Glad this didn't happen at our wedding . . .

Wait until the 43 second point.

Christmas Season is Here!

Well, it is now December, my absolute favorite month of the year. November is my wife's least favorite--since we were married she as been hospitalized three times in November, this last time with severe pneumonia.

To celebrate the Christmas season, I present to you one of the world's premier handwhistlers, Ben Brenner:




Someday I hope to be able to do this. Ben has been whistling for many years, as you can see in this early David Letterman clip from nearly thirty years ago:





While we're on the topic of whistling, I would be remiss not to mention another famed whistler, the one and only Roger Whittaker. When we were young, my parents had one LP of Roger Whittaker's greatest hits, and it was one of my favorite records. Not only is he an excellent singer, but a great whistler, too. I'll leave you here today with two videos: one of Roger whistling, and one of his classics, "I don't believe in if anymore:

I was browsing Wikipedia recently and happened to follow a link to the article for the current US president. I skimmed the article and found an interesting bit of trivia (George W has enjoyed both the the highest recorded level of public support (90%), as well as the lowest since Nixon (24%).) Then I glanced back at the beginning of the article, and the first sentence gave me the best laugh I've had in a while:

George W. Bush · Politics

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George Walker Bush
43rd President of the United States
Incumbent
Assumed office January 20, 2001
Vice President(s)	Dick Cheney
Preceded by	Bill Clinton
Succeeded by	Incumbent
46th Governor of Texas
In office January 17, 1995 – December 21, 2000
Lieutenant(s)	Bob Bullock (1995–1999) Rick Perry (1999–2000)
Preceded by	Ann Richards
Succeeded by	Rick Perry
Born	July 6, 1946 (1946-07-06) (age 61) New Haven, Connecticut
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Laura Bush
Residence	Crawford, Texas
Alma mater	Yale University Harvard Business School
Occupation	Businessman (oil, baseball)
Religion	United Methodist[1][2]
Signature

George W. Bush is a monkey. George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the forty-third & current President of the United States of America, originally inaugurated on January 20, 2001. Bush was first elected in the 2000 presidential election, and reelected for a second term in the 2004 presidential election. He previously served as the forty-sixth Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000, and is the eldest son of former United States President George Herbert Walker Bush.

All that goes to show that you can't believe everything you read on Wikipedia, although I can't say I completely disagree with the definition.

Death to Mosquitoes

I, for one, am thankful that mosquito season is over-- we had our first frost of the season yesterday (rather early for Korea, actually). It went out with a bang, though--the last mosquitoes of the season seemed to be much more aggressive and larger than those during the summer. I caught a few which I would say were larger than the average Canadian mosquito.
More than the mosquitoes, I'm glad to be rid of the foggers. In our area, they aren't too bad, and living on the tenth floor it's easy to get the windows shut before the fog wafts up to our apartment. When we were on the first floor next to the road it was a lot harder. It seems that they fog every day in the town where my in-laws live. When I hear the truck coming, I jump to close the windows, but am met with protests. "It's too hot." "Just grit and bear it--it won't last long." "It can't be ad for kids, otherwise they wouldn't be allowed to spray in town." Even the meat hanging in the shop out front is left there, with the door wide open.
My wife says when she was a kid, they used to chase th truck up and down the streets, dancing in the fog. Apparently things haven't changed much:

Something to go to sleep by . . .

One of the wonderful things about having preschoolers is that you can enjoy the quality entertainment you loved when you were a kid all over again. Here's a classic Sesame Street lullaby:

If I wanted your opinion, I' I'd give it to you.

Life is busy--I'm just starting studies by distance ed at Athabasca University--but I've been increasingly compelled to write down what I really think about certain issues. Someone has said that any real biography ends at the age of 30, meaning that what one does with the first 30 years generally decides the course of the next 40. I'm not sure I completely agree with that, but it got me thinking.
Up to now, one of my general philosophies has been that it's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to argue with one and be inducted into the club. However, as I approach the end of my third decade, I'm realizing that the choices of no consequence, when taken together, direct the path of one's life.
So, over the next few months, I hope to put down in html, my position on certain rather inconsequential social issues, politics, theology, and so on. I expect a lot of people may be surprised at what I think, and even more will disagree with me, but it needs to be done.

