Kimchi Chronicles – August 2004
So… What does one talk about when one has spent an entire month working and sitting in their dorm room on the computer or watching DVD’s? I assume that one can only talk about the everyday mundane things that no one is interested in, and endeavor to make it sound as interesting as possible.
Let’s start with my pillow. When I arrived here, I was issued a standard military “pillow, bed, non-fluffy, 1 EA.” After a night or two I went to the BX and purchased a high quality pillow. The label said something to the effect of, “Super Synthetic Fluffiness Technology!” I was extremely happy with the purchase and enjoyed many good nights of sleep. However…
You see, my computer doubles as my TV and the only relaxing area of my tiny room is the bed. The bed is against the wall and perpendicular to the computer monitor. In order to watch TV in a comfortable position, I have to prop the pillow up where the two walls meet, which causes the pillow to fold 90 degrees. After five months of this, all of the Super Synthetic Fluffiness Technology has been squeezed to the sides, leaving a non-fluffy area in the middle of the pillow. This results in a non-fluffy pocket into which my head ends up every night while sleeping. I then came up with the theory that my original non-fluffy, 1 each, military pillow used to be a high tech pillow that was simply used too much. I may write a letter to the pillow company.
I’d like to be serious now for a few moments, if you would allow. Summer is in full swing here in Korea. Hot and muggy. For the past three weeks or so, I haven’t really felt like myself. I couldn’t put my finger on this feeling, indeed I’m not sure I was even aware of it. It was more of an underlying disquiet… subconscious if you will. But deep down I knew that something wasn’t right. Something was wrong. The other day while walking to work, a realization hit me. It hit me like a Korean on a moped broad siding a car. All of a sudden that subconscious feeling made itself known and I now knew what was wrong. That realization was this: There are no grasshoppers in Korea.
A big part of the summer experience in Europe and the Americas, while walking, mowing, or having a backyard barbecue, is the hordes of fleeing grasshoppers bursting forth from the grass just prior to every footfall. It’s the insect equivalent of the Red Sea parting before the lawnmower. It makes you feel like Godzilla tramping amongst panic stricken Japanese. Here in Korea there is nothing. Just grass. This subconsciously put a damper on my summer.
Of course, this realization caused the creation of yet another one of my theories. This theory could potentially revolutionize the scientific world. Grasshoppers can’t stand the smell of Kimchi. This theory caused me to begin work on a grasshopper repellent using compounds from various types of Kimchi. Why anyone would want to repel a grasshopper escapes me at the moment but… I have run into two major snags in this project. First, no matter what compounds I use, the resulting concoction repels every living thing except Koreans, and two… well… there are no grasshoppers in Korea. Kind of hard to test it.
Oh come on! You didn’t actually expect me to be serious did you?
Well, we’ve spent the last month gearing up for the biggest military exercise of the year in Korea. I believe it’s official name is EXERCISE: Giant Freakin’ Hassle. It’s official purpose is “…to annoy the piss out of our IT guys and make them bitter about their jobs for at least the next year.”
You see, in todays world of Nintendo jets and joystick tanks, most exercises are done via computers now. For regular exercise participants, there’s nothing to it. Do your regular job day after day, go somewhere for an exercise, hop on a computer, do your thing, then go back to your regular job. Not so for us IT guys. Users don’t realize that it takes us about a month with lots of overtime just to get ready for the exercise, never mind fix your crap during the exercise. We have to create the massive surge of user accounts, backup real-world databases, load exercise databases, test programs and network connectivity, update DNS and NIS+, load some nifty collaboration software that some General saw once somewhere that isn’t compatible with anything and make it work… etc etc. The real annoying part is when the exercise users show up the day of the exercise and say, “OK, I’m here, where’s my user account?”
“Did you submit the paperwork 2 weeks prior like we asked?”
“What paperwork? Can’t you just create it?”
*sigh* “Here’s the paperwork. Fill it out. It takes about 2 days for security to verify your information and another 72 hours for the account to be created.”
“The exercise will almost be over by then!!!”
“Yes. My condolences to you for being an idiot.”
Tags: Grasshoppers, Kimchi Chronicles, Korea