44 Hours and We're Calling a Mulligan

For the one or two people who read my blog, I'm finally going to talk about the 'vacation'. You hear people sometimes mention a vacation and how bad it was but in the back of your head you probably think to yourself, "yeah, the warm sun, the beautiful beaches; how bad could it have been?". Well, let me tell you. It can get bad, real bad.

Jen and I had been waiting for this vacation since August when our close friends Rick and Liz came up with the idea. It basically evolved from a birthday getaway for me (I turned 40 only days prior to the trip) and an early honeymoon for the just engaged Rick and Liz. (Yay!).

The trip was to St. Lucia in the British West Indies. I spent my first nine years of life in Puerto Rico and I had never heard of St. Lucia but what they heck, everything I saw online said this was a great place to go.

Jen and I flew American from Boston to San Juan then took and American Eagle turbo prop to St Lucia. We had a little stress leading up to our departure since it was right at the same time American was cancelling so many flight so they could do maintenance checks on their planes but it all went pretty smoothly. We got to St. Lucia right on time. So far, so good.

Rick and Liz were flying Delta from Atlanta direct into St. Lucia's larger southern airport. (We flew into the small northern field). Rick and Liz had to take a 1 hour + ride to the resort while we only had a 5 min cab ride. No biggie.

Jen and I got settled in and headed to a nearby resort cabana to start our festivities(drinking).

Rick and Liz arrived about 2-3 hours after we did and we all got to some serious 'having fun time'. These first couple of hours were the best part of the vacation because at sunset is when it all went completely to shit.

We migrated a bit towards the beach to check out the sunset. Rick and Liz went down to the beach and Jen and I sat high on a small seawall. As the sun was setting, We stood up and *BAM*. Jen lost her balance and took a header down a flight of stairs. Yes, it was bad, VERY bad. I already a good drink on so it took a second for everything to register but there was my bride laying at the bottom of the stairs and she wasn't moving!!!!

I got down to her quickly (other folks had seen it happen and were starting to get in gear as well. I definitely remember hearing people shouting to get help, call and ambulance, etc. I was focused completely on Jen and generally freaking out.

A great couple we hadn't met yet, who ended up becoming friends during the trip were instrumental in getting my head back on straight and helping out. Jim and Deb asked the important questions, 'Is she breathing? Can you feel her pulse?' which finally snapped me back into reality. Thank goodness, she was breathing and had a strong pulse! (small victory!)

We tried to revive her but really could do much because we didn't want to move her. I did feel around her spine as best I could and nothing 'seemed' out of place, also none of her limbs were sitting at unnatural angles. From my only somewhat untrained, drunk, eyes, her body appeared intact but we weren't taking chances. She was unconscious which meant she had a concussion at best. There was a knot on the side of her head I swear was the size of a golf ball.

The Sandals (that's the resort we were at) medic showed up quickly and we got her on to a backboard and began carrying her to an awaiting ambulance.

I'm going to take a short aside here and really thank the Sandals staff. They were great. I wish I could remember the man who stayed with us all the way to the Hospital and until the doctors there were able to confirm Jen was not in any immediate danger. It was greatly appreciated.

OK, back to the tale. We get Jen into the ambulance and the guy asks me if I want to go to a public or private hospital. My brain is still pretty mushy and I think he picked up on that. He put it much more simply for me "Do you have medical insurance?. If you do then I recommend a private hospital." Done.

We ended up after a 10 or 15 minute ride at small private clinic in Castries (capital of St. Lucia). Jen had finally started to come around and was loudly complaining about neck brace she had on. We were in the ER for only a short while before a doctor came in and started to look her over.
Most of the rest of the night was a blur mostly due to me being scared and not having a clue what all the medical folks were saying. Jen did get a CAT scan and the doc said there was no internal damage to her head. She basically conked herself a 'mighty good one'. *Phew*.

They did want to admit her for the night so I settled in on a cot next to her bed for the night.
All this time Jen and was in and out of unconsciousness but was mostly incoherent. She did have one nasty moment were she barfed all over the ER. Yeah, that was pleasant.

About 3am Saturday morning, I woke up when I head Jen stirring and then she the best thing "What the hell? Where am I? Ed?" Yay, she was awake! I explained what happened and she promptly fell back asleep. I finally got some decent sleep too since I was now alot more sure Jen was going to be OK.

