Like every bad joke you’ve ever heard about Asians and their rice, my wife’s family can’t live without their rice!  And this week a blown fuse in this overpriced crock pot has hampered their ability to cook rice.  At least conveniently anyway.  They can cook rice on the stove, but then no way to keep the extra rice warm.  It’s also a bad superstition to throw away rice.  Rice fried into these hard cookie shaped things have to be the worse thing I have seen them make with rice.  Its like eating one large chuck of uncooked rice.  The rice cooker is a Woonjin WPX-0702BC by Cucken.

I opened up the rice cooker, found the fuse and put a meter on it and sure enough its blown.  That was the easy part.  A trip to Radio Shack, Home Depot, Ace Hardware, and even Fry’s and this 3/4″ long tube fuse is nowhere to be found.   The main problem, its 12.5 AMPS!!!

The best I found was a 10amp fuse at Fry’s, which was enough to get the LED and LCD’s to light up, but starting to cook and this fuse is toast as well.  The home depot guy insisted that the fuse might be good and that we had to test it with a voltage meter, even after I insisted that I had.  After he replaced a perfectly good battery, I then had to show him how to use the voltage meter.  I thought it was common sense, but I guess if you’re 40 and making minimum wage at Home Depot you’re not the sharpest tack in the bunch.

Tip for those that don’t know how to meter a fuse,

1. Turn meter on to any setting.  Personally I like the setting that beeps, but any setting will do!
2. Take the two wires that are plugged into the meter, there should be metal on the ends these are called leads.
3. Touch the leads together…. note how the meter reacts.  Does it beep or does the display change?
4. Separate the leads… the meter should be quiet and display shouldn’t change (don’t touch the leads with your hands your body conducts electricity)
   
5. Now take one lead touch one end of the fuse, then take the other lead and touch the other end of the fuse
6. Note what the meter is doing (if this is too difficult for you, seriously re-think why you aren’t using the setting that beeps)
   
7. If the meter reacts like step 3, fuse is good…. if meter reacts like step 4, fuse is bad!

After I made a poor attempt of insulting the guy with my sinister dry humor that no one understands but me, he opened a package of 6 amp fuses (the largest they had) and gave me one.  Surprised that he was allowed to do such a thing I changed my attitude a little and graciously took it, even though I threw it away once I got home.

The fuse reads “T12.5AL 250V.”  I am not 100% what the L or T mean but the A and V are Amps and Volts, which with my knowledge it should be the only thing that matters.  Slow burn or fast acting is something I am learning about this week but still don’t know which this fuse is.  Honestly if it says 12.5 amps, I’m buying it!

I have a couple other places here in Sacramento and Roseville I want to check out on Monday, but for the most part I am looking at a new fuse holder, some wire, and any fuse that is 12 amps and re-wiring the rice cooker to make it take the new fuse.  If that doesn’t work then maybe we’ll just settle for some wire and review the fire insurance coverage on the house.

If anyone know of a place to buy these things online please point me in the right direction!  I’m also willing to drive anywhere from San Jose to Sacramento if I have too.  Sacramento or the Northern part of the San Francisco East bay is preferred (since I commute back and forth between the two a couple times a week), but as long as I can get this thing working and don’t have to spend another $200 is worth the trip.

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120 days	latest (Oct 16) 1369.5	lowest (Jul 10) 998.2	highest (Oct 8 ) 1415.25

The above is only a graph for the past 4 months.  Korean Won has ranged about 400 won per one US dollar.  On or around its lowest point 1,000,000 won was roughly worth about $1,000.  With 1$ worth about 1,400 won that makes that same $1,000 worth about $700.  If you are exchanging enough money to buy a business, buy a home, or even buy a car, that is still a fairly heavy chunk of change that would be lost in the exchange.

For once I would like to see the US economy weaken.

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Not my normal focus of discussion, however in this case it does hold some significance for me.  Presently an American dollar is worth about 1,395 Korean won.  Which if I was back in Korean being paid in US dollars like I was before I would be loving it.  However that is not the case.  A couple years ago when I left Korea a dollar and 1,000 won were worth about the same.

My mother-in-law is looking into leaving Korea and coming to the U.S.  She has two bakeries and a home she will sell then bring that money to the U.S. to establish her home base here.  I don’t know how much money she has, nor do I really want to know, but for the sake of easy math lets say she has a million dollars, or better 1 billion won.

That 1,000,000,000 won would easily be worth $1,000,000 two years ago.  Now the same amount is worth $717,000.  Nearly $300,000 would be lost if that were the amount she would be bringing here.  Even if it was only 1/10 of that, which would be a the cost of a low priced home, she would still be out $30,000.  Still a big chunk of change.  A single percent (1%) of that first figure is $3,000, which is more money than I have at the moment.

This is making it harder and harder for the Mother-in-law to make the move here.  If she decides to give up she packs everything up and moves back to Korea.  Including my wife and daughter…, which is where I start to feel uneasy.

I earn enough money at the moment where I can provide the smallest of apartments for my wife and me, still go to school, and keep the creditors off our back.  But there will be no extra for toys, clothes, or any luxuries.  Possibly the same reason I haven’t gotten an apartment yet, I like my toys.

