First snow

Just a short update.
It finally started snowing in Boston. The city embraced the white flakes with open arms. The sub-zero degrees we had here for a couple of weeks made the snow catch pretty quickly. The river, slowly freezing for days, turned fluffy white with wet patches.

Yes, it is going to be a white Christmas after all.

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Hi

Why don't I write more? I really have no real response for that. I guess I just don't feel like it. But it is time for a short update, so here goes:

CJ keeps on growing, and fast too. He can get around (I would not call it crawling) and we had to baby-proof parts of the house. He eats solids as well as formula, but the MRS. wouldn't let me add condiments to his food, so he eats steamed vegetables with hardly any taste. But I guess he doesn't mind, yet. Yet, because he is extremely opinionated. If he wants something he will make sure he gets it, either by crying, by getting to what he wants, or by getting physical with us or with whatever object annoys him.
Oh, yeah, and finally he got his first tooth! Now, that doesn't mean less drooling, he has many more teeth on the way. But I can at least find comfort in the fact that we got used to sleepless nights.

Winter just got here last week. Temperatures dropped as low as -18 degrees at night. The river started growing ice patches. And the heavy coats were brought out. It hasn't snowed, yet, and not too much rain gets in on cold days, but when the 5 minute walk to the train at 07:00 can cause your ears to fall off you know it's winter time.

And speaking of winter and snow - Christmas is just around the corner, the trees are dressed in lights and the stores had the unbelievably annoying Christmas song in the background for the last month. This year christmas and hanukkah did not occur at the same time, and we have kind of missed the holiday sport of Hanukkah. We lit candles on less than half of the days, and the holiday was really unnoticeable. We will not celebrate Christmas, but at least I'll have some days off and it will feel more like a holiday.

So as I said at the beginning, just a short update. We wish y'all seasons greetings, and unless something drastically changes and a muse decides to sit on my face, we'll meet again at 2011.


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Working again, ain't that shick?!?

So it has been almost two weeks since my back surgery and finally I went back to work. I didn't go easily back to work, I actually dove head first back to research - and it felt really good.

I must admit I didn't suffer too much staying at home the last 10 days. Spending quality time with The MRS. and CJ was fun. It is unbelievable how fast they grow! Now I have to decide whether I should say "yes, he is 6 months old" or "hey! Only 17 and a half more years".
We got to the point were we need to child-proof our apartment. Move the TV to a high shelf. Lock the cabinets, remove books from low shelves, and more. The little 'energy-machine' (I won't use the term I really call him, otherwise I might find myself with an ex-wife instead of a wife) can scream like the is no tomorrow. He can crawl, especially backwards. He can hit, mostly direct hits to the face while you try to sleep, or to the glasses at all other times. And the most important thing he learned is to be opinionated. And I mean really opinionated - he knows what he wants and when he wants it, and if you don't understand then 'tough'. You will hear a high pitched, loud squeal until he will get everything his way.

Returning to me, but only for a short while, I am finally off most narcotic pain killers. I do not feel like a drug addict, but I have a new look now. "Heroine shick"! I lost nearly 8kg since I started using the opiate narcotics (yes, the pain killers are from the same chemical family as opium and heroine) and I am now the lightest I have been in over ten years (let's see how long this would last). But as I stopped using the pain medication, and as the pain is slowly subsiding, my appetite is recovering. However, I will try to keep the status quo, pat least in this area.

That's it. Time to go to bed. Tomorrow is another work day. A full day of experiments and measurements in the dark lab.
How long will it be till I am fed up with that?

See you on my next post

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I'm here, but first 'let's go back'

So I disappeared for over a month. It wasn't because I didn't know what to write, or I didn't have time. I disappeared because, as my last post stated, I threw out my back (or actually herniated a disc) and I had to go for back surgery. I decided that the next time I update my blog is when the anesthesia wears off and I know that everything went as it should.
Well (although I wrote this post last night - yes, before the surgery, summoning the 'evil eye') this has been posted which means all is well, for now.

It is actually the time to summarize a year in Boston. Last year, on Halloween, I landed in this foreign land, not knowing where I am and what exactly I'm going to do. And now, a year later, a child later, a freezing winter and hot summer later, a tax report later, several Jewish (and non-Jewish) holidays with friends later, a car purchase later, a couple of surgeries (or surgical interventions) later I can finally say - Hey! I now know where I am, but I sure as hell don't know exactly what I'm doing!

Dangerous paragraph alert: NOT FOR PEOPLE WITH WEAK STOMACHES!!!
So some of you might read the above and say "back surgery" is only one, why does he say a couple. So, of course, nothing goes smoothly when you really hope it will. Just a week before my surgery was scheduled my body decided it was a good time to start a small infection by a lymph node. 'Sure' it said (my body if you are not following), 'if we can stop the surgery, why not?'. This infection was dealt with at MIT medical, that did a poor job. Why poor? Well, first when they decided to open me up they did not give me enough lidocaine and I could feel the cut and the drainage. Second, they left most of what was growing in there. The back surgeon didn't think twice, once he saw what they did, and sent me to a surgeon of his own. This surgeon flooded me with lidocaine, and I really didn't feel a thing. I didn't feel the 1inch cut, or the wick that was placed deep inside the wound. The intention of this wick is to allow me to reopen the cut a couple of days after the surgery (how fun) and avoid it from closing. Anyways, it worked and we are passed that.
END OF DANGEROUS PARAGRAPH

CJ, our son, is growing really quickly. He looks and acts just like a real person. A real person that cannot talk or walk, but still a real person. His advancement is incredible. It's hard to believe that just a few months ago he was this crying, eating, pooping and peeing lump of meat, and now he is completely different. Now he is a crying, eating, pooping, peeing lump of meat with wills and wants and with a very strong conviction for getting what he wants.

