To Vegas and back with Delta

We spent a few days in Las Vegas. A more complete account of that will follow sometime soon, I hope. In the meantime you can see D's account here.
This post, however, will be dedicated to the worst airline company I have ever traveled with: Delta (do yourself a favor: don't follow that link and book a ticket with them). For starters, they are the stingiest most penny-pinching bastards in the industry. Everything - and I literally mean everything - costs an extra. The extra for checking in luggage is not new, but is still annoying. From here it just goes straight down: do you want to eat on a four and half hours flight? No problem - you can either get two tiny "complimentary" peanuts packages or pay for a sandwich. Are you thirsty after eating "all these peanuts"? We'll fetch you drinks, don't worry. It will take us a full hour before we start doing it, and then it will take us another full hour to traverse the entire length of a Boeing 737 aisle (it's not long, believe me), and then we'll give you a small cup of water or soda. Don't think of getting another one before landing.

What about in-flight entertainment? Contrary to most airlines (including Delta) that use a small airplane that doesn't have in-flight entertainment systems, we had a system on both flights. However, this is probably only for extortion purposes: Delta charge for everything, except maybe some TV shows. They charge $2 for the headsets, and about $5 for every film, game or other entertainment during the flight. May I remind you that it's a 4.5 hours flight, which is roughly the time to fly from Tel-Aviv to any Western European destination?

The seats in coach have such a small leg-room that I think Delta actually broke El-Al's record here. Do you want to stretch your legs or God forbid use the bathrooms? You're pushing your luck, pal, because for every stray cirrus cloud seen from 40 miles distance the pilot turns on the "buckle your seat-belt" sign and you're not allowed to get up. This literally left about 10-15 minutes of flight without being constrained to the seat. Needless to say that with other airlines I was able to go to the restroom and use them while the aircraft experienced much greater disturbances.

Since the seat-curfew was enforced on both flights (to Vegas and from Vegas) I am quite certain that it's a policy with Delta. Like in any crime one can only ask what is the motive behind this crime? Well, it could be as benign as the simple explanation: it's easier to control the crowd when they all are seated and buckled to their chairs. It could also be something more problematic: someone realized that this way people will not be able to get to the kitchenette and ask for more drinks, or nobody will use the restrooms, thus the airline can spend less on toiletries. I am not joking here, from all the stinginess I have experienced from Delta I am quite certain of the latter being the real reason.

Weather

In Israel summers are very dull: hot, humid and no rain. In Cincinnati it's quite the opposite. It started as a nice day. Really.

Sitting on the balcony

We have a small balcony. It was mainly unused so far, except maybe for piling up snow in the winter. As spring is almost over and summer is upon us, the neighbors all started putting garden chairs out. Today we also bought a couple of foldable chairs and now we are sitting outside, with our laptops, naturally. Thanks God for wireless LAN.

Israeli general consul at UC

The Israeli general consul in the US for the Mid-Atlantic states was at UC on Thursday. He gave a nice speech in which he explained the Israeli stand on many issues, mostly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No doubt, he did a good job at that, and was able to answer many questions from the audience, even two provocative questions from a pro-Palestinian student.
However, I was disappointed by the scope of the address. I feel, and expressed these feelings to whomever cared to listen, that a formal Israeli representative should represent Israel - as a whole - not just a poor side of it, namely the conflict. Israel is so much more than a conflict, even though this is what attracts most of the media attention. Israeli representatives should show that Israel is a westernized, relatively liberal, democratic society with many success stories, especially in arts, sciences and technology. This is even more important when the meeting takes place in the College of Arts and Sciences!
There are many reasons why the focus of such meetings should be changed. Firstly, many Americans (and I guess many citizens of other nations as well) don't know Israel other than what the media shows, which is the conflict. That limits their views to only views regarding the conflict, and usually forces them to take sides based on this narrow aspect.
Furthermore, when all you do is talk about the conflict you shed light on both sides of the conflict. Some of this light, perhaps most of it, is spent on your side, naturally, but there is also some light that goes to the other side. Why waste so much energy? Why not show just your country? Just your side?
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when you depict Israel as what it is - and not what the conflict prism causes it to seem - you enable broader perspectives. I think it would be easier for a Westerner to identify with Israeli success stories than it would be for him to identify with Israel's stand on a bloody conflict. People are more bent towards things they can identify in themselves and their culture (modernism, democracy, liberalism) than towards conflicts and wars. Why not provide them with the opportunity to do that?

There are enough success stories to tell. Lately, I have just finished reading on how Americans are coming to realize Israeli success in the Clean-Tech field, which is the new buzz-word now. Why don't you tell us a bit about that, Israeli general consul?

Mediterranean Food

We've been wanting to eat some Hummus and Pita for a while now. Today we decided that it's time! We Googled for Mediterranean restaurants in Cincinnati and found The Mirage. It's a mix of Mediterranean food and Russian ancestry, which makes it perfect for us: we both miss the sound of Russian and the taste of Hummus. We had a plate of hummus, which was tasty but a bit too watery, with real pita breads! The rest of the food was even better: I had lentils soup, which a very Mediterranean taste, D had Falafels plate, with real vegetarian salad, and I had beef shish-kebab. Everything was great. We will definitely go back for more great food and feeling of home.

Update: Work Load

It appears that I am the only one that started teaching right on the first term. According to the associate department head responsible for teaching, usually they give new faculty a quarter to get settled, and only then, on the second term, they start teaching, and even then only one course at that quarter. I started right away with two and continued with that rate. I’m also the only one with 7 courses a year. Usually the faculty teach up to 6 courses a year, and they have one quarter off after three consecutive quarters of teaching. It sucks to be at the bottom of the totem pole.
So, now I try to use the time off that I have every now and then to prepare my classes for the summer. It's not easy: I work full time with the two classes I teach now, I try to get some research done (even wrote a paper), and most of the time I am just exhausted from starting to each at 8AM every other day.

We have better prospects for D's quarter, on the other hand. She has finished two courses already, and now her time will be divided between only three classes and her work. It's still not easy, but at least she will have Mondays off now, and will be able to free some time over the weekends. Or so I hope.

We even find some time to follow several TV shows: Lost, Heroes, Lie To Me, Hisardut, and D sometimes catches episodes of Grey's Anatomy.

40 Hours a week?

I recently received my paycheck and there they took off the hours we spent in Israel over the winter. It seems that for the 10 days off I paid with 80 hours, 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week.
I think that at the rate I have been working since we got here I already finished my working hours this year.