Comments (0)

By Marty, February 21, 2012 2:14 pm

It’s been a while since I wrote here.  I used to write several times a week and then it got to be just once a week.  Seems like that even went south as I haven’t written since well before my trip to the USA.  Sorry. My Bad.

But it’s not like I have been using the computer this blog sits on.  I pay hostmonster.com  a few bucks a month for the privilege of having a computer always on the internet.  I figured I should use it for more than just blogging…..so I do. And I did.  Just before leaving for America I started a technical resume for myself.  Everyone has one. Artists and photographers have something else, though  - a portfolio.  I wanted one to show off my techno-work.  So I made one. I put in the bare bones but spent a lot of time getting the programming right since my portfolio is also one of the things I programmed.  Check it from my front page  you can click on the computer for my technical work.  Or go directly to the computer image and the portfolio and see what I’ve done.  That’s a short list, but now that I have it all I have to do is add in a description of each piece of work I’ve done. I’ve got a dozen or so more to add.

But wait, there’s more!  One more piece of work I have to complete but is nearly done – TriOminoes.  I bought a wooden set of TriOminoes while in Thailand and really liked the game.  Everyone I’ve played with liked it, too.  So I decided to make a TriOminoes game for smart phone. Each player has a board and pieces to play and this computer at hostmonster.com does the phone-to-phone data communication.  In other words, if you play the game, your phone talk to this computer. When I play, my phone reads what moves you made from this computer and then your phone reads what I played.  Sounds slick?  It was way more complicated than I thought, and I’m still working on a few nasty techno-issues, but I WILL prevail and TriOminoes will be out and available soon.

I started the just three weeks before my vacation and it’s been two weeks  since. That’s a total of five weeks but will be six when done. I had to design a lot of stuff from scratch, but my next game, because I’ve already got the basics done for this game, will go much faster. I just don’t know what game I’ll do.

Why all the games?  We’re back to that portfolio again.  I’ve been teaching English for a living and would like to get back into writing computer programs. The portfolio and the games and things for the ulsanonline website are all just resume builders.  Oh, and I like doing it, too.  It’s fun to program and make computers do my bidding. But there’s money to be made, too, and I intend to get back in that saddle and ride.

As for home, well, it’s was great. I really enjoyed seeing everyone. I wish I could have spent more time with people.  Wish I could have seen a few more friends but that’s fine. Plenty of time later.

That’s all for now!   TTYL!

p.s. for all you Android users….I hope to play TriOminoes with you soon!

Comments (1)

By Marty, December 28, 2011 10:35 pm

Another Christmas in Korea – certainly not the worst Christmas I’ve ever had.  I really wanted to come home but a lack of vacation, high airline prices and it jsut wasn’t gonna happen.  I made the best of it and MyeongHee and I went to Dee’s house for a Christmas pot-luck feast.

I’ve probably babbled on in the past about some of the benefits of living overseas. Forgive me if you’ve heard this before, but one of the cool things about being here is all the other teacher’s I’ve met from other parts of the globe.  Native English speakers are in high demand in Korea and they come from the USA, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and probably a few other places I can’t remember. Anyway, this Christmas since it was a pot-luck dinner I got some grub that is traditional Christmas fare in other lands.  Nick is from England and made yorkshire pudding. I’d heard the name before, and I would have thought of it as like any other pudding we eat in America. Not so. It’s really a biscuit – a light and fluffy biscuit – that is then ladled over with gravy until it’s “sogified.”  That was awesome.  Arielle, another Brit, made Christmas figgy pudding. No figs, but various dried fruit. It was almost like a fruit cake, but wetter, more alcoholic and way richer. Especially after it was drenched in brandy and lit on fire.  Kimberly brought Scottish stuffing. It was good, but I like Mom’s stuffing better.   Dee made lots of roast chicken, gravy and potatoes and I brought bbq sausage for a little Texas flare.  Everyone brought a bottle of wine and we spent the day eating (all day, literally) and drinking.

It wasn’t a fabulous Christmas being away from home, but it was made a whole lot better with the good friends I have here. Despite being 10,000 miles from our various homes, we  made a family holiday a lot of fun for us.

