Camp Hillel photos - 2 of 2

Peace Out.

Them's the pics. Coming soon:
Benji writes in from B.C!

Camp Hillel photos - 1 of 2

Moe dreams about Strawberry Fields.

Last weekend was Camp Hillel. A gaggle of university and college aged kids piled into a school bus, and our driver Jojo took us up into northern Ontario. With trees, lakes, and animals surrounding us, it is rather surprising that all the photos here are of people. You'll notice regular Shul of Rockers, such as Dr. Love, Barry, Soph, and myself. We were joined by Ben-Zi, and single time commenters Moe and Noam. You'll also spy our boy Ronen, amongst many other wonderful folk. Thanks to Daniel Abramson and Noah Slepkov for helping keep things running smoothly. Enjoy the photos - there's more coming soon.


The odd couple.


Noam and lil Vandy.


$5 says he's playing 'Fat Bottomed Girls'.


1 iPod + 1 pair of speakers + people = Hall party!


Aww!


Put on 3-D glasses for this one.


Rabbi Love blesses Moe.

A Kodak moment.


Who has the funnier face? Tell us in the comment section!


More to come.

Yeshiva Life - The First Weeks: Snoopy in Israel

Regular Shul of Rock reader Snoopy (aka Eli) is checking in with his latest post from Israel. He has encountered G.I. Joey (aka Joey) in his journey! It's a small world after all:

And so, I continue my adventures in Israel.

I last left off writing from Haifa, sitting in my cousin's father-in-law's apartment. I should start off by saying that my attempt at hanging out with Joey was successful, though not quite as successful as I would have liked it to be. You see, when you meet up with a friend in extremely hot summer weather and you're wearing a sweatshirt, you know that's never a good sign.

Yes, I was sick. Thankfully, it was just the tail end of basic fever symptoms. I was well enough to hang out in the apartment, but that was about it. But the best news from it was that I personally got to debut Good Memories 2 for him (A music video featuring many Shul of Rock readers and staff - Avi). I swear, I nearly saw a tear come to his eyes. Or maybe I actually did, it was a little hard to tell.

That Tuesday also began my life in Yeshiva, as of nightfall. That entire day basically consisted of driving from Haifa to Jerusalem, making various business meetings along the way, concluding with a dinner for the entire Yeshiva at a restaurant.

The next day we were up early and out to a Tiyul (trip, pronounced tee-yule) to the City of David (Ir David) canals. An entire trip based around the history of a water canal might not seem all that interesting at first, but once you listen to the speeches while seeing the current state of an archeological dig, and then go on a 20-40 minute freezing cold water walk in an underground in pitch black (including very narrow passageways), you'll understand why I was having the time of my life. I shot some pictures once in a while, none will be pictured in this post at all, and I also found out that my camera's LCD was bright enough to lead the way while I wasn't shooting any pictures. We ended the night at the Kotel (Western Wall), and then headed back to the Yeshiva and dorms for the night.

Up bright and early again the next morning, I think I should take the time to mention that my schedule is 7:15 am to 10 pm Sundays to Thursdays, we started our regular classes. The fact that I'm in a special program has its benefits. Even though I'm tired as hell some days, I find the program to be just the speed I need, and with plenty of trips and optional Ulpan (Hebrew classes), I'm having a great time here. More to come on my learning as time goes on.

This past week we went to the Nautical and Regional Centre to go learn about Techailet (the blue dye that's supposed to go on the Tzitzit). We also went to the Mediterranean to go find the actual snails from which the dye is produced. Quite a salty snorkelling experience.

My classes continue on as normal, and I'm still having a great time, although the food isn't necessarily the best. The people are great, that includes the Rabbis, the classes are fun and involving, and I even had a room to myself for a week, that was pretty sweet.

There's more to come, especially since I'm off on another Tiyul tomorrow.

That's all for now,

Snoopy

Doctor Love's Advice Column #2

The Doctor is back with more advice for all you lovelorn, confused, and curious out there. He has also returned to entertain all of you that get a kick out of his unique sense of humour and distinct opinions. *ding* Round Two has begun.

Some of these questions were culled from random locations spread out across the internet. Others were sent in by readers. In the future, if you have an anonymous question for Doc Love, just send it via Mr. T at the address listed near the bottom of this page. Please be advised that Dr. Love is not a licensed professional and his advice is mainly intended for entertainment purposes only. If you manage to get anything else out of it – well, good for you.


