September 30th, 2002

I turned in a report for my Crisis Management class today.  I had to write a summary of the McKinsey report, which was a study commissioned by New York to study what the Fire Department should do differently after September 11th.  A lot of things went really wrong that day - radios didn't work in the high-rise, the incident command post was staged in the lobby, tracking of fire fighters was practically non-existent, etc.  Any way, no one envisioned the severity of such an attack and it's easy to say what went wrong with 20-20 hindsight, but now at least it can be a lesson learned and hopefully not repeated thing.

On a lighter note, I got two 4 piece Chicken McNuggets for $1 each tonight.  Mmm good.  I haven't had nuggets since the first night here.  Personally, I think they are the only good thing at McDonald's.

September 28th-29th, 2002

This weekend I managed to do absolutely nothing again!  Just kidding.  Actually, I ran errands like I do every weekend.  I managed to go to Home Depot and pick up some things like some electrical tape, light bulbs, thumb tacks, and a fire extinguisher for the car.  I don't know what it is about Home Depot, but I love to go there and just walk around and look at stuff.  I am just so amazed that there are so many neat little things that people have invented to build things.  And for some reason, I always end up getting more stuff than I was going to get.  I went there for light bulbs and I got all that other stuff.  Granted, it was stuff I needed, but I guess Home Depot just has a lot of things of practical use.  Plus everything is so cheap there. 

September 27th, 2002

Kind of exciting today.  Lots of protesters arrested in the city and now there's a tornado warning:

...TORNADO WARNING NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BALTIMORE/WASHINGTON 710 PM EDT FRI SEP 27 2002

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN STERLING VIRGINIA HAS ISSUED A

* TORNADO WARNING FOR... CITY OF MANASSAS IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA CITY OF MANASSAS PARK IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA FAUQUIER COUNTY IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA STAFFORD COUNTY IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA

* UNTIL 745 PM EDT

* AT 709 PM EDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A TORNADO 14 MILES SOUTHWEST OF MANASSAS...MOVING NORTHEAST AT 25 MPH.

Manassas is about 15 miles southwest of Fairfax so if the tornado keeps moving northeast it should be in the area at around 8:30 PM here.  Let's see... that's in about one hour... well, hopefully I'll be back to give an update on what happens.

Ok, no tornado.  It's ok, still been pretty exciting even though I've just been sitting in the house all day.  Actually I did go to Fuddrucker's and got a burger, which was really good, but expensive.  I was also half tempted to go into the city and get some pictures of the protests so I can post it up on the website, but I didn't want to get gassed, beaten, and arrested so I decided to stay at home.

September 26th, 2002

It rained today and the Metro DC PD began preparations for the World Bank / IMF protests that are supposed to start tomorrow.  Did I mention that my department is not only one block from the White House, but also one block from the World Bank and the IMF building?  Well, the entire department is actually closed tomorrow since there will probably be tear gas and protesters getting arrested in the vicinity, which does not facilitate a good learning environment.  

September 25th, 2002

I went to a career fair today.  I actually got dressed up and everything.  Unfortunately, like usual, there really wasn't anything there that was applicable to what I'm interested in.  I also went to an Emergency Management forum sponsored by my department about the nine miners who were trapped in the flooded coal mine in Pennsylvania.  It was a pretty interesting presentation.  Those guys were really lucky.  

September 24th, 2002

I got some new accessories for my phone today.  I got a holster and a headset that has this button that you can push to activate voice dialing.  Pretty neat and will  be especially useful if I'm driving and want to use the phone without looking up a phone number.  I also attempted to make Mr. Noodle style chow mein by stir frying some Top Ramen noodles, chicken, and broccoli.  It wasn't half bad, but not up to par with Mr. Noodle  (For you non-UCLA folks, Mr. Noodle was a popular restaurant in Westwood that we often frequented). 

September 23rd, 2002

I went around exploring with the new car today.  I went to this Korean supermarket and bought some oyster sauce so I can cook vegetables now.  I got lost too for a little bit - luckily I had my map with me and didn't wander too far away.  

September 20th-22nd, 2002

I flew to Rhode Island and drove back with a car!  I saw my friend Ensign Mike Piano, who is stationed in Newport, RI right now, and we visited Boston for a day.  We walked the Freedom Trail, saw the U.S.S. Constitution, got some Boba in Chinatown, went to the Cheers bar, and walked around Harvard Square.  Needless to say we were pretty tired by the end of the day.  On the way back to Virginia, I stopped by Philadelphia had a dinner with my cousin Catherine at a cheesesteak place on South Street called Jims.  The drive back took almost 8 hours total, but it went by pretty fast.  I have lots of pictures and will upload those as soon as I have time.

