Matthew Berg recently reviewed TheFormTool Pro in the BigLaw newsletter distributed by TechnoLawyer.  Having read the review and the videos of TheFormTool website, I applaud some the technology used by the developers of FormToolPro.  It seems to make the “simple things” easy, and gives you somewhat more functionality than Merge Fields.  The support for conditional fields and live variable edits is more than what you would expect from a cheap utility. It may be adequate for some of your needs; but not for all of your automation needs.

Don’t be deceived.  Document assembly tools like HotDocs, XpressDox, DealBuilder and Exari offer a wealth more features.  Handling of REPEATS or COLLECTIONS; seamless integration with databases, and support for nested levels of conditional logic are assumed in these systems.  Check out the tool of course, but you will soon want to take automation to the next level of efficiency.

Total Attorneys advertised practice management in the cloud for $1/month per user.  I recently came across Josh Campman’s review (Choosing Practice Management Software Part 1.5 of 2) and checked out their website  (TotalAttorneys.com).  I have not had a chance to review the offering, but plan to in the future.  For now though, I wish to note that price-points are not what they seem.  For many cloud-based practice management systems, there is a fixed fee that covers everything.  This is true for RocketMatter, Clio, and Houdini ESQ. For AdvologixPM, there is a base fee that cover quite a lot of features, but there are add-on’s for a few extra dollars a month per user. TotalAttorneys is different.

In the case of TotalAttorneys, Ed Scanlan, replied to Mr. Campman’s review:

Please do not be suspicious of our price point. We have a different model and go-to-market strategy. Our business model does not require that we charge $50 per user per month. We believe that all attorneys and their clients should have access to fantastic tools whether the attorney services low-bono clients or charges several hundred dollars per hour. We make money when attorneys choose to add additional integrated services onto their platform through ‘Total Apps.’ For example, attorneys can add payment processing for $35 per month. When the app is activated, attorneys can set up one-time and recurring payment processing through e-checks or credit cards. They can also allow their clients to pay via their client portal. We have many attorneys that just pay $1 per month to use the software. But there are even more that have activated one of our apps.

The $1 fee is just the beginning.  Much as PayPal is “free” but charges you for the money that is transacted through their service, TotalAttorneys includes transaction fees.  These include fees for referrals.  There are transaction fees for payments received through Total Attorneys credit card payment services.  At one time there were fees for document preparation fees for using their automated templates.  There are fees for web design services.  And even if TotalAttorney does not collect the ancillary fee for partner services, there is likely is some revenue sharing with that partner.

Not that any of these fees are unreasonable; many of them are valuable services and cost effectively delivered.  It’s just that you should inquire about all the ancillary fees and then decide whether the service as a whole is cost effective for your needs.  Like TotalAttorneys, my company sells a service –  a set of automated Probate Forms — for “free”.  Software, installation, and support are free.  The catch is you pay per open file.  The more files you open, the more payments we receive.  If you never use the sofware, it costs you nothing.  If you use it a lot, then you have gotten the business and the money from your clients, and our per file transaction fee is just a disbursement on the file.

I applaud TotalAttorney’s pricing model; it is flexible and based on usage.  In fact, the $1 fee is less of a “charge” and more of a way of getting your credit card authorization on file for the added TotalAttorney apps.  Way to go.

Every once in a while you come across an interesting tech article that gets to the HEART of what distinguishes successful well-run companies from their competition.  Often, what is said is common sense, but put in a particularly pithy manner.  In the Baseline.com article How Stupid Companies Treat Customers, Dennis McCafferty makes a few key points that are often forgotten.

Service Desks are ASSETS, Not Liabilities

One Size does NOT fit all.  Personalization is KEY

Customization and personalization should not be a SECOND phase, but should be built into the design from the beginning.

Previously, I have written about XpressDox integration with Salesforce.com and Advologix from a technical side, how from Microsoft Word you can access your template library, launch a template, and pull data from a Salesforce.com based practice management system.  Such approach is very powerful and cost effective.  But it also requires you to have Microsoft Word installed with an XpressDox plugin.

This post, however, focuses on implementation of a completely cloud-based assembly engine integrated into Salesforce.com.  A prototype has been tested and implemented on a client site; however the tool is not yet ready for public distribution.   In this system, a simple button would be added to the Matter object (or any object) in Salesforce.

Your template would have been posted to the XpressDox Cloud.  When you click on the button, an embedded window in Salesforce would show you the folders for your templates on the XpressDox Cloud-server.  You can navigate down the folder tree to select the template you wish to use.  When you click on the template, it will launch an embedded interview, right in Salesforce.

The exciting part is what occurs under the hood.  The XpressDox integration, which will eventually be offered as a CustomApp on Salesforce, sends to the XpressDox server an XML string which contains a unique ID for the Matter (or other Custom Object).  The unique ID is included in an XML answer set that may contain data that has been saved from previous assembly of documents for that Matter.  Using the XpressDox integration discussed in an earlier post (CLICK ON LINK), you can use that unique ID to pull data from the Matter, as well as any linked objects, including child objects.

And this is the beginning.  Because, the system merges the imported data with the prior answer set.  You are presented the interview which has an elegant, customizable skin (basic CSS stylesheet).  In the interview you are presented all RELEVANT questions for the select templates.  And you are also presented the data from Salesforce.  If, in this process, you change the data in the interview, that data is written back to Salesforce.  Not just into the XML storage of the answer set.  It is written back to any Salesforce fields on the parent object AND the child objects.  This is powerful.  For it allows the interview to serve as a powerful wizard for populating Salesforce.

At the end of the process, you are given a download link for the completed template.  You can download and open it in Word.  And then, you can save it to a Cloud storage location of your choice, whether it be the AdvologixPM Content management system, or NetDocuments, or SpringCM, Box.Net or DropBox.

If your are interested, as always, please contact me privately.

And so, after a long break, I resume my writing.  At the moment, we are reassessing our entire web presence, figuring out what form and format best suits our mission.  Since I am spending a great amount of time rewriting much of the website, there is little “technological” inspiration for this blog.  And so, I turn to in the other direction.

On Friday, we are going to a Suzanne Vega concert, the first “rock concert” I have gone to in a long time.  We fired up our “paid” account on Spotify.com to refresh ourselves on Ms. Vega’s early works, and her more recent works.  It was interesting listening to the song of Luka (the girl who lives upstairs) and woman who lives under Avenue-L, through the eyes of my son.  He noted the use of “acoustic” guitar and the absence of technological amplification, lack of synthesizers, and the purity of her sound.  He observed, “she is against technology”.