Don't knock the nachos

Hi,
Asked this guy out a month ago. I was really scared to do it but I did it. Well, he called back and left a message saying he was seeing someone else. I thought, well okay now I know. Forgot all about it...so I thought. He came into the store I worked at and caught me by surprise! I thought my legs were going to give out and feeling like I couldn't talk. He came through the drive thru another time and I knocked the nacho containers over! Also I have been having dreams about him.The question I have is will I ever get over this guy? I'm not sad about it and I'm not crying about it either but it is rather confusing.

- Angelglow

Doctor Love answers:


Dear Angelglow,

The second you meet another guy you won’t even know who this guy was. You just have to keep your eyes open and keep playing the field. And watch out for the nacho containers!

Wipe that smile off your face!

When you smile at a random woman out in public, what type of smile do you give her? A big wide one? A smirk? Somewhere in between?What has worked the best for you?

- Tony Touch

Doctor Love answers:


Dear Mr. Touch,

I am not sure I understand the question. Let me get one thing straight I do give people advice on how to pick up girls. If you need help getting girls, firstly you need a real psychiatrist because you obviously have self-esteem issues and secondly, take 90 minutes out of your day and go watch the movie “Hitch” it will teach you a lot about ladies. As for your question “What has worked the best for you” When I smile at a girl I smile for 2 reasons 1) I brushed my teeth and am proud! And 2) Smiling to be friendly because I am in a good jolly mood and believe it or not just flat out happy. I don’t work on my smile. I just give a normal typical smile. Seriously speaking, if you have an agenda behind your smile then please call an expert right away and get the help you need. Please note I will not treat you if your questions are as pathetic and juvenile as this one.

Where the ladies at?

Ok, let's face. I go to a bar/club and I see nothing but scantily clad women drinking and just looking for a good time.I really don't know where I can find a good woman. I am trying online personal sites. I am emailing different women and I am just wondering how you go about talking to someone online and meeting them.I need tips, secrets, hints....anything at all. Online dating is definitely a heck of a lot different than face to face. If anyone can give any tips on how to effectively meet someone...let me know. Thanks.

- BrnxBmbr

Doctor Love answers:


Dear BrnxBmbr,

That is a very good question. You are asking it all wrong. It’s not where to find girls its where NOT to find them and I’ll explain why. When man goes looking for something he never finds it, it can be a remote, keys, girls etc. It is only when man isn’t looking is when it turned up. You have to change your approach. I go to bars/clubs sometimes but when I go I am going for the music, drinks and to be with friends or even a guy’s night out. If anything else happens i.e. find 20.00 on the ground or meet someone I consider it a bonus. The problem you seem to be having is you are putting to much emphasis on the opposite sex and when it doesn’t happen you feel let down. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself and just have fun. If you want to meet girls that badly then just continue to go out because you won’t find any at home.

For www.shulofrock.blogspot.com I’m Dr. Love

Don't worry Dan the Man! The answer for your question is coming up!

Previous Dr. Love Columns:
Dr. Love #1

My Big Muslim Mix-up

(Dr. Love is coming soon!)

Earlier this morning, I had my first Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations class. NMC256. That's code for 'Modern Israeli Poetry and Prose'. My computer printout stated that the lecture was to be held in room #215 at Bancroft Hall. I located the room and took a seat.

As attendance was read by the instructor, I began to notice that there weren't any Jewish names. Just Mohammeds, Hassans, and Achmeds. I began to look around. Three girls sat in the back of the class, wearing hijabs. "Alright," I thought "Maybe there are a lot of Muslims interested in Israeli literature." The names continued and eventually came to a halt. My name had not been read.

"Excuse me. Professor?" I called out, determined to clarify my co-ordinates. "Is this NMC256? Modern Israeli Poetry and Prose?"

"No! This is NMC387H! The Islamic Mystical Tradition!" As I sat there wearing my kippah (yarmulke), I listened as all the students laughed at me. I grabbed my bag and sprinted for the door. I soon found the class I was looking for, and it is now currently one of my favourites. How I got there is one helluva story on it's own. In hindsight, my misadventure was quite funny, but at the time? Not so much.

