Astoria Senior Residence Woodland Hills Administrator Licence California

Administrative License of a Senior Residence - 2003

In April of 1999 I was traveling on a cruise through the Magellan Straits in Tierra del Fuego, from Chile to Argentina and the farthest southern city in the world.

I met Viviane on that trip and we became friends.

She lived in Beverly Hills and that December she called and said we were going to Vienna for the millenium New Year! What a wonderful time.

She then called me at the end of 2000 and said we were going to celebrate the real New Year, which was from 2000 and starting with 2001. We flew to Morocco and traveled all over the country by rail and private car.

We celebrated the New Year in Marrakech of all places. I decided to retire from the computer industry and travel around the world as can be seen on the Home Page of my web site!

Here I am vacationing in Quatemala before Viviane asked me if I wante to become an administrator and business partner of a senior residence in Woodland Hills, California. 

I had to take a California State test to have a license as a care giver manager for a facility and I work part time in running the business which means frequent flights to LAX or the Burbank Airport.

The test was extremely difficult and I took classes for weeks and then we were told we would not know if we passed for weeks or months. Also, we would not know how we did on the test, only if we passed or failed

It took only three weeks and I got the letter, should I open it I asked myself. It indicated, You Have Passed and you are now an Administrator of a Residencial-Elderly Care Facility.

In this picture I am wearing a shirt and I am holding a cup with the Astoria Senior Residence name printed in gold on a blue background.  Our advertising budget for the year!

We also had to take classes every few years to update our administrative licenses. Here we are in Reno in 2008 for our classes and lots of fun as far as entertainment and food and of course, champagne! Viviane also gave me a belated gift for my 68th birthday, a sail plane ride over Lake Tahoe!

Over the years I would fly down three or four times a year to run the Senior Residence when Viviane went on business trips or vacations.

Some times I would chair our monthly meetings with the families and sometimes a member of the medical profession to answer questions the residence or families would have. I also sometimes did classes such as yoga for seniors.

The state also had periodic checks on the facility to ensure it was up to state standards. Since I am anal retentive, I would document everything on the questionaire and even drew a map of the building and grounds as to where the water pipes were in case a hose was needed to put out a fire. The last time the inspector came out, he left in half an hour, everything looked great.

But all things must come to an end and some of the clients passed away and the economy had slowed down so some clients went back home for the families to take care of their parents.