Once home, I tried to call everyone, but apparently so did everyone else. I use Skype, a computer based program that let’s you call for just pennies a minute over computer networks.  I tried several times Sunday night and early Monday (late Sunday morning back home) and I couldn’t get through. Luckily, Jessica figured things out and called me on her mom’s home phone (no calling card – must’ve been expensive) so I got to talk to my girls.

So now that the big holiday is passed, I learned that I do get some vacation after all. I’m taking vacation on January 20th, which is just before Lunar New Year, another big Korean holiday. I’ll add those holidays into my vacation and get a whopping two weeks to come home.  I’ll arrive home on Saturday the 21st of January and won’t have to go back until Sunday morning on the 5th.   Not as good as last year’s six weeks home, but two weeks paid is a good deal.  Flights are much cheaper then, too.

Not much else to report, so I’ll sign off.

See you in Dallas in January!

Comments (0)

By Marty, December 23, 2011 7:56 pm

I just got approval to take a nice vacation around the time of Lunar New Year.  That’s a big holiday here in Korea. Normally it’s 3 days, but it falls on a Monday, so we’ll only get that Monday and Tuesday off. I got the OK to take the Friday before off, the remainder of the holiday week and the entire following week off. That from January 21st and returning to work on February 7th.  That’s a nice 17 days off from work.  That enough for a trip back home…

Now, to get a flight…details on that later.

In the meantime,  It’s Friday, December 23rd.  Almost Christmas.  Here’s to hoping everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a very special new year.

One of my students snapped this picture of me on Friday, the 23rd. Last day of classes before the big non-holiday. Since Christmas is on Sunday, there is no holiday. They’ll have classes again on Monday as well. We had parties in all my classes today. The kids all had snacks and drinks and made Christmas cards for their parents.  Hard to believe I got paid for coloring pictures writing a few sample greetings on the board – for a whopping four hours. Then I had to come home and take a nap. It’s a tough life.

Comments (1)

By Marty, December 12, 2011 10:56 am

Not much going on here….which is why I haven’t written lately.  It’s work-home-sleep-repeat for days on end.  These days, I’m not even working very much. I bring home a full salary – as much as any other teacher working full time, but I work only 19 hours a week.  Lots of time to read books, do some programming, write an article or two for my Ulsan website and generally slack off. I’d work more, but it’s difficult to find part time teaching gigs to fill the gaps in my existing schedule. Mostly, it’s 1pm-5pm with a couple of early morning business classes and a couple of evening private lessons.

We haven’t done much else as I’m trying to put back some money for my eventual return to the states. Previous years, we were able to save some decent coin. But this year has been harder. DongHyun started university in the spring and so we’re paying for that, while I’m still paying for Teri’s student loans and some back taxes I owed.  But we’re not making as much these days, either. MyeongHee’s hair shop hasn’t been near as busy – a new high rise apartment opened up next to her shop in 2009 and this year a new hair salon opened on the retail floor of the apartment building. She’s still making a profit, but we lived off her cash-only business and we socked my salary in to the back. I’m having to take my salary and pay a bit more for living and less in the bank these days.   She’d like to move her shop to a better location, but that takes both money and time. And with the plan to head back to the US in 2013 with her following in 2014 moving her shop just wouldn’t make sense. So, we live within our means and save what we can and plan for brighter days later.

In the meanwhile, I’ve lost a lot of weight. I’m close to 210lbs – down from nearly 240 earlier this year. The size 40 jeans I was wearing don’t fit and even the smallest size I own – size 36 – are a little big. Not sure why I’m losing weight as I haven’t been riding the bicycle since summer.   Still not a skinny boy, but I look a lot less fat than I did in the spring when I was in the U.S.

On Saturday, we had a total lunar eclipse here in Asia. In America it was not visible but we had clear skies and a great view as the Earth’s shadow passed over the moon and left it a very reddish tint.  It was directly overhead, so we had to watch from outside in the cold. We drank schnapps  and ate sweet potatoes  to keep us warm. I took a lot of pictures, but my camera just isn’t good enough to take really breathtaking shots. I did get this one that came out pretty decent, just towards the last 20-25% of the eclipse before it went all red. After that, my camera wouldn’t focus on the dim, red moon.

