We have a set of infra-red transmitters between two different sites. There was a problem with the units not being in synch, so I called the technician for the units. They sent two guys out to realign and resynch the units.

When synching the units, they had to set it at the optimum strength for transmission. They were setting the units at a strength of 770. I chuckled and asked why 770? Is that a specific number from the manufacturer or just something you set as a measure? I said that I did not remember them originally setting it specifically to 770...

The technician did not know the answer. He said that is what they always set it to.

I wonder if the person who chose 770 as the optimum number to set it to chose that because of its significance in Chabad....

This week is the 105th birthday of the Rebbe. The Lubavitcher Rebbe. I suspect he is getting close to be in the running for oldest person alive. Soon the men at Guiness will be knocking at the doors of 770 to start checking his credentials and verify his information...

Last night Habad sponsored a concert in Tel Aviv to celebrate the Rebbe's birthday. Friends of ours invited us to join them in attending the concert, and against our better judgement with Pesah quickly approaching, we decided to say yes and go.

Due to our friend's great navigational skills, we ended up getting their pretty late.. We caught most of Lipa's performance, and he was pretty good. For every 8 minutes of singing there was about 25 minutes of speeches and "Yehi"'s.

The crowd was pretty full, but not packed. There were a number of empty seats that I saw in my area.. I did not like the way they set up the grounds. The stage was so far away from the crowd that even with good seats we could not see the performances directly but had to watch on the screen. Also the lighting was pretty funky. They had some very bright lights flashing off the stage sporadically and the lights were blinding the crowd so at those times wee could not even see the screen...

But aside from that and the length of the speeches it was pretty good. MBD came up next. I thought he was a bit flat and unexciting. He sang a few songs and then sang one with Gideon Levine.

After some more speeches with some interesting gematriyas proving how great the Rebbe is, and a public kiddush levana, the star of the night came out.

Shweckey.

I was surprised that he got bigger billing than MBD. I remember MBD being the star and everybody else was his warm up act. Now MBD is a bit of a has-been whose time has passed, and he is warming up for the younger, more energetic stars of today. Shweckey was really the star of the night and he was great. He was exciting. He was vibrant. And the crowd loved him.

One more picture - at some point this guy started walking around the area I was sitting in and passing out drinks of vodka.. he got mobbed pretty quickly and his bottle was knocked off..