Category me

Dec 27 2009

Time to go home :o(

My 6 months volunteer in Israel is up in less than two weeks.

My flight home is 9th of January, which means I need to go and get a new job.   This isn’t a particularly good time to find employment at the moment and I havent had any response to any applications I have sent in so far.

I am look forward to meeting up with friends and family but I am sure I am going to pine for warmer temperatures, stony hills, rocky clad biblical looking buildings and somewhat faster, frenetic, unpredictable and often a little chaotic atmosphere that is Jerusalem.

At home I really would need an all new challenge of some kind, partly because I am approaching my mid 30s and am single, and fit awkwardly between youth & students and the married couples which most of my friends are these days.   That’s not to say I mope around all the time wanting to get married, if it something I said I don’t think about regularly I would be lying.   But I am passionate about seeing God becoming accessible to ordinary people and I am seeking some kind of challenge.  Being single of course does give me a lot flexibility to things that would otherwise be impossible, so I am making the most of that time, whatever period that may be.

This could be back in the regular work place doing IT support, my job of doing support technical issues with staff in businesses, is something the fits be perfectly not just because of my computer skills I have used in the workplace, but more also with the fact God has placed my in several normal secular companies with other Christians where we can meet up and pray and encourage each other, one of these three groups was one I set up myself.   I don’t go about pushing my faith in peoples faces, its more of case I just try and do my work well and be discrete, polite and professional in my manner and my faith in Jesus seems to rub off on people it seems.  I could be in a different town perhaps.

I could go back.   With flights to Israel are a hundred quid or so (providing they don’t charge extra for baggage, using the toilet or breathing, as some budget airlines have shown to do)  I could continue my role here, my visa runs until May (my sister has a baby this time and I am going to a close friends wedding in Spain then as well)  and there is no replacement for me at BFP.   For me to stay I would need to get some proper sponsorship and I have had some kind people donate me funds but its not always been consistent, and I have been living off my last two pay cheques from my last paid job, the refund of my unused car insurance and a few other (got paid to fix other volunteers laptops) things.  My time here hasnt been a holiday, it has been stressful often, and requires a lot of prayer which God has been amazingly faithful, even with some things happened this week.  I have got to stay in a town frequently threatened by terrorism and see Arab people turn replace Islam with the love and acceptance of Jesus, things you would never experience on a tour or see accurately portrayed in television.

If you are a believer whether you know me as a friend or just bumped into this page somehow, I would like to ask if you can pray.

Please pray God can provide me with the right steps of what to do next.  The Lord has pointed me in the direction of doing this volunteer work in terms of lots of different steps and has provided for me faithfully each way.

I am tired of guesswork, I need God to give me a very clear answer what to do next.

Yes I should listen to the quiet voice God mentions in the bible.   I have a rubbish attention span and get things lost on all my imagination and plenty of other distractions.  Even if I try and sit on the Mount of Olives my mind will wander, its why I spend a lot of time walking both here in Israel and back at home.  Therefore I really need something explicitly clear of what to do next.

Its a case of if I should get a normal paid job or stick to being here a bit longer.   In all honesty, there’s places (more of Galilee, Megido, Nazareth, Golan Heights, etc) I still want to visit here in Israel and have some great friendships with people which have matured to the point where its going to be painful to say goodbye.

Thanks for your time.

Dec 27 2009

I need online browser favourites/bookmarks feature for Firefox

My personal laptop I took with me to Israel was set up a few months ago to dual boot into Windows XP and Windows 7 (RC1 release)  so could test drive Microsoft’s newest OS.   Also I set up my work PC to do the same thing just for training purposes.

Often I get home and I find some web site I find interesting I find I saved on my browser favourites which was at work, and now I cant find it.  The same when using Windows 7 and not being able to find the site saved on the browser of XP.

I use Firefox and have done since the first release 5 years ago, and am gradually getting people at work to completely phase out Internet Explorer and provide them with training to learn any differences in using it.  Normally they take to it pretty quickly.

One thing I really could do with and that is the means to keep my browser favourites on line, so I could just get at a particular site no matter where I am.  I think the Opera browser has this feature (tried Opera once but didnt really like it)

At work, my users might often have to sit at another desk, either to cover for another member of staff, or if their PC develops a fault and needs to be fixed or replaced.   Likewise we also have Macs for publishing, audio and video development work, and Windows PCs for regular administration as its cheap and more familiar to many users.   Now, without getting into a debate of what’s better, Firefox is perfect choice for me as the Windows and Macs versions are similar and consistent in use and some of the extensions are usable on both systems.   I just need a way to get at my favourites from any darn type of computer anywhere.

