Work and formatting again...

It was brought to my attention that blogger wasn't working for comments...  I don't know if it was just a temporary problem or what, but it appears fixed now.  I tried to comment on my own post yesterday and it didn't work but this morning I tested it again and it worked and there's a new comment from someone else.  So, I don't think I'm going to change the format (again).  If for whatever reason, you can't comment and would like to, feel free to email me sam.r111481@gmail.com or look me up on Facebook as far as I know there are only two Sam Ronickers on Facebook and one is my dad.  I do also have a Twitter account but I hardly ever use it.

On to the topic of work...  I recently got the news that I have to trade in this beach for a much dustier, dryer and hotter "beach" somewhere in southwest Asia.  In all honesty I'm not terribly surprised, because of my situation.  I've had two deployments' experience in this other program (that I'm going back to).  Even so that program was supposed to be built up on its own and not need to "borrow" people from my job to do that job anymore.  But, since I'm experienced on that plane and still in training for this new (to me) plane, I am the most logical choice to send.  Sucks though, because the first time I deployed with the program (Project Liberty) I had a bad time.  I didn't like the deployment AT ALL!  I never wanted to go back.  Of course as soon as I got back from that first trip out I tried to get a different assignment or anything else that would keep me from having to go back.  Well, obviously that didn't work as I said I've done two deployments with the program.  Fortunately though the second time wasn't nearly as bad as the first and I didn't hate every minute of my time there.  Also, as far as deployments go this one shouldn't be too bad because the plan is for me to only do half the standard time.  I'm sure it will be easier to handle the shorter time, though my family situation will be tougher.  The last two times I deployed my wife took the kids back to Ohio to be with family for some of the time.  However, because we're now in Japan that's probably not going to be an option.  The only way that would work out is if they can get on a military flight back to the U.S., but those are difficult (read: impossible) to plan and not convenient or comfortable at all.

I don't know how much I'll get to blog while I'm gone, or it might be that I have way too much time on my hands and I'll be writing all the time.  I don't really know.  The last two times I went out I had different experiences both times.  The first time I was incredibly bored all the time but I didn't have internet service readily available.  The second time I kept myself busy with working out and calling/texting home every night because the internet was easily accessible.  We'll just have to wait and see.

I'm going to miss them!

The Sub-tropical Paradise Jungle

So I love living in this beautiful subtropical paradise, but today I had an interesting day. As many of you know I'm in the military (US Air Force) and that I work a job on an aircraft. Well, today I went into work at about 8am for a briefing that was supposed to last all morning but because there were only two of us in the class it was cut short. Then around 12 noon the other person (an aeromedical evacuation medic) and I went out into the jungle. We went with the survival instructor to an abandoned (mostly anyways) old base and practiced evasion. At first the instructor walked with us and talked about plans of how to evade and navigate through the jungle.

I've only been here a little over 3 months and I've never ventured into the jungle before, so today was new! After a short instructional bit we were sent on a short (about 200 yard) land-nav trek without the instructor. Since I've done this before I let the medic lead (plus if I went too fast I would just have to keep stopping to wait for her) and I counted steps. It was cool. Then the instructor took us to another point on base, showed us where the pick-up point was on the map and sent us on our way. This time though there was a small group of people chasing us (at least 4 counting the instructor). The goal was to walk through the trackless jungle quietly without getting caught. The "bad guys" had some distinct advantages: they had cars, more comfortable clothes, no backpack, a virtually unlimited amount of food and most importantly, they knew where we started and where we were headed.

Right away, we went down a hill and had to cross a small "stream" the reason I put that in quotes... it was more like a narrow bog. Since the medic was leading, she made it across first (nearly) unscathed, she stepped in up to her thigh just as she was about to get across. Well, my fat old self, with a backpack on tried to cross also, yeah, first two steps, up to my thighs in mud/muck. Oh well, gotta keep going, crawled the rest of the way across without much sinking; great way to start off let me tell you! After that we went on quietly and slowly till we came up to a road. If you learn anything about evading bad guys from this, learn this: crossing roads, paths, rivers, streams etc. is the hardest part of running away from bad guys because that's where they'll be patrolling.

