How GPS will battle

On our trip to Italy, we decided to take with us a GPS - provided by an Israeli company and loaded especially for Italy. We could have rented a GPS with the rental car in Rome, but there is something special about a female Hebrew voice treating your vain attempts at following her instructions with thinly veiled ridicule. We actually thought, for some unexplained reason, that following directions in Hebrew would be simpler. Even though it is a well known fact that if you ask three Israelis how to get to the same place, they will give you three completely different directions.

The first day in Italy, after our flight arrived late in the evening in Rome and we had picked up our rental car, we didn't have time to set up the GPS and depended on our wits alone upon getting to the hotel we had booked for the night. This was one of the few times we reached our destination with no problem whatsoever.

The next day we powered up the GPS, set our destination coordinates and set out.

Now, I haven't had much experience with a GPS, but Adva has. And except for the time that it tried to drive her off of the Jaffa port into the Mediterranean, she has had little to complain about. So, being quite trustworthy, we left the main highway (A12 / E80) at Ladispoli for the scenic route (SS1), as we headed north.
"The GPS will pick up the change," Adva said, in total innocence.
At the time, we didn't know that a GPS will do everything to keep you on the quickest route to your destination. It treated the concept of a scenic route  or preferred side road with much disdain.

So we got off the highway headed west for the SS1. Our suspicions should have been first aroused when the GPS instructed us to take the fourth exit from the roundabout, sending us back in the opposite direction on the same road we had been on. A mistake, we thought. So we turned back around, ignored its repeated command to take the fourth exit at the roundabout and headed on. This definitely irked our GPS Hebrew speaker.
"In 100 metres, turn left!" she exclaimed.
Still trustworthy, we obediently did so and ended up following a garbage truck down what could only be called a cow trail.
"I will get out the Waze," Adva said.
The Waze is an Israeli invention which offers the best way to get from one point to another, taking into account traffic congestion, police traffic checkpoints, etc. As I continued down the cow trail and was instructed to turn onto another dirt road, the Waze became alive and another voice joined the melee.
"In another 100 metres, turn left," the Waze voice announced.
"In another 100 metres, turn right," the lady on the Israeli GPS countered.
"What am I supposed to do?" I shouted in desperation.
"I don't know!" Adva exclaimed. "Go straight!"

In short, we gave up on the scenic route and allowed ourselves to be taken back onto the highway. The GPS had clearly thought that it had won, but it didn't realize that we were putting together a counter strategy.

About an hour later, we bravely left the highway again and set out onto the side roads. Adva quickly fell in love with the squiggly lines on the map, representing roads with a maze of bends in the road and hills where you were constantly shifting in and out of gear. The GPS, in its rather sinister sense of humour, appeared to also enjoy the squiggly roads and was content in letting me struggle with them as long as I wanted. By mid afternoon, the GPS was doing quite well, getting things right about 70% of the time - and only sending us in circles the other 30%. In  the end, we closed in on our B&B destination on the outskirts of Certaldo, but somehow both the GPS and the Waze couldn't get us directly to our target. Finally, stranded on a narrow road, an Italian woman on a bicycle graciously led us to our destination - despite the protest of both the woman on the GPS and the woman on the Waze.

"We just have to learn how to properly put in our destination," Adva said later over a glass of wine.
I merely nodded, knowing quite well that the GPS and I would be constantly at odds with each other with Adva in the middle. But the next day, as we stopped at different places in Tuscany for wine tastings, I gradually became much more forgiving of the GPS as well. As for the Waze, it was safely tucked away as we couldn't stand their bickering anymore.

But there came a point when even Adva could no longer award the GPS the benefit of the doubt. We had reached our second abode of accommodation - a farmhouse beautifully set out in the middle of a large vineyard about a ten minute drive from the town of Valiano. To get to the farmhouse from the main road, we had to drive up a long dirt path. The next morning, Adva set up our destination for the day on the GPS and we started driving down the dirt path towards the main road.
"In another 200 metres, make a U-turn," the woman on the GPS stated politely.
"What!" Adva said.
"In another 100 metres, make a U-turn," the voice said with increased authority.
"You've got to be kidding," I said.
"Make a U-turn now!" the woman exclaimed, as we reached the main road.
"Yeah, right," I said and turned right in the direction of Valiano.
After a couple of minutes, the woman conceded.
"In another eight kilometres, turn right," she said.
"She probably just got mixed up," Adva said, in her last attempt to forgive the GPS the errors of its way.

