THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Saturday, November 26, 2005

People and events Nov 24-26

We had 8 for Thanksgiving and 7 for sabbath lunch. Among the visitors was Marshall Potter who I knew back in the 60s. He remembered that we had one class together (probably in about 1965 or so) and he remember the teacher's name (I remembered the textbook). He has been getting more proficient at shofer blowing these past 40 years or so and can now hold a Tekiah Godolah for 70 to 80 seconds (I don't time the people at our shul but doubt it is over a minute).

The reason the Potters were visiting was that Beth Sholom had, as a visiting scholar, the Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth (apparently such a position has existed since 1692 or so) whose name is Dr. Rabbi Sir Sacks. One of his talks was structured so that only persons below 25 or so were allowed to ask questions. I thought someone would ask if he knew the Minister of Magic (our guest has a cousin whose name is actually Harry Potter) but no one did. The most amusing moment was in response to a question about interfaith work, Sir Sacks spoke about his work with the American Episcopal Bishop of Washington D.C. He mentioned that the office of this official was in the large cathedral downtown and one kid said, "You mean the Washington Hebrew Congregation building."

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:38 PM

Friday, November 25, 2005

How cheap can watches get

I have noticed the past few times I've been in airports that there were kiosks selling watches for $12. Earlier this week I noticed my existing watch, that I purchased for $19.99 two years ago, was stopping every so often. So during a computer outage at work (the room with the server got overheated on Thanksgiving), I went to CVS. The new watch looks a lot like the old one and cost $5.99.

posted by Martin Weiss # 2:44 PM

Saturday, November 19, 2005

G gets bookbag back

G was at the U of Md Hillel tonight and somebody returned the bookbag he had lost Nov 16. Everything was in it - keys, money and Palm Pilot. Hazzah!

posted by Martin Weiss # 8:20 PM

Thursday, November 17, 2005

M wins a battle with the Off of the Chief Counsel in 25 minutes.

M was working with the chief counsel (HCC) on implementing one section of new law. One issue was whether the cost share (typically the State pays 20% of projects) applied. I said "Yes" and got initial support from HCC. Then after they studied the legislative history, they changed their mind and sent me an email to that effect. I wrote back essentially pointing out 3 or 4 phrases that could be used to intrepret the legislation the way I wanted it and also pointed out the awfulness of the policy implications if the decision went the other way (the cost share is one of the things that keeps projects from being worse than they are). In 25 minutes, HCC sent a new email changing their mind.

posted by Martin Weiss # 3:20 PM

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

G tries to draw blood

G went to the U of Md on Nov 15 and 16 to give blood. On the 15th they wouldn't let him give blood because he still had stiches (from an accidental deep cut in his hand that he got at a friend's house while washing a glass on Nov 9). So he got the stiches removed on the 16th but when he got to the Hillel house to give blood the donation team had moved. He put his book bag down to hear a lecture and someone took it. It had the car keys (put a Palm pilot and some money but not the credit cards). M had to come out to the U of Md to give him the spare car keys.

posted by Martin Weiss # 11:15 PM

Monday, November 07, 2005

We live in a Rural Area says Cingular

Ann's cell phone began getting text messages recently. This was a bit scary because of a technique called cramming where companies with a relationship to the cell phone carrier trick people into agreeing to take text then send them unsolicited text messages and charge them. G called Cingular (and used the on line account) to verify that this was not happening. However, he found that Ann had exceed her baseline minutes and was incurring substantial charges (something like $0.45 per minute). G got an upgrade and with that comes a new cell phone that is sent to the residence. But the Cingular people have a policy against sending cell phones to a PO Box or a rural box and their system. Strangely, their system thinks our densely populated suburban street is a rural area. We then gave them my work address but that didn't even register in their system as something in existance.

posted by Martin Weiss # 12:55 PM

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Actually, that was pretty much the plan

G was discussing a girl he met at the U of Md over the past few weeks. We then were discussing what A and I feel is the overuse of the U of Md as a socialization venue.

"What are going to do, anyway, stalk her every Wednesday evening?" M said to G.

"Actually, that was pretty much the plan", answered G.

posted by Martin Weiss # 11:40 PM