Blog/April 2014/Apr 25th

Apr 25th (See this week's devar torah)

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Hi, again!

What a week, what a week! Right after shabbat we had to prepare for the “seventh day of pesaḥ”, the lonely yom-tov. Then right after the final yom-tov we cleaned up our pesaḥ stuff, put it away and brought in the regular stuff again. Then we took Daniela and Jeremy to the airport, so they could return to the Exile; they arrived safely, B”H. That’s just the first couple days of the week!

Then Esther and I resumed our hard work. We got in a repairman to fix our main air-conditioner (fortunately, under warranty). This being the second time in three years we had it repaired; apparently the electronics inside the machine are very sensitive. Anyway, it’s repaired just in time for the series of summer heat-waves we’ll be having. We also purchased another hot-water-urn — this being the third one we’ve purchased in the past seven years. They seem to be made rather poorly; we had one for more than ten years in the States, and it was still fine when we left. <grrr>

I made a lot of progress on 8th in the two days I was able to work on it; now the demo program runs the same on both Linux and Android. Next step: getting it working on Windows the same as on the other two platforms. But I also have other things to do, so we’ll see how it develops.

One of the other things I have to do is develop a product for this other company, the one in league with Orange, the one which has made me their CTO. So this past week I spent half a day or so putting together a work plan, and next week I’ll start on the product. Lucky for me, working on that product will also advance my product, so it’s all good.

I also went to the physiotherapist to get help for my aching backside. She told me to do the exact same exercise my mother had told me to do; perhaps I should have listened to my mom weeks ago! Anyway, before pesaḥ the doctor had given me a steroid injection in the painful parts, but since one side-effect of that medication is to raise blood-sugar, he also prescribed a higher dose of metformin than I normally take. What he didn’t tell me is that a side effect of higher doses of metformin is muscle cramps. So I’ve had really painful leg cramps for over a week, which makes it impossible to get a good night’s sleep.

I complained to the doctor, and he told me to take magnesium tablets to counter the cramps; but unfortunately they didn’t help so far. So I’ve decided to unilaterally stop taking the extra metformin, since the cramps are so painful I can’t sleep properly; and anyway, my glucose level has returned to my normal levels (I’ll keep an eye on it, don’t worry).

What else can I tell you? In good news, the “peace talks” are off. Good news, since there’s no point in wasting money and time and lives on something with no chance whatsoever of bearing fruit. Now if we can only keep Kerry from soiling our soil, we’ll have made lasting progress.

The weather is very warm now (over 30C), though it is supposed to cool down five degrees or so over shabbat and into the beginning of the week. We’re looking forward to a calm and peaceful shabbat with our dear emergency-daughter Dinah, who just returned from her genetic family in the US. As a peace offering, she brought us a seven-year supply of saran-wrap, so we’ll let her stay.

This week it’s the three of us plus Dinah. Because it’s hot and the dinner is late, we’ll start with a light dinner of soup and salads; tomorrow we’ll go for more robust food:
fresh homemade ḥalla (!), soup “two ways” (carrot soup, and lentil-vegetable soup), salatim, meat cholent, eggplant casserole, roasted veggies, smoked salmon, and fruit.

Until next week,
shabbat shalom!

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