The Perilous Voyages of A Type-A, Western, Goober

My grandfather: high school graduate - NASA engineer

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 02:44:00 +0000

Here's an excerpt from the eulogy I gave for my grandfather today. Grandpa is the first of my grandparents to pass away; last week I could say that all four of my grandparents were living so this is a new experience for me. (Note: If you don't have a lot of time, skip to One Final Thought.)

I loved sitting and listening to his stories or, more accurately, listening to Grandma tell stories about him. Grandpa was way too humble to tell stories about himself. He had a remarkable life and career. He was born in 1917, shortly before the end of World War I (which is in and of itself remarkable), and grew up during the Great Depression. Like everyone else from that era he was extremely frugal. If the room was too hot, rather than turning up the A/C, he would turn off the lights, since incandescent bulbs give off heat.

He was also exceptionally gifted. He started his own radio station - WIFM (which he jokingly said stood for "We're In it For Money"), joined IBM and worked on the team that designed and built the circuit boards for the guidance system of the Apollo Program that put man on the moon. (For those of you not from Huntsville: circuit boards are the guts of a computer. So basically he and his team designed the computers that could not only control a rocket hurtling toward the moon, but were also strong enough to withstand the stress of liftoff and reentry. Not so small a feat.) He did all that with only a high school degree and some college-level electronics training in the Navy and the Civil Service. I think his incredible accomplishments despite the lack of a college degree are not unusual for his generation, which is also remarkable. Still, I can't help but admire how much he accomplished merely by his grit and determination.

Grandpa was 94 but still just as sharp as ever. Despite the physical setbacks, he kept right on trucking. So many times the doctors told us he wasn't going to make it but he'd prove them wrong every time. About 20 years ago (when he was roughly 75), he was up on an extension ladder trimming branches in the backyard (on a ladder at SEVENTY FIVE!!!) when he fell and cracked his skull and shoulder. The doctors were really worried but he was home and just fine in short order. Last year he was diagnosed with aggressive cancer and the doctors laid out the treatment options. The highest probability of success would have been a fix that involved a significant loss of quality of life. Grandpa said, "No thanks - I'd rather live it out with dignity." And he did.

He was just incredible. He suffered a stroke in February, leading to an international phone call to me from my dad saying that I needed to be ready to come home because the doctors said he would not make it. Despite the dire prognosis, Grandpa was out of the hospital in only two weeks and headed to what the doctors said would be months in a nursing home for rehab. You guessed it: not three months but three weeks later he was home and just fine. It was incredible.

Still, despite the remarkable rebounds, when I got home from Israel I could see the physical deterioration. He used to stand well over six feet tall but now I was several inches taller than him -- and he was moving slower. But he was still walking, talking and even driving, with no signs of letting up.

So when I heard he was back in the hospital I didn't really think much of it, but Dad told me I needed to come back because things didn't look good. Even then I still wasn't concerned. However, the second I walked into his hospital room I knew things were not good. That first sight of Grandpa was one of the most sobering and heart-wrenching sights I have ever seen. Still, Grandpa battled back and when I went back the next day the nurses told me he was passing out hugs like candy. Even though he was improving, when he was released from the hospital a couple of weeks ago, we all knew that this time things were different. This time we knew it wasn't likely to end well. Getting the phone call that Grandpa was gone (a "homecoming" as my Dad called it) was not fun, but God blessed our family with 94 years with Grandpa and a ton of his family was with him at the end. What a blessing.

Grandpa leaves behind an incredible legacy. The one exception to his "no stories" policy was his time in the Navy. He enlisted and served with pride in the Navy during World War II and would always tell stories about how frustrated he was that he never made it to combat. See, Grandpa finished at the top of his class in all the Navy classes and eventually wound up as an instructor at the Navy Radar School. I could tell he always immensely regretted the fact that he got left behind and didn't get to see combat, but I wonder how many lives he saved by instructing the sailors and airmen of the Navy. This was the height of the Kamikaze tactic where Japanese pilots flew their planes into American ships to inflict maximum casualties. The only way to prevent massive loss of life was to detect the planes early enough to scramble fighters to intercept the suicide pilots or train ship-board anti-aircraft guns on the planes. Both of those options required early warning from radar, and those operators were trained by Grandpa. Who knows how many people are walking around today thanks to him?

I may not know exactly how many, but I do know the quality of the lives he leaves behind. He and Grandma raised two incredible children, my dad and Aunt Carol. And they in turn have raised some pretty awesome grandkids (if I do say so myself). Family is God's greatest instrument for good on this earth, and I think Grandpa got that. He was intensely loyal to all of us. Even though he was at times a gruff old sailor, we all knew how much he loved us. One of the best memories I have of this entire saga is a phone call I got from my dad telling me about a conversation with Grandpa. Grandpa was in the hospital during one of his many stays and Dad was there visiting (as he faithfully did throughout the entire process). Grandpa turned to Dad and said, "Ya know, this whole thing has made us a lot closer." In the midst of all the pain, the beeping machines, sleepless nights and uncomfortable beds, Grandpa had not lost sight of what is important. And I think that is the highest tribute I can give to him.

One final thought: I can't help but see the beauty of Grandpa passing on Rosh Hoshanah. Rosh Hoshanah is the Jewish New Year, called the Feast of Trumpets in the Old Testament ( Leviticus 23:24 / Numbers 29:1). It represents the creation of the world and life and looks forward to Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. On this Rosh Hashanah I praise God for his creation of the life of my Grandpa and I'm so glad that Grandpa could confidently look forward to the day of atonement because his sins are covered by the blood of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

Things That Make College Football Great: Classy Gestures

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:45:00 +0000

If you know me then you know I'm a die-hard Auburn fan, but I believe in the Biblical command to give honor to whom honor is due, and last Saturday Alabama football fans did something that deserved honor. Well, actually, I think we need to back-up a bit.

