“got to be good looking ’cause he’s so hard to see…come together, right now, over me…”

Heh, I’ve not done a Beatles riff on my blog until now. Perhaps I should have continued to refrain from doing so, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to pun.

Of course, I am talking about the Korean monetary unit, the Won (pronouced like “Juan”). Which is in the toilet these days. Folks like Jenn of I’ve Got Two Shoes fame who get paid in Korean money have seen what amounts to a significant pay cut. Me, I get paid in U.S. greenbacks, so I’m feeling almost wealthy these days.

When I first arrived in January 2005 the exchange rate was like W1030 to the dollar. Last year it dropped as low as W960 or so. Now it is over W1300 to the dollar. I exchanged $300. Friday and got almost 400,000 Won back. That’s 25% better than just a few months ago.

Not that I spend all that much money on the economy, I do most of my shopping on post. Still, it makes my beer tab cheaper and that’s a good thing.

“Money don’t buy everything it’s true
But what it don’t buy, I can’t use
Now give me money, that’s what I want…”

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I have never previously been hospitalized. But I have visited enough US hospitals to have a pretty good idea of the experience involves.

Of course, I was not admitted to an American hospital, so I was going in pretty much blind. This is what I experienced:

I was put in a relatively small room with two other Koreans. Two beds were against the wall at the far end of the room. My bed was on the opposite wall near the entrance door. In this configuration, the foot of my bed was approximately six inches from the head of my neighbors bed.

There was a small TV mounted on wall at the “far” end of the room with the volume set on blare.

The bathroom was down the hall 50 feet or so and shared by everyone on the 7th floor.

I was apparently the only foriegner.

The room was not particularly clean. No privacy curtains or other such amenities were in existence.

I was not allowed to eat any food whatsover (interfered with “tests” and the medication I was receiving intraveneously).

I could never get a clear answer on just what was in the yellow liquid being continuosly fed into my arm.

It did eventually bring my fever under control.

I was totally unprepared for this visit and had nothing to help pass the hours and hours of sheer, mind-numbing boredom.

Both of my roommates snored louder than anyone I have ever head. In unison they nearly made the walls vibrate.

Although sleep was a sweet escape, I could only manage a couple of hours each night.

After the first night (Monday), I was ready to be discharged. Lack of sleep, lack of food, lack of mental stimulation were taking their toll. The doctor insisted I stay until Thursday.

Test results indicated I had picked up a pretty common virus that had planted itself in my spleen, which in turn had caused significant reductions in my white blood cell count. This was somewhat of a relief because there had been some talk of Malaria from the docs and I was fearing cancer.

Surprisingly, my second night in hospital turned out to be much worse than the first. As I lay there sleepless listening the snorers I was sure I was losing my mind. I felt totally trapped and helpless. It was the biggest pity party I ever had for myself.

The next morning when the nurse tried to attach a new bag of the mystery yellow fluid to my IV, I forcefully said “anio!”. And then I had her remove the IV from my arm. She was shocked and I am sure it got the staff talking about the miguk who must have lost his mind. A different nurse with slightly better English skills tried to get me to take my medicine bag a couple of hours later, but I again declined saying I was through treating the symptoms, I was in hospital to address the CAUSE of the symptoms. Which went completely over her head. The staff pretty much gave me a wide birth after that.

A doctor (not my primary physician) came by and asked if I wanted to go home and I said yes. He asked why and I explained that they could give whatever was in the yellow fluid in pill form and I could treat the symptoms in the comfort of my home. I wanted to deal with the virus/spleen thing. He said there was nothing they could do about that. So I said just release me and he seemed happy to be rid of my whining ass.

I had to wait two hours while the did the out processing paperwork. I had called Blue Cross earlier and they were getting the documentation they needed to process my claim from the hospital. Or so I thought. The phone rang in the room, and since I alone was ambulatory, I got up and answered. It was Blue Cross asking if things were going ok. I said you tell me. The rep said they had asked for my medical records and were told they had to FAX the request, which they had done 3 hours ago without response. Uh oh, I thought.

