CAVEAT DVMPTRVCK

Caveat: Return to Ragged Point

Some who know me really well know that Ragged Point, California holds a special place in my personal biography / cosmology.  It was the place where, in November, 1998, I reached my lowest point.  And where I then took a decision to take an ethical responsibility for my own life and my own being, once and for all.  A sort of atheist epiphany, where I realized I truly was alone in the universe, but that wasn't as bad as it seemed like.  "Born-again atheist"?  Sounds funny.

It's where I got the name "raggedsign" from, that you see applied to my online identity here and there.  The sign at Ragged Point... like Saul, on the road to Damascus, but all there was to be seen was his own soul laid bare.

It's not always been smooth road, since then.  I've not always done perfectly with the goal I set for myself that night.  The first months and years after were exceptionally difficult, and Michelle's suicide in 2000 was another low that felt like an inversion, in so many ways, of Ragged Point.

Anyway, part of my traveling, in general, is about seeing new places.   But part is about revisiting, paying a sort of homage to, old places.  Important places.  Re-integrating all the disparate places that patchwork together to form the narrative of my selfhood.

This trip back from Korea, all this driving around, as been especially like that.  It's almost only that.

So today, I'm returning to Ragged Point.   It's up the road a ways from San Simeon, on the central California coast.  I'll probably sit and gaze at the ocean for a long time.

Later, I'm having lunch with Wendy, my stepmother (well, ex-stepmother, technically, but still a very important person in my life and one of my most important role-models, growing up).  She lives in San Luis Obispo, currently.

Overnight, up to tomorrow, I'm driving to Roseburg, Oregon.  My aunt Freda passed away while I was in Alaska, and I've decided to go to her memorial service, there.  It will give me a chance to see relatives I haven't seen much of.  And I'll be re-integrating the length of California, along the way.

Caveat: Good idea, bad implementation

I spent some time today with my brother Andrew.  We went on a hike in the canyon behind JPL in Pasadena, seeing a lot of fire damage on the hills from the apocalyptic fires earlier this fall.

We drove over to the west side, to get my stuff I'd been storing at Wendy's in Culver City.  Driving around LA is so... unpleasant.  And it was smoggy.  But once on the west side, I took joy in seeing the cultural mix that the city represents:  I could find bilingual signs for churches, dry cleaners, and auto dealers... Spanish and Korean.  No English included. 

I love the cultural mix of LA.  But the city itself... just seems so stunningly badly laid out.  So difficult to exist in on a day-to-day basis.  I was talking with Andrew about it, as we sat parked in traffic on the 110 near downtown, and we decided it could be a new motto for the city:  

      Los Angeles -- good idea, bad implementation.

Caveat: limbo

I feel like I've made a definite decision to return to Korea.   And all of this traveling around I've been doing was obviously part of my own way of finding the gumption to make that decision.  It was a way to meditate on what I wanted next from life. 

But now I've got at least 2 months before I go back.  And so I feel like I'm in a limbo.  That "waiting" state that is hard for me.  I have lots of things to keep me busy:  people to visit, bureaucratic miscellany to sort out, etc.  But in the end, I want to just "get on with it."

I'm still not always very good at BEING in the present moment.  As much as I try to live up to that ideal.

Caveat: old demons

I really like Southeast Alaska.  It's a beautiful and compelling place.  But in one way, it was hard for me to be there.  That's because the first time I went there, in 98, I was at a very low place in my own life.  Michelle and I had separated, and we would exchange bitter emails and hateful telephone conversations intermixed with commitments to try again and reiterations of love.

It was the only time in my life that I tried "writing" full time.  That didn't go well, either.  I sat at my little laptop and produced quite a bit.  But I wasn't happy with it.  Or not happy with myself.  In the end, I deleted over 200 pages of dense writing.  And then I regretted it.

