AHDI this year for her many years of service and advocacy in support of the medical transcription industry.  We’ve gotten to know Karen and Linda well over the last decade of so, mostly meeting at this yearly conference.  We had a nice dinner with them and it was lovely spending time catching up.

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Linda  and Karen (left)

And amazingly, the week has flown by and it was time to pack up and get ready for our very early departure (5:00 a.m.) departure from the hotel to the airport on Sunday morning.

Despite a crashed computer, Christine is excited again about the prospects for TQAudit, which is nice to see.  I enjoyed give my presentation, which I haven’t done in several years.  Most people hate public speaking, but I rather enjoy it, so it was nice to experience that again.  So it was a great week in San Antonio.  But it’s time to go home, and I for one, am totally ready to get home.

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Flying over Binghamton – Home!

There’s no place like home!

07-14-2017: AHDI Conference and Fiesta Noche del Rio

Just so you know that we really did do some work at this conference, here are a couple of photos to prove it.

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Christine and Judy Lichtenberger at the TQAudit table

Christine had a positive result from the conference.  Several prospective customers indicated funding success in their hospitals, so Christine will be working hard this fall doing new customer installations.  She also teamed up with a couple who will be able to provide great IT and marketing assistance, a very, very positive success.

I gave my presentation titled, Are Medical Errors Really the Third Leading Cause of Death in America?  Not a fun subject, nevertheless, an important subject for stimulating patient safety improvement in our healthcare systems.  The answer to the question is, we have no way of knowing what harms are caused by medical errors because there is no standardized definition of a medical error and no clear way to collect data about medical errors.

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Linda giving her presentation

Friday evening Christine and I did a really fun thing.  Christine had said earlier in the week that she wanted to see some Spanish dancing.  Lo and behold, Friday night the Kiwanis Club in San Antonio was sponsoring Fiesta Noche del Rio at the Arneson River Theater which we can almost see from the balcony of our room.  I purchased tickets online for the show.

The Arneson River Theater is an outdoor stage on one side of the river with seating across the river.  Pedestrian traffic is blocked off during the show, but the river boats continue to come through between the stage and audience.

The Fiesta Noche del Rio is a wonderful collection of Spanish and Mexican singing and dancing, some from the stage, some in front of the seating area and some across the lovely pedestrian bridge near the theater.  Most of the music is rousing so everyone in the audience really gets into it, dancing and singing along.  The costumes are colorful with many quick changes.  To begin the show was a fantastic flamenco guitarist.  He was superb.  The male and female lead singers were entertaining.  But I loved the mariachi band that spanned the bridge.  They were really great.  It was a really fun evening of entertainment.

So, we still had some fun while attending to business.

07-13-2017: Morning Walk, Then Conference Start

Thursday morning was our last opportunity to play and be tourists.  The AHDI conference got underway Thursday afternoon, so then the focus was on work.

We decided to head south along the river, a section we had not walked yet.

Our target was to see an historic German house and flour mill, but we got waylaid and didn’t make it that far.  Surprisingly, there is a large German population and history in San Antonio, and the main draw was this big flour mill run by a family named Guenther.  But although we saw some presence of a water wheel that powered the flour mill along the river, we actually explored an historic section named the King William District.  It’s a 25-block area of fantastic restored homes.  The Germans settled primarily in this area starting in the mid-1800s.  As time went by, the area gained a derogatory name, Sauerkraut Bend, especially in the lead up to WWI.  The stately homes in the district fell into disrepair after WWII, but then in the 1960s, a man named Walter Noid Mathis bought one of the run down mansions and began renovations.  Mr. Mathis had bumped around the world and when he bought the mansion, he said it would be his last home and ultimate resting place, so he named it Villa Finale, and he is buried in the backyard.  His renovation of Villa Finale began the revival of the King William Historic District and since the 1960s, most of the grand homes have been purchased and renovated.  Being the German enclave, the King William name comes from Kaiser Wilhelm.  Mr. Mathis brought 5 houses across the street from Villa Finale and renovated them because he didn’t want his neighborhood to be shabby.

