an udge and a wink

Interlude the second

2009-11-08T20:47:00.006+01:00

I'm not finished with Israel yet, there is at least one more post in the works. In the meantime, I've been re-reading Evelyn Waugh's marvellous Brideshead Revisited. This book has gone through a complete cycle of affections with me: when I first discovered this novel as a student in England, I loved it and re-read it many times. For some reason, probably a slowly arising general discomfort over

Tel Aviv miscellany, part two

2009-10-27T15:15:00.004+01:00

Being a further round of meanderings and babblings from the southeastern shores of the Med.Sitting today at my favourite cafe (I already have a fav. cafe, the imaginatively named Espresso Bar on Dizengoff at Ben Gurion; I have breakfast there every day and sometimes an afternoon/evening latte) it occurred to me that there are no mosquitoes in TLV. The explanation is simple given a moment's

Interlude

2009-10-25T16:13:00.017+01:00

I forgot to mention a few utterly trivial points about the journey here. I got upgraded to business class again for the second leg of the trip, from Munich to Tel Aviv; as I said before, it's very nice but I would not pay for it. Why me? who knows. Perhaps because I'm a fairly frequent flyer and travelling alone?The security inspection in Stuttgart confiscated my shaving cream, first time that

Tel Aviv: first impressions

2009-10-23T13:35:00.007+02:00

… and we all know how often these are false and/or incomplete. Google tells me I have an hour before I have to walk to Savtadotty's weekly soup salon, so I will jot down my thoughts without any pretense at putting them into a sensible framework.It is really odd being in a place where I cannot read the alphabet. This was brought home when I was texting with Savtadotty, trying to describe where I

Down to the wire, again

2009-10-21T19:23:00.003+02:00

Ask me why I am in the office still, 10 hours before I have to leave home for the airport, with my suitcase unpacked and my clothes unwashed and my kitchen uncleaned? On second thoughts, don't.I found a hotel-type place for €10 a night less than the local hostel (Google knows everything); even got a bulk discount: book four nights, pay for three. It'll either be an undiscovered gem or a disaster.

A little thought experiment

2009-10-09T00:03:00.004+02:00

Step one. Imagine an unemployed high-school dropout, hanging out on a street corner with a dirty shirt and a dopey look; maybe he's a bit dysfunctional, or maybe he just had some bad luck. Now imagine him crafting and carrying out a plan to get a young girl alone, and then drugging and raping her. Imagine that she's a very young girl, several years under the age of consent for that place and time

Awake

2009-10-03T05:20:00.007+02:00

Woke at 5:15 from a strange dream, waiting now for hot chocolate to cook. I left my working glasses in the office last night, so forgive the typoes.I was in SL, talking about unhappiness with Beta (from the wedding party). I decided to visit them at their RL home, which was not suburban Milwaukee but a cottage rear the river Thames in the village where AH lived. Beta was in the garden, sitting

Booked

2009-10-02T01:32:00.004+02:00

I booked flights to (and indeed from) Tel Aviv today, for a long week in three weeks' time. Tooth be damned. I'm feeling very brave and adventurous, and also tired as hell having just got home from work at 00:48.

Broken

2009-09-23T18:52:00.007+02:00

I broke a molar two days ago, while eating a carraway seed roll. A piece of tooth the size of a small pea broke off, and is now lying on my kitchen windowsill. I'm not quite sure why I put it there, I do know that it can't just be glued back in place, but throwing it out felt wrong. (As far as I can reconstruct the events, a seed got wedged between teeth and acted as a tiny crowbar when I bit

The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

2009-09-17T08:16:00.004+02:00

… is upon us once again. Chestnuts and acorns rain down like hailstones these days as I walk up that last steep stretch of hillside to work (though only by daylight: they don't fall as I walk home at night, interestingly). The heating is on in the office already, because it's cold and damp (a) at that altitude and (b) on the edge of the forest; at home I'm going to hold out for the rest of the

About the new office

2009-08-14T10:13:00.004+02:00

So, we've been in the new place for two weeks, and I have to admit that I am settling in better than I expect. Telephones, fax and internet are working (took me three days to sort out all the complications), and we have been able to find nearly everything that we looked for. I won't mention the things that have gone missing since we moved in, that's just normal every-day incompetence.Let me slip

DFW on worship and truth

2009-08-08T00:37:00.003+02:00

Not actually from "Infinite Jest," but quite marvellous nonetheless.The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see [life, the universe and everything]. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship…Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is

Towards a post about reading "Infinite Jest"

2009-08-01T20:05:00.005+02:00

I haven't been doing enough of this since getting back to Germany (in fact, not really since leaving Germany, I fell far behind schedule while at the wedding and elsewhere this summer), so this will not be that post. However, I want to state for the record that I am still reading "Infinite Jest" and am still enjoying almost all of it greatly.Are there dull bits? Hell yes. Oddly enough, the bits

