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THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Chronological Account of the Weiss family with contextual remarks, some weather, sports and other news. You can write to me at: mhw20854@yahoo.com The people in the Weiss family are: Martin, Ann, Beth and George. I also sometimes write about other people or our pet.

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Strange Electro and Mechanical Happenings

The past two days I forgot the transponder that gets me into the 11th floor gym at work. Both days, the door was unlocked anyway.

I noticed that the spare key for the Hyundai that I have in my change wallet is for the wrong Hyundai (the one that was totaled a few years ago). So I went to L'Enfant Plaza near the end of the day to have some spares made. It was going to take about 10 minutes so I walked around a bit. I met somebody I hadn't seen for a while and we talked and I noticed my watch and I had to get to the office so I forgot about the keys. When I got to the metrorail station, I took a cab home and picked up Ann in the Camry.

Another strange thing. I had to change a password on my office computer and it actually accepted an old password that I hadn't used in three years. Now however my network and email password are different.

posted by Martin Weiss # 7:39 PM

Monday, December 27, 2004

The Return of Marion Barry and other bad news

Today, admitted adulterer and trespasser and convicted drug possessor, Marion Barry takes a seat in the DC City Council. Yesterday was also the Redskins 14th loss in the past 15 games against Dallas (they seemed to have the game won possessing the ball with less than 2 minutes to go but couldn't make a first down and then had the Cowboys in a 4th and 10 situation on the Dallas 25 but...). Also had the most powerful earthquake in 40 years yesterday and today the death count is in the 10s of thousands.

posted by Martin Weiss # 2:12 PM

G departs

Before he left (on the 1145pm Oriental Express to NYC on the 26th), G fixed the seat belt on the driver's side - it had gotten caught in the dispensing device. I asked him how he fixed it. He said, "you can't do it by looking at it; you have to feel the force flowing thru you."

On a separate subject, G indicated he hopes to study Ugaritic, Arabic and possibly Persian and German later on (he's studying Aramaic and Hebrew now). One of my friends has some professional papers written about Ugaritic texts.

posted by Martin Weiss # 2:06 PM

Saturday, December 25, 2004

Snow in South Texas

Up to a foot of snow fell from Corpus Christi (27.8 N Latitude) to Victoria to Galveston Texas. A new article at: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=359140 gave some info on the event. At all stations it was the first white Xmas in history and at a lot of stations it was their most snow ever.

A person at a forum: http://www.edgeforums.net/gta/showthread.php?threadid=35539 said, " i have never seen snow in my lifethis would be like if it snowed in south flordia it just dont happen it is amazing, its gunna happen because it is supose to be 22 degrees becuase of 3 cold frontsits awsome! ime gunna see snow!"

Later in the forum was this posting. "Snow once every 20 years = fun! Snow for 6 months straight = not fun.Enjoy the snow! (Living in central Canada, I wish for a Christmas without snow)"

posted by Martin Weiss # 6:50 PM

Friday, December 24, 2004

Murrey's Novel and lunch at Katz

Met Murrey White while buying some last minute things Dec 24 at the Boiling Brook Center. Murry said he is now 75% finished with his novel. He asked if I remembered him telling me about it.

I said, "Isn't it a search and epiphany novel?"

Murrey said, "No. It's about a baseball player who has a long discovery of who he is and then he suddenly realizes that... oh yeah, I guess it is that isn't it."

The food at the restaurant inside Katz was surprisingly good, well presented and served quickly. However, it did take 20 minutes to pay. They hadn't gotten to the stage of numbering tables so all the people who paid with credit cards got confused to the wait staff.

posted by Martin Weiss # 6:58 PM

Is it AM or PM for G

G was supposed to get an 800 am bus out of NY today to come to the DC area. However, yesterday he nodded off about 500pm and woke up about 800pm, saw the clock and thought he would have to hussle down to midtown to pick up a later (930am) bus. Well he got to midtown about 930 but since it was still dark, it dawned on him (be dum bump ching) that he was at the wrong part of the day. He called and took the late pm bus arriving at the 600 block of I st in DC SW about 330am. I met him with the car. Remarkably, there were a lot of other people waiting to board the bus that was to leave at about 345am. Not so remarkably, there were a lot of places to wait with the car both on street and off. We obviously had virutally no traffic home and made excellent time arriving here about 400am.

posted by Martin Weiss # 9:46 AM

Monday, December 20, 2004

Warm Weather Teams Win in the Tundra

On Sunday, we had a huge arctic air mass over the northest.

Yet in all three games in which warm weather teams played in the northeast, the warm weather teams won.

Houston 24- Chicago 5 in Chicago (temps in the low teens)
San Diego 21 - Cleveland 0 in Cleveland (temps in the low teens and snowing)
Jacksonville 28 - Green Bay 25 in Green Bay (temps in the low single numbers)

posted by Martin Weiss # 8:35 PM

How Cold Was It

Well our outside temp was down to 9F this am (with wind gusts in the 20s mph) and it wasn't just cold at the surface. The 850mb temp was -22C (-7F) with a 500 mb of 5210m and a 500-1000mb thickness of 4900m. If snow were on the ground and the wind would have died down (neither being the case), the surface temps would surely have been well below 0F. Noon time temps had rebounded to 17F.