So, I am advised by a nurse that “international finance” is ready for me now, and when I arrive I ask if they got the FAX. Apparently so, but it did not matter because they did not have a working arrangement with Blue Cross and I would have to pay out of pocket.

I admit I get grouchy sometimes. Especially when I’m hungry. Or tired. And I was tired and hungry. So, I kind of let the poor guy have it. Then I regained my calm enough to get Blue Cross on the phone. They show Soonchunhwang Hospital as a preferred provider on thier website and I thought they could clear up this misundertanding. Well, it would be funny under different circumstances, but the bottom line is Blue Cross and SCH never completed a contract. Which left me where?

To everyone’s credit more calls were made, higher ups consulted, and finally an exception was made on my behalf. So, six hours after I began trying to escape I was out the door.

And there you have the tale of my first (and hopefully last)time in a Korean hospital.

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I’m not going to belabor this too much, but I got sick the day after returning from the States. Started out with just a feeling of lethargy which I attributed to jet lag. But driving home from work on Thursday I was overcome with the tell-tale chills and shivers that are the precursors of fever.

And fever it was. I was holding pretty steady at 103 through Sunday. Well, I would knock it down for a bit with ibuprofen (prescription strength) but a couple of hours later I would be cookin’ again. Needless to say I was getting much sleep, wasn’t eating, and apparently wasn’t getting better.

When the fever came back stronger than ever Monday morning I was sufficiently motivated to get off the couch and down to the local emergency room at Sookchunhwang Hospital (to which regular readers will know I became acquainted through a couple of previous incidents involving me, er, falling down). Fever is a symptom and since I couldn’t seem to defeat the symptom, I thought maybe some antibiotics to attack the root cause was the way to go.

I’ll give the ER staff credit, they took blood, x-rays, and urine but 3 hours later they had come up with no more clue than I had regarding my condition. So, they scheduled me an appointment with the Intenational Clinic at SCH later that morning. I asked for a shot of anti-biotics but the doc declined stating it might interfere with whatever tests they might perfrom at the clinic. So, I headed home W400,000 poorer and in no better condition.

After managing a couple of hours sleep, it was back to the hospital’s International clinic and my appointment with Dr. Yoo. After hearing my tale of woe and taking my temprature (still 103) he wanted to admit me for testing. I told him I live right up the hill, he could do his tests on an outpatient basis. He was pretty insistent that it would be much better for me to do this inpatient. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and finally reluctantly agreed to be admitted.

And then the nightmare began.

(to be continued)

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…than the last one. No drama or bloodshed. Just some nice darts at the Dolce tournament and enough beer to drown the stress of the previous week.

Jim and me were teamed up in the “early bird” tourney. I was throwing pretty much up to par but Jim was on fire. We beat Dave New and Dano pretty handily in two cricket legs (they had destroyed us in ‘01). That tooks us to Tom R. and Chris H. for the championship match. When Tom heard who we had played in the first round he exclaimed “you beat those guys!?”. Yep, and then we beat Tom and Chris 2-0 to take home the money. As I said, we were throwing good darts, and being disrespected like that gave us all the motivation required to stay focused on victory.

For Prime Time we did a singles tourney which was nice for a change of pace. I played against Jim in the first round, and you take him lightly at your peril (as we had proved in the first tourney). I started out strong in cricket but he caught me on the 17s and we had a classic pointing battle the rest of the way. It came down to me hitting a double bull to finally seal the win. We had a similar struggle in ‘01, Jim had worked it to a 32 out but I got the double duece before he got the chance to shoot for it.

Next up was Chris, and I took him 2-0 as well.