So a year, a year of so many changes and so many turn-of-events. A year of many visitors and new experiences.
All I wish ourselves for the upcoming year in Boston is more new experiences, more visits and more advancements. And hopefully, this time, we can skip all the health related issues.

Have a great end of year without me around,
See you on my next post.

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I'm back - or am I?

So some of you might wonder where is the weekly post I have promised? You know what, a biweekly post instead? But as you can see I suck at committing. The last two months I have been suffering from a herniated disc in my back which has changed a lot in our life. At first it was painful, but I could deal with the pain and it did not disrupt my life too much. However, around a month ago things changed, and changed fast. I could hardly step on my right leg and I had to use a cane for walking. As weeks went by the pain became stronger and stronger up to a point where I missed work for over a week.
Right now I am waiting for an appointment with a back specialist, or rather the assistant of the specialist, because seeing the specialist in flesh and blood requires a wait of two months. Oh yeah, and for the mean time i am heavily sedated with an assortment of pain killers and narcotic sedatives. The amount I take daily could probably put a horse to sleep, but every time I say the word 'pain' near medical personnel at MIT I am immediately offered more drugs or refills of my current favorite narcotic.

As you might understand, work is progressing at an agonizing slow rate, but I guess it will have to wait until I feel better.

The most aggravating thing in this situation is the fact that I cannot hold CJ in my arms, and have not held him up in three weeks. I know that once I feel better, that boy is going to beg me to get off my hands and onto the floor. I promise you that.


p.s. We would like to convey our best wishes to Dani and Maayan for the birth of their beautiful girl - Yarden. May you have only happiness with her.

3 agenda points (or - what's between books, bugs and flip-flops)

So there have been a few topics that I contemplated about in the last several weeks. Nothing too existential, but topics non the less.

And well try to keep them alphabetically ordered.

1. Books - it is just amazing to see the amount of reading that is taking place in this city. The morning and evening commutes are times that most people on the train spend by reading. Books, ebooks, articles and more. Any written page is good.
It was once said the the Jews are the "of the book" (although the origin of this phrase from the Quran means both Jews and Christians). And many Israelis say this with pride, as if we are the chosen ones and are above all other people. But when you stop to think about it, it seems like Israelis have abandoned the book a long time ago. Now I know that the MRS will not agree, because she swallows books at an alarming rate, but if you try to generalize the behavior and actions of a whole nationality - it is true! The real people of the book are those who spend their commute reading (with or without earphones playing music) instead of texting or listening to music on their phone's loud speaker as if to annoy everyone around.

2. Bugs - apparently pests are a function of geography. Ladybugs in Israel are not very abundant and are considered cute, with their red bodies with black polkadots. Here, on the other hand, there are so many ladybugs and they get everywhere (even through screen windows) that there is only one way to address them - as pests. Also, it seems that ladybugs have had some transformation here, instead of a red body with black spots you can find many that are black bodies with red spots. And the real questions is 'do you start to mutate when you arrive in huge numbers?'

3. Flip-flops - Summer is almost at an end and the Plagues of Boston (after the Ten Plagues of Egypt) are flip-flops. So let's say it out loud - "NO! Flip-flops are not acceptable footwear with your business suit/formal attire/work cloths/else. If you are not wearing a bathing suit under your cloths or you are on a vacation, please avoid them"

So that's it.

Oh yeah! This was written with my iPad (wooh hoo!)

From a special place (or gadget)

So the first thing I want to say is that this post has been written and posted from my newest toy - my iPad! Yes, I thank the MRS. for this great gift she got me.

I have not written in a long time because I can hardly find the time to sit and write. It's not that I don't have anything to write about, but free time is a very expensive commodity at the present time.

CJ is growing fast. He is just getting big every day, and he starts controlling his hands. It is really interesting to see how he grows and develops. But again, him growing is a very time consuming matter. It takes a full time job of two (he and the mrs.) and a half (me) people to grow.

The work is progressing slowly, and I cannot report of any ground breaking results yet, even though I have to present a talk in a huge conference in a week.
At least our visa status has been extended for 2 more years, so, theoretically we are here until 2012.

That's all I have to update about right now. I will try to post more short posts (now that I have the iPad it should be easier) every time I have something to say, and until then...

a short (but one that took 3 days to write) post

There are not enough hours during the day. I cannot seem to find the free time to write here. It's either work, CJ or sleep - not much more than that. Even this short post took me 3 days to write.

I will update that CJ is growing and changing every day. He smiles, laughs and talks (baby talk of course) a lot, but also does a lot of baby stuff like cry (instead of conveying his feelings in words!). And I must say that he already knows how to play us, even at this early stage. For example, he learned that by smiling to us and lifting his chest we will pick him up, and he will use that every time. And it doesn't matter if he suffers from stomach aches or really tired, he will stop his crying long enough to smile to us and lift his chest.

As for work - I'm really trying to go back to a well structured schedule, but I'm not quite there yet. In a month and a half I have to give a talk in a conference and I still don't know what I'm going to present. Other than that it's research as usual.

