Sandra is working hard at her 5000 piece puzzle. She has been working at it for over a year now; and over the last week she has been highly determined in her puzzling. And she has now completed over half the puzzle. The weather yesterday was horrific when I drove home. The rain was pouring down cats and dogs and there had been many accidents. The roads were all jammed up. I found out today that Rabbi had been trying to get down Ridge road to shul and was caught in the traffic. He had had to drive onto the pavement to get out of the traffic; in order to get his car off the road before Shabat arrived! I had been caught in same traffic (albeit an hour earlier for an hour and half); and I could see it was getting worse and worse at that time. (I was stuck for half an hour in the middle of an intersection with cars hooting at me continuously). Once I was at home I relaxed and enjoyed the sound of the pouring rain. When you able to inside and comfortable I find the sound of rain very comforting. I saw Steven on TV this week! Stevie made it onto one of the most popular South African tv programmes. Its a candid camera type production in which the "team" plays pranks on celebrities. Stevie was part of the team playing a prank on the South Africa Springbok scrum half - Neil de Kock. I laughed out loud .

later...

I am listening to music, and somewhere in the home Sandra is studying epidemiology. The weather is slowly warming up and the days have started lengthening. I can feel the edges of summer arriving. My nose is itching and my left ear is thinking about itching. A sure sign of the beginning of Spring.

Good night.

I am writing this using writely... hmmm

later...

Pillemer Clan

Pillemer Clan
Originally uploaded by ilanpillemer.

A nice group shot of the Pillemer clan and their grandmother. Its a pity Sandra and Terri were elsewhere when the picture was taken. And Tracey was taking the photograph. If you click here you will find some more pictures of Pillemers and some pictures from the wedding snapped by Jonx and Tracey.

Oh.. and if you're into geneaology check out the Pillemer Family Tree website.

later...

Wedding pics and a fun game...

Yip Terri has posted some of her and Robbie's wedding pic picks! Check them out here.

And for a little but of fun....
Dave Gilbert's The Shivah

.. later

And I was not even surprised...

Last night at about 10 pm there was a lot of commotion in the house at 316 Cato Rd. Maurice was checking every drawer over and over again. Where could the friggin' keys be? Jacky was planning on taking the car to go off towards Eshowe to visit an old friend. He had the directions; and he was checking for the keys. And where were they?

Well.. Sandra asked "Don't you have a spare set of keys?"

And there were.... But no spare immobilizer. Car keys are not very useful if the car won't start with them.

Eventually through a lot of discussion it was clear that the last time the car had been used it was by Stevie.

So....

With some trepidation my father picked up the phone and called Cape Town.

"Hi Jonx..."
"Hi Dad."
"You wouldn't have the car keys for the Chico with you?
"I seriously doubt it Dad."
"Could you just check.."
"Hmmm... well if they were anywhere they would be in Stevie's bag which is in his car. And I don't have keys for the car at the moment."
"Well, can you figure that out, check and call me back."
"OK"

We keep searching and searching.

The phone rings again.

"Umm.. Dad.. Well. Umm..."

Yip. They had the keys. They took them with them to Cape Town!

My mother had smoke coming out of ears.

When I left last night, Jacky and my father were waiting for the Automobile Association (AA) to arrive to see if they could disconnect the immobilizer. If that succeeded they would still have needed to go to a locksmith this morning, before leaving, to get the petrol tank open!

I wonder if Jacky managed to get to Eshowe today?

And I was not even surprised...

Some notes from within Israel...

And for some blogging from within Israel check out these blogs....

Powerblogger
An unsealed room

A round up...
Israeli Bloggers

And others...
Not a Fish
IsreallyCool
Dry Bones Blog
On the face
Balagan
Israpundit
Jew School
At ground level
Israel Matsav
Abba Gav"
The view from here

Notes on the current Middle-East crisis from inside Lebanon and Cyprus

Here are some English blogs from Lebanon and people that are there; or, on the way out to Cyprus and futher. Very fascinating to hear about the stories that are not coming via conventional media. The Israel thoughts and feelings I know because I have lived there and I have family and friends there. But not so Lebanon; and it is interesting to hear from people out there and their opinions and thoughts. Worth a peek....

