Pentagon Memorial

This morning, before sunrise, I took a walk to the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial. I'm not sure why, but things like this really must be done very early in the morning. The site has the standard list of names etched in granite and then a large area with individual memorials sweeping up out of the ground with running water beneath them. They look a bit like benches but somehow it just doesn't seem right to sit on them. As I walked the grounds I noticed they are all arranged in parallel straight lines that point towards the rebuilt area of the Pentagon; there's a noticeable difference in shading of the new stone walls. It was somber, quiet, and with the sun coming up over the building, fairly awe inspiring. 184 people lost their lives that day, among them was only one Marine. Judging from his birth date I have to assume he was a crusty old retired jarhead with a story for every day he was in the service. After staring at the Pentagon for a few minutes, I found his memorial and sat down for a spell just to rest my feet.

I figured he wouldn't mind.

View From the Top

Back in Hawai'i for more grueling duty with the Marines. Oh, by the way, this is the view from my hotel room.

Done With Hawai'i For Now

Well, the exercise is over and it's time to get on that big ol' jet airliner. One last jog on the beach and swim in the ocean and then it's wait until May to do it all again. Of course, what trip to Hawai'i would be complete without sharing a public shower with a big homeless Hawai'i'an while he sings through his repertoire of off-key Phil Collins songs. Mmmmmmm.... Island paradise.

International Relations

My job here in Korea is to be part of a coordination team that helps the ROK Marine Corps take over the warfighting responsibilities on the peninsula in the near future. That means that I have to attend a lot of meetings. Here's an interesting (and unclassified) event from yesterday.

We're sitting in a conference room with about six officers on each side. At the last minute, a Korean Lieutenant Colonel walks in and sits down. I'd only seen him before during the video teleconferences and I knew he was a big guy but he's even bigger in person. We had taken to referring to him with nicknames like Gigantor, The Beast, or, after he loudly corrected the behavior of a room full of ROK Marines, The Enforcer.

The meeting progressed and we worked through our issues. As we were wrapping up and talking about future operations, the U.S. team leader says, pointing at The Enforcer, "I know one thing, I'd never want to go into hand to hand combat with that guy." We all laughed and the interpreter translated. The Koreans all laughed, the big one the loudest of them all. The ROK Colonel leans over with a smile and says, "He, uh..." and you could see him searching for the words, "He, uh... He big, uh... big teddy bear."

You could tell by the smile on Gigantor's face that he was absolutely correct.

No Coke. Pepsi.

I found a little noodle shop that serves the local ROK Marines. I go in, look around, and see to great joy that they have reach-in coolers with sodas and juice. Most excellent! I start scanning the options. Mountain Dew. Lots of Korean stuff. Pepsi. Some bottled water. Within seconds my joy turns to horror as I see that neither cooler has what I really need. Darn it all to Heck!

Well, desperate times call for desperate measures. I'm typing this with a Styrofoam cup of icy Pepsi at my side.

Here's some more about the interactions with the Koreans over the last couple of days. Their word for yes is ye but to hear them pronounce it it sounds more like "yih", only with a drawn out 'y' sound at the beginning. I've also noticed that certain military words don't have translations and they don't even try. "DEFCON" and "H-Hour" spring to mind. The translators are fun to talk to because they keep asking if a certain word is proper, which is right up my alley. I probably gave one of them way to much information on the difference between 'possess' and 'have' but hey, he asked. There was also a smirk worthy moment when one of the enlisted translators called me "Sir Draper."

Since English is taught to them all through school, some are fairly fluent all by themselves. The Colonel who is in charge of the section I'm working with can speak fairly well. We were sitting in a video teleconference with several other units and towards the end of the meeting the video feed froze up and we lost the signal. We waited for a little while and it never restarted so he leaned back in his chair, shrugged, and said, "Hmmm. Game over."

So we're most of the way through Part A and the weekend will provide some liberty. I'm going to try to get to Osan Air Base and a western commissary and some real Coke. Wish me luck.

And Then Sometimes Good Stuff Happens

So I'm laying in bed Thursday morning and it's about 4:30 AM. I knew I would be waking up early and thought I would maybe do a quick half load of laundry and maybe go out to breakfast or otherwise make a slow morning of it. The plane didn't leave until 9:30 so I had a few hours. Then I realized that I never checked my seats and didn't know if I had the aisle or not. So I quick fast jumped out of bed and called up my itinerary. Gasp! I didn't even have a confirmed seat. This is what happens when Admin waits 'til the last minute to book our flights. I also didn't have a direct route, stopping in Tokyo for a six hour layover. In the world of international travel, I was in a bad situation.

I quick fast got ready and ran to the airport only to check my bags and be told that the gate crew would assign my seat. This is also not good,; it means the plane is full. Time was ticking away and I could feel the chance of sitting in the middle approaching 100%. (Did I mention before this was an 8 hour flight?) So I wait and I wait and the gate crew finally shows up and starts messing with the seating arrangements. When it's my turn to ask for a seat, they hand me a boarding pass for 78B. I didn't know there were 78 rows on a 747. With a great deal of dread and more than a little bit of impatient grumbling I step on board and the steward points me upstairs.

