pittsfield-jew

The first post says it all Shalom, This is the home of the Pittsfield Jew. Sure its neat to read about Jews in Brooklyn who are very observant but how about a not so observant Jew who lives in the Mid West?

Friday, May 30, 2008

Feeling really low

Guess what? Jonny is taking a real short cut. He emailed Kristina and here is what he wrote.

Dear Mom,
Are you at the beach? Well I am going to be painting this weekend. My summer class is doing well. I only met once this week. I got some really good feedback on the training I did on Friday. We have not gotten the results of Alberta's MRI yet. My online class is a pain. I don't think WCC is helping the students with skills for the 21 st century. That was one of the homework questions I had to answer and put on the discussion board. Gas has held steady at 4.09 all week. Alberta won't even walk the 0.6 miles to school. On the flip side Angelina has taken the kids to school two days in a row. Today they took bike locks. She said the walk is not that bad. You get to socialize with the other parents before going back to your chores. Last weekend I painted the garage for three days. The handyman came out and looked at it. He said I did a real nice job. So today I get to paint the kitchen. They have plenty of other work to do so we are all pitching in to get it ready in time for the Bat Mitzvah. Lorraine is going to be doing grasshopper softball again. The first practice is tomorrow. Tomorrow we are going to services and then painting. But I doubt we will walk because of Alberta. It is a casual service Saturday it will be ecological Shabbat. So it is a sweat shirt Shabbat. I will still have to come home and change into my painting clothes. How is Dad's knee? I had physical therapy at 5PM yesterday. They said I have full range of motion. Angelina got my appointment changed from June 23 to June 9. This way they can x-ray me and the clear me for strengthing exercises. The appointment is with the orthopediac surgeon. Jesse has a bean plant and a grass plant. Both of those he made in school. He is on a soccer team too. His games are on the weekends. I finished reading bladerunner. I am up to half way the CD of Fahrenheit 451. I let Lorraine pick out my books. She picked out bladerunner. She didn't feel like picking the next book. Now I am into From A Buick 8 which is by Stephen King. I also enjoy watching the comedy channel show Scrubs. We have DVR and it records the show automatically. I have 100 episodes recorded. Angelina says I can start riding my bike again. But today it was raining so I didn't. So next week, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I will. We aren't planting any garden this summer too much work. No extra dog either, too much work. Lucy is so lonely. She is always looking over her shoulder to see if anyone is going to steal her dog food. Lucy like to eat the cat food. Angelina puts it up on the refrigerator when Lucy is around.
Love,
Jonny


What Jonny didn't tell Kristina was that Richard isn't coming to the Bat Mitzvah. Yes Jonny's brother is sending Angelina a message - you don't make me feel welcome so here is my retaliation. And thus Jonny depressed himself sick. Sore throat now. He took some extra vitamin c this morning. There will be some screaming this weekend.

Jonny did a bit of blog surfing. Blog 1 to blog 2 to blog 3 to blog 4. You get the idea. He found Bas Torah. Also there is a cross dressing blog. And there is a blog about some whacked girl named Leah Kleim. This goes way counter to no loshen hurah. It made Jonny sick. He doesn't care about the men dressing as women because they are having fun. But what about the wife and kids? Hmmm? So is Leah sick or is the one spreading the gossip about her sick? Hmmmm makes you wonder. Jonny was listening to the parsha online chanting today. He spent most of the day talking to Penny here in Hotel California about his parents and brother.

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Thursday, May 29, 2008

Bamidar

This week's Torah portion is Bamidar. After to listening to it on the computer twice now Jonny, has collected some facts. Each tribe had to have a minimum of 20,000 Jews. The levite tribe was counted using males over 1 month. All the rest were counted with males over 20 years old. G-d counts the Jews because he loves them. That is why this is the third counting. He counted 70 when they went into Israel. There were 600,000 when they came out. After the Chet Faygel the incident with the golden calf they were counted again. This counting was performed on the first day of the second month after the Mishkan was established. This teaches about the mezuzah. Jonny's family had so much bad luck because they didn't put them up right away. But in the old days you had to wait 30 days. The rabbis now interpret this to mean that Jews put one up right away if they own the house and wait 30 days if it is an apartment. Moshe counted the tribes and counted the people. He needed to make sure there were 20,000 in each tribe. The Levite tribe was exempt from a lot of the punishment because they were counted at 1 month and up. They had fewer numbers because less of them were punished. On the other hand they had fewer numbers so they were counted at a lower age.

