Month: October 2014

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to rituals and choice. We have so much opportunity–especially in U.S. society–to create lives for ourselves. There are barriers to choice to be sure. Not everyone is born with the same opportunity to lift themselves into the life they want. Not everyone is born with the same idea of what a great life will be. The downside of choice is that we are often victims of it as well. Much like I once wrote about politicians being locked into a choice for fear of being considered flip floppers, we are often locked into the choices we make in life–either through the false walls we build for ourselves around those choices or through the very real bindings that come with age, time, and even location.

The other day someone I love told me I was having a mid life crisis, because I had–supposedly abruptly–made a choice that was so far away from what would be normal for me that it had to be that I was in crisis. I am not, of course, in crisis. In truth I’ve spent the last 1600+ days developing a much deeper and nuanced understanding of myself and my needs (writing will do that to a person. It is definitely worth the 10 minutes). Still, the walls of responsibility make every new choices a hard one and might not always stand up to the trials of time and experience.

I write this to suggest, however vaguely, that we are all subject to the choices we make and that we are all human creatures who learn and grow and change and sometimes act maturely and sometimes not and sometimes change our minds. It doesn’t make us villains. It doesn’t mean we are worse or better people for it. It does mean that we learn and we grow and we admit that we don’t have all the answers and we don’t ever have all the information and that the world changes and changes us and the results of that can shape new understanding and new beginnings and new rituals.

Twenty years ago I was a 175 lb kid who’d just messed up his knee and learned that the life he’d planned for himself over the last 10 years was over. He–I–didn’t have what it took to be that guy. Perhaps the seeds of that failure were sewn long before. Perhaps it was never something meant to be. We cannot ignore the fact that the universe has a way of leading us in the right direction if we just stop and listen.

Twenty years passed and I’m a lot older and maybe a hair or two wiser than that cocksure kid was the hour before his world fell apart. Twenty years, fifty pounds, and a lot of scars later I’m firmly aware of what makes me happy, motivated, and healthy, and what doesn’t. I’m also a lot more aware than that kid who thought life was about him. I don’t have all the answers yet, but I do know that everything we do and can be boils down to the choices we make. I realize that, though that kid was wrong and life isn’t all about him, he–I–have to be the one to step forward and make the choices that make better, stronger, and ultimately happy.

Watching Fox 10 Arizona I was fortunate enough to witness the stupidest thing ever said on television. You can tell by a person’s expression even tone of voice if they are being serious. Sadly the newscasters seemed outwardly serious when they dropped a news story about the new trend of #somebodyelsie. I did a search on the term and found it shared as a humorous joke and not serious in any other way than the hashtag situation linked above. Unsurprisingly, the newscasters who aired the story also went online and posted their own so-called somebodyelsies.

A somebody elsie is not a new thing. It is defined as turning the camera around and, instead of taking a picture of yourself, taking a picture of somebody else. Holy revelation, Batman. This is truly the stupidest news story I’ve ever witnessed. To devote time to a story in which you tell people that it is trendy to take pictures and that in fact it might be a new idea is mind blowingly ignorant. Of course I shouldn’t be terribly surprised. The preceding story focused on a proposal by (i don’t remember the group) to pee in the shower in the morning in order to save the water you’d use peeing in a toilet and flushing. During the segment they showed images of people spry painting their dying grass green. The tangential connection was not lost on me.

Please tell me I’m off and wasn’t supposed to take this seriously. Of course, the section of news was called the buzz–stories everyone is talking about…

Later in the broadcast the news harped on Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella because of his comments about women asking for raises. He says in part that not asking for raises provides you good karma. He went on to say, “The system will give you the right raises as you go along.” Women at this Women in Technology conference were mightily pissed. Here’s a flash, Nadella feels like nobody should ask for a raise. Not just that women shouldn’t ask for a raise. Unfortunately he’s had to back away from his valid comments in order to appease the masses. I kinda agree with him. Don’t ask for a raise unless you have to. Allow the system to recognize your skills and for the management to recognize your willingness to put at least some faith in the system. Don’t lose faith until you must.

Maybe that’s just me. People tend to think I’m a pushover though.

