Glendale AZ
Dec 31, 2000
Today is a nice, beautiful day, as you can look up in the
weather reports. Anyone who wants to come visit us, should
know, that our guest room is on a different floor, with
its own thermostat, bathroom, and "Murphy" bed.
"Must see to appreciate".
I donated platelets again today (yes, Sunday!)
with the intent of [perhaps] saving someone's life.
Highlights of the past year or so:
I cannot remember everything; but, the major topics, are:
1. Trip to Israel June 29 --> July 09, 2000
2. attended Bat Mitzvah celebrations for Toby Seadler
(3rd cousin) and Veronica Renov (4th cousin) and
Danielle Seidner (of our Chavurah)
3. 2 trips to Calif. (Aug and Oct 2000); and one
trip to Houston [business] and one trip to
Albuquerque (to wear a hard hat + build houses).
4. got a new computer (Jan 02, 2000)
5. got a new refrigerator (today)
6. found out (Oct 22, 2000) that the co. I work for
[Honeywell] is (probably) going to be bought by
[= become "part of"] General Electric [GE].
7. Joined AARP (turned 50); also, Jeremy turned 18.
8. went to services at 2 new places in our suburb:
a. "Chabad West Valley"
b. The "NW Valley Jewish Family Alliance"
both in our ["far out"] part of town.
9. had several visitors from out of town
I hope I have gotten this organized so you can skip
the parts you do not want to read. "if any" (ha ha)
I guess I don't write as often as I used to.
(but I write more often than some of you do!)
Among the honor roll:
--> my parents (of Houston, TX)
and
--> Aunt Toni (Sterman) (of Buffalo, NY)
do an excellent job of writing.
internet efficiency
Now that I am able to send out many [about half] of
the copies of this over the internet, it does not take up as
much paper and ink, and stamps, and time to fold and stuff
envelopes, etc. This [e-mail] percentage may go up, over time.
If any of you have an e-mail address, that I did not use
this time, please let me know, so I can update my list.
If there are any comments or questions, including, if you
have trouble accessing this on the www and would like the
full text of it sent via e-mail, feel free to reply via phone
(623) 561-1223
or e-mail
schwartz@acm.org
"Too Long/Too Short" Note
(you may want to skip this part...)
There is so much to write about, I could never cover half
of it, in detail. Please forgive me for [A] leaving out some
juicy bits that would have been important to you, and/or
for [B] making this "General Newsletter" too long
for your taste, by including stuff that was not important
to you.
If this is too long, then I suggest you skip certain parts.
If this is too short, then there are 2 possible solutions:
1. If you just want more to read, see plenty of books
and magazines out there, e.g. at the library and on
the internet;
2. If I have omitted to direct the attention of my personal
"mailing list" people, to some worthy achievement of
yours, or of your dear close relative, then
you could always write about it yourself; or, of course,
you can let me know, and I will try to correct the error;
I might be able to up-date promptly on the copy that
is on the web (on the internet); however,
for those (like, several of my parents' generation),
who read this only on paper [via 'snail mail'], the update
might have to wait for the next issue.
Now, for some more details:
1. Trip to Israel
We had been thinking about going for several years. Bonni
recommended to go when all 4 of us could go together, before
Jeremy turned 18 [Dec 16].
We were not sure what kind of a tour to sign up for. We had
never been before -- in fact, none of us even had passports.
We had never been anywhere before, that required passports.
First, our rabbi from our synagogue (familiar to anyone who
was here on Dec. 23, 1995 or March 14, 1998, for example),
Beth El, had gone, with a group [mostly from Beth El], in 1996
and again in 1998. We thought he would go again in 2000, but
that trip got cancelled. The rabbi and his family moved to Fla.
Rabbi Silver, (who lived for 10 years in Israel), was going
to go, with a group. He is the rabbi at the shul (Young Israel)
where my friend Dr Zinn goes. But that trip also fell through
eventually. Plus Bonni was not sure she wanted that trip.
So we ended up going on a tour with Isram. We talked to
another couple (the Serbin's) who also went on Isram, years ago,
on their first trip to Israel. They had a good time.