I always felt a weird kind of claustrophobia in Craig, too.  That's not the right word.  The problem is that in small, isolated communities like that, there's no space to be a "stranger."   Everyone needs to know who you are, and what you're doing.  They may leave you alone, but the just the need to explain myself to everyone I met was awkward.  

So... did I enjoy seeing Arthur?  Definitely.  Will I be moving to Southeast Alaska?  Probably not.

More later.

Caveat: redemption through a heroic deed

Sometimes my dreams have titles.  (Sometimes they have commercial breaks, too, but that's not what I'm going to discuss here.  Obviously, I've watched too much television in my life.)  A dream's title will come to me in the form of a voice-over, or, more rarely, an "on-screen," written title.

This morning's dream had the on-screen title of "redentus heroica."  Seriously.  I think it's Latin.  Why Latin?  Latin was the first language I studied intensively (in 9th and 10th grades -- it's a complicated story, as I didn't take Latin in high school, where it wasn't offered, but rather up the hill at Humboldt State -- hence it constituted my first college-level work). 

It may not be good Latin.  I tried to google it, and came up zero.  But, assuming a macron on the last "a" in heroica (making it ablative case) and the ellision of a feminine noun meaning something like action or deed (which is a common syntactical phenomenon in Latin), you could get the meaning "redemption through [or by means of] a heroic deed."  Which seems like the sort of thing you should say in Latin, eh?

The rest of the dream?  Kind of foggy, but I was walking around Ketchikan (logical), and trying to find my car (not logical).  I didn't even know which car I'd lost.  It was raining (logical) and the town was crowded with Koreans (not logical).  There were a lot of airplanes flying around (logical).

And I woke up -- to a lot of airplanes flying around outside my hotel.  Ketchikan has a lot of airplanes and boats, which makes sense for a town unconnected to the rest of the world by any kind of highway.  Here's a picture of an office where the guy who works there needs at least two parking spaces:  one for the boat, and one for the airplane.

Caveat: Revillagigedo

The name of the island where Ketchikan is located is Revillagigedo.  There are actually a lot of Spanish names attached to geographic features in Southeast Alaska -- something to do with Spanish explorers making the navigation maps later used by Russian and English and American colonists.

It's a cool name, though the locals mutilate the correct Spanish pronuniciation -- but who am I to criticize the mutilation of correct pronunciation? 

Here are some pictures I took in Ketchikan, over the weekend. 

["back-post":  composed 2009-11-01, posted 2009-11-02]

Driving down to the south coast of the island:

The end of the road, at about mile 15.  This is about as far from downtown Ketchikan as you can get, using a car:

 

A great view of downtown Ketchikan from the north end of town (where the "mall" is) (note the disconcerting presence of strange bluish coloration in sky due to absence of normal cloud cover):

Looking straight out from the seawall at my hotel:

 

Similar view, after the clouds shifted, revealing an unfamiliar but naturally-occurring thermonuclear phenomenon suspended 95 million miles in space above the planet:

 

Wow, nice.  It lasted almost an hour.  Then it rained again:

 

Tug boats, congregating:

 

Along the main drag, Tongass Ave:

 

The way in and out -- the Alaska Marina Highway ferry Columbia docked:

The strange case where the northbound traffic uses a tunnel, and the southbound traffic goes around the hill -- but they're not even a block apart:

 

A Ketchikan streetscape

 

The pale pink skyscraper of downtown Ketchikan, AK:

 

The town's famous "Creek Street":

 

A fishing boat, heading out southward:

Caveat: Returning to the big world

I left the small world of Arthur's land at Port St Nicholas, Alaska, this morning.  It's very beautiful, there, but I'm not sure I could ever live there.  Seems like I'm a city person.

Caveat: Right action, wrong reason

["back-post":  written 2009-10-30, posted 2009-11-02]

Begin weird dream.

I'm sitting around in a place... an unfamiliar institutional setting of some kind.

We're in Korea, but no one there is Korean.  One of those dream-facts that are simply "known," that we're in Korea.