Boston Pictures

Philadelphia Pictures

September 19th, 2002

I tried to work on this problem for my 269 class - it involves deriving some formula to find out monthly payment given an APR and loan amount and length.  Now, I have no idea how this relates to decision making really, but it is graded so I need to do well on it.  It's a pain though - I always hated math and accounting stuff and now I have to do both.  Ugh.

September 18th, 2002

I ran errands today mostly - walked to Safeway and bought some groceries.  I'm going to make steak again tonight - yummy!  I also tried this a "Chinese" place down the street for lunch.  It was terribly disappointing - I ordered the House Special chow mein and it looked/tasted nothing like chow mein.  I don't know what they were thinking.  Definitely not Chinese and definitely not going there again.   

September 17th, 2002

You won't believe this, but the Metro broke down AGAIN today!  This time, however, it was during rush hour.  You will not believe how many people were stuffed in those trains.  People didn't even bother to hold on to the rails because you would just be stuck in between masses and masses of bodies and you wouldn't go anywhere despite the inertia.   Ok, besides the Metro incident - we did a tabletop exercise for my terrorism class today.  I'm actually learning a lot, which makes it kind of scary to think about how vulnerable many public spaces still are.  UCLA, in particular, has some serious vulnerabilities, which I hope gets fixed soon.  Just a FYI for those who care, if you are ever in a building and a fire alarm goes off (real, false, drill, doesn't matter) I would suggest not congregating outside of the building.  Just a helpful hint - keep walking away from the building.

September 16th, 2002

I lost my Metro pass again today.  This time it was the $25 pass that lasts a week.  I only used it 3-4 times I think.  So that was  total waste of money.  I need to super glue these things to my forehead or something.  Since I finished The Corrections I brought my GameBoy Advance on the Metro to play.  Unfortunately I got frustrated with the game (Bomberman Blue Advance) and didn't want to play anymore.  I should probably get another game to play or another book.  The Metro broke down again coming back.  Fortunately I wasn't on the train this time.  It happened before it got to my station, but there was still a half hour delay.  That's two Mondays in a row.  Plus, I hate walking back through the woods in the dark.  I have two flashlights with me, but it still sucks.  I keep walking into spider webs and feeling bugs brush against my legs and stuff.  Eech. When I get a car, I may just drive to class on Monday nights (I have class from 6:10 - 8:40).  I made fried rice with Cajun seasoning tonight.  Mmm good. 

September 14th-15th, 2002

Yet another wasted weekend.  My housemates and I went shopping at K-mart and I bought a lot of junk food.  I also found out that my Aunt Susan in Boston bought a new car and she's going to give me her old Mazda to me.  Thanks Aunt Susan!  I'm going to fly into Providence next week and pick it up and drive back down here.  It's a 7 hour drive, but I'm thinking about stopping by New York and Philadelphia on the way back.  A car will definitely make it easier to get around just to buy groceries and stuff.  I'm sick of eating Top Ramen and Mac & Cheese all the time and it's only been like 3 weeks.

September 13th, 2002

I went to see XXX today.  I thought it wasn't too bad of a movie.  Much better than the Fast and the Furious, which in my opinion had almost no substance whatsoever.  I think I would have liked the movie better if they had just pieced together all the stunts in one really cool 30 min reel.  I would have much rather seen that.  

September 12th, 2002

Nothing interesting today - went to class.

September 11th, 2002

Today is the 1 year anniversary of the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.  I stayed at home today and watched some of the memorial services.  I was going to go to the Pentagon memorial, but I found out that it was a closed ceremony.  Today is also the 4 year anniversary of my boot camp graduation.  Eerie coincidence...

September 10th, 2002

Not much today, just went to class and ran some errands.  Talked a lot about tomorrow in my Terrorism class.  A lot of insights about what can be changed and how much we should change regarding protecting our infrastructure from terrorism.  A lot of government resources are being concentrated on the war against terrorism, thus reducing the attention towards more common hazards.  An interesting thing to think about - should we start a nationwide smallpox vaccination program with an uncertain threat?  Thousands may die due to complications and side effects.  Is it really worth it?  Rather than protecting the country the government would actually be killing people across the country, very likely more than the Oklahoma City bombing and possibly more than the WTC and Pentagon attacks.

