Flying out to Europe tomorrow, quick business travel, until Friday.
I’ll be at Barcelona Tuesday afternoon through Thu morning, and in Venice Thu evening.
If anyone wants to meet up for some drinks and conversation, post a comment here, @dvirreznik or email dvirreznik at gmail.com. Since it’s a business travel, and I’m not alone, will do my best to accommodate the requests.
Adios 🙂
Posts Tagged 'travel'
Army reserve – back after Rosh Hashana
Published September 28, 2008 Uncategorized ClosedTags: army, herod the great, herodium, holiday, israel, rosh hashana, travel, הורדוס, הרודיון, טיול, ישראל, סיור
During my mandatory army service, some 12 years ago, I remember spending several holidays at the army. But this marks the first time I’m spending a holiday doing reserve duty.
So, for the coming week I’ll be less available online, as you probably noticed already if you’re following me.
It just so happens that close to my army base lies a remarkable piece of Jewish history, The Herodium Palace-Fortress, which was built by Herod the Great in A.D 23-20. If you’re visiting the Jerusalem area, pin your map for this magnificent fortress.
The photos I took are available at facebook.
Army reserve training – back soon…
Published January 4, 2008 Uncategorized 1 CommentTags: army training, israel, nokia n95, travel, מילואים, נוקיה
Spent the last week somewhere in the south of Israel, training with my unit. Army reserve is really the only place I can see a sunrise, since I’m more of a night person than a morning person. But when you wake up before the sun (5:30 am), there’s a good chance of catching the sun waking up, roughly an hour after you…
Couple of things worth mentioning, if you plan to go army training anytime soon:
- don’t take too sophisticated phones to a place with sand and high winds. My N95 will remember this past week for a long time – luckily I found a very powerful air pump at the base, that cleared any memory of the sand…
- there’s never, never, such a thing as enough warm cloths. We had the privilege of sleeping outdoors at the coldest night of the year in Israel. Temp was 0 (zero)! I slept with everything I had, including 4 small warming bags – nothing helped. F#&king cold.
- Bring snacks. We got 3 meals, no complaints there, but since we were in the field all week, breakfast, lunch and dinner were at odd hours.. snacks are always welcome.
- Facebook. Other than updating my status, facebook and social networks were a very popular discussion during the long days and nights. Only 1 of the soldiers didn’t know what facebook is, although he did hear about it.
- Thanks to my cellular provider for covering Israel with good signal. 3G was on and off, but GPRS was good enough to get the scoop Dec. 30th (3 days ahead) that IBM will acquire XIV (Hebrew)- a storage technology start-up from Israel, for $300M. XIV will keep its existing development center in Israel, and will be part of IBM Storage Division.
More pictures and videos (captured with my N95 – superb) will be available later on Flick and YouTube. See you soon…
No more belgian waffle! starting tomorrow…
Published November 11, 2007 Uncategorized ClosedTags: belgium, brussels, travel, waffel
Landed in Brussels, Belgium at noon, after an early 5 hour flight from Tel Aviv.
As I’m traveling light, only my trolley and laptop bag, I arrived at 05:30 to the airport, 2 hours ahead of time. Unfortunately, Ben Gurion Airport was packed with people (doing some construction work), with lines for security and check-in. The security went swiftly, but then I saw the line for check-in – not what I expected for 6am. Then, at the corner of my eye I saw a couple of self service El-Al booths. This IBM kiosk (I was too tired to snap a picture, but it’s Big Blue’s solution) provides easy and quick check-in, based on your Passport number, Frequent Flyer card or Credit Card. Super! Swiped my passport, and 3 min later I was on my way to passport control, duty free shops (bought new in-ear JVC earphones) and finally – the lounge.
During the 5 hour flight I saw the first 4 episodes of David Duchovny’s new TV show, Californication (Showtime).
I have to say it was the best 2.5 hours I ever spent aboard any flight! There were times I tried very hard not to laugh so hard… hilarious. Recommended.