We're discussing veganism.  I'm pontificating:  veganism is a good idea, but it's like right actions for the wrong reasons... it's just like so many other health-related fads and panics.

Think about religion, in the same way:  right actions for wrong reasons.

Well, the others are agreeing or disagreeing, but politely.  Polite discourse.

Some really old-looking man comes in, with a poofy white beard and wild hair, but neatly dressed.  looks a little bit like Victor Maclane (remember him?).  I wonder, is the place we're sitting around actually the Casa, in Mexico City?

He comes in, bows politely, and indicates that he needs access to an electrical outlet behind someone's chair.  We rearrange ourselves and let him set up his device.  The device looks like something related to cookery.  But he simply turns it on and then leaves the room, a-puttering.

And suddenly this heavy, repetitive baseline begins, and a melody in low-tones begins to rattle over and over. It sounds as if it's being played on only the bottom octave of the piano:  dun-da-duh-dun-da-duh-dun-da-duh-dunn-dunn.  But a catchy little hook melody, all the same.  Well, something like that.  Really, it's like a club or rave dj track.

The noise is coming out of the device the old man plugged in.  The old man is standing in the doorway, looking back at our alarmed expressions, grinning mischieviously.

What's with that?

End weird dream.

Caveat: the view from right here

Here's what you can see if you stand at the shoreline of Arthur's property, looking west down the Saint Nicholas Fiord toward Craig (sort of off to the left).  That's Sunnyhay Mountain with some fresh snow sticking up in the clouds.

Caveat: dodging potholes just for fun

I went on a drive today, just to go exploring.  During all my time here, back in 98, I didn't do much exploring beyond Craig and Klawock (which are the island's "twin city" metropolis, with something around 2000 inhabitants, combined).

So  I drove up to Coffman Cove, which is where the ferries from Petersburg and Wrangell stop, then I went down a 40 mile dirt road along the east coast of the island to Thorne Bay, thence back to Klawock.  A big circle.

Driving on these old forest service logging roads is all about dodging potholes.  I made a video of the drive along the Port Saint Nicholas Road from Arthur's place into Craig.  It's 8 miles, but takes 25 minutes, dodging potholes all the way.  I'll post it, when I get some bandwidth.

Today, about halfway between Coffman Cove and Thorne Bay, I saw a downed tree across the road [see pic at right].  Someone had used to a chainsaw to carve a path exactly pickup-truck-sized through the branches and under the main trunk of the tree.  I took a picture.

OK, more later.

Caveat: World's Largest Free-Range Lunatic Asylum

"World's largest free-range lunatic asylum" was the phrase used by one of Arthur's neighbors out here on Port Saint Nicholas Road to describe Southeast Alaska.  Sounds about right, maybe.

Many people who come out to such remote locations as this extoll the amazing experience of a night sky littered with thousands of stars with absolutely no interference from the lights of civilization.  But personally, I find the experience of stepping outside in the middle of the night to be much more amazing when the sky is heavily overcast:  it's a thick, deep blackness that is unparalleled.  Nothing can be seen at all.  Zero light.  Yet the sky is above, you can smell the salt air of the fiord at your feet, the trees, the eternal drizzle.

Caveat: out of range...

My uncle Arthur's house is beyond cell-phone range, DSL (that he's "borrowing" from the neighbor via wi-fi) is spotty, and it's been down anyway because of a tree-branch-thru-wires at around mile-marker 2.5 on the round-the-bay road.  So... I've been off-line, until today, coming into town to the Craig Public Library to go on wi-fi and make this post. 

But I'm enjoying my visit, and being out in about as middle-of-nowhere as one can get, here on Prince Of Wales Island, Alaska.

More later, then... for next time I come into town.

Caveat: Rain and wind -- of course

It was actually almost clear when I arrived.  But that's pretty rare, in Southeast Alaska.  Mostly, it's about rain and gusty wind.   I think I saw somewhere that Ketchikan is the rainiest city in the US -- not sure if it's true, but it's got to be near the top of the list, anyway.

