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By Marty, August 8, 2011 4:45 pm

And while it’s not quite a torrent or a flood, it’s become a stream.

A small stream, but a stream nonetheless. Every day there are more and more.

What am I talking about?  My smart phone application, of course, and the revenue stream it is now producing. It’s only been one week, but we’ve already made several sales in several countries including the US, Australia and South Korea.  I added an upgrade late last week so the application can be run in English or in Korean, so teachers here, both English and Korean, might find the product useful.

The really cool thing about the internet is that there are no borders. And no brick-and-mortar stores to increase overhead. I can create in my living room and sell in any country (almost) in the world.  With my business partner moving to Egypt in a few short weeks, I’m hoping he can get things translated to Arabic and open a whole new market for us.  Find me a friend who can translate French, German or Spanish and there are millions more teachers available to purchase.

So, keep ‘em coming folks. Keep buying that app!  Make Marty and Fin rich boys. Or least bring us enough money to buy a new suit. We’re not greedy. At a whopping $3.99US for the application, it’s pretty cheap. But throw enough teachers at it – say a million, worldwide – and we’re buying a yacht!

And if that doesn’t pan out, well, it was good experience to design and write the application. That should be worth something to a tech company back home when I decide to leave this place.

Ta ta for now.

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By Marty, August 1, 2011 1:07 pm

I wrote the following for my other website, UlsanOnline.com this Monday. I haven’t had time to rewrite it to make it sound less like a city-wide article and more like a personal blog.  Sorry – you get newscaster/newsmaker Marty and not son,brother, friend or father Marty.

——

At this past weekend’s Shipbuilding Festival in Bangeojin it was land of the bizarre and strange. The highlight of the event was the boat building contest which was to make the best boat possible out of recycled materials.

Nearly two dozen teams competed in categories such as aesthetics, harmoniousness (whatever that is), strength, creativity, speed and amount of recycled materials. Some teams, whose members included professionals or students majoring in naval architecture, were quite skilled. Others, well, not so much.

UlsanOnline.com formed a team and our boat was made of empty makeoli bottles formed into pontoon covered with polystyrene foam. The Phillipino team created what looked to be a “Flintstone” mobile. A number of boats were plain failures and never made it beyond putting it in the water. Others failed under the pressure of weight, lack of structural soundness and hard racing. In all, though, it was a successful event that brought hundreds of people to Ilsan beach to play and watch.

Both the UlsanOnline team and the Phillipino teams won 500k won prizes. Although neither team built a spectacular boat, our prizes were more consolation and encouragement than because of our skills, most likely because we were the only foreigner teams at the festival. Our boat took water quickly as our makeoli bottle pontoons were far from waterproof. Our paddle quickly disintegrated under the fierce paddling Dave put forth. The Phillipino team only thought of motion after it was built, so although quite stylish was very sluggish in the water. Regardless, we had an excellent time hanging out with friends and building something out of nothing.

Throughout the festival the organizers were very helpful and kind and brought us water several times to stave off the heat and humidity on the beach. They also helped direct our chicken delivery man to our table when lunch time arrived. The other participants were great and had many colorful, fanciful ideas for their boats. I was surprised by the amount of English spoken, particular by the engineering student teams.

After the shipbuilding, we moved over to the “We are 1 in Ulsan” festival and listened to live music from the Phillipino band while we ate galbi and quaffed beer. It was a full day and we had a great time. I would encourage others to participate in next year’s Shipbuilding festival. Having built one (semi-failure) boat and watched several other failures, I believe next year we could manage a true prize winner.

Bonus : Lots of TV cameras were present and our team was interviewed by MBC. We made the 8:00pm news and there were action shots of Ryan, Scott and Dave with a 10-second interview with Dave aired on the local channel. There was also UBC that got in our faces for pictures, but I didn’t see any thing on their news.

