PurkeysROK

And the trend continues...

2008-11-15T19:41:00.011-05:00

Almost eight months since the last entry. Is that a new record? Ha ha. In my defense, things have been really hectic over the last six months or so. We've had many changes in our lives, some expected and welcome, and some...well, not so much. But that's life for you. Anyway, I am now retired. I got selected for promotion to CW4 right before I started my terminal leave and I seriously considered staying in and taking the promotion, but after long hard thought, I decided to make the leap and get out even though it would have been more financially beneficial to stay in. I just had to decide what I wanted more... the extra money or the chance to start my new life and spend some time with Allissa before she heads out into the world. If I had stayed in I would have deployed for a year plus and I just couldn't do it. I've already missed so much. I want to enjoy the last bit of time I have left with her before she moves out. Anyway, I got a part time job in New Mexico which I really enjoy. My co-workers are great and we all get along well. One of them is someone I worked with for a bit in the Army and it was really nice to have someone I already knew there to help me get settled in. I had a lot going on then and he was a real lifesaver. I had never been to New Mexico before - just driven through on I-10 heading out to Arizona. It's so different from where I live, but I love the mountains and Santa Fe is close and is a nice little city. Except for being away from Allissa, I always look forward to going to work. I also like that when I am at home I have a lot of free time to spend with her and get things done around the house. We moved into the new house at the end of May/beginning of June. I had about two weeks between the time we moved in and the time I was due to start my new job which worked out perfectly. I was able to get pretty much everything unpacked and put away before I had to go to work although every time I go home it seems there's a project I need to work on to finish getting things the way I want it. The last two trips home, I spend working on the flower beds. When they put them in, they neglected to put down weed barrier and I was tired of dealing with a jungle every time I got home. I was going to pay someone to do it, but neither of the people who were supposed to give me estimates gave me one in a timely manner so I figured I would just save the money and do it myself. So, I went to Lowe's and got everything I needed and tackled it on my own. It wasn't that difficult, just very tedious and laborious, so I did regret not having someone do it for me at times, but I figured I needed the exercise anyway. It looks pretty darn good, if I may say so myself. I chose black mulch which looks fantastic now that it's all done. I'd like to put river rock in, but it's kind of expensive, so I'll probably hold off on that for a bit. I probably could have gotten it all done in one trip, but I had to go to my 20 year high school reunion. Sheesh, am I getting old or what? lol I had a good time and it was the first time my sisters and I have all been together in a few years, so that was nice. We spent a bit of time being catty about who was looking old and wrinkly. A little mean-spirited, I know, but I am completely sure they were doing the same thing to us. Besides, some of them were real b*****s back then, so I don't feel that bad about gossiping about them. There was this one girl who kept walking past our table and giving us the evil eye. I don't even remember having anything to do with her in high school, so who knows what that was about. Whatever. She was definitely looking a bit worse for wear. meow! Well, enough of that.
We got a new puppy. He is the cutest thing! Allissa wanted a dog that was hers since Charley is more attached to me.

Allissa and Kenny

Of course, now whenever I am home both dogs sleep with me. Allissa is starting to complain that now Kenny is attached to me too, but I am NOT getting another dog! I think it's just that I am more affectionate with them than she is. I'm always playing with them and petting them and they pretty much follow me around the house. I'd like to get a cat now that I can, but Charley has always chased cats whenever he sees them, so I'm not sure it would be a wise move. I'd hate to get a cat and have him hurt it.

Kenny snoozing in his favorite spot.

Well, that's about it for now. More later. I'll post some photos of the house when I get home or you could just look on my Facebook page. I think you can look me up by name or e-mail address. Good-bye!

Almost Done!!

2008-03-27T14:19:00.001-04:00

Well, we're getting close to being done with the house., We've done the paint and stain and they are going to work on the floors soon. It is really exciting, but has been stressful too. Cliff has been away a lot for work, so I have had to make some decisions on my own. I always end up calling him and asking him a million questions because I'm afraid of making a mistake that he will hate. I did make a mistake with the original paint color. Luckily, they had only painted the garage and as soon as Cliff saw it he called me and said it wasn't going to work. It didn't look that color on that little sample he painted!! I rushed over there and as soon as I saw the color, I knew we had to change it. Luckily, we only had to eat the cost of the paint since they hadn't painted the whole house yet. If they had, we'd have had to pay the labor twice too. Anyway, the new color is much better and closer to what I had in mind. Whew!! I will be so glad when we are finished. What with the retirement and work and everything else going on things have been pretty stressful. I still don't even have a definite job lined up and I'm getting pretty nervous about it. Cliff is pretty supportive and reassuring though so that helps a lot. I'm sure things will calm down once we get moved and settled in, so I am anxious for that day to come. Plus, the weather is warming up, so we will be able to spend a lot more time hanging out with our friends. They can't wait for us to move in either. Our place is going to be the entertainment center. Cliff's media room is going to be awesome. The guys are definitely going to enjoy watching sports in there. It'll be great. Everything is working out just the way we planned, so far. We've been waiting for this day for so long and now it's almost here. Yay!!

Busy, busy, busy!!!

2008-03-17T20:38:00.012-04:00

Wow. I just decided to check out the old blog and I just can't believe it has been almost a year since I last posted. Time sure flies. We have been super busy. We no longer live in Korea. Yes, I miss it. Allissa does too. I told her she would. She had a lot more freedom of movement in Korea. She could walk across the street to get onto post and catch the post shuttle. Itaewon was a ten minute walk or she could catch a taxi for a couple of bucks to get out to Myongdong with her friends. No way would I let her do that here. It is good to be closer to family and friends though.

The biggest news for us is that after a huge amount of turmoil and angst my retirement was finally approved. It took forever!! I'm glad it got approved, but now I feel like I am way behind the curve in finding a new job. I do have a prospect lined up and have a telephone interview is on Wednesday. Wish me luck!! It would be great if I get it although it does involve quite a bit of travel. On the other hand, I will also have a lot of time off which I could use to go back to school and spend some time with the rug rat before she heads off into the world. I've been thinking about getting a teaching certificate.

The other thing that has been keeping us busy is building the house. It's been a lot of fun, but stressful too because we have to decide every single aspect from where the outlets are placed to well...everything. We pretty much designed the floor plan ourselves. I think we did a good job and I can't wait until it is all finished. Tomorrow I have to pick out paint and stain colors. I think this is probably the most stressful part. I'm just worried that the end result won't look right because we're picking out things individually and it's hard to imagine how it will all tie in together. All these contractors should be in one place so you can see everything side by side!

Well, I'm tired. I just wanted to write a quick blog so it won't actually go over a year. : )

27 Dec 07

03 Jan 08

06 Jan 08

12 Jan 08

10 Mar 08 - Kitchen

Kitchen/breakfast nook

Living Room

e-mail update

2007-03-26T23:43:00.001-04:00

Well, I didn't really have anything special to blog about. It has just been a while since I've written anything so I thought I should. I noticed that the last time I logged into my blog to update it it was all in Korean. I figured that it was just because I was using the laptop and it didn't have the cookie on it. Sometimes if I clear everything and try to go to google it will come up in Korean and I have to click the link to get google in English. Well, blogger is now affiliated with google which is convenient in a lot of ways, but I didn't see a link to get it in English. I was able to muddle through it and make the changes I wanted to make, but it was kind of a pain in the neck. Well, now I'm using a different computer and it's all in Korean too. I don't know what I did wrong!! I think it must be going off the IP address or something. Blogger offeres the capability to post to your blog via e-mail, but I didn't know the address I was supposed to send it to. Fortunately, I can read Korean and I can understand it as long as it it a word I already know or a cognate. If it isn't, you can forget it - I can sound it out all day and still not know what the heck it means. I had to get out the dictionary and look up the words on the thermostat to figure out how to control the heat and hot water. Anyhoo, if you sound out the characters, e-mail is pretty much the same in Korean as in English, so I clicked on that link and it came up with the address I needed. Yay! I've been meaning to try that out anyway.

Cliff and I went to see 300 last week. A whole group of us went. We went to the Korean theater at I-Park and got tickets for the VIP room. It's got seating for about 30 people. The seats are set up by twos with a small table between them. The seats don't have much more padding than a regular theater seat. But other than the lack of padding, it's nice because it's basically a recliner so you can kind of stretch out and relax. There's plenty of room between the seats and it's all stadium seating so no matter where you sit you get a good view of the screen. We didn't have a camera with us otherwise I'd have taken a picture. I guess that means we'll just have to go back soon. : ) A free drink is included in the price, but there is also a menu of snacks for you to choose from which seemed to be reasonably priced. There's also a couple of buttons on the table you can press for the attendant to bring you water or a beer. We didn't know it, but they will also bring you a pillow and a blanket. How awesome and cozy is that?! You'd think you'd pay a fortune to get in there, but it really wasn't that bad. It was 25,000 won per person which is about $27 with the current exchange rate. It's what, $9 or so for an evening show on average in the States now? Plus, at least $3.50 for a drink. It was worth the extra bit of money for tableside service and not being crammed into a packed theater for a brand new movie. For me, anyway. Cliff really enjoyed the movie. I liked it, but not as much as he did. I really liked the story behind it and the historical aspect and if they had stuck to that, I'm sure I would have liked it a lot more. I just didn't like the ogres and other creatures that they had in the movie. That obviously wasn't realistic and detracted from the story, I thought. We also saw a movie on post this weekend - Shooter with Mark Wahlberg. This time Cliff didn't care for it as much as I did. He thought it was too different from the book or something. I know they did change some things, but I still thought it was good. I read the book about four or five years ago, so I didn't remember the storyline exactly anyway. The book is almost always better than the movie anyway. I think Mark Wahlberg did a good job. He has turned out to be a much better entertainer than you would have suspected back in his "Marky Mark" days.