Villa Finale is now a museum.  We took a tour of the first floor of the house and the garden along the side of the property.  Our docent, Carol, was quite entertaining telling us about Mr. Mathis and showing us his eccentric collection of stuff that comprises the museum.  Mr. Mathis collected all kinds of things from his world travels.  The largest collection was of Napoleon-related items.  There was also a large collection of silver service sets, religious icons, porcelain, books, furniture and art.  The rooms were stuffed full of collections of things.

We enjoyed the tour of Villa Finale and a quick walk around the block to see some of the great houses.

And, of course, our return walk to the hotel along the horseshoe part of the Riverwalk always provides a feast for the eyes.

And now it’s time to go to work.  The rest of Thursday was taken up by the AHDI board meeting, which Christine attended.  I practiced my talk in the room.  There was a reception sponsored by M*Modal in the evening, which is always a nice event.  Christine stayed to engage with people and I went back to the room to practice my talk.

That ended our Thursday in San Antonio.

07-12-2017: The San Antonio Missions

Today we wanted to visit some of the missions around San Antonio.  We learned from the hotel concierge about the Viva buses, public buses that go along several tourist attraction routes.  For $2.75 one can get a day pass and ride the bus anywhere and hop on, hop off at will.  One of the Viva buses is specifically for the missions, so that was our bus.

Just a block from the hotel was the bus stop, so it was very convenient.  We boarded the bus and there was only 1 other rider.  Sure beats paying an arm and a leg for a crowded tour bus.  And, the bus was delightfully air conditioned!  We decided to ride to the farthest mission to the south and then make our way back to downtown.  The Alamo was, among other things, initially a Spanish mission.  The San Fernando Cathedral originally was a mission.  Today, we’re visiting San Juan, San Jose and Concepcion missions.

All the Spanish missions were introduced in the early 1700s.  Spain controlled much of the area and called the area New Spain.  After the early conquistadors and settlers did not find the promise of gold and riches, Spain needed another way to bring Spanish culture to the area.  The Franciscan friars served that purpose through establishment of missions.  Converting the indigenous people to Catholicism was a big goal, but establishing communities for the new converts and protecting the people from raiding Indians from the north and creating self sufficient compounds were the primary goals.  The First Peoples of the area were under attack from Apache and Comanche Indians coming from the north and from deadly diseases coming from the south where European Spaniards settled.  Disease wiped out 80% of the First Peoples population.  The First Peoples essentially had no choice but to give up their independent identities and move into the missions.  In the missions, they had to give up their culture, speak Spanish, convert to Catholicism and work as indentured servants.  The men were sent off to large ranches to keep the huge herds of animals needed to feed mission residents and trade with area settlers.  Women tended the agricultural fields.  The missions lasted less than 75 years, and when it was no longer possible to support the missions, the land was divided up and given to remaining mission residents.  But during their existence, while much of the story is  grim, the missions served an important function.

The first we visited was San Juan.  Not much remains of the compound, but you can see the outline of the walls and get a sense for how much land was involved.  The little white mission church is intact as is the main gate.  This mission does not permit visitors into any of the remaining buildings, so we had to be satisfied with walking around the grounds.  We did take a pretty little nature trail around an area along the Yanaguana River.  One of the things the missions did was dam up some of the rivers and dig a huge irrigation project, including building aqueducts and draining trenches, in order to irrigate the agricultural land.  The irrigation ditches are quite intact and one can see places where the ditches are dammed up to cause backflow into the fields.  Quite an elaborate system that spanned some 15 miles or so connecting the major San Antonio missions.

From San Juan Mission we hopped on the Viva bus and rode to the largest mission, San Jose Mission.  What I had not realized is that the San Antonio Missions are part of the National Park Service and all are historic parks maintained by the NPS.  There is a visitor center at San Jose.  We had a guided tour of the mission compound conducted by a NPS volunteer.  His narration was really helpful in understanding what happened to the indigenous people, not a pretty story.  San Jose is a very large compound.  At its height, about 300 people lived within the compound walls.  This mission ran large ranches more than 20 miles away and the men would work there.  San Jose had a very large granary, which was a really interesting building having buttresses on the outer walls.  The mission church, still an active Catholic Church, was very pretty.  The convent, where the friars lived in small rooms or cells, had lovely stone arches.  There is also a famous baroque window called the Rose Window which supposedly is the best example of baroque carving in the U.S.

