Tonight I met Allan DeKaye, one of the people who participated in my interview series. We'd talked on the phone before, but never met, mainly because he lives on Long Island, where I haven't been in over 20 years, and I live here in the Syracuse area.

I always enjoy meeting and having time to talk to people like Allan, who in my mind is kind of a pioneer in the world of independent healthcare consulting. He started out with a large consulting firm before getting into consulting on his own, and he's made a major go of it. His name is fairly well known by the type of people I want to get to know me, but what's strange is that he's probably not as well known in this area. Sometimes my own area can be so insular; then again, outside of my peers, no one else knows me here either, which is why I end up traveling so much.

We're both giving presentations tomorrow to the Mid York Medical Management Association, which is affiliated with the American Association of Healthcare Administrative Management, and a group for whom I'm a past president (4 years), presently sit on the board, and have been the editor of their newsletter since 1997; I just need to devote more time to it, since I write so many other newsletters already. It should be an interesting and fun day.