no smoking

starting tomorrow tonight at midnight, Chicago is smoke free.
i can't wait!!

Holiday posts

in Trans Atlantic Family:
Christmas 2007
pre-hangover-hockey activities in canada!

Happy holidays!

Holiday travel

we spent the last week away for holidays, in Cadillac and Canada. more stories and pictures to come... today we're taking it easy and relaxing after the looooong drive back from the cabin.

oh, and it's our anniversary!

haunted

i'm being haunted, or more specifically, my dreams are being haunted, by a guy that i hardly know, who is the author of a paper that i was refereeing earlier this month.
it's the 2nd time that guy was in my dream. the first time i saw him on tv in my dream, and last night he gave a talk (and was much more eloquent than in real world).
it's one thing to dream about work, but why do i have to be haunted by obnoxious people???
anyway, i don't know why this happens.

full house

ben's back home, and we are all much happier :)

Office

my office mate is constantly talking to herself and it's driving me crazy.

it's beginning to look a lot like xmass

it's my first time being in america in the season before xmas. it's crazy. everything is decorated for xmas well before thanks giving, the radio is playing holiday music, and most of all, there's xmas commercials on tv all the time. it makes you feel like there's something really WRONG with you if you're not out there SHOPPING every waking moment. and if you do go shopping, you should definitely buy a new car, diamonds and/or 50'' hi-def TV, if you want your family to love you. sort of crazy.
anyway, i really like how things look this time of year. especially since we got some snow, and it accumulates on the leafless trees and the little lights shine through it.. fabulous.
ben is flying to the canary islands tomorrow for a few nights of observations, so before he does we took some time to put up some holiday spirit on the walls!


the cat is a part of our Halloween decoration, but we liked it a lot, so he gets to stay for now... (assaf, the daylight picture is for you!)


some of you may recognize the snowflakes, bells and balls from our wedding in cadillac, almost a year ago :)
bigrit, the guys wanted to say hi to you and sam!

...my latest projects

a white-pink-purplish afghan, that had just reached its destination in Pasadena...


and these two, are to finally be kept at home!!

i'm working on some more fall color blankles:

first snow

the first real snow had the city looking incredibly clean and fluffy. we didn't have a camera, but luckily our friend Chris did take a few pictures a couple nights ago!
here...

fetch

lately gray scrooge and i started playing fetch. he has a bunch of rubber balls that he can catch with his mouth. i throw a ball for him, he runs after it, catches it in his mouth, and brings it back to me. we play like that 10-20 times before he gets tired and then he just lays there with his ball.
once a week i have to go around and find all the balls that he lost under the refrigerator, oven, dresser or couch.

Chicago Blackhawks

This post is a couple weeks overdue. It also happened while Kevin was in town. We all took a trip out to the United Center where the Chicago Blackhawks play hockey. My buddy Ken joined us as well, and served as the navigator. Tickets were $15 apiece and parking was $11. Not too bad, especially compared to the Detroit Red Wings. Our view was still pretty good (see the two pictures to the right).

I don't know much about soccer, but I'm told the rules of ice hockey are much like those of football (i.e. soccer if you're American): you try to score goals and not go offsides. It's soccer for people that live in snowy weather. Canada usually produces the most and best hockey players, but there also many Russians, Scandanavians, Czechs, Slovakians, Americans and some other nationalities that play in this league, the National Hockey League (NHL), which most would agree is where the best players play.

Keren took a bunch of pictures and put them in Picasa, here, if want to see them. The United Center holds about 20,000 people. About 1/2 were Chicago fans, and 1/2 Detroit fans, including Kevin and me, so there were a lot of insults traded between fans which I won't reprint here.