Oh, yes, we also bought a car. Even though we thought we won't, we found out that a kid requires a car. Depending on taxis and public transportation is not fast enough, reliable enough, quick enough and cheep enough when you have a child. So we have bought a small SUV, because in America live like an American.

And again - I'll try to update whenever possible, but I can't promise it will be at known intervals.

A late update (and a new theme)

So I cannot keep my word and write every week. But it is only because I had crazy few weeks. (Oh, yeah, I decided to go with a darker theme for my blog - just to keep it nice and black)

Work-wise I am back to work, back to experiments and science. And I finally got to present a group meeting. Some might say "big deal", but it is a big deal. In our group we get to give a group meeting about once every six months (and even then it is really flexible). I gave my first meeting after 8 months in the group. During the group meeting you present all you have done (and plan to do) to the boss and this is the only time he really hears about your project. Usually the boss, and some of his minions, try to find weak spots in the project and once a weak spot has been exposed then they sink their teeth and start tearing the raw flesh. Luckily for me - this group meeting was more of a material science and material/electrical engineering meeting, therefore no one is able to shake me and expose weak spots in my knowledge of these subjects. I gave a 1.5 hour presentation that was very satisfactory. Now I have six more months until the next time I need to report to the boss (unless I decide it's time to publish an article, and then I have to make sure the boss knows that).

But the main interest is, of course, on our personal life and not my professional life. CJ has been growing fast. We can see changes in him and his behavior almost every day. He finally stopped ignoring the world around him and he studies with great interest anything that appears in front of his eyes. He is loosing his hair fast (he was born with a head full of hair, but he prefers to look more like his dad, bold). Also, in the last couple of days he started smiling at me and the MRS, not a smile out of a deep sleep, like he has done before, but a genuine smile directed at that face in his field of vision.
The only thing is that he sleeps whenever HE wants and not when we want him to sleep. By now I know what 4AM looks like pretty well (that's my feeding shift) and we go to sleep at 10PM just to make sure we get our 6 hours of sleep.
But sleeping is not the only thing - I cannot understand why he cannot tell us what's wrong!! He cries when he is hungry, he cries when his stomach aches, he cries when he wants a pacifier, he cries when he wants to go to sleep, he cries when he needs to burp. Why can't he just tell us what the problem is? or, at least, have a different cry for each of the different cases!

Well, we found out that raising a child is a full time job. Now we are trying to juggle that and our previous life. Good luck to us.

A boy was born

So, for those of you who asked themselves 'where did he disappear to?' and couldn't put 1+1 together - the MRS. gave birth two weeks ago.

The story of CJ's birth (his real name will come up soon) is a long one. The MRS. got the first contractions right after SHAVUOT, and for the next 30 some hours she had contractions, however, they were not close enough and we were told not to come to the hospital.

After more than 30 hours (two full nights actually), we were told we can come and check in at the hospital, by then the MRS was in active labor and she was admitted. The contractions kept on going, and after more than 40 hours since the first contraction hit, the MRS finally cracked and asked for drugs to lessen the pain (I have to admit - she was much more enduring and powerful than I expected!!). The boy decided to wait until another day will change on the calendar, and right after midnight on the 22nd of May he came out.

We decided (or rather the MRS decided and I agreed) to call him Ely. Now, just to make sure you pronounce it correctly - ILAY or EE-lie, not Eli or Ellie or any other pronunciation!! For some reason non-americans have a problem with this spelling.

Anyway, we left the hospital 36 hour after Ely's birth and we started our home adventure with feeding, sleepless nights, diapers full of $#%@ and all the fun stuff of being a parent.

But actually it is a lot of fun. The boy grows every day, and becomes more responsive and demanding. He loves to eat, he hates to lay still, he has mixed feelings about baths and he is totally opposed for being nude (even for a very quick diaper change). When he gets mad or upset he waves his fists in the air and screams from the top of his lungs. He is really opinionated even at the early age of two weeks.

That's it for now, there are so many new things happening all at once, but (for me) the most interesting is my child. I will save other stories to when I return to a more orderly life, when I sleep better and when I can get my mind on anything else.

Oh, yes, we have decided not to share pictures of CJ (I think I'll keep this nickname for him) on the blog/facebook/the internet. So if you really know me and you want to see a picture of CJ, just send me an email and I'll send you some.

That's it, the boy is crying, which means "leave everything and tend to me, and only me". So I'm off...

The waiting game

Well, another week has passed and it is starting to appear routine. I go to work, work around the clock, get much done without too many results, and come back home. The MRS. is still round and waiting, and CJ is showing no rush in coming out to the world.

We have been trying to pass the time till CJ will decide to start his trip. Luckily for us the weather has been really nice this weekend. But there's not much to do but wait.

At least now I've got a gym membership and I allow myself to play volleyball once a week. The games are mid-week and mid-day, so I can skip a couple of hours of work for volleyball. Soon the whole group will start playing sand-volleyball in a departmental tournament.

That's it. Nothing else to tell.

Hope for more news next time.

A non-post

I really don't have anything new to share at this point. So I won't write anything today.
Sorry.

Heat, water, shopping and walking

It is crazy! Today the weather hit 31 degrees with very high humidity after it was 8 degrees and raining only 4 days ago. I already dread the summer when the temperatures will stay high and the humidity would be a killer, but we still have a several weeks of see-saw weather until summer hits.

