Student Made Video

Check out this video one of my students made.  Please disregard the poor spelling.  I thought this would be a cool way to see our school.  I make a cameo at about the 1:07 mark.  Please enjoy responsibly.

Giving Back

Volunteering ones time, skills and resources is an important part of life.  JFK knew this when he started the Peace Corp.  Jimmy Carter knew as well when he began Habitat for Humanity.  This summer is was my turn.  That is why I decided to give back by volunteering my time to the United States Golf Association to help out with the 2010 US Open.  What better way to help others than by manning a hospitality tent for obscenely rich corporations.

Before I could lend my helping hand to the elitist everyman game of golf, I made a quick stopover in San Francisco to take in some BASEBALL!  After a night game the day before, Justin Strickland joined me to catch a day game.  It's important to support the home team when visiting a new ballpark...unless its the Yankees.

Sporting some Tim Lincecum wigs. Timmy pitching in the background.

After the game, Justin and I picked up our rental car VAN and picked up the rest of the Man Trip 2010 crew.  We thought it would be a great idea to make a quick stop at the Golden Gate for a beginning of trip picture.  Turns out there is no quick trip to the Golden Gate Bridge during rush hour.  A short hour and a half later and we were back on the road.

**Just for reference, Man Trip is a yearly trip of which past exploits include the Indy 500, Kentucky Derby, and the College World Series.**

Jeremy (1st Man Trip), Patrick (3rd MT), Justin (3rd MT), Isaac (4th MT)

Tim (not here yet - 3rd MT) 

Finally it was time to help out those less fortunate than us.  Actually, between the five of us, there were some pretty cool gigs.  Tim and Jeremy were hole marshals on the 2nd hole, which played as the second toughest all week.  Patrick was a player driver, driving players and their caddies from the practice greens to the tee box in a Lexus...which meant that Patrick was slumming it compared to his normal wheels.  Justin and I worked different hospitality tents, which basically amounted to guarding an entrance and putting wrist bands on people...but at least I got to watch golf from my entrance, it was on the 3rd hole.

A few thoughts I had from the Open. 

• The collective golf IQ of a crowed gets exponentially lower the closer Tiger Woods gets, absolutely bottoming out when you get withing 200 yards of him.
• Pebble Beach is beautiful.
• The worlds most obnoxious man always sits within five feet of me everywhere I go in any sport.  (That may say more about my tolerance than anything).
• I would four-putt the majority of the holes at a US Open.  I am not sure I would break par if all I had to do was putt!

One more quick story from this disjointed blog entry.  The first day of the Championship, Tim and I followed around the group of Tim Clark (S. Africa), Mike Wier (Canada), and K.J. Choi (S. Korea).  Two interesting this happened. 

First, I managed to offend at least three Canadians.  Mike Wier left a putt woefully short on the 5th hole and as the crowd collectively groaned, I turned to the group next to me and in one breath said, "Hrumph, Canadians...you guys are Canadians huh?"  They nodded, unamused.  So in my best effort at diplomacy I said, "He should have taken a shot at maple syrup first, that would have helped him get it there!"  And do you know what happened!!!!  Nothing. NOTHING?  Hrumphh, Canadians.

My second unfortunate encounter with Canadians happened when, after Mike Wier actually made a putt, a group proudly turned to Tim and I and asked, "Eh, you guys there from Canada there eh doncha know?"  I immediatly and triumphantly shouted, "No Way!"  Once again, I realized that this was pretty rude and tried to smooth things over with this cool line a few seconds later, "Soooo, uhhhhh, yall are from Canada huh.  Oh, thats cool."  Slowly walk away.  

The final part of of this story happened due to my intimate knowledge of the Korean language.  Following K.J. Choi, I felt that I needed to give him some encouragement.  My first attempt was a simple "Anyong Haseyo" (Hello) as he walk past me off the 2nd tee box.  This was met with a head nod, and I was pleased. A few holes later, I was racking my brain to remember ANY Korean words that might imply a job well done.  The best I could come up with were shouted after a nice drive on the 10 hole.  "Mashitsayo," I shouted.  In English, that was a delicious drive K.J. 