Hockey is a violent sport; people run into each other fast and get penalized for it by sitting in the penalty box for 2 minutes, or as Keren says, "they go to jail". In fact, people often say "I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out". The hockey game broke out alright, but we got lucky and saw a nice fight: a 30 second bout between Parick Sharp (red - Chicago) and Tomas Kopecky (white - Detroit):

From left to right, you can see the 1) fight start, fists flying 2) the players fall to the ice, and are broken up by the referees, and 3) blood from Patrick Sharp's forehead staining the United Center Ice. Play was stopped briefly, as both players were sent off to "jail" and the blood was cleaned from the ice. If you want some in depth analysis of the fight, who people thought won, and a nice YouTube video of the whole fight, I encourage you to go here, a whole webpage for the fight, maintained by Hockey Fights. "Hockey Fights" is indeed one of the truly great products of the internet age. Now I remember what I was thankful for at Thanksgiving.

Although the Red Wings player (Kopecky) won the fight, Chicago won the hockey game, 3-2. All in all, this is a pretty good bit of entertainment. $40 for two people for major sporting events in the U.S. is definitely cheap, still a little more than a movie, but not outrageous.

Some people may be suprised to know that the United Center, where the hockey game was played tonight, is also home to the Chicago Bulls basketball team, Michael Jordan's old team - that's right, they play basketball on the ice. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a good link or pictures of the process, but after each hockey game, they place giant wood partitions over the ice, remove the wall around the ice, and play basketball! This had to be perfected. In the 80's and early 90's when they first tried this, the basketball floor would get too cold and water would condense on the floor, forcing cancellation of the game due to players slipping and being injured.

Just in case you don't belive me, look at Keren's photo album (you can see the statute a lot better), or see my blurry picture with Keren in from of giant Michael Jordan statue just outside the United Center:

i passed a test!

i finally took the driving test and got an illinois drivers license. i had to take a written exam (with questions like, 'if you are under 17 and driving after curfew, which of the following should apply...' and 'when driving in a construction zone, you should: a. slow down, b. honk your horn several times, c. drive faster to clear the way'), wait in line for hours, and take a practical driving test. i got a perfect score in the written exam. yeyy!
the last time i had to take a driving test i was 17. i think i was just as nervous.
not because i thought i would fail, but because of how big of a "fadicha" it would be (english word for fadicha?? anyone??).

the examiner and i drove around the block, made a few turns, stopped at some lights, reversed between cones, pretended to park downhill although the closest hill is miles away. nothing too fancy. my biggest problem was that after waiting in line for my test for so long, i had to pee really bad...

glad this is over with!

The World's Most Honest Homeless Guy

An interesting thing happened the other night while my brother Kevin was in town. Before I get into specifics, I have to say I was unsure about whether to write about this because it's funny but also kind of sad, and also one those things where "you had to be there". A picture would say it all, but we didn't have a camera, and I wouldn't want to perpetuate the sadness (for lack of a better word) any further.

We just had a few good beers at Goose Island in Wrigleyville (sorry the website is annoying because it asks if you're 21 years old...whatever), and made a bunch of annoying phone calls to Erin and my Mom. We walked back north on Clark to Addison [click here and look at the "Street View" option: there's a Cubs baseball game just getting out, and you can see Goose Island on the east side of Clark Street at about 3526 Clark], on the way to the Addison Red Line Stop. It was only 9:00 pm - indeed an early night, even for us old people.

About half way between between Clark and the Red Line, we saw a homeless-looking guy dancing around the street ahead, aggressively seeking funding from passers-by. Not unusual. Sometimes in this situation you cross the street just to avoid any confrontation, but we had a few beers in us so it was all good.

As we got closer, we saw the guy was holding a cardboard sign and yelling "Bla...money...blabla...beer"...something. We couldn't understand, but while he lobbied the folks ahead of us he pointed at this sign, sometimes holding it high over his head, sometimes holding it against his chest and pointing at the writing on the sign.

When it was our turn, he stomped toward us, sign in hand, eager, focused, and disheveled, his gray hooded-sweatshirt covered by a flannel shirt with the tails flapping behind him. He had on matching gray, stained sweatpants and construction boots, about half of his teeth, and the curious spark of a used car salesman in his eye - no WAY you can ignore this guy, right? When he reached us, he put on a spellbinding show, spitting his words loudly without yelling. It went something like this "Hey, hey good evenin people. I'm not even gonna mess around. I'm not even gonna do that to ya. I'm not gonna tell ya any lies or stories that just ain't true." He held aloft his sign over his head, for all humanity to see, then brought it down to chest and pointed at the writing:

"NEED MONEY FOR BEER"

With a hospitable but somehow belligerent smile on his face, he continued loudly "I jus wanna beer, that's all. I ain't messin around with ya. Do ya have any money I could get myself a beer with? C'mon now, you know I'm tellin the truth for real...it's Friday night..."

