Category: Personal

Travel? I travel! Do you travel?

So this morning I headed out on a bus to Boston – yes, that’s Boston, Massachusetts, not Austin, Massachusetts! – where Lisa & family live.

The bus was a nice long 4-odd hour long ride, thanks to Greyhound’s partnership with Peter Pan bus line. I had actually reserved, paid and printed my own tickets ahead of time, so all I had to do is get to Port Authority, find my gate and then wait in line.

It worked almost too smoothly, so I was a little suspicious of what lies ahead. Continue reading Travel? I travel! Do you travel?

The News Bulletin

Hi y’all.

I know I was going to complete the history lesson, but things have been a little delayed, and events have begun to unfold.

Here’s the low-down:

  1. I have a new job in New York City – in the DUMBO neighborhood to be a little more precise.
  2. I will be moving to Manhattan in about two weeks – June 2nd or so.
  3. Most of my computer-related items are being claimed by Yehuda, but if you know of something specific that you want, let me know.
  4. I am planning a going-away party on Thursday, May 31st, in the evening, and an eVite will be sent out at some point. If you don’t get the eVite by may 27th, drop me an email/comment and I’ll send it to you.
  5. I am selling off my closed alcohol bottles – another post will detail what is up for grabs. The open bottles will hopefully be consumed during the party.

So there’s oodles and oodles more to go on about, but I don’t have the time right now.

Suffice it to say – go see “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” if you can. It came highly recommended, and was worth it. 🙂

Slight break from history lesson

So I’m taking a break from my history recap for a few quick updates.

To start off, I’m in Manhattan, new York City, new York, USA. Wow.

I flew out here on Tuesday, and it was a long day of flying. I was awake for almost 24 hours
At my stopover in London’s Heathrow, I picked up a laptop charger/adapter that allowed me to connect my laptop to the airplane I was flying in – and that kept me going for a good few hours.

Once we landed, I breezed through passport control and customs, and my uncle picked me up and drove me into Manhattan, where we did some basic food shopping and then got me into the apartment.

The next morning, Wednesday, after a fitful night of sleep, I had my first Continue reading Slight break from history lesson

Forgive me, blog, for I have sinned…

… it has been over a month since my last post.

It’s been a busy time period, lots of things have been happening, and I’m still catching my breath. So now I’m finally writing this post to put it all out there.

So some of you may know, and others may not, that I am looking for a new job.

This is mainly due to the fact that the company I work for has brought in someone to replace me, an “IT Manager”, someone is supposedly to have a much wider range of experience than myself, in order to take the reins.

Personally, I’m not impressed by the choice.

Anyways, I’ve broadened my search parameters to pretty much anywhere in the world, specifically Manhattan or elsewhere in new York City (where this post is being written right now).
Unfortunately, the job market in and around Jerusalem is pretty weak, so any decent job would be in the Gush Dan area, and require a massive commute and/or moving closer to Gush Dan. I’m not happy about moving to another city that is not Jerusalem, as I’ve loved and lived this city for quite a long time now, and am VERY reluctant to leave.

Rationale: If I have to get up and move, I might as well make it a big move that improves some other aspects – better financial situation, better work environment, and less day-to-day crap that is the people in the public eye in this country.

Some history:
I came to Israel in 1988, in the middle of the First Intifada. Not the best environs for raising kids, but my parents believed then (and probably still do) that Israel is the place for Jews on Earth, as handed down by the Lord to Abraham, etc etc.
We lived in an Absorption Center close to Jerusalem for seven months, and I commuted to school in Jerusalem, and then back to after-school tutoring, and finally made it home “under the cover of darkness”.
We then moved to Har Nof, an ultra-orthodox neighborhood with the “suburbs” of Jerusalem, and along came the Gulf War. Just a personal timeline – my Bar Mitzva was a few days before the start of the war, my eldest sister’s wedding was pretty much the day after it ended. Thanks, George Bush, Sr. I will forever associate two important dates in my life with a war.

Continue reading Forgive me, blog, for I have sinned…

Advertising, yet again.

So this weekend, I drove out to the folks, and had a nice time with them, and my sister’s family. It was very nice, we had some great food – Friday night, tacos and refried beans, oh, the memories from Texas, and on Saturday lunch – a whole spread of everything that’s good, thanks to my momma.

Cervesa, tacos and some wine was there. The wine was a nice Carmel young blend, but the bottle left me a little confused.

Continue reading Advertising, yet again.

Weekends? Damn, man, they is fo’ wimps, yo!

So this weekend I hosted Dan for dinner, simple pasta, as Tha Siz was away, studying for some major exams.

Then this morning, I left on a wild Harley rider chase, that didn’t end with any results. On the up side, I ended up going to places I didn’t think I’d see anytime soon, and I also tried to barrel my way into kmelion & zachkessin‘s yishuv, but it was locked up tighter than I felt like breaching.

So I made it home, and found out that the Internet Service Provider (henceforth: ISP-from-Hell) has once again failed to provide full-time service, and my office is effectively off the grid as of about 3pm today. No email, no VPN, nada, nothing, zilch. You get the idea.
So the CEO catches me on chat on a different issue (which I resolved) and I inform him,
and I give my boss a ring and let him know as well.

See, the way it works is like this:

A service provider (let’s call them “GC“) that already has a stake (and equipment) in our building, leases service from a much larger (and VERY reliable) service provider (purely for clarity’s sake, let’s call them “NV“).

So GC leases a line with a specific capacity – let’s say 3MB (the actual capcities and rates are less relevant, you’ll soon see why). GC then sells line capacity to Customer A, Customer B and Customer C.

The only problem is – Customer C (me) has a contract for a 2MB line, while A & B have a 1MB line each. Now, it doesn’t take a math genius to calculate that something is wrong with this – but in comes trotting the concept of “line sharing”. Effectively, I get prioritized traffic for my 2MB of data, quashing the others on the same line.

But that’s not the main problem today – it seems that a main router is no longer capable of routing, and the specifics are a little blurry as of yet. The line has been down for over five hours now, and answers are still not forthcoming.

It turns out that NV has actually purchased GC, and that moving from one to the other might be feasible and even a good idea to replace GC with NV.

This open up an entire new array of options, including adding a router and using something called BGP to allow for fail-over communication line capabilities.

I foresee a change in our ISP future. Let’s hope it’s for the better.

Old pictures, come back to haunt me.

So a couple of years ago, some friends had an SCA event for Purim, that took place in Liberty Bell Park in Jerusalem.

We were all dressed in (almost) full period gear – and if you want a gander of me, check it here. The shame, the shame.

Anyways, hope you have a good laugh, and send this as a warning to others: If you partake in activities that change your appearance, you too may look amusing to someone else!