July 2003 Archives

Ah, somebody took the time to make a flash presentation that I think everyone who has e-mail access should see. Please feel free to pass this Soapbox link on to anyone you know, especially those who forward you ridiculous e-mails cursing you with bad luck for not forwarding or promising someone is going to pay you for forwarding:

http://www.borgerisd.net/soapbox/soapbox.htm

Maybe you've seen this before but I saw it for the first time today. Thanks Dad for forwarding this one to me!

Matilda: I became... bulimic...
Derek: ... you can read minds?!
Hansel: *eyes widen with amazement*

I am aghast. I was chatting with a friend online and tried to make a Zoolander reference. She just didn't get it. I thought for sure that she had seen this movie and all over it. When I explained the quote and she responded with disgust... *tsk tsk*. She tried to tell me that Zoolander was the *worst* dumb movie she had ever seen, "Cause it was too forced....just dumb!"

Shameful...

Hehehe... I love that movie. I think it's hilarious how forced it is, that's the whole point I think. Anyways, just had to rant.

I thought I was on such a good roll that I'd throw down another entry today, hehe.

I don't want to just complain in ever entry so I'll just give a brief update. Yes, the voice is still gone ;) So if I don't answer my cell when you call that's why.

-tested negative for mono (yay). This means that the problem must be allergies.

I think the hardest part is just resting the voice-- people try to talk to me and I try to respond, ick. I guess I'll just have to hermit for a few days. I'll probably take a day off work and spend the day blogging. The incredible boringness of the design of my blog is wearing on me, I need to sit down and come up with a new design...

Anyways, thanks to all that have posted comments of understanding and stuff. I promise I'll blog about something else next time I post :) I just always have writer's block every time I open this thing up to update, hehe...

Well, visited the doctor again yesterday and they took some blood. They'll let me know in the next couple days if I have anything viral. Could still be an effect of some really aggrivated allergy, the doc says (different doc yesterday than on Friday), so I'll be on Allegra for a while along with lots of fluids and ibuprofin. Meh.

You never realize how much you take your voice for granted until it's gone. Helps me appreciate more those people who either just don't have their hearing or are unable to speak. I suppose I should be grateful for what I have left, the ability to whisper.

On the bright side, I can't really go out to get fast food because I can't speak up enough to order what I want, not without having someone go get it for me... so it's easier not to get it. Even at the grocery store I didn't have my little discount card, and usually I can just tell them my phone number for them to punch in to get the discount, but yesterday I had to write the number down on a piece of paper, hehe. Ah, how humbling.

On another subject, I stop by instacare on Friday. The doc didn't think I had strep, but he said I have edema (uh-deem-uh), basically my throat is all swollen-- duh. His bet was that it was an allergic reaction to something (maybe the smoke in the Casino in Vegas? Since that's when I started to feel it), and that taking some prednisone (anti-inflamitory perscription drug) for a few days should take care of it (along with some anti-histamines, he gave me some allegra). Well the Allegra gets rid of my allergies, good stuff.

But the Prednisone doesn't seem to be doing squat, i've taken 3 doses already and my voice is all but disappeared now. He said that I should see dramatic improvement within 24-48 hours... hmm, we're at 48 hours and I haven't seen squat. He also said if it didn't improve in 3 days or so to come back...

What does this mean? It means I can't talk, and it means I may have a viral infection in my throat (he even suggested mono... that should be good for rumors ;) So that's pretty sucky. It's not so much the fact that I might have a viral infection, it's more that I will have to go back to the doctor for more treatment. I don't hate doctors I'm just too lazy-- I always avoid going to the doctor if I can. Dang. But I hate not having a voice worse than going to the doctor so it's a necessary evil.

It was funny, my Grandma was over for dinner tonight. Later on I was doing the dishes and everyone was in the living room or the family room, with just my grandma still in the kitchen. She came over and kept trying to talk to me, hehe... she's so hard of hearing, you have to really speak up for her to hear you (she mostly refuses to wear hearing aids). Then there's me who can barely get a whisper out, so I'm just smiling because I can't respond to a thing she's saying, hehehe. She even started singing some silly song she had made up for my cousin Clint (something about Clintonia, I should get the words from her). I was just busting up but it was such a pathetic situation-- someone who can't hear trying to someone who can't talk-- I couldn't speak up to tell her that I didn't have a voice! If you have any idea how cute my grandma is you'd laugh at this story.

