Some nice images in this piece from the New York Times.

Other interesting things have been happening in my life as well. Why just the other day I was getting off the elevator at my apartment tower in lovely Gireum-dong.  A little girl of maybe three years was waiting with her mother for the ride up. The girl stared at me wide-eyed for a few moments, probably not used to seeing a foreigner so up close and personal.  And then she said matter-of-factly “hal-abeoji” (which means grandfather).  The mother nodded and said, “ne, hal-abeoji.”  Which made me feel older than I am.  Or at least older than I like to pretend I am.  Although, it is true that I am in fact a grandfather.

Meanwhile, my buddy Kevin Kim popped up on YouTube. Granted, it was annoyingly funny but he describes himself as “another frumpy American walrus in a long line of frumpy walruses.”  Although I’ll cop to being a grandpa I don’t think this American walrus is frumpy.  I was recently tagged in this picture on Facebook:

Frumpy? I think not.

Switching gears, they say life is for learning.  And today I learned the origins of Canadians.

Just as I always suspected.

Now, I tend to be respectful of all religious beliefs that don’t involve beheading, stoning, or throwing homosexuals from tall buildings.  Still, when I saw this I couldn’t help but laugh.

No offense intended.

What else have I got for you?  Well, on the MERS front the World Health Organization (WHO) offers this helpful advice: “don’t drink potentially fatal camel urine”.  I shit you not. I think I’m pretty safe in that regard, although I have never actually checked the ingredients of OB beer.  I’d rather not know.

I’ll tell you something more deadly than MERS–an angry Korean woman with a gun. Which I guess is why South Korea has such strict gun laws.

I have seen that look on a woman’s face more than once.

Now, I’m not a big fan of soju, but this ad made me want to go out a buy a couple of bottles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laRZ1JjVX7U

Alrighty then, don’t you just hate bloggers who go days without posting and then do a Friday afternoon dump of everything they thought about posting during the week but didn’t?  Yeah, I hate them too.  Even if I are one.

Every Korean apartment I’ve lived in has this “squawk box” type thing on the wall where messages are periodically conveyed from the building management.  I’ve always found it pretty annoying, especially since I can never understand what they are saying.

So this morning I’m sitting at the kitchen table and the box emits a series of several loud beeps.  Simultaneously, my phone chimes that I’ve received a message.  That message is captioned “Emergency Alert” and is followed by three bullet points in Korean (which I also can’t read).  Of course, the first thought that comes to my mind is that the NORKs are invading.  But no, it turns out that the message says: 1. Wash your hands. 2. Cover your mouth when you cough. 3. If someone has a fever, don’t touch them.

And in the few minutes I’ve been writing this post the squawk box/phone message has been repeated twice more.  So I guess they really, really, really mean it.

I probably could stand to wash my hands more often, but doing so is situational for me.  If I’m in a public lavatory and they have a bar of soap on a stick, I’m like “no thanks, I’ll take my chances”.  After all, all I’ve really touched is my own junk and I don’t even want to think about where those hands that touch the nasty soap bar have been.  I do cover up when I cough, but use my arm, not my hand, to cover my mouth.  I don’t want my unwashed hand anywhere near my mouth, right?  The last point about not touching anyone with a fever is a bit disconcerting.  I mean, what’s the first thing you do when someone says they are not feeling well–you touch them to see if they are hot.  Apparently, if they do have a fever you are both screwed.

My first instinct that war had broken out has proven correct, Korean government officials have declared war on the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).  I guess there is a fair amount of panic taking place among the populace.  Schools are closing, rumors are running rampant, and oh yeah, people are dying.  Four as of this morning.

I noticed on the subway yesterday that nearly half of the riders were wearing masks as opposed to the normal handful.  I came up with the bright idea for insuring I’ll always have a seat on the train.  I’ll just stand in front of the seat I want and start coughing uncontrollably.  I reckon that might score me the whole row!

Anyway, I don’t mean to make light of this potentially catastrophic health emergency.  But other than taking normal precautions like practicing good hygiene there’s nothing to be done but live your life and hope for the best.  At least that’s what I plan to do.

What, me worry?

More famous last words?

UPDATE: Here’s what all the cool kids riding the subway wear.

I’m ready, willing, and perhaps now able to be getting into the 8 to 5 grind.  I’m looking forward to looking back and wistfully missing these carefree days of unemployment.