So, being the more experienced, (the medic girl had been through only minimal evasion training and never been in the field running from bad guys before) I went first. I crawled up slowly and looked out. Of course what do I see but one of the bad guy's head and his black ball-cap. I thought he saw me so, as quickly as I could, I hurried back down the hill to the waiting medic and we take off down the ravine. Unfortunately, because we went too fast, we were making more noise than usual and they heard us and tracked us (this we found out later).

After hurrying (as much as one can hurry through jungle mess) on down away from the bad guys, we finally figure we've lost them and it's safe to try to cross the road again. We make it across with no problems, but in our haste again we leave a mark where we crossed the road because we had to slide down the hill on our butts off the road. We make it to about 50 yards from our pick-up point with about an hour and a half to spare and we're chilling in a little thicket when the bad guys walk up and find us! Aaah! Of course they pretend to be capturing us for a minute or so, then they tell us where we went wrong and how they tracked us, then they walk off. We still have about an hour before we're going to be picked up so we just sit around for a while. After some time we're told to go to the pick-up point 15 min earlier than previously planned so we leave our not-so-hidden-spot and head for the pick-up point. As it turns out, we're literally only about 50 yards away, though we though it was about 150 yards, and we put out a little rescue marker and again sit and wait.

The rest of the story is pretty anticlimactic since we just get picked up by the good guy and we go back to base and talk over what was good and what was bad about how we evaded. All in all a fun yet exhausting day! I painted my face with camo paint and got to hike around the jungle for "work" today. It was fun, but when I got home I had to take a really long shower to wash off all the jungle muck. I don't think I'd want to do that for real, but I'm sure I could if my life depended on it.

Black & White of the boys at sunset at our favorite sunset beach

Brothers

So I was considering writing a blog about what I learned about ancient philosophers today when I changed my mind and decided to write about something more positive.

I have a brother, I don't know if he reads this blog but brothers always have a unique bond, though to be honest I envy my boys' relationship.  Honestly, I don't very well recall my relationship with my brother when we were young, but I certainly don't remember having the kind of friendship with my brother that my boys have.  I remember going fishing with my brother and we spent a lot of time together (obviously, by virtue of living in the same house for several years), but I don't remember having fun with my brother the way my boys have fun together.

Today (like every day) they ran around pretending to be in some fanciful world as dragons, ninjas, jedi or some other character of fantasy.  They run around the house "shooting" imaginary guns at each other, and making up all sorts of weapons (Wes usually runs around with a little hammer like Thor's and Alex makes some sort of staff like Loki's).  They laugh incessantly and run around chasing each other.  I hope that their childhood friendship lasts their whole lives.

Yes, those are Michelle's feet

Response to Facebook Discussion about Higgs Boson

A friend of mine Steven Specht posted an interesting news link (must login to Facebook to view) about the Higgs Boson on Facebook which sparked a discussion on the existence of god and the power of prayer. I won't copy/paste the whole discussion here but this is one of my replies:

"I personally don't know much about physics, so I can't really speak to their methods. But from what I have seen is that modern science seems more about assumptions based on presuppositions than actual testable theories. Trying to "see" things as small as what the collider makes and "understand" what they're "seeing" sounds more like guesswork than actually tried and true testable experiments. Don't get me wrong the geniuses working on this kind of stuff probably know what they're doing and it's too complicated to explain to a layman like me, but even if they could it doesn't PROVE anything. It's just a new, smaller form of matter that we didn't know about before and don't know the characteristic of before. When the atom was discovered it didn't shake the foundations of faith, or PROVE that there is or isn't a God."

First I would like to clarify a distinction in what I meant by, and how I can say "I personally don't know much about physics..." then go on to say that it's "assumptions based on presuppositions..." I know it may seem like splitting hairs, but if you read carefully I'm referring to physics specifically when I say I can't speak to their methods, and then I refer to "modern science" in general when I say that it's becoming more and more about assumptions and untestable theories. What I do know about the collider is that it's a place to study sub-atomic physics by causing various particles to travel at high speeds and collide and break into smaller particles which are collected and studied.