But the next morning, as we started down the dirt path towards the main road, we heard -
"In another 200 metres, make a U-turn."
And so this continued each day, for the four days that we stayed there.

But towards the end of our trip, we realized that the GPS was simply a part of the whole adventure.
"They say that the best thing is to get lost in Tuscany," Adva said.
And we did that quite well with the help of our GPS friend. So maybe we should thank her.

Ode to a fallen tree

A tree once so tall and  mighty
stood proudly before our front door
its shade protected us from the summer sun
its leaves and branches calmed winter winds

Birds fed off its berries
entertaining us with their early song
in spring its buds turned into beautiful flowers
where people gathered to share their awe

A black cat which long ago adopted us
climbed its branches in search of prey
but usually settled into a comfortable perch
casting a sleepy eye over the world below

From behind its branches we could hear laughter
of children from across the way
playing on the grass below
just as our own children played so many years before

And then early one day
the morning of the Eve of Rosh Hashana
we heard a loud crack
and then silence, no birds chirping more

Looking out the front
the world had changed before our eyes
our proud mighty friend
had collapsed and died

Stretched out on the lawn before us
in a great heap of broken roots and branches
the birds had flown away
and the cat was nowhere to be found

Tipping our hats
and paying our last respect
the saw began to hum
as we slowly cut the limbs away

Working all morning
through a maze of twisted branches
and solid trunk
we carried the last remains to a new resting ground

But people still stop in awe
to gaze at where the majestic tree once stood
for in its absence
its space it still fills

When will Israelis get a real weekend?

One of the first things I had to get used to in living and working in Israel was the fact that Sunday is the first work day of the week. Sunday is actually called Yom Rishon ("First Day") in Hebrew. When it comes to naming the days, Hebrew is quite sensible:

• Yom Rishon ("First Day") [Sunday]
• Yom Sheni ("Second Day") [Monday]
• Yom Shlishi ("Third Day") [Tuesday]
• Yom Revy-ee ("Fourth Day") [Wednesday]
• Yom Chamishi ("Fifth Day") [Thursday]
• Yom Shishi ("Sixth Day") [Friday]
• Shabbat (the "Sabbath"- day of rest) [Saturday]

As you can see, the names are quite practical and straightforward. No messing around with borrowing from the gods, celestial bodies, or whatever. The formula is quite simple - name the day by its number in the week. Except for the seventh day. It had to be different:
And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation.
And so the seventh day was given the name Shabbat (the day of rest).

But things didn't stop here. Not only was Sunday the first work day of the week, Israelis also seemed to have never heard of a two day weekend. They should be given credit, though, for coming up with the whole concept of a day of rest, far before others. The Romans didn't come up with the idea until the year 321, when the Roman Emperor Constantine declared the dies solis (Day of the Sun) [Sunday] an official Roman day of rest. And another twenty centuries would pass until the Western world came up with the idea of the two day weekend. Apparently this was first instituted by a New England cotton mill which wanted to allow its Jewish workers to adhere to their own religious Sabbath. Ironically, it was Henry Ford (who was considered by many to be an ardent Anti-Semite) who, in 1926, was among the first to standardize the two day weekend, shutting down his automotive factories for all of Saturday and Sunday, while still paying his workers the same wages. As for Israelis - "If the one day of rest was good enough for our forefathers..." - well, you get the message.

I may have adapted better to this one day weekend in Israel had it not been for the fact that there were no buses on Saturdays (you couldn't go anywhere unless you had your own car), no stores were open (no opportunity to plan shopping for the end of the week when you actually had the time), and no television (no afternoon ball games on the tube). If  you were an observant Jew, this worked out just find. But if you were secular, you really did want to have the right of choice.