How true, and yet as we stream her music digitally, through a service that didn’t exist when she wrote it, and pass it wirelessly through our own home on devices that never existed when she wrote this music, I consider that as much as things change, they stay the same.  The words are still as haunting, the music still primal, and the emotions so real conveyed in her music.

For all the technology that we surround ourselves with (2 servers, 3 workstations, 4 laptops, 2 tablets, 3 cellphones, an iPhone and 3 iTouch’s, Playstation, XBox 360, PSP, Nintendo DS, screens, TVs, printers) as well as multiple cloud services for storage on Microsoft 365, Salesforce.com, NetDocuments, Box.Net, DropBox, SpringCM, iCloud, Amazon, Credenza, and Azure, and social services (Facebook, LinkedIn, Chatter), we are still the SAME social animal that evolved from Australopithecus Afarensis in Africa.

I am reminded of this as I curl up with my iPAD2 reading a “book” on my Kindle app, and lose myself in a narration from Audible.com of another book.  And so I find myself “reading” or “absorbing” several disparate books from different parts of the worlds and different time period, books which all overlap. Stephen Greenblatt, “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern”   which looks at the early Humanists and their “rediscovery” of the classics of Greece and Rome.  The book, or rather, extended poem, they rediscover is one by an early Roman poet, Lucretius, “On the Nature of Things”.  Emerging from the dark ages, a clerk to the Pope, goes on a scavenger hunt for old scrolls and finds a scroll by a rather forward thinking Roman who argued that all matter is composed of tiny elements, or atoms, and that objects, and life itself, is nothing more than different configurations of matter that are constantly “swerving”, and that in the swerve is where the variety of life that we see forms.

At the same time, I picked up a book by a modern Japanese writer,  Haruki Murakami, 1Q84.  And I did my perennial summer attempt to read Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way.  The funny thing is that one of the characters in 1Q84 is reading Swann’s way to pass the time, possibly that last of her time. The setting is 1984 for part of the book, and 1Q84, an alternate version of the same period.  And much like The Swerve and “On the Nature of Things”, and like Swann’s Way which tries to interpret memory and reality, these books delve into what it means to live.  For all the technology, and all the modern means of transmission, we still have not answered “why” or even “what”.

At the recent Gavel & Gown consultants conference, I demonstrated a new way to access data stored on Amicus Attorney Premium Edition.  Because Premium Edition is run on SQL Server platform, there is a way, through a secure connector to access the data for document assembly through HotDocs.  More on that later.

Working with Outlook

HotDocs has for years had a connector to Microsoft Outlook.  It is an effective tool for importing data.  However, the data that comes in, often needs to be “cleaned up” before it can be used.

• State Field: The state can sometimes be entered as Abbreviated (e.g. NY) or as a Full State (“New York”) which causes problems on import if you importing into a Multiple Choice field
• Street Field:  The “Address” in Outlook is different from the BusinessAddressStreet field.  And that field can have multiple lines in it, affecting how that text appears in your template where you may have coded Street1 and Street2

Further, some of the mappings in the tool are confusing because of the terminology used by Outlook and that used by most HotDocs coders can be quite different.

• Which Address:  In Outlook there is a MailingAddress, a HomeAddress and a BusinessAddress.  If you are importing into a primary address, then you would choose MailingAddress.  If it is a Business, with a Company, you should use Business Address.
• Salutation, Title and Job Title:  These fields are confusing since Title is “Mr.” or “Mrs”, Saluation is non-existent, and JobTitle is the positon someone holds at a company.

Recommended Mappings

Start with Mappings.  Below is a set of recommended mappings.  Note the use of CompanyName and FullName.  Also note that use of JobTitle to map the persons position at a Company and the uses of the FirstName field to map for the Salutation.  Further, I generally will map the Business information, including BusinessAddressStreet.

Converting MultiLine Street Address

You will want to convert the street address to 2 single line fields. The code may look complex.  But, if you use consistent variable naming, you can pop it onto any dialog.  It searches for the Line Feed (\r”) to determine where to make the break.

Converting Full State to Abbreviation

Inconsistent entry of states can break a system that depends on using Merge Text for States to put in the Full name in some places, abbreviations elsewhere, and other places choosing State or Commonwealth.  The solution is a cleanup script.  Since the script is long and complex, I create a FUNCTION computation and pass a parameter to it.

Here is the function that is being called

In an old post I set forth my standard for evaluating software (See KRONOS – Evaluation Criteria for Software).

.  Keystroke Count
.      Return on Investment
.          Opulence and Intuitiveness
.              Networkability and Integration
.                   Options and Customization
.                        Suitability for the Task.

W  * A * T  * C  * H

Most software that I evaluate is for BIG THINGS! … that is software that will transform the way you do business.  Practice Management software changes the way lawyers track their time, manage their time and organize their information.  It may be the difference between “respectability” and “profitability”.   Document Assembly software changes the way that lawyers create documents.  It allows leverage of intellectual talent, improved work product, and revenue generation in the multiples.

But there comes a time for “small tools” that measure high on the KRONOS scale.  One such tool is Copy2Contact.  Microsoft once had a vision of everyone trading VCARDs with their email.  These attachments would allow you to, with one click, add a contact to your addressbook in Outlook.  The Microsoft vision never fully materialized.  And now people use GoogleApps and a wealth of other applications, like Salesforce and other.  And so, it is only occasionally that an email arrives with a VCARD.

Enter Copy2Contact.  Most people include a signature block at the end of their email, and this block often includes name, address and phone.  This is the genius of Copy2Contact.  When the email comes in, you highlight the Signature Block with Address, and click CONTROL-C-C.  If you use AdvologixPM you click on SALESFORCE.COM and it posts the contact details into a Lead.  One more click converts the Lead into a Contact.  If you use Time Matters you can choose Outlook and then click on ConnectTM to upload the contact record to Time Matters.  Or if you have enabled ExchangeSync or OutlookSync just be patient until the next synchronization.

The Forester Reasearch released to the public (via TechRepublic.com) a June 23, 2011, white paper titled: “The ROI of Cloud Apps: A Total Econimic Impact(TM) Analysis Uncovers Long-Term Value in Cluse Apps.” Below I will quote and highlight some key conclusions of this report.

Recognize that the report: analyzes the longer-term, five-year cost of ownership and value for cloud applications across four categories: customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), collaboration (including email), and IT service management.”

