Chuck & Witty changed my life…or at least warped my mind. I loved his humor, his teaching, and his love of thought. In 2000, every day he walked into epistemology class, stood before us in silence, sipped his coffee, and once all eyes were on him, he would say something magical…unfortunately I only remember the coffee and the silence. Years later, in a church, during a class on the Nicene Creed, he sat in the back row and heckled Kleiner on the nature of the trinity, three deities who are one, with traits of omnipresence, yet have assigned seating at the throne(s) in heaven. Priceless. His life was examined; of this I am certain. Rest in peace, good Sir.

See more about him and his friends:

http://usuphilosophy.com/2009/06/11/chuck-johnson-1945-2009/

Saturday afternoon I went to meet my lovely sisters, Jee-eun and Mini. After misunderstandings of relationships, I figured it was going to be a lonely ride for my part. So, I prepared myself by being tired enough to sleep and not ready to flirt. (I was up partying and drinking the previous 3 nights, and had not been sleeping much). However, they brought another wonderful friend to meet me. Her name is Boomi. Boomi was in a great mood and very sweet, and I regret that I may have let her down.

When we arrived at the ski lodge resort, we changed clothes. This should have been easy enough to do, but they wanted to cut my athletic pants that are dragging on the ground, and getting wet in the rainy weather. I agreed it was a good idea (I’ve been losing some weight, so my pants are hanging longer than before). I knew something like what happened next was going to happen. So, I wanted to do it myself. But Mini was adamant about chopping up my clothes. I gave in. Then Bumi and Mini tried to make a game of fitting into my pants each of them with both legs in one leg of my pants. They fell over, laughed, and had a good time…to my point of view, a bit at my expense, but I took it in stride, that they are two of the smaller people I know. Mickey photographed the event.

Next, we headed down to get a nice beef meal (excellent beef is hard to come by in Korea, and it always has a high price). This was amazing meat!! Also, it was barbecued Korean style by three wonderful cooks (Korean style, is you barbecue it and cut it at your own table to your own liking). The girls tried to get me to eat it bloody, and kept tossing it at me, so I decided “to hell with mad cow disease” today is a good day to die. I indulged. They bought a lot more meat than they could handle, so they kept on dishing me…my stomach size is a lot smaller these days (even if my belly isn’t), so I had a tough go of it. However, it was delicious. I ate like a king.

The next stop we hit was the No-ray-bong (easy explanation = Korean Karaoke). It was difficult to perform as we were all incredibly full, but we had a good time. I need to learn some Korean songs better, by the way. My own highlights were Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful", Green Day’s “She", The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black". Unfortunately they made me sing Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” as well.

We then found that the pool tables were free of people, and played 3 friendly games of 2 on 2. Bumi was a beginner so started poor, and I started strong, but ended poor. However the girls were teaching her the whole way, and by the end, she was my pinch hitter. Mini and Mickey (Jee-eun) won 2 games to 1. All three games were lost do to scratching on the 8-ball, or hitting it in early. They were good sports about playing by American rules this time. Although I think Mini secretly wanted to beat me senseless with the pool cue.

Around 12:30 in the morning we went to the “Family Mart” convenient store to buy brewskies and anjou (beer friend or appetizers / snacks). Then we headed up to the room and sat around eating snacks and sipping beer (they were sipping, I was drinking). Anyway, they wanted to watch TV…I hate television, especially when I can’t understand a word of it. So, I expressed my disinterest in the affair. There was mis-communication or disagreement or both. I went to my room and sang to my beer. When I came back for another the TV was off and two of the girls had gone to bed (perhaps figuring I had done so as well). So, I went into their room and pillow fought them for a while. Jee-eun stayed up cleaning, so she and I had a good heart to heart talk until 4:30 in the morning.

I tried my CPAP before going to bed. It tripped the breaker from every outlet in the room. I tried a different style and blew up my American power strip. This wasn’t the first time, we had been through this problem, and the last time, the girls got up for an hour in the middle of the night, then got us a place at a new motel. I was a pain in the ass to them…but their style is happy to help. I didn’t want to be a problem again this time, so I told the older sister to go to bed, and I would be fine. 10 minutes later the lights were on outside my room and they were on the phones. I was pissed off, that they had to make my problem theirs. I’m utilitarian in my thinking that it’s better one person be tired and three happy and rested, than all four people tired, especially if one of them has to drive the rest of us. Anyway, by 6:00am they got a transformer brought to our room. It worked well. They solved my problem, and were really invasive into my privacy. However, it is the way they show love, and I know this, so I appreciate it a lot. My mom knows how stubborn I am about her treating me like a child, especially about something that is a problem I am not proud of, a weakness. Because these women are neither my girlfriends nor my mothers, I acted pretty difficult. But, I feel like a jerk now. They have aptly identified me as a “stiff-necked old man", or a “stubborn mule". I totally agree.

The next day I was still pretty tired from the previous 4 nights and from a lot of exercise during the weak. I was a zombie. It was raining hard. We got some food on the go, and went to a “Herbanara” herb garden. It was pretty cool, but was raining a lot, and the girls wanted to take pictures. I had a decent time, but was too sore for the movement, getting wet, and it just wasn’t my style. I was tired as hell. The tea was awesome, some of the art was cool, but I felt lonely during the experience, the music in the lil houses was really gay, and I wasn’t feeling sexy enough for photos (even though I checked my reflection enough to see that I was indeed a handsome bastard). The girls were really cute, especially amongst the flowers, so I was happy to be the camera man. Next to the Herbanara, we stopped and had some odeng and pajun. Delicious!

My memory is getting fuzzy about the rest (since I waited so long to write), but I know we drove for a while to a shooting range in the mountains. It was a blast. They had skeet and trap. We shot trap with double barrelled shotguns. I missed my first 4 shots, then removed the bulky protective ear muffs. I hit 19 of the next 20 shots. After we all shot, we had a gun photo shoot. Then we went pistol shooting. I shot a 9mm Beretta. And we all shot a .22 long barrelled pistol. Mickey is a former olympic team shooter. She shot with amazing grouping and accuracy. Boomi was not a fan of the big blast of the guns, so she stopped early and let me shoot the rest of her shells. I don’t remember how Mini did, but I think all of her shots were on paper if not on target, which is pretty good. I didn’t aim between shots, because I didn’t know how many bullets we had, and how much they cost (2 to 6 times as much as in the U.S. but you’re also paying for use of the gun in that price). So, I shot pretty fast, and really enjoyed it. There were a couple difficulties, they have an attachment on the gun, that leaks to rope/rubber band, to hold the gun in place. This restricts movement and the natural feel or weight of the gun. Also, I’m a big guy, and need space to the left of the gun to stand, when shooting right handed. The gun agoshi (man, or father) was standing to the left, which left me pretty cramped…which would have been fine if I could move the gun. Also, the distance we shot from is further than I am used to. But my general aim was pretty good. Then we had another photo shoot with weapons.

The drive home was long and torturous (due to want of wajanshili = toilet), in traffic. But the company was great. I didn’t know when or if we were going to eat. So we ate all of Boomi’s oljingo (squid jerky). Finally we arrived at the house of foods, where we ordered a slough of sea snake (chung-oh / eel). It was amazing considering eel is one of my most favorite foods, and I was starving, and Mini did I fine job in saucing and cooking it.