So, it was me and Tom R. for the championship. I opened with 7 20s and continued pointing when the situation dicatated (i.e. 3rd dart no number to close). He didn’t like it much, but I’ve seen him play that way and really, that is basic cricket strategy anyway. The ‘01 game was a classic battle. Tom was throwing 60+ consistently. I had two Ton-40s to stay close. He got a couple of tries at the out, but I closed the game first and won the singles tournament, going 6-0.

Betty from XOX and a Korean contingent came in just before the start of the “Die Hard” tourney. I was pretty drunk by now, but I entered on the chance that I might draw a partner who could carry me. Teamed up with Lonnie, and damn he tried but I was too heavy a burden. I had nothing left. Plus, we drew Betty (the number 1 player in “A” division now that Petro is gone) and a tall Korean (like 6′5″) who went by “Q”. We actually hung relatively close thanks to Lonnie, but they were too much in the end and we went down 0-2. Lonnie had chalked my match with Tom and I am sure he was wondering where those 7-marks and high tons went. Oh well.

By the way, since Alistair occasionly reads this blog I should say that he is capable of being #1, but he has got to do it at oche. He’s a teammate on Sliders, so I am definitely pulling for him.

All right, enough about darts. Time to get ready for Scott’s wedding today. He’s a great guy (notwithstanding his Canadianess) and we are all looking forward to the big event.

I’ll be back…

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Not a bad one, all things considered.

Friday night was the regular Dolce Vita darts tournament. Chris H. and I played about as bad as you can play without losing. We wound up “good” enough for a first place finish. My partner in the second tourney was a little off (to be charitable). You know, in a blind draw format I just accept who I get without complaint. Lord knows I get a solid partner as least as often as a weak one. But damn, it is one thing to get a beginner and another thing to get a beginner who won’t take advice. And I don’t mean advice on technique, I mean basic darts strategy. For example, we had an 18 out (yeah, that was my doing, sue me) and he hits a single 9. No problem. I suggest a 1 double 4 but he tells me he doesn’t like the double four and throws a 3. Well, a 6 out is an out but it is fraught with peril. I of course proceeded to hit a 3, but salvaged a win with the good fortune of hitting the 1 double 1. Not that it mattered because we then got smoked in the cricket leg for a first round exit.

Anyway, I got Alistair for the 3rd tourney (see the good/bad does even out) and we played some decent games for the win.

Between tourneys, a couple of acquaintences from work came in and sat at the bar next to me. After they left the bar girls were laughing and talking in Korean and I said what’s so funny? They said “we have never noticed you were handsome before we saw you next to those two guys.” I am sure they didn’t realize that they had paid me an insult rather than a compliment, but that’s sorta the way things are in Korea. You either laugh or get bitter. Life is too short for bitterness, right?

Several hours later I encountered the same two gentlemen in Grand Ol’ Opry. They were feeling no pain (well, I am sure they were the next morning). Discretion and the rules of Itaewon preclude me from saying anything more about their antics.

Saturday night was the bachelor party for one of my Canadian buds, Von Jackass (aka Scott). We had the back room, 3 kegs of beer, and Seung Youb on the grill. Well, SY wasn’t on the grill, the pork and chicken wings were, but you get my meaning. If inebriation is a measure of having a good time, Scott was the happiest guy on Earth that night. After one of the many toasts in his honor I told him that there are only two times in a man’s life when he doesn’t understand women. Before marriage and after marriage. I noticed a lot of head nodding, so I guess it must be true. But then I was talking to a room full of drunk men, so who knows?

Later, Grant, Alistair, Matt and me (4/5s of next season’s version of Sliders) moseyed over to Blue Frog to throw some darts. We paired up and played some doubles for money and wound up splitting two sets, which was where we chose to put the darts away for the night. Sharp pointed things and drunks are not a safe and sane combination, not that we cared.

