A Presentation I Gave At Work

As part of a"diversity" series at work I was asked to give a talk about how my family celebrates Chanukah. Below is what I presented. It does stretch the truth a little but it is basicallyl all true. Enjoy!

To understand my family’s observance of Chanukah it is important to know where we came from. There were 3 different parts of my upbringing and particularly my Jewish upbringing which bring us to the way we will be celebrating Chanukah starting Sunday evening.


I was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in the Brighton Beach neighborhood. There were several very distinctive things that, I think, made growing up their unique. Firstly, almost every adult that I knew was born somewhere else and spoke heavily accented English. The other was that almost every adult that I knew had a number on their arm; the area had a very heavy concentration of Holocaust survivors. I thought it was quite natural.


I lived quite a sheltered existence. I really thought that everyone was Jewish. It was a shock when I got to PS 216 on Avenue X where the major question from my new classmates was, “you Jewish or Catlick”. It took me a long time to figure out that they were saying Catholic and an even longer time to discover that there were other religious denominations in the world.


It is a tradition at Chanukah to put the 8 branched Chanukah menorah in a window so that it is visible to the outside world. I remember at an early age during the nights of Chanukah walking around our neighborhood of apartment buildings marveling at the number of windows displaying lights and then hurrying home to see the lights in our own 3rd story window of the apartment where my mother still lives. It gave me a feeling of belonging.


Growing up my extended family would hold a Chanukah party. It was one of the 3 times in the year that we all got together. The other 2 were at Passover and Thanksgiving. Besides lots of food, singing and candle lighting there were 2 traditions that we carry on to this day. One is a grab bag. Each participant brings a gift of minimal value. It used to be a maximum cost of $5 but recently we raised it to $10. There is a whole system of giving out numbers and drawing gifts and then elaborate trading when you get something that you don’t want. This has no religious significance whatsoever but everyone enjoys it and looks forward to it.


The second tradition is to read a story out loud. Someone in my family found a book several years ago of Chanukah stories by the Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer. Each year we pick a different one and read it as a finale to the evening. They are mostly stories about Chanukahs past in Eastern Europe that evoke for us a world and lifestyle that no longer exists.


When I was in my thirties (and before coming to the Times) my family lived in Israel, in the Galilee about 10 kilometers from the city of Nazareth. We lived on a kibbutz (a whole story in itself). If you don’t know what a kibbutz is, think commune, without the marijuana. Anyway, it was a small community with an agricultural base that was home to about 120 people. It was not a religious community but it did observe most traditions and on Chanukah each member of each family would bring their Chanukah lamps to the communal dining room and we would sing the blessings, light the candles, play games and eat together. Picture 100 or so lamps blazing. It can really take your breathe away.


The other cool thing that happened there was that the local community council organized events each evening at a different community so we would go out each evening, hear a concert at another kibbutz, see a play in a small town nearby, or see an art exhibition at another. In Israel this is truly the darkest, coldest, and most depressing part of the year. In January, flowers start to bloom but December is just cold, rainy, and unpleasant. If Chanukah didn’t just happen to fall then we probably wouldn’t want to get out of bed.


So, now I live in Westfield, New Jersey. It’s not a particularly Jewish place but every year we put together the best of our past experiences to create something fun. For each of the 8 nights that we are home we invite folks over and insist that they bring their Chanukah lamps. If they don’t have, we supply them. Everyone is required to light one. Another tradition of the holiday is to eat fried foods to commemorate the oil in the resanctification of the Temple in Jerusalem. Each evening my wife comes up with something different to fry. Of course, we have potato pancakes but we make homemade doughnuts, eggplant parmigiana, ricotta pancakes, and many other things that it is making me ill to think of. When all of the candles are lit we look at them from the inside and then run outside to see what they look like from the street. It never fails to impress me.


What makes Chanukah wonderful are the simple traditions that each family develops. Ours were shaped by a Brooklyn upbringing and an Israeli adulthood. Check back with me in a few years and I’m sure we will have added something from our experience in suburban New Jersey

Should We Bail Out the Newspapers?

Things are not good in the newspaper industry. The Tribune Company has filed for bankruptcy, The Miami Herald is for sale, The New York Times lost money last quarter, and what is still out there is thinner and relying more on wire services than ever.

I've got an idea. What if newspapers followed the public radio model. What if they relied on subscribers, corporate underwriters, and foundations and made their business providing quality journalism. The problem, as I see it, is there is this constant tension between the editorial and advertising side. If you can't sell ads you can't produce the news and if you aren't producing quality news the advertisers will stay away. Of course, the advertisers stay away for other reasons too but without an independent press this country will suffer.

So, I'm not proposing a government bailout but a public rescue of a industry that keeps our country safe, strong, honest, and sane.

Who Really Won the Election (or the cold war)?

The headline in today's newspaper was all about another bailout. This time for the automobile industry. The catch to this one is that Congress wants to have a say in what the auto makers will be doing. It's not nationalizing the story says.

The truth is that I can't conceive of what this much money looks like. Somehow, our government has spent over $1 trillion dollars that it doesn't have in the past 3 months, and these are the austere, let's cut taxes Republicans that are doing it. What's going to happen with a Democratic president and more Democratic congress?

How has this affected me? So far, I'm worth far less on paper. New York Times stock which I gleefully accumulated over the years through payroll deductions is now trading at $7.35. This is actually good news since a few days it was at $4.20. When you compare it to the go-go days of over $50 a share it makes me pause. I won't mention my 401(k) Hopefully there's another dozen years or so until retirement.

Early December

It's scandalous that I haven't posted in almost 2 months. I won't make excuses but I will list the things that I've been doing:

• an Active Directory migration at work which makes me get up very early and stay up very late on many nights
• 4 Wednesdays at an Israeli film festival at the Rialto theatre in town
• a 61 mile bike trip along the Erie Canal with my brother in law
• making $15 posting memories to a facebook applications called Linkory
• Thanksgiving
• Election Day
• Worrying about the economic collapse

It doesn't seem like much but it seems to have filled my days and helped me sleep at night.

Today may be the first day of the rest of my life. Here's what I did:

• Accompanied by wife as she drove our daughter back to school in Allentown
• Cut some firewood
• Looked for pants at Old Navy but was disappointed at the lack of selection in my size.
• Baked bread
• Made corn chowder (not a success)
• Saw my wife off to Florida
• Did a spreadsheet of my Mom's dwindling assets
• Played computer Scrabble and won 3 games!
• Spoke to my Mom on the phone

I've got a list of things to do before the end of the evening. I like keeping busy.

Debate

I'm listening to Obama and McCain talk about silly things and I'm wishing that there was someone else to vote for. I was discussing this over lunch in Bryant Park with a friend today and my lunch companion remarked, "who would want that job?. That's why we only get schmucks to run for President." I think that she's right.

I'm a little slow getting used to seasons. I'm just getting the hang of summer and now it's Autumn.

We've built a succah in our back yard and it has been wonderful having our meals out there. The moon is just coming up as we sit down to dinner.

The Economy

On Friday Congress voted to appropriate $700 billion to save the economy from something. We heard a lot about how main street America was going to suffer if this measure wasn't approved. Somehow, I'm not convinced. Despite the colossal blunders that bankers and financial professionals seemed to have made it seems a little fishy that the taxpayers have to come to their aid so quickly. It seems to me if the credit markets were really freezing up then interest rates would go up to attract more capital. That doesn't seem to be happening. I mean there is a lot of money out there in the world but it doesn't seem that anyone is asking investors to pitch in.

I'm sure that there are some people making lots of money off this deal.

Anniversary

Today marks 13 years that I've been with The New York Times. I have to say that it has passed very quickly. Today, though, while sitting in a meeting and trying to figure out why I was sitting in the meeting I remembered back to 1995 when I began. Back then I was angry. I didn't want to be doing this job, I didn't want to be in the United States, and I wanted a plan for the future. Not much has really changed. I am a bit more reflective and accepting now. I still don't really like the people that I work with and I am still trying not to show it.

Now I have a blog. I didn't have one then nor know what one was. There are a lot of things that are better and for these things I am thankful.

Porn

It's probably a very narcissistic thing to do but every once in a while I google myself. Usually the results are disappointing. I just don't seem to have a web presence. There is another Charles A. Rubin who does and he is also in some kind of Information Technology. You have to look very hard to find something about me.

The other day I googled my sometimes Internet handle shaiwest. I came to this moniker out of a combination of my Hebrew name Yeshiah and Westfield, the town where I live. I thought it was clever, cute, and unique. My Google search the other day also revealed it as a pornography site (you mus be 18 or older to enter).

I am in no way related to that site.

I'm not sure what to think about this or if I should do anything about it. I suppose not.

College

My daughter is in her senior year of high school and in the midst of the college application process. Tonight her school sponsored a "Senior Parents Night" where the guidance counselors went over the college admissions process. It was mostly stuff that we knew already but we did get a couple of keen insights which I'll list below so that I can remind myself in the months to come:

1. This is their process not ours
2. Our college experience is so old that it is irrelevant
3. We should not be making this the major topic of conversation in our house or with other parents that are going through the same thing
4. We need to guide them but not make decisions for them

This is hard for me since from where I sit it seems like so much fun. I'm just finishing a book called "The Gatekeepers" by Jaques Steinberg a New York Times reporter who I happen to know. He follows a year in the life of an admissions office as Wesleyan College in Connecticut. It's really fascinating but shows you how twisted the whole process is. Maybe I'm glad that I really didn't participate when I was a teen. I've found that where you go to school doesn't really matter except perhaps for the first job. I think that I boast more of my humble Brooklyn College education than others boast of their Ivy credentials. In the end the cliche holds true, I believe, it is what you make of it.