We went to many places and saw many things. I cannot
remember all of them. But here are a few of them.
[] Gary Jacobs -- He lives in Kiryat Sefer. He is Bonni's
first cousin but she had not seen him in approx. 25 years --
since about the time she moved away from Cleveland. We had a
phone number for Gary. We probably got it from Aunt Flora and
Uncle Alvin (of Cleveland).
When we first called Gary, using a phone card, he invited us to
come for a Bris (Milah) the very next morning. Maybe we should
have gone, but we did not know our way around and I was not sure
what to do, so we did not go. However, later in the week we
invited Gary to come meet us for dinner in Jerusalem. He took
a bus to the city, then another bus to our hotel. Our hotel got
us a special cab, which could hold 5 persons. (It cost extra,
but personally I think we could have squeezed in to a normal
taxi cab.) It let us off "near" the old city", but in fact, from
there it was still a long walk to the area (near the Wall) where
we had made some dinner reservations, at a restaurant that was
very nice. It was one that Gary recommended. Afterwards we
went over near the Kotel (the Western Wall), and it was lucky, as
Jeremy had missed going with us when our tour took us there the
first time. The dinner was very enjoyable, and it was nice to
get a chance to meet Gary, and talk to him. We took a photo of
all 5 of us, together. I think the waiter in the restaurant
snapped it.
[] Andy Baum -- age 17, son of my sister Donna. We knew he
was going to be in Israel for about 6 weeks, but we did not know
when he was going to be in Jerusalem -- so it was a real surprise
when he turned up, in the Old City -- on the same day when our
tour took us there. I think Melody noticed first -- that Andy was
sleeping and a cat was licking his back pack. Jeremy was not with
us at that time, but we took a photo with the 4 of us.
[] The Gottliebs -- Melody and I went on
a side trip, from our hotel in Jerusalem, to visit Eli and Chaya
Gottlieb in Ramat Aviv (near Tel Aviv Univ.) (tau.ac.il)
Their son Oded,
[with whom I played, as a child in Houston years ago], lives
in Haifa, but he was there for a visit so I got to see him too.
We also met his wife and one of his 2 sons.
The Gottliebs were very generous with their hospitality, and
I am very thankful to them. Eli did some graduate work at
Rice Univ. in Houston, and I later went there as a undergraduate.
Among the couples on our tour bus in Israel, were Milt and
Lois Treiser of Northridge, CA. That is close to Van Nuys,
where Paula Sonkin lives. We usually visit Paula Sonkin
when we go to LA, so on one of our trips to LA this year,
(in mid August), we
got together with them. Milt and Lois also still
send us various e-mail messages, often. Some of them
are original (like, an electronic greeting card for Rosh Ha
Shanah) but many of them are "forwards" of messages [such as,
jokes] that they have received via e-mail from somewhere.
Milt and Lois, feel free to pass this news letter on to anyone
you think might be interested, including perhaps those from our
bus in Israel. Comments or questions? -- see the section on
"internet efficiency" near the top.
We did have plenty to read while we were in Israel, and even
though some of the op/ed columns in the newspapers may have
been relying on more "background" knowledge on the part of
the reader, [than we had], it still was very interesting.
Also, just being on vacation (in town, out of town, or
in another time zone / another country) tends to give you more
time, to think and put things in perspective. It is good to
do that once in a while.
It was interesting to see the various channels on the [cable]
TV in the hotel. Many of them were in one language, and with
subtitles in another. (Often, the 2 languages were English
and Hebrew -- or vice-versa -- but sometimes others.) My
knowledge of the Hebrew language is not very much, but being
around it all day long, did help to strengthen what there was
of it. You live and learn.
Maybe I should include more details about our Israel trip;
However, most of you, if you want info about Israel, can get it
much better from the library or from the internet. Or, go to
Israel in person.
2. Bat Mitzvah celebrations
Now for some details about those Bat Mitzvah celebrations:
[] Toby Seadler -- her parents are Einar and Nancy, and she
has a sister Abigail. They are very close with my brother David
and his family, of Tampa, Fla., from when they lived in Tampa.
Later, when they moved to Toronto, I gave them the name and number
for the Rowan family, but I guess they didn't end up calling them.
