Travel

Glass Half Full – Better Place Transforms Station Error into Customer Service Case Study

February 20, 2013

Hey Better Place electric car aficionados: ever wonder what would happen if you pulled into one of the company’s fully automated battery swap stations and it didn’t work? Well, I’m here to tell the tale. It’s a classic glass half empty/half full situation. Half empty: the station broke down and we weren’t able to get […]

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Waze to go, GPS

January 9, 2013

I wrote last week on Israelity about some innovative ways that data from the Israeli traffic and mapping app Waze is being used by researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Waze was in the news again this morning, but for less positive reason. When the intense rains that have hit Israel over the past three days flooded […]

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Buses Here and There

December 7, 2012

I grew up in a small suburb in the San Francisco Bay Area with no public transportation. This was tough because I have always been fascinated (my family would say obsessed) by buses, trams, trains and the like. San Francisco had pretty much everything a transit head like me could desire, including electric trolleys, streetcars […]

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Politics and Electric Cars

November 21, 2012

Does electric car company Better Place discriminate against driving across the Green Line? Now, certainly, Better Place will be happy to sell you a shiny new 100% gasoline-free Renault Fluence, no matter where you live. But in our brief time driving our own Better Place car, OSCAR – the company’s personable if flaky GPS – […]

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Stepping Out on the New Jerusalem Bike Trail

October 5, 2012

I’ve never been a cyclist, but after seeing some of the incredible bike trail ringing Jerusalem, I think I’m might just have to take up the sport. Every year, during the intermediary days of the Sukkot holiday, the city sponsors the Tzada’at Yerushalayim – translated as roughly “Jerusalem Steps”(or perhaps better “Jerusalem March”  – a series […]

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A Date in Jerusalem

August 9, 2012

Every year on our wedding anniversary, my wife Jody and I try to get away to a bed and breakfast/spa, somewhere in Israel for a night or two. This year, however, the prices were even higher than usual – the cost for a vacation in Israel was double that for a flight and hotel in […]

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Emek Tzurim Park: a Hidden Treasure in Jerusalem

April 17, 2012

The beginning point of Emek Tzurim File this one in the “who knew?” department. During the intermediary days of Passover, my wife and I had the opportunity to join a guided tour through the Tzurim Valley that begins at the Mount Scopus campus of Hebrew University and ends at the Dung Gate entrance to the Old City, […]

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Stranded in the Judean Desert

March 15, 2012

Admiring the view…before the sun went down I got the SMS around 3:00 PM on Friday. “Abba, I’m OK. But we’re kind of stuck on top of a mountain.” It was our 14-year-old son Aviv who was out with five students from his school, plus one of his teachers, on a “preparation hike.” The idea […]

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You Got Chocolate in My Wine! No, You Got Wine in My Chocolate!

January 19, 2012

Wine and chocolate at Tishbi I’m a big fan of wine tastings. And an even bigger fan of chocolate. So when I had the opportunity to visit the new Tishbi tasting center, which combines both wine and gourmet imported French chocolate, my interest was piqued. Moreover, my palette was proud of yet another Israeli innovation, […]

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Train Construction Ahead

November 8, 2011

Posing in Tunnel 3A When our kids were young, we had a videotape they used to love called “Road Construction Ahead” which was all about, well, road construction. It featured hard hats, tractors and lots of concrete. The truth is, I loved it too – I’m a nut when it comes to anything in the […]

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