Quick bball update and then on to my clash with the old guy who lives in my building. We have had 3 practice games so far. Scrimmages out here are serious business. They all have 3 refs and the coaches treat them like real games. Foreigners throughout the league are already getting cut for under-performing. Thankfully my team has been cruising. I don’t want to be overconfident, but right now we are looking pretty damn good. The teams we have played are supposed to be decent and we have been blowing them out. The first game we were up 28-3 after 6 minutes. We have 3 solid guards, a 4 who can bomb from the perimeter, and a big who finishes everything. Offensively we will be a tough match up. I have been playing pretty well. Nothing special, just solid. Over the 3 games I have averaged 12 points, about 4 assists and 4 rebounds, with some steals sprinkled in. I can for sure score more, but as long as we’re winning and I’m playing I’ll be happy.

Enough of that. Here is the story of my new apartment and the old guy who lives below me:

I moved to my new apartment after being in the temporary place for about a week. The place takes up the top floor of a house/apartment thingy. I don’t really know what it is to be honest. It looks like a house but I guess it acts as an apartment. Who cares. Point is, I have to walk up like a million stairs to get to my door, as has been the case with every apartment I have had in Israel. Always seems to work out that way. The place is a small one bedroom with slanted ceilings on each side that make it feel even smaller. I was upset with it at first but I have grown to like it. It is clean and new-ish and has everything I need so it’s all good I suppose. It does suck that it is a 15 minute walk from the gym, but teammates have been good about giving me rides.

The second day I was here I was coming back from practice and there was an old dude milling about in the yard. He was wearing a dirty pair of shorts, sandals and an old wife beater. When he saw me he came up to me and immediately began talking in Hebrew. I told him I only speak english, but he carried on in Hebrew. I had no idea what was happening until I heard him say the name Shimi, which I recognized as the name of the landlord of the apartment. I also remembered that I had told Shimi that people could come fix stuff in my apartment at 7 AM the next morning, so I thought that maybe these things were connected somehow. I am such a sleuth.

Anyway, I then assumed that he was Shimi’s father or something. I am still not really sure what their relation is, if any. Not being able to understand what was happening, and why this old dude was speaking to me incessantly and gesturing excitedly, I decided to walk up the stairs to my place. I thought maybe he would just leave me alone. But that was not the case. He followed behind me all the way up the stairs, and then when I opened my door he walked right into my apartment like he was an old friend. I was even more confused at this point. The guy started walking around the apartment speaking in Hebrew and pointing at things. I figured my only hope to resolve this situation was to call Shimi. I said “Uhh, I think your dad is in my house.” After admonishing me for leaving the air conditioning on when I left the house ( how did he even know I did that?) he asked to talk to the guy. I gave the phone to the old man and he immediately started yelling. Furiously yelling. It was so anger filled that I went to grab my iPod so that I could record the level of vitriol that was on display. I am used to Israelis screaming at each other, especially on the phone, but even I was taken aback by the volume level of this conversation. I really wish I could have understood what was said. This old guy seemed so mild mannered, but when handed that phone he went off on Shimi’s ass. This anger masked by a meek looking old man exterior would come into play later.

Sadly, he stopped his telephonic rampage before I could get my ipod ready to record. After the phone conversation we had one of my now patented conversations where neither side knows the other sides language. He got his point across pretty well though. And looking back I don’t know why Shimi didn’t ask to talk to me again to explain things in English. ODWB must have had him all shook up. (I will refer to the old dude with the wife beater as ODWB from here on out. This is because he is old and I have yet to see him not wearing his signature dirty wife beater. He might only own one of them. He must have looked at himself in the mirror one day after putting on his clothes and been like “Yep, this is me. This wife beater is DOPE. I am never taking it off. Plus, I have the privilege of being old enough to not care what I wear and people won’t care enough to talk to me about it.”)  So, I gathered that people were coming tomorrow to fix stuff in the apartment. He also told me how to turn off the air conditioning. As he was leaving a dirty, tired looking cat came sauntering in like it owned the place. First ODWB, now this mangy street cat, what kind of place did they put me in? Thank god ODWB scooped her up before it could go spread it’s nasty fur everywhere, or have babies, or possibly die. It looked pretty destitute.

The next morning I awoke to let in people to fix and install things, and it was not a crew of workers, but ODWB himself. I have to give him props. I went back to bed and by the time I woke up he had installed a new stove and done a lot of constructiony clean up type things to the walls and bathroom. I though this would be the end of my dealings with ODWB, but this was not to be.

I need to mention that you have to go through a large gate to get to my house. Whoever built this thing needs to reevaluate what he/she does for a living. The gate is made out of some cheap, metal-ish material which has the same sonic qualities as a drum cymbal. Any slight touch is like you hammered down on said symbol with full force. Besides that, you must enter a code to unlock the gate, and upon a successful press of the buttons it emits an obnoxiously loud buzzing noise. This persists a full 3 seconds or so longer than it should. I wouldn’t be surprised if this sound alone was waking my neighbors up at night. But the fatal flaw of this gate has to be the utter lack of care that was put into creating a smooth and reasonably quiet way to shut of the door. I am no carpenter or whatever, but I feel like there has to be some sort of guidelines to follow so that the closing of the door does not cause an ear splitting rattle. This noise is not due to slamming or using excessive force. This is from simply opening the gate and letting it swing shut as you enter. You know, how any normal person would enter their gated apartment building. The first time I went inside I obviously noticed how loud and annoying the gate was, but I decided then and there that I was not going to take the time to ever so gently close the thing every time I used it. Too much hassle. So I let it slam with impunity. Even when I am coming home around 3 or 4 AM (which is not very often, I should note) I let it slam away. I know I should shut it quietly at those time, but I forget. And it’s like, “Why should I have to shut this gate quietly. It should shut quietly on its own.” But this attitude has not paid off, as I recently got confronted by ODWB about it.

One night I came home at like 3, and I let the door slam crazy hard. I immediately heard a yell and what I can only assume was cursing in Hebrew. He wasn’t using words I recognized, but he was clearly upset. So the following night ODWB tracked me down. He stopped me as I was headed into the apartment after grocery shopping. He realized the teammate I was with spoke Hebrew and launched into a tirade about how I slammed the door too hard the night before. He claims he wasn’t able to get back to sleep the rest of the night. He was apparently drunk as well, and this was like 9 PM on a Monday. I say apparently because my teammate was like damn did you smell the alcohol on him, and I had to admit that I did not. I never, ever use my nose. And when I do the right side is generally still clogged. Thanks a lot expensive, invasive nose surgery I planned my summer around! So ODWB demonstrated proper closing technique of the door a few times until he was satisfied that he had made his point, and then he went back inside. I thought nothing of this incident until it came back to haunt me. Or it is my theory that it did.

