Great news, Dovster ! BTW, to say, "Bon appetit!" in Spanish, we say, "Buen provecho." All short vowels, so pronounced "Buehn proh-veh-choh".

I thought it was Bwayne Pro Veh Cho. ;)

And the veh isn't pronounced like the vey after oy :p

It would have been simpler to wish Dovster בתאבון. 😜

You guys! You be careful out there and stay safe out there! I knew the war is not over yet. I wonder what happened to all of those people who were stuck in Israel. There’s no way to get them back to the United States. I’m afraid you’re still stuck there for a long time. You can’t get out of Israel! How about rescue flights? I am very worried about my friends who live in Israel. They are going to try to get them out of there.

El Al and several other airlines, including Etihad, LOT, Aegean, Ethiopian and Air Europa, currently fly between TLV and the US, Europe and elsewhere. No one is stuck in Israel.

I just renewed my car insurance. The value of my car was listed by the insurance company as US $27,860. As I bought it (a KIA Ceed) second hand from a leasing company 12 years ago, it has since been in one accident, is badly scraped up, and the entertainment system does not work, I very much doubt that anybody would pay me that much for it. I am considering leaving it parked near the border with an obscenity about Hezbollah painted on it, and hope their aim is good enough for the car to be totaled and can use the insurance money to buy a much better one. :cool:

I wouldn't count on the insurance c;)mpany actually giving you $27,860 if it gets totaled. You might save some money by having them put a more realistic value on it.

The insurance company set the value on it and set my premium based on that value. I can't see how it can get away with paying me less.

This is an enhancement and, IMHO, adds value to your vehicle! It allows you to focus on the sound of your engine while you're speeding through Levantine coast.

it might be good to ask people within the insurance field because I don’t think insurance easily pays out claims to their customers without a fight. There might also be clauses within the fine print of your policy.

I checked out of my hotel yesterday and arrived home. I live on top of a mountain and it can get rather cold. Right now, it is 4 (C) degrees here, but fortunately I have a friend who sells and repairs air conditioners and I had the foresight to have him take care of both of mine (mostly the problem is that they leaked gas during the past 18 months) so it is comfortably warm in my house.

Welcome home Dovster :-)

So good to see you back in your house again. It’s been so long since wars have started. So now the war is over. I’m sure you will be fine with that too. Hope they are peace and restoration of their country.

Sadly, the war is not over -- although it has reduced in intensity in the North. Hezbollah has been crippled to the point where it can only shoot a handful of short-range rockets every week or so and the IDF then returns fire. On our kibbutz we hear a lot of explosions but are informed ahead of time that is only the army doing drills. In Gaza it is a different story completely and 10,000 Israeli reservists were called up for active duty last week.

However, even in the north the after-effects of the earlier fighting are still being felt. Many shops (especially restaurants) remain shuttered. I have to get my eyes checked to renew my driving license and went to the city of Kiryat Shmona two days ago to get examined and there are four optometrists who have shops in the city but not one of them was open. I am going to look for one in a city which is further south.

Yeah, I'm aware of that. I still keep reading the news everyday. We're always listen the news on my social media. It's extremely importance. I still can't believe the war still ongoing. Too many people were killed. I cannot imagine what happened in Israel. This must stop! We no longer visit Israel. It's not safe for us at all. Someday in the future when the war is over. You're only hope!

Thanks for the update Dovster and hope you find an optometrist

I had a strange experience with that. Three days ago, I went to Kiryat Shmona and was examined by an opthamologist who did a careful examination of my eyes and told me I have 20/20 vision. He did not, however, fill out the form for my driving license. He told me that checking my peripheral vision must be certified by an optometrist as only they have the needed machine. That is when I discovered that none of optometrists in the city are working.

Today, I went to Safed where there was an optometrist working. She also confirmed my 20/20 sight and told me I do not need eyeglasses. When I asked about my peripheral vision, she held a pen behind my head and then moved it to my right side and said I should tell her when I see it. Then she repeated it on my left side and told me it is fine in both sides and filled out the required form and stamped it.

If a pen is all the equipment needed for this, I have to wonder why the opthamologist cannot afford to buy one!

There are different ways of testing peripheral vision; some are more sensitive than others. Whether testing it with a slowly moving pen (or finger) truly satisfies Israeli requirements I cannot say.

For more sensitive perimeter tests, see: tangent screen, and Goldmann perimeter.

Tariffs dear. Tariffs.

You mean "Freedom Taxes".

Tariffs are not part of the problem. They are only paid on imported items and Israel's general limit is 10%. Of course, we also pay 18% VAT on all purchases, including domestically-produced items, but I can't see where adding 18% to the price of an ordinary ballpoint pen would make it too expensive for my HMO to supply it to its opthamologists.

