Try Again

We all know what has happened over the past five months.  Pandemic.  The Covid-19 virus has changed our lives forever.  There is no two ways about it.  One of the main constants in my life is sports, in particular baseball.  The season was just about to get underway when the country went into lock down and it is finally resuming.  I know that on a personal level I would get along just fine without watching any sports for a year, but it is nice to have.  It's a bit of an escape for me.  Some people have video games or working out or personal groups.  I have sports, in particular baseball.  I just always have.  And for the first three weeks when it was suppose to be being played, it felt like something was missing.  As it became more and more clear that the pandemic was never really going away and sport seasons were getting postponed or canceled, all I could really think about was watching baseball in 2021.  That would have been okay.  By the time whispers and murmurs were starting that the season might well indeed take place, I just thought 'cool.  weird but cool.'  The day are finally here!  Tomorrow the 2020 season will begin!


With the season going from 162 games down to 60, I need to re-imagine my fun hot takes for the season.  For a quick recap of what I thought back in May, follow this link.  This season is going to be more fun than the typical year but also more stressful.  Not for us Tigers fans though, they'll still end the season way outside the playoffs.  Or will they? 

• C.J. Cron will lead the A.L. in home runs with 15.
• Austin Romine will throw out 25% of potential base stealers 
• Casey Mize will make three starts with the MLB team.
• Riley Greene will make his MLB debut this season.
• Spencer Turnbll will be traded.
• No Tiger will steal more than 5 bases.
• Michael Fulmer and Daniel Norris will become the Opener/Mid option at the back end of the rotation.
• Ron Gardenhire will be ejected 3 times
•  The Tigers will not have a top five draft pick in 2021.
• I think the Pirates, Marlins, Royals, Orioels, and Mariners will all have worse seasons
•  After the season, Cron and Matthew Boyd will both receive contract extensions

Delayed Hot Takes

As with everything else, the MLB season has been delayed because of the COVID pandemic.  We were so close to getting into the regular season too.  At the very least, we got to see some live current baseball.  One of the few positives to come out of this pandemic, from a sports perspective, is that classic games are being broadcasted on television in lieu live current games.  I was able to watch three games from the 1984 World Series.  I've seen Gibson's home run in game five so many times it feels like I watched it live, but I have never seen any of the other games.  I mean, I was two years old at the time.  Two games of the 1968 World Series have even been shown.  So that's cool I guess.

Typically, I have taken some time right before the season started to have a little fun making a list of hot takes but everything went sideways.  As we get closer and closer to the season happening (maybe June?  Maybe July?) I can't help but think of making a list again.  It's fun and the Tigers really aren't right now.  The light at the end of the tunnel isn't getting closer unfortunately in this rebuild, but when it is done we might have something resembling a decent major league baseball team to cheer for.  It'll be tough to throw out some numbers because they'll play about half of a season, but lets give it a whirl.  Anyway, here's a fun list of hot takes for the Detroit Tigers 2020 shortened season:

• Niko Goodrum will finish in the top 5 in Gold Glove voting at the shortstop position
• C.J. Cron, Jonathan Schoop, and Miguel Cabrera will combine to hit 55 home runs
• JaCoby Jones will be traded during the season (is there going to be a trade deadline?) and Victor Reyes will be the everyday center fielder
• Dawel Lugo is going to surpass Jeimer Candelario in the depth chart at third base
• Cron and Austin Romine will get contract extensions at the end of the year 
• Goodrum, Reyes, and Cameron Maybin will combine for 40 stolen bases

And now for the pitching side of things:

• Jordan Zimmermann gets DFAd at some point in the season
• Buck Farmer will finish the season with more saves than Joe Jimenez
• At least four different pitchers will record a save for the team
• Casey Mize makes at least one start at the major league level 
• Matthew Boyd will be traded (this makes me sad)
• Matt Manning will get a cup of coffee with the team
• Michael Fulmer will return this year not as a starter, but in the bullpen
• Daniel Norris and Tyler Alexander will combine for 12 wins

Just some random stuff:

• Riley Greene and Kody Clemens will end the year in Toledo
• The Tigers will end the year ahead of four other teams (Baltimore, Miami, Pittsburgh, and Seattle)
• The Tigers will draft batters with their first two picks in the draft
• Ron Gardenhire will sign a new contract after the season

A New World

Life undoubtedly has changed.  A global pandemic will do that.  I haven't worked in a little over a month.  My employer did what was right and paid everyone for the first two weeks of this whole shutdown, and I've used some vacation time I had saved up.  Just this week I filed for unemployment for the first time ever.  That felt weird.  There are some changes that have hit harder than others and some aspects which have had little to no personal impact.

The big impact that most people are dealing with is just being home all the time.  Even when I left my previous job, I didn't take any time off.  I just went to a new place of work the next day.  This is the first time since 2005 that I haven't been working.  I know that this is only temporary and eventually I will be back at it, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy not working every once in a while.  Don't get me wrong, there are days where I just aimlessly wander around the house looking for something to do.  It helps to get up and walk around for a bit just to get the blood flowing.

