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Visited The Stumbling Brother this weekend, the focal point being a big meat cookout attended by me and two of his friends. He has converted part of his back yard into a meat cooking pavillion.



Here is a list of the meats that were cooked that afternoon. We added it up, and we cooked a total of 80 lbs of meat, or 36 kgs!

Brisket, qty 2, 4 lbs ea

Butt Roast, qty 4, 7-10 lbs ea

Turkey Breast, qty 2, 7 lbs ea

Whole Turkey, qty 1, 13 lbs

Chicken Wings, qty 24

Catfish Fillets, 5 lbs

Baked Beans w/Sausage, 3 lbs

Fried Hushpppies, 1 lb

Corn Fritters w/Black-Eyed Peas and Garlic, 2 lbs

French Fries, 3 lbs

SPAM, 1 can

The meat cooking equipment (that was used) consisted a gas grill:



a gas stove,


an electric "table-top" turkey frier,


an electric smoker,


and an experimental "trash can" method using hot coals.


I don't think THIS grill / smoker was used, but I'm not 100% sure:


Here we all are, sitting around waiting for the meat to cook...






The Stumbling Nephew in his St. Patrick's Day coat with Young Stumbler #4:

Went to visit The Stumbling Brother this weekend, and took the opportunity to visit some folks from my long ago past. First, on Sunday morning, went to see Dr. and Mrs. W, parents of my good high school friend KW. Back in High School, we used to jokingly call him "Dr. Dr. W", since had two doctorate degrees. However, on Sunday he embarassed me by reminding me that we also used to call him "Big Dummy" at marching band events! It was great to see them again after 25 years.





Then on Sunday afternoon, we visited an old family friend EB, who lives out in the woods south of town. He told us lots of fun stories from the old days, and we had a fun visit. EB is a Ham Radio operator, just like The Stumbling Brothers, and is encouraging me find a way to get on the air from Seoul someday.

Friday, The Stumbling Girls had a plan. We met for lunch, then took Young Stumbler #4 to get her ears pierced! I have never seen my other girls getting their ears pierced, so it was a very interesting event for me.






Here is the result. It seemed that the actual piercing didn't hurt very much, but the piercing machine didn't want to let go of the earing. It seemed that she hurt more from the machine than the piercing. But she was brave, and now has freshly pierced ears and new earrings:





Then Friday night, Young Stumbler #4 had a fun overnight birhday party with several of her friends. Swimming was planned, but thunder and lightning made them postpone swimming until the morning. Young Stumbler #3 and I bought some pizza, fed all the girls, then ate birthday cake. Get ready, make a wish, and blow out the candles:

Young Stumbler #3 graduated from High School this week! Congratulations!

Wednesday night we had a small dinner for her at The Stumbling Parents' house. Hamburgers with corn-on-the-cob, roasted garlic, red peppers, potatoes, and many more...

Big, red, peppers. In Korea, these are called 오이고추, or literally "cucumber pepper":


Here we roasted whole garlics with some olive oil in the oven. Really soft and delicious.


The Stumbling Dad preparing hamburgers:


and cleaning the grill:


Oven-roasted potatoes:


Here is the grill ready for the hamburgers, with the corn on the top shelf:


I made a fusion dish - kimchi burger!


Oh - yeah, this post was about Young Stumbler #3 graduation! I got distracted by the food...

Young Stumbers #1 and #3,


and Young Stumbler #4 (#2 was working this night)



After dinner, we were treated to a concert by Young Stumbler #4 - she has been practicing a song for several months now, and was ready to show off:


The graduate played for us a little on her new keyboard graduation gift:


The next night was the graduation ceremony itself. I was seated behind the band, with 9 tubas and 20+ Trombones! It was great:


Here is Young Stumbler #3 receiving her diploma:


After a final and unnecessarily long second speech of the night, the principal declared the class of 2010 officially graduated. And off came the hats:


Based on previous years' experiences trying to find a restaurant after graduation, this year I made a reservation. However, we arrived at the restaurant to find it mostly empty! Not quite sure what happened. Here is The Proud Stumbler and the nw graduate:

Ever since discovering them in Japan years ago, I've always carried a "towel-style" handkerchief with me. They were especially useful in Japan, where they don't usually have towels in the bathrooms, to dry your hands. In Korea, too, bathrooms don't often have towels, but this style of handkerchief is not popular and I can't buy them in Seoul. So when I had a short layover at Tokyo's Narita airport on my flight to the USA on Monday, I stocked up on 6 new towel-style hankies:



Let's see, we have bicycles, goldfish (The Stumbling Mother had to explain that one to me), beer mugs, watermelons, elephants, and finally penguins! May I continue to have dry hands. And my pants legs will stay dry, too, since I won't be wiping my wet hands on them...