September 9th, 2002

I went to my third class today, Crisis and Emergency Management.  It's pretty much the intro course into my concentration so it was a pretty interesting class to me.  Plus, I have learned to phrase my qualifications well enough now that I seem to fit in half way decently.  Unfortunately, the Metro ride home that night was a pain.  This is what I wrote on my Palm Pilot:

"Stuck on the Metro
It is 9:02 PM and we are all stuck on the Orange line to Vienna between Foggy Bottom and Rosslyn. Unfortunately, this puts us right under the Potomac River. We are told that it is a minor mechanical difficulty, to please standby, and that help is on the way if we need it. Someone makes the remark, where are we going to go? 9:10 and the driver enters our car looking for something apparently under some seats. I see some what looks like tools and a battery compartment. 9:16 and we are finally moving. We get to Rosslyn and are told that the train is out of service and we must get off. So we unload like cattle and wait. 9:18 we get on the next train, which is essentially 2 loads on one. Needless to say it is worse than rush hour. 9:28 we are stuck once again, but now with twice as much people. We were all sitting before, but most are standing in close quarters and it is getting hot. 9:30 moving again now at Clarendon."

I didn't get back until past 10 pm so it was not an enjoyable experience.  Speaking of which, here are some pictures of the Metro system.

Metro pictures

September 6th-8th, 2002

Well, it turns out that I didn't have to go out to the field this weekend.  We (the new joins) spent most of the time on base getting checked in and all the gear we need.  Apparently the unit does not go to the field too often so we did not get issued flak jackets or even a weapon!  They had the old style gear (not the MOLLE packs), which is actually good since I hated those MOLLE packs.  They didn't have any medium sized helmets so I got a large.  It is way too big for me, but fortunately no one ever brings them to the field anyway!  This is definitely not what I'm used to from being at an artillery battery.  There are a lot of officers here, however.  The enlisted to officer ratio is about 2/1, which is probably 5 or 6 times more than Marine Corps average.  They need the officers to command each Civil Affairs detachment.  Speaking of which, I want to get into Civil Affairs so I've been pretty much bugging everybody about going to CA School.  This unit does some really cool missions like going to:  Bosnia, Bolivia, Barbados, and some other Caribbean islands.  The only places I had ever been my last 4 years were Camp Pendleton and 29 Palms, so I was rather impressed by this.  Their deployments usually go in teams of 2 or 3 and last just 17 days so it would just be a regular annual training (those 2 weeks/summer).  Pretty exciting

Here are some pictures of where I am staying this year, and also one of me in my Service Alpha uniform before going to drill.  I figured I'd take a picture, since I very likely will never wear it again.  There are two occasions when this uniform is worn - checking into a duty station and during a court-martial.  I don't plan on doing either.

Fairfax pictures

September 5th, 2002

I had my second class today - Elements of Problem Solving and Decision Making.  It wasn't too bad.  It's basically about how to systematically solve hard problems or make hard decisions.  A lot of it seemed like common sense to me, but a lot of people were pretty interested in it.  I went shopping at a Safeway at the Watergate complex too.  Pretty interesting to buy groceries at such a historical landmark.  It was a tough trek going back to Fairfax though.  I lost my Metro pass so I had to pay a new one ($2.80 down the drain) and I had to carry those groceries through the woods and everything.  I also started to bring a book along for the Metro ride.  I'm reading The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, which I bought a long time ago, but haven't really had the time to read.  So far it's pretty good.

September 4th, 2002

I mostly ran errands today since I did not have a class to go to.  I had to attend a cooperative education orientation so I could apply to these "special" jobs that pay pretty well.  The average graduate student gets between $11-15 / hour, which is a lot more than what everyone else is paying on campus.  Anyway, I also went to talk to the financial aid office about loans and loan deferments, etc.  As you can see, money is a big concern since I have to pay $810 / credit hour and I'm taking 9 credits / semester.  Do the math... it's a lot of money.  

September 3rd, 2002

Well, today was the first day of class and I had mixed feelings about it.  The class was titled Terrorism Preparedness, but what I was not prepared for was the significant experience level of some of my classmates.  Most are already working in the emergency management field and seem to have extensive knowledge about the field.  So I guess I have a lot of catching up to do.  Also, on a strange and funny note, I  had an interesting experience at a bar & grill near a metro stop close to the D.C./Virginia border where I stopped for dinner.  This place was a mix between Cheers and King of the Hill.  Just imagine the guys in King of the Hill sitting in a bar where everyone knows each others names and you have a pretty good picture of where I ate.  It was a little bit uncomfortable being the only Asian guy in the whole place, but at least I got a pretty good tasting Philly Cheesesteak sandwich out of it.  It's back to being hot and sticky again here.