Hehe, at the dinner table at one point she looked at my brother Steven, so he smiled at her. She started busting up (it's not a very audible laugh, but mostly the look on her face and the way she rolls back like anyone would with a good hearty laugh. Right in mid-laugh she says to Steven "What's funny?" Bwahaha! I loved it, such great commedy. Later on she saw Kato sitting in a chait in the family room and mistook her for my Dad-- ouch! She was pretty far away, I guess, but it was still hilarious. My grandma is so cute and funny.

I found this geek quiz on a (geek) forum today-- funny to take. A tad long, but when you have a few minutes, take it, let's how your geekiness rates. Me?

34.91124% - Total Geek

Since May, the last Friday of every month has been Yellow Shirt Day at work, thanks to Brian Pitt-- it was something he did back in the old days before his mission (He left for his mission in February of 2001 and came back to work here when he got back in February this year).

Anyways, on May 14th I discovered via Korean radio that it was Yellow Day in Korea... (at least for singles it was yellow day). I noticed Brian was wearing a yellow shirt that day and though "man, what are the odds that he knows what yellow day is", so I e-mailed him and asked him if there was a particular reason why he was wearing that yellow shirt. He responded really excited--

"HA HA!!! You remember the yellow shirt day that was originated back in '00. I think we should bring it back. Are you in?"

Nope, he had no idea what Yellow Day was, but he was nonetheless very excited that I had "remembered" yellow shirt day and at the prospect of brining it back. So yes, This will be the third time since then, I think, that a number of people here at work have observed yellow shirt day. Ah, so easily amused we are... Brian is hilarious.

In other news, I think I have come down with something-- my voice is thrashed and my throat is swollen, though it doesn't really hurt too much. I guess we'll find out later today...

Uncle Louis: Hey Griz, me and Bethany figured out the perfect gift for you.
Clark: Oh, Uncle Louis you didn't have to get me anything.
Uncle Louis: Dammit Bethany, he guessed it...
---National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Me: Dammit Bethany!
Brandon: What, out of Nesquik?
Me: No, I just got an e-mail from a demonstrator named Bethany
Brandon: LOL. Dude, i would love to marry a woman named Bethany. Do you know how much fun that would be? hehe...

So I was thinking about the lunch I just had, and the thought occurred to me-- why is it that I always blog about and take photos of food? Perhaps it's one of the few variables in my relatively static life. Perhaps I really just enjoy eating that much. Maybe it's the connection it often has to Korea and my mission. Maybe my life is just so dull that food is interesting to me.

Shawn and I made superhud last night, best batch I've made in ages, so good. I think I have it down to a science... perhaps some day I'll post the recipe for the few of you that might be interested.

Then today for lunch I had another microwavable Korean rice dish from that new Korean market. It was 산채 비빔밥 (San-chae Bibimbap). This particular bibimbap had some type of roots in it, bean sprouts, carrots, and some other things, which you mix with the rice and some red pepper paste and sesame oil. It's also good if you throw a fried egg on there but obviously at work I don't have that luxury. I did, however, bring some 김 (kim) to eat with it (since there wasn't any in this particular viariation of bibimbap), and while it was good without the kim, adding it made this meal hit the spot. Seems like there were around 400 calories in this dish and Marianne commented on the high number of carbs (like 74 grams or something i think) but it's pretty low fat (as if I really cared about nutrtion). In any case, it was just right-- not too much, not too little, and very satisfying.

Anyways, I'd recommend it-- I picked it up in the frozen section of a Korean market on about 200 east (i think) and 3300 south in Salt Lake (it's on the south side of the street). The Octopus fried rice can also be had at this particular Korean market... Just up the street at 700 East and 3300 South you can find E Jo, a pretty new Korean restaurant-- the 갈비 (Kal-bi-- Korean spare ribs I guess you'd call them) there was pretty good.

So there you have it-- another post entirely about food. ;)

I've been bugged a bit lately that enetation seems to be so flakey for comments (yeah what can we expect for a free service I guess). So I've been playing around with hosting a commenting system on my site for my friends (since I now have this fancy-lad server with all the bells and whistles Yahoo wouldn't give me without charging an arm and a leg).

At this point, it looks very doable, so if any of you just want me to host your comments so you can ditch enetation, give me a buzz, I'll start playing with it in the next few days hopefully. This would mean that you wouldn't get those retarded "page cannot be displayed" messages or the links to your comments not appearing half the time. Anyways, let me know.