I don't know how much you know about the show "The Big Bang Theory" but I'd like to draw a humorous, albeit interesting point from an episode of that show. For those of you that don't know, it's a show about these nerd physicists that live next to a pretty blonde girl. It most often pokes fun at nerds, intellectuals, dweebs, dorks, etc. Since I fit some of the stereotypes they make fun of I see it as a sort of self-deprecating humor. Well, one of the episodes the group of four nerds get to take a trip to the north pole to try to find magnetic monopole particles. Well, in the course of their experiments the lead character is driving his friends crazy with his idiosyncrasies and they are trying to devise a way to cut the trip short. Then they discover that whenever they run the coffee grinder it gives positive results on their experiment so they give their friend the impression that he's discovered what he's looking for and becomes the laughingstock of their university. My point in this reference is that particle physics, while surely a crucial field in science, is sometimes thrown off by some of the most mundane circumstances. I say this because particle physics is about studying stuff that is so small it can't directly be observed, all we know about these substances is conjecture from the effects these types of particles have on other substances.

My real beef with modern science is that it seems like all modern scientists start out with the presupposition that there isn't a god and therefore all that is observed that can't currently be explained must be explained with some new inovation or science. All that exists cannot be explained by science. I'm not saying we should give up scientific inquiry, on the contrary it is a great form of worship. But, when such and such scientist gets up and tries to explain such and such as taking place millions of years ago, or taking place over millions of years or something to that effect; that scientist has lost all claim on truth in my eyes because no one, without making wild leaps of faith, can make grand statements like that because there is no verifiable proof of anything beyond a couple thousand years into the past.

Cool building near the aquarium at ocean expo park

Yay 1,000 pageviews!

To be totally honest I don't really care about how many people read my blog, I'm not so vain to think I have something so important that everyone needs to listen to what I have to say. Honestly, like my friend wrote in his blog, this blog is all for my own personal benefit. I use this as my journal. I write down my thoughts and interests. That's probably why it seems like my topics range all over the place. I hope someday I'll look back and read what I wrote and see how what I think now still makes sense and is still applicable years in the future.

Speaking of the future, what do you want to be when you grow up? Michelle (my wife) is always picking on me because whenever we watch an inspirational movie, I always say something about how I'd like to do that some day. For example when we watch a movie about inspirational firefighters, it makes me want to be a firefighter. She always jokes, "What are you going to be when you grow up?" I'm 30, I am grown up! But you know what? I'm still not done with life. I plan to do 14 more years in the Air Force, then, the sky's the limit.

I really want to be a teacher/volunteer firefighter/paramedic. I've often contemplated trying to change the job I do with the Air Force to aeromedical evacuation. It seems like people who work in the medical field (should) have the highest job satisfaction. How satisfying must it be to have a job where your work is to make people healthy/save lives. Or in the case of teachers how rewarding teaching should be, your whole job is to fill young people's minds with knowledge. How satisfying that must be. I like what I do, I'm glad I learned Korean it's an interesting job, but really I have little to no satisfaction in what I do. I've done some research into changing jobs in the past but I don't think it'll work now that I've reenlisted. I might be stuck. Whatever the case, can old dogs learn new tricks? I think they can, plus, I'm not an old dog... yet.

How can I make this into a job?

Philosophy vs Religion

Well, I've started more earnest study of philosophy, including the History of Philosophy podcast, an iTunesU program on philosophy, along with one other podcast on philosophy. The most recent podcast I listened to was about Plato's Republic. Now, I haven't read the work (though we did have to read parts of it in my college ethics class), but based on that podcast I don't really like what I'm hearing. Plato's supposed Utopia sounds like a robot society with no freedom or love or self-expression. Now, sad as it may be that a society lacking freedom would probably be the safest, that doesn't mean that we should seek to create such a society. I would rather live in a slightly dangerous slightly controlled society than a perfectly safe society without freedom. Again I come back to my standard answer, balance, there has to be a balance between lack of freedom and provision of safety.