And if all this weren't enough, I was rudely introduced to the seven day work week. Yes, you heard me right. And no, this isn't something that came straight out of a Charles Dickens novel, although it might have.

I should clarify here that the seven day work week was not something common to all Israeli society. Rather, it was an essential part of the kibbutz way of life: the dreaded toranut. Back in the days when most of the kibbutzim were still communal in  nature, kibbutz members took turns in working in essential services on the Sabbath - services such as the communal dining room, children houses, milking and feeding the cows. Which meant that every three or four weeks, you didn't have a weekend.

Now, I don't think I have to tell you how important the weekend is to maintaining our sanity. Already by midweek, the promise of the approaching weekend keeps us going. And when the weekend arrives, we heave a huge sigh of relief and lapse into denial for two days. No matter how bad the week has been, things suddenly get better. But when the weekend is taken from you  - even the one day with such limited opportunities as the Israeli weekend - one is prone to enter into the pits of despair. There is nothing to hold onto to keep you going during the week. I kept telling myself that this was my choice, that this was an integral part of maintaining a communal way of life, but I could never get used to it.

Things have changed since then. The cows have been sold, the children now live at home with their parents, kibbutz members no longer go to eat in the dining room... and somewhere along the line we decided to leave the kibbutz. Sometime after that the kibbutz was privatized. Meanwhile, Israelis unofficially got a two day weekend. I say unofficially as the schools are still open six days a week, as are many businesses. But most people are now taking the Friday off, as well (which has always been a half-day workday in any case, as people are given time to welcome in the Sabbath which begins at sunset on Fridays).

But voices are beginning to be heard that are calling for more. Silvan Shalom, an Israeli government minister, has suggested making the two day weekend an official one - with people having Saturday and Sunday off. And Friday would be  a work day until noon. This would enable schools to move to a five day week and it would also be easier for the Israeli business community to coordinate things with business communities around the world whose weekend is Saturday and Sunday.

And most of all, as Silvan has been reported as saying:
"It is time Israelis got a real weekend."

The loneliness of a long distance writer

Loneliness is a state of mind. You need not be alone to feel lonely. Nor do you need to feel lonely if you are alone. Perhaps the greatest loneliness is not in living thousands of miles from the people closest to you, but in being surrounded by people every day who seem so far away.

A writer should write about what he knows. Or so the saying goes. Perhaps this could be worded differently.  A writer should write about the things that he yearns for, but are always just out of reach. Running the marathon of his own emotion and lack of experience. There will always be something missing.

It's a question of maturity, I suppose. Wine gets better as it ages. But should we really compare ourselves to wine? Perhaps we are more like water, which evaporates.

How can there be loneliness in writing when you are reaching out and speaking to the world? Instead of keeping your most intimate thoughts to yourself, you are sharing them with strangers, with little knowledge or control as to where they may finally end up. True, you may clothe it as a fictional account, leaving it to your readers to guess where you are in all of this. But when it comes down to it, it is all you. And when you have finished writing, you are just another stranger reading the words, wondering who this writer may be, hidden between the lines on a page with no ending and no beginning.

I once thought that the loneliest part of writing was in the writing, itself. But I have slowly come to realize that it is in the emptiness and echoes which follow. It distances you from others, rather than bringing them closer. You have set out by yourself on a long and sometimes treacherous journey, but for them it is as if you never left. And the more you write, the less they know you.

What is it that a writer and a long distance runner have in common? Is it the distance we must travel? The pain and anguish in getting there? Or the loneliness which encases us in our solitary cell, moving almost unnoticed among the others until we reach the finish line. Even then, we may disappear into a sea of faces. But our journey has been recorded. Whether or not this has meaning for others, it surely must have some meaning for ourselves.

Yet there is no finish in writing. Just as the long distance runner never stops running - even if his body betrays him and he continues running only in his mind. Although at times we become so tired, we wonder what would happen if we simply stopped.

I can't imagine stopping, for I can't imagine living without even the echoes.