Well, that's about it. Have a great day!

And the winner is...

2007-03-10T21:46:00.000-05:00

TEXAS! The decision has finally been made and we will head there this summer. It was a very, very hard decision to make, but we thought Texas would be better for us in the long run. The only thing that makes me sad about it is that we have lots of friends in the DC area and it would have been nice to live close by and visit them more often. Other than that, I had no real desire to live there even though there would have been a lot of jobs to choose from.

Now I can get excited about building the house again. I spent all weekend looking at flooring and kitchen appliances and such. I love the look of hardwood floors, but I just don't know if that's the way I want to go. I'm a little worried about Charley's claws scratching it up and the upkeep that will be required. It's also a lot more expensive than tile. The problem with tile is that Ang said their house echoes because of it. Of course, I can put area rugs down to tone down that effect. I'm also trying to decide on whether or not I want a gas or electric stove. I prefer to cook with gas. I also think gas stoves have more aesthetic appeal, but there aren't any natural gas lines in the area so we would have to have a propane tank installed. Then, we'd have to worry about having it filled and inspected and so on. It just seems a little expensive and extreme just so I can cook with gas. We could also have a gas dryer and water heater though so it would be a little more justifiable. We can use the money we save by going with tile rather than wood floors to offset the cost of it. : ) Gosh, there is just so much to think about!

Snow?!

2007-03-04T19:41:00.000-05:00

Well, I spoke too soon about the mildness of our winter here in Seoul this year. The temperature dropped into the 20s last night and this morning there were teeny tiny flakes of snow coming down. I think it is supposed to stay cold all week. Poor Charley. We got all his hair shaved off yesterday. He absolutely hates to be brushed and once it gets to a certain length it will start getting matted, so we get it all cut off. We like our room to be cool while we sleep so we normally leave the door leading out to the patio open and the patio window open a little as well so it was pretty chilly last night. We put one of those little dog shirts on Charley to help keep him warm, but I think he was still cold because he kept scratching at the bed which he usually doesn't do. I think he was trying to fluff up the blankets so he'd be warmer. I ended up getting up and putting a throw blanket around him, but early this morning I could feel him shivering against my back. I made him get under the blankets with me and curled myself around him. I felt so bad for him! He must have been really cold because he stayed there and he usually doesn't like to sleep under the blankets. I shut the patio doors and turned the floor heat on before I left so the house will be warm for him. We don't turn it on very often because it heats things up so well that it's usually too hot for us even at the lowest setting. If the apartments above and below us have their heat on, it's usually warm enough for us in our apartment.

I finally got to see my friend Hak Sun yesterday. It has been over a year since I last saw her. Every time we have made plans to get together something has always come up. She's busy with school and I am busy with work so it is hard to come up with a time that is good for both of us. Anyway, we were going to have lunch and then see a movie, but then she suggested an art exhibit at the Kukje Gallery so we did that instead. Allissa went with us and we all had a really great time. There was a restaurant at the Gallery called "The Restaurant" which we both found amusing. We had lunch there. It was really good and looking at the menu I thought the prices were lower than I had expected for a rather upscale restaurant. We discovered why once we were served. The portions were tiny! Allissa had pasta, so her meal was normal sized, but Hak Sun and I shared a scallop salad appetizer and a sirloin meal. There were only two slices of steak with some salad. It was pretty artistic though. There was a toadstool made out of a cherry tomato half dotted with a cream sauce on an asparagus stalk. It was glued to the plate with a bit of mashed potato. It was really cute! I should have taken a photo of it, but we had already started eating before I thought of it. The scallops on the salad were excellent. Everything was really good - there just wasn't much of it. We did get a nice, crusty dinner roll so that helped fill us up a little. There was also a starter of a bit of seared tuna with a sprig of frisee lettuce. That should have clued us in that the meal was going to be small because the tuna was about an inch square. We were going to order something else to eat such as the pasta Allissa had but by then the kitchen was closed except for desserts so we decided we would wait until we got to the cafe later. The exhibit was pretty good. There were four artists exhibited there. I think my favorite one was the first one whose work we saw. When you first look at it it looks like a bunch of cute Korean kids floating around and it has mainly pastel colors so it looks like a nice sweet piece. When you get close and look at all the figures individually though it is really rather violent with them stabbing each other and cutting heads off and things like that. I didn't like the violence of it so much, but I liked that exhibit the best because of the way it changed depending on your perspective. I also really liked the exhibit by Hye Rim Lee which was a computerized animation type artwork. After we went through the exhibits we went to the cafe and hung out there and had coffee and talked for a while. It was a really nice time. We had the waitress take a photo of us. Allissa and I held our hands the way a lot of young Koreans do when they take photos. We tried to anyway. The palm is supposed to be facing out, not in. By then, it was getting late so we walked to the subway and took the train home. Hopefully, we will be able to get together again soon.

STRESS!

2007-02-28T23:25:00.000-05:00

Well, Cliff's retirement has been approved, so we will be moving forward with some significant life events. He's looking for other employment and has had several offers. We're still not 100 percent sure where we will be in six months and it is quite stressful. We'll have several huge life events taking place all at once and I'm feeling the pressure already. There are so many things to consider and we are not taking anything lightly. One part of me just wants to make a leap of faith and believe everything will work out the way it is meant to. Another part of me is making a detailed analysis of each component and how they all interrelate and trying to determine the chain of events that can occur with each decision. I'm driving myself CRAZY! I'm sure I haven't been much fun to be around this week because when I get stressed I am very cranky!
Allissa got her report card last week. Overall, she did very well. However, she has really been struggling with Algebra and it showed. I would have been pretty irate if I didn't know how hard she has been trying. If it weren't for her homework bringing her grade up, she might actually have failed. It was pretty close as it is. She just has a hard time picking up the concepts no matter how much effort she puts into it. I can work with her on it one day for an hour and the next day give her the exact same problem and it's as if she hasn't ever seen it before. She won't even know where to start. I just don't get it. I was always really good at math - especially Algebra. Anyway, we have a conference scheduled with her teacher and will hire a tutor to try and get it sorted out. She's actually not supposed to take Algebra until ninth grade, but kids in AVID take it a year early. Allissa consoles herself by saying that she can retake it next year if she fails, but I keep telling her she can't look at it that way - that should only be an option of last resort. That's a self-defeating attitude to look at it that way in my opinion and it won't be any easier next year.
It has been really warm in Korea this winter. It has only snowed once and there have been only a handful of days below 30 F. I didn't even switch from a light jacket to my heavier coat. It's been in the 40s for all of February and even in the 50s for the last several days. Usually February is pretty frigid and we've had one last snow in the first bit of March for the last several years. Even though I'm not crazy about freezing weather, I wish it had been colder and snowed more since this will be my last taste of a true winter if we go to Texas. Of course, it may not be since that is now up in the air.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

