In case we haven’t been in touch for a while, here’s a bit about me.
After growing up in Tucson, I went to the University of Southern California and earned a degree in Education. A few months after I graduated in 1992, I moved to Israel, intending to stay for a year or two. Initially, I worked as an English teacher and did a variety of jobs until I fell into hi-tech which I enjoy much more. I’ve been working as a Quality Assurance Manager at various startups since 1994. Basically, I find bugs in the companies’ software.
I’m also a professional juggler. My records are 9 balls and 5 torches (not at the same time!). It’s mostly a hobby but I’m having fun getting paid for it! More about that on www.juggler.co.il
I got married in 1996, and have 2 daughters who are totally perfect and bring me lots of happiness. I got divorced in the summer of 2005 and remarried in 2007. My wife, Natasha, is from Turkmenistan but speaks English perfectly. She’s an artist (www.naomiocean.com and www.dollutopia.com) and has two boys that are the same ages as my girls. We live in Beit Shemesh, a suburb of Jerusalem.
In 2012, I got diagnosed with high blood pressure. I had a very sedentary lifestyle for the past 20 plus years and had gotten pretty fat (weighing in over 250 pounds). Hypertension is known as “the silent killer” so I needed to make some life changes. I started eating much smaller portions and making healthier choices (less carbs, less fats, etc.). I also starting exercising like a fiend. I honestly hadn’t done much exercise since I came to Israel but I started playing tennis with Natasha and then found some other partners (I grew up playing tennis and was on my high school tennis team and I still really love the sport) and I also started running. At first I couldn’t run very long without stopping, but I was persistent a few days/week and slowly built up my endurance. As a motivation, I decided that I wanted to try to do a triathlon (not an Ironman, just shorter distance events) and in 2013 I did 3 (two Sprint distance and one Olympic). I kept pushing and pushing myself and in 2014 I did more endurance events: swimming 2.8 miles in the ocean, a 112 mile bike ride, plus I ran a full 26 mile marathon. I was never a runner and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever tried, but I did it (in just under 4 hours). In the following years, I completed a couple half Ironman distance events.
Aside from the events, I lost 55 pounds and got off the hypertension meds, all within the first 9 months. Over the past few years, I gained back part of it, but I’m still working out a lot and am fat but fit.