Miscellaneous Israel Stuff – My thoughts on everything

Trip to the Dead Sea

Here’s the story of my trip to the Dead Sea in 2010:

It was 1 PM on a Saturday. I was in the middle of my day-off routine, which at the time went something like this:

11:30 AM-11:45 AM- Wake up. Thoroughly stretch hips. Chug water. Tell myself I am going to teach myself computer programming, study for the GMAT, and clean my apartment.

11:45 AM- 12:00 PM – Decide that thoroughly stretching hips was enough energy expenditure for the morning. Put off any studying and self improvement exercises. Turn on podcast, make scrambled eggs with fried potatoes.

12:00 PM- 2:30 AM – Watch episode after episode of Breaking Bad/ Parks and Recreation/ New Girl / Deadwood / NTSFSD:SUV / Children’s Hospital / Archer/ Cougar Town/ The British Office/ The Sopranos / Mad Men / Friday Night Lights/ anything on TV that didn’t have a Chef or a Real Housewife. Whatever show I was into at the moment, I basically free-based it until I passed out. Occasionally I would venture outside, but usually I just holed up, consumed media and ate.

My go to meal at the time was a dish I still consider to be one of the most delicious desserts I’ve ever had: an Israeli cinnamon bread, whose name I never learned, topped with vanilla Haagen Daas Ice cream.

While this dish was good at room temperature, microwaving it allowed for the ice cream to melt over the bread, resulting in a treat with heroin-level addiction potential. Unfortunately, there were times when the microwave proved to be problematic.

Continue reading “Trip to the Dead Sea”

My Version of Job Hunting

I decided to take a trip to Israel. I was sick and tired of sitting at my house, wondering if the teams’ reluctance to pay for my plane ticket was the only thing holding me back from a job. I figured if I flew out here a myriad of possibilities would materialize. That turned out to be wishful thinking.

Let’s start with a positive. I have been crashing with the family of one of my teammates in Beer Yaakov, and they are exceedingly kind. They have housed me, fed me, taken me to their family functions, and even done my laundry. I couldn’t ask for more. Continue reading “My Version of Job Hunting”

The Movie Game

I have a long relationship with a time-wasting game that is aptly called The Movie Game. The rules are simple: One person names a movie or an actor. If you name a movie, the next person says an actor from that film. If you name an actor, the next person has to name a film that person was in. You continue like that, going clockwise. If you can’t think of an answer, or you get it wrong, then you get a strike. 3 strikes and you’re out.

I started playing this game in high school as a way to pass the time in a theater class. The games were fun, but no one took it too seriously. I had no idea what I was getting into when, 2 years ago, I reintroduced the Movie Game back into my life. The length, competitiveness and intensity got ratcheted up to a whole new level. Continue reading “The Movie Game”

Hazing

When a bunch of athletes are constantly hanging out with each other, it is natural for a lot of trash talking to go on. But if you are a small, white, Ivy League grad, you are probably going to deal with more crap than the average person. That is just the way the world works. There are a couple of main points people like me have to contend with. Continue reading “Hazing”

The bad, the good, and the peacock

We lost the opening game of the finals in dramatic fashion. We were up big in the 4th and blew it at the end. I was invisible offensively and had a costly turnover with under a minute left. Then to top it off I broke my glass water bottle in the locker room. This is the same locker room where I broke the screen of my phone earlier in the year. I need to be very careful of what I bring to that cursed place next game.

I was thinking that night, “I wish there was something I could take to rid myself of this horrible, sinking, aching gloominess.” It gave me a better understanding of how people get hooked on pain killers. Thankfully I didn’t have any narcotics handy. I had to deal with the hurt the old-fashioned way, which for me involves staying on the internet until I literally can’t keep my eyes open and then falling asleep before the negative thoughts can overwhelm me. Continue reading “The bad, the good, and the peacock”

How To Ruin a Negotiation Without Really Trying

1. Be angry from the moment you wake up.

From 10 AM on I was working myself up about my meeting with the team owner. I decided that there was no reason that he should have charged me for the car that he let me use for a month. There was no reason I should have to pay for a flight when we never the discussed the details before hand. There was no reason I had to go in there and be a kiss ass when I had not been paid in over 2 months. I was ready to really get into it with this guy.

2. Don’t Listen to Anybody’s Pre-Meeting Advice

Maybe my agent sensed the fury growing within me, because he called me around 11 AM. He told me that he had talked with the owner, that I needed to accept whatever money he offered me, and that he would work something out later. I asked him why everything always got pushed back around here. He insisted that nothing good would come of bringing the ruckus right now. Continue reading “How To Ruin a Negotiation Without Really Trying”