A Korean man next to Tim and I seemed to like this and chuckled to himself.  A few holes later, Choi hit in to a sand trap and Tim and I both said "Ahhh Shiiiiii", basically Crap!  (I was teaching Tim).  The same Korean man was standing next to me again and laughed so, never one to turn down an audience, gave the encore of  "Shibal", which is basically the f-bomb in Korean (sorry Mom).  He thought this was great and asked where I learned such fine Korean.  Turns out, this was K.J. Choi's personal manager.  We ended up chatting for the rest of the round.  So thank you Korean kids for teaching me swear words.  Swearing is the international language of love.

OK, that is all.  Becky and I are sitting in the Seattle airport (Free wifi shoutout!) finally on our way to the Great State of Texas after three weeks of west coast road trip fun.  Hoping to put those pictures and stories up in the next week or so.  

If you are reading this (yeah right) and are in Texas and want to hang out, give us a call on the summer cell. 214-422-5125

Love, iBeck

Nepal Part Dos - The Namaste Chapter

It has been a month since we traversed to Nepal and I thought it would be time for a little reflection.  When we talk with people that have been to Nepal, the common phrase is usually "life changing".  Naturally, it is hard to dampen expectations with words like that.  Fortunately, I am a bit cynical at times and usually take stuff like that with a grain of salt. (Interestingly, my being cynical is really not fortunate for anyone, especially Becky).

So.  Life Changing.  Big Stuff.  Nepal.  Using Periods And. Capital Letters. For Every Word. For. Dramatic Effect.

OK, I will say it.  Nepal generally lives up to the hype.  It is in your face, dirty, poverty stricken, polluted, breathtaking, heartwarming, humbling, heartbreaking, amazing, frustrating and myriad other adjectives. (I've been seeing the word myriad a lot lately so I thought I would throw it in there. I hope you like).

I took some time to edit our pictures from the trip and I think that they can show some of what we were able to experience in this crazy country.  One or two of the pictures are repeats from Becky's blog, but I cleaned em up so they are worth another look.  I will also be adding some (pithy) commentary along the way.



Section I - Breathtaking
It is hard to capture what you see live, but considering I was carrying like $1,500 of camera equipment, these better be pretty close!  These are from Poon Hill. Yes, I thought the name was funny.  But I also laughed in a school wide professional development session when someone described our school as well endowed.  Back to the pictures.

Can I suggest here that you click on these pictures to enlarge them.  It will make your experience much more enjoyable.

Yes, the last two are the same, but so pretty and just different enough.

This is Dhaulagiri. 8,167 meters - 26,795ft. Wow. 7th highest mountain in the world.  Something like 40% of the people who try to summit this mountain die. 

Section II - Animals

Yak - enough said.

Yak video - I will let the video commentary speak for itself.

Ass. 

Or a mule. Somebody enlighten me please.

Greatest inspirational poster ever? 

Answer - Yes.

Once again, click to enlarge and enjoy this in all its glory. Found in a rest point on the last day of our trek.

These goats were awesome!  They tasted fantastic!

I was kidding about the goats.  They needed salt.

Seriously, all up and down the trail were these teams of asses? mules? hauling stuff up and down.  These are the roads and thus, these are the vehicles. Reliable brakes on this model. (Looking at you Toyota).

Section III - Life

This was pretty early in the morning and this woman was brushing her hair that had to go down to her rear. Just across the way our guide, Rahm, pointed out that a couple of older gentlemen were drunk.  Once again, this was early morning.  Sorry, no picture. Just think of your grandparents (lets say on your mothers side, because I think we all know they are the drunks) on New Years Eve, if you grandparents were both dudes sitting Indian style (Nepal style?) in the dirt in the mountains of Nepal.  Also your grandparents are both about 5ft tall and Asian. If you are reading this and you are Asian, that last part is probably not much of a stretch.

I like this picture because you have this innocence.  Children playing, a cute boy and girl looking up at another cute boy. If you let yourself, you can even see your own childhood in this picture...And then you look closer and you see that the boy is up above because the high ground is best to attack from.  This dude is wielding a knife and a stone.

Sickle - Check.  Hammer - Ah man!

Love this shot. Becky on the trail up ahead.

Section IV - Animals + Life = Love

Maybe the most disturbing part of the trip.  Becky mentioned this in her blog and here is the visual to go along with it.  This girl was litterally cleaning this animal's (buffalo?) poop with her bare hands.  Makes you think twice about giving the heavy sigh when your wife asks you to wash the dishes.  Looking at you Dad.  Haha. Jokes.

