PT's Parking Blog

$115 for double parking...So be it

Yuppie parents in New York City are up in arms because the cops are ticketing their cars that are double parked in front of a nursery school while they are inside picking up their kids. So?

It seems to me that they deserve what they get.  Double parking is a pain to everyone, to pedestrians, kids walking to school, and of course to drivers who have to move around the cars double parked on the streets.

What I can't understand is why the school, parents and local authorities haven't sat down together and tried to work out a plan. Some ideas:

1.  Cut a deal with that church or business down the block to let parents park there.
2.  Find a spot nearby and shuttle the kids over there.
3.  Give the parents "exact times" to pick up their kids, say three minutes apart and have a "standing zone" outside the school where parents can wait and the school can bring the kids to the cars, rather than vice versa.

Well you get the idea -- there are solutions if people want to try to find them. However they would rather complain about the parking nazis and tear up tickets and get their pictures in the paper.

Doesn't surprise me a bit.

JVH

Welllll.....Software

The auditors in Portland have noted that some of the Pay and Display machines currently installed don't work quite right. Software Issues, they say.

I can only have the greatest sympathy for the vendors, that's right the vendors.

Software is a tricky thing. it is virtually impossible to test it in every possible situation. When Microsoft brought out XP there were thousands of bugs in it. It took a couple of years to get it mostly straightened out. AND remember, Bill Gates has billions to spend on R and D and took years of beta testing and STILL there were bugs.

Now put yourself in the place of the parking equipment vendor. They have developed systems that work a certain way but if they tested it as Bill did, you couldn't afford the system. Where Microsoft puts out millions of copies of a bit of software, a parking vendor may product a couple of hundred. So they do the best they can and then correct problems when they are discovered in the field.  Most of the issues are due to situations they never experienced before, or frankly, features that a customer wants that they didn't provide in the original package but "tweaked" to make their customer happy.

Parkeon and Cale, the two suppliers in Portland, actually seem to have done a good job. The city has been happy, as have the residents.  I don't know which vendor had the issue, and frankly don't care. The audit found a couple of problems and my guess is that by the time you read this, they will be fixed.

I am amazed at how few software bugs are found in parking systems, considering the fact that they are so inexpensive.  You realize that if the systems were tested with the same zeal as Windows Vista (but hopefully with better results) they would cost 100 times as much.

A good audit makes us all better (except perhaps one from the IRS)...Now the city should let the vendor fix the problems, and then keep looking for more.  It will only get better and better.

JVH

Free Parking in Fresno

Consistency is important...Check out the parking issues in Fresno (CA). They charge for parking up to 6 PM, free parking after that hallow hour, except where there is an event (concert, game, etc) then the parking charges remain in effect until 10 PM. For some unknown reason this is confusing to the parking public and many resent the fact that last night they parked for free and tonight they got a citation.

To make matters worse, The council has been quoted as saying that removing the charges (in other words make the parking consistent) would cost $40K and that money was needed to pay for the local stadium, or whatever.

So, parking charges are necessary to pay for a government service. Confirmation -- we knew it all along. Parking charges are simply a tax in disguise.

What if?  What if the council had said -- "Look, parking here in downtown Fresno, raisin capital of the universe, is a needed resource. We need parking so people can shop, attend events and the like. We also want to make the streets and sidewalks better and safer. So we are going to promote that resource and protect it by charging for parking and using the money to do so. We'll be consistent, parking charges will be in effect at all times, but they may vary, depending on the time of day, day of week or location. The new meters we are installing will take all this into consideration and when a parker approaches a meter, they will be told how much they have to pay.  Parking in Fresno is a resource just like the parks and other recreation areas. We charge for their uses, and we charge for parking. The parking managers who patrol the parking areas help you with direction, security, and ensuring that all follow the rules."

Fiction -- wonderful isn't it.

JVH

P2 -- Hollywood does it again

I have been seeing bill boards all over town hawking the latest horror thriller -- P2, A new level of fear.  Naturally its all about the parking structure that ate Toledo -- well almost...

I, being the leader in all things odd about parking, plus living in the heart of Hollywood, have been given a peek at the script and find that a parking attendant kidnaps and tortures a woman he has been stalking for months. Naturally she escapes his grasp but not the grasp of the garage. 

Just another day in Paradise. Sigh...

