The World Cup, Another Way To Survive.

One of the things I've been depending on this past month is the World Cup. I've been losing myself in soccer, becoming absorbed with the teams and tactics and the bracket as I track the progress towards the final. I will get back to writing, directly, about being unemployed and the way I've been surviving, but today I've got some things to say about soccer.

The U.S. Men's Team was fantastic. It is a shame Altidore was so wasteful in front of goal, in that respect he is the American Emile Heskey, a giant, clever forward who can't score goals. His play in the group rounds and against Ghana, to a lesser extent, was fantastic in all aspects except his wastefulness in front of goal. If he could score when one on one with the keeper the U.S. would have racked up a much higher goal tally and would most likely still be in South Africa. Additionally Landon Donovan was immense. He is truly, currently, the best U.S. player in the game. He can't be compared to past greats because we haven't had a similar player before. I take back what I wrote six months ago about him not being able to hack it on the big stage, Landon Donovan has full filled the potential set out before him and is the true leader of the team. Dempsey, Bradley, Felhaber, and Edu all performed exceptionally and with such a strong midfield available it is a shame that coach Bob Bradley is such a tactical dinosaur.

Credit goes to Coach Bradley for directing his team out of the group stages, he instilled a lot of discipline and drive into a team of dedicated, if largely limited, players. The team played an open, fast, direct game that suited them well, drove forward as they could and, as mentioned previously, if they weren't so wasteful in box would have easily overcome the teams they faced. However, I wonder what a 4-2-3-1 formation would look like on this team. With the depth in midfield it would allow for some screening in front of the the defense which is, admittedly, a bit shaky and allow the more natural attacking midfielders (Donovan and Dempsey) the chance to roam forward from the width to work off of Altidore playing as a target. With Bradley linking between the two screening midfielders and Altidore it seems a much cleaner, efficient, system that could be changed to a 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 as the situation demands. Coach Bradley was successful with this team, against all the criticism, against all odds but his time with the team, as head coach, is over. The mad search for successor will begin before we know it.

Unemployment Guide to Survial (or Best of a Shitty Situation) Part 2: What Are You Going to do Now?

It is very, very hard work to be unemployed.

It isn't so much what you are going to do with your time in as much as how you are going to prioritize the time you have. There are some pitfalls in coming out of a 40+ hours a week job directly to unemployment. And, while I was mentally prepared (as much as I could) for the inevitable lay-off the wide open schedule was (and continues to be) daunting to say the least.

At first it is easy to layout a grand master plan for personal domination. Get out the guitar and relearn how to play, right more, exercise more, enter into any number of self improvement projects and programs to make yourself a better person. There is this need to not waste any time, any time at all, and to drive forward with passion and energy and maintain the rigid schedule that was in place while you were working. I am afraid it isn't so easy.

For some, who are naturally disciplined and focused, creating a schedule and maintaining an action plan might be easy and their well recorded steps for success and achievement make the unemployed hoards around them feel low, worthless, and pathetic. I can assure you that people like that are in the decline and the majority of your fellow unemployed (in my area as many as 1 in 10 not so long ago) are flailing about just as wildly as you are. There is an initial knee jerk reaction to losing your job that finds people scrambling to navigate unemployment insurance, intently revising resumes, filling out applications, and seeking career counselling and advice from what ever parties are available to them. I remember feeling this sense of hope and purpose that the period of unemployment was available in which to redefine the career path I was on and seek out an occupation that full filled my artistic tendencies and personal goals. I have found it isn't so easy.

I am a hardworking, dedicated, professional carpenter (or I was before getting laid-off) and I thought, going into yet another lay-off I would be able to keep my schedule and focus together and build on the down time. I looked forward to time with my boys and wife and initially treated the spare time as an serendipitous vacation of sorts. Initially, I was successful. A small side project brought in some extra cash and the down time was spent mt. biking, with family, and working on my resume, all the while planning for career counselling. I entered career counselling with determination and focus and things gradually went down hill.

There comes a point when all the career choices, future plans, and next moves are in your court and I found myself paralyzed with fear of making the wrong choice and struggling to make ends meat yet desperate for change and liberation. The conflict between the need for change and fearing the wrong decision was mentally paralyzing and threw me into depression and anxiety. There is a fine line between hope and darkness and it is like walking the tight rope. I am always falling off the rope, one way or another and rarely can I balance to the finish.

It has helped, immensely, that I find so much pleasure in mt. biking. I harped on this for exercise, but the way I exercise and my hobby is the same. But it is important to have a hobby, a mental outlet to wile away the hours. The time that is normally filled with work doesn't go away and I can not stress how long, lonely, and isolating those hours can feel whether you are physically isolated and alone or not.

