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My Key Is Down There!

Posted in humour, Lifes Observations, tagged , , , , , , on September 25, 2011| 7 Comments »

Last Thursday night I really had trouble going to sleep. Every time I would get even close to a light doze our hooligan cats would start running around, jumping off of furniture hissing and snarling at each other. It was one of those rare occasions where I could not wait for morning to arrive.

Finally it was time to get up, my wife got up to take her shower after a moment I heard some sort of muted scream, seconds later she crawled back into bed. She looked at me and said, “I can’t deal with it, you have too.” With great trepidation and sinking heart I headed into the bathroom and found nothing out of the ordinary. I pulled back the shower curtain, evidently at some point during the night a full blown slaughter had taken place. The first thing I noticed was the mouse butt and back feet, the front of the mouse was missing. Over in the corner I found part of the head, under the shower seat there was another chunk, amongst the cat puke I noticed some other mouse parts.

I did manage to clean up the mess without puking, but I came awfully close, I did spend the next 2 hours in deep focused concentration reciting the mantra in my head, ‘do not throw up, do not throw up,’ For the next day and a half every time thought about the mouse parts I had to concentrate on not throwing up. Even now three days later I still feel a little nauseous in this retelling of the tale.

This is our prime suspect.

Saturday night we decided to pick up some pizza. We took the dog and as usual she jumped into the back of our SUV I leaned in the side door and secured her into the back. We do this so she does not become a projectile should we get into some sort of accident. Everything looking good I jumped behind the wheel and backed out of the garage. CRRUUNNCH! My wife and I look at each other, WTF?

Neither my wife nor I closed the back of the car. When the back hatch is up it won’t clear the lip of the garage door. While the hatch was bent out of shape, we could open and close it but the door simply would not stay shut. It took us half an hour to figure out how to secure the bloody door so we could still drive the car. The inside of the door is smooth as is the outside, no holes, no latches nothing to secure a rope too. Eventually we were able to pry the back panel up just enough to spot a hole on either side of the door, I fit a bungee cord into each hole and I hooked the other end onto the mounts for the child safety seat. Worked like a charm. Now of course we have the bother of sorting things out with the insurance company and having the door either replaced or fixed. Not sure if they can fix it, and they are no longer making Saturn’s so it should be interesting.

This evening we had some errands that we had to run. Once again I made sure the back of the car wouldn’t spring open and off we went. Upon arrival back home I unlocked the front door, and as I was pulling my key out of the lock the key somehow slipped off the key ring and fell through the less than the quarter inch gap in the boards of our deck.

My key is down there.

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The Bubble Machine, The Magic Shop And the Police

Posted in Lifes Observations, tagged , , , on September 11, 2011| 2 Comments »

I’m not much of a practical joker. Truth is I really don’t like them at all but every now and again when the mood is just right I just can’t seem to help myself as is evident in a previous blog about a co-worker and a fish.

The local magic shop, when there was one, was located directly behind the bank where I used to work. Can you believe it? I’ve spent most of my life in the magic business. I left the West Coast, changed countries and in the process stepped out of the world of magic, (for the most part) and I end up working directly across the street from a magic shop. Talk about fate.

Beside the magic shop was a little boutique that sold handmade soap. The soap boutique had an automatic soap bubble maker/blower mounted on the wall between the two stores. On nice days the bubbles would blow onto the sidewalk.

I was sitting in the banks lunchroom, the large windows faced the magic shop. John, the owner of the magic shop was sitting on the stoop directly outside his door. I was eating my lunch watching the world, watching John, watching the old lady slowly meandering down the street, watching the pretty bubbles. Suddenly the old lady stops and turns toward John and starts pointing at him. I couldn’t hear anything and the windows didn’t open. One thing was clear the Lady was not happy. John kept pointing at the bubble maker and the soap boutique. I watched in fascination, clearly the lady was upset and yelling. A few people crossed the street to keep out of the situation. John kept shrugging and pointing at the store next to his, but the old woman was having none of John’s explanations. The only thing that made sense to me was that a bubble landed on the old woman and she thought it was John’s bubble maker and was telling him what she thought. After about five minutes or so the lady stormed off leaving John standing in front of his store scratching his head.