For those that missed the one sheet, here it is: Oh, the photo shop insert of yours truly is courtesy of Jeff Wolfe:

For anyone who cares, My guess is that you have never heard of anyone in this movie, nor anyone associated with the movie. However, I have trouble if the lead isn't Harrison Ford.

JVH

PS We have a feature on this very topic (fear of garages, not torture) in the November issue of PT. Melissa Sterzick, or new columnist on all things parking from the distaff point of view, holds forth on fear and garages. Once again, Parking Today is ahead of the headlines.

Update

I'm obviously back at the computer, and feeling almost fit.  Get a bit tired but less each day. I pronounced myself almost healed.

Thanks for all the cards, emails and calls.  Time to get off my duff and back to work

JVH

Field of Dreams

I got into a hassle when I was in New York listening to a urban consultant talk about downtown cores, parking and the "fact" that lack of parking can destroy downtown cores. He actually said that the "if you build it they will come" scenario was tantamount to hogwash. And he was wrong.

Mark Rimmer reminded me of this last week with a note that picked up an article in the Ocala (FL) Star. It was a column written by an old timer that told the back story of many of the events that happen in the fair Florida City. In this edition he was talking about the issues 40 years ago when the first shopping center appeared on the outskirts of town. The businesses were up in arms and asking just what the city government was going to do to protect them. The writer's learned and sage comment::

"Most of the talk was about various parking options, with everyone under the impression that adequate, convenient parking would solve all of downtown's problems. Nobody seemed to understand that once shoppers got in their cars, they could go anywhere they pleased to shop. Downtown no long was the only option, and suburban growth since World War II meant, for most shoppers, that walking to a central location was no longer convenient."

Well DUH...Folks who lived in the burbs (read that the folks with money) had to get into their cars anyway so why not go were it was convenient and where they got what they wanted. Downtowns had to compete. Not just with acres and acres of free parking, but with cinemas, shops, restaurants and department stores. These shopping centers had band stands where there were concerts, and places to sit outside and have a cuppa and talk to friends. Kids could go there and "hang out" maybe have a pizza and see a movie.

Tell me where the downtowns were. They had empty stores, closes theaters, and crime. Come on, where would the people go.

The tide is changing. People are going back into the central cities. Not because parking is prevalent and free,  but because downtowns have reinvented themselves. They are fun, they are active, clean, and destination locations. Successful downtowns have "scenes" and "draws."  People know they can either join in or simply watch the crowd go by.

I use Santa Monica, California as an example. It had, in the 70s and 80, all the free parking on earth. Six huge parking structures surrounded downtown, and they were empty. Then redevelopment came in and Third Street Promenade was born. Shopkeepers flocked to the area. Trendy bars and restaurants opened. The area around the promenade in all directions boomed. If you go anywhere on the West Side in LA, this is the place.

Parking is no longer free. Often it is jammed. But people still come. They don't come for the free parking, but for the destination.

Once you are in your car, you can go anywhere. Why not go where its attractive and fun, and that's seldom a parking structure.

JVH

Tradition

I got a piece forwarded to me the other day from the Miami Herald. It seems that a traditional activity of many parking operators has come to light. Well, its been known by those of us who follow such things, but only this past week by notables in Miami.

Central Parking has been "caught" in an audit of its Miami International Airport operations. Seems the parking giant has been charging the airport for payroll taxes even when no taxes are being paid.  It works like this.

There is a limit on the FICA and SDI taxes that you pay. In many cases, these are "matching" taxes, where you pay half the the employer pays half. Once you hit the limit, then the state and feds don't want any more of your money of the employers.  Some Parking Operators, however, simply continue to charge the owner for the the matching taxes, and keep the difference. I have heard many justifications for this little dance. Some make sense, some don't.

By the way, PT the auditor has been talking about this little issue for years, but I digress.

One of the biggest justification is that the operator often has to fight medical disability claims and that costs money. By fighting the claims it saves the customer and the operator considerable cash in the long run. Fair enough.

The problem is that the contract with the operator didn't spell this out.  Had it, I would have no problem with the practice. I understand that Central is changing its contracts to include this clause. If the owners doesn't like it, he can negotiate it out. Seems fair to me.

The other issue is Insurance. The major operators are self insured and charge those costs back to the owner. Once again fair enough. MIA was "horrified" to discover that their operator had been charging rates that were above the market. HUH? Of course they were. They also had every right to buy insurance on the open market.

