status update April 2018

Beth was visiting for Passover 2018 (5778).


Our neighbor took this image on April 5.



Our house is in the background and a cherry blossom tree is above us.

Status Update Jan 2018

image 1: From left Martin, Beth, Ann, George with Maimonides in the backround. Taken in Cordova, Spain in October 2017.

image 2: same people in Basalu, Spain, one of the most important places you've never heard of

what we all are doing is the same as it was in mid 2017

Beth in Israel. Has been working in internet marketing and technical writing for some time. Does contract work.

George. Has been doing independent legal work for several years. Bankruptcy, tort, various other odds and ends.

Ann: Doing auditing of medical coding for a contractor who works with Bethesda Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Martin: Doing part time mashgiach (kosher supervision) for a number of restaurants and caterers in the DC area.

The images are all narrated at the blog for a trip we all took to Spain, Gibraltar and Portugal.  

status update June 2017

Beth in Israel. Has been working in internet marketing and technical writing for some time. Does contract work.

George. Has been doing independent legal work for several years. Bankruptcy, tort, various other odds and ends.

Ann: Doing auditing of medical coding for a contractor who works with Bethesda Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Martin: Doing part time mashgiach (kosher supervision) for a number of restaurants and caterers in the DC area.

Pictures as of Oct 2014 and status update

Beth visited us in October 2014 and we did some pictures in the front yard (it was in the low 50s - that's why Beth has the sweater). We couldn't get anyone to act as outside camera guy and because we didn't have a tripod, getting a timed picture wouldn't have worked.

So here is the status update:

Beth - Now in 10th year of living in Israel and 5th year of being fully taxed there (immigrants get a temporary break on some taxes). She works for an internet marketing company managing much of their external web presence and also has some internal projects.

George (as of Dec 2014)- Doing 50 hours/wk legal work for a company that does mostly immigration law and follow up service for immigration clients as well as 10 hours a week of EMT volunteer work.

Ann - Doing some tumor and other medical coding for a remote service firm. Also taking classes in Hebrew.

M - Mostly doing mashgiach (kosher supervision) work for caterers and sometimes for restaurants.

click on image for magnification

2012 Family Pictures and some narrative

This is what we (and some of the azaleas) look like in April 2012.

The pictures were taken by Zvika Dor (visiting from Israel).

To review status as of the time the pictures were taken:

Martin - working as consultant in transportation (very part time) and as a mashgiach (guarding kashrut) in some local restaurants (also very part time).

Ann - certified in both tumor registry work and medical coding and planning to return to work at some point.

George: working in his own law firm and as a contractor to another law firm; having passed the bar exam in MD, DC and VA, and registered to appear before the Maryland Bankruptcy court, the Maryland appeals court and the Federal District for Eastern Virginia.

Beth (who goes by the name Tamar in Israel) is working for Insightera an Israeli startup in the Tel Aviv area. Insightera is a company that provides software to for internet marketing. It is, since December 2013, a division of Mercato which is an American internet application conglomerate (which went public in April 2013).

STATUS AS OF February 2014

Martin - Now retired from the US govt (highway stuff). He is doing some contract work. His retirement blog is at:

http://leaving-fhwa.blogspot.com/

In 2006 he got to chair an international meeting and made a bunch of Star Trek jokes. Unfortunately that meant he had to help plan the 2011 meeting. He is also helping with the 2013 meeting.

See:http://tedcommittee.com/Activities/TED2006/ted-2006-planning.shtml

Ann - Has been working in the medical coding field (i.e., digitizing medical records; reviewing records for research ingest). She has taken training courses in this; notably from SUNY-Alfred. In June 05 she had major surgery and as of late June 06 had finished recovery from that. She does kashrut supervision from time to time. In June 09 she graduated from a coding certification course. In Nov 2010 she passed a certificate for a higher coding degree. In 2013 she passed the certification for the tumor registry coding.

