Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Car Conclusions

From the end of January through the beginning of March, my friend Ben traveled to Australia to see his girlfriend, meet her family and tour what has been called by some of my friends G-d’s country. While he was gone, I had his car. This was the first time in my adult life that I had a car. After college, I moved to the Upper West Side of New York and lived there for four years. For the last year or so of that time, I had a Zip Car account, which was sweet, but I never had a car of my own. In Israel, cars cost about twice as much as in America, which is ironic since people make less than half of what Americans make. When I moved here, it was initially for one year. When I added another, my plan was to serve in the army, and when that fell through, I had 8 months left till business school. With my litmited stay in Israel, it did not make sense to buy a car. Oh and did I mention – gas costs over $2 a liter… or about $8 a gallon!

Having a car over that time was a fortune. It cost about $25 to drive round trip to and from Tel Aviv each day. I tried to give friends rides as much as possible – both for their convenience and my cost offset (standard 15 shekel – just under $4 per person per direction). A few times I was able to cover costs, while more often than not, it cost me a lot. On the other hand, the convenience of having a car – going where I wanted when I wanted was amazing and worthwhile.

As I was doing all of my driving, I got to thinking about car ownership – what kind of car I would buy if I bought one, the function a car serves versus the luxury it can become – both the jalopy and the Porsche get you there at the end of the day. I am not the type to splurge on a car (as seen in the last line). I couldn’t justify sinking in a huge sum of money to something that immediately and perpetually looses value. I have always liked the idea of owning a hybrid car. The idea of great gas mileage in America is nice – when fuel is $3 a gallon (often less) here in Israel, it seems like a no brainer, and although the cars cost more, in the long run, the fuel cost savings quickly add up.

As I navigated to and from Tel Aviv, I was shocked to see first-hand how bad and aggressive Israeli drivers are. Aggressiveness and assertiveness is built into the culture here. Everyone is afraid of being the friar – the sucker. With this mindset, Israeli drivers justify unimaginable craziness. People swerve through traffic, cut you off and do not yield. There is a popular double standard on the road – let me in and I won’t let you in… what you think I am a friar? Beyond the all too often traffic accidents in Israel, which are all too often fatal, Israelis are terrible in traffic. Everyone thinks that by shifting lanes, driving on closed lanes until the very end and not letting other people in, they will get to their destination MUCH quicker. Now I am not saying that some of the tendencies I have just described are not also issues with New Yorkers or any other stereotypically aggressive group of drivers. However, the driving in Israel is BAD – anyone who has driven here will agree. I have several friends who refuse to drive here all together.

As my thoughts of hybrid ownership drifted, I got to thinking of the cars I hope to own in the future. I set myself two car ownership aspirations. The first was that within 3 cars that I own (assuming at some point I do get a car), I want to own a non-fossil fuel automobile. This will likely come in the form of an electric car. The second hope is that within 5 cars, I want a car that safely drives itself. Not too much to ask right?
In the next two posts, I am going to explore, report on two companies that are spearheading initiatives to make my car ownership plans come true… quite possibly well before my 3rd and 5th cars.

Btw – how I came up with 3 and 5 – I assumed I will buy a car within the next year and guess that I will have each car from between 3-6 years (probably buy used). That gives 9 to 18 years for me to hold the keys to an electric car, and 15 – 30 years for a car that drives itself. I think these are both very overly conservative. I’ll explain more in the next posts.

Jerusalem Marathon


I ran the Jerusalem marathon last Friday. It was my second marathon and an accomplishment I am very proud of. As I was running it – near the beginning actually, I got this overwhelming sense of joy. I had a huge smile on my face and felt a sense of elation that I had not felt in a long time. As I looked around, I felt like I was having the time of my life. There I was about 3 or four miles into one heck of a tough 26 mile course and I was loving it like I have never loved running before. Why?

