Defending Ourselves

April 6, 2007 — aishel

Over Pesach, there have been at least four three attacks on Orthodox Jews in the Baltimore area. These included incidents that happened in broad daylight. I’m in Detroit for Pesach and I’ve been told that many people here have been harassed as well. Thankfully, the incidents in Detroit aren’t usually anything more than taunting or black-hat tipping, but it could easily escalate. From what I understand, in one of the Baltimore incidents, one of the victims had to be sent to the hospital.

This has to stop.

While most of us can’t or won’t fight with our fists, the least you can do is carry some pepper spray with you. This is a non-lethal, safe way of defending ourselves. The people who carry out these attacks need to learn that there will be consequences to their actions. If anyone needs pepper spray, I can get it for you at a good price. Leave a comment with your email address (it doesn’t get published), and I will get you set up. It comes in all sorts of sizes, and can include holsters if you want.

Posted in Baltimore, Rants. 11 Comments »

Rite Aid Passport Pictures (or lack thereof)

April 5, 2007 — aishel

Don’t ever get your passport photo’s at Rite aid. I went to the Rite Aid in the Greenspring Shopping Center to get photo’s for my infant daughter so that we could travel outside of the country. I should have known things would be bad when the person taking the picture had to ask her co worker how to turn on the camera. The lady had me hold my daughter in front of the white screen so that she could take the picture, and she went ahead and took the picture. Now in the past, my passport pictures have been ready within five minutes. However, she told me that I should come back in an hour, as it had to go through the one-hour photo process.

Sounded weird, but I agreed. I get back later that night to pick up my pictures and took a look at the pictures and saw that each passport photo was a picture of both my daughter and myself. I went over to the lady and told her that I thought the picture has to be only of my daughter and that I can’t be in the picture. She answered that since I was the parent/guardian, I have to be in the picture. Again, sounds weird, but I don’t know the rules, so I made a mental note to check up on passport photo requirements when I got home.

Sure enough, the passport website says specifically that the baby’s face has to take up most of the photo and that no other people can be in the background. Additionally, the entire background has to be white, so by me holding her (I was wearing a blue shirt), the photo wouldn’t have been accepted in any case.

Now my daughter’s schedule doesn’t allow me to go and get passport photo’s at any time. It’s a big deal for me to have to take her out at a specific time. So I went back to Rite Aid (without my daughter; someone was babysitting, as she was sleeping) to ask them what the deal was with the picture. She mumbled something about Rite Aid not being a professional photo place. Since she wasn’t offering it, I finally had to ask for a refund, since the pictures were not usable. Thankfully, she gladly agreed to refund the cost of my photo’s. However, she did say that I should bring it into a professional photo place that does passport pictures.

While I’m happy that I got my refund, what kind of place advertises that they offer passport photo services if they don’t know how to take the passport pictures, much less turn on a digital camera? Not only that, they’re so bad that they’re actually telling me to go to a “professional photo place” to get my pictures done. Does that mean that we shouldn’t get our day-to-day pictures developed there either?

I just went to Walgreen’s, and the lady very obviously knew what she was doing, and we were out of there in 5 minutes. If anyone needs passport pictures, don’t go to Rite Aid. Instead go to a “professional place” like Walgreen’s.

I’d also like to add that if anyone ever needs to get their passport application done, you should come to Michigan. In Michigan, there’s no such thing as having to make an appointment a month in advance. You just walk right in, and they take care of it on the spot.

Posted in Baltimore, Rants. 15 Comments »

24 Hours in New York

March 19, 2007 — aishel

In 24 hours in New York, I had the following experiences:

  1. Mess up my signature on a kesuba, making the mesader kidushin write it all over again (how often do YOU sign your name in Hebrew?)
  2. Get a $60 parking ticket for parking on the correct side of a No Standing sign. Is there a way of fighting this over the phone? I don’t want to do it in person. Also, the person who gave me the ticket put down some wrong information on the ticket, so I’m guessing there is a way of fighting it?
  3. Figured out that it takes longer to find parking than it does to actually get to your destination, even if you’re destination is 30 minutes away.
  4. Almost smashed into a car on the BQE who decided not to take off any snow from the top of their car. The woman braked, causing the snow to fall and cover the entire windshield, blinding her, which caused her to all out stop on the BQE.

    Some good things:

    1. Hungry-Man Special at Garden of Eat-In – $4.95 got me a big pancake, two scrambled eggs, home fries, two slices of toast, coffee, and a tiny cup of orange juice.
    2. Krispy Kutlet’s at Subsational

      Note that the only good things involved food. Maybe that’s why I keep going back.