I just love it. An owner, in this case Miami Intl Airport, has an audit done and finds that its operator is charging above market rates for a product that it produces, but that the airport could buy anywhere. The airport elected to buy the insurance in house, and it feels that its being shafted.

My guess is that Central does charge more for liability insurance, but that it also provides considerable service for that product. It understands the business, is motivated to keep claims down, and knows how to do that.

In the end, however, its up to the airport, and the free market, to fix these irregularities. As long as we force operators to bid numbers like $6000 a month as a fee to run an enterprise that grosses what, 700 times that much the operators will and frankly should, be able to make up the difference in other ways AS LONG AS the customer is aware of these accounting and pricing practices.

Its not the "doing" that causes the problem, its the "hiding."

JVH

Patronage in Philly

The local press is having a field day in Philadelphia.  Seems the Parking Authority is bloated, full of patronage, and paying six figure salaries to many of its managers. Read all about it here.

The Republicans took over the authority after claiming that the Democrats had done exactly the same thing. And they most likely had.

According to my spies in the city of Brotherly Love, the parking Authority is supposed to provide funding to local schools but when the schools asked for a $20 million check, but there seemed to be a bit less in the bank, but considerably more in gross income.

Look, Andrew Jackson was the master of the spoils system and his excesses led to civil service. Now don't get me wrong, civil service has its faults, but at least the playing field starts with some modicum of level.

Just hiring someone because they can get you elected or because they are your brother in law is of course "wrong" but it goes on every day, at least, it appears in the parking authority in Philadelphia.

Income up, expenses up more. Every person in business knows that your can gross more money by simply throwing money at a problem. However, in the end, its whats left over that counts.

I guess the question that should be asked is:  Is the parking situation in Philadelphia better today that it was say five years ago. If so, maybe the system in place works. I think, however, we all know the answer.

Holding people responsible is the only way to solve any problem, in business...or government

JVH

Wow Half a Million

The City of Westminster (London) is celebrating the fact that they have had over half a million pay by cell phone transactions in 2000 parking spaces spread across the city. That's in less than a year. The city says that it has over 100,000 drivers signed in to the program.

In celebration, they selected 10% of their spaces as "golden bays" and offered free parking for the day to folks who happened on the space and used their cell phone to pay.

This makes absolute sense in the UK, and frankly elsewhere.  In London, particularly, where cell phones are on everyone's ear and that on street pricing is high the process is definitely reasonable.

Hat's off to the City of Westminister and Niel Podmore and Verrus.

JVH

Of Fires and Parking -- Escondido

Four years ago fires surrounded this Southern California Community and this week they came again. The city was spared, as were most of the homes in the surrounding area, but the city council is still embroiled in the decision to ban overnight on street parking, in certain areas. You can read about it here but I will summarize. I don't think there is any connection between the fires and the parking ban...

Escondido is trying to upgrade its image, wanting to look more like a tony community near San Francisco than a working class area on the edges of San Diego. Like many Southern California Communities it has an immigration problem. It is only about 50 miles from the border and many illegals have decided to put down roots and live there. These folks have a lot of cars, mostly older, needing some repair. They also have no place to park them, except of course, on the street. 

The city would "look" a lot nicer if there were no cars on the street overnight (all cities would look nicer if there were no cars at all, but there you go).  So the suggestion was made to ban overnight parking on street.  This would have an "unintended" side affect of driving out illegals who would have no place to park their cars and therefore have to seek housing elsewhere.

But there is a problem -- It also affects residents who have a number of vehicles and need that on street space and who are so called "legitimate" residents. The council got itself into a bind, and are looking for a way out.

So they have hired Walker Parking Consultants to study the situation and figure out how to have no on street parking overnight but at the same time allow some residents to park on street overnight. Yes, the council wants to have it both ways, and my buddies at Walker are being asked to play Solomon and figure it out.

Sigh -- Someone once told me that the purpose of consultants was to take the blame. In this case it makes sense. The city dads and moms have gotten themselves into a tizzy and probably have a political issue getting themselves out.  Having an expert come in and give some facts (probably that there is plenty of parking but that the overnight ban will affect virtually every sector of Escondido society) will give the council some room to maneuver.

Gird your self well, consultant. You are definitely going where the most fear to tread.

JVH

You don't build the Church for Easter Sunday...

