unblah

I wrote blah. Once. That was it.
It wasn't as if I had nothing to say and that's why I wrote blah.
There was a lot put into that blah.

In any case I haven't written since that day, not because of any sense of continuing blahness, but rather because I have not sat down at my computer for more then 5 minutes since that fateful day.

While it is true that i work all day at a computer, my desk faces the wall and my office walls are glass so everyone can see what my computer is doing as they walk by. One of the very few negative comments I received at my year end meeting was that people walk by my office and see obviously nonwork related websites (no, the porn was from a different blogger. I look at news.) To make the long story short, I no longer can blog from the office.

In other news - this week is the siyum hashas. While I am not completing shas with the group this time, I am already about 6 months and about 5 mesechtas into it and I hope to finish with everyone at the end of the coming cycle in 7+ years. I am going to the big event in Jerusalem. no kids with me this time. They are not allowing any children under the age of 10 and then the girls have to be in the seperate "nashim tzidkaiyos" room. It is shaped like a kitchen and will have a close circuit tv so the women can watch the event and feel at home. If they feel the need to bake during the ceremony there will be cookie ingredients at every woman's seat. At least that's how my wife feels they are going about it. I don't know what will really be there, though the closed circuit tv part id true.

Corey and Reesa are planning on the foxtrot for the big event in a couple weeks. I called the rabbi and told him the chosson and kallah were hoping that him and the rebbetzin would join them in the first dance. He turned down the request. The only thing I know about foxtrot is that it is a comic about two "geeky" kids. I suppose it will be interesting watching Corey and Reesa act that out on the night of their wedding, though I miss the significance. I would prefer if they did the Dilbert, though I can't imagine how that would work out either.

Work is treating me pretty well these days, though very busy. I am implementing a new linux mail server next week and I have to finish with all the database enhancements before that.

In politics this weekend Tel Aviv blew up. Since when is a 4 people getting killed called politics? Hey that's israel for you.

Have a good night.

blah

I think that all i want to say today is

blah....

blogged comments

In todays episode I decided to post the comments I made to other blogs.

First of all Happy Valentines Day:
Jack doesn't like valentines day. I told him:
Sounds like you don't have anybody to valentine to. If you did and didn;t get her stuff, she'd just be pissed at you. they have all bought in to "give a chick a present day"

Still Rule All came out kind of on the fence in regards to the treatment of palestinians and the disengagement process. Here is my response:

According to Mark Twain in 1867 when he visited the holy land there were very few arabs here, so these people have not been living here prosperoiusly for centuries.
Also there has been a lot of talk about how the arab demographic was going to be the majority in the next 5 years. OOPS. New reports have shown that the numbers in those demographic studies were completely inaccurate. Sounds like history revisionism on one side or the other.
Can you believe one side over the other? Definitely Not.
But if everyone is lying it is better to help your team lie better and win the war and not to collaborate to help the other team lie better and win the war.
because if the other team wins they will kill you. and if your team wins you have a chance to become rich.
to hell with truth and justice because there is no such thing. its all a matter of which lying scum win, and even if your team may be scummier at the moment, the other team would be scummier if they had the opportunity.

AirTimeDaily came out against rabbis. Here is my response.

I think that rabbis are getting a bad rap here. Most rabbis are not jerks. Of course some rabbis are. But there are also some black and hispanic people who mug everyone they see. Does that mean you cross the street everytime you see a black person on the same side of the street? There is a time to cross the street and a time to call a rabi a jerk. But i would say most of the time it would be good to stay on your side of the street and be respectful of the rabbi.

TwoAres went to leftists in ranana after meeting rightists in hebron.
Here's what I have to say about that:
Its good to talk to people with various opinions. Without hearing other people sound like fools you wouldn't know how right you really were.

Treading-fences listened to Breslav radio today. I thought that was funny and commented :
On Radio Breslav do they stutter like they do when they call out the name of the holy rav na nac nach nach nachman mayoomun?
imagine songs that sounded like that.

ShuannAT which is actually just shu were trying to figure out how to travel when they both have different people to see:

the nice thing about tel aviv is it is near ramat gan and there is an all you can eat steak house for 100 shek.You should tell Nat that it is fine with you if her and the baby want to go somewhere else and you will see her Saturday night. That's how we always did it in those situations.

A walk in the galilee

This is going to be hard to believe, but I just found out someone I know looks at porn. I think I'm gonna have a heart attack and die from not surprise! :-O

Today I went for a walk in the galilee. It didn't start out like that. It started out with a simple tremp to the bottom of the hill. It turned into an, I'm going near acco anyways, why don't you come with me the whole and then it ended with a "Hey, I know this tzomet, why don't I just tremp home.