Over the course of one empty day to a week to a month it is easy to fall into a syndrome of emptiness and the effort it takes to fill those days with even three or four hours of purposeful, productive activity is excruciatingly difficult. But it is critical.

World Cup Fever

I have to give some mad props to the U.S. Men's National Soccer team today for coming back from 2-0 at half time and getting a well deserved 2-2 draw that, but for a phantom offsides call on a free kick, would/should have been a 3-2 win.

(The blurry crowd filling the bar at The Copperhog)

In my time zone (Pacific time) kick-0ff was at 7 am and I wandered down to the local gastropub, The Copperhog (http://www.thecopperhog.com/) for the game, a full breakfast menu and a vibrant crowd cheering on the USA. I wasn't able to order food--too busy--so i can't speak to the Hog's breakfast menu--dinner/lunch is fantastic--and the coffee service was overwhelmed but the atmosphere was electric. Every positive play from the US was cheered, the Slovenians were jeered and the ref was adequately demonized--all good natured--as the game progressed.

The Slovenian team is well organized, fast, and aggressive and works a unit well. As many pundits have said before me, a very similar team to the U.S. There isn't a lot of standout talent, very few individuals to watch for, rather a collective performance based on the greater strength of the team. On evidence today, that was generally well organized defense and fast counter attack. The U.S., on the other hand, went for broke.

Lined up, officially, as a 4-4-2, they almost played more of a 3-2-3-1-1 to start with Torres and Bradley sitting deep to allow Donovan and Dempsey the chance to drive forward to support Altidore and Findley initially. (Briefly, if Findley starts against Algeria I will be shocked, his pace is terrific but his decision making is atrocious and his lack of big game experience is telling in front of goal, the greatest criticism of the U.S. team is their lack of composure and the ability to put away clinical chances in front of goal.) This is a team whose tactic was to run at the Slovenian defense. Against England, I think that was their secondary game plan as well--after they broke up the play from the middle, of course.

Every player in the attacking third of the U.S. team broke with pace and poise and was comfortable taking on their markers. From Bradley to Donovan to Altidore this team showed great class and composure in running at the defense. It is the American strength and it works time and again. A direct passing approach, the ball on the ground, at speed. The U.S. team doesn't play balls out of the air, in attack, well, they don't flick, they aren't particularly clever. But the game played at tempo down the throats of the defense is the perfect strategy for hardworking, athletic, grafters. This isn't the only time this has worked. Spain in the confederations cup, the first half against Brazil, the game against Egypt. As far back as World Cup 2006 against Italy this has been the American strength. When it works, it works superbly.

And, today, Bradley got his tactics right. Edu on for Torres, Feilhaber on for Findley, and at the end Gomes on for Onyewu. Breaking from midfeild with pace, Micheal Bradley was my man of the match and Donovan and Altidore were runners up, those three were at the heart of everything the U.S. team did that was positive. Great game and a decent result for the boys in S. Africa.

The tournament has come alive. The Swiss beat Spain (Spain=my pick to win it all), Mexico beat France, the U.S. has drawn with England and Slovenia, the German trouncing of Australia and the upset by the Serbs (Serbia 1 Germany 0). It promises to be a classic after a slow start.

The Unemployment Guide to Survival: The Best of a Shitty Situation Part 1

I want to come out and say that being unemployed is hard work. Its depressing, frustrating, and defeating. Day in and day out knowing that your locked in competition for the few jobs available in the area each candidate pushing for the extra edge over the other, potential employers flooded with resumes and cover letters and always, always, always wondering what the next day will bring. That is hardest part, for me, the uncertainty of the next day, the empty schedule, the loose ends that seem to be floating around my vision. I strive for normalcy, go to parties, host people at our house, engage with the world around me as though my life were perfectly normal but its not. I'm unemployed. Week in and week out it is a struggle to meet the financial commitments we have, every day is a test in patience and perseverance. Yet, we survive.

A lot of what I've written lately has focused on how hard and dark this time is and that is true. I flutter in and out of dark depressions and paralyzing fear. The numbing sense that my world is crumbling and the stark realization at how temporary the creature comforts we acquired can be. But we, as a family, survive. Some how, some way, we get up with the new day and go forward, albeit a little blindly, and trust that the steps taken are the steps to take. And over the past few days, or weeks--however long its been since I last wrote here--I've come to realize that there are a few key elements to surviving unemployment that I can share and there will be more as I identify them. Incidentally, this will give my blog some structure, as I am starting this on a Wednesday I think I'll post a new element to my Unemployment survival every Wednesday. It will be known as the Survivor's Guide to Unemployment: The Best of a Shitty Situation.