2007-02-13T19:54:00.000-05:00

Today is our 15th anniversary! And before anyone gets all snippy about how cheesy it is to get married on Valentine's Day, we didn't actually plan it that way. We were stationed in Germany at the time and it is a total paperwork nightmare to get married in Germany. We had a VERY short engagement. He proposed on New Year's Eve and we were married on Valentine's Day. We kind of had to have a short engagement. NO! I wasn't pregnant! - our unit was shutting down and we were about to be put on orders. If we didn't get married before that happened we probably would have been separated. Anyway, because it was more difficult to get married in Germany, we scheduled a wedding trip to Denmark. You left on Monday and got married on Friday. It just so happened that our Friday fell on V. Day. I paid for the trip. I don't remember why. Maybe I had more money in my checking account at the time. I don't remember. I do remember that they gave me a $200 discount for paying the full amount up front. Anyone who knows me at all knows that I am a bargain shopper, so I jumped on that deal. It was really pretty inexpensive all around. For $600 we got round trip train tickets from Berlin to Vejle and hotel accomodations for the week which included a free meal at the hotel restaurant each day. It was a great trip. I love Denmark. The people there were so friendly. I remember that Cliff had forgotten to bring a transformer for his iron and needed to iron his pants, so we went downtown to look for one. We went into a store and they didn't have what we needed, but the clerk knew where they did sell it so she took us outside and led us down the street to the shop where we could get it. How nice was that? It was really beautiful there. I would love to go back one day. The wedding ceremony itself left a bit to be desired. It was rather surreal. There were a bunch of couples there. Mostly US military from Germany like us. We were the second to last to get married, so we had to wait for a bit. When it was finally our turn, we went in and stood at the head of this big u-shaped table in front of the justice of the peace. He asked me, "Do you want to marry him?" I said, "yes". Then he asked Cliff, "Do you want to marry her?" Cliff said, "yes". Then the JP said, "you're married". Talk about anti-climactic. We just kind of stood there for a second and then one of us asked if it was ok if we kissed and he said we could, so we did. Just a quick peck which was a little awkward, quite frankly. The whole thing was just kind of weird. I think we were both expecting something more along the lines of a traditional ceremony. Then, we had to sit down and sign the papers. They had my birthday down as March 2nd instead of February 3rd so we had to wait while they redid the certificate. I don't know if that would have had any effect on the legality of the marriage certificate, but I wasn't taking any chances. I already felt like it wasn't a REAL marriage ceremony! It's kind of funny now, but I was a bit disappointed at the time. We intended to have another wedding for all our family and friends once we got back to the US, but by then I was pregnant with Allissa and there was no way I was going to walk down the aisle like that so we never did. I got pregnant so soon after we got married that I was worried that everyone would think that was the reason he married me. Ha ha. Allissa was born nine months and nine days after we got married. She was actually a bit early - she wasn't due until Dec 5th and I had her on Nov 23rd.

Fifteen years sounds like such a long time, but it has gone by so quickly. I have a picture collage on my desk at work and one of the pictures is of us on the night he asked me to marry him. We both look so young. What were we thinking!? I have to say though that agreeing to marry him is probably the best decision I ever made. He's been a better husband than I ever hoped to have and I love him more today than I did the day we got married.

Brace Face

2007-02-08T18:48:00.000-05:00

Gosh, I can't believe it is FEBRUARY already. Wasn't it Christmas just last week? We had a great holiday season. It was nice to all be together for a change. I got an awesome new camera for Christmas. It's a lot more sophisticated than my old camera, so I am still trying to get the hang of it.
We've all been pretty busy. I had to go to San Antonio for about a week last month. It was great because I got to visit our friends in Harker Heights and talk to the house designer about some changes we wanted made to the floor plan. Chris and Angela's house is fabulous! I hope our house turns out as well. Ang was busy finishing up the decor while I was there. She and I have very similar tastes and I am not a born decorator, so she's going to help me once we get ready to decorate our house. I'm so excited! I've always wanted to have a nicely decorated home, but I just don't have a clue as to what to do or where to start, so our house tends to be rather plain. I also got to visit our old friend Bill and meet his wife. We went out to dinner one night and had a very nice evening. There was a girl at the restaurant whose birthday it was. Someone announced that she had gone to the San Antonio auditions for American Idol (she didn't make the cut) and persuaded her to sing "Happy Birthday" to herself. She wasn't that bad, but she wasn't that good either. She seemed to think if she sang louder it would cover her faults - it didn't. You have to give her kudos for having the courage to get up and sing in front of a bunch of strangers and open herself up to criticism though. I wouldn't do it, but... I know I can't sing well. I wonder how many of those people they show talking about how good they are but who end up being horrible singers are truly that deluded. They have ears, don't they? I'm sure there is a percentage of them that just want to be on television and get some notoriety out of it. It worked for William Hung. In his case, I watched and interview with him and either he's a really good actor and is milking it for all it is worth, or he truly believes he can sing.
Cliff has been busy preparing for retirement and scouting out job prospects. I'm a bit nervous about such a big change in our lives, but I know everything will work out. We're just not 100% sure we will end up in Texas as soon as we'd like. Allissa will be crushed if we don't go to Texas. She really wants to start high school with her friends. I'm a little more ambivalent about it. On the one hand, I wouldn't mind going to the East Coast because I have some really good friends there and it would be closer to most of my family. On the other hand, we have been talking and planning on Texas for such a long time already. I just want to get started on those plans. We also have very good friends there. Really, they are like family to us.
The other thing that has happened is that I finally got my braces. Yay! I have been waiting for years. I'm still anxious though because I've had periodontal problems in the past, so I keep thinking that something is going to happen and they're going to take the braces off and I'll never have straight teeth. I've been taking really good care of my teeth though. The brackets and wires make it a little more difficult to clean properly so I brush after I eat or drink anything besides water. I try and take my time and brush very thoroughly. I bought one of those waterpik things and I make sure I floss every single day as well. I was pretty good about that before, but sometimes I would skip. Flossing with braces was the hardest thing to get the hang of. Especially the first couple of days because the spacers had pushed my teeth forward and my front teeth were super tight. It hurt really bad when I was trying to get the floss between them even though I was using super fine floss. But they've moved back so it doesn't hurt anymore, thank goodness. I've gotten a lot better at flossing without getting the floss tangled up in the brackets. I don't have to look in the mirror anymore. Which is good because I generally floss at night while I'm watching tv. I know, it's kind of weird, but it's so much more convenient to do it that way. Otherwise I'm in the bathroom for 30 or 40 minutes and it's boring, so I end up skipping things sometimes. Anyway, I have the brackets on my bottom teeth, but I don't have the archwire because I have to have one tooth extracted. I have an appointment for that on the 14th and I think he is going to put the archwire on that same day.
Allissa is doing well. She was on the swimming team and enjoyed that a lot. Swimming is over now, but she is starting volleyball. She thinks she may be on the advanced team for that. She'll find out on Monday. Other than that, there's not a whole lot to talk about. Have a great day!

2006-11-30T23:21:00.000-05:00

2006-11-15T07:05:00.000-05:00

2006-11-15T07:00:00.000-05:00

Photos from summer

2006-11-15T06:52:00.000-05:00

Here are a few photos I took this summer while we were in the States.

House

2006-11-14T20:19:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, it's been a while. I have just been SO busy!! I keep meaning to post and add some new pictures, but I just never seem to find the time. I don't have the photos available right now, so I will have to post those later. Hopefully, not three MONTHS later. ; )
Anyway, we've been busily working on our floor plan. I posted a copy of it yesterday. It's actually not the latest copy, but it's mostly right. I'm still trying to work out the master bathroom. Cliff had had the idea of doing away with the tub and just having a huge walk in shower, but I couldn't quite get it to work out right. Plus, we had already replaced the other bathroom's bathtub with a shower and I was a little concerned that having NO bathtubs would be an issue if we ever decided to sell it. I don't know though. I think most people only take showers these days. The only person I know who takes a bath anymore is my mom. Anyway, as I was rearranging things, the hallway into the bathroom was moved and is no longer centered on the tub. I kind of like things to be symetrical, so I may shift it back over. However, that means the closets would no longer be similarly sized. I ALWAYS get the smaller closet for some reason, so I'm not sure if I want to do that. Then again, even with the smaller size it would probably be twice as large as what I have now and I really don't need a huge closet. I'm just happy to have my own space. It took a long time to get the kitchen the way I wanted it. For some reason, Cliff insisted on this enormous island. That thing is 5X11 feet!! I had to take out the countertop between the kitchen and the breakfast area for it to fit. I thought it would look terrible, but when I use the program we have to look at a 3D representation it actually looks pretty good. It's a totally open floor plan except for the bedroom areas. We wanted an open plan because whenever we've had get togethers in the past, people always ended up in the kitchen around the island. I'm still trying to decide it I should put in some architectural elements to visually divide the living room and kitchen. We probably won't start building until around August so we still have time to think about everything and work it all out. As we've worked on it, Cliff's "man room" has increased a lot. It's the room to the right of the entry. I think the last measurement was about 15' X 17'6", not including the bar area. He's going to set it up as a guy hang out to watch sports and stuff. The room to the left of the entry is supposed to be the formal dining room, but we're not really formal dining kind of people so we're planning on using it as our home office instead. Plus, the breakfast area in the kitchen is large enough for a good sized table. We should probably get one that is expandable because we won't need the larger size except when we have company. Anyway, if anyone has comments/suggestions about the house, let us know because you might come up with something we haven't thought about. Our friends Mark and Jessica just got married and I think they may buy one of the other lots on the cul de sac. We're going to have our own little commune going. ha ha. Ang and Chris have the first house on the street, so they're ironing out all the kinks with mail delivery. I think it's solved now, but for a while everything kept getting returned because no one knew where the street was and thought it was an incorrect address. Their house turned out really nice and John did an excellent job with the landscaping. We're definitely going to have him do ours as well.
The weather is getting colder here. I heard on the radio the other day that there was a chance of snow. It surprised me because I hadn't realised it had gotten that cold yet. I guess I am getting used to it although that is one thing I most definitely will not miss.
Seoul has a Coldstone Creamery now. For those who are not familiar with it, it is a chain ice cream place where you can choose different flavors of ice cream and there are a lot of things you can request to have mixed into it. The server puts your ice cream on a marble slab and uses metal paddles to mix in your choices. I always get the berry berry berry good concoction. It is sweet cream ice cream mixed with blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. I always ask for bananas to be added as well. It's pretty good. I don't really like candy in my ice cream, but the shop has a large selection if that's what you like. It also has different nuts and brownies and graham crackers and things like that. Anyway, we discovered it when we met some friends for dinner in that area about a month ago. I think it just opened in September so it's pretty new. Seoul has a lot more foreign restaurants than it did when I was here in 97-98. There is a great little Italian place in Itaewan called la Tavola. It is reasonably priced by Seoul standards (about $14-17 for an entree) and the food is excellent. The prosciutto wrapped buffalo mozzarella is first rate and I am completely addicted to their roasted chicken. It is the best I have ever eaten and usually comes with asparagus and roasted cherry tomatoes and garlic and a sage butter sauce. Allissa loves their mushroom soup. Pretty much everything I have eaten there is phenomenal. I'm a little picky sometimes, so if I say it is great, it really is. If you ever make it to Seoul - eat there!

