Exhaust

Outside of Osan Air Base is one of the endless suburbs of Seoul. Immediately outside the gate is a system of narrow streets and alleys, chock a block with shops and food stands and bars, many of which are prominently labeled inside the base as being off limits to military personnel. The neighborhood is colorful and loud, and has been morphing into its current form since 1950. Prostitutes are evident along this street, but I think they target the younger service men more so than the middle aged married guys.

Except for a comparatively much older woman, somewhere between fifty and sixty it seemed, who looked, as they say, rode hard and put away wet. “You want sex?” she asked. “Huh?” “You want sex?” “Uh, no thanks.” I like married women, anyway, and it helps if they’re married to me.

Later on Guam, I related the story to an USAF enlisted guy who had served at Osan a decade or more ago. His reaction was, “Is Old Sadie still working?”

Notorious, she is.

There’s a fine line between what I can comfortably accomplish in any given week, and what feel like ragged, sloppy output. Granted, I’m not a perfectionist, professionally. Not even close, but I make it up with conservatism, making me generally comfortable with the results. There’s a line, though, and these weeks I’m approaching it. After 15 hour days in the R-O-K stacked atop a 14 hour time shift and air travel, I was ready to take a break after the first week. But then I flew to Guam and continued the process.

I had a few hours Saturday and a few more on Sunday not working, but not to myself. Saturday, I accompanied a couple of Company folks who just relocated here. They were trying to find a house to rent and I thought I’d offer my services as Tropical Island Relocation Consultant, offering the wisdom obtained when I first started writing these missives. Local hint – there are a lot of places with multiple chickens as neighbors. If you’re not a cock-a-doodle-dooer, you’ll need to look longer for suitable digs. I spent the rest of the day writing notes for the meetings last week, and getting ready for the meetings this week.

Sunday morning, I started by wading into the ocean to watch the sun rise over the hotel (they have bright blue starfish here), and then I went on a circle tour of Guam to see some of the military history sights. This was really kind of cool. Even though the island is just 30 miles long, it was pivotal during WWII. The evening was spent preparing for the charrette.

Now, it’s a hot Friday afternoon already, and the AE JV team is working on the slides for our outbrief to the Brigadier. Well, some of the team is. Most of us are lounging as best as we can on the folding chairs available to us in this borrowed chapel classroom. We could have piled into the rental and ran over to the local beach, inaccessible by Guamanian locals, but easily reached by those already on Anderson Air Base.

But it’s even hotter outside than it is inside, so my team is dozing and waiting for the next session.

The week went well, by and large. The project is large, and has a mess of moving parts, but what makes it a mess is that it’s a Marine project on an Air Force base managed by the Navy. There’re plenty of toes to step on, so we step as lightly as possible. Also messy is the Joint Venture, a group of three small business architectural firms. Bear in mind that this is a major infrastructure project, and the only architecture is the design of a substation building, but that’s neither here nor there. The Company, on the other hand, has the bulk of the design, but are mere subconsultants to the JV. In fact, we are one of thirteen firms assembled by the architects to tackle the effort. We are, to use the vernacular, Team Gigantor.

I picture the tattoo as a thirteen headed Godzilla with three tails. The tails represent the three joint venture partners, and I’d be more than happy to lop one of them off and toss it into the ocean, but I’ve held my cool so far. There were times earlier in the week when I wasn’t so sure I could and our opinions of said tail dominate our 45 minute drive back to the hotel every evening.

We really shouldn’t be here still. My team had their 40 hours in by Wednesday evening, and we’ve covered everything that needs to be covered. After the client briefing this morning, we should have headed back to the hotel and got some pool time before flying out tomorrow morning. One of the tails, though, thought our time would best served waiting on the chapel for two hours, watching him direct the development of a power point presentation, so that we can sit in a room with the Brigadier who won’t ask any technical questions.

I dislike this tail.

Meanwhile, as with any military job, there’re new acronyms and catch phrases that dominate the discussions. We found a couple we liked and have been making fun of them consistently all week, going so far as to develop a drinking game around “Tiger Team”, “SME”, and “Hotwash”. If only the powers that be would let us drink en charrette.

We anticipate a couple of trips back here before the project is complete, and I’ll try to schedule additional days before or after. It doesn’t look like I’ll get any free time during under the current management, and especially this week.

The hotel’s nice, though, the food’s been good, and the team gets along, so I suppose I could call this a success. Just need to chop off a tail.
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