The next morning was pretty routine for a hospital. We waited around for a while to see the doc, then went to get some x-rays. It turns out Jen had hurt her shoulder and they wanted to make sure it wasn't dislocated or anything was broken. The X-Rays showed a possible partial separation so the doc schedules Jen to come see an orthopedic doc on Tuesday.

Jen was released from the hospital Saturday afternoon.

The rest of the vacation was pretty 'bleh' Jen could do much for the first few days at all because she was on pain meds that made her completely wonky. I did do some scuba diving with Rick. THANK YOU LIZ FOR TAKING CARE OF JEN!

There were some highlights to the trip. As I mentioned before we met Jim and Deb. We also met a British couple Simon and Jane. The 8 of us spent a lot time hanging out and having a good time. By Tuesday Jen stopped taking the pain meds so she could function again so she was able to get involved too. However, with the concussion came a side affect of getting worn out a lot faster. So, most of our nights were called early so she could go to bed.

The best day was Thursday. Jen, Rick, Liz and I hired a driver to give us a tour to some of the islands best places. We took some very scenic roads through the maintains and got to see a lot of really gorgeous fishing villages, rain forest, etc.

We stopped and got some fresh tree ripened bananas. I do not recommend you ever eat them. You will forever be disappointed by the ones you buy from the stores since they are harvested green. The ones we bought were simply 'hella-yummie'

St. Lucia has an active volcano. It's not spewing lava currently so they actually let you into the caldera. I would describe it as walking into a large fart cloud. *pew*. The smell is from the sulfur being belched by the volcano. The sulfur is one of the reasons the French and British fought over St. Lucia. They wanted the sulfur to make gunpowder.

Our next stop was a local botanical garden. That was fantastic. We took tons of pictures and just enjoyed walking around and seeing it all.

We returned the resort and prepared for our departure the next day. Up to this point the vacation hadn't been truly awful. It was not good for Jen and I but not entirely crap. That was all about to change over the next 48 hours or so.

Our return trip was basically the reverse of our arrival. We were to take an ATR-72 twin turboprop to San Juan and catch a 767 to Boston form there.

Our flight to San Juan departed right on time. About ten minutes into the flight I 'thought' I sensed something odd. What I felt was a slight dipping of the right wing. Now, this by itself isn't unusual. Slight turbulence would easily cause that but something way in the back of my head was registering something a little different. Now, something I DO know about is airplanes. I'm a private pilot and have a degree in aerospace engineering. Some of that edumucashun was bound to rub off.

Very shortly after that nagging little buzzer in my head went off the plane turned VERY sharply and did a 180 turn. NOW I KNEW something was wrong. I chuckled and leaned over to Jen and said "We're going back". At that moment the pilot gets on the intercom and announces we are having some trouble with an engine and would be returned to St. Lucia. *Fuck*. About a minute later the pilot SHUT-OFF the right engine! *DOUBLE FUCK*. At this point I was a bit nervous. I planes like this are designed to fly loaded with one engine but that is only a small comfort when you look out the window and see the propeller windmilling.

I now consciously registered what was nagging me about the right wing dipping. As that engine was losing power the airplane would yaw to the right. This causes the trailing wing to have less lift than the extended (left side) wing which induces a rolling motion.

Well, needless to say we made it back to St Lucia in one piece. It was a very long 20 minutes or so. Now begins the epic FAIL on American Airlines part.

Our flight was the last flight to San Juan that day and there was no way to get a replacement airplane to us. We would be spending another night on the Island. it probably took A/A 3 hours to finally get a new flight itinerary for Jen and I. They were going one at a time through the passengers to get them all. It just happened that we were towards the end. I'm sure A/A wanted to help their frequent flyers first, etc. Whatever. Jen and I were 2 of the last 8 people to get out.

We were now scheduled to take a jet from the big airport Saturday at 2:30pm. A/A was paying for our hotel and gave us a few bucks for some dinner. During this time Jen and I befriended another stranded passenger named Janine. She was travelling alone and had managed to get a staph infection on her ankle so she hobbling around a bit. She was going our hotel and was going to be on the flight the next day.

The hotel was ok. It wasn't a rat trap and was clean so we had no complaints there. We grabbed an early cab to Vieux Fort the next day and headed to the airport for our second go at getting home. Janine was also in our cab. A/A covered the cab fare.