Yes, it was really hot, and millions of people at the Boston area could not (and still can not) drink tap water. A huge water main broke out to the west of Boston and 28 towns around Boston cannot get treated water to their taps, so we have to boil any water we use for drinking, brushing teeth, washing food and so forth. It is going to take several days to fix the water main and today at the supermarkets people were buying many boxes of bottled water.

May 1st was just a day ago. And instead of marching for the workers and getting a bit socialist, the people of the greater Boston area enjoyed shopping. Garage sales and lawn sales were popping all over. Yes, for some reason the first days of May are garage-sale days, celebrating capitalism. Funny.

Today we thought of going with friends to a statue park just outside of Boston. This should be pretty easy on any other day, but in Boston no day is any other day. Today thousands of people walked for hunger. A 20 mile route was closed and people poured into the streets walking. This caused traffic jams around the city and roads were closed everywhere. It took us over an hour to move in the city and then less than 15 minutes to get to the park once we were out of the city. It seems like Bostonians don't like to sit at home. Whenever they can they find a reason to get out to the streets. Let's wait and see what will be next week.

That's it - the MRS. and myself are still waiting for the arrival of CJ. We took a tour of the hospital facilities and we saw the birthing rooms and the rooms for after-birth recovering. It's really nice to see how a hospital allows these kind of visits since it wants you to come and be its patient (as it is a private health plan and the hospital behaves like a financial entity).
Oh, yes - I have finally got a gym membership that will allow me to return to regular workouts and to volleyball games. And except that there's nothing new. That's it.

I have no smart title today

Another week and the work load is just growing exponentially. It seems like every action I do produces more work. I make some materials - I need to measure them in different conditions, I measure them and I find out I need to make different materials, and so on. It seems that days have become shorter and shorter since I cannot fit everything into a day's work. But I guess that it gives one a reason to wake up and go to work.

The MRS. and myself are almost entirely ready for CJ's arrival. And that means at least in the operative sense. We got everything we need for the child (including cloths, furniture and all the little things an infant needs) or at least we think we are ready. I bet that once CJ arrives we will find out how many things we still need to get/buy.
The Israeli community in the Boston area is like a Kibutz, you can get anything passed on to you and there is no need to purchase anything. The down side to this community is the fact that everyone has suggestions and thoughts (like any good Jew) and they are not shy in conveying their thoughts and planting stupid ideas in the brains of others. We are trying to keep an open mind, yet we use (or at least I do) a lot of criticism regarding anything we hear.

I was computerless for 2.5 days this week, as my computer was being fixed at the Apple store. I must admit I was going through withdrawal symptoms while I had no computer. It isn't as if I sit and use the computer ALL the time, and we do have two more computers at home, but the fact that I didn't have the possibility to use MY computer was the real problem. However, I finally got my computer back and like a junky getting his fix, all my symptoms were gone.

Marathon and Independence day

So today is the Boston marathon, and very early in the morning streets were fenced off to allow the runners (who will only start at 10:00 and end around 19:00) to run with nobody jumping into their paths. The Boston marathon takes place on Patriots Day, which is a Massachusetts only holiday. I believe that this holiday was created especially to allow the marathon to take place. Anyways, I have arrived to work very early to avoid all the traffic and commuters that will form later today.

Yes, it is the Israeli Independence day as well, and it is funny and strange to step aside and see the rituals of other Israelis leaving away from Israel. Some are looking very hard to find a ceremony for the Memorial day (which unlike Holocaust Memorial day is not mentioned by Jewish Americans), some only want to light a BBQ and eat, and it doesn't matter if it is a day before Independence day (yes - right on Memorial day, but what can you do, it's a Sunday and a day off of work) or several days after Independence day (what can we do, there is a communal BBQ in the building and we had to book it in advance, well, we forgot).
So these days all Israelis are occupied in finding a place and time to celebrate, because for most - Israel (as is seen and remembered from afar) is the best place in the world (disclaimer - I still haven't made up my mind, I am just conveying the feelings of others).

So work is going OK, I finally got the $40K instrument I ordered 5 months ago. And one would expect that if you pay so much for an instrument it would come assembled, or at least an expert would come to assemble it and show you how to work with it. But NO, I have spent the last 2 work days assembling it, and I still have at least a days worth of work before I'll have to start learning how to use the softwares (yes - in plural). And I also have to do some other work besides this. So it is a busy time at work.

Another reason for it being busy is the fact that our due date is coming closer. The MRS. feels very heavy lately, and we are anxiously counting the days (only a figure of speech) until CJ is due. We go to child-birthing classes, where we learn to relax while we learn about every complication that can occur during labor. We went to infant CPR class where we learned how to revive a dead infant. So, as you might understand, we are focusing on the most optimistic and happiest place we can find.
But cynicism away - we are happy and waiting for CJ to be born. We started thinking and discussing names (the name will be revealed only after birth) and planning the circumcision of the child (which will take place in a doctors office with no guests except for the parents of the child). So this also keeps us busy.

I'll finish for today, since I need to start working. Have a happy Independence day in Israel.

Pictorial

I have nothing to tell. So here is a springy look at Boston. Enjoy:

A surprise post

I just had to share this right away.
The students at MIT like pulling hacks every so often. Sometimes you get to MIT and find a truck on top of the dome and other times you find out that MIT was "bought" by Caltech and it was taken over in one night.