Have you ever missed a call on your cell phone and then wondered what the person had called about, wishing they had left a message? How about barely missing a call and calling rigth back, and the first thing they say do you is "I left a message, did you get it" but you didn't get it because you were calling them back before they were done leaving the message? It's like it hardly ever works out ideally-- either they don't leave a message or they leave one and you call before you recieve it. Or maybe you're the one calling in the first place and you're just leaving the message when your phone rings or beeps to interrupt your message (in my current cell phone's case, if it's on vibrate it will actually vibrate while I have the phone to my head when the call comes in-- needless to say it startles you a bit).

I guess this stuff has happened to me before but I never really thought much about it until I saw it happen to my Uncle. His daughter called and he missed the call, so when he called back I heard him say "No, what did it say?" (in reference to the message that was just left that he didn't get). I had to laugh to think that that must happen to everybody. I just think it's funny the way people are with cell phones.

I've decided to utilize the extended entry function of Movable Type today, for Laura's sake, hehe. Laura, if it's still morning and you haven't eaten yet or whatever your conditions are, don't click the link below.

Yeah, no sleepin' in today. Once again I found myself in Provo in the morning to help get Grandma's old condo cleaned out. Brought my camera this time, got some decent pictures of creek and of the swimming pool for old times' sake. There's no longer a diving board there, but I used to love swimming here all the time when I was little. I may not ever swim there again... I suppose it's not a huge deal since I've kinda grown out of it, but I'll still miss it.

After that I met up with 행 and grabbed lunch at Sam Hawk (mmm.. 된장 찌개), then later in the day I managed to hook up with Schmidy to hang out for a bit, we ended up going to see Pirates of the Caribbean-- great fun summertime flick, loved the music (I'll be picking up the soundtrack on Tuesday when it comes out), Jonny Depp had the coolest character, Jack Sparrow. If you haven't seen it it's worth a watch-- I'll probably go see it again. I also enjoyed the movie because Pirates of the Caribbean was one of my favorite rides, if not my most favorite ride at Disney Land when I was little (it was my mom's, too-- we loved riding that one, it was so fun). So that just enhanced the movie a bit for me-- there were a couple of references to the ride.

Geoffrey Rush played the main villain in Pirates and I couldn't place where I had seen him before... Finally I got on IMDB and looked him up, he played Casanova Frankenstein on "Mystery Men", hehehe... another great flick.

Perhaps since Disney's cartoons are not faring so well they are resorting to making films of their amusement park rides... Marianne pointed out that they already did Country Bears, and one of the previews in Pirates was for "Haunted Mansion". I guess we'll see, huh.

Well, I know I've already talked to some of you but I thought I'd do a quick update to say that I'm home, yay. Arrived in Salt Lake around 3-ish today and have just been taking it easy. I guess when I get around to it I'll post a few pics from Thursday, etc.

Vegas was really enjoyable-- exhausting, but enjoyable. I wonder how long it will take for my feet/back to recover, heh. In any case, Even this 85-95 degree weather feels cool (or at least tolerable) compared to the intolerable heat in Vegas.

Rode to the airport in style, heh...

Last day of convention today… it was pretty busy in the morning, time went pretty fast. Just wanted to post a few pictures from today and the rest of the week… in general session this morning they had the annual game show, called "Let's Stamp a Deal" this year. In one of the pics below you can see the host (in the red coat) Greg Pitt (manager at the warehouse) and a co-host "Stick Sticky" / Elvis (Brian Nay-- the head of the I.T. department). They were pretty popular, so many women kept coming to get their pictures taken with them. They managed to grace the computer crew with a picture, heh.

This is the crew that worked the computer area-- mostly guys from the I.T. department, Brandon and I, and Mea and Allison from the call center. Good times...

There's Melissa, she was in charge of one of the "Make 'n Take" areas. They're sorta like big arts and crafts loops where people come and make cards, scrapbook pages, and other things with new stamp sets and products. And you thought it was just something people in elementary school did...hehehe. OK, so elementary school kids and house-wives, heh.

Up again at 5am, as I will be tomorrow as well. Again showered and then soaked in a bath (how people can just bathe is beyond me, who wants to soak in filthy water).