I have asked myself that question since. I keep thinking back to that moment that these feelings came on, and a smile immediately returns to my face (yes as I am writing this I am grinning). I can’t fully explain it – or maybe I think there is more to it than I have thus far pieced together, but there is at least one factor I have thought of that I think contributed to it. Here it is:

Think of a time when you set a goal for yourself – find a job, meet new people, lose x pounds, keep in better contact with family or friends…. Many common goals we set for ourselves have external limitations on them. I may find a job I really want, but someone is better qualified for me. I may try to keep in touch better but friends are “too busy”. Try as one may to meet new people, there just doesn’t seem to be anyone around…
Then there are the other type of goals – lose 10 pounds, be mindful of how I speak to my parents, consider things before you say them, be considerate, run a marathon! These goals are all driven by me. I am accountable for my own success or failure. Achieving or failing these goals can have a strong impact on a person’s self image and psyche. Here in this realm, there is no one to blame but yourself. Sure there are excuses, but at the end of the day we hold the keys to many of our goals.

The marathon on that list is different from all the others. Many of the personal goals I set for myself are more abstract and never ending. I strive to be mindful of the things I say before I speak, to be considerate, not to gossip about others, and even to reach a target weight. Most of these do not have a finite end. I cannot say at any point that I will forever not gossip. That is an ongoing challenge. Weight loss, and other similar goals, are achieved gradually over time. Once I get off the scale and see the number I have aimed for then boom, I am done, and yet I keep going to stay there. 

Then there are the goals that have a finite end, take a long time to accomplish and are fully in your control. The marathon falls in this category. As I ran the marathon, I felt the culmination of my past months of training coming together – I had set a goal for myself that only I could stop myself from achieving. Although I had 22 miles left to run, I knew it was in the bag, and spent the rest of the run enjoying the fruits of my labor – I had worked hard to get there and when I knew I was good to go, I was able to enjoy the experience to the max. I recall having a similar experience with my CPA exams. The CPA is not an easy test. I was lucky that the material really clicked for me and with a lot of studying, I completed the exams. I do distinctively remember in a few of the tests (there are 4) that once I got to the last section, read the question and knew that I owned that material, the test became fun. I would begin to sing to myself (probably in my head) and enjoy the last simulation as I knew I owned it.

If what I am saying here makes sense to you, and you can think of other similar goals/challenges that can offer such an experience, I’d be interested to hear them – I may even take them on. I can say for certain that the feeling I had during the marathon (and still do) made all the training, blisters, aches and sore knees more than worthwhile. I am now thinking about running the Tel Aviv marathon a week from this Friday (two weeks after Jerusalem).

A little on the course – it was tough but awesome. I had run almost all of it several times in training and felt very at home throughout the run. The weather was cold, windy and raining. The wind was really the worst part of it. Many people got hailed on, luckily I missed that somehow – must have been in the right part of the city at the right time. The weather fluctuated so much that I managed to get a slight sunburn on my face (was sunny at parts as well). My brother-in-law Itay had originally registered to run with me, but hurt his foot a few months ago. Instead he joined me at mile 19 and ran the last 7 with me. It was awesome having his company. My time of 4:44:09 was 9 minutes slower than I ran New York in 2009. Considering the hills and a bathroom stop, I was not disappointed with my time, but I am curious how I would fare in the flat 26 of Tel Aviv. We may see soon enough.

As I used to do, here is the video of the course.

Picking up where I left off


When I got to Israel, I blogged on a frequent basis. I really enjoyed sharing my experiences with friends back in the states and also used my blog as a journal to remember the incredible experiences I had over my early months in Israel. Writing posts was also easy. I had a long bus ride back from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem three days a week. Since then, a lot has changed while at the same time, not much has changed at all.

I can’t recall the exact reason I stopped blogging. I stoped shortly before my trip back to America for what I thought was going to be 4 friends’ weddings and a trip to Central America before joining the army. It turned out to be more – I hurt my shoulder in a bike fall in July. Initially, my doctor and I thought I had a partial tear and needed to just rest. The shoulder got worse, and I ended up extending my trip in the US for shoulder surgery. That changed my army plans and the rest is history. Rather than getting more into things that have gone down over the past 9 months, I am going to just go on writing as if I hadn’t stopped. If I hit a part that sounds odd (new job, new apt… I will try to fill you in).

I’ve also decided not to publicize my posts as I used to – at least not until I have something to publicize. Let’s see if I can keep this up. Now that I am working 5 days a week in Tel Aviv, I have a tighter schedule, and instead of taking the bus every day (I am on it right now as I write this), I am blesses to have friends that give me rides. When I am ridding with friends, I don’t blog, so I have less opportunity to do so than I used to working part time but commuting back by bus.