The next day I came home from practice at like 6 PM. I let the gate slam not out of spite, but simply because I still had not made it a habit to close the door very, very slowly. And by the way, even when you exhibit ultimate caution during the closing process this gate still somehow rattles. It is unbelievable. So I think nothing of the slam, but as I am going up the stairs ODWB pops out of his door and breaks out some of the only English I have ever heard him use. He goes “Again!?” and spreads his arms. His face is totally incredulous. I can sense his calm exterior beginning to recede while the angry, phone yelling maniac I got a glimpse of the other day comes to the fore. I tell him I’m sorry, in hebrew and english, because I really am. I just don’t take that horrible fence and its absurdly loud noises into consideration when I am entering. He says, “beer-a, beer-a” while pointing at me. So I assume that he is saying I owe him a beer. I guess that is reasonable, so I nod emphatically and laugh and tell him, yeah, yeah sure. He smiles and I think all is well. At this point I am focused on getting a good rest because we had our second practice game the following morning.

Frustratingly, but I guess not surprisingly, I could not fall asleep. All the late nights staying up doing nothing were coming back to bite me. I could not get myself to fall asleep at a reasonable hour, but that did not stop me from trying. I seriously lied in bed from like 1-6 before I drifted off. It was awful. Just as I was entering a nice, blissful dream state I am woken up by what I first thought was my air conditioning unit exploding. I really thought that. I had a problem with the air conditioner before, so it wasn’t that far fetched an idea, especially out here. Factor in that I had just been jolted out of my REM cycle after trying to fall asleep all night, and I simply thought “Oh, would you look at that? My air conditioner is blowing up.”

That actually might have been preferable. The noise was not stopping, it was extremely loud and my floor was literally shaking. After a few seconds I realized that it was not some sort of Israeli appliance disaster, but construction noises. ‘Construction noises’ is such an understatement. It was as if I was standing in the middle of a Jamba Juice when they had all their blenders going, and someone was jackhammering the floor I was standing on while at the same time someone was slamming the door to the gate of my apartment building. In this scenario the door would have been to the Jamba Juice, but you get the point. The noise coupled with my sleep deprivation was driving me crazy. There would be intermittent 5 second lulls in the work and I took to crazily screaming out “STOP!” and “Fuck you!” at the top of my lungs. I got no response other than the incessant, pounding noises.

I was so, so mad at what was happening. I am anal about getting a lot of sleep before I play a game. It was already bothering me that I was having a hard time getting a good nights rest. Being woken up by the construction noises from hell magnified my frustration by a million. Making matters worse was that I felt in no condition to walk to the gym to try and wait this thing out. I was tired and disoriented and I didn’t feel like walking 15 minutes to a gym that I was not even sure was going to be available. I called the two people associated with the team who I deal with when I have to complain about something. I knew there was nothing that they could do, but I wanted them to experience a little bit of the misery with me. The first person did not pick up so I left him a voice mail of just the noise. I felt that got some sort of weird message across. The next guy, Gabbi, picked up but could barely hear me.

“Gabbi! Listen to this!”

“What?”

“Listen! This is what my house sounds like right now!”

“What?!”

“MY HOUSE SOUNDS LIKE IT IS BEING SHELLED WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?!”

“What??”

And then he hung up. Nothing good came from this brief conversation, but at least Gabbi got a little feel for what I was going through. I stumbled out into the street at some point because I initially thought that the noise was coming from the roof. Maybe I could yell at these people face to face. (Although yelling was probably unwarranted. 8 AM is not an unreasonable time to begin construction work. But the way I see it, any time was unreasonable for the noises I was having to endure. I cannot stress enough how loud this was.) While outside I noticed another woman from my building snooping around looking confused and upset, so at least I was not alone. The video I’m posting kind of does justice to what I was going through. I ended up shoving my noise cancelling headphones in my ears and that helped a little bit to dull the agony.  After what some would say was the hardest 2 hours ever endured by a person in a non-war scenario, the noise finally let up. I was elated. It was hard to get back to sleep at first because I kept shaking awake, thinking that the evil, mentally devastating noise was about to return.

What I have now realized is that this was all a way for ODWB to get back at me. All the signs point to him. He lives below me. He knows how to do construction. He might be bitter for having to install a stove for some schmuck who doesn’t even speak his language. He was definitely upset that I would not stop slamming the gate. He probably took the most recent incident, after he had just asked me nicely to be quiet, as a direct slap in the face. He then decided that the only course of action would be to blast me, the morning of a game, with the noise of a million fireworks shows. He knows I am prone to late nights. He knows I play basketball. He could have looked up our schedule and planned the perfect revenge. I think this is exactly what happened. ODWB is one conniving SOB. It taught me a lesson in messing with feeble looking, possibly alcoholic old Israelis. They will give you the benefit of the doubt at first, but if you cross them they will strike back, and it will be more sinister, more soul crushing, than you ever could have predicted.

I eye ODWB warily when I see him now. I close the gate each time with utmost care. And I keep a beer handy in case I need to pacify him before he decides to put me through another situation even half as terrible as the one I just suffered through.

PS  To get the full experience of this video, go buy the loudest speakers you can find, put your ear up to them and turn the volume all the way up.

When I arrived in Tel Aviv I was tempted to try to enter the country using only my American passport so that they would not register my presence as an Israeli who has yet to fulfill his army duties, but I decided against it. They would probably be able to track me anyway, they are a goddamn first world military, but the main reason I came in as an Israeli was because the customs line was shorter for Israeli citizens. Laziness wins out for me even when the consequences of my actions could result in being sent off to launch grenades at Arab militants. Seriously though, waiting in lines is the worst.

