Articles by mgedwards

Cafeteria, we have lift off!

Friday was a watershed day.  Ten months after it closed, we held a ceremony in the cafeteria to officially reopen it.  Employees turned out en masse for the opening ceremony and for complimentary food samples provided by the new vendor (people will always show up for free food!).  The Ambassador and his wife opened the ceremony with some remarks, and together we cut the cake and the ribbon to officially open the cafeteria.  The occasion marks one of my best days during my time in Korea.  While the recognition of a job well done is nice, what is most significant to me is that the cafeteria is finally a reality.  I put a lot of time and effort into reopening it.  My staff, including the general manager of the community association, also made great efforts to bring it to fruition.  During the selection process, we failed in our first attempt to bring in our first vendor candidate, setting us back by about three months.  At the same time, we worked with another group to supply the cafeteria with limited food choices as a temporary, stopgap measure, but the group ran into some trouble and had to cease operations.  So much headache has been associated with reopening the cafeteria that it brings a huge measure of relief to know that on Monday morning it will officially open for business.  Our work isn’t completely finished, because the vendor still has to perform.  There will be growing pains, I’m sure.  But at least the hard part is over.  I won’t be packing my lunch or going out for lunch as much as I did, that’s for sure.  I’m going to the cafeteria and savoring the cafeteria food.
 
I went out with a friend and some of his office mates last night.  We met for drinks and karaoke.  We had a great time.  I love to sing.  I sang a few of my best songs, including covers of Roy Orbison’s "Oh Pretty Women" and Peter Frampton’s "Ooo Baby I Love Your Way."  I think I shocked them when I sang a couple of "screecher" songs, when I shift gears vocally and start singing like a chipmunk on helium.  I can’t quite sing like Kurt Cobain, so whenever I sing Nirvana’s "Smells Like Teen Spirit" I start to screech.  They told me it was some of the worst karaoke they’d ever heard, laughing all the while.  Good!  I love to have fun while singing.  It’s a lot of fun to deviate from the standard karaoke vocals.  Most karaoke singers try to sound just like the artist.  Those who sing well may deviate from the original artist’s form, but they usually try to imitate the style of the artist.  As an American, I must prefer going my own way.
 
We had so much fun that I came home much too late.  Tired or not, I had to get up at about 6:30 a.m. to take care of my son.  He knew that his mom had to work all day in Busan today and wouldn’t be home until after he went to bed.  Thus, his internal alarm clock told him to wake up even earlier so he could see mommy before she left for work.  I took him for the rest of the day.  We had a wonderful time together.  We built a pillow fort with our sofa cushions, read stories, played with trains and with Play-doh.  His green Play-doh was missing, and his mom confirmed that she had thrown it away after it grew too brittle.  He was devastated.  He just had to have blue AND green Play-doh, as I mentioned in a recent blog entry.  So daddy and he went to the toy store looking for green Play-doh and for AAA batteries for a storybook.  The only Play-doh I could find was one can of "Spiderman Fun Dough."  Thinking that it must be blue or red, I went ahead and bought it.  It turns out the Play-doh was just the green we needed!  My son was very happy.  I also put together his storybook, and we listened to stories.  In the evening, we went to dinner together.  When mommy came home, she bathed and put my son to bed.  The rest of the day was ours.  It was a wonderful father-son experience.
 
Blog Notes:  Wade3016, well yes, Vince Young will probably opt to join the NFL draft.  So far all the attention has been on Reggie Bush, and most armchair quarterbacks assume that the 2-14 Houston Texans will draft Bush (a Bush head to Houston…imagine that).  So if the Texans take Bush in the first round, then I guess the 3-13 New Orleans/San Antonio Saints will take Young second in the draft?  That would make sense.  If I were the Texans though, I’d take another look at Young.  The NFL is full of stars who were taken later in the draft and ended up outshining the first round draft pick.

Things are gearing up

This week my workplace has been somewhat quiet because many people are still off on holiday.  This is but an illusion.  In reality, it’s quickly become apparent that the relatively quiet holiday season has ended, and a bustling new year has started.  I don’t miss much from my days when I worked for a giant aerospace company formerly headquartered in Seattle, but one aspect of the job I do miss very much is the fact that most of the company shut down for a week between Christmas and New Year’s.  During that time, workers in the factory retooled the assembly line and prepared for another year of aircraft manufacturing.  Office workers such as myself got the entire week off.  We didn’t mind at all that we were paid for time off that didn’t count against our vacation days.  I remember spending time at home doing nothing, and I absolutely enjoyed it.  Those days seem long, long ago now!
 