2006-11-14T02:55:00.000-05:00

Too Hot!!

2006-08-11T03:47:00.000-04:00

It has been so hot here the last couple of weeks. When we're at home we have to run the air. I can't even imagine what the electric bill is going to be like. We'll probably be way, way over our utility allowance. C'est la vie, I suppose. It should start cooling off soon though. I know that I've been wearing sleeves by the end of September the past few years, so I hope this year will be the same.
There hasn't been a whole lot going on. We got to pet sit for one of my co-workers who just left and also one who just arrived. We had three dogs for a few days there!! They were all pretty good, but it was a little chaotic at times. Eddie stayed with us for about two weeks. He's still a puppy and he was so cute. It was funny watching him and Charley play together. They would chase each other around and nip and rear up at each other - but in complete silence unless one nipped a little too hard or caught a tender area. It was like watching a silent movie - funny! He left a couple of days ago. Allissa got really attached to him and cried when the pet transport guy picked him up. I'm going to miss the little mutt myself although I won't miss him tearing up my newpaper before I got to read it. : ) I guess he just wanted to let me know he didn't like it when no humans are there to dote on him. I'm sure Charley will be happy for him to be gone though. Poor Charley. He would just sit and look sadly at me if Eddie was taking up his space on my lap. As soon as Eddie would get down Charley would jump right up, but he was too polite to make a fuss or push him out of the way when he was sitting there. I have the sweetest dog in the world!

Tennesee/Port Aransas

2006-06-29T21:35:00.000-04:00

We had our summer vacation. It was awesome!! It was probably the best vacation I have ever had. We went to Tennessee first and spent time with Cliff's family. His step-mom is so nice and she is a great cook. I swear I gained about ten pounds while we were there - which I definitely did not need! I've been good and have been going to the gym pretty regularly though. We also got to see Cliff's mom and grandparents which was really nice. His grandfather's health is deteriorating and he is in a nursing home now so I am glad we got to visit with him. He was having a good day when we visited so it was a nice visit. Anyway, we were in Tennesse for about a week and then went to Texas. The day after we arrived in Texas we went to Port Aransas with our friends. I think it was about a five hour drive. I don't really remember. I read my book or played Lemmings the whole time. I don't really play video games but I love that game!! The condo we rented was really nice. It was bigger than I had expected it to be so even though there was ten of us we didn't feel cramped at all. It had a fully equipped kitchen and a washer and dryer which was really nice. It also had two swimming pools and was right on the beach. Unfortunately, the evening we arrived the boys all went to the beach and our friend Chris got stung by a sting ray. We hadn't even been there an hour! So, he and Cliff ended up having to take the ferry back over so he could go to the ER and get it taken care of. Luckily, the barb hadn't broken off in his foot so all he had to do was soak his foot in hot water to relieve the pain from the toxin. It took a few hours though, so we had a late dinner that night. That's probably the only complaint I had about Port Aransas - none of the restaurants we ate in were that great especially considering the prices we were paying. I was really disappointed. If we go back, I'm going to stay out of the tourist joints. We ate in a little hole in the wall Mexican place one day and the food was pretty good and didn't cost an arm and a leg.
Once we got back to Harker Heights we spent a lot of time at our friend Mark's house. He has a pool so that was a lot of fun. The bad thing was Allissa slipped and knocked her head on the cement a couple of days before we left. We ended up taking her to the emergency room at Ft Hood because she had been unconscious for a second or two and then she seemed like she couldn't remember things that had just happened. She had a huge lump on the side of her head. At least they kept giving us ice for it while we waited TWO hours to see a doctor. By that time, she was fine and he just told us to keep an eye on her for a couple of days.
We are now officially Texas landowners. We bought the property next to Chris and Angela's new house - which is coming along very nicely. We also went to someone to draw up the floor plans for our house. We found a plan on the internet that we mostly liked and are basing it off of that with some modifications. Cliff is going to have his "man room" and it will have a little alcove with a wet bar. He's already bought two flat screen televisions for it. Right now we have one in the living room and one in the office, but he's going to hang them both side by side on the wall of his man room. He like to do that kind of thing so he can watch two football games at once.

DMZ

2006-06-14T02:48:00.000-04:00

I've been here three years and finally made the trip up to the DMZ today. The South Korean guards are scary!! They don't even move. The first guy I saw, I thought he might be a mannekin or something. They stand there in this defensive posture with their fists clenched and look like they'll beat you down if you do the wrong thing. It's really impressive when you're looking straight at them. Unfortunately, although we could take pictures as we walked through, we weren't allowed to stop, so I didn't get any really good pictures. We got to go in one of the buildings which are half in North Korea and half in South Korea and the doorway to the North side is guarded by a ROK guard while it is being occupied by people from the South side. The tour guide told us we could go anywhere in the building, but we couldn't go behind the guard. Well, my friend Jo was getting her photo taken standing next to the guard and Myrna was going to get in the picture too. Without thinking about it, Jo went move to his other side and instead of going in front of him she started to step behind him. He didn't even say anything, but he immediately moved to block her. That was the only time we saw any of them budge except when ordered to post. It was a pretty good tour, but it was rainy and foggy, so I didn't get any good outside photos. I wanted to get a picture of the huge flag and flagpole the North Koreans have. They used to have a smaller one, but then the South Koreans put up one that was larger so the North Koreans put up one that is 160 feet high. The flag on it is 30m (about 90 feet) long. It weighs 600 pounds! I wouldn't want to be on that flag detail. All in all, I'm glad I made the trip. I'll post some pictures once I get them downloaded.

2006-06-06T19:26:00.002-04:00

I know, I know. It was a short lived spurt of blogs and then I slipped back into my old ways. Really though, nothing changes much in the good old ROK so you're not missing anything. I've had a lot going on in the last couple of weeks and just didn't manage to get on the computer that much once I got home. We had a nice long weekend over the Memorial Day Weekend. Our friends Letty and Jerry came over on Memorial Day and we had a cookout. They brought their dog Pedro over. He's so cute. Charley seemed a little afraid of him even though Pedro is maybe a third his size. Charley's a big chicken anyway. He always gets scared and barks at himself when he sees his reflection in the window. Jerry proposed to Letty while they were on leave and we were really excited about that. They are such a nice couple and I'm very happy for them. They plan on getting married in Austin in Sep 2007. It would be nice if we're in Texas by then so we can be sure to make it to the wedding. Am I being presumptuous by assuming we might be invited? : )

Allissa is doing well. She is anxiously awaiting the end of school and beginning of our summer vacation. She hasn't been getting her allowance the past few months because she asked me to put it into her savings account so she would have money for the trip; otherwise, she wouldn't have anything because she's a spender. I'm trying to teach her to curb that impulse and learn to save money for things she really wants instead of spending it frivolously. She has gotten much better about it, but still has a ways to go.