I am in another grungy apartment for another preseason. The good thing is that these living conditions don’t even phase me anymore. There is a dead cockroach curled up next to my toilet. I didn’t bat an eye when I saw it and I haven’t bothered to move it. There is a shower with no curtain so the water goes everywhere but I have no desire to deal with picking out a shower curtain. I am supposed to be leaving this place on Wednesday to go to my permanent apartment, so what’s the point. I am hoping that I actually move at the designated time, because I have been down the “don’t worry we will have [blank] ready for you” road out here before. Like, “Considering you severely injured your knee because of our crappy floors, you’ll have an MRI in a week!” Then “you are on a waiting list, that MRI should be coming up!” To “do you really need an MRI, doesn’t it feel better by now?” And finally, 8 weeks later, “OK we scheduled you an MRI. It is across the city at 8 PM at a hospital you have never been to and you have to drive there yourself. Have fun!” A similar situation I always go through is “we will fix your heater because we know you can see your breath in your room and that you walk around with 2 sweatshirts on!” Then “the maintenance man had to reschedule, we will bring a portable to your house tomorrow!” To “so and so thought he had the portable and didn’t, but don’t worry I am personally working to see that a guy is out there this week!” And finally, in late March once it has started to warm up and my frostbite wounds are healing, “I heard that everything is fixed in the apartment. I told you I had your back!”

Thus, I keep my expectations super low and add about 3 weeks to whatever date they promise me something will be taken care of. But, although it is still early, the management of this particular team appears to be professional and trustworthy. They outfitted my temporary place with everything I needed and it did not take 2 weeks of pleading to get the internet. That is a victory in itself. But that does not mean that there aren’t other things that have already gone wrong. For instance, the USB powered computer speakers that I painstakingly researched and carried all the way out here have stopped working. Probably a sign that I should have not cheaped out by getting a “slightly used” set off of Amazon. I waste money on unnecessary things all the time, yet I decide to save $15 dollars on an item that I would have used everyday and cannot replace out here. I recently spent around 50 bucks on 2 thermos’ and some allergy medication I am not even sure I need, yet I purchase speakers that may or may not have been thrown out of a moving vehicle at some point. Damn.

Another thing about the place I am staying at right now is that there is no lock for the door. I brought this up to the management and they assured me that “beer yaakov is a safe place.” I don’t doubt that, but come on. I am just going to leave all my passports, credit cards and electronics in an unlocked house for 3-4 hours a day? My first instinct was to throw a fit and demand something be done, but they were all so nonchalant about the situation that I am just going along with it. I figure they would be responsible if anything got stolen considering I told them about my concerns. I can easily see that not being the case, but it eases my mind a little bit.

The first practice was pretty standard Israeli fare. The first thing the coach told us is that we are going to start every practice for the next 2 weeks with conditioning drills. This scared me for a second, but then I realized where I was. Conditioning out here consists of running laps for 15 minutes. That is literally what we did. They told us that we are going to increase the time we run by a minute each day. The gym is really hot and running for 20 minutes at a decent pace isn’t the easiest thing, but it is a far cry from being serious basketball conditioning. Every time I am on a team out here that runs laps I have to restrain myself from screaming out “no serious basketball team has run laps since Bob Cousy was leading the Celtics through old timey kettle ball routines and Mr. Burns esque calisthenics! (can’t find a clip, check the Simpsons episode King Size Homer.) Training has evolved to where people devise functional workouts that are basketball specific and pinpoint the exact neruomusculoskeletal areas that we should be working! It’s all about functional strength!” Alas, it is better to not rock the boat and just stretch on my own.

Despite the subpar running regimen I am excited for the season. All the guys seem to be friendly and hard workers, and our top 5-6 players are really solid.  I think we can win the league.  I haven’t won a championship since high school so it would be great to get that feeling back. Anyway, I am going to try to be more consistent with the blogging stuff this season. Hopefully funny stuff happens.

They went crazy every time someone dunked.  They shrieked when one of their classmates scored.  They called out players last names and begged them to run into the stands during the game.  I went over one trip downcourt and was taken aback by the fervor with which these kids embraced me.  I was hugged and grabbed and slapped and cheered for a solid 30 seconds before I was able to extricate myself and return to the court.  It was like doing a mini Israeli lambo leap.  Where are these fans in Haifa?  More importantly, why do these kids care so much? Maybe this school was far enough off the beaten path that they don’t realize we are the worst team in the league.  Or maybe they just think it’s really cool to see a pro basketball team playing at their school. I might just be so desensitized to the idea of being excited to see a basketball team that I can’t comprehend their euphoria. Anyway, it was after the game when things got really wild.

Turns out, according to the Army’s system, I never returned from summer vacation and was still enjoying the California sunshine.  If only.  Nope, I am toiling away on the bench of a last place team.  Just where I envisioned myself at the start of the season!  So, I was told that I had to go to the army offices and clear things up.  The consequences of them finding out I am in Israel when I should be in the states are apparently rather severe.  Like lock you up and question you severe, so it was imperative that I set the record straight.

I met up with an assistant manager one afternoon and off we went.  There were kids all over the streets dressed in costumes because of the Purim holiday.  That’s fun and all, but it resurrects the age old question of what hours kids in Israel actually go to school.  I cannot tell you how many times I have been driving somewhere and seen hordes of seemingly school aged children happily going about their business in the city.  When I lived by a high school there were always clusters of “students” meandering around the streets no matter the time.  They are definitely not on any sort of strict 8-3 schedule, thats for damn sure.  For a country with such a reputation for having intelligent people this is kind of alarming.  Maybe they figure they are all going to the army anyway so what the hell why not just ditch history class.  I can sympathize with that train of thought. Might as well have a little fun before you find yourself eating canned food in a bunker near the gaza strip.

Once we arrive at the base I immediately encounter an obstacle.  They would not let the assistant manager come inside with me.  He put up what seemed to me to be a pretty half assed argument and then retired to the outside bench.  I am sure he would rather just hang out then do a bunch of translating, so he was probably ok with the situation.  I on the other hand was considerably more worried now that I would have to navigate this thing alone.  My last trip I was escorted all over by a teammate in the Army and this time I would not be so lucky.  The girl at the front told me to go to the 4th floor. I had no choice but to trudge up toward the unknown all by myself. I found the room they told me to look for and a girl came out and told me to wait a few minutes.  As I sat there I thought about how strange it was that all the people I deal with when I come here are about 20 and a lot of them look like they are 15.  It is odd when I can envision the Army authority figure hanging out with my sister.

The girl came back out and immediately fired off a pretty heavy question: “Do you want to be in the army?”

