I Can't Believe I Ate The Whole Thing!

So I went to Israel a few weeks back. I've been sitting down and doing some post-processing (although really, in this digital age shouldn't it just be called processing?) on the photos. Some have lent themselves nicely to HDR in various degrees of visual veracity, but most have involved minor tweaks in colour, contrast, sharpness, etc.. Skies never come out quite as blue as they are, although the ones that seem least real are the untouched ones (but shot via polarizer). This shit takes awhile. I'm halfway through day 1 of 11.

I should also sit down and do my trip report. That needs to be done from home though, where I have my log. Yah, that's right, I'm blogging from a log.

I'm also trying to fit back into a suit in a month, for the one wedding this fall that I can actually make (it's in Toronto), and then continue to shift this belly somewhere else through the rest of the year. Israel derailed these plans somewhat, and I haven't really lost any weight. But I'm at least maintaining a daily exercise regimen again this week, and that should help things along. After all, my weight (181 lbs) isn't that bad for my height (5'11") - it's on border of normal and overweight, it just happens to all be in one place (my gut). This makes things like buttoning the jacket a bit difficult.

In that pursuit, I'm trying to eat less crap, with some success. I couldn't resist the coffee crisp at work yesterday, but the roast chicken on a bed of vegetables for lunch, while high in salt, couldn't have been that bad... could it? They probably soaked it all in oil.

But dinner was delicious, and I share it here.

As usual, all my meat is frozen, and I'm lazy, and somewhat on a diet. So I decided on salad, because I should really get to my vegetables before they go bad. But simply tossing stuff in a bowl gets boring after a while.

So I roasted.

I cut a couple tomatoes into quarters, seeded them, tossed them lightly in olive oil, laid a single leaf of fresh basil and half a clove of garlic in each piece, and sprinkled with kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper. I laid them skin-side down on a baking pan. I then cut up a few large piece of red pepper, sprinkled those with salt and pepper, and put them skin-side up on the same pan. I drizzled everything lightly with a bit more olive oil, and put them in a preheated 425F oven for 40 minutes.

While that was going on, I slices up some white onion and tossed it into a non-stick pan over medium-low heat with some butter and vegetable oil. Then I poured some simple syrup on them and stirred them occasionally as they caramelized. Once they were a nice brown, I poured some balsamic vinegar on the whole thing and stirred it up until the balsamic had reduced and become a sticky coating on it all.

While all this continued, I hard boiled an egg.

Out came the roasted vegetables. I peeled the peppers and cut them up, and combined them and the tomatoes in a bowl with the onions. The egg was peeled and crumbled over the veggies. Then I shaved some carrot into the bowl, cut up and added a few sun-dried tomatoes, and mixed up the whole thing. No extra dressing required, as the caramelized balsamic onions, and the oil on the roasted veggies gave all the extra flavour needed.

Before the salad I had a couple cobs of corn. It all turned out to be a filling meal that at least felt like it was healthy.

Of course, I weigh the same today as I did yesterday.

Hmmm... and I just remembered I left my computer on at home. Whoops.

11 days in the Middle East is fun.

Okay, that statement really depends on WHERE. In my case, it was Israel. During Ramadan. Therefore, not much going on on the negative side of the coin.

I'll have my usual exhaustive day-by-day trip report up eventually, but right now I need to organize my thoughts, my pictures, and my feelings.

I'll be going back a 3rd time. I missed too much this time, and repeated too much from last time.

Traveling with 5 other people will usually carry stress with it. This was no different. Tensions were definitely high at certain points, and there were a handful of times I stopped myself from smacking people upside the head.

But on the whole it was a solid trip. Much done. A great wedding. Good friends that I didn't end up killing. Oh, and temperatures that qualified as way too fucking hot. 45? 50? Celsius mind you. That's what? 1000000 F? Oh... 120F. Maybe my t-shirts can be saved.

This is pretty much a list of what the fuck I need to get done before Wednesday. Really, it's for me.

- Buy shit - hat, sunscreen, and whatever else I lack enough of for 11 days in the middle east
- Assemble papers - passport, IDP, wedding invite, maps, e-tickets, confirmations, etc.
- Produce DVD of well-wishes for groom - took a bunch of videos at a party on Friday, need to edit them and burn 'em. Will add more (and photos) if time
- Rough out a schedule for the trip
- Laundry, laundry, laundry - probably 24 or 35 loads need to be done before I leave
- Stock up food for house/cat-sitter. If I fail to do this, I'll just leave money behind
- Charge various batteries and assemble electronics - DS? Archos? Burn some music and movies for the flight or stick with in-flight options?
- Pack
- Figure out communication situation. Rent a cell? Pay exorbitant roaming charges? I'm less concerned with contact back home as I am with local between friends and the groom
- Figure out where the wedding is and how to get there.
- Figure out what's open when. Getting on Thursday means our second full day is on Shabbat, which means some stuff will be closed. It also means early closures on the 1st full day.
- Make sure I have an adaptor. Stupid plugs.

