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Omar came in to work around mid-morning wearing a suit. "Dressed up for the mosque?" I asked, knowing he wasn't. (For that, he normally wears his dark-blue jalabiya, which always reminds me of the gown worn by the Emperor in the Apple Video production of 'Foundation'.)

"No, an interview!" he said, confirming my unspoken suspicion. After last week's revelation about the future of Ken's job and mine, there was a good deal of talk among the four of us in the IT shop, and Omar revealed that he has been dissatisfied with his position for a while, and has been looking. Today he shared that he was one of three candidates short-listed for a position he's interested in, and that he will find out on Monday whether he is the successful candidate. I am optimistic for Omar's chances, because he's very knowledgeable and good at his job, really smart, professional, and just a super nice guy.

If he does get the job, that will be bad news for the Portland IT shop, because he'll be a big loss. But it could also potentially be good news for me, because somebody will have to fill Omar's position. (At least, until that position is eliminated too.) I've had my share of gripes about the job and the company, but if I were offered the chance to apply for Omar's position, I would definitely go for it.

In the IT field, as in any other profession that requires a specific body of knowledge and skills, there's the part that is inherent in the job itself - the basics of how to do the various basic functions that make up the job. That's the part you can learn in trade school, or college, or even from books.

But the other part is the part that's specific to the environment - the structure of the company and its policies, the particular way things are set up and configured in the company and on the site, and most especially the people you work with, in your department, and throughout the company, and people you do business with outside of the company. All of those things are unique to your company, your office, and your particular job; and no amount of schooling or self-study can prepare you for that.

So, having invested six months learning the ropes at my current gig, it does seem a damn waste to throw that all away. I won't know until next week (and I'm off Monday and Tuesday for the Jewish holiday) how Omar's interview went, or how the company will decide to proceed after that. But at the moment, it looks like there might be a possibility for me to stay on. [450]
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THIRD ALIYAH. Adin Steinsaltz writes: 'Toward the end of the previous section, the Torah stated in general terms: "The Children of Israel shall encamp, each in his camp, and each at his barrier, according to their hosts" (1:52). The following chapter [Chapter 2] details their encampment based on the four directions of the compass, which signals a change in their style of encampment. Until this point, the camp had traveled in a haphazard fashion. It can be assumed that the members of each tribe stayed close to each other, and would travel and encamp together, though there may have been exceptions. However, once the Tabernacle, situated in the heart of the camp, is constructed, the arrangement of the encampments of all the tribes in relation to each other becomes fixed.' (p. 736)

In the Book of Numbers, the Israelites will spend many years wandering in the wilderness, guided by God. No doubt they will encounter many different kinds of landscapes and terrain in that time, and will have to negotiate the disposition of various resources and obstacles - water, grazing land, rocky areas, and so on. What will remain fixed is their relationship to one another.

In a changing and often hostile external world, the community's greatest resource is its unity - the relationships among its people. Building relationships takes time and consistency. By following a fixed arrangement of the camps, the same people are assured of living close to the same people, and will have the chance to bond with their neighbors over time. The natural landscape may change from month to month and year to year, but the people and families are assured of knowing their place amongst one another - and before the presence of God. [287]
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I was one of those kids who scored really well on aptitude tests - the kind of tests where you have to pick the next shape or symbol in a series, and that kind of thing. If having a high IQ automatically translated to good grades in school, I ought to have been a straight-A student; but it doesn't, and I wasn't. The things you need to be successful in school - or in life - have very little to do with having the kind of intelligence that's measured by those tests.

I graduated high school with B's and C's on my report card, and joined the military, where I spent a total of 10 years active duty in two branches (USAF and USMC) as an enlisted man. The things I learned in the military helped me far more than any college or university would have. I took college courses throughout my adult life, mostly in subjects that interested me, but never earned a degree.

Eventually I went to tech school and earned an entry-level IT certification, and these days I work in IT. Sure it would have been cool to become an astronaut, or win the Nobel Prize, or discover the cure for cancer, but I'm OK with where I am now.

Now I work providing technical support to engineers. Part of my job is setting up laptop computers - regular laptops for the admin workers, and high-performance computers for the engineers. Suppose a new engineer who's just joined the company comes to the IT department, and I set him up with an engineering laptop. It's going to be a brand-new, top-of-the line, high-end machine with one or two terabytes of storage, maybe 64 or 128 gig of RAM, fastest processor and graphics card, and all the latest engineering software, Matlab and AutoCAD and so on. And that engineer can go and do amazing things with that computer.

But now suppose that computer gets a virus - or malware, or even just a bad driver update. Now there's a million garbage processes running on that computer, tying up all the resources so that the computer takes 20 minutes just to open Outlook. Now that laptop won't even perform as well as an ordinary admin laptop, and the engineer can't get anything done.

Your mind can get viruses too. If you are dealing with traumas, anxieties, dysfunctions, or any of the millions of issues that can mess with your mind, then it doesn't matter how high your IQ is - you're not going to be able to accomplish much in life, not until you get rid of the mental malware and debug your brain.

