Happy π day!

Today is March 14th, aka pi day, a day celebrating one of the most important numbers in mathematics - π.

Since I happened to be in Germany today, I celebrated π day with my brother and his wife by making 2π -- a yummy beef pie for dinner and a chocolate pie for dessert.

 

For dessert we decided to make the pie even more meaningful and decorate the pie with the first few digits of π, resulting in a delicious, and informative pie:

More photos are available on Flickr and Facebook.

In other news, I'll be arriving in Israel on Tuesday. If you want to meet me, let me know...

I don’t do human babies

As I have posted before, my brother has recently had twin daughters, which made me a new uncle. As many of you know, babies and I don't get along very well. I mean, they like me, but I'm very much afraid of them and have no idea what to do with them.

Well, for some obscure reason, I guess mostly to laugh at my feeble attempts, they have placed one of these 3-month-old babies on me. Within a few minutes, she has already has vomited some kind of white substance on my clean t-shirt. I decided to learn more about these weird creatures, so I did what I usually do.Used Google.

Well, I made a series of web searches, but none returned any useful results. I am usually pretty good at web searching. I wasn't sure where I went wrong. Many searches resulted in google scholar papers, but none included detailed enough instructions for beginners. Not to mention the fact that the product itself is not user-friendly. More about that below.

human baby "user's guide"
human infant "user's guide"
human infant manual
human infant safety
human infant care
human infant maintenance
human infant maintanence
human infant upkeep
baby uncle guide
new uncle guide
human baby care
human offspring care
human offspring maintenance
human offspring maintenence
human baby upkeep
human baby maintenance
human baby maintenence

Never mind Google's failure here, the product itself is a UI nightmare. No manual included, no labels of any kind on the very delicate parts. No warnings. No warranty (except as required by the state), and it's not even eligible for return or replacement.

It seems that human infants have a significant negative influence on humans, rivaled only by that of cats:

I, for one, seem to be immune to that negative effect (of cats too). However, I still cannot overcome the effect of two babies in my vicinity on all other humans, making having fun, such as playing board games, or having meaningful conversations, virtually impossible.

This post is a public service announcement: Use birth control. Because most STDs are manageable, babies aren't!

As for me, I'm considering a vasectomy...

Uncle!

Today, Jan 14, 2009, I have become an Uncle. Yes, my older brother is now a father of twin girls, and all is well. I have not yet seen the babies, but once I get photos, I'll post them here.

The growth of the family is a good reason to celebrate, and in our case, it means a family union in Israel scheduled for February. My brother is coming from Germany and I'm coming from the US for a first meeting the newly-extended family.

For those of you who care, my dates in Israel will be Feb 9 to 16 -- one week. During those days I plan to vote. Although I'm not yet sure what party I'll vote for. The options I'm considering "Meretz" and "Hadash", both left-wing parties. Hadash is the only left-wing party that opposed the war in Gaza, but Meretz stands a chance of actually taking part in a central-left government.

Those of you who live in Israel and have the right to vote, don't forget to vote for peace because war isn't good for anyone.

Desert Snow

As I have updated before, my parents have arrived and have been here for a week now. Two days ago (Sunday), we started our road trip to Las Vegas through the California central valley and interstate I-5.

We spent most of the first (sunny) day driving until we reached Mojave, CA. Located in the Mojave desert, this town is home to one of the driest airports in the continental US and the world's first civilian space port. Well, by the time we woke up the next day, it was on of the rare rainy days in the Mojave desert, with very poor visibility. However, our plans didn't change and we took a tour of the airport.

Our next stop on the way was planned to be the Mojave national preserve HQ in Barstow to get tips about visiting this desert national park. However, on the way there something weird caught our eyes. What seemed for a second to be white sand turned out to be snow. Real white snow. In the desert. Barstow was covered with snow, an event unseen since 1985.

The snow was so bad that the direct route to Las Vegas (I-15) was closed and so we decided to go through the Mojave National Park in the snow. The result: some spectacular photos of desert plants in the snow, and a near-accident in 55mph (90km/h) with a truck on a narrow desert road.

When we finally arrived at Las Vegas and checked in to our hotel/casino on the strip, we went right to business and made more than $70 gambling. We'll see how much of that we'll lose...

Turkey, India, and Thanksgiving

This weekend was Thanksgiving. As always, holidays in the US are designed to create long weekends, and Thanksgiving is no exception. Scheduled on the third Thursday of November, Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the winter holiday period. As I did last year, I went to the traditional Stanford Thanksgiving dinner, which was nothing too fancy. I spent black Friday playing boardgames for nine consecutive hours, winning almost all games I've played (except Pandemic and Stone Age).

This Thanksgiving, I couldn't avoid hearing the news about Mumbai, India. I thought to myself this is not the first time Inidans are killed on Thanksgiving, though this time they weren't native Americans. That also made me think about the traditional Thanksgiving dish -- Turkey. In almost all modern language this bird is named after some far away land. Many languages refer to Turkey, many others, including Hebrew and Turkish, refer to India. The interesting this is, the Turkey, like the American Indians, is in fact a native American, a fact most closely reflected in Vietnamese, referring to it as "Western Chicken". For more information, see Wikipedia.

In exactly one week (and 3:30 hours) my parents will be arriving here for the first time since I moved here. I'll get to show them my office, my room, and play games. We're also going to go on a road trip to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon! I'm happy!

For those of you who asked what  I got from Tanga Trash. Here's your answer: 20 Questions card game, The Fabolous Fifites Shaped Jigsaw Puzzle, and a Space Alien Test Kit, I kid you not.

All the family

This weekend all my family was united. My parents have returned from their trip to China, my brother has also arrived from Germany, in what turned out to be the single busiest day in Ben-Gurion airport ever.

We had a surprise ready for our parents when they returned from abroad.  With the help and planning of the neighbor,  we have invited a gardener to make a new front lawn and garden.

The next day, the entire family (including my younger brother and the older brother that lives in Hertzeliya) have gathered for a family dinner.

On the organizational front, I'm also pushing forward. I have cleared up some of the mess in my room and have begun sorting all the paper. I have also booked my flight to Germany in October (18-28/10; 13,582 miles). Next step - sort and file all non-paper, and begin packing.