Waaait a second.  The team manager told me that all I had to do was show up, tell them I am indeed in Israel, and then I would be all good to go.  I wasn’t ready to be asked if I wanted to be a soldier.  I hesitated for a second thinking about how important my reply to this might be.  Was this a chance for me to get out of any potential duties and walk out of there that instant never to return? Or would an answer in the negative prompt someone to escort me to a private room where strong people with guns would make me change my mind?  I decided honesty is the best policy said something like “uhhh…..nottttttt really…”  She quickly snapped back “well you have to.” Great.  Why’d you ask me if I had no say in it?  Who knows.  Maybe she likes torturing incoming recruits by making them think they have a modicum of control over the situation.  She told me me to wait outside the office.

Next she she asked me to wait for an interview and in the meantime provide her with some proof that I was a basketball player.  So I pulled out the letter from the team owner that I keep handy for situations like this.  She thanked me and went on her way.  Oh wait, I obviously had no proof on me that I played basketball.  I was wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt, does that count for anything?  I racked my mind for a way to answer this when she simply started to walk away.  She might have been going for a coffee or something, but for all I knew she was going to report that there was a fraud in the building who needed to be dealt with swiftly and ruthlessly.  I quickly placed a call to the head team manager, hoping he could explain the situation.  Once I had him on the line I hurried over and gave the girl the phone, and to my relief she reversed her direction and headed back to her office to talk.  When the call was done she simply returned the phone and told me to wait.  I’m not sure what, if anything, the call accomplished, but it made me feel better that someone spoke with her who at least knew her language.  So now they are talking army service, interviews, proof of my occupation.  This was not at all how I had hoped the day would turn out.

The vaunted interview begins a few minutes later.  She starts off by filling out all my updated living information, asking basic questions about my address and stuff.  Then out of nowhere she hits me with another “Do you want to be in the army?”  What?  Didn’t she just ask me that?  I paused, thinking about the best answer this time around, when she interrupted me by saying “You have to do it, I’m just trying to test your motivation.”  Now things were much more cut and dry, so I told her that I would have to say my motivation was “very low to none.”  She scribbled something on her paper.  I said “I’m a peaceful person.”  She laughed and scribbled some more.  I imagine she was writing stuff along the lines of “we have a huge sissy on our hands, make sure to really focus on reworking him into an Israeli killing machine if his pansy ass ever makes it to basic training.”  I decided this was the optimal time to tell her that the offices were really rundown and the Army needed to step their renovation game up.  She laughed and agreed with me, but it’s probably unwise to remind someone of the awful conditions they work in if that person is in the midst of a decision on whether a privileged American basketball player wise ass will enter the armed forces of their nation.

She ultimately told me that since I am going to be 24 in June I only need to serve for 6 months.  She added that since I was an athlete (at least that got cleared up) I “might not have to come in everyday.”  Woohoo!   I might not have to show up every day at 7 AM to some army base in the middle of nowhere in a country I have spent all of 16 months in!

The next step in the process was to see the doctor, since the last time I was here he requested all sorts of medical documents that I failed to provide him with.  He saw me, looked at my chart, and told me to send him records of what happened during all my colonoscopies.  I really regret mentioning the colonoscopies in the first place, but he asked me about operations so I told him.  Maybe it will be good in the long run because they won’t want someone with a bad colon, prior knee surgeries and oh ya DOESN’T SPEAK THE LANGUAGE.  You think that would be a big deal, but apparently they are starved for soldiers out here or something.  It’s not like 100% of the population is required to serve or anything.

The thing is, the Israeli army doesn’t know what they would be getting in me.  I would be the laziest, most pessimistic, most sarcastic soldier ever to grace the ranks.

-”Why would you start the attack from that side? Did I not get the ‘do the dumbest thing possible’ memo?”

-”Who would ever think this food is adequate for human consumption. My dog would smack me in the face if I tried to feed him this.”

-”No this is a really good idea.  We should definitely be out here running in the sun for hours on end.  I heard they were going to make us jog to Iran if we invade it.”

-”3 people assigned to keep watch over a 5 sq. meter area?  Faaaantastic use of resources.”

Maybe a steady stream of those could get me honorably discharged.  I should just have a bunch of former coaches, teachers and authority figures sign a letter agreeing that I would be of no benefit to the army if I didn’t want to be there.

I should also note that the whole time I was at the base I don’t think I saw any soldiers do anything other than stare at a computer or play on their phones, so maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

I am still unclear as to whether they would make me forfeit an entire basketball season to do this crap.  I have been with a couple players thus far who were doing army service and not missing practice so I guess it’s possible.  But I don’t have any clout here, so things might be considerably more difficult for me.  All this means I definitely have a new factor to consider when deciding on whether to play in Israel again next year.  Should make for an interesting next few months.

-quick bball update, cause oh ya that’s what I’m out here getting paid to do.  I haven’t played more than 3 minutes in a game in like 3 months, and the majority of the time I never leave the bench.  And we lose every game.  It’s the first time I have been in a situation like this and I can say with confidence it sucks pretty bad.  I played pretty well when I was given a fair shot, but all the people who were there to witness that have been fired now.  Oh well, all I can do is work in practice and hope something changes for the better.  At least it’s getting warm again.

To be fair, part of the reason I almost missed my game was that NO ONE TOLD ME WHEN IT WAS.  My team has not quite grasped the concepts of releasing a schedule or telling people more than 24 hours in advance what time we have practice the next day.  It can be quite frustrating.  The problem is compounded when I spend most of my time practicing with Haifa, so I am out of the loop even more when it comes to Tivon related activities.

This particular incident actually started when I was informed that I would be going to training camp for 3 days with Haifa up in the mountains.  The place is about an hour and a half North.  I was fine with this.  It would actually be kind of nice to get out of town, get some nice free meals and be able to use a real shower.  (You can’t really do anything in my shower but slowly turn around with your arms at your side.  I think the previous tenant was a midget jockey of some sort.  (( I am almost sure you are not allowed to use parentheses within parentheses, but oh well.  Why has there not been a champion midget jockey?  Sorry, little person.  There has to be some athletic little person out there we can throw on a horse.  What a competitive advantage.  Once I become head of television somewhere I am going to introduce “I’m Not Here for the Ponies,”  a reality show where we follow 10 bitter, overlooked midget jockeys as they compete to win a mount in the Kentucky Derby.  I’m not sure why they have to be bitter and overlooked, but that’s just how it is at the moment.))  Back to the shower.  It’s almost like cramming into a really ghetto, semi-human sized washing machine of some sort.  I need to hire someone to sprinkle soap on me from above as I turn in circles so as to avoid smashing my knees and arms into the glass every time I try to wash myself.)