We all knew that our screen times were going to skyrocket and I have tried (with some success) to keep my time down.  On a typical work day, I'd average around two and a half to three hours on my phone.  On a good day now it's up to around four hours but most days hovering around five hours.  I mean, you can only watch so much HGTV and Netflix right?  We don't have sports to waste the day away right now (christ I miss baseball).  To combat the screen time villain, I've been spending time putting puzzles together for an hour here and an hour there.  Just for something different to look at.  Last week I dug out my records and just sat and listened to Led Zeppelin I.  I've started re-reading The Walking Dead.  All of these things little things can add up to staying away from the phone.  I highly recommend it.     

At the moment, my wife is also off of work.  She worked for about a week longer than I did, but she had the opportunity to work from home.  We have taken on some small projects around the house.  We've painted our main floor bathroom and replaced some fixtures.  I cleaned up and reorganized the basement.  The garage has been swept.  A permanent rod has been installed in the laundry room.  We blocked off some space in the backyard for growing wildflowers.  All these things would have eventually gotten done, yes, but now we're needing things to do to pass the time.

The largest impact on our lives has been not going out when we feel like it.  Over the past month we have left the house once maybe twice a week.  I'd say in a normal month we'd go out to eat five or six times.  That doesn't seem like much, but when that option is off the table it makes you miss it that much more.  And yes, if we really wanted to we could order for take out we just haven't done that.  We should to support all the local restaurants, but we're also watching what we spend.  

Luckily, we are child free.  We do not have to schedule time to do home schooling.  Good on all you parents out there that are having to put that on your plates.  This seems to be one of the largest hurdles the general public has had to overcome.  Not only are we all staying home, but most are having to juggle work and life all day every day.  Good on all you parents out there rolling with the punches and drinking heavily to get through your kids' school day. 

Just remember to take care of yourselves.  And if I hear 'now more than ever' even ONCE after this has passed, I will lose my shit.

A Choice, A Change

If you stop and think about it, life is just a choose your own adventure book.  The only difference is you cannot look ahead to each choice and then take the better option.  Everyone that ever picked up a choose your own adventure book did this.  You cannot lie about it, you know you did that.  I'm not talking about making choices like steak or chicken for dinner, I'm talking big choices.  Choices that can change your life.  Sometimes these choices aren't yours.  For example, I have thought about how different my life would have been if my parents decided to stay in the Detroit area instead of my dad taking a job in the U.P.  This decision was not mine to make as I was seven at the time, but if they didn't make that choice, I would not have met my wife.  That's just bananas to think about, isn't it?  That's also super scary to think about.  How different are all of our lives based on decisions that aren't yours to make?  When I sit down and think about those kinds of situations, my mind always comes back to two different choices that were made that impacted our (mine and my wife's) lives.

The first choice wasn't even really ours to make.  After college my wife got a job with Cessna Aircraft in Wichita, Kansas.  When we were graduating college we agreed that we would move to the first place where one of us found a job and that is just how we ended up down there.  But this isn't the choice I'm talking about.  Moving to Wichita seemed like a pretty easy decision.  It was either move and be gainfully employed or stay unemployed and continue to look for a job.  So we moved and worked down there.  Found a great group of friends.  Adjusted to life with no winters, no trees, and being far from family.  We even started to look at buying a house.  It was shortly after we started looking at houses that the economic recession hit and my wife got laid off because of it.  This was about four or five years of living in Kansas, so we were fairly well established in the area.  It's safe to say we dodged a giant bullet in not buying a house.  We would have been in a great financial mess.  Shortly after getting laid off, my wife started looking for jobs.  We thought staying in Wichita was an option, but there wasn't much happening in her field of work.  So she looked into Kansas City.  Bigger area, we figured there's a better chance there.  No luck.  We got to the point where it was 'find a job anywhere and we can move'.  With my working retail, and at the time with Target, it gave us some flexibility to move.  Transferring wouldn't have been a problem.  Here's where the choice comes into play.  My wife had a couple of interviews with a company in Charlotte, North Carolina.  One was a phone interview and the second was an in person interview.  They flew her in, she stayed for a couple of days.  We both thought it went well.  The company even had someone drive her around the area to see some neighborhoods.  After that, I started looking at stores to transfer to, even talked with my human resources manager about the move.  Then the company chose to go with another candidate.  Heartbreak.

We were on the verge of discovering another city and another state.  We were in our late twenties, the time to strike out on your own and make those kinds of moves.  To discover new and exciting places, even if it's farther away than maybe you had ever imagined living from your family.  You never know what would have or could have happened had we ended up there, and that is kind of the fun part of thinking about situations like this.  Would I still work for Target? (short answer is hell no).  Would it have been a place we would have hated?  Maybe.  Or could it have been a city we would have fallen in love with?  The answers are always going to be up in the air.  Looking back on it, I'm glad the company made the choice to go with that other candidate because it has led us to the second major choice in our lives which has worked out great for both of us.