I finished my lunch and went back to work. But I could not shake the scene from my head. While serving a customer a plan began to form. I didn’t think it would work but I had to try. I spent the next few hours cementing the plan in my head. Finally my afternoon break came and I bolted for the lunch room and grabbed the phone and called the magic shop. I did not disguise my voice, either it would work or it wouldn’t.

The phone rings

John: “Hello, Abracadabra Magic”

Me: “Hello, may I please speak to the owner?”

John: “I am the owner, how may I help you?”

Me: “Mr. Oglivy?” (not John’s real last name)

John: “Yes?”

“My name is Officer Dale from the State College borough police, we have received a complaint about the bubble machine you have outside your store.”

“Officer you want the store next to mine, I tried to explain to the lady who yelled at me for 10 minutes that it is not my machine. It belongs to the people who own the store next to mine.”

“Mr. Oglivy I did go ahead and check the regulations about any such devices. I found that they have to be at least 15 feet back from the sidewalk or a permit is required. I checked the maps and on your street there is simply not enough clearance from the front of the building to the sidewalk to operate such a machine without a proper permit.”

John sounding frustrated: “Officer, as I explained to the lady, it is not my bubble…”

“You do have a permit to operate that bubble machine, don’t you Mr. Oglivy?”

“Officer I already expl…”

“Mr. Oglivy does your landlord know about the bubble…”

“Officer I…”

Me starting to sound agitated: “Mr. Oglivy please do not interrupt me again. I am going to come down with a city inspector to inspect the bubble machine and take some measurements and check your permits.”

“Officer, I tried explaining to the lady, and I’m trying to tell you, it is not my bubble machine it belongs to the store next door, clearly there has been a mistake.”

“Mr. Oglivy let me explain it this way. You are the owner of Abracadabra Magic and a complaint has been made against you and I have to follow up on this complaint. I explained the city ordinance and I will be out there later today to complete my report. If you don’t meet the requirements to operate such a device you will be given a citation at which point you can explain it all to a judge.”

“Officer, the bubble machine is not…Brian is that you?”

“Yes”

“You son of a bitch, are you at the bank?”

“Yup, saw the whole thing but could not hear a word”

“Bastard you really had me going. That lady was so mad and I tried to explain to her that it wasn’t mine but she just kept on yelling.”

Me laughing: “So I really had you going?”

“She was so mad, her calling the police wouldn’t surprise me, and you had all the details so yes you bastard you had me going the whole time.”

It is odd that the only two practical jokes I remember being involved in happened while I was at the bank. I guess that place just brought out the worst in me.

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Sometimes it is Who You Know

Posted in Lifes Observations, tagged , , , on September 1, 2011| 1 Comment »

Sometimes it just takes a little magic.

The bank I worked at had something called a call night.  These happened twice every quarter.   What is a call night?  Glad you asked.  Employee’s who are customer facing were required to profile customers.  We would look into an account and see if a customer had a lot of money sitting in a checking account that they are not using.  Or they may be paying on a loan with too high an interest rate. We would call these people and see if we could get them into the bank to talk with an advisor.  Despite the scary word ‘profiling’ this is an excellent program and greatly helps customers.  Most people don’t realize how many products banks offer. Believe it or not, to stay in business banks need you to succeed.  One would think convincing people to talk to an advisor to further their own needs would be easy. But it is not.   Peoples fear and distrust makes making these calls very daunting.

My first week at the bank there was a call night from which I was excused seeing as I had not been there long enough to profile anyone, nor did I have a clue as to what I was talking about.  Being the trooper that I am I opted to stay and join the fun.  The manager handed me a list of papers and told me to call everyone on the list.

I looked at the first name on the list checked their account and they had something like 25 grand sitting in a no interest checking account.  I looked at the history and they had that much sitting there for at least a year.  Clearly, at the very least this could go into an interest bearing savings account.  The call went something like this.

Me:  “Hi my name is Brian and I’m calling from your bank.  I’ve noticed you have a lot of money sitting in a checking account.  Did you know we can put you in another type of account and you could be making money on that money?