After a lazy Sunday playing CIV IV (did I mention I got my high score? I did.) I figured I would go out and, yep, you guessed it, throw some darts. There was a wedding party for Daniel at Dolce so I just said my hellos and moved on. Bless U was having some event that seemed to involve Formula 1 racing and Nigerians, so I didn’t even climb the stairs. Manila wasn’t open yet. Which left me with 3 Alley Pub as the best remaining option.

Turned out to be a good choice because my English buddy Neil was sitting at the bar and we had a nice chat whilst waiting for a dart board to open up. Neil is one of those “lucky” few who actually read my pathetic blog. Better yet, he purports to like it! That’s actually how we met as it was a friend of his that I saw fall out of a moving taxi which made for one of my great moments in blogging (I wasn’t kidding when I said this is a pathetic blog!). Anyway, he proceeded to ply me with shots of Jagermeister (which makes me gag, but good manners dictate that I accept the generous offer when made). After 3 or 4 I had a pretty good buzz going and Rodney and I threw same nice games. His darts have really improved the past year or so and I told him he needed to get his ass up to “A” division where it belongs.

Given that us Americans had to work on a Korean National Holiday (Buddha’s birthday), I made it an early night and journeyed back home (stopping for a beer at Manila Bar on the way).

And that my friends is the story of my weekend. Don’t hate me because I have such an outstanding life. Some of us are just born lucky. Or not.

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1. Work has been sucking the life out of me.

2. I am always tired.

3. My boss is leaving this summer.

4. I’m expected to replace her.

5. See #1 and multipy by 10.

6. Attended a nice going away party for Petro at Hooters.

7. We lost the best player on our dart team and in Itaewon (see #6).

8. We lost the championship game to our arch rivals XOX 16-14 (see #7).

9. I played decent, but lost two legs I should have won (see #8).

10. I had dinner at Top Cloud, the restaurant on the 33rd floor of the Samsung Building.

11. The view was great, the buffet wasn’t worth the price.

12. If you go, order off the menu.

13. Went to the Latern Festival in Jong-no and enjoyed myself.

14. Found a great outdoor (garden) Korean restuarant in Insa-dong.

15. Sorry, I forget the name–I know it had garden in it.

16. I resigned as Captain of the dart team.

17. My granddaughter turned 3 on Children’s Day (May 5).

18. I haven’t seen her for over a year and that really sucks.

19. Last Friday night I went out drinking and when I left Debut bar the sun was coming up.

20. I didn’t go out on Saturday.

21. I got the results of my colonoscopy.

22. Negative for cancer.

23. But I have been advised I need to do another one in a year.

24. If one of the polyps had been any larger they would have removed part of my colon.

25. I’m glad I went when I did.

26. I have dreams about dying.

27. And that would really piss me off.

28. Because I will retire in 2 years, 6 months and 27 days.

29. Not that I’m counting.

30. I am ready to go back to the Philippines.

31. But likely won’t until September.

32. I hope I don’t sound depressed.

33. Because I really am not.

34. I’ll ‘fess up to melancholy.

35. I really think Obama is full of shit.

36. And would be very bad for America.

37. I think it is fair to judge someone by the company they keep.

38. And MAN, the WEATHER just ain’t WRIGHT.

39. If you get my meaning.

40. I got an invite to Scott’s wedding in two weeks.

41. Korean weddings are a lot of fun.

42. I’m thinking the guys night out this Saturday will be fun as well.

43. I have met some really great people here in Korea.

44. And I’m tired of saying goodbye to them.

45. Colin is next, but I can’t begrudge him much.

46. Because I’ve never seen him smile so much.

47. Love will do that to you I suppose.

48. And I will have someone I know when I travel to Vietnam.

49. I think I will go out and practice darts tonight.

50. Fifty is a good place to stop this nonsense, don’t ya think?

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No idea why I can’t get motivated to post more often. But here’s an update on what’s happening:

Work has been intense of late. Had an interesting opportunity to do some advocacy yesterday. A SOFA Special Committee is reviewing the removal action against one of our Korean employees. I presented management’s arguments. The SC is composed of a Colonel and a GS-15 on the US side, and a Director at the ROK Ministry of Labor and a university professor on the Korean side. I was in there three hours and several more on preparation, but I think it went well overall. The MOL represenative was a young female lawyer and she asked some tough questions, which I think I parried reasonably well. During a break she complimentated my “passion” for the case. At least I think it was a compliment. Everything was done through interpreters which I am not really used to doing. I think our interpreter had a hard time with me because I tend to talk fast anyway, and I would give longish responses to questions without pausing to let her catch up. Oh well, it was an experience for sure.

