Re: shabbat shalom 12.12.08 ~ Life Goes On...

Gracias Sister Linda ~ Life goes on... I am glad you finally have your own programmer. I am still struggling every day, but it is nice having a love in my life who is ideal for me. We struggle through life together and I have learned that struggle comes natural for me.

All my lonely efforts have been blessed. Just finished a great pork chop dinner.... still doing my recovery one day at a time. Lovingly, Tu Amigo Peta

P.S. Virus-Free Pictures Attached!

Educate to Liberate!

Third-World-News Yahoo Group

Peter S. Lopez aka: Peta

Email: peter.lopez51@yahoo.com

Sacramento, California, U.S.A.

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From: Linda Whittaker <olsvig2000@yahoo.com>
To: Linda Olsvig-Whittaker <Linda.Whittaker@npa.org.il>
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 9:31:49 PM
Subject: shabbat shalom 12.12.08

Hi everyone, Winter is hear. I now have one sure measure - arthritis. When I was 24, more than 30 years ago, I fell off a cliff while doing my doctoral work in rather steep mountains, and smashed my left foot. I was warned by the doctor that I would get arthritis there in old age - which means not only winter has now arrived - because I got a bad case of arthritis in it this year. I've had mild arthritis in my hands, but my foot is a real nuisance. Time for NSAIS (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications) Not unexpected. So I went limping and cursing around work this week, getting used to this official sign that I'm entering old age. Lovely. Other than that it has been a beautiful week. We got a little rain; a blessing in this country. Not enough, but it cleared the air and we have the crystal blue skies of the winter Mediterranean now. My Dutch friends sent me a briar pipe (yes, I smoke pipe tobacco) and a collection of Dutch cakes and cookies for the holidays. I'm saving them for a party on 31 December at work. I got cigars from my pastor. My neighbor brought me a china mug from Turkey. I got Nepalese tea from colleagues at work who were trekking in Nepal. And best of all, a Turkish friend, a journalist who goes back home periodically, has brought me a Turkish cookbook for my collection. So, its the season! The best "gift" of all was a breakthrough in a 7-year logjam at work. I manage a biological database of the surveys and inventories my rather large conservation organization collects. At this point it is over half a million observations. We knew since 2001 that the ACCESS platform isn't supposed to handle such a large database and that it would crash, but my work was not a big funding priority as long as I could patch it and it would limp along. Finally it locked up this year; I had to split the database into two parts just to enter data. But now we have a contract with a programming company to provide us with such and such hours per month, and so my plight has been picked up as a project. Starting now, I will be sittiing with a database architect, chief technical officer, and programmer from the outside company, who will work with me to redesign the system in SQL-Server. That will take about a month. After that, I will be getting steady programmer support forever, on a salaried basis. In fact, the programmer has already been selected for me; his name is Meir, he is confined to a wheelchair, and his office is right across the street from ours. So the arrangement is convenient to him and to me; I can trot back and forth with questions as they arise, and he doesn't have to shlep all over Jerusalem, but can work on the project in his own office. Wow, my own progarmmer. Haven't had that for eight years. In past experience, this was a happy friendship as well as collaboration. I hope Meir will work out the same way. Not much more to add here. The Israeli scene is now focused on back room deals in the main political parties as we go to new elections in this parliamentary system. (A candidate's chance of a seat in the Paliament depends on two things: the number of seats his party has won and his ranking in his party. The Parliament members are not elected directly or individually by the public; only the party. So it is at this time that the long knives are being drawn and sharpened.) I hope to go down to the Dead Sea tomorrow. Although I won't go in the water, the air there is a balm for recovery from illness. Dear old En Fescha oasis is only an hour away from my house, and there I can bask and lick my wounds. Sunday, I'm going to Sede Boqer to take part in a desertification conference, and lecture on dear old En Fescha, of all things. I'll be seeing some faces down there that I haven't seen in years. My former boss is back from America, and pictures show him as very aged now. Strange, when I knew him he never aged. Maybe America wasn't so good for him. I also need to spend quality time with the informatics geek down there; we collaborate and share data. So, it looks like a nice week ahead. shabbat shalom, Linda