The Point Between Where I Was and Where I May Be

You don't look at the things you have. You only look at the stuff you don't have. Those guys are right about you, you're money.

- Rob (Ron Livingston) to Mike (Jon Favreau) in the movie "Swingers"

You know, there really should be a class that you take right before graduation that will give you a little preview of what life outside of academia consists of. Just like I don't believe that high school prepares you for college, I don't think college prepares you for the real world. Sure, it may prepare you for a job in the real world. But there's no direction at all when it comes to life outside of establishment.

Having 22 years (or so) of your life mapped out really can give you a false sense of security in the world. Just because you excelled in high school doesn't necessarily mean you'll excel in college and the same goes for college out into the real world. Just because you got a 4.0 in all of your business classes does not mean that you will be the best businessman when you enter the work force. But you're never told these things in college because it would discourage, I think, a great amount of people from going. Yes, the degree means a lot when it comes to getting a job outside of college -- but straight book learning really does not build much of a foundation for you to stand on, in my opinion.

For instance, I studied Literature and Creative Writing in my undergrad work. When I was sitting in my capstone class, the university's English counselor walked in and gave a presentation about "what to do with our English degrees". He handed us these little pamphlets that looked like he printed them off 5 minutes before coming to speak before our class and, with a straight face, told us that the only future we had was either Teach for America or the Peace Corps. I told him that I wanted to get an MFA and work on my writing further, but he stared right at me and told me that was a bad idea because no business people will be at my graduation waiting to hire me. "It doesn't work like that, in the real world," he said to me.

So you throw your cap in the air, hear Pomp and Circumstance while you march across the stage and shake some nameless faculty member's hand. You hug your friends and stand in the glaring sun outside of the arena and realize, "I made it. I did it." All through your childhood, it was drilled into your brain that you need to do well in school, go to college, and graduate. From there on out, life is easy because you have a degree. The whole world opens up for you. The sky is the limit.

Well, as most graduates find out within a first couple of weeks after the ceremony, that's a bunch of bull shit. When you enter the workforce as an entry level employee, you often find that there are several people -- colleagues, so to speak -- that are minus a college education. Or in the process of getting an online education. But don't worry about the fact that they're making more than you because they have more experience since they didn't take the time out of their lives to go to college.

Here's the moral of the story and what I'm really trying to hone in on: you have to be able to connect with the present state of your life. There is that cliche saying out there that the past is history, the future is unknown, so there's nothing to do but focus on the present. I think this may be one of the most overlooked and undervalued bits of advice given to young people. I should know, I never paid attention to it.

A lot is made these days about the value of money and what it can get you in life. Especially with the recession, student loans, credit cards, car payments, etc., it seems as if money is constantly the 400 pound gorilla standing in the middle of the room.

So thus, we are in the conundrum that we have transitioned from a life where all we had to do was study for tests, write papers, and make sure we went to class. Our free time was ours -- we could go running, go drinking, hang out with our friends. Our days were truly our days. But now, working all day in a cubicle staring at a computer screen can be such a drain that, when we get home, we no longer have the energy or wherewithal to go do anything. Can't go out drinking or stay up late because we have to be up at 5 A.M. every morning. Weather is just now finally getting nice, so we can go outside. But the fact of the matter is that we need to start realizing that this desire to go back to the old days and the yearn to be far enough along career-wise immediately in order to get out from under said 400 pound gorilla makes us lose the ability to focus on anything good happening in the present.

We'll take my current situation. I have a wonderful girl friend, I love my apartment, I love my dog, I love my books..I have all this stuff in my life right now that I can say that I love, so it makes me wonder why there are still those afternoons where I feel like I'm floating in nothing. The quote way back in the beginning of this post is dead on. We have a tendency to only see the things that we don't have because we take what we do have for granted. What we have is around us all the time -- thus, we inherently lose the abiliy to appreciate it the way we did when it first entered our lives. We may not have things other people have but it is not our judgment call to say that we should have those things as opposed to that person. To make statements like "Well, I deserve that more than she does". These sorts of attitudes turn our eyes away from what is good in our lives and become envious of what others have in theirs.