Unlike everyone's image or expectation of Alaska, much of the Southeast isn't snowy or frozen, even in winter.  When I stayed here in 98 for several months, I only actually saw snow twice, and both times is was a damp rain-to-snow-to-rain that never got around to sticking to the ground.

I walked around some last night, but there wasn't much to see.   The part of Ketchikan where my motel is has a couple of high-rise apartment buildings, which seems downright strange for a rural American city of less than 10,000 inhabitants -- it fits in better with what I would call an "Asian" model of urban development:  the idea of high density plunked down in the middle of nothing.   I don't remember those apartment buildings from before, but when I was here before, I didn't spend much time in Ketchikan.

Caveat: Ketch as Ketchikan

Catch as catch-can -- I always, always wanted to say that stupid pun.  So there.

Here's a photo taken from my hotel window.   Ketchikan is, of course, quite beautiful.

Caveat: LAX=>KTN

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.

Caveat: una patria accidental

(oda ambigua a la gran ciudad de El-ley)

La persona típica lleva varias patrias en su alma.  A mí, me pertenece un media docena, al menos.  Entre estas patrias, de alguna manera, la metrópolis de Los Ángeles podría ser la patria más patria de todas, porque aquí nació mi padre y también su padre, mi abuelo:  así, patria de padres.

Yo, nacido de otro lado, entre niebla y lluvias y una infinidad de coníferos, nunca sentía ningún amor por la gran ciudad de mis abuelos; ciudad de asfalto y desierto y carreteras y palmeras y grandes shopping malls tras otras shopping malls.  Pués, por lo menos, no cuando de niño.  Sin embargo, era siempre un lugar fascinante, desafiante, y de sueños.  Podría contemplar el smog con una claridad insólita.

Años después, mi papá volvió al Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Ángeles de Poríncula.  Yo también he logrado acumular una quinta parte de una vida humana vivida acá.  Ahora amo a Los Ángeles, tal vez porque la odio también, y vice versa.

Me encanta encontrarme en un Starbucks cualquiera, y darme cuenta de que la joven a mi derecha está quejandose de algo trivial con su madre en el cellphone, en coreano, mientras la mujer profesional al otro lado está explicando algún procedimiento médico, en ruso, mientras veo en frente, por la ventana, un anuncio al otro lado de la calle en la escritura impenetrable (para mí) del idioma armenio.  Y todo es normal.

Me encanta manejar por tres horas en carretera, arriba del 65 millas por hora, y no haber podido salir de la megalópolis.

Me encanta la silueta de unas palmeras sobre las montañas.

Padezco un amor ambíguo, porque también la odio.  Odio el calor de casi todos los días, y lo aburrido que es el clima.  Odio la carencia de transporte público adecuado.  Odio su solipsismo cultural.

Es patria, pero no es patria querida.  Es patria ambívala, media querida, de índole casi aleatoria o accidental.

Caveat: Jared goes to Hollywood

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.

Caveat: A ghost abroad in Burbank

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.

Caveat: America is full of weirdos

OK.  I'll be the first to admit that maybe North Hollywood isn't the most representative population sample.

I had my third major experience of "reverse culture shock" today.  The first was in the grocery store on my first visit.  The second was at that social gathering with my friend Bob's friends.  And now... just wandering around.

I took my truck in to the dealer for its 100,000 mile service  (the actual dealer where I originally bought it, which they thought was weird because it's got Minnesota plates and all that).  But they took a long time to do it, and so I killed some time by walking around my old stomping grounds in Toluca Lake and Noho (North Hollywood).  Boy, there sure are a lot of weirdos.  I suppose there might be a lot of weirdos in Korea, too, but I don't notice them because I'm not as tuned into the cultural norms they might be breaking.   Perhaps because, ultimately, in Korea, I'm the weirdo.

Caveat: Leap and the net will appear

How is it that I came to quit my job as a database programmer and become a teacher in Korea?