Them:  “Not interested”

Me—Stunned silence.

Me: “Really? Do you have that money earmarked for something, perhaps a home, or a car or sending a child to school? If you are we have many products designed just for those types of purposes that will be much more beneficial than a checking account.”

Them:  “No thanks,” CLICK!

Me:  Looking stupidly at my phone. 

At this point one of the other Tellers noticed me looking stupid and quietly told me that she just calls home and speaks to her answering machine.  That way it looks like she is making calls.  While I understood the concept, I thought that was a bigger waste.  With great trepidation I looked at the second person on my list.  His name was Bob (not really, but we will call him Bob) the first thing I noticed was that Bob had multiple accounts all with stupidly high balances.

 Me:  “Hi Mr. Bob, My name is Brian and I’m calling from your bank, I’d like to talk about all that money you have just sitting there doing nothing, in fact I’d like to transfer it into my account.  Okay I didn’t say that, what I really said was something to the effect of you really need to come in and talk to one of our people about making this money work for you.

Bob: “I don’t like big banks, they are very impersonal and you never know who you are talking too”

Me: “Well I can help you with that, I’m Brian I am calling from your branch in State College and I can be your banker”

Bob: “Well that is nice of you but I remember when it was a small town bank and I knew everyone who worked there, now I don’t know anybody and I’m not happy about it.”

Me: “I understand, progress isn’t always what it is cracked up to be, but I can help you out with your current accounts”

Bob: “Does Pat still work there?”

Me: “Pat?  Yes, she is my branch manager.”

Bob: “I remember her when she was a Teller and I’d show her magic tricks.  I’d show all the girls magic tricks and they always greeted me with smiles and were happy to see me, now there is no personal service.”

At this point I just leaned back in my chair, smiled inwardly and took a breath.  Here I was a week in the bank, my first call night I knew nothing about banking but I booked my first call night appointment.  I had a secret.  Bob was a magician, not only that, he was older which meant he was an old school magician, which meant he would have my back.

Me: “Really you are a magician?”

Bob: “Oh yes, I am a member of the magic circle in England, I’m a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, (IBM) and the Society of American Magicians, (SAM).  I’m not much of a performer on any formal level but I do show the occasional trick, and they used to love them at the bank.”

Me: “I was the regional Vice President of the SAM in Vancouver Canada”

Bob:  Silence

Bob: “Really?”

Me: “Yes really, my father opened a magic shop in Montreal in 1974 which is still going strong.  I just moved here from Vancouver where I operated the Vancouver branch for the last 10 years.”

Bob and I talked magic for about 15 minutes and then he said:

Bob:  “So if I make an appointment, what do you get out of it?”

Me:  “Not much except the fact that this is my first week at the job and I’ll have made my first appointment during a call night.”

Bob: “And what exactly is expected of me?”

Me:  “You just have to listen, you don’t have to commit to anything or do anything.  Just listen to your options and you never know something might just be right for you.”

Bob:  “Okay, for a fellow magician, okay, set up a date.”

After pinning down a time with Bob I went to my manager and told her that I made an appointment for her for the following day with Bob.  Pat looked at me with huge eyes and told me they have been trying to get Bob into the bank for years and he has always turned us down flat.  She asked me what I said that got him to agree.  I told her I just have a magical way about me.

Out of six tellers, three desk people the manager and two investment people making supposedly 10 calls apiece I was the only one to book an appointment that day. 

Sometimes all it takes is a little magic.

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Rocket Richard

Posted in Lifes Observations, tagged , , , , , on August 23, 2011| 2 Comments »

Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard (French, pronounced Rocket Rishaaad) was a great Canadian,  he defines hockey.  He stopped playing the game five years before I was born.  He won eight Stanley cups with the Montreal Canadians.  He was the first to make fifty goals in fifty games.  He was the first to make five hundred career goals.  He actually made 544.  We learned all about him in elementary school, we wanted to be him.  You simply could not grow up in the environment I grew up in and not have heard the name ‘Rocket’ Richard.

Alas, this post has nothing to do with hockey.  It has nothing to do with the great Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard.  It has to do with my friend Richard. Sometimes I think of him as ‘Rocket’ Richard and it is not because of his talent with a puck. Rather it is because of an episode with a rocket.