Finance

It would be a lie to say that I understood what was going on in the financial markets. From the outside it looks like a lot of very smart people made some very stupid decisions. Maybe they just acted smart and they thought that they were untouchable. In case you've been completely out of touch for the past few weeks, the stock market dropped over 500 points yesterday on the news that 2 of the major brokerage houses on Wall Street were in trouble. Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy and Merril Lynch sold itself to Bank of America. All of this seems to relate back somehow to the mortgage crisis that has been in the news for the past year.

Different rules must apply to me. When I went for a mortgage I had to produce reams of paper; tax returns, pay stubs, letters from my employer, a note from my rabbi, birth certificates, passports, whatever. Now I hear that people that were unemployed were getting mortgages and at better rates than I got. Huh?

It's hard to know what to do in times like this. The investment advice that I've been following goes something like this; diversify, buy, and hold. Most of my investments are in index funds. I have 50% in stocks and 50% in bonds. One is always doing bad while the other is doing well and, so far, I have been coming out ahead. I'm not going to be rich but I'm not becoming poor either.

Simple Pleasures

I’ve always been a little late coming to certain of life’s pleasures. I didn't learn to ride a bicycle until I was 11 years old, didn’t really have a serious girlfriend until well into my college years, and didn’t learn to drive a car until I was in my thirties (although I gave that up when I realized I was way too blind and a public safety hazard). My newest found pleasure is my bird feeder. Earlier this summer we got a real spiffy model from LL Bean from several gift certificates that we had earned from our credit card company. We used these to buy a supposedly squirrel proof design that we put up outside our dining room window.

I now realize that squirrel proof is an impossibility but they are really just part of the fun. The variety of birds and other beasts that visit make it hard for me to leave for work in the morning and I find myself constantly drifting back to the window to see what’s going on out there on days when I’m home. Granted, the majority of the birds that stop by are common house sparrows but we get crows, blue birds, a pair of cardinals, pigeons, and even a chipmunk who picks up the stuff the others drop. We’re going through a lot of bird seed but it’s an investment that I’m thoroughly enjoying.

An Outbreak of Management

Where I work everyone is either a manager, a director, a managing director, a group director, or a senior something or other. There are almost no junior anythings. As a result, everyone is busy managing and no one actually makes a decision or does any of the real work. I think that my fondest days at this job were when I was the lowest grade of professional at the company. I used to joke that I was the bottom of the food chain so everyone should feel free to boss me around. The truth is that I was left alone much of the time and I got a lot done and was rewarded for it.

Now I'm a manager but with so many management types no one has any real authority. So we have lots of meetings where no one decides anything and we wait for things to come to a crisis before we actually get around to doing anything and then we have some vice president (I didn't mention them above) who really isn't qualified to be making technical decisions making technical decisions. Frustrating. I'm trying to find tasks for myself that no one else wants. I'm trying to find my way back to my roots.

More Vacation

I'm beginning my second week of vacation tomorrow. I think that it takes about a week to get accustomed to not going to work. Today was a satisfying day of not working. Busy, fun, and I'm wonderfully tired now. I biked to a pancake breakfast in Lava, New York. There really isn't a town called Lava. It's more like someone drew a circle on the map and said "wouldn't it be cool if we called this circle Lava? People will always wonder why we called it that and wonder what's there." As far as I can tell all that is in Lava is the firehouse. This has not been one of my favorite events of the summer but today it was surprisingly good. Lava is only about 6 miles from where we are but I took a roundabout route through Narrowsburg and made it an 18 mile circular trip. I went alone and sat next to three enormous people. They were friendly enough.

Lava's pancake breakfast distinguishes itself by being a buffet where most of these events are sit down and served family style. Lava's also includes home fries and cake which aren't found in the others. For the record, my favorite pancake breakfast (which I missed this summer) is in Youngsville, New York. This is followed closely by Obernburg, Callicoon Center, and Jerfersonville.

The rest of the day was spent mostly hanging around by the lake; swimming and playing with the kayak. We took a short drive before dinner to take photos of the new gas pipeline that is being laid near hear. It's huge and scary looking. Fortunately, they are going to bury it.

Ninety

My Mom turned ninety this past Monday. This really is quite a remarkable achievement considering that she's been telling me for the last 40 years or so that "she won't be around much longer". We had a small party for her at an Italian restaurant in the neighborhood that she's lived for the past 51 years. Besides her various infirmities she is in remarkably good shape and mostly in good spirits. I know that there are days that she really doesn't want to live anymore but I try to remind her that she still has much wisdom to impart. She's just started attending a poetry and short story workshop at the senior center and her work is not bad.

The Italian restaurant where we had her party deserves a mention. The place is called Conchetta's and it's one of those places where you only can pay by cash or check. Checks need to be made out to cash. It's hard to believe that this isn't Mafia and the fact that we were the only customers for much of our 3 hours there seemed to support that theory. No one complained about the food or service.

On Vacation

I've been off work since Monday and I am finally beginning to get that feeling of really being away from work. It's been a bit hectic. We came up to our summer home last Friday evening but left again on Monday morning to attend my mother's 90th birthday party. Tuesday we took a day trip to Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ and then Wednesday morning it was back here.

Today was a true vacation day. I went with my friend and neighbor Bill Gottlieb on a short canoe trip on the Delaware River. We put in at Narrowsburg, New York and went to Ten Mile River a distance of about 6 miles. It's a lovely quiet stretch of the river but we got caught in a wild thunderstorm. We paddled towards a bridge to take shelter but it was a railroad bridge and it seemed as wet underneath as out in the open. An adventure and a stretch of the river that I'd like to try in my kayak.

The tween sensations The Jonas Brothers were playing at Bethel Woods Performing Arts Center. Raisa and I biked over there late this afternoon to see what the scene would be like. I've probably never seen so many 12 and 13 year old girls in one place. Each was carrying a handmade sign or a homemade t-shirt. There were a few boys but they looked like they were there under duress.

I'm deliciously tired now.

Back by Poplular Demand

Thank you all for noticing that I hadn't posted in a while. I can't promise that future posts will be interesting but I will promise more regular ones.

The summer has been slow to get started. Although, it has been quiet at work I don't feel as if I've gotten into the swing of things. Generally, we spend the summers shuttling between New Jersey and Lake Huntington, NY. This summer we've only been there twice although starting this Friday I'll be on vacation for two weeks and I hope to spend much of it up there.

The highlight of the summer has been a bike ride that I took with my daughter from our home in New Jersey to Lake Huntington (again). Two days and 132 miles. She was an incredibly good sport despite heat, hills, and an error that cost us an extra 22 miles. The scenery was wonderful except for a pretty long stretch on Route 206. We had a wide shoulder but the traffic whizzed by us at an alarming speed. I was reminded during this ride how rural much of New Jersey is. We passed farms and fields and large stretches without cars or people.

Here's what I learned from this trip: always carry identification. I had booked a room around half way but they wouldn't let me have it because I had no ID. We had to backtrack 11 miles and it was a good thing because there was a neat lightning storm that night. It probably worked out for the best because the motel we ended up at was nicer with a very pleasant Italian restaurant right next door.

I'm looking forward to my next ride and I'm looking for suggestions. I'm not sure Raisa will accompany me again but I was glad she did this time.

We're Having a Heat Wave

The daytime temperatures have been in the mid-nineties. I really have no desire to go outside. In the world it's steamy outside and comfortable inside plus I don't really have anything to do out there.

I did make it out the last two days but only in the early morning. I biked yesterday and ran this morning. I feel like I should be feeling guilty but I'm not feeling anything like that. I'm just trying to stay productive indoors. Going to work doesn't count since I'm never outside for more than 5 minutes.

Have the Democrats Finally Picked a Candidate?

Today was primary day in New Jersey. In the old days we would have been picking a candidate for president but we did that a few months ago. Today we were picking a candidate for Senate, a sheriff for Union County!, and some Chosen Freeholders (whatever they are).

The big news, though, is that today is the last of the primary contests for president. In a striking blow to our concept of democracy the outcome will not be decided by the voters but by a bunch of people called super delegates. Some of these people were elected but lots of them are just party officials, people that just work for the Democratic Party. Barack Obama has won a plurality of the delegates but not enough to secure the nomination. Now it will be up to the candidates to twist enough of these delegates arms to get them the required number of votes to win the nomination. I really don't understand how this is the will of the people and why anyone thinks that this brings forward the best candidates. Of course, it probably doesn't and that goes a long way to explain how we are where we are.

Wayne's World

Some of life's most important lessons can be learned from silly movies.

Wayne's World, the classic 80's film about young adults that don't quite grow up is a case in point. At one point in the movie everything is going wrong for Wayne; he has a fight with his girlfriend and he walks out on his cable television show and his best friend. Wayne starts to complain to the camera which, bored with his whining, starts to drift away. He realizes that he is just feeling sorry for himself and coaxes the camera back. "It's not really so bad", he says.

