Articles by mgedwards

Tsunamis

On Sunday a massive 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia caused tsunamis that surged across the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal, killing thousands in 10 countries from Indonesia to Somalia.  As of this writing almost 24,000 people have perished from the impact of the various tsunamis.  Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and India were particularly hard hit by them.  Large portions of the Maldives were briefly submerged.  What a tragedy.  This is one of the biggest quakes in recorded history and one of the most destructive.  I have colleagues working in Chennai, but I don’t know yet whether they are OK.  Few foreigners have been reported missing or killed–I really hope they’re safe.  Disasters of this magnitude are so tragic.  Earthquakes are among the most destructive natural disasters.  I can only imagine what it must have been like to see a huge wall of water coming toward you.  I pray for the families of the victims and for those who must deal with the aftermath.

If you’re ever abroad and need to check on travel conditions, call the State Department’s hotline at (888) 407-4747 or check their Crisis Awareness and Preparedness Web page.  No one can prepare for a disaster like this, but it’s best to prepare as much as possible.  I plan to check into aid and assistance options and help as much as I can from here.

Our Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas.  We were very busy, and the time passed by too quickly, as you  can probably tell from the delay in blog postings.  My cousin Wade came for a visit, so I didn’t have much time to spend on the computer.  He’s a saint for helping me rebuilding my computer.  I upgraded the hard drive, RAM, and the power supply, so it now performs as it should have all along.  It turns out that the culprit was the power supply.  When I last updated about 3 years ago I did not change the power supply.  I upgraded from a 550MB Duron microprocessor to a 2.4GHz P4 chip, but I didn’t change out the power supply.  It never did run right.  Now it does, thanks to cuz’.

While Wade was here we visited the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Center located next to Dulles International Airport.  It’s an extension of the Air & Space Museum located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.  We also went down to the National Mall and visited the Museum of American History, the National Archives, and the Air & Space Museum.  I had never visited the first two museums, so it was a treat for me to see them for the first time (I never tour the Mall anymore).  We also did a “Lord of the Rings” marathon, watching most of the extended versions of all three LOTR movies.  It’s absolutely mind numbing after about 8 hours.  If you sit and watch all three movies, it will take you about 12 hours to do it.  Definitely not for the faint of heart.  I thoroughly enjoyed it though because I consider the trilogy three of the finest movies ever produced.  They are masterpieces.

On Christmas Eve we searched frantically for dinner.  We arrived home too late to cook and decided to order take-out food.  I contacted at least 5 restaurants until I found a Thai restaurant open.  Lesson learned–don’t try to go out to eat after 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve!  The selection is grim.  We spent Christmas day with Wade’s Aunt Joann, whom I’ve also adopted as my aunt.  She prepared a delicious Christmas dinner and decorated her home for the holidays, putting us all in a festive mood.  Our son was the hit of the party though as we spent much of the time following him around, making sure that he didn’t break anything or fall down the stairs.  We usually spend Christmas with my parents, but because our short time in the Washington, D.C. area we weren’t able to make it home for the holidays.  We have no Christmas or decorations at home other than a single stocking that holds the Christmas cards we receive.  Not too festive, methinks.  Still, it’s nice to have a chance to take a break from the rigamarole of Korean class and briefly enjoy the holidays.

Time to get a TiVo?

I took a break from Christmas card writing and studying Korean to do a little channel surfing on cable TV.  I do that sometimes when I take a study break.  My wife thinks I’m great at finding interesting things to watch on the “stupid box.”  (“Stupid box” is the North Korean word for television; it is such a fitting word!)  There wasn’t much on at 1 p.m. on a weekday before Christmas.  I surfed until I came upon the classic movie “Tremors,” the Kevin Bacon featuring oversized worms that eat anything that moves (literally).  It’s probably the umpteenth time it’s been broadcast on cable.  I think the cable movie stations have it on permanent rotation.  It’s one of those movies cable features over and over.  Other films that are cable standards include Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s “Kindergarden Cop” and “Predator”, “National Lampoon’s Vacation” featuring Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo and “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” starring Steve Martin and John Candy.  Although I don’t watch TV that often, I’ve probably seen parts of “Vacation” dozens of times.  I always seem to stumble upon “Tremors” and “Vacation” halfway through the movie.  Whenever I turn on the TV and find  Kevin Bacon, Reba McIntyre, and Michael Gross talking in cheesy southwestern accents perched atop buildings or vehicles and fighting off grotesque earthworms with tentacle tongues.  I almost always stumble upon “Vacation” when the Griswold family is driving through Kansas en route to the Grand Canyon.  I usually turn it off after they drop dear old Aunt Edna off at their cousin’s home in Arizona.  Although I’ve seen these movies’ endings dozens of times, I rarely have a chance to catch the beginning.  Take the movie “The Ring” for example.  HBO aired the show ad nauseum a couple months ago, and I always found it on TV mid-way through the movie.  I’ve seen the ending about 4 times, but I’ve never seen the beginning.  I even thought about renting it so I could see the beginning of this intriguing flick, but why would I when I’ve seen the ending so many times?  I’ll wait until it cable airs it again, and maybe I’ll go see the next installment of “The Ring” due out next spring.  Maybe it’s time to get a TiVo and a TV guide so I can pre-record these shows and watch them in their entirety.  Until then I guess I’ll have to be content with watching half reruns.