But, I got a call after the practice from a manager of Haifa saying that they had a new plan for me, which was this:

-Practice with Haifa in the morning.

-Drive my own car 1.5 hours into the mountains, behind the team bus so as to really rub in my inferiority and outcast status.

- Practice in the evening.

-Drive back 1.5 hours through the night on poorly lit mountain roads where one bad turn could lead me into Lebanon.

-Play a game with Tivon on Monday.

-Drive all the way back on Tuesday and practice some more.

All for a team I am not even on!  They assured me they would pay for my gas.  I felt this was a little unreasonable and said so to my coach, who worked out that I would just do the first part and not return on Tuesday, which is not the end of the world, especially considering I have nothing else to do with my life but follow around this team and be their little practice dummy. Really, I don’t.  There is only so much, Mad Men, Its Always Sunny and awesome old BBC documentaries about WWII that I can watch.

So I follow the bus up their on Sunday and try to take careful notice of the roads we are on so I will be able to navigate my way back.  I’ll discuss it later, but I think everyone knows this had about a negative 100% chance of working.  There were only 3 main roads for the vast majority of the trip, but I greatly overestimated my ability to find these roads by myself in the dark.

As we were walking to and from the hotel to the gym people were talking a lot about how this was one of the spots that got shelled by bombs from Lebanon a few years back.  From the gym we could see mountain that separates the two countries, and apparently Lebanon really went to town reigning down missiles on the exact spot we were standing.  It was not a very comforting thought.

I then got into a discussion with the trainer about war and such after he announced that “ehh, war every few years is not such a bad thing.”  Riiiight.

me- “Ya I guess not, as long as you always win.”

trainer- “Yes, and if we lose, we drop the A bomb and destroy everything.”

me- “Alright, mutually assured destruction, that’d be great.  (good naturedly egging him on) “Why doesn’t Israel just take over more of the middle east?  Just go grab Syria.”

trainer- “We did, but we always have to give it back!  They go whining to the United Nations.  They start the war, we win, and then we have to give back land!  The United Nations always fucks us!”

We then went on to talk about how the Arabs living in Israel have an infinitely higher standard of living than in any of the Arab nations.  It was nice to talk about something stimulating for a change.

After practice we got to eat and then we had to sit through a talk about the history of Haifa basketball.  This involved first listening to an older fan who went through in detail all the triumphs of Maccabi Haifa.  This wasn’t just basketball though. It started in 1918, and was mostly soccer until like the mid 1950′s.  And this list was thorough as hell.  I spent a solid 15 minutes learning about when the first gymnastics team was founded and how tough it was to get practice time on the one court in Haifa in the 1960′s.  It was kind of interesting but excessively detailed.  There was no need to recount every time the team moved divisions from 1980 to the present.

The more fun part of the talk was when we got to look at old newspaper clippings about Haifa basketball.  They mostly featured this one player who holds all of the big scoring records.  There was one particularly awesome picture showing this player after an important win.  He was standing in uniform and on the court with a lit cigarette in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other.  So awesome.  This guy also apparently didn’t even play basketball until his 20′s, at which point he stopped being a soccer goalie and started being one of the best Israeli basketball players ever.  They didn’t really tell how this happened, or why he never realized he was that good before.  Maybe people cared so little about basketball that any decent athlete who could bear not being a soccer player could have dominated.

After this all ended the team offered to “let me stay for the night” considering it was 10:30 PM.  I didn’t know if that meant crash on someones couch or if they would get me a room, but I decided I didn’t really want to stay anyway.  So it was arranged that I would follow back our guest speakers from Haifa and thus could not possibly get lost.  If only.

I followed them for about 20 miles, but being older they were driving very slow, and I was confident I could find my way back without them.  I really don’t know why I was so sure of myself.  I struggle to find my way around the neighborhood I grew up in.  I have been forced to use a navigation system to find an In-n-Out I have been to close to a thousand times.  But for some reason out in the black mountainous middle of nowhere in Northern Israel I was absolutely positive that if I just made one left turn I would be basically home and that there was no reason to follow these old dudes.  The last straw was when they made a right, I followed them, and then they made a U-Turn, signaling they had erred and that they were no longer to be trusted ever again.  I followed behind a little longer and then broke off at the point I thought you had to make a left, and they continued straight.  I silently applauded myself for being so awesome.

But, lo and behold, I had no fucking clue what I was doing.  This road just meandered along and there were no signs pointing me toward Haifa.  There were signs to Afula and Nazareth, which are close by, so I thought I would make my way over there and then figure it out.  This backfired when after a little more driving the whole road came to a complete halt.  Not wanting to just sit around when I was already lost I made my first of many illegal u turns.  I don’t recommend doing this on dark mountain roads, but I am one of those drivers that always likes to be moving.  I would rather take the surface streets and have my trip take 10 minutes longer, but be always moving, then sit in traffic on the freeway.  I should probably try to curb this need to always be instantly gratified. Doesn’t seem like a good or healthy trait.

I retraced my way back to the road I originally turned off and followed that a while longer, secretly hoping I would somehow catch up to the car I was supposed to be following.  That never happened, so I made another left that turned out to lead nowhere, and had to turn back with my tail between my legs yet again.  I knew I had to make a goddamn left at some point!  It all seemed so easy when I was driving in the daylight.

The worst part about all this is seeing broken down cars on the side of the road and having to wonder what on earth I would do if I got stranded.  I am sure I could make some calls and get some help, but I would not be able to describe in any detail where I was, and who knows how long it would take for help to arrive.  That’s all assuming I would have service.  It would have been a long, terrible night to say the least.  A few minutes being lost in the night by yourself makes you miss civilization a whole lot.

It turned out that the original road I was on eventually had signs for freeways I recognized, and I thought I was home free once I got on Road 70.  But, as is known to happen in Israel, I got forced off of Road 70 by a police blockade.  They had a huge section of the road shut down, at midnight. Great. So I made another U-turn, got honked at by a cop, pulled up to another group of police cars and asked how to get to Tivon.  He sounded like this:

“garble garble garble garble smollah.”

