Goodbyes

Today's song is: Perfect  .. Sheeran

Well, Saturday night lasted well into Sunday morning as Ashley and rolled home about 5 am. We had started out at 5 pm on Saturday so we partied for a sweet 12 hours. I must admit I paid for it at 6:30 Sunday morning when Jaidan woke me up with a 'Jim wake up, the sun come up!' which he is wont to do every morning. He has given up trying to stir Thavorn awake  :-)

Ashley now truly understands the allure of Bangkok night life which offers up whatever you want. We hit big bars, small bars, gogo bars, beer bars, dance bars, free lancer bars, but no roof top bars (not my thing). All in all, a fun night.

The ladies packed it in about 11 pm after dinner and a dancing on soi 4, Hillary 2 and a disco on soi 11. They all said they enjoyed the evening.

Today, Thavorn and I are meeting Ashley and Bridget with their luggage in tow at Rumours bar which is a great bar to sit at and reflect on the journey of your life. Happy hout until 5 pm. We meet them at 12:30 and they leave for the airport at 2 pm by taxi. They both agree that they should have gone with my recommendation to travel with one carry-on bag and vow to do that next time around which may be South America for them.

It has been raining on and off for the past 2 days but it is a lovely sunny day with no clouds in sight for their goodbyes.

Thavorn and the children will also say goodbye as they head back to the village soon for teh start of the next semester in school. We have to go buy an iron at Big C today as Thai, the older one has discovered that ironing removes the wrinkles in her shirts and skirts and they look better. Of course no iron at home back in the village.  The things we take for granted.

I will spend the next week cranking out conversion code on one of our apps. I will have to buy some red wine.  Coding always goes better with red wine for some reason.

TTY

Elves

Today's song is: Every time I look at You  .. Kiss

Jaidan, besides looking like a girl, also looks like an elf  ..

girl ..

boy ..

an elf  ..

Our household is now down to 5 people as Thavorn and I bade farewell to Jit and Bai Derri at Don Mueang Airport as they flew back to Phang Nga, which was the grandmother and child's first airplane flight. I think the grandmother was more excited and rightly so. The child is a bit of a princess and expects good things to come her way.  It is really not good to coddle and spoil children IMHO.

The remaining children will head back to their village at the end of the month. Thavorn and Jaidan will accompany them and stay over for about 5 days. Thavorn's mother enjoys it when Jaidan visits. Actually most of the village seems to enjoy Jaidan. I will spend that time programming as I have some rewrites to complete in the near future.

Tonight (Saturday) Thavorn and I are joining my buddy John and his wife Fon, my buddy Arthur, and Ashley and his gf Bridget. Ashley and Bridget have been visiting S.E. Asia for the past 4 months and head home at the end of the month. The one thing Ashley has yet to do is a boy's night out in Bangkok! John, Arthur and I will rectify that tonight as we recreate hangover 2 (without the tattoos) but enhancing it somewhat.

The group is meeting at the Kiwi Bar on Soi 8 for happy about at 6pm. After an hour or so we split up. ladies to get dinner and then off to Hillary 2 on Nana for music and dance. The boys head off to the land of debauchery. You may, or may not get details on a later post, dependent on how much I remember and how much of it I can share. It could be heavily redacted  :-)

It is now rainy season and the start of low season. That means the bars are not so packed and the ladies are willingly to negotiate. It is also best to go spelunking at the end of the month when the rent is due as many of the ladies are not great at planning or saving. It's a free marketplace out there  :-)

Time to check for pics (shot by the kids):

Crowded in the condo

Jaidan gets a new remote vehicle

Thavorn modelling a new sleeper .. 100 baht

Jaidan eating peanut butter toast for breakfast

That is it for now  .. hopefully some fun anecdotes tomorrow  ..

TTYL

Songkran Ends

Today's song is: Born to be Wild  .. Steppenwolf from Easy Rider

Songkran has come to an end and the death toll is:

up slightly from 2017 but we still have one day to go.  You can read about it at:

https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1446467/songkran-road-deaths-rise-to-248

I managed to stay dry staying put with Jaidan who is just recovering from pneumonia.  Our one bedroom apartment has seen many visitors.

Including the lovely Thavorn in traditional Thai garb for Songkran.

We also took a taxi to the Big C mall during the last day to grab some KFC, a Thai favorite treat.

Actually not much to report on, so  ..

TTYL

Synchronicity

Today's song is: It's a Man's  .. Christina

and Come on Over  ..

In programming, especially on the web, asynchronous calls vs synchronous calls are preferred as the program will not pause to wait for returned data from some web server or service. It is also true in my mundane world. The telephone call irritates me at most times. It is shouting paying attention, heed my call, answer immediately, no matter what you are doing!

And, invariably, I am sleeping and some sales person in Canada is calling to make sure I am happy with their web offered service, whatever that may be.  Recently I have been exploring buying or leasing a car as well as finding short term apartment rentals in Canada.

In particular I have come across Trovit who seems to data-mine as many apartment rental sites as possible and bring them up in an easy to search by location and options. It is free to signup and I am sure they make money by referrals or clicks as well as some on page ads.  When you sign up you get asked for a telephone number so I put my Canada VoIP number in.