I came across a little refrigerator magnet that said "Leap and the net will appear."  At the moment, I can't remember if I found it or if it was given to me by someone, to be honest.  But I had it stuck to my refrigerator for some time, and I guess at some point, I leapt.

Caveat: circles

Life goes in circles, sometimes.  Or spirals.  But you find yourself back where you once were, before, and you wonder if you've gone anywhere, or done anything.

Thus it is for me, sitting in this corner of my father's living room.  11 years ago was nearly the lowest point in my life, and I'm very greatful to my father for the help he gave to me at that time, but there is also some psychological difficulty attached to sitting in this same corner, gazing out a my father's (too) cluttered living room, and recalling that time.

I'm feeling anxious about the "quality time" I need to go spend with my accountant, today.   The long procrastination on the tax issue is finally coming to an end.

And meanwhile, to pass some time, I've been surfing blogs on the topic of Korea, and finding all kinds of reasons why I don't want to go back there, after very nearly convincing myself that that's what I really wanted to do.  I'm vacillating.  Or oscillating (like one of those murderous Korean household fans).  Sigh.

Caveat: I will cross a desert

I'm off to the land of LA.

Caveat: the uncle Jared tour

I have been fulfilling my lifelong dream to be an eccentric uncle.

Nephew James, playing hangman:

My niece Sarah, ready for Halloween:

My nephew Jameson, looking up:

My nephew Dylan, looking down:

Caveat: Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.

We saw some buffalo while driving across northeastern New Mexico yesterday.  And some mountains and stuff like that.  Here's a video of the buffalo.   (Note that the title for this blog is a grammatically correct sentence in English, although the buffalo we saw weren't, in fact, "buffalo buffalo," but rather "new mexico buffalo").

Caveat: First Snow

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...

Caveat: Monster Trucks

My honorary nephew Henry discourses on monster trucks.

Caveat: Long-promised

I've been saying I would post a video from Ulleungdo for a while, and I finally have.   It's not as carefully edited as the ones I made before, but it's a glimpse of what I saw when I was there.

Caveat: Erie, Colorado

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.

Caveat: 100000 mile milestone

My little pickup truck turned over 100,000 miles yesterday.   I can imagine what everyone is thinking: Jared drives so much, how can he have a truck that's over 9 years old and only now be turning over 100,000 miles? 

I think the reason is that although I have taken many road trips in this truck (I've done the Minnesota/Phoenix/LA/Portland circle at least 6 times by my count, plus several loops out to the east coast too), I have only rarely used it for substantial commuting.  I always tried to arrange my life so that my commutes were short or even walkable, so except for that rather unpleasant almost-a-year when I was driving almost every day from Long Beach to Newport Beach, I've never had a commute over about 10 minutes.  And of course, for the last two years, it's been in storage, putting on exactly zero miles.

So, anyway, I set out from Bob and Sarah's yesterday morning, and per my usual randomness, I decided to avoid interstates for a few hours.  I traversed northwest Illinois without even getting onto a 4-lane highway:  I drove to the west of Rockford, around Freeport and Sterling, through many small towns and past the endless umber expanses of ripe corn and soybeans. 

I crossed the Mississippi at Clinton, Iowa, and follwed the river on the west side down to Bettendorf.  It was along this stretch that I happened to notice my odometer was at 99999. I looked up and saw a sign with an arrow:  "Picnic Area, 1 mi."  So I drove to the picnic area (not, in itself, anything worth blogging about), watched the odometer turn over to 100,000, and then took a picture of my pickup truck for its "milestone" moment.  

I crossed Iowa on the interstate.  I went through some pretty major rain around sunset at Omaha, and I stopped at a motel near Lincoln, Nebraska.  And here I am.  I'll post pictures when I get a better internet connection.

