If only I had time to blog…

If I wasn’t busy shamelessly neglecting my blog, here are a couple of things I’d probably be writing about:

1) With good reason, the Israeli Olympic swimmers’ extremely impressive achievements have been the talk of the country

But as far as the Shiputzim family is concerned, the best part of the Olympic swimming competitions is Moshe Gartel, Israel Television’s colorful and entertaining commentator, whose amusing sayings never fail to crack us up.

For instance, two nights ago, during the semi-finals, Gartel memorably begged an Israeli swimmer’s international competitors to slow down.

“What do you care?” he asked the swimmers (who obviously couldn’t hear him and wouldn’t have understood the Hebrew anyway). “Won’t you let a Jewish boy advance to the next level?”

And earlier in the week, when a different Israeli swimmer entered the arena, he burst into song (yes, on air!) and greeted her with the words, “Ta’aleh v’tavo, ta’aleh v’tavo…”

Many more of Gartel’s gems can be found here.

2) A few weeks ago, we lost power here in TRLEOOB*.

Ever mindful of my civic duty ever reluctant to spend more than a few minutes sans air conditioning, I called the electric company to report the blackout and to check how long it would last.

As expected, I was immediately put on hold.

And that’s when I made a surprising discovery: Apparently, someone over there at the electric company reads Our Shiputzim!

I mean, why else would s/he graciously provide me with a bit of much-needed blog fodder?

You see, as I was waiting on the phone, a recorded voice came on the line and informed me that all the operators were busy.

Then, after apologizing for the delay and thanking me for my patience, the voice suggested that I could save time by heading over to the electric company’s website. (“DAAA-bell-yoo, DAAA-bell-yoo, DAAA-bell-yoo. Nekudah. Aye, Eee, See. Nekudah. See, Oh. Nekudah. Aye, Ell.”)

Normally, this would’ve been very good advice, but under the circumstances (see: the dictionary definition of “electricity blackout”), I could access neither my computer nor our wireless network…

But I certainly appreciated the gesture, and it’s always nice to meet an Our Shiputzim fan – even if that fan is only an automatic voice recording.

 

And so, dear readers, there you have it: the blog post I would’ve written – if only I’d had the time…

________________

*TRLEOOB=the real life equivalent of our blog

Blowin’ in the wind

…And thus, Chanukah 5771 comes to an end.

Strangely enough, we didn’t have a chance to visit a single national park during the festival.

But if you’re thinking that this means that you get a reprieve and that I won’t be boring you to tears with our vacation pictures, think again.

Because during our recent trip up North, Be-All-You-Can-Be graciously took time out from his arduous duties as Our Shiputzim’s official military advisor and led us off the beaten track – I mean that literally; a rugged army jeep would’ve been more in order :-) -  to see the wind turbines in the Golan.

So, not only do I have pictures of our trip to show you… (As always, click on the photos for a closer view.)

   

…But I have a couple of videos too!

According to Be-All-You-Can-Be, the stationary turbine in the second video isn’t broken. Rather, the turbines are programmed to stop turning once they’re all powered up.

Thank you, Be-All-You-Can-Be, for the fascinating tour and for sharing some of your incredible knowledge with us!

!שבת שלום ומבורך

___________

P.S. Jennifer in MamaLand kindly included my Poland trip post in the latest Jewish Homeschooling Blog Carnival. Be sure to check it out!

A better place to visit during the summer

Many of you rightly observed that although Har HaZeitim sounds like a fascinating place to visit, it may not be the ideal destination during hot, er, climatically-challenged weeks like this one.

And so, the Our Shiputzim Tourism Department has taken the liberty of suggesting an indoor summertime activity: a tour of Better Place’s visitors center in Pi Glilot.

Better Place (I know I’m not the only one who wants to say “the Better Place” or “a Better Place”… :-)) is the company founded by Shai Agassi which is working to build an electric vehicle network throughout Israel.

The tour includes a movie (aka a “multimedia presentation” in tourist-site-speak) during which the audience sits on refurbished seats from used cars; demonstrations of the company’s cutting-edge technologies; and the chance to test drive an electric car.

The visitors center is located in a converted water tank.

One of the cars

YZG wryly noted that the 1½-hour tour is basically a long infomercial for the company.

And he has a point.

But since the visitor center was air-conditioned, the kids had fun, and, best of all, admission was free, we didn’t mind selling our souls to crass commercialism listening to their sales pitch…

Coming up: A recommendation for another free and climate-controlled vacation activity.

A notebook on the floor is worth two in the knapsack (or something like that)

Helloooo, Our Shiputzim readers!

Those of you who were concerned (and we do thank you for your empathy) about our A/C-less state will be relieved to learn that the repairman returned today and replaced the controller board. It even came with a new remote.

So, the fans are now on their way back up to the attic.

