The Seattle PI Published My Letter

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/362501_webltrs12.html

Israel's population is 7.3 million. 5.5 million (75.5 percent) are Jews, 1.46 million are Arabs. The population is expected to reach 10 million by 2030 at the same ratio of Jews to Arabs.

There were 2.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) in 2004. Israel's Jewish majority west of the Jordan River has remained remarkably constant since 1967. Today Jews make up a 3:2 majority over Arabs in Israel, Gaza, Judea and Samaria. Jews comprise 67 percent of the population of Israel including Judea and Samaria and nearly 80 percent of the population outside the Palestinian Authority or hamasstan (Gaza) areas.

The Arab demographic time bomb is a fiction.

Maddie the swimming retriever

EItana and I went early to pick up Yofiel at Hebrew school; the lake shore on the grounds of H-NT is a great place for Maddie to go swimming. It was cold, windy, and rainy today but Maddie still went swimming and had a great time.

Mitch and Eitana have dinner at preschool

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Eitana and I did crafts (made Mothers' Day gifts), played outside, ate dinner, sang songs, ate dessert, and had a wonderful time at her pre-school last night.

Ender's Game versus Harry Potter

Orson Scott Card published an interesting article about J.K. Rolling's new law suit. I never realized how much alike the Ender's Game story and the Harry Potter books are. I suppose it is to be expected according to the "seven basic plots" theory of archetypal plots in story telling. Interesting.

Yom HaShoah - May 1st 2008

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Tonight we light candles and chant the mourner's prayer to remember our relatives and the other six million who were murdered in the Holocaust. I hope my children and grand children, whose ties to Holocaust survivors are much more tenuous than mine, will also light candles every year and keep the historical facts straight among non-Jews in the generations to come.

StopWatch-8 - Cool Stopwatch for my Phone

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Windows Mobile 6.1 apparently does not ship with a standard stopwatch with the base OS release so I downloaded the first one I found, which happens to be really cool. It is actually 8 different stop watches on one screen. Each lane of the track gets a separate area of the screen and each one can be separately started, stopped, lap-time frozen, etc. Or you can start them all at the same time (the usual race timing) and stop them separately by pushing the button on the phone of the lane number. The application is actually small, elegant C# code that uses the compact .NET framework.

Eitana and Pappa fly a kite at International School

 

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We had enough wind on Sunday to take the kite up again at the International school.  Eitana demonstrated her kite flying prowess again with some excellent technique to keep the kite aloft when the breeze died down.  We found some wind on the hill between the soccer fields and were able to fly the kite over the hill to catch that breeze.  And of course Maddie had a great time exploring the area and playing with a doggie from one of the girls on a soccer team that was practicing there.

 

Mitch teaches in Raleigh, NC part-1: Monday 4/21/08

The shared van ride service was late picking me up because one of the other people with whom I shared the van was a “no show” and they could not track him down for 15 minutes. It gave me more time to linger over coffee with the family at home. My 4-year-old was up early and is confused about Passover and our dietary restrictions.

I wanted to photograph the TSA security people at the airport searching the 85-year-old woman but I don’t think they would have appreciated that.

There was no matzo for sale at the airport. The pilot flew around Mt Rainier, commenting on it as the plane banked and dropped below the clouds for the view. He did the same thing over Aspen, Colorado. It was odd being in a commercial flight while the pilot played tour-guide and banked the plane to show the views. We arrived late at Dallas and I literally walked off the plane, straight to the gate of the other plane, and then walked on the other plane. There was no slack time for the connection. There were no matzo options for lunch so I ate the inside of a sandwich. It’s like a no-carbs diet.

I watched “Sweeney Todd” in the plane on my phone. If the battery on the laptop would last longer than 45 minutes I think the experience would have been better (screen on phone is a bit too small).

I arrived at the Hilton late, starved, and knackered. There is some sort of a convention or product fair for “tablet computing in hospitals” or something going on in the lobby and along the entire first floor. The restaurant had great side dishes that made up my huge dinner (baked potato, broccoli, salad, vegetarian chili). The room is a huge suite with two showers, a big living room, an office area, dining area, and master bedroom. I showered and crashed early without getting through email. Both of my June forum sessions have updated decks, presentation content, and need policy decisions made. Luckily the speakers are signed up and committed.

Time Trials in the Snow

The Cascade Striders had a mini-track meet for the athletes on Saturday to get them used to running in a meet. I ran the shot put pit. I told the coaches and parents that my pit was "open" and the athletes could participate at any time. I had to teach them all how to put shot and I am not very good. The track events were plagued with snow, wind, and hail. The track had puddles in it. The kids froze. Yofiel had a great time and put some amazing times in. His mile time was top three in his age category. The parents and coaches did a great job running the events on time.

Snow on Passover

It snowed and hailed on Friday afternoon and again on Saturday during the time trials we ran for the cascade striders. It's odd having cold, snow winter weather in the spring. When the sun peaked through during rare breaks from the cold, windy hail, it was quite warm and the ground misted over with the evaperating snow.

Elisheva was home for a short weekend and was very helpful around the house, getting rid of all of our Hametz and preparing the house for the Seder. She explained the historical context and surrounding events of many of the rituals both pre-rabbinic and rabbinical. Ritual hand washing for example predates Judaism. Adinah invited three friends to our Seder, Laura, Catherine and Jesse. It seemed they enjoyed it despite their discomfort with Hebrew. Eitana did not like sitting around at a crowded table and delayed the Seder with some destruction and screaming.

The Seder itself flowed smoothly; wine lubricated the songs and delays. The meal, as usual was fantastic. Gab makes a killer potato salad. The kids could not find the Afikomen that Simeon hid inside a book in an obscure shelf downstairs. They searched for an hour. Even "hot / cold" did not help at the end and he had to tell them that it was inside a book behind which they had already searched. I want Simeon on my side of a spy conflict.

The Strawberry dessert was also fantastic and even the clean-up was not as onerous as we anticipated. It was a great Seder in a great year.