Caveat: It's morning so I decided to wake up

I'm going to drive to Denver to see my sister Brenda (and my father is meeting me there).   I could make it in one very long day of driving (it's about 16-18 hours from southeastern Wisconsin), but I'm intending to divide it into two days.  So tonight I'll be somewhere in eastern Nebraska, I would guess.

I had one last bowl of borsht last night, it was so delicious.  And then I had some "apple brown betty" (apple cobblerish) that Sarah made, for breakfast.  Also very delicious. 

Henry's first words to me this morning:  "It's morning so I decided to wake up."

OK, bye.

Caveat: Corn mazes and other midwesterniana

Today I went to a "corn maze" with my friend Bob and my honorary nephew, his son Henry.  These are quite the midwestern phenomenon, they're pretty fun.  Here's a website showing the actual maze we went into.  Because Henry is only around 2 years old, we ended up converting a dead end on the star-shaped trail in the upper left quadrant of the maze shown in that picture (roughly west of the Ecuador, which makes sense if you see the maze map aerial photo) into a pull-ups changing station. 

I drank some hot apple cider and Henry had more fun in the parking lot inventorying the various vehicles, including some tractors and an ambulance, than he did in the maze.   

At the risk of seeming like an indulgent "uncle," here are some pictures of Henry.  The first was a picture of him at the corn maze, looking through a cut out of a car.  I did it with my cell phone because I forgot to take my camera to the corn maze.

The next pictures show him hamming around the house.

.

 

.

This is a picture of him this evening at a gathering at some friends of Bob and Sarah's, wearing interesting "shades."  Cute kid.

Caveat: Beets

One reason I love visiting with my friend Bob is that he inspires me and motivates me to cook things that I love to eat.  When we were roommates, many years ago, we used to concoct all kinds of things together, and he always seemed to bring out my creativity in the kitchen.  Certainly it's true that cooking with (and for) others is much more fun than cooking by myself, which is why I almost never cooked anything elaborate in Korea.

So, Bob motivated me to make something I often crave:  borsht.  

 

Caveat: Peshtigo, WI

I drove through Peshtigo, Wisconsin on my way back down from the UP (you-pee = Michigan's Upper Peninsula, one of my favorite places on planet earth).  I saw not one, but two, signs in Korean in this tiny town.  Of course, knowing what they said made them less interesting:  one said 시온교회 (Zion Church) and the other said (태관도 Taekwondo -- of course).  Still, it was weird seeing these signs in a tiny town (population <1000).

Here are some pictures from the UP.

Odometer:  Start 99408 End 99833 = 425 miles.

Caveat: It sure ain't Tokyo

But it's beautiful.  I drove to Duluth, just for the hell of it.  Because I love Duluth.  I'm not sure I could live here... though I often fantasize about it.   It was very windy, and there were waves on Lake Superior. 

 

 

 

 
Then I got really crazy and drove to Houghton.  Michigan.  I got here after dark, but I'll look around tomorrow before recrossing Wisconsin, north to south, and visit my friend Bob and his family.  

Notable music from soundtrack:  Röyksopp, Jesus Jones, Cat Stevens, Dylan (of course)

Odometer:  Start 99107 End 99408 = 301 miles

Caveat: Dinkytown

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 for the obscure sorts of things I tend to like to browse. 

Caveat: That didn't last long

I went into a grocery store, and it was strange how the "reverse culture shock" of my return to the US suddenly caught up with me.  I really hadn't been experiencing much difficulty with adjusting to being back, but somehow being in the store left me feeling lost.  And even more strangely, amid a giant warehouse-style grocery store, I managed to find some locally made kimchi in about 2 minutes, but couldn't find several things that should be easy.

I managed not to have kimchi for about a week.  I guess I was craving some.  Weird how it grows on a person.  I used not to like it.

Caveat: 개구리도 움츠려야 뛴다

개구리도 움츠려야 뛴다 => frog-also crouch-["only when"] jump-[UNMARKED PRES.] => "A frog has to crouch first to jump."  A Korean proverb that I found inscribed on a tourist-souvenir tshirt that I bought before leaving Korea.