The vision requirements for a Class B Israeli driver license are online:

"Eyesight: 6/12 in at least one eye, horizontal field of view no less than 120 degrees in both eyes combined. Use of eyeglasses or contact lenses is permitted."

I do have to wonder whether an optometrist or ophthalmologist can verify that one has at least 120 degrees of horizontal vision just by moving a pen -- but I do not have the expertise to say one way or the other.

I suspect that this optometrist used the Yihyeh Beseder*screening method.

Yihyeh Beseder = It’ll be ok

Dovster , I expect that this is not the first time that you've renewed your Israeli driver license. How was your peripheral vision tested in the past? Or is the peripheral-vision test a relatively new requirement?

I've traveled many times to LA during the drive by shooting. I wasn't nervous.
I've been to Israel when the air was so thick with tension we should have been nervous. We weren't.
I'm a New Yorker and some might suggest I should be nervous. I'm not.

There's a long running post on a Facebook page (long running joke about X city) 'is it safe'? :D

If anyone is a worrier, stay home. Never travel. You could get hit by a car or your plane may crash. I don't live my life that way.

I really do not remember. Just about a year ago I has a serious medical condition, spent about a week in the hospital for treatment, and was put on a heavy diet of antibiotics. The combination messed up my mind, I had very heavy brain fog for several more months, and while I have mostly recovered my memory (especially short-term memory) is getting better but still not at top grade.

Thank you for the updates. Hope your driving goes ok.

I really hope you're gets better soon. Please take care of yourself. Hope your memory will be okay. I have a memory problem about Jennifer Driggers. I still dreaming about her everyday and I have go back in time. I can bring her back alive. I haven't seen her for more than three decades now. I still love her so much. When I was a kid.

im sorry for the loss of your friend. It’s so hard when our friends die especially when they died young. Grief counseling was helpful for me - I miss my friends and I don’t have unfair dreams about being able to save them.

0250am wake up to sirens
In and out of the shelter 2x as we tried to figure out what’s going on
We went to bed around 0430 and woke up 0800 to a call from my father
As of now 0900 several hundred suicide drones are en route eta 1330-1430 which will likely be accompanied by cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to try to overwhelm the defense systems.

As of now, Tel Aviv is VERY quiet and I am at city center. We are back home but the underground parking garage / shelter is just across the street. Likely we head back to the shelter a bit after noon and spend some time down there in the hot garage.

Stay safe my friends.

You, I, and everyone else in Israel heard the sirens at the same time. I immediately phoned my children to make certain that they went to shelters.

Those rockets earlier - were they close to you @dovster ?

Whole of the country went under alert right before Iran's Supreme Leader started his televised address.

I received a Home Front order to go into a shelter and stayed for about an hour before being told I could go out. I do not, however, believe that any rockets landed near me.

1:05 am: I was woken up by a message from the Home Front Command telling me, "In the next few minutes alerts are expected in your area. If an alert is received, enter your protected space and stay there until further notice".
7 minutes later I received the notice that there is "rocket and missile fire in my area and I have to go my "protected space". I rolled out of bed, went there, heard an explosion (I don't know where the thing landed) and a few mlinutes later was told I could leave the shelter, but to stay near by it.

I am going back to sleep now. Please tell Iran not to disturb me again tonight.

A bit more intense here in Tel Aviv but similar. I think it was around 15 minutes underground for this last one.

Our daughter is back asleep but both wife and I are struggling to relax and get back down.

In the last day, I’ve had 3 hours of sleep and 2x naps around 30 min each. Hoping we can get some zzz.

Please stay safe, both of you. This is a very troubling time and it must be very scary to be where you are.

Be sure you and family are in a garage under a sturdy building. I am praying for the MRPs, and my longtime pal Dovster. I really am. Have commented on FB too

Last night is a bit of a fog. I don’t remember if it was 3x or 4x we went to the underground garage. We got 4 hours of sleep after the last warning.

For the first few alerts we had advance notice. On the last one, we didn’t have notice and saw and heard interceptors overhead. I am very greatful that my daughter slept through all of the alerts and was a champ. We heard explosions but are unsure if they were impacts or interceptions.

This morning has been quiet. We went to a nearby park that has a shelter. Now we are visiting friends who live 10 minutes walk away so the kids and adults can socialize and maintain a routine.

I have an appointment with a specialist for tomorrow morning. It took me two months to get this appointment but I am cancelling it. His office is about a two-hour drive for me (in each direction) and I consider it foolish to be in a car for that long until the fighting is over.

Tonight (Israel time):

23:04: I am told that a rocket attack in my area is possible and I should stay near a shelter.

23:28: I am told to enter the shelter immediately. I do so and almost immediately start hearing explosions, some of which shook my house.

23:36: I am told that the explosions we are hearing are from the IDF shooting.

23::48 I am told that the danger is over (in my area ans 3:43: I receive a notification that I can leave both the shelter and the area near it.