MS Walk 2010

Hard to believe that it’s been a whole year already since my last post about raising money for the MS walk.  It’s been a busy year for us, and one where we haven’t let the disease stop us from doing much of what we want to do.

I’ve switched jobs, and am now a consultant.  Especially interesting because I used to joke about them borrowing your watch to tell you what time it was.  It’s interesting work and has me in Denver Mon-Thurs most weeks.

MA is doing very well with the time on her own.  We don’t like being separated, but we have called on friends as necessary (trips to the airport, etc) and have engaged a regular dog walker. The house is on the market, so we should be able to find something where the master is on the main, even if for a while that’s a rented condo in ATL.

The interferon shots continue weekly and remain as unpleasant as ever.  There are some promising drugs on the horizon that do the same thing (slow the progression of the disease) in pill form, but we are never anxious to be the first on a new medication.  There is also an interesting new drug to help with walking, and we hope to be talking about that one before the next annual fund-raising post.

On to the solicitation part.  I will be walking 5K, probably with Sparky on May 15 in Piedmont Park in Atlanta.  It is a very big fundraiser for the National MS Society, and my friends have blessed me each of the last 5 years with very generous donations.  This organization is well run, and is dedicated to finding a cure for this debilitating disease.  I know times are difficult, but we would appreciate whatever you can give.

MS Walk Page (where you can donate on-line)

Cards and letters always welcome.  Tweet us, check us on Facebook, or stop by the place in Atlanta while we’re still there.

Thank you for your support.

Career Transition

19 years ago this month, I was part of a foursome that started Patient Care Technologies.  We spent some time deciding what we were doing, then settled on electronic medical records for home care.  We worked with MEDITECH and had Data General build us a then state-of-the-art handheld device.

We were the first system to do clinical documentation for home care.  Over the years, we transitioned from the original handheld to laptops then to tablet devices.  We switched from DOS to Windows, added a billing module and eventually rewrote the whole system to be process driven - full of business intelligence.  We grew from 4 employees to a high of 175.  Our original funder and long time stategic partner, MEDITECH, acquired us in April of 2007.  As of 12/31/2009, PtCT ceased to exist and we all became MEDITECH employees.

My employment at MEDITECH ended on 1/15/10.  It feels very different to me after being part of the same organization for so many years, but it is time to move to something new.

As of 2/1/2010, I am a Senior Consultant with ACS-HCS.  I will be building a strategic consulting practice, with a focus on homecare.  My first client is the Health at Home department of Centura Health, Colorado's largest health care organization.  I am flying out to Denver early on Monday mornings and flying back home on Thursday nights.  Less than a week in, it's very exciting.

Cousin Val

Kent and Betty's oldest, Val, passed away suddenly on Wednesday night at 56 years old.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to Mandy, Lucy, Eleanor and Nicholas, as well as Betty, Randolph, Amery, Tish and Wright. The obituary at Milward's describes him well.

Here's Val at the Anniversary Party this summer.

His brother-in-law Rich has started an album of shots as well.  He's happy to share electronic or print copies with family who are interested.  I've included the taller picture of Val because I was struck by his hands.  I always think of Val as working and you can see it in the cuts on his fingers.

Mary Anne and I were watching old home movies of the Kent Hollingsworths growing up around Eclipse Place during one of our recent Lexington visits at Tish's house.  Like most home movies, a familiar annual pattern developed with football games, Christmas, swim meets, etc.  The striking thing was that Val was always working.  He was frequently in the background of the shot, sometimes taking a break (especially to play something with little brother Wright) but always happily doing his chores.

I spent one of my Christmas breaks in high school working for Val.  I remember starting early, ignoring the cold and getting a lot done during the days.  I never remember anything but joie de vivre from Val, whether showing me how to avoid a manure caked cow's tail while milking, or loading up hay to take out for feeding.

Mary Anne keeps remembering him dancing at Elizabeth's wedding this summer.  He pulled Mandy out on the floor during some song that most of us would have figured was only for Elizabeth's generation.  He had a golden sunshine of a smile.

We think of Val's namesake, Valentine Hollingsworth, as the first of our family to come to the new World in 1682.  People with good names and strong values have been leading the Hollingsworths for a long time.
 
We don't grieve for Val, we grieve for ourselves.  We will miss him every day, and especially when the whole family gets together.

Christmas 2009

We didn't get a picture of the girls when they were together for the surprise anniversary party in July. And we weren't all together any time except that this year, so we don't have a printed card.

Since we are doing so much digital these days (even stopping delivery of the physical paper in favor of on-line), it feels like an appropriate time to take the Christmas Card digital.