For awhile Richard and I dabbled in model rocketry. A basic model can go anywhere from 300 ft to 1500 ft into the air.  They are easy to make, or you can buy a kit.  The kits can be very basic or incredibly elaborate.  I always went for the cheap simple ones or I made my own because while my successful launch rate was excellent I never had a successful recovery.

Richard decided to buy one of the fancier kits.  This one looked like a flying saucer rather than your standard tube shaped rockets.  If my memory serves me correctly this flying saucer needed a ‘D’ engine which was one of the larger classes of model rocket engines. 

A model rocket engine resembles a roll of quarters they are primarily made of gun powder. Basically you explode the engine and if you have made your rocket correctly the thrust of the explosion goes downward propelling the rocket upward.

When I left Richards house everything was fine.  He was tweaking the saucer and we made plans to launch it in the next day or so.  I wasn’t there for the incident but I was able to piece a few things together, but to this day I don’t honestly know if I ever got the whole truth.

The next day my phone rings:

Richard:  “I launched the rocket” 

Me: “Really?  Did it fly?”

Richard: “Yes”

Me: “But?”

Rich: “I launched it inside.”

Me: “Inside?”

Rich: “Basement!”

I thought about that ‘D’ class engine, I thought about the possibility of this thing launching fifteen hundred feet into the air, possibly more.  I also thought about the low seven foot ceiling of Richard’s basement.

Me: “Damage?”

Rich: “Uhm I think I can get away with it.”

We both know the alternative would not be good.

Me: “Seriously?”

Rich: “Can you come over?”

The basement was poorly lit.  Most of the light came from the tv, the aquarium or the really small street level window. Because of the poor lighting it did take me a moment to find the burnt spot on the ceiling and perhaps a moment longer to find the chipped and scarred molding.  There was a chance his father wouldn’t notice there was also a chance that this was just a bad dream. The funny thing is Richard almost got away with it, almost.  There was one element we didn’t take into enough consideration.  Stephen!  Richard’s younger. The problem with Stephen is that he wears his emotions and his expressions loudly on his face.  He is a horrible liar.  Stephen didn’t purposely throw Richard under the bus but that is exactly where Richard wound up. 

When Richard’s father came into the basement to say hello Stephen could not keep his eyes off the damaged ceiling.  Stephen could not look at us, his father, the TV or the aquarium.  No, he had to stare at that bloody spot.  Of course Richard’s father followed Stephen’s gaze.  So did ours.  There was no choice.  Stephen just couldn’t look away, not even for a second.

Why you may ask did Richard launch a rocket inside the house?  That is what I asked.  He didn’t think it would work.

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There Be Woodpeckers in Them There Hills

Posted in Lifes Observations on August 18, 2011| 1 Comment »

The other day, and when I say the other day what I really mean is, a few years ago my wife and I were watching TV.  Unknown to us there was a drama unfolding right in our own backyard.

 It started simple enough.  A bird or a squirrel was loudly letting its feelings known.  Living in the woods as we do, we often here such noises and usually they fade into the background of whatever it is we are doing.  During the show we were watching this was easy but when the commercial came on whatever was going on outside became increasingly annoying.  By the third commercial we realized the commotion outside was not slowing down, it was getting worse, but still we were able to ignore the noise, mostly. During one commercial my wife finally voiced what we were both thinking, “Jeeezuussss! What the hell is that noise?”  Once the words were out, all the focus was on that sound there was no way to push it back into the background.  I had to go out and look.  As I headed out the door my wife said, “It almost sounds like a bird trying to coax its young out of the nest.”

The problem with locating the source of a sound in the woods is the woods themselves.  Sound bounces off the trees and the animals tend to move around.  But this sound was constant, loud and annoying.  It took seconds to find the source.  Once found it was no longer annoying.  Two baby pileated woodpeckers were in a hole in a tree calling for mom/dad.  I bolted inside to get the video camera and told my wife what was happening.  She followed me out the door.   From the size of the little birds I was thinking my wife was correct.  The parental units were trying to coax the little ones out of the nest.  I was hoping against hope to capture their first flight on camera.  I never did, but what I did capture was amazing.  