I'm not having a bad day or week for that matter. The year has been pretty good too.

ReReading

This morning I started a new book by Alice Hoffman called Blue Diary. I keep a log of everything that I've read since around 1986 but I didn't check that I had read this before since it was on my list of things to read (as you can tell I'm a manic list keeper). The book seemed naggingly familiar so I did check my books read list and I had indeed read it 5 years ago.

Back then I only gave it a rating of 6. It must have been pretty bad because I really have no recollection of the story other than I don't like her extreme descriptions of things. Here's an example:

On this glorious day the brilliant sky is filled with banks of motionless white clouds fleecy as sheep but so obedient and lazy they haven't any need for a shepherd or fence.

See what I mean? This was clever the first time but not so much on a second reading. It's back to the library tomorrow for some fresh reading material.

Dog Days

Last year we raised a puppy for The Seeing Eye. Back in October we got to see her working in harness and were assured by her trainer that she was ready for service. Last night we got a call that she was being dropped from the program because she was "aggressive" to other dogs.

What I really think happened was that she got caught in a surplus of dogs and she just was too long at the kennel basically negating all of the good we had done by home raising her for a year and a half. When a dog washes out the family that raised her gets the right of first refusal. We spent the last 24 hours agonizing about whether we wanted to take her back. In the end, we realized that we do not have the time or patience for this. It's a hard decision since we were really quite fond of her but I, at least, was not prepared for a 12 plus year commitment. We simply are not around enough and to add this to our burden didn't seem fair to us or the dog.

I'm sure The Seeing Eye will find her an excellent home.

I think that I'd be willing to raise another puppy but I like the idea of a short term pet.

Running in the AM

Since I was a teenager I've been running. What I mean by that is that I take it up from time to time and then sometimes lapse. I always come back to it. I can only run in the morning, though. I attribute this to the fact that if I really wake up I'll talk myself out of doing it. It's only something I can do when I'm semi-conscious.

I don't know if it is psychological but when I'm running regularly I have a more positive outlook on life. I've been going out pretty consistently 4 - 5 times a week for the past month. My route these days is around the neighborhood and then for 2 laps around the middle school track. Sometimes I think wistfully of my days of running along the Brighton Beach Boardwalk. End to end that was 2.5 miles so a round trip gave me a 5 mile run. Nowadays, I'm running about 2.5 miles in the morning. I'm hoping to keep at it long enough so I can run 4 miles each morning. The goal will be a 10K race in the fall.

The trick for me is to get in "the zone". This means that I sort of forget I'm running and just think deep thoughts with no interruptions. Running in the early morning is good for that since I don't have to compete with much traffic.

Bicycling

The weather was glorious this past weekend. I managed two extended bike rides on the roads of Sullivan County, New York. I even managed to travel a route that I'd never been on before.

On Sunday there were three pancake breakfasts listed in The River Reporter. Two of them I had travelled to before but one was new to me. On the pancake breakfast scale it rated pretty low but on the scenic bicycle ride scale it was one of the best. It was in a place called Kaneounga Lake which is not far from the Woodstock Music Fair Site (We are stardust, we are golden). It was about 12 miles each way. It was just enough to work up a good appetite but there were no hills that made me wish I'd stayed home.

The pancakes were fair and unlike the other "all you can eat" events we were restricted to one helping. The breakfast was to benefit the volunteer fire department so I don't begrudge them their fee. It simply did not compare to the pancakes that you can get in Obernberg, NY the site of one the competing breakfasts. That, in my mind, is the mother of all pancake breakfasts at least in the Sullivan County Catskills.

Yesterday morning I ventured down to Narrowsburg, NY on an early morning bike ride. It's such a sleepy pretty town. The Main Street Cafe was not open for breakfast so we just got a coffee and breakfast sandwich at the trendy coffee place Roasters. It was enough of a boost to get me back up the hills to Lake Huntington. It wasn't enough though to make me think midway that I really needed pancakes to do this ride.

Power

Juneau Alaska, according to an article in The New York Times of May 14, 2008:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/us/14juneau.html

gets 80% of its electric power from a hydroelectric dam 40 miles from the city. This is a good thing, right? An avalanche, though, knocked out most of the transmission towers and the city had to fall back on other sources until June. Mostly, people had to come up with other ways of doing stuff; clotheslines instead of electric dryers, dimming lights, running only one elevator in places where there are two.

What I get out of this is that we probably can do with a lot less power and fuel than we are willing to admit. It does, however, take a crisis for folks to realize this. You would think that $4 a gallon gasoline would get people to consider alternatives but perhaps that will only happen when they just can't get gas. I'm sort of looking forward to that day.

I'm Back!

I hadn't really disappeared, just from the blog. It's not that I've had nothing to write about but my laziness has overwhelmed me a bit. I've spent too many evenings watching old Star Trek (the original series) on DVD. I am vowing now to be more productive.

I'm currently reading a travel book called Tales From the Torrid Zone by Alex Frater. It's a bit of a memoir and a bit of a guide to the strange part of the world between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. From this comes a thought for the day. The author is contemplating life in the tropics, noting how there is a very obvious interplay between rotting things and growing things,

"... man's ultimate role, I told myself, is to supply the trace elements which nourish higher plants and lower animals. Each of us ends up fertilizing something, yet in the tropics it's all so wildly accelerated the whole region seems to be feeding constantly on itself."

That made me stop and think for a few minutes. Then the bus got to the bus station and I went to work.

Writing

A few years ago at work I proposed an idea to the senior management of my department to put out a department newsletter. The notion developed out of a company survey that revealed, among other things, that for a communications company we did a very poor job of communicating with our own employees. From my own experience I realized that there were people who sat only a few feet from my cubicle whose names I didn't know and I had no clue what they did.

From that was born a internal publication called Ping! In computer jargon ping is a way for computers to establish communication with each other. We published about 9 issues but the effort fizzled last January because the small group that had formed to produce it couldn't generate enough content and we were not being given any time to work on it.

This year, as part of our company's diversity initiatives (which are now called diversity and inclusion), we convinced our management to allow writing for this publication to be counted as meeting a diversity goal. Today we had an organizational meeting and we lined up a whopping 14 articles for the next issue to be published in June. I may not be embarking on a writing career but I'm at least keeping my hand in something close to it.

Early Departures

I seem to have discovered this week that I can leave work at a decent time. For 2 days running I've managed to leave work before 5:30 which gets me home at a decent time. A decent time for me is anything before 7 PM. The reason for today's early departure is the spillover from yesterday's productivity. There were plenty of meetings today but I didn't need to get much real work done due to being ahead.

My thoughts are continuing to turn to this fiasco of an election process that we are in. It seems like these candidates have been running for better than two years now but we probably know less about them than we ever did.

The really sad part is that whoever loses will probably never run again. The process is so grueling and so empty of substance that its got to drain whatever souls they have. I'm all for a single national primary with a runoff of the top two votegetters if no one gets more than 50% of the vote. Who's with me on this? It seems like all we are waiting for now is the scandal (real or perceived) that will finally relegate one of the democrats to loserhood. Is this anyway to choose the leader of the United States?

April Showers

It's really been a dry April so today's drenching rain is welcome. It makes very little difference to me being at work. There are probably people who don't like it but overall it is probably a good thing. From where I sit, 11 floors above 8th Avenue in New York City, New Jersey has practically disappeared and there are ominous clouds rolling across the Hudson River.

Passover ended last evening here in the Jewish diaspora. This was one of the easiest Passover weeks that I can remember. I often find myself wanting to munch continuously but not this year. I think that it was good planning and plenty of leftovers to bring to work.

Work has been productive today. I did not have a single meeting which gave me enough time to concentrate on tasks. Tomorrow and Wednesday are littered with meetings but I should have gotten enough done today to coast for a few days.

Mid-Passover

We're half way through the Passover holiday and I'm thinking that it's been pretty easy so far. I was not looking forward to the seder dinners but they were a lot better than I expected. The second one might even qualify as one of the better ones that I've experienced over the past few years. I think drinking the full complement of wine helps.

While I wasn't looking Spring happened. The tree in our front yard exploded in color. The petals all fell to the ground in about a week and we had fun tossing them into the air and getting showered by pink snow. The temperatures have been mild but I haven't been able to organize myself enough at work to get out and enjoy it.

I'm feeling disoriented at work. That's not really unusual but I never get sufficient direction from my management to really get a good feeling for what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm pretty sure they don't know either and most of the time it's not a problem since I can cobble together enough projects so that it appears that I'm being productive. Lately, I haven't felt driven. There's lots to do but I'm bored with it. Someday I hope I'll figure it all out.

Old Friends

Tonight I'm going to see a performance downtown where a friend of mine from my Camp Kindervelt days will be performing. I recently made contact with her because of a list server that a former very gung-ho camper set up to share photos and reminisces. She had posted a picture of me, how weird is that? We've written a few times and exchanged more recent photographs and met for lunch too. To some extent it was just like picking up where we left off. We stopped being friendly back in 1970 for no particular reason other than she lived in The Bronx and I in Brooklyn. When you are 15 there doesn't need to be more of a reason than that.