OK, maybe its a Hindu Temple but the idea is the same.  The Temples in Parsippany, NJ, are up in arms because the local council is changing the rules and saying that Temples, in which people sit on the floor rather than in pews, should be required to have a "certain" number of parking spaces per "certain" number of square feet. There are 5000 Indians in the area and five or six temples and a couple of more are on the way.  The local council think that "5 or 6 are enough."  Don't believe me, read the article here

The Hindu's argue that they don't need all that parking for normal services and for the big holy days they can bus people in from satellite lots around the area. Seems sensible to me.

Here's the kicker. It seems that the Hindus are buying unused warehouses and turning them in to their temples. The City is stopping that horror since there's not enough parking around the warehouses. This is classic anti-Shoupista rhetoric

Follow the logic -- We have a bunch of warehouses that are sitting fallow and will eventually fall in on themselves. A local religious group wants to buy them, clean them up, make them in to a Church or Temple. But they can't, because on six days a year there won't be enough parking. A problem for which the temple already has a solution. So the city would rather ring its hands over the parking issue than turn empty space into something of use.

Although its hard to tell when the spokesperson for the council makes a statement like this.....

"The undertone of the letter is not right and, in my heart, I know there is not an effort to restrict or limit," he said. "Why do that? In a town with an Indian population of 5,000, five or six temples is good."

.....I think that locals aren't prejudiced, just ignorant. I wonder if the speaker sets limits on bars, porno shops, or restaurants. This is all absurd.

Such limitations based on parking destroy redevelopment, hurt businesses (and religious groups), destroy tax bases, and simply make no sense.

Just my opinion.

JVH

Beserk in Bezerkeley

Here we go again. The City of Berkeley, Ca has a problem. It has a lot of parking but folks are cruising around looking for available space. Their solution. Install signs to direct people to the parking lots in the area that have available space, but don't install signs to space that is available after hours on the nearby university campus.

Hmmmm I don't live in Berkeley so I don't know all the issues but I would bet that I would find that the difference between the cost to park on street and to park off street was not great.  OK, maybe they charge a bit more for on street parking than off street, but if there is cruising going on, its not enough.

Raise on street pricing, lower off street pricing and fill the lots. All the signs on earth aren't going to help if I now that by driving around for five minutes I can save five bucks on my parking charges.

JVH

Parking in Provo - Back to the trenches

Back to school and back to the trenches, students vs homeowners and you know who will win.  Homeowners want students to park elsewhere, anywhere. Students want to park near their apartments and classes. Is there no solution to this annual problem?  Read the article here. The author is eloquent but the solution is not forthcoming. Relaxing parking restrictions on a certain boulevard or street doesn't solve the problem, it will most likely exacerbate it.

The solution is as old as learning itself. Charge for parking on the street and let the chips fall where they may. Make sure that the money from the permits goes right back into the neighborhoods (wider sidewalks, better streets , better lighting, more police patrols) and that parking restrictions are removed.

Neither homeowners nor students have a "right" to park on the streets. On street parking is a benefit like a park or playground that should be protected and nourished. I am amazed that homeowners can think that just because they can afford a house that they have free parking in front of it. Likewise, I am surprised that students in economics or business can't understand that if you buy, insure, maintain and fill a car with gas, you also have a responsibility to pay for a place to park it.

If they charged market rated for on street parking in the area one of two things would happen. First, some would elect not to drive since the cost of parking would be better spent in other areas. Second, entrepreneurs would find that building and charging for parking was a profitable idea and since there would be a ready market for covered parking, the idea of building parking structures would certainly be beneficial to all.

The students would benefit as there would be more available parking, the residents would benefit as more money would flow back in to the neighborhoods, businesses would benefit as more on street parking would be available when new parking structures were built.

Politics will out, however. Provo is at parking war.

JVH

Its Starting

Communications are coming in from all over and my friends are outdoing each other with their humor. A couple of examples.

One began his missif -- Dear Bessie:

Another was certain that my heart valve had to be from a bull to prevent rejection

and a Third noted that they had come a long way in microsurgery.

Hah, and thanks guys

JVH

Changes at Skidata - Pierre Koudelka Joins the Team

PIerre Koudelka has been named the Midwest Regional Manager for Skidata. Pierre worked with Tom at Federal APD and Tom Succeeded Pierre in his position as Sales Manager for the Firm. Tom tells me that he is ecstatic to have  have his old friend and a respected and well know professional to be part of his team!