Sir Andy Murray and Dame Kim Sears

So, that's it. After a 77 year drought, Andy Murray - the bad boy from Scotland who once said, "I'll be supporting anyone but England." (referring to the 2006 World Cup) - has won Wimbledon for the Brits, and brought back that old English pride.

Much credit has been given to his girlfriend of many years - Kim Sears. She not only led him to leave behind his reckless boyish behavior and become a more mature representative of the United Kingdom, but she is also credited for the increasing maturity in his play - being viewed as the rock of his success in the tennis world. During the Wimbledon final, the camera didn't seem able to get enough of her, panning back and forth between her - in her Victoria Beckham designed dress - to the play on the court. Some may feel that she didn't warrant such exposure, but I admit that I found her stunning and I enjoyed every minute that the camera zoomed in on her. Her facial expressions, in watching Andy Murray struggle towards his place in history, were as much a part of the spectacle as anything else Actually, the last woman I found so stunning was Kate Middleton. Both women appear to have captured our imagination, bringing back the magic to a jaded empire: each regal in her own way. And there is already talk of Andy Murray being knighted. He, himself, has stated that he doesn't think this victory deserves such an honour, but millions of Britains appear to disagree.

But I may be jumping the gun here. Andy and Kim aren't even married. Apparently they are also not talking about marriage, at least Andy isn't. Before the beginning of the Wimbledon final, bookies offered 66/1 odds on Andy proposing to Kim at some point during the Wimbledon final. After his Wimbledon final victory, the bookies slashed the odds, now offering 8/11 odds on Andy proposing to Kim before the start of Wimbledon next year.

But let's give Andy and Kim a bit of a breather, eh, and let them enjoy some deserved privacy in their six bedroom mansion. Back to the world of tennis, and a little bit more about women and tennis.

During my teenage years, I used to play tennis with one of my best friends - let's call  him Greg (in order to protect the seemingly innocent). This wasn't as simple as it sounds. Tennis was in no way popular then as it is now. Greg and I had to actually ride on our one speed bikes for miles (at the time we still used miles) to reach the nearest public tennis courts  (down by Birchmount and Kingston Road, for the Torontonians among you). I think we put more energy in getting there and back than in the tennis, itself. But we had a lot of fun. Those were the days of Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Margaret Court and Billie Jean King - with Bjorn Borg bringing in the new age. Like most kids,  we imagined ourselves to be Laver or Rosewall out there on the court, but we never kidded ourselves into believing that we could be anything nearly as good - much in the same way we knew we could never emulate a Rocket Richard, Jean Beliveau or Johnny Bower (hockey heroes, for those of you who are clueless).

Oh yes, I promised you something about women and tennis. Well, Greg and I didn't get into tennis because of women. I don't think girls were even on our mind when we started playing tennis.But later in our teenage years, Greg and I started going on double dates. Safety in numbers. You know what they say. Anyway, we discovered that our best double dates were when we went out with two girls to play tennis. Perhaps because we didn't have to talk much. (Greg and I had the habit of finishing each other's sentences, which drove the girls crazy). I mean, how much trouble can you get into playing tennis? Unlike taking two girls to see "Love Story". A bit of advice to you guys out there - never laugh at a movie when your date has taken out a tissue and is sobbing profusely into it. And beware of girls like M who believe that the perfect double date is going out with both of you at the same time. One of you is going to get dumped in the end. And it wasn't Greg.

But we couldn't depend on double dating and tennis to save us for too long. One day you are bound to find yourself standing there without a tennis racquet, and A is crying. That is another thing about doubles. One partner goes and the other leaves the game also. At least that was the case with R. Paul... I mean Greg (where is the backspace on this thing) never forgave me for that. I am not sure whether it was because he lost R as a date or as a very good tennis partner. (Which is harder to find, do you think?)

I didn't do too well with girls and tennis after that. Perhaps it was because I set my sights too high. I would never go out on a second date with a girl who didn't like tennis and Monty Python - a lethal combination. I remember watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail with X. She didn't even laugh once. And I didn't see any point in giving her a chance to prove herself on the court, after that. But I don't think she left that broken up.