Breakfast followed by another general session. So they had this guy speak in General Session today… don’t remember his name but he is apparently on the board of directors for the company. Anyways, I think his comments were met with a little cynicism or at least skepticism, as for the first time in any convention assembly I heard murmuring in the crowd… I was of course laughing, hehehe. He was talking about how people don’t say “I love you” enough. (The theme of this year’s convention is “touching lives”). He started by telling how one time in his office, after he was done talking to an employee, he ended with “Hey, I love you.” He was totally serious too. So his whole speech was geared around telling everyone you deal with outside your family (since it’s normal to tell your family you love them) that you love them. Oh man. I mean I know he was well intentioned and that it was meant it a platonic way, it just doesn’t seem like it would fly very well in society today. I think it’s fine to show love for others by how you act towards them or how you treat them, but I think you should reserve saying it for people that you have some sort of relationship with other than just a customer. I mean, if I were attending some demonstrator’s workshop and this was my first contact with her outside of maybe a phone call and she busted out “I love you” on leaving, I’d think one of at least two things: a) you’re a whacko, I may not be coming back, or b) you’re so fake. I’d only believe you if you were covered with some of that positively charged pink mood slime on Ghostbusters 2, hehehe… you know the scene I’m talking about. I think metaphorically this guy was trying to hose the audience with some slime but I’m not sure it worked.

Either way… I was laughing because I couldn’t help thinking of Fletch. The guy on stage is saying “go on, tell everyone you love them!” and I’m thinking of the scene in Fletch where he runs into the restaurant to evade the cops and he jumps up at the podium and starts talking about Fred the Dorf Dorfman, and how Fred was once a cop, and how cops too often go unappreciated—how people are afraid to “reach out and touch an officer of the law”. As the police start managing their way to the front, Fletch is like “go on, hug a cop!” hehehe… that’s exactly what it felt like when this guy was telling everyone to say “I love you” to everyone else. Some of you may appreciate this… (Mar!—this is the story I meant to tell you today).

Ronald McDonald came to convention, woo! He was there for the announcement of the company’s new partnership with the Ronald McDonald House charity.

A part of the "Gathering Place", the name given to the big hall in between the Make & Take hall and the Main Stage hall. In particular this is a shot of some of the boards that have stamped samples on them for demonstrators to view, photograph, and clean stamping ideas from.

Other than that, today was more or less similar to yesterday in flow—worked till 6 or so today (got off an hour early), ate with Melissa and Brandon and came back here to update the ol site, since I don’t feel as wasted as I did yesterday, though I’m rapidly approaching bed time. I might get out for pictures on the strip tomorrow night, but if not, no big loss. Been there, done that. Have a handful of pics salvaged from last year, won’t be disappointed if I don’t get to go out in the 105 F weather at night and walk on my already hurting feet. (Yes it’s frigging hot out even when it’s dark. It doesn’t cool off nicely like it does up in Sandy. Maybe the suburbs are different but here in the heart of Sin City (where the strip and all the hotels are) it stays hot all the time… It’s probably still in the 80s when we get out in the morning). I guess this too reminds me of summer in Korea.

Oh yeah, speaking of which, I did talk to a Korean lady today named 미영. I didn’t know she was Korean until I had to help her log in to the web site, and her name popped up. So I spoke to her a bit in Korean, since I could tell her English was a little slow. Turns out she’s been in America for like 36 years and has only been back to Korea 2-3 times… she must have married a soldier of something and moved to America, who knows. Some people never get that fluent at English I guess, though she was certainly good enough to get around. Of course, being outside of Utah she was baffled as to how I could speak Korean so easily (of course the intro and small talk phrases all come out easily, those are the most often repeated and therefore easiest). Anyways, that was kinda fun.

There were some Japanese women that I helped too, they may have been from Hawaii but their names were definitely Japanese… they were a bit faster at English but still had an accent and slightly rough English. I would be too afraid to bust out one of the 2 or 3 phrases I know in Japanese for fear that they’d respond and think I could speak more, hehe. I guess since I’ve learned Korean I always feel a desire to speak to people in their native tongues and find myself a little frustrated when I cannot, whether it’s Japanese, Spanish, or anything else.

Demonstrators in the Gathering Place.

Anyways, I’m writing what I can remember of the past few days. If I remember anything else interesting and/or funny I’ll post it later I guess. As you can see my picture taking has waned—lots on Monday, a few on Tuesday, and then not so many today. Although shooting short video clips is fun as it can give a better representation of things as they really are. Too bad I hadn’t thought to use it earlier!