After about a year of no luck on the job front in Kansas or elsewhere, it was decided it was time to get out of the state.  Outside of a great group of friends (our Kansas family) we had no ties to the state.  It was tough seeing our actual family two, maybe three, times a year.  We wanted to be closer.  We wanted winters again.  We wanted to see trees and water and not melt when you step outside in early July.  We were able to pick and choose where we wanted to go.  There were a few qualifiers we were looking at.  It had to be closer to home.  It needed to be big enough of an area for job opportunities for both of us.  The economy in Michigan really hadn't turned around quite yet, so that was out of the question.  We thought about Chicago for a split second then realized....ewww, Chicago.  The idea of living in Milwaukee or Madison was also on the table.  There are a few companies that my wife could have worked at.  There were some factors that went into our decision to not move there.  Another place was the Twin Cities in Minnesota.  We have family and friends that live in Minnesota and they never really had anything terrible to say about it.  After looking and talking about all these options, we landed on Minnesota.  It was as close to being in Michigan without living there.  The economy was rebounding nicely so the job markets were starting to pick back up.  This was the second big choice in life.

I look at our move to Minnesota as that second major choice for a few reasons.  The big reason is work.  My wife found a job that was decent after we moved here and just recently found one that is a little bit closer to home and a much better working environment.  I was able to transfer stores while working with Target and that made the move easier.  We see our family more than a few times a year as we are now just a nine to ten hour car ride away.  As opposed to a flight or a two day drive while we lived in Kansas.  The past few years, I have been able to take some time off in the fall and go hunting back home.  It is great because I love being in the woods at that time of year.  Plus, I'm able to provide plenty of food for everyone in the years that I am lucky enough to harvest a deer.  Above all that, I have found a job that I love.  By the time my eighth year of working for Target was coming around, I realized that I wasn't going anywhere with the company.  It was not fun to work there anymore.  That was almost six years ago which is crazy to think about.  My move to World Market probably would not have happened if we hadn't moved to Minnesota.  World Market has been great for many reasons, but the biggest one is the relaxed atmosphere.  It is not nearly as stressful and therefore better for me.

It was probably inevitable that I moved on from Target, but if we had lived in another state maybe I would be working for a different company.  Maybe I would have found some random office job if we moved to North Carolina or a warehouse job in Wisconsin, we will never know.  Making big decisions like this can be scary, but that is what life is all about.  Taking big risks like moving to a new state or leaving a job can impact your life in so many positive ways, but those risks have to be calculated.  Impulsively moving without having a plan isn't the way to go.  I like to think that in all the other multiverses out there, we made the move to Charlotte and to Madison and to Milwaukee and that those versions of us are just as happy as we are here in Minnesota. 

A Moment to Remember

While we were home this past week, there was a day when I went into the family room at the cabin and my dad was watching a documentary on the Apollo program.  I sat down to watch around the time the documentary was talking about the Apollo 11 moon landing and I was intrigued.  Not because I didn't know what was going to happen, obviously it happened, but because I was transported back in time.  News reports, home video, recordings from inside mission control, all of it was being shown.  We've all seen the video of the astronauts climbing down the ladder and heard the historic communication, but to see other aspects of the landing was...'awe inspiring' aren't the right word....maybe 'engrossing' is the right way to put it. 

To see the excitement in the mission control room was amazing.  To see the tears in the eyes of people standing on the street watching the landing through store front windows.  To see news anchors from around the world be almost at a loss for words was something to behold.  And sure, you can see a clip of it here and there, but to see it all strung together and creating a larger story brought goose bumps to my arms.  What was more important, looking back, was that clips were being shown from around the world.  This was not just an American accomplishment.  This was an accomplishment for the world.  It was an inspirational moment that brought the world together, if only for a few days.  

I want to be alive for a moment like that.  Not a moment to be remembered because it is a tragedy, but a moment that can inspire.  A once in a lifetime moment that forty years from now, I want someone to ask me 'do you remember where you were when *fill in the blank* happened?'  I want to save a newspaper showing worldwide excitement and unity.  I'm just afraid that the way the world is now that it will never happen. 

Lawn Care Etiquette

It's that time of year again when home owners have to drag themselves out of the air conditioning and cut the grass and weed the flower gardens.  It's both terrible and satisfying at the same time.  You look at the lawn when you finish and it looks so nice.  You just have to deal with being out in the heat and humidity when you do it.  Or you could pay someone to do it.  That's always an option I suppose.  Our lawn is small enough that with a push mower I can get it done in less than an hour.  I remember cutting the grass growing up and my brother and I would split the work between the two side yards and the front and back yards.  It seemed to take forever when we did it, but that could just be because we were so young.  Living in a neighborhood where the houses are so close together, I have been thinking about law cutting courtesies.  At what time is it appropriate to get out and cut the grass?  When is it too early or too late in the day?  You don't want to be that house on the block that everyone hates because you cut the grass at the wrong time.  If you don't know which house is that house on your block, you might be that house.  Don't be.