San Jose was a very large compound and from the narration by the NPS volunteer, one really got a good idea of what life was like.  That message was reiterated in the movie we watched at the visitor center.  I have very mixed feelings about these missions, especially in light of their goal to strip the native people of their culture.  However, the survivors who gained a piece of land when the missions broke up have become important parts of the Texas culture in terms of Spanish/native peoples, the Tejanos.

We stopped in to a Pizza Hut across the highway from the mission for a bite to eat.  It was so beastly hot walking around the mission so sitting in a cool place with an icy beverage and a couple of slices of pizza hit the spot.  Then, back on the Viva bus to Concepcion Mission.

This seemed to be a much smaller mission, or at least the compound part of the mission was not in much evidence.  The church is one of the oldest mission churches.  Mission Concepcion was a spiritual center in addition to a mission.  The Coahuiltecan Indians were the indigenous tribe to enter the Concepcion Mission.   While visiting this mission, stormy weather blew in and a quick downpour came with lots of thunder and lightening.  Fortunately, we could find shelter to wait out the storm.  We hoped the rain would subside before our bus came, and we were lucky.  The rain didn’t last long and we boarded the bus without getting soaked.

We arrived back to the hotel thinking we’d be able to settle in for the late afternoon and evening.  That plan went out the window when Christine booted up her computer, but inside of booting, a recovery error message popped up indicating that the operating system was corrupt.  To start it she would need recovery tools for the manufacturer.  She called Geek Squad at one of the Best Buys in town and got an appointment.  We jumped in a cab and went to Best Buys.  The reason this computer crash was so devastating is because Christine is to demo her software to an important prospect Thursday morning.  Also, she uses her computer at her exhibitor table to show people TQAudit.  We spent a couple of hours at the Geek Squad counter while one, then another guy tried to determine the issue.  The bad news is that her operating system is corrupt and the computer can not be booted.  The good news is that it’s possible that the hard drive is not corrupt and that files will be retrievable.  Hopefully, when we return home, she’ll be able to work with a computer repair company to get her files copied off that hard drive.  But all this was a very stressful couple of hours for Christine.

We didn’t want to pay the $30 cab fare back to the hotel so we determined that a bus route was possible.  Dummy that I am, I had taken our Viva bus tickets out of my wallet thinking we wouldn’t need them again today and in the panic of getting to Best Buys, the tickets remain in the hotel room.  But we only had to pay 65 cents (senior rate) each to ride the bus back to the hotel.  What a deal!

Back at the hotel, Christine spent the rest of the evening trying to “move in” to my computer and rig up a way to demonstrate TQAudit to the prospect and other conference attendees.  That should work out okay.  All that drama really took it out of us and we were exhausted for sure.

So, although everything ended well, our nice day touring the San Antonio Missions kind of got superseded by a panicky turn of events.

 

07-11-2017: Riverwalk and Exploring

Tuesday morning we went to the River’s Edge for a complimentary breakfast. We got some extra points and a comp breakfast because of our Hilton Honors status, which was nice.  One of the things we watched while having breakfast is a guy watering the vegetation.  It was interesting to watch, although a bit noisy, because the water comes out of the river by generator pump.  The vehicle is a small scow on which the generator and pump sit.  The water is pumped out of the river and a guy with a very long hose waters all the vegetation along a stretch of the river.  When done, he gets in the scow and motors down several hundred yards, parks along the side, gets out, and water the next stretch of vegetation.  He also trims and pulls weeds while watering.  Pretty good system, we thought.  Then in another scow came a crew with a power washer to clean all the walkways.  Then a boat came along with skimmer nets to scoop up debris in the river.  So now we know why everything is so neat, tidy and clean.

We then headed out to walk more of the Riverwalk. We continue to be amazed by how beautiful everything is.  It is so lovely just ambling along and enjoying the scenery.

The open end of the horseshoe joins the main river and to the west side of the river is part of the downtown section of San Antonio.  We headed over to a really interesting looking building of red sandstone that had a beehive dome top.  This is city hall and Bexar County courthouse.  We went in and had a look around.  The hallways were lined with people awaiting court hearings.  There wasn’t much to see inside, just long hallways, but the building is really cool-looking on the outside.