Jonny finished a book. He called his parents last night on the way home from class. He left Kristina and Wendell a message. Hello it is 9:12 PM. They were not home. Lorraine and Jesse aren't sleeping well. Angelina is dealing with the slow moving kitchen repairs. Alberta is on crutches. Jonny is dealing with his Russian counter part to get a demographics integration program put into place. He revitalized a c# program today and provided some cause of death data. The book was 216 pages. It was called Bladerunner. There were parts that were very good. Most of it was just so so. Lorraine didn't feel like helping Jonny pick out a new book today. So he picked out one himself. He is now on page 25 of Stephen King's From a Buick 8. He is halfway done with CD Fahrenheit 451. Jonny has physical therapy at 5PM today. He drove 21 miles yesterday. The lights were out in downtown Ann Arbor around 5:30 PM. It was very scary.

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Friday, May 23, 2008

Friday

Jonny is giving a training session at 2PM today. Aside from that the day has been almost a complete waste. He is here in Hotel California. Last night the family had BTB. Alberta went to her team's soccer game. Jonny read a few blogs. He is trying out mozilla firefox browsing via the iron key that rob gave him. Neat because the misspelled words are being underlined. IE didn't do that until the user hit check abc spelling. The online class is going ok. He had to argue with his instructor to get his 150 points. There were major glitches and then it took all morning plus loads of emails to set it straight. Big new Alberta needs and MRI. And Angelina has to take Jesse for his cancer check up. Both on the same day. Jonny is up to page 72 of Blade Runner (or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep). Jonny didn't indulge in fatty foods last night. He did nasal irrigation, chanting, hand homework, online homework, and situps. He watch scrubs while do the physical therapy. Angelina came down to the basement and heard the male Rabbi recording and said wow sounds good. Jonny however chants in his own tune. Hopefully Alberta won't need surgery. Well Jonny has to go and call Angelina now. They got new cell phones and it rang in the lounge but no connection.

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Thursday, May 22, 2008

Not Busy then Busy

Most of the day Jonny wasn't busy. Until now. He wants to post at 2PM and he gets deeply involved in a prostate database extract. Not much else going on besides that. Well he got in a big fight with Angelina this morning. She called to apologize relatively early. But too bad. She has insulted his parents. The crux of the matter is a container of dog food deeply buried under 7 heavy boxes. This morning he got one scoop of dog food out of the box so he could feed the hungry Lucy. His broken arm prevents bicycle riding and moving of 7 heavy boxes in a timely manner before work. Especially while being screamed at. Around 10 am he went out and took a rest. His back is hurting and he watched Scrubs a couple of episodes last night. He got an MP3 player but doesn't know what to do with it? Jonny ready a couple of blogs yesterday. For the big long weekend he plans to talk to his parents, and paint the garage. It also smelled like burnt toast in here so Jonny had to go out and take a nap. When he got back it was much better. The back still hurts. Still no sit ups, no nasal irrigation and no restraint when it comes to late night snacking. But he did practice Torah chanting for twenty minutes last night.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Busy

Yesterday Jonny was busy. He was just about to blog and the Lorraine called. She insisted he type up her paper about the loose tooth. Hard to remember which to use lose or loose. See http://www.lessontutor.com/eeslose.html for my guidelines. Jonny finished a book. He finished all 574 pages of A Thin Dark Line. It was quite good. There was a glossary of French terms used in the book at the end and a preview of two other novels. He has let Lorraine pick his next novel. This was Blade Runner previously titled Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick. Jonny might get the movie since he saw it but doesn't remember it. He is on page 26. He is on disk 2 of the 6 of the CD Fahrenheit 451. He has spelled this word about 451 different ways so far. Everytime he spells checks it he is amazed oh that is how you spell it. Jonny has been lacking in sit ups, nasal irrigation and Torah chanting. Last night he had homework to do for his online class that he is taking. He had to read a paper and watch two presentations. How depressing, everything they have been doing in education for the last 100 years has been the wrong way of going about it. Jonny knew this all along. He was always a bad student but loves to learn anyway. He learns best by reading historical fiction.