I finished the cross stitch project I've been working on the last couple of months. It's one I did for Allissa. It's of two mermaids and it was actually fairly quick to stitch. It turned out ok, I think. It has a lot of beading which I've never really done before, so it probably could have been a little better. Some of the beads didn't seem to want to lie in the right direction. I don't know if it really matters that much or if that is normal. I'm hoping the framing turns out ok. The problem with getting things framed here is that I like to get my work double matted and they just don't have a good selection of mats. I end up having to use colors I wouldn't normally choose and that I don't think are exactly right. Grrr. It's a little frustrating. Nothing's been bad so far although I was majorly ticked off when I got my last project framed. The framing was good and they actually had mats that went well with it so I liked the end result. But... It was a project I had done for my mom. It was of a mother working on a quilt and her daughter is standing next to her. Well, the mother is holding a needle and the chart called for a long, loose gold strand to connect the needle to the quilt she was working on. When I went to pick it up, I immediately noticed he had cut off the gold strand. What? Did he think it was a mistake? If he had looked at it instead of just grabbing scissors and snipping away at things, he would have realized why it was there. It should have been obvious that it was deliberately placed there. Even if it had been a mistake, you don't make changes to people's work without their permission!! It really, really made me angry at first. It was a large project with about 45,000 cross stitches. I spent months working on it and now it looks goofy because she's holding a needle in the air with nothing attached to it. You can see where he cut it too because the cut ends of the gold thread is sticking out a little from the rest of the stitches. Oh well. There are worse things that happen in life, so I shouldn't get bent out of shape over a cut thread. I realized that and calmed myself down before I threw a big conniption fit over it. I have thrown a few in my day, I am ashamed to admit. It's hereditary - that darn Dufrene temper. ; )

Where's my darn thread?

Charley is so happy with his short hair. Cliff thinks he looks ridiculous, but he really doesn't look as bad as it seems in the picture I posted. Even if he did, it is getting hot here and he would be miserable with all that long hair. He was already starting to pant a lot before I got it cut. Of course, I wasn't running the air conditioner yet so that could have had something to do with it too. : ) I was trying to conserve energy and just had the windows open since it wasn't too hot yet. Electricity is expensive here. We get a certain utility allowance for the month which includes water, electric and gas. They average your monthly usage over the year, so if you go over in a month it's not that big a deal as long as you're not way over and you were under in other months so that it balances out. If you go over your allowance for the year, you have to pay the difference. Cliff doesn't care, he'd rather be comfortable. I agree with that - to a point. But if you go over by $100 a month at the end of the year you're going to have to cough up $1200. I'd rather not, thanks!

Allissa and I were on the way to the beauty salon last weekend to get her hair trimmed and highlighted and we were talking about our trip. Cliff had mentioned that we might not go over to his dad's the night he gets in because he gets in kind of late. I told him we could probably just spend the night at his mom's and then go to his dad's the next day. Then, I started thinking about it and figured, "Hey, he's just getting home, I haven't seen him in six months, it might be nice to have an evening alone together." So, I told Allissa that we would probably drop her off at her grandmother's and we would go somewhere else for the night. She said, "I know, you're going to go get jiggy with it." It was so unexpected that I just cracked up, laughing. It probably wasn't the most appropriate parental response, but I couldn't help it. She said, "Come on, Mom. I'm not five." Nope, I guess she's not.

Awww!!

2006-05-25T04:01:00.000-04:00

Poor Charley!! He got shaved on Tuesday. I tried to ask the lady to leave the hair on his ears a bit longer because his ears are so big and floppy that they look kind of weird when they are completely shaven. I guess she didn't understand what I wanted because everything was shaven down. Oh well. He'll be cooler now at least. I miss all his curls though. He is so soft and cuddly when he's fuzzy! : ) Anyway, here are the before and after photos. I've got trivia tonight so this will be a short post. I'll do a longer one tomorrow or this weekend.

Just gotta have a little PATIENCE

2006-05-18T20:43:00.000-04:00

OK. Well, I fixed the links. The problem wasn't that I was doing it wrong, it was that I expected it to show up immediately once I republished the blog. When it didn't, I thought I was doing it wrong so I kept fiddling with it and ended up adding it in multiple times. Oops! Like I said - it's a learning experience. I should have realised that's what was going on because it takes a day or so for my posts to show up too. Anyway, I added in a link for Waiter Rant. It's usually fairly interesting. I'm also adding a link for www.postsecret.blogspot.com Post Secret is a project where people send in anonymous postcards with their secrets on them. It's updated every Sunday. You used to be able to scroll down and see previous weeks' editions, but you can't anymore, so you have to check it once a week to see the latest. I figure that's probably because they keep having exhibitions of the postcards and publishing books with them. It's that whole "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" thing, I think. Anyway, both sites were nominated for some blog awards this year. Actually, I think Post Secret won for best blog. I know, I know. Get a life, right?

Speaking of life, things are going ok here in the ROK. Allissa did get a case of ringworm - on her eyelid of all places. Yuck!! She's been playing outside a lot lately now that the weather is warmer, so she probably picked it up out there and then rubbed her eye. Because it is on her face, she has to take oral medication for three weeks in addition to putting ointment on it. She's been putting Charley in my room and closing the door at night so he won't sleep with her and catch it himself. She's definitely looking forward to summer especially our trip to the States. Me too, actually. 30 days and counting!! Cliff is going to be really surprised when he see her. She's shot up a couple of inches since he left and is about my height now. Not tall, I know, but taller. She definitely wants to be taller than me. I do too! Actually, being short sometimes has its advantages - not as cramped on airplanes, for one. As she probably still has some growing to do, she may just get her wish. Her hair has gotten really long too. I really need to post some pictures. Maybe I'll do that this weekend.

Links!

2006-05-17T22:42:00.000-04:00

OK. I'm trying to get creative and add links to my page. I tried just changing the standard template I have because the newer version allows you to add links, but it didn't work. So, I had to go into the code for my blog template and add in the code for the sidebar box for links. I played with it and played with it and couldn't seem to get it to work. I've finally gotten it to work, but now it repeats and I have TWO sections of links. Sorry!! I'll try to get it sorted out but I am not, OBVIOUSLY, a computer genius. In fact, I am feeling a bit moronic at this point. It seemed like it wasn't going to be that big a deal, but it's turning into a bit of a chore. I'm just going to look at it as a learning experience. I just hope I don't mess things up too badly. : )

I'm Tracking You!!

2006-05-15T19:58:00.000-04:00

I saw this on another blog and thought it was kind of cool so I added it to mine. Imitation is the best form of flattery, isn't it? : ) Anyway, if you scroll all the way to the bottom there is a little map which shows where in the world people have been visiting my blog from. I initially selected update daily, but then I figured out that that means it redraws the map daily and only includes the visitor locations from that day. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get a mass of red dots if I only update weekly or monthly (or even yearly), so I changed it because I don't check it all the time and I didn't want to miss out on seeing where people are coming from. I did notice that it doesn't add my location in Korea when I visit, but I think that's probably because it logged the URL I was at when I created the cluster map. It does keep a running total of visitors and I have had TEN visitors so far. Whoo Hoo!! I guess I'll have to be more vigilant about posting now. : ) For some reason, it's been taking a couple of days for my posts to actually show up though. Anyway, I'll probably post some pictures in the next couple of days. Charley is about to get groomed again. I think I'll do a before and after photo. Personally, I think he is very cute when he is all shaggy and curly. People keep saying he looks like a little bear. However, the weather is getting warmer and he is starting to shed. He'll be much more comfortable and I won't have dog hair tumbleweeds drifting about if I get him shaved.

Happy Mother's Day

2006-05-14T23:35:00.000-04:00

I had a nice Mother's Day. I woke up and then lazed about in bed and read for a while. I debated being a total slug and just going back to sleep and had just set down my book and closed my eyes when I heard Allissa sneaking in. I opened my eyes and looked at her and she froze for a second, then she gave a sheepish smile and thrust a folded up paper at me and ran out of the room. I guess she was trying to put it on my pillow so I could find it when I woke up. It was a Mother's Day Card she had made. On the cover she apologised for forgetting to get me a card and hoped I would be happy with the one she had made. Do children not listen or what? I've always told her I liked the homemade ones best. Anyway, it was so cute. There was a picture of her and Charley and she had written some really sweet things. I should scan it, so that I'll always have it even if the original gets destroyed. Technology is awsome, isn't it? Anyway, I went to her room and gave her a big hug. We had a nice day even though we didn't do too much. We went to the soup place we like and then went and washed the car. Other than that, we just hung around the house and cleaned and did laundry. Boring, I know! Trivia night is about the only fun thing I've been doing lately. There's a local pub that hosts a trivia competition on Thursdays and I've started going again. It's fun. I hadn't been since Cliff left because I always feel guilty about leaving Allissa home while I am out having fun, but she always encourages me to go. Anyway, we won three weeks ago, but we've lost the last two weeks. This past Thursday, a team was caught cheating. The team that won the previous week, as it turns out. Hmmmm. I knew last week when it was announced that they had won with 39 out of 40 that they must have cheated. It was much harder than it normally is and had some really arcane questions. I am not saying that my team was the most intelligent team there and that it is impossible for us to lose, but we're not a bunch of idiots. If we had trouble, chances are nearly every other team did as well, so for a team to come out of nowhere with an almost perfect score is awfully suspicious. I hate cheaters!! It's not even as if there is a huge prize. It's for 3 pitchers of cheap beer. I don't even drink it when we win. I just like being able to say we won. I know, not very modest, but I'm a tad bit competitive. Even so, a large prize would not make cheating any more excusable. What is society coming to?