Well the cars driving by looked more like the kind of car i wouldn't get into anyways, so I called my wife. But she didn't answer. So I tried temping more and nobody stopped. There were even some jews driving by who didn't stop. I'm sure they were all on their way to have a baby or something and that's why they didn't stop. So I decided to walk. I mean how far could it possibly be. So I finally got ahold of Golda and told her that I was going to walk and if she could drive down and pick me up in the middle I would appreciate it.

Not even a single rock was thrown at me as I trudged through the promised land. I could feel the soil talking to me ever step I took. I was the Patriarchs, Joshua, King David (Not moses - he never made it in). I would have taken a camel but the gemara says that camel riders are all sinners and will burn in hell.

I made it from tzomet somekh passed tzomet evlayim before golda finally got there. I couldn't have walked that far because the country is run in kilometers. Just imagine how far I would have walked in the States. And she had pizza waiting for me in the car. Talk about a loving wife.

Well in other news, my brother-in-law got engaged. I can't say that I expected it, but I am very excited for the good news. This is the 2nd time that I didn't think an engagement was going to happen, but at least this time I didn't bet against it. I can't afford 7 more steak dinners. Just to clarify one more time, because some people just don't get it - when you bet on something it has nothing to do with what you want, it's what you think will happen. For example, betting on the Lions is dumb, no matter how much you want them to go to the Super Bowl.

We had an interesting family over for shabbos this weekend. The Netanya people came and Thrusday night yoda was up all night crying. then 2 kids came home sick from gan. so for shabbos they stayed at the neighbors. they are a very nice family, they have kids the same age as ours so we are happy that they are going to make their home in maalot. another person to talk english to in shul.

freezing

First of all I have to say that I am absolutely freezing right now and I don't know why I'm not in bed. That being said, I decided that I had to write something before I went to sleep. for no reason.

I wanted to share with you a picture of the bloody israeli flag. That's what I call the orange gush katif version. {Apparantly clubphoto doesn't allow linking to the photos on their site so it didn't work}
The other pictures from the rally can be found on our clubphoto page.

Today at work I was thinking that I needed a boreka. After a couple minutes of thinking about it I actually went and got a delicious potato boreka. It was worth the walk.

I'm also very tired right now.

So the Netanya people are probably coming tomorrow before I get home from work. Golda doesn't know what to do with them so she doesn't think that I should go play basketball. i tried to work this whole thing out by asking if he played basketball. but unfortunately he doesn't. We'll have to see how the whole thing plays out tomorrow night.

flashbacks

I had a flashback today of rollerblading in NYC about 8 years ago when I spent the summer there. I went from the lower east side to YU in Washington Heights, and it was a great day. No cares or responsibilities, not having to be anywhere or do anything.
It was a long taxi ride home.

Today on the way to work we were discussing repentence, as we usually do and Mark commented that he doesn't believe people when they say they don't believe in God. My obvious response was that I don't believe people when they say they believe in God.

I think there is a little circle in the middle there, encompassing those that say that they believe but really don't and those that say that don't believe but really do. It's like those old math problems where you have two circles of nonconnected items and then the circle that is a unionized subset of the two of them.

I still haven't photcopyed the time chart for the shul. That is one of my responsibilities of being oin the board. I put together the schedule, meet with the rabbi for approval and then I photocopy it. I was supposed to have it done by last week but nobody was in the photocopy office when I went to copy it. so now i'm just going to wait until next week.

i'm tired and cold. I'm pretty much done with winter.

I was planning on having a vegetarian meal this shabbos and inviting 2 vege families at the same time. That way we wouldn't have to have 2 shabbosim without meat. But then another family from netanya called to see if they could come visit this shabbos becauyse they are thinking of moving to maalot. so the vegetarian shabbos was pushed off to another week.

Which leads me to the whole idea of compromise. Seriously. If you went to a PETA convention because someone you loved asked you to, and you were a big meat eating person. You might feel that you have sacrificed a lot even going to the meeting because these people are against everything that you enjoy eating. (except for a pizza here and there). You could not expect them to compromise and say, well since you came to the meeting we'll kill just one cow, or let you roast a hamburger on your own grill in the middle of the convention center.
You went to the convention out of your own free will. now deal with it.

Vihamaven yavin.

And last but not least. I would say there is apathy and there is freedom. If you don't watch the Super Bowl because you have never cared about football, that is apathy. If you don't watch the game because you have removed its viselike grip from your existence and are not held prisoner to its demanding schedule and wardrobe malfunctioning - that is freedom.

talk about the hail

Rain is good for the Galileean homefront, but it hasn't stopped in a week. Forget about the rain, we're getting pelted with huge hail balls. No Snow. Not yet, at least.

