Central Park walkabout

Written by Elwin Witzke on April 17th, 2013

After a quiet walk through the park here are some photos to share. Walking through Central Park in Burnaby reminded me of the days we took our young children out for some exercise and fresh air.

Taken on April 16, 2013

 

No Nursing Home for Me

Written by Elwin Witzke on January 27th, 2013

I received this from a friend a few days ago. It made me laugh and I think it will give you a chuckle as well.

No  NURSING HOME FOR me!!!

No nursing home for us. We’ll be checking into a Holiday Inn!

With the average cost for a nursing home care costing $188.00 per day, there is a  better way when we get old and too feeble.

I’ve  already checked on reservations at the Holiday Inn. For a combined long term stay discount and senior discount, it’s $59.23 per night. Breakfast is included, and some have happy hours in the afternoon. That leaves $128.77 a day for lunch and dinner in any restaurant we want, or room  service, laundry, gratuities and special TV movies.

Plus, they provide a spa, swimming pool, a workout room, a lounge and washer-dryer, etc. Most have free toothpaste and razors, and all have free shampoo and soap. $5 worth of tips a day you’ll have the entire staff scrambling to help you. They treat you like a customer, not a patient.

There’s a city bus stop out front, and seniors ride free. The handicap bus will also pick you up (if you fake a decent limp). For a change of scenery, take the airport shuttle bus and eat at one of the nice restaurants there. While you’re at the airport, fly somewhere. Otherwise, the cash keeps building up.

It takes months to get into decent nursing homes. Holiday Inn will take your reservation today. And you’re not stuck in one place forever — you can move from Inn to Inn, or even from city to city. Want to see Hawaii? They have Holiday Inn there too.

TV broken? Light bulbs need changing? Need a mattress replaced? No problem. They  fix everything, and apologize for the inconvenience.

The Inn has a night security person and daily room service. The maid checks to see if you are ok. If not, they’ll call an ambulance . . . or the undertaker. If you fall and break a hip, Medicare will pay for the hip, and Holiday Inn will upgrade you to a suite for the rest of your life.

Credit: The Internet circa 2004

 

New beginnings

Written by Elwin Witzke on January 1st, 2013

January 1st is as good as any to place a stake in the ground. A recent blog post by Michael Hyatt talked about having a platform from which you can build your online presence.

As I move into uncharted territory in my career, I will be using this blog as a home base. I will still use Twitter (@ElwinWitzke) and other social networks. In the past this blog has covered an assortment of topics, from general interest to specific technologies. For the time being I will be focusing this blog on the following:

  • unified communications
  • video conferencing
  • mobile devices
  • social collaboration in the enterprise
  • gaining business value from communications technologies
  • enterprise management of mobile devices
  • Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategies

As the clock moves forward, so does our life. Leaving behind a long career in a large organization is daunting, yet it provides an opportunity to use my skills in different organizations.

 

Chain 124

Written by Elwin Witzke on February 21st, 2012

This is an amazing story about Chain 124, a series of 30 kidney transplants covering 60 operations started by one person. For that person it was an act of altruism. The story covers some of the amazing mathematical matching and high speed computer processing to make this happen.

Also check out the multimedia interactive that shows all the kidney exchanges that took four months from beginning to end.