drewhousman

Start of Year 3 in Israel

I have arrived in Israel for the 3rd straight year. If you had told me in 2005 that upon graduating college I would spend 27 of the next 36 months in Israel I would have never believed it. Yet here I am, on a team called Beer Yaakov. The city is right outside of Tel Aviv and is very close to all sorts of interesting places. That does not matter to me as much as it normally would because I am car-less this year. Yes, my time in Haifa was so disastrous that I could not even sign a contract that included a vehicle. So it goes. The silver lining is that I won’t have to pay for gas anymore, which was where like half my paychecks went last year. Continue reading “Start of Year 3 in Israel”

Community Service/Labor Talks

The whole team went up to this spot in the mountains today as part of a league wide community service event. We got introduced to a crowd of what looked to be a bunch of freshman and sophomores, listened to a speech by our coach, and then played a game against some of the students. It turned out to be pretty fun. When we made our entrance to the gym the place exploded like some teeny boppers at a Bieber concert. My theory is that they were just happy to be anywhere other than the classroom, but they were pretty god damn enthusiastic whatever the case. Continue reading “Community Service/Labor Talks”

Another Trip to the Army Base

I was informed a few weeks ago that I needed to go back to the army base in Haifa. Apparently the team manager had called the army to check in me and another player to see what our status was. I felt this was unnecessary to begin with. Why call them before they contact us? If I’m not on their radar at the moment why make waves? Maybe they would just forget all about me if I kept a low enough profile. This strategy worked flawlessly when applied to my relationships with professors in college, so maybe the same thing would work out here. I suppose college professors can’t thrown you into jail and ship you off to die if you don’t participate, so there might be some merit in keeping the army abreast of your whereabouts. Continue reading “Another Trip to the Army Base”

Bitter Thoughts

Initially, it was the best news I had received in years. My owner and coach pulled me aside after I had helped my 2nd division team win its 5th straight game. They told me that I was being called up to the first division. I could not believe my good fortune. I had been waiting for this day since the second I landed in Israel last year, and I really did not think it would come until next season. But, a confluence of circumstances allowed my chance to come early. Haifa suffered some guard injuries and were playing terribly, and I was playing my best basketball since like 2007.The stuff I went through in Tivon has been well catalogued, but let me just briefly go over some of the highlights (lowlights?): Continue reading

Trip to the North

It is well-known that outside of basketball I live an extremely lazy life out here. To accomodate this life I went through great pains to black out my room by thumbtacking clothes over the window. With the complete blackness and the use of earplugs (so as to not hear the moaning, dying cats or the buzzing fridge) I can, and do, sleep uninterrupted for 10-12 hours a night. It’s pretty awesome. Except when you almost sleep through a pre-season game. That’s when the plan backfires. Continue reading “Trip to the North”

More Summer/ More BBall

To begin, I need to mention that I also visited Seattle and Chicago this summer. While I was in Seattle people kept telling me it was the first time the temperature had risen above 75 in something like 200 days. I found that hard to believe, but I was happy to be there when it wasn’t overcast. I met some awesome people and basically spent the whole time at a pool, on a lake, playing a board game or out on the town. It was pretty amazing. Some highlights: Continue reading “More Summer/ More BBall”