Please, please, please try to take a second everyday to just look out of the window, focus on the horizon, and take account of all the things in your life that you love. Not only does it make the day to day easier to bear, but it can also put things in perspective as to what your future goals are. Your goals should be your own -- not the goals of anyone else. You should strive to get where you want to be, not where other folks think you should be.

The Fall of David Ortiz

It's hard to imagine that David Ortiz no longer makes the knees of opposing pitchers knock together when he saunters up to the plate with runners on base. Watching the Mets/Red Sox game this weekend showed the pitchers are starting to buy into the hype that Ortiz has completed his fall from grace. They were not scared of Big Papi, which means that pitchers across the league are going to start gaining confidence. This is especially big for the young pitchers that Ortiz used to feed upon in pressure situations.

For the sake of conversation, let's take a look at Saturday's game against the Mets. The Red Sox dropped 16 hits and 12 runs on the Mets pitching staff. Everyone in the Red Sox starting lineup had a hit -- except Papi. Seven of them had 1 or more RBIs -- not Papi. In a day where the Red Sox let loose the fury against the Mets, Ortiz went 0 for 5. He struck out twice and left two runners in scoring position with two outs. Even though the 6 through 9 spot hitters went 12 for 20 with 7 RBIs against Mets pitching, at least they could be rest assured that there was a sure out sitting in the three spot.

Granted, now, the Red Sox are still a formidable team as yesterday's game moved them into sole position of first place in East. But, do they have the ability to survive an entire season and have any life in the post season? (This question actually goes for any of the teams in the East). But at what point do you give up on Ortiz? When does Francona sit David down and give him the "I think we need to change things up" speech? If I was him, I would do it now. He needs to either move down in the line up, or exit it completely. The last two seasons have shown some pretty marked reductions in power numbers and, if his form holds true, this season is definitely not going to be any better.

The Red Sox are an aging team and they don't have a great amount of talent in their farm system. I think, if I was Theo Epstein, if Papi has some sort of torrid turn around before the All-Star Break, I would trade him. If Papi survives the media and fan criticism of this year and finishes with his worst season to date and follows it up with another subpar season in 2010, there's no way he'll be a Red Sox any longer. Papi has one more year in the $12.5 million contract extension he signed in 2006, but I think that's the last full season we'll see Papi in Boston -- possibly, in the majors. If he has a bit of a turn around before the All-Star break hits, I might try and dangle him out there and see if any teams looking for a "power" (I use the term lightly here) bat to get them over the hump will bite.

It's a sad realization about the state of the game today when you peruse various comment boards on popular sports websites and see that many people are associating this decline with performance enhancing drugs. No one knows if this is the case or not, at this point can be nothing more than speculation from anyone. But the damage is done as soon as the first person asks, "Oh, well there steroids have worn off -- what else did you expect?" Once revered power hitters in the Majors will start to have this question thrust upon them more and more as they make their inevitable fall from grace. If any kids out there in school are studying McCarthyism need a modern day parallel, just look at the steroid rage in baseball. All someone has to do is throw the "s" word at somebody, at it can be enough to ruin their reputation. Or at least push it so close to ruin, that the athlete will be forced to make an impassioned speech about their non-use of PEDs, or the "mis-remembering" of their teammates (*ahem* Roger). Then, even once they've made their speech outlining their innocence, the television personalities and bloggers everywhere still question if the accused was genuine or not.

For Papi's sake, I hope it's just age and not anything steroid related. Even though I am a die hard Yankees fan, I'm a fan of the entire sport first. Papi was an extraordinary specimen of power and I, for one, will miss watching the pitcher's entire demeanor when stepped into the batters box.

Frost/Nixon

So I lied in my last post, I haven't made it outside this weekend. It's been pitiful and, if I were to show you a 360 degree angle shot of my living room, you would call the CDC and have them quarantine my apartment. Yes, it really is that bad.