I have to say it was interesting to be so wasted the last couple days that the thought of turning on the computer and getting on the Internet was like prolonging torture, heh.

Getting up when I do, by the time I get to the lobby to ride the elevator there's a nice shot of the sun rising...

Oh wow. 5 am is early when you are dead tired. I crawled out of bed only to realize that my feet were still way sore and that it hurt to walk on them, so I quickly crept to the shower. After showering I decided I didn’t care if I was late to my 5:45am breakfast (who EATS that early?!), and ran a bath to just soak my feet in—it seemed to help a lot.

Here's the main stage where the major events are held, such as award ceremonies and general sessions.

After breakfast we headed over to the main stage area for the first General Session, one of the meetings where the people at the head of the company speak and make announcements and get all the demonstrators for our company psyched up. This year’s theme song was done by some sort of “man band” (my word for an older version of a boy band—basically the guys were too old to be called “boys”, hehe.) Oh brother, then the CEO and co-founder of the company comes out to praise them and say how they are hot and hunks and all this garbage. Hello? Not your style Shelli, take it easy there. I guess they’ll do anything to try to play on women’s emotions, etc. I have to say though, for as cheesy as this year’s convention theme song was, it wasn’t nearly as irritating as the one 2 years ago, which just grated on my nerves.

Here's the queer old "man band" that sang our cheesy convention song. Aww, that's sad...

Part of the first General Session was when then they dropped parachutes with prizes from the rafters—I was rather hoping those crazy demonstrators would freak out and try to kill each other to get to them but they turned out to be rather tame (I recorded some footage hoping to catch a maiming but was sorely disappointed). They’ve been crazy when product had been thrown out in the past. They were still crazy enough though to sprint into the meeting hall when the doors were opened… they didn’t disappoint me there.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's superman... no, it's some crazy-ace demonstrator that's so excited to be at convention that they have run themselves into a blur on their way into general session.

Around 11am general session ended and I headed back to the computer area to work. Man, running off a little sleep with sore feet and back makes it harder to smile but I think I still enjoyed working. Fortunately I only worked till 7:30 today… even then, I got back to my room at 8pm after eating some dinner and promptly fell asleep on my bed in my clothes still—I was beat once again. No updates, too tired.

Brandon and Ray hard at working helping demonstrators use the computers. Everyone loves Ray...

Sloanie dressed in his Monday uniform of yellow polo and black pants, badge on, ready to take on convention 2003. Um, yeah, whatever.

Whew. Woke up around 5:50 today as we were to meet for breakfast around 6:30 (breakfast is catered and the company all eats together so they can have a short meeting afterwards). After a short meeting following breakfast, each employee headed for their assigned area for the day. My assignment, along with Brandon, Mea, Allison, and the guys from I.T., was to work the computer area—explain things and help people that needed help placing orders or doing anything else with our Web site, etc.

Everyone enjoying breakfast, happy and well rested for the most part.

We got there at 7:30 and it didn’t open until 9 so we were pretty much sitting around for a couple hours. Anyways, 9 o’ clock rolled around and I put on a smile and smiled and helped people for the rest of the day. Sorta like being a missionary only people were asking me for help instead of me going around offering it to people who didn’t want it ;) I don’t think I’ve smiled that much since maybe 광주. I was actually enjoying helping people though, it wasn’t fake at all. It was nice to see the people that we usually help every day and interact with them and see them having fun and enjoying convention. One lady was so appreciative of my help that she gave me a little keychain that she had made a bunch of to give to people. Best part about it—her last name is Focke and it’s printed on the back of the keychain. Geez it’s just a game Focker!

This is where Sloanie has been working for the past few days. This is less than half the computers in our area...

At some point I was recruited to help cut box tops off of boxes full of paper product and move them to different pallets to be moved—yeah, fun for my back after having been standing for 6 or 7 hours. Even more fun was that I had several more hours to stand—since it was the first day and there were no meetings, the computer area was open till 10pm, after which we were again recruited to move boxes. So yes, I wasn’t done until 10:30pm… all day on my feet. Again, reminiscent of the days as a missionary… Except back then I wasn’t per se walking or standing ALL day, and didn’t start the walking until 9:30 or so, while I was up standing and helping people from 7:30am to 10:30 pm with a couple hour breaks for meals in there somewhere.

