View source for Blog/March 2012/Mar 2nd

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{{bheadernew|Mar 2nd|http://ronware.org/devar/tetsave5772.pdf}}

Hi, again!

We've been experiencing some really wacky weather in the Land!  The week started somewhat warmer than usual, but the latter part of the week had temperatures hovering around freezing, and a big weather system moving through -- dumping a lot of rain all over the Land, with snow in the north.  This morning there was snowfall in Jerusalem, knocking public transportation out for at least a few hours ... and more snow is predicted for later on.  But it's supposed to be quite warm on ''Purim'', which is coming up next week -- truly wacky weather!

Esther and I abandoned Sarah this week, and went socializing.  We went out to dinner with one of my former coworkers and her husband, got caught up on "events" and had a nice evening out.  The next day we went out with one of my cousins and her husband, for dessert.  And a pleasant time was had by all...

But Ron, sicko Ron, was infected from Sarah's coughing the week before; so I've been fighting a cold and sore throat.  Finally, I was too hoarse and "sicky" to go to work on Thursday, so I took a sick-day and stayed mostly in bed.

While I was in bed, I worked more on my first Android application, learning a lot about how to get things to show up as I want them to.  It's fun, and I hope it will be remunerative as well in the not-distant future.  Once I've got the one application under my belt, the rest will be much quicker to produce, I believe.  Time will tell, of course.

The synagogue web-site I worked on was quite active, and from the updated personal information the Powers That Be wanted to produce a "booklet", a phone directory for the members.  In years past, they would produce this by taking reports from the old database, pasting into Excel and doing some manipulations, manually pasting the data into Word documents and saving as PDF files, and then post-processing that.  I said "to hell with that", and put together a few scripts that pull the data directly from the database, process it with perl and TeX and produce a PDF in the final format ... in five seconds.  A lot better than manually dinking around, wouldn't you say?

''Purim'' is coming up next week, and we are looking forward to our accustomed ''purim'' party with our friends.  Our "tradition" going back over four years is they host us for ''purim'', and we host them for ''pesaḥ''.  It's a mutually beneficial arrangement which we hope to continue for many years to come.  We only hope the distaff members of that household manage to make it back to Maale Adummim today (from their trip overseas) since the weather is looking "unsettled".

One of Sarah's friends will be staying with us (if she's not snowed-in in Jerusalem!).  We'll try to keep her fed with:
smoked fish,
beet salad,
avocado salad,
Israeli salad,
eggplant,
cauliflower soup,
baked chicken,
green beans with mushrooms,
butternut squash purée,
brown rice,
meatballs,
steamed artichokes,
fruit,
and 
pear crisp.

Until next week,<br>
''shabbat shalom'' and ''purim sameaḥ''!

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