Go to twitter.com, sign up (free), then follow #dragndon.  You’ll then see more :)

Or just wait for the weekly posts for my Twitter summary and click there too.

http://m.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/02/must-complete-projects-for-every-hardcore-tech-geek/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&pid=3005&viewall=true

Last month something happened to my knees. It is like I over worked them.  I figured a few days of rest and it’ll be fine but therein lies the dilemma of being in Korea.  There is much more walking, stairs to climb for exercise but what do you do when its your legs that need the rest?  Unfortunately I do not have the luxury of sitting around for 3 – 4 days and do nothing.  So the healing becomes a significantly slower process with the possibility of doing more damage without really helping at all.

While at a movie two nights ago, I was about halfway through I was getting some pretty severe pain in my right knee.  To the point that I was considering leaving the film.  If I could have just stretched out the leg I would have been fine but the seat in front of me only afforded me limited flexibility.

So I went to see a doctor.   I have always been partial to alternative healing and I knew of a place near a Korean friend of mine that did acupuncture.  My friend offered to help with the Korean. While they did speak English, they were better at explaining things in Korean and my friend explained in English.

The treatment went as follows:

First, I should mention that the bed, while somewhat stiff, was heated.  Very comfy but only to a point.

The doctor placed four rubber suction-loke cups at various locations around my knee.  These cups had lines attached to them and had sponge on their insides.  The machine applied both a vacuum and an electrical stimulus to the knee area. There was also an infrared lamp over the exposed knee as well.  It was rather unique to experience such a treatment.

After about 15mins of the suction/electrical shock that varied in patterns my knee was feeling pretty good but we weren’t done yet.  The assistant  places a towel wrapped hot pack in my knee and leaves then the doctor returns in about 5 mins or so.

NOW they brought out the acupuncture needles.

He put 5 of them around my knee then attached alligator clips with wires to them.  More electrical shocks to the muscles it seems. 15 more minutes with this. Feels a little more intense but not painful.

The assistant comes in and removes everything and informs me there is one more step!  I am wondering how much more work can be done?!  She tells me it will hurt a little but not to be concerned.  I shrug, certainly won’t hurt more than what I have experienced from the pain in my knee a few days ago.

The doctor comes back and has a couple of weird things I’ve never seen. One of them looks like a hand pump and a little add on looks like a suction cup type of device with some gauze in it.  There is another hand device but I can’t quite make out what it does. The staff is very good at not making it obvious.  The doctor swabs an area just left of my knee and takes the other handheld thing and pricks my skin about 8 times in rapid fire strikes.  Ok so that kinda stung.  I watch the doctor place the ‘suction cup thingy’ over he area and then attach the hand pump, he pumped it a few times and then left for about 5mins.  My leg bled slowly into it and the gauze was soaking up some of it.  I just kinda watched with a bit of morbid fascination and was amazed that ‘leeching’ was still practiced on a daily basis.

The doctor came back, removed the suction cup thingy cleaned up my skin a bit and left the assistant to finish. I asked her what was the purpose of that and she it was too hard to explain in English(her english was pretty good).

Then they let me go.  Since this procedure was covered (and by that they mean mostly) by the Government, it only cost be KRW8400(about $8.40).

My knee did feel better and there is supposed to be a follow-up for the next three days bit I have plans already so I’ll do it next week.

I was told that this is only a symptom of a larger issue which is not necessarily related to my weight.  Who knows but I’ll be keeping an eye on things.

“Poor if the person who’s pleasure depends on the permission of another.”

If you can’t be happy because of someone else who will be unhappy, then you have cut off your own soul.  This become more and more obvious as the years go on.

The interesting about this blog is that for the longest time, I always thought long, detailed blog posts were necessary to make this useful enough to read.  That will change.  I will do any daily updates, that normally went to my FB status, here.  No you won’t be seeing ‘I’m hungry’ two word posts here, but ones where I tell a little bit of a story type of deal.

No this also doesn’t mean I am supplanting Facebook with my blog.  I just don’t feel the need to browse other people’s status when learning Korean is significantly more important for me :)  Update here don’t need me to log in.  I can email them from my Galaxy Tab ;)

Let’s sum up a few things that has happened/learned over the last year.

• Getting here was an adventure in of itself.  10,000 total flying miles was a big part of that.
• There was getting my first haircut as well.  Boy did I ever learn that ‘setting #3′ here is NOT the same as in Canada.
• I also learned that Koreans are very serious about their Coffee places to hang!
• As with any foreign place, you get to see a lot of strange things.
• Then I found out that I am an Alien!  (Ha!  I knew I couldn’t be related to my brother!)
• I saw a Demilitarized Zone that had more fortifications that I have ever seen!
• I found out that you can bring beer into a movie theater.
• I like KPOP Music.
• You can read a comic while waiting for subways.

What will the next year bring?  Not sure.  I have been rather quiet on the blog recently, having been posting more on Google+.  It seems Google may be forcing my hand to leaving their waste of time and come back here.  Might do that any ways, same for Facebook.

I do plan on making a trip back to Canada next year just not sure when.  I am thinking  maybe Aug/Sept but my wife is thinking Christmas.  Will have to wait and see how this plays out and will have a better idea early next year.

To sum up my year in a couple of words?  It’s been awesome.

“+Christina Trapolino I went through a transformation almost a year ago. I quit Facebook when I moved to South Korea. I found zero use for it and like you, saw way too much noise. I had announced my move to another country 4 months in advance and 3 weeks before I left, a friend of mine asked me ‘where are you going?’. Proof to me that people allow the noise to fill their FB feed and not really pay attention to people that are closer to them than ‘FB friends’.

After I got to South Korea, I decided to setup a Remote Computer Support business for foreigners (lots of English teachers here who have laptops and desperately need help). The downside to that, they all communicate on FB. So I set up a new FB account with the sole purpose for keeping in touch with clients/potential clients.

I would seriously prefer Google+ but that mindset has not perculated down to the FB masses yet and so any ‘conversion rate’ to get people to even use it (let alone switch) is still pretty minor. The only people I know who are on both my FB friends list and G+ circles are a couple of computer-savvy people. Which has been noted that the early adopters of new technical things have always been us Geeks :) (Keep in mind that there was a huge typo in the Bible…”The Geek shall inherit the earth”).

So now I am in both worlds. Google plus is still my more techie-related info, FB for client-interaction and right now, Twitter for happenings around the world.

Once G+ become truly transparent to either of those others (as well as my WordPress blog), I will be glad to stick with one platform.”

Google + is still a better platform, mostly because FB has simply become noisy.