I ran errands today.  It was blustery with cobalt clouds scudding across the sky.  Intermittent splutters of rain, 12 C.  Weather like this could convince me I'd rather stay in Minnesota than return to Korea or elsewhere -- I love Minnesota's weather so much.  People think that's crazy, but it's really, truly true.

I had dinner with my stepson Jeffrey, who's moving from St Cloud to Twin Cities because of a promotion with his work.  I enjoyed my time with him -- he's turned out a strong, decent sort of human being, and I'm glad.

Caveat: I lost my truck in the Han River

OK, not really -- it was a dream.

It didn't take me long to start dreaming "driving" dreams again.  And I haven't even done much driving, yet.  The dream started kind of vaguely, with my driving my Nissan pickup around Japan and Korea.  Which makes sense, of course, given I recently was traveling there and only now returned to Minnesota to be driving my pickup, running errands.  But then the dream became very vivid.

I drove it onto a ferry boat.   Despite the fact that I never got near the automobile deck on any of the ferries I rode, the ferry auto-deck was rendered in great detail, with appropriate Korean-language warning signs (who knows if they were correct), appropriate makes of vehicle (Hyudais and Kias and Samsung-Renaults and Ssangyong SUVs, etc), and appropriate men standing around smoking.  My dream-truck was rendered in great detail, too, with its post-two-year-storage coating of dust on the hood and dented front license plate (actually, that wasn't quite accurate, as my actual front license plate doesn't look so dented, as far as I can tell looking out the window at it, just now).

The truck was parked at one end of the auto-deck on the ferry, right up against one of the fold-down ramps for unloading the cars when the ferry docks.   I fixated on one of the fat, smooth steel rods or "bolts" that are used to hook the ramp up by passing through a padlock hasp sort of arrangement in order to hold it in place, and the fat cotter pin through the end of it.

Looking out through the crack between the ramp and the steel wall of the ferry, I saw the Seoul skyline gliding past.  All of which is implausible -- there are no vehicle ferries on the Han River through Seoul, and it's unlikely I'd be driving my truck in Korea, right?   But such are dreams.

Then the cotter-pin I'd fixated on popped out, the metal rod popped out of its hasp, and the ramp fell open.  The boat was rocking violently, although I saw no waves.   And so my truck slipped off the deck and into the muddy river water, almost soundlessly.  The men smoking cigarettes hardly noticed.  I felt very little alarm, either.   And that was the dream.

Interesting symbolism.   At right, the truck in question.  No picture of the ferry auto-deck, however -- I didn't have my cellphone camera in dreamland.   But below is the Han River, as seen from the "63" building in June.

Caveat: Sleepless in St Paul

I woke up at 4:30 this morning, and was completely wide-awake.  Jet-lag, and all that. 

So, I got on my computer and finally got around to trying to build a "cafe" (which is what Koreans call user-generated web-forum-blog-type-thingies:  "카페") on naver.com.  It's a bit challenging for me, since the interface for signing up and doing the configuration and settings is only in Korean.  But after looking up lots of Korean words on the various links and buttons and instructions, I succeeded!  I have decided that I'm really bad at keeping my own ASP.NET-based website updated, and my students are very comfortable with the Korean internet's cafe concept, that the best way to set up something internet-based for interacting with students and staying in touch would be to make my own cafe. 

So, here it is.  I even posted something there.   I've redirected "jaredway.com" to that location, now, too.  We'll see if it works out for keeping in touch with my former students (and, presumeably, over time, future ones as well?).

Warning -- there's a lot of Korean on the site.  Not because I put it there, but because the "frame" is part of the naver.com internet portal, which is one of the big 3 Korean internet portals.   Of the 3, I like naver.com best because it's the only one that works seemlessly with firefox.  The other two seem to be more Microsoft dependent.  If your computer doesn't have the Korean character set, you might see a lot of gobblygook.