We arrived at the airport and checked in only to discover our new flight was delayed and was still in Miami! Oh well. At least it wasn't cancelled and this airport was much larger and would be more comfortable to wait in.

We did cheat a bit and grabbed a wheelchair for Janine which allowed us to scoot to the head of the immigration line. Yah, I know cheesy but Janine really DID need the wheelchair. Her ankle looked like a tree trunk.

This is the point where A/A starts to fail. The flight ended up delayed for 7 hours. This, of course, made us miss our connections out of Miami. A/A did have the foresight to book us seats on flights for Sunday morning in case the delay caused us to miss the connection so that was OK.

The problems occurred in that American basically only vouchered us for 5 bucks towards food. They had us stuck in the terminal for nearly 8 hours and gave us five bucks! Gee, thanks for nothing. Janine, Jen and I did some window shopping at the duty-free and sat around waiting and waiting and waiting.

Surprisingly the entire wait wasn't really that bad other than A/A' refusal to pay for another meal. All of the folks stayed pretty cheery. Even the children remained in good spirits. We finally got a hold of the Dog Nanny where Blue and Dascha were staying to let them know we wouldn't be picking the dogs up today.

We all figured we could at least gt some drinks and stuff on the plane. yeah, nice one. Tell me another....

So, our place finally arrives and we board and depart about 10:30pm. Now A/A REALLY begins to fail. The flight to Miami is 4 hours. at the first opporttunity the "flight attendants" roll out the drink carts and do their rounds. WE NEVER SAW THEM AGAIN. Well, we did see them. They were all asleep in First Class. I am NOT exaggerating. Gee, thanks for the service.

We land in Miami and clear customs about 2:30am Sunday morning. An A/A rep is waiting right there with updated flight itineraries and information for us. Hey! Great!. Not....Our flight is scheduled for depart at 7am. 4.5 hours from know. The A/A rep hands us hotel vouchers!. WTF! Are you serious? I asked, nicely, if we could just go into the A/A lounge and wait there. This BITCH, and I'm begin kind, was VERY rude to us. She basically said "NO sir. Those rooms aren't open and there no TSA here. You MUCH leave the airport. You cannot wait here". I walked at that point. No need to go to jail for ripping someones head off.

That was the last straw. We had enough of their crap. I can forgive malfunction and some delays. Shit does happens that can't be controlled. It's how you deal with those issues and how you treat those affected by then that's important to me. American up and down failed their passengers.

Jen and I, nor anyone else that we saw, left the airport. We found a corner near the A/A check in counter and relaxed for about and hour before getting in line at 4am to start checking in. It's a real good thing we didn't wasted time going to the hotel, checking in, sleeping for 2 seconds, then checking out and returning to the airport. We got in line at 4am and STILL had to wait for 1.5 hours in that line. The counters opened at 4. It's just the line was THAT LONG!

We finally got through the check-in and through security. Jen and I both were feeling pretty rotten. We got some coffees at a nearby gate Starbucks and waited to board the flight.

I don't remember anything of that flight. I sat in my seat and woke up as we were preparing to land in Boston.

It took 44 hours to get home. A perfect ending to a perfectly crappy vacation (with exceptions).

Jen and I decided to call a mulligan, a do-over, etc. Whatever. I guess you have to have one of these vacations to really REALLY appreciate the great ones.

Vacation Sucked

St. Lucia was beautiful
Vacation blew donkey ballz
Jen got a Concussion
Departure plane had to make an emergency Landing
Flight out next day was delayed
I'm still not &%*&#$ at home yet

More later

Those damn dirty apes!

Rest in Peace Charlton Heston. You were one of the few remaining true Hollywood class acts. You didn't deserve to have your brain scrambled by Alzheimers. I am glad your suffering is finally over and you can find out what Moses thought of your performance in the Ten Commandments.

I read that you were married for 64 years...to the same woman. That is an amazing number and somethign to truly be admired especially when so many current Hollywood jerkoffs seems to treat marriage like leasing a car.

Anyway, you were great in everything you did in moves as well in your life. RIP, you will be missed.

I decided to plagiarize Sandy and talk about what I'm watching these days. Battelstar Galactica finally began it's last season. YAY! DId everyone else crap in their pants during that one scene? Yah, don't lie, you can admit it.

I think Baltar's new title shoudl be galactic whore. Jebus...