One of my other thoughts on philosophy, is my struggle to balance my love of philosophy with my love of Jesus. I don't like to think of myself as religious because I dislike the word and its implications and general negative connotations. But, I do love the Bible and I believe every part of it and am a Christian, in that, I follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. As such I believe that God's Word, namely the Bible, is the complete guide on how we ought to live. So studying ethics and philosophy seems sort of silly, because if you want to know how one ought to live, just read the instruction manual. That's not to say I don't like the general thoughtfulness and rationale in philosophy. To quote Wikipedia: "Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument" (emphasis mine). So, I love systematic theology and rational argumentation, however, God's instructions don't have to be rational (as we understand rationality).

So many "rational thinking atheists" often use philosophical arguments to try to poke holes in biblical teachings. However, if you really believe the Bible is the sole source of God's intention for life and creation, then there can be no argument against God's precepts. God said it, therefore it is true and right for our lives. That being said there's a whole world of biblical discussion on systematically analyzing the Bible to understand how and when to apply certain principals. But, the question never comes up as to why we should do this or that. God said it therefore we must do it. That world of biblical discussion also includes the ideas that God intended somethings for some time periods/peoples and other things for other people/time periods. It's often called dispensationalism. The idea that though God is immutable; the way He interacts with creation has changed over time. Many prime examples are found in much of the Old Testament law; all the forbidden foods and other ways God set down to separate His people. Critics will say, if you believe the Bible is true and the rules for your life why do you eat pork or wear mixed fabric clothes? (Which is easily refutable with a careful study of the freedom taught in the New Testament.) Most biblical scholars aren't thrown off by these simple arguments, but some newer, less studied believers can be. All this to be summed up with: I'm going to continue to study philosophy but with a critical Christian point of view.

We are blessed to live in such a beautiful place

Ten Year Old Glenmorangie at Sunset

At the behest of my good friend Will Haas we're trading guest blogs.

I taste tested this new single malt Scotch whiskey Glenmorangie Original at Taguchi beach park this evening.  While I like the taste and may add it to my regular scotch collection it doesn't have enough bite for my preference.  I like biting scotch and this particular single malt it a bit too smooth and sweet for me.  A bit of a floral taste sweeter than other single malts I've tasted.  It does have a beautiful look especially in the warm glow of the setting sun over the East China Sea.  It has a bit of a woody taste to it, which isn't unusual for single malts and it is quite smooth.  Not the smoothest taste I've had but pretty good.  Looking forward to having more.  Don't worry the bottle and glass survived the trip to the beach and I am actually sitting at my desk enjoying another glass as I write this.  I'm not quite the connoisseur that Will is, but if you'd like to read more of his reviews on other whiskeys I encourage you to check out his blog.  Whatever the case, if you're looking for a good single malt to go with a good cigar (which I don't have, because I haven't found a good cigar shop here on island yet) or just to sit back and enjoy sometime try this the original Glenmorangie.  You won't be disappointed.

So blessed to live in such a beautiful place

Couldn't convince Michelle to stop taking pictures of me

See what I mean about it being yellow

Happy Fourth of July!

Short and sweet today...

Spent a lot of time at the beach today, but the tide was very low and we walked around on the coral most of the time and I got roasted.

Short update on my philosophy study: I've been listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, though we're still on the pre-socratics.  The podcast is well put together though solely western philosophy focused.  I bought a Korean philosophy book but haven't had the time to start it.  It's called 웃기는 철학, 우스운 철학(넥서스) "Funny Philosophy, Silly Philosophy (Nexus)" I haven't even started reading it, it might be about western philosophy hopefully it's about eastern philosophy.

Got this funny picture from a friend, it seems silly but it's pretty close to correct Korean pronunciation and if you learn it this way you will, more or less be able to pronounce all the Korean letters and read it phonetically:

Guest Blogger #1 Eric Flynn

My first guest blogger!!

