Pregnant women

I found this video early in Mary's pregnancy with Maverick. She used it to tell people on facebook that she was pregnant again. I think the song is funny and I love that Mary thinks its funny.

"I dont care if its limbless and brain dead if it has a penis" That is probably my favorite quote from the song.

Mary and the kids get here on Wednesday along with Mary's mother. Im excited to have my family again!

Marshall G. McIntyre

I once asked my Grandpa who he was named after. I was curious since I was clearly named after him. He told me that he was named after his Father's friend. Im sure that there was more to the story, but that is what I remember. From what I was told, Mom and Dad either hadn't picked out a name or hadn't told anyone the name until I was born. They later called Grandma and Grandpa tell them that I was born and that they named me Marshall.

Growing up my brother's and I would spend Summers with our grandparents. I remember going into work with Grandpa and one of his business partners telling me that my name wasn't Marshall because that was Grandpa's name, and if we had the same name, people would get us confused.

Anytime I would talk to Grandma on the phone and she would pass me off to Grandpa, she always said, "Mac, its your name sake on the phone." I think when Grandpa was in the service he started going by Mac, turns out all of have gotten that one!

Grandpa was the first MGM, then he named his kids with the same initials. Then Dad named us (including a dog) with those initials, then I married Mary and she all of a sudden had those initials, then we named our kids (and a dog) with those initials.

I've gotten alot from Grandpa, and I love the man. I got word, right before going into work Friday morning (Korea time) that he would be having double bypass surgery Friday morning (Eastern time).

Prayers, happy thoughts, good deeds, puppy kicking... etc. Whatever it is that you do to help people, do it and think of my Grandfather please.

Park and school

Today I went to drop off a few more things at the apartment and then went to lunch at a little Korean place near the apartment with a friend that is TDY here. The food was good, the sides were alright, I've had better sides. But the price was the best thing! For the two of us, with water to drink we only paid a total of 13,000 Won! Which is about $11.50! I think the price made up for the side dishes.

On the way from the apartment to the restaurant I got a picture of a little 'park'. There are a few exercise machines, benches, swings and a basketball hoop. I think Maddox will enjoy it!

I took this picture from the same spot as the last picture. This is The Castle. That is where Maddox is going to go to school. Awesome building isn't it? There is a huge slide on the other side of the building, I should have gotten a picture of it also.

E-mart trip

I went to the E-mart which is like a Korean wal-mart but with excellent service! If you want to use a cart, you have to pay 100 won, which is like a dime or so. However, when you are done, you get the dime back so it isn't that big of a deal. I was going to get some recycling bags for our apartment so that we would remember how to separate the recycling. Also I wanted to get some training chopsticks for Maddox. The trip to E-mart wasn't difficult at all. I got there and started wandering around to find what I wanted.

I mentioned the excellent service. At the end of each aisle they have employees standing there holding whatever product is on that aisle. Also in the food aisles they have samples on almost every aisle. AND to top it off there are people walking around to help you.

After circling the store both upstairs and downstairs. I realized that the music playing in the store was English. To top it off if was Guns and Roses 'Every Rose has Its Thorn'. Such a great song. i started singing along and kind of dancing as I walked. As the chorus started there they were! The recycling bags were right in front of my eyes! On the next aisle were the chopsticks. I was super excited. Afterwards I walked through the grocery section to see what the prices were like on instant coffee. I can get it cheaper at another place that I know of.

When I got back to the base area, I timed my walk from the gate to the apartment. It was about 10 minutes give or take. I stopped at 7-11 on the way because I wanted to make sure the apartment had toilet paper. There is nothing worse than not having toilet paper, you never know when you are going to need it! I also stopped to talk to a guy in my apartment complex that was taking his trash out. He seemed like a nice guy and said that the apartments were nice there and that people were nice in the area.

I dropped off the bags and the chopsticks and took note of shower curtains and checked to see if there was anything else that we might need for the apartment.

All in all, it was a successful trip. I want to take Leslie there when she is here, mainly so that she can see more than just the base, but also because I think it will be a fun trip.

The new apartment

This is the entrance to the new apartment. The complex is called Wingdom, the only reason I remembered the name is because I thought of kingdom, but with a W. Our apartment is about 10 steps down inside those glass doors.

When you open the front door, there is a cabinet on the right. This is the cabinet that you put your shoes in. Then Koreans put on their house shoes. I don't know who learned from who, but this is sounding oddly like Mr. Rogers... To the left is the doorway into the apartment.

This is standing in the mud/shoe room looking into the apartment. The master bedroom is straight back.

To the right of the front door is the first bedroom. Right now it has a bed and an ironing board. The glass door is something that most if not all Korean homes and apartments have. Usually every room will have these. It is kind of like a patio. It has windows and tile floors. I don't know exactly, but you'll be seeing them often.