Major Trend to the Cloud

About, cloud applications, like Salesforce.com (used by nearly 100,000 companies and the tool used by AdvologixPM Practice Management) it writes:

Buyers gravitate to these solutions because of their low upfront costs and fast speed of deployment. Many SaaS solutions also o&er a more user friendly UI than their on-premises competitors due to their more recent introduction or the providers’ ability to rapidly update the UI through automatic, seamless upgrades. For example, salesforce.com has evolved its original eBay-like look-and-feel to today’s more modern Facebook-like design. Our recent budgets survey shows that 51% of firms plan to increase spending on software-as-a-service, while only 9% plan to decrease spend.

Key Benefits

The report list a number of key benefits from implementing Cloud applictions, “mostly around deployment speed, subscription pricing models that align with usage, accessibility, and usability.” The ongoing benefits include:

Faster deployment speed. Cloud applications appeal to business buyers because cloud enables them to roll out solutions much more quickly than with on-premises; many SaaS deployments take only days or weeks. Why so fast? Cloud solutions are ready to go — users need only a login and an Internet connection to get going; there is no need to procure hardware or do testing. Also, implementation is usually quicker, with a lighter, more iterative approach to con”guration versus the heavy upfront customization that o$en characterizes on-premises deployment. #is faster speed also applies to ongoing enhancements. An avid user of cloud applications told us: “We end users don’t want to wait, they want to get the thing done. [We use cloud to] deliver tailored solutions with great appeal to the end user. #e pace of the stu& we deliver is so much quicker.”

Reduced support needs. Cloud applications’ clients o$en can reduce or eliminate IT support; the SaaS provider typically includes a help desk in the subscription, and technical support needs are lower since the provider does all the patching and bug “xing. Additionally, many cloud-based applications were built for business and have simpler, more self-service-oriented user interfaces. For example, many companies have reduced internal IT sta& by moving email to the cloud, since their subscription payment covers all necessary support, infrastructure and archiving costs.

Simpler, more frequent upgrades. Cloud applications o&er seamless, automatic upgrades,typically two to four times per year. #is means that users get access to the latest features and functionality faster than in an on-premises deployment where upgrade cycles o$en take three to 10 years.The more frequent, more incremental upgrades also mean that “rms typically have no consulting costs or change management issues during upgrades. One cloud application client we spoke with who uses NetSuite told us that he “would have had to use consultants to upgrade the on-premises code whenever there was an upgrade. With SaaS, our upgrades happen seamlessly. Were are e%ciencies that we get because we always have the best version of the sofware.”

Beblockquoteer utilization. Pay-as-you-go applications typically yield beblockquoteer adoption for three reasons: 1) “rms pay for what they need, eliminating the shelfware problem typical of on-premises deals, so SaaS providers have a “nancial incentive to encourage deployment and promote use; 2) cloud applications are typically geared toward more of a business audience, meaning they are easierto-use and built to have a familiar (think Facebook-like) look-and-feel; 3) cloud vendors often deliver proactive health check reports that provide statistics about usage, making it easier for companies to identify employees who may need more training or incentive to use the apps.

Key Costs

The report acknowledged that “Cloud applications reduce or even eliminate the high upfront costs for hardware and licenses that firms spend for on-premises projects” and pointed out that they “typically reduce customization costs in favor of lighterweight, point-and-click con”guration and more pre-built “best practices” in the applications”. But it focused on the ongoing subscription costs to rent the software and “often greater costs for multivendor orchestration and ongoing vendor management”. Some key cost included:

Ongoing subscription costs. The primary cost associated with cloud applications is the ongoing rental fee for using the application, o$en per user per month or usage-based. Typical usage metrics include storage (i.e., number of documents) or throughput (i.e., number of transactions processed). #e rent versus own model for cloud means lower upfront costs, but for some deployments these costs will cross over, ultimately becoming more expensive than a licenseplus-maintenance alternative.

Vendor management. Cloud applications require more focus on contracting, SLAs, and performance management. Contracts can be anywhere from month-to-month to five years long; “rms must focus more on contract renewals and negotiations than in on-premises cycles. Some technology solutions are emerging to help with vendor management of cloud vendors, including performance management solutions like HP Cloud Assure and Gomez. However, these technology solutions come with a price tag as well.

Cloud orchestration costs. Many cloud solutions focus on a specific module, such as recruiting or goals management for employees. The cloud landscape does not o&er very many full suite solutions. This means that “firms often face a fragmented, multiple application landscape as they move more and more technology to the cloud. In a recent survey, we found that 26% of cloud subscribers plan to increase the number of cloud vendors they work with over the next year. 3 This multivendor environment means additional costs for areas like integration,
provisioning, end user support, upgrade management, testing, and worklow.

Risk Analysis

The report noted the risk of Cloud applications. Most of their risk calculations are obvious, and not making a change is also a risk. But it pointed to 2 keys risks in an evolving industry:

Vendor viability as the market shakes out. The advent of cloud platforms, such as Azure and Force.com, has lowered the barrier to entry for solutions. Many cloud startups can get going with a blockquote team of coders — with liblockquotele or no startup costs or venture capital. As a result, cloud applications proliferate — but some may have a short life span, either because of failure or acquisition. While acquisition can sometimes be a benefut that adds stability and investment, it can also be a risk that leads to changes in contracts, changes in pricing, or even a shutdown of the acquired technology (as happened with Google’s acquisition of Plannr). Overall, vendor viability risks are high as this early market moves at such a fast pace.

Vendor lock-in. Cloud applications are usually easy to get started. But in the longer term some “rms “nd it can be di%cult — and expensive — to switch vendors. In some cases, users become “hooked” on user-friendly cloud applications. Business users may strongly resist switching from an application they like. Also, most vendor switches will require data migration and implementation costs to move to a new solution (whether cloud, hosted, or on-premises).

Ever lost your phone, but neglected to get insurance? If you are like most and have a cell phone contract, you can only upgrade your phone every two years. If you do want a new phone before the expiration of the 2 years, you need to pay “LIST PRICE” which is usually outrageous.

We lost a “cheap” phone 2-months before the discounted upgrade period started on Verizon. We had wanted to get an Android to test out the mobile apps on the Android platform, but certainly did not want to pay list price. The solution we found will make you laugh, http://myphonedied.com/. Yes, that is the name of the site.  And tell me you didn’t look at the girl on the left before you fully read this post. There you can get USED PHONES that are carrier-specific for dirt cheap prices.  The phone should arrive in a few days.  $18 will hold us for 2 months until we can get the discounted “new phone.”