In late July, four members of the Kent State football team, Alabama's opponent in the season opener, came down to help rebuild Tuscaloosa. They spent a couple of days working in the 100+ degree heat rebuilding houses that had been destroyed. (See a video about the trip here.) It was a really classy gesture and showed that while for a few hours on a Saturday in the fall they might be committed enemies, somethings are more important than football.

Fast forward to very early September, in the week before the season opener. Alabama fans begin to hear about the trip down by Kent State football players and suddenly my Twitter and Facebook feeds were full of Bama fans encouraging their fellow fans not to boo Kent State when they enter the field to start the game.

Apparently it worked because the Alabama faithful, who usually lustily boo the opposing teams and then chant /sing at the end of games that they just "beat the hell out of you", instead rose to their feet and gave a standing ovation to the Kent State football team. I don't think I can say it better than the athletic director of Kent State said in The Birmingham News:

To top it all off, the standing ovation our team received upon entering the stadium Saturday morning gave all of us Flashes fans in attendance goose bumps. It was something unheard of at a college football game, and speaks volumes about the citizens of Alabama and Crimson Tide fans everywhere.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for opening your arms to our players in July and again to our team and fans this past weekend. It was an experience none of us will soon forget, and even more important in this time of extreme negativity, it was a perfect illustration of all that can be right with college athletics.

My Family

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Sat, 28 May 2011 20:55:00 +0000

Saturday, the 28th of May

I have quite the entertaining family. Even just sitting around becomes fairly fun. For example, today I naively asked my mom if our TV played Blu-Ray. She looked at me and said, "are you kidding?" (We have a very old TV and my mom doesn't like movies/tv shows etc.) David chimed in rather bitterly with, "yeah, my iPhone has better resolution than our TV." When I started laughing he said, "no, seriously." Turns out his iPhone 4 does indeed have better screen resolution than our old CRT TV. Good times.

What A Shame!

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 22:31:00 +0000

Saturday, the 16th of April

Today was a great day despite spending most of it studying. We went to Sucar again, the great coffee shop I study at frequently (it's my poor substitute for Heritage House), and spent about seven hours there. Several fun stories emerged from that eventful afternoon.

First, for background you have to understand that Assaf, the guy studying with me, is very good looking (NH). I can say that with confidence because after hanging out with him for several months now I have seen the way women react to him. In fact, yesterday a random girl came up to him on the street as we were walking back from class and started straight-up hitting on him. I didn't have to understand a word of their conversation to know exactly what was going on. So by now I'm used to being the "funny, if somewhat festively plump, American friend of Assafs" wherever we go. It's ok because I know I "have a great personality." Anyways, today at the coffee shop our waitress came to bring our menus and when she came back to take our orders she blurted out, "I knew I recognized you!" I just assumed she was talking to Assaf but lo and behold, she meant she recognized me! She said she had seen me at one of the parties the law school threw. Actually, it was the karaoke/dance party I mentioned here. I started laughing because as those of you who know me know, I love to sing and dance, even though I am terrible at both so given the chance to sing Hebrew songs and dance Middle Eastern dances I of course jumped at it and took full advantage of the party. Which I guess made me somewhat memorable. Either that or being blonde(ish), festively plump and pale (and/or bright-sunroasted-red) made me stick out somewhat. Assaf protested to the waitress that he was there too but she didn't remember him. So for those of you keeping score at home that's Matt: 1, Assaf: 38 or so.

After we had been there for a while the air conditioner started leaking near me. Our friend Topaz, the first waitress, was now off-duty and sitting with a group of her friends at the table next to us but they hadn't noticed the leak yet. So using one of my very limited number of known Hebrew words I got the attention of the waitress and informed her (using my somewhat more expansive English vocabulary) that the air conditioning was leaking. Her response: "What a shame!" (said in a very dry tone of voice) And with that she turned and walked away. Topaz and her friends, along with Assaf, burst out laughing. It was just such an Israeli response to the situation. "What do you expect me to do about it?" (FN1)

Topaz's friends turned out to be quite the group of musicians and they used the piano in the coffee shop (yes you read that right) to put on an impromptu karaoke show. I think maybe it was designed to lure the "blonde(ish), festively plump and pale (and/or bright-sunroasted-red)" singing and dancing fiend back out. If so, it worked. Katy Perry's Hot and Cold was all it took for me to start dancing in my chair (while seated because I was studying in a coffee shop so I'm not getting too crazy, besides, I happen to think that dancing while seated is my forte) and singing along. All in all, it was a great afternoon of studying.

Before all that studying though I went to church and one of my Israeli friends went with me. I realized while sitting there that taking a friend to church for the first time is like bringing a girlfriend home to meet the family. You really love your family but there are all these things that you feel like you need to explain. "Ok, be ready, because my family really loves to play this game called Redneck Life and it's fun, I promise, or at least I think it is but we've never actually finished a game of it." Or "if anyone says 'bifocal contact lenses' and everyone busts out laughing it's not because my dad actually wears them, but because when he did, he loved them so much that he told everyone about them, even people we met during the middle of our 2006 marathon together, and now it's just a standing joke in the family." I love my family and I have 26 glorious years of history with them. The silly things they do that seem (or are) strange have a wonderful, deep, meaning that's just lost if people are meeting them for the first time. The same goes for Christians. We have beliefs that might seem strange at first, maybe because we take them for granted and don't explain them well or maybe it's because God's ways aren't our ways.