Beth - In an apartment in Ramat Gan (near Tel Aviv). She does not have a roomate; she is happy about that because previous roomates (one nicknamed 'stormy', one nicknamed 'messy' didn't work out so well although they were also from angloworld). Her previous roomate was a native Israeli who was the former roomate of the daughter of a family she stayed with five years previously when she was on a post high school program in Israel (nicknamed evil-dew). She had a nice roomate in 2008-2009 but that was in Jerusalem and her job was on the Mediterranean coast. We visited Beth in late Nov 2004 while we were in Jerusalem. In the previous year Beth taught 4 classes; 3 for the municipality (one 7th, one 8th, one 10th) and 1 8th grade class for a 3rd party provider). She left her job with the Herziliah software gaming company in Nov 2010 and began work for another company in Tel Aviv in May 2011. Then began work for another company (Insightera) in 2013 and in December 2013, it was bought out by yet another company (Marketo).

Beth has her own blog at:

http://jtownponderings.wordpress.com

she was at:


http://www.jtownponderings.blogspot.com/
(she was withhttp://www.jtownponderings.blog-city.com/)
and a commercial blog at: http://www.thewritingwhiz.com/index.html

George - Graduated Law school in Jan 2011 took the Bar Exam in Feb 2011. In May 2011 he learned that he had passed and soon thereafter learned he had survived the 'character and fitness' screening that the Maryland Bar administers. He is to was sworn in to the Maryland Bar in mid June 2011. He started working as legal investigator and assistant lawyer for an attorney at Eastern Market in D.C. He opened his own law office in 2013. In Feb 2014, he signed a contract to provide work for another law firm.

George has beaten four (maybe more, I've lost count) traffic tickets on procedural grounds (gaming the system) or on substantive grounds (quizing the officer who issued the citation) or by luck (officer bringing the wrong notebook to court).

George's website for his law office is

http://www.georgeweisslaw.com/

George has his own blog: here (but it is inactive)
http://thedeltaquadrent.blogspot.com/

Soda (our red Tabby) - died in the summer of 2011 at the age of about 19.
We have a gray tabby, named Trina (or Katrina), who was born in about March or April of 06. She didn't like Soda much but they didn't fight. She weighs about 15 lbs as of Oct 2011 (that is overweight). She is good at lap sitting but still improving her purring.

The document date is a fiction. Its done to make this second in the blog.

More Images - Follow - Go to the archives for these
A few Images have a fictional doc date in July 2004 so they can be bunched together.
Images from a summer trip to Colorado are placed in June 2004
Images from a snowstorm in Feb 2003 are placed on Feb 2003Image from our Oct 2004 Cruise are placed in Oct 2004

Beth and Zvika Dor

Beth and Zvika Dor visited us during (and a bit before and after) Passover 5772 (2012).

The pictures were taken in one of our favorite spots (seen on other posts) on Henry Fleet road where both Cherry blossoms and azaleas were blooming.

Morristown, NJ Town Square

These two images were taken in Morristown NJ on Dec 11, 2011.

Besides myself and Ann, there are:

- George Washington (on the right),

- Alexander Hamilton (on the left),

- and a messenger from the Marquis de LaFayette (only visible in the image with Ann but w/o me).

According to local tradition, a meeting of these three took place near Morristown in 1780 (Morristown was effectively the military capital of the American States during the Revolutionary war).

A High Level Promenade

Back on Sept 22, 2011 Ann and I were at the Kennedy Center to see an opera.

Before the opera we had a walk on the promenade at the top of the Center. Here are some images (all taken by a stranger).

Lilly Tree

A few years ago I bought some bulbs for a lilly tree.

It was supposed to have 20+ flowers on it and grow to be 5' high in the third summer.

Surprise.

It did. And it has a nice fragrance also.

I have some cone flowers and some ordinary lillies in the foreground.

Also, the lilly tree gets to rest on a rose bush. The rose bush flowers too but not when the lilly is flowering

Soda Cat RIP

Soda Cat died today.

He was about 19.

We had him since 1996 (about 15 years).

He was a very sweet cat.