I had another hour to kill, just me and my iPad. I thought I would check out GoogleDocs and other options. First stop was the app store. DocsToGo sounded promising but the reviews were mixed. The absence of spell check capabilities was bizarre, particularly since I was so used to the iPads intuitive correction as I typed. Could it really be missing. And then the reviews said the documents failed to synch on an iPad 2. Was it something about iCloud? So I took a pass. A further look at the feature list on the web site talks about entering text and automatic bullets.  What is clear is that this was NOT a full fledged WordProcessor, but rather a rough-draft creator or rudimentary editing tool.

Next stop was GoogleDocs. I saw some items in the app store, but a Google search suggested I should go straight to Google. I pulled up the google mobile site. The login went quickly. But the document editor was nothing but a giant text box. It was a mobile app version designed for a tiny browser. Every time I touched the screen a keyboard would flit on and off. With no formatting and a flitting keyboard, I was unimpressed. A subsequent review of the marketing literature shows that the Mobile edition is for “phones” and not really setup for Tablets.

There was a link to a desktop version. I clicked the link and magically menus and formatting tools appeared. The only problem was that when. I started typing, it crashed. The page reloaded. I typed more and it crashed again. And this was on an empty document. After 5 reloads and no progress, I gave up. I never like GoogleDocs on my desktop and liked it even less on an iPad.

Another Google searched turned up Pages. It turned out to be from Apple. And at $10 it was more than your typical app. On the app store it claimed Pages could open word documents. It was worth a try. I purchased the app. At 85 MB it was sizable. And that meant capable. On load there was an attractive styled document with pictures, beautiful fonts, a backdrop and a full toolbar.

As you scrolled through the document you quickly learned everything that you needed to know about operating the program. Within 5 minutes I was agreeing with the marketing hype that this was one of the most innovative word processors I had seen in a long time.  The system made sense.  It worked with the fingers, and not just the keyboard.  It was more than just a “text entry” tool; it was a visual wordprocessor.  I felt like I was in a scene from “The Minority Report”.  Substitute me for “Tom Cruise” and an 11″ iPAD for a Wall of Glass and you get the picture <g>.

The issue remains as to how it will handle the interchange between documents.  I could add pictures from my “camera roll”, but it was a little more complex how to get pictures from other sources.   For this article, I did most of the writing on the WordPress app for the iPAD.  But I finished up on my computer desktop when I needed to snag photos from the web.

I finally broke down and got an iPad, a Johnny come lately. I prefer to be just behind the cutting edge, particularly when the item costs over $500. It was CloudForce New York that finally pushed me, or rather my partner, over the edge. For now, I am loading up on apps. My iPhone is filled with games which, for now, are banished from the iPad.

And so, I will add to the plethora of posts. This is not fan-mail, but rather a thoughtful inquiry into the use of this device.

Here at my son’s basketball practice, I am trying to make productive use of my time. Maybe I work too hard. But until one knows what it is to use a device, one can not understand whether it is a time waster or something else.

I can write much faster on the iPad than on my iPhone. The keyboard is spaced almost as well as my full size keyboard, except for the location of the spacebar. The think ahead feature, aka spellcheck and autocorrect takes a little getting used to, but it does enable faster and more accurate typing without requiring too much attention.

Taking photos is pretty easy with WordPress. The question is understanding the syntax for photo alignment. I keep missing the spacebar and having to correct my typing for spaces. But I am sure that by the time of my next post, I will be much better.

I tried to post to Twitter and Facebook but discovered I was missing the necessary apps. My Personal Hotspot is running at low speeds. Which brings me to WiFi vs cellular. With data plans at their current stratospheric prices I have opted for the personal hotspot on my phone. It enables me to support multiple devices on a single plan. Verizon gives 5 gb per month. My iPhone has a separate phone specific data plan which is unlimited. If you go for phone and iPad, get the hotspot. When 4G comes to iPhone it will be worth it.

Salesforce is a powerful tool for practice management.  It’s implementation by AdvologixPM brings that power in a digestable form to attorneys.  Until now, your main option for document assembly has been to create basic merge templates.  The DrawLoop addin allowed you to create packages; multiple templates with designated outputs.  But in the end, you were still restricted to Word-Merges.

XpressDox 4.0 introduces the Salesforce.com Data Source Configuration Tool

Now there is another option, XpressDox.  This tool is a power document assembly engine (with most everything you would expect from rival products), but at a very competitive price point.  What I want to show here is live and dynamic connection between the desktop version of XpressDox (NOTE: it also works with the Server version as well).

On the right side is the Command editor which list the available fields to use for a template assembly.  These are created from a Data Source definition that connects to Salesforce, and lets you navigate the entire data structure of your ORG’s data.  It lets you not just get at tables, to get at Linked Tables, to collections, to joins, in short to string through any data in the system and then populate your template.

It starts with a data type definition.  Note the Force.com datatype.  Using the Salesforce API, and passing your authorized user and password, it makes the connection.

Then Add Collections.

In this case we added the Matter Collection.  We set it up to retrieve the appropriate matter based on MatterID or Matter name.  Your are able to then designate which fields to make available.  You can choose all (*) or you can designate specific fields using the selector.  There is a separate feature which allows you to add a PREFIX so that fields with the same column name can be distinguished in the template editor during assembly.  There is also a tool to assign an ALIAS to each field that may be more user friendly.  This MAPPING tool is entirely optional.  It can be used to connect to existing systems, or you can use the native field names.

Then Link to Connected Objects.

Linking to a single table with these features is quite useful.  But often, a matter has links to other records (e.g. Client, Opposing Counsel, Court etc.).  The DataSource tool lets you then join other tables of data.  In this case, we jointed the contact table off the Client field.

Then Link to Participants and their Contact Records

But there is more.  You may have a “collection” of data that is linked to the matter.  You may have created a custom object, such as collections or some other such data.  You can add and return a collection of records.  But what if the collection itself is linked to a third table.  In Advologix, there are Contact Participants, an object linked to the Matter.  But the Contact Participants table doesn’t contain any data on the contacts, it merely links to the Contacts table.  In this instance, we actually create another embedded collection (2 collections deep) : Matter -> Contact Participants -> Contact.

Back to the Template

This entire structure sits in an XSD file.  To implement it, you need merely to put it in someones XpressDox template library.  And to use the items in a template, could not be easier.  «LinkToDataSource(CaseNumber,MatterFull)».  The first parameter is the field used to search the Salesforce database.  The second is the name of the DataSource.

If you are going to be stranded anywhere, it is better to be stranded in an apartment on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, than stuck in the Moscow airport.  Last night as we were preparing for our Red-eye flight to Moscow and then onto to New York City, JFK International Airport, we were barraged with email and calls from friends and family advising us to “stay put”.  The miracle of technology enabled us to get the information, plan an alternate flight (by calling the New York office of Transaero Airlines), and then continue to do business.  We have declared our “vacation” over and resumed full time work; implementing our “business interruption” strategy.

