The countdown begins!

In these last few hours before my wings of steel bring me back to the family and Holy Land, I’ve had little time to reflect upon what it is I am actually doing.

I’m about to get on a plane, a little larger than the ones I’ve been jumping out of, and it’s going to hurtle itself into the sky, thanks to years of design, trial and error, aerodynamics, and lots and lots of fuel.

Incredible what we can do, huh?

Last night, a friend of mine, Gadi, sent me a quick message that he’s in town, and I popped over to his hotel, and we went out for a couple of drinks and something to chow.

Amongst the MANY things we talked about – because it’s always FUN to talk to other people that have hobbies and pastimes that they are passionate about – was him taking an interest in understanding body language. We discussed different aspects of it – him from his more educated position, and me from my if-I-can-make-this-sound-good-it-might-be-true position.

It was interesting to discover that one of the books he’s read approaches body language from a “pick-up” perspective – how to use what you know to help you pick up chicks.

Discussing this brought me to the fact that I am one of those “few”, fearful of rejection, therefore firmly staying within my comfort zone where I know I rule, can be awesome and never have to worry.

A couple of weeks ago, a bunch of us went out to a bar, after a company function, and an attractive gal was part of the group, whom I had never met before. She seemed a little reserved, so I jumped in, opened the floor, and we got to discussing about thirty different subjects, all in a fun mess.

Off to the side, my friend from the office is making huge gestures that even a blind man could understand that she is telling me that “she’s into you, ask her out!!!” (with exclamation points, as well.)

I immediately try to figure out how, why, when, wherefore, who???!, and cannot broach the subject at all.

Another half hour goes by, and my friend pulls me aside, and almost dictates my next lines, and I ask her, (with absolutely no sleaze in my tone) “I know you’re heading out of the city tomorrow noon, would you like to grab some breakfast/brunch before you go?” (The sleaze bit is for a friend I told the story to, and he commented, “It kinda sounds like you were mentioning the ‘What kind of eggs do you like?’ line” Which I wasn’t.)

She stutters out some lame excuse, turns cold, and takes three steps back.

I, figuring that “that was that”, head back to the bar and down another drink.

Anyways, no matter the outcome, I learned something important. No matter what happened, I am still walking around, still living, and it’s no big deal.

So thank you, my friend, for encouraging me to step outside, and feel the weather. I think I might just do it again.

Athleticism is for those that have the desire to be athletic

In recent times, I have posted about attempting to lose weight, work out more, be more physically active and such, but I recently was asked if I would like to join a proper league.

Now, the person asking this is a very physically active friend. He’s a snowboarding instructor, plays football, volleyball, used to play dodgeball, and probably a few other sports, too.

Oh, and we skydive together

Now, he’s asked before if I was interested in joining in the aforementioned sports, but my response has typically been some stupid excuse: “I might hurt myself”, “I’m in horrible shape” and more.

But when he asked me about this sport, I had to take pause and think about it. Yes, that’s right.

Kickball.

Oh, what a wonderful sport! A lot of us remember being young, and some can further remember the illustrious game of kickball. The game where almost anyone is ensured of hitting (or kicking!) the ball, and trying to make it to first base. (Admittedly, on an entirely other note, getting to first base is pretty hard to do.)

So I agreed to look further in to it, and I checked out the web site and the rules, regulations, etc.

Now, this is a real league, with divisions, teams and ultimately a championship. However, I am a little conflicted as to which division I’d like to be in.

Players, Sorta Players, Casual and Extremely Casual.

Seriously? Yes.

Sounds like the type of sport for me, I’m sure.  Now, since someone from my company is organizing this, I have little to no control over which division I’d be in, but that doesn’t matter – they all seem pretty laid back.

Oh, and the regulations get VERY specific about the amount of women that have to be on each team, and how the kicking lineups have to be as well. Interesting. All in the name of fairness, I guess.

So in any case, when I get back from my pilgrimage I will be in a Wednesday night improv class, and when that completes, I’ll hopefully start a in a weekly kickball league.

Odd, eh?

My spring pilgrimage

So when I moved to New York almost an entire year ago, one “condition” was that I must come back at least once – if not twice – a year for a familial get-together.

Amazing that these times that I fly coincide with two major Jewish holidays – Pesach (Passover) and Sukkot (Feast of Booths, and it has nothing to do with trade shows 🙂 ). Totally unplanned, right? Wrong.

