In the Front Right

I am planning to visit a client in Tel Aviv next week.  I’ve never been to Israel and am greatly looking forward to this opportunity.  There are a number of good people I can connect with and I certainly need to find some other new clients, as soon as I can.  If U.S. tech is increasingly wary of China, at least the good folks of Israel, without much of a domestic market of their own, are certainly more flexible. 

I searched around a bit and found the list of recommended authors that the Lonely Planet Israel I’d bought last year recommended.  I ordered a big stack of novels and a copy of the King James version of the New Testament.  Regular readers will know that I’ve almost finished with my initial tread through the Old Testament, was considering the paternal tone of Proverbs this morning, and it seems only fitting that I should continue along into the New Testament as well.  The “Jewish Study Bible” I have is wonderfully academic with lots of historical notes.  It’s a messy field of competing versions when one looks for such a thing for Part II there on Amazon.  I settled for a straight King James version.  I have a lovely version with medieval illustrations back in storage in Beijing.  I searched my shelf books I’ve brought up from the basement but couldn’t find anything there.  This will be my first time to consider the text straight through. 

An old friend in Beijing, another old timer has taken off for Bali with a one-way ticket.  My stepson and his wife have left for Tokyo in a similar fashion.  Deaths now over one hundred.  Infections up to over four thousand.  This vile mutation has far from run its course.  I know it isn’t politic but I can’t help but consider the risks from the common flu or a random drive on the highway as significantly higher.  Still, it is interrupting the normal with the drama and the fear of what is unknown. 

Riding along The New York State Throughway once again.  My default is to grab one of the four seats up front if its crowded and one’s available.  I’m in the front right just now and you get a remarkably wide view out to the grey clouds and the grey asphalt and the grey denuded tree line.  I’ve made it sound dismal, but it is actually lovely in its own way, particularly when one knows that it is only temporal.  Back into NY.  I must find more to do here, if I can as my primary theatre of business activity has been pummeled, once again. 

Tuesday, 01/28/20