I would like to wish all of my blog readers a Shana Tova.

May the coming year be blessed with health, joy, happiness, inspiration, creation, innovation, prosperity and success. To you and your beloved ones.

And as for New Year’s inspiration, how about this?

Photo credit: Shana Tova, originally uploaded by dawnser.

We are in the midst of amazing two weeks for football (a.k.a soccer) fans:

• Los Angeles Galaxy played AC Milan last Sunday at the Home Depot Center (what a great stadium, no matter where you sit you get to see all the action). That was David Beckham’s first game with the Galaxy after coming back from a load to…AC Milan. He was booed by the fans the entire first half but gave a great game. Regardless of what many fans think, without Becks, the Galaxy are two levels weaker. Here are some photos I took and a video clip of Galaxy’s first goal, an example of how a fast break should be executed. It ended 2:2 and everyone were happy.
• Inter Milan played Chelsea on Sunday at the Rose bowl in front of 82K fans (who said football isn’t popular in the US?). Inter was weak (even with Zlatan), Chelsea was very strong and won rightly 2:0. Pictures here.
• Next Sunday I will see the world’s best team, FC Barcelona, in a game against the Galaxy. Since Zlatan Ibrahimovic just signed for Barca I will have a chance to see him again. I hope he will play much better than his performance with Inter. I hear there are still some tickets on StubHub if you are interested.

A few days ago, my wife asked me to create a new brochure for her birth doula business. A quick search in my gmail inbox took me to VistaPrint’s website where I quickly completed the design process and ordered new brochures.

The last time we used VistaPrint was two or three years ago. My wife created business cards using their service and I remembered a fair experience. Since then, for a couple of years, VistaPrint has been sending me all sorts of promotional emails several times a week. Most people think that these folks are pretty good at spamming their customers, but I think differently. Probably because at my previous role as VP of Products at Spark Networks one of my team’s responsibilities was email marketing, and I know how complex email marketing campaigns and systems could become. And so, when I look at these types of things it is not from a regular users prespective.

In a nutshell, VistaPrints email marketing efforts are great for:

• They have dozens of campaigns running simultaneously. There is an offer for everyone.
• There is a clear connection between the offer received via email and the website experience. Emails are always tied to promotion codes.
• Emails are being sent several times every week. VistaPrint never drops the ball and ensures they are always on your mind. Or at least in your inbox.
• VistaPrint also offers personalized emails with dynamic content based on customers status. For example, if you start a project and then leave in the middle without completing it, within less than 24 hours you will get an email, that contains a preview of your current work and an additional discount. Just come back and complete the project. This is not that trivial when done at large scale.

I think that what VistaPrint is doing is pretty impressive for an eMarketer, and anyone who has an email marketing component in his marketing activities should look into them and learn.

The only negetive thing I could say is that as a customer you have to pay for everything on their site (very good for their business though), including for a PDF version of the file designed. So, I just waited for the shipping to arrive and last night I scanned the brochure and uploaded it.

My wife likes the result and so do I. And so, if you live in the greater Los Angeles area, San Fernando valley or Ventura county and looking for a birth doula or a private prenatal yoga instructor, you should check her brochure (below) and website – BirthSpeak

I hope you all have a good Passover. The Huffington Post has an interesting article about Passover traditions from all around the world.

Happy Freedom Holiday.

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i send the locusts on a wind (365-169) – happy passover from the ten plagues!, originally uploaded by michele cat.

What began over 20 years ago with my first PC running different MS-DOS versions, and then continued with various desktops and laptops I owned that ran different versions of Windows (3.0, 3.1, 3.5, 95, 98, ME, 2000, NT, XP — I have not tried Vista and probably won’t) has now come to a complete end.

I am happy to say that our house is now fully Apple friendly & running on Mac OS. I started this migration process a few month ago by equipping our living room with a Mac Mini that serves as a media center (running boxee). Shortly after that, I switched my work laptop from an IBM Notebook to a MacBook Pro and improved my productivity so much. And a few days ago, after the house’s PC was about to completely die and required to much administration, I decided to replace it with a Mac.

So, here it is, a new Mac Mini connected to a Logitech cordless Wave keyboard mouse combo and a ViewSonic 19″ LCD. What a great way to start 2009.

Happy Thanksgiving, originally uploaded by twinsline7.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving filled with good food, family and friends!

BTW, in order to have a photo in this post, I did a quick search on both Flickr and Google’s Picasaweb for the term “Happy Thanksgiving”, and noticed how different the two services are: Flickr is all about creative & artistic photos of food, decor, nature, etc., while Picasa is all about family and friends. Something to keep in mind when trying to explain the impressive growth of Picasa in the past 12 months.

The past weekend in Los Angeles was all about Israeli music. As part of celebrating 60 years of independence to the state of Israel, a few Israeli artists came to town to perform.

The first concert I saw was by one my favorite Israeli band, Hadag Nachash (and if you insist to translate it to English — “the Fish Snake”). Hadag performed at Temple Sinai in Los Angeles at what seems to be a well kept secret among the people who live in the city. It was a fairly intimate show but an amazing one!

I stood right next to the stage, took plenty of photos (sorry for the poor quality – that’s the iPhone to blame), recorded a few videos and had a great time.

Here’s the opening song – Lotus. Two additional videos can be found here and here.

The second concert took place the following day at the world famous Kodak Theatre which was packed with excited crowd. It was an impressive and well organized event, with a few speakers (Kirk Douglas was one of them), dance shows and live performance by four leading Israeli artists and bands: Idan Reichel, Achinoam Nini (Noa), Rami Klenstein and Habanot Nechama (young, fresh — a great surprise for me).

Here’s Habanot performing Hachnisini, a classic song written by Israel’s national poet, Hayyim Nahman Bialik.

And more Israeli artists are coming to town. This coming Sunday, at Woodley park there will be a huge event to celebrate Israel’s independence day with a few artists, and last, but not least, another pop/rock legendary band, Mashina will be in town on May 27. I am going to be in both events.

What a great month for Israel music lovers.

Today we are celebrating Tu B’Shvat, the New Year of the Trees.

We started the celebrations on Sunday. We went tree planting in the area that was hit by the fires north of Lake Castaic.

Tonight we are going to have a nice dinner with plenty of dried fruits and nuts.

The last event will take place next Sunday and those of you who live in LA are welcomed to join the Malibu Tu B’Shvat festival. We will be there.

 

Hannukah, Extended, originally uploaded by oybay.