Just to give you an idea of how many working days we have in the month of Tishrei. Remember that the Jewish calendar (and Hebrew) are written from right to left, so Sunday is on the right, and Saturday is to the left. Since Fri-Sat are the weekend, we have 10 working days.
Which means I’ll be spending a lot of time at home this month…. :-))
Since we’re approaching the Jewish High Holidays, it’s only appropriate I’ll have a representation at my messaging platform, aka Lotus Notes 8.0.1. After a short search in Google Gadgets I came across this cool (Israeli) app that adds a Jewish calendar, with all the relevant information I need. Obviously I added a Jewish calendar as a secondary one to my built-in calendar, but the holidays aren’t highlighted like here – it’s always the little things 😉
It’s been 10 days since I got back from my short birthday vacation, and unfortunately it’s a distant memory. Within 24 hours of returning to Israel, I flew to Madrid, Spain, for a Lotus sales workshop, hooking up with some old (LCTY Israel) and new (IBM South-West Europe) friends.
On the flight back to Israel Thursday night, I realized I didn’t write about my vacation. Relax – I’m not gonna share with you what we did every hour, but some taglined photos would be a nice touch. If someone ever wanted to vacation in Turkey and needs a recommendation. Once I read Jeremiah’s photoblog from his much anticipated vacation to Hawaii – the format was clearer.
Antedon Delux from the air – PR photo, not mine
We knew Turkey (Antalya) is a good spot for this short vacation, as it’s cheaper than going to Eilat (Israel), closer (1.5 hours flight) and you can buy stuff at the Duty Free… 🙂 For $900 we had an excellent vacation for 2 in Antedon Delux Beldibi, all included: flight, transport, food around the clock, soft drinks, alcohol and fitness center. The hotel is not the cheapest one you can find, but those extra $$ assured us we’ll be the only Israelis there. And that’s an important factor (for us at least).
very peaceful and quiet – lots of green
Although formally we had 3 nights, the bottom line was 2 full days – blame it on the charter flights.. arrived late and left early. If you’re planning a similar vacation, go for the 4/5 nights package – more ‘actual’ vacation time.
surrounded by mountains – hiking anyone?
Antedon Delux Beldibi – from hotel to the (private) beach
Just got back from my vacation, and there’s a lot going on…
Actually I landed yesterday, and I’m still on Eastern Standard Time (GMT-5) – go to sleep at 3-4 a.m and wake up after 1 p.m, but I’m working on it..
This vacation was long planned, and the timing was great – just as the 3Q closed and after the high holidays in Israel. Our vacation had 3 parts: 6 days in NYC, 3-4 days in New England (Yale University and Boston) and the rest back in NYC. You can see (some) pictures of my vacation at Flickr.
The flight
Our flight had its highs and lows. The high was definitely the individual, touch-screen-operated, entertainment/communication system, with games, music channels, flight info, tv shows, full-feature movies and air-phone. Also, you’re not confined to El-Al’s timing anymore – everything is on demand, courtesy of HOT Cable Company. We decided to start the evening (it was a midnight flight – landing in NYC at 7am) with Die Hard 4.0 – an OK movie, knew there was a reason I waited for the DVD.. Owen Almighty was much better, only because of Steve Carrell – so talented, and The Office [NBC] is a living testament.
The low point has to be the leg-room. Just not enough. El-Al are still the national airline, but sometimes I wish I picked another airline. I don’t know who did the math and seating arrangements, but seating for 11 hours in a 32.24 cm cubicle isn’t a pleasant experience. Especially when you know it’s possible to make it wider.
My childhood friend who’s traveling a lot on business always tells me he’s upgrading to business (with Miles) on transatlantic flights – now I understand why.
Staying in-touch
I had my laptop with me, so was able to track my Inbox, and reply to some emails, but I kind of neglected my feeds. So I’ll paste some important links I read these past 14 days, just in case you haven’t seen them yet.
There’s a new demo video on YouTube for Lotus Notes and Domino 8.0.1. It’s an excellent video, showcasing some of the new features, such as Lotus Notes Traveler (push e-mail/calendar/contacts for mobile devices), Domino Web Access and Lotus Notes for Blackberry.
Ed Brill wrote a post earlier this week, titled “Nobody wants to be first“. There’s a lot of interest going around ND 8.0, and also requests from customers, wanting to talk to a ND 8 reference. So, just to strengthen Ed’s point – 60 days into the product not many businesses have finished a roll-out of ND 8, especially in large enterprises (>5k employees). And some languages (including Hebrew) will only be available during January 2008. Still, if you are in the process of a ND 8 roll-out, and are willing to be a reference, please contact us.
There’s another interesting video recently posted on ZDnet.co.uk, with Lotus’s Darren Adams. Darren talks about the benefits of integrating VoIP, video, presence, telephony, unified messaging and other technologies. You’re welcome to watch that as well.
This is my personal blog. The postings here do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my past employers or of my clients. It is solely my opinion.
So, for the following week I’ll be vacationing in Prague, without my precious laptop. Yes, my cellphone will still be with me, but I’ll probably refrain from doing business/social related activities, such as checking emails, updating twitter, posting to facebook or reading GReader – to name a few… For 6 days I’ll do my best to disconnect.