Yellow Wind

2006-04-12T21:13:00.000-04:00

Here in Korea there is a phenomenon called "Yellow Wind". It normally happens at this time of year and is, basically, dust being carried here from the Gobi Desert in China. This past Saturday there was a heavy concentration of dust in the air. We live quite close to Namsan Tower and we couldn't even see the tower because of all the dust. When I went to my car it was completely coated. You could barely even tell that my car is green! This was the highest dust levels recorded since 2002. Here is a chart showing the dust level here in Seoul. See the band between 300 and 500? That's the band level for hazardous levels. As you can see, we were quite literally off the chart. Over 2300. Far, far above the hazardous range. Anyway, this dust is bad news. It causes a lot of problems such as asthma and eye infections. I saw a report that said that because of the increasing industrialization of China that there are a lot of heavy metals and dioxin in the dust. Dioxin is a carcinogen. Great. My lungs are so black, I just know it.

Driving in Korea

2006-04-06T22:52:00.000-04:00

I didn't write this. I ripped it off a friend's blog. I'm not sure where she got it. The sad part is that it is not a joke!! They really do drive like this and it is absolutely maddening and scary at times.

Street Survival in Seoul or Becoming a Road Scholar by Curtis Desjardins

For our world-traveling friends, I'd like to write this helpful Public Service Announcement in travel safety:
After living in Korea for the past two years, I've noticed a marked difference in the driving habits of rural and urban drivers, where urban is defined as :in Seoul or Pusan". We unmanly girly drivers of the Western world could probably handle the lackadaisical rural driving, but to truly excel in in urban Korea you must "be in the Zone"; a survival state-of-mind if I ever saw one. And why not? Korea only has the largest number of auto fatalities per capita in the world, so you'd better be in a survival state-of-mind. With that in mind, I've culled the following driving tips into this one, short, easy to read compendium of driving survival on the streets of Seoul.

Tips for the Motorcycle/Scooter Driver:

- It is important to wear protective clothing. T-shirts, shorts and open-toed sandals are considered appropriate.

- Ride against traffic whenever possible.

If you are not riding in the street, ride on the sidewalks like you darn well own them (pedestrians must make way for YOU; you have the "I'm a motorized vehicle and you're not" rule of right-of-way on your side.

- When leaving the sidewalk to ride on the streets (against traffic), make sure your rocket out from between two parked cars.

- If there are no parked cars in your vicinity, it is perfectly acceptable to run pedestrians down at the nearest crosswalk.

- Overload the back of your scooter with a heavy, unwieldy package
- and ride one-handed
- while carrying a huge box of take-out food in the other hand
- with your two-year-old daughter standing in front of you, holding onto the speedometer for balance
- and don't give her a helmet.

- During times of heavy traffic (read: at all times) weave in and out of stationary and slow-moving cars. Removal of any pesky side mirrors getting in your way is expected.

Tips for the Average Driver:

- First of all, don't let those scooter drivers get away with any of the cheap tricks outlined above. Your car outweighs them by 20 times, so don't take any of their crap.

- Change lanes at every opportunity. Don't bother with shoulder checks, that's what mirrors are for (blind spot? never heard of it).

- Use mirrors for reversing as well.

- No parking spaces? Bah. Double park

- Still no parking spaces? Bah. Triple park.

- Still no parking spaces? Bah. Run over pedestrians on the sidewalk and park over their cooling carcasses (it's their own fault for getting in your way; after all, you DO have the car).

- U-turn at every given opportunity
- during rush-hour gridlock
- with the widest turn radius you can manage
- use the sidewalks if you have to.

- Keep a callular phone in your left had at all times, supergluing it if necessary.

- Never use your brakes - it shows weakness. Just lay on the horn and accelerate around the problem.

- Those lines on the road? Just very loose guidelines - a "two lane" highway cane easily fit three, even four, abreast).

- Crosswalks? Just pretty road decorations.

- Always pass slower cars on the left, even if doing so will bring you over the yellow divider.

- One way streets are one way for everyone but you.

- Red light, schmed light, just go whenever you darn well feel like it.

- If you become lost (with Korea's lack or roadsigns and street names this is not a possibility, but an eventuality) stop in the middle of the road and gawk around until you decide that: yes, you are, in fact, lost
- ...then flag down another motorist to ask for directions and block the remaining lane
- ...and ignore the honking masses behind you as they shouldn't be in such a hurry anyway. Don't they know "speed kills"?

- Never wear a seatbelt. Windshields will stop you most of the time.

Holy Cow! It's the First Lady!!

2006-04-06T00:23:00.000-04:00

I can't believe I finally posted something after all these months and forgot to include the most exciting thing that happened. Back in November Korea hosted the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference which was a pretty big deal and leaders from all over the world came, including the United States. Anyway, the White House Communications Agency requested support from our office and I got to go down to Pusan to help out. It was a lot of long hours and hard work, but it was very exciting to get a behind the scenes view of what is involved in a Presidential overseas trip. It is really something. I got to see the motorcade when they arrived at the hotel. The President's limousine peeled off and went to the back of the hotel and pulled into the garage. I was hoping to see him, but I was at the wrong angle because he got out on the opposite side of the car than we were expecting. I saw Mrs. Bush get out, but by the time we realised the President was getting out on the other side and re-positioned ourselves all we saw was his back as he walked down the hall to the elevator. If I had known, I would have asked Kendrick to arrange for me to get a photo with the President because they did that for all the embassy marines who provided security. I didn't know to ask though, so I didn't get to see him at all. But...on the day they left I was sitting there at the Westin Chosun eating breakfast on the executive level with a fellow warrant from the White House Security Office when I glanced over to my right and there was the First Lady sitting opposite from me at the next table down! She was not even five feet away from me. I hadn't even noticed when she came in. I'm sure my eyes practically fell out onto the table, I was so astounded. Of course I shamelessly eavesdropped on her conversation, and kept peeking at her out of the corner of my eye. Cliff says I should have gone up to and talked to her, but that just isn't done. You have to act completely normal and not like a rabid groupie. Besides, the people who work there really do see them all the time so it's not a big deal. Luckily, the Secret Service guys were behind me and couldn't see that I wasn't wearing a trip pin. Kendrick had to run down and get me one from the Marine guards before they noticed or they probably would have tackled me. Anyway, she just sat there and drank her coffee and talked about her schedule with the lady she was with (probably her assistant - I don't know). I joke that I directly influenced the First Lady because I was eating salmon and after a bit she got up and got some off the buffet too. I don't know if she actually noticed me eating it or not, but who is to say otherwise? That's my story and I'm sticking to it!! Ha ha. I think she is a lovely lady and I have always admired her, so it was awfully exciting for me. After they left, we had to go through the rooms and make sure things weren't left behind and the Presidential Suite was gorgeous. I think it had been completely renovated for President Bush's visit and they named it after him. Anyway, I kept hinting that I was available if they ever needed more help, so I hope I get to go on another trip. This was actually the second one I helped out on. The last time was a couple of years ago in Singapore and they were only there for about 12 hours so I didn't even get a glimpse of anybody really important. This trip was much more rewarding in that aspect. I also got some souvenirs with the Presidential Seal on them which is pretty cool.

2006-04-04T21:42:00.000-04:00

Hello All,
The Purkey family has been busy as usual. We were busy in the fall and winter doing fund raising for the Girls Scout trip to Japan for the Winter Conference. The more we raised, the less we had to come out of pocket for expenses. Allissa did coat check at some holiday balls and I baked a lot for the bake sales. We also did gift wrapping just before Christmas. Note to self: NEVER volunteer for four consecutive hours again!! The PX donated these HUGE rolls of wrapping paper and between lifting them up and down and staying bent over a table my back was killing me within a half hour. There were so many people doing their last minute Christmas shopping that there was almost no rest periods at all. The upside was that Allissa and I earned aboout $250 for her trip on that one event. So, with all the other fundraising we did, she had about $470 towards her trip. She went on her trip in February and had a very good time. They stayed an extra two days past the conference and went to Disneyland Tokyo. Luckily, the trip was over a federal holiday so she didn't miss TOO much school. She's been doing pretty well in school and has been on the honor roll every nine weeks so far.
I got to go TDY to the States back in January. It worked out perfectly because my friend Cheryl was having her youngest son's dedication ceremony while I was there. I didn't let her know I was going to be there beforehand because I wanted to surprise her. I ended up spending lots of time with them and it was a great visit. The Toscano children are all so adorable!! I had so much fun playing with them. It took Isabella a little while to warm up to me because I left for Korea right after she was born so she doesn't know me very well. After I played with her one day, she kept telling me I wasn't "coocoo in the head". Apparently being coocoo in the head is her gravest insult, so I guess she liked me a lot at that point. Nick and I played swordfighting quite a bit and also slew dinosaurs for dinner and protected our cave from invaders - he is very imaginative. Alexandra has grown so much and is very sweet and helpful. Vincent is a sweetheart too - he was very cuddly and I enjoyed getting to hold him and feed him. I also got to visit with some of my other friends there although not as many or as much as I would have liked. I left wishing for more time and that we still lived there.
The biggest news we have is that Cliff and his dad have reconnected. It turns out that he has a sister and two brothers and a stepmother. We are all really excited about it and are going to go meet everyone this summer. Allissa has gotten to talk to her grandfather on the phone a bit and she is looking forward to getting to know him.
Other than that, there is not too much going on. I've just been pretty busy with work and stuff. The weather is warming up and we've had a couple of days in the 60s which is really nice. I hope everyone is doing well.

