Amit Schreiber's Blog | הבלוג של עמית שרייבר
Woo hoo!! I have tickets to see The Prodigy on Saturday, July 18th in Istanbul. They will be in the Rock N’ Coke Festival. You can get your tickets here (click “English” on the top right, then choose the festival.) I bought the extra front stage tickets, so it should be fun.
If you want to join me, let me know. I’d love some company.
When you die, what’s going to happen to all your online accounts? If you don’t have a “rich” online presence, you probably don’t care. But I do.
So when I die, I want someone to patch things up with everyone – my blog should be properly shut down, my Facebook status would be “Amit Schreiber is dead” and an auto-reply email will be sent to everyone who tries to mail me (also – take me off mailing lists so that my mailbox won’t be filled up with them.) Not to mention handling my bank accounts and stuff like that.
All these require a person, who I trust, to handle. But I don’t want this person to have access to all my accounts right now. Only when I die. Which brings us to the basic usage scenario of my new website idea:
This system keeps everyone honest: the website can’t do anything with an encrypted file and the trusted person can’t steel the file because you get notified about it (so you can block the transfer.) All that so you can die happily knowing your online presence is in good hands.
At first I told about it to just a few friends, most don’t think it’s useful because not too many people plan in advance for their deaths. That’s why I call the users of the website a niche market. I don’t exactly expect them to return either, if you know what I mean :) But then came this Slashdot article that states “A wave of new companies are springing up to offer such things as virtual cemeteries, alerts to remind loved ones about the anniversary of your death, and even email services that send an alert to your sinful relatives in danger of being left behind when the Rapture carries you away.” So now I want to implement it.
I’ve never been big on writing about my relationships in the blog, but I’ll take a shot at it now by talking about the last (and extremely short) experience I had with a girl.
We’ve known each other for almost a year. I’ve always liked her but never thought she’d be interested in me. It’s a “different league” kind of feeling. With her being on the higher league, that is. But two days before the trip we went out for the first time and I told her about my feelings for her. I felt I could do that because of the trip and everything. And to my surprise it turned out that she had feelings for me as well.
I couldn’t believe it. In fact, I find it hard to believe right now, too.
And so I went on the trip. I thought about her quite a lot during and hoped we could restart things when I’m back. Unfortunately, things have changed for her and she was no longer interested. So it was pretty much over before it started. If you’ve noticed I’m not in the mood over the past few days, this is why.
Now I’m back to my “not looking” attitude – I’m not actively looking for a girlfriend. It’s recovery time.
I used to program for fun. I wrote a few small things that I believe were useful to other people at the time. But I haven’t done it in a long time. A few years, actually. It was easy for me to get sucked into working and training many hours a day. It’s a good excuse if you don’t want to actually face life – you can say you’re working hard, even be very successful, and everyone will accept it and be supportive. But then years go by and you have nothing to show for besides maybe a good financial situation and some muscle.
I guess most people contemplate the meaning of their lives at one point or another. It seems my time has come.
So I decided to make a few changes that will hopefully help me live a more satisfactory life. First, I work out less. Currently 3 days a week, and I only do running. If I manage to keep my current weight and physique I will consider this a success in clearing a few hours a week. Second, I try to work less – if there’s no extreme urgency I will be on my way home after 10 hours of work, which is the de facto standard for hi-tech employees. No more dinners at work just because it’s comfortable. Third, I started putting some order in my life.
Over the past weekend I threw away large amounts of garbage. It’s not garbage per se, but stuff that I haven’t used in a long time. I showed no mercy and now I’m much happier without the clutter in the storage area of my apartment. Now I’m taking care of all the paperwork I set aside over the past year or so. It’s basically just filing, but it’s even harder than sorting out junk – I have to open each letter, read and file it.
All this in hope that I can go back to programming for fun. To do that I need to know I have absolutely nothing else I’m “supposed” to do and then just wait for the right mood. I already have an idea I want to implement and I’m looking into frameworks suitable for the job.
Wish me luck.
When I first created this blog I decided to have my name on it instead of opting for the anonymous approach. Adding personal stuff (like the army story and poems) was hard at first but I knew not too many people read the blog and that there is nothing to fear in terms of exposure. Also, having an anonymous blog always makes you feel like you’re hiding – there’s always the danger of being exposed some day. I didn’t want that.
As more people started following the blog I posted less personal stuff on it. It happened naturally so I almost didn’t feel it. But now, after the trip, I do feel it. A coworker of mine told me he started reading the army story and stopped because he was too embarrassed for me. He also said I should take it down. Taking down a story only makes it harder, not impossible, to find, so I won’t take it down. In addition to that, the army story provides young people who are struggling with the army some comfort in knowing that they’re not the only ones having a hard time in the IDF. I know that because they told me and people reach this blog a lot from Google by looking for the Hebrew terms for military prison and military psychiatrist.
So now I want to go back to writing in a more personal manner. I still wish to keep the privacy of others so that means some of the things I will not be able to post, no matter how much I want to. But there are still things I can write about.
This, I believe, is the last post on the trip. I’ll use it to dump everything trip-related from the last few days.