There are some people that when you see each other again you just sort of pick up where you left off. I can think of others from that time period that I wouldn't want to see again. I don't really care what happened to them. There are others that I would love to or hear from . I suppose a lot depends on how you felt about them the last time you saw them.

Writing

Last night and tonight I sat down to write. I've had a short story rattling around my head for a while that I've wanted to get down. It's been fun. It's a story that is loosely based on a guy that I know at work and his journey from totally secular to totally orthodox. I've done 6 pages in the past 2 days and I expect another 3 before it's done.

I've gotten a new laptop computer and, for now, it's a pleasure to use. It's free of all of the quirks that the other one had. I know as a computer professional that all that's necessary is wiping out the operating system and installing the programs for a machine to be as good as new. Windows in particular gets clogged up with junk and starting from scratch is really the only way to clean it up. Getting a new machine is a faster way to accomplish this.

Writing like this has made the evenings pass quickly. I originally thought that I'd dedicate each evening to a different activity but I think that I'd like to get this story finished before moving on to something else. Next week I'd like to get involved in the darkroom again. Stuff needs to be sorted out and I need to decide what negatives I'd like to work on. It feels good to be creative in the evenings when the days are so taken up by unproductive meetings.

Another Week Begins

I'm trying something a little different this week. I'm attempting to set myself a goal or two each day at work and at home. I'm hoping that this will alleviate some of the frustration that I've been feeling. At work I decided to get all of the administrative chores done today and then spent the rest of the day setting up my new laptop computer.

At home I tackled filing my Mom's stuff, paying any outstanding bills, and putting together a new spreadsheet of her assets. She's going through her money at an alarming rate. I've been procrastinating about getting her on Medicaid but the time has probably arrived.

The last few days have been relatively uneventful. Nothing in the news has excited me but I realize that I should be. The election, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should be motivating me but they aren't. I feel powerless to effect any change. Even the continuing saga in Israel gets my attention but not my action. There was an aliyah fair in NYC over the weekend but I didn't even think of going. For now I'm in a holding pattern and I guess I should just accept it.

It's Not Getting Much Better

We seem to be back in a silly season at work. By that I mean that my days seem to be consumed by meetings. It's a little hard to actually do anything when all you do is meet about doing things.

Yesterday we had a bit of a systems failure. The procedure is now to open a general conference bridge so that everyone can be kept up to date on what's going on. At one point I realized that there were only 2 people on the call who could actually do anything about the problem but there were 6 "pointy headed bosses" that were asking for status. It was an outbreak of management!

Thursdays are generally my worst day of the week followed closely by Fridays. Everyone seemed to have a bad day today. Lenore had an argument with Raisa and our neighbor who I fondly call "Big Mike". He's not really big but his name is Mike. I just like the way it sounds. At the end of today I realized that I'd done practically nothing. It wasn't that I was just sitting around but the breaks between meetings were so short that I couldn't get to anything on my "to do" list. Tomorrow I have a vendor coming in from 10 - 1 and 3 hours of meetings after that.

Maybe next week will be better but I doubt it.

Frustration

Nothing bad happened at work today but frustration was the main theme of the day.

The only way to describe it is terms of the Dilbert comic strip. The pointy headed bosses are firmly in control and their idiosyncratic decisions dictate the agenda. Details are probably pointless but because someone gets a silly idea in their head it generates hours of work disproving that idea. It's amazing that they pay me so much to be a subject matter expert but won't ask me my opinion. What's frustrating is that if they really did their jobs as managers we could be doing some good work and making better systems that were easier to use and made other folks less frustrated. Instead they seem to thrive on giving us tight deadlines and reveling in the fact that we work so hard to meet them.

My mother was in a funk too. She's got a new aide today and that is never a happy day for her.

Sunday Evening - The End of Raisa's Spring Break

Again I have delayed keeping this blog up to date. I want to start this post with a synopsis of events since my last posting.

Tuesday - College tours of Pratt Institute and SUNY Stony Brook. Both were surprisingly positive experiences in different ways. In the evening we attended a talk about Annie Londonderry, the first woman to ride her bicycle around the world at the 14th Street "Y" in NYC.

Wednesday - Back to work but another college tour at Rowan University for the girls.

Thursday and Friday were work days better than most because my boss was up in Boston for Thursday at least.

Saturday - a long visit to my mother. We watched the movie Careful He Might Hear You which was dreadful and we were complaining at the screen for it to end already.

Sunday - A beautiful early Spring day. I ran and biked and went to a concert this afternoon of a brass ensemble that our friend Kyle Turner plays in. It was a sort of history of brass music and very audience friendly and agnostic.

This evening we made a fire and I paid bills. Not exciting but relaxing. Raisa is finishing her junior research project and it meant much proof-reading for the rest of us.

College Tours

I'm taking today and tomorrow off to go on my younger daughter's first college tours. Today we visited Bryn Mawr College and Drexel University. Tomorrow we are planning trips to Pratt Institute and State University of New York at Stony Brook. I'm certain that we won't find the prefect match on these outings but I'm hoping we can expose her to several different types of school and she can somehow narrow down her preferences.

Each of the schools today had their pluses and minuses but on the whole I think she was more impressed with Bryn Mawr than Drexel. I was too.

From my perspective I want her to know that she has a choice. We have a deal in our family that I am willing to pay for 75% of whatever they choose. Beyond that they can go where they want. I never felt that I had that choice. My parents were not fans of out of town colleges and I never forced the issue. My sisters went but by the time my turn came they were convinced that it was not a good idea for me. So, my college years were spent at a commuter college which didn't cost them anything other than feeding and sheltering me (and putting up with the odd hours of my coming and going). A good friend of mine referred to those years as four more years of high school although, in my case, that was seven more years of high school.

I'm appreciating the days off from work too.

Proud of My Kids

This evening I had a chat with my daughter after dinner. She was telling me about her sociology class in high school. Today they had to describe the personalities of her family members. She has lots of good things to say about both of her parents and her sister. She got to the core of the things that she liked about each of us and pointed out the things that she sees as part of her personality.

While listening to her I realized that I like the people that my daughters have become. They are thoughtful, interested, and interesting. I look forward to what comes next in their lives. I'm sure they'll do things that I don't agree with or approve of but I think that they have good heads on their shoulders and they should be free to make their own mistakes. I've liked the things that they've done and plan to do. I think that I'm living a bit vicariously through them. They went to better camps than I did (sorry Kindervelt), did and plan to do the gap year in Israel, and are going and hope to go to the kind of college that I wanted to go to.

In other news it rained all day today. If this were snow we'd be home for the next few days. The weather portion of the newspaper keeps track of the rainfall over the last 30 and 365 days. Over the last year we are 13 inches above normal. This hasn't caused us any significant problems in our end of New Jersey but I can't believe it won't if it keeps up like this. Global warming?

Productive Days

I wasn't looking forward to work today. It has been quite frustrating lately with competing projects and constantly shifting priorities. Today, however, was unexpectedly productive, here's why. Both my boss and one of the people who directly reports to me were out today. It was an unexpected day of quiet and freedom from stress.

I'll have half a day of this tomorrow since my boss will be out again.

The weekend also ended on a pleasant note. I got to take a bike ride yesterday (in the rain) through Cranford. It was a short ride on account of the bad weather but it always makes me feel good to start off the day that way. I did house chores and read the newspaper. We scavenged some fallen branches from the recent rainstorm and cut it up for firewood. Someday I hope to be less boring. For now I'll take having the time to get sufficiently rested at the start of the week.

Mid-Weekend

I'm spending the first part of this evening with my daughter who is working on a research paper for school. It's a project called the Junior Research Project (JRP) and she's behind schedule. My wife is at a monthly music series in town called Coffee with Conscience and I'd rather be there. The compromise that we've reached is that I'll stay here for a while to keep her on track and we'll both go after the intermission in the show. I suppose that's fair since she keeps her on track most of the week.

My daughter's paper is on the influence of the bicycle in America. I think that she's enjoying doing the research and I'm enjoying hearing about it. We're both fans of bicycling particularly the long scenic kind of ride.

We spent the afternoon at my Mom's house. She's been in good spirits lately. It was a short visit since we had to get back for the coffee house. She didn't seem to mind. She was uncomfortable when we left, though. I wish we could do more for her but there doesn't seem to be anything to be done for her pain. If she would do the physical therapy if might help but she seems to never had a taste for doing anything physical and at 89 she's not about to change her ways.

Job Applications

For the first time in almost 9 months I've sent out a resume for a job. I've always felt that it would be more fun and manageable to work in a college or university setting and yesterday an alert from monster.com popped into my e-mail. It's an IT manager position in their Graduate School of Journalism. I have most of the qualifications and I hope that seeing my 12 plus years at The Times will wow them.

Do I want to switch jobs now? Maybe. I'm not crazy about the work that I'm doing or the people that I'm working for and with. Sometimes I think that I can wait it out until the environment changes but it looks like more layoffs are coming so I'll either be laid off myself or have to work many times harder to compensate for the people that are.