This time some students have decided to put up a whole living room upside down, hanging on a free-standing arch way that is 3 stories high. The living room is equipped with armchairs, a pool table, a plant and even a cat. It's hard to understand how they got up there, since the arch way is not connected to any building. Anyway, it's really fun coming in to work in the morning and seeing this weird scene of an upside down living room hanging way up in the air.

Here are some pictures for you to enjoy:

Vernal Passover in the diaspora

This week began with Passover eve that took on Monday, I allowed myself a day off to get ready for the Seder. We had the Seder with our friends who also happen to be the other Israeli postdoc chemists at MIT. I made KUBÉ and KNEIDALACH with soup - so we had both Spharadi and Ashkenazi food on the table, as should be. We also had GEFILTÉ FISH to add some more Ashkenazi delicatessen and the rest of the food was race-neutral. We read the Hagadah (Egyptian-Jewish style) and we stopped when we reached dinner (as we always do). It was raining the whole day on Monday (and Tuesday and Wednesday), and we sat in the warm house and enjoyed the food and the company.

Tuesday, even though it was Passover day, I went back to work - because research waits for no one, and I really have to move things ahead.

This week really demonstrated the bistability of the spring weather. The beginning of the week was raining endlessly, the sky were gray and there was no break in the rain. The second part of the week was blue skies, and warm, very warm. During this weekend the temperatures reached 24-25 degrees and broke the heat records of Boston for the beginning of April. It was a beautiful weekend. Daffodils (NARKISIM) are blooming everywhere and other flowers started their blossom. The trees are starting to grow leaves, after a bare and gray winter, the green is returning to the streets. I can only guess that in a couple of weeks the scene would be amazing.

This week I have also done something that I avoided for several years - I went to see a movie in a cinema! I went with the MRS. and here friend to see Alice in Wonderland 3D which was a new experience for me. I have not been to a cinema in ages, and it was my first time in an American cinema. The American cinema would never work in Israel - here you give your ticket and enter the complex of cinemas and you can enter any hall, after the movie ends you return to the complex of cinemas and you can actually enter another movie in another hall. But I guess that doesn't happen too much around here, otherwise the cinemas would change the way they check tickets.
Oh - and by the way, 3D is cool, but I don't find it very realistic since there are still problems with focusing and depth of picture.

That's it. Research has not bear any fruits of interest this week, and has been quite monotonous this week. But, this post has been long enough even with no work-related stories.

Traveling around the outside of the city

This week was a regular one. Work and rest. However this weekend was totally different. We have rented a car for several days. It was the first time I drove in 5 months which was kind of a strange feeling that disappeared after 1 and a half seconds behind the wheel. We have decided to check out the surrounding areas around Boston, where all the rich people go for vacation in season.
We started at Provincetown and Cape Cod on Saturday... Nice, but the town itself is a quiet uninteresting place. I guess that in summer it must be much nicer, with people on the beach and boats in the water. I guess we'll have to give it a try one day in summer.
On Sunday we traveled north. We started at the witch town of Salem Massachusetts, where the residents have adopted and fully merchandised the whole idea of witches. It is kind of pity that it is so commercialized. Then we kept on driving northward to Rockport on Cape Ann. This is a nice town, again in a winter slumber, but you can really see the potential of the area to be a great resort in the summertime. The winding beaches and the green vegetation are just a perfect combination.
So as we returned the weather turned crappy. At least we enjoyed two dry days.
Tonight we will be celebrating Passover with friends. The MRS. has a friend from back home staying over for a week or so, so she joined us on our trips and she'll join the Seder tonight. We are going to be around 11 people (not counting kids, infants or fetuses). I have taken a day off from work to get the food ready and to prepare for the evening.
And tomorrow we'll dive right back into the science.

Happy holidays for all. And it's OK to steal a bite of bread/scone/cake/pita/bun/and much more every hour or so.

Passover is almost here and we are starting to organize the SEDER. It seems that we will have around 12 adults in the SEDER this year and each of us will bring some type of food. The MRS. and I will bring Kubé, as it is the food most recognized with Passover for me. I spent Sunday morning preparing the Kubés and you can see what a beautiful work I've done.

The week was great, dark arrives only around 19:30, and the temperatures climbed above the 20 degree mark. Returning home from work every evening while it is still light and with a short T-shirt is really uplifting.
This week also had St. Patrik's day which a few of the guys in the group decided to celebrate with lunch at a bar. Yes, beer and beef in the middle of the day, just before returning to work in the lab. Later that night I went with a friend to a pub and saw green beer. I didn't try it and I don't think I'll ever want to drink green beer, but it seemed to be an attraction at the pub.

Work was partially better this week. I had some good measurements and some bad. But this week was mostly an accident-prone week. It started by me loosing a part of a finger nail in the lab, then I hit my leg on a dolly and got a pretty big bump on my knee. But the strangest "accident" I had this week is sunburning. I got three round burns on my arm (see picture). These marks are a result of work with a strong lamp at the lab. This lamp can simulate twice the radiation of the sun, and if you have the light focused (like with a magnifying glass) you can get sun burns in a few seconds, which I did when I tried to focus the light into my system.

Anyway, this week most of the group will be in San Francisco for a conference so I have most of the lab space for myself. This will allow me to work with no waits for instruments and with shorter lunch/coffee breaks, because there will be no one to talk to. Let's all hope for great results.

