Harms-Boone Productions

The Soft Power of Online Diplomacy

Harms-Boone Productions — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:00:22 +0000

Abstract The age of the state is not over. Though some have written about the power of web 2.0 to topple regimes and destroy state sovereignty, the picture is a little more complicated. The Republic of Korea in the last … Continue reading →

Steve Jobs

Harms-Boone Productions — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:00:04 +0000

Steve Jobs was a great man who invented some amazing devices that have changed the way we interact with technology. Today we’ve changed our look, (inspired by boingboing.net) to a retro mac theme in his memory. I never knew Jobs, … Continue reading →

Mount Vernon: An Ode to Dedicated Trails

Harms-Boone Productions — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:33:02 +0000

A couple weeks ago Danielle and I joined a couple of my new classmates on a ride out to Mount Vernon. The beautiful trail winds its way along the Potomac from the Washington estate past Alexandria, where it is briefly … Continue reading →

New Blog, Without a Design Refresh, Yet

Harms-Boone Productions — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 02:51:08 +0000

We added a new blog this week, this one will be mostly me, but Danielle might weigh in occasionally. I’m sure she’ll have her own blog that I’ll probably not contribute much to in good time. For now, we give … Continue reading →

Bring on the Good Beers

Harms-Boone Productions — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 02:27:04 +0000

Andre Francisco at Just a Rough Draft (and recently at POGO as well) and I could drone on for hours lamenting a common and serious problem with fine dining establishments: the beer list. Continue reading →

Hacking as Protest?

Harms-Boone Productions — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:06:07 +0000

I posted this question to my Google+ contacts earlier this morning, but decided it was worth blogging about too. The recent protests against SanFrancisco’s BART system is raising all kinds of eyebrows over a government authority’s silencing of mobile networks … Continue reading →

Why I’m (still) Excited about Google+

Harms-Boone Productions — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 18:39:32 +0000

It wasn’t until the Facebook/Skype marriage that I remembered Google were tackling a new social service. Eventually I got into the system to give it a spin and I have to say I’m impressed. I’m not quite ready to ditch Facebook, … Continue reading →

Wherein a Northfield Game Inspired a Lesson Plan

Harms-Boone Productions — Thu, 26 May 2011 17:00:16 +0000

People who came of age in the State of Minnesota sometime in the last decade likely have heard of Tricadecathlonomania, particularly those of us who know someone Northfield. For anyone who hasn’t heard of it, Trica, as it’s commonly known, … Continue reading →

Classroom 2.0: The Wiki Experiment

Harms-Boone Productions — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:26:00 +0000

Wherein Greg endeavors to teach high schoolers to wiki responsibly. Continue reading →

Munkácsy Times

Harms-Boone Productions — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:00:28 +0000

A quick update for everyone out there. We at Munkácsy Mihály Gimnázium started an English language newspaper at our school last December. We published one issue in print and now it will continue, mostly, online. Check it out at http://munkacsytimes.wordpress.com. … Continue reading →

A Legfinomabb Magyar Étel

Harms-Boone Productions — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 18:48:59 +0000

On a Friday in late autumn, I walked into my ninth grade bilingual classroom to find an interesting query scrawled across the blackboard. “What is disznóvágás in English?” My command of basic Hungarian pronunciation was still rough around the edges, … Continue reading →

State Fair Food Pitched by Munkácsy Students

Harms-Boone Productions — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 16:00:58 +0000

This past weekend, Kaposvár celebrated the Hungarian tradition of Farsang (far-shaang). The festival featured creatures known as Busó (pronounced boo-show) roaming around Kossuth square, mostly scaring children and dogs, but some also got a bit aggressive with the ladies, which … Continue reading →

Swept Away in Vienna

Harms-Boone Productions — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 12:18:46 +0000

As an English teacher living in South Korea last year, I developed a tired habit. Week after repetitive week, I mentally promised myself that I would really, truly contact local Wisconsin newspapers in search of one that might grant me … Continue reading →

It’s a Map!