In biblical times, Jews would take a journey to Jerusalem three times a year, to visit the Holy Temple, bring offerings and sacrifices, and if you think about it, throw down and party.

Yes, in a ritualistic and holy manner, but party nonetheless.

So I am doing the same. I am flying to Israel, arriving on the 16th, and will be all over – i.e. no plans written in stone, other that having the Seder at my sister’s, and the following Shabbat with my folks. Oh, and sorting out numbers computer issues for them all. 😉 So I’m open to suggestions.

I’m hoping to rent a car, and be a little less reliant on public transportation, as if my memory serves me well, Egged still ain’t up to MTA times and schedules. So there’s options for everything.

Drop me a line with an idea, a place, and meeting time and a number, who knows? I might just be there.

See you next week!

The rumors of my death have been (not so) greatly exaggerated

So some of you may have heard that I fell sick a couple weeks ago.

This post is for those most interested, and myself, as I recall the events.

It was pretty bad.

Let me elaborate.

I’ve never been one for conventional medicine, thanks to my upbringing. Doctors are mostly just elaborate mechanics, trying to fix a fairly complex machine. The first step to fixing any kind of machine is determining what is wrong in the first place. “Knowing the disease is half the cure.” Most of the time, Continue reading The rumors of my death have been (not so) greatly exaggerated

The roots of homophobia are fear. Fear and more fear.

Quote from George Weinberg.

In the long past, that has left us behind of coldly and abruptly – look, there it goes again! – one of my closer friends pointed out that he had noticed that I seemed to be uncomfortable with anything gay-related.

The eventual recognition that he was right (was in the past tense!) made a big difference in how I approach people in general – and how I am able to develop relationships with anyone at all, regardless of some small little factoid like their sexual orientation.

Now, I know that my mom will probably end up reading this and freak out – and to answer that unspoken question: No, Mom, I’m not gay.

But I am getting over the cultural background and societal hangups that have been driven into my brain, as here in the USA I have friends and acquaintances from all places, shapes, colors, types, beliefs and they are all my friends.

I think it really drove home when a friend of mine invited me over to a dinner at her place, and told me that a couple of her friends would be there too. It took me all about 4 second from being introduced to figure out that they were a couple, and the  next thought that flitted through my head was, “Aww… they are so cute together.” That reaction was so new to me, and it allowed me to step outside myself for a moment and recognize the shift in what used to be and what just was.

There’s no denying that people are different – and sometimes we are taught that those differences are: bad, threatening, wrong, impure, and many other tags. The difference is that today, when meeting someone where any of those possible tags apply, I try to see beyond that, and get to know them for who they are, not for their tags.

Now, I totally understand that religions and belief systems be what they be – and that some are more restrictive than others. Some have more rules and don’t recognize the authority of others – similar as they may be in the baseline requirements, but nowhere near the same ideas and ideals. I can only really speak from the Judaism perspective, as I have only begun to meet Christians, Catholics and they have about as much inter-categorization as Judaism does. So we’re all in a messy place where we have all these lines drawn, and terminology doesn’t really work across these boundaries. For instance, if I told my folks and their community that a friend of mine is studying to be a rabbi – what’s the initial reaction? I don’t know – maybe a question about what yeshiva or rav they are studying with, etc. But bring in the fact that my friend is a woman… Regardless of how learned, pious or God-fearing she might be, the status of “rabbi” would never be recognized in that circle.

This planet is too small and crowded for us to continue to find out new and improved ways to dislike each other. If you don’t like the way I dress, look, act, smell, speak, tell me so. Tell ME so. Don’t hold it in and take it home with you and figure out which tag or label to assign that fault to – and then associate that fault with someone else. Treat me as me – an individual. Not just a sum of labels and tags.

Thanks for listening.

Improv 101

So on a whim, dare or agreement on a comment on someone else’s blog, I had signed up for Improv 101 classes at the UCB Training Center.

The first class was fun, and really made me let go of some ideas and forced me to see things in a slightly different light. To those that have attended previous improv shows of mine in Jerusalem, then you know a couple of things:

  1. We pretty much mimicked “Whose Line…” with a certain degree of success, especially since on TV they get to edit and only do 22 minutes with tons of commercials. We did a solid two hours!
  2. I sat behind the desk and participated less. It was a much “safer” position to take, so if everything went wrong (and sometimes it did) I’d be “in the clear”.

So now I find myself under fire – to drop preconceived notions and to try to break through any doubts, layers of protective psychological mess, and in the great words of some Nike marketing person – Just Do It.

