When we started this gig a few years ago, I asked Peter to make sure I didn't have to travel a lot. Well, sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn't. Today's jaunt is just for a day down to San Jose, so not much to complain about really. Still, nobody should be leaving their house this early in the morning; it's just not natural.

Anyways, waiting for a plane in the lovely Alaska SeaTac Boardroom seems as good a time as any to reflect a bit on what's going on in my so-called life in Health Solutions. And you know what --- it's a pretty cool list! This week alone, I'll have had the opportunity to:

• Strategize with the great folks at Golden Living about how to better connect their residents with their families and outside providers;
• Build out the final pieces to get our Blue Button preview live;
• Work with SMArt (get it?) dude Ben Adida to connect our stuff to his SHARP research;
• Write a little code to walk certificate trust chains for NHIN Direct;
• Push forward a home monitoring program for kids with diabetes;
• Work through how to leverage Azure cloud storage for medical imaging stuff;
• Get a deep update on a plan for speeding up XML searching in the HealthVault store; and
• Sit in an interminable "leadership team" meeting for something like seven hours (ok, that part wasn't so great).

But really --- how many people get to participate in so many different kinds of projects, each one of which has the potential to meaningfully improve real peoples' health? I am indeed a pretty lucky guy.

So if you hear me complaining about the early mornings ... please just tell me to shut up.