Having completed some blog-housekeeping activities, I realize that I'd better write about the Israel trip now before I forget everything. As things stand right now, I've been in a bit of a haze since returning due primarily to this monstrous, demonic stomach bug which has kept me from smiling much but finally seems to be subsiding a wee bit (knocking furiously on wood).

So, my traveling companion Harald and I have an 11PM flight out of Rome and so we figure, what with the increased security and whatnot, we'll leave the hotel at 5PM just to be sure. Trouble is, you can't even do anything or talk to anyone about anything more than 3h before your flight. This axiom seems to be true regardless of how long security is going to take - it may take the whole 3 hours, but you still cannot begin anything prior to 3 hours before your flight. Therefore, my advice: arrive exactly 3 hours prior to your flight. So we ask a nice info desk guy where a good place to eat is and he's looking at us like we're nuts (we figure its language barrier - Harald is German speaking English and I'm American and we're in Italy). Finally the guy manages to say something like: "Every place in Italy has great food, except airport". So we get some nasty airport food and try to work, but now my laptop has begun to reboot every minute or so and things aren't looking so good for the big demo in Israel.

By 4AM, we are claiming our luggage in the airport in Tel Aviv. The airport is big and modern and spacious and incoming security is not what you'd think - not overwhelming at all and the type of thing that happens is you're walking along in some random place and a planinlydressed young woman walks up next to you, and, still walking, starts asking questions about what you are doing and where you came from, where you are going etc. Seems like a highly qualitative model and so far I'm impressed.

Lets assume we got to bed around 5am with a plan to meet again at 10am (!?!?) and ultimately meet up with our host Ariel. Its Thursday (I think, or maybe not) and this is going to be a down day where we can sleep and rest and visit and plot world domination, etc. And prepare for the demo the next day. So the VooDoo miraculously starts working again and I'm doing some kind of dance that I think it will like to stay that way for the demo. Next thing I know I'm up and headed out to meet some people in Jerusalem. Met some potential customer folks and some more Rockwell folks, splendid people all. After a while, it was time to finish work and go out sightseeing (completely arranged by Ariel) so we piled into a Chevy Trailblazer (you don't even want to know how expensive and rare these are in Israel) and traveled directly to some of the oldest and most holy places in the world, according to 3 different religions. The walk into the center of the city takes us through a long series of twisty stone alleys all lined with shops and shops and shops and people hawking all sorts of wares (many seeming repeated over time). Finally we come upon the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and enter it. Inside there are amazing relics, tombs and sites that I will not try to describe. Suffice it to say that groups of the devout were moving from place to place, sometimes spontaneously breaking out in hymns. Despite my ignorance and lack of preparation for such a visit, I was awestruck.

After a time we moved onwards and visited the Western Wall, wish according to one source is "the most sacred spot in Jewish religious and national consciousness and tradition...". In order to approach this wall we (the men) need to cover our heads and so luckily there are a batch of cardboard head coverings forthe taking and I put one on and approach the wall, where various devout Jews are praying and moving and communicating with or through the wall in just about the most earnest manner that I could imagine. I am distracted by a few panhandlers (surprised as well) as well as a few kids with M16's milling about, as well as the unfortunate fact that my head covering keeps falling off and I keep scrambling to replace it. Nonetheless the impression is made on my mind and my senses and I see now for sure why people *actually travel*, rather than just read about things in books or on the internet.

Just beyond the wall can be seen a brilliant gold dome which I was unclear about, asked some ignorant questions, and somehow now am still unclear about. I believe that the adjacent space to the Western Wall (or very close anyway) is a Muslim holy site and is actually off limits to Israelis and therefore, our guide being Israeli, we did not visit it. Finally, we walked around a small section of the wall of Jerusalem, which Ariel promised me we could actually walk all the way around and come back to where we started ("only about 4 miles!") but we were getting tired and hungry and the parking garage might have been ready to close its gates so we piled back in teh Chevy and headed over to - you'll seriously never guess - a rooftop barbequeue at Ariel's place.

This post is getting long so I will leave it by saying that Ariel's barbequeue and hospitality could be rated on a scale of 1-10 at approximately 11, and I hope some day to be able to repay such a wonderful experience. The following day the meeting with our potential customer went swimmingly, as well I think as it possibly could have, and so all is well with a successful trip.

On the way back I got a real taste of Israeli airport security (too many wires and electronics I guess) including the multi phased dump-out-all-your-stuff, bombscan and catscan everything, put a whole bunch of it in a box to be checked into luggage, and come into this back room for the patdown and metal scan. I guess they didn't like it that I didn't have a special letter from the potential customer we visited. Oh well, live and learn. At least it was interesting. I recall during the back room search the guy was really nice and apologetic and I was really not very put out, he said something like " you don't understand, there are people who want to do terrible things to us". Hey, this is no problem at all, I'm thinking.

12 hours in a middle seat between two guys, and I've got the only in-flight entertainment system on the whole plane which does not work. Nor does my light or fan or call button, but the guy next to me mercifully left his light on while he slept so I could sort of lean that way and read. Aided by a series of J&B on the Rocks's, I did not move once from my seat the entire flight. In NJ I missed the connection of course, but luckily caught the next one after having to claim my luggage and re-check it (??) including the new box with all my electronic stuff in it, including my poor poor VooDoo. Home at last and I'm realizing that we really do have it good in the US, and despite how awesome both countries were, I really do not like to travel much.