Counting the days

2009-07-28T21:08:00.011+02:00

I arrived safely back in Stuttgart nearly a week ago, on Thursday morning, after a suitably boring flight (no upgrade this time, alas). The plan was for me to help move the office to G and U's new, not yet completely renovated, house, and you can guess from the subclause what happened to that plan. (The original plan was for us to move at the end of June. It is to laugh.) I took Friday off, spent

Trainblogging, American edition

2009-07-21T05:51:00.003+02:00

En route from Durham NC to Trenton NJ, driving up the eastern seaboard (though at present far inland) in overcast and light rain; it's 10:45 a.m. and the carriage is close to full. The train is small by European standards, for such a distance: two locomotives, baggage car (how quaint), cafe car, six coaches. There are no tables on Amtrak, all seats are in airline-like pairs, all facing the same

Milwaukee and Toronto

2009-07-18T05:32:00.005+02:00

I haven't written about being in Milwaukee yet, because I couldn't find a way to say anything worth reading (assume for the moment that my ramblings are potentially worth reading) that didn't get into matters that should remain private. "What happens at [the wedding] stays at [the wedding]," as it were. There is much that I would like to say about it, about the people I met and the things I

Chicago

2009-07-10T15:43:00.008+02:00

Arrived in the Windy City last night after a very pleasant flight: I was upgraded to Business Class because the plane was overbooked. The food was much better, the service almost embarrassingly attentive, the seats comfortable (mechanized things that folded out almost flat). Would I pay the extra for this? No. Because the problem with travel is not the food or the discomfort, as much as having to

July already

2009-07-02T21:25:00.004+02:00

Odd to think that I will be somewhere in North American airspace at this time in a week. Booked several flights, about two years' worth of flying by my usual measures.The itinerary is unnecessarily complicated, due to North America's inability to offer sensible and convenient train travel. Case in point: Milwaukee (destination two) and Regina (destination three) both have train stations, but one

Dull, summer edition

2009-06-19T09:14:00.004+02:00

The rain stopped, mostly. During the last fortnight we have had sometimes as many as three days in a row without precipitation. On the bright side, the rain and cloud keeps the temperatures low. We haven't had any days above 30°C yet, which is fine by me.My summer holiday plans are gelling nicely. I booked flights to and from the US (almost exactly half the price of flying to Canada, bah) for mid

More geekery

2009-06-01T21:18:00.004+02:00

Three years and a week after I said "by the time the database software is optimised for Mac-Intel, Alberich will be ready to retire," I have bought his replacement: a new Mac Mini named Maimonides (because it's my thirteenth computer. Consider that a challenge, he said and grinned evilly.)It's a wonderful machine: absolutely silent, even quieter than Alberich, and under real-world conditions it

Plus ça change...

2009-05-15T08:41:00.008+02:00

I would blame my three-week silence on the pressures of work etc, but regular readers know that there have often been such lacunae in recent years. I apologise to everyone I've been ignoring, all the bloggers whose posts that I haven't been commenting, all the birthdays I have forgotten (or worse, remembered and then put from mind because I couldn't deal with it). My behaviour upsets me at least

Awake

2009-04-22T04:38:00.003+02:00

Listening to a single bird somewhere up the street (out in the street itself, surprisingly; not in the back garden where the trees are) and the occasional cars. I woke from a bad dream: riding the subway through a maze of half-underground sidings, a cross between the railway cuttings near Liverpool Street and the cut-and-cover "tunnels" of the Toronto TTC, then the scene changed to a new

Blather, Monday edition

2009-04-20T19:18:00.010+02:00

Alone in the office, after hours; sun's still up but the day is drawing to a close. It has somehow devolved to me to be the office dishwasher (except Fridays, when the cleaning lady comes), presumably because I am the least afraid of water and the most annoyed by dirty dishes. I wish that someone else might gather the courage and the wit to wash up once in a while, but I don't actually mind doing

Micro-career

2009-04-02T19:53:00.022+02:00

Hanging about in the office, waiting for a software update to finish.Let me bring to your attention something quite wonderful, and spin on what I've been thinking about since seeing it. First, the viewing: turn your speakers on and the volume up, and listen to Kutiman's collected works. Do it now, please; it's OK, I'll wait. (If you're in a hurry, numbers 1, 5 and 8 are the must-see's.)Now have a

Still

2009-03-29T13:31:00.012+02:00

As in "still here," but also as in "motionless."It's been a busy month, much has happened in my work and social (and Second) lives, though having said that there are few examples that immediately come to mind that I might mention. I'm reasonably calm and not unhappy, and even getting a few things done.Weather was miserable for most of the last month, cold and windy and raining most days, and