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Monday, May 19, 2008

Physical therapy

Well Jonny just woke up from a nap at his desk, here in Hollywood. His mother emailed him earlier today and he emailed her back. That usually drains him emotionally. He was trying really hard to not get sleepy. Now he is listening to the parsha Bechukotai. It is almost done. One of Jonny's Aunt is not coming to the Bat Mitzvah. Angelina is pestering to get a final count. Over the weekend Jonny made friends sorta with the woman who lives in the house behind. They have a fenced in yard. Jonny walked over to their house and Jesse climbed through. Actually the woman picked him up, since Jonny has a broken arm. He went to therapy today and that took a long time. He also finished the book on CD Prior Bad Acts and returned it to the libray. The libray is right near the Ice Cube, where the therapy is. So he picked up Ray Bradbury on CD, Fahrenhite 451. That is the temperature that book paper burns. Science fiction. Over the weekend Jonny buried down spouts. He had to smash a clay pipe, twist a corrugated pipe around a deck and then rearrange slate where he moved it. Some people came over from HDS and dropped off a meal. The kitchen is being renovated for four days now. They stayed and toured the house a while. Lorraine and Jonny worked on her homework too for about 2 hours. Jonny is up to about 4 sentences of the Torah now out of his 6. He is on page 552 of A thin Dark line. He watched Scrubs once over the weekend.

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Friday, May 16, 2008

Twenty four hour migraine

Nothing to do as usual. Jonny has had a migraine for a while now. Rather than take any medication for it he has decided to let the headache hurt for awhile longer. Now the pain is going down a bit. It's because the pain was caused by lack of coffee. Jonny had no time to drink any all day yesterday. By 9PM the pain was unbearable. Lack of caffeine can do that to a person. He managed to practice his aliyah from 10:30 to 11 last night. Then he worked on a word chapter 2 power point for the students. Angelina sent him to Lowes last night from 9:30 to 10:30. He bought parts to put the downspouts under ground. This was something she had said didn't need to be acomplished until after the Bat Mitzvah. Jonny was right she would change her mind. He is up to page 520 of A Thin Dark Line. He is about one minute away from finishing the CD Prior Bad Acts. Tami Hoag spins some good tails. The Lowes stuff cost about $60. He also got a call from his brother. His brother said he never planned to go to Hong Kong. Now Jonny is really pissed. And his mother told his brother about Lorraine's head lice and Alberta's car accident. Jonny added in the Dexter death as well. No wonder he has a headache?

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Books and CD

Jonny has been enjoying A Thin Dark Line. He is on page 478. The book is a real page turner. Also he is on the second half of the 10th and final CD of Prior bad Acts. Both books by Tami Hoag. She writes some creepy, scary, crime fiction. Last night Jonny practiced his Torah chanting. He has the second sentence now, 26 words, almost perfected. The tune is a little off. Alberta couldn't sleep and so Jonny had to change rooms with her around 6AM today. Today Jonny and Angelina went to the physical therapy appointment. The kitchen demolition started today. The doctors all said Jonny has to give up riding his bicycle for a while. There is not much to read in the blogs. Jonny has to cut down on the sweets. So many people gave them chocolate because of Alberta's accident. Wow Jonny is getting sleepy again. Today he caught the bus again from the bus station, only difference from Monday is the meeting was at 9AM instead of 8:30. Yesterday's AJAX meeting at the bee hive was mega boring. Jonny talked to Richard Ziman only briefly on Tuesday. He tried again last night and didn't get a connection. His brother might not be moving to Hong Kong. This is now upsetting to Jonny in a weird way because he would not have know about the reversal unless he had asked about it. Jonny was never on the side to rebuke Richard for his plans and now he didn't inform Jonny about the change in plans.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Page 298

The plot gets thicker in A Thin Dark Line. But that didn't keep Jonny awake. No he left Hollywood after lunch to read an doze in his car. Now he is programming some C#. Last night he practiced his Torah reading. It is going slow but there are 5 more weeks. Alberta went to school today. Jonny is going to the bee hive for a training on Visual Studio 2008. Tonight he has class. He plans to leave the training at 4:30 when it is over and head over to Burger King near school. There has been so much rain. The grass will be growing soon. He put a bunch of stuff into the shed. Tomorrow is the physical therapy consult. Friday is a scoriosis study. Jonny is a control patient, never had the disease. They pay people here to do these

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Busy at work

Jonny is really busy at work. No naps today. He bicycled in to Hotel California. Last week Angelina carpetted the downstairs steps. Jonny hasn't had to practice his Torah. He is on page 380 of A Thin Dark Line. He is on CD 9 of 10 of Prior Bad Acts. Oh no he is feeling sleepy. Today Angelina is supposed to redo the kitchen. Remember she is paying for this not actually doing it. Penny tried to give Jonny a dog today.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Life without Dexter

It is so sad for Jonny now that Dexter is gone. He had to take his life on Mother's Day. There were many tears cast for him. Jesse's sadness was of a particular cuteness and interesting quality "Dexter was my favorite animal."

