Chanukah Video #2 & Fantasy Football Finish

For tonight's present, I enjoyed this video entitled Pass The Candle:

It's cute, with mostly self-submitted videos that people gave in response to a YouTube request for the video; I recognize a couple of bloggers in there, actually.

This year was a fascinating year for fantasy football, where the drafts meant nothing and the pickups were everything. And now, this year's results:

• My brother-in-law and I run a team together each year, and each year, we seem to start slow, make a run, and fall short. And he's not even from Cleveland! This year was no different, with a horrible team that still was in the race after a one-point win in Week 9 to improve to 5-4 - followed by a two-point loss in Week 10, and one-point losses in both Week 13 AND Week 14 to finish 6-8.
• More importantly, we also run a league for a bunch of friends; in Season Two, my good friend BeardedMan beat SerandEz' own Squooshball in the Super Bowl this week for the championship trophy (and its accompanying winnings).
• Finally, in the J-blogger league NoyG put together, G defeated Squooshball in the semifinals before destroying Eliezer StrongBad this weekend in the Super Bowl. (Sorry, but that was destruction.)
  

All that's left for me now is my old office pool, where I will be in fourth, four points back of the leader, going into Week 17. Top six win something, with first place worth a little more than a month of KGH rent... Week 1's last place finish may come back to bite me hard, as I've had the most points from Week 2 onward.

Emunah Issues

I no longer believe that G-d only gives people as much as they can handle. If that were true, I would have died about two months ago.

I think it's just a trite cliché that someone came up with in order to help deal with a difficult situation and/or bad times. (Maybe it was Bad4's "Mysterious They.")

Think about it: by its very nature, faith is an intangible entity. Yet we are often told to have faith--as though that were a concrete or tangible item capable of solving all our problems.

In some ways, though, this way of thinking does sort of make sense. After all, if one’s physical--or tangible--world is falling apart, what other options would that person have? If the tangible fails him, he is forced to rely on the intangible--faith and hope (yes, one may also rely on prayer, but that’s a whole other ball of wax) in order to continue living. If he doesn’t have anything to look forward to, then what would be the point of trying to survive?

Ramblings from a Travel-Logged Mind

This past weekend we drove from Baltimore to Chicago for my nephew’s Bar Mitzvah. When I say weekend, I literally mean weekend—as in three days.

Because of issues with my husband’s job, we didn’t get to leave Baltimore until after 11:00 PM Thursday night. Unfortunately, neither one of us had a chance to take a short nap during the day (in addition to packing, I had to deal with a four-hour car emergency when my tire got a nail in it, and then the tire couldn’t be repaired because of the location of the nail and instead had to be replaced entirely), so we were both bombed by the time was started the trip. Between stopping every hour or so to rest, get coffee, close our eyes “for just a minute,” and/or to switch drivers, it ultimately took us about 15 hours to reach our destination.

We arrived in Chicago a few hours before Shabbos and began packing to leave as soon as Shabbos was over. Two hours after that we were in the car on our way back to Baltimore—once again with multiple stops because we were tired and hadn’t slept much that weekend. All in all, we figured that we spent about as much time traveling TO the Bar Mitzvah as we spent in Chicago AT the Bar Mitzvah itself! (We had to leave Saturday night because of work-related issues that necessitated my husband to be at work bright and early Monday AM.)

We’re not sure exactly how long the return trip lasted; between the time zone difference of EST and CST, and then with the clock change early Sunday AM, we were having major time/clock/accounting issues!

Despite the travel issue, we had a great time at the Bar Mitzvah. It was so nice to see and spend time with the family—albeit briefly. It was also great to see my niece, the Bar Mitzvah boy’s younger sister who, as I told you two weeks ago on this blog, was recently diagnosed with leukemia (please continue to daven for her: Dina Sora bas Shayna Mira. . .thanks!). It’s hard to be in Baltimore while our family is struggling to deal with this difficult situation in Chicago. We are very, very close with this part of the family and hate that there isn’t more that we can do to help on a daily basis.

Before I sign off, I’m wondering if anyone knows what the point is of having the large green signs on the side of the roads in PA that say “FALLING ROCK.” Yes, I understand that the roads are surrounded by mountains and cliffs on either side. But if a rock falls down on your car, the bottom line is that nothing could be done about it. And being a wary driver wouldn’t help the matter—even if you were to see the rock falling, there’s no way you could get out of its way fast enough!

A few months ago, I was driving on a two-lane main street near my home. The car next to me swerved onto the shoulder, and I saw some pebbles fly up from behind that car’s rear left wheel. One second later, one of those pebbles hit my windshield and made a tiny crack in it. There was no way that I could do anything about that tiny pebble, so how on earth would I be able to do anything about a large rock falling from a cliff???

Any suggestions or logical reasons for this would be greatly appreciated.

Just Say No

This letter at YWN is mind-boggling: [emphasis added]

...

My issue however is what has been going on recently with both girls AND BOYS alike as far as brand name clothing is concerned. Many of us do not realize that many sixth and seventh grade girls are going to school with $175 knapsacks. Sweatshirts that run $75 a piece, and can’t be worn more than once a month. I recall being in school and wearing the same pair of school shoes all winter. Now the girls need their Ugg boots ($110), and three pairs of shoes.

Many high school boys are now wearing ties that I am told run upwards of $150. That is correct…..$150. Their glasses (and g-d forbid you should only have one pair) are all designer names many of which I have never ever heard of. Belts can run over $200 and yet somehow so many of these yeshiva bochurim have them.

I know that many of you are going to comment that you need to learn to be mechanech your kids and learn to say NO. I know all about it. A few months ago YWN posted an article (HERE) about the cost of seminary and most of the comments (ludicrous in my opinion) were how this parent didn’t understand how to say no. My guess is that many (not all) of these comments came from people who are not in the “parsha”.