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Drop by the Skidata Booth at NPA and say "hi" to PIerre

JVH

NPA Begins Today

I'm sending my representatives to the NPA opening today but in the mean time wish Marty Stein and his Crew all the best.  Its being held in Hollywood and that in itself should be an event.  There's a lot of gossip going around and I'm still on most of the trails.  I'll keep you posted as a few bon mots come my way.

I'm sitting only about seven miles from the Hollywood Renaissance and a few of my more gossipy friends have promised to drop by. 

Read On above.

JVH

Hopefully some have been wondering

About my past few weeks of light blogging and the absence for the past two. Here's the story.

I had heart surgery last Tuesday morning and have every reason to expect a full and complete recovery. The wonders of modern medical science have done their thing and now it’s up to me. I’m home and feel pretty good and with the help of a wonderful drug named Darvocet am taking walks and feeling better daily. I came home at Noon on Saturday and all is well. If you want the “backstory” read on. If these medical gossip pieces bore you, now’s the time to hit “delete” and get back to important things like the latest funny blog or video game.I have known, really, that I would need some help with my heart for about 40 years. A doctor told me there was a “murmur” but that no one but an expert could hear it and not to worry, it was minor. Minor by ass, he should have been with me the last week. My current HMO doctor less one heard the unhearable murmur a couple of years ago and said I should take an “echo” to set a “baseline.” That I did. He then proceeded about a year ago to go into the Baptist equivalent of a monastery (I’m not sure there is a connection) and I was thrown into that medical never land of having no doctor. I liked the Med come reverend and his last non religious act to was send me for another Echocardiogram. However during the process of finding a new doctor and pissing off numerous doctors, med techs and schedulers, my second test, though completed, was overlooked. Until, that is, I found my current internist.   Richard Castillo is great, a good listener, and with just the right sense of humor (As he’s listening to my heart he starts to laugh.  “We doctors love this stuff.” – I was happy to provide the bit of humor in his life.) He found the second “Echo” and sent me to a Cardiologist the next day. That was in July

Doctors specialize and so I had to see someone who knew everything about hearts. Dr. Jack Farahi, is a trip. He’s Farsi/Persian (That’s Iranian for those of you in the parking industry.) US Trained and the age of my eldest son. He looked at the tests, listened to my chest, and said that I had a “problem” with a heart valve and it would have to probably be fixed. He explained that one of the valves wasn’t closing completely every time it beat and therefore the heart had to work harder. He opened and closed doors in the consulting room to demonstrate the issue. It reminded me of one of those English country farces where people are popping in and out of rooms or when Rick and Fred were never in the right place at the right time…There hadn’t been any damage to the heart “yet” but would soon. “Maybe” it could be fixed with drugs and he put me on a regimen and told me to come back in a month. All this took a total of four minutes face time. He didn’t want to talk about and alternatives until we “tried” the meds.

At the end of the month I took another bunch of tests including a “stress” echocardiogram, and an angiogram. The angiogram was actually fun.  You get to watch your heart beat and I actually got to see my doctor again for the longest time since this process began. At least I think it was him, he zipped in just before the actual test, was there to see it, and the left. He was masked the entire time.  Frankly, he could have done it from the beach, since all he needed to see was display so I figured I got a deal. I met with him again after these tests and he told me that my arteries were “clear as a baby’s.” He also told me that the tests confirmed the diagnosis and that surgery was the thing to do. Cool…I was frankly most worried that my arteries would be blocked as any of you who have ever broken bread with me know that my diet is not the best. Thanks mom and dad, it’s the best legacy you could have left. (We won’t get in to the Mirtal Valve issue)

At our next meeting, he set me up to meet the surgeon. The total time for this meeting, about 3 minutes. If this guy was paid on the clock, his hourly rate was incredible. However he did exclude a confidence and humor that I liked.  He told me this surgeon “did” almost the same thing on his mother (this was a mixed comparison). I asked after his mother’s health and he said she was fine.

A week later, after getting insurance approvals for the meeting I met with the surgeon.

An aside– The”HMO” to which I belong was working perfectly in its bureaucratic morass. It’s Pacificare – FYI.  All the doctors had people that did nothing but talk to insurance companies and make sure the paper flow was on track and except for one little hiccup, they did a great job. These are the unknown heroes of this process.  I would like to thank all the folks that didn’t have major issues like this, so insurance could afford to pay for mine. American health care may be under attack, but I have no complaints. 