 I did not get the story in one take and I can’t figure out how to combine the segments so I’ll just post all five segments separately.  I’d start with the first and work your way through till the end.  The whole thing lasts about five minutes.  Sorry about the bumpy ride but the ending is worth it.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYNyDHUF_Sg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA6Ta70TNsk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=971x9uMu9K8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVxuEHkNkiA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Ru2wJjFBI

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More Handcuffs, Different Magician

Posted in Lifes Observations, Magic, tagged , , , on August 11, 2011| 1 Comment »

 

For the second time in the history of this blog I have a guest poster.  My friend Penney from Vancouver read my handcuff blog and offered this handcuff story that involves her husband Tony.  The following is actually a response to my handcuff story.  Thanks Penney.

Way back, before 9/11 when air travelers were all considered fairly harmless and Tony’s entire magic collection could fit into a standard briefcase. We were flying to AB, and because he didn’t trust the airline with his precious collection he planned to bring the briefcase as a carry-on. Gotta really hand it to the security lady. She never cracked a smile (though her eyes were laughing hysterically) as she had asked this strange long-haired dude (Tony) to open the case. So he does, explaining to her how the case was filled with odd stuff because he was a magician, and really, she couldn’t possibly understand the workings of what he had in that case of mystery. And when she went straight for the corner of the case and pulled out his handcuffs, he didn’t miss a beat. He said, “That is for my escapism act.” They made him give it to the steward, who I think gave it to the pilot.

For some strange reason, none of the three steward(ess) on that flight could make it through the safety procedures, because they were all doubled over laughing by the time they boarded the plane.

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Houdini? Maybe Not.

Posted in Lifes Observations, tagged , , , , on August 4, 2011| 4 Comments »

Hello, my name is Brian and I’m addicted to Pawn Stars.

So the other day they had an episode where some guy was trying to pawn some antique and very rare handcuffs.  The episode got me thinking about my own handcuff incident in the magic shop.  My mother posted once such incident here.  Mine was slightly different.

One fine day I was sitting behind the counter in the magic shop all alone when some guy I’ve never met walks into the store.

“Howdy, May I help you?”

“No thanks, I’m just looking.”

“Just looking?  I don’t think so, you walked up all those stairs and just looking?  For walking up those stairs you get a reward.  I’m going to show you a card trick just for coming into the shop.”

“Okay” says the stranger, and I showed him something called ‘Mental Photo’

After he told me how wonderful and talented I am he points to the handcuffs in the display cabinet.  “Those real police issue?” he asks.

“Those are real  double lock handcuffs, and at one point they were police issue, but the police now use Smith and Wesson handcuffs.

“So, those are real?  You can’t escape from them?”

“Well that is two very different questions,  yes they are real double lock handcuffs.  They are not gimmicked in any way.  They do however come with instruction on how to escape from them, but it is probably not what you think.”

“Can you escape from them?”

“On a good day, yes I can.”

“Can you show me?”

“No, we do not give away secrets,  you can buy them and read the instructions and learn to do it on your own. “

“Oh I am not asking for the secret I’m asking for a demonstration.  Can you put them on and escape?’

“Uhm no, sorry I’m not comfortable with that.”

“Why, I’m not going to buy something unless I know it works.”

“Well I understand that, and I would be happy to show you the handcuffs themselves that they are real, and they come with instructions that just about guarantees they work. But am I going to handcuff myself with real double lock handcuffs? No.”

“Why not?”

“No offence but I have no idea who you are and I really think I am going to have a hard time explaining to the police, the insurance company, my family and friends that I was robbed because I voluntarily handcuffed myself  because a ‘customer’ asked me too.”

In the end I figured he really was interested in the escapes because he did buy something called a shackle escape because I was able to demonstrate that one without the fear of actually being locked in.

The video that follows is me performing Mental Photo.  First time recording myself, well my wife recorded me doing a magic trick.  We shot it in one take with no editing at all, so beware it is raw footage. Oh that scratching noise you hear in the background?  Thats a cat using the litter box. 