Today I was booked into 5 hours of meetings. I'm never sure when I'm supposed to do any real work when you spend so much time talking about work. Tomorrow is not much better with a solid 3 hours in the afternoon tied up in chatter. Just when I'd like to be winding down we have to talk and get wired up. I didn't get home tonight until 7:45. I did a little paper work and applied for that job.

Busy Evenings

I much prefer evenings when I have something planned to those that I don't. It's generally pretty quiet around our house on weekday evenings. My daughter does her homework or procrastinates on the computer and my wife does quiet activities and often naps. She's a late night person and usually begins some activity when I'm about to turn in. After dinner I sometimes find myself at loose ends.

Sometimes before I leave work I'll make a list of the things that I want to get done that night. If I can get through the list I go to bed a bit more content.

Tonight I developed a roll of film in the darkroom, washed the dinner dishes, paid both our bills and my Mom's bills and, after I finish this post, will get our income tax stuff ready to be mailed.

It's the little things that make life pleasant.

Governors

There must be something about being a governor that makes you do stupid things. In recent memory we've had a governor that came out of the closet while in office, one that almost got himself killed speeding on the Atlantic City Expressway and now the governor of New York gets taped making an appointment with a prostitute. Don't these guys know that they aren't anonymous anymore?

Maybe I'm lucky or maybe I'm smart but I've always lived the boring life. These kind of escapades never seemed worth the risk. I'm not saying I haven't fantasized but things can go so badly if you get found out and it's inevitable that you'd be found out. I've mused that it's a good thing that I'm not good looking since I'd likely get into trouble if I was. I don't really think that's true. I just avoid compromising situations like I avoid dealing with lawyers and annoying people.

We just finished watching the movie Martian Child pretty unremarkable other than John and Joan Cusack playing brother and sister. Now how original is that?

It's Been Five Days

It's been five days since I posted last. I do have a lot to say but I'm about to meltdown from so much time in front of the computer. At work I need to produce detailed reports for every site showing why they are not in security compliance and tonight I worked on our tax returns.

I realized this evening that the on-line forms are no easier than doing it on paper. It's still taken me two sessions to get through them. It doesn't help that I have to file returns in two states.

My eyes are falling out of my head! Good night!

The Noise

In yesterday's post I talked about a hockey game that I attended. There was one thing that I forgot to mention that I think also says much about the times that we live in. There wasn't a single moment while at Madison Square Garden last night when we weren't assaulted by noise. There were constant announcements, loud rock music, and crowd chants. I sort of remember going to games and hearing the puck bang off the boards and the players yelling to each other.

We are having our house painted this week so we had dinner out. While we were at the diner I noticed that they had music on as well and TVs on in every corner of the restaurant. Why is it that we can't have quiet anywhere? When you go to the doctor there's a TV on and in airport lounges you can't avoid some kind of stimulation. I prefer the quiet but I think I'm alone in this. Everyone on the bus seems to require some sort of stimulation be it an iPod or cell phone.

Were people that much duller or more organized before this electronic junk began to rule our lives?

Hockey

Tonight I had the privilege of attending a hockey game. One of our vendors invited 8 of us from The Times to sit in their corporate box at Madison Square Garden to see the Rangers play the Islanders. It was a remarkable experience from many respects.

The first notable thing was the luxury. We had a private suite with catered food and plenty to drink. What shocks me the most was the enormous amount of food and probably the enormous waste. My co-workers were drinking and eating themselves silly and mostly ignoring the game. They were chatting, texting, and I suppose having a very good time. These are not people that I particularly like so I avoided alcohol and deep conversations. It was very noisy there so the conversations were easy to avoid.

The game of professional hockey has also changed quite a bit since my last NHL game which was probably more than 10 years ago. Ties are frowned upon. This game ended in a 3-3 tie at the end of regulation play. First they play a 5 minute overtime period which ended scoreless. Then they did a shoot out which is one player against the goalie. This ends when one team scores and the other can't answer with a goal of their own. The Islanders won on this. It was an unsatisfying way to end the game since it was so closely fought.

One of the reasons I stopped going to sporting events was that I really couldn't follow the play. These seats were so good that I was actually able to see the puck for some of the time. Not all of the time but enough to keep it interesting.

Dreaming of Travelling

The past weekend was very pleasant in our little corner of the world. I spent Saturday visiting my mother in Brooklyn and I had the very pleasurable company of my older daughter who is home from college on a week long break. Visiting my Mom these days has been a lot less stressful now that she seems to have competent people working with her. We don't have to worry about feeding or the other too many details that she won't or can't take care of by herself. I leave there with a much lighter heart.

On Sunday we went to The New York Times Travel Show at the Javits Center. We were given free passes at work and we had a marvelous time looking at all of the many travel options that the various exhibitors were pushing. The most enticing thing for us was a bunch of booths dedicated to vacation apartment rentals in major cities all over the world. For a family like us with major food issues this is a very attractive and comfortable way to travel. The show also featured magicians, dancers, singers, and lectures. We sampled Italian chocolate, baklava, and we picked up lots of brochures and souvenirs. The most unusual booth at the show was dedicated to a Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp. Rock with the stars. Not for me but I can see the appeal.

The News From Israel

The news is never really good from there and things seem to lurch from crisis to crisis. I know from living there that things always seem a little worse from the outside looking in but I also wonder about why things aren't better.

Israel is a marvel. An economic and military powerhouse, a place where people can get a good education and live productive lives, and one where innovation can be found in every sphere. My experience may be outdated but in a county like Israel the impossible always seemed possible.

This is true except for the never ending conflict with its neighbors. I just don't understand how after 60 years the people that seem to be able to engineer just about everything else can't engineer an end to this conflict. I don't have an answer but maybe the truly smart people just stay away from the diplomatic sphere. There certainly doesn't seem to be anyone that has anything to suggest other than a military solution. You can't kill everyone, or put them in jail, or deport them so is this to be the situation forever? The Arabs would tell you that just integrating the territories into Israel and coming up with a fair power sharing arrangement would resolve the problem. All one needs to do is look at Lebanon to see why that wouldn't work particularly with the clans and factions that seem to rule Palestinian society.

So where does this leave us, with an impending military operation in Gaza? That won't stop the missiles. Do they just keep taking it? I wouldn't suggest that to anyone who has to live there and expect a civil response. Again, I have no answers just more head scratching.

Bicycling Magazine

Our local library has a pretty fair collection of magazines. I'm interested in many of them but wouldn't really consider buying or subscribing to them. Being in the publishing business I probably shouldn't admit that.

Over the weekend I took out a back issue of Bicycling Magazine. I've enjoyed riding my bicycle since I was 11 years old. With it I felt that I had the means to explore the whole world. Not having a driver's license, I still feel the same way today. Now, though, I ride more for recreation. Bicycling magazine, was a bit of a shock to me. First of all, I discovered that casual touring cyclists are cruising at 20 - 25 MPH!. On a good day I can do that downhill and mostly I'm averaging 12 - 13 MPH. I always knew that bicyclists were gear heads but the amount of expensive junk advertised was astounding. Also, no one in the magazine seemed to be smiling. They were all into how hard their workouts were and how they needed to improve.

My idea of a fun outing is just having a good destination; preferably a good coffee shop, pancake breakfast, or diner that we take our time getting to and enjoying the scenery along the way. Maybe that's why I have a hard time keeping biking buddies. People start out with me but they soon get faster than I want to go and seek more challenging outings. I may make a concession to this, I've heard that switching from my basket toe clips to the shoe/pedal combination will increase my speed by 2 - 3 MPH. I think that I can handle this and perhaps this will keep me in the pack.

Home by the Fire

Tonight, we managed to make a fire in our wood burning stove. We've been unsuccessful in our last few attempts. Tonight we've rediscovered the secret. Before the big logs go in you've got to put smaller ones, preferably ones that have been split from the larger ones. This may seem obvious to you but the sequence eluded us until now. Now it's warm and toasty in the living room and I'm sure the dancing flames will lull us to sleep.

A Day of Travelling

Yesterday we hit the road. We travelled from Westfield, New Jersey to Trumbull, Connecticut. From Trumbull Connecticut to Brooklyn, New York. From Brooklyn, New York to Westfield, New Jersey.

We paid a condolence call, visited my mother, and then had dinner back at home. By 9 PM I was fit for nothing better than falling asleep with the Sunday newspaper on the couch.

The weekend was filled with other pleasures. Saturday was sleeping in and walking to the library. In the evening I went into the darkroom for the first time in months. I made some contact sheets and printed some stuff from last summer; the girls at Niagara Falls, a neighbor at the pool, and my sister and brother-in-law in the hammock at Lake Huntington. It's nice revisiting those times on a chilly February night. I don't think that this is my greatest work but it's nice to feel creative every once in a while.

Today was a typical work day. I have no excitement for any of the projects I'm engaged in. We did receive our 2007 bonuses today which were pretty good considering that the company must be worried about the impending recession.

Eclipsed

Last night there was a total lunar eclipse. When I first came home it appeared that it would be too cloudy to see but as the evening advanced the sky cleared and we could see it all. It is so simple yet so remarkable to stand outside at night watching the moon silently slide into shadow. The eerie site of the moon bathed in red was one, I understand, that we might not see for another 15 years in this part of the world.

The end of the week at work is always filled with meetings and frustration. Tomorrow will be worse. I'm booked for 3 hours of meetings on Friday afternoons for the next six months in just the time slot that I'd like to be winding down in.

