It was sorta like Lana Turner getting discovered at a drug store soda fountain at Hollywood and Vine.  Except I was having a brew at Goldfish in Itaewon as I am wont to do when killing time.  As mentioned before, this is a “open air” bar that is ideal for people watching.  I hadn’t considered that some of the lookees might be looking back.

Anyway, my solitude was interrupted when a 30ish Korean woman came in off the street and politely inquired in near perfect English if she might bother me with a question.  Well, I was fully expecting that she was going to do the “do you know Jesus” thing, but being nice to a fault I responded “sure”.  She thanked me and said she would only take a minute of my time.  I nodded and then she layed it on me–would you like to appear in a commercial?

I was momentarily taken aback because it seemed out of the blue.  But my instinctive reaction was to say no, and so I told her “no”.  She asked me to reconsider and said the photo shoot would only take one day.  I again responded “no thank you, just not interested”.  She thanked me again for my time and left.

Hmmm.  I don’t know why I said no without really thinking about it.  But upon reflection, I knew it was the right call.  There was no mention of money, but I’m doing all right in that regard anyway.  I guess I just didn’t see why they would want a fat old white guy in their commercial unless it was for the purpose of mocking me.  After all, I’ve not seen many waeguks portrayed favorably in Korean media.  And it likely would have been in violation of my visa status as well.

So, opportunity knocked and I said get the hell outta here.

More or less.

Manila Bar that is.  There was a nice get together last to honor Natalie’s birthday.  I guess I’ll just let the photos tell the story…

Manila owner Teddy was our gracious host for the evening.

The birthday girl looking younger than ever.  Must be that taek-won-do thing she’s been doing…

Natalie’s new large-sized lighter was a big hit.  Matt is looking a little nervous. Why, it’s almost as big as a…er, well, never mind.

Revelers.

People hanging out.

Everyone’s favorite (especially Matt) Canadian, Margaret.

Jee Yuen proving once again that no Korean can resist flashing the “V” when being photographed.  What’s up with that anyway?

And of course there was cake…

This is a Filipino bar, so as might be expected, videoke broke out.  Here Mike and Lucky serenade the birthday girl who is either in a blissful state or in excruciating pain.  I’m pretty sure it was the former.  The pain came when I sang her the Gary Puckett classic “Young Girl”.

Teddy helped us out with piano.  He’s quite talented.

Becky and her main squeeze Mike.

And finally, a parting shot of me and the birthday girl.

We ate, we drank, we sang.  And I do believe a good time was had by all.

Happy Birthday, Natalie!

Time for the Sunday morning look back.

Busy time at work as meetings and events filled my calendar.  On Monday we finalized plans to implement “normalized” civilian tours in Korea.  The initial tour will be 3 years now (2 in Area I) with a 2 year renewal.  Also, all tours are accompanied, meaning civilians will be allowed to bring family members with them.  General Sharp wanted civilian tours to align with the new military tour lengths, and we have now accomplished that to the extent possible.

Tuesday I chaired the Joint Labor Affairs Committee with my Air Force, Navy, AAFES, and Dragon Hill counterparts.  This committee is tasked with managing all aspects of our Korean National labor program.  Our big item this time was finalizing plans for the 2010 wage and benefit survey.  Exciting stuff, no?

Wednesday was the USFK Civilian Employees of the Year Honor Guard ceremony.  The event is hosted by General Sharp and my office is the proponent.  It is the signature event for civilian employee recognition and it involves lots of detail oriented work over a significant period of time.  And since it directly involves the USFK commander, there is no margin for error.  We pulled it off without a hitch, even the weather cooperated.  The commander was pleased, and that of course pleases me.

The Korean contingent of the Honor Guard marching to Knight Field, their US counterparts have already rounded the corner and are out of range.

The 2009 USFK Civilian Employees of the Year.
Thursday was more meetings about staffing up what will be the replacement for USFK in 2012, KORCOM (Korea Command).  More of a money issue than anything else right now, as there are quite a few military to civilian conversions that need to happen now with no funding forthcoming until the KORCOM actually stands up in two years.  A classic Catch-22.

And finally a longish meeting involving a civilian who volunteered to deploy to Afghanistan and her current unit cannot afford to let her go.  So, this will require 3-star engagement and a memo to the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense.

Am I going to miss all this when I retire next year?  Lord help me if I do.

Given the somewhat stressful nature of my week, I stayed home every night and vegetated.  Unusual for me, but I needed the break.  I’m pretty much burned out on everything right now, including surprisingly enough, darts.

I did play in the Dolce tourney Friday night without much success.  I’ve been in a season long funk and we have a tough first round playoff match with Cake Mix at Bless U Monday night.  Here’s hoping I can bring some game.

Last night I went to Manila but that will be the subject of another post (which you most likely will have read before getting to this one).

And now I am enjoying my lazy and rainy Sunday morning at the keyboard.

Ain’t life grand?

Well, this is indeed a special Friday.  It’s a military “training” day–essentially an extra day off.  For us civilians, it’s a “liberal leave” day, meaning we are encouraged, but not required, to take the day off.  Hey, I don’t need much encouragement.  Glad to do my part.

Today is also special of course because it is once again time for the “Yoja of the Week” feature here at LTG.  So, here she is:

This week I offer a popular Korean actress, Ms. Kim, Tae-hee.  I found her at a blog called Yein Jee’s Asian Journal.

Enjoy.

Sorry for the break these past couple of days.  Just a general case of the blahs brought on by who knows what.  I know, blame it on the weather!  It done turned cold here in a hurry.  Yesterday was downright blustery and my weather pixie tells me the current temperature is 27 degrees.  Brrr.

We completed the dart season with a make up game on Sunday against Kaibigan of Friends Bar.  We did the game at Gecko’s, which although far from my favorite venue, is light years nicer than Friends.  Actually, my issue at Gecko’s isn’t the playing conditions, it’s the service.  I’d call it slow but that wouldn’t be accurate.  It’s glacial.

My dart game remains as cold as the weather.  I contributed a 3-6 performance in a losing effort.  We did take enough legs to clinch a playoff spot where anything is possible.  Actually, over the course of the season, we beat every team once.  It’s just that our margin of victory in those games was much smaller than the deficit of our losses, i.e. we tend to win small and lose big.  In the playoffs that won’t matter and we are certainly capable of fighting our way to a championship.  We just need to put it altogether, and me finding my game would be a big help in that regard.

Busy at work as well, with several big events on the horizon.  10 months to go.

Thanks to ROKdrop for the linklets.  I feel bad I didn’t have anything “fresh” to offer all the readers he sent my way.  Ah well, I expect most of my loyal visitors anticipate being disappointed which makes the occasional surprise all the sweeter, right?

Right?