To the left of the front door is the kitchen. Out on the 'patio' is the dryer and a cabinet.

The sink in the kitchen. There is a drying rack hanging just above the sink. Also the open shelves on the right of the screen, that is where the microwave and rice cooker go.

The fridge (obviously). It is a normal fridge...

The dinning room table to the right is the fridge and the left is the shoe room.

The kitchen 'patio' has an American dryer. A dryer in a Korean home is an oddity. They don't like appliances that only do one thing (except for the rice cooker). They don't use coffee pots, they use instant coffee and either a tea kettle or a hot water dispenser. Usually their washers have a drying feature or they hang dry. I think that we will hang dry to cut down on the amount of energy we consume. Behind where Im standing is a cabinet. To the left near the ceiling are small windows and the door back to the kitchen is on the right.

Just past the first bedroom is the living room. There is an A/C unit in the corner, a couch, an ottoman, and 2 tables stacked. The tables will be unstacked and one will be a coffee table and one will be the TV stand. This 'patio' houses the washer and a drying rack that hangs from the ceiling.

Here is the washer on the 'patio'. The white cord with a black handle hanging from the ceiling has the drying rack attached to it. Also if you look at the back left corner of the washer near the ground you can see the drain pipe. There is a drain on the floor for the washer.
Behind the kitchen and off of the living room is the second bedroom. Currently it has a desk and a chair. There will be a twin bed going into this room, and possible the desk getting moved out. Possibly using it as the TV stand or just having a desk in the living room. This patio has small windows like the dryer and the master bedroom patios. Because that side of the apartment is underground. This is a good thing because it will cut down on the amount of light in the morning, for that reason I'm thinking this should be Maddox's room.

This is the bathroom behind the living room and opposite the previous bedroom.

The tub has indentions for your butt. Just incase you weren't sure where to park it, I guess?

This is the master bedroom (with half of the mattress pad that we got for it, it needs to air out before the other one is placed on top of it). I forgot to get a picture of it, but to the left there are 3 wardrobes, that is where all of our clothes will go. We might have to move one into Maddox's room. The master bath is to the right.

This is the master bath. Kind of small, but at least we have one. There isn't an actual shower, just a shower head and a drain on the floor.

That is it for now. Once Mary and the kids get here we will get some more pictures posted. I hope that everyone enjoyed it!

Apartment

To prepare for the arrival of Mary and the kids, I started looking for an apartment for us. I was looking for something close to base, three bedroom and at least one bathtub.

I went and talked the first realtor. He worked for Century 21 realty and was named Kenny. His English was decent. We got into his minivan and he took me to a place called Wingdom. He showed me a nice 3 bedroom 2 bath on the third floor. I really liked the place, but it needed 2 more beds. He showed me a couple of other places, but none of them really stuck in my mind. Kenny dropped me off at his office while he parked the car. Kenny's boss, Tony, came over and started filling out paperwork and asking for a deposit. I told him I liked the place but I needed to talk to a few other realtors. I told him I would be back later in the day.

Next I went to Smile realty and talked to Mr. Kim. Mr. Kim said that he had a great place for me and he would take me to it. He took me to a place called Life Apartments. These apartments house a lot of Americans and are very nice, but they are very far from the base. I explained that I liked it but it was too far. Mr. Kim then took me to a house that had a second floor apartment. This place was extremely random. The kitchen was a hallway with glass doors and walls, very odd! Then he took me to another second floor apartment. It was very nice, but it only had 2 bedrooms. I told Mr. Kim I had to think about it and talk to another guy.

Then I went to Virginia realty and talked to Kenny. Kenny speaks English like an american. He said he lived in America for almost 30 years. The first place that Kenny took me was an upstairs apartment. Inside the gate was a dog that was very skiddish and quiet. The apartment wasn't too bad, but it did have roof access which is very nice. Although it was only a 2 bedroom. Next he showed me two places by an alternate gate to the base. However, that would put us farther away from everything. One of them looked just like Wingdom and when I told Kenny this, he said that his Uncle owns Wingdom and he had some places there. I told him about my other experience with the other Kenny. VA Realty Kenny told me that he could hook me up since his Uncle owned it. He showed me a 3 bedroom 2 bath that was technically on the first floor but when you walked in the door you had to go down about 10 steps. This place had a washer and a dryer and a bathtub. It was a beautiful place but it was missing a third bed. Kenny told me that he would include internet and cable in the rent. Also, he said that he would get us a microwave and a water dispenser along with 4 5-gallon jugs of water a month! Then he took me up to the roof and told me I could grill out up there if I wanted to. While we were on the roof, I saw the preschool that I want Maddox to go to. I mentioned that to Kenny and he said that he would take me there and help me get her registered. We walked in and filled out some paperwork and they said that she can start any time we want her to start. The preschool is Monday through Friday 9am-5pm and it looks like a castle (that is the name of it) finally there was a dalmatian tied up in the front of the school also.