I wish I could figure out another way.

A Better Day

Yesterday was one of those days where nothing would go right. I even tried to make a fire in the evening in our wood burning stove and couldn't make a go of that either. The best thing to do on days like that is to turn in early. For whatever reason I didn't sleep well either but a new day dawned and with that new possibilities.

Today’s adventure involved the bank. For the past year I’ve been taking care of my mother's finances. They are a bit complicated and took some time to get under control. I think that I'm just about there, though. The biggest part of it was trying to invoke my power of attorney, which she'd drawn up a few years ago. All of the papers were in order but getting each financial institution to recognize it took some doing. Citibank was the absolute worst requiring probably 7 separate visits to get everything in order. Washington Mutual was the best taking all of about 20 minutes.

Today I ventured back to Citibank to redeem a Certificate of Deposit. I was greeted with lots of suspicion but the woman who helped me with the process originally was there and remembered me. This transaction only took 30 minutes.

There is still a long list of things to do to get things totally sorted out and this doesn't include filing her taxes. One step at a time, though, and it will all get done.

Post President's Day

It's hard returning to work after a 3 day weekend. I had no motivation before the weekend and I had even less when I came back. Usually, the break will energize me but today when I got in there were already people making demands on my time. It all seemed so pointless. I made it through the day without quitting or pissing anyone off so I'd have to call it, in the end, a successful one.

The house is quiet now that the Trudester is gone (see yesterday's entry if you don't know what I am talking about). Having a dog again has demonstrated to me why we shouldn't get another one. Neurotic people shouldn't have pets and no one here really is eager for the responsibility. We also learned yesterday that there is a contagious disease at the Seeing Eye kennel and that all of the dogs are in quarantine. Our Paris is now in her 8th month at the kennel probably undoing all of the good that we did raising her.

The house is also quiet because the rest of the family is taking advantage of the day off and paying a visit to Muhlenberg College. My older daughter needed some subjects for her photography class and needed some models. I'll wait until they come home to eat dinner.

President's Day

It's been a busy weekend. Events in my life aren't earth shaking but some are of interest and I hope worth sharing.

This weekend we've been watching Trudy, a golden retriever that's being raised by our neighbors for The Seeing Eye. She's a very friendly dog and missing a lot of the nasty habits that the Geman Shepherd that we raised had. She doesn't chew eveything in sight and she's not particularly aggressive. I don't want you to think that we didn't enjoy raising Paris the Wonder Pup. She was just a lot of work. Trudy on the other hand is obedient and loves to take walks. The weather has mostly cooperated and we'ver taken her out at every chance we get. I don't think that she is used to this and settles down to contented sleep when we let her. Everyone needs a nickname and her's is "The Trudester". Her people will come for her sometime this evening.

On Saturday evening was another of our Coffee with Conscience concert series. This time the headliners were a band called Red Molly. They really should have been good. It's 3 women with good stage presence and lovely voices. The material they played had no spark, though. There was a good turnout so I'm guessing it was just a bad night.

Yesterday I made a trip alone out to viist my Mom. She was not in particularly good spirits to start but she improved as the day progressed. I know that she is feeling out of control of things and that is frustrating to her. I have few words of comofrt but I try to listen. She enjoys looking though old photographs and discussing things that she sees on TV.

Today, President's Day, was mostly spend hanging around the house. I've enjoyed the extra sleep that I'm getting. We did take The Trudester for a long walk this morning and I got in a bike ride this afternoon. It's back to work for me but not back to school for my daughter. She's got another day.

Our Nation's Capital

I spent yesterday visiting my company's office in Washington DC. I used to go there every year or so to fill them in on developments in NY and do some server configuration. Now that I am no longer in the Publishing Systems group I don't have as much responsibility for what goes on there. For a project that I'm working on now we did place a server there and it needed to be tended to.

Most of my colleagues would have made a two-day trip of it but I don't like staying in hotels by myself so I did it as a day trip. With Amtrak's Acela Express it is quite an easy trip. I left my house at 6:15 AM and was there by 10 AM. I caught a train to come back at 7 PM and was back in the house by 10:30. It was a full day of work and fortunately successful

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. I found it remarkable that at Union Station in Washington there were lines to get into the two high end chocolate shops. These holidays rankle me. I don't like to be manipulated into having to get someone a gift. Does this prove that I love them if I buy a gift? Does it prove I don't love them if I don’t?

We are puppy sitting this weekend. This time it's a golden retriever We’ll have her until Monday afternoon.

Let It Snow!

There's finally a layer of snow outside. I was beginning to think that we wouldn't see any this winter. It's not certain if it will still be here in the morning since the prediction is for rain after midnight but the forecasts have been so far off this winter that this could be the big one.

Of course, tomorrow would be a day that I have to be in work early. The Times is sponsoring a meeting of a user group for a piece of software that we use pretty extensively. The meeting starts at 8:30 AM but I probably should be on the bus by 6:15 to be sure I get in on time. This evening I left at 6:05 and didn't walk in the door until 8 PM.

Today was another primary day and Obama and McCain won big. Although there are still lots of primaries ahead Obama seems to have momentum on his side. I can't say that I'm comfortable with him as a candidate. I find his message of "change" vacuous. We are, of course, going to get a change in November. Neither George Bush nor anyone from his team is running. I for one still don't know who Barack Obama is or who he will bring to Washington with him. I think that's what other voters are going to feel come November. Perhaps I am wrong and he is the new John Kennedy. I will vote for him if nominated. I think that Americans, though, will vote for the candidate that seems to be the most centrist. Unless he makes a dreadful mistake, John McCain will be the next president.

It's Gonna Get Cold Tonight

The forecast is for temperatures in the low teens tonight. The wind is banging things around outside and I'm glad that I'm indoors with no need to go out.

We spent the afternoon at my Mom's. We've been giving her a little less time lately since the aides have been working out pretty well. One of my Mom's neighbors asked me for some computer help so I spent a little time there and we did a little shopping for my Mom. She didn't want to go out because of the wind. She seems to like the idea of us coming out now and doesn't seem to mind if we drift off for a while.

This evening is quiet. I cleared some clogged drains and am in the middle of making bread. At my daughter's request I'm making something called war bread. It's got oats, corn meal, molasses, whole wheat and white flour. I'm not sure why it's called war bread. The only thing unusual about it is that it uses about half the yeast that a regular bread uses and you put the yeast directly in the batter rather than letting it proof. It comes out just as big as other breads.

I'll close out the evening getting through the Sunday paper. Since election night I've havnt't been feeling 100%. Today is the first day I've had a chance to sleep in and catch up a bit. I'm feeling much better this evening and am grateful for that.

The Philadelphia Story

No, not the movie. I've never seen any of them. It's a day trip that we took today.

My daughter managed to secure a free ride from her school in Allentown, PA to Philadelphia for the day and we met her there at 10:30 this morning. The one thing that I've always liked about that city was that while it is only 1.5 hours from New York City it has it's own distinct character. You'd never wake up in Philadelphia and think that you were in New York City.

We mostly spent the day wandering around. We started out in a very nice neighborhood coffee spot called Mugshots. We then visited the waterworks behind the Philadelphia Museum of Art and walked over to the Franklin Institute. There was a surreal scene in front of that museum. A Star Wars exhibit was opening today and Imperial Storm Troopers (or people dressed like them) were arrayed in front of the museum. They were chasing kids, posing with people, pointing their guns at others, giving their guns to people for pictures. It was quite amusing. Yoda and Darth Vader were on hand too.

We visited the Philadelphia Free Library where there was an exhibit by blind artirsts. It was as amazing as you might expect. We lunched in a very busy restaurant in a bustling Chinatown and then wandered slowly back to the bus's pickup spot to take our daughter back to school admiring the many murals along the way.

Tonight we're making a fire in the wood stove and trying to get through as much of the weekend newspaper as I can before turning in.

Memorial

Tonight and tomorrow mark the 7th anniversary of my father's death. On that date on the Hebrew calendar, the 2nd of Adar, we light a candle in his memory. Tomorrow I'll also go to the synagogue down the block from my office and say the Kaddish prayer.

It's hard to believe that 7 years have gone by. I miss him but not the way he was in his last years. He was unhappy and he made those around him unhappy. I remember him in his better years when he was full of life and a great role model. When I think of him I want my children to feel the same way towards me as I felt for him most of my life. He was quiet, smart, and respectful.

I'm feeling tired this evening. Hopefully, it's not a cold or the flu but I will retire early.

On the bus ride home I finished The Collaborator of Bethlehem by Matt Beynon Rees. It's a mystery set in the Palestinian city in the shadow of the intifida and the intrigues among the variou local factions. What's curious about this is that it concentrates on the intricacies of Palestinian life and the Israeli conflict plays only a minor part. A disturbing story but a fresh perspective.

Garbage

I came home early tonight because we were having friends over for dinner. I don't think we've had anyone over since Chanukah so this was quite a treat. Our old friends from kibbutz days who are now farmers in Pennsylvania were on their way back to Israel for a visit and to try out kibbutz life again. With 2 children in tow I can appreciate how difficult and exciting a prospect this is.