Also, we Christians are bad about using "code words" (everybody does it really, lawyers call them "terms of art") that we know exactly what we mean but others don't. For example, he asked me today what the "praise team" was. When you think about it, that's a strange term yet people in church would never bat an eye at the term since we all have heard it forever.

Plus, church here is pretty different from PCA services back home. I had to fight the urge the whole service to say "what he means by that is," or "that statement is actually well supported both in Scripture and in scientific literature," or "no one interrupts the preacher during the sermon to share a story back home" (that's an Israeli thing) etc. All in all though, church was good and I'm really glad he came, I just hope he gets to know my Christian family because I love that family, even if first impressions are probably a little bit quirky.

FN1. The rest of the story. Turns out that our sweet waitress' response was lost in translation. She actually did mean it was a shame and was just going to get the remote control to turn off the unit. She fussed at everyone in Hebrew for laughing at her while I sat there with my awkward "I'm not sure what's going on so I'm going to look happy enough to not scare any one but not too happy in case what's going on is bad and I shouldn't be happy" smile.

Walked Into That One

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 17:53:00 +0000

Tuesday, the 12th of April

Today we had a marathon session in one of our classes (scheduled for five straight hours). It was actually my last class for the semester (wahoo!) and now I just have three exams and two papers between me and a summer of fun (and productivity of course). The class is pretty small and we all know each other really well which leads to a great classroom environment. In addition, the professor also knows us pretty well, keep this in mind as it will came up later.

Today we were talking about British criminal procedure around the start of the colonial era. The professor mentioned that prior to this time the penalty for all felonies was capital (read: execution) but at this point in time they started to sentence people to "transportation." The professor asked, "what does transportation mean?" I could have answered factually, "the practice of sentencing criminals to exile" but instead I chose to get in a shot at one of our classmates who's Australian so I said "Australia!" and looked her with the "you come from a land of criminals" face. The professor responded "yes that's right, and also [pause slightly for emphasis] the American South" (looking straight at me). Boom roasted. Everyone laughed and I had been put back in my proper place.

Apparently Georgia was a British penal colony at one point. Boy doesn't that explain a lot? (See here or here or here.) Thugs.

Wow, What a Day

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:51:00 +0000

Tuesday, the 5th of April

Today was an incredible day. One of those days where everything went perfectly. I got up and made my way to the bus stop and it was perfect timing because the bus was pulling up as I was about a block away so I busted out a quick jog and made it onto the bus.

Allow me to take a quick digression. As you all know, in the US it's uncool to run in public unless you're officially exercising. You can't afford to risk your dignity. However, in Israel everyone takes a much better approach: efficiency! (Y'all know how much I love efficiency!) If there is a bus coming, people take off running. I saw a lady in her 50s or 60s run all the way across Kikar Rabin (a large park) to catch the bus I was on one day. I love it and I always love when I can run to catch the bus because it means I wasted zero seconds.

Anyways, I was on my way to the law school because our social coordinator, Hilly (FN1), had arranged for us to take a tour of Jerusalem. It was really a great tour. We started the day at the Israeli Supreme Court. We got there early so we headed down to the cafe to hang out until our tour was supposed to start. Hanging out quickly digressed into what I like to call: Matt Defends the South. (MDTS for short.) It's a fun game where I explain that contrary to what everyone believes the people who live in The South are rational, intelligent, warm, friendly and not racist. I then go on to explain that yes, we have indoor plumbing and in fact, the city where I'm from is one of the most educated in the world. I like to throw in fun facts like that the Patriot Missile Defense System which protected Israel from Iraqi Scuds in Gulf War I, was designed in Huntsville. I've gotten quite adept at MDTS since I do it, oh I dunno, eight or nine times a day.

Anyways, after our fun game of MDTS we toured the Supreme Court which is an absolutely beautiful building. The whole building was gleaming and fresh since it is only 15 years old. It was also funded by one family. It was pretty crazy to see a supreme court building that's so new and unimaginable to me to see one funded privately. Can you imagine the uproar if the US allowed one family (say the Kennedys or the Rockefellers) to build the supreme court building? Allegations of impairing the impartiality of the court would run rampant. Things are different in Israel because it's such a small country. People have a lot more connections here because of the small population and because of the tight-knit of the society (having neighbors on all sides who want to kill you tends to do that).

We were able to sit in on the oral arguments of a really intense case. Last year there was a fire in a national forest in the north of Israel. More than 40 prison guards were killed trying to evacuate a prison in the path of the fire. Another three police officers were killed trying to save the prison guards. The State of Israel wanted to award them with medals to recognize their heroism but the families of some of the victims sued to delay the awards. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today about whether or not to delay the awards. Tons of media was there. In yet another stark contrast to the US, we were allowed to freely enter and exit the courtroom while oral arguments were going on. Additionally, armed guards stood through-out the courtroom. [The court ruled the next day to allow the awards to proceed.]

After the case, we went out for lunch at Sima which I highly recommend. It was an incredible meal, one of the best I've ever had and a truly different cuisine (so I'm going to assume that means it's authentic). When we walked into the restaurant they had already setup our table and loaded it down with all kinds of great side dishes and as soon as we sat down they started rolling out the fruit juice to drink and pitas to dip. Unreal. The food did not stop coming. We had Meurav Yerushalmi, aka "Jerusalem Mixed Grill" which contains livers and hearts etc. It was pretty good but I liked the rest of the grilled meat better. Speaking of grilled meat, they brought platter after platter of it out. I do not say this lightly, but it rivaled Thanksgiving at the Hinshaw/Lammons households (those of you who have been know that is the highest culinary praise one can receive). Dessert was incredible baklava and mint tea. When I asked Hilly what to order to duplicate the experience when I come back her reply was simple: "The menu." Fair enough.