So, where did I leave off?  Oh yeah, I was talking about my so-called social life which revolves around the interesting characters I encounter in the bars of Itaewon.

One of my favorite people is Bradley who happens to be a scientist by trade craft profession.  Neuroscience to be precise.  And what I know about neuroscience is pretty much what I read on the link above.  I don’t know why smart people tolerate me, but I’m glad they do.  I’m always learning hearing about the most intersting things.

For example, I encountered Brad on Wednesday at Shenanigans and he was celebrating a pretty significant discovery in his field.  In his attempt to explain said discovery he re-purposed the dart scoreboard and drew scientific diagrams replete with arrows, lines, and circles demonstrating how the nervous system, or more precisely, the brain, responded to specific electronic probes in ways they had never previously observed, and well, hell, I was pretty drunk by then so all I can say is it was like being in the presence of Einstein or something.  Brad was very excited and animated as he tried to get my mind to wrap around the concept, I know that much.  When I asked him about some practical applications for this discovery he indicated it was far too soon to know, but one possibility being better able to target drugs for various disorders.  Suffice to say, he’s doing some big stuff and is getting recognized for his work in high places these days.

Of course, given my limited expertise we talk about more than science.  Like politics for example.  It should come as no surprise that Brad having been indoctrinated educated in some of the best institutions of higher learning (including Yale) America has to offer, leans more to the left than I do.  But we both seem to enjoy the hell out of going back and forth on whatever topic we put on the table for discussion.  And our debates are always pleasantly respectful, which is all too rare these days.  No Othering whatsoever.

Wednesday we got into how (in my view) science has frequently become politicized, and I threw out global warming as my prime example.  He disagreed that that was the case, but conceded that in today’s politically charged environment, contrary views on the subject tend to be drowned out.  I in turn granted him that pumping pollutants into the air was not an ideal situation, irrespective of whether it is causing the earth to warm.  My big gripe is that the “solutions” being proposed by the warmists disproportionately impact the poor and downtrodden in the third world, and that we should be pumping more fossils fuels to drive prices down and invest those savings into research for cost effective renewable energy sources.  Well, you get the idea of how our discussions go.

We keep it lively by talking about women and religion as well.  I’m going to say this right here and now–that whole “the lonely lives of scientists” meme is pure bullshit, unless Brad is the happy exception to the rule.  The stories he tells about some of the people he meets are beyond fascinating and I must admit evoke within me more than a fair amount of envy. Lucky bastard.

I’ll go for that ride!

Met another guy at the bar who is “biking” around the world.  He started in Japan, is now in Korea, and leaves next week for Russia.  I had to admire his passion.

Last week I enticed Young Chun out to Itaewon.  I’m not sure he was impressed by my drunken persona.  I let loose some of the lamest jokes in my repertoire and he just smiled. A sad smile I do believe.  Still, I enjoyed his company and some of my bar buddies engaged him as well.  One even bought a book on the spot.  Another friend kept calling him “Arthur” which Young managed to take in stride, or at least ignore.  I’ve ordered up a couple of more hard copies of the book at his request.  Will he come to Itaewon to fetch them?  We shall see.  Speaking of the book, Young’s doing a free download promotion through this Sunday (May 31).  So now’s the time to order!

Ran into another fellow (didn’t get his name) at the bar and he professed to be a big fan of LTG, which is always nice to hear.  I pretty much assume I’ve got 3-5 regular readers, but another guy I know saw me in Dolce Vita and said he had read about my trouble there and was happy I had made a reconciliation after my disappointment a couple of weeks ago.

Also got a nice email from a Matthew in Florida who is also waiting for his security clearance to finalize so that he can take a DoD job in Korea.  He’s also a scientist so I reckon we’ll get along just fine.  He said he finds my blog “helpful and pretty funny”, so of course I like him already!

The wife is off with the family tonight and I reckon I need to find something to do to keep me entertained on a Saturday night.  Itaewon beckons!

So, the preceding post was twice as long.  I had added to draft I had previously saved. But everything I wrote after opening the draft failed to publish.  Curse you WordPress!  I ain’t got the time or inclination to attempt to recreate what I’ve lost, so you’ll just have to take me word for it that it was perhaps the most outstanding material you’ve never read.

Damn it.

