Fun in November (2007)

It's been awhile since I've done an update so I figured it was about time to post a few pictures. I have plenty, but I picked just a few so you could see what I've been up to.

Here's a typical day at work... if you want to call it that. Not every day is like this, of course, but we can usually make the day go by pretty fast.


We actually got to go for a real flight finally! So the 17 months I spent in AL wasn't all for nothing!


Thankfully Matt and Stefanie are gracious enough to invite us over once in awhile so we don't have to sit at home alone all the time.


And of course the kids are cute!


It's always fun to play for awhile, then give them back to their parents when we get tired!


I've been leading worship at church for awhile now while Youngmin is in the states... He'll be back soon and we'll go back to every other week.


Thanksgiving day on our way out to play football. Brian made Wes a helmet!


Just a quick shot in front of the awesomeness that is my Christmas tree. We were decorating and there was an unfortunate incident with one of the ornaments. It was sad, but I still had 3 others to hang!

Chinook Club

Here's just a bit more proof that the Chinook is the best helicopter ever! Try doing this with an Apache!! We lucked out and happened to pull up when the owner was out back painting the steps. He invited us in and showed us around... even made us all a cup of tea! He didn't speak any English, but he sure was excited about Chinooks (obviously!). He was pretty happy to hear we were 47D pilots!

Wes, Lizzy, and Dakota out front:


From the "tail section" balcony:


The "Cockpit":


From the jump seat:


One man band (not sure what the toilet paper is for):

Ode to South Korea

- by Wesley Jenkins

O' South Korea, how majestic are your power lines that you have strung over every mountain that might possibly be observed as a natural treasure and serve no greater good than to attempt to kill me in my helicopter everyday as I fly across the wire draped countryside.

O' South Korea, How short are your people that at 5'6" I might have to bend my knees to hit the preschool sized urinals mounted more near the foot than the crotch.

O' South Korea, How vast are your rice patties. The bright green rice blows in the wind like waves in the ocean; An ocean that smells like poo because they fertilized it with human feces. And the fluffy mouthwateringly delicious rice that is in my bowl clings to my chopsticks and tastes delectable. That is until you remember that the rice was grown using Kimchi fortified ca ca from under some farmers' family outhouse and maybe, just maybe, that brown speck just might not be pepper.

O' South Korea, How lovely art thou language. With all the squiggles and lines, it smiles at me as I try to decide which door says "Mens room" and which door says "Ladies room". The fanciful characters giggle as I pass them on a northbound road sign only to find out later it said, "Welcome to North Korea, We can't wait to shoot you".

First Flight; Pinnacle 4

Finally! I had my first flight today since I've been in Korea! Last time I touched the controls was my night checkride in Alabama January 21st, so it was really nice to finally get into the air again. Matt flew first so I had to sit in the jump seat for 3 hours so by the time I started flying, I was tired, my ears hurt and I had a headache. But I promptly forgot about all that once I started flying! We did some landings, slopes, slingloads and then flew around the local area! I even got to do my first "dust landing", which isn't exactly what most would refer to as that. It's a little sandbar next to a river... the sand is so course we don't get much dust on approach, but it's a good place to learn the techniques. We switched pilots on a mountain called Pinnacle 4. I attached a few pics I took when I got out to "stretch". I was in a hurry so I just snapped a few to give an idea of what it looked like. As you can see, the nose is literally hanging off the edge that's almost straight down with only a few feet to spare on the rear tires! It's a pretty tight squeeze, but that's why we need a good crew with good crew coordination! I'll post more soon! Hope you like 'em!

Crashed

Oh my poor little car... I was heading back to work after lunch on the tiny 'rice paddy' road my apartment is located on (13ft to be exact). It's a "two-way" street with no center line so I guess that leads some people to believe that their half is located directly in the center of the road. A black Kia minivan (7ft wide) rounded a corner coming toward me. I had moved over quite a bit to go around him and as we got closer I noticed he hadn't moved over much. I was already driving in the bushes on my side of the road and as we passed I had to veer farther over to the right to keep from hitting him. I was looking at his car as we passed and didn't notice the 2ft high retaining wall on the other side of the bushes. As we passed, I nailed the wall with my right front tire. It tossed the right side of my car up over the wall and pushed the rear end of my car into his van.
So to make a long story short, the cops came, the tow truck came, and after standing in the rain for an hour we headed back to the police station. We had to talk for a little bit then headed to the Korean police station, argued through an interpreter for awhile, then back out to the accident scene. We argued for awhile about who's fault it was. The other guy was trying to get me to agree to total up the cost of both vehicle and split the cost 50/50. After he realized I wasn't going to go for that, he and the Korean cop decided to just drop it. No tickets, no reports. We just agreed to pay for our own damages. Pretty good outcome if you ask me. My car's all fixed... doesn't drive too straight anymore, but it's better than walking!

MTV Crew in Korea

I finally got to fly! Today was my first ride since I've been in country... I wasn't the pilot, of course, but at least I got to ride along. We had to head up to Seoul to pick up a group of VIP PAX (Passengers) and deliver them to Kunsan for a show they're doing. It's called Yo Momma... a competition to see who is the best trash talker, hosted by Wilmer Valderrama, aka, Fez from That 70's Show! Anyway we took them for a little ride today and had a great time! With all the cameras they had stuck in our faces we were the ones that felt like the celebrities!

Korea: The 1st Month

Well, here I am... finally getting this thing up and running! I've been enjoying the Korean culture for the last few weeks. Korean BBQ, mass transit, very odd smells (usually bad), crazy drivers, yellow dust, language barrier, black hair and fancy cameras... just to name a few. The city is beautiful! You could spend months here and never run out of stuff to see and do!

Some things are a little strange... like the T-shirts! Pretty much every t-shirt is in English, but 99% of the time it makes no sense at all...

Well, the food is great, taxi drivers are insane and the red lights are just a suggestion! I still can't figure out where the rice really comes from. The fields are fairly recently planted, so maybe I'll figure it out one of these days. It's very pretty here and the views from the tower are amazing!!

Here's a picture of a typical Korean BBQ feast... I'm getting the hang of the chop stick. The metal ones are really tough, but the wooden ones aren't too bad. Luckily they eat their rice with a spoon.

Well, this will about do it for now. I'll post another one when I get my apartment up and running or something else significant happens!