Monday, December 15, 2008

Back and better than ever

SO: funny thing.  No, the trip to Seoul was great - coming and going, especially the return flight with the two best and sweetest kids on the plane.  In Korea we ate some great food, stayed in a great neighborhood, and everybody was - what’s the word for “nice” on steroids?  Mega-nice?  They were that.  We got around the city a little, Zach was (mostly) a delight (and it was totally understandable when he wasn’t), and we came home with a totally wonderful little mandu and I swear he’s JUST AS CUTE AS ZACH WAS which needless to say is officially ultra-Sanriotastic cuteness. 

No, the trip was pretty much perfect, and even though I got a little head cold after we returned home I am mostly over it already.  Friends and family have been so supportive it makes me tear up (like in my eyes, not like shredding papers, which I also find myself doing but not for any friend-and-family-support-related reason).  I’m taking off work, mostly, till ‘09, and we’re all of us slowly settling in to a new worldshape and learning each others’ quirks and weaknesses.  It is already a good bit more work managing a family of four than of three, but I’m sure that’ll all work itself out soon enough.  In the wild, kids are naturally helpful and constructive, according to my Dr Spock’s “Raising Your Little Vulcan” manual.  I should check for updates, though, maybe. 

SO, as I said before, there was just one onion in the everlovin’ ointment: the new camera - oh, we got a new camera, just a little shirt-pocket sort of thing for snapshots but of course with seven megapizzles of resolution I expect decent photos from it too.  SO.  I’m merrily shuttering off and I’m up to like three hundred photos (and a few videos) of our first three days in Seoul plus the lead-up to the trip.  I go to snap another shot of the weird illuminated ceiling in the LotteRia Burger Shoppe where we’re dining (honestly, can I recommend that you stick with the squid rings?) but instead of giving me a viewscreen the camera flashes the message, “Card Not Formatted.” I get a replacement the next morning but there wasn’t much time left to take many more photos.  Once I got it home, it turns out that the card is unreadable even by the inestimable “Sirge” from Best Buy’s Geek Squad, and we all know that Sirge goeth before a fall, or something to that effect.  Anyway he’s clearly the stuff of legends, and even he is helpless to assist me.  SO now I’m pricing third-party data recovery but it looks expensive.  There may be almost no photos from this amazing trip.  Good thing I’m a compulsive diarist, eh?

Meantime, as I mentioned on the other side of midnight, I did take some other cool photos recently at Cornerstone Gardens so I’ll unleash those while I see about getting my time zone, appetite, and flash memory card into proper gear for a Korean recapitulation (or, more succinctly, a “Koreapitulation").  So, Enjoy, my ravenous public!

At the “Garden Party” garden: Zach gets things rolling:

They actually look like this:

A little bronze hubba-hubba at the garden furnishings shoppe:

tiny metals chains - last time they were festooned with messages on mylar disks, but I think it looks better like this

this was Z’s favorite hole at the mini-golf garden.  as in life, this one is harder than it looks - despite the golfer’s insouciant salute from atop mt nipplepar:

the rocketship outside the Rochambo tasting room was more interesting to Zach, but their barreltastings and old-vine Dry Creek Valley zins were my first priority:

apparently there was a convention.  who knew?

at this garden, deep words get deeper:

at this garden, Z reverted to a more lemur-like stage, which suited him rather well in the short term:

aww, you stuck around.  It’s like looking for the extra bit of movie after the closing credits, eh?  Well let me not disappoint you - say hello to Jesse!

More, much more, to follow.  I’m still a little shaky with scheduling things, but with three weeks at home I ought to be able to work up something for you people.  I mean, I may be lame, but I don’t think it’s gotten quite that bad.  You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?