My dart team finished in first place during league play, and playoffs start Monday. Our top player, Petro, is moving back to the states so we won’t have him for the championship game if we progress that far (which I expect we will).

I achieved my goal of a top ten finish (7th). Playing “A” division was a challenge for me and I suffererd through a big mid-season slump. Throwing a little better now, I just need to keep my head in the game and play with a little more confidence.

Had a little go-awaying get together for Petro at Hooters in Apuejeong on Tuesday. Drank lots of beer and had a pretty nice time. Stayed out too late for a work night, but it was worth it.

Sad to say, that’s about all I have to report. Hmm, maybe this is why I haven’t been posting much lately…

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Heh, this is not a post about how frequently I have been posting lately.

Saturday night I went out to Apeujong and experienced a great Jazz club named, you got it, Once in a Blue Moon. Damn, I was impressed. Talented group of Koreans playing some fine jazz tunes. The singer was really amazing, especially when she did the thing with her voice to make it sound like a trombone. The trumpet player hit all the notes, but you know, it wasn’t from the soul if you get my meaning. But really, that’s the strongest criticism I can muster about the experience.

Had a nice 7 course dinner that was 70,000W, but it was tasty. Drinks were expensive as you might expect, but given the level of entertainment, I deemed it worth it.

So, if you are looking for a nice place to hear some live Jazz, then check out Once in a Blue Moon.

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Well, what can I say except I’m sorry? No excuses, just that combination of winter malaise, lack of motivation, and nothing in particular to say that makes me such an unreliable blogger.

Tonight I Post! because some of you wonder if I am still amongst the living. Near as I can tell, that’s an affirmative. Although I feel the beginnings of a cold/sore throat thing in my chest and throat. Small stuff. Hmm, I heard a motivational speaker once say that there are only two big things in life, and everything else is the small stuff. And you should never worry about that small stuff. The two big things are being born and dying. Everything in between is the small stuff. Can you believe that guy makes a living talking that crap? It’s the modern equivalent of a snake oil salesman I suppose. But if it makes people feel better I guess there is no harm. Hell, I should thank the guy. It gave me a paragraph in what I suspect will be a rather meandering post.

Tonight I Post! will I guess just cover what I’ve been up to these past several weeks in reverse chronological order. To ease your pain I will try to limit myself to bullets. If you have been a regular around here (God help you!) you will be able to fill in the gaps quite easily I’m sure.

My father has been ill with pneumonia, which coupled with his emphysema has not been an easy go. Get well soon Dad!

Good news and bad news on the dart front: Monday we beat Rubbies 25-6. But 3 of those losses were mine. Which is ok, because I did manage to win six legs. The previous week I was 1-5 and responsible for a tough 16-15 loss to XOX. the first place team. Perspective is a beautiful thing.

Had a nice weekend visit from a fellow blogger, Jenn of I Got Two Shoes fame. She has already blogged the event here, and I can’t add anything else. Well, the “gay friendly” bar she mentions did not involve any friendliness on my part. Not that there is anything wrong with it.

Saturday night was the wedding reception of Duke and Ji Young. Very nice affair. Ji Young looked outstanding, and even Duke cleaned up pretty well. I wish them much happiness and success in the future. That old saw about the wife being the better half doesn’t apply to Duke. Ji Young is at least 2/3s better! Hey Duke, if you can’t take a joke, F.U.!