Thawrah's Den
Beirut Notes
Middle East Politics
Cold Desert
Beirut Spring
Manamania
Kerblog

later...

Evening thoughts....

Well its about quarter to eleven on Saturday night, and I am sitting in my study using my Linux system, listening to Galgalatz, an Israeli radio station. Half-understanding the regular news broadcasts in my broken Hebrew, and enjoying the music. I have spent most of the weekend in bed, hoping to throw off the flu before it gets me down. I had a sore throat and a woozy feelings on friday, so I went to bed and only got out Sunday midday. I have found that this bed rest can work magic against illness. And I was asleep most of the time so my body was not under pressure to do normal activities. My Israeli family is in South Africa at the moment. Unfortunately I have used up all my leave days, and so I cannot take any time off work to play and enjoy the company. But almost every evening I have joined them for dinner and conversation which has been wonderful. I miss living in Jerusalem. Work had been a drag lately. I am a bit worried about the situation in the middle-east. I don't like the fact that hostilities started on the 17 Tammuz. Sandra tells me not to worry that its a minor rise in temperature and won't last longer than another week. I hope she's right. I feel nervous, like Israel is being led into a trap set by Iran. It feels like she is being pulled like a puppet into this war that is being started by Iran through its proxies in Gaza and Lebanon.

I will probably go to work tomorrow as the bed rest seems to have helped. I am also very pleased with my success in getting a Linux desktop up and fully functional.

Sandra is sitting in the Living Room, puzzling at her 5000 piece puzzle. She has been working on it every night for months now; and finally it is beginning to take its proper form. I am looking forward to her finishing it so I can get the use of the coffee table back. It has been unusable for a very long time now, and I can hardly remember what it looks like.

Nights in White Satin is playing on the radio, and I feel bed calling me...

later....

Robbie married, and I spoke....

Here is a copy of the speech I made at Robbie's wedding. Well almost. There were some last minute changes. Only one story of the two about Robbie as a child were described; and a little bit was added about Robbie's sporting prowess. This is a copy of the speech the night before the wedding; and, not the morning of the wedding. But its pretty almost the same. If you want to see the real thing you will have to wait for the DVD release.

Also there are grammar mistakes etc in the speech that obviously I corrected when presenting it at the wedding.

...

"Hello.



For those of you who don't know who I am - I am Ilan, Robbie's elder brother.

This is the ninety-seventh version of this speech, the earlier versions sounded distinctly like something covered in hearts that you might find at Cardies's cards and later versions like philosophy ideas at university. Terry told me diplomatically that best man's speech is, and I quote , "humorous and not soppy. It takes a good natured dig at idiosyncrasies or past behaviour of the groom." My father said get rid of the schmaltz; and my mother use short sort sentences with words with no more that three syllables in them.

So on that note I turned to my family for help. And there was an explosion of stories of Robbie's idiosyncrasies and past behaviours that had us all laughing about moments in his childhood and youth and what a smorgasbord of flavours. My mother's favourite humorous memories revolve around two epigrammatic phrases out of Robbie's young mouth. The first one dates back to when Robbie was two and 5 sixths of a year old. My parents are great nature lovers and now they had decided that we were old enough to give us what they considered a great privilege and present. We were all taken Tendile, in the Northern berg in the amphitheatre which is a truly special place in the Royal Natal National Park. A place where all there is to is walk and talk. Well we walked for a one day; we walked for half of the second day… we were out far for everywhere when Robbie decided that this was it. This situation could not continue any more. And Robbie took control. Now everyone, take a second… Everyone look at Robbie; now I want you to imagine him almost three years old and about as high as your waist. Now little Robbie sits down…. Plonk… on the ground and says clearly and with absolute certainty – "Me too little. Me no walk"… And that was the end of the holiday. He had to be carried home and we left Tendile the next day.

