Out To Lunch

We (Sup, Jet, Ben, and myself) will be driving to Birmingham this morning to have lunch with my department head and his wife.  I believe that we will be talking about Thailand, my experiences teaching there last year, my expectations for this year teaching there, and the possibilities for them.  While I was in Thailand last year, I had several e-mail exchanges with my department head about his interest to teach there as well in 2010.  We will be eating at a Thai restaurant they selected that is close to their home.  We will likely leave a few minutes early so that we can stop by some of the shopping malls (the Summit, the Galleria) to get some shopping done.

Jet took Ben to his pediatrician yesterday and said to keep doing what we were doing, that is, use the humidifier, splash him a bit more in the tub during his bath.  Jet and a few of our neighbors thought that Ben should havebeen given some medicine, but our doctor (from Romania) likes to use medicine usually as a last resort.  I am fine with that but that has given Jet some doubts lately and has her considering changing doctors.  Ben was very playful last night, but his coughing has continually gotten worse.  Ben will cough a few times, sneeze, and then we rush to wipe his nose before he does it (with his sleeve, his hands, or even worse, his bear “Buddy”).  Ben had a little fever at the pediatrician’s office yesterday (101 degrees) so Jet gave him some Tylenol before she went to work yesterday.  Hopefully he will be on the mend soon as the weather today and tomorrow is supposed to be great, but possibly snow on Monday or Tuesday.

Sup, Ben, and I stopped at the Long John Silver’s in Anniston last night for some fish fry, which I had the taste for after talking with Kristin on the phone earlier in the day.  After eating the food, I don’t think that I can call that fish fry, perhaps just “fast food” because it doesn’t compare to the “real” fish fry’s that you can go anyplace on a Friday to get in Milwaukee.  If there is one thing that I terribly miss living away from Milwaukee (besides family and friends, of course), it is the fish fry.  When I am visiting Milwaukee, however, I feel the same way about the BBQ I get there compared to the awesome BBQ you can get at a dozen different places nearby our house in Oxford.  Go figure.

We are planning to spend the Super Bowl over at Dan’s again this year and I am excited about the great food – beer brats of course.  I bought the sauerkraut yesterday so that we wouldn’t forget it like we did one time last year.  Dan does cook a good brat; where would we be without such great neighbors?  It should be a chance to get to know some of our new neighbors a little better too.  The new German family has been invited, so hopefully the food will be somewhat comparable to the food they left behind just a few weeks ago in Germany.  Another is a family that just moved in from Texas, but they are originally from Pittsburgh.  You can imagine who they will be rooting for in the game tomorrow.  They have two young children living with them, a boy (9) and a girl (11); they also have two adult children (27 and 25, I believe).  Last week Friday, their young boy was riding his bike around the neighborhood (without a helmet) when Jet was on her way to work.  Only a few minutes later, the boy decided to ride up to the top of the steep hill in the subdivision next to us and fly down it.  The boy came down and ran into the side of a pick-up truck passing by.  The boy was rushed by ambulance to the hospital and had his collarbone broken in two places, a broken arm, a broken thumb, injury to his face, and a very large gash on his thigh.  He was able to go home the next day, which was a relief to hear.  Jet and I stopped by their house to introduce ourselves on Tuesday and the mother was very nice.  She said that the first thing her boy said to her while he was lying in the middle of the road waiting for the ambulance to come was “Mom, I’m sorry”.  She said it almost getting choked up.  Something else that she mentioned was that even though they had just moved into the neighborhood, two different neighbor families stopped by the hospital that night to see them and their boy.  She said that she knew they had moved into the right neighborhood because when they lived in Texas, they never knew any of their neighbors.  Anyways, I am looking forward to some good food for the game tomorrow.  Hopefully the game will be good too.

Marathon Man

Well, this has been a very busy day as I have had to grade exams for a good portion of it, but I am glad that it is now over.  Ben has just been a very goofy kid lately.  When I put him to Bed last night, the first time I did it since I took his pacifier away, he looked at me, smiled, and said “paci?”  I told him that it was “in the garbage” and that he “told me it was OK”.  Just then Ben had a real goofy grin on his face and said “paci” once again, as if to say to me, “well, at least I HAD to try”.  Ben then went to bed without complaint.  After Jet left for work today, Ben was real grumpy as he had recently woke up from his afternoon nap and had a horse cough since yesterday.  Ben walked up to me with two pairs of ”Thomas” underwear and insisted that I put them both on for him.  I did, with both pairs outside of his pants.  He was happy, I was fine with it.  Ben didn’t complain the rest of the night.  I would have done it over again in a heartbeat.