HollywoodI went in to see the surgeon and caught a few revelations.  First of all, he was renowned. There were pictures on his wall of him with everyone from the Pope to all of LA”s mayors to the governator and I think a president or two.  Best I could tell the pix were the result of some good donations. But who cares, he had a good PR operation going and that’s important, after all I do live in Hollywood.

There was also a permaplaqued article from the Times that told his history and it was impressive.  He had a team that operated all over the city and I guess the word was that he was as good as it gets. It said he was 60, and I thought that since he was younger than me, all was OK. Until I found that the article was written in 1994.

IndiaDoctor Taro Yakoyama could have stepped out of central casting. He is a small man and exudes confidence. He took his time, didn’t try to rush me at all,  and answered all my questions completely. If my cardiologist was a combination of Jay Leno and House, he was Mr. Miyagi and Marcus Welby. He told me there was a 90% chance he would be able to repair my valve, that it would be “minimally invasive” and that I would be in the hospital about 4-5 days. There were plastic incased valves on his shelf and frankly I was surprised at how big they were. I had to make a choice, I could have a man made valve which had a half life or 10,000 years or I could have a “bio valve” which is the nice way of saying some cow or pig gave their all for me. The difference was that with the man made valve I would have to be on a blood thinner for the rest of my life. This is not recommended I am told. With the bio-valve I would be back to normal in a few months, off most meds and be able to live a normal active life. OK I may have to have it replaced in 20 years but I figured that 20 years from now they will probably be beaming the suckers in from India and it will e a 15 minute outpatient procedure.

However the doc said that in his experience (he has “done” over 3000 hearts) he should be able to fix the valve.  Leno/House agreed.  It was their only miscalculation for which both apologized later.

The insurance specialist (the key person in this entire process) began by setting a date for the “approval” and then for the surgery. Things were moving fast now. They were fighting bureaucratic battles and I was off to the CPA in Canada, , the SWPA in  and the PAA in Florida

My surgery was scheduled for Tuesday the 16^th was some tests to be done on the previous Friday and Monday.

Up until this point I had been looking at this as something that was going to be done in the future. But now the time was being counted in days and hours and the stress was beginning to take its toll.  I spent a day in bed in Albuquerque and my neck was so tight that I could barely turn my head. I decided to take an earlier plane home from Florida and spend a bit of time with the Surgeon's Physician's Assistant. I just felt that something wasn’t going quite right. I was correct. Seems that insurance would cover the tests only if they were done by my HMO or the hospital and they could not be done by the cardiologists. However the HMO didn’t have the facilities to handle the tests. Stress was kicking in. I yelled at the PA and a few minutes later she had it all worked out. I apologized and she said not to worry, she worked for heart surgeons an in the yelling department I was a wimp. All the tests were to be done on Friday or when I checked in on Tuesday.

I began the task of “who to tell and what to tell.”  I decided that I would wait until “all was well.”  I did talk to my staff but underplayed it a bit. Good thing. Andy said he spent most of Monday Afternoon and Tuesday “talking them down.”  My staff are great folk and I love them dearly. They kept Andy busy. That was the goal

The rest is a blur of cold rooms, competent people, and little snippits. “I’m your (From here on spell check can’t find the proper spellings so I’ll use descriptions) I’m the guy who will knock you out during the surgery – note to file – this is a different guy than the one who introduced himself as the one who would do same in the doctor’s office a week ago – I’m the guy who will keep you alive during the surgery while they stop your heart – I’m the nurse who will do everything else (she was a real cutie, at least I think so since all I could see was her eyes) She was also, it appeared, extremely good at doing the most important thing – getting me to feel comfortable with a procedure that would cut open my chest and stop my heart. As I was rolled in to the operating room, the Doc came by and told me he would be back, he had a meeting. I was happy this was routine. I was being fitted in between meetings. Hopefully has Blackberry was accurate. 

Then I woke up and was feeling really good. I don’t know what that stuff was but I now understand the lure of the drug culture and why these drug guys make billions…Whoopiee. Then Dr. Yokoyama told me that he had to replace the valve. I was now part bull….How well did he know me, anyway? Hey I was awake, alive, and pumping on all valves.  A friend told me the other day that actually I should consider it part “ox.” Everyone else seems to lean toward “bull.”  I know what your choice will be. 