The problem arises when some calls me, usually between 4 and 5 Canada time (to catch supper hour) which translate to 3 am to 4 am Bangkok time and they get a grumpy guy when I am pissed off enough to answer. The VoIP line also takes a message but sales people know no one ever returns a call. Wonder why?

I had a call at 3 am last night and I was grumpy and told the young lady on the phone that she was disturbing my beauty sleep and asked her why she was calling. I politely (sort of) asked her not to call, at that time but I would be happy to talk to her if she called me at 3 am her time. She declined the offer and apologized.

I hung up and then could not go back to sleep and I was surprised that I had spoken to a farang on the other line. Usually it is someone with a distinct accent similar to Russel Peters (very funny guy BTW). I finally figured out the accent and decided she was a Mormon from Utah. Some Utah companies have redefined the call center, allowing people to take the call from their house and lets them work from home. This permits a stay-at -home mom to make some money at the same time.  Nice business model and probably saves the company bricks and mortar space.

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/933138/Utahs-call-center-industry-Alive--ringing.html

Songkran starts today and Jaidan and I will stay inside the next 3 days as Jaidan is recovering form his pneumonia and I don't want to catch a cold like I did last year. I must be getting old but many expat lifers find Songkran more of a nuisance each passing year.  I suppose the novelty wears off.

This article was just posted on the Bangkok post and talks about the downside of Songkran.

Smear 'attacks' banned at Silom https://goo.gl/bYRphK #BangkokPost

Meanwhile, back in my apartment, we have 7 people living in a one room apartment for a week as all Thavorn's children plus a grandmother are here. No big deal for Thais but farangs, myself included find it a bit cramped.

I will post some pics next post.

TTYL

Stranger in a Strange Land

Today's song is: Paint it Black  .. Time for a Stones favorite  :-)

The seminal work by Robert Heinlein was perhaps 'Stranger in a Strange Land'. When you first visit S.E. Asia you often feel this way. After the years pass you buy, not so much.

Jaidan has had another occurrence of Pneumonia and is spending a few days in a Thai hospital while his lungs clear up. I am not sure what causes pneumonia, probably a virus. Better ask Google.

This is his second bout of pneumonia in Thailand and like before we use a mid range Thai hospital rather the exorbitant Bumrungrad's and Samtivej's that many expats they need to utilize. Of course helps to have a Thai speaking spouse to talk to the staff, but the doctors can get bye in English for the most part.

Our previous stays in Kluaynamthai Hospital were for Jorda's pre natal care, birth and previous pneumonia. In those stays we used private rooms at quite reasonable prices of about 3,000 baht. For some reason, Thavorn opted for a children's ward (no cost for Jaidan as he is Thai) which I found interesting. At the same time, I felt quite comfortable in a very Thai setting so perhaps I am no longer a stranger, although Thais still see me as one, outside of my usual haunts.

Tomorrow Jaidan sees a doctor whose specialty is allergies and I think that is good as I believe his pneumonia was brought on my a continuous flow of mucous into his lungs over the period of a couple of weeks. He was always stuffed up from about 9 pm to 9 am.

In the meantime I am home having performed the day shift at the hospital. My good friend Phai came to visit during the afternoon and brought Jaidan some yummies.

Here are some pics:

Jaidan's 'comfort animal' Dog  :-)

Meanwhile back in Canada, not an April Fool's Joke!

TTYL

Songkran Approaches

Today's song is: Hotel California 2017 version .. Eagles

I am having second thoughts about participating in Songkran this year. There has been a trend in the past few years to use ice cold water in pails and water guns. The problem with the pails is that you are constantly being exposed to ice cold water being dumped on your head or back and last year I came down with a 3 week cold that I do not want to repeat.

However, I may change my mind but just try to avoid the pails by sitting at a bar. When sitting at a bar you may get sprayed by a water gun, but will not get pails of ice water dumped on you, which happens often on the street.

Thavorn and I were out the other night with my friend Arthur.  Arthur and I had just completed our 90 day reporting visit to Thai Immigration offices out near Don Muang Airport. We were imbibing a fair amount of beer when Thavorn showed up to keep us company. Thavorn's older children were looking after Jaidan so we were foot loose and fancy free and head off by taxi to Nana Plaza.

We got there a might early but Twisters was up and running with a lineup of dancers and we nursed a drink for 45 minutes until Mandarin started up. Thavorn had never been to mandarin and was quite impressed by the lineup of about 100 great looking girls.  However after a couple of shifts we decide to listen to some live music at Hillary 2 and were loudly welcomed by the band who had not seen us together for almost a year.  We listened and danced but eventually decided to head over to Cowboy where we walked to after saying goodnight to Arthur who headed home by the BTS before the last train at about midnight.

Nothing Cowboy struck our fancy so we headed back to Queens Park Plaza and enjoyed some noodle soup before walking back home for about 1 pm.  All in all, a great night.

My buddy Mimmo is back in town so we will have to get together for a beer this weekend.  Always a good time with Mimmo.

So business or fun as usual in the Big Mango  :-)

TTYL