One of the requirements for the class is to attend at least two improv shows, in order to get an idea of what the format looks like when more experienced players go at it.

I’ve been to ten already. It’s a great learning experience – in both what to do and what not – and we will get a chance to re-hash some of the performances at the beginning of class on Wednesday. So I’ve got me a little notebook, to jot down observations during the show – in some attempt to use this as study material and analyze this to help me get better.

I think I’ve found the calling.

I got to be four feet away from some icons in comedy on Sunday night and watched them play (perform) with each other. Amy Poehler, Horatio Sanz,  Seth Meyers, Rachel Dratch (who arrived late and made a great game out of that), Jack McBrayer, John Lutz, and more than I can remember.

The guest monologist was Alan Zweibel, from the first days of SNL, and he regaled us with some stories of life back then, how it was and what it was all about. And how Gilda Radner tossed a brunch-plate-laden Woody Allen off a step at a party just to make Alan laugh.

Even though the format may not be as “strict” as what I am learning, it’s still amazing fun to see a bunch of people get out there and just have fun.

I want to do that, too.

Supernatural in my pocket!

One of the oddest things happened today.

I went to the gym – and to those of you jumping up, no, that was not the odd thing – and as usual, when I leave the house, I lock both locks, and drop the keys into a very small inside pocket in my jacket.

After my workout, I gear back up and head home, and when I reach the front door, I go for my keychain (it’s a cool black one, a great present from my man Dan!) and notice that one of the keys is missing. Odd.

I dig deep into the little pocket and find the missing key.

How does a key “escape” the confines of a circular metal ring?

My new remote control

So I don’t usually do any kind of prouct reviews, and tell you what I’ve bought, but this one takes the cake.

As some of you may know, I’m incredibly lazy. In fact, so lazy that the idea of having to look for the remote corresponding to the activity I’m looking for tires my mental faculties.

Most of you out there that have a television typically know the scenario I describe:

You have a TV remote, that does the cool functions that your awesome TV can do. You have a cable/satellite set-top box that has all sorts of specialized functions, particular to your provider. You may have a DVD-player, gaming console of some sort, and more (I have an XBox 360).

So having all these remotes and controllers gets annoying, and your couch side coffee table gets cluttered, and you have to find the remote you want whenever you want something, and then the TV needs a screen tweak, so you have to find THAT remote, etc. Some remotes offer a little cross-functionality, for example: my cable box remote can be programmed to use the basic (power, volume, mute) functions of my TV. But not everything.

Did I mention that I’m lazy? 🙂

So the people over at Logitech have probably figured out that I exist, and so do many others like me, and created a whole line of remotes under the branding of Harmony remotes. That’s cool. And they went one step further and made a special one for my Xbox 360.
I bought it for a great price of $79.99 at J&R, and it took me less than 20 minutes to pop in the software CD, for it to update itself and the remote with upgrades, and download device profile lists off the ‘Net.

The guide was nice and simple, and walked me through a simple series of questions and answers, that I believe anyone of any technical ability could do. Then it took my devices and made a list of typical activities that I might use the devices for and built “Activities” – which run multiple commands, such as “turn on TV, set to Channel X and turn on set top box” all with one click. Nice and simple.

It works surprisingly well, and I just put all other remotes into the drawer for now. Hopefully I’ll forget that they are there!

Fooding

So today was the first day I actually tried to deal with food.

Last night, after the gym, I went shopping, and bought some yummy-looking, low-fat stuff and planned for three days worth of eating breakfast, dinner and two small snacks. Lunch is typically a fresh salad with a bit of lite dressing from somewhere around the office, or some steamed vegetables over brown rice at the Chinese restaurant in the area.

I actually had to force myself to eat breakfast, as it’s not something I normally do – the morning is more of a “get out the door” time, or “check your emails” time, but not really a sit down and eat time.

I then snacked on a little lite sandwich at around 11, and ate a late salad lunch at 2:30. Afternoon snack was a yummy Nature Valley bar, and for dinner I used the oven – not the microwave! Finally! – to heat up a more-than-delicious dinner from Amy’s Kitchen. While it was heating, I got to preparing a simple mixed lettuce, red pepper, tomato and radish salad – and I had forgotten how simple and delicious that can be.

So dinner has me completely filled to the gills – not hungry at all – in fact feel a little stuffed -  in a fairly low caloric content for the day. That’s what I call a good day’s eating. So let’s see how this plays out – especially since I have a workout early tomorrow morning.

Wish me luck!