• Emails. We use hosted exchange server (www.ownwebnow.com) which serves up emails to my iPhone 4, as well as our laptop computers running outlook.  Through OWA (Outlook Web Access) we can also communicate via email from any browser.
• Phone Calls. Verizon (my cell phone provider) has roaming in Israel (albeit at $1.99 per minute).  But I also have an 8×8 VOIP App (www.8×8.com) which is tied directly into our business system. It allows us to send and receive calls (from a New York phone exchange) from anywhere in the world where we have access to WiFi.  Incidentally, we also have Skype (www.skype.com) where we have enabled the voice-out service which charges between 2 and 5 cents a minute for pre-paid calls.
• News. For up to the minute news we had the Google iPhone app.  We also used the NY Time App, and frequented news.yahoo.com and news.google.com via my Safari Browser.
• Client Files. For our client files, we have recently become channel and implementation partners with NetDocuments (www.netdocuments.com).  There is browser version of NetDocuments.  And on our laptops, we can access client files from within Microsoft Office just as if we were sitting back in our office in New York City.
• Work Files. For our active work files (collections of document assembly templates, programming tools, and system analyses), we move those into DropBox (www.dropbox.com) over a year ago.  We did that to allow co-development with our clients, via shared file folders.  But we also did it for disaster preparedness.  While “traveling” in Israel, we simply pointed our HotDocs libraries to the local copy of the “dropbox” as opposed to the network copy of the “dropbox” on our server, and continued to work.  With the business interruption occasioned by Hurricane Irene, we simply continued working in our Dropbox.  NetDocuments may be rolling out a feature set similar to that of DropBox at which time we may switch to that.
• Remote Access. For years we have worked with Citrix Online, using GoToMyPC, GoToMeeting, and GoToAssist.  All our PC’s are connected with remote access GoToMyPC clients.  If we need anything, we can remote into our PC’s and transfer any required files to the DropBox.
• Disaster Recovery. If our office is flooded, we have also implemented online backup.  We use JungleDisk (www.jungledisk.com).  Desktop backup is free.  But we use the enterprise version for our server. It is $5 month, first 10 GB storage included, and then 15 cents per gigabyte.  At that rate 110 GB storage is $20/month.  But you pay for what you actually use.  JungleDisk is now owned by Rackspace.com.
• Devices. We are traveling with 2 laptops (one from Dell and one from HP), a netbook (from Acer), an iPhone and three iTouch devices.  We have access, news and entertainment for the whole family.

OPEN FOR BUSINESS.

We are open for business today; our vacation has ended.  And we are due back in the New York on Tuesday afternoon unless the storm destruction further delays us.  So as you can see, we have been inconvenienced, but we are prepared.  The difficult choice however is really “WORK or THE BEACH”.

One bit of disclosure … the beautiful pictures are NOT mine, they are “borrowed”.  They are meant to be illustrative.  We did take digital photos, and I will try to make them available to those interested after editing the list.

Now, the Sea of Galilee (also known as the Kinneret or the Sea of Chinnereth) was the focal point of our trip to the Northern Region.  Our trip was based at Inbar Country Lodge, a small kibbutz (10 members) in the hills on the west side of the Sea of Galilee.  A few words of background: (1) the “Sea” is not a “Sea” but rather a giant freshwater lake. (2) The Chinnereth is “absolutely still” except when an occasional wind whips up waves.  (3) The Kinneret was one of the primary locations of the ministry of Jesus Christ, and thus is filled with “historic sites” that are known in the Gospels as the locations of many of Jesus’s miracles, as well as his baptism.

That said, the setting is “spectacular” even if the swimming potential is over-rated.  Many of the beaches are “rocky” with occasional sand.  It also appears that much of Israel heads north to the Kinneret to camp during the summer and so much of the waterfront is a non-stop campground, filled with reeds, campsites and “garbage”.  Moreover the water is murky, like an Adirondack’s lake.  Having seen the crystal clear waters of the Gulf of Aqaba (the Red Sea at Eilat), we were a little disappointed.  Only if you get past the garbage, can you see the amazing beauty of the place.  They sky is a deep deep blue.  The lake is placid, as smooth as glass.  From our vantage point on the East side of the Sea of Galilee, we could see the city of Tiberias climbing up the mountain on the West side of the Sea, over 10 miles away.  Cliffs and spectacular mountains surround the entire Sea of Galilee.  Coming from the East, you wind down switchbacks to approach the shore.  Once inside the water, you realize it doesn’t smell at all like a sea … there is no salt.  Check, Dead Sea is FULL of salt and hot to beat.  Check, the Mediterrean Sea is luke warm to body temperature, but has waves.  Check, the Red Sea is cool, refreshing and crystal clear.  Check the Sea of Galilee is “warm on the surface” with cool depths below.  As you kick your feet, you pull up cool water from below.  It is very refreshing.  It is also very shallow; you can walk out a great distance from the shore and still stand.  You can also picture a mass-baptism in the Sea of Galilee, with several dozen initiates waiting their turn for the purifying baptismal dunk.

The Galilee is on the west side and south of the Chinnereth; the Golan is on the east side, and north.  We spent the first day of our 3 day soujourn setting up at our kibbutz (Inbar Country Guest House) and then proceeding to Safed (also spelled Safed, Zefat, Tsfat, Zfat, Safad, Safes, Safet, Tzfat, etc.).  We continued to have trouble with our GPS, anticipating what it would “transliterate” the Hebrew into for English spelling.  We generally hit 2 out of 3 correctly.  For the rest, we needed to rely on a map, and point the GPS to the “nearest” town that we could find.  Along the way we found the shrine of “Rashban” which we thought was “Ramban” aka Maimonedes.  It appears that site had been appropriated by Hasidim who had turned the tomb into an enormous study hall with hundreds engaged in fervent non-stop praying.

We continued to Safed and parked outside the Old City.  Safed had its golden age in the 12th Century and has been home of the oldest continuous Jewish settlement in Palestine.  It was where “kabalah” was invented. And so to walk the Jewish quarter is to walk through living history.  In 1948 the control of Safed by the Jews was hotly contested.  Where house to house combat once reigned is now peace, beautiful old synagogues, and an exquisite art colony.  We saw exquisitely beautiful Judaica (the best we saw in Israel, including Jerusalem) as well as “Jewish-inspired art”.  They ranged from “Kabalah-inspired” to representational art using only Hebrew letters, to wild flights in bright colored acrylic.