Wait, I think. I've never even seen what it's like upstairs. How can it be that I'm actually sitting up there? But I was. Wanna know what it's like?

First Class Nirvana.

How to Get to Hawai'i: Step Two

Get on your plane and do a happy dance when the chick next to you decides to move over to an open seat once the doors close, thus giving you your own row. Fly through the turbulent Sierra Nevadas and out across the Pacific. Grumble a bit about the airplane's 'personal entertainment center' not working correctly but then get over it quickly because you really didn't want to watch The Blind Side anyhow. Read a little. Work through three slush stories for your editor friend who's probably getting a little ticked off that you're falling behind. Read a lot. Wander around next to the lavatories and stretch. Sit down and stare at the seat in front of you like a mindless drone for another two freakin' hours. Land.

Get your car and drive past Waikiki. (Because who really wants to go to the beach when you can go eat at the Rainbow Drive-In.) Get dinner and add fourteen points to your cholesterol in one sitting. Go to the PX and get some vino. (Plastic screw top bottles, baby!) Check in to your room and let everyone know you've arrived safely.

Easy.

How to Get to Hawaii: Step One

Go to Salt Lake City. From Seattle this is obviously the best route to take, just ask the travel arrangers with the Marine Corps Reserve. Make sure you sit next to a well dressed man who spends his time reviewing Power Point presentations about streamlining your Tier 2 optimizations, recumbent cost curves, and reconstructing customer interactions. Oy. Thank the Good Lord Above that you're not that guy. Admire the view of the Great Salt Lake from angels 5. At that altitude you can see the olive green silty flats leading down to it. The lake itself has a purplish color, like the last sip of a good Pinot Noir. Then enjoy some fine Utah cuisine courtesy of Burger King. Continue on to your next flight.

There's Something Special About Hawai'i

...to which most of you would say, "No kidding." But it's not just the line fed to you by the tourist industry. It's not just the beaches and water and gorgeous scenery. It's not just the Loco Moco plate lunch at the Rainbow Drive-In. (But that's close.)

No, it is much more elusive than that. When you're here there just seems to be less to worry about. It's in the air or something. It's the casual way people talk and move. And when you're sitting on a beach, newly risen sun over your left shoulder, and you're fat, dumb, and happy with a Loco Moco in your belly, well, you'll feel it too.

America without Hawai'i is sort of like a sundae with no cherry. Sure it tastes good, gives you high cholesterol, and it's better than all the other desserts out there. But it's just not right.

Weekend In Hawai'i

Tired of being cooped up in my room or in an office all week, I decided to get out and see the island. Driving up to the North Shore with the sun overhead and reggae music on the radio was a blast. (Interesting side note: Reggae is an amazing musical form and I don't just mean the constraints of the melodies. Every song is either about never ending, blissful devotion to your one and only love... or violent revolution. Ain't a lot of middle ground in Jamaica, mon.)

The beaches at Hale'iwa are very nice and I had a good time watching surfers do their thing, and do it impressively. This is no Waikiki. These guys were sliding down into pipelines created by ten to twelve foot waves. According the the movie Point Break this is like riding on the nose of a freight train, and I believe it. Then back down the valley, with a stop at the Dole Plantation (which seemed interesting but is really just a way for Dole to get tourist money) and that mostly wrapped up Saturday.

Sunday started early with another sunrise swim in the ocean and then I went off to find two of the most important historical spots on Oahu. No, not the Arizona Memorial. No, not Diamond Head. No, not the Ford Island airfield. No, not the USS Missouri. Come on, people! I'm talking about Robin's Nest from Magnum P.I. and Da Kine Bail Bonds!

For those of you who loved Magnum, you'll remember that long, lonely stretch of road that the red Ferrari always drove in and out of the driveway on. Well, 20 years later it's not so lonely. I can see where they always filmed from one direction because the other way has several houses and fences along it. As for Dog the Bounty Hunter, their bail bonds shop is just a simple door and window on the street as part of a larger building complex. Funny thing, they're right next door to a church.

So that was the weekend of being out and about. I wisely got back in to the room before noon because I'm half a mile away from the Pro Bowl and traffic was already getting crazy.

Striking the Right Chord

Today was almost a perfect day. Sunrise swimming at Ala Moana Beach in Hawai'i is a good way to start. Traditional Hawaiian breakfast of eggs, Portuguese sausage, and sticky white rice is a good way to continue. Lazing around Borders with a couple of paperbacks will pretty much cap off a perfect morning. Begin the afternoon by adding a thousand good words to your latest story and things are looking good. Then the Pittsburgh Steelers had to mar the whole thing. Oh well. A trip to Jack in the Box goes a long way to fixing that.

Anyhow, since Perfection is not attainable in this life, I'll have to settle for Pretty Darn Good.

Beauty in the Little Things

I have to tell you about Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, for two reasons. 1) I'm one of the few from Seattle that can spell it. 2) The way the lake comes right up to downtown is amazing. There's a city park at the end of Northwest Avenue where the downtown core sits. It's got plenty of tall evergreen trees as well as a stage and a huge play area for the kids. The lake stretches out away in one direction and the shops and restaurants and hotels are right across the street behind you. It's the sort of place I'd want to hang out in if I lived here. But today, I had to settle for lunch. Seagulls, boats coming in and out, the lake houses on the other shore... it makes you thank Almighty God for every breath He gives you.