Actually, I would nickname Duke lucky except for one thing. His darts. Ha!Ha! Actually, he played quite well, just never quite well to win any of the tourneys we played in his honor. But it appeared he had a lot of fun trying, and at the end of the day that’s the main thing.

In all seriousness, it was great to have Duke back at Dolce again. It almost seemed like he had never left. I know he was impressed with the metamorphosis of Dolce Vita into a premiere dart bar, and I hope he knows that his dedication to promoting darts amongst the clientèle had a lot to do with the way things are now. Consider it your legacy Duke.

Other than that all I have done during this hiatus was work hard and play harder. Lots of beer consumed and darts thrown to varying degrees of success. And I’m still standing.

Tonight I Post! is now completed. I do have some photos that would have went well with this narrative, but alas, I am to frickin’ lazy to upload them. And yeah, I know all of the above is not technically in bullet form like I promised. Whaddaya goin’ do about it? And you know damn well it could have been worse. Much worse. Trust me on that!

I will try to become more regular. At least until my colonoscopy is scheduled. Oh my, what a post THAT will be.

Later y’all.

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That pretty much describes my long holiday weekend. Lots of darts and beer. Last night finished up with some norebang with the Dolce crowd and stumbled home at six a.m. Today I am feeling the after affects, but I’m still standing. Barely.

A new week and a new outlook are on tap. Duke arrives Friday and we are all looking forward to spending the next couple of weeks getting reacquainted.

And that’s about all I have to say for now.

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I mentioned in a previous post about the new Tuesday night entertainment at Dolce Vita, featuring a great musician named Steve Butler. He covers many artists very well, but his original music is something really special. My favorite song of his is “Old Mr. Jones”. Just so happens he now has a music video up on You Tube. It is my honor to introduce you to Steve and his music. Please come out to Dolce on Tuesday between 8-11 and see this guy while he is still playing for free!

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Heh, did a London broil on the grill today. Served it up with mashed taters and asparagus. First attempt at this on my own and to be honest it didn’t turn out all that well. Tougher than I’m used to, and my hybrid marinade (a mesquite and Italian mix) was pretty unsatisfactory. Well, it was worth a try I suppose and I have enough meat left over to snack on for the next few days.

Guess I’ll get off my lazy ass (I just won five straight at spider solitaire), shower up, and figure out what to do with my Saturday night. Hmm, there’s darts at the Blue Frog…

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At o’dark thirty this morning. In the snow. I was very pleased with my decision to not drive my hoop-dee. Saw three accidents on the Airport Highway between the toll booth and the airport, a stretch of maybe 10 KMs. God love ‘em, Koreans just don’t slow down for wet slippery pavement.

Anyway, arrived a little later than expected, but my new employee and his family had a long wait for the baggage, so there was no problem. Oscar has two daughters, 3 months and 2 years of age. And more bags than I imagined possible. It took two cabs to crammed to the gills to transport us back the Yongsan Garrison. But we made it.

Danny, my other new employee arrived Saturday but having lived in Korea previously required no assistance from me. So, after in-processing is completed this week I’ll be a lot closer to being staffed up. Well, 3 more vacancies, but I have someone coming in next month and a solid candidate for another position. Things are definitely looking up work wise.

Snowed a lot yesterday and again today, but the temperature stayed above freezing so there was not much accumulation. Which is a good thing.

And that’s the story from here.

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Something a little different at Dolce Vita last night. Yeah, we did our darts routine, but this time to some live music.

Maya, the newest bartender at Dolce came in last night with her American husband, Steve. And Steve came in with his acoustic guitar. After awhile he started providing a little free entertainment. After awhile longer (and a few more beers) we all started to sing along. He is quite the talented musician and it turns out he plays with the locally famous rock band “Faded”. I’d actually heard them play once a couple of years ago. And Steve invited me out to see them perform at Woodstock tonight, which I intend to do.

