How do you say LIRR in Hebrew?

As most people living in the US these days know, when you go to any sort of automated system - be it phone tree, ATM, self checkout, etc. - there's always the option to get the instructions in Spanish. A few weeks ago I was taking the Long Island Railroad and I noticed that the LIRR vending machines have a few language options. English (for now). Spanish (surprised?). And Hebrew. It wasn't like an option bar to scroll down through 70 languages - it was a little button on the bottom. Spanish. Hebrew.
I tried it and it worked. VERY cool. I can't imagine there are that many native Hebrew speakers in the NYC area who would require this, but I'm not complaining.

Karate Odyssey

This is my last week of Karate Camp so you finally get to stop hearing about karate. This past weekend I went to Long Island for Shabbat and then helped Eli and Stacy to move into their new apartment. To make it to Long Island by Shabbat I had to go straight to the train station from work, and because of this I found myself on the train platform wearing a full black gee and my black belt. I took off the black belt and crammed it into my bag, I then untied my gee (I couldn't fit it into the bag). I therefore was standing on the train looking like a ninja. Then I walked thru Penn Station at rush hour, getting the up down looks. NEXT TEXT IS IN THOUGHT BUBBLE "What religion is that guy wearing the black robes? Wait a second he is wearing a kippah! But, what's with the robes, ummmmmmm?"

New FastDigest Restriction Enzymes!

Apparently no-one is safe from spam.


So not even my temporary mailbox at KGI is safe from spam but hey! at least it was much more interesting than your typical credit card application.

What?!? Four posts in one week?

For all those who didn't notice: Yesterday the Lansey Brothers' Blog welcomed a new blogger: Stacy. She will not post on a regular schedule like Yoni, Aryeh and myself, but on occasion, when she feels like it. Check out her post below!

So this is my "Last Blog Post from The Middle of Nowhere". Below are pictures (click for full size) of the "Attractions at exit X" signs leading up to BNL's exit (68). Somehow I missed exit 67's sign, but trust me on this - it is equally blank. Maybe I'll try to snap a pic of it today.

Exit 64:

Exit 65:

Exit 66:

Exit 68 (the "attraction" is a gold course that is allegedly at that exit):

Amateur Blogger/Gardener

So after being engaged to Eli for a little over two months I finally took him up on his offer to contribute to the Lansey Brothers blog.
When thinking about what to blog, I was struck by my similar lack of experience blogging and gardening.
Recently, as a matter of fact, right before Eli and I got engaged (back when I used to have free time), I tried my hand at some serious gardening.
My previous attempts at gardening have been dismal failures. A few stalks unidentifiable as any sort of desirable plant that died soon thereafter.
However, the severe boredom as a result of my unemployment this spring, induced me to take to the yard with spade a hoe.
First, I had the gardener (an essential component of the Long Island Garden) remove the large dead bush.
Then I removed all the weeds.
Finally I took a deep breath and took a gamble two cherry tomato plants.
To my great shock I experienced wild success.
And WILD success is the correct term. My tomatoes have grown like Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors.
So first they filled their cages. That seemed normal, Then they outgrew their cages, then they started growing on the hydgrangea next to them (see hydrangea in red circle).

Next I noticed a satellite patch of tomatoes.

So I have been harvesting fresh tomatoes every two days. LOTS of tomatoes every two days.

I am now trying to figure out to do with tons and tons of tomatoes. One plan is to give some tomatoes to the neighbors. Theirs haven't turned out so well.

If you have any recipes please write in.

All in all I would call the first attempt at gardening a success. I hope I can say the same for blogging.

Karate Lump

Update on my martial arts training: As many of you know I have trained in the martial arts for more than six years, I have a first degree black belt from my karate school FMAA. Beyond just the standard karate training I have received I also decided to learn other forms of self-defense. I therefore began with nun-chucks first with one then with two (I have been training with nun-chucks for about four years now). For the past year I have also began training with a bo-staff. Besides for weapons I have also trained in Judo falls and rolls, and some regular American wrestling (real wrestling, not the fake stuff). In hard core extreme self defense I trained in the F.I.G.H.T. (Fierce Israeli Hand-to-hand Tactics) systems Haganah (incapacitation, termination, in other words very dangerous stuff). As my training progressed I began to wonder what would happen if I actually had to defend myself, what would happen to the person I hit. So, I took TFL (Training For Life) CDT (Compliance Direction Takedown) a non-deadly, extremely effective, and legal method of self-defense. Essentially this course uses points on the body, which causes paralysis as long as the technique is maintained. I will continue to train in the CDT taking it to the next levels; learning controlling, escorting, and weapon disarm techniques. Eventually I will probably go on to learn LRT (Last resort Tactics) that can put someone in rehab for a year to recover muscle control (would be used on terrorists in airplanes or such similar things). To finish I would just like to say sweet dreams.

