Lallygaggin'

That's essentially what I've been doing so far in 2009 in regards to my blog.

I'm not going to lie, there have been times where I have considered scrapping this internet ego-stroke altogether and given the frequency of my posts lately I'm sure some of you probably thought I've done just that.

Well, I haven't. Not yet anyways.

In an attempt to catch up to where I should be, I'm going to put up a series of posts about the last six months or so and probably glaze over things I may have posted about already. These may or may not contain pictures but I will add them when necessary.

I will be starting out with a new breakdown of Christmas 2008 and work my way forward until I get to present day May including my most recent trip to Japan. Hopefully I can get dude wife to post his Chicago pics by late this week.

Expect quick succession people!

So in the meantime, enjoy this video of me jumping into the pool at Club Ageha in Tokyo.

First post of 2009 in March

Yeah, I'm a douchebag.

Now that we got that out of our system, let's move on.

So lots of stuff has been happening since the last time I updated back around Christmas. I don't have a lot of time to get into too much detail so here is an abbreviated list:

*Christmas Eve was kind of balls to the walls with drinking so I spent most of Christmas Day nursing a hangover and eventually watched the new "The Day the Earth Stood Still". One of the most horrible movies I've ever seen. You have brought shame on us part-asian-but-still-look-white guys with that one, Keanu.

*New Years in Busan was great fun. Though some 14 of us ended up freezing our asses off at the heater-less hotel room the first night after coming in at 7am from the clubs, the second night in the uber-pimp new hotel room more than made up for it. I love sashimi.

*New team and new opportunities at work. I now head up "Global Services" which gives me a great chance to make some new sales. I've been doing just that with about fifty grand worth of new sales so far since January. New ideas currently brewing for work, will post more after I've implemented them.

*First basketball game of the new year and bam! re-dislocated my left pinky finger. Fuck you ball. It is currently shaped like a pig tail and actually set me back about 2 months for lifting since I couldn't grip anything. Of course I used that as an excuse to stop going to the gym altogether and have managed to gain back a little of my former belly. Nothing like a little extra padding for the cold months. I'll get back into it after my trip home.

*Trip to Japan for my birthday with Micah. Managed to meet up my bro and thanks to Doug's hospitality had a nice place to sleep and shower every night. The big night out was Saturday when we did the all you can eat/drink boat ride, all you can drink karaoke and Club Ageha, the biggest club in Asia. Doug has a video of me jumping into the roof pool so bug him for the links after he posts it. Of course my brother in his infinite wisdom decided to go out, waste all of his battery power trying to call us at 8 in the morning and then make me, Doug and Micah come to him while calling my Mom and asking her to call me. Douche nozzle. Despite his best efforts, we finally managed to meet up and lo and behold, he has 11,000 yen in his pocket. For those of you who don't know, 11,000 yen is nowhere near enough money to have a good night out in Tokyo so of course big bro had to spot him. All in all a great time. Thanks to all for coming out and extra special thanks to ol' felkface Doug for letting us crash.

*My B-day/Micah's going away party. I wanted to have another party in Seoul for my birthday and since dude wife was leaving we decided to mash the two together. We made it a "silver suit" party since Korea is the only place that still sells these abortions from the 80s. Here is the result of that:

Uber-pimp, I know. From left: Dude wife, Glen, Drew, Shaun, Me, Kevin and Dave.

It's sad to see another friend of mine leave Korea but I've been there and done that so many times now its become routine. The party was probably the best one we've had when you include all of the efforts for the look so we sent ol' Micah back with style. Cheers to us.

* Next week: Back to Chicago!

I'll post more once I get back. Until then, look at this:

So I've been busy

I know I have a lot of photos and stories I am still behind on so I hope to get one or two of those out of the way this coming weekend when work dies down. I still haven't posted on my trip down to Muido and that happened like 3 months ago now. Jeez. I'll get on it soon, I promise.

So anyways, 2008 is almost over and I still can't believe how fast it went by. I guess my routine lately hasn't given me too much time to sit back and reflect on all that happened this year but I'm looking forward to two 4-day weekends coming up around Christmas so hopefully there will be some time then. I was planning on going home for Christmas but a combination of a horrible exchange rate and dickweed clients has made me put off my trip home yet again. This time I'm thinking I won't get home until April-ish.

Why April? Well, allow me to elucidate my fiendish plan for the first 1/3rd of 2009.

First, starting in January I will be attending Korean language courses in the evening during the weekdays. Since I haven't officially studied any Korean in over 2 years, I thought it was about time to finally get some sort of certification and actually improve my language abilities in ways besides bullshitting with co-workers and arguing with old guys. The program runs until the end of March and I'm hoping that it will at least bolster what I already know. We'll see I guess.

Second, my work schedule will remain the same for the most part with the exception of adding a couple clients and dropping a couple more. I probably won't see too much of a workload increase but I have been wrong before. 2009 is going to be all about managing time for work since I'll have to leave at 5:30 sharp every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday to get to classes on time and won't be able to work any of that wonderful, unpaid overtime on those days. I guess it just means I'll be making it up on the weekends behind my trusty little laptop. Yay.

On top of work and classes, I've also realized that if I want to continue exercising like I have been I'll have to switch from evenings to morning at the gym. This means I have to drag my tired ass out of bed at 6am sharp if I want to go at all. Considering the fact I have rarely gotten up before 7:30am this past 2 years, I guess I need to start working on that now. Damn.

Add to these three activities my ability to get sidetracked by things like reading, fooling around on the internet and occasionally throwing everything up in the air with a big "fuck it" and going out with friends, I'm in for a much busier lifestyle for the first three-four months of 2009.

Did I say I've been busy? Shit, I guess I'm just getting started.