I looked over and saw Keren and Kevin with wide smiles and sensed their appreciation of the guy's predicament. I knew they felt the same way I did. I reflected back on how many times in other cities I had been accosted by people outside liquor stores, asking for food money for their kids that I would later see them use to buy Mad Dog or King Cobra (cheap malt liquor). I had figured that game out quickly, but they had always been a step ahead, ready to serenade me with their life's story and how they needed $2.00 to ride the bus to their sick grandma. I had resolved never to give them money again, and I remember thinking sometime later, "if they were just honest, I would probably fork over my extra change", never expecting to the rubber to ever meet the road.

All this happened in a split second, at the end of which, we all found ourselves happily reaching into our pockets and giving him beer money. No questions asked. Bravo, good sir! He hauled a good dollar or two total from us, thanked us from the bottom of his heart, and moved on to the next group of people who were also quick to hand over their extra.

The reason this might be considered sad is obvious: we've all seen some of these guys use pan-handled change to buy booze in a liquor store and sink further into their personal abyss. Usually the last thing you want to do is help them hit the bottom. I don't know what fraction of them are in this situation, but this was a notable exception.

To that hero: Where ever you are out there dude, you're a hell of a performer and one of the most blatantly honest strangers I've ever met. Even if you didn't buy beer with that money, I'm sure you found yourself some good booze or wine in a box. All the best.

Fall pictures...

more here

Picture from my current project

Fall colors

it's a very nice sunny fall day, so i took the opportunity to finally take some fall pics. i'll post some of them tonight :D

applicated

i was busy the last couple of weeks putting together an application for a Hubble fellowship.
if my application is accepted (really, really small chance that it will happen), NASA will pay my salary in the next 3 years, and will i get to do my own research during that time.

writing was a painful and stressful process, first, because i find it hard to say good things about myself, and second, because i don't think i'm a very good writer.
thank Universe i have ben :)
he read my essay so many times he probably knows it by heart now.

anyway, the deadline was yesterday, so now it's over, and i'm much less stressed.

oh, and don't ask me if i heard back from them. i won't know anything before FEBRUARY.

bla

bla bla bla, bla bla bla bla bla -- bla bla bla bla, bla bla. bla bla bla bla bla bla, bla bla bla bla bla bla. bla bla.
bla.

Wicked

we took a break from an all-work-no-play weekend to go to a musical, WICKED.
Megan had a couple of extra tickets, thanks Megan!!!
can't tell a lot about it now (gotta sink back to work).

maybe after things relax a little bit i'll read the book, it's a very nice story.

Happy halloween!

Amit's blanket

I made this blanket (afghan) for Amit. i borrowed the idea from Martha (thanks, girl!!), but decided to go with shades of blue instead of a very colorful blend.

the hexagons are crocheted one by one, and then assembled together. suer, i had to improvise a lot -- that's my first ever big project like that, but that was the fun!!
ben and i call the hexagons "blenkles" - blanket elements, just like "pixels" are picture elements. they are all different, no two blenkles are the same! [theoretically, there are 7!/(7-4)!=840 possible permutations, with 7 colors and 4 rows in each blenkle, so it's not so hard to do]. i did consider writing a code for that though ;)

the hexagon pattern was easy to pick up after i looked at some pictures online (i am more experienced with web searches now -- google 'granny square' and you can find many many free patterns!)

the blanket turned out a bit too thick than i intended, probably because the only yarn that i could find wasn't thin enough. but hey, it's my first time!! i had a lot of fun making it, and i hope that it will be useful :)
now i'm thinking of making something with fall colors. i really like all that crafts-work. more fun!!

i'll see if i have any pictures of the blankles in the making.

