CAVEAT DVMPTRVCK

I'm flying to Ketchikan today, to visit with my uncle.

So much for the "low carbon footprint" lifestyle, eh?  Driving everywhere.  Flying everywhere.  Uh… carbon guilt.

All the years that I lived here, I never did much stuff like this:  my brother has a friend who works at a cinema in Hollywood, and they spontaneously invited me to a "special screening" there on Friday night.  It was a cinema screening of some episodes of "The Guild," a web-based video series, followed by a screening of "Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" – the title alone should give you some idea of the sheer extent of the genre-bending that was going on.  I liked both – I had actually been aware of (but had never seen) "The Guild," but "Dr Horrible" was completely new to me, though I'd have been interested in it immediately, since it's a Joss Whedon project, in part (Whedon created Firefly / Serenity, for example).

And several of the actors / directors / producers of the projects were there, too, as a "panel" to answer audience questions, afterwards.  So I got to see Whedon and several of his talented brothers and other various writers and collaborators in the two projects (which were intertwined creatively but not at all plot-wise).  

Overall, it was a fun night.

Today, I went to Mojave (a small town out in the Mojave desert about 70 miles north of L.A.) where my dad's significant other's house is, and my dad and she and I hung out for the day just chatting and such, mostly.

I spent a major portion of yesterday visiting my old haunts in Burbank, where I worked at Paradise Corporation (a pseudonym) from 1998 through the end of 2004.  As large corporations go, it's pretty much run-of-the-mill, but as a work environment that brought out the best in me and helped me to grow and learn, it was a fabulous place.  Three of the best bosses I've ever had were there, and the three of them are still working there, and I got to see each of them.  Luz (who was my first boss when I started as a temp worker in the AR department) is now in Finance, and Tom and Carol are still holding down the fort in National Accounts, which was my most accommodating home there. 

I also got to visit with my crypto-sister Joanne, as well as Gina and Judy and Marina and Oscar and Tracy and Diana.  And I had a great chat with Kevin in finance, who was my "best customer" for complex business analytics and reporting off the data warehouse.  Lastly, I saw Spot and Karen in IT, where I wasn't always completely at home, but those two as individuals were reliable and welcoming team-mates, back during my abbreviated sojourn as an "official" programmer/analyst (as opposed to my longer and somewhat more successful career as a "stealth" data warehouse hacker working for the sales and marketing people).

Anyway, this is a "shout out" and thanks to everyone I saw there:  I often think of my time there very positively, and I feel grateful for the genuine friendship they offered me, which is often hard to come by in a workplace.

I saw my first snow of the season yesterday.  That's not really such a milestone, when one is traveling around as much as I am, but it was still wonderful to see.  It didn't really stick, but there were fat flakes floating down for a few hours and there was a solid frost on my truck this morning. 

And now I'm off to Phoenix via New Mexico.  More later…

I arrived at my stepsister Brenda's house yesterday evening, here in Erie, Colorado (sort of between Denver and Boulder).  I actually met my niece and nephew, Sarah and James, ages 3 and 5, for the first time.  And this morning, I built legos with James for a while — bonding with kids it pretty easy, huh?  And then we walked to a book fair at James' school, and I realized there were a lot of books I'd love to acquire and have on hand in Korea, if I decide to go back and teach there some more.  I managed to limit myself to just a few books however. 

I'm on Brenda and Eric's computer, so I'll make this a short post.  More later — I was finally making some progress putting together an Ulleungdo video last night.  Maybe that'll get posted, but I'm off to pick up my dad at the airport, now — he's flying in from LA and we're driving back there together via Phoenix where we can visit my other sister and nephews there.  So that will give me a chance to spend some time with my dad.

I spent some time in my very old haunts around Dinkytown, the neighborhood on the northeastern edge of the University of Minnesota campus.  Some things change — there's the appalling new stadium on which the University clearly spent a vast sum of money, and new parking ramps and buildings and roads.  And the Student Book Store where I worked for 3-odd years has changed management and shrunk a bit, while the "Dinkydome" where it's located is under humongous renovation — it looks like they're going to put a giant building behind it where the parking lot and the Starbucks used to be.  The "Expresso22" (the cafe with the punk-gothy vibe that I used to escape to) is closed because of the renovations. 