When I coach soccer I talk about how important it is to win the 50/50 balls–the plays where two boys are racing for the ball and only one is gonna get it. Those make the difference in a soccer game. They also make the difference in a fantasy football season. You gotta win the toss ups. You gotta be able to pick the right nobody players who are going to get it done for you. I whiffed on Donnell this week and missed Branden Oliver entirely. Most of the world did. I didn’t miss the toss ups in my picks last week. I walked away with a 10-4 pick record, bringing my record thus far to 32-23. Onward! Upward!

 

IND over HOU

NE over BUF
Kyle Orton is not the answer. Marcus Mariota? Maybe…

CIN over CAR

CLE over PIT
A 50/50 here. Justin Gilbert has underwhelmed, but so has the majority of the PIT receiving corps. I think Haden is due for a bounce back game here and Antonio Brown is going to be his victim.

GB over MIA

DET over MIN
They won’t get beat by two scrub teams in a row. No way.

DEN over NYJ
The real question is will the DEN rbs break 25 carries combined?

BAL over TB
Despite kicking the tires on an aging Champ Bailey, I believe this team still has the secondary to deal with a growing Bucs passing attack.

JAX over TEN
50/50 again. Still, I think Bortles pulls down his first win and actually throws a solid game. Fantasy Sleeper Alert!!!!

SD over OAK
Beware the trap game! Only, this is a Battle of California game and one that the Chargers never sleep on.

AZ over WAS
Denver is too good for such a rough QB performance as a rookie will give. Washington is a different story entirely. Play the AZ Defense here.

ATL over CHI
If this game were in Chicago I’d call it the other way. On the turf I think the Falcons have a better chance of putting up big points.

SEA over DAL

NYG over PHI

SF over STL

 

I spent seven hours in the office today and it informed me of one very important fact: I am ill-equipped for 9 to 5 work. I’ve tossed the idea of a 9-5 talisleegger around and found repeatedly that this is not the line I can take. This has far less to do with an inability to work for a sustained period of time than it does with the banality of being in an office that long. I can write for a long time, but it requires movement and the occasional change of scenery. 9-5 work rarely provides that opportunity. I’d have to do something like drive a truck–something where I could tune out and listen to audiobooks all day.

Nevertheless I’ve been gifted with the chance to teach and therefore work my own personal ‘perfect storm’ of a schedule and have the mental time to think and breathe and simply be without worrying about having to flip a burger or file TPS reports or anything so ridiculous. In short I have a job that gives me time to think, which leads to…

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Making a play for the SD Running back Brandon Oliver. On the one hand I am chasing points. He scored a bunch last week, but it does not mean that will become a trend. On the other hand I have two teams that are without a valid running back option at the 2 slot. One team doesn’t have anyone at the 1 slot either. Oliver, you better be available and you better run your butt off… Daddy needs a win.
2.  Wen tot see the Annabelle movie tonight. It was delightfully creepy and presented some new ways to scare the poo out of me. Most horror films are basic and really fail to surprise, especially in the way they use non-diegetic sound to set the mood. This one tells a story that allows the diegetic and non-diegetic sound elements to cross over creating this sense of not knowing what is real and what is not. All of that is prefaced by the argument that the devil will try to trick you. Well done, directorial team.
3. You never stop being a son, which is to say you never stop being bossed around by your mom and made to feel like you are five years old and still incredibly unwise of the world. Newsflash: I stopped being five a lifetime ago, and perhaps that means I know a little bit…

I’m going to talk about students for a little bit.

There seems to be a pattern emerging with my class attendance. On the days that work is due in class I lose anywhere between 8 -12 of the up to 16 students in a given class. This is a persistent repeating habit. When work is due the kids are not there. Today this truth applied to all of my classes. Perhaps they thought if they didn’t show up they could turn the paper in late and still get the full credit for the work. Nope, that is high school styled nonsense right there.

I don’t do that.

I will say this: I teach four levels of English and the final level of ENG had more absence emails (and more absences) than my first level class. The first level folks simply didn’t bother to explain not showing up. I have an absence policy and a late work policy, but that high school mentality means that these kids will all show up on Wednesday claiming not to know or understand the policy and expecting to turn their work in. That culture has to change.