Dinner was lovely and we got them to the airport with time to spare. We'll play host to their car while they are overseas.

What I wanted to talk about today was trash. Since my days in high school I've always been an advocate of recycling. Sometimes I've been more successful than others. I'm never really sure that my stuff doesn't just end up in the same place as the rest of the rubbish but I go on as if I am saving the earth singlehandedly. Recently, we may have realized some very positive results.

The turning point seems to have been when we started composting. We began to notice that when garbage day rolled around there didn't seem to be anything worth putting out. We called out disposal company to see if they could reduce our pickup to once a week and lower our charges. Until I moved to the suburbs I didn't realize that you had to pay someone to take your trash away. I didn't realize that you had to pay for water either. Anyway, the trash company said that the town ordinances said that they had to pick up twice weekly but they could charge us a lower rate seeing that we had so much less to haul.

So, sometimes not every good deed is punished.

Super Tuesday

I'm at work babysitting some of our computer systems. It's usually quite boring but enough systems people are hanging around to make it sociable. There's been one minor system problem to deal with otherwise quiet. I came in at 1 PM today which gave me a very pleasant morning at home. I did some filing, paid some bills, and went out to the "Y" for some exercise. Oh yes, I voted too.

So far, the election is predicably very close for the Democrats. I don't think that anyone is going to come out a clear winner tonight and perhaps there won't be a winner until the convention. When was the last time that happened? My prediction still stands; whoever the Democrats nominate won't be able to beat John McCain in November.

No Direction Home

Over the weekend we watched the Martin Scorsese directed documentary about the early career of Bob Dylan. I didn't think that I would find this as engaging as I did but it is a remarkable piece of work.

It includes interviews with many of the principals of the time; Joan Baze, Maria Muldaur, Peter Yarrow, Pete Seeger, Alan Ginsburg to name a few. It also includes some great concert footage. The meat of the movie is that people kept looking to Bobby (everyone called him Bobby and not Dylan) to be something more than he was. To everyone who asked him he was a musician and a song writer. The media and his fans wanted him to be the leader of a movement or a great political thinker, a folk singer, or something else. He couldn't interpret his lyrics any more than anyone else could. You could see that the words just spilled out of him and that they felt right. If they spoke to you of something greater than good for you.

I've often felt this about performers. We like their roles or the music they play and we think that we are going to love them or that they, somehow, are going to be these amazing people to know. It's hit or miss just like everyone else.

Almost Shabbat

It's 4:15 on Friday afternoon and I've gotten as much done at work as I plan to this week. With a little luck the phone won't ring in the next 45 minutes and I can clear off my desk, make a to-do list for Monday and get back to Westfield without incident.

I had my performance review today and while it was overwhelmingly positive there was one thing that I got "dinged" for. We have a section on the review about adherence to our "Rules of the Road". In that there is a section on integrity. While none of my management question my integrity and honesty, I did receive a 2 out of 5. I'm in the needs improvemnt category.

The reason that I received this rating had to do with a conversation that we had over lunch several weeks ago. One of our projects this year was to try to reclaim disk space that is being taken up with old and unused files. I mentioned during this conversation that we had discovered lots of music files and lots of photos, some of which were inappropriate. This is a case of being careful what you say during what you think are casual conversations. The management folks responded by asking if we had reported these offending users to our Human Resources department. We had not thinking that we are not the police and this was not our business. Clearly we were wrong.

I can accept this type of criticism and I can even agree that they are probably right. I still don't want to get involved in something like this which will probably cause more pain than joy. I also know that I must be a lot more guarded in the things that I say in supposedly friendly settings.

Bills

I've spent the last two hours balancing our checkbook and paying bills. To have spent that much time you'd think that we were managing quite a fortune but, alas, it's just the our mundane middle class existence.

The reason for all of this bookkeeping is that we do so much electronically. Back in the day when most of our transactions were cash there was nothing to record. Now each trip to the supermarket is another receipt and another transaction to note. Maybe I'm being too rigourous but I like to know what is going out and coming in. In addition, some bills are paid auto-magically, some via electronic payment, and some by plain old check. The whole process seems out of control.

Tomorrow night I'll take care of my mother's bills and finances.

I did manage to do some good this evening. My company has a matching gifts program that matches dollar for dollar what I contribute. Our local library and NPR station will be a bit better off in a few days.

Shabbat

I've gotten increasingly nonreligious in the past few years. The more I read and the more I see the less the dogma and rituals make sense to me. Too many rules for too many strange reasons. There is also the smug attitude of religious folk that seems to say "I'm right and you're wrong".

Judaism does bring one thing to the table that I find very attractive; the idea of a day of rest. The Ten Commandments say "Honor the Sabbath and keep it holy" but Judaism has interpreted that to mean a day of rest. Now, of course, the Orthodox have taken that and made it a burden by the number of things that are prohibited and the torture that families have to go through to prepare for it. In our home we try to simplify it; no going to work, no homework, no radio, no computer, no shopping. We insist that everyone be home for a festive Friday night dinner complete with candles, challah, wine, and tablecloth. We allow some things that more traditional folks would frown on. We often watch a movie on Friday night, we'll use the phone and we'll travel to visit friends and relatives.

On Saturday mornings I'll sometimes go to synagogue. I enjoy the Torah reading but little else in the service. I find the repetitive nature of the service very annoying and the more I start translating the less I participate.

Yesterday, was a near perfect Shabbat. I got to sleep in and have a leisurely breakfast. I read the weekend newspaper and took a long walk through a part of town that I had never been through. In the late afternoon I even got to take a nap. In the evening we rented a move, Pumpkin which I wouldn't recommend. It was about a sonority girl who gets paired up with a guy for the Challenged Games and falls in love with him. Not a bad premise but the movie couldn't decide whether to be straight or satire.

Kerouac

Today during my lunch break I wandered over to the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue and 42nd Street and walked through the Kerouac exhibit. It's a remarkable collection of writings and memorabilia of someone who made a terrific mark on mid-20th century American culture.

Of course there's "the scroll", the manuscript of "On the Road" typed on butcher paper. What I found most remarkable was the material from his youth where he used to play games of fantasy baseball. What I found most remarkable was that I used to play a similiar game but with hockey. His were so much more realistic with made up teams and players and even newspaper articles about the games.

My fantasy players always were miscast. The great players in real life were poor or mediocre in the fantasy world and the bench warmers led the league. I guess my imaginary worlds weren't crafted as well as his. I haven't written an "On The Road" either.

Mid-Winter Blues

I've been having a very difficult time lately with keeping a positive disposition. I don't think that there is any particular event that triggered it but I am impatient with most of the things in my life and I don't see them getting any better.

Here's the thing; does it really matter? You as the reader don't care if I am happy or sad. I should be happy you think. I have a decent job, I have a wonderful family, we are all healthy. Much more from life one cannot ask.

I do know what the missing ingredient is

A shiny new Mercedes Benz with leather seats and a sun roof.

No, of course not. I don't drive and I make myself happier by talking myself out of purchases than actually making them. The thing that is missing for me is a shared sense of purpose that being part of community brings. I certainly have no community in Westfield and where I used to have some camaraderie at work the group that I am currently in seems to make a sport of how little time they can spend in the office. Sometimes during the summer Lake Huntington feels like an extended family. That disappears when we go to our respective homes in the Fall.

Tomorrow is another day and perhaps something will happen that will change the outlook. The only way to move on is to believe in change. Isn't that what all the Democratic candidates are saying?

Cars

Over the weekend I finished the book Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet. It's a story with a rather odd premise. The scientists J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Leo Szilard, major figures in the Manhattan Project that led to the creation of the atomic bomb, somehow appear in the year 2003 directly from the moment after the Trinity test in New Mexico.

The world, of course, does not know how to react to them. They in turn do not know how to interpret the world into which they have been thrust.

At one point in the book Oppenheimer comments to the young woman who has been their guide through their modern adventure that he believes that cars are the worst thing that has happened to the modern world. He remarks that no one ever walks, that the cars are a terrible waste of resources, and they have done nothing to bring civilization forward. I couldn't agree more.

As someone who doesn't drive I am amazed at how infrequently people get out of their cars. Certainly out here in the suburbs it is difficult for people to do the normal chores of shopping, visiting, extra-curricular activities without being driven there. Difficult but not impossible. Being a walker or biker, though, makes me seem like a freak. Out here it's another form of conspicuous consumption. High school kids drive to school even though the parking situation there is difficult.

Another reason that I don't belong here.

A Midwinter Evening

It must be the mid winter blues but I have no motivation tonight. I need a charge to getting me going at work and my hobbies need new inspiration. Maybe it's the lack of sunlight or maybe everything is just blah. I've spent the better part of the evening listlessly listening to the radio and taking care of some of my Mom's bills.

I returned to work today since I didn't feel sick enough to stay home another day. Other than being bored I didn't regret it. My mother always said that only boring people are bored. I try to remember that.

Out Sick

I've had a hacking cough for the past few days and after a sleepless night I decided to take today off. I'm not a big user of sick time and this is the first sick day I've taken in 7 months. Before that I think it had been more than 4 years since I took a sick day.