Multiple sets of browser favourites that could be used with a log on and password, for an individual member of staff or for a department would be good.

Its not as if browser favourites should be a big file, so bandwidth is not going to be an issue here.

The RSS feed feature is nice for reading news but don’t think its that widely used for anything else.

I think there are dedicated Firefox extensions for live bookmarks but they are not widely used by any of my fellow IT professionals I know.

Does this sound like a much needed new feature that a lot of other people, be it regular administration staff or IT professionals should have.   Of course this could be used on handheld devices with web access as well.

Please do comment.

Dec 23 2009

UK Christmas music charts 2009

One of the most great things about Great Britain that a lot of my non-British friends I have been working with would agree is our pop music.

Take a city like Manchester, probably the most musically fertile places in the world.   Everything from The Smiths, New Order, M-people and of course Oasis started up there.   In the late 70s and early 80s bands like The Selector, The Specials, Madness and UB40, took some of the ska and reggae sounds of the Carribean and brought them into a new audience in the UK and whole sub genres of music like two tone (referred both to the sound of music and that it appeal to two different racial groups) were born.

Punk, was of course very British with The Sex Pistols and The Clash, these have an obviously aggressive, political theme for it, but it was good musically as well.

The early 1980s had a lot of music that represent the depression that had was around in the 81-82 era, just listen to say the Specials “Ghost Town” which was an iconic track from that period.

Indeed Britain is and should be very proud of the vast amount of talented bands spawned from our green and pleasant land.  And I absolutely love pop music of all kinds, old and new, popular and obscure, British and otherwise.

So what the hell happened with the charts in December 2009?

The X-factor.   Its cheesy but fun, kind of like Eurovision, some pleasant but short life span tunes often appear often at Christmas.   But Christmas isn’t always cheese.   Kylie Minogue had a Christmas number one “I believe” which was a sweet, happy feel good sort of song, just the sort of thing Kylie does best.

Someone came out with the idea the Rage against the Machine should reissue “Killing in the name” for the Christmas number one.  Oh dear.

Facebook is really good for getting people onto Band wagons, whether its for or against the BNP, or immigration, every type of soap box which people want to stand on, it only recently I have seen the enourmous amount of motivation in can start up to lead people.   Take the Wispa chocolate bar was brough back by a Facebook group.   I didnt even realise this product had been discontinued in the first place, by nevertheless the PR people from Cadburys listened and people rejoiced as the familiar blue packaged fluffy centre chocolate bar reappeared in corner shops all over the UK again.

So when a campaign to get Rage to number one, Simon Cowell the often rude and disliked record boss who makes short life span fun but ultimately disposable music appear and disappear is the target of a campaign, a bit like hating a parking warden after getting a ticket.

There is nothing wrong with hard rock or metal, but sorry I think Retards against the machine have absolutely no substance to them.   Getting 40,000 or so teenagers to click to buy a 79p track on iTunes just to make the X-Factor bands lose was more of factor to see them win.   The song was poor in 1992 its certainly no better now.   Rage’s message is all about being up against ‘the man’ and being as their title, ‘against the machine’  the fictitious authority which make people like to be on the rebellious side.  I hope to see them fast fade away as quick as snow in Basingstoke.   Maybe they will appear again 17 years time again.

Of course the angst ridden teenagers that bought this song will be a bit disappointed to find Rage’s record label is the same company as a certain Mr Cowell’s.   So in Rage’s expletive ridden lyrics, “f*** you, I wont do you tell me”

Yes you did.

You did exactly what you were told and gave your pocket money to the men at the record companies that put together throwaway music, both X-Factor and kiddiegrunge, and they are chuckling you did.

Do yourself a favour, there were probably more than 2 songs in the charts.  Turn on your radio and listening to real music with talent.

Dec 23 2009

third temple car

This local man from Eilat showed off his modified car, a 1963 Peugeot 404.