I should add, if you are interested in learning this effect it is available at www.perfectmagic.com.  Tell them you saw it here first and you will still get charged full price.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVZ9-I08-k0

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Keeping It Kosher, Kashrut Style

Posted in Being Jewish, Lifes Observations, tagged , , , , , , on August 2, 2011| 3 Comments »

We wandered the dessert for forty years!  We literally, with whips to our backs built the Pyramids.  We sacrificed our lives on Masada rather than being forced to live under a system that went against our covenant with God.  We cannot eat bacon.  Our homeland is surrounded by people who would just as soon drive us into the sea rather than acknowledge our right to exist.  Our male children are circumcised…Whaa, back the truck up!  We cannot eat bacon?  Why? Why can’t we eat bacon?

I’ll tell you why, because we are Jewish, because we follow kashrut the Jewish law that deals with what we can and cannot eat.  Kashrut comes from Kaf-Shin-Reish meaning fit, proper or correct.  Food that meets the criteria is considered Kosher.  Bacon my friends, is not kosher!

So what exactly is Kosher?  According to the Torah (first five books of the bible which in a broad sense covers the entire body of Jewish teachings) land animals that have cloven hooves and chew their cud may be eaten. If the animal does not have these two qualities it is forbidden.  Pigs, badgers, monkeys, camels, rats and rabbits are out.  Cows, deer, goats, bison are in.

If they live in the sea you can eat it if it has fins and scales. Fish and mermaids are in. Catfish and shellfish are out.  Do you know what catfish and shellfish eat?  They eat the kosher fish’s poop!  So you tell me, which would you rather?

If they are birds:  Birds of prey and scavengers are out. Chickens, ducks and Turkey are in.  However some Jews tend to avoid turkey because,( and I don’t understand this at all but) at the time of the giving of the Torah we didn’t know about turkeys.  I would have thought God would have had all this figured out.

Of the winged swarming things (winged insects) there are a few that are allowed, however the Sages are not sure which ones they are so just to be safe we’ve outlawed them all, thank God.  However there was that time on my bicycle…

Rodents, reptiles, amphibians and insects? We don’t eat them.

Just because the animal is part of the ‘in’ crowd does not automatically make it kosher.  That would be far too easy.  The food in question cannot have died of natural causes, or killed by another animal. which means we must murder the animal.  Further, the animal must be free of disease or flaws in the organs at the time of slaughter. I know this may surprise you, but it doesn’t end there either.

The slaughter must be done according to a Jewish ritual of shechitah and the one who performs the ritual is the schochet.  This is not be confused with a schlemiel and a schamozzel  (a schlemiel is the guy who spills the soup, the schamozzel is the guy who the soup is spilled on). According to the Torah the soul lies in the blood.  Therefore all the blood must be drained from the animal at the time of slaughter.

Just because an animal meets all the above criteria does not mean all of the animal is kosher, for example we do not eat the back end of animals, which means I don’t have ever worry about eating a cows ass.  Think about it.  Nor do we mix meat and dairy products.  Heck we don’t even mix the dishes, meat gets one set, dairy gets the other. I couldn’t possibly make this stuff up. Not only that, Really good Jews have seperate dishwashers!

The above is by no means a comprehensive lesson in the laws of Kashrut. If you are truly interested you can always ask Google! 

The question, when starting this post was why do we keep kosher?  There are many theories, but when push comes to shove there is only one reason why we keep kosher.  The most common theory is health.  There are health benefits, the fact that the animal must be clean and healthy at the time of slaughter or how about the idea that scientists are finding that eating meat and dairy together often interferes with digestion. But health is not the reason.  

There are economic and environmental theories, for example the amount of food a pig consumes is disproportional to its value as a food source.  The camel is/was much more useful as a beast of burden, (it can carry a lot of stuff) than it was as a food source.   Good reasons, but not the reason.

The reason is much simpler.  Jews keep kosher is because the Torah tells us too.  Except for the draining of the blood the reasons of Kashrut are not explained.  We keep kosher because that is our covenant with God and we don’t question God.

