THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Sunday, November 30, 2008

The Aftereffects of Thanksgiving

I was shopping today and at the local Giant, they had whole turkeys ( the 15- 25 pound kind) marked down to 19 cents a pound. At shoppers, the same size turkeys were going for 49 cents a pound.

I don't want to think about how much we paid (although the comparison isn't very good since our turkey was kosher).

posted by Martin Weiss # 2:47 PM

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

More Deer

This am, Ann saw a big deer with antlers near the bus stop on Seven Locks Road.

Darn vegetable eating varmits have destroyed lots of my flowers, vegetables, etc.

posted by Martin Weiss # 7:05 PM

Monday, November 24, 2008

M and A in Israel Visiting Beth

Nov 13-23, we were in Israel. The day we came we boarded a sharoot outside the Ben Gurion Terminal building and headed toward Jerusalem.

It only took about 1.5 hours from the time we landed until we had passed customs and passport inspection, got our luggage, boarded the sharoot and got to the apartment we were renting in the German Quarter. Beth lives about a 20 minute walk south of that apartment.

Just as we got to the municipal limits of Jerusalem we saw a rainbow (a storm was ending). The image was taken by someone named Jim Zukerman in 2001).

We ended our vacation at the Havat Habaron hotel. The first image - which was taken by an anonymous person shows the way the hotel is built into a ridge. The ridge is at the east edge of the coastal plain about seven miles or so south of Haifa.

We also saw a rainbow the day before we left at the end of a storm which left a lot of rain on Sabbath the 22nd (at least a lot of rain at the hotel).

I have six separate multi-image posts in the Weissfamily blog.

One is all about Zichron Yaacov.

One contains some odds and ends of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

One contains images taken of a large model of Jerusalem in the time of the second temple.

One contains images taken at the dead sea (both taken by Beth)

One contains images taken in the Old City.

Two contain images taken at Neot Kedumim (and one other image from there taken by Beth, others by M)

posted by Martin Weiss # 3:45 AM

Monday, November 10, 2008

The Never Ending Utility Project

The county and the utility company have been working on our street now for about 5 weeks. The work seems to be mainly replacing old cast iron waterpipes with PVC waterpipes. Unfortunately, the pipes were placed at a time when the road wasn't as wide (although it is still only two lanes wide). Thus each day a section is dug, pipe removed (not nearly as wide as the pipe in the image) and pipe replaced. In addition, various sections between the street and the property owned by residences (which includes the easement between the road and the sidewalk).

UPDATE: The phase of the project which required external pipes paralleling the buried pipes on Postoak street ended while we were in Israel Nov 13-23. However work continues on other streets nearby.

posted by Martin Weiss # 5:58 PM

Thursday, November 06, 2008

The Galosh Problem

We are going to Israel in a few days to see Beth and do other things.

Beth has told us that some of the streets get quite muddy when it rains (and mid Nov is part of the rainy season).

We have three sets of galoshes and they are all extra large but none of them fit over my athletic shoes (those shoes are big because of the padding). One pair of galoshes does fit over my dress shoes, however, the dress shoes are waterproof anyway and just need to be wiped off when they get dirty.

This might account for why neither Target nor Payless sells Galoshes. Apparently the company "Totes" still sells galoshes, however.

posted by Martin Weiss # 12:03 PM

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Some Additional Aquarium Comments

One of the interesting observations I had at the Atlanta Aquarium is the number of times, they had potential prey in the same tank with predators (for example alligators and turtles). I asked about this and they said that they feed the animals regularly and that the animals then rely on the feedings not the 'prey'. The did say there had been some problems but that they were relatively few.

Another interesting observation was that they had a number of different 'touch tanks' where you could touch animals under some supervision. In one tank they had some bonnethead sharks and cownose rays (both images are above). Both of these animals are smooth and soft, the ray is softer. The ray's eyes are on one side of its body and it's mouth is on the other side. The mouth almost always is face down because the ray feeds on animals in the sandy bottom.The shark has eyes on the sides and mouth on the bottom. It also feeds on animal on the bottom.

posted by Martin Weiss # 3:37 PM