Eric Flynn and I attended the Defense Language Institute at about the same period of time though he was in the Arabic course and I took the Korean course. He's out of the Air Force now and been teaching English in Korea for a few years.

---When you ask someone "What's the best way to learn a foreign language?", usually the answer will be "Live in another country." Well, that's mostly true, but not so much when that country happens to be South Korea. It's still kind of true... but not as much as you'd think.

I've been living in South Korea for almost three years now. Before I came here, I imagined myself in the future, having lived abroad for several years, and returning to impress my friends and family with my mastery of Korean. I learned very quickly that this was not to be. From time to time I recall a scene from a movie called The Thirteenth Warrior in which Antonio Banderas (pronounced Bahndehrrassss, in a breathy tone) plays an Arabic scholar (or something) who finds himself in league with a band of Vikings. For a portion of the movie he finds himself flummoxed with this inability to comprehend their language (which is called "Vikish" for those of you who are not experts in world languages). Finally, in one scene, we see him listening to the conversation of his Scandanavian companions as they talk around a fire and, suddenly, he finds himself able to comprehend their speech simply by listening to it and absorbing it.

Yeah, right.

Of course, humans do have the capacity to learn language intuitively; that is, simply through "absorbing" it. This ability is present during our formative years and diminishes steadily as we age. Though I've never lived in a country which speaks Spanish, Italian, etc., I'd imagine that it's still possible to absorb language in such a way. Certainly not to the extent that we can absorb our mother tongue (why does that term always make me uncomfortable?) when we're young, but still enough for it to be of some use. A person with a rudimentary education in Spanish, for instance, can go and live in a Spanish-speaking country and gradually become fluent in Spanish. At least, that's what people tell me: people who use Spanish at every available opportunity to prove how good they are at Spanish, even going so far as to pronounce Mexico "Meh HEE Ko" when it comes up in conversation. However, with Korean it's different. It's very common to meet people who have lived in South Korea for six years or more and who still have only a basic working knowledge of the language.

Now, most of you who have never lived in Korea might think this is because everyone in South Korea speaks enough English that a foreigner can get by without speaking Korean. Therefore, there's no reason to use Korean, let alone learn it. This is not really true. While much of the South Korean youth have a rudimentary knowledge of English, and it has found its way into the Korean culture (albeit in often improperly-applied ways), one shouldn't think that he or she can take care of such things as banking, internet service, or even grocery shopping without knowledge of Korean. There is a language barrier here, so much so that foreigners need someone else to rely on (someone who speaks Korean) to make sure most of their basic needs are met. So it isn't simple laziness that prevents people from absorbing the language here. It's my theory that the reason so few foreigners in Korea are able to learn the language is that Korean and English are so fundamentally different that nothing short of intense studying can help you learn it.

Evidence can be found in the Korean youth. English is taught in public schools from as early as elementary school, and probably even kindergarten, if I had to guess. And yet, most of my high school students don't even know that "nice to meet you" is an inappropriate phrase when greeting someone whom you've been seeing five days a week for the last six months of your life.

Beyond the fact that Korean students are apathetic towards English, it's really hard for them to learn. I personally have studied Arabic intensively for two years of my life, and I can say that learning Arabic is a walk in the park compared to Korean.

That's not saying that Korean is poorly thought-out language or inefficient (a native of speaker of English calling another language inefficient seems a lot like the proverbial kettle calling the metaphorical pot "cookware"). In fact, I'm told that, much like it's easy for English speakers to learn Spanish, it's similarly easy for speakers of Japanese to learn Korean. But I'd venture that it's safe to assume that a Spanish speaker would find it every bit as difficult to learn Korean as I – uh, I mean English speakers – do.
So just how different are the two languages? Well, I think the best example is simple use of the word "what". Imagine that we're eating dinner together and I'm staring at you funny. You're not sure if it's because I'm trying to use my psychic powers to make your head explode, like that guy in the movie Scanners, or if I'm fascinated/disgusted by the goiter on your neck that makes "Kuwato" from Total Recall look like a freckle. So, in order to surmise why I'm staring at you the way I am, you'll stop chewing your tofu-dog and say:

"What?"