The result of this—I got to my room at 11pm BEAT, my back pretty stiff and my feet killing me. Even if I had the energy to turn on the computer to update I knew that I didn’t have time since I had to get up at 5am the next day. Hence, this was written on Wednesday, July 16 when I had time and energy ;)

My room here on the 22nd floor of the Hilton overlooks the city (last time I was in Vegas my room was on the other side and overlooked the golf course, boo). Thanks to the wonders of modern computer and cell phone technology, I’m sitting at a sort of desk at the window (a marble counter that runs along the window), editing and uploading photos and updating my blog from the comfort of my hotel room. It looks like Sloanie.com is back with a vengeance… There should be lots of opportunities to take pics of random things throughout the week.

Though I’m starting to understand why people gamble (man what’s that Idaho lottery at now, about $250 million?), it’s still not something that interests me. As Melissa and I were eating dinner at a café in the hotel, this talkative (and probably lonely) guy in his 50s or something started talking to us. He was here for another convention, but mentioned that if you can afford to lose the money it’s called “gaming”, and that if you can’t afford to lose it it’s a “gamble”… heheh. I still scratch my head at this part of town where the entire culture is based on spectacle and entertainment, especially gambling, scantily or unclad women, and everything else that goes along with those things. Though I feel like I’m in the great and spacious building, it is good to know that it is only the strip and this part of Vegas that is based on such a lack of moral values. I have to say though, a lot of the random people I’ve met here, who are here to gamble, have been very friendly, though once I hit the streets I’m sure I’ll see plenty of trash ;)

My flight landed at about 2:40-ish today. It’s been a couple years since I’ve flown, and today I got a window seat, and of course couldn’t resist the urge to snap some shots. It is so amazing to soar among the clouds…

In any case, I finally got to the hotel around 4:15 after getting my luggage, waiting for a shuttle, and riding all over Vegas before arriving at the Hilton. I’m going to meet Melissa in a few minutes, who has already been here for a couple days setting up for convention.

Hehehe... all the toys I've bought are finally playing together. I'm sitting here in the Salt Lake airport waiting for my flight. I bust out my laptop and cell phone and post pictures that I just took on my way to my boarding gate, haha. It doesn't get much more instantaneous than this. I love technology... I mean notice the guy in the picture below playing his Playstation on a portable screen. We definately live in different times than the ones I grew up in...

On to Vegas...

Well, I spent pretty much the whole day in Provo today helping to get everything moved out of my grandparents' old house. Since my grandpa passed away we've had to move grandma out and sell the place. Needless to say the Sloan boys are in demand for one thing-- to lift heavy objects. So yes, that's what I did for most the day today, and I'm beat. The lifting alone wouldn't have been that terrible but the house wasn't very cool and it was like 105 degress outside-- ick. I haven't had my face soaked in sweat like that since the hot, humid summer days in Korea.

Anyways, I'm off to Vegas tomorrow morning for the better part of the week, it's my work's annual convention. Hopefully there will be some interesting things to get pictures of or some random things. I'll write about Thursday and Friday more tomorrow once I get to Vegas...

One man's junk is another man's.... treasure? Old stuff destined for D.I.

Slovenly pic taken from my phone, dang why didn't have my Powershot on me? This is the stream near my grandparents' condo. Looking at it today brought back a lot of memories of time spent at my grandparents. As children we used to love to go wade in the stream and try to jump across it. There is nothing quite like the innocence of childhood-- even the most simple things can be so satisfying when you're a kid.

Joel and I had been planning to make some 삼겹살 and finally did so today. Sam-gyup-sal—made from a slice of pork similar to bacon, but thicker and not cured or seasoned, you grill it on a grill as you see below and eat with rice, 쌈장 (Ssam-jang) a mix of bean paste and red chili pepper paste), lettuce, garlic (that you grill with the meat, as you can also grill chopped up green chili peppers). Koreans will also point out that they use 기름장 and drink 소주 (alcohol) when they eat this—we didn’t care for the 기름장 and drank Coke instead of alcohol (as we always did in Korea).