But some things stay the same.  Down on 14th Street, the Expresso Royale is still going strong and has the same feel to it.   I used to study many hours there, way back into the 80's, when it was called something else and was open 24 hours a day.  I even saw some of the same dysfunctional Dinkydenizens loitering along 14th street… faces familiar from 10 and even 20 years ago.

Then I saw Minneapolis police officers on horseback.  That was weird.  What's that about?  In Dinkytown?  It's always been rather bohemian (Bob Dylan started his folk career there), but horse-mounted police was a rather excessively Manhattennish touch, I thought.

Overall, I guess  I was just reminiscing, though I stopped in the U's bookstore, as it's a good place for the obscure sorts of things I tend to like to browse. 

Minnesota is only one of many places I consider home.  But it's one that has played one of the most significant roles in my life.

Nothing long to write about.  Tired.  Airport to airport to airport to airport.  Teleportation in loud slow motion.  Dinner with great friends Mark & Amy and their sons Charlie and Martin.  Tomorrow, I need to begin sorting things out.   I will probably be spending some quality time at my storage unit, which is close by to here, and getting my truck running.

The wait for the next flight is longer than expected.  So here I sit.  I should take this time to work on one of my videos, maybe. 

I already feel exhausted, and I've only done the shortest, easiest leg of this 2 stopover airplane journey.   I guess I had some busy days the last few days, with a VERY late night having dinner and beer with my friend Curt and two former LinguaForum coworkers, Ryan and Keith, and my friend Peter who was so generous as to let me crash on his extra bed in his apartment in Ilsan the last few days.  Yes, I actually drank a few glasses of beer, which is almost unheard of for me.  I think I did it as a Korean-style "show of good faith" to my friend Curt — he's one of the few Koreans to whom I've admitted that the fact that I don't drink alcohol isn't really because I have a problem with alcohol per se, but rather because I have a problem with Korean-style drinking culture (i.e. get puking drunk with your coworkers as a way of bonding with irrational management).  Anyway, we were talking and and eating 안주 until after 3 am.  This is so typical of Korea — and that's on what was a worknight, for all of them.

Yesterday, I made a weird sort of disconsolate "pilgrimage" to the Seoul Museum of Contemporary Art.  What do I mean by that?  Well… in around April of 1991, I made a trip to this museum, and it was my absolute very first time "on my own" in Korea.   I arrived in Korea with the US Army in December of 1990, but because the Gulf War was going on, we were almost constantly on "lockdown" status, and getting leave to go off base was difficult.  As a consequence, the first time for me to be able to take a day and go exploring the country as a civilian didn't come until 4 months in.  I got a "day pass" from my commander, and rather than use it to go to another post (like Camp Casey or Yongsan), I decided to go exploring on my own.

I'd been studying Hangeul, so I was confident I could decipher any location signs on e.g. trains or buses (Korea in 1991 still didn't have a universal policy of putting Roman-alphabet transliterations on all public signage, the way that they do now — at least not out and about the provinces — so being able to competently navigate public transportation required at least a basic mastery of the sounding out the writing system).  

It was a Saturday or Sunday, I don't remember.  Around 9 am, I took a taxi from the Camp Edwards gate to Munsan train station, and took a train into Seoul Station.  Nowadays, there's a subway line that goes right in front of where Camp Edwards used to be, but back then it was a slightly decrepit suburban commuter line.  At Seoul station, I got into the Subway (I think it only had 5 or 6 lines then — now it has 15 or something like that).  I had decided based on some guidebook I'd found at the base library, that I was going to try to go to the museum.  I was feeling starved for culture.

I enjoyed navigating the subway, and I got out to Seoul Grand Park (대공원역) on the blue line by around noon.  I walked up the pathways, past the smallish theme park called Seoulland (well, small back then — it seems much larger now when I saw it yesterday), and found the museum.  When I went back yesterday, I was running too late to be able to go in, as it was closing.  Back then, I went in and spent a few hours there.  I remember I bought a tshirt that didn't fit me very well, but that I was proud of because it had Korean writing on it, which was unheard of for a GI like me to be wearing.