No plans for Christmas other than to stay warm. Both Christmas and New Years fall on a Sunday, which means that we won’t get any extra days off here.  But I hope everyone back home has a grand time over the holidays.

Comments (0)

By Marty, November 23, 2011 12:43 pm

I really wish I could be home this year for Thanksgiving. I haven’t had a decent turkey dinner with all the trimmings in years. Although that would just be the cherry on top, so to speak. I really miss my family and friends.  I’ll try to call sometime over the holidays, but it’s going to be tough to do it while everyone’s together – 15 hour time zone difference makes mid-afternoon America an early morning thing here.

I’ve decided that unless something spectacular happens between now and then I won’t be coming home for Christmas. Flights are just too expensive. I get 10 days vacation, but so does everyone else and the prices are jacked up from mid-December through mid-January. If I can swing it, I’ll defer my vacation until spring and get a cheaper flight. If that doesn’t work, I may just stay until early 2013 when the lease is up on our apartment and I’ll move back to America. Of course, that all depends on the economy in the US – and that’s anyone’s guess as to what that will be like.

This weekend is another kimchi weekend at the mother-in-law’s house. Cabbages are on sale all over the vegetable markets in town. It’s also MyeongHee’s mom’s birthday, so we’ll go up on Saturday evening, have a small party and then make kimchi.

This past weekend was a climbing fest in Munsu. The Korea on the Rock climbing group folks came into town and replaced a bunch of old rusted hardware on the mountain so that future climbing is safe. I personally took off a few terribly rusted anchors and replaced them with shiny new stainless steel chains. Then we climbed that route, which we hadn’t done in years because of the rotten condition of the anchor.  Here’s a link from the KOTR folks with more details and pictures.

The one the left is the old crusty one, and the new stuff on the right. The bolt on the left was a little rusty but still solid and another crew will come out in the next week or two to replace that. They were having trouble with the charge on the drill battery running out before it should have, so not enough bolts were drilled. Crappy anchors removed, the climb is tons safer than it was.
Again, any climbers wanting a tour of Korea would be well advised to plan a trip next year. After that, you’ll have to find your own way around as I hope to be back in America.

That goes for the rest of you, too: of all my family and friends back home, and all the years I’ve been here, only two friends have ever come to visit Korea, Mark in 2007 and Kim in 2005. We’ve got a spare bedroom so we could put you up and give you the $2 dollar tour. 2012 is likely the last chance to visit this place and get a guided tour.

A few pictures from this weekend:

The crew works diligently to remove old anchors on top of a 33 meter route

Late in the afternoon, the sunset turned things magically orange

My trusty climbing partners wait for me to finish replacing an anchor

Anywho, not much else going on here. My Thanksgiving celebration will likely be no more than drawing a picture of a roast turkey on the blackboard and explaining the holiday that is this week. Guaranteed to get a million questions about what turkey tastes like since they don’t eat much of it here. Few people have ovens at all since most Korean meals are either grilled or pan cooked. The few that do are not large enough to prepare a bird of that size. And besides, they like their meat with scads of red pepper, and I’m not sure that would even taste good.

Comments (1)

By Marty, November 14, 2011 7:59 pm

After four rainy weekends in row we finally had a nice weather weekend. I took advantage of the sunshine and went  up to Munsu for a couple of climbs. I wish I would have done more than the three short routes I did, but all that rain gave me a cold.

The dogs had a great time running around on the mountain, although it wasn’t as much fun or them as last time when we saw the goats up there. Lots of goat poop all around the trails, but we didn’t see the goats.  On the way back down the mountain I asked the old monk about the goats. He told me that they were neither his goats nor the farm down in the valley. They’re wild goats! They’re bugging him, leaving pellets all around his mini-temples and shrines. So he encouraged us to catch them and eat them.

SaTang relaxes between climbs

Both dogs are snack hounds, waiting for a handout

Hunting goat might be something fun to do next weekend. There is a large group of climbers from around Korea coming to our mountain for a route-repair weekend. Korea on the Rocks, and an initiative group that sprung from it have a yearly program to preplace old worn out climbing hardware on only a couple of mountains per year. Munsu got two of the four projects this year and the routes are looking spectacular – no more sketchy bolts or anchors. They have done a great job so far and next weekend there will be even more of our 70+ routes cleaned up. KOTR’s website is a great resource for climbers in Korea (284 separate climbing locations in this small country. And for my climbing readers back in Texas – it’s a must-read before hitting the walls out here in kimchi land – and this might be my last year to give you a tour of Korea and a sofa to sleep on.

