Blog/August 2009/Aug 14th
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Aug 7th (See this week's devar torah)
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Hi again!
This week we went to the wedding of a family member of a family friend of my father-in-law's. Confused? OK - the bride is the granddaughter of my father-in-law's friend. The groom is studying at the famous Merkaz HaRav. Both are Mexican (though the bride's family is from Argentina, hence the connection to Esther etc.) There were a lot of people there, mostly from Mexico -- I think we might have had the entirety of the orthodox community of Mexico there. The chuppa was nice, though the rabbi talked too long -- I'm used to short-and-sweet chuppot. Next week we have another chuppa to go to, this time my cousin's... we'll update you B"H next week on that one.
The next day (yesterday) was my father-in-law Victor's birthday - so we took him to the Israeli Wine Tasting Festival, held at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Interestingly, we met up with several people we knew from Maale Adummim, and also met the daughter of a long-time acquaintance from the US, who made aliyah a year or so ago. Daniela also met a couple friends of hers. And we got to try wines we might not otherwise have tried. Afterwards, we took him to dinner at Ticho House which I just found out is also associated with the Israel Museum. I think he had a good time; I know we did.
Esther, Daniela and Sarah went to the beach (at Rishon Letsion) one day. Esther enjoyed the beautiful Mediterranean, Sarah enjoyed the sun, and Daniela enjoyed the shade. Something for everyone. That day, Victor was visiting one of his friends, so they didn't have to worry about what to do with him at a women-only beach.
Over the past weeks there has been a lot of discussion in the international media about "East Jerusalem" and how those evil Jews (oops, I mean "Israelis") are oppressing, cheating, and otherwise maltreating the innocent heroes of the West, the "Palestinians". I invite you to read an interesting article about how misleading media about Jerusalem are. I have already mentioned elsewhere that those same heroic "Palestinians" (or as we call them by their correct name, "Arabs") are persona-non-grata in every Arab country. Where is the Western outrage at (for just one example) Kuwait, who doesn't permit Pallys to acquire Kuwaiti citizenship? Ah, well, it's an old story by now, isn't it?
Aliyah from the US is proceeding apace; this week another NBN flight arrived with 238 hopeful new immigrants from the goldene medina. According to Prime Minister Netanyahu (who met the new immigrants at the airport), soon the Jewish population of Israel will be greater than that in galut. I'm not sure how he's counting, but regardless of aliyah he's correct. For the Jewish people in our Land are quite prolific; whereas those who remain outcast among the nations have a dwindling birthrate (and skyrocketing rates of intermarriage and assimilation).
Geek stuff (or, "and now for something completely different"):
I have a long term, love and hate relationship going on with Linux. I use that free and stable OS for all my private work (and even for paid work, now). But I get smacked in the face from time to time by things that still don't work. For example: this past week we were trying to set up my upstairs computer with Skype so that my father-in-law could "phone home". Skype works "ok" on Linux, though not as well as on Windows -- because the development of the Linux version lags two major versions behind the Windows version. Whatever; I accept that. But Skype also can do "video" calls, and for that it needs a web-cam. We have three web-cams in the house, but not one of them works well with Linux. So finally, I did some research and got my hands on a very nice camera (which works splendidly on Linux), the Logitech QuickCam Communicate Deluxe. The integrated microphone even works excellently, so now my mother is happy she can see me when I call!
In further geek news, my Reva Forth project is now working very nicely under Mac, Windows and Linux. It's free, small, fast and fun. Next stop: making a "universal GUI" library for it which runs "out of the box" on all three OSes. Not an easy task.
Until next week,
Shabbat shalom!
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