I know that smollah means right, and he was pointing to the right, so I figured I would try that.  As I make my final illegal turn to go back that way a cop pulls up beside honking and flashing his lights.  I was sure I was going to get a ticket, but he just asked me in perfect english where I was going, and told me to follow him.  He escorted me all the way back to Tivon, and I cannot overstate how lost I would have gotten if he hadn’t helped me out.  It was much, much more than just a right turn. So, moral is, make a lot of illegal turns, look helpless, foreign and lost, and some awesome cop will always come and help your out of your jam.  Still, I am going to just follow someone the next time I am leaving the mountains in the middle of the night.  No need to be a hero.

To conclude, I got back late, slept late and then got a call from the manager of Tivon asking me where I was and telling me we had a game starting in 30 minutes.  I had to rush out the door and answer questions about why I didn’t know we had a game at that time.  No one really cared, because no one could prove that the game time had been announced at any other point besides the previous nights practice, which I was obviously absent from.  A simple text or email would have prevented the whole ordeal  But, I played well and we blew the team out, so alls well that ends well.

-Getting to see the grungy ass frat house where my friend Andy used to live.  My school didn’t have places like this, and I had never been in a huge public school frat house before.  It’s filth was awe inspiring. I got to see the area where they hold an event involving girls in bathing suits wrestling in a kiddy pool filled with watermelon.  Wow.  But Harvard’s cool too! My dorm had free milk and cookies every sunday!

-Having a cat follow us home for what felt like an hour and a half walk at the end of the night, naming it, feeding it and then kicking it out.

-Winning a game of scrabble by one point on my last word played.

-Barely avoiding severe embarrassment by winning a couple games of 2-on-2 against Andy’s friends.  We were down big the first game before luckily pulling it out.  Not a good look for a pro basketball player, ha.

My trip to Chicago was also a great time.  Highlights:

-  Having to share a bed with JD in a dank un-airconditioned basement room because a bunch of hick ass Georgians happened to be couch surfing at the apartment at the same time. Ha, I kid, the Georgians where actually very cool and I ended up seeing them more than Lucas, the friend I was out to see.  The guy Casey was JD’s Southern doppleganger.  They both have somehow memorized every line of every Simpsons episode, and they would repeat them back and forth to each other and laugh while the rest of us twiddled our thumbs.  At some point we all spent a solid hour looking at youtube videos, with these being some of the best:

(Somehow I don’t know how to imbed videos.  I’ll have to learn that. Sorry.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItZyaOlrb7E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vmnq5dBF7Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B427cDRCMw

- playing a TON of video games.  It had been far too long since I got my fill of 2-on-2 Nintendo games, and between Mario Tennis and SuperStrikers I was more than content.  If it seems like a waste to go all the way to Chicago only to spend half the time playing decade old game consoles, then you just don’t understand the pleasure derived from seeing a best friend or sibling screaming in anguish as Yoshi smashes in a goal from midfield with 2 seconds left in the game.

- Getting to chill with my boy Tim again.  I should note that I also visited him up in San Jose.  Those too were successful trips in that I got to do nothing but eat, play basketball, watch tv and play video games.  I wasn’t even mad when we were supposed to rent some planet earth type show and ended up with this high school science class 1980′s looking thing featuring an old dude narrator with a windbreaker and an accent.

To be complete with my summer happenings I have to mention my one night stay up in San Fran.  What up O! I got all that I had been missing with my partner in crime from college, complete with good food, partying, and a near fight right on the edge of a body of water that would not have ended well.  All I can say is thank god for older brothers with cooler heads.

An additional bonus of all the trips was that in each and every case the people I was seeing were working at the time.  So I constantly got to sleep as long as my heart desired while whomever I was with trudged off to sell his soul to the man.  It made me feel lazy at times, but mostly I just appreciated having a 9 month a year job with no real responsibilities otherwise.

So as for Israel, not much has been going on.  I have been practicing a ton because I am doing both the first and second division teams workouts.  This is cool because it is fun to play against better competition in a gym that does not remind me of a run down Boys and Girls club, but it is also frustrating because I know they have no intention of moving me up, so at times I feel like a practice dummy.  It is especially frustrating knowing that I could contribute if given a chance, and that they need another Israeli guard! (don’t forget that I am Israeli. Through and through. All hail Israel. I could be called to defend the holy land at a moments notice, the least they could do is give me a little burn in the Premier League.  I’d rather play less at a higher level than do another year in the ghetto doldrums of the second division.) Alas, they are taking another jew guard who did well at the summer tryout. It’s hard for me not to beat myself up about stuff like this, but I am getting better at focusing on doing the best with what I’ve got and not worrying so much.

At least I am in good shape.  Apparently I either worked a lot harder this summer than I gave myself credit for or I really was an absolute fat beast last season, because every single Israeli who knew me last year had the same reaction:  ”Wow! You lost so much weight! You have muscles!”  Haha it has been crazy, without fail if an Israeli who saw me last year saw me recently he has gone into a tirade about my knew body type.  I was at 87 kilos (192 lbs) at my physical, which really isn’t small at all, but it’s better than the 92 kilos (202 lbs) I ballooned to at one point last year.  People are thoroughly impressed, which is a nice self esteem boost I guess.

At this point I am deriving satisfaction simply from not being injured and from playing a lot of minutes in my teams practice games.  Just those two things (and having my teammate Rodney say that he “might have to make me an honorary black man” because of my extensive hip hop knowledge) have made the first couple weeks a bajillion times better than last year. I don’t want to be too happy about anything though because I know as well as anyone that it is still very early and things can go downhill in a hurry.

Now if I can just get a working washing machine and a car that gets better than 21 miles per gallon I’ll be set.  Ok last tangent, but how the hell does Hyundai get away with producing a car so small it gets blown off course if a large insect flies by but still gets terrible gas mileage? Who would ever buy this car?!  It’s tiny, its uncomfortable, it has 0 features, the gauges are always messing up and getting stuck so that I have no idea how fast I am going, and it gets bad gas to boot.  I know nothing about cars, but I know that if a car is tiny, light and crappy it should at least be better at the pump than my Dad’s boat of a Chrysler (love that car dad, no offense.)  And this would all be not nearly as upsetting if I wasn’t initially excited about this car because I assumed it would get killer mileage.  I guess the lesson is to never underestimate just how terrible a product Hyundai is willing to make. Someone over there should be fired pronto.

