World Thinking Day

When I was a wee lass, I was a Girl Scout.

Actually, since I was only ever a Girl Scout Junior (never a Brownie or anything else), and back in the 1980s Juniors were girls in grades 4 - 6, I suppose it wasn't so much that I was a Girl Scout as a wee lass, as it was that I was a Scout as a moderate-height-but-still-skinny lass.

I don't actually remember a whole lot about being a Scout. I do remember selling cookies, and earning a bunch of badges (the last of which I just sewed on my old sash last weekend. 23 years later.) I remember going  to day camp and making a really nice woven basket that is still on my dresser to this day. I remember my troop going on a hiking trip to a local mountain on a cold, rainy fall day. I had a uniform - sash, green and blue polyester blouse, and a little button neck tab/tie thing - but I'm pretty sure there are no pictures that exist of me in said outfit.

After 6th grade, I aged out of Juniors and there was no Cadette troop locally for me to join (and I'm not sure I would have kept going at that time anyway) so I figured my Scouting career was over.

Flash forward 2 decades. Four years ago, I was flipping through the local free newspaper and saw a community announcement for an interest meeting for Girl Scouts, both interested girls and adults were welcome. I had been thinking I wanted to get involved with some form of community service, to give back a bit, so I went to the meeting. The rest is history!

Not having a daughter, I've kind of been able to float around and fit in with troops that didn't have a second or co-leader. Last year, I hooked up with Mrs. J and her troop, and I can say without a doubt that I have definitely found my place! It's a Junior troop, just like I was (although Juniors is now only for grades 4 and 5). The girls are fantastic, really active and interested in learning new things, doing community service, and getting out and doing some of the traditional Girl Scout activities like camping and hiking. 2012 is the 100th anniversary of Girl Scouting, and we are planning so pretty big and special ways to celebrate in our troop!

Today, February 22nd, is World Thinking Day. It is the shared birthday of Lord and Lady Baden-Powell, the founder (and wife) of Boy Scouts. They were friends with Juliette "Daisy" Gordon Low, and inspired her to found Girl Scouts in 1912. World Thinking Day is a day when Girl Scouts and Girl Guides around the world take time to think of their sisters in Scouting, and hopefully spend some time learning about different cultures.

So Happy Thinking Day to all the other Leaders, Scouts, and Guides out there! I am happy to be your sister in Scouting.

Troop 12270, getting a little crazy!

Cranial Equipage

I bought a very Maisie Dobbs* hat at a very Maisie Dobbs price. ($5.08 - Thank you Target clearance section!)

So then I needed a Maisie Dobbs haircut to go with my hat.

The red has toned down a little bit; the above picture was taken the morning after the dye job and I hadn't washed it yet. I am completely in love with the haircut though. I've been thinking about going short for a few months now. Initially I wanted to wait until after Red's wedding, so I could wear it up. Then I wimped out at my next appointment and just went with a trim. This time around, I was planning on just a trim again, until the day of the appointment. I spent lunch Googling around for pictures of short curly/wavy hair bobs, found this photo of the fabulous Maggie Gyllenhaal, and had Kristi chop over a year's worth of growth off hair that night. Love this so much more than any of the short cuts I've had before!

*Maisie Dobbs is the heroine of a series of mystery novels written by Jacqueline Winspear and set in 1930s London. You should check them out!

In slightly over 7 months from now...

...I will be heading off on my big, extravagant OMG I'm 35 trip!

I stopped in Barnes & Noble on the way home on Friday to pick up a travel guide, and walked out with 3. Ooops. What can I say, I am a sucker for pretty pretty travel pictures.

There is still much planning to be done. Other than concrete plans of dates and where I am going, things are pretty up in the air right now. I need to start researching airfares, and I need to start looking into short-term flat rentals, because despite saving for over a year and a half (by the time I go, anyway) there is no way I can afford 2 weeks in hotels. Nor do I really want to. Merrow will likely be joining me for at least part of the trip, so a flat will give us a little more room to spread out. There is so much I want to do that I could probably fill up 2 years, but 2 weeks is a good place to start.

So where am I going? I'll give you a hint.

Here:

Photo used under Creative Commons, courtesy of dvpfagan on Flickr

With a stopover here on either the way there or the way back:

Photo used under Creative Commons, courtesy of taivasalla on Flickr

That's a thermal spring in Iceland, in case you were wondering.

Losing It

Somewhere along the way in the last 2 days, I lost my memory card reader. Which means no more picture updates from the road right now. Sorry!

We've had a productive 2 days in the north of Israel. Went to a winery tour and wine tasting on the way up to Tiberius yesterday. We had meetings yesterday afternoon and dinner at the hotel, and then I wound up at an Irish Pub with most of the Israelis. Also at the Irish Pub - about 50 18-year-old drunk Americans on a Birthright Tour. It was an interesting flash back to college days! I can't believe we were ever that young and stupid (though I'm sure we were, and then some).

Today was morning and early afternoon meetings, and then an offroad Landrover tour through the area around the Sea of Galilee. It was fantastic, though out of all the days of the year in an arid, desert climate, it was raining today of course. Still, we had good views (if not fantastic) and a little bit of rain made the offroad track slippery and fun to drive on with the Landrovers!