We had 4 girls from Jerusalem for shabbos this week. I told them if they come up early enough I would send them on a hike, but it was raining, so I told them to stay in tel aviv for the morning and come up later, but they didn't. So they spent 2 hours walking around the Nahariya mall.

They were interesting girls. One of them said she enjoyed it here, so I asked her what part she enjoys. After nixing school and roomates and friends and food, she came up with that she enjoys going for walks by herself.

One of the other girls enjoys 1 class, except that there are other students in it. she didn't like that so much. But she streetfights to release tension so the other girls in the class don't bother her too much.

Ok. I gave up talking to them.

still no snow.

Tonight I'm going to pick up my surrogate parents at the train station because all of their real children are busy. and I have a bigger car. Hopefully they're bringing lots of stuff for us. Like donuts. or chicken. or we'll get written into the will. We'll see.

Its superbowl sunday and i don't give a damn.
How's that for freedom.

Pogs

What the hell are pogs? I didn't understand them when they came out 11 years ago and I don't understand them today. SO these kids at shuld have them in their hands and then slap hands and the pogs fall on the ground. then they both smile and pick them up. Not My Sport.

Its raining in the galilee and they keep predicting snow. I'm thinking its not going to happen. But just in case I'm prepared for a crazy ski trek from Maalot down to Nahariya. If I do it, highway 89 will forevermore be known as Galilee Run.

My boss made a comment thatif something goes wrong on shabbat then he is stuck because he can't get any support. Before I could say anything he said, I know I shouldn't be working on shabbat. My wife keeps telling me that. I don't think he gets it.

Today I got pissed off at the entire Yesha Council. I think they're a bunch of raving hypocritical lunatics who censure people for doing the exact same thing that they are doing. Don't get me wrong, I don't have any problem with people saying, we've been hit enough its time to get out. or for saying just in case, we need to find a place to go. But don't call people who do it traitors and then go and do it yourself.

Did anybody else notice that QBert is now on Yahoo Games. How freaking awesome is that. It's better to play with a joystick or mouse, because the keys suck and you keep jumping off the side. that's the royal you, because i don't actually know if you have ever played it personally.

It's dinner time now, so i will not write anything else.
Except for It's basketball night also. So I'm going to play.

one week

I remember when a week could go by and I would have nothing of substance to write about. Actually, now that I think about it, I cannot remember anytime in my life when I did not have something interesting to write about. Except when I had started my other blog after we made aliyah and i thought everything would be hitting the fan and I would have toins to write about and then nothing happened.

It was like the waiting place.

This weeks has been absolutely cracked. Everyone was sick. golda is still sick. 2 weeks later. No I didn't stay home from work again. How much time off do you think a mom can get?
I got a little sick and I had a shul board meeting. I made it down to Jlem for the big rally. The exciting point was the steak sandwich and burger. But what really impressed me about the whole rally was that my brother remembered to bring water for me to wash because he knew there would be no place for me to do it and I wasn't about to piss on my hands.

I did make out with a couple of funky things from the jlem trip. Orage israel flags. like gush katif is almost blood. or something. an orange sweatshirt for golda. some bumper stickers that didn't make it into the bumper sticker song. etc..

I also met another American who lives in maalot. well he lives across the street. but its still maalot. he's also a vegetarian. but we'll probably invite them over for shabbos. even though he's a vegetarian. golda knows how to mnake stuff that those kind of people will eat.

How far can hatred go? Jesse Helms is holding his own as he takes the high road and demands that ethically challenged FP clinton does not become head of UN.

Lets talk about Zvi Hendel for a minute. Mr. Gush Katif. or has been. Gets everyone to boycott the businesses of poor gazans who have been bombed for the past couple of years just because they want to leave. What's mr. Knesset member doing now?????? Let's see how fast he gets on the boat to ashkelon.

Work is going well. I had my yearly meeting. got a raise. got a bunus. got stock options. requested a car. they're going to think about it. I'm not very positive about it, but gos is good to me, so we'll see how this plays out. Of course if I get a car that hampers my daily daf. and my morning discussion. Yesterday I successfully argued, well I don't know if he agreed with me in the end, that not committing genocide was at times immoral.

So much to write about and so little time. I'm going to end it off here with the traditional prose.

Noses stuffed and throats a-itching
hockeys on strike and no ones pitching
threatening to take gush katif away
Still more places for the fringe to play
Ashkelon could be a nice beach town
as they negotiate with a big fake frown
Things are by the way going well
I didnt mention the stock market swell

The place to be is in the Galilee
It's Sababa - relax and be free

have a good night.