But today’s big news was that we had two longish blackouts – one in the late afternoon and one in the evening. Apparently, the electricity was out in the entire area and not just here in our neighborhood.

Yes, this did mean that the A/C was once again out of commission… but this time, the fans were of no help, either.

Since blackouts aren’t all that photogenic, let’s see if we can’t find something else for your viewing enjoyment.

Ah! Here’s something:

As you may have guessed, this is the haul from this summer’s school supplies shopping spree. (Try saying that 5 times fast!)

That’s about all for now.

See you next time on another exciting episode of…. Our Shiputzim!

Hakarat HaTov

Just a quick post to thank the "anonymous" electrician who switched our bathroom light switch to a double switch.

Here's a picture:

Let's zoom out a bit, shall we, in order to get a feel for the bigger picture:

Thanks again for all your help.

In addition, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who joined us at this evening's festivities. [Insert: A special shout-out to SET for taking a break from studying and for driving some of our other guests.]

Good night from the entire Our Shiputzim staff.

Legions of laborers

Legions of laborers. Myriads of workmen. Crowds of construction workers.

Pick your image, but the bottom line is that there's B"H a lot of activity going on today.

Please join us as we survey the current status on each front:

Bathroom: They finished putting up all the tiles and are now working on the grout. Here are two pictures from earlier today (before they finished). This is the wall above the sink:




And here, you can see two diamonds on the wall:



Roof: The roofer is outside now sanding and staining/varnishing/painting (whichever expression works for you) the wood:




And:

A/C: (Disclaimer: Here I am decidedly out of my element. Please feel free to consult with the non-blogging yet more technically proficient member of our staff.) Due to assorted electricity-related issues, the A/C guy ended up making numerous holes in the walls and the roof.

Here's the inside unit (that's the kablan on the left):

And here's the outside unit (together with a bonus roof view):

Finally, here's the new channel where the wire leads up to the attic.

That's it for now. More to come.

Guest blogger: Chief of Photography

A Guest Post by the Chief of Photography

For those of you who didn't come to our house to see the construction, here's something that will help you. This video will give you the feeling of how it is to turn on the new light in the new bathroom. It's a great experience, strongly recommended!!!

Here's the video:

Video: The Light in Our New Bathroom

שבוע טוב, ASG.

Wednesday evening wrap-up

The kablan patched up the wall above and below the attic light switch:

He also worked on the wire in the hole:

And:

Finally, the ladder in the following two pictures shows you the exact angle that will be used by the stairs:

And:

Each step will be 70 cm wide.

In other news, the roofer worked on the part of the roof in the back of the house over ASG's room. However, I'm very sorry to say that no pictures are available at this time. Yes, I know. I realize that this is highly irregular and that you're all very disappointed that there are no roof views. Please accept our sincerest apologies. We do hope to remedy the situation tomorrow.

In the meantime, have a good night and a Happy Yom Ha'atzmaut!

The return of the appliance repairman

As the scholars of literature in our audience can attest, surprising plot twists as well as recurring themes make for compelling reading. Thus, at this point in our narrative, we reintroduce a figure we first encountered three days ago: the appliance repairman. As you will perhaps recall, he arrived on Sunday morning in order to fix our washing machine. Today, however, his target was our dryer. As it turned out, the ignitor had cracked and needed to be replaced.

[Off topic digression: The repairman said that this can happen when one's dryer begins to age. In contrast, the ignitor on our oven goes every year or two - because of sediments in the gas canisters. Ironically, however, even though the dryer ignitor lasts much longer, it costs much less.]

And now back to our renovations:

Thank you to the "anonymous" (ahem) commenter who suggested that we put a switch with a red light for the attic light. We asked the kablan about this, and he said that he would do it if we wanted, but he didn't think it was really necessary. Since there won't be a door to the attic and since there will be two bright fluorescent lights, one will be able to see if the attic light is on or not. So we're skipping it for now.

Meanwhile, he worked some more on the light switch and strung the wire through the channel:

He also brought the paint which will be used to stain the exposed wood:

If you look closely at the side of the can (especially if you click to enlarge the picture), you can see that the color is egoz.

And, as is our wont, we conclude this posting with a roof view:

Note that all the cross beams are in - as are the upright pieces on the side of the attic.

(Credit for today's pictures goes to our Chief of Photography, who has a rare afternoon off.)

Roof views - Take 8952

This afternoon, the kablan made a channel for the light switch for the attic light and for the wires leading to the attic:

The black thing on the left is the plastic he put up across the playroom to contain all the dust.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for: more views of the roof! In fact, tonight, you're really in for a big treat. We have not one, not two, not three, not four, but - count 'em! - five views of the roof! Does it get more exciting than that?! :-)


Here they are:
View #1:


View #2:


View #3:


View #4:



And, last but certainly not least, View #5:


That's all for now. See y'all back here tomorrow I"YH.
Have a good night.