The Best of a Shitty Situation #1: Exercise.

(My New Covert)

It is challenging to identify the reasons I've made it since February, unemployed, with out loosing my mind. The coping mechanisms are not always black and white and one may be contingent on the other. But I intend to do my best to share what I've found to work. The first thing is to exercise.


Besides sex, for men, I can't think of anything that helps maintain confidence and energy and self belief and a reason to go forward like identifying a highly physical outlet that allows for pure release and exercise. I look to mt biking, I am fortunate to have Galbraith Mt. less than 10 minutes from my doorstep (preliminary info here: http://www.ridegalbraith.com/). Mt. biking has been, far and away, one of the most (besides the support of my brave wife) crucial elements to my survival thus far. Frequency has ebbed and flowed, one of the draw backs of riding often is breaking equipment or getting injured, both of which have put stops in my riding, and of course recovery from the ol' vasectomy put a damper in my ride time as well. But around those little draw backs, I have relied heavily on Galbraith and my bike as a way to break up my day, get some exercise, and have an outlet that was purely mine. In a sense it has filled some of the gaps that work filled prior to my unemployment situation.

I identify heavily with work, as a carpenter, a great deal of who I am is wrapped up in what I do, the detailed finish work, the aggressive, fast framing, the long days and even a bit of the tedium of repetitious carpentry created an identity that I could live with. I may not love being a carpenter, I may have very strong feelings about moving forward with my life to do other, powerful, and meaningful things. Yet, working as a craftsman has been, for the last 5 years, a chief identifier in my life and a somewhat creative and often physical outlet on a daily basis. To be perfectly honest, I did not realize how important and crucial that outlet was to my psyche. I am not a homebody and being home for large swaths of time gives me anxiety and a restless depression that is hard to break out of. Mt. biking has been a more than suitable replacement for work. If only I could get paid to ride... I will most likely never be a professional rider but I will always enjoy it.

(View of the Columbia River and Oregon from Syncline, sorry no local pics. yet.)

And if you happen to be on Galbraith any time soon, be sure to check out the new jump trail: appropriately named the Unemployment Line.

Imagination is Limitless

I should have hit the blog last night. A little rum flowing through my system and at one point fragmented ideas and thoughts were blasting through my head. There are times when it feels as though a grenade has exploded in my brain and the shrapnel rips through my sub-conscious mind and all the feelings and thoughts I had stored for reference and further examination are destroyed and once the dust settles the float around, just beyond the conscious mind where I can't quite grasp them. It often seems that thoughts and feelings are just beyond my reach. This morning, for example, I will have a very hard time progressing from here...especially now that the boys have woken to shatter the silence of the morning.

Drawing thoughts together isn't a new struggle for me, I believe I've written about it before. It is a constant thing, this rattle can in my mind. Last night I was bouncing between Libertarianism and unemployment. (Unemployment, the near constant state I live in.) This notion that Libertarians can be libertarians in-so-much as we live and function in a democratic society, not because libertarianism is a realistic system of government or set of ideological platforms to live by...unemployment is not so much a thought as a state of being right now.

Being unemployed, not working, forced lay-off, laid off, new opportunity, new challenges, new direction, a shit load of stress. I remember now! I was thinking about the recession!

I did not live, obviously, in the Great Depression but my grandma did and I have seen the way it impacted the life she lived. Not directly of course, but she is a frugal woman of 89 and always has been. Certain life circumstances made this an important part of her life as she raised three kids, in their teens, alone. The depression left its mark in that she laid away preserves and saved money and new that by these actions, in more prosperous times, when the hard times came there would be enough. I wonder what mark this recession will leave on my family?

I am not implying in anyway that this is what it was like to live in the Great Depression but as a recession it has hit my family in a very real and frustrating way. The amazing thing to me is the disparity of who the recession has hit, now that the dust has settled and those who were going to lose what they would lose have lost it and those who weren't sit comfortably in their cars-offices-jobs. There are people around me living lives as if nothing changed, for some maybe nothing did. People--some friends of mine--living life, planning and taking vacations, moving on as though the recession were but a hiccup that has since resolved itself. And maybe it is. But people are still jobless. People are still losing their homes. In my half of society, people are still struggling in a bitter battle.

Peoples lives are being ruined and falling apart.

This is happening in one of the most prosperous nations in the world.

It isn't right.

I don't understand our failure to adequately take care of the week, oppressed, powerless members of society. Once people are under the thumb of debt they live their lives in shame and fear and it is a fast downward spiral to the bottom from there. But the collective lifestyle consciousness of our society is based on imaginary money (borrowing what isn't their, i.e. credit cards) and imagination is limitless. At least, mine is.