August-October in Review

2005-10-25T23:51:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy summer/fall for the Purkey family. I had to go to training in Hawaii at the end of August for two weeks. It was awful, I can't believe the things the Army puts me through! I'm kidding, of course. It is really beautiful there and I enjoyed the trip. Since the hotel and my airfare were covered by Uncle Sam, I figured it would be a good time to take Allissa. She flew out there with me, but could only stay a week because she had to get back to Korea to start school on the 30th. My co-worker's sister in law came with us so Allissa would have someone to hang out with while I was at work. The day before they left, we went to the North Shore and they took surfing lessons. I briefly considered doing it too, but I'm not the strongest swimmer so
I took photos from the beach. The instructor was really good. His daughter was in the movie Blue Crush and he taught the actors surfing. I was a little apprehensive about letting Allissa do it because she hadn't been swimming in the ocean before, but the guy said he had taught two year olds to surf and it was safe. He and his son worked together and they did a really good job of keeping track of where everyone was and not letting them drift out, so I'm glad I let her do it. She had such a blast. The next morning I got a call from a friend in Louisiana and she said that she and her mom were worried about my mother because her car was still parked in her driveway and asked me to call her and tell her that she could stay with one of them if she wanted. Huh? I asked what was going on and she said that there was a Cat 5 hurricane on the way. My heart almost stopped. I called my mom and begged her to leave, but she said it was already too late because the highways were parking lots and there was nowhere to get gas. She did say she would go and stay with someone though so at least she wouldn't have to go through it alone. So, I took Allissa and Rachel to the airport and then stayed glued to the television all day and half the night. I must have said a million prayers. It must have helped because at first the storm was set to run right over the top of her, but then it shifted to the east a little which put her on the west, less severe side of the storm. Luckily, after the storm passed over, I was able to get through to my mom and reassure myself that she was ok because I couldn't reach her for almost three weeks after that. She did have a tree branch fall on her roof and punch a big hole in the ceiling, but I was actually relieved by that because I had been expecting so much worse. Other than that, there wasn't any other damage, but it was pretty miserable for a few weeks because they were without power.
After Hawaii, I went home for one night and flew out for Arizona the next morning. I got into Phoenix and turned on my cell phone and had several messages from my friend Traci. Apparently the house we had arranged to rent was a total rathole. It was bug infested and not very clean and just not a place we really wanted to stay. I had given up my reservation at the Carroll Drive Apartments already and everywhere in town was totally booked, so I envisioned living in my car or driving back and forth to Tucson for the next month. Traci was so good. She got there a day earlier than I did and ran all over town lining up places for us to stay. We were supposed to end up moving about three times, but the first place we stayed at extended our first stay by a week and they worked really hard to arrange it so we wouldn't have to move. We ended up moving out for one night and then moving back in for the rest of our stay. So kudos to the Gateway Studio Suites. The staff there is terrific. The rooms are nice and even had a refrigerator and a two burner stove and dishes and pots. I went to Trader Joe's in Tucson and bought a lot of stuff. They didn't have the tea I like though. It's their winter brew tea, so maybe it's a seasonal thing. I was hoping to get a couple of boxes to bring back to Korea with me. Oh well. I have found a tea in the commissary that I like. It's by Stash and it's a a Chai spice tea. It's really good. Anyway, I enjoyed the time I spent in Arizona because I got to hang out with my friend Traci and made a couple of new friends too. I left a day earlier than I had planned because Cliff had to go TDY so I missed the graduation. I didn't have a problem changing my ticket and when I got to the airport I found out why. The yahoo who changed my ticket changed the departure day, but forgot to change the month so he had me scheduled on 30 Oct instead of 30 Sep. I couldn't believe it. Luckily I always get to the airport early and there was ONE seat available on the first leg of the flight. The gentleman at the counter was extremely helpful and spent ten or fifteen minutes trying to sort it out and get me on the flight. He said it helped that I was a mileage plus premier member. I guess they get priority seating. So, I got the seat and made it back to Korea as scheduled. I got back in the evening and Cliff had departed that morning, so he had parked the car in the parking garage and sent me a text message with the location. So, as soon as I got off the plane, I turned on my cell phone and there it was. It took a while to get through immigration, but my bags were waiting once I got through so I had no trouble getting them and getting to the car.

We've got it Maid

2005-08-08T06:06:00.000-04:00

Hello All,
I just sent out the link for the blog about our trip to the States, so whoever visits the site is going to get two for the price of one! I'm trying to turn over a new leaf and blog more frequently. We'll see how it goes. : )
What's new with the Purkeys... Well, we now have a housekeeper. She comes in once a week for eight hours. Did we REALLY need her? ...no, but it sure is nice. Cliff is still doing the laundry even though she said she would do it, but we are leaving her to do the ironing. She'll practically pay for herself right there with all the money we'll save that we were spending on getting our work clothes laundered and pressed.
I decided to try my hand at making Sam Gae Tang which is a chicken ginseng soup. Basically it is small, whole chicken in broth stuffed with rice and ginseng and some other things. It's really good. We went to e-mart to get the ingredients because I knew I wouldn't be able to get some of them at the Commissary. I did a search on the internet for a recipe (gotta love Google) and made a list of the things I would need. Then, I googled language translator and came up with a site by Altavista called Babel Fish (from the Tower of Babel story, I assume). Anyway, this site lets you choose your to and from languages and then it will translate whatever word you type in. If the language you are translating into does not use Roman characters, you do have to at least know the alphabet because it appears in that language's characters. I guess you could always just copy it down and show it to whomever you are trying to communicate with. It seems to be a very useful tool, but in this case it was all for naught because we found prepackaged kits for sam gae tang which had everything we needed in packets stuffed into the body cavity of the chicken. So, we put all of the other stuff we had collected up to that point back and bought those. It turned out pretty well although there are a couple of things I will do differently the next time. I definitely want to go back to e-mart and look around some more. I did notice that their chicken is much fresher and less expensive than the commissary. Their produce is definitely fresher. It's close to work for me so I can stop there on the way home. There is a parking garage and up to two hours is free. One think I really like about Korean parking garages is that you take a ticket upon entry and there are machines that you insert youor ticket into when you are ready to leave. It will calculate how much you owe and you feed it into the machine. It will encode your ticket and give it back to you. You then have a set amount of time (usually about 20 minutes, I think) to exit the parking garage. There's a machine on the way out that you put your ticket into and then the arm will raise and let you drive out. It saves so much time when you're leaving because there is not an attendant you have to pay and who has to make change for you. Which probably isn't so bad when there are only a few cars exiting, but could create quite a delay if there are 10 or so cars trying to leave at the same time.
Well, I guess that's about all for now. Here is a photo I took near Namdaemun market a while back. I really like this photo because of the juxtaposition of the historical building and the tall, modern buildings. I wish you could see the carvings under the eaves better though. It's really quite nice.

Mr Gilbert, please meet your party at Gate A

2005-07-28T02:16:00.000-04:00

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...