Not licking honey

This week kind of sucked. My research hit a huge bump and crashed for a while. Everything I tried failed, either because of instrument faults or human errors, but nothing worked. So I took a quiet weekend to try and recover before I return for a new week of science. But, of course, the weekend was extremely rainy.
I hope that this week will be better.

Passover is getting close and we have started planning the Seder. Since it is on a Monday, I'll have to decide if I want to take Monday off or if I prefer Tuesday. I really don't want to take a longer vacation because I know that I have to work as much as possible before CJ arrives (not too far away!).

We have started checking out the option of getting a local driving license. The bureaucracy of the DMV is astonishing, we need to bring so many documents to prove who we are, when we were born, where we live, if we exists, and so much more... oh, yes. You can't use one document (like a passport) to prove more than one thing. Yes, a passport can prove your identity OR your date of birth OR your signature, but not all things together. And apparently, if you try to be a "smart ass" and try to use one document for more than one fact you will be denied a license and will have to try again another day. Stupidity at its best!

So with hopes of a better week. Bye.

Springtime in Boston

Spring time has arrived to Boston (at least at the time being). The frozen river has finally melted and the rowing teams started training. This week that started with snow and winds ended with blue skies and scorching heat (Boston style - which means around 13 degrees). And it seems that this beautiful weather will stay for most of next week.
We have decided to enjoy this beautiful weather with an outing with friends. We have walked around a small man-made lake close by and had a nice brunch on the open patio of a small restaurant close to the lake. It was kind of strange to look at a big group of Israelis (we were 9 adults and 3 children) walking around the lake disturbing all the joggers, cyclists and other "healthy" Americans. Apparently, walking on the right side of a road, any road, is almost impossible for Israelis. They have to walk in the middle of the road, and preferably to zig-zag from side to side.

I have spent most of the remainder of this day shopping - my most hated action. The story begins yesterday night when we went to hear a talk by an Israeli author/screen play writer/columnist in one of the synagogues in Brookline. I know him from high school, and The MRS. knows his wife from work. We started talking and ended up going out for dinner and drinks, and inviting him to join our walk around the lake. After we finished the walk and the brunch, he said he needed to buy gifts for his wife and kids, so we got back to Boston and went shop-hopping for several hours. Never mind - hospitality is an important aspect of the Middle Eastern culture, and we are all Middle Eastern!

It feels like (not true - only feels like!!) this whole week was socked in alcohol, and not in the chemistry sense of things. We had a group meeting this week - which means a few beers - then the group went out for some more drinks, and a day later I found myself drinking again with the visitor. I do not get drunk (I don't drink enough for it, because I don't enjoy the feeling), but I do get more "loose". No extreme emotions (happiness, depression and so forth), just more fun to talk to - or at least I hope so. But my note-to-self from this week is - I shouldn't have so many drinks in the future.

As for work - I am pretty excited. It seems that my research progresses in the right direction, I started getting agreeable results. I also had a few words with the boss (which is a great achievement by itself) and got him really psyched towards my research. He really wants me to finish these experiments and to start writing a paper. I hope I'll be able to do this ASAP, since just as I started seeing great results, different delays and problems have already popped up. I guess I will enjoy long days in the lab until I can wrap up this project.

So that was another week towards the success we strive for. Until nest time...

Craziness

Sometimes it's just too much. The long hours, the stress. This week was just crazy. I have worked hard and long, and I still cannot say if I've got exactly what I want or not. This upcoming week should not be much different, it will be as crazy as the previous, with synthesis, measurements, and more.

We have witnessed the crooked ways of the American health system this week. The hospital where we are to give birth has invited 75 pregnant couples to a "Meet the Docs" event. 10 doctors sit in front of the invitees and answer questions, trying to hook the costumers. Even though The MRS. and I do not have a choice of hospitals, most people here can choose from different places. The hospitals earn money by the number of people who check in so they try to get as many people to come over to their institutions. It is really different than the system in Israel, since here if you have a good insurance you will be treated like a king and be courted endlessly (where as in Israel you will always be treated like a nag and there will never be an opening for you) but I cannot say that the system here is good.

I've also went to a Tax Session for foreign scholars. The tax system here is really strange. You will have to submit the tax report by yourself - when there is a tax treaty with foreign countries it means you need to fill several forms and send them to different government agencies (federal, state and more) just to tell them "Hey, I don't need to pay anything". And after 2 years my employer will start taking tax out of my paycheck and only in the middle of the following year I can ask for the money back.
They do not have the system where an employer takes the right amount of tax and that's it. Here the employer will usually take more tax than needed, and you HAVE to ask for money back.

Getting used to living here still requires more work!

The MRS. celebrated her birthday this weekend, and I would like to wish her a very happy birthday, may all her wishes come true. I love her.

Oops - forgot again

It's already a Monday, I just totally forgot to post in the blog yesterday.

It's been a busy week, as usual. Work has kept me busy throughout most of the week and We had a visit from Dani and Maayan that allowed me to take a breather and site-see Boston a bit.

Time is moving so fast I can't even keep up. I work long hours, which typically includes lab work, paper work, meetings and seminars. And it seems like the week is way too short.

Dani and Maayan spent 2 nights in Boston, and we went around the city to see different sites, including historical sites, Harvard and MIT. Luckily for us the weather was nice and warm (at 6 degrees) after a short snow episode.