A dart buddy back home in Columbia had a heart attack and died yesterday.  I’d only known him a couple of years, but I always admired his sarcastic sense of humor.  Even after I moved back to Korea he was cracking me up with his FB posts.  I don’t think he could have been more than 45 years old which is way too young to go.  You’ll be missed Martin.

Life as I know it goes on and that’s a good thing given the above referenced alternative. Not that I’m doing much with the blessing of waking up each day.  My purpose of late seems to be drinking and darts, which for the most part is enjoyable if not particularly meaningful.  I think getting back to work will be a good thing as I’m craving some purpose and structure that I can’t seem to carve out on my own.

Now, when I drink it’s a social activity.  In other words, I don’t drink just for the sake of drinking or to get drunk.  In fact, I almost never drink at home.  I’ve many bar friends and acquaintances that I genuinely enjoy spending time with.  In fact, those folks constitute probably 90% of my human interaction these days.  So in may case it might be said that drinking cures loneliness.  Which now that I’ve said it does strike me as being pretty fucking pathetic.  Yep, I need to get back to work!

Here’s what’s happening.

Security clearance paperwork submitted.  Man, what a pain in the ass that was.  Took me over five hours to complete.  They basically wanted to know everything I’ve said, everywhere I’ve been, and all that I’ve done (or didn’t do) for the past seven years.  Well, not quite.  Where I’ve worked and lived had to go back ten years.  And then I had to provide basically the same info on my dead parents, my brothers, my kids, my wife and my in-laws.  The latter three being foreign nationals opened up a raft of additional questions.  Oh yeah, they wanted to know about my ex-wives as well.

It was especially frustrating because for every place I’ve lived and worked I had to provide the name, address, phone number and email of someone who could verify that information.  Later on, they asked for the names and associated information of three people who “know me well” (i.e. for seven years or more) that preferably live in the USA, and they couldn’t be anyone I had previously listed.  Hell, I’d used up my limited circle of friends for my address verification.  Which made me feel kind of sad.  Anyway, it’s done and now I wait.

What else? Some day I’m going to write the story of my life. Already have the title.

Sunday I was on the escalator at Gireum station and two women stood side-by-side preventing me from walking down as is my custom. Sure enough, when I reached the platform the subway doors were just closing. Two minutes later I’m on the next train. Arrived at Samgakji and just missed my connection to Itaewon. Eight more minutes waiting. Which by my reckoning is ten minutes of my life I’ll never get back. Not counting the time I’ve spent writing about it now. Guess I need to learn to say “get the hell outta my way” in Korean.  And after all that, I got a message between Samgakji and Itaewon that my dart opponent was canceling. Nothing to do but drink some OB Lager’s, right?

Said dart match was rescheduled for Monday night.  A friend was jonesing for some beers after a stressful workday so I agreed to meet him at Shenanigans at 4:30.  We drank some OB Lager’s and threw some darts.  When it was time for my dart match at 7:30 I was feeling pretty buzzed.  Of course, I drank more OB Lager during the match, which finished around 10:30 with me taking home a 13-3 victory.

Except I wasn’t finished and didn’t take it home.  At least not right away.  I decided to pop into Dillinger’s where my pub league teammates were purportedly practicing for next week’s playoffs.  They had all already left, but I sat down and chatted with the owner and his partner for a bit.  They bought me an OB Lager.  And about the time I finished that one, they bought me another.  And then it was midnight and I’m like oh shit, I’ve got to get home!

Well, I figured my best bet was going to be the 110B bus.  So, I sat down and waited. Pretty soon the 421 comes by.  So I wait some more, and another 421 comes and goes. I figured the 110B would surely arrive soon, but nope, the next bus was once again the 421. It’s 12:30 now and I deduced there weren’t gonna be any more 110’s on this fine Monday night Tuesday morning.  So, I stopped a cab and told him Gireum station and he didn’t give me any crap about it.  Of course, during the week there are more cabs than people wanting cabs.  It’s Saturday night that’s tough.

So the cabbie did what I told him–he got me to Gireum station.  He went some weird ass way I didn’t recognize and dropped me at the subway entrance furthest from my apartment.  Well, no big deal.  I did a nice walk through the park and took a leak there just like any drunk ajusshi would do.

And the fact that I had a massive hangover on Tuesday had nothing to do with the amount of time it took me to complete my security clearance paperwork.  I swear.

This is me at 21. Could be I was more suited to massive amounts of OB Lager back then.

that happens.