Jet is about ready to book our flights to Thailand.  From what she has told me, I think we will be leaving on April 30 and returning July 10.  I also have to book my registration for the Country Music Marathon by tomorrow to get a $10 discount.  I am not sure if I mentioned that I plan to run a marathon with Sup, but that is the goal.  I have always wanted to run a marathon, but have always come up with excuses each time I began to train.  With a running buddy, hopefully that will not be the case.  Sup has already run two marathons in Milwaukee, so hopefully his experience will come in handy.  I am shooting for 4 hours, which is roughly 10 minute miles, so I hope I can stick to that.  Sup and I began running this week and plan to train every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday or Sunday.  Again, I hope that we can stick to that.  The run looks like it will be a lot of fun and will be just before we leave for Thailand, so that is something to look forward to.

Hello Eddy!

A recent comment that we received was listed as being from Eddy Reese.  Hmmm … there is only one Eddy Reese that I am familiar with, the one that host’s the Southern Shopper every Monday night.  Jet contacted him back and it is indeed him.  Wow!  I only had a moment for Jet to tell me more, but she did say that he was very nice and she invited both Eddy and his wife over for some Thai cooking.  We will see if they accept, but I am just speechless that he was so willing to reach out to us and was interested in meeting us.  We’ll see what happens.

Ben has been pretty wild since he has turned two (only about two weeks ago).  Jensen was over to play with him on Saturday, and even though Jensen is about two months older than Ben, Ben was certainly the dominant male.  Every toy that Jensen picked up, Ben would say “mine” and take it from him.  When I forced Ben to share, he just began to cry and complain.  Come to think of it, Ben has been doing a lot more crying and complaining lately.  He also has been drooling pretty good over the past few weeks as well, which my colleague mentioned that Ben might be getting his two-year molars in.  Ben also seems to be getting a bit “tougher”.  Sup will comment that he runs into things or falls off of something, and instead of crying, he will look at the thing that caused him problems and hit it as if to say, “what did you do that for?” or “why did you get in my way?”. 

We took Pookie to the Atlanta airport yesterday so that she could fly back home.  Just before we left, I had Ben’s pacifier and told him that I was going to throw it in the garbage.  He looked at me, smiled, and said “OK”.  I “fake” threw his pacifier in the garbage (I slipped it in my pants pocket instead) and he seemed to be just fine with it.  On the ride to Atlanta, I told Jet what I had done and we agreed that we would not give him the pacifier back.  Jet and I had talked about putting an end to the pacifier for the past few weeks, so why not stop it now?  Ben asked for it a few times on the ride there and on the way back until he just fell asleep with his bear (“Buddy”).  Every time Ben asked, I said that he told me it was alright to throw it in the garbage.  When it was time for sleep at night, Ben cried for about a good half-hour until he fell asleep, well, at least that is what Jet told me because I fell asleep before both of them.  Hopefully his complaining will become less and less and he will stop asking about his pacifier.

Pookie

It sounds like everyone has had a pretty interesting week after reading all of the comments!  It has been great having Pookie around, but I am ashamed to say that I have only seen her for only a couple hours each day.  I have had to go to school each day that she has been here so far, and most evenings I have gotten back late or have had something to do which has kept me away.  From the little time that I have had to talk with her, it seems that Pookie is having a great time.  She has spent much of the time with Jet and Ben shopping at various stores and shopping malls.  I thought it was odd when Pookie arrived with only a small carry-on bag in tow, now I know why.  She is taking some of our luggage back with her filled with things that she has bought.  Apparently things are much cheaper here than in Switzerland, and especially with all of the winter clearance sales going on now (it was 70 degrees yesterday, by the way), the clothes that she is buying now will still get some good mileage this winter in Switzerland, where the weather is roughly pretty close to that of Wisconsin year-round.