Harms-Boone Productions — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 16:20:30 +0000

We made a map showing our travels. This post tells how it was made, and where you can see it. Continue reading →

Behind the Scenes

Harms-Boone Productions — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 16:00:04 +0000

On our blogs we often reflect on our time abroad; the things that surprise, challenge, and force us into changing our perspective. We offer travel and teaching advice, recipes, and occasionally a post about a dog sneaks in, but what … Continue reading →

Ruminations on the Hungarian Language: Take Two

Harms-Boone Productions — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 20:55:18 +0000

Due to a potent combination of distraction and procrastination, here is part two of a short series on the Hungarian language, belatedly posted and slightly aged. Interested in reading part one? You’re in luck. Not speaking Korean in Korea was … Continue reading →

Nem Beszélek Magyarul: Ruminations on the Hungarian Language

Harms-Boone Productions — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 17:51:11 +0000

Making my way past the supermarket’s overflowing crates of pale green paprikas and stacked tubs of sauerkraut, I found one phrase sliding through my mind. Continue reading →

A Dog for the Night

Harms-Boone Productions — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 10:21:10 +0000

A vizsla puppy dropped by for the night. Continue reading →

Linden Honey Baguette

Harms-Boone Productions — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 19:00:10 +0000

A post inspired by our friends at Just a Rough Draft, we turn this week to a recipe made from scratch. Continue reading →

Tales of a Gimnazium Lektor: Part One

Harms-Boone Productions — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 16:00:08 +0000

A brief reflection on the workaday experience of a foreign teacher working in a Hungarian high school. Continue reading →

A Quick (Belated) Podcast

Harms-Boone Productions — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:20:41 +0000

A podcast documenting our first two months in Hungary. From school, to a celebration, and a memorial. Continue reading →

Perspectives on the News: Juan Williams

Harms-Boone Productions — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 06:35:50 +0000

Much has been made of Juan William's recent firing from NPR, but was it the right thing to do? Did NPR censor Williams? No, NPR's decision was made with respect to their own code of ethics, and in keeping with their standards for journalistic excellence. Continue reading →

Weak Ties Build Movements

Harms-Boone Productions — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 12:58:15 +0000

Malcolm Gladwell’s most recent article for the New Yorker, “Small Change,” immediately triggered backlash from critics disagreeing to varying degrees with his case against social media. Gladwell is many things: a best-selling author, one of my favorite contributors to the … Continue reading →

The EU at Work: More first impressions

Harms-Boone Productions — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 07:56:08 +0000

Part two of two: Evidence of what Rick Steeves terms Europe's "internal Marshall Plan" can be seen all over Hungary. Continue reading →

Trabbis and Transitions: First impressions of Hungary

Harms-Boone Productions — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 17:14:23 +0000

Remnants of Soviet communism and European Union sponsored construction projects dot the workaday landscape of Hungary. Continue reading →

The Best of Budapest: The View from Hostel Hill

Harms-Boone Productions — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 03:01:01 +0000

Some cities are easy to love. Budapest is one such example. Continue reading →

Welcome

Harms-Boone Productions — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 03:00:31 +0000

What this blog is all about. Continue reading →

Information Literacy in the Internet Age

Harms-Boone Productions — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:53:08 +0000

Recently on Minnesota Public Radio’s Midmorning program, host Kerri Miller put the question to the guests and listeners of what influence bloggers, social media, and other online information organizations have on traditional press. The two stories that drove the conversation … Continue reading →

Seoul, Hope, and Mustard Seeds: A Short Film on Philanthropy

Harms-Boone Productions — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:42:45 +0000

You don’t have to be in South Korea long to notice two things: there is a large population of foreign English teachers and it does not have the best reputation. Truth be told, it is no struggle to find examples … Continue reading →

Living Strong in Korea

Harms-Boone Productions — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 03:00:38 +0000

I had that dream again, the one where Lance Armstrong visits my little city in the Seoul suburbs as part of a new tour for LIVESTRONG, and for some reason, the powers that be put me in charge of giving him the bike tour of the city. It’s a strange dream for a few reasons, chiefly among them being that I’m not Korean but in fact a temporary resident of this town, here to teach English for the year and then be on my way. It starts at my tiny office-tel apartment wheeling my Surly out of the oversized walk-in closet of a living space I call home. Continue reading →