But! This has been a weekend of movies, for sure. And I've watched a whole wide range of flicks (just got done with Kung Fu Panda again..haha). But, last night I watched the movie Frost/Nixon. I've been trying to knock out a lot of the movies there were all the buzz at this year's Oscar's since I did a poor job of seeing them in the theaters. It may seem a little redundant to review a movie that probably has been reviewed and criticized into the ground already, but this movie made me want to be a camera man. I think the movie as a whole was just along that steady line of decency, but there were a couple of moments that redeemed the whole thing.

The movie, for the most part, made the reported David Frost look a little worse than the ex-President they were trying to publicly crucify. He looked his role: a talk show host. And his crew could tell and did not pull any punches when letting Frost know that Nixon was using him as his debate play-thing through the first 11 interviews. I'm not entirely sure what switched turned on in his head, but the final interview was one of the most intense dialogues that I can remember in cinema -- right up there with the A Few Good Men back and forth. I'm obviously far too young to have any frame of reference when it comes to the actual Frost/Nixon interviews, but I could only imagine that staring through the view finder on the camera, using it as a blinder to the contextual world around us, that scene between Frank Langella and Michael Sheen had to be genuinely moving to the point of chills down the spine.

As a movie maker, that has to be the kind of scene that you dream for. If you do not have chills shooting through your body when Frost corners Nixon, then God help you. I'm going to place this movie, along with Doubt, in my top 5 I've seen in 2009. I'm going to work on a list and put it all together.

Memorial Day Weekend

What's happening peeps? It's Memorial Day weekend and I think I've stepped outside maybe...twice today? Actually, let me refine that a little bit. I've been out on the porch for awhile, but only a couple of times outside of the confines of my apartment. Everyone tells me that I should get outside and enjoy the weather -- but I just don't want to! I may go out tomorrow, but, as for today, I'm going to just sit here with my brain off. It's so relaxing.

I watched the movie Doubt this morning and I would probably have to rank it in the top 5 of my movies seen so far this year. Possibly cracking a top 10 All-Time List, if I had one created. There's an idea for a future post right there.

It stuns me how every time I see Phillip Seymor Hoffman in movies, I always make some sort of comment half way through that shows my adoration and sense of awe of him. He is great, especially, at the dirtier roles -- there's just something about the way he talks and the looks he has on his face when he's at his worst. But, the fact that he can single handedly hold up a romantic comedy like Along Came Polly just shows what kind of range he has as an actor.

And, I was pleasantly surprised by the performance turned in by Amy Adams. She played her part very well and when she spoke her piece about her life to Meryl Streep, it actually gave me chills. The ending I thought was well done, highlighting the doubt and guilt felt by Meryl's character over what had happened. I don't want to give away any spoilers for those who haven't watched this flick yet, but I was hoping it would go another direction and have something happen to the child.

This evening is packed with television -- Penguines and Hurricanes Game 3, Nuggets - Lakers, Mariners, Yankees won this afternoon. It has been a great day, I can only hope that I fall asleep in my bed tonight as opposed to on the couch. I don't really remember falling asleep last night, I just know that I woke up with the Spanish channel on. Alright, I'm out of here to finish watching the Pens game.

All you readers out there -- get out and enjoy the weather! I'll come outside sometime..I swear.

All Alone Am I

It's amazing that when you spend so much time with someone, their absence seems completely unnatural and unfathomable. Ever since Raquel and I moved up here to Spokane, we have done literally everything together, even as far as now working for the same company. Although we work on different floors and don't see each other very much during the day, we still ride to work and come home together. A lot of people have wondered how we are able to spend so much time together without getting sick of other, but I just could not picture life any other way -- especially since I'm sitting at home by myself right now.

Today was my day off and to say I made the most of it would be a joke. There's more stuff I probably should have done to make today more memorable -- gone for a walk with Timber, read a book, etc. -- but instead I spent most of the morning trying to cope with the fact that I was going to be all alone all day. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that she is traveling and I know she is having fun, but life seems so unnatural right now because she isn't here. This makes me respect my grandma who lost her husband after 5 decades of life together...I couldn't imagine that. Sigh. I don't want to talk about this anymore, but I'm just saying that none of the stuff that we do or watch on television is nearly as fun or enjoyable as with her.