Sushi dinner

we had some sushi, wine, beer and a baseball game with Chris a couple of days ago. Gray was sure that i'm rollong just for him. mmrrrriuoo smoked salmon!

action

one of the nice things about living up here above the street is that you can sometimes see some action.
1. cab crashes into a street light
first guy at the scene: our local homeless guy. (wearing a white cap)
2. a few seconds later, police car arrives.
3. ...followed by fire fighters...
4. ...and an ambulance.


looks like both the cabby and the passenger (!!) left the cab walking.
the street light didn't seem to be doing just as well.

new project

last night i went with Kari to an arts&crafts store in chicago. i had a lot of fun going through the colorful aisles, and left the place with two big shopping bags full of yarn. not sure what the project(s) will be (maybe throw pillows? another blanket?), but it's going to be fall colors.

hurray!

the shelf

 

Gray scrooge loves his new shelf! he can jump all the way to the top, and it seems like having the shelf there cured his habit of climbing on any open window.

 

 

hebrew

we spent lunch today speaking only hebrew (except for ordering of course). it started when i wanted to say something nasty about someone who was in hearing range from us, and the conversation had a life of its own from there... it was a lot of fun!
we mostly told each other what we did this morning. ben thought it was hilarious that in hebrew we call all types of cereal "corenflex", and that if you ask for a "soda" in you get sparkling water.

his hebrew is improving a lot. he does his homework every night (well, sometimes he falls asleep during the boring lessons...), and can now say complete sentences! i'm so proud!

work stuff

i've been working on this problem for a while now (won't bore you with details, but it has to do with this pretty picture).

many people have tackled this problem in the past, and nobody came up with a very good solution so far.

this morning i read in the most recent paper that came out about this the following line:

"a detailed model of this system, including the... and... and... and a detailed understanding of the uncertainties will be a challenge.... The record of models for this system is discouraging."

sigh.

it's a girl!

and her name is Amit. i love this name.
she is wonderful (if you believe a dad to be unbiased ;)) and her coming to the world was as normal as a delivery can be. can't wait to see pictures!

i made her a little something and i will send it tomorrow. but for now, just a virtual hug from her doda and dod in america :)

weekend

we had a lot of fun this weekend. left the scroogim at home alone (doru came to see them once though), and drove to Cadillac. it was close enough to Halloween, so the dvd player showed scary movies most of the time. ben slept a lot on the floor, Sandy and Kevin brewed beer (i hope it will be ready for next time we go up there!), and we finished some projects that we had planned to do (a scrooge rack, and some sowing)... there was also enough time to play basketball with the grim reaper. all in all, it was great. we'll show pictures.
Gary and i started working on the israel vacation documentation. there are a ton of pics to sort through, and a lot of tails to tell. i sure hope we get help from everybody, otherwise it can be pretty dull...

although Sandy kept claiming that this year wasn't very good for colors, i thought the greens and yellows and reds of the trees were very pretty, and i think i want to make something in those colors. maybe a blanket, or something. we'll see. i still need to find a nice (and cheap) crafts store nearby. my other knitting project is finished, and i'll send it on its way tomorrow. will post pictures after it had reached its destination... don't want to ruin the surprise!

fall???

it's october, so according to the calendar it's supposed to be fall.
some trees started changing here (most of them to boring yellow, but there's one at the corner of the window, that's turning red), but for most of the past week it's been a gross summer weather. hot and humid. in 25 degrees (F) above average, chicago had to cancel the chicago marathon, it was too hot and humid to run.
one of my favorite things lately is watching the news in the morning while drinking my coffee and trying to wake up (you all know that i'm not a morning person), and i especially like the weather segment. today it finally colled down to "normal".
it's weird how there's weather here to speak of. temps can go up or down by 20 degrees from day to day, so not used to that!

p.s. i jsut looked at today's weather report, and it is: "47F, Dreary". i looked up dreary: Dismal; bleak. Boring; dull: ‮קודר, משעמם, מעציב

addendum

if it's not too late, we would like to add a line to our wedding vows.

on ben's part, right after "i shall be your best friend", we would like to insert: "i shall always install software for you for as long as we both shall live".

Scrooge at the office