So, I spent the day sleeping, drinking tea, and reading old magazines. Not thrilling but I think that I'm feeling a bit better now. If I can get a good night's sleep I'll be back at work tomorrow. I didn't feel too bad about missing work because things are a bit slow now. We're at the point of talking about doing things in only the vaguest way. We were to have a meeting to decide on a vendor for an upcoming project but since the funding hasn't been approved and it could be a very long time before it is I wasn't sure what the point was and don't regret missing the meeting. What I think would have very little weight anyway since I think that the big boss has already decided based on some twisted reasoning of his own. So never mind the cost comparisons, spreadsheets, vendor interviews, and reference accounts.

Lenore has been piling up all of the "Jewish" magazines that have arrived over the past few years and mostly gone unread. There are old issues of Hadassah magazine, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, B'nai Brith, and Jerusalem Reports. Today was a good day to make a dent in the pile. There was one article I found particularly thought provoking. It was about a woman who had discovered her Judaism in a small congregation in Colorado. When she moved to Austin, Texas she could not recreate the experience. In the end she pulled out of communal life completely and began to build a minyan of her own. At the writing there were only 2 families but she was hopeful.

Hairspray

Yesterday we attended a free screening of the movie Hairspray. I've always resisted seeing this because the idea of someone playing a cross dressing role never appealed to me. I should not have been so closed minded.

If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it. It's high energy and filled with lots of catchy and memorable songs. It's even got an appealing story. John Travolta is not to be missed as a woman.

The screening was followed by a question and answer with Nikki Blonsky who plays Tracy. It was quite cute with a lot of the questions going to the younger kids who clearly adored her. She's as peppy and enthusiastic in person as she is on film.

It was a fun outing for us too. It's rare that we get into New York City and the I was particularly taken with the number of people out and about on the street. As a native New Yorker (or Brooklynite in truth) it shouldn't really be so remarkable but, after so many years in
Westfield New Jersey, it felt good to be in a place where the car isn't king.

Reunion

My wife and daughter spent the better part of this week in Florida visiting my wife's mother. They returned this evening and now our home is back to raucous normalcy.

While they were gone things were too quiet. I've been coming home earlier than normal so my other daughter won't have to be home alone for too long. I've been home by 6:15 PM as opposed to my usual 7:30 PM. Our evenings were quiet with her time occuppied by homework and mine taken up with playing around on the computer and reading. Last night the two of us went out to dinner where we lingered unlike what we do during normal dinners.

After dinner this evening I played a game called Bananagram with my older daughter. It's kind of like Scrabble but you make the crosswords with your own letters and you can rearrange them. It's a good game because there is no scoring and even if you fall behind you can often win the game. My daughter won tonight.

I went skating again today but learned that the rink will only be open until Tuesday - boo! What will I do for fun after that?

Taxes

In today's mail was a little surprise. It was a tax bill from an audit that was done on my 2004 New York State tax return.

I can start by saying how ridiculous the whole tax structure is. I work in New York but live in New Jersey. This requires me to file 3 different sets of tax returns; one for the feds and then for the 2 states which lay claim to me. The tax software I use never seems to get it right and often doubles my income on one of the returns requiring a bit of manual intervention. When I looked at what New York was complaining about it appeared that an incorrect check box was highlighted on the return. Instead of checking Federal Income Tax Paid it checked General Sales Tax Paid. Apparently, not an allowable deduction in New York.

Now, of course, they could have figured this out if they bothered to look at the Federal return (or I daresay at the W4?) which they claim to have done and recognized which tax I indeed had paid. To add even a greater insult they are charging me interest of $120. Now I know why people are so excited about taxes. To think that tax dollars actually go to pay someone to harass people like me.

I'll, of course, file an appeal which I'll probably lose and have to pay even more interest. Now, I'll be on the "watch" list.

Skating Away

There's an ice skating rink in Bryant Park behind the New York Public Library that's open from late November until early February. It's free if you have your own skates and midday it is uncrowded. Yesterday and today I walked over and took a few turns around the ice.

I'm not sure why but I never learned to skate as a kid. I remember once while in college taking myself to the rink in Coney Island to see if I could do it. I've been out occasionally but I've never felt like I've gotten it.

About 2 years ago I saw an ad in the LL Bean catalog for "comfort skates" Rental skates were never comfortable so I thought I'd give these a try. We have an LL Bean Visa credit card so with every $1,000 we spend they send us a $10 gift certificate plus we get free shipping from LL Bean. I basically got these skates for free.

Monday was frustrating but I managed to stay on my feet. Today was a bit better getting a little speed up and managing not to think about falling all of the time. The weather today was in the balmy 60's and there is something magical about gliding around the ice with tall buildings on all sides. It also helps that everyone there seems happy and flushed with the glow of health.

Weather permitting I'll be there every day until they close for the season.

Short Sighted

That's the way I sometimes feel but it would be more precise to say that I'm near sighted. That means that I can't see to any great distance but these days the near distances (like the computer screen) are problematic too.

In actuality, this has been the problem all of my life. I was born with something called optic atrophy or, in English, an underdeveloped optic nerve. It makes it difficult for my eyes to focus and my eyes try to compensate by shaking which makes things a bit worse. I'm not blind but my vision is only correctable to 80/20 on a good day. When I'm tired or agitated it's a bit worse. This condition has prevented me from getting a drivers license and made things like going to baseball games an unrewarding experience.

So, a lot of my energy goes into coping. In school I needed to deal with being unable to see what was on the board no matter where I sat and as an adult I find those bright signs in the fast food restaurants almost impossible to read. You can imagine the limitations being unable to drive puts on where one can work and live.

An optometrist once convinced me that I could get a driver's license under a special program and training. I did the training, passed the road test, and actually drove a bit. I never got comfortable, though, and I felt that there was way too much that I wasn't seeing. I let the license lapse when I moved to Israel.

Here's the good news. I think that this "handicap" has made me a lot more clever than the average Joe. As a kid I had to somehow figure out what was happening in class without embarrassing myself. Sports also posed a challenge but I stopped playing softball as soon as I could and took up bicycling and hiking. As an adult I still try to avoid standing out and having to explain myself. Every day is a new challenge, though. I sometimes have to cross streets to read street signs and house numbers and now I need to be sure to carry a magnifying glass to read the print on most printed documents.

I had a friend from college who called me several years ago when her son was diagnosed with a severe eye disorder. She asked what she should do. My advice then was to treat him like she would any other kid; no special classes and no special treatment. This was the world he would have to live in and I was sure that he would become clever enough to deal with it. About 4 years ago we were invited to his Bar Mitzvah. He used a special device to read the Torah but he did it with no more mistakes than the typical 13 year old. I think I was as happy at his party as he was!

Walking Around

When I was a kid on the odd Sunday my father would take my sisters and me on long walks. I used to think of these walks as "getting lost". We would wander around seemingly for hours and end up in marinas, junk yards, and often at Nathan's Famous in Coney Island. I don't think I knew the reason why we took these walks but I can guess it was the result of my mother badgering my father to spend some time with the kids and let her have some time to herself.

Whatever the reason I have very fond memories of these walks and we have some great photographs of those outings.

Today my wife and I took a long walk with our oldest daughter. It really wasn't a walk to nowhere but it certainly reminded me of one. We walked to the next town, Clark, about 3.5 miles away. We stopped at the library and then at Barnes and Noble for a coffee and then continued back to Westfield. We were out wandering about for close to 4 hours and were delightfully tired when we got home. After a few days of frigid weather it was quite pleasant today and good to be out.

The odd thing about our town is that we could probably count on one hand the number of pedestrians we passed. It's seems incredible that no one seems to walk anywhere.

Scrabble

I'm addicted to this game. I'm not a superstar but I enjoy it particularly when I find someone evenly matched to compete against. Several months ago I discovered a web site which allows me to play whenever I'd like with people at the same level as me.

It's called the Internet Scrabble Club http://www.isc.ro/ and at the site you can download an applet that let's you find people at your skill level and your comfort level for length of game. My wife and I used to play often and we were pretty evenly matched. She played so slowly that it eventually became unbearable for me. I really don't think she misses playing with me.

This doesn't come without complications, though. There is a chat function in the software and some people can be a little too chatty. One game a guy trash talked through the whole thing and I couldn't believe how rattled it made me. Perhaps this is why I never was interested in competitive anything. I soon discovered two things about the site that made it much more bearable. There's a "quietplay" feature that doesn't let anyone talk to you while you are playing and their is a "no play" list that won't let any people who you have had unpleasant experiences with before challenge you.

So, while I write this I'm in my second game of the evening. I lost the first in a squeaker and I'm leading in the 2nd 240 - 208 with 10 tiles remaining.

Dreams

Last night I had a dream that I used to have a lot more frequently. In this dream I realize that I have to take a test. The problem is that I'm not sure exactly when or where the test is, I'm not sure what subject it's in and, I haven't been to the class for weeks. I've basically dropped out of something and I feel an obligation to go back and take the test despite the fact that I'm in no way prepared for it.

I realize that this dream is a way of expressing some deep feelings of anxiety. This dream ended up a little differently.

Either right before I woke or as I woke up I remember thinking, "I don't care. I've already got my degree so what does this matter?" When I woke up I was in a surprisingly good mood considering I had gone to bed in a lousy one.

Does this mean that I'm on the road to contentment?