From Safed we proceeded to Tiberias, for our first view of the Kinneret.  We stayed along the lake front and found a fashionable area filled with restaurants.  For dinner we had grilled kebabs and “St Peter’s Fish”.  This turns out to be a smallish “white” fish from the Sea of Kinneret that is deep fried or broiled in olive oil and served whole.  The restaurant was a mob scene.  We also ordered a “small salad” which turned out to be a dozen different dips and a mountain of pita bread, a meal in itself.

The next day, after a full multi-course Israeli breakfast (fresh bread, yoghurt, tzatziki, eggs, pancakes, olives, tuna fish, feta, swiss, blue cheese, pancakes, juice and Turkish coffee), we headed to swim in the famous “sea”.  We circled the Sea to a location recommended by Inbar Kibbutz.  In retrospect, we should have headed to the resort beaches south of Tiberias.  From the sea (after an hour of floating in tranquil water, we had had enough), we headed north and east.  Our goal was a fortification on the Golan heights.  We wound up the Jordan river valley and then turned onto the plateau that is the Golan Heights.  We passed a brigade of tanks “exercising” near the border.  After passing though fruit tree orchards, vinyards and verdant fields, we arrived at our destination, a lookout point that shows the one border crossing between Syria and Israel, as well as the UN outpost on that border.  Thirty years ago I was on the same spot.  And behind the lookout are two enormous hills, one topped with radio antenae and listening posts; the other with a tourist restaurant and fortifications from the 1973 war.  From the top of the “hill” you could appreciate the strategic importance of these hills to the defense of Israel.  It was at this spot that the entire Syrian army was delayed for two days in the Yom Kippur war by a small brigade until reserves and reinforcements could be brought up.  Today, it is the most peaceful border that Israel has.

We continued to drive through the Golan Heights, rich beautiful farm country with soaring hills and mountains.  We passed Nimrod’s fortress, but it was too late to enter.  In the town of Kiryat Shmona (on the Lebanese border) we picked up kosher steak kebabs to grill at our Kibbutz later that night.  Along the way we passed several other intriguing spots, many already closed.  But one, near Tel Dan, was intriguing: busloads of Orthodox families.  It turned out to be a camp site along the upper Jordan river, home of ice-cold waters and white-water rafting.  It was too late in the day, but the idea of doing this sport is Israel was intriguing.

The next day, we passed Armegeddon. Actually it was the ancient town of Megiddo.  This town had the fortune (or misfortune) to be conquered and destroyed by 25 successive civilizations.  In its 7,000 year history it was destroyed more times than any other location likely in the world.  The last civilization to build on this site was the Assyrians in the 3rd Century BCE.  Since then, not the Greeks, not the Romans or anyone else has built at this site; it must cursed.  And thus it is a goldmine for archeologists seeking to uncover artificats of early biblical, hebrew, canaanite and pre-canaanite civilizations.  This town is referred to in both the hebrew bible and the gospels.  In the Book of Revelations the plains of Megiddo is where the “last battle” will occur.  Scary, huh.  Battles were fought in the valley below Megiddo up until the Israeli war of independence (1948).  In fact, the Ottoman Turks were decisively beaten by the British in 1917 on the plains of Megido.

I don’t want to forget Beit She’an.  This town in the watershed of the Sea of Galilee, on the Jordan River was the Roman and Byzantine capital of the region.  It was also a major Philistine town.  You find mention of it in the Book of Kings as the location where Saul’s body, and that of his sons were taken after he was defeated by the Philistines; their bodies were hung on the walls of the fortress for all to see.  Today, it is an enormous excavation.  Most of the site concerns the Roman period and the Byzantine period that followed.  But on the top of an enormous Tel (or hill) there are remains of the Hebrew city, of the Philistine fortifications and even the Egyptian governors mansion.  After a long and very hot day, we finally returned to our air conditioned abode in Tel Aviv.  The tent city outside our apartment was still there, along with the Yemenite drummers.

Imagine a lunar landscape with the temperature of Mars and you have now imagined Timna Park.  In the far southern Negev Desert, 50 kilometers from the Red Sea, in the heart of the Great Rift Valley, Timna Park is a “dot” on the map of Israel.  It’s on the great North-South road that connects Be’er Sheva (the last outpost of civilization) and Eilat (the cosmopolitan beach and scuba capital) on the Gulf of Aqaba.  In between the two outposts is desert, boundless and bare.  Along the long highway (over 243 kilometers) is “nothing” by way of settlement.  There is an occasional monument or ruin, and an occasional growth of date palm trees, amidst a sea of wadis, dry barren stream beds that see water only for a few days of the year, if that.  This is desert, much of it several hundred feet below sea level.

And, as it turned out, the desert was home to armed Palestinian terrorists from Gaza who had crossed the Egyptian border in the Sinai to ambush two Egged buses and two passing cars.  One bus was waved to the side of the road while 3 men armed with machine guns strafed it.  The good sense of the bus driver to accelerate and not stop until he reached a military checkpoint saved dozens of lives.  Other attackers fired on a second bus and on two civilian vehicles at another point on the road, which runs along the Egyptian border, and detonated a roadside bomb near Israeli soldiers who were on their way to the scene of the initial attack.

At the time we were returning from a pleasant day snorkeling in the coral reefs of Eilat.  We were en route to Kibutz Ketura at the time, our base in the southern Negev.  I noticed several emergency vehicles heading in the other direction.  At the Kibutz reception, it was subdued, even though they were celebrating a wedding of two former volunteers who had met at the Kibutz.  We turned on the news, which, even though in Hebrew, we could understand.  Our decision, the following day, was NOT to return to Eilat.  As it turns out, we may not have been able to do so even if we wanted to.

Rather, we opted for a tour of the Kibutz by one of the founders.  We learned a lot about desert agriculture and the life cycle of date palm trees, as well as a number of other species of trees cultivated for growing in the Sahara desert and central Africa.  While Kibutz Ketura is a traditional kibutz where all revenue is shared equally, it is still driven to optimize profits, albeit for the collective.  It is also the home of the Arava Institute, a group committed to environmental education across borders.  It hosts scientists and students from Africa, Jordan, Egypt, and all parts of Israel, Arab and Jew.