Next we headed off to tour the Old City. I won't say a lot about this because you really just need to see it. I don't think I can do it justice so I won't try. Sufficent to say, we wondered around streets that are thousands of years old, saw the site where tradition holds that Christ was crucified and buried, saw the Western Wall, which is the closest people could get to the Holy of Holies in the Second Temple, saw the Dome of the Rock (but couldn't get in since Muslims don't share very well) and just soaked it all up. The best part of the tour was when our guide took us down this small dark alley into a courtyard, then to the corner of a courtyard to a hidden stairway that lead to the rooftops of the Old City. There we stood, looking out over the different Quarters of the Old City and across the valley to the Mount of Olives. Truly awe inspiring.

We loaded up on the bus and headed back to the law faculty where they were having a karaoke party Israeli style. Instead of taking turns singing up on stage, they have one song leader with tons of floating microphones, they sing popular songs and everyone dances like crazy. It was so much fun. Again, words can't do this justice, but I did grab some video and pictures which I will post (eventually, maybe).

From there we loaded up into a cab and headed to our favorite Tuesday night bar, Friends Underground, to watch Real Madrid play. Our cab driver was nuts. He had CDs full of American music which he played and we sang along with loudly. At one point, as I was belting out Time of My Life with everything I had, a car full of girls pulled up and asked us for directions. They started laughing pretty hard. Incidentally, our cab driver almost killed my friend Daniel who was on his motorcycle. Just another day in Tel Aviv.

FN1 - Hilly. I really have to give a shout out to our incredible social coordinator Hilly. She's a 4th year student so she's our age, double majoring, and busy as all get out, yet she does an incredible job. Social coordinator is one of those jobs you could easily phone-in but she goes the extra mile. The whole day was incredible and flowed so smoothly. She literally ordered the entire menu for us at Sima. That alone was enough to win my stamp of approval. She put together an incredible day for us, and has done so again and again.

"All You Americans Look Alike"

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:39:00 +0000

Tuesday, the 29th of March

Had a hilarious experience today in the library. One of my Israeli classmates told me today that he thought one of our professors looks like George W. Bush. I vehemently disagreed but he stuck to his guns and even pulled up photos of Bush to prove the point. At this point the story is only funny to me, so without further ado, here is a picture:

Prof. Jack Rakove

Just in case you were confused, that's not the 43rd president of the United States. That's Stanford professor and Pulitzer prize-winning historian Jack Rakove.

Now, it's been a couple years since Bush left office, so in case you are having trouble remembering, here's a side-by-side:

You can clearly see the family resemblance, but then again, all us Americans look alike. Haha.

The Lost Weeks

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 10:20:00 +0000

The 13th of March through the 24rd of March

Life got busy during these two weeks and I neglected the blog. Because I am cramming an entire US law school semester (15 weeks) into roughly 7 weeks things got wild. I had a lot of days where I had a class that started at 8am and my last class would end after 9 (or 21:00). Unlike Alabama, which has a set hour for lunch, classes here go all day so out of that 13 or 14 hours of classes I might have only two 30 minute breaks and two 15 minute breaks. It was wild.

In the middle of all that we finally got to go see the wall that Israel built around the West Bank. It was pretty wild to go 15 or 20 minutes out of town and see a military fence. (Think the Korean DMZ.) The IDF passed us on patrols several times while we were out there and at one point a van full of people drove by and yelled at us. Interesting experience. The legal situation in the West Bank is really complicated because under international law Israel is not allowed to change the law that was applicable when it occupied the territory (or liberated it depending on your view). So that means that the Ottoman Land Code from the 1800s applies, as does Jordanian law at the time of the war, with a final layer of Israeli Military Law. Crazy complicated.

Seeing the Arab villages, which were very destitute, so close to the gleaming, bustling, modern metropolis of Tel Aviv was really a stark contrast. Very sad to see. However, also no different than what you would find in any modern city like New Orleans or Charlotte where a distance of literally two blocks can separate million dollar houses from $15k hovels.

We also go to see some olive groves, which I thought was really cool, even though I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who got excited about seeing them.

Purim was also during what I'm dubbing "The Lost Weeks" to be melodramatic. Purim is a pretty fantastic holiday. We had a costume party at my friend Dafna's place, which was an absolutely incredible house. I dressed up as an Israeli and the costume was a hit. I wore a fitted tshirt that was very Jersey Shore/Afflicted style, gel in my hair, my most European jeans and carried my phone around yelling into it in Hebrew (Israelis are pretty loud on the phone, and it's hilarious). I found out the next day that I actually convinced one of my Israeli friends that I had learned Hebrew. After the party some of the Israelis took me and Chang to a club in one of the southern suburbs of Tel Aviv. I'm pretty sure they just invite us because we can use our American IDs to get into clubs (remind me to describe the free-for-all that is getting into Israeli clubs) and because girls will talk to Americans so they just throw me to the wolves a la How I Met Your Mother (this clip is remarkably, nay eerily, what it's like).

