Do you believe in the power of monkey cheese?

Today has been a pretty active day for me.

It started off with the nice morning Central park scoot – thanks to NYCKickScooters (see a quickie video at the bottom of this post!) and the folks at Xootr (the Mg is awesome!) – and we did the regular loop of about 6.1 miles (or about 10km!).

As if that wasn’t enough, I left the group and stayed in Central park – right off Terrace Drive, there’s a clearing that bands play in and skaters of all kinds congregate to practice and show off. Some young punk band was there filming a video clip of themselves playing “music” on the stage – and they were pretty bad.

After hanging around for a bit, I decided to head Continue reading Do you believe in the power of monkey cheese?

Didn’t I promise you fireworks?

So today, being July 4th, the day the United States of America (not very united at the time) declared independence. Hooray!

Many years afterwards, this is celebrated virtually everywhere in the US of A, as everything pretty much shuts down, parades are done, cookouts and fairs are up, hotdogs and baseball, and to close the evening’s festivities, fireworks.

I had the pleasure of going to the South Street Seaport in Manhattan, after spending a nice day out in River Edge, New Jersey, with the aunt, uncle & cousin. We had a good time, and after I got back into the city and got some Continue reading Didn’t I promise you fireworks?

Discount price? No problem.

So today I was out and about in Manhattan, and I met with the guy that sent me out on the quick fix-it job last week in Brooklyn.
He thinks that there is definitely something to develop with me and him. I am guessing that he is looking to finally start structuring the business part of his company and letting someone else deal with the day-to-day client/project/tech team management. We’ll see what develops, as tomorrow I’m meeting with some of his team at a client’s site to discuss some strategy.

After that, I moseyed on around and got lost at Penn Station looking on how to Continue reading Discount price? No problem.

Improv, what fun!

So Thursday night was great.

Thanks to:

Shira, Annie, Ari, Asi, Danny, Dorf and Joe!

The show was great – the place was packed. Over 100 people were there, and it seemed to me that they all had a pretty good time.

So, if you were there, I hope you had a good one, and if you weren’t you really missed out. Don’t believe me? Ask someone who was there, they’ll tell ya!

In the same news, I got my name in the “In Jerusalem” section of the Jerusalem Post Friday’s paper for the event, here:

M_Fiedler_in_IJ.jpg

And finally, a review! Yes, a review!

So it turns out there was a production of a theatrical piece without me in it that was actually good. đŸ™‚

The production is called “Stage Fright“, written by Charles Marowitz, directed by Shannon Kisch.

The acting is done by: my main man, Yossi Fackenheim, Rebecca Gillis and Yaron Shavit.
The shebang takes place at Merkaz HaMagshimim‘s Center Stage Theater. They’ve done something to the theater and made it different than other production that has ever been done there.
I almost kicked myself for not being involved, but you know my line – “I have a life. I have a JOB!”
I think I laughed harder during that show than I’ve done in a very long time. I highly recommend this to anyone that likes laughing.

They’ve got a lot of performances left, so be sure to head over there and catch one of them. They’re a hoot.

Dates:
December: 12, 13, 17, 19, 20, 21, 26 and 27. These are all weekday evening performances at 8pm.
Saturday, Dec 23 @ 9pm
A special Friday matinĂ©e on Dec 15 @ 12pm, with a wonderful Daycare service for people with children that can’t make the evening events.
You can get more details via [email protected] or call 02-561-9165 x202.
Be sure to tell ’em Mike sent ya – I’ll be there again closing night!

Take two…..

What a wacky week and weekend.