Caveat: Disorientation at Dawn

I had one of those moments when I woke up in "the middle of the night" -- actually it was around dawn, I think -- where I spent a really long, mostly lucid time puzzling out where in the world I was.   That's common for many people when traveling, but I don't experience it very often.  In my brain, I was paging through the many places I've been over the last month:  my apartment in Ilsan, hotel rooms and ryokan and yeogwan in Japan and Korea, my friend Peter's apartment where I crashed, too.  Nothing was matching up to the homey familiarity of my crashing spot on Mark & Amy's living room floor.   It took a long time -- at least 5 minutes.   Finally, I put it together, where I was.

Was it all a dream?  This is where I stayed on the the nights before my departure for Korea, too.  So it's a "full circle" moment.

Beautiful Minnesota fall rain, now.   I slept late -- later than I have in ages.  I can blame timezones.  Now, off to get some things done.  I hope I can get my car running.

Caveat: Back home in Minnesota

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.

Caveat: Killing time in the Tokyo Airport

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. 

Caveat: 안녕히 계세요.

이년동안 한국 이산에서 많이 배웠고 재미있었어요!  오늘 미국에 여행하고 있어요.

Caveat: "The Subway Octopus" and other uncategorized photos

Here are some other uncategorized still photos I have uploaded from my computer.

First, here is a picture of an octopus sculpture I saw in the Busan subway.

Next, there is the Busan skyline as seen from the top of Jangsan (which is situated north of Haeundae beach in the northeast part of the city).  I'm looking south by southwest, here (roughly toward Taiwan, off across the sea by a thousand kilometers or something like that).  You can click on these pictures to see bigger versions -- this one is quite high resolution.

This is a picture of "Busan Tower" that I ascended while in Busan one evening.   The view of the city, all lit up, was pretty spectacular, but I didn't get any photos.  Sorry.

Here is a picture I took of the screen in the express elevator that runs to the top of this tower.  When your express elevator is running Microsoft Windows, and Windows crashes (as is its wont to do), does the elevator then crash, too?  We were all somewhat alarmed to see the error message suddenly pop up on the screen, two thirds of the way to the top of the tower.

Here is a picture of greenery on Ulleundo that I like.

Here is a picture of red peppers drying in the morning sun on a Dodong, Ulleungdo, side street.  A very common sight everywhere in Korea, this time of year.  Such a delicious country!

Last:  I met a guy and his wife and mother-in-law who were on tour visiting Ulleungdo.  They shared some food with me and we chatted in a rewarding mix of his terrible English and my terrible Korean and his mother-in-law's monologue.   I took some pictures of the three of them, using their camera, with the view of Dodong harbor behind them (I hadn't brought my own camera on that particular hike). 

Then he took my picture in the same spot as they'd been standing.  I wrote my email down for him, because he said he would email the pictures to me.  I thought nothing of it -- but the other day, I got several pictures of myself via email.   So... here I am, standing on the rock path at the southwest corner of the Dodong harbor entrance (the camera is pointed roughly north).

Caveat: 돈키호테. 진짜?! 왜요?

I keep telling myself that if my Korean is going to improve, I need to try harder to read things.   I frequently puzzle my way through parts of newspaper headlines or articles, and I've learned a lot reading advertisements, but such forms of "found Korean" won't be available to me when I return to the US.  So I've been telling myself I should buy some actual books in Korean to try reading.  It is perhaps too ambitious, given the pathetic level of my vocabulary -- but I'm pretty good at working out the grammar as long as I have a dictionary in hand.  

In one final visit to the bookstore today, I bought what looks to be a late-elementary or middle-school level text of Korean history, that I might try.  I also found an abridged translation of Don Quijote (돈키호테 = don-ki-ho-te).  I remember when I was first trying to learn Spanish, I would sit down and try to read, in Spanish, books I had read before in English.  So what better first text to sit down with in Korean than a translation of something I know very well in Spanish?