Tomorrow we head back to Tel Aviv in the afternoon, and I meet up with my mom for a few days of sightseeing. Can't wait! And just maybe, I left my card reader at the TLV hotel and it's still there in lost and found.

Tel Aviv

I haven't taken as many pictures yet on this trip to Israel as I did at the beginning of my trip in May. Partially because I haven't seen anything new yet on this trip, but also because as it is now winter, the days are shorter and it is dark by the time I leave the office. Here are a couple from when I arrived on Saturday.

View from my hotel room. I'm on the south side this time, so have a nice view all the way down to Old Jaffa. Surf is much higher that it was in May, too.

Saturday night dinner at Gordo's Beach Bar. Chicken escalope and steamed veggies. I ate at Gordo's several times back in May, and I figured they would probably be closed for the season along with all the other open-air beach cafes. Nope, they just put up temporary walls for the winter, invest in space heaters, and offer you a blanket if you are cold!

That Which Everyone In the Israel Office Would Like To Know

1) Why aren't you staying for the RTS meeting?
and
2) Your mom is coming to Israel for only 5 days? Why such a short time?

The answers being
1) Sigh. Ask my boss.
and
2) Yes, because I can only afford to stay that much longer after my work trip. Some of us only get a couple of weeks of vacation and have to use our days judiciously.

Some quick background on work. My official title is Applications Engineer. I work for the Customer Support department. There is one other Apps Eng in the company who also works for the CS department; he is in the Israel office. There are actually quite a few other Apps Engs around the world, we've got two in our office back  home, but they all work for the Sales Operations department. Basically, they are the technical applications resources up until the customer signs the purchase order; and I am the technical applications resource after installation. We also have 3 Regional Technical Specialists in our office who also work for the CS department. They deal more with the "my machine broke, how do I fix it" side of things. Ultimately, we do all collaborate together, but we each have our own special areas of focus. Clear as mud?

So. Even though I work for CS and not SO, I got myself invited to the annual SO Applications Worldwide meeting (which is why I'm in Israel right now). That's this week. There is also a RTS Worldwide meeting next week. Back in December when we got the dates for both of these meetings, I asked my boss what he wanted me to attend: Apps, RTS, or both. One of the Apps guys in my office had already forwarded me the agenda for the SO Apps meeting; it's pretty heavy on the sales side of things. Nevertheless, my boss said I should go to that as it would be a good chance to mind-share knowledge. He also said that the RTS meeting agenda was focused on hands-on "how to fix the broken machine" stuff, and I didn't need to plan to go to that one.

So I booked my tickets and hotel. My mom booked her tickets and hotel. And the following week, I got the agenda for the RTS meeting, which yes, has plenty of "how to fix the broken machine" sessions, but also has several theoretical and applications-based sessions. That I really should be at. But now it's too late. Argh!

And yes, Mom and I would both love it if we could stay an extra 2 weeks. However, I only could manage to take 2 extra days of vacation. Maybe next time. You'd be surprised how much you can see and do in 4-5 days though, especially in a country the size of New Jersey.

Shalom

Guess where I am?

I'll give you a hint. Today it was sunny and in the 60s, my body is still all jet-lagged, and now that the sun has set and Sabbath is over and all the restaurants are open, I'm going to go grab a quick dinner.

That's right, I'm back in Israel! Shorter trip this time; back in May, I was here for 3 weeks. This time I have a week of work, and then using a couple of days of vacation time to give me a 4-day weekend of sightseeing with my mom. She is flying over next week to join me, arriving on my last day in the office. Tomorrow I go into the office and meet with my Israeli counterparts in Customer Support. The rest of the week I am attending the Applications annual meeting - which oddly enough, looks to be focusing mainly on sales. Ah well, it is a good experience and good face time with some of the other guys as well. Plus, they are taking us off-site for a couple of days up to Tiberius, which will be cool as I didn't get to head north last trip.

The trip over wasn't bad, though didn't go exactly as planned. My flight out of NH was delayed an hour, and then we were delayed again after we boarded the plane and pulled away from the gate. I was supposed to have almost a 3:30 layover in Newark; instead I had about 45 minutes between getting off one plane and wheels-up on the next. It was just enough time to switch gates, go to the restroom, stock up on water, Pringles, and sleeping pills, and then go through the secondary security for the Israeli flight. By that point, most of the passengers had boarded the plane, so I got to scramble for overhead space and crawl over my two seatmates to get to my window seat. Although I was stuck in coach, my carry-on suitcase got to fly in business class, since there was not enough overhead space available in my cabin. Harumph. I hope my suitcase enjoyed it.

As usual, I forgot things. On the "still at home" list this time are both sleeping pills/melatonin, as well as workout clothes. Boooo. I picked up some Unisom in the airport and already had Advil PM with me, so fingers crossed that will work to get me on the right sleep schedule ASAP. As for the workout clothes - well, I may be the girl going running in a bathing suit top and yoga pants along the Tel Aviv beachfront. We'll see!