The next day, after going to bed at 3 or 4, I popped up at 8 to get ready to go to Jerusalem. Some friends of my parents knew an Israeli couple who lived south of Tel Aviv. As is typical of the gracious hospitality of Israelis, they found out from my parents friends that I was here and called to invite me to go with them to Jerusalem so they could show me around. It was an incredible trip. They picked me up, drove me to Rishon LeTzion where they live and from there we struck out across Israel to Jerusalem. To give you an idea, we drove from the literal extreme west edge of the country to the extreme east border in roughly 45 minutes. Along the way we passed forts from the Israel/Jordanian war complete with old armored vehicles. We got there in time to have a breakfast picnic on a hillside overlooking the Temple Mount and the fabled Dome of the Rock, arguably one of the most recognizable sights in the entire world. Mrs. Nadav had cooked jachnun which is a traditional Yemmini dish that is outstanding (especially when made by Mrs. Nadav). It's a pastry that you eat with tomato and pesto sauces. So good! From there we wondered around the Old City and toured the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It's supposedly the site of Christ's crucifixion and tomb. Seeing it was partly incredibly moving and partly heartbreaking. It's very moving to see what is at the very least, ground where Jesus actually walked and is probably relatively undisturbed since that time. On the other hand, people were taking trinkets out and rubbing them on the ground (hoping that the good luck will transfer from the stone/dirt to the trinket), prostrating themselves on the ground, kissing the stones, etc. and it breaks my heart to see people worship the creation not the Creator. After the Church of the Holy Sepulcher we went to the Western Wall. It was an incredible honor to be allowed into the holiest site of a different religion, even if we do worship the same God I felt very honored and trusted to be there. It was so amazing to be able to pray at the Wall where people have been praying to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Exodus 3:5-6 / Acts 3:13) for thousands of years. I felt very much like Moses on holy ground. We spent the rest of the day wondering the old city markets, which were fun, before heading back to Rishon to get an incredible hamburger. All in all an incredible day.

Also during this hectic period Aharon and Elika Barak invited Daniel and I over for dinner. You really need to read his Wikipedia page because the dude is a rockstar. He was attorney general of Israel, one of the negotiators of Israel's landmark peace treaty with Egypt (the first Arab country to recognize Israel as a state) and then president (chief justice) of the Israeli Supreme Court. His wife was vice president of their supreme labor court. They really are incredible. Did I mention that he developed a doctrine called proportionality that every supreme court in the world (except the US of course) now uses? Yeah rockstar. Best part of it: he and his wife are incredibly nice people. We had a lovely time with them. She's a fantastic cook and prepared a lot of local dishes for us, and they were all really good (and organic!).

I probably couldn't get away with ending the story there because before we got to dinner we wound up in the wrong town. Aharon called me to give me directions and I wrote down his address and when I put it into Google Maps later it showed the address in a nearby suburb so that's where I told our taxi driver to take us. Only that was wrong. Basically, imagine that a cab driver picked us up in downtown Birmingham and drove us to Gardendale only to discover that the dinner was actually in Homewood. So embarrassing! Thankfully they were so gracious, we were only a couple minutes late (which is on-time for the Middle East) and Daniel gets to hang that over my head for the rest of our lives.

Rapping

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 11:04:00 +0000

Thursday, the 10th of March

Today the law faculty, along with the social sciences faculty, hosted a party at a dance bar called The Roof Bar. It was a great party. Saw a ton of people I knew, met some new people. The highlight of the evening for me personally was when they played All I Do is Win. I got pretty excited and started belting out the Luda verse (the first one) and people were pretty amused. I like to keep it interesting.

Then two of my good Israeli buddies offered to drive me home but we got lost and I had to give them directions. How long have I lived here? Haha it reminds me of a certain Birmingham friend who would always call me for directions even though she grew up there.

Time Zones and Phones

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 10:30:00 +0000

The time difference between here and the States has lead to some funny situations and stories. Probably the most exciting was one from a couple of weeks ago. My grandfather had a stroke on the Thursday of that week. He's 93 and also has some other fairly major health issues recently but beyond that he's tough as nails and still going quite strong (he still drives, meets his friends for coffee and watches the stock and commodities markets like a hawk haha).

So anyways, he has a stroke. I get an email from my parents, I wind up speaking to them on the phone several hours later and things don't look great. So I started leaving my US phone on at night in case they needed to reach me immediately. Sunday of that week I have the conversation with my parents about "hey, if things take a turn for the worse, you need to give me a call to let me know."

I go to sleep that night and I'm pretty worried about my grandfather. Well sure enough, 3am and I hear the distinctive sound of an incoming text message. I bound out of bed. I probably went from asleep under the covers to across the room holding the phone in less than a second. I pull up the text message absolutely dreading what I'm about to read and this is what I see:

Im engaged!!!!!!!!!!

It was one of my friends announcing her engagement. I have never been more excited in my life to get an engagement announcing text.

Not to leave you hanging: My grandfather is doing incredibly well. He's weeks ahead of the most optimistic projections by the doctors. Already home and fussing that the doctors are worried about him driving. He's a tough dude.

"Maybe you should have done the readings!"

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 16:58:00 +0000

Monday, the 7^th of March / Tuesday, the 8^th of March

Yet another story from my commute today. As I was heading toward campus I noticed that the left crank-shaft felt “funny.” I kept pedaling and it kept feeling more and more loose. So finally I pulled over and noticed that the bolt holding it on the bike was coming off. This began a process where I would pedal a few blocks, pull over, tighten the bolt by hand, hop on, pedal a few blocks and repeat the whole vicious cycle. Ugh. Very frustrating. I took it to the shop once and they tightened the bolt only to have it come loose again a couple days later so I took it back another time and they replaced the whole assembly. Problem solved.

Anyways, once I finally got to class everything went really well. It’s really wild what an incredible opportunity I have academically here. The Tel Aviv University Buchmann Faculty of Law is one of the highest ranked law schools in the world. Tel Aviv University is ranked second in the world for dollars generated from patents and top 20 in the world by other measures. It’s a great school and the law program is its premiere faculty. So I’m getting the best of that faculty plus the best of the US. I’m taking classes from profs from UCLA, Yale, Stanford, Michigan etc. One of my profs has a Pulitzer and was on The Daily Show recently.