I had a trouble-free but long journey home. Flew Monday into Atlanta, and took an onward short flight to North Carolina for a meeting. Then flew back to Atlanta Tuesday morning, rented a car, and drove 4 hours back home. Whereupon we almost immediately attended the Baccalaureate Service for The Stumbling Daughter #3's High School graduating class, and finally ate dinnner at 9pm. Busy, yes, but in a good way. Plus, I didn't give in to the normal jet-lag-driven desire to fall asleep in the afternoon for two days straight.

The Stumbling Mom surprised me with two Korean foods on the table, kimchi and dried seaweed (Kim, or Laver). The latter she bought only for the free Lock-n-Lock storage container:

SUPER GEEK ALERT

I don't normally write such technical posts, but this is the exception.

Recently I had a problem with a circuit board here in my electronics lab. I needed a logic analyzer to troubleshoot. These are usually pretty large, expensive pieces of test equipment. If I had to guess, I would say $10K or more. I started thinking, from who could I borrow one? Finally, I decided to look on the internet, and see if there were any low-cost options. Well, there was:



This little box cost $500, plugs into your computer, thus turning it into a logic analyzer. It arrived Monday morning, and in 30 minutes I had it runnng, connected to my circuit, and found the problem. Even though I've used logic analyzers before, it was very simple to operate - I think a novice would learn quickly.

Note - thus I get in trouble with new regulations I've read about, I was NOT compensated for this post by the manufacturer in anyway. I'm just a satisfied customer excited about the product. But, if they WANT to compensate me, I would be happy...

I've started a new habit - walking and resting along the Han River on Sunday. Yesterday I brought my new lightweight folding director's chair with side table to the park:



First I took a one hour long walk along the riverside, listening to my Car Talk podcast along the way. Then I settled into my chair for 3 or so hours of reading, sleeping, reading, sleeping, etc. Here are some views from my chair.



I sad directly under the Dangsan Railway Bridge, moving my chair about every hour to stay in the shade!



This photo has three points of interest. First, in the foreground, you can see a tandem bicycle. I saw several of these going by. Next, way out near the riverside, you can see a dark square on the concrete. I couldn't tell exactly what it was, but some old lady took a large package down to the river, laid out a small bamboo mat, and proceeded to spread something over the mat. I'm guessing she was drying something in the sun, but I don't know what. Finally, also near the river, you can see a couple of fishing poles. I spent 4 hours at the park, there were numerous fishermen, and I didn't see one single fish!



I was a little nervous when I left my chair to go to the toilet and buy some water bottle and fishcake soup - fortunately my fellow park-goers were honest and nothnig was stolen.

This was so enjoyable and relaxing, I think I'll try it one evening this week. But I need to consult the internet and find when sunset, or else reading my book will be difficult in the dark. Which reminds me of this quote from Groucho Marx: "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read".

Today I went to the World Cup Stadium in Mapo-gu to meet Tuttle to watch the FC Seoul football match. In all this time here in Seoul, I've never gone to a football game. And I still haven't. We met outside the subway station exit, where my friend JI and Tuttle's friend J joined us.

A problem was soon evident. The place was JAM PACKED. Today is Children's Day in Korea, so public places, especially parks (and apparently ball parks, too) are very crowded. Further thwarting our efforts was that today children were being admitted free to the stadium.

We started out trying to find the end of the line to buy tickets. It wrapped over half way around the World Cup stadium! Along the way, J gave up and left us (in hindsight, he was the smart one). We decided at this point to give up on getting in the stadium on time, and came up with an alternate plan. Go eat lunch, wait for the crowds to thin out, and join the ball game in progress.

Alas, we weren't the only ones with this idea. We walked around the underground of the stadium, in what must be the largest Home Plus I've ever seen. Both the food court and other restaurants were so crowded we gave up, and returned to the GS25 where we originally met! Even the GS25 had a long line just go get inside. We found a table, had a simple lunch listening to the crowds yelling from the stadium. The game was about halfway over, and we could still see a long line to buy tickets, so I just gave up and came home around 4pm.





However, I'm going to try again. I'll be out of town the home game, but I can catch the one after that. I'm looking foward to it.

EDIT: I heard on the radio station this morning that the attendance was nearly 61,000 fans at the game, smashing a 2007 record of 55,000. Considering that the stadium only holds about 68,000, it was indeed a crowded day at the soccer field. Well, it probably wasn't too crowded ON THE FIELD, just the rest of the stadium!

The weather was perfect for a long walk along the Han river Sunday. Lot's of people were out, flying kites, fishing, picnicing, just enjoying the weather.





This fellow had a bicycle attached to floats, and the pedals were attached to flippers which propelled it in the water. Sorry, but my finger got in the way on the last photo.