After the tour we turned south for a few miles to visit Timna Park.  Over the objections of most of the family, I persisted.  We drove up a long single lane road across the desert floor and into the mountains that border on the Sinai desert.  As we learned, we were in a rift valley that extended from Russia through Turkey, the Middle East and into Africa.  And we learned that the area of Timna Park was actively used during the dynasties of the Pharaohs in Egypt and in biblical times.  In fact, it was a major center for mining copper.  Ingots of copper were mined on-site and shipped by camel and donkey to Aqaba (present day Eilat) where it was carried by ship around the Sinai peninsula and then to Egypt.  There were caves and mines hewn by hand out of the rock.  With temperature over 100 degrees, and a slight breeze, we were assured that the temperature was no more conducive to living at the time of the Egyptian mining enterprise.

And in the midst of this barren wind-swept wasteland was a Mishkan, a full-scale reproduction the desert tabernacle built by the Israelites and carried in the desert at the time of Moses.  It was used in their 40 years of wandering in the desert.  This was a model of the very tabernacle as detailed in Deuteronomy and Leviticus; the contents of which were laid out, including measurements and materials.  It was to have included lots of gold and acacia wood, covered with multiple layers of material, and finally some “impervious skin” which has been translated as “dolphin skin” or “seal skin”.

The key was that this structure was portable.  It was a giant erector set in the sand.  This was not some “grand” temple, like the temple mount.  It was actually quite modest and small.  The tabernacle was portable.  And besides, gold weighs a lot.  We could see a reproduction of the “holy of holies”. The setting of the tabernacle gave us a feel of what it would have been like to be in the desert with Moses.  We could understand the incident of the golden calf; we could empathize with Moses striking the rock to get water (none was to be seen for miles).

And yet this was a hokey site; a stage set for a “passion play”.  The host who opened the tent explained that the installation had been a “Christian tourist attraction” that had been bought by the park.  And then she started quoting scripture; first to explain the details of the tabernacle (many of which we already knew from years of torah study), and then quoting the prophets about the coming of judgment day.  At that point, quotes from the books of Ezekial, Daniel, Isaiah and Kings flew out.  I could sense the desire of our guide to start quoting the Book of Revelations (a Christian text), but she restrained herself.  All told, the setting was spectacular, but I was ready to go.  Incidentally, my oldest son, on ethical reasons, had refused to enter the tabernacle.  We left back on the road to Tel Aviv, this time traveling along the Jordan river, since the other route had been closed by Israeli security.

Remember Masada!  Most trips to Masada begin in the dark.  And for good reason.  The temperature in the Judaen Deserts goes from tolerable in August to intolerable (over 100 degrees).  We left Tel Aviv by the main road to Jerusalem, following the route suggested to us by Israelis.  But our GPS navigator get steering me to the South.  I ignored it for while, but then remembered the caution of our hosts to steer clear of the “West Bank”.  After several repeated corrections I realized my GPS was recognizing the “political boundary” and steering me around the West Bank, through Ber Sheva, across the Judaen desert and then back up the west shore of the Dead Sea to Masada.  The route was a bit longer since I ended up backtracking once I viewed the route on the map.

We were rewarded with a tour of the heartland of Israel and the northern Negev desert.  The former was lush farmland.  The later, while barren was spotted with oases of green vegetation. We saw the contrast between the Yishuv kibbutz and moshav (Jewish settlements).  For years the Jewish immigrants to Palestine transformed the heartland through hard labor.  They cleared the rocks, broke up the soil. In places they “washed” the soil to remove the salts that had accumulated and made the soil infertile.  They brought in irrigation.  Here you have steady sun, cooling winds, and flat ground.  With good clean soil and water, you have a veritable garden of eden.  With arid soil and no irrigation you have a desert wasteland.  Before the Jews sent thousands of emigres to work, you had the barren land that no-one wanted.

We passed into the Northern Negev.  This was a land of hills and wadis (valleys cut by the fear desert storms that would come a few times a year tearing deep ruts in the landscape.  We came Bedouin settlements (tents and temporary aluminum structures).

MORE COMING SOON

We concluded Tisha b’Av at the International Synagogue in Tel Aviv.  They were having a special showing of a film on Hannah Sennesh, one of the heros of the Zionist movement.  She had left Hungary to join a kibbutz before the outbreak of World War II.  On the eve the Nazi occupation of Hungary, Hannah volunteered with other Israelis on a daring mission to Hungary, parachuting behind enemy lines.  Her goal, to provide Allies intelligence of German troop movements and then get her mother and the Jewish community in Budapest to emigrate to Israel while there was still time. Hannah was captured and tortured. During her time on the Kibbutz she kept a journal, including haunting poetry.  She was captured by the S.S. and imprisoned and tortured.  From jail she continued to write poetry and to smuggle out useful information.  She was hung as a spy on the eve of “liberation” of Hungary by the Russians.  Her journals and writings published posthumously by her mother, as well as her bravery, made her a national hero. The movie, Blessed in the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh (click here) in English, captures the spirit of the times.  After the movie, we celebrated Mincha in the International Synagogue and the family broke its fast at a kosher cafe across the street with other temple members.  And being Tel Aviv, we took a late night stroll on the beach.

The next morning we left for Haifa.  Our primary goal was the B’hai Gardens.  We cruised up the highway seeing the modern new cities on the Sea and the hill towns.  And then Mt Carmel arose in the distance, a city on a hill sweeping from the Mediterranean Sea deep into the east, bisecting the land of Israel.  Over history, this was the major invasion route into Palestine.  Here many battles were fought.  Here was where the pilgrims landed en route to the holy land.  Here, actually a few miles up the road in Acre was where the British had their notorious underground prison where they held members of the Irgun and Palmach.

We searched for the cave of Elisha the Prophet.  Despite signs, the garden was locked.  We later learned that access was only through the Carmelite Convent.  We visited the Nautical Museum with an amazing collection of Canaanite figurines.  And then we drove up to the top of the B’hai Gardens.  Even though they were closed we were able to enter a few levels and could appreciate its beauty.  We wandered a bit, but nothing excited our interest.  I suggested Acre, variously called Akko, Akre etc).  Unfortunately it was rush hour, so the 15 minute drive took 1/2 an hour and the museums of Acre were closed or closing when we arrived.

Nevertheless, we walked the walls of the Crusader City, along ramparts rebuilt by the Ottomans.  Compared to the condition of the Old City in Jerusalem, this area was deserted and run down.  Acre is an old city, and an Arab city.  It’s architecture predates the arrive of the Zionists and the British.  There are no broad boulevards.  The main streets turn and narrow with dark covered alley ways.  At first we followed the walls, and then entered the crusader citadel.  We passed the British prison and turned at the water.  On one side, a long concrete promenade and crude modern concrete dwellings.  On  the other side, the moat and ramparts of the city.  We walked along the waterfront and harbor.  And then we took the Templar’s Tunnel.  It  led under the city from the waterfront back to citadel.  And then we turned a corner looking for the Turkish bathhouse.  While usually very good with directions, we quickly got lost in a warren of dark streets.  We followed the sunlight looking for the waterfront.  Every street seemed to turn back.  We saw bareboned shops lined will sullen faces eying us suspiciously.