Some Kind of Zombie

The twelve hour shifts started a few days ago and I've slumped into the routine of get up, stand watch, sleep, repeat. It is that semi-living kind of status that puts you on autodrive until the exercise is over.

One thing of interest here that I've never seen before is an incident of 'yellow sand' in the air. This is my fourth or fifth trip to Korea and I'd never heard of it before now. Apparently certain weather conditions pick up huge amounts of dust from the Gobi Desert and blow it all over Manchuria and the Korean peninsula. It's a odd thing to see; not white enough to be fog but not high enough to be smog. For an added benefit, there are high levels of heavy metals and other irritants in it. Walking around in it for any length of time starts to make the back of your throat tingle like you've walked into a very weak gas chamber. One more reason Korea is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live here.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Or: How to Get to Daegu in six easy steps.

1. Plane to Hawai'i. Make sure it's running late and in danger of getting fogged in.
2. Rental car to Camp Smith. Stop at Jack in the Box. Get some field gear. Go back to airport.
3. Plane to Incheon. There's just never a way to make eleven hour flights feel good.
4. Bus to Yongson Garrison, Seoul. Wait around for mass confusion to settle itself out. Sleep in very cold tent.
5. Bullet train to Daegu. This was the best part of the journey. We got up to 180 mph (that's like, I don't know, 10,000 kilometres per hour or something) while shooting through the Korean countryside. I'm generally opposed to any form of mass transit but this was cool.
6. Mini-van to Camp Henry. Daegu drivers make New Yorkers looks sane and friendly.

Learned Lessons Are For the Weak

Some people travel in the winter and encounter difficulties like cold and snow and so then learn to avoid travelling in the winter. Those people are wussies.

I, on the other hand, complain about cold and snow in Spokane and then go right on over to Boise and bull my way into the prevailing inclement weather system in order to see as many potential customers as possible. I'd like to post an entry about the beautiful city or countryside or something but I can barely see it through the blizzard. I take that back; City Hall and the Capitol Building were impressive but everything else disappears into a haze of white within a few hundred yards.

To really make a statement about non-learned responses, I think I'll schedule Salt Lake City for August.

Oh The Joys of Spokane In the Winter

Trip Through the Tri-Cities

Well, what can I say about the Tri-Cities? A couple of cool bridges. Hanford nuclear facility. Zip's Burgers. Poor little West Richland hanging out there as the fourth city in the Tri-Cities Metropolitan Area.

I was in and out of town in about six hours so there was a lot of driving but not a lot of sight seeing. There does look like a lot of potential for a branch of some kind so it was a good trip. The mission I was assigned was accomplished and some good intelligence was gathered. Now we just have to move on to implementation. (And that always seems to be the hardest part.)

The Not So Evergreen State

I'm here in Eastern Washington again, scouting out potential prospects for my company's expansion plans. It was a long drive this morning and after passing through Moses Lake... I may have to apologize to the city of Yakima.

Today was Spokane and tomorrow will be the Tri-Cities. The last time I was in Spokane was for the '76 World Expo. (Or was it '74?) No matter, I don't remember a thing. What I've found during my quick trip is that Spokane has the following:

1. Lots of old brick buildings in the downtown core, which is cool.
2. Lots of graffiti on anything that remains stationary for longer than 42 seconds, which is not so cool.
3. Far too many one way streets.
4. Barnes & Noble.
5. Gonzaga University (which is embarrassing for me to say but I had no idea where exactly it was all these years.)
6. Interminable waits for trains along Havana St.
7. At least one rainy day per year.

There were other things I noticed as well but those mostly have to do with the number of underground utility contractors there are and that just isn't nearly as entertaining.

Identifying the Middle of Nowhere: A Comparative Methodology

Method One: Define nowhere. It is typically a barren wasteland filled with unending rolling vistas of scrub trees and brown grass. If you find yourself driving through it you must keep a careful count of abandoned wellhouses and dirt roads. This is your track to the middle. When they thin out to four per mile you are getting close. There will also be a marked increase in beer cans, always domestic, and plastic grocery bags swirling in dust devils. Eventually you will be filled with a sense of impending dread and hopelessness. You have arrived.

Method Two: Look for a sign on the road that says 'Yakima, Washington.'

Swimming At Sunrise

This morning I drove out to Ala Moana Beach just before sunrise and went for a swim in the ocean. The sun comes up over the hotels of Waikiki this time of year and the sky was just beginning it's turn from black to blue. Out over the water crawled a massive thunderhead with rain dragging beneath it like it was smudged by a painter's brush.

The beach was populated by surfers and an early morning yoga class. While swimming I was able to watch the clouds change from purple to peach to yellow. When the sun rose over the glass and steel of Honolulu the colors in the sky drained out of the clouds and hid in the storm below as rainbows from God.

It is a good thing to be reminded in whose hand true power and majesty lies.