Getting to know me...150+ posts in

The ipod shuffle:  I sure can smell the rain by Blackhawk

You know, I remember when email surveys were all the rage.  Now, it has moved to blogs and myspace pages and the whatnot.  As much as people don't like them, it is hard to resist reading them or filling them out.  Or not, whichever.  

1. What is your Full name: Michael Edward Litzner
2. What color trousers are you wearing now: Khaki shorts
3. What are you listening to right now? the ipod.  Daydream Believer by the Monkees...Yes, the Monkees
4. What are the last 2 digits of your phone number? 39
5. What was the last thing you ate: yogurt
6. If you were a crayon what color would you be: orange
7. How is the weather right now: overcast and a bit windy
8. Last person you talked to on the phone: A
9. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex: how tall they are
10. How are you today? I'm good.  I don't work tomorrow, and I'm okay with that
11. Favorite Drink: Water is refreshing, and milk rocks.
12. Favorite Alcoholic drink: A good stout or scotch
13. Favorite Sport: Baseball and hockey
14. Do you wear contacts: I tried contacts in college.  Didn't like em too much.  Wearing glasses for twenty two years will do that to you.
15. Siblings:Shel and Chuck
16. Favorite Month: I like January.  Right in the middle of winter
17. Favorite Food: Pasta
18. Last Movie you Watched: 'Dead Alive'  It was awesomely horrible
19. Favorite Day of the Year: (that's specific)  I'll go with 8 May
20. Summer or Winter: Winter
21. Hugs or Kisses: Hugs.  They are just happy
22. What book are you reading: No Country for Old Men.  As well as Young Stalin.
23. Favorite Board Game: Dude...Risk.  I also love me some monopoly
24. Favorite Smells: The rain.  The spring time rain when it comes up in the air before it starts.  It just smells refreshing.  
25. Can you touch your nose with your tongue: yes I can
26. Do you still talk to your best friend from high school? It's been close to a year, but I try to keep in touch via the internet.  
27. What time did you get up this morning? 5:15.
28. What did you have for breakfast? coffee
29. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Borders
30. What kind of car do you drive? Jeep Cherokee
31. What is your favorite sandwich? It's peanut butter jelly time!
32. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation? Ireland 
33. Where would you want to retire? Saint Thomas, USVI
34. Favorite time of day? Dawn
35. What did you want to be when you were little? A firefighter.  
36. What is your best childhood memory? While we were building the cabin, Chuck and I would partake in week long and some times month long games of Monopoly.  Mainly because we would only be at the cabin for the weekend.  It was our dad's game from when he was younger, so it was pretty beat up.  

Holidays sans family

Thanks for the memories by fall out boy.  Although, it technically is spelt 'thnks fr th mmrs', I couldn't bring myself to seriously type that.  In fact, I had to force my fingers to type that.  That bothers me.  The inability to take the time to type words.  That is the falling off point of correct spelling and good grammar.  Not only that, the computer age has diminished the ability of students.  I was doing an interview a few weeks back and one of the questions I ask was tell me a time when you lacked a skill you needed to accomplish something.  And, no shit, the kid said 'I had to hand write an essay for English class.'  I wanted to slap him.  Just tell him to get up and leave.  I don't want to hire you.  And then I thought about it for a bit.  And then wanted to slap the teacher.  Honestly.  I fear having kids some day for the sole fact that they may give an answer like that.  

Anyway...  

I have a co-worker who is moving soon.  Her man got a regional manager job in Illinois.  So he is there and she is still working here until their kids are done with school, then the rest are moving up there.  So her time here in the ICT is almost up.  We were in the office the other day just sitting around, like we do, and she asked me how do I deal with not being around family during the holidays.  Now, granted, she has a family, but she was talking extended family.  So we talked about that for a good ten to fifteen minutes.  Now maybe she brought it up because it was on her mind (which it probably was), but also everyone I work with knows I'm a transplant.  So that may be why she brought it up.  At any rate, it was actually a real depressing conversation, but something that she really wanted to talk about, and hopefully what she wanted or needed to hear.  The end result is this:  

The first couple of holidays (which for her will be Thanksgiving, and then Christmas) are the hardest ones.  If you are use to going somewhere and seeing a bunch of family members, going from that to just a family at a table is wicked hard.  The first year I was down here, it was just A and I.  Talk about sad.  It was just...there.  Nothing special.  Now, we have K and M, and they come over after they go see their families if they have time, and it feels better.  Just having it feel like it is something other than just another dinner.  Either that or A's family is down here (which is the way it was this past year, which was great).  But yeah, getting past that first one is major.  The rest, they just follow.  And the job that my co-worker and I have is one that doesn't let you get away if you live far away (and I'm talking out of state) from family.  

The other end result of this conversation was that family always comes first, above all else.  Immediate family before everything else.  For her, it was her man getting that job in Illinois.  Sure, she didn't want to move, and he may not have wanted to move either.  Dude, it's Illinois.  If all you know is Kansas, Illinois is a huge change.  But to better your lives, sometimes you have to make a move like that.  For me, it was moving down here.  You got to go where the money is, and where it is being made.  If that means moving out to Kansas, you gotta do it.  As hard as it is to say that, it's the truth.  The money winning job is down here.  I would love to still be living in Michigan and be able to watch my nephew and niece grow up, but that isn't in the cards.  I can't remember the last time I saw my grandparents.  It has been maybe two years.  And with the kind of family I have, one that is real close, that is something that is difficult to deal with at times.    Now, we have been here for over three years, and we have our friends and our jobs and have started our lives down here.  

This just in: Hockey is more important than President

Currently playing:  'My Grandfather's Clock'  I learned this song while working on the Island.  I fell in love with it.  