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By Marty, July 29, 2011 2:11 pm

It’s been a while since I wrote any significant computer code but I finally have an application finished to show off. Long time friend and business partner Fin Madden talked me into developing an app for his new job in Egypt – he’ll be an athletic director for an international school in Cairo. He had been searching for an mobile technology application that would let him manage his students, classes and grades in his new job and was unable to find anything suitable.  Knowing all the programming I had done on UlsanOnline.com, he asked for my help.

Check our  UlsanOnline, where  I pimped it off to my fellow teachers in Ulsan. You can also go directly to the android site and see it. Buy it if you like – I’ll gladly take your money – but it’s a teacher specific tool.

At first I didn’t know diddly about about writing mobile phone apps. I could barely spell Android. But after a little research and some programming I’ve finished with it and placed it on Google’s Android Market for sale. Fin did all the artwork on the app and I did all the programming. He’s paid me a nice fee up front and then we’ll split the profits 60/40 of whatever we sell. At $3.99 per copy, we aren’t likely to get rich but we might make a little beer money and gain a little fortune for ourselves. We’re already famous in Ulsan for the website we do – it’s the most popular English site in the city – but now we hope to get a little more traction with the teaching community.

I”m kind of proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish in less than two months. It’s given me the incentive to try and get back into technology when I return home to the USA. In the meantime, I might develop another app or two. Our Ulsan website has a lot of reviews in English of restaurants that otyherwise would be hard to find for those who don’t speak Korean, so I might have a map-based too that shows nearby places to eat with links to the reviews we’ve done. We also have all the bus routes in English on the website and that might becaomse a mobile app as well.

Anyway, enough geekiness. Summer has finally arrived and it’s hot. Nothing like Texas, but hot is still hot.

This weekend I’m going to the Shipbuilding festival on the coast. A small group of friends and I have entered into a contest to build a boat out of recycled material. The prize is $5000 so we’re hoping we can take a little cash back. If not, we’re very likely to have fun trying.

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By Marty, July 8, 2011 8:22 pm

I haven’t written much these days. Not because I haven’t much to say, but because I haven’t time to say it.  I started working 3 jobs this month: a short gig at the university for a couple of hours each day, I spend the afternoon at the any one of several elementary schools and then I spend 3 nights a week at adult conversation classes. Two nights a week I have private lessons.  And if that wasn’t enough, I’m learning Android and Java and writing a program for a smart phone or tablet.

The teaching jobs keep me pretty busy and I make pretty good money doing it. The programming, although won’t pay much (a friend has asked for a custom application for his new teaching position and he’ll pay me $500 for the software) I hope to parlay into experience that will enable me to get back into the software world when I decide to come home. I’ve struggled with what job I might do when I do eventually come back to the USA and I’ve made my mind up that I’ll get back into technology. I’ve been doing quite a bit of work on the website (and even making some decent money on that) that involves some programming and now with the smart phone, the Android app is taking quite a bit of knowledge and experience to make work. For those not technically savvy, Android is the “other” smart phone style and competes heavily with Apple’s iPhone and iPad line of products. The difference is that Android (a Google tool)  is open source, which means lots of phone and tablet manufacturers can use it and anyone can write applications for it.

Anyway, I’ve just been busy. Real busy. Working 10-11 hours a day and programming in between. Seems like a lot, but I haven’t been sleeping well anyway and so I spend lots of late night hours banging on the keyboard.  It’s actually a good thing, as being busy forces me to be efficient and use my time wisely. I had a little too much time before. The only thing I wish I had time for is riding the bike and for that I need daylight and sunshine, which has been in scarce supply anyway.

Hope everyone else is doing well.

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By Marty, April 18, 2011 7:45 am

Just for grins, I decided to get a USA phone number for my Korean mobile phone. Without going into too much detail, this is a Skype number, which is a internet-based phone system. It should work provided I have Skype enabled on my phone and I have wireless access at my current location. I can control the first, and Korea has plenty of the second.