Gyeongbok Palace: A worthwhile stop

Harms-Boone Productions — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 18:39:15 +0000

Home Again Having recently returned to the land of parking lots and fast food, bread and cheese, and friends and family, I find myself in the United States with an an abundance of both sentimentality for all things Korean and … Continue reading →

Boseong’s Green Tea Plantations

Harms-Boone Productions — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:00:10 +0000

Traveling from place to place, I often marvel at the luckiness of creatures who call some of the best places the world has to offer their humble homes. A mere human couldn’t scrounge up enough of anything to land themselves … Continue reading →

A Home-brewer’s Guide to Makgeolli (막걸리)

Harms-Boone Productions — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:56:09 +0000

We took our first sip of makgeolli back in late September on the first night of our farming adventure with Wooriwa, pouring from enormous drums like the kind my Grandpa once used to fill up the pontoon with gas at the … Continue reading →

Globalizing Korea: A Rhetoric of Food

Harms-Boone Productions — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 05:02:18 +0000

Daniel Gray, a Seoul Eats food blogger, recently published an op-ed in the Korea Herald regarding the public and private efforts to export Korean culture to the West—particularly to the United States. With coverage from the New York Times, CNN, and other high profile news organizations in the US, the government seems to be doing a fair job of gaining the attention of Western eyes, and now is focusing on making Korean food America's Next Top Asian Cuisine. But these agencies certainly could be more effective in their pursuit. Continue reading →

Biking among the cherry blossoms

Harms-Boone Productions — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 07:38:28 +0000

The timing of our trip to Gyeongju couldn’t have been better. We left on the tail end of the first week of April and a cycling challenge I am participating in called 30 Days of Biking. It was also smack … Continue reading →

30 Days of Biking

Harms-Boone Productions — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:15:22 +0000

I recently began participating in a great online group called 30 Days of Biking. The goal, to ride your bike every day during the month of April. So far I’ve only missed one day, and it was because I was … Continue reading →

International Underground

Harms-Boone Productions — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:02:33 +0000

Greetings Loyal Readers, The real news with this update is an announcement related to another project both Danielle and I are working on called International Underground. We blogged about International Underground once before, alerting you of its existence, but now … Continue reading →

What in the World is Kimchibilly?

Harms-Boone Productions — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 08:52:36 +0000

In 2001 when Tiger, Velvet Geena, Eddie Tarantuala, Roy, and Jack "The Knife" burst onto the Seoul club scene as the Rock Tigers. The self-described pioneers of Korean Rockabilly call their aggressive, up-tempo music, Kimchibilly. The bad throws a show each month to showcase Kimchibilly, and this month, it will bring in a Rockabilly group from Japan called "Swamp Rats" as part of the 14th Kimchibilly night at DGBD (sic) on March 27th. Continue reading →

Dispatch from the Classroom: First Grade

Harms-Boone Productions — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:48:42 +0000

Don’t Pick the Flowers “Don’t pick flowers,” was the immediate response when my first grade students were asked recently to imagine that our class had been whisked away from our room in Ilsan, South Korea and plopped down on an … Continue reading →

Perhaps The Grammar Lesson Could Wait: “Teacher he ate too many soju.”

Harms-Boone Productions — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 07:14:49 +0000

Hearing amusing thoughts in the classroom is standard practice when you spend each day hanging out with kids. There’s rarely a week that goes by without hearing something that makes me scramble for a pen so I can recount it … Continue reading →

Snow Day in Ilsan

Harms-Boone Productions — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 03:02:27 +0000

After a week spent in the crunchy snow and shiver-inducing temperatures of the Midwest, my winter boots got plenty of use. When it came to packing them for my trip back to Goyang, South Korea, I nearly left them behind, … Continue reading →

What We’re Up To

Harms-Boone Productions — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 02:49:22 +0000

