Shanah Tovah 5770, שנה טובה תש"ע

(Click on the picture to enlarge)

Dear Friends and Family,

We wish you all a Shanah Tovah שנה טובה

May this new year bring only blessings to you and your loved ones. Let us all pray for a year of health, peace and spiritual growth full of accomplishments.

May we all soon see the day when we celebrate together in Jerusalem.

With love,

The Weisser Family.

A couple of good things coming up in 5770

Great news for Summer of ‘70!

Look who is coming to town:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3775381,00.html

This summer we had Madonna, Pet shop boys and others. (all of which I could care less)

Summer of ‘68 (2008) we had Paul McCartney, read about it here http://weissersinisrael.blogspot.com/2008/09/paul-in-tel-aviv.html , that was a good year, that was a very good year.

Can we book Pink Floyd or Yes for Summer of ‘71?

Also very soon I will be updating the “Next Family visit” clock, for a very very very special family arrival. It’s so exciting! (no we are not pregnant)

We did it!!!!!

Some very exciting news to share with you.

Click below to find out:

Announcing the Winners of The 3rd Annual JobMob Guest Blogging Contest

I want to thank you all for your help on this one. To every single 1861 of you.

Thanks to all of you that re-tweeted it including: @TzionE, @yuval_danieli, @joshweinstein, @Tips4Geeks, @davidcorman, @tallynetzer, @viviancohen, sorry I’m missing many of you, but thank you too.

Thanks to all friends and family that forwarded on email and Facebook, including RDW for forwarding to the Shaare Torah mailing list.

Thanks to all bloggers and sites that linked to my guest blog including my friend at http://aliyahbyaccident.blogspot.com/ , thanks also for your editing advice, I owe you an iced coffee. Thanks to http://www.brazencareerist.com/, thanks Zvika for posting it at http://www.bneiakiva.net/bogrim-olim/, thanks Mickael at https://gvahim.org.il/, and others I can’t find.

Thanks to those that got it on email, saw it on Facebook, saw it on Tweeter and got it again on LinkedIn and still kept me as your social media contact/friend. :)

Thanks for your forty some comments on the actual blog post + the many emails, Facebook and LinkedIn messages I received with your feedback I appreciate them. That includes many past interviewers that knew I was talking about our interview experience, thanks not only for your comments but also for all the material to create the blog post (that includes the guy from HOT cable).

Good job to all the other contestants with your very interesting posts. As I would see one by one getting put online I thought that they were so good that would probably take the 1st place away. You also were able to bring a lot of unique users and have all set the bar higher for next year’s contest.

Thanks to Liora and the kids for your support on my “Blogging career”, I love you.

A special thanks to Jacob Share at http://www.jobmob.co.il/ for the opportunity to participate (by the way nice meeting you in person yesterday at the JBloggers convention), and of course to all the sponsors. It was fun, I learned a lot about the power of social media and gained a whole bunch in terms of professional opportunities.

Thanks to Hashem for providing me all that I have today and making me all that I am today.

Hey, you can now say that you are following an “award winning blogger” :) Now make sure you do sign up to join the “My blog followers” list on the right.

Feliz dia de la Independencia, Viva Mexico! (no it’s not on Cinco de Mayo).

Shanah Tovah.

Summer is over

Summer has definitely come to an end, how do I know? Here are the signs to look for to know that summer has come to an end.

1. Back to School

Oh yes, the universal sign that summer is over is when kids go back to school. In Israel school starts always on September 1 (unless it falls on Saturday). Batya started Kitah Aleph (1st grade) and is doing great. She likes it a lot, is making new friends and learning at the speed of light. She wakes up and before living her room she is already dressed and ready to roll. She is going to the local religious public school which is relatively new and has seen growth of 50% or more year on year. Batya’s class has 38 kids (thirty eight – just like on checks to make sure there is no confusion on the number), and there are in total 3 1st grade classes with 38 kids, I guess she will be able to make a lot or friends :) and hope she can get 1 minute per day from her teacher. There are a lot of things to talk about preparing for 1st grade such as the expensive school bag that is a must that is bigger than the kids and that have to be purchased also with a set of wheels to carry it.

Ilan is doing very well at his Gan as well. He cried just a little the first day but after that he has not cried again. He is very happy and starting to make new friends.

Liora is working full time at a pre-school with babies starting at 1.5 years. She is working very hard but enjoys it a lot. The three of them are on the same street and all at a 5 minute walk from our home. I just love every morning taking both kids by the hand and walk to school.

Enjoy some pictures of the first day of school.

2. Is the grapevine dying again?

The second time around there is no reason to alarm. We have been very careful with our backyard which has grown beautifully regardless of the reduction in water use mandated by the government (no kidding, because of the scarce of water in Israel there are laws of how much you can use for your garden). We have Passiflora (I think it’s called passion-fruit), oranges, limes, olives and of course the grapevine which gave some tasty grapes this year. Well, about this time a year the grapevine starts to dry up as if it was dying. That scared us a lot last year until spring when we saw new green plants growing. Today it has grown beautifully and it’s ready to rest for the next season.

3. Football season is back

You can see it on the streets, thousands wearing their team’s shirts, preparing for the season opener… Well maybe not thousands, maybe hundreds… Well maybe not hundreds maybe 2? Am I the only one around here who cares about the Steelers? Lets see if I can stay awake for the 2:30am game.

Picture taken today as the Steelers football season opens.

4. Crembos are back, honey is on sale and the Hummus tasting clubs are starting

I’m not sure how to describe them but Crembos are an Israeli sweet candy/snack that comes out only when it starts to get cooler. Why? Because it consists of a chocolate covered… whipped cream, sounds interesting doesn’t it?

Also it’s this time of the year when the supermarkets are filled with everything for your holidays, sales on honey, sales on cake, sale sale sale. Yesterday we even received a gift bag that included a honey cake and apples, isn’t that nice?

This is also a great time for food companies to do all their sampling activity given that everyone is going out shopping to prepare for the eating marathon of our holidays. So yesterday I had a Hummus tasting experience where I tried about 6 different kinds of Hummus (all same brand) a tchina (sesame seed sauce) and some other spicy salads. I never thought you could have so many kinds of hummus until the Hummus connoisseur pointed out the differences to me as I was tasting them. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to try them, it I had to: 1) look at the appearance 2)”on pita” the aroma 3)”in mouth” sensation 4)”finish” (aftertaste); or just dip and eat, since this was my first ever Hummus tasting event I ever attended.

5. The “acharei hachagim” syndrome starts to proliferate

I have written several times about the “acharei hachagim” (after the holidays) phenomena. You definitely know that the summer is coming to and end when you hear it. It means that the month were nothing in this country gets done is going to start soon, so why start something now when you can wait until after a month when the holidays are over.

I’m looking forward to the upcoming holidays being this our second year celebrating them.

I hope I can come up with something creative to share with you in celebration of Rosh Hashanah and that I have enough time to do it next week. Meanwhile enjoy last years’ here which received rave reviews. I recommend watching the video bloopers if you never saw them.

Goodbye 5769, hello 5770. We will miss the 60’s :)

Coming soon a big announcement about the guest blog post contest I participated in. Also, I started to do some field research and will soon present to you a report about customer service in the consumer product industry in Israel, you will be amazed with he findings, I have.

Hey it’s now 1am, I almost made it to the Steelers game.