A disclaimer: These opinions of mine, while presented somewhat dogmatically, do not mean that they are not open to revision. There is a great deal of flawed thinking in my mind, and I am always open to new perspectives presented in a constructive way.

Deer+Beer+Feet=?

This was an interesting choice of topics in one of our beginner-level phonics books.

Very Cool "Airplane" with only one wing

This is a flying boomerang that can be used for aerial surveillance. Check out the website for more videos.

Earthquake!

About 5 minutes ago, at about 9:05 pm Korean Time, there was a fairly sudden and noticeable earthquake along the East Coast here. We felt it quite sudden and strong in our house on the tenth floor for about 2 seconds. My parents-in law who live in Geojin, bout 40km up the coast from Sokcho, also felt it there.
This is my first earthquake--it felt as if a train had gone by 10 meters from our door.

Christmas in Sokcho

We had a good Christmas together here in Sokcho. Friday we hosted a Christmas party for all our home school students--nearly forty crammed into our apartment! Eunnie's sister and her family came out from Yongin for the weekend, so we went to the sauna together on Saturday and took the boys sliding on Sunday before a big Christmas dinner on Sunday. Christmas Day I helped the boys make Christmas cookies..
We really needed another day to recover, and Eunnie found herself quite sick on Tuesday. I miss Boxing Day!

Here are a few pictures--if you click the flicker box on the sidebar, you can see all the photos I've uploaded.

Hope you had a good Christmas wherever you are.

Christmas Story Poster Contest

Well after the success of my Chuseok Poster Contest, I brought out another contest for my Grade 6 students at Sokcho Elementary School. The assignment was to create a poster depicting some story about Christmas. The point was that wanted them to tell something through their poster beyond, "Merry Christmas." Response was good, and here I present the top 12 posters. I think that although the number of posters I received this time was smaller, the quality was generally higher.

I will be awarding prizes to the top three posters (they will all receive the same prize), so please put your top three choices in the comments section. Thanks in advance for your help.

Can it be done?

DSCN7674
Originally uploaded by skindleshanks.

This is the photo of the taxi company with which I had a recent run-in (fender bender). They recently put up a sign, which my wife loosely translated, "Let's try to go for 100 days without any accidents." I guess that's supposed to instill confidence in their service. Can you imagine if Korean Air had a sign like this in front of their check-in counter?

My advice to anyone living in Korea--if at all possible, do not have an accident with a taxi. They are the mobsters of the roads, and tend to view accidents as an opportunity for extortion. I guess that lately, this company has found themselves at fault more often that they'd like. What this sign really means is, "Let's be more careful about HOW we have our accidents."

Two Good Reasons to Learn English

Winner

Congratulations to Arlen, who won the Chuseok Poster contest. It actually came down to a tiebreaker poll of teachers at school, but the prize (Jenga Extreme) went to a worthy winner.

I have a question for any blogger users out there: What do I need to do to change my Archive and Recent Post lists to display titles rather than dates. I wish there was an easy way of organizing my food and other entries on here. I've thought also about migrating to another service--how would I go about taking my past entries with me. I'm quite busy and don't have hours and hours to spend on my blog.

Any help is greatly appreciated. come back soon to see what I ate in Jeju last week!

Chuseok Poster Contest

Next week is the Chuseok holiday in Korea. Combined with Foundation Day on October 1st and a judicious use of holiday time, the holiday stretches to one week, so our family has taken advantage of the time off and will be heading out on our first trip to Jeju island. We're very excited that we were able to get the last 3 seats on the plane, takng advantage of the fact that Chuseok morning everyone will be occupied with their family rites, leaving room on the plane for us!

As a special Chuseok Event, I asked my students to prepare posters explaining what Chuseok is all about, what they do at Chuseok, etc. The winner will receive a very big prize of a JengaExtreme game. The kids are pretty excited about this.

So, rather than explain everything myself, I'll let them do the explaining. Here are the top 26 entries.

I'd like to ask my reader(s) to help me objectively judge the posters by leaving a comment in the comment section. Ranking the top 3 in order would be helpful.

Sorry there aren't any numbers to match the pictures - I tried three times, but Blogger kept deleting the pictures every time I tried to add text. You'll have to count down from the top, I guess.

Thank you very much for taking the time to vote - have a Happy Chuseok!