In other news Alberta got in a car accident. It was quite like the traffic jam over in NY when Al Sharpton had a protest. Jonny was walking down Packard heading home with a pizza from Marcos and Lucy the dog. Three police cars flew by. Later as he got closer to the scene he saw one of her friends. She told him what had happened. Shortly cars were avoiding the corner and police were flagging them down the side street. It was a horrible mess. Angelina took an ambulance ride. Alberta was thrown 15 feet. Her friend witnessed the whole thing since they were crossing the street. Amazingly enough it was G-ds will. She broke no bones. She had no head, neck or back trauma. She stayed home from school today. Alberta missed all her soccer games too. She spent the night in the hospital. Jonny had just come home from Hotel California too about 1-2 hours before that.

In other news. Dexter was quite messy up to the end. His paralysis caused extreme messiness. Plus it rained all day yesterday. This was good for the grass. Jonny is taking an online class in online classes. He is also teaching tonight. It is like baseball well not really but he calls it opening night. The Bat Mitzvah came over and listened to Jonny practice his one sentence of Number 13:25. He has to chant 25-30 but has only learned that sentence so far. She told him it is vayashovo not vayshvo. Doesn't matter, it is all good. Jonny messed up his mother's day e-cards too. He is so depressed he might drink this coffee and take a nap in his car. He is up to page 325 of A Thin Dark Line.

Friday, May 09, 2008

Page 200

Jonny is on page 200 of Thin Dark Line. His arms are stressing him out a bit. After he took a nap in the car yesterday, he forgot to put the hang tag in the orange lot. So he got a parking ticket. Last night he was trying to practice his aliyah. But Alberta needed help with homework. She put off typing this 6 page paper until midnight. Jonny the good dad got it done and printed out and went to bed at 1AM. Not much going on in the blogs. Poor Dexter. He now takes his medication with marshmellows. Last night Jonny moved some bushes around and he removed a stump. He rode the short route to Hotel California. Jonny and Wendell had one email exchange today. As expected he doesn't need knee surgery. Jonny would relish the idea to get a new knee. Angelina is afraid Lorraine might have head lice. Lucy still has half her medication left until being completed with the treatment for a urinary tract infection. Jonny has to go to a soccer game very early in the morning this weekend. Jesse has a game this weekend too. Jonny is supposed to give a training at Hotel California and Jesse has an oncologist appointment that same day. Of course Jonny will be calling Kristina over the weekend to wish her a Happy Mother's Day.

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Thursday, May 08, 2008

Dexter doesn't walk

Well Dexter has taken a turn for the worse. Last night Jonny had to pill him with a rubber dishwashing glove. Ouch Jonny's arm hurts. He went to the orthopedic surgeon. They said he had a broken arm. It doesn't require a cast. It does require physical therapy. Jonny has been working with DOS batch files today. He wants to run an Oracle process using the scheduler and have it called in a batch file and log the results. He wants the filename to have the time and date. This is difficult unless Jonny only does work in the afternoon. The filename ended up with a space. In the meantime he went to a Velos governor meeting at Death Valley. Then he was late because they moved to a different lobby. He worked on his online class homework last night. Jonny stayed up too late. So after the meeting he went to Lucky Kitchen and had Szechuan Chicken. Then lots of hot tea. But he still went to his car and fell asleep. Today he is so tired he isn't even wearing contacts. Poor Dexter had to take a sedative last night. Last night it looked like he was going to die. He was convulsing. He didn't walk five houses this morning. He peed on himself last night and his grooming visit was cancelled. No way to get him into the minivan. Last night Jonny watched two episodes of scrubs.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Dexter takes a walk

Jonny has a lot on his mind at the moment. He will now try and relax. This will be accomplished via this blog. It will also be accomplished by staying on one topic. Today's topic is Dexter takes a walk. Rather than wander around in the mind like a dog with a slipped disk who walks like a drunken sailor. You know and this is a small tangent to the topic but not too far off. Seeing as how Jonny is a mathematician he recalls there is a math problem involving the drunken walker. Yesterday Dexter walked two houses. The day before only 1 house. This was an increase as a sign of his improving health. No one noticed the dog as he walked two houses. No one saw what could be the distorted walking of a dog pulling his back legs. This is why he is so dirty. This is why this is so boring. OK let us continue. No one noticed as Jonny, Dexter and Lucy turned around after three minutes. They headed back to the yard. Jonny dropped off Dexter and within three minutes he was back at the same place. This time he had only one dog with him. Once again no one saw this whole scene. Or if they saw they did not notice the awkwardness of one dog walking only 2 houses and then being left behind. Hopefully Jonny will think of something far more interesting to write about next time. This sticking to one topic idea is a pain but he will hopefully grow from the experience. Is there any news worth sticking here? http://www.chem.uoa.gr/Applets/AppletSailor/Appl_Sailor2.html