I spent May just kind of putzing around doing nothing other than working out with my brother and shooting at the high school.  This actually could be a pretty complete recap of my summer as a whole.  A lot of working out in my front yard, shooting at my high school and watching TV with JD and Catie.  But there were some other interesting things.  I started playing with a semi pro team in the IBL called the LA Lightening.  I was very lukewarm to the idea at first, especially after not playing that much in my first game.  But after a while I got comfortable, the other PG left, and I had my best and most fun stretch of basketball in a long time.  Granted a lot of the teams we played were complete garbage, but there were some pretty solid squads in there too.  Some notable people on my team:

-Bryon Russel (of Jordan shoved him off and hit one of the biggest shots in history fame.)  He is now a gregarious, slightly chubby dude who was fond of joking around with the refs. He would sometimes announce at half time that he was hitting up the buffet, then show up to the bench halfway through the third quarter looking as content as ever.  His game consisted mostly of launching deep threes and grabbing defensive boards.

-Tyus Edney.  He only played in 2 games, but I have to throw him in here just because it was so awesome for me to play with him.  I seriously used to pretend to be him in my front yard.  He is still crazy fast and pretty much un-guardable.  Not that I would really know, seeing as the team did not have one practice the whole summer.  I was not at all upset when 4 hours after our last game in Canada, and after I had done all the laundry because of bs rookie hazing, he told me he had forgot to turn his stuff in and handed me his sweaty uniform.  That’s Tyus Edney’s sweat man!

-Billy Knight.  Another UCLA guy.  He was notable for his absolute and whole hearted love of Kobe Bryant and the Lakers.  We had some epic Kobe-LeBron arguments, where he would spout on about how “LebBron gets more assists, but Kobe makes his teammates better.”  Ok Billy, that makes perfect sense.  My assertions that Kobe was a punk for quitting in 06 against the Suns and 08 against the Celtics were met with head shakes and the accusation that I “must not have ever been the leader on a team before.”  Ouch, things just got personal, haha.  Granted he apparently won substantial amounts of money betting on the Lakers in the finals, so I guess that could justify his deep rooted affection.  But maybe more of that should be directed at Ron Artest, and perhaps even Sasha, considering Kobes mind meltingly selfish and dreadful game seven performance in 2010.

Tarron Williams.  Notable for being an absolute beast.  One of those 6-4 mean looking power forward types who you just did not want to mess with.  He was also a king of un-intentional comedy.  I wish I had written down all the stuff he was saying, I know I am forgetting all the gems.  He would say stuff like “I can’t get drunk off beer.  I can drink a 12 pack in an hour and not feel a thing.  You just piss it all out.” And “You’re bout to have a whole lot more than a band-aid” to an opponent sporting a band-aid who was talking shit. When out at night, he would simply go up to women and say “You’ve got a fat ass.”  I’m pretty sure he meant it as a compliment.  Also, his hatred of skinny jeans was at a level that can only be described as all-encompassing.  He hardly went an hour without expounding on how men wearing tight jeans were pretty much the worst people on earth.  Someone asked how he would respond if he was offered a million dollars to wear skinny jeans around his neighborhood for a month.  He said he’d decline, stating that where he was from that was as good as a death sentence.  I was very careful to wear my clothes baggy around him at all times.

Chris Ayer- A big dude from Arizona who went to Loyola.  He was notable for his intense workout methods (convincing me to go on a 5 mile street run in the heat, uphill, and he wore a 20 pound backpack) his hick-ishness (always talking about hunting and fixing cars and shit) and the fact that every time he scored in a home game they played that annoying song about “throwing your hands in the air.”  It’s clever cause it sounds like his last name.  Also, it seemed like he was the finisher on like 75% of my assists.  A big with good hands is hard to find.  If he was on my Israeli team I doubt we would be getting blasted by 3rd division teams in the preseason, but I digress.

That is a good lead in to talk about the ridiculous atmosphere of our home games, which were played at Cal Lutheran. There was a whole media table, radio announcers, trainers and a live in-game announcer.  This live game announcer took some serious pride in his job, which I can’t hate on.  The problem was, there was never more than 18 people in the stands, so his sound bites, nicknames and the rest were mostly just seen as ridiculous.  It was hilarious to me that I when I would score the MC would scream something to the effect of “HE’S IN THE HOUSE, MAN!” to the delight of our half-dozen loyal fans.  They also played that “duh-duh-duh, duh-duh duh, DUH-DUH-DUH” horribly annoying music every possession like they do in NBA games. Ha that was a pretty awful representation of that sound in writing form, but maybe one person will know what I am talking about.  Overall, a pretty weird home court schtick we had going on.  I also was reminded of the doldrums of the home game Harvard days, the only other time I would be dribbling up the court and could hear the radio guy going “Housman brings it across halfcourt…”  Kind of a surreal experience now that I think about it.

Side note- I just had to take a time out to use a water bottle to kill a cockroach that came in through my laughably inadequate window screen.  Welcome back to Israel!

As for my trip back, maybe I was just trying to look on the bright side for once, but for the whole summer I had it in my head that I would be in contact with my team and agent and that my return to Israel would be smooth.  Everything that happened to me in the past year makes this look like a pipe dream, but I believed it nonetheless.  Of course, my trip back to Israel was as haphazard, unorganized and spur of the moment as I should have expected.

I started trying to find out when I had to return sometime around mid July.  After pestering my agent and management for a solid month with no success, I eventually took things to the top and emailed the owner.  A day later I find out that they wanted me back in Israel in 5 days. 5 days! Thanks for the notice.  They wanted me back on the 16th of August.  My agent vowed to fight for more time.  He emailed the next day: I could now return the 17th.  One whole day more! That’s why he gets paid the big bucks.

My plans for a big NYC trip to end the summer seemed dashed.  They seemed especially dashed when unknown people began texting me at 7 AM after a long night out demanding to know if I wanted to fly out of LA or NYC.  At that time and in that state of mind I decided that I did not have the energy to gather everything I needed to leave the country and make a flight to New York in the next 24 hours.  So I told them to make it out of LA.  About 30 minutes later I decided it was worth the rush to make the New York trip, so I texted back to see if I could still make changes.  The mystery person texting me claimed that he/she had “already booked it.” Damn that was fast!  Little did I know this person was just putting me on to avoid having to do a little extra work, which is pretty much the M.O. of 99% of the people I deal with out here.

Dismayed, I resigned myself to a lonely last few days in the states.  A few hours later I got an email from the person in charge of booking flights asking for my birthday in order to finalize the confirmation.  Seeing as I booked multiple flights with her last year I assumed she had my birthday on file, but who am I to complain.  I seized this chance to ask for a flight change.  Clearly the mystery texter had misled me because nothing could be booked without my birthday.  She was able to book me out of New York, and I got one last awesome summer vacation out of it.

