As I mentioned when I was home, the plan is to come home in 2013 and find a techno-job somewhere in the US.  Dallas would be nice, but anywhere in the continental US would be far closer in distance and timezone than I am now.   But coming back to America earlier is an option – under certain circumstances.  What circumstances?

Here’s the deal:  because I have an existing social infrastructure in Dallas, moving there would be far less costly than another city. I could find a place to live while staying with a friend or relative. I could possibly even find a roommate among my friends there. Moving to another city would be an immediate outlay in hotel costs with almost no possibility of finding a roommate (I don’t do random roommates well).  So, I either have to save enough cash to make the move to a new city, or move to Dallas and gradually build (figuratively, not literally) a home.  MyeongHee will still stay here in Korea another year, but if the right job comes along I’m outta here.

That certainly puts a little umph in my get-along.

By the way, this is the first game I’ve ever created. I’ve done a lot of programming over the years, but never a game. I’ve done smart missiles, office automation products, simulators, security applications, and dozens of web thingamabobs and whatnots.  But never a game.

OK. Back to American Idol. Or X Factor or whatever is popular these days.

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!

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.

——

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.