My new job does not offer this benefit.  We stayed open over the holidays, although we were closed the Monday after Christmas and New Year’s.   Because I transitioned between jobs, I did not take any vacation over the holidays.  Now, things are gearing up at work again.  A new job with new responsibilities.  Applying for new opportunities, such as a two week assignment in another country.  Gearing up for the new cafeteria, which officially opens for business tomorrow.  Planning future vacations and submitting vacation requests early.  Preparing to bid on my next assignment in February.  Although we had a lot of fun over the holidays, it would have been nice to have had a little more downtime.  Oh well, c’est la vie.  I can’t complain.  I love my job and wouldn’t trade it for any extra vacation.
 
From the "Things that Make You Go…Hmm" Department:  Congratulations to the University of Texas Longhorns for a stunning 41-38 victory over USC in the Rose Bowl at Pasadena, California.  Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush overshadowed UT’s Vince Young all season long, but Young put on an MVP show and gave the Longhorns their first college football national championship since 1969.  So, my question for Vince Young is…where are you going next?  Disneyland? 
 
Blog Notes:  I’m really sorry to hear about the death of the 12 miners at the Sago Mine in West Virginia.  One remains in critical condition.  Just last week, a colleague and I happened to be talking about the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.  All 29 crewmen were lost when the Edmund Fitzgerald, heavily laden with iron ore, sank in Lake Superior on the cold, wintery night of November 10, 1975.  The crewmen left behind many loved ones–wives, children, parents, and grandchildren.  Each year, people gather on the anniversary of their deaths to remember them.  Each year, they sing "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," the Gordon Lightfoot classic immortalizing the tragedy.  Like the Edmund Fitzgerald, the Sago Mine accident was a terrible tragedy.  I hope that their families will be comforted and that these men will be remembered, just as those lost aboard the Edmund Fitzgerald are still remembered even after 30 years.

Blue and green

Lately my son has really warmed up to daddy.  We had a rough spell following the APEC Summit, when I was away for almost two weeks.  He was also sick for awhile and only wanted mommy to comfort him.  "You want mommy," he would say repeatedly, referring to himself in the second person.  Dad was left out in the cold for awhile.  However, in the past couple weeks or so he has really shifted his attention to me, which makes me happy as can be.  It’s so much easier to raise a child when they want to spend time with you!  I’m making the most of my time with him.  Even mom agrees that he prefers to play with me if given a choice.  As is often the case, mom is seen as the primary caregiver, and dad is seen as the king of fun.  I’ll never be as attentive to his needs as his mom is, but I am a lot of fun.
 
One of my son’s most interesting quirks is his love of the colors blue and green.  Not blue.  Not green.  Blue AND green.  His favorite toys are Thomas the Tank Engine trains, and his favorite trains happen to be blue (Gordon) and green (Henry).  He always keeps them together as a pair.  Lately he’s added Spencer (gray) and Diesel (biege) to the tandem because they’re all about the same size.  However, Gordon and Henry are still the standards in his train collection.  He carries them together wherever he goes.  His love of these two engines has spawned a desire to pair blue and green together in all sorts of interesting combinations.  He plays with blue and green play dough.  He pairs greenish toys with bluish toys.  When we went to a toy store before Christmas, he took a liking to Little Tikes’ B.C. Builders dinosaur toy collection.  Which dinosaurs did he choose?  The blue one and the green one, of course.  When we tried to convince him to settle for one or the other, he wouldn’t stand for it.  He had to have both toys (we relented).  When we bought him some socks, one pair happened to be blue, one green.  Now, every day he mixes those two pairs of socks and runs around the house wearing one blue and one green sock.  When you ask him what his favorite color is, he responds enthusiastically, "Blue and green!"  Blue and green do have a certain soothing affect when paired together, like sky and land, land and sea, trees and lakes, rivers and mountains.  I wonder if he’ll always consider both to be his favorite colors, or if he’ll eventually choose just one.  We’ll have to wait to find out.