Mr Gilbert, please meet your party at Gate A

Well, I went to go pick up my co-worker James at the airport. Normally, we come out at Gate E so I parked in the area that would bring me out close to Gate E. However, he was coming back from Europe instead of the States, so I checked the board when I got upstairs and it said his flight would come through at Gate A. Darn it, that's the opposite end of the airport. Inchon airport is set up in a crescent shape and it is really big, so I hustled my way down to Gate A to wait for him. I got to the gate and sat down to wait. Luckily, I brought a book. It really varies as to how long it takes to get through customs, so I wasn't concerned when he didn't come out right away. But then then flow of people coming though slowed down to just a few here or there. We normally take our cells phones with us when we go on a trip and turn them on when we land, so we can call each other. I kept trying to call James to see if he was having problems getting through for some reason but his voice mail kept picking up. I thought maybe he had gone down to Gate E since that is where we normally meet so I rushed down there to see if I could find him. No James. Huh. Maybe he didn't realise I was going to pick him up. I called his home - no answer. Tried his cell phone again. Went outside to see if he was waiting for a bus or taxi. Nope. Went to the other side of the airport to see if he was waiting by the military in-processing desk. Nope. There had been some areas of Romania with heavy rains and flooding, so now I was worried he got caught in that and missed his flight. No, he would have let me know. I'm on my way back Gate A when it hits me - I went off his itinerary and used the date of his departure. You have to ADD a day to get the arrival date because of the time change. Which I forgot to do. So, I was a day early and drove an hour each way just to get some serious exercise running up and down the Inchon airport. It was so dumb and I felt like such a moron that I just had to laugh.

And the award for most infrequent blogger goes to...

Hi everyone. I can't believe I haven't posted anything since APRIL! Thus the title for this blog. A lot has happened since then. First and foremost - Cliff is home! Yay!!! We are very pleased about that. We took leave in Texas and Cliff surprised me by being there when I showed up (he wasn't supposed to be there for another week). He attempted to surprise me anyway. I had a sneaking suspicion that he would be there because that's the kind of thing he likes to do. His roommate kind of gave it away in an e-mail he had sent by mentioning something or other about there being a bet that he wouldn't make it through in two days. I had a feeling he was talking about DC because Cliff had tried to set things up a month or two prior by telling me it was going to take him a lot longer to get things settled in DC than he originally thought and so he wouldn't make it to Texas before I left for Louisiana. Then, while we were trying to locate a missing bag, our friends' daughter Kasey kept mentioning Cliff and how she bet I couldn't wait to see him and that it was sad he wasn't going to be there for another week. She kind of went on and on about it, so I was pretty sure he was there by that point. : ) Sure enough, when I walked out to the car he was in the driver's seat. We spent a few days together and then Allissa and I drove to Louisiana to spend some time with my family. We were there for about a week and had a great time.

My nephews and nieces

Once we got back to Texas Cliff and I went out with friends and stayed the night in Austin. First we had dinner at a restaurant called Eddie Vs which had been recommended to us by the concierge at our hotel. He hit the nail on the head with that one. The food was excellent - particularly the hot seafood platter which we ordered as an appetizer. The only thing I didn't care for was the lighting. It was DARK in there. I guess they were going for a romantic candlelit atmosphere, but I prefer to see my food. Once we finished dinner we walked over to a place called Pete's Dueling Piano Bar. Cliff had been there before, but it was my first time. We managed to get seats on the second floor overlooking the stage and it was so much fun. The dueling pianists don't just sit there and play music. They engage the audience and crack jokes and the crowd really gets into it. Everybody is singing and laughing and having a great time. If you're ever in Austin, make sure to go to Sixth Street and stop in at Pete's. Get there early if you want to have a seat. Other than that, we pretty much just hung out with our friends and relaxed.

One cool thing we did was to attend the 312th Military Intelligence Battalion's deactivation ceremony. As many of you know, Cliff and I spent about eight years at Ft Hood and Cliff was in the 312th the entire time. It worked out perfectly that the deactivation ceremony was scheduled during the time we would be there. We went to a dinner the night before and there were a few people there who had been in the uit when it first started. It was very interesting to hear them reminisce about old times. The ceremony was great too. I had forgotten how fascinating a cavalry ceremony is with the horses and everything.

Allissa and I got back to Korea on the 17th and Cliff got here about a week later. Charley was really happy to have us home again. I thought he'd be mad at us for leaving him so long, but he was so excited to see us, he forgave us instantly.

Charley