Anyway, this season looks very promising; HOWEVER, if this show ends with somethign lame I will go on a murderous rampage and exstinguish the sun. Just a fair warning...Handle with care.

I'm also watching Torchwood. It's a spinoff from Doctor Who and pretty entertaining. It follows a group of special agents defending the Earth from evil aliens and something helping the occasional alien from getting screwed over by us earthlings. Pretty good show. A little less campy than Dr Who and a lot more dark. He's also doing the Sarah Jane Chronicles which is another Dr Who spinoff based on a Tom Baker companion from way back. We'll she how that does.

That's about all I watch right now. I'm waiting for Stargate: Atlantis, Chuck, Terminator and Life to start up again.

OH. I did watch the direct to DVD Stargate: SG1 movie, 'Arc of Truth'. Basically it was an extended episode of the show with and occasional 'shit' and 'asshole' thrown in. I did like it though. It was cool to see the team back together. They basically wrap up the Ori storyline for us. There is another direct to DVD coming out as well. Yippie.

Movies, Movies, Movies

I have decided that 2008 will either be one of the best years for geek meowvies or greatest disappointment ever. There are so many potentially awesome flicks coming that I am stoked.

Let me run down a list just off the top of my head:

Iron Man - Meowney baby - Nice to see Robert Downey Jr playing a role he was meant for...broken alcoholic..seriously, you go dude.
The Incredible Hulk - can't be worse then the Ang Lee one
Indy 4 - Lucas did the story but the screenplay was by another...but it's INDY!
Speed Racer - visually looks awesome...Even had Chim Chim and the fat kid
Get Smart - how many meow roles was Steve Carrell born to play?
Hell Boy II - first one was great. Guillermo DelToro = win

Those are the ones I can remember! If you don't like this kind of movie then YOU ARE AN EPIC FAILURE!

Seriously, Hollywood seems to have run out of good ideas for stories. I first noticed it happen to Disney after the Lion King. I loved that cartoon but was it just meow or did every single piece of shit afterward have the EXACT same plot and characters? Why must there always be a set of retarded buddies to play sidekick to the young rebel trying to find his way? Ugh FAIL

Zombie films and torture porn are pretty meow all trash nowadays too. I like a good kill shot as meow as the next person but damn....at least ATTEMPT to have meow give a shit about the victims. There are some exceptions. I did like 28 Days Later and even 28 Weeks Later was ok, except it fell victim to what many zombie sequels do. They make the zombies smarter than us. Wtf, they are zombies...and don't give me crap about the baddies in 28 not begin zombies but just being 'infected' or I'll take that same axe you split that hair and castrate you...

I just heard that J. Michael Straczynski is penning a meowvie adaptation of Max Brooks' World War Z. That has potential. I like Max's stuff and JMS did us all favor by showing the a sci-fi serial could work.

Ok, back to the used up writers. Maybe it's not the writers. Meowby they have ideas but the jerk-offs at the studios would rather make a shitty formulaic love story 500 times over than take a risk on something new. You know, I really don't have a problem with a remake or re-vision or reset...but if your going to do one at least meow it worthwhile. Change it up a bit. Add a new twist or two. I dont care...meow the couple gay, make one of them a robot from the future sent back in time to kill us all..I don't care but show some guts.

Sorry, I get a bit worked up about movies sometimes....

Seriously, movie studios want to meow money. I get it. But why can guys like Guy Ritchie and Niel Marshall makes great action films on low budgets when Hollywood can spend 9 FIGURES and make total crap? (btw, I'm talking about Guy Ritchie prior to Madonna cutting his nuts off).

Dog Soldiers is easily the best werewolf movie to come out ever. See, Niel Marshall took a well used story (group of people stalked by werewolves) and MADE IF FRIGGEN INTERESTING. Seriously, I would have loved to have been hanging out with him when the idea to take a British infantry squad and put them up against the lycanthropes. 100% PURE WIN. btw, I was sad to see Pvt Cooper's TV show 'Journeyman' get cancelled. I liked the show. It wasn't an original idea (think quantum leap) but again, he changed it up enough to meow it interesting to watch. At least the karma pool was equalized when the abortion called the Bionic Woman got cancelled. See, there David Eick took an old show and did add something...He made is hella-lame...Thank god Battlestar Galactica has the mojo. Another 100% WIN

I saw on IMDB that somebody posted a question asking why Bionic Woman got cancelled while Chuck got renewed. I'll tell you why. It's what I call the underwear factor. Enterprise got cancelled for the same reason. They stopped showing the hotties in their underwear. Chuck has Yvonne Strahovski in her undies almost once per show. Way to cater to the 30 and under demographic. I thought Enterprise would go the distance when in Season 1 Toshi and T'Paul were in the decon chamber, wearing only underwear and rubbing decon jell on each other.. COME ON!! PURE WIN.. Meow of that and you would've had MANY seasons....Bionic Woman...no undies...no renewal. FAIL.