Eventually I made my way to the airport, after almost ruining everything by getting on the wrong train and riding it for a few stops.  Thank god I was not so overconfident as to not double-check with someone, which quickly brought my I-can-navigate-New York-with-the-best-of-them! attitude crashing to a halt.  When at the airport I had a funny encounter with the gate agent for Austrian Airlines.  He asked where I was headed and I said Switzerland, because for some reason I thought that’s where my connection was.  He looked really confused and told me I was in the wrong place, but that was cleared up once I gave him my confirmation information.  When I had to give him my passport a fine white mist came puffing out of the pages.  He became alarmed and asked what was going on.  Apparently this passport was being stored in a section of my backpack that once held a lot of protein powder.  I explained that to him, and he gave me a sly smile and a “suuuuure.”  Not sure how I was supposed to take that, but he let me on the plane, so that’s all that matters.

Once I got to Tel-Aviv I had to seek out a phone and call someone in management, who assured me that there was a person waiting outside with a sign that said “Housman.”  As you probably guessed, this “Housman” sign was nowhere to be found. I stood around like an idiot for a few minutes, but was soon ushered out of the greeting area and into the airport at large.  I walked around looking at signs for a solid 20 minutes, having a flash of hope once only to see the sign read “Hartofan.” Another sign read “WHO” and for a second I thought maybe he meant “Drew” and had just misheard someone on the phone, but that was a little too far-fetched.

I finally sought out another phone (shout out to the workers at the Pelephone store!) and called the manager again, who claimed the guy should be there, and told me to go stand by a certain landmark.  He also told me to look out for another teammate who was going to be arriving soon.  He described him thusly:  ”He is a tall one.  And a black one.” Haha thanks for the heads up.  About 5 minutes later this driver guy finally shows, and we then have to wait another hour for my teammate.

But, despite the hectic entrance, it all ended on a positive note.  My apartment had been cleaned, fixed up, organized and all the stuff I left from last year was still in it (except, oddly, my scale.)  Also, my stove and bathroom light do not work, but I’m too happy with everything else to worry abou these things just yet.  It was so nice to settle in my own place and not have to do battle for internet access or anything like that.  Also, the only other American I have met so far seems like a nice guy, and he was taught by a strength coach in college who utilizes all the principles I base my workouts and stretches on, so it was cool to meet a kindred spirit in that sense.  All in all everything is shaping up to be much better than last year. I hope it continues this way.

- The last 2 games the official scoresheet has cheated me out of stats.  I swear on my life my last game I had at least 11 points, 4 assists, 3 rebounds and 2 steals in 23 minutes.  Not the best game, but it looks a whole lot better than what the stat sheet read: 8 points, 2 assists, 2 rebounds, 1 steal.  They completely disregarded one of my 3 pointers!  And in the previous game I also had 11 points and was only credited with 9.  There is always a debate over what counts as an assist, and even rebounds can be tricky sometimes, but they should never mess up points.  I am dumbfounded.  Everyone’s point totals add up to the correct final score, so someone is secretly getting a slight PPG boost and not owning up to it.  I’m not saying I would say anything either, or that these things can actually get changed, it’s just interesting.  I am big on conspiracy theories, so I’m assuming this is what went down:

One of my teammates wanted a little bump in the scoring column and thought a quick and foolproof way to accomplish this would be to pay off the scorekeepers.  I am sure it wouldn’t take much, maybe 50 shekels total, and they would promise to skim a few points off the person least likely to notice.  The scorekeepers are always bored looking young people.  They would probably like nothing better than to participate in some harmless scoring fraud to earn a few shekels.  So who better to screw over than me, the guy who has a hard time finding the box scores online, never knows anyones stats, doesn’t speak Hebrew and hardly even scores that much anyway?  Someone is clearly plotting to undermine my entire career.  Or maybe it was just two honest mistakes.

-I spent my day off, as per usual, staring at my computer screen.  I watched Blood Simple, Annie Hall, the most recent episode of Breaking Bad, and Wedding Crashers.  Blood Simple is the first Coen Brothers movie, and it was very entertaining.  I recommend it.  Annie Hall was the first Woody Allen movie I’d ever seen and I loved it.  Dude is funny as hell.  Breaking Bad was so, so, so awesome.  And then there was Wedding Crashers.  I had very fond memories of the first viewing of this movie years ago, and I had not seen it since.  Maybe I had just watched too much good stuff too recently, but I thought Wedding Crashers was pretty lame.  There are a few good jokes but overall it is just a super cheesy, chick flicky kinda movie.  The last half was particularly awful.

-I went on a walk yesterday and spent 10 minutes watching a line of Ants.  I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this yet, but many of the Ants out here are on some serious insect steroids.  The ones I came across yesterday ran the gamut in sizes from tiny to ginormous, and I was really intrigued by what they were doing.  They were marching across the dirt path into the brush and carrying teeny little pieces of plant material back to their hole.  The weird thing was, I could find no rhyme or reason as to why some ants where dragging sticks and others weren’t.  There would be this small guy struggling to lug a huge (in ant terms) branch while a perfectly healthy looking monster ant strolled alongside, carrying absolutely nothing! I saw this scenario repeated all throughout the line.  Little guys admirably making their way over rough terrain pulling a stick twice their body length while the roided out ants walked around doing jack shit.  I don’t know if the big guys bullied the little ones into doing their dirty work, but something did not seem right.  Were the big ones barking orders in their undetectable ant language?

And what they hell were they building in that hole anyway? I didn’t know ants used construction materials.  I always assumed this just waded around in the dirt.  Also, I can’t build or fix a god damn thing.  How come these insects with pin needle brains can engage in large-scale architectural endeavors but I can never in a million years get my fridge to stop buzzing, or fix the light in my bathroom?  Can you train ants?  Do people work with them in a laboratory setting?  I want some ants to use their assembly line power, limitless energy and blind devotion to make my life easier.  Why can’t someone teach them to clean my floor of debris, or organize my laundry.  They are already using teamwork to build mysterious structures under the ground for christs sake, they could handle a few domestic tasks.

Well, the ant watching may seem boring, but its a step up from the walk where I spent a good chunk of time trying to hit a tree with a pine cone left-handed.