Both being native speakers of English, we know that this is a short way of asking "What is the reason for which you are staring at me, you freaking weirdo?" However, if we were Koreans, you would stop chewing your still-squirming octopus, perhaps shoving a tentacle back in your mouth as it tries to escape and say:

"Why?"

A seemingly small difference, but imagine that applied to everything you say. Not only must one learn vocabulary, but there is also an element of culture, and learning how to phrase things. Let's look at another example. Let's say we're eating dinner together again and you're wondering if it's possible that anyone out there could fall in love with the pathetic slob in front of you, who didn't even bother to put on pants when he left the house, but still chose to wear a mustard-stained Poison t-shirt. So you ask:

"Are you married?"

In Korean, the way they choose to phrase this question is "Did you marry?"

When learning Arabic, I found that, once one gained mastery of the various grammatical concepts, it was generally okay to translate what you wanted to say word-for-word. Even expressions such as "on the other hand" occasionally translate to mean exactly the same thing. But was we can see from the above example, even when asking a simple question, one must change it so that we are no longer using an adjective, but rather a past-tense verb.

Now, I should point out that my understanding of Korean is very rudimentary, and I'm sure that there is more than one way to posit the above question in a way that's more akin to English verbiage, but the very fact that the question is generally stated in that way hints at how difficult it is to learn Korean.

On final example of the differences between English and Korean: I was in my co-workers' office one day. They had seen fit to let me out of my cage at that time, since they understand that it's good to let me stretch my legs once in a while. The young, highly attractive student teacher was sitting off to the side, not noticing my existence, as she was wont to do. Suddenly her sweater (the periwinkle-colored one that complemented her eyes nicely, and that she usually wore on Tuesdays, but today was wearing on a Wednesday, for some reason) had slipped off the back of her chair upon which it was hanging and fell to the floor. Before I could dash over and pick up, presenting the sweater to her in the same way a dog presents a pair of slippers before his master, eagerly wagging his tail and hoping for praise, my co-teacher pointed to the sweater and uttered one single word which, I was told, is Korean for "fell".

Now, had the same thing happened in the U.S., or Canada, she would have more likely said something like "Oh, your sweater fell on the floor." But in Korean, this entire sentence was condensed to a single word.

This brevity of language can be evidenced with students. When speaking in English, they often tend to use only minimal sentence fragments when conferring their ideas, and frequently need to be reminded to implement subjects and other things when speaking.

If the above examples haven't driven home just how different Korean and English is, maybe this will: a common task of English teachers in Korea is teaching students how to organize essays when writing in English. The tactic of using and introduction, then body (with supporting details) and finally, a conclusion, is a concept that is completely alien to speakers of Korean. Of course, not being able to fully read Korean, I can't read any essays or papers written in that language, which only leaves me to fantasize at what sort of roundabout stream-of-consciousness three-ring-circuses their papers must be. When I've asked my Korean friends about Korean essay writing, it's been explained that such linear organization as is found in western papers is unnecessary to accommodate the eastern way of thinking.

Of course, this alternate way of thought expression involved in the learning of Korean is only one of several hurdles English speakers have to overcome. Add to it things such as foreign sounds (such as the notoriously difficult-to-pronounce "eu"), verb conjugation, different speech patterns depending on level of formality, and words that simply have no equivalent in English, and one can clearly see the myriad obstacles that English speakers encounter on their way to becoming fluent in Korean. I'd like to see Antonio Banderas and his rugged Latino good looks deal with that.---

Happy Monday! Time for Scotch

If you regularly read my blog you'll know that I've been invited by my friend Will Haas to write a blog on scotch, and that I was having trouble finding a good single malt scotch whiskey and that I was considering trying a blended scotch.  Well, tonight while on an ice run to the store I found a 10 year old Glenmorangie single malt.  Hopefully it lives up to the other scotch whiskeys that I've tried.  Probably not tomorrow, maybe on the fourth.

This is where I plan to sample said scotch: