Meanderings

Kosher Subway opening close to home - it's been talked about for years, but now the sign is up. Will it disappoint? I've been checking out the menus for the LA and Baltimore stores and it looks promising. So, yes - most likely it will disappoint.

In other news - trying to figure out what to do with my career... I seem to be veering more and more towards this entrepreneurial, risky, startup mode. Which is kinda fun, but at the same time, I don't know if instead I should just give up and start back up the corporate career chain - quit dreaming of making millions and just wind up a director in some corporation...

I did learn quite a bit about stuff I would probably never get into in a corporate environment - talking to VCs and CIOs of large corporations, learning how hard it is to get people to invest in your company. It's funny, because you see these guys who have the stupidest, craziest ideas, and somehow they manage to get people to give them hundreds of thousands of dollars... Yet, here you are with something solid, and it's like squeezing blood from a stone...

I was brought up to think that hard work is how you become successful. Now, my experience definitely confirms this. What is not clear though is whether hard work alone is sufficient. Seems like that is not the case. You can work your butt off and not succeed. So what is it that you need in addition - is it luck? Is it being a really good salesman? Tzarich iyun.

Music Monday - Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #1 - mvt 1

21 Century - thus far a dud

I don't know why, but so far the first decade feels like a dud.

Here is a picture of Wernher Von Braun showing the Saturn 1 vehicle to President Eisenhower in 1960.

Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom

-Arthur Schopenhauer

Dead or Alive Music Monday

My son found this video on youtube and he was truly confused - I had to explain to him that this is what videos were like in the '80s.

I love to see you smile...

Hyman noted that "photographing females in public is easier than males."

"People see a naked woman and they smile," he said. "They see a penis and they freak out."

[full article]

Funny...

I always thought that a mid-life crisis would leave me a lot less self-aware...

Music Monday - Ouvre les Yeux

Some language adapt well to hip-hop, some don't. Here is a pretty good French hip hopper from about 10 years ago...

Orthodox Masons?

Is it allowed by Halacha for an Orthodox Jew to become a Freemason? I know that there is nothing that prohibits it from the Masonic perspective, but what about the other way? Are there any rabbinic rulings that anyone knows about?

Click to Enlarge

Yes, it is a standard caption that they put under the photos, but still...

Deconstructing Harry - Tradition is the illusion of permanence.

-You have no values. Your life... it's nihilism, cynicism, sarcasm and orgasm.

-In France I could run on that slogan and win.

Elvis Costello Music Monday

An oldie but a goodie...

Jewish teacher and children in Samarkand (1911)

These are some of the earliest color pictures ever taken. By Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, "the photographer to the Czar"




















Alim Khan, the Emir of Bukhara

Tagged

I don't usually do these things. Irina wants to know 7 things I like - and you must listen to them all, dearie:

1) Leningrad
2) Leningrad
3) Leningrad
4) Leningrad
5) Leningrad
6) Leningrad
7) Leningrad

Pixar Shorts Monday - Knick Knack

This may be my favorite, Bobby McFerrin providing sound, Israel and Egypt next to each other on the shelf. The shlemazl snowman...

Blah-blah, blah-blah, blah-blah :)