We need to understand the ENOURMOUS pressure that is put on these kids in school by their friends and classmates. It is easy to sit back and be an armchair NO NO NO parent. If I had a daughter… I would tell my son… If you are able to and it doesn’t backfire, great. Consider yourself very lucky. But many of us do not want our children to be outcasts and want our children to be happy. With all that is going on with children at risk today, the number one priority you hear from the people that deal with this is to make sure your children are happy.

I don’t have a good answer to the problem and while I am inclined to say no, and my gut tells me to say no, it breaks my heart to see unhappy children.

Any advice?

First commenter there said it well: Just say: No!

What's ridiculous about this letter is that she completely discounts saying "No" - even calling it ludicrous - and yet still has the audacity to complain about the problem. If you're completely unwilling to be a parent or do what is obviously necessary, then don't complain about the problem.

{I'd never heard of $200 belts until Squooshball mentioned it when we stopped by their house last year - how insane is that?! I'm still wearing the same $10-15 belts I've had for a few years, and they're holding up just fine. My grandmother even told me last night that recently, my nephew's pants were falling down, so she gave him a shoelace to use as a belt. Much cheaper. I say sell the belt and invest in something thats price is low because of the market.}

Say a Little Prayer for Her

Please daven for my nine-year-old niece who was just diagnosed with Leukemia this past erev Shabbos.
דינה שרה בת שיינא מירה
Dina Sora bas Shayna Mira

May she have a refuah shelaima, and may we only hear good news from one another this year.

Please Help - Need Copy of The Baltimore Sun

A client of mine (who lives in California) was featured in an article from the "Health Today" section of The Baltimore Sun this past Thursday, 4/17/08. I was supposed to send her a copy of it, but a certain someone in my household didn't realize that I had set the newspaper aside for a specific purpose and, unfortunately, that person threw it out.

Therefore, if anyone still has a copy of this newspaper lying around, I would really appreciate it if you would let me know. Just send me an e-mail (jstein at bookendsconsulting dot com) or call me on my cell, 410.935.5337, and I'll come pick it up from you.

(Yes, I do know that I may order a copy directly from The Baltimore Sun, but that would take a few days and cost $$, so I'd like to see if anyone has a copy for me first before going that route.)

Thanks so much!

A Kosher Use of the Internet

Being that we just bought a new house, we are trying to figure out how many mezuzahs* we need. Every dollar that we are spending on this house is accounted for—both projected and actual—and these mezuzahs don't have a chance of escaping their designated cells within my Excel-based budget.

Since it's the middle of the night, I can't exactly call up our local sofer to find out how much I should anticipate spending on mezuzahs. And I don't want to wait until tomorrow to fill in this information within my spreadsheet. I figured that I might as well do a Google search and see what comes up, and you can imagine my surprise when I realized that I could actually buy mezuzahs on Amazon.com. Kosher ones, too.

How's that for a "kosher" use of the Internet???

*In this case, I'm talking about mezuzah scrolls and not mezuzah cases (even though I need a bunch of those as well).

Desperate Situation

UPDATE: Unfortunately, Mr. Segal's body has been found.

This is a desperate situation. The father of a good friend of mine, Yigal Segal, has been missing for more than a day. Please daven for Zev ben Miriam. He was last seen yesterday morning leaving the WFMU radio studio in Northern NJ at 8:15AM, where he was joining his son, Nachum Segal, at the annual radio-station fundraiser.

Zev ben Miriam is a talmid chacham who is elderly yet very lucid and independent. He learned in Chevron in 1929 and served as a personal representative for Ben Gurion as well as for several g'dolei yisroel such as the Brisker Rav.

Mr. Segal of Manhattan was last seen in his dark green color 1999 Mercury Ford vehicle, with the tag number ATL-3961. Anyone with any information should please call (201) 547-5066.

May Hashem keep Zev ben Miriam safe and help him be found quickly.


UPDATED 9:24AM EST: Misaskim Asking For Assistance In Finding Missing Person
March 5, 2008
[UPDATES BELOW ORIGINAL STORY] 3:00PM EST: Misaskim has contacted YWN, and are asking for the public’s assistance. They are looking for a 91 year-old male, who was last seen at approximately 8:15AM this morning in the Northern NJ area. He was driving a dark-green 1999 Ford Mercury, NY plate # ALT3961. He was supposed to arrive at his destination, but has not been seen, or heard from since.
Misaskim has contacted dozens of Police Departments, Hospitals and other agencies - but no one has information.
If you see this vehicle, or have any information which can assist in locating this person, please contact New Jersey Police at 201-547-5066.

UPDATE 1:00AM EST: At this time, hundreds of Hatzolah members from Flatbush, Boro Park, Williamsburg, Queens, Monsey, Staten Island, Passaic NJ, Union City NJ, Elizabeth NJ, Kiryas Yoel and other neighborhoods have joined the massive search - being coordinated by the Misaskim, and Hatzolah Mobile Command Centers.
Additionally, there are Chaveirim members from multiple areas, as well as Shomrim units from all neighborhoods.
The command center has been set up in Jersey City, NJ - and dozens of police officers from Jersey City PD in conjunction with the NJ State Police are working aggressively in the search. K-9 units are searching the sides and exits of Route 280 - and two choppers are scheduled to join the search first thing in the morning.
Please be Mispallel for Zev ben Miriam - who is the father of Radio Personality Nachum Segal. Mr. Zev Segal was last seen at the WFMU radio studio at 8:15AM, where he was joining his son at the annual radio-station fundraiser.

UPDATE 9:24AM EST: Click HERE for photos of the amazing Kiddush Hashem overnight, as hundreds of volunteers gathered to assist in this massive ongoing search