I gave Kenny the money to hold the apartment for us and set everything else up. When Mary and the kids get here, we will be able to go straight to the apartment. All in all today was a good day!

Air Show Weekend

This past weekend was the airshow here on base. It was pretty cool to be at an airshow in a foreign country! There were US aircraft and also ROK (Republic Of Korea) aircraft. The US had a C-130, C-17, a Blackhawk, F-16, Chinook. The ROKs had F-15's, F-16's, Helix, F-4, and some other crazy birds. I was most excited about the Helix. The Helix is a Russian helicopter that had double stacked rotors that spin in opposite directions, this means that the helo doesn't need a tail rotor. The one that they had on display was set up to put out forest fires.

Whenever the announcer said anything, a Korean came on and said the announcement again in Korean. This made for very long announcements.

My squadron's booster club had a booth selling hamburgers and hotdogs. Saturday I showed up with the intentions of wearing the squadron mascot tiger suit. It was a very hot day out and that suit does not breathe. I was in the suit for about 7 hours straight and took water breaks periodically to hydrate. However, the little kids wouldn't leave me alone long enough to get that break. Also Koreans don't have the same personal bubble that Americans have, nor do parents discipline their kids at all. So kids were real nice about giving high fives and shaking hands, but they then wouldn't leave me alone. There were times when kids were around me pulling on the tail and messing with the feet and there were no parents anywhere around. I had no clue where the parents went. For the most part everyone was friendly. During the National Anthem, a Korean wanted to take a picture with me, and didn't understand why I was standing there with my hand over my heart. She then punched me in the head, I told her to shut up and go away, but I don't think she understood that either. All in all it was a good day!

Sunday the show was still going on so I decided to ho volunteer again. Except this time I didn't want to wear the suit. I helped on the grill. It was me and two others working the grill. One person flipped burgers and dogs, one put ready burgers and dogs on buns for customers and one put raw burgers and dogs on. We had a great system going. Then public health came by and said that the two flipping burgers had to have gloves on. They weren't wearing gloves because the gloves were melting to their hands. i had gloves on because I was putting the raw meat on the grill. This conversation with public health pissed off one of the other guys so he left. He had already put in 10 or 15 hours between the two days, and he decided that was the breaking point. We recruited someone else and continued our wonderful grilling techniques. Later on, two new people showed up, a flight chief and a captain, to help out. They came to the grill and immediately changed our system. Their new system wasn't working and they wouldn't listen to me when I tried to explain this to them. As this happened I got a call from a friend saying that he was just getting to the show. So I decided that I had volunteered enough and it was time for me to call it quits as well. I went and joined my friend and got to see the final part of the show which was a search and rescue scenario.

I had Monday off from work and decided to do nothing but watch TV shows online. I started watching The Good Guys. This is an action/comedy cop show that has Tom Hanks' son in it. The show isn't too bad and I find it to be funny, so I continued watching it. Im about to watch the 9th episode.

Tuesday I was woken up around 7am by one of the other Sgts from my team. He was going around telling everyone that we didn't have to work today. I stayed up and talked to Mary and the kids on Skype. Later I went to the gym and post office. I just finished my homework for the week (minus a quiz Im going to take after episode 9). Tomorrow work shouldn't be too bad and then we are off thursday and will work Friday and the weekend.

A friend from Seoul was talking about going to Everland (an amusement park) this weekend, but Im not sure what my work schedule will bring.

The past few days

So Friday we had a bunch of computer issues at work and it was screwing me up all day long and I couldn't do anything to get out of the funk I was in. So I had a a pretty shitty day!

The next day we had to be into work by 0630, so most everyone was tired from having to get up so early. However, I had my magical Waffle House coffee mug. So my morning was starting off wonderfully! And the computers were working! AND better yet: The boss said he would buy beer if we got our work done fast! We got our work done and left around 1630 or 1645, and the boss bought us a few pitchers of beer, it was a good time. Some of the guys said that they were going out later that night and asked if I wanted to go. I went and had a great time! We went to a bar that has a couple of beer pong tables, and we played a few games.

I got up the next morning (Sunday)and made sure all of my schoolwork for the week was done (it was). I then proceeded to sit around, watch movies, and do as little as possible. It was great!

Today (Monday) I did all of my school work except for my quiz, Ill do that tomorrow. I also went to the gym for about an hour and half or so. It was a good workout and I feel great now! Im finishing off the night with the latest episode of the Office.

Im working Wed-Fri this week and Im supposed to have dinner with friends from Langley this weekend and maybe go see Mary's friend from Greensboro and catch a beer. It should be a good week and weekend!