Although a lot of my classes have been awesome, my favorite hands down is Comparative Law with Prof. James Whitman. It’s incredible. We’re learning so much about the differences between the US and Continental systems of law, but more than that we’re learning about the cultural and philosophical differences that motivate those differences in the legal system. I highly recommend this book if you’re interested in learning more about the subject.

Not all of my classes have gone so swimmingly however. Today in Military Occupation I asked the professor a really great question. A truly outstanding question. Such a good one that she’d actually assigned us an entire article to answer it. Which I had somehow missed in the reading list. So she asked me “well what do you think?” “I don’t know.” “Then maybe you should have done the reading.” Haha. Boom goes the dynamite.

Tonight after class I met a bunch of the Israeli guys at a local pub, Friends Underground, to hang out for a while. It was my first time but the other guys go there every week. It’s a great place that’s really chill and there’s a great bartender who takes care of us. She’s also quite cute and when I walked in she had a conversation in Hebrew with one of the guys. Later he told me she said I was really handsome. I think he was just being nice and that’s not really what she said, but I’m going to claim it’s what she really said.

Wow

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 21:02:00 +0000

Ok, so a lot has happened since I last blogged so you're just going to get the highlights and detailed posts will come soon.

First, I broke my laptop in a bike wreck on Thursday. I wish I had a better story, like I got hit by a motorcycle or something, but instead I just misjudged a curb on my ride home in the dark and took a really small spill (nothing like my bad wreck during a training ride on the first day of law school for those of you UASOL peeps who remember meeting this kid with bandages everywhere). When I got home the screen on the laptop wasn't working. That was a big problem because all our reading is online. However, my friends, old and new, are really awesome. One of my Stateside friends offered cash to buy a new one when he found out about the dilemma and one of my new classmates here offered to let me borrow her extra laptop. So I'm using the borrowed laptop and it's working great for now. Isn't that awesome?

Second, a UASOL student passed away this week. I got the school-wide email on Friday. The father of this student is one of the most respected and powerful men in the state. Though I've never met him, from all accounts he's a really great guy. It's really sobering to think that with all of his money and power, he still could not save his daughter. Really makes you think about what's important in life.

Finally, we were supposed to tour the wall that Israel built to secure the "border" between the West Bank and Israel proper, but the bus driver never showed up this morning so instead we had a nice hang-out time on the law school lawn. The trip was rescheduled for Wednesday.

Running from the Cops

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 16:05:00 +0000

Sunday, the 6^th of March

Another fun story from my commute to school today. As I was pulling up to one of the main intersections today I saw a kid in his late teens running down the street backpack flopping around behind him chased by a police officer. (Both individuals were rather portly, especially the police officer.) When I stopped at the intersection there was a girl with a bike off to the side with another police officer crying. Turns out they were out issuing tickets for jay walking and they had gotten the girl and tried to get the guy but he ran away. Haha.

We were supposed to go on a tour of the wall that Israel built between Israel proper and the West Bank (FN1) but the bus driver never showed up so we didn’t go. Instead we just sat around and hung out.

Tonight I went to meet my landlord to pay rent. It looks like a really sketch drug deal because we meet on a street corner and I had him an envelope full of cash. Haha. (I pay in cash because I don’t want to go through the hassle of opening a bank account here.) I hand him an envelope with cash he hands me an envelope with a receipt and we head our separate ways.

FN1. The terminology used to describe the land is highly charged politically. One wing would say “Palestine” and “Israel” another would say “Eretz Israel” period. I intend no statement by my choice of words.

The Beach

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 15:59:00 +0000

Saturday, the 5^th of March

Woke up this morning expecting to go to church. However, I remembered that the church wasn’t meeting in its normal location this week, but I couldn’t look up the new location since my laptop still isn’t working. Boo. So I went back to bed. Yay.

After lunch I went to the beach to meet Eric, a friend of a friend, at the beach. Eric and I are both Big 4 Alum (and proud of it) and have tons of mutual friends. He’s over here working right now so everyone had said we needed to get together to hang out. When he called he didn’t know where he was on the beach. Now, Tel Aviv has about five miles of beaches so that’s a problem. He told me that the beach where they were at had a rock seawall out in the ocean. If you’re from Tel Aviv you know how funny that is because every single beach has one of those walls. It’s like telling me that you’re at the beach with sand. Despite that, we eventually met up. It was quite easy to find him since he was wearing a Mercedes Marathon Week shirt. Haha.

We had a great time hanging out on the beach and talking about Big 4 accounting, life in Israel and the Lord. I realized mid-way through the conversation that I’ve picked-up some Israeli customs because a guy came up and asked me if he could “disturb me for a second” and I responded “depends on what you mean by disturb.” Haha bluntness is the Israeli hallmark. I love it. Turns out the guy wanted to check out the Crazy Creek I was sitting in. He was a designer for the IDF and had tried to develop something similar for them.

As I was leaving the beach after hanging out with Eric, Daniel called and said he and a bunch of the exchange students were also at the beach so I just moved a couple hundred yards down the beach and hung out with them for the rest of the day.

Chinese Shabbat

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 11:15:00 +0000

Friday, the 4^th of March

We had an early class this morning which is just no fun. 8:15 am classes mean I have to be up around 6:30. That’s fine in the US, but here people don’t eat dinner until 8 or 9 so it makes for late nights and tough mornings.

Also, I’ve gone from class four days a week to class six days a week, and that my friends is entirely no fun. I don’t think they have many classes on Fridays for Israelis, but us exchange students get screwed. I’ve had a class every Friday. So Sunday through Friday I trot off to campus!

After class I started my weekend and it was awesome. It’s easy to see why the Israelis are so fit. I biked an hour (my commute to campus and back), then walked for an hour and a half doing errands. That’s just normal life. (Add in training and you get some serious calorie burning. I ran 10 miles today on top of all that normal life stuff so I was starving by the time dinner rolled around.

