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Today marks four gregorian calendar years since Dan died. This last passover was bittersweet with the memory of Dan, and the wish that he could have met Isaac. This year I decided to honor Dan's memory by making an iPhone app to count the Omer. A recently made fried of mine, Rabbi David Seidenberg made a web widget using javascript for counting the Omer. He asked me if I could make an iPhone version of his widget, and so I did. There is a paid version ($0.99) and a free version of the app. This app has been helping me count the omer and giving me something tangible to work through my grief. The widget that the app is based on is here.

Dan and I spent a lot of time together in Philly. Often he would come by my house after a late work night, and we'd walk down to South Street. I would invariably get a snack, and he would sometimes join me. We talked about work and courses and crazy business ideas or real estate ideas. Whatever we talked about he had a great sense of humor. I remember one morning he called because we had planned to go to hot yoga, and I was sleeping in, so he left a message: "Hey! This is Dan. Wake up! It's Yoga time, man!" I miss his friendly voice.

Below is an image of Dan's obituary since it is no longer on the newspaper's web site, and it looks like blamedan.com is gone.

Sunday a tree fell in our front lawn (and it definitely made a sound). The second picture of the article is the police car that was stopping traffic from driving under power lines next to our house.

We were having a BBQ and we had finished eating and the clouds were getting dark. So we brought the food in and set up to play croquet. Then it started raining, so we rushed inside. The wind was blowing pretty hard, so I shut all of the windows on the west side of the house. As I was in the back of the house, I hear a big crash, and "Whoa" from people in the living room.

I come to the living room to see:



You can see the power line going down to our lawn:



uh oh, did our guests cars get hit?



whew, that was close:




Our hydrangea in the lower right corner survived...



Once the rain stopped we finished our croquet game and played a second game with a slightly modified course and a requirement to croquet if you hit someone else's ball. It added a little extra evil to the game, which was fun.

The power line was replaced at around 3:00 am on Monday.

Monday on the bike path there were 3 fallen trees:



Had to go around this one:





The third tree:



These were over a 3 mile stretch, so it wasn't a huge impact to my ride, but it definitely changes things up a bit.

By Monday afternoon the third tree was removed and the second tree had red tape around it. By Tuesday morning the second tree was still there, but it was gone by the afternoon.

Today the phone line was replaced, Yay internet, and later today the cable guy will come to replace the Cable cable.

This morning the radio guy was talking about how at the tri-county fair in northampton, the mayor wouldn't allow casinos, but would allow horse racing due to its historical nature. Then the fact that massachusetts is considering expanding where casinos can be placed was mentioned. Given that Philadelphia is in the process of building 2 or 3 casinos, it makes me wonder whether U.S. citizens are pursuing the best avenues for the future of the U.S.
Now, it does make sense that there is a need for additional funding, and casinos do bring in the money. However, many people aren't educated enough to understand the true dangers of gambling when you are gambling with money that you need. But, maybe casinos aren't such a big deal since these days college itself appears to be a pretty big gamble. Especially with the rising rates of college tuition and housing.
Maybe we can use the money we raise from the casinos to educate our kids, and then they won't go to the casinos when they can't afford it... But then what about their kids?
So, I would argue that health care and education should be top priorities of the people. However, both of these may not be political interests for our leaders and lawmakers. It's much easier to lead if the people do not question too much, and it could be that people who are healthy and educated have both the energy and the interest to question when things don't appear right.
But, what does this have to do with casinos? Casinos basically transfer money from a lot of people who don't have much money to fewer people who, maybe didn't have much money before, but due to the casinos have a lot of money. The majority of the people playing at the casinos get at most some entertainment and a thrill, while a few may actually make some money. This leaves more people poorer, thus having less ability to pay for their health care and education.
I feel like by now we as the United States should have a way of raising the money that it uses in a way that promotes the general well-being of the country rather than degrades it. I think casinos for entertainment is fine, but when it negatively effects the lives of community members or visitors, then I think that is wrong.

A scooba arrived a few days ago. So, I charged it, and the next morning I put solution in the tank,then put water on the tank, then put the tank back on, put the scooba in the middle of my kitchen, turned the power on, pushed clean...

(whirr) (beep beep beep) "check tank" light goes on. I check that I put the tank on correctly, then pressed clean...

(whirr) (beep beep beep) "check tank" light goes on. I check the manual, try each thing that it says, including emptying the clean tank and refilling it (so I stupidly poured the water with special cleaning solution down the drain), and each time the same thing... So I go online to search for similar problems.

voila, I need to prime the air pump with a baster, and possibly clean the tank valve with a toothbrush. Neither of which are included. (hopefully erin won't notice ;)

After figuring that out, I refilled the tank, with just water this time, and then pushed the power button, pushed the clean button...

(whirr) and we're off! scooba spins around happily cleaning the kitchen floor. It does pretty well going down the hallway, and then going back into the kitchen. About 45 minutes later, the kitchen floor is significantly cleaner. (next time I'll use the cleaning solution.) I clean out the scooba, connect it to the charger and go to school.

When I get home, I decide to run the scooba one more time, but this time with solution to get the nasty stains out. I turn it on, turn all the lights out, and go to the gym. A little over an hour later I get back to the house, and I here the scooba really trying hard. I get inside, and I see it is stuck underneath the cabinet, apparently the little area is just the right height that sometimes it gets stuck. So I push the scooba a little bit, and it rights itself, but a few seconds later, the battery dies...

So, I empty the clean tank into some plastic cups, and clean out the scooba to charge it. Then next evening I let the scooba finish its cycle, and it got out most of the tough stains. It's nice to have a clean floor.

It is too bad that the scooba needs to be watched, but I think with a few modifications to the cabinets it won't get stuck anymore.

There is also a serial port (I think it's the same one as on the roomba) located right next to the tank latch so there are only a few millimeters of space, but I think that I can make a cable that will fit into it so I can test it out. So far I haven't seen any web pages on modifying a scooba.

I just tried out my new bicycle radio. Well, actually it's a sports digital radio and bicycle stereo speakers, but it works, and I can now continue to listen to NPR on my daily commute. With a 35 minute to a 50 minute ride, it was getting a little boring just listening to my breathing and pedaling. Also, I was starting to miss hearing the news. Even if it is biased.