shabbat shalom 05.04.12

From: Linda Whittaker <olsvig2000@yahoo.com>

To: linda.whittaker@npa.org.il
Sent: Thursday, April 5, 2012 3:32 AM
Subject: Fw: shabbat shalom 05.04.12

--- On Thu, 4/5/12, לינדה וויטיקר linda whittaker <linda.whittaker@npa.org.il> wrote: From: לינדה וויטיקר linda whittaker <linda.whittaker@npa.org.il> Subject: shabbat shalom 05.04.12 To: "'Linda Whittaker'" <olsvig2000@yahoo.com> Date: Thursday, April 5, 2012, 1:16 PM Hi everyone,   Thursday afternoon it normally gets quiet around the office as staff workers take a half day off work to do chores and errands or just go do something fun for the weekend.  (Remember in Israel the weekend is Friday and Saturday; while Sunday is a normal working day.)  With the Passover meal coming tomorrow night, nearly everyone emptied out of the office by noon today, so I'm pretty much alone here until I also slip out to run errands.  You could shoot cannon down the hall on this floor and not hit anyone right now.   I had to finish up the financial reporting on our four years in EBONE, which took a couple days of accounting work in our office.  Since our time invested in the project translated to a financial contribution from my organization, this turned out to be quite a lot of money.  I don't know how much reimbursement we will see, but for sure we put in a lot more than we needed to do.  It doesn't really matter; we worked on this project for our own reasons and got a lot more out of it than we planned.   In fact I got a lovely compliment from Y. Shkedy, our chief scientist.  It read in part   Dear Linda, You have managed to run the project to its end, accomplishing much more than we planned. All thanks to you, and your ability to make us all work. The results deserve the efforts.   Bravo!   On behalf of all the EBONE team I thank you.   Sincerely, Shkedy   Well, my goodness! This was the same guy who was trying to fire me some five years ago…..we have indeed come a long way and he's learned to respect me and my work.  This is to a good advantage.  I had a talk with Shkedy about the next years, and we agreed I will focus on inventory and monitoring.     By the end of this year, all my computer work, at least the database management part of it for which I was originally hired, will be outsourced to a company called "TevaSave", which is taking over all the computational work for our organization.  While I have my doubts about their ability to handle it, they must take on board all the fifteen or so databases I manage, and do it by the end of the year or face paying a whopping financial penalty.  So they will do it whether they can or not, I think.   The means that no later than January 2013, I will be 95% free to chart my own course for the next three years.  I have established a working group to chart a rational monitoring program for our organization, and we have selected five pilot studies to do it.  That's enough to start.  It will not be complete when I retire in three years but it will definitely keep me occupied.   Also keeping me occupied will be a new AA sponsee.  She's about my age, and acts as office manager for one of the most right wing extremist political parties in Israel .  I was aghast to learn that, but apart from being a self-admitted fascist, she's intelligent, tough and funny.  (A fascist with a sense of humor???)  We met a couple times already, and she's indeed going to be a handful, but at least is not a weepy, wimpy person begging to be told what to do.  I just give advice, I don't steer her life.  She'd probably kill me if I ever tried….a lot like me in many ways.   Spring is here, time to clean the house, put away the winter clothing, and bring out the summer clothing.  I've gone from woolen socks to sandals as the daytime temperature soared from 15oC to 28oC (imperial system folks, go figure it out).  Throw open the windows, clean the garden.  Our spring is beautiful, but brief, and this is the peak of it now, with flowers everywhere.  Little wild irises are blooming even in the cracks of the pavement in my village.  This coming week of holiday, I should take time among the spring cleaning activities to at least go out to see the flowers somewhere in nature.   As the years go by, I find myself hating winter, as arthritis sets in and it takes determination just to get out of bed.  As the temperature warms, life comes back into my operating systems and with it, also energy to do extra things.  The days are light until 7 pm now, and long walks are possible with the dogs when I get home.   Much needed too.  My diet suffered during late winter and I will have to focus on salads and long walks all summer to make up for it.  I'm still losing weight but not as fast as my dietician had hoped.  We have some medical tests to do; she suspects the new formula thyroxin we get these days is not as good for me as the old one had been, and it simply is not being absorbed as well.  This is fine with me; more thyroxin in the system is an easy way to lose weight!!!   I guess that is about all for now.  Happy Passover, happy Easter.   Linda     Linda.Whittaker@npa.org.il   Or send mail to my alternate address:  olsvig2000@yahoo.com   Dr. Linda Olsvig-Whittaker Science and Conservation Division Israel Nature and Parks Authority 3 Am Ve Olamo Street, Givat Shaul Jerusalem 95463, Israel Telephone: +972-2-5005444; Fax +972-2-5014861; mobile phone +972-526-693-794   Data service: < http://ww2.bgbm.org/natureinfo > INPA website: <www.parks.org.il> EBONE website: www.ebone.wur.nl