Merry Christmas
Happy New Year for 2010

Now for the fun part, the pictures. Here's a walk down memory lane.

1990 in front of the fireplace in Mt. Pleasant


1990 Christmas dresses


1991 with Frank Harrington at Peachtree Pres


1991 Black Velvet dresses


1992 Christmas dresses


1993 Smocked dresses


1993 Christmas Card


1994 Christmas card


1995 Christmas Card


1997 Christmas Card (with Teddy)


1998 Christmas Card (at Seaside)


1999 Christmas Card (taken by our friend Laurie Coleman)


2000 Christmas Card


2001 Christmas Card


2002 Christmas Card


2003 Christmas Card (at Rosemary Beach)


2004 Christmas Card (Eleanor's high school graduation)


2005 Christmas Card


2005 Family shot


2006 Christmas Card (the laughing version)


2006 Christmas Card


2007 Caroline goes to UK


2008 Christmas Card (Family beach week at Ocean Isle)


A special thanks to Helen D. Bull ("Mrs. Bool") for all the lovely dresses when they were young.

Thanks also to Nancy Cartledge for being organized enough to have some of the older pictures I was missing and communicative enough to have mentioned it before I started trying to gather pictures.

If anyone has a 1996 Hollingsworth Christmas card, let me know.

Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Barding a turkey

This is a little to long for a facebook post, so I'm putting it on the blog.

We have a lot to be thankful for this year. I'm looking forward to a feast with Muv and Pha and Caroline and we will miss Eleanor (in Chicago).

We have a long tradition of cooking too much food for Thanksgiving, even back to over 20 years ago.


This year we will bard the turkey. It's from Cook's Country (byAmerica's Test Kitchen), as have been many of our recent recipes. It's a 19th century technique where you place salt pork (unsmoked bacon) over the turkey breast as you roast it. I can't wait.

Right now is the fun part. I'm checking the timing on all the recipes and working backwards so I know when to start what. All chefs will tell you, the hardest part is having everything ready at the same time.

Let the preparations begin!

A new day dawns for the dogs

We've had a few times when Scout has gone into the red zone. She's a little high strung and once she gets agitated, it can get bad. I spent 90 minutes with the trainer this morning and we are beginning dominance training. Which really means that I just need to re-establish that I am alpha and that Mary Anne is second, both of us clearly ahead of the terriers.



Sparky has his part in things too. He is still only 17 months old and sometimes wants to play so badly that it just hurts. He's so cute that we sometimes haven't believed he was culpable.

Dominance training means that they wear their collars and leashes in the house for a time so I can make them do what I require as soon as I require it. Most challenging, no more time on the furniture. We have enjoyed having them curled up beside us on the couch or even draped over a leg on the bed while we watch TV. No more. In doggie world, them being above us physically means they are above us in pack order.

In the end, we'll have better behaved dogs. We can do it and aren't even too sad about it.

Software, but in a good way

I had a real epiphany on the way into work Friday morning. Morning Edition was already over, and besides, it's the fall fund drive on NPR this week. I still don't have a good iPod connection in the car I'm driving and I'd already heard the CDs that were loaded. iPhone to the rescue. The Public Radio app has an On Demand feature that lets you select various recent broadcasts, without having remembered to subscribe to the Podcasts. I got to hear Garrison Keillor's most recent News from Lake Wobegon the whole way to work. It was great.


I was further inspired by a post by Seth Godin about RadioLand. He advocates subscribing to the podcast, but again, I can get it on demand over the 3G network without spending the time to sync. The on-demand isn't always remembering where I was for a quick restart, but I'm sure that's coming. The point is the steps keep getting easier. I don't have to bother subscribing and downloading and syncing

TiVo has herself watching Andy Cohen and the midnight "Watch what happens Live" show, usually at 9am. We also watch a lot of Graham Norton on BBC America. He's hilarious, and we wouldn't see him as often without the time shifting.

What's the down side? Well, sometimes you discover something just cruising stations and seeing what is on. But I think we more than make up for that by having social-media based recommendations. Netflix does a good job in letting you share movie thoughts with friends. I saw someone I'm following on Twitter ask for movie recommendations the other day - he got dozens of suggestions within a few minutes.

When Eleanor was three, she assumed that that our phone number would follow us wherever we went; now it does via the iPhone in our pockets. When Google first introduced satellite views on the maps, I heard someone complain that the car they could see in their driveway had been sold a few months back. It's amazing how quickly we get over being impressed at how some things work and what we expect technology to be able to do.

Some of what's available now really does make entertainment more entertaining. What will be available soon that our grandchildren take for granted?