The day of the surgery was a haze, the second day was the most uncomfortable, until I found that all you had to do was tell them that your pain was a seven on a scale of 1-10 and they would give you a couple of pills that made everything all right.  There was a TV in the Cardio ICU and it was on but I didn’t have my glasses.  Andy tells me I was watching game shows but who knows. I guess I was a little grumpy in the ICU because after they moved me to a room most of the people who were taking care of me would throw their hats into the room before they came in and then were surprised at “what a nice guy I was.” My ICU personality (my real personality) preceded me. 

From then on it was simply hooked up to this, waking at 3 am to take blood pressure, watching a lot of TV (mostly USA Networks at 4 AM)  disconnected to that, but you have to walk and can as soon as we unhook this or that, Dr. Yokoyama showed up every morning around 6AM. He’s a dapper man with a Tony crewneck under a brown blazer. He would spend a few minutes, look fatherly, nod his head and said I could go home as soon as the cardiologist said I could.  His job was done. 

By day three, I hadn’t seen any cardiologist, Doctor Farahi was among the missing. So I picked up the phone and called his office. To his credit he arrived about an hour later. It seemed the minor tidbit of the date of my operation had not been communicated to his office. As formal as Yokoyama, Farahi was casual – open shirt with a ring on a leather strap around his neck. He always had a smile. But he was there now and frankly up to then there was nothing for him to do. I did love the way he glanced at the charts and the monitors and then said that everything was normal. 

Aside two:  Nurses and assistants are great, but they give conflicting information. Some say that the numbers are OK, others say they are “high” and others that they are “low”. The years spend in medical school give AND years spent doing this over and over give doctors the experience to know the difference. Farahi said that arrhythmia was normal in half the cases and a drug would get my heart back pumping like a champ in no time. In fact it took the drug about an hour and that surprised even him. 

The next day he blasted in about 10 am and basically said – Time to go home. So I did. With a list of drugs to take, follow up appointment to make, and exercises to do.  I have spent my first night in my own bed and love it. Slept like a baby.   

It’s Sunday morning, the birds are chirping, the dog is wet (he needed a quick bath, 500 junk emails are erased, and all is right with the world. 

I know it sounds trite, but this is done by a team, not by two doctors. There’s the technicians who give the tests, the medical specialists that put you on the machines and keep them running, the cardio tech that assists the surgeon and then removes the drains and makes you feel good, even though he went to USC – you are forgiven, Chris, and the Physician’s assistant who basically was in charge of this group and made sure everyone showed up and the right time and did the right thing. Thanks team.

This was a strange event. From the beginning I had no symptoms. No pain, no swelling, nothing, zip. Had Doctor Chen, (now a reverend) not insisted on the test, and Dr Castillo not insisted on the cardiologist, and Dr, Farahi not used his skills at listening and reviewing tests and the wonderful hands of Dr. Yokohama done their thing I would have done permanent damage to my heart and this event wouldn’t have been a few days in the hospital.  Thanks 

I’ll try to keep you updated on my progress and keep those cards and letters and emails coming in.  I love to hear from you all.  I won’t make it to the NPA, but I’ll be thinking of you. My phone will be forwarded for the next few days but I will be answering emails and begin taking calls by mid week

JVH

Air Travel is Working for me

I had to be in Charlottetown, PEI, over the weekend and then I had to come down to New Mexico. I flew overnight from LA to Toronto to Charlottetown and the flights were ahead of schedule. On flying from Charlottetown to Albuquerque I flew first to Montreal, then to Denver, then to Albuquerque. All flights on time.

The airlines are getting it in the neck but my experience over the past week has been perfect.

Air Canada and United -- both did a good job, particularly since I had only half an hour between planes in Denver. 

JVH

Santa Fe has a Parking Problem

I'm in Santa Fe.  The Southwest Parking Association was nice enough to invite me to speak before their group in Albuquerque.  I decided that since I had never seen Santa Fe, I should stay up here (its about 45 minutes out of town).

I walked to the famous Plaza and noted that the on street parking was filled and the parking structure was empty.  Here's the rates -- On street $1 and hour, 2 hour max -- Off street $1.80 and hour.. Off street is 80 percent more than on street.  A classic Shoupista problem.

Just think, changing a few signs could fix the parking issues in Santa Fe. 

I'll report back after the SWPA meeting today and tomorrow

JVH