In addition to playing some popular favorites, Steve also writes his own songs. He played one called “Rita” which was really a quite moving love song. Very impressive. He also has a great sense of humor and incorporates it into his music. He did “Country Roads” as you might hear it at the norebang–in Konglish. Hilarious. He also did an “R” rated version of the traditional A-B-C song that had us laughing like maniacs.

We all had such a good time that YJ invited Steve to do a regular Tuesday night gig at Dolce. So, now the best damn darts bar in Itaewon will also be serving up some live music on a weekly basis.

If you got a hankerin’ for some mellow music to while away the hours on a cold and lonely Tuesday night, you now know the place to be. See you there!

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According to my weather pixie, it is precisely 7 degrees Fahrenheit this morning. Clear and cold. Especially the cold part.

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Snow has been falling from the sky all the day long. In DC it would have been a snow day (i.e. government closed) but no such luck here in the land of the morning calm. You know, that being ready to defend against Northern aggression thing. Although I doubt Mr. Kim, Jong-il would bother dragging his sorry ass outta bed on a day like today. I know I didn’t want to.

But really, I overstate the case. The snow stopped sticking around 1000 when the temperature made it above freezing, but it started sticking again around 1600. The boss let us go home 59 minutes early to get a jump on traffic, but the major roads were all good. A little tricky getting up the hill to my villa, but here I am safe and sound.

So, now to figure out what to do with a snowy Friday night. Hmm, well you know I will wind up at Dolce Vita but I expect most dart players have more sense than to walk the slippery sidewalks of Itaewon. Or not. We’ll see.

Good to see a comment from Duke (hell, good to see a comment from anyone!). We are all looking forward to his visit next month.

Anyway, I will try to come up with something a little more interesting than the weather to talk about tomorrow. Here’s the view from my back door:

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Spent the first day of the new year being lazy. Not sure if that bodes ill or not, but it felt right. Too f’n cold to go outside and so I didn’t.

I wasn’t totally unproductive as I plowed through a book in one setting. “for one more day” by Mitch Albom. I had previously read “five people you will meet in heaven”, so I guess I knew what to expect. Well, what can I say? The story was sweet. And Mr. Albom pretty much uses a sledge hammer to pound the moral of the story into your head. So yeah, I got it. I winced in places that struck a little to close to where I live, but I took away no lessons I didn’t already know. Ignoring and ignorance are two different things, after all.

Back to work today and I’m going to have to ramp the energy level up and start getting productive. I am pretty sure its going to be a busy year workwise.

Nothing much else to mention. I’ve got a case of the post holiday blues I suppose, but this too shall pass.

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Man oh man, where does the time go?

Rang in the New Year last night at Dolce Vita. Jim and YJ hosted a great party their regular patrons and dart and pool leaguers. Had some good grub, including wings and various dips, salads and sauces. Lonnie made his con queso dip, which is pretty much all I ate. Yeah, it was that good. My contribution was the tortilla chips and pumpernickel bread. Ok, I got off easy this time. But I am baking blueberry muffins this morning!

Here’s wishing everyone a 2008 filled with good health, good friends, and good times.

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Today never got above zero. Which makes it a perfect day for pot roast. Yeah, yeah, no big deal cooking a pot roast. But I never had done it before. So I succumbed to my craving and gave it whirl. A three pound roast, some onion, baby carrots, seasoning, and cream of mushroom soup. Put it all in a bag, popped it in the oven, and three hours later I was chowing down.

And it was good.

Already looking forward to leftovers tomorrow.

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Last night was softtip dart league night. We were playing Danny’s Bar in Hannam-dong. Although we were playing at Jay Bar because Danny’s no longer has an electronic dart board (having replaced it with a baby grand piano). Talk about extreme makeovers.