(In Nov. '98, I had gone to Toronto, for the Andrea Rowan Bat Mitzvah
celebration -- and even looked up their number and called them -
and told them that we live in Phoenix -- but then, they probably did
not know [/think] that they would end up moving here.)
My brother told me that he and Lori were planning to be here Feb.
18-20, 2000, for the Toby Seadler
Bat Mitzvah celebration. I checked out the temple (Temple Solel)
beforehand, and attended some Fri. evening services to see what
the place is like. It is very nice. I think I was there maybe once
before for some community-wide event. (probably years ago, before
our kids were born).
Something kinda paradoxical -- it seems Einar's father
sorta divorced himself from the whole family (not just his ex wife),
so he is out of the picture, and does not attend family events,
such as a bat mitzvah celebration. Even though our genealogical
"link" is through him and my father.
Toby Seadler's family seems to be close to all of their other
grandparents. Just not Einar's father.
I still have a hand-drawn cartoon that was sent to me when I
was 13, from Einar's grandfather, Si Seadler. I think it is on
stationery from MGM or something. He and my grandmother, Esther
S. Schwartz, were both Seadlers. I think they were double
cousins -- (no parents the same, but more closely related than
"plain" first cousins, such as Andy and Jeremy, or Bonni and
Gary - double cousins have all 4 grandparents the same. Like,
when 2 siblings marry 2 siblings.)
Anyway, David and Lori flew in, and the first thing we did, was
to meet for a quick lunch and then go hiking on Squaw Peak, with
some other friends from Tampa. Andy loves going up Squaw Peak.
Actually, I like it too -- I think I may go tomorrow,
(Jan. 01, 2001). However, I may be too out of shape to do it quickly,
so I think I will allow plenty of time. Then David and Lori visited
at our house a little bit, but most of the weekend they stayed at the
hotel, where most of their friends and relatives were, and all the
'bat mitzvah' partying was going on.
For the brunch on Sunday a.m., Einar and Nancy invited everyone
from our house, and we all had a good time. It was fun chatting with
some of the others from out of town.
[] Veronica Renov -- her parents are Michael Renov, a cousin of
mine who is about 4 days older than I am, and Cathy Friedman, of LA.
She has a younger sister, Madeleine.
Among the other guests there, was Glen Yago. Glen and I were both in
the same High School graduating class (C E Byrd 1968) as Veronica's
father, Michael Renov, so the 3 of us made sure to take some photos
indicating that, this year, we got re-united on this happy occasion.
Also, Glen's parents live here and I had just seen them at the High
Holy Day services at Beth El. Glen's father and mine both went to the
same Jr. High (Herman Ridder) in New York. Small world.
We flew in to LA Fri. evening, but we were staying at a hotel in
Van Nuys so we just rented a car and went straight there. We got some
thing to eat in the neighborhood. The map provided by the AAA had
the temple ("Wilshire Blvd Temple") shown on it, as I gues then
consider it to be one of the major landmarks of the city. So Sat. am
we did not need any directions, we just went there and parked right
next to it.
We saw Max and Cecily, Michael's parents. (Veronica's
grandparents). Max is a native of Shreveport and is a 2nd cousin of
my mother. Cecily is from England and, I think she is considered a
'war bride'. Max met her when he was there in the Army during the war.
We also saw Michael's sister, Shelagh. She recently moved from
Dallas to Carmel, Calif. Her 2 sons still live in Dallas and they sat
at our table. They appear to be in their 20's. Shelagh does too.
We also met some of Cathy's family who were there. Her father
was in a wheel chair but seemed to enjoy watching some of the others
dancing. Some of Cathy's aunts, (or were they cousins?) were good
dancers and really got into the music. A lot of Veronica's friends
were there.
Saturday night we got together with Paula Sonkin.
Sunday a.m. we went to the brunch downtown. We had a good time
talking to Max and Cecily at the brunch. Also, Michael and Cathy had
more time to talk to us then.
[] Danielle Seidner -- her parents are Gin and Art, who are
members of a Chavurah that we belong to.
About 2 weeks before the event, I happened to be over at Danielle's
house and her Mom (Gin) introduced her parents. They had just flown
in from New York.