Or maybe a full bed.  MyeongHee’s son, DongHyun went down to Busan today for his military medical fitness test. Not sure what what the outcome was, but I’m betting he’s fine.  He’s a healthy young man. They say once the physical is done, they’ll send a letter detailing when to show up for military service. We predict early next year. He’s already gone 5 of 7 days a week up in Daegu at the university. Once he goes in the Army, however, he’ll have just a few short trips home thoughout his 2 year stint.

Yesterday, we went to Ulsan Grand Park. It was a beautiful sunny day and there were lots of people in the park. I guess everybody else was enjoying the weather after the crap weekends we’ve had.

We found a nice maple tree in the park for a picture

or two or three. Hard to get the dogs in the shot

MyeongHee poses next to a large praying mantis

Comments (0)

By Marty, November 6, 2011 8:31 pm

Make that 4 rainy weekends in a row. This is getting a little ridiculous. For four weeks now it’s been sunny and brilliant blue skies all week and then its rained on the weekend.  Sad weather.

Fortunately, I have lots of movies to watch and books to read. Not much to do outside.

Comments (1)

By Marty, October 31, 2011 10:29 am

For three weeks in a row the weather has been gorgeous. Clear blue skies. Cool, crisp nights. Except for the weekends. Monday through (mostly) Friday, we’ve had awesome weather. Saturday and Sunday and sometimes even Friday, we’ve had gloom, rain and cold.

Consequently, we haven’t done much to write about.

Today is Halloween, and since it is on a Monday, it’s going to be a non event. Halloweens that fall on a weekend are generally observed, but those that fdall on weekdays get lost in the shuffle. Korean schools are loath to do much about the quasi-holiday anyway, but on a weekday, especially Monday, they will avoid it like the plague.  No parties tonight as there would be on a weekend, and wasn’t even aware of any this past weekend.  We stayed home and watched TV and read.  I did some work on Ulsanonline.com and added a new bus search program for the dorks that ride buses.  Big whoop.

These days, it’s work, home, eat, sleep, repeat.  Not that that’s bad, but it’s a little monotonous. Saving money by not doing things that cost money isn’t a bad option, either.

Hopefully, more news, and more fun news, later.

Comments (0)

By Marty, October 17, 2011 11:36 am

Fortunately, the title is not in reverse. But Fall weather here being as fantastic as ever, has started a little late in the climbing seasons for us. Just been too busy with other projects but once out on the mountain it was something I knew I was missing. We hadn’t been up on the cliffs since May and I was a little worried about getting back into the sport. As usual, though, my fears were unfounded and I climbed like the old man that I am – well – for an old dude.

With fall brings a new crop of teachers to Korea for the teaching season and there are always some new climbers. This time a few who wanted to try so badly they’d been studying youtube videos and reading books on how to in order to start well. And well they did. Made me feel a little old not doing the hard routes the younger ones were attempting. Still, I know my limits and abilities and pride makes for a hard fall should I have attempted them.

Sore today, but it’s a good sore.

Climbing pals, from right, Dee, Kelly, Trent, Nick, Matt and Julia. My two dogs SaTang, Sparkey and Dee's dog Corker came, too but couldn't get them all in the shot

I’ve been climbing on this mountain so many times I that I usually don’t bring my camera any more. I thought today might be different. I brought it to the top of one route so I could take a panorama shot.

A panorama from Munsu. Best viewed clicking the photo to get the full size as it is 6418x2437 pixels. This view is looking straight eastward toward the ocean with downtown Ulsan on the left

Of course, once you’re climbing with a camera, the obligatory shoe shot must take place.