It turns out there is some news. Jonny has to make at least one Jewish reference in every post. He practiced for the first time last night for at least 20 minutes. He has the first sentence memorized. He'll be reading the 5th aliya.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Tuesday

Jonny forgot to bring his book to read. He has not much to say. Angelina is still harping on getting Wendell to apologize. This will not likely happen. Jonny also has to practice his aliya or let the people know he isn't going to do it. OK on a positive note Angelina called an yelled at the phone company today. She got the sink fixed for free. She is cleaning Jesse's room now. Jonny took the scenic route to Hotel California. He rode by the river on his bike. Yesterday he rode with Lea from Hollywood. He let her lead. Big mistake since she is one with the cars and Jonny is not one with the cars. Next time Jonny will create a route Lea might like and Jonny won't be about to be run over by a bus. Tomorrow is the big day where Jonny will see the orthopedic surgeon. He finished the shed yesterday. He hung up a glass shelf from IKEA in the master bathroom. One of his old students wants to hang out and have beer and pizza.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Heated exchange

Angelina and Wendell have exchanged heated emails. This is in regards to Alberta visiting Wendell and Kristina over Winter break in St John at their time share. The names have been changed to protect the anonymous.

Dear Sweetness,
Sorry for bothering you. I look forward to discussing this after the Bat
Mitzvah -- when you are good and ready and not before! I do not want to
overload you with the stress of planning a trip to us. It would be far
too burdensome given your state of mind.
With all due respect,
Your husband's father
-----Original Message-----
From: Angelina[mailto:xxx]
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 11:40 AM
To: Wendell
Subject: trip
Hello,
Since Jonny can't seem to make it clear please stop nagging about St
John. We will discussion this after the Bat Mitzvahs and not before.
We have a full plate right now and are not adding anything to it.
Angelina

Kristina called Jonny two days in a row over the weekend. Jonny thought for sure Dexter the dog was going to be put to sleep. He was dragging his whole body using his front two legs. It turns out he slipped a disc. After $300 for x-rays and meds he is resting now.

At work Jonny is switching gears from c# to velos forms.

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Friday, May 02, 2008

New book

Jonny is up to page 84 of A Thin Dark Line. He went for an x-ray this morning. Jonny has students complaining about their grades. There are some who have taken this class 2 times with Jonny and still failing it. Jonny's father emailed him a bit of Weekly Jewish Wisdom. Today Lorraine got her new carpetting. The air conditioner guys came out today to fix the dryer. Angelina bought some bushes and an area rug for the living room. The invitations went out. Jonny ordered two flossers for $3.75 each. Jonny worked with Lea this morning at Hollywood. before that he biked 2 miles to the Dr office to pick up a piece of paper. Then he biked to Hotel California but stopped for lunch along the way on William. He ate a kabob place and had fallafel for $4.23. Then he went to the Cancer Center to get an x-ray.

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Future date posts

Wow blogger now allows future date posts. What will they think of next. Yes Jonny finished all 433 pages of The Shadow Roads. He picked up The Thin Dark Line today. This was because he knew he would finish this other book.

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Lesson with Lea

Today Jonny is getting a lesson with Lea. His program was fixed. The problem was a space in the data file Jonny was using for testing. He is listening to parsha emor for the third time. Jonny stayed up until 1AM last night. He finished his grades at midnight and then celebrated for an hour before bed. While getting ready Jonny was thinking about the Bat Mitzvah. He was asked to do the 5th aliyah of the shlach parsha. Jonny has never read from the Torah before. He made up in his head an imaginary appreciation accomplishment speech for after his reading. This is more than just saying the blessings. Then he got an email from Alberta's tutor, this is a really difficult aliyah, you'll need lots of help. Today Jonny has a doctor appointment. Angelina spent over $250 at the nursery. She got 4 yew's and one large yew bush. She got 3 bushels of chopped straw. This morning Lorraine was crying she is going to die. She is scared what will happen when she dies. Well guess what Jesse didn't sleep at all hearing his sister talk about death he had bad dreams. Jesse ended up in bed with them. He wouldn't let Lorraine walk the dogs with him this morning since she doesn't stop talking about being scared of death.
 
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