Last night Pookie, Sup, Ben, and I went out for dinner to the Olive Garden to see Jet who was working.  It was the second week in a row for me to eat there, which is very out-of-character as I rarely eat at the Olive Garden here and even more rare, go having Jet serve us instead of eating there with Jet.  We met some of our new neighbors just before we headed out – a German family.  The husband just transferred here to work and was not there walking with their two young children, a girl of about 4-5 and a boy that is 21 months old.  Linda was there also and we were pleased to see that the woman (I forgot her name already!) was very nice as she spoke to us in English.  Unfortunately, the two children were very shy (the girl on a small bike, the boy on a big wheel) and avoided any eye-contact.  After a minute or two the woman explained that they don’t speak any English and didn’t understand anything we were saying.  At that moment, I ran inside to get Pookie and Ben.  You see, Pookie lives in Zurich, Switzerland, which is nearby the German border and thus, they speak German there.  Pookie was kind enough to come out and speak German with the family and get the children smiling.  The woman mentioned that she is not working right now, will be alone during the daytime with the kids while her husband is working, and really doesn’t know anyone here.  Hopefully Jet will have time next week to introduce herself and have some of her friends come over so she doesn’t feel so isolated.

While during lunch in my office yesterday with Sup, a student walked in my office asking if I was “Dr. Ciganek”.  Although she was Asian, she spoke perfectly like a Southerner with the accent and all.  The next thing I knew, she turned to Sup and spoke perfect Thai to him.  Turns out she is a Thai student here at JSU and she came to the U.S. with her family when she was in the third grade.  Her family lives in West Georgia and she was at the same ceremonies we attended at the Thai temple on New Year’s day and a few months back.  Ploy (her name) started school at JSU on a music scholarship at about the same time that I started working at JSU, but she has now changed her major and is a biology student now.  Sup and I asked if she wanted to get together for lunch sometime soon, but Ploy has a very busy class schedule, so we will see if/when we are able to meet again and talk more.

As for Thailand, we have just about made a decision.  Before I was thinking that it had to be an either/or proposition, either we go to Thailand for the entire summer or stay in Alabama for the majority of the summer (save a few weeks to visit Thailand).  Then Jet chimed in and asked me if there was a way that we could do both.  That is why I love her so much.  When I think I have all of the options, Jet can state the most obvious question that I never considered.  So we spoke with the university in Thailand and they are willing to let Jet and I teach a class during May and June, which would let us return back to Alabama to spend July and August here.  We are just working out the final details now, but hopefully by the middle of next week everything will be set.

Finally, happy birthday Dad!  I know that he will never read this, but at least a few others that have regular contact with him (myself included) can share this sentiment with him.  It was Donald’s birthday yesterday and we gave him a gift card to Lowes because we couldn’t fit a wheelbarrow into the trunk of my little Toyota Corolla (not even close).  Linda’s birthday is coming up on February 1, Sarah’s birthday was just a few days earlier, Buddy 1’s birthday is also coming soon (I believe), so this is really the busy time of year for birthdays around here.  Enjoy the steak in Milwaukee!

Birthday Surprise

Well, Ben’s birthday party has come and gone and Jet and I ended up getting the biggest surprise – Jet’s sister Pookie flew in from Switzerland for the week.  Pookie had notified us last-minute of her plans and she hastily booked her ticket on Friday night last week to arrive on Saturday.  Unfortunately, she booked within 10 hours of her flight so they turned her back because they need a longer time to process a background check.  Pookie was then on stand-by for a flight on Sunday and never got a seat, which meant that she would miss Ben’s birthday party.  Pookie did get a seat on Monday and Jet and Ben picked her up at the airport in Atlanta yesterday (Monday) and she will be staying until Saturday this week.  We are all so very excited to have her here.