We found a plaza with dark-skinned kids playing.  The were playing with guns.  The guns looked real; but they were cap guns, the loudest cap guns I ever heard.  My son said he saw one kid put a gun in his mouth and fire.  We moved faster, but with no success getting out of the warren.  One understanding resident pointed the way out.  The light grew brighter, but we could still not see the harbor.  This was a walled city with walls on every side.  And finally we saw a car and followed it out.  We emerged on a square with a beautiful mosque. We found out the mosque was the Jezzar Pasha mosque, the second largest mosque in Israel.  Two men gestured to us to enter.  The place was empty, but better a friendly face than several sullen faces or kids with guns.  We entered.  A young man volunteered to be our tour guide and we were able to enter the actual mosque and learn about its history and current  use.  And so our trip to the mosque of Jezzar Pasha (“the Butcher”) ended us on an upnote.  We left the Arab quarter and returned to modern Israel.  En route back to Tel Aviv we stopped at a shopping mall and ate at Burgos Burger Bar (BBB) on a patio in the cool Mediteranean sea breezes.

Yesterday we trekked to Jerusalem; our destination Yad Vashem & the Kotel on erev Tisha B’Av.  The first commemorates the failed attempt to destroy the Jewish people (“never forget”)  and the second laments the destruction of the first and second temples in Jerusalem.  The first event happening 70 years ago, the latter nearly 2000 years ago. It quite something to spend a day “underground” in the caves of Yad Vashem where is documented the rise of Nazi’s to power, and the near success of the Nazi’s and their allies to purge Europe of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, Marxists, liberal democrats, and other undesirables.  Yad Vashem documents the systematic, organized and “legalistic” approach taken by the Germans with the assistance of allies in the occupied nations.

The story of the Shoah (as the holocaust is called here) is presented through testimony, live testimony of survivors, writings and sketches of the victims and martyrs.  The evidence is overwhelming; the story is heart wrenching.  The story begins with a portrayal of the Jewish communities of Europe; painting a vision of a life rich in culture, an everyday life much like the life we live.  But you and I know how the story ends.  The “testimony” records individuals; individual acts of suffering and of heroism.  For it is only on the individual scale that the story can be comprehended by the mind.

There is the Testimony of the killing pits of the Jews of Vilna and the surroundings in the forest of Ponar in Lithuania (see film) told by a survivor of the massacre, who found himself and another teenage boy miraculously alive under a mountain of bodies of his fellow Jews.  In perspective, this was but a single testimony and yet the vision of a young teenage boy pulling himself alive out of a pit of corpses (family, friends and compatriots, the entire community) and escaping ultimately to Israel, moved me.

Years ago on my last visit I was moved by the Yad Vashem children’s memorial.  Six candles and a room of mirrors.  Six candles representing the six days of creation.  Six candles representing the spark of life; the seed from which the heavens are created.  Six candles reflected endlessly in a room of mirrors representing the one and half million children who died in the Shoah and the tens of millions and billions of stars in the heaven that would have been their progeny.  Louis XIV build his great hall of mirrors at Versailles.  Yad Vashem’s children’s memorial with its hall of mirrors captures the infinity and the potential of life.

I seem to have forgotten about Tisha b’Av.  After Yad Vashem we met the daughter of a good friend from New York who had made aliyah to Jerusalem.  The restaurants were closing early for the “fast” of Tisha b’Av where Jews remember the destruction of the first and second temples in Jerusalem.  For some, this is the “rock concert” at the Kotel, the time when religious Jews pour forth from Mea Sharim and other parts and converge on the last remains of the great temple built by Solomon, the “Western Wall”, Kotel in Hebrew.  Here was a blending of Jewish peoples from all over the world, each with their own customs, singing, chanting, lamenting and praying on the site of the great templates. Many chanted from the Book of Psalms in remembrance. Psalm 137 (click here) and Psalm 48 (click here) give you a sense of the prayers offered.

We had walked nearly 30 minutes up hill from our parking spot in the German colony.  We entered the Jaffa Gate and proceeded through the Armenian quarter into the Jewish quarter.  We were surrounded by the press of humanity; at times you could barely breath from the press.  And yes, we did read from the Psalms at the Kotel.  But between Yad Vashem and the Kotel, I was more moved by the former.  The first celebrates the survival of a vibrant people.  The later laments that passing of a “temple”, a building built by a king where a priestly class ruled.  I can appreciate the holiness of the site and the lamentations around us. But I was more uplift by the loss of the “people” and the potential for the future represented at Yad Vashem.

As the bright Mediterranean sun streams in from our window, we crunch down on fresh bread from the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem.  The crust is thin and crackly, the inside soft and moist. We were at the market late last night, near closing time.  It capped a day spent walking the paving stones of the Old City.

We were in the “new city” where the new buildings predates the voyages of Columbus, Magellan, and Vasco da Gama.  Armed with our electronic “parking pass” we applied New York City skills to find an open curb to park our car: wait for someone to leave, and stop all traffic if you must to secure your rightful place.

Armed with my iPhone we cut across the alleys to get to the Mahane Yehuda market, perhaps the most colorful and visited market in Jerusalem.  In our search for local food, local produce and local flavor, we had found our destination.  Sabras (desert cactus fruit), mini-pineapples, fresh oranges (for juice), mangos at the peak of ripeness, sun-cured black olives, fresh feta cheese, and, of course, vine-ripe tomatoes.  I once learned that they grow tomatoes in the desert and feed them salt water (from the dead sea) to increase their sweetness.  When eating tomatoes in Israel, you  can appreciate that tomato is a fruit, and not a vegetable for the juice is so sweet.

Don’t ever go to a market hungry.  If you do you will emerge burdened with copious amounts of food.  Luckily we were both tired and hungry. We secured a modest amount of food.  Though we did score an enormous chicken and a carton of 30 farm fresh eggs.  The route out of the market led past Meir Sharim.  We were for a while back in Eastern Europe.  It could have been Warsaw before the Nazis, or Lodsk or Minsk.  We emerged onto a broad avenue leading to Highway 1.  Before we knew it, we saw the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv.  And it was another night on Rotshchild Boulevard.  Hundreds of youths were dancing in the street to the tunes of Bob Marley, sung in Hebrew by a live band.