This following bit was cut out of the speech as we decided it did not provide any real addition to the flow of the speech and was just a non-sequitur - but it is still amusing for anyone who is interested in the last minute changes to the speech..

{The second phrase that my mother never forgot happened when Robbie approached her and asked her to make him some sandwiches for school. My mother told him make his own sandwhiches. And then little Robbie stood firm arms akimbo and said..
"You know, the problem with this family is that there are two fathers."}

Who knew in when Robbie was a little child that he would come so far? Because he has come far, an up and coming advocate, is now married to the most beautiful, intelligent and caring young woman, have such good hair and teeth. Some people might think from these two stories that Robbie lacked ambition and did not want to do things for himself. Not true, it shows he knows how to use his mind, come to a logical conclusion and apply it effectively. Case in point: Robbie has never lost his marbles, on the contrary they are still piled up in many huge massive plastic containers in Durban still. In fact not only has Robbie never lost his marbles he in fact has everyone else's marbles. Robbie cleaned the entire middle school out of marbles. Robbie had learnt to think out of the box. He would set up a small circle of super duper fancy shmancy marbles at the bottom of the grandstands at the school field. Then you, the person who was about to lose his marbles, got to throw a marble off the top of the steps. If your marble landed in this special pile of marbles you got to keep the prize. , if you didn't, you lost your marble. Know how big a marble is? This big. Know how big a small pile of marbles is? This big. Good luck. Robbie used to stand at the bottom of the grandstands and on his signal he had the entire middle school throwing their marbles at him. As a result marbles were banned at school, not so much because he won them all but because the mothers could simply not cope with their children buying them back.

Jonx told me that he went to Durban High School a teacher came out of his way to find him. Why? He wanted to know if Jonx was going to turn into a reprobate like Robbie? However, he meant this as a mark of respect for someone who was willing to stand up against authority. He used to be nasty and downright unpleasant to the students in his class. This teacher had given the class an essay to write. The topic My First Day Back At School. Robbie described a bored and frustrated teacher giving an unoriginal topic while at the same time wandering around behind the different students; checking their hair lengths and insulting them. Robbie did it knowingly to get a message across to the teacher. The essay was held back and Robbie had to see him after school. Robbie was asked "How would you like it if I showed this essay to your father?" "I already have, said Robbie, and all he asked was whether or not it was true?" The conduct and attitude of this teacher towards Robbie and the class changed from then onward.

But if you were to ask Robbie about his school days though he will always tell you that he was done an unfair deal. Why, because he was pressurised into studying important subjects like Latin; and not allowed to study Art. And he knew he could have been a great artist; and he has undisputable proof of his artistic merit. In Standard 7 he got a B for his apple he drew which was the second highest mark for an apple in the entire school; and his art was not limited to the visual as in standard 8 he wrote a poem. In fact I have a copy of it here. It rhymes and everything.. So let me present it to you.

Fire. By Robbie Pillemer. Prometheus stole fire/ because he had a desire/ to give it to man/ and the rest of his clan/ so the human race/ could continue its pace / for survival.

After finishing his Business science degree, his LLB, his articles Robbie set off to the UK for two years to find himself. He wasn't prepared to take any old job and was waiting for the perfect job; during which time his money ran out and he had to take any job. He wrote home "Mom. I have eventually job as a stripper. The long email dealing with all of sorts ancillary matters ended by describing his job in graphic detail; he had to strip plastic sheeting off clothes at the duty free shop at Heathrow airport. He also packed smelly fish in sub zero Scotland and washed dished in the kitchen of a hotel in Sark where they wouldn't allow to serve guests because he refused, point blank, as a matter of principle to cut his hair.

After he completed his bar exam and was sitting for his oral he described a huge table with him at one end, the judge and other examiners at the other whose mouths were moving but in his nervousness he could not hear a word that was being said. Have we said that he still had his long hair? Well he did, because as a matter of principle he still refused to cut it. The words of the judge eventually came through to him "Have you found yourself? You did well in your exam. Good luck in your practise." So you may be asking yourselves, what happened to the long hair and Robbie principles? And the answer is, eventually Robbie got tired of being confused with the accused.