      Posted in Advice, Rants, Restaurants. 12 Comments »

      Not My Day: Monday

      February 19, 2007 — aishel

      Due to the snow last week, I had a class that was cancelled.  The week before, the teacher wanted us to go to the MOTA Legislative Reception, so we missed class (no one went, but what do you expect if its going to be all the way in Annapolis).  Since we missed two weeks in a row, we suddenly got an email saying that we’re expected to make up a lot of the work on our own time.  This meant going to school and examining two cabinets full of occupational therapy assessments.  Since the person in charge of checking out these assessments is only there certain hours of the day, I had to be there at 8am.  Fine.  I get there, write up all the assessments in cabinets 3 and 4, and come home.  I find out I was supposed to do cabinets 4 and 5.  It’s now 9:30am, and I see this is going to be a great day.

      As part of my graduate project, I have to interview teens for a special project, and they live two hours away, in Pennsylvania.  Today, my group and I were going to drive there and conduct the interviews and get our research under way.  Just as I was getting ready to leave, I was finishing my deli sandwhich, and it slipped out of my hands and subsequently painted my nice pair of pants with mustard. Great.

      Next, I’m on the way to Target (our meeting point; it made sense for only one car to drive the four of us two hours away), when I get a phone call from my group member.  The teacher had called her and had found out that none of the teens we were going to interview were going to be there so we shouldn’t bother coming.

      The fact that we weren’t going to Pennsylvania meant that I was going to have to go to class tonight, which is something I was hoping I’d miss.

      Tuesday, please be kind.  Thanks.

      Posted in Occupational Therapy, Rants, School. 8 Comments »

      Not My Day

      February 18, 2007 — aishel

      Pennystock and SaraK had their moments.  Now its my turn.

      It actually started last night with my not being able to fall asleep until welll after 2am due to my extended Shabbos nap. I woke up this morning to the shrill of my alarm clock at 6:30am so I could shower before taking my parents to the airport.  I get to my parent house, where I’m told that I had been informed that they got a ride from someone else and that I didn’t have to take them anymore.  Fine.  I then prepare for teaching at Gesher LaTorah, located at the JCC.  I get there and the lights are all out.  Turns out they’re closed for Presidents Day.  Doh.   I already had my morning coffee so I doubt I’ll be able to fall asleep anytime soon.

      So here we are, about to begin one of my busier school weeks, and as of 9am Sunday morning, its already going bad.

      Posted in Rants, Teaching. 6 Comments »

      Alleged Pledge 2.1

      February 12, 2007 — aishel

      The same organization who was responsible for my post, “Alleged Pledge 2.0,” is responsbile for this one.  This envelope is labeled “Second Reminder” and also comes in two colors.  Like last time, the letter tries to guilt you into giving and reminds me twice that this is the second reminder.  Argh.  Should I just post the name of the organization and see if anyone else has this problem?

      Posted in Mail, Rants. 4 Comments »

      Alleged Pledge v2.0

      January 19, 2007 — aishel

      As a follow up to my original post (that was also picked up by Orthonomics), I got the following in the mail today. It came in an envelope with a very nice yellow image in the shape of legal pad paper saying, “Remember our telephone conversation?” At the top of the following letter, it says in big, bold letters, “Sponsor One Shabbos Raffle Pledge Reminder”

      Dear Mr. Aishel

      Thank you again for your warm response to our Telephone Raffle Campaign on 11/26/2006, with your pledge of $18.00. Your raffle numbers have already been electronically entered into the final drawing to win $3,600.00 in cash, which will IY”H be held in May ’07.

      Sitting at a Shabbos table without food, on a cold Friday night in Jerusalem or Sefad is painful beyond belief. Thanks to your contribution, joy will replace despair, and the warm glow will replace hunger, thereby turning their Shabbos into the day it is meant to be.

      However, in order for us to provide Shabbos food to these needy families, we are counting on you, Mr. Aishel, to please redeem your pledge of $18.00.

      Thank you in advance for your prompt response and may the merit of this special mitzvah bring upon you good health, happiness and success in every endeavor.

      [Signed]

      P.S. Please help us defray the expense of additional reminders by sending in your contribution promptly. Your immediate response will enable us to provide more Shabbos food to the needy.

      What chutzpah! Not only did I never pledge anything, now they’re trying to make me feel bad by saying that they already entered me? And if they really wanted to defray costs, they’d stop sending bogus mailings requesting pledged money that was never pledged.

      Posted in Mail, Rants. 5 Comments »

      Dallas Food Chain to Accept Mexican Pesos

      January 7, 2007 — aishel

      This story just exemplifies how crazy our country is becoming. By accepting Pesos, the US is now working even more towards the Hispanicizing of America.

      Link:

      Starting Monday, patrons of the Dallas-based Pizza Patrón chain, which caters heavily to Latinos, will be able to purchase American pizzas with Mexican pesos.

      Is that even legal? In terms of taxes and everything, how do they keep track of what gets paid in what currency?

