20 Years an Israeli

December 31st, 2020 § Comments Off on 20 Years an Israeli § permalink

Originally posted on Facebook, December 31, 202 at 10:27 PM

20 years ago, to the hour, I arrived in Israel to start my new life as an Israeli.

It’s been an amazing adventure learning about my chosen home, myself, and all the amazing people who have played a part in it.

My first job was working on a website, and after many other adventures, some of which took me very far away from computers, I am working as a programmer working mostly on web integrations. That wasn’t even a thing back then.

I’ve seen so much, from peace deals to rocket explosions. From pickup ultimate in a park in Jerusalem to running National tournaments and coaching national teams internationally. From a small group of Anglo immigrants building a commune in Jerusalem to a full on Kibbutz in the Galil.

There are too many people to list who have been an important part of these twenty years. A special shout out to Robin who arrived with me, and to Emma, James, and Anton who made sure we had a comfortable place to arrive at, and have been with Robin and I the whole way.

I don’t think I could have conceived twenty years ago of where I am today. That I would be living in a Kibbutz in a town in the north of the country filled with amazing like-minded people in Kibbutz Mishol. That I would be able to build a job description that fit what I wanted to do and with how I wanted to do it in Mishol-IT. That I would be able to play with and coach some of the most awesome people in Hucking Crazy. (The Haifa Ultimate Club) and the wider ultimate community. That I would have the honor of meeting and working with absolute rock stars with Ultimate Peace.

I can’t wait to see what the next 20 bring.

Preamble

June 28th, 2020 § Comments Off on Preamble § permalink

I have, once again felt the need to explain what I have written and give it an introduction.  This is for the piece published last week titled “Juneteenth, Black Lives Matter, and Myself” and gives more of an insight into my emotional state.  This was originally written as the opening of an evening of learning and discussion with Kibbutz Mishol.

A wave of protests swept across America immediately following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25th.  Video of his death, filmed by onlookers, showed police officers pinning him to the ground until he lost consciousness.  One officer is seen looking very casual as he presses his knee into George’s neck.  Pleas for mercy from George were ignored by the officers.  Rallies against police use of force began the next day and spread to over 400 cities across all 50 states and have spread to over 60 countries around the world.  

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Juneteenth, Black Lives Matter, and Myself

June 22nd, 2020 § Comments Off on Juneteenth, Black Lives Matter, and Myself § permalink

History, Memory and Identity in the Summer of 2020

Juneteenth

In September of 1862, in the middle of the American Civil War, President Lincoln issued an executive order known as The Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation freed all enslaved people in the rebelling southern states once they were outside the control of the Confederate government by the advance of Union soldiers.  It went into effect on the first of January 1863 roughly half way between the beginning and end of the war.

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My Ultimate Family

March 7th, 2014 § Comments Off on My Ultimate Family § permalink

This is an essay I wrote to help me deal with everything swimming through my head this week.  The last two parts were cross posted on the Ultimate Peace Blog

Part I

I began playing Ultimate, like so many of us, at summer camp surrounded by other supportive non-athletes.  In high school in the mid-90’s a group of us played a very loose version of the game in the park on weekends.

CUT DiscI spent my freshman year of college at Wisconsin, never once hearing the word “Hodag,” and never finding my place there.  During the subsequent year, while living back with my parents and working on mind numbing office jobs, I got my first Ultrastar, and unbeknownst to me, my first connection to my future Ultimate family.  One of my closest friends growing up was a student at Carleton College, and he returned home one break with a 1997 CUT disc with the familiar CUT logo in Discraft’s “Red Triangle Prism” color in the background and a silhouette of a layout in the foreground.  I still have that disc today, although it has long been retired from use. » Read the rest of this entry «

Who Am I? [Online]

June 5th, 2012 § Comments Off on Who Am I? [Online] § permalink

What is my online presence, why is that, and what do I want it to be?

What is my online presence?

I spend a lot of time cruising the internet.  Much of it is spent on a small number of websites.  I check ESPN.com at least once per day, I try to check out nytimes.com and haaretz.com also every now and again.  I usually have gmail open in the background.  The site I spend the most time on, though, is google reader.  I have a large number of subscriptions there.  From Chicago sports news to tech updates to web comics to torrent feeds to culture web magazines to really random stuff.

While I may read a lot, I subscribe to very few websites, and comment on even fewer.  [A few months ago, I got really excited about something I found, and commented about it on a website.  Seconds later someone pointed out how very wrong I was…]  There is something about logging in to sites that doesn’t click with me.  Even more so, commenting is a strangely public thing that I just don’t feel comfortable with. » Read the rest of this entry «