{Here there was a bit added about Robbie's sporting prowess, I do not have a copy of this addition.}

Now… my earliest memory of Robbie involves the two of us, as intrepid explorers, wandering around a childhood garden with paints and paintbrushes painting all the snails and frogs and rocks and things we could find the different colours of the rainbow. Well now Robbie and Terry are about to set of, as entrepid explorers in the garden of their marriage to paint their garden with rainbow colours of love. The Talmud Lomar, The Talmud teaches us Matzah Isha Matzha Tov. He who find himself a wife, has found himself that which is truly of value in this life. Mazel Tov. I ask you all to rise and drink l'chaim to the happy colour. Le Chayyim."

Check out some of Jonx's photography

Jonx has done some work for the BLSF.
And I quote from the BLSF website:-

"The Social Development portfolio would like to thank Jonx Pillemer for generously donating his time and effort in taking such beautiful photo’s for us. He came to the school most Saturdays with us as well as whenever we asked to other events…

Click on the photo gallery to view these pictures. More pictures will be uploaded as we receive them. We would also like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that they are his photos and if you copy them off this site please respect his copyright and give credit where it is due…

Thanks Jonx"

(link)

Check the photographs out here...

Some of the photographs are very touching, powerful and give a glimpse into an otherwise inaccessible world.

Well done Jonx!

later...

next week today...

Next week, today Robbie gets married....

BLSF

Well... not so long ago I got skyped by Jonx asking for help troubleshooting setup problem he was having with a web site he was setting up.

A web site he was setting up for Tracy.

A web site for the Black Lawyers Student Forum for which Tracy is the social development officer.

Yup, even though she is not black - unless being a woman makes you black?

Check out the web site the two of them put together. Tracy tells me that that there is still quite a bit of work she is going to do with setting up after she finishes her exams. But it looks pretty good to me already - Jonx has done a marvelous design!

Oh.. and check out the human clock website - or jump straight to the clock itself. Hilarious!

This may not mean a lot to you...

OracleInstalledSnapshot
Originally uploaded by ilanpillemer.

...but it means a great deal to me!

It shows that I have successfully installed an Oracle 10g database on a linux operating system.

I have been working on getting this running over the last couple of days. Now that I have done this I can start working on understanding the ins and outs of this latest version of the Oracle database so that in a few months time I can write the exam and upgrade my qualification from Oracle 9 OCP to Oracle 10 OCP as well.

And it is very important that I learn these skills on Linux. I have already built the basic Oracle skills in a Windows environment and it is now time that I develop the same skill and confidence in the more sophisticated environment of Linux. Since all the major database always run on a POSIX (or a mainframe which is similar) environment; only once I have mastered Oracle in this environment will I feel that I have Oracle DBA skills under my belt.

Finally, now that I have Oracle set up on Linux the basic steps are done; the spaceship has landed; and I can try do a little flying.

This makes me happy.

later...

woohoo

woohoo
Originally uploaded by ilanpillemer.

Busy busy busy. When I got back from my Oracle course in J'burg I hit the ground running. I had two assignments due in the last week and a half and I have not had a moment to breathe.

One thing which really affected my relationship with computers was my close exposure to POSIX standards when working with Oracle which was installed on a Red Hat Enterprise Server.

The course lecturer helped me find a suitable copy of Linux. SLES 9, which as you can see from my little picture to the right, I have successfully installed.

I have not yet installed Oracle on it yet though. But its more the *ix operating system that has me enthralled. I have been compulsively studying operating systems since the course (which is good since one of my courses is on Operating Systems) and am planning to install Mimix soon. Mimix stands for Mini Unix and is a very well written small operating system which was created purely to teach operating systems. So thats quite exciting.

later...

Off on course soon and Terri makes a video

Well I am quite excited because next week I will be attending a 5 day course on Oracle 10g. I have been wanting to do this course for some time now and am quite excited.