Greetings everyone, it’s been a while since you last heard from us, and even longer since you heard from me. We’ve been pretty busy getting things in order around here, on the personal side of things, we have both been … Continue reading →

Happy Thanksgiving from South Korea

Harms-Boone Productions — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:34:53 +0000

All the students at school would like to wish you a Very Merry…Thanksgiving! I admit I’m a bit late with this sentiment, as that day of family feasting is likely fading in some people’s memories as Christmas approaches, but the … Continue reading →

Less Bang For North Korean Bucks

Harms-Boone Productions — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:53:04 +0000

Much ado was made this week about North Korea revaluing its currency. The story first caught my eye as a headline on Twitter and, given the near lack of an economy up north I didn’t think much of it, but … Continue reading →

Closer Than We Think

Harms-Boone Productions — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:15:24 +0000

Do you ever wake up in the morning, pour some milk into a bowl of cereal, and think, "Hmm, I wonder what on Earth children in South Korea eat for breakfast?" Find the responses to this query and plenty of other questions about the daily life of a student in South Korea in this video. Continue reading →

If You Thought You Had Heard the Last of Jagalchi, Think Again

Harms-Boone Productions — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:14:28 +0000

Undoubtedly alive upon delivery, the shrimp we ordered for lunch retained their capacity to move, and move they did. I could list every synonym in the thesaurus for jump, wriggle, scurry, writhe, and twitch in the dictionary, but this is a moment best watched. Continue reading →

Shots Fired in Contested Waters

Harms-Boone Productions — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:52:04 +0000

As Barack Obama’s scheduled visit to Seoul approaches, and bilateral talks between North Korea and the U.S. are in the works, it would seem the winds are shifting towards increased diplomacy. An incident today between North and South Korean naval … Continue reading →

More poetry from the classroom

Harms-Boone Productions — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:06:02 +0000

After some brainstorming about sensory details and exploration in the exciting world of similes, a refreshingly fun concept to teach, my 2nd grade class created these haikus together. Let’s move with the rain, God is showering at sky,* Tok tok, it’s like beans. Continue reading →

An Update on Swine Flu

Harms-Boone Productions — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:12:33 +0000

We were told this week by our Academic Coordinator that in the event we do close, all teachers are expected to come in on Saturdays and Sundays to make up for lost time. Rumors about a government edict closing all … Continue reading →

Brief Encounters with Hideous Fish

Harms-Boone Productions — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:09:09 +0000

Our good friends Anna and Andre over at Seoulful Adventures just posted a great post and video that more vividly details our encounter with the notorious Hagfish. This is a fish so disgusting “[its] other name is the slime eel … Continue reading →

Poems from Korean Children

Harms-Boone Productions — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:06:25 +0000

Greg Teacher: A Haiku Greg is my teacher. Greg Teacher is very tall. I like Greg Teacher My fifth graders collectively A Limerick About a Cat There once was a funny cat. Who was also very very fat. He went … Continue reading →

No Doubt About It: Something is Definitely Fishy in Busan

Harms-Boone Productions — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:26:46 +0000

Saturday Morning Sights and Oh-My-Goodness Smells of Busan There is something surreal about emerging from the underground isolation of a subway station into the open air of a new place. Our first Saturday morning steps out of the station and … Continue reading →

We Moved!

Harms-Boone Productions — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:59:12 +0000

Congratulations, you found us! After far too long of freeloading server space from some old friends, we finally broke down and bought some web space. This will be our new home, and the home of any and all future projects … Continue reading →

Korean Family’s Tale of Emotional Reunion

Harms-Boone Productions — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:34:31 +0000

Lee Kyong-hee, 62, tells the story about being reunited, if briefly, with a sister she hasn’t seen since being separated at the end of the Korean War nearly 60 years ago. Lee, her mother (now 100 years old), and other … Continue reading →

Jagalchi

Harms-Boone Productions — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:36:37 +0000

It writhed around for a bit in the small plastic bowl before finally dying, the way any animal might after having its head impaled and skin removed. Without hardly flinching the man grabbed another hagfish from the pile, removed the … Continue reading →

Pusan International Film Festival

Harms-Boone Productions — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:13:45 +0000