I had the weekend off.  It was great to stay up late and sleep in.  The usual sleep in time for me nowadays is about 8:00 or 8:30.  Sounds early, but when I get up at 5:00, eight in the morning is just like noon.  An extra three hours or so is amazing.  But this weekend, I slept in until 9:30 on Saturday and almost 10:00 this morning.  It was very needed.  This week really wore me down, but I don't know why.  

Anyway, I was excited on Sunday afternoon to watch a little hockey.  It wasn't the Wings, they beat the holy hell out of Colorado in four games.  It was the New York/Pittsburgh game.  Anyone who watches hockey knows about the really young team Pittsburgh has.  Not only are they young but extremely talented.  I haven't gotten to see them play much this year, so I was looking forward to it.  And I go to turn the TV to NBC and....there's no game.  What the hell.  

It was a special report about the president coming to Kansas to speak at a high school graduation.  The greensburg high school graduation.  If anyone has been living in a cave, here is a quick catch up.  Tornado wipes an entire town off the map last year.  The whole fucking town.  Gone.  Sad story.  They are in the process of rebuilding the town.  Feel good story, of course.  So the president decides to speak at the graduation.  That's cool, I guess.  But did they really need to interrupt the hockey game I wanted to watch to show him landing at the air force base?  Honestly.  Then they went to the graduation.  I barely paid attention to either of my graduations, so why would I want to watch this one?  

I was looking forward to watching a hockey game and got interrupted by a PR move by a lame duck president.  Instead of putting the whole damn thing on CNN or fox news, they put it on a channel that also had the hockey game.  

This may sound ridiculous to some people, but living in Kansas has cut down on the hockey watching.  I saw maybe six games this year.  If the game would have been a Wings game, I think I would have thrown a fit.  I'm selfish, I'll admit.  There were some basketball games on today, why couldn't they have interrupted those games instead.  No one gives a shit about basketball.  

The price of gas in connection to the spending of shells

'What's the Frequency Kenneth?' by R.E.M

There was an article on yahoo (always reliable the internet is) about how ships firing on other ships is going to raise the price of gas......again.  

These weren't any old ships, these were ships under contract of the US department of defense.  And they were firing on ships from Iran in the Persian Gulf.  There are other factors into the raising prices of gas.  Pipeline attacks in Africa, and possible refinery strikes in Scotland (to name some major factors) and there is a little bit of occupation taking place in Iraq (which is a small factor, I believe.  Or not).  At any rate, the people you need to be upset with because it takes one hundred dollars to fill up your H2 (fuH2, again) is yourself for buying that car and the government for fighting a war that doesn't need to be fought.  Yes, its a war for oil and dude we are taking it right on the chin.  However, the government doesn't feel it, we do.  Every other friday, we get paid and how much of that goes to gas tanks?

My thoughts on this subject is that I just ignore it all together.  I know, horrible me.  I could give a shit less if we are 'winning the war on terror' or not...which we aren't.  I can't change the fact that it costs about 3.50 a gallon.  It's just one of those things that is out of our hands and that is how it should be looked upon.  Write your senator, write your congressman (or congresswoman) about it.  They'll look at it, and throw it away.  Let's be honest.  

The one thing that I think will change the price of gas is the withdrawal of troops from the middle east.  Personal opinion, that's all.  And it can't be this 'let's train an Iraqi army to sustain a democracy' bullshit that they keep talking about.  Nixon's Vietnamization thinks that's a joke.  Sure we can train Iraqi troops but we'd pull out and they'd get rolled over and we'd say, well shucks we tried.  And we would feel better about it.  But the oppressive governmental body of a foreign country would no longer be there.  That would in turn, I think, lower the price of a barrel of oil.  I'm not saying that it'll go back down to a buck twenty five, but I think that it could get back down to three bucks.  Which, sadly, seems reasonable.  

I'm not big into political activities for one side or the other, these are just my thoughts.  and to quote my dad, 'If it doesn't work, piss on you.'  

I love my dad.

One and done

Currently listening to Lose Yourself by eminem.  Yeah, I don't know either...I just like this song.

So after the ncaa basketball tournament was over, there was the yearly exodus from the college ranks to the NBA.  However, the major people heading off to make big bank were not seniors or juniors.  The big names were freshmen.  Derrick Rose, Michael Beasley, OJ Mayo, and Kevin Love are the biggest names going into the draft who were all underclassmen this year.  Personally, I think that two of the four (Beasley and Love) are NBA ready (but what do I know).  The other two are really good, and could get better playing another year or two in college.  

The only reason that they went to college was because of the 'one and done' rule.  Basically, the NBA was sick and tired of these high school kids skipping college and going right to the bank with their huge checks that they don't really deserve.  Granted, players like Kevin Garrnet, Kobe Bryant, and Lebron James (to name a few) had no issues making the transition to the NBA, they are all gifted players.  However, you also have the teens that think they are good enough, and the media is partly to blame.  You get EPSN playing high school (yes, high school) games on prime time televison because of one player.  All the analysts talk about how one said player is so good and how they are a man among boys.  That's because they are bigger amongst younger players.  However, if you match an eighteen or nineteen year old against a twenty four or twenty five year old, they're going to get hosed...big time.  It'll just happen.  

So why not make them all go to school for two or even three years.  You know, give them an education.  They are going to need to do something after they're playing days are up.  Any person that wants to go from high school to a professional sport may say that they want to take their game to the next level, or they don't have anything left to prove at whatever level they are playing at, are so full of shit it isn't funny.  

They just want to make bank and spend their money on some fucked up suburban or hummer (fuH2).  I think that a two year minimum of college (or semi-professional level) experience should be required.