Which worked out extremely well because Daniel, one of the Israeli students, invited me and Natalie to Shabbat dinner with his family so I was going to get GREAT cooking. They cooked Chinese food and it was unreal. Started off with some sushi (Japanese I know) then went into all the traditional dishes (sweet & sour, general tso’s, etc.). There must have been six different kinds of chicken and beef. Oh my goodness. Sooooo good.

The highlight of the evening was after dinner when the family coaxed Natalie, who is taking Hebrew classes, into reading from their young daughter’s first-grade reader. It was hilarious. Whenever she would finish a sentence everyone would cheer and clap. I laughed so hard, but inside I was just really jealous that should could read and speak Hebrew. Haha.

Hang Haman!

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 10:40:00 +0000

Thursday, the 3^rd of March

Today was a fairly epic day. It started off extremely uneventfully, but on the way home I had my now infamous bike wreck. It was no big deal at all. It hardly even qualified as a wreck but when I got home I discovered that the wreck had damaged the laptop screen (it was in my backpack). That tiny accident would have far reaching implications.

On happier news, I am getting emails about the upcoming Purim holiday that are written in Hebrew and end with "Hang Haman!” Esther 7:10 That seems like a really cool tag-line. I might adopt it.

FN1. Purim. Purim is the holiday where the Jews celebrate being rescued from annihilation by the bravery of Queen Esther. It’s a really cool story and I encourage you to read it. It’s celebrated now by the wearing of costumes. Throughout the history of the Jews, God has worked directly and miraculously in their history (see The Parting of the Red Sea - really, it's an epic video) but this time God chose to work behind the scenes so people wear costumes to hide and remember that God was working behind the scenes.

A Protest - Israeli Style

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 09:40:00 +0000

Wednesday, the 2^nd of March

Today we were scheduled to go on a tour of Jaffa (or Yaffo) which is the old port city south of Tel Aviv. I wasn’t exactly sure of where we were supposed to meet or how long it would take me to get there so being the “Type-A, Western, Goober” that I am I arrived about 30 minutes early to the tour.

As I was walking up the tayelet (TAY-el-et), which is the promenade along the beach, to Jaffa I started noticing helicopters circling the area where I was headed. As I got closer I noticed several dozen police cars and groups of police officers hanging out. My first thought was that since it was early morning that they must have just finished a training mission. However, when I walked off the tayelet into the square where we were meeting I got a big surprise. I turned the corner to see hundreds of officers in full riot gear in neat rows. (News reports varied with estimates between 300-500.) Still, in typical Israeli fashion there was absolutely no evidence of tension so I thought maybe they’d just finished some training exercise. Then I noticed the journalists. Now I know that journalists don’t show up to see training exercises. Maybe a few local stations would, but not the BBC, Al Jazeera, CNN etc. (Aren’t ID lanyards handy?) At this point I started to think “well maybe I should figure out what’s going on and where I should be.” Pretty soon I'm surrounded by undercover police officers and ushered away from the area.

Turns out it was a protest by right-wing Jewish activists. About 50 of them showed up to be protected by ten times that number of police officers. It certainly made for an exciting morning for me.

The tour of Jaffa itself was awesome. Jaffa is the port Jonah left before being swallowed by the big fish, Paul left Jaffa on his way to spread the Gospel around the world etc. According to historians, it is the oldest port in the world that has documented continuous usage. Some really cool sights.

I'll post pictures from all this later. I promise.

Class on Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 21:15:00 +0000

Sunday, the 27^th of Feb.

Yesterday I emailed Dad because Lydia was home from Auburn for the weekend and he wanted to setup a time for us to video chat with the whole family, minus John, and I told him to just call me whenever the family got done with church. About ten minutes after I sent the email I realized that it was Saturday and I was the only person in my family headed to church this particular day.

Along those same lines, class on Sunday just messes with my head. I get all confused about what day it is and where I’m supposed to be since usually a Sunday involves church and laying around.

However, we did have a great moment in class today. At one point the professor just stops talking and said, “hey you, no, not you, you, sleepy.” And one of the students who unnoticed by most of us had drifted off to sleep, snapped back to reality. The professor, who is extremely passive-aggressive said, “I don’t mind at all, I just noticed you slept last class as well so I wondered if I should bring a pillow for you?”

Laundry

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 21:03:00 +0000

Saturday, the 26^th of Feb.

Today I hauled my dirty clothes a couple blocks up the street to do laundry. I took along a backpack full of snacks and the Feb./Mar. issue of Garden & Gun magazine.

I had to wait about half an hour for a machine to come open so I just plopped down in one of the chairs and started reading. It was really a delightful afternoon. It took me about an hour and a half to get it all done but it was just wonderful. It was about 68 degrees (F) with a gentle breeze and I sat in the shade and read the entire issue.

G&G has a unique ability to really make me feel like I’m experiencing the culture of whatever it’s talking about. You feel like you’re living it when you read. So it was a surreal experience to be immersed in the world of Mobile Bay or New Orleans while listening to people walking by speaking Arabic and Hebrew with the occasional strains of French or Russian floating by my ears as well.

Oh. I noticed the locals looking at me funny when I was loading my laundry into the washing machine so I asked what was up. Turns out that I’ve been doing laundry with fabric softener, not detergent. Yeah. Darn those all Hebrew labels!

Shabbat Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 21:00:00 +0000

Friday, the 25^th of Feb.

Today was another great day in the Holy Land. I slept in this morning then went a bought a bike from “O Fun!’ Haha. I paid 550 shekels for it ($148) and they have a policy that allows me to return the bike when I leave the country for 1/3 of the price I paid ($49). So I’m basically paying $100 to rent a bike for two and a half months.