I thought this was really awesome.  This was taken from way up above down into a valley on our last day of the trek.

Section V - Flora

This thing rocked my world.  Rahm, the guide, said, "Tomato tree!"  I freaked out.  I think I called him a liar and then I got out the camera.  After some research, it is a tomatillo tree, also called tomato tree.  Sorry Rahm.

Lucky for us, it was berry season.  Sweet and tart! Groups of kids would hang out on the road between where you start the trek and the main city in the region, Pocara selling rolled up leaves full of these berries.  We pulled over a couple of times to buy some.  Sadly, no picture of this.

Some local medicinal herb. A closer inspection is needed.

Man, where have I seen this before?

Another patch of this stuff. Just a little guy.  Maybe Rahm can tell us what it is.

"Marijuana."  Thanks Rahm.

Cannabis, as my freinds from Canaba like to call it, grows like crazy in Nepal. Don't worry Kyle family, still pot free since '83. I was one year old in '83. Haven't touched the stuff since.

I could have put a picture of a cinnamon tree here, which I thought was really cool.  Instead, I decided to just put in a couple of extra weed pictures.  I know what people want.

Hey unemployed Americans. I hear this farm is hiring. Too soon for and economy joke?

Legit terracing.

Last section - Extra

I think those vehicles I refered to earlier (the asses) need some emissions testing.  There was no shortage of poop on the trail. Yak poop, buffalo poop, cow poop, dog poop, goat poop, and of course, chicken...er...poop.

We will leave you with this. I may have massaged this photo a bit. I still think it is kinda cool.

Life Changing.  That was the phrase at the beginning of this blog, and trip for that matter. I hope that every trip and experience is life changing in some way or another.  Nepal was no different. I would like to think that Becky and I approach trips like this with a sense of graciousness and humility. We are fortunate to get experiences like these, so yeah, I suppose Nepal was life changing.

Whew!  Glad that is done.  This took me like three days to get through.  And...get excited...there shall be a Nepal Part Sam (thats three in Thai) - Kathmandu.  Get excited.

Until then.

Love,

iBeck

Dunk This

Becky is the student council advisor this year and she has had a good time doing it. Earlier this year, the student council had a dunking booth fundraiser. So when Becky was the first to get in the chair, I made sure I was first in line with my baht (money) ready. I will say that I nailed it on the first throw...unfortunatly, the button was janky and didn't budge. Took me a few more HARD throws, but I finally got her! She was happy.  I didn't eat for a week after that, you know, because she is basically the only reason that I have food. Seriously, I think I ate popcorn all week. See the important lessons I am learning through marriage!

Love Us.

Yummy Thai Fruit

You know you are full on Thai when you go to the store/market with a list (thank you Becky) that has "any fruit you want for the week" as one of the items and you come back with this. Gotta love rambutans and mangoes! Each month brings another delicious fruit that is in season.

Nepal

Hey Friends and Family,
I know you're all checking the blog EVERY day for pictures of Nepal........or you're bored at work right now and looking for ANY sorry excuse to get distracted. Either way, welcome! I'm glad you're looking at the blog now. And rest assured there are pictures, but first, let me finish the story of our trip that Isaac started while ignoring me at the airport in Dhaka. :) Seriously, Isaac, I need more attention......just kidding, it's nice to get breathing room sometimes and your socks are smelly.

Anyway, after we finally arrived in Kathmandu, where our guide was supposed to meet us, we noticed that no one was there with those misspelled name signs. I was really looking forward to something like Issac and Rebookoo Curry. Asians love to misspell our names.....and other English words in general. Ok I'm sorry, I digress. So our guide wasn't waiting because we were 4 1/2 hours late! And I'm brilliant so I didn't get the phone number of our guide. We ended up hiring a NEW guide because if we wanted to do the trek we had planned we had no time to lose.

We had to run around Kathmandu and get new trekking permits so I had to walk around the city to get my picture taken since I don't have extras with me at all times. Isaac, on the other hand, always carries passport size photos around in his wallet so he can have them available in case people want a teeny tine autographed photo of him.

I learned on the journey to get a passport photo that it is not a good idea to wear short shorts in Kathmandu......or to be white. It makes you stand out/look skanky. So, Mom, put away the daisy dukes when you go to Nepal! Unless you want to get stared at/yelled at by creepy Nepalese men.