      Posted in News, Rants. 3 Comments »

      Alleged Pledge

      January 4, 2007 — aishel

      Way back in September, SephardiLady had a post about the do’s and don’t of solicitation (in two parts). I’d like to add one more. It only bugged me a little bit, but when it happened the third time, I decided to blog about it.

      Recently, we’ve had several phone calls appealing for money for various organizations. They usually ask me to pledge x amount of dollars. I don’t like to do that, so I usually tell them to just send me an envelope with their brochure, and we’ll assess it then. I’m always careful not to make any pledge whatsoever. One day, I come home and my wife asks me, “I didn’t realize we pledged $36 to X organization. I thought I told you we already spent all of our ma’aser money.” I look down at the envelope, and sure enough, its the same organization that I had spoken to a few days earlier. Now that just ticks me off. In one particular case where this happened, I remember specifically telling the person on the phone that my wife deals with ma’aser, so I can’t pledge anything, just send me your envelope.

      I think its a huge chutzpah that they then go ahead and make it as if we pledged something. Not only does this make me not want to give them, it probably messes up their financial records because they write in their accounting books that a certain amount of money was pledged, and can use that information to obtain loans. But since I’m now mad at them and not sending them any money, they’re not going to make as much as they forcasted.

      Posted in Mail, Rants. 16 Comments »

      Brasserie

      January 2, 2007 — aishel

      Anyone who has known me for a little bit knows that today is a special day.  So to celebrate, we went to the Brasserie.  I’m always amazed at just how quickly the total can go up, but I guess that’s just the nature of the restaurant.  The point of this post is to rant about certain people and talk about the service I experienced at the Brasserie.

      First, I don’t care how important you are in the city.  If you must have your phone on, please, just turn it to vibrate.  When you’re trying to have a quiet dinner, it just isn’t fun to have to hear  some crazy song at the loudest possible volume.  Seven times.  And I don’t blame him for having his phone on.  In his capacity, he needs to have his phone on.  But I don’t think there are any phones out there that don’t have a vibrating feature.  So please, just turn it to vibrate.

      When we got to the Brasserie, the place was completely empty except for one other couple that against the back windows.  So where did the waiter place us?  At the table right next to them.  I mean, the entire room was empty!  Did he have to put us right there?  Of course we asked him for a more private table, so we were put on the complete opposite side of the room, which was fine by me.   The only other issue I had with the service was regarding my water.  I like to have my glass filled with water.  I drink a lot, and I felt that the waiter should have been more on top of my glass.  Especially considering how empty it was tonight.  At one point, I had to ask him three times to get my water until he finally remembered to actually bring it.  I found that instead of paying even a little attention to my table, he was joking around with the kitchen staff.  I’m not trying to sound like a needy brat, but I do feel that the service could have been a bit better.

      Regarding the food, we got an interesting appetizer called medallion of beef, which was three cubes of beef served with fried onions and two pieces of very large corn tortilla’s.  While the beef cubes were very good, I felt that the tortilla’s were awful.  Overall, definitely not worth the $14.95.  For the main course, the only complaint I had was that the ribs had way too much fat on them.  Probably a good 20% of all the meat had fat that had to be removed.  But otherwise, they were awesome.

      Posted in Baltimore, Rants, Restaurants. 7 Comments »

      Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays

      December 19, 2006 — aishel

      The ongoing debate that is out there this time of year is whether to greet someone with Merry Christmas or with Happy Holidays. It has been my belief for the longest time that people should stick with Merry Christmas. After all, in the US, 88% of the population is Christian (all denominations), and only 1.4% of the population is Jewish (source). When the Christians are in such a majority, why should things change just because of us Jews? Yes, I know we’re special, but we have to remember that we’re living in golus.

      I know that we’re living in an age of political correctness, but with the kind of Christian:Jewish ratio that we have, I think that this is just silly. I understand that some people only say Happy Holidays because they’re not sure if the person they’re talking to is Jewish or not, but if you know for sure, why not say the right thing for whatever holiday they’re celebrating. For example, I know that my mailman isn’t Jewish, so when I handed him my annual Christmas holiday tip, I said Merry Christmas. And of course he knows that I’m Jewish, so he responded with Happy Chanukah.

      Reminds me of a funny story. A couple years ago, I was on some mailing list and when they sent out Holiday cards in the mail, it said, “Happy _______ (fill in the blank)”

      Update:

      See Yid with Lid’s post on this.  I agree with this a lot.

      Posted in Judaism, Rants. 11 Comments »

      OnlySimchas Rant

      December 12, 2006 — aishel

      I see this happen all the time on OnlySimchas (OS), and for some reason, I get upset about it every time. Basically, people find out their friends get engaged so they rush to post it on OS. Problem is that they don’t know the fiance’s name, so they tend to write “Engagement of Shira Cohen and Lucky Guy!” or “Engagement of Shlomo Stein to Devorah T.” (made up names). My theory is that if they don’t know the name of one of the sides in a simcha, they should not be posting it on OS. The OS terms of service clearly states: “I have the permission of the celebrants to post this information on OnlySimchas.com” If they don’t even know the names of the people involved, how can they have gotten permission to post it in the first place?