The Box Trolls is a 2014 british children’s comedy directed by Anthony Stacchi and Graham Annable and featuring the voice work of known stars such as Simon Pegg, Ben Kingsley, and Elle Fanning. I expected the film to be cute and delightful. What I got was another glimpse into the surprisingly intelligent world of today’s kids films. Not all kids films are intelligent. Often you’re expected to sit there and enjoy a mostly meaningless explosion of color and light that tries, halfheartedly, to make some type of rote moral statement.  The Box Trolls seem to fall victim to this completely as an afterthought–a none to subtle tip of the hat ending that says, “Oh, and if you’re stupid then this is exactly the message we are trying to send.” Only the message they are actually trying to send is far deeper.

The film is constructed largely as a condemnation on societies (like ours) that openly rely on marxist principles such as the class conflict between the few wealthy and many poor. The story follows a boy who goes to live with these Box Trolls (for reasons that are central to the big plot twist at the end, so I won’t share them here). In the city above their subterranean home the Box Trolls are seen as a menace to society–the boogieman that forces a curfew at night. In fact, much of the story world Box Troll myth is perpetuated on the tale of the Box Trolls supposedly having kidnapped the film’s protagonist and eaten him. Obviously the boogiemen didn’t eat that boy. On one level the movie talks about the falsehood of the boogieman and how this particular so-called boogieman is really just the migrant worker class, hidden from view and made to seem evil to advance a small number of somewhat charismatic individuals to a higher status. Each of the villains in the film is dealing with some sociological or moral dilemma about the idea of place, role, or redemption, but the conflict is masked by this larger illusion of good vs. evil. Make no mistake, there is no good class here. The rich leadership of the film world, signified by their white hats, are classic fat cats who openly let the city go to waste in order to sit around in their private club and feast on their cheese.

Let that sink in for a minute: actual cheese.

It gets better. The central villain wants nothing more than to cross classes and gain his white hat status so he can eat cheese with the upper crust of society. Unfortunately, that man cannot handle his cheese all too well, a fact that expectedly leads to his downfall. There are more than a few hints of a Ricardian Socialist utopia at the end, leaving one to question if this is a condemnation of the status system or a reminder that chasing the status and not valuing your role as a worker is the key to your own destruction.

I am going to use this film in class next year for social deconstruction. There is a lot to unpack for such a short and pretty film.

I’ve noticed two interesting things about myself: (1) I put an enormous amount of time into youth sports (2) I’ve stopped using lists as an organizational tool. Neither are deep revelations in of themselves but each as deeper implications as to the condition and conditioning of my life to date.

 

Call Me Coach
Gradually I’m coming around to recognizing that my persona in this town I live is largely that of a coach. I’m not upset by this in any way. Sports play a tremendous role in my life and because I am raising so many athletic kids it is only natural that I want to spend time with them by coaching them. I think what I want for the kids is what I want for the students in the classroom: To walk away with a great deal of knowledge that they remember and can readily apply to a given situation, but foremost in their mind to be the memory of having enjoyed their time.

The List of Many Things
I stopped listing because I didn’t want to write things down. I’ve debated whether or not this was based on fear of seeing how much was on my plate or changes in my work habits leading me to believe that I had full control of my responsibilities and schedule. Well I don’t. Never did. I cannot stop myself from taking on too much if I am unaware of what I’m already doing. So, it is back to lists for me.

First thing on my list: write down those 10 minute post ideas I keep coming up with and forgetting…

As a casual observer I’ve noticed that too much of what must be done and what is right and wrong gets lost in the politics and legislation of issues. My opinion is further fueled by articles like this piece on the Secret Service. The article talks about the short history of unforgivable gaffs from the secret service leading up to a dude running into the White House with a knife on him. The writer attributes the failure to a political move of the agency from the Department of Treasury to the Homeland Security Office. There is some truth in that. Prior to the move you didn’t see such lax Presidential security as was evident during the Bush and Obama administrations. Nobody managed to throw a pair of shoes (one at a time, mind you) at Clinton or Bush #1.

This seems like a small thing but is indicative of the role politics plays in mucking up the works of every day life and especially of what needs to be done. Politics even effects the healthcare system. Thanks to laws devised several decades ago, non-invasive medical tools like the the Lung Flute cannot even be sold in the U.S. without a prescription from a doctor. Yep, you need a prescription to blow into a piece of plastic that delivers no medicine whatsoever.

That’s politics, folks. We need to move past that and start to focus on doing what is needed and what is right.