When was the last time that you actually had fun for an extended period of time?
Last week was weird but fun.
Starting Saturday night, where Yos’s acting school threw a pre-Purim party which was wild and fun. Plenty to drink, good music fun people, and a great time. Went home at 3:30am
Anyways, Monday, no big deal. Off to work.
Humdrum day, and the company sponsors pizza for all! Yay!
Tuesday early, I have a game with Elon, in which he usually wins, but his day shall come. I’ve recently taken up playing squash again, and it’s been 3 years since last I played in the IAF. It’s a wonderful workout.
After the game, home and shower, and JJ comes by, and we headed out to my folks in Betar for a Purim festive feast. Plenty of alcohol, all around, and there were tons of people there, and we all had a great time. As the day drew to darkness, we (JJ an’ me) headed back to J’lem, to meet up with Yos&Iris, the dynamic duo, to head downtown to continue drinking, which we did at great length and quantity.
I LOVE TEQUILA!
Downtown, the Stardust. A hole in the wall, packed to capacity, and a rap battle is going on inside, and there’s no room to breathe. Met Sarah and Ronen there, but no room to move. So we headed accross the street to the Praha, a Czech/Russian place, where we drank some more.
Eventually Sarah calls us and tells us that there’s room in the Stardaust, come on over! We do, grab our seats, and to our dismay, the only music playing is bad rap & hip-hop instead of the usual rock & metal we’re used to.
Order another round of drinks, and after a few more, the music improves. A mix of ’60’s to ’90’s rock and traditional Israeli folk music. So we dance, and sing (scream?) along with the tunes, and drink some more.
At about 4:00am we totter out into the pouring rain to head on home. Iris hadn’t drank all evening, so she drove. We got home, and sweet sleep. JJ spent the night on my couch.
Wednesday, just chilled, hung out and worked on clearing some HD space. Wednesday night, hang out and drink some more.
Thursday, back to work, where everything was a mess, and spent half the day fuming at issues. Thursday night, working overtime, the night manager ticks me off when she tries to get me to leave (territorial control freak). I stay until I’m done, and leave around 1:45am.
Friday morning, I have a game of squash versus Jeff from work, and we have a good hour and a half of games, until we’re both exhausted. Headed home, relaxed.
Friday night, the Dynamic Duo and I head downtown to Bohlinat for drinks.
Did I mention that I love tequila? Started off with a Tequila Sunrise, then moved on to Cuervo shots, and many of them. Nadav joined us, taking a break from his studies (physics? why??). Yos had some Absinthe to start woth, then the Duo had frozen margaritas.
We eventually tottered out at 3:00am to find a cab back to my place, where we commeneced to watch Jackass: the Movie. Iris fell asleep, and Yos’n’me had a lot of fun watching it drunk.
Finally, they decided to leave, and stumbled out. Apparently, the margaritas were too strong for Iris, and she passed out downstairs, twice. Yos freaked out, and called me, I got them a cab, and they made it home all right. Irirs was fine, except for a few bruises.
Saturday, noon, we all headed over to Iris’s folks for lunch, which is always fun. Had a nice time, relaxed, practiced juggling with Yos, and headed home to chill for the rest of the day.
What a fun-filled week!

I hope yours was just as eventful!

Later.

Monday, Bloody Monday…..

Ever have one of those days?

I’m sure you have.

Today was an interesting day for me, as I went to play squash with a good friend of mine, Elon. Now, I haven’t played squash in about 3 years, since my tenure in the IAF, and God knows I haven’t been particularly physically active.
So, woke up at the ungodly hour of 9:45AM, and grabbed a cab to the Hebrew U. Givat Ram campus to meet Elon there. Got there, and we went in, trying to get our court.
It turns out that I couldn’t pay for a one-time hour game, but I had to purchase a 4-game pass, which irked me to no end.
Finally, we got to our court, and “Game on!”. High paced, fast games, but I couldn’t score enough points to win a single game. We played a total of 5, in a complete hour, and some were close, but he took me down each time. I made him work hard, though.
After the game, we went and had a nice coffee at an on-campus cafe, and relaxed a bit.
Got home, went to work, the usual Monday crap, but not so bad.
Home now, feeling good, semi-happy, VERY sore. Need to stretch more.

Later.