Remember, I’m 14 hours ahead of US Central Standard Time, so be kind. If you call me at noon in the US, I’ll be likely sleeping since it’ll be 2am here. Generally, good hours in the USA to call me are 7pm to 9am CST – that’s 9am to 11pm  here in Korea.

Give it a try and call me.

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By Marty, February 11, 2011 10:17 am

I get to present on the 22th of February to UNIST.  Until then, I’ll know nothing about whether I come home in March or June.

I submitted my presentation yesterday. I decided to do it on proper emailing, a subject most Koreans truly suck at. I took a presentation I’d already done for a company I teach at and prettied it up for a the academic crowd.  Should be fun, as the ones who have emailed me already regarding the position are guilty of most of the egregious errors in spelling, grammar, cultural usage, etc.

Today at my regular school, the director is bringing in another foreigner for the day.  He says he’s not hiring anyone full time to replace me and wants to just have a native English speaker once or twice a week come in. I guess he wants to break them in right while I’m still there. He hasn’t said anything else about it, but I suspect I’ll have someone else shadowing my classes for the day.  I hope it’s someone I already know.

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By Marty, October 24, 2010 11:17 am

I’ve been remiss in writing here lately. Not because I don’t like or want to, but simply because I haven’t had time.

Two of Circe’s friends came to Korea to visit. Not me, specifically, but they made a side trip. Brandon and MJ, neither of whom I had met before, came to Korea to visit Brandon’s sister in Busan. Since that’s just down the coast from Ulsan they made a side trip up and spent the morning with me. I showed them my little Shangrai La and a little about the city. We ended up taking a short hike in the mountains for a quick visit at Paraiso Waterfalls, one of the 12 scenic areas of Ulsan.

Brandon and MJ at Paraiso Waterfall in the Yeongnam Alps near Ulsan

They were really nice people, which isn’t surprising being Circe’s friends. We had a nice time and they brought me some pinto beans and flavored creamer for my coffee – two things that just don’t exist here in Korea. I gave them a set of suction cups (medieval things, really, designed to suck the “bad blood” from a small area) to take back to Circe for her massage business.

Last week I was busy hosting a teaching course. Through my Ulsanonline.com business I advertised the course, registered attendees and secured a room. The course instructors merely had to show up and teach and I got about 10% of the fees.  That was a lot of leg work in running around getting things setup.

During that time, a pair of Italian journalists contacted me. They planned to come to Ulsan to do a story on shipbuilding and were looking for places to stay. Again, because of Ulsanonline, they contacted me and asked for help. There aren’t many English language websites (or anything else) in this city so a quick google for anything in Ulsan and chances are you’ll hit my site. Anyway, I pointed them in the direction of a hotel to stay in and helped them get access to Hyundai Shipyards. I didn’t know anyone at the shipyards, but I tried.

Things turned out pretty damn good, actually. I contacted YoungSook you was the director at my school. She has excellent English and I thought she could help translate Korean into English for them. She came out with MyeongHee and I when we met with teh jourmalists, Maria and Marco, and she called some of her friends to see if they knew anyone at the shipyards. After a few phone calls she a fairly high level manager – the husband of a friend of a friend – and he gave Maria and Marco an interview. That was interesting as YoungSook translated his Korean into English for Maria who translated English into Italian for Marco who then asked questions  back down the same chain.

Youngsook(l) translates English for Marco and Maria from the Korean of Mr Kim(r)

After an hour or so of sitting at a park near the shipyards and talking, we got a private tour of the shipyards from the manager. We were all blown away by the sheer size of the place. We were told no pictures, which really frustrated the journalists, but because this guy was not just some guy by apparently #3 or 4 in the place he allowed us a few shots.

The Guest House at the Shipyards

The guest house is where dignitaries stay when they visit the shipyards. They selling ships for a few hundred million dollars each and its not uncommon for some high level people to visit and see what they’re state funds are going for. Lesser accommodations for the ship crews who take possession of the ships are not quite so fancy. This nice house was right on the cliffs overlooking the ocean at the edge of the shipyard.

