Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Kinnernet 2007 memories and musings

A few weeks ago I attended Kinnernet 2007, a unique adult summer camp (but held in the spring) mostly for computer and internet geniuses, and other assorted strangely talented but otherwise harmless people. The camp 'director' Yossi Vardi (to the right of me in photo), kindly invited me, despite my limited understanding of all things internet (I suppose I belong tothe second category of invited). The three-day camp (some call it an 'unconference') was a smashing success (some smashed computers, some got smashed, some did both). At Kinnernet, I was a member of the band (on tenor sax) led by the amazing Michal Levy (on left in photo) and gave a talk on bad breath, body odor and sex, which is something I do on occasion (give talks, that is). During the daytime, I study bad breath and body odors, as a university professor and inventor. At nighttime, I turn into a sax player and singer (mostly nostalgiac jazz and some rock and roll). During the rest of my spare time, I like to write children's books. Which brings me back to Kinnernet 2007. For the past 25 years, I have been considered something of an ugly duckling by my academic 'friends' who think I should be spending more time among test tubes and less time with my otherpursuits. But I think that life is all about doing many things simultaneously. So imagine how very at home I felt among some 200 other Kinnernet campers whowere like me, but much moreso.


In my previous post, I told you a little about little Ottawa (there is much more to tell) where I grew up as a young, chubby, nerd of a kid. Among my first grade colleagues was a girl named Selma Tennenhouse. Her baby brother David, (who was actually a baby the last time I saw him, almost fifty years ago) was a fellow Kinnernet camper, now a computer guru. Quite a coincidence running into him. By the way, I also have a baby brother, also named David, who has turned into a very successful and amazing guy. Hag Pesach Sameach, David! (Which, for all of those readers who aren't Jewish, have no plans to become Jewish, don't know Hebrew, etc., means Happy Passover).


More on Passover, Judaism, Christianity and life in my next post. Regards to all,


Mel

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Mel
Glad to hear you got on well with my brother. (he's my "bigger" brother now). Sounds like you have been doing some very interesting things.
Selma.