      It’s a small thing, but it irks me to no end.

      Posted in Rants, WWW. 10 Comments »

      Where’s the old David Chu’s?

      November 21, 2006 — aishel

      I just had lunch at David Chu’s, and I came out very disappointed. I had previously written about how David Chu’s has been getting busier and busier and that their service was heading downhill. This time, the restaurant was pretty empty, and the food came out almost right away. I ordered the usual: wonton soup, egg roll, and extra-spicy General Tso’s chicken with white meat.

      On receiving the soup, I proceeded to start eating it, but noticed right away that the taste was different. In fact, it had no taste. My wife observed the same in her soup. We requested salt, but that didn’t change anything. At this point, the waitress started saying something about a new chef (it was hard to understand her fully because of her accent) and that the recipe may have changed. She took our soup and promptly got us new bowls of wonton soup. While this time it had slightly more taste, it was still very watery. The waitress again mumbled something about a new chef, and nicely took away our soup and apologized profusely. Apparently, she told the manager, because she came and asked us what was wrong, and when we told her that the soup had no taste, she, too, apologized. When it came time to pay the bill, we weren’t charged for the soup.

      Anyways, we then started on our egg rolls. After one bite, my wife and I looked at each other and agreed that this also tasted different. But for once, I actually like these egg rolls better than the original egg rolls. It was hard to place my finger on what it was exactly, but I think it was slightly spicier.

      On to the next course, we were served our chicken. While the chicken was delicious, the sauce was noticeably not as sweet as it is usually. General Tso’s chicken is supposed to have a sweet batter. This just tasted like regular batter, with no sweetness whatsoever. My wife observed the same in her sesame chicken.

      Thinking back to what our waitress said about getting a new chef, I now remember Kosher Bite advertising that they were proud to announce that they now had the former chef from David Chu’s cooking their Chinese food. Is it time to go try the Chinese food at Kosher bite?

      Posted in Baltimore, Rants, Restaurants. 7 Comments »

      Black Friday overachievers

      November 17, 2006 — aishel

      I was reading this story in the news today:

      Two armed thugs tried to rob of line of people waiting to buy the new Playstation 3 gaming console early Friday and shot one who refused to give up the money, authorities said.

      The two confronted a “bunch of people who were in line” outside a Wal-Mart store shortly after 3 a.m. and demanded money, said Lt. J. Paul Vance, a spokesman for the state police. The new Sony consoles are selling for around $500 to $600.

      “One of the patron’s resisted. That patron was shot,” Vance said.

      I just posted yesterday about the Thanksgiving day sales and all the deals, and I know that this is the type of stuff that happens on Black Friday. I think its insane. If there’s a great sale, I’ll admit, I’ll be there at 6am. But if it comes to pushing, shoving, and now shooting, forget about it, I’m not interested. I’ve heard only great things about the Playstation 3 (except for the price tag), but to get in line at 3am just to be able to say that “I had it first” seems extreme to me.

      As a rabbi in Detroit once told me a few Thanksgivings ago, upon completion of a masechta (tractate), we say in the Hadran, “She’anu mashkimim v’heim mashkimim. Anu mashkimim l’divrei torah, v’heim mashkimim l’devarim biteilim…Anu ratzim v’hem ratzim. Anu ratzim l’chayei haolam habah, v’heim ratzim l’b’air shachas.” – We wake up early and they wake up early. We wake up early to learn for words of torah, and they wake up early for idle words….We run and they run. We run to the life of the Next World, and they run to the well of destruction. (I’ve got to figure out how to type in Hebrew)

      Like I said above, I’d get up early if there was a great deal (which I might be doing this year…I need blank CD-R’s). I’m just complaining about the Black Friday overachievers.

      Posted in Divrei Torah, News, Rants. 3 Comments »

      Parking at Shoppers

      November 1, 2006 — aishel

      This rant is dedicated to all you bad drivers who don’t know how to use a parking lot.  In a parking lot such as the one at Shoppers, which has diagonal parking spaces, each lane is a one way.  That means that if I’m waiting my turn to go down one of these lanes, I don’t want to be bothered by someone who comes down the wrong way, and then attempts to make almost a U-Turn into a parking space.  That person will almost always inevitably not make the turn all the way, thus having to back up to correct themselves seven times until they’re aligned inside the parking space, which probably won’t happen anyway.

      Wikipedia’s article on parking lots has an excellent diagram to illustrate the correct traffic flow in a parking lot with diagonal parking spaces:

      Image

      Posted in Baltimore, Rants. 16 Comments »
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