Durban has been very cold.

oh.... and Terri has made a funny video when she is sitting at her desk. Hmmm.

later...

Stevie and his world

Stevie feeding hyena1
Originally uploaded by ilanpillemer.

Well my little brother Stevie, a.k.a, intrepid adventurer the Steve, a.k.a, professional actor Mr Steven Pillemer; has done some interesting work over the last few years.

I have told him that I will see what I can do about helping get hold of various material that exists "out there" for his showreel.

So far... not had time to do much. There was a crisis at work and I had been called in to help "save the day." I have a policy of not writing about work on my blog; so I will say no more except that the crisis involved over time and total focus on my part. As a side effect I have not done any tracking and phone calling yet.

Its a nice Sunday morning today. I have started reading The Fellowship of the Ring to Sandra. I have read her the prologue and the first chapter. It is delight, for both of us, now that her English is of the calibre to enjoy and understand the epic novel.

On my part I am reading Margaret Atwood's collection of short pieces called The Tent. There is something very melancholic about how the stories thread together; and it seems to scratch away at today's world with the screech of long haggish nails against a blackboard.

If the weather is good maybe we will go for a walk on the beach today.

later...

Well, pesach is over...

pesach4
Originally uploaded by ilanpillemer.

Well Pesach is over and my brothers have returned to Capetown and all my cousins have gone home. Lee is currently working for Investec but is looking foward to heading to London soon.

It was nice having my family all around, full with life and buzz. I heard more about Stevie's holiday in Ethiopia and the conman who fleeced their one fellow backpacker of a large percentage of her travelling cash.

I heard how he was shown the supposedly legendary location of our holy ark of the covenant and I saw pictures of beautiful ruins. I also watched the trailer of a film in which he he has brief appearance. Interestingly, he even gets quite an appearance in the trailer. Here is the link . I kept watching it a few times as it was quite surreal to watch Stevie in a trailer.

Jonx had his camera and took some beautiful pictures of the family and the seder. Unfortunately he has only sent me a few via email with high compression.

Jonx.... send me a CD with all the pictures and at the original size! Please!

The seders were fun and I sang out of key as usual. I am now eating bread again. Back to work on Monday.

Soon there will be a wedding in July with even more family (my Israeli cousins will be here!)

C'est la vie...

15 kilos lighter

ilanandsandra
Originally uploaded by ilanpillemer.

Well when I left for my holiday in Germany in January I was overweight. Even though I had been off the cortisone for over a year, the weight had not, as I had been hoping just magically fallen away.

So from the day after I got back I focussed on my diet to get myself to a healthy weight. Now on the 20th April I am 15 kilograms lighter. I am still not yet at my ideal weight but wow what a difference.

I have decided, well Sandra has decided, that I should maintain at my current weight for a while before losing the rest. She thinks this is healthier.

I am quite proud of myself and it feels good for my weight to be approaching what was once normal for me. (I still have approximately 8 kilograms to go to be what was once my normal weight.)

later...

Two amusing links and some thoughts.

The seder in 60 seconds

bouncing Bush

Funny hey!

Tuesday night I was on a panel discussion about the Israeli Elections. It was a community consciousness raising exercise in order for us to think about and discuss the Israeli elections happening at the same time. I had to do some research, and interesting enough after only a few hours of research I had completely shifted my allegiance from Kadima to Avodah. I reckon given another week to research I may have ended up supporting Meretz.Naaaa... maybe not; as it was really Amir Peretz's biography and interviews which attracted my attention.

After the panel discussion a few people came up to me and said they really enjoyed what I had to say. The most delightful compliment was the observation that I brought topical information about Amir Peretz to the table; where the general knowledge about him by the people present was quite rudimentary. Thus I had provided knowledge of educational merit at a topical time when people were interested to learn! So I was quite pleased with myself....

I am also now pleased with the election results, especially now that with the soldiers' votes in the left alliance has 61 seats!

later...