I am not a very religious person.  I can’t even tell you I believe in God. But I am Jewish and proud of being Jewish and I am trying to understand my heritage/history because I believe it to be important.  For me the number one reason to keep kosher, or at least to understand kosher is simple because a Jew who observes (or at least understands and recognizes) the laws of kashrut cannot eat a meal without being reminded of the fact that he or she is a Jew.

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162 Posts And What Have I Learned

Posted in Lifes Observations, tagged , , , on July 24, 2011| 3 Comments »

When I started this blog every 10 posts I wrote an ‘introspective’ for lack of another word.  It has been awhile so I figured I would try another.

What have I learned/observed?

1)      People like to read my lessons on Jewish holidays.   While my favorite such post, (there have only been two) was about Chanukkah, it gave me a new found respect for what it is to be Jewish.  You readers on the other hand seem to like the one about Passover.

2)      I’ve written one post at somebody else’s suggestion.  It was not a pleasant experience so while I am open to suggestions, I’m a little gun shy on the whole concept.

3)      If you are going to write a fictional piece, it may be best to create another page for that purpose. The post generated a lot of questions.  The bulk of the story is true.  The only part I made up was the very end.   Since writing that post I have learned that most of the locals do believe the Avondale is haunted, but I made the ghost part up.  When we drove up to the Avondale there were two grizzly men, but one got in a pickup truck, the other got on a motorcycle and they both drove away.  There was no picture of George on the wall.

4)      I learned how to post stuff on YouTube and since then I’ve learned how to embed them on my page.  Now I have to come up with more video.

5)      Foxes are really beautiful animals. Elephants are still my favorite.

6)      One of my most popular posts had to do with a conversation between my mother and myself.  It seems a lot of people identified with it, I’d like to say the conversation was unique, but really it was just normal for my family.

7)      I may suffer from a little road rage.

8)      With some of our pets getting older I am dreading the next few years and the decisions that are going to have to be made.  After the passing of Maya I am finding that ‘dreading’ is to light a word.

9)      Never take air-conditioning for granted, we would have never survived this last week without it.  At the moment I love my air-conditioning almost as much as I love my Garmin.

10)     I still stand by my previous lessons learned.

11)     I feel a little bad about punching Ant because he was just doing what wasps do.  Now I check the van before I start it up.

13)    The most common phrase that people type into a search engine and find my blog is ‘mouse poop’  I find it a little worriesome that people are typing ‘mouse poop’ into a search engine.

14)    I don’t care what people say, possums or o’possums are really cute.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LLxTLnDMyU

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I’ll Pick You Up

Posted in Lifes Observations, tagged , , , on July 23, 2011| 1 Comment »

My wife and I are a one car family.  We both work the same hours which means one person gets to work early and leaves late.  After looking at all the facts it was decided that logically it made more sense for me to take the car.  By logically I mean that in the winter I would have to scrape the snow and ice off the car and by the time I arrive at her work the car would be toasty warm.  And in the summer I would get to deal with a car that feels like an easy bake oven, but by the time I get to my wife’s lab the car is nice and cool.

The other day my wife wasn’t feeling so well so she made an appointment with the doctor which means she had to take the car. She dropped me off at work and said she would call me after her doctor’s appointment.  A few hours later my phone rings.  The display on my phone says ‘car’ along with a picture of my dashboard.  We have OnStar so our car does have its own phone number so I list it that way in my phone.  The conversation went something like this, and please keep in mind my wife really wasn’t feeling well.

Me: “So what did the doctor say?”

Wife: “As I thought, I have an infection in my throat, but I’m going to work anyway seeing as I don’t have a fever and I am not contagious.”

Me: “Well at least you don’t have a fever, so did you get any good drugs?”

Wife: “Not really just some antibiotics which you will have to pick up before you pick me up.”

Beat

Me: “Before I pick you up?”

Wife: “Yes from the Walmart right by your work, the usual place,”

Me: pulling my phone from my ear so I could look at the display, yup she was calling from the car, “uhm, I don’t think I can pick you up today.

Beat…then chuckling on the other end of the line

Wife: “Well I told you I wasn’t feeling well”

Me: “Well at least you have provided me some material for my next blog!”

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