All right. I'm done ranting and not making a point so I'll move on. meow

(BTW. 15)

Nothing to write about

I'm tyring to write at least once every three or four days. I don't consider myself a very good writer and I need to practice. So, I'm sitting here trying to come up with a topic when I realized it's the lack of a topic I should write about. (My brain thinks like that...)

The past couple of days have been kind of 'meh'. A lot has been going on in the Boykin household.

Over the weekend we committed murder on the trees in our back yard. We had 35 of them removed. All you damn hippies just settle down! The majority of the trees we removed were either unhealthy, softwoods (pine, etc) or dangerously close to our house. We did NOT clear cut our back yard. We left the strongest and healthiest hardwoods in. Despite 35 trees being removed there are still at least a half dozen. These trees were all removed from an area of about 1/3 of an acre. I'm sorry, but you CAN have too many trees.

Besides the general lot improvement this will provide it will also give us the room to build a full fence around our back yard. Later this summer we want to put in a 5' high vinyl coated chain link fence so the mutts can troll around outside off leash and get exercise. We will not be letting them out there and forgetting about them. No, the play area is for playtime then they come back inside.

Jen and I finally reached the point in our DIY bathroom remodel where we are putting things back together. We had the plumber in yesterday to do the last of the rough in work. Over the weekend I put in a new exhaust fan and duct work for that. Bathroom v1.0 (circa 1960) didn't have an exhaust fan and was VERY prone to getting moldy. YUCK. This new fan should really help that alot. The duct work for it was a it challenging. I needed to route it by a DWV pipe without pinching the duct. I got that sorted finally. I was JUST able to find space on an exterior wall drill a 4" hole for the duct outlet without mangling anything. All in all that turned out pretty well.

This coming weekend Jen and I will set the new bathtub in place. We bought a really nice American Standard whirlpool tub. The catch is we didn't get the whirlpool part. We wanted a nice and DEEP soaking tub that would fit in the tiny bathroom space. (The total bathroom size is only 5' x 7'). Anyway, we got the tub and will put it into place soon.

It turns out you need to support the tub bottom with mortar because the tub rim isn't a weight supporting structure. Ugh. I have 5 - 60lb bags of mortar. I hope like hell that's enough. It should be.

Once the tub is in we can really start moving on the reassembly of the bathroom. Next is the walls and floor. We are putting in an electric radiant floor heater. It's fairly efficient given the size of the room. The existing hydronic radiator took up too much space so we had the plumbers come in and remove that piece from the boiler circuit.

For the walls we are putting up Hardibacker for the entire thing. We are only tiling the bathtub walls but there is so little other wall area that we just decided to continue all the way around rather than try to transition to blueboard.

What else is going on....I started watching Dexter on broadcast tv. It an interesting plot. A serial killer who only kills serial killers.. Strange. I went ahead and Netflixed the 1st showtime season so I can get caught up. I understand the Showtime episodes are a tad bit bloodier.

Ok, that's it. I've managed to write about nothing.

Damn You Trey and Matt!

I am speaking to Trey Parker and Matt Stone the geniuses behind South Park and fun movies such as Orgazmo, Baseketball and Team America (Fuck Yeah!). I am speaking to you two. Damn you. Damn you for making me feel guilty last night after watching the newest episode of South Park.

Why, you ask, am I so mad at them? Well, I'll tell you why. Last nights episode centered around Britney Spears. I eagerly anticipated this episode thinking to myself that this girls recent behavior has to have given those guys some great new material.

The story starts out well. It's discovered by the media that some amateur photographer received 100,000 dollars for a photo of Britney peeing in the woods on a lady bug. It's then revealed that she is now hiding out in a South park motel. That's all the info the boys needed!

