Deadly Quests is Back!

I've taken to walking home from school on these beautiful September afternoons.  The half hour stroll
allows for tranquil reflection that could not be afforded on a Suwon-Si public bus.  Near my school construction has begun to take off and two dozen steel skeleton cranes keep watch over the landscape.  Closer to Tapdong I walk through bountiful rice patties on the verge of harvest.  The vibrant and almost infinite flavors of green cascading through the fields this time of year is magnificent and calming.

So yes, this blog has been offline for a few weeks. Allow me to explain the 22 day hiatus. As you may have read in previous posts I was in the process of taking this little periodical to the next level by launching a full blown website. The idea was that running my own website would allow me to incorporate more sophisticated galleries and host my own video. I was in fact planning to buy a camcorder and start shooting mini webisodes about my adventures in Korea. For nearly three weeks I spent every spare minute teaching myself HTML, CSS, Javascript and supporting software like Dreamweaver and Photoshop. I installed more memory to my MacBook to allow it to handle RAM hungry applications.  I learned everything there is about DIVs, LightBox2 image galleries, archiving, building Flash video players, etc. At this moment I have a very impressive beta-version of the site sitting on my hard drive just waiting to get on the Internet. So why are you still reading about my Deadly Quests on a generic Blogger page? A couple of reasons actually.

The first is that for the life of me I can't seem to get web-hosting. I tried opening an account with three hosts including GoDaddy.com but every time I give them my American credit card number their fraud department freezes my account. I can't figure it out. There doesn't seem to be a problem using the card on any other site or store in Korea but web-hosting services, no matter how I try to explain it to them, won't accept a charge made from the other side of the planet. The frustration stemming from this aspect of the venture alone was enough for me to throw in the towel.

Secondly, when it comes to producing my own videos I have all the hardware I need except for a camcorder, which you'll agree is an essential component for film making. I went shopping in Yongsan for a decent flash-based camera but it ultimately came down to buying an electronic toy I may or may not use frequently or buying plane tickets to Thailand/Laos/Cambodia in January. It turns out that it wasn't that tough of a call.

Lastly, some soul searching led me to the conclusion that while writing is a fun hobby it's probably not what I want to do with the rest of my life. To waste such valuable time and assets here in Korea by maintaining and updating a website while simultaneously producing videos when a simple program like Blogger is adequate to share my stories while allowing me to actually have adventures seems kind of counter productive.

So while I could have been writing first rate blog entries chronicling new friends, faces, and places I was actually using all my time learning skills that I didn't end up using anyway. In the end I'm glad I took the time to develop an interest and base knowledge in web design as I'm sure it will come in handy in the future. Maybe in a few months I'll even take a second crack at getting the beta-version online. For now we'll both have to be content with the efficiency of simplicity as opposed to the morose of the grandiose.

In other news my all-time favorite lady-killin', car-wreckin', trouble-findin' former neighbor Merkle is flying into town with his sister next weekend and I'm sure between the three of us we'll give South Korea a run for it's money.  Also, hoping to check out Global Fair next Sunday.  Check it out here.

Cool Thing About Korea #28: Chuseok is next weekend. Woot!  It's kind of like Thanksgiving and I get a four day weekend out of it.  Read more Here! In addition, mid-terms are next week so pretty much all of my classes for the next 10 days are cancelled while students study/test.  Watching a lot of Battle Star Galactica in the classroom because I'm a big dork.