Fortunately, a human being is not a computer, and as individuals we have reason and free will to make our own choices in life. And as members of the human community, we can draw on the experience and wisdom of the past, and we can plan and create a better future. [489]
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UK: JEWISH MAN ARRESTED FOR SHOUTING AM YISRAEL CHAI.
https://x.com/NoaMagid/status/1926655422913552474

UK: JEWISH MAN ARRESTED, CHARGED FOR OFFENDING HEZBOLLAH.
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-855230
'In recordings of the police interrogation seen by the Telegraph, officers asked the man: “Do you think that showing this image to persons protesting who are clearly pro-Hezbollah and anti-Israel that by doing so would stir up racial hatred further than it is already?”'

So "stirring up racial hatred" is a problem, but only one side gets arrested for it. And the liberals, the intellectuals, the technocrats, the elite cliques - all of them will fall all over themselves to defend the jihadis against "islamophobia" and congratulate themselves on their great courage.

PS - Meanwhile in Toronto, Ezra Levant reports on a pro-Israel demo:
https://x.com/ezralevant/status/1926660966244143116
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COUPLE SHOT DEAD OUTSIDE WEDNESDAY NIGHT OUTSIDE OF CAPITAL JEWISH MUSEUM.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/408769
'Initial reports indicated that one of the victims was a staffer of the Israeli embassy in Washington. Later reports clarified that both were employed by the embassy. Eyewitnesses said the shooter shouted "Free Palestine" before carrying out the attack. The suspect has been named as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago.'

ISRAELI EMBASSY EMPLOYEE AND INTENDED FIANCEE NAMED AS VICTIMS IN SHOOTING ATTACK.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/408781
'Yaron Lischinsky, an Israeli Embassy employee in the US, and his girlfriend Sara Milgram, have been named as the victims of a Thursday night shooting attack in Washington, DC. Lischinsky had bought an engagement ring and planned to propose next week.'

EMBASSY SHOOTER'S MANIFESTO.
https://toniairaksinen.substack.com/p/shooter-manifesto-why-two-israeli
Reproduced at Toni Airaksinen's Substack blog. More here:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/purported-manifesto-of-dc-shooting-suspect-appears-online/
The shooter's view that the Western world should have acted more firmly against Israel is widely shared by the intelligentsia and technocrats of the Wesst, and was recently enunciated by the leaders of the UK, France, and Canada:
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/uk-government-take-concrete-actions-israel-stop-war
'The UK, France and Canada have jointly promised to take "further concrete actions" if Israel does not stop its renewed military operations in Gaza and fails to lift restrictions on humanitarian aid reaching the strip.'

EUROVISION POPULAR WINNER YUVAL RAPHAEL PERFORMS 'NEW DAY WILL RISE' AT HOSTAGES SQUARE.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/408819
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The Pioneer Courthouse Square in downtown Portland is missing a few letters. Gene Wolfe would approve.

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'A Fine and Private Place' is the first published book, and first novel, by Peter S. Beagle. Written and set in 1958, it is a love story set in a graveyard. The main characters are Jonathan Rebeck, who left his career as a pharmacist and now dwells, with no living companions, in Yorkchester Cemetery; the recently widowed Mrs. Klapper, who meets Jonathan in the cemetery and strikes up a friendship with him; Michael Morgan, a recently deceased professor; and Laura Durand, also recently departed. Other characters include a cynical raven, who brings Jonathan food and news of the outside world; and Campos, the guard, who works from midnight to eight (literally the graveyard shift) and who plays an important role in the ending of the story.

In the world of 'Fine and Private Place', the ghosts of the deceased linger on the earth - confined to the limits of the cemetery - for about a month or two before they finally transition to wherever it is that their spirits go next. (Jonathan Rebeck is one of the few living people able to see and converse with the ghosts.) What stays on, temporarily, after death is the person's own memory of who he or she was - the body, the clothing, the experiences, the feelings. And it is during this short-lived period after death that the ghosts of Michael and Laura meet and fall in love.

FPP is a love story, but it's also a bit of a mystery. There are questions around the circumstances of Michael's death: Michael says he was poisoned by his wife, but the widow and her lawyer insist it was suicide. And the future of Michael's romance with Laura depends on the outcome of the widow's trial, because if she is found innocent, Michael will be judged a suicide, his body will be exhumed from the Catholic cemetery, and his relationship with Laura will be sundered forever.

I loved the book, and it kept my attention to the end, although I found the pace uneven at times. Chapters 11 and 12 should have been the pivotal chapters: the couple finally confess their love for one another (over and over, in fact), and Michael's killer finally confesses to the crime. But I found the writing and the dialog longwinded and tedious here, and the characters started to lose my sympathy. But the final chapters, 13 and 14, rescued the story for me and made it a very memorable and worthwhile book.