Danielle's Mom had consulted with Bonni about party planning (since
she thought so highly of the job Bonni did on March 14 1998). She
also consulted with me a little bit, about some rules and customs of
the ceremonial part of the Sabbath services where the 13 year old is
called up to the torah.
We had a nice time. At the partly Sat. night, one of the couples at
our table was Joe and Mindy Zuckerbrow. He works for Honeywell too,
at a plant called SSO (my dept. was located at SSO temporarily for
about 2 years, even though it is part of a different division).
The Zuckerbrows have 2 daughters who are the same ages as Jeremy and
Melody. They were in Sunday school together even before we moved
[7 years ago] (from Phoenix to Glendale). When we moved to Arrowhead
Ranch.
3. trips: (2) to CA; HOU; & ALBQ
[Aug 2000] -- Bonni and I went to LA for the weekend. Jeremy
stayed here in AZ. We got together with Paula Sonkin, and also with
Milt and Lois Treiser (that we had met on the bus in Israel). We
selected that weekend because that Sunday [afternoon] was "visitors'
day" at Camp Ramah. So we went to visit Melody, at camp. The camp
in in Ojai, which is near Ventura.
Sat. a.m. I went to shul at Valley Beth Shalom. Then Bonni and
I, and Paula, met Lois and Milt for lunch. Sat. night Paula and Pat
got us tickets to the Hollywood Bowl. I think it was my first time
ever to go there. We parked in the parking lot of the Zoo [far away]
and took a bus from there.
Sun. a.m. I went to the store and bought some pills for back pain.
Later on (when I got back in town) the Dr gave me an Rx for some other
pills, but he also gave me some exercises to do, which I think help
even more. I stopped taking the pills as soon as I realized that,
with the exercises, I would be OK.
[Oct 2000] -- Bonni and I went to LA for the weekend, with Jeremy
and Melody. We flew on America West. We stayed at the same hotel in
Van Nuys, where the 2 of us had stayed in Aug (2 months before). They
guy at the desk recognized us when we checked in. We were in town
mainly for the Veronica Renov Bat Mitzvah celebration. (For more
details, see above).
[June 2000] - I went to Houston on a business trip for Honeywell.
While I was there, I had some free time and got together with my
parents. I had not rented a car, but they came and picked me up
at the hotel (near the airport) and drove me over to my sister Donna's
house. Andy and Lauren were already out of school for summer vacation.
This was a matter of days before Andy was to leave for Israel. It
was about 2 weeks before our trip to Israel (See above).
We had done some work the day before, at the Enron Hangar. They have
several airplanes, including one which is a Falcon 900-B, which is the
only aircraft type where a certain kind of problem had been reported,
with a new [FMS] software version, that I had worked on during 98-99.
The software version is called "NZ4.1 F". If we can figure out what
needs to be changed, I think we will create a new, modified version
called "NZ4.1 G". While we were at Enron, we also consulted with the
people there about some other puzzling questions they had about their
Honeywell equipment. However, I think some of the other problems were
"hardware" problems, as opposed to software.
[Sept 2000] - Albuquerque. Our co. was sponsoring a Habitat for
Humanity "Blitz Build" of 5 houses. Ordinarily I would not volunteer
for this kind of work, (since I do not know much about construction),
but during Nov 1999 a similar "Blitz Build" (of 4 houses) was held right
here in Glendale, AZ. I participated since I figured, they would not
have to pay for any travel and lodging expenses for me. Also, I was
using up a week of my paid vacation, and I did have a certain amount of
vacation time that I had to "use or lose" by the end of the year.
Once I had helped out in 1999, I figured it would be a good way to
use a week's worth of vacation again in 2000. Someone (the Honeywell
foundation) did pay for my [half of a] hotel room in Albuquerque, but
there were almost no expenses for travel (I got a ride with someone
else from AZ, who was driving to Albuquerque anyway, and I chipped in
for the gas.) My assigned room mate in the hotel was Archie McLellan,
whom I already knew from work. He is from Scotland.