CJ seems to be growing fast. You can even see him moving from time to time inside the MRS. It's a good thing he is due in the springtime when it will not be too cold to take him outside.

Other than that I have nothing to tell. It's becoming pretty routine, working and resting cycles everyday.

NYC, music and more

Coming up this week : NYC, music and visits...

So THE Mrs. went to New York for a couple of days, just to see the Big Apple. She claims that the whole city is megalomaniac, and I guess she is right. I really don't like New York, but she didn't find it as annoying as I do.

While she was spending time in NYC I have bought a guitar. Since we have a federal vacation almost every week (This week is Presidents Day), the stores have sales events every so often. This time I have decided to use one of those events to save up to 80% on guitars and accessories. I didn't want a classic guitar, but I wanted to upgrade to an acoustic guitar. I bought a beautiful black guitar with all the needed accessories for not very much!
Then on Saturday I had a friend come over with his guitar and we played together for a couple of hours. Just music and beer. How juvenile!

I am anxiously waiting for the middle of next week, when Dani and Maayan will come and visit us in Boston. We are slowly starting to fill our visits' calendar. Luckily for us we have a high-tech inflatable bed that is very comfortable.

The science is moving forward as usual. Last week was five full days of work, all science, with a better understanding of the system I've been working on. Let's wait and see if this week will be as productive, if so then I'm really on the right track.

For all of you who forgot - Sunday was both Valentines Day (internationally) and Family day (ex-Mother's day) (in Israel), so if you forgot make sure to wish your parents a happy delayed family day and make sure you buy your loved one something nice. Just because.

and on this mushy note, I'll end this post.

Toes and the Super Bowl

So another week has passed, and one of the most important days of the year for Americans has arrived. Super Bowl 44 just ended with a win of the New Orleans Saints. The streets emptied out around 18:00 this evening and just a few people roamed the streets in a frenzy to get some more beers or snacks for the game. Quiet was all around as the Saints pounded the Indianapolis Colts.

And now for something completely different - I have been conducting my own small private research in the last several weeks. Riding the T every day for long periods of time has made me observant of a very special thing. This special thing had me watching the feet of people riding the T. Not ALL the feet on the train, and I am not talking about legs(!), I have been watching the feet of people who have to ride the train standing up. It's really amazing to see how EVERYONE uses their toes the exact same manner. Apparently, toes exist to keep us in balance. People falling forward will instinctively push down with their toes and people falling back will try to wiggle their toes to keep balance. This has been observed for people of both sexes, all ages and all races. I now believe that toes are the most useful body organs for people riding the T. Therefore, the results of my small research - You don't have to use your arms to stay standing, only toes.
So remember that when you lay in bed and ponder on the origin and role of TOES.

Now for the weekly update - things have been going well this week. It just WOOSHED by as I worked on my samples, ending all of a sudden. Yes, weeks are getting shorter as my science progresses. But I must admit that it's pretty fun.

I think that THE Mrs. has settled in nicely. She is very independent in getting around Boston and in scheduling different activities for herself. This makes me happy to see her trying to find her niche.

So, your "take home" lesson here should be - Keep your toes in good condition, you never know when some strange guy will check them out on the train!

Yes, I know I'm late...

Unbelievable, me, late! Yes, I know it is a Monday and I should have updated the blog yesterday, but the movie we were watching (Inglorious Bastards) ended at midnight and I was too tired to write, so... only a few hours late.

This week we have experienced crazy weather, it plummeted from a nice and warm 12 degrees to an extremely cold -25 degrees (counting in the wind chill) withing two days! I guess I can now understand this strange Fahrenheit scale. If 0 Celsius means water freezing than 0 Fahrenheit means that humans are the most uncomfortable they can get and they should not be outside.
THE Mrs. and myself even went grocery shopping at -17 degrees and it was a harsh experience. Luckily our winter coats we bought here do a great job in keeping the cold away from our torsos.

We celebrated TU BESHVAT with friends at our place last Saturday, it was the first time we had friends over for dinner and it worked out nicely. We had dry fruits and ice-cream for dessert and we really enjoyed the evening.

As for work, it progresses nicely. I spent 3 days last week making 18(!) different samples so I'll be able to use them this week in my collaboration. I really felt like a robot in a manufacturing plant, repeating the same actions over and over again, but now it's over (or should I say - for now) and I can use these samples for research.

Dani is in the States (and Maayan will join soon) and will visit us in a couple of weeks, which will be great to have house-guests. I just hope we will have good weather and can show them around the place.

Just cruising along

Another week has gone by, and time really flies. I have started to organize a collaboration with another lab at MIT and hopefully this will speed up my research. I have taken a two-day course in powder X-ray diffraction (after I did not take a course for ages!). I measured some samples and participated in lab clean up. This was my professional week in a few lines. But this week just disappeared! I mean, it started last Monday and... woosh... it is over. I know time flies when you are busy, but this is ridiculous, it goes by too fast and it's hard to keep in pace. Well... I guess this is the routine now, and time will just zoom by.

I finally received the official approval on my PhD. Yes, it took quite a long time but at last I have my PhD.

THE Mrs. is getting settled in pretty nicely. The house is fully furnished (or so I think) and she is starting to join different activities.

So, since time went by so quickly, I didn't have a chance to collect fun/interesting/nice/strange or other stories to tell you and I will hold it off for next week's post. That's all for now.