Now, I don't know if Kim Sears even plays tennis. But I am less rigid now and would suffice with her watching me play with that special adoration in her eyes which until now has been reserved only for Andy. And I'm sure she loves Monty Python. You can tell just by looking into her eyes.

Working our way backwards through time

Will Google glasses one day allow us to relive past moments? Walk down a street, click (blink) on a date and observe all that happened at that point in time and space? Is this really that far fetched? And if we can go that far, why not a time machine that allows us to become active participants in past events? Yes, I am aware of the argument of logistics. If we can go back in the past and change something, then the present will change also. But if so, then it must have already happened. It must have already happened.

But what if logistics is simply our excuse for not being able to break out of the confines of our present level of comprehension. Logistics once seemingly proved that the world was flat. And there was a time when no one would have even conceived of the possibility of the light bulb, let alone the computer. Each generation appeared to entertain the smug belief that the greatest possible enlightenment had already been achieved.

Inventions reached their limit long ago, and I see no hope for further development. ~ Julius Frontinus, 1st century A.D.

Everything that can be invented has been invented. ~ Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899,

Is time travel another electric light bulb waiting to happen?

Let's borrow from the world of computers in order to offer one possible theory of time travel. Computer systems have a backup utility which allows us to go back and restore our system from a restore point in the past. This is particularly useful when something corrupts the present and we prefer to return to an earlier point and start over, erasing everything from that point on, as if it had never happened. Apple even calls their MAC backup utility - the Time Machine.

Tempting, eh? Start over again from an earlier point in our lives.

I suggest something similar in time travel, but with a significant twist. The restore point is only created when a time traveler goes back to a specific point in the past and does something that will change that world in some way.

"You are about to change this world. Click save to accept, or cancel to cancel. Warning: this change is irreversible and you will lose all future data."

But wait! Before you go back and present your old self with Sports Almanac so as to become rich through gambling - as Biff did in Back to the Future - you must realize that any change that you inflict will not affect the world that you go back to. Rather, you will have created a parallel world with a different future from that point on. Would there be any point, then, in making a variant of yourself rich in another world? A world whose future you cannot witness? Or would this be similar to wanting to leave a legacy for your children? You will not witness the effect of your legacy after you are dead, either.

Now some of you may claim that the universe cannot house an infinite number of parallel worlds. Yet you don't appear to have a problem with the millions of new souls that are born into the universe every day - each new soul with a new consciousness, sending bouncing thought waves everywhere. Others among you may worry about the ever-increasing possibility of meeting yourselves coming and going. It may just take one errant wormhole and there you are, standing in front of  yourself face to face. Do you recognize your other? Is this a meeting of matter and anti-matter, which will perhaps cause the universe to explode, or implode?

I can see some of you looking for the price tag. Sounds promising, but what is the cost? The going price of a ticket for space travel is $250,000. Can we expect time travel to be in the same ball park?

Word on the street has it that not only does such a machine exist, but that it is in the hands of Google. And word on a Tel Aviv street corner will tell you that it was originally an Israeli startup. The last thing I heard is that Google is looking for beta testers. Any takers? Here is your chance to try out time travel for no cost. You may disappear into a black hole somewhere, but hey, we'd still be back contemplating the wheel if we weren't ready to take chances. Will Google be willing to add this to the Google+ profile, depending on advertising alone for monetary benefit? Will this be the straw that breaks Facebook's back? How long will it take Microsoft to clone the invention, somehow side stepping patent law?

What good is it then, if we can't go back and help avert calamities and foolish decisions, both for the benefit of mankind and the benefit of ourselves? Maybe it is time for us to simply accept the past as something that can't be changed, at least not in this world. At the most, we can try to understand it better, and through this understanding make the world a better place. The best place is to start with ourselves. Too many of us keep repeating the same mistakes.

So, if you were offered the opportunity to go back in a time machine, what part of your past life would you choose to visit - for whatever reason?

Oh, I forgot to tell you. You can only go back as an active participant to some point in your past life. You can't interactively visit someone else's life, or interactively visit a point in the past before you were born. However, you can go back as observer only, to any point in the past. This is definitely one up on reality shows and will definitely change our conception of history. They say that history is written by the victors, but here we have our own direct line to the past.

