Whatever that is. I know its been too long since I last posted. Now that Jenn from I got two shoes is back, I guess I don’t want to be the only one on Nomad’s blogroll who hasn’t done a recent update. So here it is:

I’m feeling fine. The head’s all healed and the scar (shaped like the Korean peninsula, cool huh?) is hardly noticeable. I lost 3 more pool games last night, but at least I’m not losing ugly. My teammates think I’m the unluckiest player in Itaewon, which goes quite nicely with my last in the league ranking. Actually, I’m playing much better but part of my bad luck is getting pitted against some damn good players. Oh well, I have a good attitude about it all and I am kinda sorta having fun at it, at least more so than last season. I really like my international group of teammates. We have an Australian, a Scotsman, a Canadian, an Indian, an Austrian, a Texan, and me. I might have mentioned that before though, huh? God help me if I start repeating myself in my infrequent writings.

Monday night I won two out of three dart games (Cricket doubles). I had a good partner, but I pulled my weight (which if you saw my belly you would know that’s quite a feat in iteslf). I’m thinking about going to the Blue Frog Saturday and playing in a tourney. Those are “A” players, but I need practice throwing under pressure. I seem to play better when I’m playing for fun, so I want to get used to keeping my game on in competition. We’ll see.

Lot’s going on at work too. I am supposed to be representing the Army in an arbitration next month over the union’s claim to standby pay entitlement during the curfew. Any of you DAC’s out there expecting a big payout are dreaming, so don’t go spending that money. This week the union says it filed a class action lawsuit seeking pay in th U.S. Court of Claims in DC. Which is not a surprise (if true) but by my reckoning they have even less of a chance in court because the law is pretty well settled on the conditions that must be present to get standby duty pay. The curfew just wasn’t that restrictive to warrant additional pay. The union wants to delay the arbitration pending the outcome of the lawsuit, but we have objected to that ploy. Still waiting for word from the arbitrator on how he sees it. That’s about all I’m comfortable saying at this point, but I do enjoy doing battle on issues like this.

In other work news, we have two people leaving my office. Arcelia, my fellow supervisor is heading back to the States in a couple of weeks. Her time was up and she declined an extension for family reasons. I’m really going to miss her. She’s good people and has a great sense of humor. She has also been a big help in educating me to the culture that is uniquely DoD. Mr. Kim, Nam U who has been with us for almost forever had to retire for medical reasons. A big loss too, it will be hard to find someone with his skills. Thank God my Mr. Kim is doing well, because if he left I would be screwed big time. You don’t replace 50 years of experience. No sense worrying about it I suppose. I just really struggle with the transient nature of relationships here in Korea. It seems like the cheese is always on the move (obscure reference to one of those trendy books from a few years ago).

What else? I’ve been enjoying watching the Dick Cheney feeding frenzy from a distance. I just can’t believe what a big deal the media is making over the shooting incident. Meanwhile they are ignoring much more important issues like Al Gore’s treason in Saudi Arabia this week. Well, that’s about all you can expect from a warped left wing America-hating bunch of journalists I guess. Even my wife who never agrees with me about anything thinks Cheney is getting hosed, and she pretty much hates Cheney. If it weren’t so sad, watching the Democrats self-destruct would be pretty funny. Being blind and ignorant is one thing, but being blind to your ignorance is fatal. I’m not real keen on a lot of what the Republicans are doing either, but I’m all for killing terrorists wherever we can find them. So until the Dems come up with some kinda plan regarding national security beyond “let’s be nice and not offend anybody” I don’t have much choice in the voting booth.

Ah well, things are going pretty well overall in my view. Even Canada is coming around.

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