Once we got photos, passes, and a new guide we were forced to drive 5 hours to get to Pokhara, where the trek started. I slept the whole way, but Isaac is a giant and didn't fit too well in the Suzuki. :(. We did make one stop on the way at some random house that was actually a restaurant and Isaac and I got to sit on a rock while the driver and our guide ate with these shirtless old men and some goats. This one old guy took a fancy to us and decided to strike up a conversation in Nepalese. It lasting a surprisingly long time considering neither Isaac nor I said anything.

Finally, we ended up in Pokhara and I took a cold shower because there was no hot water. Awesome. The next day, the trek started and the real fun began!

The first 2 days of trekking were great! They were challenging and I definitely got a workout but it was pretty cool. We hiked for about 5 hours each day. On the night of day 2, our problems started. I don't know what we ate, but something didn't sit well. I didn't sleep at all that night and Isaac woke up at about 4 in the morning to throw up. It was ok, though, because we were supposed to wake up at 4:30 to hike to the top of Poon Hill for the most amazing view of the trip.





It was a bit of a struggle with our stomach issues but we made it! And we got some awesome pictures. Afterwards we hiked back down to base and took a 2 hour nap. We woke up and were supposed to walk 3 1/2 more hours to get to the next tea house but Isaac was REALLY suffering so it took us about 6 hours! It was painful. We made it to the next town and went to sleep right away at like 4 pm. We woke up for about 15 minutes to TRY to eat but it didn't really work.

The next day, we felt a bit better and kept hiking. That evening we took a trip to a hot spring which was Isaac's favorite part. It made him miss Korean Sauna. He said he wished he could get naked with the other men. Isaac loves getting his naked on.....with other men. :) The Sauna was really nice, especially because it meant I didn't have to take a cold shower.

We had a few more days of hiking and I learned a few things on the way.
1. I can no longer complain about having to weed the backyard when I was growing up because weeding in the middle of the mountains looks WAY worse.
2. I can also no longer complain about doing ANY kind of yard work as a child because I saw a child cleaning up cow poop WITH HER BARE HANDS. I don't know what they were going to use it for but I think they burn that crap (hahaha LITERALLY!) to cook and heat things up. Delicious. Seriously, this kid was probably 4. So, thanks dad, for not making me clean up poop with my bare hands!

The last 2 days of hiking were much better than when we had stomach issues and we ended our trip in Pokhara and then flew to Kathmandu to catch our flight back to Bangkok. In Bangkok we tried to get some money from Thai Airlines for our crappy travel/missing our guide because we ended up paying the OLD guide for the flights we missed AND for our original trekking permits. Of course the day we decide to wait in the complaint line is when Europe decides to cancel all of their flights so everyone and their mom was waiting in line because they couldn't fly to Europe. It was also cool because after asking 3 people if we could just mail in our information and being told "no", we found out that we needed to fill out a form and MAIL IT IN! We're still waiting to find out about whether or not Thai Airways will give us some money. Keep your fingers crossed! We're hoping for some flights to Australia.

Alright, by now you're either bored, or you need to get back to work. Seriously Dad, get to work! So, I'll end there and leave you with a bunch more pictures!


Love,
The Thai Curreys

Travel Woes

> Becky and I are sitting here in the 'international' airport in
> Dhakka, Bamgladesh. When we got to the airport this morning in
> Bangkok, the lady at the ticket counter told us to wait a minute.
> She let us think there was some computer error and that was why she
> didn't tag our bags. Turns out the plane that normally flys Bangkok
> to Kahtmandu was broke like a joke and the replacement plane was
> smaller which means the plane was overbooked. After 20 minutes or so
> a guy tells us that he is going to have to reroute us, whilst at the
> same time showing us an envelope stffed with money! Well, we both
> find this pretty comical but decide to go with it.
>
> So now here we are, sitting in a dumpy old airport waiting to catch
> our connection to Nepal. What was it worth to us for this three hour
> delay? How bout 300 bones! Nice.
>
> Of course we still have to figure out what to do once we get to
> Kahtmandu since we were suppsed to catch another puddle/mountain
> jumper once there... And who knows if the guy supposed to pick us up
> will still be there. But, as we say in Thailand, Mai pen rai - no
> worries.
>
> iBeck

Ps - I would have included a pic but my iPod touch has no camera.
Thanks for nothing Steve Jobs!