Some news on the job front

The last couple weeks I’ve been working on transitioning my new responsibilities. I have had responsibilities for Business Unit Management of ITWorks and managing our Tier One Client and Associate Help Desks. The Business Unit (BU) Management consisted of pricing and packaging, sales and contract support, operations analysis, planning, forecasting, new business development and the overall BU profitability. The Tier One HD’s supported our clients (Hospitals) and also Cerner associates and I had a large team answering the phones and managing the day to day operations.

My role and responsibilities are changing with some restructuring. I will no longer be the executive over the Help Desks. That is moving to another team. I will continue all my BU responsibilities for ITWorks and will add these same responsibilities for Cerner’s Hosting, Application Management, Upgrade Center and Global Managed Services divisions. We are in the process of consolidating teams, learning more about these businesses and creating common reporting. It will be a big change, but also an exciting challenge. This will more than double my responsibilities and influence at Cerner. We will be determining the future direction of a large portion of Cerner’s business. There is a lot of responsibility with this new roll and I look forward to working with the new members of my team.

Latest Storm Pictures

Thought we'd share some of our latest snowstorm pictures. The first is my first pass in cleaning our driveway. Yes, it is a straight line in my world. Then we have on of a snow drift in our back yard. The last two are pictures of me cleaning the streets. Yes, you read that correctly. Two days after the snow and the city still hadn't cleaned the streets. So I cleaned a path for Jen to get out to a more travelled road. The pictures were taken by our neighbors who found it amusing that I was clean the street.

New Pictures

Some recent pictures for everyone to enjoy. The first is Parker learning to stand. He's been able to hold himself up for a few minutes each time. This weekend he even went an entire 10 minutes before falling. He's also learned to sit up. We are getting closer to a walker every week. He is very proud of himself when he does things like his sister or eats food off our plate.



The second is Madison showing Jen how to use the Ipad. Madison loves playing cut the rope, ant smasher, toddler quiz, the Wheels on the Bus game, Tozzle and playing on YouTube. Madison has learned not only how to play the games, but how to advance several of them or start over. I was most impressed on Sunday night playing the toddler quiz with Madison. Four flash cards popped up on the screen and Madison was suppose to pick out the Turnip. She pointed to the Banana and said Banana. She did the same to the apple and corn. She then pushed the Turnip to answer. Well done Madison.




Picture number three is Madison when she doesn't want to do something. The bigger the lip, the bigger the problem.





The final picture is Parker at school sitting at their table

drinking some water. He's growing up faster than Jen wants...

Vancouver Canada

The past two weeks I've been flying to Vancouver Canada for work. It is a very interesting opportunity that I hope becomes a contract. I believe the partnership would work for both parties.

I travelled to Vancouver last September on a fact finding mission. It was my first time to Vancouver. During the next couple of months we sent other associates to Canada as we worked on our proposal. It was presented in December. Two weeks ago we had our first executive followup to that December proposal. It was the first time I met the executive suite and was there to answer any financial or scope questions. The meeting went very well and it appears there is interest in moving forward. That said, there were a lot of question they client needed to answer and several on our end. Last week was a followup meeting to review some of those questions and provide more clarity. I was the only one from Cerner to make the trip and I met with the CFO alone. We are making progress and while there is a lot of work left to do, I'm optimistic.

The only issue with the trip was the location of the meeting. I was staying downtown, surrounded by high rise towers. But the CFO was located in another part of town. Taking a taxi there was easy. But due to a convention that was going on during my stay, I couldn't get one back. So I had to walk about 3 miles to my hotel. I took three pictures as I was crossing the Burrard Bridge. You've got the bay, high-rise towers, and mountains all in one picture. It has quickly become one of my favorite cities in the world. The city at night is beautiful, as you can see from a picture I found on the net (you might have to click on it to see it better). There is quite a bit of Asian, especially Japanese, influence in the city. Like San Fransisco, it is a bit expensive, but like SF they also have great restaurants. It would be a great place to stay for a couple days before heading north on a cruise. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to share the city with Jen and the kids.

Arrgh..I'm a pirate

Tonight Madison said, "Arr..I'm a pirate. Look at my patch."

Just not fair....

A beautiful (almost 2 year old) twin girl was taken to heaven on Tuesday. I attended the visitation on Friday night. Please pray for the wonderful Ruhl family as they deal with such a difficult loss. Mrs. Ruhl is one of Madison and Parker's teachers at CernerKids. She has so many friends and family to share memories of little sweet girl Kherington's wonderful, yet short life. The visitation was so moving from pictures, children's music, outfit (sweet tutu girl), toys, favorite meal, and seeing her beautiful sister, Kenley. It's just not fair. For me, it's tough to put things in perspective and I ask myself why. Please pray for this wonderful family!

Quotes of the week from Madison and Parker

It’s time for Parker to go to bed, Madison holds her arms out and moves her hands together and says, “Group hug and kiss.”

Madison is in the process of taking off her winter coat when the velcro of her attached hat gets stuck on her sweater, she says. “No thank you COAT, I don’t like that.” Then you heard a struggle with the coat, the coat falls to the floor, Madison won.
Madison playing in the kitchen before bedtime, I asked her if she wanted to rock before she goes to bed, she says, “No mom, I am working in my kitchen.”

Madison was talking to Grandma H on the phone last night and told grandma what she had for supper, “Chicken nuggets, bananas, ketchup, carrots, cookies, milk, and yogurt.” Then she sang her bumble bee song to Grandma, it was hard to get her off the phone. Hmmm..wonder where she gets that.

Parker is saying, “Mama and Dada” a lot and being able to recognize us.

Parker loves to play in his play yard and giggles in delight by opening and closing the door, you hear many “Ahhs.”

Parker loves cheerios and we have been working on the sign for more, he uses the sign a lot, with a giggle and a “Mama and Dada.”

Elmo's Healthy Heroes- Sesame Street Live

It's Madison's special day. This afternoon we took Madison to see Elmo's Healthy Heroes at Sprint Center in Kansas City. We had pre-show tickets that allowed us to meet and greet (an hour before the show) some of the characters, the characters were Bert and Ernie.

Madison was shy at first, then started to warm up the the characters and even told them "bye friends." After the meet and greet we headed to our seats, which were in the first row. Madison (we) were able to sing, dance, interact with characters and watch the show. Madison even danced with Grundgetta (Grounch's girlfriend). The whole time she had a huge smile on her face.

Madison

The weather here is 6 degrees and the sidestreets and sidewalks are still a bit icy and snow packed. This morning our our walk into CernerKids Madison said, "Mommy, be careful it's slick." Then said, "Hand," meaning hold my hand. It just melted my heart. Thank you Madison!

Happy belated holiday...

Sorry for my delay in posting our holiday fun and activities. We spent Christmas in Nebraska with our family. Madison was in full force as she "helped" everyone open their gifts. Parker enjoyed posing for the camera. We had a wonderful holiday!