I was at a training session on Thursday and Friday that was incredibly boring. The teacher was about 75 and it took him two days (14 hours) to go through 50 slides. He also kept going off on tangents on his time in the Navy. I can’t say the class was too useful, and I really don’t think I learned a single thing I can remember. Towards the end of our lunch break on Friday a few of us who had trickled back into the classroom were talking and joking about how we wished the class would end sooner so we could just get out of there. As a joke I walked up to the teacher’s laptop and hit the forward button a few times. I assumed that when he came back in he would notice and we’d all have a good laugh. When he came back in I said “Hey Allen – lunch is over – let’s hear abour electronic spreadsheets” (which was the title of the slide I had stopped on). To my complete surprise the teacher bought it. He started talking about electronic spreadsheets (as opposed to non-electronic spreadsheets?) and didn’t notice that we’d skipped about an hours worth of slides. He did notice at the end that we had finished earlier than the class usually finishes, but he just chalked it up to our efficiency and the rest of us kept our mouths shut.

Among the many (many many many) things I’ve been doing for my upcoming wedding is getting a ketubah (Jewish marriage contract). The ketubah is written in Aramaic, the language of the talmud. I ordered the ketubah online and filled out a form wherein they asked for the bride and groom’s names, parents names, place and date of wedding, etc. (All of which goes into the ketubah). Today they faxed me a proof-text so I could check for typos. I was amazed at how many I found. Some typos are understandable (they spelled Belzer with an extra silent letter), however some are not. In Hebrew Rebecca is Rivka – a four letter name and also the name of one of the four biblical matriarchs. They somehow spelled it wrong. Now I’m normally not a stickler for spelling (I don’t even bother to spellcheck my blog as you may have noticed), but this is absurd. They spelled Rivka Resh-yud-pey-kuf-alef. On the stupidity scale this is like not knowing how to spell the name Mark, John, or Paul, and I can’t say that it inspires a lot of confidence in me.