Then I went on a long run that afternoon of 10 miles. It really felt great to get out and just enjoy the country. You see so many interesting things when you run around. I’m a slow runner so I move past life slow enough to see the culture and watch the people interact. It’s great.

Tonight my buddies Brian and Ben invited everyone over for Shabbat dinner. It was great because Brian fried schnitzel that was unreal. Gideon and Natalie did the traditional Shabbat blessings and we ate and hung out. It was really a great evening of food and hanging out.

Every Day An Adventure

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:23:00 +0000

Thursday, the 24^th of Feb.

Today on the bus a girl broke her ankle trying to get on the bus. I noticed a girl sitting down between the bus and the curb, but I didn’t know why. Finally, the old women sitting on the bus started yelling. Then they started yelling at a guy who was sitting at the front of the bus who was about my age. He finally says, “I don’t speak Hebrew.” So I told him that I thought they wanted him to help the girl sitting on the ground. He gets up and looks, but doesn't do anything. So I worm my way up through the bus to the girl who’s sitting in the street between the bus and the curb clutching her leg and shaking. So I get the lady standing nearby to help me and we get her to a bench where we can evaluate her leg. It looked broken to me because there was movement where there shouldn't be movement. However, she refused to let us call an ambulance (conveniently the same word in English and Hebrew) so we got back on the bus and went on our way.

Wednesday Welcome Party

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:19:00 +0000

Wednesday, the 23^rd of Feb.

The law school threw us a welcome party today. It was great. We gathered after class in a building on campus and had a traditional Israeli dinner. Lot of falafel and shakshuka. It was outstanding. I could eat falafel all day. Then we headed to Hemingway, a local bar, to hang out.

The best part of the evening was that our Israeli “buddies” came to the dinner and with us to the bar. It was really great to start getting to know the local students. It’s great because now when I’m walking through the halls of the school, or the cafeteria, I actually know people.

And they’re cool people. My new friends Daniel and Nir taught me the “Have you met Matt?” game from How I Met Your Mother. Great times.

Websites

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:14:00 +0000

Tuesday, the 22^nd of Feb.

Hebrew is written right to left, but website addresses, because the web was invented in the US, are written left to right which means you have this interesting situation:

Notice the period on the left side.

That’s the text going from right to left, until you hit the address where you have to jump to the left and go to the right, until you reach the end of the address at which point you jump back to the end of the address and start moving left again. Confusing. Or at least it would be if I read Hebrew.

Tonight I cooked dinner of rice and grilled chicken. Then I realized I had no spices in the entire place. Not even salt. Bland. I plan to rectify that travesty soon.

Orientation!

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 13:43:00 +0000

Monday, the 21^st of Feb.

So I don’t have classes today, just orientation. Kinda weird to have orientation after classes have started, but ok, just roll with it.

Daniel and I took the bus together from our neighborhood to the school. The first thing we saw when we arrived was a big booth serving beer and alcohol at 10am. This country is something else. In fact, if you agreed to “like” the Facebook page of the TAU International Buddy System then you got a free beer. Otherwise it was about a buck a beer.

Once orientation started we were treated like celebrities. They gave us free shirts and the dean told us, and I quote, “you are special, the rules don’t apply.” I think I’m going to love this school.

I also realized that a lot of my classmates live really, really close to me and so I will have my bus “commute” with friends, which is great since it’s about 40 minutes each way.

First Day of Class!

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 13:26:00 +0000

Sunday, the 20^th of Feb.

Today was my first day of classes over here! I have been eagerly anticipating this day, not because I’m pumped about classes but because I’m pumped to meet people.

The first challenge was navigating the bus system successfully without any clue what the university looked like or if the line even stopped right by it. I knew which line to get on (either 24 or 25) and I had scouted for a stop near my apartment, but I didn’t know how much a fare cost exactly (I thought it was six shekels and that turned out to be right) or where to get off. And to quote good old Rumsfeld, those were the known unknowns. Who knows what else I didn’t know?

Once I arrived at the university I had to figure out where my class was actually located. I made my way through the main entrance where armed guards checked my bag then started wondering around. I found a coffee shop, then found the law school but couldn’t find the building where my class was located. I had written down that it was in “Merkaz 017.” However, unfortunately for me, Merkaz is the English way to write the Hebrew word for “center.” So I had written down “Center 017.” Now as you might imagine there are several centers on campus so no one at the coffee shop knew where to tell me where to go.

So I decided to head back to the law school building figuring someone there would know or at least let me look up in my email the full name of the building. When I walked in the building I walked up to the first person I saw and asked her. Turns out she’s a double major in, get this, law and accounting! Haha she’s headed to work for KPMG after graduation. Small world. She graciously offered to walk me to the class so I made it in plenty of time.

The class itself is really interesting. It’s a class on intellectual property taught by one of the top experts in the world on the subject. Because he’s so world-renowned we have everyone from people like me with no IP experience to people writing their doctoral theses (FN1) to practicing lawyers taking it just to learn from him. It’s an awesome course.

My next class is a land law class. Not just any land law class though, it’s about how land law has shaped the conflict over Eretz Israel and/or Palestine. (What you call it depends on which side you’re on.) This class promises to be extremely interesting. We’re basically going through the history of the conflict going back to the Ottoman Empire and studying the conflict and the central role that land law has played in that conflict.

The final class for the day is History of English Law which is also pretty interesting, but since I know it won’t interest any of you except the law/history nerds I’ll skip the details.

Boarded the bus with some friends and headed home exhausted. A great first day.

FN1. Thesis. Yes, the plural of thesis really is theses. I know, weird.