2005-07-28T01:37:00.000-04:00

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

April showers bring May flowers

2005-04-17T21:15:00.000-04:00

Namdaemun Market

Spring has sprung here in the ROK. It seemed to happen almost overnight. Temperatures have been in the relatively balmy 50s and has even hit 60 on an occasion or two. It's wonderful!!! I would never have imagined that I would ever consider 54 degree weather warm, but after several years of absolutely freezing winters, I do. This winter either wasn't nearly as harsh as last winter or I've grown accustomed to the cold. I think the wind wasn't as bad this year and that had a lot to do with it. The wind last year was ferocious and would cut right through whatever you were wearing. Brrr. I was miserable! I most definitely am not a cold weather person. Anyway, spring is finally here and I was pleasantly surprised last week to note that all the trees on post are in bloom. They are quite lovely. I don't think they bloom for very long, so I need to snap some photos before the flowers disappear. Now that spring is here, the monsoon season isn't far behind. The first year I was here there was very rarely a day without rain during the monsoon season. When I say rain, I mean torrential rain that floods the streets in minutes and lasts all day. Even with the giant golf sized umbrellas, you're going to get wet. Water was generally ankle deep everywhere you went and your pants would get soaked up to the knees. My feet were wet for two months straight. Hopefully, it will be more like last summer where we didn't get much rain at all during monsoon season although it was much hotter as a consequence. Time will tell.
It has been really dusty here lately. There have been safety alerts published to stay indoors as much as possible because of the fine yellow sand that is being blown in from the Gobi desert. No wonder you see Koreans with the medical face masks on everywhere. My car is completely coated in yellow dust.
Well, my car got well and truly scraped. I drove Cliff's truck to work one day and I had to go over to my company which is around the corner from our apartments when I realised I had forgotten to return some videos. It was only 1130 and they weren't due until noon, so I decided to run home and get them and avoid the late charges. I parked in the lot and as I passed my car I noticed this HUGE scrape on the bumper. Actually it was a row of about six gouges that went all the way through the paint. I was pretty hot about it. I could tell by the paint on my car that it was someone with a white car that had done it, so I was on the lookout for it from then on. Well, a couple of days later, there's a white car with green paint in the lot. I pull my car up next to it and sure enough the scratches matched. There wasn't an apartment parking sticker in the windshield so I couldn't tell what apartment the person lived in, but there was another sticker with a cell phone number so I copied it down along with the license plate number. It was a Korean plate, so I went over to the realty company to see if they could help me out. Jeannie came over and looked at the cars and said the other sticker was a visitor's pass which was expired. She called the lady and asked her about hitting my car. She denied it. She said she had hit another car at her apartment complex. Pretty coincidental, don't you think? First of all, green is not a common car color in Korea. Their cars are mostly silver, white, grey and black. I think I've seen about seven green cars the whole time I've been here and that includes my own. How amazing that she would hit a green car somewhere else in the same week my car was hit by a white car AND the scratches matched up. At that point I figured there was a slight chance (maybe 1%) she was telling the truth and I was wrong. Then, she hung up on Jean. Jean called her back and told her that if she didn't come down to discuss it, she would have her car towed because since her parking pass was expired she was parked illegally. She said she was coming down, but we waited and waited and waited and she wouldn't answer her cell phone anymore. As soon as that happened I knew she was lying. Jean suggested we go to the management office and find out what apartment she had gotten the pass to visit. I told Jean I bet the woman was watching and would leave as soon as we left. I tried to keep an eye out the window for the car, but I should have stayed outside because I missed it when she left during the five minutes we were inside. As soon as we went back outside and discovered she had left, my suspicions were confirmed. I am absolutely convinced she hit my car - I just can't prove it. An innocent person would have come down and defended themselves instead of refusing to answer their phone and skulking away. I thought about calling the Korean police, but I figured it wouldn't do much good. I didn't actually see her hit my car, so I doubt they would have helped me. I think I'm more mad about her lying about it and not taking responsibility than I am that my car was scraped. If you hit someone's car do the right thing - leave a note! I guess she figured since no one was around, she had gotten away with it. I haven't seen her car since. She's probably afraid to come back. Good.
Not too much has been going on. I've been extremely busy with work, but I don't mind because it makes the time go by faster. We are eagerly anticipating our trip to Texas this summer. It will be good to see Cliff again and be able to spend some time together as a family. We were able to get a direct flight from Seoul to Dallas and from there it is a one hour flight to Killeen. The direct flight cuts out a ton of travel time, so I am very pleased about that. We got dinged on the fares though because of the rise in gas prices. The tickets were 20% higher than what we used to pay. That sucks, but we get an MWR discount, so they are still a lot less expensive than most people would pay. We couldn't reserve seats because of the discount though so I need to get to the airport early and hope there are decent seats available.
That's pretty much it for now. Take care everyone.

Purkey Update

2005-02-21T21:10:00.000-05:00

Hello All,
Time for another Korea update. I've decided to get with it and try out this blog thing. Hopefully, I didn't miss anyone when I sent out the e-mail to let everyone know where to go. If I have and if you know anyone who'd care to know what's going on with the Purkey family feel free to pass on the URL: purkeysrok.blogspot.com I'll try and get on here every so often to update and once I figure out how to post photos, I'll do that too.
There hasn't been a whole lot that has happened since the last update. Charley got neutered. I had an appointment for 7:30, so I thought it would just be a small matter of dropping him off at the appointed time and then picking him up later in the day. Not the case. Apparently, EVERYONE is told to show up at 7:30. I got there at 7:20 and was one of the last people to show up, so I had to wait until each animal ahead of us was examined by the vet and okayed for surgery. It took forever!! Of course with all the other dogs and one cat there, Charley was in a tizzy and kept whining. Boy, does that grate on your nerves after a few minutes. Then, he HAD to establish his rank in the pecking order by peeing on the door. Thanks Charley!! At least it wasn't on the reception counter. Someone obviously did not think clearly when that piece of furniture was chosen. It was covered in fabric and had definitely been peed on on more than one occasion. Needless to say, my sympathy for him evaporated after that little stunt and he was relegated to his kennel to await his turn. He had no issues that would preclude him from getting snipped so I handed him over and went to work. He was ready to be picked up that afternoon. He wouldn't eat his dog food that night and I was worried about him, so I ended up hand feeding him some leftover steak from dinner. No, he's not spoiled. Not at all!! He's completely recovered now and is his usual self again.
I love, love, love the Roomba. It works great. It does go and dock itself when it's ready to be recharged. Of course it has to be within a certain proximity for it to do that, so when I do a room other than the living room, I have to fetch it myself when it tells me it's done. I've noticed when I do our bedroom, it likes to stop under the bed for some reason. Right in the middle, of course. Charley is still alarmed by it. It's comical at times. I was standing next to Allissa talking about her homework and Charley was right beside me as usual. The Roomba came towards us without Charley noticing and ran into his back leg. The mutt leapt about three feet straight into the air. I've never seen a dog do that before. We couldn't help laughing at him.
Allissa is doing pretty well. She's joining the volleyball team. She's never really played before so she's worried she's not going to be any good. I told her most of the other kids are probably in the same boat and they'll get lots of practice, so not to worry about it. I just hope she hasn't inheirited my hand-eye coordination, by which I mean my LACK of hand-eye coordination. There is a reason I avoid such team sports. Sheer potential for humiliation!! Ha ha. That reminds me of when Cliff and I were in Korea the last time. He was in Kwangju and I would take the bus there on the weekend to be with him. During the summer, there was a softball game just about every weekend. I wasn't too keen on playing because I knew I would never hit or catch anything, but I suffered through the embarrassment because I wanted to spend time with Cliff. Of course I got buried in the outfield where there was little chance of a ball coming my way so I wouldn't do too much affect the team negatively. Well, wouldn't you know, one game there was a guy on the opposing team who was a pretty good hitter and kept hitting towards me because he knew I couldn't catch anything. Hmmph. I decided if it came my way again I would catch that darn ball or get beaned on the head and die trying. Wouldn't you know the very next hit sailed straight toward me high in the air. It was beautiful!! I kept my eye on the ball and tuned everything else out except the sight of it dropping toward me. I just willed myself to catch it. And sure enough, I did! I couldn't believe it and immediately starting jumping up and down yelling triumphantly "I caught it! I caught it!". Meanwhile, my team mates are yelling, "Throw it! Throw it!". Apparently, the guy who hit the ball was out, but there was someone who had been on base and was steadily making his way home. Ooops. I guess I thought the play ended once the ball was caught. Hey, I'm not a sports fanatic. I don't know these things. I can't remember if he made it or not. He probably did and everybody probably was miffed at me for giving up a run, but I didn't care. It sure felt good to catch that ball. It's funny sometimes, the things we remember, huh?
Allissa got to experience her first semi-formal dance this past Friday. It was a dinner dance and was held at the ballroom at the Dragon. She was very excited about it and went to get her hair and nails done and everything. She looked so beautiful. I can't believe how grown up she is now. It seems to have happened overnight. Here's a link to some of the photos I took. http://www.shutterfly.com/view/picture_dt.jsp?state=67b0de21bb4ac74da4ef&idx=4 She didn't like posing and wanted to get to the dance, so they're not the greatest. I think she's almost grimacing in a couple. Oh well. Hopefully, the one she took at the dance will turn out nicely. It should be ready in a week or so, so I'll be able to scan it and post it. She reported that she had a good time and just dance with her girlfriends - no boys.
We went to our friend Hak Sun's home this past Saturday. We had such a nice time. Her mother and sister had to work, so we didn't get to meet them, but her father was very nice. The meal he prepared for us was absolutely delicious. I hope I can find a restaurant where it's served, so I can have it again soon. We were so full when we left because he kept ladling more soup into our bowls. I think in Korea you're supposed to just stop eating when you're full. Being American, every time he gave us more, we felt obliged to continue eating so we wouldn't be rude. I think he finally realized that and asked through Hak Sun if we were full. Either that or he thought we were greedy and he was running out of food. Ha Ha. He very kindly insisted on driving us home although I told him we were fine with taking the subway. I felt sort of bad about inconveniencing him and the traffic was terrible. We got a little turned around, but made it there without too much trouble. All in all, it was a nice day.
That's about it for now. I hope everyone is well.