We took a trip to Busan (or is it Pusan, you decide!) this weekend for the annual International Film Festival. We’re told it is the largest in all of Asia and in the second largest city in Korea. We’ll have … Continue reading →

A Little Housekeeping

Harms-Boone Productions — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:28:26 +0000

From time to time we shake things up and make our site a little more user-friendly or change the way we deliver you content. In the beginning we wanted to bring some fancy-looking, podcastable, and printer-friendly versions of each of … Continue reading →

Chuseok

Harms-Boone Productions — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:49:02 +0000

Cafe Pascucci is one of the few places open today. A big corporate chain, Pascucci is a cozy cafe in LaFesta catering to the Western tastes many Koreans have for coffee and cafe sandwiches. It stays open for the same … Continue reading →

Getting Creative

Harms-Boone Productions — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:08:45 +0000

Last month was my first with a new batch of students and classes. I am now teaching all the elementary grades we have at our hogwon. I teach a different subject to each of my classes and it is only … Continue reading →

Wooriwa: A Weekend in Pyeongtaek

Harms-Boone Productions — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 22:44:59 +0000

We left Goyang immediately after work bound to Jinwi station where we were promised a farming experience. So began our farming experience: three hours on public transportation, two backpacks, a couple of sweatshirts and some basic supplies, a guy named … Continue reading →

Now Available for iPhones

Harms-Boone Productions — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:40:47 +0000

Hey everyone, we added a nifty little gizmo to our webpage today that lets us make our content more accessible to all your wired readers of ours out there. Now, whenever you go to our page on your iPod touch … Continue reading →

We’re Back in Action

Harms-Boone Productions — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:49:08 +0000

We disappeared for a few weeks there. Not sure what happened back in St. Peter, but the server hosting our site went down and we were out of commission for a while. We’ll have more posts up as soon as … Continue reading →

Brief Encounters with Businessmen

Harms-Boone Productions — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:28:57 +0000

Part One: MOULARD PUZZLE CAFE, ILSAN — I am seated outside piecing together the last of the Starry Night puzzle’s frame. A puzzle cafe is exactly as it sounds, a cafe where you may sip a coffee of something a … Continue reading →

On: The Hogwon

Harms-Boone Productions — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 11:33:12 +0000

Most people outside of Korea might guess that the word “Hogwon” is the Korean word for a hog farm or the name of some kind of hog-based commodity. I’ll admit I didn’t have a clue about what a Hogwon was … Continue reading →

A Diamond in the Rough

Harms-Boone Productions — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:13:14 +0000

Summer vacation came and went this week and, given that we have not yet seen a pay day, we decided to explore our suburb’s parent city, Seoul. We toured the Changdeok Palace in Seoul. Rich with history, it is among … Continue reading →

Now Podcastable

Harms-Boone Productions — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:14:50 +0000

When most people who know what a podcast is think about podcasts they usually think of a downloadable radio show, but podcasts can have many different files embedded within their code, including PDFs. Since we’re generating a PDF “printable version” … Continue reading →

One Man’s Trash

Harms-Boone Productions — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:11:02 +0000

The trash piles on the ground floors of apartment buildings in Korea are veritable gold mines for the visiting foreigner looking to furnish a studio-size room. Everything from kitchen supplies to living room furniture, can be easily found lying on … Continue reading →

Printable entries

Harms-Boone Productions — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 12:54:23 +0000

In the interest of making self-publishing, and making this feel less like a blog and more like an online magazine, we will be publishing a PDF version of all posts alongside the web version. Feel free to download and print … Continue reading →

When it Rains, it Pours

Harms-Boone Productions — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:53:04 +0000

When it rains it pours. While this old saw usually refers to a series or chain of bad events each subsequent event getting worse and worse as the event or moment in time proceeds�like when an organization suddenly sees four … Continue reading →

Hello world!

Harms-Boone Productions — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:14:17 +0000

I promise there will be a real entry here soon. I have a busy day of correcting journals written by first through third graders today, and then I’ll start blogging for real. Check back soon, Saturdayish.