On the other side of teh guest house, looking back toward the shipyards, I was allowed to take a picture of the crane.

A massive crane that move sections of the ships are they are put together

These beasts hold up to 1,290 tons of ship as they move huge sections together for assembly. When they move, its not the monotonous beep-beep-beep of a tractor or backhoe, but the music of a carousel and they play a catchy melody as they slowly move on the rails over the assembly line.  They allowed Maria to take a couple of discreet pictures of the place for their book and magazine, but they were very cautious. Apparently, industrial espionage is rampant – they tell me that an engineering feat of shaving even a tiny fraction of 1% efficiency in a ship design can save millions of dollars in fuel cost.

Honestly, the sheer magnitude of the place was overwhelming. A place large enough to turn out about 70+ ships a year – that’s more than one ocean-going monster vessel per week. But each one must “dry” the paint, waterproofing, welding, etc for a period of two years before delivery.  We drove in the manager’s car around the area for nearly 40 minutes with our jaws dropped most of the time.

I stole a few pictures from their website just to give you a hint of the place’s enormity.

Aerial view of the Hyundai shipyards. The guest house is the brown hill in the center

So anyway, that was quite an adventure, made more exciting by the fact that I got to be in the middle of it someone else’s journaling. Maria and Marco spent another week or so here and YongSook helped again with translations. Since my role of putting them in touch with both a translator and shipyard contacts complete I didn’t get to go but apparently they got even better pictures in their 2nd and 3rd shipyard visit. Maria sent me a few links of their other work, most of which is about the shipping industry including an icebreaker trip and drilling platform. Their next journey is to Pakistan where they’ll document the ship graveyard – where ships are dismantled for scrap. Check out their work here:

http://www.letteraventidue.com/libri/016_grandeatl.html

http://periodici.repubblica.it/d/index.jsp?num=692&page=76

http://periodici.repubblica.it/d/index.jsp?num=632&page=46

Meanwhile, I’m back at home and making a pot of beans. Later, I’ll spice them up and ladle them over a plate of chips and grate some cheese over them for a bad-ass plate of nachos. Not getting this stuff very often makes it a special treat.

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By Marty, August 23, 2010 11:36 am

At some point in the past year or two, the video stores in this land have all disappeared. There have never been any big chains like Blockbuster of Hollywood Video, they were just Mom-and_pop stores, usually with a book for rent section as well. There were two stores in our neighborhood. Now there are none. And I haven’t seen another one around town in ages.

It’s not because Koreans don’t watch movies. They watch plenty. It’s because there’s no money in renting movies when they can be downloaded for cheap or for free in less time than it takes to get in your car and drive to a video store.  Koreans have no compunction about pirating movies. In fact, many of the major studios choose to release at movies in Korean theaters at the same time or even slightly before they are released in America simply because they know they will be pirated and they’ll lose money. Better to get their money early at the theaters before they show up on the internet.

Downloading is big business here in Korea. Although movies and TV shows can be downloaded for free anywhere, because Koreans typically need subtitles to view Hollywood movies an entire cottage industry has arisen. A number of sites are set up whereby Koreans download a movie from the internet (usually one in which someone else in Italy, Spain, Russia or Greece has filmed the movie with a camcorder in the theater, although higher-quality DVD copies are also available) and adds Korean subtitles to it. This “set” is then sold on a website for the average Kim of Cho to download and watch either on a computer or burned to a DVD and to watch on the home big screen.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Legitimate corporations have gotten in on the deal. One such company, QOOK, has taken it to a whole new level. QOOK provides digital cable and Internet access to their customers, much like a Time Warner or Comcast. But they, too, offer first-run movies, sometimes while they’re still in the theater, for a fee. Without the hassle of downloading yourself or burning a DVD, they’ll pipe the movies they’ve pirated into your home. For a few bucks, they’ll take a movie they’ve gotten for free off the internet pirate sites like The Pirate Bay and repackaged it for video-on-demand to their customers. Slick, huh?

