The Story of Abe

Unnecessary Rule Changes

November 26th, 2010 § Comments Off on Unnecessary Rule Changes § permalink

Back in March, I decided not to say anything, but this morning I read an article at Slate.com that awakened something in me. Maybe it all comes down to me not understanding statistics, but I don’t think so.

Here’s the background. Until now, NFL games that are tied after regulation begin a “sudden death” period. The game is restarted as it was in the beginning, with a coin toss. The visiting team can call ‘heads’ or ‘tails’ and the team that wins the toss is awarded first choice of the options. (At the beginning of the game teams may choose to kick off in order to receive the kick at the start of the second half, but in overtime there is no second half.) » Read the rest of this entry «

Grandmothers

November 25th, 2010 § Comments Off on Grandmothers § permalink

This picture is an old one. It must be from about 25 years ago, more or less. My brother looks to be about One and a half, maybe two years old, which would put this picture in 1985. My specific memories from 1985 tend to gravitate towards other areas, by no fault of my parents mothers.

Abraham, Ben, and the Grandmothers

My paternal grandmother, Yetta, on the far left of the picture, lived in New York in a home for the aged blind. If I’m not mistaken it was also Jewish, which gives it quite the specific clientele. My entire experience with Yetta was in this home, which for a little boy could some times be a little scary. It was filled with odd equipment and even odder smells. I remember being amazed by the gigantic tomes that sat in her rooms. Braille printing necessitates heavier paper than can withstand the printing process and maintain it’s new shape over the long term, and space required by each letter. They were big books. I don’t remember now what they were, but my impression was that they were either general fiction or biblical or something. I was a little kid, how am I supposed to remember. » Read the rest of this entry «

That’s Two Down

November 24th, 2010 § Comments Off on That’s Two Down § permalink

Well, I’ve just uploaded my second plugin to this site. It’s not much, as it leans heavily on the built in link widget. I wanted to list the links of the rest of my families websites in a specific order. I could have hard coded it in, but that seems silly if there is a links function already built into WordPress. But I couldn’t find anywhere to make a simple sorted list of a category. Also, I am trying my hardest to avoid touching the core. I don’t want to change something in a core file and then have an update erase it because that would be a nightmare to debug. I can deal with a plugin I wrote using a depreciated function, that’s no big deal. » Read the rest of this entry «

Adding new Sidebars to a WordPress Theme

November 22nd, 2010 § Comments Off on Adding new Sidebars to a WordPress Theme § permalink

In setting up my blog, I found that I like having the “Meta” widget active. It has links to log into (and out of) the admin section, links to RSS feeds, and links to WordPress.org. I don’t know how really useful it is, and maybe when I’ve developed more content I won’t want it. But we’ll cross that bridge when the time comes.

However I did come across a problem. Having put it in the sidebar, the “Meta” links just looked out of place and i thought it might be less obtrusive in the footer. » Read the rest of this entry «

One Day in Jerusalem

November 21st, 2010 § Comments Off on One Day in Jerusalem § permalink

I wrote this that afternoon. I spent most of my walk letting these thoughts grow in my head into this narrative. When I got home, I wrote it all out in one go with very little editing. I wanted to get across the progression I went through during the day. After some minor editing, it was published by New Voices in their March 2002 issue.

Sunday, January 27, 2002

It was a gorgeous Jerusalem day; the sun was shining and there were people out in the streets. The temperature was at that in-between point where one could not decide whether to put on a hat or take off a sweatshirt. I left the apartment around 11:00 a.m. to go run some errands. I needed to talk to a friend at the bank downtown, get a new alarm clock, and buy some double-sided tape to hang a tapestry on the wall.

As I passed Tzarfat Square walking along King George Street, there was a loud crack that reverberated through the air. My first instinct was to try and write it off as construction noise, but inside I knew that was a lie. » Read the rest of this entry «