short takes

Okaaay... "thingamabob" is sort of in the dictionary. But I don't think the first entry (from American Heritage) counts. :-)

(This arose from a bit of linguistic anthropology. The words I use for this are "thingamajig" (spoken only, except in meta-conversations like this) or (more common) "doohickey" or "thingy"; Dani uses "thingamabob".)

I persuaded a developer today to implement the correct, general solution to a problem, rather than the expedient solution that would have been good enough for his current needs (only) but would be hard to maintain. Yay. As an extra bonus, I anticipated one area where he might have been tempted to hard-code a value and persuaded him not to. I love it when these things work. :-)

Speaking of developer interactions, it's nice when "how do I do such-and-such with this interface?" generates the response "you're right, that should be supported; I'll take care of it". :-) (I thought the problem was my lack of knowledge, not his lack of support.)

I tried a new-to-me recipe for fish stew tonight (thanks src). It had a mix of spices that struck me as unusual, but it works well. Definitely a keeper. I couldn't find cellophane noodles (would that be dry, frozen, or refrigerated?), so I served it over rice and that worked.

(For anyone who's wondering, src is her initials, not a Unix reference. I didn't get that right away either. :-) )

an opportunity?

I received a (physical) flyer in the mail today from my rabbi, sans context, for the UAHC Sh'liach K'hilah program, a program to train lay leaders for (apparently) significant congregational roles: "Participants who successfully complete the Sh'liach K'hilah program will be able to serve their congregation either by assisting an ordained/invested clergy with the sacred work of the synagogue or, in those congregations without clergy, by serving as a synagogue leader."

The FAQ says that one of the responsibilities of the sponsoring rabbi is "to verify that the congregation will have an appropriate role for the applicant should s/he be accepted to the program and that the applicant is suited to serve the congregation".

Now I've heard about this program before and ogled it from afar, but I hadn't seen very much information. (The last time I visited the web site there wasn't much to it, but that's changed. Either Mozilla or Acrobat is choking on their PDFs, so I can't actually read some of the materials yet.) And that ogling has been more of a "gee, that would be neat, though it's not like I'd have a chance to actually apply any of it in my congregation". But -- a condition of being accepted to the program would be having an opportunity to apply what I learn, according to them. That's significant.

Some of the information is vague (like the curriculum), and some is inaccessible (at least for me right now). And maybe my rabbi just sent this to me because he had to find a home for it and the worship chair makes sense -- or maybe it's a suggestion/offer. I won't be able to ask him before tomorrow, so it's premature to write this, but... wow, that sure would be neat, and if he does have that degree of confidence in me, well that's awfully flattering.

This would be about as close to formal quasi-rabbinic training as I'm ever likely to get -- emphasis on the "quasi", as the program is measured in weeks rather than years and I know better than to be presumptuous. But the real thing is pretty unlikely to ever happen, and this is something I could actually do, and benefit from personally, and (apparently) benefit from congregationally. So it's worth investigating!