Shul of Rock reader statistics

Readers of this fine blog come from all around the world. Here are the current stats:

37.89% of traffic comes from Americans. USA! USA!
36.84% of traffic comes from from Canadians, eh?
11.58% of people reading the site are doing so from Israel. Sababa!
6.32% of the chaps that come to the site are from the UK.
3.16% are from the Netherlands. Shul van Rock is prachtig. Ik ga akkoord.
2.11% of readers are coming from Australia, mate. Krikey!
1.05% are Ugandans. (Insert Uganda joke here)
1.05% are Mexicans. Ay carumba! ¡Shul de la Roca es el mejor blog siempre!

When it comes to browsers, a whopping 58% of you use IE. Firefox and Safari are also quite popular.

61% of you use a resolution of 1024x768.

97% of you are running a Windows OS. 3% of you are running Mac OS X.

Viva Shul de la Roca!

Toronto's Most Notorious Hobo

This man is quite arguably Toronto's most notrious hobo. I first encountered him at Bathurst Station, while waiting for the 7 bus to arrive. I was accompanied by Joey Lightstone, a man who while not a genuine hobo, occasionally appears as one when he frolicks barefoot and longhaired through public parks and downtown streetscapes.

The hobo pictured above has a few signature traits. They are as follows:

- He always carries a white patio chair with him
- He always has a zany beard
- He is never dressed appropriately for the weather (a heavy coat in the summer, and a t-shirt in the late fall)
- He is articulate, and delights in telling tall tales

As Joey and I stood waiting for our bus to arrive, Hobo was seated comfortably in his patio chair. He did not carry a look of smug satisfaction on his face; Just comfort.
Upon boarding the bus, our homeless hero began to spin tales about his life as an RCMP officer. He was no ordinary mountie, but a secret one. He was part of covert operations of some sort - so secret that he could not really share (or remember). One month later, I would spy him again. This time he was enjoying his patio chair at Queen's Park station. I don't think he noticed me.

Jump ahead one and a half years to the present day. I was about to board a bus at Glencairn and Bathurst when I looked across the street and noticed a humble hobo pushing a cart. It was hot outside, but he wore a jacket. He was talking on a public phone, telling a wild tale about his journey to the corner. Inside the shopping cart lay a white patio chair. It was the hobo!
If you ever spot him, give him a hearty hello. If you are generous enough to offer him a sandwich and a kind word, he will repay you with a story. I hope you enjoy it as much as he does.

Comics are not always comical

Home at last! Sort of - Snoopy in Israel

(the view from Snoopy's plane window)

Shul of Rock regular, Snoopy, has just landed in Israel for what will be one of the most amazing years of his life. His personal blog, Life through the lens, is usually only viewable if he is in your MSN list, but here we have an exclusive peek into the life of Snoopy as he recounts the hardest part of his journey - flying across the world. Enjoy.

Thus begins my first official correspondence from Israel. Time to get this started.

Welcome one and all, punkers and rockers, slackers, soldiers, voice actors and all the rest. My, currently, short tale begins with a hectic repacking of my bags at Pearson International Airport. This whole bag weighing system is way out of date. They have to stop weighing only the passenger's bags and start weighing the passengers. It's not that I wasn't able to take everything with me, but I shouldn't have had to open my checked in luggage just to take 4 kilograms of stuff out of my carry on. I had to take out my knapsack (which I feel shouldn't have had to have been packed into another bag in te first place) out of my carry on and put it into one of my checked bags. All this right in front of the check-in point, with all those people in the other lines watching!

Nonetheless, I did, quite thankfully, get all of my stuff on the plane. That includes my tripod, which my parents said I would never get on the plane unless it was packed in something. And after a brief pass through security, where they do "the test" (where ya from? what's your name? can you speak Hebrew?...) and checked bag X-ray, I was off to the boarding gate, that is after another brief pass through security, metal detectors and carry on X-ray. You know, they say El-Al has some of the best security in the world, now you know why.