Ben’s birthday party went off without at hitch.  We were worried that having invited so many people (more than we ever invited before) would cause problems, but everything ended up working out.  My only mistake was in ordering another 4 pizzas at the last minute, when 10 pizzas were more than enough for everyone.  Some people got pizzas to take home as a parting gift.  Ben got tons of great gifts, which is something that we did not expect as we really just hoped to have a good time with everyone around.  The fireworks went well, but indeed there are a few stories.  The first thing I lit were some sparklers to give the kids to play with.  Olivia (a few months older than Ben) danced hers around for about 15 seconds until it burned out, then promptly threw the red-hot metal wire back at me which I ducked to avoid.  I didn’t know if many people saw that, but only a few seconds later (when my attention was elsewhere) there was a bit of commotion as the spent sparkler had started our lawn on fire.  Not a big fire, just a small patch no bigger than a foot in diameter.  I’m glad that happened early as I cautiously managed the remaining show.  Dan was a good sport lighting all of the fountains and “screamers”, but it got cold very quickly (in the low 40’s) so we cut the show early with only half of the fireworks used.  I guess we will have to find a good reason to use them in the coming weeks.  Speaking of the cold weather, we actually had snow flurries last night.  I tried to call a few people last night to tell them the awful news, but no luck.  Everyone must have been busy.

Well, enough of the cold talk.  Jet and I will likely be making our decision on whether to spend all summer back in Thailand again this year.  I have been offered to teach two classes again, but now in a different campus that is located by a couple of the major shopping malls in Bangkok.  The big advantage is that it will be nearby lots of things to do, the big disadvantage is that I am not that familiar with the area (have shopped there a few times with Jet before), I don’t know if there are any good places (away from traffic) to go jogging, to play basketball, or to go to church in the evenings.  What is also different this time is that they also offered Jet a job teaching as well, a brand management marketing (MBA) class.  That is something that excites Jet a lot so we are leaning towards returning right now.  I will likely be doing a lot of work for JSU over the summer as I have also gotten an offer from them to teach a class and do work here.  It won’t be an easy decision, but it will be one that will come soon.  Either way, perhaps some of you would like to visit us over the summer where ever we might be.  I’ll keep everyone posted.

Everybody’s Workin’ For The Weekend

… and some are still working on the weekend.  I apologize for not posting at all during the week, but as you might suspect, things were very busy.  I must have set a record for meetings as there were the usual I had on tap in addition to the ones to bring everyone up to speed on what I learned at the conference last week in Savannah and then all of those to introduce Sup to everyone and get him squared away.  Then I had my first classes this week.  I must have been ready to get back to class as I have used up every minute in each one (and one I ran 5 minutes over!), which is something that is pretty rare for me.  And then there is the planning for all of the meetings in the coming week.  It just never ends, does it.  That is why I am at JSU by 3 or 4am every day I am at school and why I am up at 3am every morning on the days I am not there typing on the computer.  I am just trying to keep my head above water!

It was Ben’s birthday yesterday and Jet, Sup, and I went to the Porterhouse Cafe’ to celebrate.  It was the first time that Sup had “Southern” food (greens, cornbread, etc.) and I think he enjoyed it.  The bananna pudding was exceptional.  We stopped by “PetSmart” just before lunch to show Ben some of the animals and to consider getting Ben some pet fish for his birthday.  Jet was a bit reluctant, however, because the last time we had gotten some fish about 7 years ago (goldfish, I think), it died in just a day or so and it tore her up as she likely felt that she had a role in it’s death.  Thai people (Budhist culture) are strongly against killing things.  We’ll see what happens.  I walked Ben around the Wal-Mart toys section to get a feel what he might like, but he was just into anything for about a minute, which he then tossed aside for something else for another minute.  It’s hard to do any quality market research when there are so many distractions.  So on the way back home from lunch, I stopped with Sup and Ben at the fireworks store.  Maybe a few firecrackers would be just the trick for Ben’s big birthday bash tomorrow (Sunday) evening.  I had no idea what to get so I explained to the gal working there that I didn’t want anything too elaborate as this was just something I wanted to do ‘for the kids’ at Ben’s party.  After all, I didn’t want a repeat of the fireworks display from the fourth of July in Milwaukee a couple years ago now.  I told the gal that my budget was ‘around $20-$30′ and asked if she could help pick some things out.  She promptly started pulling things from the shelf from everywhere describing what they did (lots of things that shoot off sparks), in total, well over $100 worth of fireworks.  She got up to the check-out and just rang it all up at $30.  Either the mark-up for fireworks is huge, she was trying to get rid of old fireworks, or she was just a really nice person, but we got a ton of stuff to shoot off tomorrow night.  It’s only supposed to be 45 degrees at about that time tomorrow, so maybe we will have a big audience watching from indoors.  A few of our neighbors (they will remain nameless) just about refused going outside at all yesterday because of the temperatures in the teens and twenties.  I guess you can’t blame them because it hasn’t been that cold down here in about six years or so.  I’m sure that there will be a story or two to come from the fireworks, though.  There always seems to be, doesn’t it?