Megalomaniac furniture (or each one alone)

What a week... Or finally arrived to Boston and I took a couple of days off to get her organized. Yes, I know, I could have let her rest a bit before starting all the orientation and official stuff, but what can I do, if it can be done today I cannot postpone it to later times. So we made sure she visited the bank, the health care facility, the stores around the house and more.

I got back to work on Wednesday and learned some more life lessons - the prerequisite of being a professor is being megalomaniac and egomaniac. The real question is how is your interaction with the people you meet, and even more important the people you work with. Some professors have crappy manners with their students, postdocs and workers - they will always be badmouthed and on the long run their science will be hurt. The smart thing is to have great relations with your workers, this way you can reach the status of a scientific god. At MIT, as everywhere, professors divide into these different categories. I currently work for a professor of the second type, a professor with the biggest ego I have ever seen, but loved by his students. I guess that is the reason for his success and fame.

This weekend THE Mrs. decided that we need furniture. Apparently a sofa, a bed, a chair, TV and a dining table are not enough. So we went and bought a desk, an office chair, a coffee table and two end tables, a rug, two nightstands, a mirror and a dresser. All the furniture arrived with a need to put them together, most of them arrived in a flatbox and required a long time to build them. It got pretty late, but as I said in the beginning "if it can be done today..." I had to finish building all of them. By the time we went to bed the house was newly furnished, with a totally new look with all the furniture built to perfection.

Now (try to follow my way of thinking)... If I can build furniture well (and I can), you may refer to me as a carpenter... which will make my son the son of a carpenter... The son of...ME!!!

Yes, I can also be a megalomaniac egomaniac!

:)

Or finally here - a short update

Hi all. Today's post is going to be a short one. Or has arrived last night, after some trouble with the flight from Israel, but she made it at last.
It was extremely cold this weekend (got down to -18 degrees this morning) and I hardly gave her time to rest. Today, despite the cold, we went to town to get her a coat, boots, ear-warmers, and some more 'heat keeping' cloths. She was pretty overwhelmed with the cold weather, but I'm sure she'll get used to it in no time.
We have just returned from a friend's house, and again walked outside with the temperature feeling lower than -10 degrees.

Except for that, it was a nice week. Work kept progressing at a slow, yet agreeable, rate. I have the next few days off, and I will have to work harder now if I want to achieve the same rate of progress and still have time to spend with Or.

Well - As I said, only a short update today. Next week I'll let you all know how Or is getting settled in. That's all for now.

Another year - another post

The new year has arrived, and in Boston there is a tradition of "First Night" events that take place during the last day of the year. This year was no different, even though it snowed on the morning of December 31st, many events took place around the city. Concerts and shows were everywhere. I did not go to these morning and afternoon events because I helped a friend move (from the forth floor to the first floor of a house with no elevator, this because he and his wife just had a baby). Yes, it was quite a sight - four Israeli doctors of chemistry working as movers, carrying stuff down the stairs. It was pretty tiring but we moved his whole apartment in an hour and a half.

I went to the Boston Commons park in the evening to watch the Parade, the fireworks and the ice sculptures that the TV news kept telling about. When I arrived to the park I found out that there where only three ice sculptures and that I have seen all of them on TV. I really expected to see more sculptures than what the TV presented, alas, there where none (you can see one of the sculptures of Da Vinci creating the Statue of David in the picture).

The Parade was nice, and long, trying to imitate a Brazilian carnival but with American patriotism. Among the floats of dancers, bands and puppets, the Boston police, the fire department and other emergency services also presented and got a big round of applause from all the proud Americans who seem to really love their emergency services guys. (I wonder if that would have worked in Israel, since we don't seem to like or appreciate our police officers and fire fighters). But the Americans have a soft spot in their heart for those guys.
At the end of the precession joined a protest against Israel and for the Palestinians in Gaza. This was not planned by the organizers of the parade, but a very large group of Palestinians and Americans carrying the Palestinian flags and signs calling to Free Gaza just joined the parade and, thus, were given a very large exposure. I guess that is one of the reasons that Israel is not very popular. Our foes know how to expose their views and ideas, while you do not really hear the Israeli side of the story. (But that really carried me off the new year's story, so back to it...)

Later came the fireworks, which were pretty standard, and they even had some problems of fireworks that went off too early and fell to the ground while still burning. But the area of the mortars was cleared from the audience and no one got hurt. You can see one of the successful pictures I took (there weren't many).

I thought of staying in the city until midnight for the second fireworks in the harbor and I took a stroll to the harbor (which is much further than it appears to be on the map). When we got there it was way too early and there was nothing to do but wait. I did not survive the wait and at 11pm I decided I have waited enough and went home to see the fireworks on the TV. It was very similar to the ones I've seen in the park and I was happy that I did not wait in the harbor.

That's it. That was my new year's eve. It started snowing again on Saturday and it snowed until this evening (Sunday). I still decided not to sit at home for such a long weekend and I went to work on Saturday, which was a great idea since MIT was empty and quiet, and the city was also pretty abandoned due to the snow, so I had a relaxing walk to the train (the T) in the evening after work with white all around and silence in the air.
For those of you who wonder how MIT looks like - here is a night picture of the main building.
I'll try to take a picture tomorrow with the grass all covered with snow, but I can't promise.

Any way - I wish all of you a happy new year, may all your wishes come true. Bye, until next week.