We wore hard hats and worked on the first week of a 2-week project
to build 5 houses. I don't know very much about building but I helped
with some of the sweeping up and carrying lumber, and a little bit of
drilling and hammering, etc. In the future, if I do this again, I think
I may volunteer for the 2nd week. It involves more dry-wall stuff and
painting.
Fri. night was Rosh HaShanah. I called up the Albuquerque convention
and visitors' bureau, for advice. Since I did not have a car, they
recommended a synagogue that was on the same street as my hotel. I
took a cab to get there. I got a ride back home. It is called Nahalat
Shalom. It was a very informal place, based on the impression I got,
from the way most of the people were dressed. I had a nice discussion
with the [woman] cantor about a song whose words were in Ladino. The
rabbi was also a woman. The lady who gave me a ride back, had a
daughter who had plans, to run in a half-marathon on Sunday.
On the way back, to Arizona, Archie got a ride with the same guy
who was driving me. We took a different route.
Several of the nights, in Albuquerque, we went out to have fun
somewhere near [or, in] the hotel. One night they had karaoke. I sang
"Oh Susanna" and got a standing ovation. The MS commented that he
himself very rarely got one of those.
4. new computer (Jan 2, 2000)
This was the first time I have ever bought a new computer. Oh sure,
I have owned computers before, but always with a twist:
[] My first computer was one that I won, as a door prize. The
brown paper wrapper on one of my issues of CACM said
"Attend ACM '83 in New York" or something like that.
I did. Everyone who attended, got a chance on the door prize,
if they got their registration in by a certain deadline.
(but it was the same deadline, for being eligible for the
early-bird discount -- and there's no luck involved, to
save a few bucks that way!)
So, someone won the door prize, and it was me. It was a
Commodore-64,. including [external] 5-1/4 inch diskette drive,
and printer, and monitor. The printer was a dot-matrix thing
and was not too impressive. The disk drive was OK, esp.
since the computer had no hard drive. The monitor, however,
was/is extremely good, in fact my kids started using it for
their video games circa 1990, and are still using it today.
They originally had a Nintendo (not super!), then a Sega
Genesis. Then came the Nintendo-64, which technically belongs
to Melody. Now they also have a Sony Play station, and are
planning to soon have a Play station 2.
[] My second computer, we got shortly after we moved in to this
house (about 7 years ago). Someone donated 3 of them to the
Phoenix Chapter ACM. (sound familiar? same .org as the one
where I won the prize in '83). No one wanted to give them a
good home, until I said I would. (The other 2 were eventually
forwarded to some worth cause, I think a poor church in
Guatemala or something).
This computer is a 286-based "AT" clone, made by Dell, and it
still runs OK the last time I checked. For the first 3
years of the Aztec Free-Net, this computer was what we used,
at our house, both for [text-only] e-mail and web-surfing,
and for stuff like writing letters and doing homework.
[] Then, finally at the end of 1997 I bought a used computer
from the guy (Steve Flarity) who sat right next to me at
work. (in my dept. most of the time since 1984). He only
charged $200 including the monitor, which was cheap, as the
monitor was probably worth that much.
This was the first time we ever had a computer at home, that
we could use to play FreeCell. It had Windows (95), but I
am pretty sure it originally came with DOS (and maybe one of
the older Windows, such as 3.0 [yuk!] or Win 3.1).
This computer had a 486 CPU and better sound capability.
We never did get it to run any of the software that is needed
for Netscape or IE (SLIP or PPP internet connection).
We added some memory to it (now 36 MB) but there was still
some software problem. It served well for 2 years.
When I had to change the battery, all the CMOS RAM settings
were lost, but my friend R.B. Balch (see http://www.rbbalch.com)
helped me re-set it up correctly.
What a nice gesture!
[] Then finally, with Y2K, we decided to buy a Pentium-class PC.
Bonni's brother was here, and helped us pick out one. It came with
a 1-year guarantee from HP, which is good since the power supply
conked out suddenly during the summer. They sent us a replacement
PC that was even better. (faster CPU chip, bigger hard drive,
30 GB instead of 17, 2 CD drives instead of one, ...).
So far, we have been very happy with this HP PC. Except of course
for the fact that the first one had a power supply go out -- but
they replaced that promptly. They even returned our original
hard drive to us, via FedEx/ (since it had some data on it, that
we did not have backed-up on floppy or on CD).