Free Lunch

Money doesn't grow on trees, but it turns out that fruit do.


Whoever said trees no such thing as a free lunch?



Unfortunately, I did not notice this until it was too late for the fly.

נחמו נחמו, עמי

What more can be said, that has not already been said? More than ever, we need this consolation. Let's hope that next Tish'a Ba'av will one of rejoicing, and not of mourning.

א נחמו נחמו, עמי--יאמר, אלהיכם. ב דברו על-לב ירושלם, וקראו אליה--כי מלאה צבאה, כי נרצה עונה: כי לקחה מיד יהוה, כפלים בכל-חטאתיה...
טו הן גוים כמר מדלי, וכשחק מאזנים נחשבו; הן איים, כדק יטול... יז כל-הגוים, כאין נגדו; מאפס ותהו, נחשבו-לו...
כז למה תאמר יעקב, ותדבר ישראל: נסתרה דרכי מיהוה, ומאלהי משפטי יעבור. כח הלוא ידעת אם-לא שמעת, אלהי עולם יהוה בורא קצות הארץ--לא ייעף, ולא ייגע: אין חקר, לתבונתו. כט נתן ליעף, כח; ולאין אונים, עצמה ירבה. ל ויעפו נערים, ויגעו; ובחורים, כשול יכשלו. לא וקוי יהוה יחליפו כח, יעלו אבר כנשרים; ירוצו ולא ייגעו, ילכו ולא ייעפו

ישעיהו פרק מ

See here for a translation.

C242 Ninja Robot

Last week I had a camper whose names was Pawel (Pronounced Paul, I assume that it's really Pavel as he is from Poland) Czyz (pronounced Chez). At the end of the week one of the staff members at my karate school was entering all the campers information, and when he came across Pawel he had bit of trouble. He left a message for us saying who is this C242 is he a robot or an alien or something. For all you Ninja Robots reading this - 01000110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01001110 01101001 01101110 01101010 01100001 00100000 01010010 01101111 01100010 01101111 01110100 01110011 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00101110 01001100 01100001 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100101 01100101 01101011 00100000 01001001 00100000 01101000 01100001 01100100 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101101 01110000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 01101110 01100001 01101101 01100101 01110011 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 00100000 01010000 01100001 01110111 01100101 01101100 00100000 00101000 01010000 01110010 01101111 01101110 01101111 01110101 01101110 01100011 01100101 01100100 00100000 01010000 01100001 01110101 01101100 00101100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100001 01110011 01110011 01110101 01101101 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101100 01101100 01111001 00100000 01010000 01100001 01110110 01100101 01101100 00100000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01010000 01101111 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100100 00101001 00100000 01000011 01111010 01111001 01111010 00100000 00101000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01101110 01101111 01110101 01101110 01100011 01100101 01100100 00100000 01000011 01101000 01100101 01111010 00101001 00101110 00100000 00100000 01000001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100101 01100101 01101011 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01110100 01100001 01100110 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100101 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101011 01100001 01110010 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01110011 01100011 01101000 01101111 01101111 01101100 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 00100000 01100101 01101110 01110100 01100101 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101101 01110000 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100000 01101001 01101110 01100110 01101111 01110010 01101101 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101101 01100101 00100000 01100001 01100011 01110010 01101111 01110011 01110011 00100000 01010000 01100001 01110111 01100101 01101100 00100000 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101000 01100001 01100100 00100000 01100010 01101001 01110100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01110010 01101111 01110101 01100010 01101100 01100101 00101110 00100000 00100000 01001000 01100101 00100000 01101100 01100101 01100110 01110100 00100000 01100001 00100000 01101101 01100101 01110011 01110011 01100001 01100111 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110101 01110011 00100000 01110011 01100001 01111001 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101111 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01000011 00110010 00110100 00110010 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110010 01101111 01100010 01101111 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101001 01100101 01101110 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110011 01101111 01101101 01100101 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00101110 isn't binary fun!