I'll get this figured out eventually...

5 days left before I head to the land of non-stop sun and heat known as Israel.

Sheckels in hand. Car rented. Apartment ready.

Tonight? Haircut and RAM for the desktop need to be bought.

Tomorrow will involve some clothes shopping. Hat, shirts, shorts, longer swimsuit (holy sites like your knees covered... there's a joke in there I think), sunglasses, and probably a few other things I'm not thinking of.

Sunday? Regular poker home game. There's a small voice telling me this is a foolish what with the trip looming and all. But I'll be picking up my desktop from my brother on the way home, so it's a wash.

Monday - work, panic about half a dozen things I need to do.

Tuesday - work, panic about a new half a dozen things. Also, pick up TIFF schedule, pick films, and drop off passes. Hope that my picks get through so I don't get stuck with the leftovers.

Wednesday - Wake up, enjoy the fact I'm now officially on vacation. Rush around doing everything I still haven't done, panic about packing, deal with phone calls from travelling companions, make sure best friend has everything they need for house and cat-sitting duties, and get to airport a couple hours early. Fly to Frankfurt.

Thursday - Get to Frankfurt, leave Frankfurt, get to Tel Aviv. Meet friend, give him a huge hug followed by chastising him for not visiting more. Realize I sound like his mother, but don't apologize for it. Rent car, gather friends, find apartment, collapse in heap. Eat. Blog about the whole thing (assuming there's Internets, otherwise, not so much).

Rest of the time? See country again, have a blast with good friends that I don't see enough, get drunk at a Jewish wedding, surrounded by people who may not be as fluent in English as I am, but are definitely more fluent in English than I am in Hebrew, see more of the country, and eventually come home, probably 12 shades darker of skin (or redder), exhausted, and ready for my last 3 days of vacation before heading back to work.

Should be good times. Then I can focus on that Vegas thing in December.

I'm currently in the process of planning two trips.

1.- Israel next week. Assembling cash, figuring out a rough schedule, renting the car, and generally guiding the rest of the crew of people coming along.

2.- Vegas. Getting golf info from a few friends who will be playing in the scramble that Bam and CK have set up. Still need to book flights, hotel, car, etc, but that can wait a little bit.

Yah, if you travel with me, I become your travel agent. It's something I inherited from my mother, who would plan our numerous worldly travels most efficiently. I'm talking "Hey, should we go to France next week?" followed by a family of 5 getting on a plane a week later for 9 days of travelling Paris and its environs in what a Kontiki tour would take 14 days for. I try to go a little easier on my friends.

I'm someone's favourite commentor. I think they're being sarcastic.

In two weeks I board a plane bound for Tel Aviv.

Time zones are screwy things. I leave around 5:30pm, and arrive at 3:30pm the following day. That's 22 hours. Now, there's a 3 hour stop in Frankfurt on the way, and a 7 hour time difference, so that's 10 hours knocked off right there. Yup, 12 hours of flight, sounds about right.

Before then, I need to pick up an international driver's permit (15 minutes of my time), rent the van for the 6 of us ($1000 for 11 days, not too bad), figure out what I need to buy (no on the monopod, yes on light-coloured summer clothes and a hat... unless I advertise Bodog in the Holy Land... could be fun), and put together something for the huband-to-be.

But more importantly than all that is the stuff I've put off that won't be here when I return! Dream in High Park is doing The Tempest, and I want to see it. The Science Centre is showing Star Trek (the new one) on their OmniMax IMAX dome screen. The AGO has the Surreal Things exhibit until August 30th.

And dammit! TIFF! The full film list for this year's festival goes online on the 20th, and order drop-off is the 25th. Giving me JUST enough time to drop off my order. But I don't get back until 4 days AFTER ticket pickup, meaning I'd better not get screwed on my choices.

Yes, I have a very difficult life when my concerns before I travel to Israel for a week and half are what films I'm going to go see at the largest film festival in North America, and which plays, movies, and art exhibits I can get to before I leave.

I should probably refresh my memory about my last trip to Israel, so I can play tour guide for my friends. Lucky for me, I have that documented in pictures. Really, I'm excited about taking better equipment with me this time.

Strangely, 2 weeks feels like not nearly enough time.