Taking a Break

To all my happy readers.

I'm taking a break from blogging at the moment. Lots of reasons....
I'm busy with many other projects (Thank God) with little time to blog.
In addition, after two years of this project, it may just be time to move along.
I also have my Melachim Blog to complete (link).
I am also planning to put up a website with all my parsha shiurim (at long last!)

Anyhow, I am taking a summer break, and will decide in the Fall, whether to resume the blog. Please be in touch, and check back around the Chagim/ mid-September for an update.


Shalom!
Alex

A Fabulous Israel Story

David Bogner over at Treppenwitz blog is a tremendous story teller. However in his recent post about a taxi ride from Beer Sheva to Gush Etzion (via Ma'arat Hamachpela) he exceded himself. It really is one of those "Only in Israel" classics.

Read it here (link)

Technology Woes

Yes - You might have noticed that I am barely blogging. No. Nothing is wrong. In fact I have a ton of thoughts on the Israeli constitution, the Annapolis Conference, Global Warming, and what have you. I have lots of blogs in my mind. But no time to write.

Why - you may ask? I am crazy busy. I am also barely sleeping. And I will tell you the reason. Yes Doctor, I have a problem with my bandwidth.

The story started when I agreed to give webcasts for Torah in Motion, a wonderful intelligent Torah organisation in Toronto. To use the technology,I had to upgrade my bandwidth. That's fine.

I called the phone company, and my Internet provider to upgrade. They told me that it needs requested in writing signed and faxed. "Faxed? But I don't own a fax! Can I use email?? - No! Only Fax. So fine, I used the neighbours fax. 24hrs passed. No upgrade was evident. I called them. "We didn't get it. Fax it gain!" they said. I had to fax it in 3 times.

That was 10 days ago!

I'll cut a long story short. They upgraded. My uploading is fine. My downloading is faster than the standard (yipee!) BUT there is still some problem with my video connection. It freezes and delays and is non-functional and I have spent at least 20 hours on the phone to Barak (the Internet provider), Bezek and you name it! Every evening I have been on the phone for hours (yes, hours!) with the techie people and crawling on the floor reconnecting wires and modems and what have you. It has totally absorbed all my blogging time, sleep time, class preparation time, and my sanity!!!!

At last, today they are sending a technician! Now they are saying that it may be the modem, or the phone connections in my house.

I am actually really looking forward to my webcast (this evening) but technology is driving me nuts.

And boy - do I hate those automatic call systems they are simply infuriating!

One of the frustrations of technology mess-ups is the feeling of helplessness. If my bicycle breaks, I know what is wrong even if I cannot fix it. My vacuum cleaner broke, so I opened it and I could at least diagnose where the problem was. But with computers, it is all a black box. I haven't the first clue how the Internet works, never mind how my computer could be experiencing a download/upload problem.

But let's look at the bright side.
I know what ping is.
I know how to do a trace to an address on my computer.
I have some idea about PPoE and routers and modems and bandwidth.

It is all a learning process (sigh!) I guess.

I'll be back soon!

-alex

Television, the Internet and Bittul Zman!

When we got married, I told my wife that I didn't want to buy a T.V. It wasn't so much a religious decision but rather a practical one. You see, I have a very good track record of wasting vast amounts of time in front of televisions. I have years of experience at it, throughout my High School years and even during college. I can watch almost anything. Bad quality never used to be much of a deterrent. Something about the passive entertainment is just great for me. I love it. But it is such an awful waste of time. I didn't want to spend hours and hours just wasting time watching nothing particularly significant on the T.V.

A further T.V. anti-social habit is that I frequently spend time with the remote just switching back and forth between channels. It is as if one thinks that if I switch over there may just be something better. But in fact, one eventually turns off the T.V. with an empty feeling having spend far too much time watching absolutely nothing. (In the end, we did buy a T.V. which I barely watch, but that is another story.)

Why do I mention this? Because I do fear that the Internet has taken all those negative habits and now, I surf for hours , switching back and forth and it is wasting a great amount of my time. I flick back and forth between sites as if there might be something that I haven't seen yet. It is as if I am expecting the computer sites to thrill or entertain me. I could be learning pages of Gemara and instead I am reading the NY times or the weather or who knows what??

The problem of wasting time on the internet is compounded because I do use the computer to prepare classes, both typing notes and worksheets but also using the internet as a research tool. So I don't want to be offline. But then I just wander around my favourites list and other links, blogs and what have you. I just waste a phenomenal amount of time. The computer should be a tool that we control, not a machine that controls us.

What is to be done? Am I an internet addict? How does one cure oneself? Can I exhibit self-control? Should I move my computer out of my study? Are there any good rules out there to help a person restrain oneself from endlessly being attatched to being online? hmmm!

Something must be done!