After the county courthouse we went in to San Fernando Cathedral across the street. This was a Spanish mission church and has played an important role over the centuries since the early 1700s.  As Catholic churches go, it was not very large or ornate, but the solid stone walls and nice stained glass windows provide a sense of protection and serenity.

We then wandered around Main Plaza, a large square that had some water features that I’m sure kids play in when the fountains are shooting up water from the puddles.

We then made our way back to the Riverwalk and kept heading around the horseshoe. We stopped in to the Hyatt Hotel because we heard from our boat tour narrator that the atrium in the hotel had water running through it.  The hotel used the river as inspiration and created a beautiful outdoor series of waterfalls into channels through the lobby of the hotel.  It was a nice feature.

The Hyatt is also across the street from the Alamo, so we thought being so close, we’d better go see the Alamo.  One can’t “remember the Alamo” unless you learn something about it.

The area was settled in the early 1700s by a Spanish missionary, San Antonio de Valero. Over the years, it became a center for trading and a village and was a large compound.  The building most often depicted with reference to the Alamo, is the mission church.  The mission ended in 1793 and was unoccupied until the Spanish military took it over.  One of the Spanish occupiers had a very long name that ended with de Alamo de Parras.   The mission became known as the Village of the Alamo Company.  Eventually, the place was just referred to as the Alamo. In the 1821 Mexico won independence from Spain.  Then Texas was formed in the northern Mexico territory but wanted to be a republic and obtain independence from Mexico.  It was during the Texas Revolution, 1835-1836, that the battle of the Alamo occurred.  I think most of us remember something about Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie fighting to the death defending the Alamo from Mexican General Santa Anna.  The battle was lost, but shortly thereafter, Texas became a republic and won independence from Mexico.  I’m glad we visited because I didn’t really know anything about the Alamo and why it is a significant part of American history.  We watched a short movie that put it all in perspective.  The Alamo is billed as the cradle of Texas liberty.

The Alamo
The Alamo

Across the street from the Alamo is an interesting building.  It is now the Emily Morgan Hotel by Doubletree.  When we saw it, at first we though it might be a Scottish Rite Temple, but no.  Originally, it was a Medical Arts building and hospital.  We checked out the lobby and looked at old photos on display.

We then headed back to the Riverwalk and made our way back to the Hilton. In doing so, we now have walked around all of the horseshoe part of the Riverwalk and the secondary channel and one arm of that channel.  We have just a second arm off the secondary channel to explore.

After a rest period back at the hotel, we headed out again. We saw information about a light show at San Fernando Cathedral so headed in that direction.  We stopped in at the Iron Cactus for dinner on the way.  We arrived at the Main Plaza at dark, along with lots of other people, to see the 24 minute video art installation that is projected on the exterior of the cathedral.  The 7,000 square foot projection with custom choreographed music in surround sound narrates the historical discovery, settlement and development of San Antonio.  The production is titled, San Antonio – the Saga, and it was spectacular!  We watched 2 showings because you can’t take it all in with just one.

Photos don’t do the show justice.  The music and video worked so well together and it was a feast to the eyes and ears – a really cool thing to watch.

We then walked backed to the hotel along the Riverwalk.  It is beautiful at night with all the lights reflecting in the river.

What a great day we had in San Antonio!

07-10-2017: San Antonio Riverwalk

We’re in San Antonio, TX! What brings us here is the annual Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) conference.  Christine has been coming to these annual conferences for years as it is the main gathering of professionals who could use her software, TQAudit.  While I was running a transcription company, I was also a member of AHDI, although not as active as Christine.  In past years Christine has given presentations and twice she won an award, Innovation through Technology, for her software.  This year, however, I submitted an abstract to give a presentation and was accepted.  So I’ll be giving a talk on Friday.  Today I wonder why I submitted an abstract!  This AHDI conference has been a great way to see the country.  We’ve been to cities that we probably would never have considered visiting, like Indianapolis and Milwaukee.  Christine has been to Austin and Nashville.  And I doubt we would have ever traveled to San Antonio, which is now the 7th largest city in the U.S.  Who knew??!!!

