Korean’s by nature are very competitive. Whether it’s something to do with their culture, or something in the water I don’t know for sure. Its typical that a high school student stay until 10pm at night studying in the school. All because they are competing with the other students to be the best.

My wife is no different. With Halloween coming I have purchased a surplus of candy waiting for trick-or-treaters. One of the things that I bought was a giant bag of sour warheads. I gave one to my wife today, which she had never had one before so I figured that this would be a new experience for her. I told her it was really sour, and she poped it into her mouth without disregard. Not even a second later she replies that in Korea they are more sour. Almost as soon as she finished the sentence the warhead kicked in. Her mouth was being sucked into the back of her face and for the first time that I can recall in the Korea vs. U.S. debate she retracted her statement. As soon as her face was able to recover she said, “Nevermind, this is more sour”.

I was shocked in awe that she said that. It did leave me feeling a little better that the U.S. had something that not only made her previous statement wrong, but that she rebutted herself so quickly.

Now I just need to even the score a little.
Korea - 1,927,518
U.S. - 1

I have got to have the most hyper-tensive person on the planet for a wife. The slightest thing and it’s the end of the world to her. Screaming and yelling, are an understatement. I don’t know if it is me, her, or the combination of the two of us. But the tension is enough to make someone loose their mind…, and well, I did.

The other day I am sitting down with my laptop in my lap and she comes in and asks me if we are going to work on her visa paperwork. I take a second, or maybe a second too long, and tell her to wait a sec. I was working on my computer and reading something and she goes off. Telling me she thought she would never receive an answer cause I took so long to say something. The argument escalated from there. By the time it was over my laptop was at the other end of the room and I was storming out of the house.

I got in my car and drove around for about an hour. The entire time with the thought going through my head, did my laptop survive? I knew I didn’t have the money to replace it or probably even get it fixed if seriously broken. I knew something on it had to of been seriously damaged as I knew that I threw it pretty hard.

I have been working with just the laptop for a while now and all my work was on it. About two weeks worth and the backup on my desktop was well outdated. I don’t know what I was thinking when I threw it…, of everything else in the house, why the laptop? As soon as I did my wife let out a high pitched squeal “did you just throw your laptop”? She was also in disbelief, and knew how important it was right now. As I walked out of the house she didn’t say another word, I think dumbfounded in shock as I was too.

Once I came back home I slowly walked up the stairs, dreading to know what had happened with it, but I had to know. It had landed in an open drawer to the filing cabinet, maybe the folders had cushioned it? No luck.

One side of it had completely come apart from the rest of the laptop, the cover to the DVD-ROM was missing. A large scratch on the cover, and a huge dent on the front. I was so certain that I had trashed it. If the screen survived it would of been a miracle. I did what I could to put as much of it back together as I could, then powered it on. If the screen survived I was certain that the hard drive hadn’t as it was powered on when it went flying.

Lights started to flicker and a loud grinding noise came from the hard drive, then the screen lit up. To my amazement I could read it. A small crack went through the startup screen, but I could read it. A sigh of relief started to build up, then the logon window had appeared. I choked on the sigh I was holding…, the screen was in fact broken. The most expensive part of the laptop.

A couple hairline fractures throughout the screen, and a small bleed in the LCD at the bottom of the screen. It was readable but still damaged. I went and shared everything on the laptop so that I could copy it over to the desktop and salvage my work, which worked fine. Then I called Sony to see about activating the warranty.

Sony only offers a limited warranty. Which I had compiled the best lie I could think of at the time, stating that my dog came running through the kitchen and caught the power cord and sent the laptop flying. I don’t have a dog, but thought it would work for there sake. They said that they would have to charge me to fix it. The screen would classify as major damage and would cost over $600 to fix and any dents would classify as minor damage which would be about $200. So I would be looking at over $800 to fix my laptop.

$600?!? I can buy a new laptop for that and they are only going to replace the screen?? Do they know a new laptop comes with a screen? I told them to go to hell then started looking for prices myself. I can buy a new screen from a wholesaler for $300, and on eBay for $200. So what if I have to do the work myself, some swearing and loss of patience is well worth saving $400.

For the meantime though the laptop is functional even though its not pretty. With my financial situation I can’t really afford to fix it right now anyway. I will probably end up buying a new screen and replacing it myself then send the laptop off to get the dents fixed which may cost me a total of $500 or better in the long run. It is almost a year old now and I paid $2,000 for the thing and can’t buy a exact replacement for under $1,500 now.

I still can’t believe that I threw my laptop like I did. I guess it has a way of coming back to haunt me when I loose my temper like I did.

I have been trying to get my driving privileges for driving on post back now since I got out of the Army. Today I finally get a call back from my 1SG and he left a message informing me that I have to attend a class first.

I lost my privileges because my command wanted to flaunt what they could do. It had nothing to do with my driving yet now after I am not in the Army I have to take a driving class? It makes me glad that I am no longer in the army and have to deal with this shit on a daily basis. I won’t be any bit surprised if I have to pay for the class now too.

How we have the strongest Armed forces in the world I will never know.

Finally here! My last day in the Army. Just now getting home and have this overwhelming feeling of relief. It didn’t come without more problems though.

I had previously mentioned to another sergeant that my wife may not give up her ID card easily. It gives her the right to get on post and use the commissary and utilize other services. Since neither her or my ID cards expired until June 1st of 2008, there shouldn’t been much of an issue anyway. The Army is supposed to keep us on for 4 months for insurance purposes, and I have other privileges on post up to 6 months.

Hopefully tomorrow will be my last day. I got everything done that I needed done today with the exception of a couple things. I tried to clear the pass and ID office and because I am getting out of the Army I have to remove the decals from my vehicles. Since I am restricted to post I had to have my wife do this for me.

Tomorrow I have finance and then I can final out. Hopefully. The date on my orders says the 4th and I can sign out one day before that. Since I have everything else done I am hoping that they can change my orders. If not then tomorrow is a sham day with nothing else to do. With my luck I will probably have to pull weeds.