The car’s body has been painted to look like its made of wood, the roof of the car has been decorated with a model of the proposed new temple which is predicted in the bible.  You can see little figures and animals have been glued in place, even on the dashboard 🙂

One last thing.  Its a pity he didnt keep the badges on the car, as the Peugeot Lion looks exactly the same as the Lion of the tribe of Judah 🙂

Dec 23 2009

Journey to the Red Sea – part two

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8

After arriving in Eilat, I seem to have left my proper map of the city in my flat, and the freebie map I got from Hertz Israel from somewhere showed Eilat quite decently but nothing that showed the Youth Hostel.

Eilat is safe place and generally free of political problems (apart from there was one bombing about 3 years ago though) and is something akin to Brighton in the UK as a weekend holiday resort with funfairs and bars on the beach, but also with some Vegas style themed hotels springing up a few places along the coast.  This one here is strongly influenced by the dome of the rock from Jerusalem.

I took a look at the beach and the shopping mall overlooking the Red Sea, this place is definitely something of a chill out place and you can see why its a popular holiday resort with Israelis from all over the holy land, there is a small airport but I am not sure which places fly there.

There is a bar and restaurant on a pier, so from here you can see four countries, from Israel to Egypt and Jordan and in the distance Saudi Arabia.  Underneath the pier you can see some workmen where doing some welding work to the steel bars underneath.

I gave my room mate a quick call, it was then I was told that my airline (BMI) were ceasing flights to Israel after an article in local Israeli news and I would have to change my return flights home.  Anyway he gave me the correct street to get to, and although I got to the wrong road at first and knocked on a bomb shelter next to a shop, which a young man was using to practice playing his drums down there, he pointed me to the next street that I had overlooked to find the shelter.

The Shelter!   This place is well known amongst Christians that have been in Israel for sometime, as the owner of the hostel is a Jewish believer in Jesus, so are quite a few of the people that just come and hang out there.  There is a regular bible study in the lounge often with some of the staff there, its optional though, and the hostel doesn’t proselytize any visitors that come there.

I like youth hostels as a single chap who likes traveling as you can meeting people from all over the world and swap stories of where you have been or quick find some new friends to go out somewhere.  It was quite dark by now and there wasn’t a lot of people around when I arrived, I went round the corner to get myself a falafel and sat in the lounge and spent a quiet evening chatting to Canadian and Swedish people and the staff there.

In terms of the Youth Hostel’s ratings its pretty good as far as hostels go, although the bathroom could of been a bit better with no soap or paper towels in the toilets, the showers were ok thought.   I was in a small dorm room with 5 beds, two bunks and an extra bed.  I didn’t sleep very well the whole of this trip to be honest, there was always something to disturb me some how.  During this first night I got woken up by some thoughtless person who arrived late at night, mumbled things in Hebrew and moved his stuff around the room whilst myself and a Canadian chap were trying to sleep.  Thought the next day he had some kind of nocturnal OCD habits or something.   The small size of the room gave not much space to put shoes, bags and clothes for all occupants.

Anyway I was getting more excited at seeing Jordan, Petra, the Nabutean desert, and tropical fish aquarium in the next few days…

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8

Dec 21 2009

middle east furniture

Walked past this shop with some tables for sale out side around Hillel Street.  I really like middle east style furniture that has ceramic tiles on top.

I was in the home repair workshop the other day, BFP has a team of people that does repair work to Jewish people in need of their house repaired.   I needed to pinch some side cutters to chop off a cable tie inside a computer I was fixing.   This room with the smell of paint thinners and oil for a block for sharpening tools reminds me of my grandad (Henry Hayward) who was a carpenter and as a child I would watch him sometimes fix things.  Both these things made me think of two things.  I have a coffee table that Grandad H made, its nicely made although the pretend wood effect formica top looks very dated now.

What I would like to do is somehow get some nice middle east style tiles and recover the top of the coffee table.  I think the formica stuff is glued securely on and I am not sure what the best way of doing this (stick tiles on top or try and remove it?) would be.  If you have expertise in this kind of thing please do comment.

By Jonathan • Posted in me
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Dec 21 2009

Journey to the Red Sea – part one

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8

I had a small amount of holiday left and I had wanted to check out some other parts of the country and visit Jordan, so after a few attempts at trying find a time me and some friends from BFP turned out not to work due to various people recently leaving, meaning various departments got much smaller thus people not able to get time off. With me my department (IT) was also about going to go from four to one in a few weeks, so the week with American thanksgiving day was the now or never time to go.  This day off for all staff gave me the advantage I could use all two and half days of holiday and the weekend to do some kind of epic trip.