Now I won’t lie and say I’ve never downloaded a pirated movie or a song. I have.   But I’ve never taken what I downloaded and tried to turn it into a business model, wiping out scads of Mom-and-Pop video stores in the process and redirecting millions of dollars from studios and into my own coffers. There’s a diffference here, and while subtle, seems like the kind of thing movie studios and record labels in America should focus on rather than suing the individuals who post them.

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By Marty, May 20, 2010 12:58 pm

I had planned to be doing a lot of writing over the past few weeks. I did get some writing in on my newest novel, but that’s taken a back seat. I got a few dozen pages written before being sidelined by other things going on here. What things you might ask? A plethora. All good.

First, we (my Ulsanonline.com partner, Fin, and I) have been approached by a multi-faceted group in Seoul. They had seen our site and the great stuff we’d produced for the foreigners in Ulsan.  The owner, a Korean-born, Brazil- and US-raised guy named Fabio sees a potential for us in a vastly underserved portion of Korea – the Gyeongsangnam-do province to the south and west of Ulsan. We’ll do a website, complete with lifestyle, travel and how-to information for the area. But we won’t stop at just a website. Fabio and his team are fired up about creating a magazine. A magazine that caters to both foreigners and english-speaking Koreans, complete with fabulous photos and glossy goodness.  I admit, I wasn’t keen on the idea as print seems to be going the way of the buggy whip, but they’ve got me wrapped into it. I’ll be co-editor of the magazine and Chief geek on the website.  The catch is that the local city and provincial governments all have foreign populations – teachers like me, engineers, factory workers – and they all have a budget to provide support in one form or another.

I started work as editor of the Korea Sun back in the summer of 2008. That was another glossy lifestyle magazine, but it went under before any of my writing or editing was published – costs were just too high to produce and revenue from Korean businesses for ads were just too low.  I’m somewhat wary of this being the same, printing and ads sales will be Fabio’s role and his other companies are already established. We might have a shot here. We’ll see. Faboi’s team includes several English-speaking foreigners, all of whom are counting on this to free them from teaching to focus on this full time.  I’m keeping my teaching job for now – until the $$ roll in regularly.

Here in Ulsan, with spring firmly ensconced and summer nearing, the outdoor season is upon us. We’re planning a “scooter rally” – a race/scavenger hunt to visit several places around the city and take creative pictures. I’ve been involved in the planning of this event as well.

With both the new magazine/website and scooter rally, I’ve been doing lots of programming. I’m chief geek here in Ulsan and forced myself to learn some new tricks.  Although I doubt most reading will understand what it is, Flash is a tool that is very prevalent on websites where animation, flashy, eye-catching graphics are required. You may not know what it is, but I guarantee you’ve visited and seen a website with flash.  It would be a shame if you didn’t see mine.

So here’s the programming/artwork I’ve been doing lately. These are likely transient and won’t stay up in these places forever, but for now these links work. I may, at a later date, pull them into a portfolio of sorts should I wish to build a resume for becoming a geek back in the USA someday. The website for the new magazine is still on ulsanonline.com – we’ll eventually buy a site expressly for that, but we can dovetail it off there for now. Check out the fancy lead-in here.  That cool map thingy – all Flash.  Then I made a banner for the scooter rally. It sits on the front page for now, but will certainly be gone after the rally. The cute little scooters drive across the page with links to the race site – all Flash programming. For the race site and registration, I made another fancy-pants banner on this page. The original “inferno” as they’ve called it started several years ago. They’ve skipped a few years, but its back with some flashy Flash.

Anywho, that’s why I haven’t written too much on here lately. I’ve been a busy boy.  More news later as it happens.

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By Marty, March 20, 2010 1:52 am

Everyone once in a while, I see someone change their password on this site. No big deal, but not required if you have a facebook account.  In fact, if you want to comment or share my blog, having facebook makes it simple. I created a simple how-to and placed on the top menu bar. Read this to see how easy it is to use your facebook account to communicate here.