I first started to think about this because I left for work one day a few weeks back and the owner of the house on the corner  was almost done cutting his lawn.  It was 7:00 in the morning.  My only thought was 'wow, what a dick'.  I understand a lot of people, myself included, would prefer to get the grass cut early in the day before it gets too hot outside.  I cut the grass this morning around 10:30 and it was already above seventy degrees.  It was not pleasant.  It is Friday and I figured it was a reasonable time.  Most people are at work if they have a standard Monday through Friday type job.  If there was anyone around that maybe works different hours like overnight or second shift type jobs, 10:30 shouldn't bother them, right?  The last thing that I would want is to be trying to sleep and a neighbor being out with a loud mower or weed whip. 

I'm not a huge fan of lawn work in the evening.  I always look at the evening as a time to relax and unwind from the day.  The last thing that I want to do after work is do more work.  Plus, it seems that bugs are more active in the evening.  Who wants to swat at mosquitoes and gnats and try to cut grass at the same time?  I know I don't.  However it could be the only time to do it.  It's not that I flat out refuse to do evening grass cutting, I just prefer to do so in the morning. 
 
How early is too early?  I suppose it depends on the day.  If it is during the weekend, and I want to be outside doing this, I might start a little bit later.  Most everyone catches up on sleep during the weekends.  During the week, I'll maybe start a little bit earlier than on the weekend.  An easy way to know is to just wait for someone else to start.  Let someone else be the asshole that wakes the neighborhood up.  Personally, I think 9:00 during the week and 10:00 on the weekend are perfectly acceptable times to start lawn work.  

Hot Takes: 2019 Edition

It is here.  The 2019 MLB season starts today!  I did this last year so I figured why not do it again?  Hot takes are fun when you make predictions based on some hope but also outlandish thoughts.  With the Tigers circling the bottom of the standings, you might as well have some fun with it.  Here.  We.  Go.  

• JaCoby Jones will be a Gold Glove finalist
• Niko Goodrum will have a 20/20 season (I whole heatedly believe this)
• Jordan Zimmermann will have a 15 win season
• Miguel Cabrera will steal two bases
• Christian Stewart will lead the team in home runs
• Nicholas Castellanos will sign an extension with the team
• Shane Greene will be traded, but will still end up leading the team in saves
• Casey Mize will make at least one start in the Majors
• The Tigers will win five games against the Cleveland Indians
• Matt Moore and Tyson Ross are both flipped for prospects at the trade deadline
• Ron Gardenhire will be ejected five times

I cannot wait for the Detroit Tigers to be good again.  Most everyone thinks they'll be good again in 2021 which sounds like a long ways away, but it's only two more seasons.
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*begins to cry uncontrollably* 

A Season of Sadness

The 2019 MLB season is upon us.  We have already seen games that matter played.  Granted it was just the Mariners and A's so no one really paid attention.  Except to see Ichiro play his last games.  And the games were played in Japan so they were on SUPER EARLY.  The real Opening Day is the 28th.  One week from now!  My co-workers make fun of me because of my excitement, but I take the day off and just soak it all in. 

It is going to be a very painful season for us Tigers fans.  The youth movement has started, but all the prospects that are going to bring this team back to relevance are still a year or two away.  By all accounts, 2020 and 2021 is when we will start to see the top ten to fifteen prospects in the bigs.  If they're still with the organization.  Also, one of the core starting pitchers, Michael Fulmer, is out for the season after his elbow exploded recently.  We'll see him back some time in the 2020 season.  If you want to find the positive to this devastating news this just means he'll have one less season's worth of innings on his arm.  He'll be well rested and could be the true number one we thought he would be after his rookie season.  This could also be Castellanos's last season with the Tigers.  And Miggy is coming off a lost season and is another year older.  

With all this bad news, what do Tigers fans have to look forward to?  Ummm, Christian Stewart is gonna mash a ton of baseballs.  Just don't watch him in the outfield.  Niko Goodrum is the new Don Kelly/Andrew Romine.  But better.  I think he has the ability to make games fun to watch, but as a utility player he won't have a true position each and every game.  The bullpen, surprisingly enough, could be a bright spot.  If the starting rotation can eat enough innings where the bullpen won't be taxed by August that is.

There are going to be long stretches this season where the Tigers are going to be unwatchable.  There are no two ways about it.  The first month of the season they have a chance to be a .500 team playing teams like Toronto, Kansas City, and Minnesota, but they've also got Boston, Cleveland, and New York on the schedule.  As fans, we just have to look for the fun and positive to get us through what is undoubtedly going to be a tough season.