If we moved back to New York I could do this a lot easier.  Possibly even live with my Father for a while, until the price of the won comes back down or until I finish school and can get a better job.  Regardless of where I live I will earn the same, but if I move to a place with cheaper real estate then it would be a much more pleasant life.  My wife won’t leave this area though.  She has had it programmed into her head since she was a baby that people live in cities, and only the extremely poor live in the country.  The fact that this is not Korea isn’t something that she has grasped yet, and one of our many problems.

So if Mom takes the plunge and sucks up such a great loss in money, or is able to wait it out long enough and setup shop here in California then I have nothing to worry about.  Except its such a great loss, and I know that this is all because of me as well.  I need to hurry up and finish my two year degree so I can get a job somewhere, then maybe finish my B.S. in night school.

DVC being my 5th college, and having about 25 credits so far, hopefully there are enough so with one more semester and maybe some summer classes I can have my two year degree.

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This is one of the better Korean movies that I have seen that they have now turned into an American movie. I still hear about the movie “The Lake House” from my wife, I wonder what she is going to say about this one?

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Only problem is, I have never heard of this word ever. I don’t speak Korean, but I know, or at least thought I knew all the greetings and salutations. My wife made sure I knew at least that much so I wouldn’t be rude when meeting her friends and family.

So thinking either I am an idiot or Flickr is wrong, I Googled it.

…and the jury is back. I am an idiot. According the Omniglot.com they have a list of how to say “Nice to meet you”, “Honoured to meet you”, or something similar in 82 different languages.
(They misspelled Honored, not me, grammar Nazi’s can address this issue with them.)

Maybe there is a chance that after 82 languages they make the same mistake that Flickr made. Or maybe I am just that much of an idiot for thinking that.

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I met her grandmother a couple times, she doesn’t speak English and I mainly attend to my daughter when we go visit, so it’s fairly safe to say I don’t know her at all. I caught news and it didn’t phase me, the only reason I even care is more for my wife’s sake. However, with what they did today, I was in tears.

In the early evening they collected all those that were close to the recently deceased and brought them into the morgue where they prepped the body and placed it in the coffin. They don’t just pick up the body and drop it in; they wrap it and prepare it in a way I have never heard of. First the group of about 15 of us went into this room with a window, my wife’s grandfather, their children, and about 3 grandchildren that were about the same age as me, my wife included. The body was already lying on a table covered by a sheet, two hospital guys came out talked to everyone for a second then went into the room with the body and locked the door behind them. These two guys looked very young, and gave me the impression that they were students.

The two hospital guys pulled up the side of the sheet and started wiping down the body, they kept the top of her covered including her face so you couldn’t see anything you didn’t want too. After they finished washing her they wrapped her body with large sheets of white paper. Then they started dressing her in this starched yellow burlap-like Hanbok (a Korean traditional dress). I have a piece of this starched burlap around my right arm because of my wife’s relation, I am considered to be a grandchild also. My father-in-law has one as well except his has a black band on it. The Hanbok had several layers and it took a while to dress her. Then they crossed her arms over her chest and tied her up across her body so she would stay put. They even put some cardboard shoes that looked like tissue boxes on her feet then tied her feet together making sure the shoes would stay on as well.

Once the body was complete they very carefully removed the sheet off her face and placed a large piece of wet cotton that was the size of a washcloth in its place so that you couldn’t see her face. Then with one hand holding the cotton up blocking the view from the window he used his other hand to clean all the fluids that had leaked out of her nose, eyes, mouth, and ears. Once she was all clean he allowed everyone to come in and pay their last respects. At this point my wife’s family was overly emotional. After ten minutes of sobs and cries the two hospital guys finished their job. The wrapped the head just as they did the rest of the body, and secured it by tying a strip of that yellow burlap around her neck. They even had one piece for her head that had a cushion for the back of her head.

After the body was ready they prepped the coffin, had a special piece of burlap that fit in the coffin and lined all sides. The coffin was relatively small from anything I have seen in the states. It was large enough for her shoulders to touch both sides and only about 2 inches thick of solid wood. The lid looked a little more modern like a coffin in the states but was one piece that dropped on and had no hinges. The two workers were built like me, small and skinny. When it came time to place the body in the coffin he had to request for some help. Two of my Wife’s uncles that were more emotionally stable helped. Again the women broke into louder tears. They covered the body with something that looked like silk with Korean written on it but couldn’t read it from where I was standing.

Once the lid was on the coffin they took a stack of white paper and placed it on top of the coffin and a long cloth sash and wrapped the coffin up making handles along the side. They covered the coffin with a red cloth that had chinese letters on it, and then with a cover that came down over the sides as well. The second cover had white silk flowers on the top with some in red that conformed a cross. After they covered it they moved it into the next room. In there they put the coffin into a square refrigerator, the kind you see on C.S.I.. I don’t know the name of them; I just know it’s the morgue. There were about 40 of these little doors one on top of the other. Those that hadn’t walked out prior to this point slowly left in tears. I did all I could to keep a sober face and be supportive for my wife.

This is about the extent of my day so far. I am afraid to see what is in store for tomorrow.

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I stayed until the police arrived which took about 10 minutes if that. By that time to girl had walked into the middle of the road and emptied the contents of her purse in the middle of the street and then they both were on the other side of the road when the police actually arrived. An hour later when we came back through everything she took out of her purse was still in the road and the bike was gone too, which made me wonder if they let him take it home.

Its little things like this that make me glad that I am returning to the states.

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Soldier accused of stealing Seoul city bus

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