Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Calling Senior Whences, plus Towering Views - JESSTACULARLY UPDATED

Today let’s start with a brief homage to Senior (with an enye, not like about to graduate) Wences.  Oh, sorry, I mean that other guy: Senior Whences.  This is the dude who deals with the stuff that you can’t figure where the hell it came from.  You know what I mean.  That note in the lint trap in someone else’s handwriting, or the thing between your teeth that you finally get free and then can’t tell what it was, and all that sort of mystery material.... Senior Whences is there to tell you whence such matters originated.  Well, Senior Whences, I need your help.  Over the past year a few unwhenceables have come into my life, and if you don’t tell me their provenance, I’m just going to have to blog about it.  O too late!  Strap in, I have a list of three of them:

ITEM: I got to work early one morning and checked my voicemail, which usually is empty but this particular morning there’s a blinking light.  I dialed in and listened, hearing something vaguely familiar… a martial tune, cheerful and brassy but unmistakeably military - John Phillips Souza meets Andy Griffith… where did I know this from?  And then at the appointed moment it all became clear: a dulcet announcer tells me that GOMER PYLE, USMC is being presented by some damn sponsor or other.  I listened for the full duration of the theme song, and then the line went dead.  Any of you send that along to me?  I didn’t think so.  So Senior Whences, whence that?

ITEM: I got back from Korea, back from bonding leave, back to my office to find on my desk a stack of annual reports, a variety of memos, a lovely bag of baby clothes from my office mates… and a CD in a red envelope with a piece of silver tinsel tied to it.  The disk itself was pink, with the words “Zach” and “Jesse” written across its surface in red glitter glue.  Upon playing the disk I found it full of very cool music, ranging from grungy punkish stuff to something that sounded like Charlie Hunter to some wicked female vocals I can’t otherwise categorize but very much like.  Maybe had I made it a practice to broaden my musical perspectives I’d have known what I was listening to, but I don’t even know where it came from.  Senior Whences, help me!

FINAL ITEM: I have a little tag hidden on this site that lets me get some basic stats on visitors and usage.  It’s not like there’s many of the former or much of the latter, but I like to see what there is to see.  Over the past several months I’ve seen an increase in visits - about twice as many as previously.  However, it’s not like there’s a lot of new people stopping by to Chuckle the ol’ Hut.  Rather, it’s one visitor, I’m pretty sure, coming back several times a day.  I’m complimented and all, but with no comments, no emails, nothing identifying left behind, all I know is that someone whose internet access comes through Limelight in Tempe Arizona is really curious about my archives.  Senior Whences, I am looking to you for answers.  Leave me not hanging, dude!

Speaking of hanging and dudes, I have to apologize for my ongoing failure to post pix of my awesome new boy.  The issue has been the loss of most of my Korea photos, and an irrational resistance to posting Jesse photos before I travelogue your sorry asses to Seoul and back.  And by Seoul, I mean, sort of, this:

Yeah, this is a city of 16 million or so, spread way out and way way up too.  On our last day in town we took a trip up to the top of the highest peak in town - and there are plenty of high ones - where they built a big-ass sightseeing tower for my personal entertainment.  That photo was looking north toward the traditional ancient heart of the city - a city that apparently has been entirely built since about 1960.  Even the old palaces are reconstructions.  And when I say it was built, I really mean that it was built:

These are visions of a seriously large town that knows how to make things interesting.  As evidence, here’s the view from the MEN’S ROOM OF THE SEOUL N TOWER.  You can see the freaking curvature of the globe from in front of the urinals:

Very cool.  To cap things off, here’s little Zachy enjoying his own sightseeing atop the tower - he got tired of the incredible vistas unfolding at his tiny feet, but could NOT get enough of the two-dollar vending machines full of dismembered power rangers in little plastic eggs:

And here’s me, blending in and indistinguishable from the native Seoul men who surrounded us as if they owned the place. 

Next up: Mindblowingly cute and beautiful photos from our field trip to the palace.  And I’ll try to update this post with a Jesse shot sometime soon.  I think I’m getting over my intransigence.  Meantime, I’m still confused about the above-referenced ITEMS, so any clues would be warmly appreciated. 

UPDATE: I’ve had a request to give with the kidpix already, so here’s a nice one: At Fisherman’s Wharf, the boys get their leetle heads crusheded by a pretend crab:

More to follow, eventually…