The grave marker is in the picture. It says,

"SODA
Beloved Cat
1992- 2011"

George is sworn into the Maryland Bar

It was a nice day and we drove to Annapolis to see George sworn in to the Maryland Bar.

G had graduated in December 2010 and passed the bar exam in February 2011 but you actually have to be sworn in before you can practice law (also a few other things must be done like getting various documents).

April 2011 Cherry blossom season

Beth was visiting in and about Passover 5771.

Irwin took this image. It was taken about a block east of our house where two cherry blossom trees form an arch over the street.

Spring 2010 at the Weisses

Beth was visiting us about the time of Passover 5770.




Thus we got some pictures done.




These also have our stuffed bulldog UGA (which stands for University of Georgia) and our outside alligator, Out-GATE

The azaleas feature in a 2002 image further down in this website.


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Holland Aug 13, 2009

We left Dulles Airport on Aug 12 and arrived in the early am of Aug 13 at the Airport that serves Amsterdam.

This airport is below sea level (by about 8-16 feet or so). Thus the flight navigation channel is a bit fun to read as you are descending.

The airport has art showing ice cream and cows but nothing about the red light district.

The cruise line sent people to meet us at the airport.

We had about 5 hours before boarding time on the ship so we took a bit of a tour.

One site was the cheese and shoe factory. I learned that the reason Dutch people wore wooden shoes (Klompen ) was that it was wet in the fields (the water table being very high) and that was the best waterproofing they had in the 13th century when they started cultivating the area (or so the guy at the shop said).


Another thing we saw on this tour was Rembrandt Park which is not too far from downtown. It is not historically connected with the painter, they just thought he should have a park.

Before the Baltic Cruise

Here we are (Ann and me and Rembrandt in bronze) in Rembrandt Park in Amsterdam.

This is park aboiut 10 minutes by bike (or 15 minutes by tram and bus) from downtown Amsterdam.

In addition to the windmill there is also a petting zoo and some landscaped grounds.

We took a small tour before going on the 12 day cruise.

Other images from this vacation will be at the Weiss chronicles.

Beth and George April 2009

April 2009



Beth was visiting from Israel. The flowers were out in the front but we decided to take photos in the back anyway for some reason I can't remember.




The rabbit near Beth is a little terra cotta one I got at some going out of business sale. One of my many (too many) wind chimes is on the right on both images and there is one on the left in one image.



Beth has said that I have so many wind chimes it seems that I must have unresolved 'issues' of some sorts.

Some Images from Spring and Summer 2009

First image is our grey tabby Trina at rest. She loves lying in the Florida room and looking out.

Second image is Beth taking a picture of Soda and Trina as Soda is about ready to groom Trina. Usually when he does this Trina gets tired of it after a few seconds and either swats or runs away.

Third image is George and Beth in our back yard. A windchime is on the right. A small rock wall is in the background near the tree base.

from left: Soda, Beth, Martin, George, Ann

This photo was taken in Nov 2002 at Weiss house (by Irwin) The document date is a fiction - its just there to make sure this image is at the top of the blog,

Ann, Beth and Martin in Zichron Yaacov

At Zichron Yaacov

It means the 'memory of Isaac' and the particular Isaac is not the patriarch but a member of the Rothschild family which founded, or reestablished the town.

The first image is a bus going down the main commercial outdoor mall, which is very nice but has lots and lots of cats.

The next image is a winery in the city. We didn't tour the winery because reservations were needed. Besides its basically a collection of large stainless steel containers.

The third image is Ann and Beth walking down the mall toward where I was (I was drinking a beer at the time which I had purchased from the local grocery which was also on the mall).

The next two pictures were taken from our room at the Havat HaBarone hotel. It means "Estate of the Baron" and the "baron' was one of the Rothschilds. One image is toward the north west. Some of Haifa is visible here (in the distance) as well as the outskirts of a hill that is part of Zichron Yaacov (on the right edge about half way up). The other image is toward the west and shows the narrow coastal plain - no more than about 3 miles wide at this point. The white covered structures are greenhouses.