At any rate, we left Binghamton on Sunday, July 9. I spent a couple of frantic days beforehand trying to get lake association stuff done.  I had packets for the association’s annual meeting to complete (I’m secretary of the association) and then had minutes of a board of directors meeting to write up.  I did get all that done, thanks to the fact that we didn’t fly out until nearly 6:00 p.m.  While we were waiting for our flight to depart, we played an interesting game.  I was surprised to see a new bar-like area selling snacks and beverages, sponsored by Binghamton Brewery, in the departure lounge. At the bar was a game called Suspend which involves hanging various sized rods with little U-shaped indentations from a main structure.  It’s a real balancing act, but lots of fun.

We flew to Detroit and had about an hour layover. We had packed some food so we could nibble a little before flying out to San Antonio.  Christine had a weird thing going on with her foot so she was having a very hard time walking.  But everything worked out and we were on our way on time.  It was a nice night for flying as there was a full moon, which was fun to see out the window and through the clouds.

We arrived in San Antonio close to 11:00 p.m. central time. We retrieve our luggage and got a cab to the Hilton Palacio del Rio.  By the time we hit the sack, we were both extremely tired, but we did take time to take in the sights from our balcony.  Our room is directly over the Riverwalk, but right across the river is a huge water tank and pumping station.  So that wasn’t very nice.  But the Tower Life Insurance Building is a beautiful sight, both at night and in daylight.

Tower Life Insurance building
Tower Life Insurance building
The nicer view from our room
The nicer view from our room

On Monday, we had a leisurely start to the day. But we couldn’t resist the draw of the Riverwalk for very long. We can just go out the back door of the hotel right on to the Riverwalk.  We strolled along taking in the absolute beauty of the Riverwalk.  The entire Riverwalk is just 2.5 miles.  It is a horseshoe-shaped development of the San Antonio River.  It was first developed in the 1930s and was originally built as a flood control project.  It was a WPA project.  Over the decades, the city determined that it should be developed as a tourist attraction housing restaurants, shops and hotels along both sides of the narrow river.

It is really beautiful, and totally unexpected. The walkways on each side of the river are beautifully landscaped.  The trees are spectacular with huge Bald Cypress trees everywhere.  The walkways curve and there are lovely bridges and pedestrian walkways arching over the river.  Some spots have little waterfalls or a small grotto.  Some stretches are quiet while others are bustling.  There are a multitude of restaurants, most with outdoor seating on nice patios or terraces.  And every few minutes a barge comes along full of tourists on the narrated Riverwalk boat tour.

We walked along a newer section of the Riverwalk to the convention center. We stopped every couple of feet to admire the plants, shrubs and trees and to take photos.  We just couldn’t get over how beautiful everything is.

We found our way to a stretch of restaurants and decided on lunch at Café Ole. We had a light lunch of a shared fiesta salad, since the first thing the server brought to the table was a huge basket of tortilla chips.

Unfortunately, just as our lunch arrived, Christine had an emergency TQAudit issue with a customer so she was trying to take care of that.  After lunch we came back to the hotel so Christine could converse with her customer.  We had a little rest and decided to go back out for another little walk along the Riverwalk.

A stone’s throw from our hotel is an art and craft village called La Villita. It’s a really quaint collection of original residences and shops that have become an artists’ colony.

We wandered around there for a while and decided to do the Riverwalk boat tour.  It’s about a 30 minute ride around the horseshoe Riverwalk and the newer section that dead ends at the end of 2 arms that go in opposite directions off a main channel.  It was interesting to hear the commentary and get an overview of the Riverwalk.  We then came back to the hotel, mostly because it was scorching hot and almost unbearable to be outside.  The temperatures will be high 90s all week with 200% humidity, a real steam bath. We found a cool spot in the hotel bar.  We had some yummy hors d’oeuvres and a drink and then checked out one of the hotel’s restaurant, River’s Edge.  We had a nice dinner of a great chicken salad and a flatbread pizza.  By then, we were both tuckered out and so we came back to the room and relaxed before falling asleep.

What a nice first full day we had in San Antonio!