End of the season record prediction:  67-95. 4th in the AL Central.  Kansas City sucks more than Detroit does. 

Well Spent

This past weekend I celebrated my 37th birthday.  And by 'celebrated' I mean chilled and kept it low key.  I'm not all about big celebration or grand gestures.  I wanted to just enjoy the day.  I took three days off of work which is what I normally like to do for my birthday just because.  I don't want to be at work on my birthday.  It's a day for me. 

The first day of my three day weekend was spent watching the original 'Star Wars' trilogy.  I have been doing this for several years now.  I grew up loving these movies and I still do.  Yes it's nerdy.  Yes I could do something else with the six and a half hours.  No I don't want to do anything else with that time during my birthday.  We see those social media posts that are like 'take care of yourself' and 'self care is important'.  Self care has many facets and I think that some include losing yourself in a favorite movie or book or tv show. 

Saturday and Sunday were spent just chilling at home and doing a little running around.  My wife and I checked out a brewery in Hastings and ate dinner at a restaurant we liked.  I say we checked out a brewery, but let's be honest, I checked it out.  My wife doesn't drink so she tolerates me enjoying a beer or two while we sit and talk.  It's what we're all about. 

Everyone spends their birthdays in different ways.  Some go all out with parties while some lay low.  It's all about what you want to do isn't it?  Embrace being selfish on your birthday.  If you want to sit around in your pjs all day and drink coffee while reading a book, DO IT!  If you want to go shopping and buy some new clothes just because, DO IT!  If you want to invite a bunch of people over for an all night rager, DO IT!  Spend the day feeling great about yourself, but also think about doing that more than just once a year.  Celebrate a half year birthday, or just celebrate you every couple of months. 

Ned was Right

After having a lack of snow during the months of November, December and January, Minnesota finally remembered that it is, in fact, Minnesota.  But not before delving out a handful of rather bizarre days of weather.  From negative thirty degree temperatures to mid thirties just two days later at the end of January.  We also saw some freezing rain right before another plummet in temperature.  Then finally.  It happened.  Winter showed up.  We finally got snow. 

In the months of November and December we had to shovel snow maybe three times.  It has been snowing in the Twin Cities for the past twenty four hours.  It started snowing last night around six thirty.  It is now seven twenty two and the snow hasn't stopped.  We have easily gotten a foot and a half in that time.  It's just wonderful. 

We have a very small driveway because our garage is on an alley.  Because of that we do not have a snow blower.  We have no need for it...yet.  We do have to keep our front sidewalk and porch clear though.  That takes some time.  There are a few people in our neighborhood that will run up and down the sidewalks on the block and clear a path.  You still have to go through and full clear the width of the walkway, but at least a good majority of the walkway is done. 

I have been of the mindset that if you get out and clear the snow a few times it is less stressful on your body.  I'd rather get out and shovel two or three times during a snow storm to keep the accumulation down.  It helps that I enjoy the cold and the snow.  If I was not a fan of it, I'm sure I would just want to be outside once and be done with it.  I would also probably just do it once if I had a snow blower.  Going old school and having a shovel almost forces your hand to go out a few times.  I just put in my earbuds and listen to music as I go.  It makes it go by quicker.  I've seen both in our neighborhood and I've been wondering which method is best.  It helped that I did not have to work today so I could pick and choose times to go out.  

it. cold.

You guys.  It's cold. Too cold.  And I love cold, but it's almost too much for me.  The one good thing is that if you put room temperature beer outside, in less than an hour it's ice cold. It's so cold that places like the post office is not sending out their delivery men and women.  Stores and businesses are closing.  Schools are shut down.  For all of that to happen, especially in Minnesota, it's something 'special'.  I don't have much else to say about it.

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A post shared by Michael Litzner (@melitzner) on Jan 30, 2019 at 8:39am PST

No Rush

The big thing on the movie landscape in the past decade has been super hero movies.  Specifically movies in the Marvel Universe.  Movies like Iron Man, Thor, and the Black Panther.  Everything in between as well.  They are all enjoyable to watch and I have seen them all with the exception of one (Ant Man and the Wasp).  However, I do not rush out to see them. 

They are all well made.  Visually they are amazing.  We truly live in an age of wonder with what movie studios can do.  They bring you into a world that is an escape from every day life which is what movies are suppose to do.  They're fun.  They take themselves just seriously enough to have great cinematic tension, but also have quite a bit of humor in them. 

For all the positive things that the MCU movies have going for them, they have one flaw.  They all start to run together.  There is not much of a difference from one to the next.  Because of that, I haven't found myself rushing out to see them when they're in the theaters.  I do understand the point of seeing them in the theater, it's an experience.  It's an immersive environment, you get pulled into these grand adventures. 