Now we have a read-write CD, and another that is read-only. So we
can copy from one CD to another, without having to copy to the
hard drive in between.
Also, now we can use NetZero, to access the WWW and the internet.
I spent a few bucks for a gizmo ("call catcher") so our Call Waiting
will still work, even when we are on the internet. Jeremy often
downloads songs using Napster. And I can use my alternate e-mail
address (av567@yahoo.com) if I need to send/receive something with
attachments that might not be "plain text" files.
5. new fridge (today)
Our old fridge had always had some problems with the ice maker etc.,
ever since we bought it (used) along with this house. We had it fixed
27-Dec-1994 by "Ricks' Appliance", which helped some, but not 100%.
It is probably from 1989, like this house. Recently it started
spitting out oil. I decided to get a new one from Sears. They
offered delayed billing (no interest until Jan 2001) and a $50
mail-in rebate, and free delivery. Plus it is more energy efficient,
and it tells you when it is time to change the filter. It can make
either cubes or crushed ice. We still have to call someone to come
pick up our old fridge. I am uncertain, whether Goodwill Industries
will take it. The Salvation Army said they would not, since it needs
some work.
At some point, we also got a new dishwasher. Oops, was that during
2000 or 1999? It still is nice to have.
6. HON to become part of GE
We found out about this when it made the news, (Oct 22, 2000).
The people at the corp. HQ (in Morristown NJ) will pretty much all
lose their jobs - unless they can transfer to another division or
something. As for the rest of the co. (Honeywell) (including the
co. formerly known as Allied Signal), we do not know what the
future will hold. However, my father, the maven of Wall Street,
says GE is a good co., and I think he means to own stock in, as
well as to work for.
So their could be some big career changes in store for me.
7. Joined AARP (50); Jeremy 18.
I guess I am not as young as I once was. Jeremy has actually had
his drivers' license [not just learner's permit] since just before
he turned 17; and, by agreement, he has been paying for half of the
part of the insurance premium, that is above what we would have to
pay without him. He was working at AMC before -- now he is working
at Blockbuster [video].
8. 2 new places [to daven]
I started attending services at these 2 new places:
a. "Chabad West Valley"
This place is an orthodox (chasidic) place;
it is affiliated with the main Arizona
"Chabad Lubavitch" center, where I have been
attending classes about once a week for years;
b. The "Northwest Valley Jewish Family Alliance";
This group is almost the opposite, it has
little or no ties to any rabbi, it has a lot
of families where one spouse is Jewish but
not both. Seems to be inclined toward more
of a "reform" atmosphere.
It reminds me a lot of Nahalat Shalom (see stuff
above about trip to Albuquerque).
In fact, some of my friends at Beth El (where we have
been members for years) said, that they missed me there,
or at least that they noticed I was missing from there.
Actually, there is info about both of these on the WWW.
"Chabad West Valley" has some web pages,
which can be found by starting at
http://www.ChabadWestValley.com
and, for the NVJFA, start at http://www.jewishaz.com/ and do
a "search all issues" for this topic -- it will find articles
from back issues of the weekly Jewish News paper here; I
did this, and found these:
http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/000526/west.shtml
and
http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/000901/alliance.shtml
While we are on the topic, that weekly paper had an article
on Nov. 3, 2000 with a photo of Melody. I regret that the
version on the web does not seem to have the photo. But, if
you want to read the article, it is at
http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/001103/asian.shtml
[Paper] copies of that article, with the photo and caption, have
been sent to all of Melody's grandparents, and Donna's house.
9. visitors from out of town
Bonni's brother, Mike Jacobs, was here over the end of Dec. 1999
and the start of Jan 2000. He went with us, on a tour through
the Bank One Ballpark. He also helped us pick out our new
computer (see above).
Also, see above, about when David and Lori Schwartz, came in
town for the Toby Seadler bat mitzvah celebration.
Love to all,
and Bonni says "Happy New Year",
and to stop writing since it is about midnight,
Mike Schwartz