Non-Standard Use Case

Okay, most of the time, I am glad that my washing machine does not move around easily. Even when it gets imbalanced it will only move about an inch. But whatever makes it difficult to move on-accident is also making it difficult to move on-purpose. Lifting up the front edge from the bottom and dragging backwards works well enough for moving it away from the wall. But putting it back was much more involved, and I found myself needing to brace my feet against the opposite cabinet to get enough leverage. And that was just for the washing and masking step, I have to do that two more times for the primer then the paint. If only there were a switch to flip between "high friction" and "low friction" modes? (If you are an appliance designer, maybe you could drop this into the feature suggestion box?) At least the dryer is much easier to deal with by comparison.

My Problem with Exercise

Why do I have such a hard time getting myself to the gym on a regular basis, when I always end up feeling so great while I'm working out? Lifting weights demands so much concentration that I am forced to not think or worry about anything else. Just movement, form, and counting for 45 minutes to an hour, a nice vacation for my brain while my body gets a challenge. Because, for the rest of the day, my body is sitting still in a chair while my brain runs laps on the computer.

But I let myself forget this, too often.

Quality of Life

I love travel, but I just do not get enough vacation time from work to leave town as often as I would like. Rather than wait until retirement, I figured out a way to go on more trips more often. A month or two ago, I let my manager know that I loved to travel, and would love to go on more business trips. It worked!

At the beginning of August, I was sent to Israel for a three-day meeting. We (one program manager was on the trip with me) left on Sunday afternoon, got there on Monday, and had meetings on Tuesday (which ended early) and Wednesday. Since the meetings were so successful, we took Thursday off. Flight home left early Friday, and I was back home Friday afternoon.

The hotel we stayed in is on the hill in Haifa. Here is a view out my window:

On Tuesday after the meeting was over we drove to Akko, which is an old city on the Mediterranean Sea. Here I am, in front of the sea, the ruins of an old sea wall, and a random tour bus:

This is the most foreign place I have ever visited, and the most ancient. Humans have been here for at least 5000 years, building and destroying and building again. So there are incredibly historic places and structures with modern buildings alongside, sometimes integrated into the old walls and foundations. Not quite preservation, and not quite "urban renewal" demolition, just human history visible everywhere.

On Thursday we drove to Tiberius, on western side of the Sea of Galilee. Not having enough energy to do an extensive tour of all the historic sites in the area, we just walked for a while on the sidewalk that runs next to the shore. Unlike the Mediterranean Sea, or even Lake Michigan, you can see the other side of the Sea of Galilee from the shore. And, it has litter and graffiti and a water-park alongside the Roman ruins and sacred graveyards. People live here, and this is the lake in their "front yard."

Bonus: when traveling overseas, company policy is to buy Business Class tickets!

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