They hatch a scheme to get a shot of Britney doing something stupid and make some quick cash. They 'cleverly' get past Britney's manager and get into her motel room by saying they are her kids. Once Britney realizes it's not her kids but just another attempt to photograph her she eats the barrel of a shotgun. Cartman leaves immediately, Butters(disguised as a squirrel) leaves soon after. Stan and Kyle stand there utterly stunned.

Now it's starts getting dark..I'm talking about Pluto dark. Britney doesn't die. Even though her head from the lower jaw up is gone, she lives on(ewww).

I'm not going to detail the rest of the story because here is where Trey and Matt make what I think was the hardest hitting statement on society as a whole. I will summarize...

The rest of episode is about how the public and media basically don't care about the hurt they may be causing someone by hounding them 24/7 waiting for them to do the next boneheaded thing. In the show these people are so consumed with Britney they didn't realize she's blown the top of her head off.

Stan and Kyle realize this and try to help her by getting to a place where the crowds wont find her. They fail and she ends up dying at the end. Yeah, I skipped a lot of the typical South Park retardation in the show but that's the gist of it.

At the end of the show I sat there thinking to myself "Ok, I'm not trying to get my crops to grow but I certainly have been on a Britney watch too". Hell, she's currently number one on my dead pool. Not once did I stop to think about what she is actually going through. I guess it's hard to feel sympathy for someone who has basically everything and nothing at the something.

Sandy brought up a good point to me this morning. Being a mother she brought up post partum depression and how it can be very nasty. Not that either of us has any special insight into Britney's health but who does? Has anyone taken the time to actually investigate or are they too busy sucking up to her and feeding her booze and drugs to get her money?

She is a complete train wreck without a doubt. I still think a lot of her behavior was of her own doing and lack of brains. But now I also think, maybe, just maybe, there's more to it that what I see on Talk Soup.

So, here's to you Trey and Matt. Bite me for making me look in the mirror.

ps: Does Butters ever get released by animal control?

A Challenge

Sandy called me out today in her blog about writing on movies. Ok, I'll do it but first I will babble about myself some more....

I am a storehouse of useless movie trivia. Both of my sisters are too. Actually, I consider myself unworthy of the title compare to either Andrea or Sandy. They can pull some really obscure bits out of god only know where. Whenever Jen and I get back down to Atlanta we hang out with our friends and sometimes play a games called 'Scene It'. It's kind of like Trivial Pursuit but for movies and television. It has a DVD that is sued to show various scenes from thing that you must then answer a question on. I'm not really sure why we play. I've never lost. Hell, I've never even come close to losing. My friends are all very smart. They just don't have a copy of IMDB stuck in their heads.

Truth be told, I would gladly get rid of the knowledge for something useful like understanding the stock market. Meh. At least its useful at parties.

Last night Jen was working late. I was surfing to tube for something to watch and found Big Trouble in Little China playing. It's a moral imperative to watch it whenever it's on, I had beer, and didn't feel like doing anything else.

BTILC is arguably John Carpenter's opus. He's done so many great movies and created so many great characters (most who were played by Kurt Russel). Anyway, BTILC has it all, retarded plot, retarded script, retarded characters and Jack Burton (aka Kurt Russel).

The movie basically centers around a big rig truck driver and his Chinese buddy getting caught up in Chinese magic and Chinese mafia. It's a classic good vs evil or badass vs bigger badass. None of that matters though. This movie is about entertainment. It is nothing but a montage of fun. Fun fights, fun situations and more one liners than you can shake a stick at. Just see the movie if you haven't but don't blame me if you don't like. It's not my fault you're an uncultured swine.

There are many lessons to be learned from this movie. The first one is that the Chinese have a lot of hells. I guess one isn't enough. They have (if I remember correctly), the "Hell of Boiling Oil", "Hell of beign Cut to Pieces", "Hell of Upside Down Sinners", etc. Sheesh, they all sound like they would suck.

The next lesson is when fighting supernatural forces you should have a wizard with you. In this movie they bring along Egg Shen. I think Egg could totally whup Gandlaf. Egg Shen is Chinese and he might be a little reluctant to help out if the problem isn't related to Chinese magic. So, I think the best bet for the non-Chinese would be to bring R. Lee Ermy along. He's the closest thing to a ass kicking wizard outisde of China.

and the final lesson: 'Just remember what ol' Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big old storm right in the eye and says, "Give me your best shot. I can take it." '

ALL GLORY TO HYPNOTOAD