To Write Or Not to Write

Hello again, all.

Tomorrow, my eldest brother is renewing his vows with his “soul mate.”  Although they married one another last year in a small ceremony, they decided to have a huge party with about 120 of their closest friends and family and have the wedding they felt was long overdue.

While I’m all about drinking and having a good time, I’m not too keen on being surrounded by people I have no interest in seeing or talking to for six hours.  I get through it with no problem, and usually come out of the whole experience avoiding any fake conversations, but I tend to make it the best experience I can.

With that, I’ve been asked to give a speech at my brother’s vow renewal.  This should be something that I plan beforehand so that I won’t make a fool of myself and just drunkenly rant about love’s ultimate meaning and how marriage culminates all of that and blah blah blah, right?

Well, it looks like I’m going to let the alcohol speak for itself. I’m not sure why, but I guess I feel like it’s more natural to speak when there isn’t a piece of paper in front of my face. What I want to tell them, though, will probably go something like this:

“I understand there are many in search of wicked adventures (and don’t get me wrong, I’m always down for some fun), but I think that we also all search for a form of contentment within ourselves that we can implement into our daily lives.  I guess this happiness has a way of finding itself through our growth as human beings living in this ever-changing world – a transformation that we all hope to share with someone else in our lives.

Anton Chekhov once said, ‘Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.’  I believe that our journey is illuminated by the gratification that life has when we meet that special person.  Besides for the fact that I believe you two have found this, I am hopeful that everyone in the room can experience that. It’s a special feeling.  Cheers, all.”

Wow, maybe this blog helped me write my speech.  Maybe I’ll just drunkenly rant.  I guess we'll just have to see where the scotch takes me.

A "Real" Beginning

Recently, I took the time to read blogs of the other students in a graduate course of mine.  While most students chose to introduce their blog with a proper introduction, I realized how selfish I was by not introducing myself to every kind soul who takes the time to read this little blog of mine.  So first, let me write that I’m sorry about that.  Second, here goes:

To all you bloggers who care to know, my name is Alexander (Alex works just fine, though I tend to sign all of my papers as Alexander rather than Alex, a minor itch that I still can't seem to comprehend). I tend to have many of these little itches that I try and tolerate, mainly because of my need to have things work a certain way.

Making decisions has never been a strong suit of mine.  Growing up in a small town on the east end of Long Island, I had a tough time trying to figure out my “future.”  I think that, at that crossroad between high school and making a decision regarding what college we want to attend, we often times struggle to make any decision about our future on our own.  In doing this, I believe that we tend to make decisions that our parents would make rather than decisions that we actually want to make.

So, with that, I began my college career at Manhattan College in August of 2007 with a plan to graduate with a degree in Accounting by May of 2011.  Thankfully, I did graduate on time in the May of 2011.  However, my graduation robe had Adelphi University written on it, and my degree was in English Literature with a minor in Secondary Education.  Talk about opposites, eh?

During that experience, I both made and maintained friendships that have surely shaped much of myself today.  And, in that process, I was able to both keep and maintain passions of mine that have grown to new proportions in the process.

While my love of literature has always seemed to be an important part of me, it was only until college that I realized that I could make a career out of reading books. Pretty cool, right?  With some of the most professional beings I have ever met, Adelphi’s Professors enlightened my love for literature unlike anything I’d ever experienced, enhancing my love for thinking analytically just that much more.

Also, I was able to maintain my love for basketball as well (remember the first blog?!).  A perk of going to such a small university, I was able to be in charge of Adelphi University’s Club Basketball team as both the President and Head Coach.  During this process, I developed the knowledge of creating plays, running practice, and traveling to schools all over the east coast United States.  An experience I am ever-grateful for, I still maintain a close relationship with the new President and Vice-President, keeping the game close to myself as a mental escape.

With that, I have revealed some things about me with the hopes that you may get to know me a bit better.  My intentions for this blog seem to be a venting session, although that could change throughout this exciting process.  Ciao, all.

Locking Out: Football Begins With a Bang While Another Lockout’s Future Awaits

Roughly three weeks ago, fans all over the country were questioning if the NFL Lockout would end, leaving millions to wonder how they were going spend their Sunday afternoons without their beloved football to enjoy with friends, family, and a whole lot of beer.

This past Thursday, The National Football League (NFL) gave their fans a reason to rejoice, kicking off their season with a thrilling opener with two of the game’s best teams. In an exhilarating game that went back and forth from the very start, the defending Super Bowl Champion Green Pay Packers secured their first victory of the season with a goal line stance against the Super Bowl XLIV Champion New Orleans Saints, 42-34.  While Saints fans may have left the game upset that their precious team from New Orleans may have let one slip away, fans all over the nation exulted knowing that football was back.

Some 1,000 miles away from Green Bay, Wisconsin, as football fans began their celebrations of a new season in tact, players, owners, and executives of the National Basketball Association (NBA) met in New York City to discuss labor negotiations.  While the NBA’s owners have locked out their players since July 1^st, little progress has been made, making the chances of the NBA season beginning on time rather doubtful.

Though lockouts are often times rather confusing, the owners’ lockout on their players mostly comes down to financial disagreements.  As the old collective bargaining agreement expired, owners of NBA franchises had complained that they have lost, in total, roughly $400 million this past year alone.  However, the players have countered that, declaring that the league is only setting records with ticket sales and revenue, and that only few small market teams, if any, are losing money. 

In the old collective bargaining agreement, the owners claim that the salary’s old structure allowed for too many large contracts to be signed, resulting in absurd amounts of money being given to players who may be un-deserving of the contract given.  Because of the way the collective bargaining agreement is structured, owners are often times locked into these players even after the player is a useful asset to their team, losing millions of dollars per year.  In the process of disagreeing, both the league owners and Players’ Association have sued and counter-sued, respectively, claiming unjust practices on various issues throughout the process.

Though progress seems to have been made, the NBA season beginning on time (or at all) still seems in doubt, unlike the NFL season, which had to happen.  Recently, my friend Max and I had discussed the possible losses that both the NFL and the NBA would lose if their seasons had not begun.  With some research, I found that NFL games are the most lucrative and expensive rights of any American sport.  Considering that the games are only on two to three days a week, television networks bid billions upon billions of dollars in order to have certain NFL games broadcast on their television networks.  In an astounding difference, the NFL’s television market value is a whopping $20.4 Billion compared to the NBA’s deal worth roughly $3 Billion.  In essence, there was simply too much money to lose if there were no NFL season. The pressure to have a season begin on time rode on the NFL’s team owners and its players, knowing that any financial disagreements regarding a few million dollars were better to settle on right away than the billions of dollars that would have been lost otherwise.

Whereas progress seems to have been made, the search for an NBA season still keeps me searching ESPN.com daily in the hopes that the lockout will end.  Money aside, I love the game too much to see this season wear away because of financial disagreements that I still cannot understand.  I mean, what’s a $99 million salary versus $100 million one? To me, it doesn’t make any sense.  And although I was enlightened to see that the NFL season began with a bang (and that I am able to watch my beloved Giants this coming Sunday), I still cannot imagine these coming winter months without my NBA on TNT Thursday nights to keep me going to bed a contented man.