One of the things about college sports that deeply troubles me is the scrutiny that college athletes receive. Correction: It isn’t the scrutiny but the expectation. Recently I read an article about Florida State QB, Jameis Winston, a polarizing figure in the world of college sports. The article, predictably, chided Winston for his behaviors. He was charged with shoplifting in 2014, earlier in his college tenure he’d been accused of stealing soda from a Burger King and was once questioned about a bb gun battle involving 13 FSU Seminole football players that resulted in broken windows in a complex near the stadium. Finally, he was accused of sexual assault in 2012, a charge that was never substantiated. The sexual assault issue is a big deal and one worthy of a red flag. A college study done by Sarah Lawrence in 1990 suggested that 1 in 4 college women will be the victim of sexual assault. The percentage far from excuses Winston of the accusation, but I’m not trying to excuse him. I’m making it clear that if  that behavior occurred, he deserves scrutiny. I also am reminding the pubic that we don’t know what happened and won’t until a full investigation is completed (perhaps not even then). The accusation alone is not enough to turn him into a monster.

The rest of the crimes–petty as they are–tend to be considered as typical collegiate behaviors. I remember many nights running through the buildings of Iowa State University firing laser tag guns at each other. I stole food from the cafeteria to make sure I had enough to eat. I’m certain I’ve jacked soda from McDonalds on more than one occasion (statute of limitations, y’all!). My point here is that Winston and other college players are routinely criticized for behaving like college kids as opposed to professional athletes. We are quick to forget that the brains judgement center doesn’t fully develop until we are 25. until then we are all still adolescents.

Too bad media scrutiny doesn’t allow certain kids to act like they are kids.

A peak at the new NFL Power Rankings (via si.com) suggests the Dallas Cowboys are the number 10 team in the league. That’s nonsense. On the other hand, Demarco Murray is far and away the #1 Fantasy back in the game thus far.  The season is unpredictable. Who would’ve guessed Shady McCoy would be average and Matt Asiata would run for 3 tds? My powers of research and observation cannot predict such things accurately, but I can tell you who is going to win from week to week. My 22-19 total suggests that I’m right more often than a monkey slapping at buttons or a baby drooling on the winning team’s logo. That’s not such a great comparative rate of success, but if you eliminate the nonsense of the second week then I’m sitting at around 75% success. That’s something to note. Here are a few more notes on the upcoming slate of games.

GB over MIN
R-E-L-A-X, GB faithful, even with a rookie RB going strong and Matt Asiata making short work of goaline stands, the Vikings are going to get cheesed pretty bad here.

CHI over CAR
Carolina has too many problems to count but it starts with an injury-prone RB corps and a line that isn’t doing much to or create running lanes or protect the QB. I’m putting my faith in Alshon here.

HOU over DAL
Don’t believe the hype. Even injured as it is, the NYG secondary is miles above and beyond anything DAL can do. Add to that the presence of a mostly healthy Arian Foster and the porous DAL D is going to have trouble, which means Romo is going to be playing from behind and throwing that rock all over the place… with limited success.

DET over BUF

PIT over JAC

NO over TB

NYG over ATL
I bench the ATL QBs if i’m you. Seriously: 7 NY picks in the last 2 games…

STL over PHI
The dirty truth of that fast-paced Eagles offense is that it is predicated on a strong run game. STL is predicated on a strong run defense. I see a handful of important stops making this one a close win for STL.

CLE over TEN

DEN over AZ
Denver is just too much offense. It will be close.

SD over NYJ
The Jets are killer against the run and decent against the pass and completely useless on the offensive side of the ball… We Want Vick. I get that he isn’t the end all, but he is able to move the pocket and move the ball outside of the pocket enough to bring up safeties and create match ups that guys like Salas can take advantage of.

SF over KC

NE over CIN

SEA over WAS

 

Some Thoughts:

1. My kids cheat at Black Ops II. Just sayin.
2. Been looking at a wealth of energy supplements to get myself back in balance. I had to stop drinking coffee at night because it was limiting my sleep. Now I sleep slightly longer, wake up earlier, and am a great deal more tired on average. That’s all kinds of wrong.
3. As a coach and a Dad I’ve been making running punitive. Running shouldn’t be punitive. It should be applauded and rewarded.