I landed at 5:30am, met my dad and went straight to work. Luckily I arrived before everyone else did so I had time to put the backpack down and relax. I brought what eventually turned out to be huge amounts of chocolate from Heathrow’s Duty Free shop. Apparently it was so much people complained about it. It was great seeing everyone at work. I was greeted with a few things:
All these were created by my wonderful teammates and made me very happy.
Everyone tells me I lost some weight but I think I lost mostly muscle. Since the general opinion is that I look better this way, I will focus on aerobics instead of strength in the gym. Maybe I’ll be able to tone down the workouts, live a less restrictive life and have more of the hours of the day to myself. Today I went to the gym for the first time since my return. I just ran 10 km in one hour. It was easy and I’m glad I did it because now I don’t feel like a slob as much.
I also went to meet my mom and Ace (my cat.) She immediately recognized me and showed me her affection, which was great. I really missed her. But then I had to go and she meowed a long time after I left. I think she’s suffering from abandonment issues. I will see her again tomorrow. I’m not sure if I’ll take her back eventually – it’s better for her (and my mom, I believe) if she stays there.
Now that a few days have passed I’m suffering from post-trip depression. You can say I’m at the end-of-trip dump. Hopefully it will pass soon enough for me to get back to a happy life.
Here’s an amazing (professional) picture taken during the last Prodigy show I went to (credit goes to Flickr user “rahul rephoto”. Here’s the original picture’s page):
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| From The Trip – Day 82 |
I still haven’t posted a video from the last Prodigy show I went to, so here it is. I know you all wanted to see another one of those :)
This is the index for the (almost) three months trip I did in 2009. About half the posts contain pictures which can also be found on my Picasa Web Albums page. Enjoy.
Part I – US (and Canada)
Part II – Hong Kong and Thailand
Part III – England (and Wales)
As I sit at Heathrow airport waiting for my flight, my body still recovering slowly from last night’s show, people start talking to me online – some updates from work, a friend in financial trouble. The person who occupied my apartment for the duration of the trip texts me. I’m starting to feel the heaviness of my normal, mundane life. I’ve been away from all this for so long, I forgot what it’s like to worry about things. Despite being connected with friends and family throughout the entire trip, I was without worries. Even if I knew about things that have been going on, I was far away from them both physically and mentally.
I guess it’s time to reflect on the trip now. It started with me being sick in New York and in Canada. I had fun, but it was a shame not to be able to do everything I wanted to (like skiing) there. I met friends I haven’t seen in a long long time, including one I’ve never met at all before, which was exciting and fun. Then I went on my own to visit some national parks (where I panicked after I couldn’t find my way out), Las Vegas and then the beautiful and fun San Francisco, where I spent 9 whole days.
Then there was Hong Kong, which I really liked, for three days. After that came three weeks in the beautiful Thailand islands, where I did absolutely nothing except for going to parties on the beach. I got conned in Bangkok just before leaving Thailand, but it doesn’t affect my feelings towards the places I liked or the amazingly nice locals I’ve met. I also traveled with Neil, a cool guy from England, for almost 10 days, which was fun.
And finally – the UK, where I met Katz, my ever-travelling friend, yet again (we previously met in the UK in 2002.) We stayed at her friend’s place, who I previously met on his visit to Israel. I saw a bunch of new places I haven’t seen before and also saw The Prodigy, my favorite band in the world, four times on their tour. I also met up with another friend from school at the end and he joined me to the last two shows, which was fun and a proper way to end the trip.
I now realize how much I wish I could continue the trip.
Again a rainy day, so I went for some indoor activity – London’s Science Museum. The museum is great, offering many galleries where you can see, hear and touch many artifacts from the past, present and possibly the future. While I enjoyed the museum a lot, it was packed with visitors, many of them kids, and my mind was busy thinking about The Prodigy’s show tonight and the flight back home tomorrow.
The Prodigy gave another amazing show. This one was pretty much the best of all four. The Prodigy keep evolving the show and it flows better between songs. Also, the London crowd was really enthusiastic, more than the crows in the previous shows. Maybe someone will post a video I’ll be able to include in a later time.
I can’t believe I’m going back home. I completely forgot what my daily routine of gym and work is like. In a way it’s good – I don’t feel bad about going back to work and am looking forward to see my family and friends. On the other hand, if I had the choice, I would have definitely continued this trip. Probably would have left the UK for the rest of Europe or something like that. But that will have to wait for a different trip.
I’m not ready to reflect about the trip yet – I still have one more day! I might not get to reflecting on it at all, but we’ll see.
It was rainy today, but I decided to make the trip to central London despite the bad conditions. It was a good decision – after about two hours of walking around I met my friend Adi (who will join me tomorrow for the second time to a Prodigy show) and we had lunch together and walked around. He showed me nice, less tourist-oriented places, which I really liked and afterwards I went to a comedy club. At first it seemed like a crappy club but the show turned out to be very funny.
I have very few pictures because I was afraid to ruin the camera with the rain, and I wasn’t so keen on taking pictures of London anyway because I’ve seen it before.