Our restaurant was just featured as having a great “maybe not the best, other than the fact that I consider it to be the best” brunch in Buenos Aires. Check it out the Best Brunch in Buenos Aires
Best Brunch in Buenos Aires
Vegas on the beach in a prison – Part 1
In the past 2 months I’ve spent about 5 weeks in Miami. I’m currently living in the Normandy Isle area which is a good 5 miles to South Beach and a 20 min walk to the beach. Far enough away from both the beach life which is a like trashy off-the-strip Vegas meet the Caribbean and Little Haiti, which is not the type of place I would take my dog for a walk after dark. I rarely venture away from my home besides to go for a run around the golf course, go to the super market and go to the office. It just plain sucks out there and I really realized it today while I decided to venture out and go for a short drive around town. It’s Memorial day weekend so the trashiness of Miami is on steroids today. Its not the traffic that bothers me, or the fact that I’ve already taken 4 showers today, nor is it the ridiculous cost of living here. It really comes down to two things…
The Police – I have simply never seen so many police cars driving around in my life. I have two theories here. Either this place is actually really dangerous or it would be if they were not here or the near bankrupt state is spending way too many tax dollars on the police. Both of these bother me. Besides this place having a ridiculous number of police, they all have their lights on. Cops just hanging out on the side of the road doing nothing with these blinding lights on. I honestly feel that when I leave my apartment I am going to prison. Nothing but police and thugs. Which brings me to my next point.
The People – Miami seems to have a real knack for attracting ‘la creme de la creme’ when it comes to inhabitants and visitors. I really don’t even know where to begin here without being flat out offensive so I’ll skip to my theory as to why this place is like this. Firstly, The Tourism – Nothing sucks the life out of a city like excessive tourism does. What’s the point in really aspiring to do anything when you can just live off of the tourists that frequent the place. It’s even a better life for the criminal, who has really got it made. Secondly, The Heat – It’s a well know fact that heat makes people lazy and this place is hot. Thirdly, The Police – Living your life day to day in a state of paranoia isn’t going to make you a better person. Fourthly, The Media – I don’t think Will Smith’s “Welcome to Miami” and other pop culture representations of Miami have helped attract the right kind of people to this place, unless you think driving around Collins Ave. in a mini Cadillac Escalade (built on a golf cart chasis) with 3 of your buddies (all with video cameras rolling, including the driver) while listening to crunk is your idea of a cool group of dudes. Lastly, The Vanity – Like in Vegas, the $30,000 millionaire is in their element here and putting your plastic surgery on a $300 a month payment plan is about as natural as buying milk at the corner store.
How patient portal technology addresses the recent Medicare cutbacks
On March 23, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. This landmark legislation is a monumental moment in healthcare. However, it does nothing to end the proposed Medicare cuts and the flawed Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, which determines Medicare reimbursement.
Recently, wait times have become the elephant in the room that few critics care to address in United States. Most of these wait-time problems also derive from funding cuts made by Medicare earlier this year. If the current cuts prevail, physicians will be forced to take various measures. Some practices will limit appointments or cease taking new Medicare patients; some practices may merge in an attempt to survive; and physicians close to retirement may well retire.
According to the American College of Cardiology there is a national shortage of cardiologists that is getting worse every year. It takes 7 to 9 years longer for this specialty to train after getting out of regular medical school. Besides this, they work an average of 70 to 80 hours a week.
Also according to printed material supplied by the American College of Cardiology, in Florida, there are about 950 fulltime practicing cardiologists with 43 percent of them over 58 years old, while chest pain is the number one cause of ER visits and cardiovascular care accounts for about 43.6 percent of health care costs.
The CEO of American College of Cardiology Jack Lewin, MD stated: “Over the past decade, cardiology is the only area of medicine, that demonstrated a 27 percent reduction in mortality and morbidity across the U.S. This accomplishment is now being punished with an average of 27 percent in cuts to the practice of cardiology.” The result will be disastrous for those on Medicare. Patients will have fewer physicians to choose from and more wait time to be diagnosed.
Companies such as EliteHealth, a florida based healthcare group, have addressed this problem by developing a feature-rich online patient portal. The growing trend in the implementation of patient portals can also be seen in healthcare groups such as Kaiser Permanente, Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic. The patient portal offered by EliteHealth, called myEliteHealth, allows patients to view their medical record, e-consult with their physician via email and video chat, access over 70,000 patient education topics, consult with one of the free health coaches and use one of the many health tracking tools. “The goal of the portal is simple; provide patients with new ways to better manage their health so they can live a healthier life, with fewer visits to the doctor.”, says Steven Schnur, MD, co-founder of myEliteHealth. More information on this portal can be found at www.myelitehealth.com.
Written by John Deutsch, CEO/Founder of New Wave Enterprises, LLC
Filed under Healthcare IT
TAPAS and the meal of my life.
Just returned from a great 3 week stint in Portugal and Spain. While the food in Spain didn’t blow me away by any means contrary to what I was expecting, the fact that you can walk around in the city completely naked is pretty funny. I literally saw old men walking around in running shoes, white socks and a backpack… naked. Weird stuff so I decided to strut the beach naked, apparently its not as common for people who are not 50+ weirdo nudists to hang out at the beach naked. I had a lot of eyes looking at me.
Anyways, while 95% of my meals were mediocre at best I did happen to eat the meal of my life. A simple and cheap tapas restaurant owned by a Cordobese (someone from Cordoba, Argentina) in Barcelona in the Raval district. From start to finish it was a spectacular meal, which is they way I judge my restaurants. Many restaurants can have a great entree or drinks, but to excel in every aspect is something hard to find.
If you ever have a chance to visit Barcelona, make sure you check out this gem of a place. Federico the owner won’t disappoint.
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Carrapateira, Portugal Surfing
What a little gem this place is. The unfrequented beaches of Portugal are just great. While there is certainly a fair share of tourist traps like Sagres, Lagos and Faro, which are filled with Aussie and Brit, english breakfast eating tourists, its pretty easy to stay clear of these places and get to the solitude of the west facing coast of Portugal.
My stay there for 4 days was just great. Solid 7 ft swell the whole time and even about a day and a half of offshore winds. Little to no one in the lineup, made for 4+ hrs a day a day of great longboarding.
I stayed at a great place call Amado Surfcamp. They have lodging about 3km away in a very quiet farm-ish place. They offer camping and bungalow lodging.
The beach that most of the surfing is done at is called Praia do Amado.
Here’s a small pic I took of the beach. Doesn’t give the surf much justice, but you can see its a very nice beach.
Johnny out.
Filed under Travel
Hay olas en Mar Del Plata
Finally waves in Mar Del Plata and the only one that does not want to surf is Candice. Sarah is minutes away from ruining Candice’s life by commandeering a surfboard and leaving candice with the log.
Best website for Mar Del Plata surf forecasts: http://www.windguru.com/int/index.php?sc=3640
More meat, less vegetables.
So today I decided to whip together a little mini-asado in preparation for tomorrows big asado feast. If there’s one thing any good “asador” can tell you is don’t cook on a dirty, busted-up grill. You see I’m currently staying at Rancho Relaxo in Mar Del Plata, Argentina and while it has a great grill, it has not been used for 6 months. So Jose and I gave the grill a thorough cleaning and we were off to the races. I’ve included a photo of the mini-asado below. And yes that is cheese and Chimi in those red peppers.
Filed under Recipes
The Real Johnny D. 