When I first had this dish in Korea, my trainer said he loved it and it was his favorite Korean food. When I ate it I didn’t see what was so special about it… I obviously hadn’t realized (and subsequently probably not used much of) the flavor of 쌈장. As I progressed in my cultural development, I realized how good the stuff was and found how much better it made 삼겹살 taste. Oh MAN, I eat Korean food fairly often for living in America, but I have only tried to make 삼겹살 once, that was with my buddy Schmidy. We didn’t have the grill and didn’t use garlic so it wasn’t quite as good (nothing like pulling a hot piece of grilled pork off the grill and eating it while it’s still hot). So besides that one attempt this was the first time I’d had the dish in about 3 years… and man it was SO good. Maybe I can’t say for sure since it’s been so long, but to me it tasted just like it did in Korea.

Anyways, I was running late going over to Joel’s and I get a phone call from him, asking where I was and saying a friend had come over and that they were going to try making some 떡볶이 (I hope I spelled that right) and that they’d save me some. By the time I got there there were 3 friends over—Adam, Sam, and Jeff (Kyle showed up later). Even then there was plenty of food, dang. Adam admitted that while he might not have enjoyed some of the other things he partook of with Joel and I, he really was enjoying this stuff a lot. It was a success—so good, we’ll have to do it again soon (it was a combination of Joel managing to find the right cut of meat, and me hooking up with the gas stove and grill).

I amazed myself today (I know, not hard huh). I went to Circuit City and looked around for a long while and didn’t buy a thing! I went there thinking I might pick up the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack (though I haven’t even seen the movie yet). However, the soundtrack has not been released yet (comes out July 22)—so I could not buy it. There was a new trance compilation out that I auditioned and want, but somehow I convinced myself not to buy it… as I convinced myself not to buy several other things as well. How amazing is that—a store that in recent months I have spent quite a bit of money and I didn’t so much as buy a CD or DVD… I was a little amazed myself when I walked out the door empty handed.

Later in the evening I went over to Jeff’s house as all the parts for his new computer had arrived and he was going to put it together. For the last 3 years he has watched me try to build (and subsequently get frustrated with the snags involved with building) computers and upgrading, etc. Things went fairly smoothly with some relatively minor bumps along the way… until we got to the video card. For some reason the unit wouldn’t power up with the Radeon 9700 Pro All-in-Wonder was plugged in. Odd… I’m still not sure if Jeff has figured out what the problem was. Very frustrating, to say the least.

While we were over there I noticed these giant fish-shaped pillows in the corner of Jeff’s room, hehehe. This one in particular apparently died chocking on a Pixie Stick, heh. Anyways, there’s Steve with his huge catch!

Ah, this is pretty sweet. Today kicks some serious ace. First, I finally got my stereo that I ordered off eBay-- a stinkiin' steal. 1-bit digital amp, CD and MD, etc-- lets just say I got it for like 20% of the next cheapest place you could buy it.

After leaving work early to make sure the Sharp SD-NX10 (my new Auvi stereo) arrived and was signed for (UPS tried to deliver it yesterday and the day before but no one was around at the house to sign for it, so frustrating), I headed out to go meet Joel at 이조 (E Jo), a new Korean restaurant on 3300 So and 700 East in Salt Lake. There we both tried the 갈비 (Kalbi)-- as it was lunch time it came in a "lunch box" not unlike the one I got at Sugi's last summer. Sorry, I slacked and forgot to take pics. Anyways, the food was much better than the one time that I got take-out. I'll perhaps give a more detailed description in the "more" section below. It was a good time at lunch...

Also, Joel discovered a new Korean Market on 200 east and 3300 south on his way to E Jo. Though he had stopped by already, we went there for his second time and my first. Good find, they had a few things the other Korean market didn't.

So then I came home and set up my Sharp SD-NX10, dang it's a beast. A little shy on the bass, but other than that it sounds superb-- crystal clear sound. I just rigged it to use my subwoofer and viola, I'm good to go. This thing is such a steal...

Then to complete this great day, my new web host kicked in around 8-ish. When I discovered that I was even more joyful. Having access to my web site again, I completed the Movable Type installation successfully-- not nearly as hard as I thought it'd be, thanks to some dude who wrote a tutorial on how to set it up specifically on my web server.

So now I'm happily blogging in Movable Type-- it is a huge breath of fresh air after having used blogger for a number of months. Please be bear with me as I re-design my site and get everything working. At least I have blogging functionality, but yeah I'll be overhauling the design of the site-- what you see now is more or less the default template, with the exception of the logo/title I threw up there.

There she is... such a beauty.