I have been AFK! - away from the keyboard

Well not actually. I have been in front of a computer or using a keyboard every single day practically since my last post in April! Work has been extraordinarily stressful and busy. You know...when you have 10 tasks and 2 people? :) Yes, THAT busy. In a way I suppose that's a good thing. We've had a global meltdown since the end of 2008 in the economy. Things picked up a bit since their March lows...up a good 20-30% depending on the index you measure.

There's never a shortage of work for people that really know how to do it. So, as I said...maybe the mind-numbing heaps of work is a good thing in this economic storm.

I want to apologize for not posting more regularly! I used to take it upon myself to blog while waiting for things, sitting in an airport, having a spare 30 minutes to share interesting observations on Oracle. I just haven't had that time recently :(

One link I would like to provide is courtesy of slashdot. I read there regularly. This article and the following comments (warning, MANY comments) are mostly about IT in healthcare, and why it is SO behind. It follows up a bit on my last post in April about Healthcare and Medical Informatics.

Another posting I have decided to link to simply burns me up. Very Angry! Here
Read on if you dare! I whole-heartedly disagree with this analysis, and I have many years of firshand experience!

I also wanted to mention (Sept 4 2009) that I received this very interesting comment. I didn't know what language it was, but I assumed arabic, hebrew, russian...I was not sure. So Google's translator was VERY handy! it detected the comment attached to this post was in Russian and tried to give a best translation to English. Here it is:

Если врач знает название вашей болезни, это еще не значит, что он знает что это такое. Никогда не приписывай человеческой зловредности того, что можно объяснить обыкновенной глупостью. Человек может долго жить на деньги которые он ждет. Реальность это иллюзия вызываемая отсутствием алкоголя. Женщины едят за разговорами, мужчины едят заедой

This, according to Google is suppsoed to mean:

"If the physician knows the name of your illness, it does not mean that he knows what it is. Never ascribe to human malignancy that can be explained by ordinary stupidity. A man may live long on the money that he waits. Reality is an illusion caused by lack of alcohol. Women eat for talking, men shall go eat."

Interesting. Confusing but interesting. A bit abstract!