I'm sure it's great, but it just isn't for me.  I'd rather sit at home and watch them when they're released to streaming services.  You know, sit down in my pjs, enjoy a few cups of coffee, not have to over pay for the movie or snacks.  In order for this to happen, you have to let go of the fact that if anything major happens, it won't be a shock to you.  We just watched Avengers: Infinity War a few weeks ago and anyone that has seen knows about 'the snap'.  It's a major moment in the MCU which has ramifications we aren't fully aware of yet.  Because we finally watched months after it had been out in theaters, the major spoilers were gone.  And you know what, it doesn't much matter to me.  I'd rather avoid the large crowds and enjoy the movie from the comfort of my own home. 

Festive Again

All the years that we lived in apartments, we did not have a real tree for Christmas.  One of the benefits was not having the care and upkeep.  No watering the tree.  We didn't have to anchor it to the wall because it was uneven in the tree stand. There was minimal clean up from the 'needles'.

There wasn't a ton of advantages to the artificial tree.  Yes, it was a tree but there was just something missing.  We use to buy pine scented air fresheners and put them in the tree to try and create the atmosphere but it didn't last that long.  Last year we got our first real tree.  It was wonderful.  Because of this, I feel like we can't go back to artificial tree.  Sure we don't have that special go out and illegally cut the tree down in the middle of the woods before any law enforcement people show up moments because we buy pre-cut trees, but it is great to have a real one in our house.  Every once in a while you'll get a whiff of pine when you walk by.  It can just bring back so many childhood memories of this time of year.

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A post shared by Michael Litzner (@melitzner) on Dec 7, 2018 at 6:47am PST

So, once again this year, we have gotten a real tree for Christmas.  And it is fantastic to have.  

Literary Mountain

Last night I finished reading the longest book I've ever picked up.  'War and Peace' by Leo Tolstoy is now sitting on my bookshelf after being read cover to cover.  I started reading it last year in December and it took me nearly a year to finish.  I did take some breaks from reading it.  If I had forced myself to just read this book, it might have been done a month or two earlier.  Being labeled as one of the great novels of all time it had always had my interest.  I've wanted to read it for forever, it just sat on my bookshelf for the better part of a decade before I read it.  It's daunting.

With over fourteen hundred pages it gives the reader time to grow to love the characters.  Unless that character is Pierre.  He is one of the main characters and dear god is he insufferable.  I just didn't like him at all.  Even from the get go.  The book kept going and going and I was waiting to start to identify with this guy, but it just never happened.  The rest of the characters?  Good, some even great.  Just not Pierre.

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I have done it! I finished #WarAndPeace. It was enjoyable. It was anguishing at some points. I loved and hated certain characters. It took me less than a year!

A post shared by Michael Litzner (@melitzner) on Nov 7, 2018 at 8:14pm PST

This isn't a book report.  Go read it for yourself if you want the rundown.  No more classic Russian novels for me.  One was more than enough. 

Deck Work

One of the great things about owning a house is that you can make any improvement that you want.  The one terrible thing about owning a house is that you have to do the improvement.  Even if you have a decent concept about how much time, effort, and money a project is going to take, there always seems to be a point when you look around and wonder why you would do something like this.  The payoff, however, is great.  We are very happy the way it turned out and cannot wait to tackle our next project.  Even if it is a small one.

A wonderful feature in our house is the back deck.  It is large enough to have our grill, a couple of chairs, and a few more things if need be.  It was in fairly rough shape though.  The paint was peeling in several places and needed to be redone.  We got help from both of our families at different points in this project.  That is another reason why it is nice to live close enough to family to have that network of support.  We are also a stone throw away from our neighbor's house.  One thing that my wife wanted to put in was a privacy fence on the deck to give us just a little separation from them.  As fun as it is to look right into their house, the fence just adds a little bit more to it.

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This is a picture of the deck after we got everything was stripped and the privacy fence was added.  

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The color for the deck turned out great.  We used this product called Deck Over which is suppose to fill in cracks and screw holes.  It is extremely thick and is the same consistency of pudding.  We joked that it looked like chocolate pudding and made us both hungry as we were painting over the course of a few days. 

Hot Take Recap

The 2018 Detroit Tigers baseball season has ended.  Sadly.  But also mercilessly.  Anyone paying attention knew that this season was going to be a bit of a struggle as they traded off any and all pieces that made them contenders in the past.  The fun thing about cheering for a team with low expectations is that if they do well for a stretch of games it feels like some grand accomplishment.  While the prospects the team is waiting for are still in the minors, we fans got to see some pieces of the future play throughout most of the year.  Guys like Jemier Candelario and JaCoby Jones played the majority of the season and both showed what they can contribute to the club going forward.  Christian Stewart got a quick cup of coffee with the club at the end of the season and showed off his bad defense and big bat. 

