Posts from — May 2006

Hey ya’ll, surf on over to the production blog for my brother’s new show Flavio! The pilot is being done at Frederator Studios and will air on Nickelodean as part of the Random Cartoons project. Very cool!

I’ve seen a zillion of my brother’s ideas over the years and a lot of them are very good, but this is by far the best of them! So, surf on by and drop a comment to show my bro some love! If you do, I’ma gonna put you ona da good guy list!

Well, I did indeed make a million miles, as predicted, somewhere over the Atlantic.  No, there was no party for me – just a rather nasty seat tease, as the nice folks in Zurich did a song and dance about getting me a nice seat with an empty one next to me.  They said they had pulled it off, which was great, because it was a 12 hour flight – but then someone came and sat next to me.  I don’t know if he was messed up in his seating, or if the Zurich folks were confused, or if something just changed, but that was a really nasty tease.  I do have to say that the people there were very kind, so I’m assuming something unexpected happened.

Anyway, thank you American for One Million Miles of carting my sore tush around this great big world of ours.

Thanks for the great comments in the Israel post – I’ll be answering some of the questions in an upcoming post.

But, I had to take a quick minute to post my latest gadget love! A few days before my trip out here, I found out that a few of us were going to be getting new laptops.  I was thrilled to find out that I’d be getting a new Thinkpad T60p!

This is one AMAZING machine.  From the Intel Core Duo processor T2500, to the 512MB ATI graphics card, to the PCI express system bus, to the 2 (soon to be 4!) gigs of RAM, this puppy chews through just about anything you throw at it.  It’s also got neat useability features, like fingerprint logon, a BEAUTIFUL 15″, TFT 1600×1200 screen, a 100GIG hard drive, and built-in LAN, WiFi, Bluetooth and IrDA adapters.

Like I said, I’m in love…

Here’s a few snapshots. I’ve only got my Treo to take pics with, so ‘scuzie for the horrible quality. Maybe one day I’ll finally take the plunge and buy myself a nice Digital Elph from Canon…

Notice the Hebrew letters on the keyboard – pretty neat, if I ever decide to learn Hebrew. hehe  But, anyway, its a neat thing to see how non-romanized languages use keyboards.  It’s a lot easier for a language like Hebrew (which only has 22 letters, compared to our 24) than it is for say, Chinese.  I’m still a bit at a loss for how they really make that work, but that’s a topic for another time.

So, sorry for the lack of updates lately.  I’m currently at my company’s overseas headquarters, outside of Tel Aviv in Israel.  It’s quite a flight from Los Angeles – leaving Friday at 8:00 AM and arriving Saturday at 6:00AM (or 4:00PM Israel Time).  Now granted, there are more direct ways to go, but even with only 2 direct flights, you are talking at least 18 hours of flight.  I ended up going LA to NY, then to London, and on to Tel Aviv.

One reason for taking the longer route, is that I wanted to fly on American Airlines for the majority of the trip.  One my way back, I’ll be flying my one-millionth mile on American!  I should be having a party somewhere over the Atlantic.   There IS one benefit to having flown that many miles – you receive AAdvantage Gold status for life – no need to requalify.

Anyway, Here’s a pic I took while waiting for my plane at Heathrow.

After a day of acclamating to the timezone, we were off to our training course.  We are learning all about IBM Websphere Portal, condensing a 5 day course into 2 days, so that we can spend the rest of the week on specifics that are related to my employer.

Here’s a snap of the training room – very humble, but effective.

The training building is in downtown Tel Aviv – for those of you who haven’t been there, its pretty much a regular type city.  There are certainly some distinctive features, but without all the Israeli flags everywhere, you might not know where you were.

To be sure, there are more damaged buildings around that I’m used to seeing in your average US city, but there are some places in NY that are the spitting image.  Here’s a couple of pics I took while we were walking to lunch.

Anyway, Tel Aviv is a neat place to be.  It’s my 4th trip over here, and I find myself more at home each time.  I usually stay at one of the hotels right on the beach – I’ll take a couple of pics from there later and post them tomorrow.

My brother recently asked on his blog, “Where is the love?” Referring to how America seems to be emotionally quagmired – much as we were pre-9/11.

A very nice Brit named John responded in the comments saying that Mikey was being too hard on the US, and that something good is always around the corner.

While I certainly agree with John that things ebb and flow, I have to say that it doesn’t surprise me that the “spirit” of the nation is faltering.

Unfortunately (or fortunately…) we are ill-used to problems and discord. Our gas prices go up, and despite the fact that we still pay much less than the majority of the rest of the world, we feel persecuted. People spend hours bitching and complaining about a war that hasn’t impacted 90% of people’s lives here in the US. Yes, many have given the ultimate sacrifice – but they did so willingly, even if some vocal members of their families don’t believe in the cause. Maybe these members should have paid more attention to changing opinions BEFORE their loved ones decided to join the military… Remember, there has been no draft – everyone in the Military is there by their own choosing. And I say, “Thank God” for them, because it is by their blood that we are free to complain.

We have no food rations, no metal rations, no gas rations – in fact, we are largely an overweight populace with a penchant for huge, gas guzzling SUV’s, which last time I checked were largely made of metal. We have a little more debt (that pales in comparison to what we will be spending each year for Medicare and prescription drugs), and people play the martyr as if Bush is single handedly sending the country to hell in a hand basket. How much do you think the Democrats would have spent on all this? Oh, that’s right, they wouldn’t have STARTED the war. And then we’d still be the UN and Saddam’s monkey, Iran would still be developing nuclear weapons, gas prices would still be high, AND Al Qaeda would be at our doorsteps instead of us at their’s. Bin Laden stated on multiple occasions that he was going to provoke us until he had a war with America – now he’s got one, but it isn’t HERE. Even the MSM agrees that the problem in Iraq is Al Qaeda, not some band of stupid Saddam-ites. Face it, we are going to have to fight these sumbitches someplace… I’m quite OK with the choice of arena.

If Bush is an imbecile, then I think it’s really a sad reflection on us – because he is the BEST that our country produced in its greatest hour of need since World War II. I’m no rosy-eyed fanboy, but I’m also not a hypocrite (usually). Exactly when has anyone in government done everything “right” all of the time, let alone done it in a way that pleased everybody? Bush is no more of an imbecile than that great American President to which John referred to in his comments.
And, frankly, the only way out of this “slump” is for Democrats, Republicans and the rest of the world to heed what are probably this man’s greatest words:

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

Now, THAT’S something to ponder, because THERE IS THE LOVE. It is in working towards a higher purpose, with a sense of personal responsibility and the rejection of an expectation of entitlement.

I just hope it doesn’t take another 9/11 for us to remember that we weren’t going to forget.