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:39 AM

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Wrapping XMass Gifts - Used Israeli expression

Ann has done this twice already this year but this year was my first. Both of us were at Lake Forest Mall wrapping gifts for charity (ORT). Actually, I was at the cash register and stroller rental station - Ann was wrapping. About 40 minutes after we came a woman and her young daughter (about 5) came to get something wrapped.

The little girt was very agitated and wanted to know if the wrapping would be done quickly so they could get other gifts. Her mom spoke to her but the little girl was still agitated.

I said, "Yehiyeh bSeder." Then realising what I said, I said, "It will be alright".

When we were in Israel, counter people would quiet agitated customers with this expression, which literally means, "it will be (yehiyeh) in (b) order (seder)" but has the connotation "It will be alright"

Ann and I are going to do this again in a few days. It's a big revenue source for her ORT chapter.

posted by Martin Weiss # 9:44 PM

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Four Transit Event Day

Morning Metrorail ride was free courtesy of a bank (ING). Even more shocking, the bank kept its promotionals discreet and tasteful. Then at mid day, I got two metrorail cars in a row that were the new model with LED displays within the car. Unfortunately the day was ruined by a Ride-on bus that was over a half hour late -- so late that the next bus caught up with it and at my stop I actually had two # 38 buses arrive at the same time (they have nominal 30 minute headways).

posted by Martin Weiss # 8:43 PM

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Follow up to trip to Israel

As I noted earlier, Ann got sick in Israel and was treated by an Israeli doctor who came to our hotel room and gave her a ride to his clinic. The bill was $140. Today we received news that our insurance provider was picking up $115 of the bill.

posted by Martin Weiss # 7:44 PM

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Channeling STNextGeneration

I wrote to George (who had stomach problems and vomited last weekend) -

"...I'm inferring that you've had no further adverse digestive incidents..."

G responded,

"...gastrointestinal system functioning within normal paramaters..."

posted by Martin Weiss # 9:09 AM

Possible ecoterrorism event in Region

About 20 houses in the late stage of construction in Charles County were burned on Dec 6. The ignition devices were relatively sophisticated. This development was on a site at which their were environmental protests based on the fact that the area is near a magnolia bog. As of today, no one has claimed responsibility. The crime is far beyond the prank or random arson level so the perp must have some organization behind him/her. Most of the buyers were black so it is also possible it is a racial crime.

posted by Martin Weiss # 9:03 AM

Friday, December 03, 2004

Cold in the West

A cold dome of air has been stuck over the Rockies. Grand Junction, CO as well as Sacramento and Los Angelos, CA had their 5th day in a row of record daily minimums today; Gunnison, CO has been below -20F for 4 nights in a row. Fresno, CA and Bakersfield, CA have been below freezing a few days in a row. The cold continued for a few more days - on the 5th, the CA central valley had numerous record lows as did western CO.

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:11 AM

Thursday, December 02, 2004

Sports News: Illinois, Wizards, Detroit Fans, Giambi

The U of Illinois won their 35 straight at home yesterday against non-conference opponents, a streak dating back to Nov. 17, 1998. The Illini are 67-3 overall at Assembly Hall since the 2000-01 season. The win was over the #1 ranked Wake Forest and was 91-73 (actually Illinois had a 20 point lead by half time and never led by less than 17 after that).

The Wizards beat the Nets yesterday even worse than that 95-68. The Wizards coach was returning to coaching after blood clot surgery (he used to be an assistant coach of the Nets). The Nets had franchise lows of only 20 baskets and only 7 assists.

In Detroit, two fans were banned from all events at the Palace (where the Pistons play). This comes after 6 players were suspended for a total of 192 games (72 by Ron Arest; two other Indiana Pacers were suspended for at least 25 games).

In NY, Jason Giambi (who still has $82M in contract commitments from the Yankees) admitted using steroids before a grand jury.

posted by Martin Weiss # 7:15 PM

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Dec 23-30 Trip to Israel

Some highlights:
- Saw the Scroll of Thanksgiving (one of the 6-12 publically displayed of the 4000+ Dead Sea Scrolls) on Thanksgiving (the local Jewish weekly reported on this).
- Saw Rachel's Tomb the day before reading about Rachel's death in the Torah portion
- Saw the newly opened portion of the Western Wall tunnel that shows some of the water supply system during the Hasmonaen period 8 days before Hannukah
- Saw the beautiful Jerusalem botanic gardens
- Saw Beth a lot and met a lot of her friends.
- Ann got to see the Jerusalem ORT school (Ann is in ORT)
- wonderful Shabbat meals (especially lunch)
- nice Seudah Shelishi at Beth's friends and Minha and Maariv at Ohel Yitzhak (their synagogue)
- Got some nice stuff for gifts for people (the best of which was lost).
- Ann got sick (that's bad) but we called the hotel desk to see if they had a doctor on contract. They did. He came to the hotel and gave Ann a ride to his clinic (which had a pharmacy nearby).

Some lowlights
- lots of beggers in Mea Sherim
- flights were crowded (and 12 hours long)
- bought some stuff we didn't need; lost some stuff we bought (some very expensive stuff that may have been filched by baggage people).
- speeches during Thanksgiving dinner

posted by Martin Weiss # 2:41 AM

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