The Shoe Shot, from the top looking down on my belay partner, Trent, with Dee and Kelly watching

If climbing were the only adventure, that would be good enough. But there’s always something that is surprising here. Even after nearly six years in Korea I’m still surprised. Three hours in to climbing all three dogs began to bark wildly at something down the mountain. It’s not unusual for Koreans to forage in the mountains for nuts – chestnuts are plentiful. We all thought that’s what the ruckus was for as there was more noise in the bushes than a squirrel or even a deer would raise. Nope. All wrong. A trio of goats. Although they could be from the farm (far below in the panorama shot) that’s a long way for a set of goats to wander.  I took a few shots of them while they browsed for leaves and ignored the barking dogs.

Goats on the mountain below and around the climbing cliffs.

Once we spotted the goats and source of the ruckus, we noticed goat poo all over. I though we had been looking at raccoon poo or even deer poo, but this was too plentiful for those. On the back side away from the climbing there were plentiful piles, leading us to believe that perhaps our friend the monk has started raising them near his mini-temple.

Lanterns adornd the paths near the monk's mini-temple

After climbing, we all went back into town for a few cold beers. I took a few of the new climbers down in my car, but Dee was on her motorcycle. She packed Corker in a small bag and rode down with her sniffing the breeze. Corker, by the way, is litter-mate to my dog Sparky and offspring of SaTang.

Dee and Corker, ready to ride

Comments (0)

By Marty, October 3, 2011 10:38 am

Hello! Hi there! Long time no see.

Sorry I haven’t written much on these pages. Sometimes there just isn’t anything fun or funny or interesting to write about. It’s been heads down work and not much else these days. And there’s not much of anything that’s fun or funny or interesting about that, either.

Beyond working on version of my smartphone app, Teacher’s Pet, I’ve also been working hard on redesigning my website, Ulsanonline.com. That site has been put together over a period of months and years and much of it clashes with itself – multiple fonts on the same page, boxes of content don’t align with each other, borders collide rather then mesh, constants aren’t, variables, won’t – the usually litany of technical drugdgery. I’ve even gone so far as to hire a graphics designer to help out with a new logo and artwork for the site.  I hope to have that work done in a week or two. As for Teacher’s Pet, we’ve sold still somewhat less than 50 copies, but as I’ve previously mentioned, the experience of programming will be, I hope, worth far more than the revenue stream it’s producing.

And my teaching jobs remain fluid. I’m currently working two jobs – a series of after school English classes at elementary schools and adult English classes at night. The after school job is far less about teaching than it is about making money for the program owner; books are read and new books sold to parents whether the kids can read or understand them or not.  All my jobs are part-time, and there are no lack of opportunities. If one doesn’t fit, I can move on to another. I’m about to change jobs again in a week or so – this one ought to be different. I’ll be teaching French kids to speak English. There are a lot of engineers and managers from around the world that come to Korea for the shipbuilding business. Apparently, one company has provided education for their employees’ children as part of the deal to bring them here. So, I’ll be teaching English to French kids in Korea. How’s that for a twist?  The hours are only 10 per week, but they’ll pay me as much as many teachers get for a full time job. I’ll probably still fill my week, however, as I also try to fill my bank account.

We do get out and have some fun sometimes. This past weekend we went for a drive in the mountains west of Ulsan. Fall is a fabulous season in Korea and although the leaves aren’t turning yet, the skies are blue, the air crisp and the countryside beautiful.

MyeongHee stands in front of the lake near Miryang.

Me too, but MyeongHee isn't tall enough to snap the picture over the railing and get the lake in view

This last picture I snapped while driving through the valley as we came out of the mountains. Miryang is famous for apples and the valley was carpeted with apple farms and apple trees. Koreans keep the trees fairly pruned for easier picking – none of the apples would require more than a large step-stool to reach – even over a grove of them it’s still easy to see the farmer beyond.  These trees, although difficult to see here, were heavily laden with fruit. And all around the villages farmers were selling boxes of apples they’d already picked. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many apples in one place.

Apples, apples apples

Today, Monday, October 3rd, is a holiday here in Korea – Armed Forces Day. We had a three day holiday in September and now another single adjacent to a weekend. That doesn’t happen often – seems like the last year or two the holidays fell on the weekend and well, that’s your holiday.  I plan on spending my holiday relaxing and programming stuff.  And maybe taking my dogs for a walk in the warm afternoon sun.

Hope everyone is doing well.  Ta ta for now.