Peter S. Beagle is probably best known for his third book (and second novel), 'The Last Unicorn'. His grandfather was the Hebrew writer Abraham Soyer, and his uncles were the painters Moses, Raphael, and Isaac Soyer. You can hear the writer's native ear for Jewish dialect in the heavily Yiddish-inflected dialog of Mrs. Klapper (with generous use of the subjunctive "should", as in "you want I should ... ?").

Also less well-known is that he is a folk musician/singer, which plays an important role in his second book (an account of his cross-country trip with his good friend, artist and fellow musician Phil Sigunick). His love of folk music will be very much in evidence in 'The Last Unicorn'.

Now 86 years old, Beagle is, thankfully, still very much in the world of the living. Following a long legal dispute, he finally regained creative control of his works. Most of his books are now available in print, e-book, and audiobook. You can visit Peter Beagle's homepage Beagleverse [https://beagleverse.com/] for the latest on the writer.

I'm now working on Beagle's second book, 'I See by My Outfit', and enjoying it greatly.
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A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE. I'm about halfway through 'A Fine and Private Place', the second book and first novel by Peter S. Beagle, who is best known for his next book, 'The Last Unicorn'. 'A Fine and Private Place' - written when Beagle was 19 years old - is a love story involving ghosts and humans. I first read the book as a young person, so long ago that I've almost entirely forgotten the story, so it is like reading it for the first time. And I think I'm able to appreciate it much better now.

The main characters are Mr. Rebeck, a middle-aged man who haunts (as it were) the cemetery; Michael and Laura, two recently deceased individuals interred there; and Mrs. Klapper, the widow who visits the cemetery to visit her departed husband Morris, and who strikes up a friendship with Mr. Rebeck. Oh, and there's the cynical but compassionate raven, who brings Mr. Rebeck food and news from the outside.

The story is a love story, but it's also a bit of a mystery, because there are two possible suspects in Michael's death. I am a little surprised that Mr. Rebeck, himself a (now non-practicing) pharmacist, does not express more professional interest in the details of Michael's poisoning.

I'm planning to give this book a decent write-up when I've finished it. But for now, back to the book!
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I started at my present job in Portland last December. The commute from where I live in Hillsboro is about an hour by public transit, and when I started the job I was going to work in a nearly empty office building. The upper management had also decreed a full remodeling of our office space, so the four of us in the IT shop found ourselves transplanted a couple of times in the ensuing weeks.

Now, with the game of musical chairs ended and the remodeling nearly finished, the bosses have ordered a return-to-office for the workforce. (Future lexicographers will no doubt document that the initialism "RTO" entered the mainstream vocabulary around the early-to-mid 2020s.) In practice, I think most of the staff are going to be allowed to work from home 1 or 2 days a week, but the leadership have been very clear that the expectation is for in-office work to be the norm once again.

The IT crew supervisor (i.e. my immediate boss) is an extroverted, talkative dude about 10 years younger than me, with longish hair and (seasonally) either a short beard or a mustache; I believe he moonlights as a jazz guitarist, and he certainly looks the part. He has a family that he's very devoted to. He's very knowledgeable about the IT field, obviously, but he is the antithesis of the stereotypical introverted IT geek. So with the rush of people back into the office, he divides his time between IT troubleshooting and supervisory duties, and chatting with buddies in the office that he hasn't seen for 3 to 5 years.

I'm not quite as outgoing as this guy is, but I am definitely welcoming the return of living, breathing humanity to the workplace. I've always been a bit of a loner by habit and temperament, but the past five years have brought home to me how much I value being around other people.
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It's been a little while since I've posted!

WORK. I have been busy busy busy. Work has been demanding my attention, energy, and time. The daily commute to Portland has been an adjustment after my last job, where I had the luxury of a 5-minute drive from my front door. But the job is going well, and I asked Nate, my supervisor, to put me down for the additional duty of keeping up with the inventory of laptops in the server room. I'm a big fan of on-site work, as opposed to remote, and even though the commute (an hour by public transit) is a demand on my time, I still prefer it over working fully remote or even hybrid. As long as I gotta go to Portland for my job, I'll do it every day. So, that makes me the obvious candidate for the things that can't be done remotely, like physically tracking the IT assets.

LEARNING. I've committed to renewing my CompTIA A+ certification (that's the entry-level cert for IT work) this year. That means keeping up with a disciplined program of study, taking some of the official training courses, and passing two exams (Core 1 and Core 2) to earn the certification. My old cert is from 2015, and it's the one and only professional credential I have to my credit at the moment. I aim to fix that.

SOCIETY. I've been busy with the local Party chapter and the conservative meetups. A minor shakeup in our local leadership means that we have a new communications chair, and I'll be working with her to recruit volunteers for our participation in local community events, most of which occur during the summer months.

PLANS. Finances are still tight, but if FDR's legacy comes through as expected, I should see my first Social Security check next week, which will make life a lot easier. In particular, it'll help me finance the training and certification I mentioned above, as an investment in being more profitably employed in my later working years. [340]

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