Family

Things are gearing up

This week my workplace has been somewhat quiet because many people are still off on holiday.  This is but an illusion.  In reality, it’s quickly become apparent that the relatively quiet holiday season has ended, and a bustling new year has started.  I don’t miss much from my days when I worked for a giant aerospace company formerly headquartered in Seattle, but one aspect of the job I do miss very much is the fact that most of the company shut down for a week between Christmas and New Year’s.  During that time, workers in the factory retooled the assembly line and prepared for another year of aircraft manufacturing.  Office workers such as myself got the entire week off.  We didn’t mind at all that we were paid for time off that didn’t count against our vacation days.  I remember spending time at home doing nothing, and I absolutely enjoyed it.  Those days seem long, long ago now!
 
My new job does not offer this benefit.  We stayed open over the holidays, although we were closed the Monday after Christmas and New Year’s.   Because I transitioned between jobs, I did not take any vacation over the holidays.  Now, things are gearing up at work again.  A new job with new responsibilities.  Applying for new opportunities, such as a two week assignment in another country.  Gearing up for the new cafeteria, which officially opens for business tomorrow.  Planning future vacations and submitting vacation requests early.  Preparing to bid on my next assignment in February.  Although we had a lot of fun over the holidays, it would have been nice to have had a little more downtime.  Oh well, c’est la vie.  I can’t complain.  I love my job and wouldn’t trade it for any extra vacation.
 
From the "Things that Make You Go…Hmm" Department:  Congratulations to the University of Texas Longhorns for a stunning 41-38 victory over USC in the Rose Bowl at Pasadena, California.  Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush overshadowed UT’s Vince Young all season long, but Young put on an MVP show and gave the Longhorns their first college football national championship since 1969.  So, my question for Vince Young is…where are you going next?  Disneyland? 
 
Blog Notes:  I’m really sorry to hear about the death of the 12 miners at the Sago Mine in West Virginia.  One remains in critical condition.  Just last week, a colleague and I happened to be talking about the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.  All 29 crewmen were lost when the Edmund Fitzgerald, heavily laden with iron ore, sank in Lake Superior on the cold, wintery night of November 10, 1975.  The crewmen left behind many loved ones–wives, children, parents, and grandchildren.  Each year, people gather on the anniversary of their deaths to remember them.  Each year, they sing "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," the Gordon Lightfoot classic immortalizing the tragedy.  Like the Edmund Fitzgerald, the Sago Mine accident was a terrible tragedy.  I hope that their families will be comforted and that these men will be remembered, just as those lost aboard the Edmund Fitzgerald are still remembered even after 30 years.

Blue and green

Lately my son has really warmed up to daddy.  We had a rough spell following the APEC Summit, when I was away for almost two weeks.  He was also sick for awhile and only wanted mommy to comfort him.  "You want mommy," he would say repeatedly, referring to himself in the second person.  Dad was left out in the cold for awhile.  However, in the past couple weeks or so he has really shifted his attention to me, which makes me happy as can be.  It’s so much easier to raise a child when they want to spend time with you!  I’m making the most of my time with him.  Even mom agrees that he prefers to play with me if given a choice.  As is often the case, mom is seen as the primary caregiver, and dad is seen as the king of fun.  I’ll never be as attentive to his needs as his mom is, but I am a lot of fun.
 
One of my son’s most interesting quirks is his love of the colors blue and green.  Not blue.  Not green.  Blue AND green.  His favorite toys are Thomas the Tank Engine trains, and his favorite trains happen to be blue (Gordon) and green (Henry).  He always keeps them together as a pair.  Lately he’s added Spencer (gray) and Diesel (biege) to the tandem because they’re all about the same size.  However, Gordon and Henry are still the standards in his train collection.  He carries them together wherever he goes.  His love of these two engines has spawned a desire to pair blue and green together in all sorts of interesting combinations.  He plays with blue and green play dough.  He pairs greenish toys with bluish toys.  When we went to a toy store before Christmas, he took a liking to Little Tikes’ B.C. Builders dinosaur toy collection.  Which dinosaurs did he choose?  The blue one and the green one, of course.  When we tried to convince him to settle for one or the other, he wouldn’t stand for it.  He had to have both toys (we relented).  When we bought him some socks, one pair happened to be blue, one green.  Now, every day he mixes those two pairs of socks and runs around the house wearing one blue and one green sock.  When you ask him what his favorite color is, he responds enthusiastically, "Blue and green!"  Blue and green do have a certain soothing affect when paired together, like sky and land, land and sea, trees and lakes, rivers and mountains.  I wonder if he’ll always consider both to be his favorite colors, or if he’ll eventually choose just one.  We’ll have to wait to find out.