If I were to go back in the past, I'd choose the sixties. Why? That will have to wait for another blog posting. Right now the ink in my pen is running dry, and the more that I write - the greater the chance that I will meet myself coming and going.

Facebook status: Grandparent

My daughter in-law, Sharon (with significant help from my son, Noam) gave birth to a beautiful baby boy and I am now a grandfather. Adva and I are still getting used to this new status. Grandparents... wow!

Soon after being told the news,, a picture of the baby - taken with an iPhone - appeared in Adva's inbox.
"Come see the picture of the baby!" Adva called out to me.
"Wow," I exclaimed, looking proudly at my grandson.
"But Noam said that this is only for us privately," she added.
"Oh, you mean..."
"No facebook," Adva said, dejectedly.
It took us a while to digest all of this.
"Well, I need to change my facebook status," Adva said.
"Yes," I nodded, "I hadn't thought of that."
I went into facebook to make the change in status which would be broadcast to the world.
"You know what?" I called back to Adva.
"What?"
"You can't change your status to grandparent in facebook. When it comes to - in a relationship - it can only be something like: single, married, it's complicated."
"Really!"
You'd think facebook would have thought of that. Here is a major event in our lives and facebook doesn't even have a place to mark our new status (or would that be an addition in status.)
"Well, I'm going to write something in the status box at the top of my page," I called out to Adva, now that she had got me going.
"I'll probably wait and write something this evening," she called back.
So I announced to the facebook world (or more exactly, to my facebook friends) that I am now a grandfather.

Soon after that, pings began to sound from my computer, somewhat like popcorn seeds beginning to pop.
"What are those sounds?" Adva asked me.
"People commenting on my announcement of being a grandfather, I suppose," I answered.
"Oh," Adva answered, and then she disappeared.
A little later, suspicious as to her whereabouts, I went into her facebook page. There she eloquently expressed her joy in being a grandparent. She already had over 50 likes. Hmm...

A day passed and we received more pictures, but still with no permission to put them up on our facebook pages.
"I think Noam and Sharon are punishing us," I said to Adva.
"Why?"
"For putting their wedding pictures up on facebook without permission."
"That was a long time ago."
"Lloyds know how to hold a grudge." I said.

Fade out to Noam and Sharon's house, where they sit looking at wedding pictures on Noam's parents' facebook pages.
"We are going to have to do something about my parents," Noam said. "They are becoming incorrigible."
"Maybe we should cut off their facebook access," Sharon said.

The evening of the second day, after arriving home from the hospital, and sending pictures of the baby to relatives (that we did have permission for), Adva asked me, ever so nonchalantly.
"How many likes do you have on your announcement?"
"Likes? What, are we in a competition?" I asked.
"No, just wondering."
"Let me check." I went into my facebook page. "47 likes and 31 comments. How many do you have?" I asked suspiciously.
"Oh, I don't know," she answered, trying to sound a little aloof, "I would say, offhand, about 84 likes and 57 comments."
I tried not to let my sulking appear too evident. The thing was, I needed a good picture of the baby to get things moving again. Maybe if one appeared innocently on my facebook page from an anonymous source. No, Noam and Sharon would never buy that excuse.

Now, don't jump to the conclusion that after 30+ years of marriage, Adva and I are in a competition for public recognition. That would be just sad. Mainly because I'd have little chance of winning. Despite my wide presence on the Internet with all of the initiatives that I have started and developed, when it comes down to it, Adva has the contacts. I mean, she even had our President Shimon Peres personally autograph his biography (in English) for my mother (my mother is a huge Shimon Peres fan).
"That was nice of Adva," my mother said. "Do you know Shimon Peres also?"
"No, but Adva introduced me to him, once."
"Hmm...."

But now that we are grandparents, Adva and I must start behaving ourselves and acting our age... well, let's just say, start behaving ourselves. Otherwise, Noam and Sharon may not let us babysit our new grandson.