RIP ...

Following someone's smart suggestion (a hell lot smarter than me :-) ) ...

Got no place to go
but there's a girl waiting for me down in Mexico
She's got a bottle of tequila, a bottle of gin
And if I bring a little music I can fit right in
We've got airplane rides
We got California drowning out the window side
We've got big black cars
And we've got stories how we slept with all the movie stars
I may take a holiday in Spain
Leave my wings behind me
Drink my worries down the drain
And fly away to somewhere new
Hop on my choo-choo
I'll be your engine driver in a bunny suit
If you dress me up in pink and white
We may be just a little fuzzy 'bout it later tonight
She's my angel
She's a little better than the one that used to be with me
Cause she liked to scream at me
Man, it's a miracle that she's not living up in a tree
I may take a holiday in Spain
Leave my wings behind me
Drive this little girl insane
And fly away to someone new
Everybody's gone
They left the television screaming that the radio's on
Someone stole my shoes
But there's a couple of bananas and a bottle of booze
Oh, well happy new year's baby
We could probably fix it if we clean it up all day
Or we could simply pack our bags
And catch a plane to Barcelona 'cause this city's a drag
I may take a holiday in Spain
Leave my wings behind me
Flush my worries down the drain
And fly away to somewhere new
Take a holiday in Spain
Leave my wings behind me
Drive this little girl insane
Fly away to someone new
Fly away to someone new
Fly away to someone new


If you understand the post: Thank you. If you don't: don't come asking questions as there won't be answers ....


'nough said

Manifesto

If I had to think about what would be good manifesto to represent the unlikely pilgrim in life the following would be it:

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen
would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been
proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no
basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will
dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind.
You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth
until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look
back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp
now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you
really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying
is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing
bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things
that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you
at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with
people who are reckless with yours.

Floss..

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead,
sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end,
it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you
succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with
your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at
22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most
interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them
when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children,
maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance
the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you
do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself
either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of
it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest
instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone
for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to
your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the
future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few
you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography
and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need
the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.
Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you
soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians
will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll
fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable,
politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust
fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when
either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it
will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who
supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way
of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting
over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

If you think you know it, you probably do. It was turned into a popular song by Buzz Leherman. There are various stories about the origin of the speech, but the most convincing one can be found in the URL: http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/dubiousquotes/a/vonnegut_2.htm

enlightenment

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a lengthy email to a friend. That email summarized why I decided to make the change I decided recently in my life. Another friend who read the email said that the email was no less than enlightenment moment for. This email was the only complete and (somewhat) coherent explanation to the sudden change of chosen path. Every one else only received bits and pieces of the email. To make myself completely (un)clear I'm posting the email here. Maybe you will understand me, maybe you won't, but you will have the complete reasoning :-)

Over the 36 years I've been living there were numerous signs along the way of what drives me and what I'm passionate about. For years I misunderstood or ignored the signs. Not for/from personal malice, but rather because they would take me down the road of the impractical life (god knows how hard my mother tried ti instill in us to be practical in life), down the road to personal uselessness. To never amount to anything and be labeled a failure: fall down to oblivion. So I developed the notion that my passion and life contradicted each other. But the kid in me never forgot what he's passionate about. I thought that I will one day do it, when I don't have anything else to do and everything else is done in my life (obviously that rarely happens, but one can always dream of reaching it or delude himself that he's on the right track to get there ;-))
I started reading a new book that I bought, titled: "Uncle Petros and the Goldbach conjecture" (to which my 10 year old niece asked her mother (my sister): why are all his books about Mathematics? :-)). While reading the book my mind drifted from the story to my own life. To those signs that crossed my life. When I grouped all those signs together, a full and clear pattern appeared. One that caused the kid in me to smile. It wasn't a simple smile. It was a whole smile (if it makes sense). A smile with full open mouth. The kind that I'm always ashamed to smile (supposedly because of my bad teeth). One that still (for the god know what time today) brings tears of joy to my eyes :-) when I think about it. When I decided to pursue my passion I was all of a sudden full of energy to run and do things. Suddenly my life was filled with purpose. The inner purpose that I always looked for and thought I didn't have. The kind that I thought that for some twisted reason I never developed. It turns out you were right and I was wrong: it did (and does) exist in me. It exist(s/ed) in a place I didn't think it would. In a place I knew interested me, but was so non main stream that I discounted of it.
I initially thought the book is a biography, but later on learned it's a fictional novel. But non the less looking at myself in context with the book acting as a lens, I know now that my eccentricities aren't unfounded and twisted that I need to be reprogrammed. That I need to get rid of the eccentricities. There is logic behind the "madness". There is order in the chaos. There is sound structure in me. I just had to look at it through the right lens.
A friend of mine told me a few weeks ago that she pains the fact that I don't have my own anchor and that I'm still drifting aimlessly in life (the drifting aimlessly in life is my addition). I feel now that found my anchor. I found the one thing that makes me feel safe. That doesn't scare me to expose myself. Be myself for the good, the bad, the ugly or just the plain weird: the 6 year old kid that is me :-)
I just hope that I'm not too late to start (about 18 years late that is) because there is an expiration date on my passion: 35-40 years. I'm just there. I hope that the kid in me is still only 6 year old and barely touched will give me the extension I need.

