now I know

One of my small-scale "fears" -- except that "fear" is way too strong a word for it -- is of oversleeping due to a power failure taking out the alarm clock. I have been known, when it's really important to be up early for something, to set the alarm on my watch as a backup. (This doesn't happen often. Once every several years, maybe.)

Last night demonstrated that this is no longer necessary. The unsynchronized beeping from two UPSs is enough to wake me even with the ambient noise of Forbes Avenue with windows open. This is good; it means I can shut things down gracefully and set a mechanical alarm if necessary. (Last night, as it turned out, power was only out for about 5 minutes, so I didn't need to do anything.)

(I guess the last time this happened Dani didn't have his UPS yet and my office was still in the basement.)

Ironically, I came in to work to an unusually-quiet office: things are quiet when the computer isn't running. I thought maybe we'd had a power glitch here that had exceeded the battery in the UPS. Nope, nothing like that: someone, presumably the cleaning person, unplugged my computer. Bah! A UPS won't help you if your computer isn't connected to it...

gay pride and evangelism

This entry, by a friend of browngirl, is a very well-written, non-hostile response to evangelism of gays.

buying a tikkun

Tonight I went to Pinsker's in search of a "tikkun", the book that gives all the torah portions with trope and division into parts. (I don't know why this is called a tikkun.) This turned out to be more challenging than I had anticipated.

[Geeking follows.]

I've heard lots of things about "Kestenbaum" (I guess that's the editor), so I looked at that one first. It's large, has English translation, and costs $60. It's also physically very heavy. I don't need English translations, and the English introduction didn't say anything new to me (near as I could tell), so I kept looking.

There was one that was entirely Hebrew (including what looked like an introduction). It didn't make the boundaries between parshiyot obvious, and I had to do some digging to find the markings between aliyot within a parsha. Fine if you know the text well; not so good if you need those guideposts, like I do.

There was another all-Hebrew one that had very small print; I didn't examine it closely.

This left the one published by Ktav. (I think that means "book". Well, same root, anyway.) It has clear headers at the beginning of each parsha and each aliya, and it shows the weekday aliya breakdowns as well. I can't tell if it gives you what you need to handle double portions; I looked at Matot-Masei (the one we're doing for that service at the end of July) and there's something at the right point for the end of the first (combined) aliya, but I can't make it out and the book does not contain an introduction explaining notation.

This book had a familiar look to it, though. Upon closer inspection, I realized that this is what David has given me photocopies from on a couple occasions. It seems to be sound, and I know I've been able to work from it in the past. And it was $20, which is a far cry from Kestenbaum.

None, not even Kestenbaum, had Hebrew that was large enough that could read without mechanical assistance. That's disappointing, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

I opted for the familiar-looking, inexpensive Ktav. And this Shabbat, I will begin learning Matot-Masei in earnest.