Eilat is a city right at the bottom of the country, Israel tapers off at the bottom into a sharp point that stabs the top of the Red Sea, tightly wedged between Egypt and Jordan. A good tip someone gave me is not to drink much before going as that the bus journey has no toilet onboard and there is just one stop in the middle of the desert highway, oh, and the journey is 4 hours 45 minutes.

I debated going after work, but this meant I would have to do the journey in the dark and that ride is long but could be quite spectacular during the middle of the day, so the ended up going on the Wednesday.  I took a bit of a risk and didn’t buy a ticket in advance as I couldn’t find an option to buy a ticket online, in turns out egged.co.il is quite poor, the English part of the side is basic, and you can buy tickets online only on the main Hebrew section.

Getting the ticket was pretty easy and the journey was pretty comfortable, getting out of Jerusalem into the outskirts of Talpiyot took a while, after a while we were traveling parallel with the Dead Sea.  I started to seen the sign posts for the Ramon Crater which I visited back in September.  This time I got to see some large modern hotel complexes that are on the shores of the Dead Sea, I think this is for a more specialised type of tourism for people coming for health treatment as the mineral rich mud from the dead sea can treat everything from acne to psoriasis, so people can come and dip in the unique 30% salinity water that is the lowest place on earth.

The journey is long, I didn’t speak to anyone along the way, I did notice another British man next to me, he was busy listening to his ipod and I was listening to mine, mainly I had the sound track to Indiana Jones just to add to the excitement of the trip to Petra in a few days time.  After a good while we got to a petrol station for a half an hour break, there was a burger place, and shops to get coffee, ice cream and sweets and use the toilet.

I remembered on the BBC web site there was a tragedy last year as a bus crashed on a bend killing several people, because the bus driver foolishly overtook on a blind corner, but rather shockingly, and being used to often poor driving here in this part of the world, this road is a single carriageway almost the whole length down to the sea I also witnessed us do overtaking on some parts of the road with not so clear views of roads on curves.  (if you look on a map there is only about two proper roads that head down in to funnel shaped lower half of Israel that is the Negev desert)

On the second half of the journey I got to see more geology wonders of the desert, strange coloured puddles by the side of the road that were green, it appears there were copper mining here as well.  Just at the approach to Eilat itself is a large salt factory which the signs showed were for making salt for general cooking use, there were large piles of the fine white stuff.   When disembarking the bus and spending five minutes walking around the block twice looking for the toilets before finding they were underground via some small steps that weren’t that noticeable.  Heading down the main road I can immediately see a strange pyramid shaped cinema (ironically the border for Egypt is just 6kms away 🙂 )  shopping malls with neon signs in Hebrew and the panoramic view of the Red Sea with Eilat being at the top.

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Dec 14 2009

The Jewish blue brothers?

I am here on monday morning getting a laptop fixed for a manager.   Often on monday morning I hear someone shouting over a loudspeaker in the street.   Apparently the ultra orthodox people (the ultra orthodox community of Meir Shareem is just up the road) sometimes drive a car around with a loud speaker on it shouting something.   I am not sure what, and I haven’t seen this car in the street as of yet.

Reminds me of a movie of some people who drove round in a car with a loud speaker on it, and these guys also always wore black hats and coats. 🙂

By Jonathan • Posted in me
0
Dec 13 2009

Hannukah!

Its hannukah, a Jewish festival that lasts a whole week as opposed to just the one main day for Christmas.

This week I will going to a couple of events, I am not sure what to expect apart from I know it involves eating a lot of doughnuts.

I will be celebrating a simple kind of Christmas when I get home in January.

Nov 23 2009

off to Mount of Olives again..

this time made sure had decent batteries for my real camera, rather have to take pictures with the somewhat ropey camera on my phone.

Must of walked a good 10 miles today, as went as far into East Jerusalem next to the wall that divides into the west bank.

This time as well as see the massive Jewish cemetery and the Moslem one that closer to old walls, also saw Christian graves and went up further more away from the general tourist areas.  There is some truly breathtaking views here.   Now I know why it is the Mount of Olives, there are plenty of Olive trees on this bit!!

Some very cute and friendly Arab children whose house overlooks the Mount of Olives.  I am facing northwards here.