Brussels welcomed us with a cold breeze.. quite the contrary of what I’m used to from sunny Tel Aviv. 11C, gray skies and some rain (showers is the professional word) welcomed us upon arrival. We had some time to burn, and in an effort to keep warm we decided to try out some Belgian Waffle (see picture above). In Israel I usually avoid this much sugar, cholesterol and chocolate combined together, but, “when in Belgium… “. So, I took the waffle, with cream and chocolate of course. I ate about half of it, tons of sugar (it was big, and I’m sweet enough.. ;-), and then the only logical step was heading back to the bed at the hotel for siesta. My dinner included only soup (again, solutions for keeping warm). OK, and beer as well…
So, a new resolution – no more Belgian Waffle! At least not today..
Visit Jerusalem, but rememebr to change your password on time
Published November 2, 2007 Uncategorized ClosedTags: jerusalem, password, software, travel
2 weeks ago a standard email landed in my inbox, subject: “Your password will expire in 14 days”. 2 weeks ago I deleted it. 1 week later, another email landed, same subject: “Your password will expire in 7 days”. Again, deleted it.
The guidelines at IBM require to change password every 180 days. I’m guessing we’re not the only ones with such a policy. Obviously the password must adhere to certain rules, for security reasons. Back to that story in a sec.
Yesterday (Thu) SWG went on a field trip to Jerusalem. Very cool trip, all day long, with a bus, to increase our bonding and team spirit (and save some gas/mileage on the company cars…).
I’m living just outside in Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem, although only 50min away, was more of a business destination then personal travel. And that’s not good – Jerusalem is a beautiful city, and if you’re visiting Israel, don’t miss it. I know just the guide to tour you around the city.
We started with breakfast (important), at Yad Hashmona. Excellent food, lots of it and great view combined for the perfect meal. We continued to Jerusalem, into the old city, entered through Jaffa Gate, next to The Tower of David (which really wasn’t David’s tower – it was actually Herod’s fortress, which he built in 37-34 BC, to safeguard his royal palace…).
We walked towards The Church of the Holy Sepculchre, passing Jewish, Armanian and Muslim quarters. Walked through parts of Via Dolorosa (Way of Grief), where according to tradition, Jesus walked on the way to his crucifixion.
Around 2pm it was time to head towards The City of David, a virtual tour into the ancient city of Jerusalem. Their website is very informative (and supports English, Russian, Spanish and French – on top of Hebrew of course), lots of flash and movies – you can learn a lot from it on ancient times.
Around 5pm we went to lunch (I know – late lunch), and right on time. The City of David tour is quite intense, especially if you’re heading down Warren’s Shaft, an ancient tunnel, 1000 feet long, dark and narrow, that used to transfer water to the city from the outside. Amazing!
At 9pm I got back home, and sat down to check emails, handle the calls I had during the day, etc. My wi-fi works just find at home, and I opened up my Lotus Mobile Connect client, but got an error message, something about authentication failed. Authentication? Failed?!
Then it hit me – the password. It expired on Oct 31st, and I didn’t change it. And in order to change it from home I need to connect to the IBM network, but I can’t, because the password expired. Do you see where I’m getting at? Due to my lazziness from last week I “earned” a visit to IBM HQ on Friday evening… work/life balance anyone? where are all the HR folks?!
So, 2 insights to learn from this:
- Visit Jerusalem. It’s a magical city, with 3,000 years of history, well deserved of her place of honor among the New Yorks and Tokyos of the world.
- Change your passwords on time.
Last thing, which I plan to comment about in a future post: Facebook – to be or not to be (a friend). I started my own Facebook because a friend sent me an invite. 
Then another one. And another one. Now I have 27. It’s nice, no more. I had quite a discussion about the actual effectiveness of Facebook with the CTO of a Web 2.0 consulting company – not over yet. I’m still searching the added value of Facebook – now it looks more of a children social network than anything else, but maybe Facebook will do something about that.