Andrew Bogut, eh?  For a conversation piece, you could ask him about the U.S. Aussie Rules Football championship in Milwaukee back in October 2005 that he visited, likely not long after he arrived here.  Of course that is where I got the Aussie Rules football signed by him that is in Bryon’s trophy case today, the same “footy” that when I gave it to Bryon as a gift, he was like, “what the heck is this” and even more remarkable, had no idea who had signed the footy.  What a sports fan, eh?  Glad to hear that he will be out of the hospital soon, though.  It has really been a tough month-6 weeks, hasn’t it?

“Back” To Work

Well, we came back after a week in Savannah on Friday evening.  In sum, the week went by fast and was nothing like I expected – and for the good.  I was hesitant to attend because I didn’t see the value of going, but after exercises all day long, homework to complete each night, and very little sleep in-between the hour or two of sightseeing each night, this really was a working week-long seminar.  But I learned so much more about the accreditation process and all of the work we did during the week I can make use of at JSU.  What a valuable week that was.

We arrived in Savannah as the sun went down on Sunday and after checking into the hotel, we got directions to River Street, which is the primary locale for tourists in the area with all of its pubs, restaurants, and riverwalk.  Although River Street was only 6 blocks or so away, I took a wrong turn and within two minutes, I was on the Talmadge Memorial Bridge, and within five minutes, in South Carolina.  It was a good thing that it was already dark because I couldn’t see all of the water that we were driving over (I don’t like driving on bridges that span water for some reasons).  After a quick round-a-bout, we were on River Street and enjoying the warm (80’s) weather.  We ate on River Street for dinner both on Sunday and Monday night, having seafood each time.  I insisted that we have seafood because we wouldn’t get the chance to have such fresh food when we returned home.  Before dinner on each night, we went to some new location to walk around.  A couple of times we visited one of the parks that had a nice playground for Ben, another time we went shopping at some of the stores nearby River Street, we walked along the riverwalk on River Street a few times, and we also walked around their railroad museum (which Ben really enjoyed).  We ate at a Thai food on Tuesday and Thursday night, while on Wednesday night, Jet got out at 9:30am to make reservations at Lady and Son’s – Paula Deen’s restaurant.  The best food we had while we were in Savannah was at Lady and Son’s; Jet had the crab stuffed shrimp and I had the buffet.  My mouth is still watering from how tasty their food was.  While I was at the workshop during the daytime, Jet took Ben out to Tybee island one day (but didn’t see any dolphins), to the park another day, and to the shopping mall a couple times.  Jet was a great sport about it all as I am sure that it was tough for her to spend most of her free time watching Ben.  All-in-all, I think we both had a good time there.

Yesterday morning I went back out to Atlanta and picked up Sup from the airport after his long flight from Thailand.  Sup first arrived in Chicago and planned to stay there for a day first with his aunt and uncle, but he couldn’t get his flight booked that way, so he ended up seeing his aunt for about 5 minutes at the airport before he had to rush and catch his plane to Georgia.  And from what Sup said, it was a good thing his plane left Chicago when it did because they were just starting to cancel flights due to the snow they were getting.  Once we got back home to Alabama, Sup just watched the two NFL playoff games while he was prepping for his classes.  Since he doesn’t get NFL games in Thailand, that is something that he really missed and enjoyed doing.  Ben liked hanging around Sup and kept offering him his snacks.  It is amazing how much Ben has been able to learn and say things over the past week alone.  He can tell you his name on request now without any trouble (when asked both in Thai and in English), he can repeat words that you say much better now, and he has much more of a sassy side to him as well.  When Jet asks Ben to quiet down, he will get louder.  While in Savannah, Ben wanted a sip of Jet’s diet Coke, to which Jet said, “no, yucky” and Ben replied “yummy”.  This went back and forth three times Jet said, until she finally gave him a sip of the soda.  After Ben was finished, Jet told me he said “mmmm …. yummy”.  Jet said she couldn’t help but laugh.  He turns two on Friday.  What an amazing two years it has been.