At the beginning of the season, I wrote a post with some hot luke warm takes.  I stayed conservative with most of the takes and didn't go too far on a limb.  When you are having fun with hot takes/predictions for a team that you know will struggle during the season, you can say things like Ron Gardenhire will get ejected seven times.  To recap, here are my ten bold predictions from the beginning of the year with what actually happened:

• The Tigers will go 72-90 (they went 64-98)
• They'll finish fourth in the division ahead of Kansas City (they finished 3rd)
• Jeimer Candelario will hit .270 for the season (he hit .224)
• James McCann will hit 20 home runs (he hit 8)
• The Tigers will send two players (Castellanos, Fulmer) to the All Star game (Joe Jimenez was the lone representative for the team)
• Joe Jimenez will end the season as the team closer and save 15 games (he had 3 saves and was the setup man the entire year)
• Dawel Lugo will end the season as the every day second baseman with Dixon Machado moving to shortstop (yes and no. Machado was DFA'd)
• Both of those predictions will happen because the Tigers will trade Shane Greene and Jose Iglesias before the trade deadline (nope)
•  Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez will both hit 25 home runs (lolz, no.)
• Ron Gardenhire will be ejected 7 times (he was ejected 4 times)

Like I said, it's fun to do things like that so you can look back and have a good laugh.  The only thing that I came close on was Lugo being around and where they ended the season in the standings.  I look forward to doing this again next spring when we once again know the Tigers are going to flounder and we'll be there every painful step along the way.  

Moving On Up

When I look back at when I started to work in retail, one of the things I remember was thinking that it was not going to be a permanent profession.  Who grows up wanting to do this for a career?  This was back in 2006.  Fresh out of college and newly implanted in Wichita, Kansas I just needed money and a job.  Yes, my wife was working but I did not want to just sit around all day.  I went from October (2005) to February (2006) without work.  I was applying for jobs in the field I went to school for, history and museum studies, but could not find a job.  I couldn't even get a call back.  After the new year, I just wanted to find work.  So I did.  The rest, as they say, is (work) history.

I received a promotion earlier this week to a position World Market calls Lead Supervisor.  This is one step below store manager and for the most part is the person in charge of running the show on a day to day basis.  This is something that I have been working towards for the past year and a half.  The ultimate goal is to take that one last step and become a General Manager, but that is still several years down the road and honestly, I don't even want to think about that right now.  That is a large looming idea that will only distract from the now.  I have my annual hunting trip planned at the end of October, so this promotion is not going to happen until I get back from that. 

My wife and I joke quite a bit about how there are two of me.  One is the goofy, lackadaisical person that just kind of goes with the flow with whatever is happening.  The other is the professional me.  Whenever she comes in to shop around the store, the employees tell her how much they enjoy working with me and that I am constantly working on something or helping someone out with a project.  It is humorous.  I usually get the 'who are you?!' look from her.  She knows though.  All kidding aside, I do my best to keep everything professional at work but still have some fun.  The results are paying off.

The position will be at another store here in the Twin Cities.  It would have been great to stay where I am at now as this is the only store I have worked in, but that presents it's own challenges.  In order to develop myself into a more well rounded manager, I need to get somewhere new and different.  Is it optimal?  No.  I really enjoy working with the people I work with now, but it is time to move somewhere else outside of my comfort zone and familiarity and develop new traits and aspects of being a manager. 

Twelve is Enough

It is very common to have a conversation with someone about television shows.  It is even more common to discuss how quickly you finish a season of a show, especially with streaming options.  'I finished watching the latest season in a day and a half.' is a sentence that I'm sure most people have said.  The question I have is how long are these seasons that people are watching?  Is it a twenty four episode season that they are watching in one day?  How long are the episodes?  Because if you are watching a forty five minute long episode and if a season you are watching is twenty four episodes, damn that's a lot to take in during a short stretch of time.  Don't get me wrong, I binge watch here and there, but it's three or four episodes and I am done.  My brain reaches capacity for information.

And there are exceptions.  I binged my way through the first three season of 'Fear the Walking Dead' at a rapid rate.  Mainly to get caught up because the most recent season is airing.  Well, right now they're on a mid-season break (which is dumb, why does that exist?), but I am all caught up.     

I am currently watching season two of 'Jessica Jones' on Netflix.  It is thirteen episodes long.  A season you could watch in an entire weekend if you chose to.  I'm watching a two or three episodes at a time for a couple of reasons.  I enjoy the show so I want to stretch out the experience as long as possible.  I also want to ensure that I don't get to a boredom moment where I mentally check out on an episode and then miss something that is happening.  Streaming services make it too easy to watch the next and the next and the next episode.  It takes control to turn the t.v. off.

Another show that I watched is 'Arrow'.  It has been a while since I watched it after I finished the second season.  I like to jump around after I finish a season of something just to watch a new show and keep it fresh.  The problem with 'Arrow' is that the seasons are twenty some episodes long.  It is very daunting when you are starting off a season, especially when the episodes are forty five minutes long.  I like to finish watching a season of whatever it is that I am watching before moving on to the next show, so I have been very hesitant in starting the next season.  