Anyhoo, Hannam is the next village over from Itaewon, but it is world’s away in terms of atmosphere. Not nearly as many foreigners for example. Savvy readers will remember that I technically live in Hannam, although I am several blocks away from the business district. I actually only rarely go there which is a shame because it is a nice change of pace.

So, the softip league differs from the steeltip version in that about half the teams are made up exclusively of Koreans. And they are good, eight of the top ten players are Koreans. Danny’s/Jay Bar are Korean venues. In fact, the bar staff didn’t speak English at all. So, I got to use my limited vocabulary a couple of times (although teammates Lonnie and Grant are comparatively fluent).

We won 13-0. That is two weeks in a row we have swept the match. Of course it would be dishonest if I failed to mention that both victories came as a result of forfeits. Not sure what is going on, but rumor has it the Korean teams are boycotting because of some controversy that occurred in a big softtip tournament with an American member of the league. Don’t know that that is the case, but it was strange that NONE of the Korean teams showed up last week.

Well, we were there at Jay Bar and had the board to ourselves so we played a couple of rounds and enjoyed some cold beers. Then we crossed the street to check out Danny’s and had another round of beer. Afterwards we cabbed back to Dolce and played some “real” darts (steeltips) and drank more beer.

Mr. Kim, a fine darts player and a good guy showed up. Rare for him these days as he is juggling three businesses and is always working. He immediately challenged me to a game, but I protested I was too drunk to throw and besides I had already put my darts away. He wasn’t hearing it, reminding me that I had put him out of the tournament on Saturday and he wanted some revenge. What are you going to do in that situation but play. Well, the results were pretty predictable as he won 4 of the 5 legs we played. Although given my condition, they were relatively close. I think sober I *might* be able to beat Mr. Kim 40% of the time. Or not.

And then I had a nice surprise when Brian, a friend from the fantasy football league, came in with a Canadian friend of his. We all got to talking and the next thing I know its 2 a.m. It was good to see him again though. BTW, my team lost in the second round of the playoffs last weekend. I had debated which running back to bench, Willie Parker or Clinton Portis. I went with Parker who wound up getting injured in the first quarter and scored me zero points. I would up losing by 10 points, and the difference was sitting on my bench in the person of Mr. Portis. Ah well.

Oh yeah, on the evening of Christmas day we had the bright idea of inventing some dart bar drinks. I don’t know enough about booze to be of any benefit to the creative process, but in a small way I was the inspiration. I was throwing pretty poorly and Jim had ordered a round of drinks. When the barkeep asked what I wanted I blurted out that “I needed a dart lesson”. A light bulb went off in Jim’s head I guess, because the next thing I know he had pen and paper in hand and was working on a recipe. And the shot now called the “dart lesson” was born. Its an ungodly mix of grenadine, jagermeister, Bailey’s and Midori. Given the various consistencies of the ingredients it makes for a layer of dart board colors in the shot glass. Looks good but the taste is pretty gross. So, we decided it would be a punishment drink, i.e., someone throws a bad round of darts and the call goes out to “give that guy a dart lesson”. That should provide some motivation to shoot well. Jim actually worked up a couple of more drinks, including a Ton-80. That consists of two parts Wild Turkey and one part Southern Comfort (to take the edge off). Now, I personally can barely drink whiskey as it triggers a gag reflex. But, Lonnie had thrown a Ton-80 at Jay Bar, so of course we had to give the new drink a try. Yikes, it is powerful concoction! Luckily (for me) Ton-80s are relatively rare.

So, today is the first day of my mini-vacation. I took today and Monday off, so I’m sitting on a 5 day New Year’s weekend. Not doing anything out of the ordinary though. Dart tourneys tonight and Sunday, and a New Year’s eve party at Dolce Vita are about all I have on my agenda.

Been trying to sell my deceased boss’ car for the past couple of months, and finally got a call this morning. So hopefully we will complete the sale on Monday. That will be a worry off my mind.

And that just about brings y’all up to the minute in the exciting world of LTG.

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