Well, there is not much planned for today.  I am sure Sup will be watching the NFL games again today and perhaps we will have a few friends come over to visit.  Sup is staying with us in our guest room this weekend until we go to JSU tomorrow (Monday).  Although Sup is welcome to stay with us anytime (perhaps he will on weekends), he does have accomodations at JSU.  I am sure it will be a busy week ahead with our first classes, meetings, and everything else that can come up, so I hope I have a chance to comment a bit more than last week.  We will see.

Savannah Bound

Just making final preparations for our drive to Savannah, Georgia this afternoon.  Yesterday the movie Elizabethtown was on TV and Jet walked in the room during one of Paula Deen’s cameo spots, which she took as a sign that we should stop and eat at her restaurant in Savannah sometime this coming week.  After looking at her reservation policy(wait in line at 9:30am, first come, first serve, for a reservation later in the day) we are thinking that we might pass.  Besides, there appears to be several other good restaurants to eat at there that should keep us busy.  The temperatures are supposed to be around 80 there until Wednesday when they dip down into the 60’s.  Hopefully Jet and Ben will have a good time there.

Our New Year’s Eve party went great.  I tried a new pizza dough recipe (1 package dry yeast mixed with 1.5 cups warm water, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 tablespoons olive oil, then mixed with 3.5 cups flour) and let it sit in the refrigerator the night before.  Perhaps it was the mixing of the yeast and warm water first (I usually just blend the yeast with the flour first, then water), but the dough was very tough to stay still; I would roll it out and it always seemed to want to shrink back up a little bit.  This made it tough to make thin crust pizza (the way Jet likes it) but everyone seemed to enjoy adding the toppings themselves and the final product.  Running low on toppings and feeling a bit lazy near the end, I decided to make one thick crust pizza with the remaining dough and it turned out to be likely the best pizza that I had ever made.  The dough was as tasty as eating a warm pretzel and absolutely delicious.  I was glad that there was some slices left over as ended up eating those pieces on Friday and they still tasted great.  We stayed up past midnight playing Rummycube, Apples to Apples, Uno, and a couple of new games.  The favorite one we played was a music lyrics game where there were a team would pick a card with a word on it (e.g., “everything”, “sweet”, “body”, “angel”, etc.) and the teams would go back and forth (30 second time limits) trying to name and recite no less than 6 words of a song with the chosen word until one team was stumped.  Our neighbor Dan was a tough competitor, but our team (Julie, Brandon, and myself) came from behind and won in the end.  Just a lot of fun and something that we ought to do more often.

On New Year’s Day we went off to Atlanta for a ceremony at the Thai temple with Jet’s friends Janet, Opal, and their son, Jensen.  There were not as many people there as a couple months ago at the last ceremony at the Thai temple, but there was still plenty of food to eat and we all had a good time.  We also met up with Jet’s other friends there (Tim, Pa, and their daughter Lena) and afterwards, we all decided to eat lunch, go grocery shopping, then mall shopping together.  After leaving Alabama at 8:00am and returning back home past 7:00pm, it was a long day that passed very quickly because we all had such a good time together.  Jet made the mistake of buying too much fresh food (rice noodles, vegetables, fruits, etc.) because she forgot that we would be out-of-town all next week, so we invited Janet, Opal, and Jensen over for lunch yesterday and gave some of the extras to our neighbors, which they all appreciated.

Not much else to report, though.  Sup’s flight will arrive on Saturday (January 10) at 11:55am (our time) so we look forward to seeing him and picking him up real soon.  School starts on Thursday and I have already e-mailed my students their work for the first week since I will not be there for the first day of class.  Of course there is the conference itself which will surely keep me occupied for much of the coming days.  In two weeks we will be having Ben’s Alabama birthday party.  So there will still be a few things keeping up busy.

Just a final note, I hope Adam is doing well.  So how is he doing?  Did the surgery go well?  What was the problem?  What was the cause?  Again, I hope he (and everyone else) is doing well.