A third example of a show I have watched is 'Frontier' (another Netflix original).  Two seasons have been released and each season is six episodes long.  That is almost too short of a season.  The nice thing about such a short season is that there are no throw away episodes.  No episodes that are around just to make sure that the season quota is met.  Each of the six episodes is carefully laid out and builds up the next one.  The problem is that you want the season to keep going.  You want to find out what happens next.  

Three different shows, three different season lengths.  So which one is right?  They're all right in their own way.  The main difference between the shows is that one (Arrow) is on t.v. while the others are exclusively on a streaming service.  With 'Arrow' the season is as long as it is, I'm assuming, because it is needed to fill the time slot and to earn money for the t.v. channel.  That is the nice thing about the streaming shows, it can be as long or short as the creators want.  The better the show, the longer the next season could be or the more seasons there can be.  I think that twelve episodes per season is just the right amount.  It gives time to develop both characters and story line without having to have an episode or two where you're wondering why it is even in the season.  Most shows have an episode like that.  You finish watching it and are left wondering why you even spent the time watching it.    

Slow Burn

I just recently finished watching 'The Terror' from AMC.  It was a ten part mini-series about an English expedition to find the Northwest Passage.  It was really well done.  The acting, the sets, the writing, everything.  As I was making my way through it there was something about it that kept me from getting really into it.  About half way through the series it dawned on me.  Nothing was really happening.  I mean, there was stuff going on, but it wasn't engaging.  It's like a movie that people say is almost perfect in every movie making technical way, but it's boring.  Like a Stanley Kubrick film.  Not the good ones.  Like Barry Lydon. 

The show did not pick up steam as far as plot points and action until episode eight.  The last two and a half episodes were amazing too.  By that point you're invested in the show, but you start to wonder why.  I almost gave up on the show.  I was giving it to the halfway point before making my decision as to whether or not to keep watching.  And then they threw in a huge plot point and hooked me.  All I kept thinking was 'why wait this long?'.  I understand that they need to have some episodes to set up character dynamics and story line, but it just felt like it took too long.  Is this just part of the new television and movie watching era?  If we do not have something resembling instant gratification in something we are watching, do we just give up on it? 

I don't think that this is a new phenomenon.  How many times have we heard people talk about shows where you need to get past the first season before the show starts to get better?  Or the first movie in a trilogy isn't that great, but the second and third ones are higher quality.  I've had that problem with books too.  'Oh, just get past the first one hundred pages, it gets better.'  WHAT?!  You need to hook the audience not make them wonder if they should be flossing their teeth instead.   

Deck Work

We have moved to the exterior of our house for our next house project.  When we first bought our house, we knew that the back deck was something that was eventually going to need attention.  Not structurally, but aesthetically.  The paint and stain was starting to peel within the first year, and it just got a little worse over the past winter.  Both sets of our parents, along with my sister and her kids, came out for a visit and helped with the project.  While the project is not one hundred percent done, the heavy lifting has been completed.  All that remains is the painting which can be done over the course of a weekend. 

The first steps were taken at the beginning of the month.  We stripped away all the old paint from the planks, but struggled to decide what to do with the spindles that lined the deck.  We eventually determined that it was going to be much easier to remove the spindles, there were only two screws per, and sand the paint away.  Over Memorial Day weekend, my in-laws came into town.  We had plans to make some decent progress, but Mother Nature had other ideas.  The entire time that they were here we were in the midst of a mini heat wave.  It was topping out in the mid to high 90s, with heat index topping 100.  Because this project is something that we can take our time on, we did not feel rushed to work on it.  We got everything removed and stripped a good number of spindles, but it was just too hot to do anything.  I mean, why would you exert yourself on a project that does not need to be completed quickly?

This past weekend, my parents and sister came out and we finished the most difficult part of the project.  We built a privacy fence on one side of the deck.  We are extremely close to our neighbor's house.  In fact, their driveway butts right up to our property.  So it will be nice to be able to sit on the deck and not look into their living room or back den.  It ended up running the length of the deck (about eight feet) and is about seven feet tall.  We also replaced the lattice work that was on the bottom of the deck.  The previous owners just placed cheap white plastic lattice work around the edge and it looked terrible.  Over the course of time, the white plastic took on a green hue from all the grass being cut.  With the paint, we hope to avoid that. 

The last things that we have to do are reattach the spindles and paint the deck.  We bought it at the start of the project and that is what got the ball rolling.  It needs two coats and needs to be painted when there is no rain in the forecast for two or three days.  This is the most difficult part because not only do we have to work around the weather, we have to work around our work schedules.  Not having every weekend off will make this last part very difficult.  The nice thing is that all the hard work is done and we can still use the deck.  It'll just look incomplete until we have time to paint it all.