After all the security checks and picking up and putting down and rolling my luggage around, I was finally able to make my way to the boarding gate. A quick look at my ticket, and I was off, down the seemingly endless hall on two extremely long horizontal escalators (to my knowledge they don't have another name, so please let me know if there is one). Of course, I did end up reaching the end of the hall, only to find myself lost because there were no more directional signs and my gate was nowhere to be found. So I decided to venture forward through an unguarded door that was straight ahead of me. I figured that since there numbers were still going correctly in order before I got to that point. Lo and behold, as I passed through the door, there were more gates to be found and, to my amazement, one of them was mine!

The wait for boarding was quite uneventful, save for a few calls from other airlines about switched gates and passenger stuff that for some reason sounded like it was coming from my gate's comm system, me taking a ginger tablet for my stomach (the supposed natural equivalent of Gravol), and one other thing. As I was sitting and waiting, playing around with my camera, since I didn't really have much else to do, I took the occasional glance around at the people who had also made their way to the gate, and I was shocked to find that walking towards the gate was someone I know. I had not expected to know anyone on the flight at all. This was incredible. So, I got his attention, he walked over, sat down and we started talking. He told me he was also going to Yeshiva a week early and that he was in fact returning for another full year devoted to Jewish studies. He also mentioned something rather interesting that I, during my previously mentioned occasional glances, hadn't noticed. The gate seemed rather empty for a flight to Israel. "Hey, maybe we'll get bumped to first class", he told me jokingly. I told him I doubted it and at best we'd get business, if anything. Then came the boarding call.

I picked up my things and prepared to get on the plane. And as I did, an almost entire plane's load of people came rushing down a staircase on the other side of a window that was between the gate and the boarding tunnel. As it turned out the plane wasn't quite as empty as we had thought. My flight was apparently stopping over in Toronto, not originating from there. As I later found out from some of the other passengers, including the guy sitting next to me, an Israeli named Roii (that's pronounced Roh-ee, stress on the ee for all you non-Hebrew speakers), the flight had come in to Toronto via L.A. and it was only a direct flight for those boarding from Toronto. I had no issue with the plane being packed. So I didn't get bumped to first or business class, or have an entire row to myself, big deal. I was on my way to Israel.

The flight started off alright, like every flight I've ever been on in my life. Since I had a window seat I decided to take advantage of it and take a couple of pics (shown below). Unfortunately, the flight being alright didn't last for very long. About one or two hours into it, post dinner meal, I started feeling my usual air sickness coming on. I think I should take the time to mention this only happens to me on flights to Israel, not that I've been to any other overseas countries, and also, the airplane food El-Al serves is damn good stuff, so the usual airplane food jokes and stereotypes don't apply to this situation. Either way, I had about 9 or so hours left till we touched down in Tel Aviv, and my stomach was telling me it wasn't really in the mood to hold out for that long. I knew I had to do something fast. First, I dropped another couple of ginger tablets. Next, I got up and headed to speak to the crew. They were all rushing back and forth doing their thing, trying to make people sit down because the seatbelt signs were on due to turbulence. I managed to get their attention and point out my problem. Their immediate perscription; lemon slices. That's right people, lemon slices! So, I took a bunch of lemon slices in a cup, sat down, and made due till the seatbelt sign shut off.

I don't know how, but I managed, with a steady supply of lemon slices and Coke (ugh I hate carbonated drinks), to calm my stomach, well enough, for the rest of the flight. And once we had decended past 5000 feet and were nearing Tel Aviv, I was completely fine. I was also able to get my camera out again and snap some pics from above the clouds and from our landing (also shown below).

I had arrived! Tired and a little ill from the flight and being up all night taking care of my stomach problem, I was looking forward to doing a little walking and sitting at good old ground level. The new terminal is so beautiful, it's a marvel of Israeli architecture and design. I made my way through the maze of people, signs and security points all the way to baggage claim, where I sat waiting for my luggage to pop onto one of those big oval conveyer belts that every major airport seems to have. Once I grabbed my luggage and passed through customs, I was out in the main waiting area for arrivals, where my cousin and two of his children were already waiting for me.

So here I am, sitting in Haifa, drinking lemon Prigat and typing away on a keyboard to tell all of this to all of you. Last night, I enjoyed myself at a barbeque with my cousin's friends and watched a movie. Later today I'll be heading to my cousin's brother's place for Shabbat. And on Sunday, if all goes well, I'll be back in Haifa and hanging out with none other than the Joey Lightstone!

That's all for now. More to follow in the coming weeks and months,

Snoopy