Longing for some P & Q

I must be getting old.  For the first time in months, I am ready for some Peace & Quiet at home.  After having indulged in many P’s and Q’s at various parties, soirees, and shindigs, I am ready for a bit of P & Q at home.  In October I lamented that life seemed a bit slow and that I felt too homebound.  Now I truly feel I’ve reached the point of having a hangover, and I’m not even drunk.  I think I’ve overdosed in holiday fun.  As you grow older, it is possible to have too much fun and stimulation.  You get burned out much easier than you did when you were in your teens and twenties.  The days when I could make merry for days on end are long gone.  I’m glad that things will slow down for us in January and February.  We need a break.
 
On Friday night my wife and I went to back-to-back events.  A good friend of mine invited us over for dinner and drinks with others who share an interest in China.  We could only stay for tea before we had to leave for a birthday party.  We started the tradition of meeting up with two other couples last November when we all went out for my birthday.  We had such a good time that we decided to go out for each of our birthdays (about every two months).  We couldn’t very well break tradition.  Thus, my wife and I joined our friends for the birthday dinner at Il Ponte, an Italian restaurant in the Millennium Seoul Hilton Hotel.  The lasagna was delicious, the best I’ve tasted in Asia.  Afterwards, we retreated to the Areno nightclub in the Hilton for drinks and dancing.  Although admission, coat check, and the dance floor were free, the drinks were outrageously expensive.  The dancing was fun, though.  I love to cut it loose on the dance floor.  As the only Caucasian in the club, I truly enjoyed making a spectacle of myself.  One of my best friends started the mayhem by jumping up on the dais and dancing above the crowd.  I soon joined him, and we took turns pole dancing.  If you can imagine, picture a couple of guys in suits swinging around a pole, our arms flapping in the air.  I’m sure the audience was amused!  Or perhaps we affirmed in their minds that Westerners can be just a little crazy.
 
We left Areno before midnight on Friday just as the younger crowd started taking over the dance floor.  Everyone else went home, but I went back to the first get together, which was still underway.  They were very understanding that we had to leave for the birthday party and happy that I could come back for awhile longer.  I stayed until 2:30 a.m. and chatted with them, sharing a couple glasses of wine.  I finally rolled into bed around 3 a.m. on Saturday morning.  On New Year’s Eve, my wife and I took went back to the Millennium Seoul Hilton with our son.  The Hilton has a monstrous Christmas tree in the lobby.  In the lower level, there’s a huge model train set.  As my son is a train fanatic, we couldn’t resist showing him the model train set (in fact, I’ll probably take him there again tomorrow).

Following our visit to the Hilton, our family went over to some friends to celebrate New Year’s Eve.  We didn’t plan to stay until midnight because it’s much too late for our son, but we did anyway.  The most comical moment was when I was playing "Star Wars II Battlefield" on my friend’s new PlayStation 2 game console.  Mind you, I never play video games, but I really got into battling snow troopers on the ice planet of Hoth.  As I began my assault on an Attat, my wife says, "Mike, look at your son!"  I said, "Hon, not now!  I’m busy fighting the Empire!"  My son had taken off all of his clothing and began streaking through our friend’s house naked!  His dad of course was so engrossed in the video game that he scarcely noticed his son amidst all the laughter.  When I finally realized what was happening, I stopped playing the game.  We swiftly redressed our son and joined in the laughter.  My, did I ever feel like a lame father.  Here I am playing video games while my son is running around naked!  Oh my.  We all stayed up for the new year, including my son, to usher in the new year.
 
Tonight we again went out, this time to join some colleagues for dinner at their home.  They made a fabulous Mexican food.  It isn’t easy to come by good Mexican food in Korea, so I was absolutely thrilled to eat tacos with Spanish rice and corn.  It was a wonderful end to the new year’s festivities.  Tomorrow I have the day off and will spend it with my son.  Although we’ll probably go out to see the model trains again, I’m looking forward to spending a quiet day at home.  It may not be as peaceful as I would like, but I will enjoy it nonetheless.