I wish we could have had this conversation face to face between us because then it would have simply exploded out of me to the real world instead of simply grownup in trying to make sense of the kid in me. With the ability I developed to to listen to the kid in me, the grownup in me accepting unconditionally the conclusions and resolutions that the kid in me is saying, and now he's extending a helping hand to pursue the passion. The beauty of this is that hand that is eagerly accepted by the kid in me. All of a sudden the voices and fears are silent, hiding, no where to be seen (gone?) in the open fields that are around me.
The road is long. The road is twisted. It will be hard. But I can see the road ahead. I like it and want to take it: time to enroll myself to university and study Mathematics seriously :-)
Since I'm a details person I need to be accurate: my passion isn't Mathematics. That would be too general ;-) My passion is numbers. The real and whole kind: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 etc ... and to be more specific: prime numbers.


THE END (of he email).

a visit

It's finally happening: I'll be in Israel all the month of January (I'm landing January 2nd and leaving January 29th). It's mostly work related (work is in Haifa) and I will be car less so going around will be a head ache, but I will make time to meet and greet :-)



See you soon

comfortable fit

Sometime after I landed in south Florida I went clothes shopping with Dragnot and his wife in a local outlet mall. One of the items I bought was a pair of docker's relax fit pants. The waist's size was 33". Back then I was somewhere between 33 to 34" in in waist size and I thought that I will be able to keep my weight and even go down a little so those pants seemed like a good buy. What followed for the next year was a (lets say) "controlled" weight gain. At the pick of my weight gain my waist size went to 38 to 39" (almost the 40" waist I had back in Telmap's days). I was very displeased with the fact that I had to go back to wearing my old 40" docker's and only dreaming about being able to wear the 33" waist pants I had in the closet.
6 months ago I enrolled myself into the quick weight loss program (a program similar to weight watchers) and started dieting. I started losing weight quickly enough (there's even a post about me going under the 200 Lbs mark). Even though in recent weeks I've pretty much stopped with the program, my eating habits have changed enough to not only to keep my weight, but keep losing.
Come yesterday: I was wearing a 36" waist pants that when I opened the belt buckle simply fell off of me. I knew that these pants are now kind large on me, but falling to my ankle just like that I didn't expect. This was a sign for a bold move: take out the 33" docker's and try them on:
so doubtingly I took them out and thought that they wouldn't fit me.
I'm happy to write that I was proven wrong: they fit me perfectly!!! I was nothing short of amazed, happy and thrilled :-) I can't even recollect when was the last time that I was able to wear 33" waist pants.

160

I like numbers (big surprise ;-)) and the relationships between numbers is a fascinating thing (known in Mathematics as number theory). But enough with BSing about numbers. The number in the title has a meaning for me. It's hard to believe but it's roughly the number of KM I rode on my bicycle in the past week.
I didn't do all of them at once, well at least not yet ;-) but rather over a stretch of 5 days. The longest ride was about 30 miles I did twice (that did happen in the same day). During the week I didn't think much about the riding and what it means, but while talking to a friend last Thursday it dawned on me: I rode 100 miles (which is 160 KM). Almost half way from Tel Aviv to Eilat :-)

requiem

this post is more for me than anyone else and thus won't be understood by anyone but me.
This post is a requiem to something amazing that might have been, but didn't happen. Something that even though that it didn't happen I still want __very__ much to happen. Something that if it would have happened I would have said that I am complete. That I'm happy beyond my wildest dreams (and they are sometimes wild ;-))
But it didn't. That even it if in the future it would materialize, not that it stands chance of happening, but never say never ;-) I'll say: no thank you. To late :-(

I know there is a contradiction in this post. It will always be there ...

mistaken identity

I was walking through a local mall. While I was walking around the dead sea cosmetics sales girl approached me and tried to woo me into buying their products. I initially didn't notice that she works for the dead sea cosmetics and just tried to ignore her. She asked me whether I know about their products. I initially told her no, but after noticing that it's the dead sea cosmetics I told her that I'm originally from Israel and started talking in Hebrew to her. She was stunned and kept saying that she didn't believe I was Israeli and that she always distinguishes between Israelis to non Israelis and that I didn't look like Israeli at all ... I found the whole situation very amusing :-)