My basketball season ended early today as our last tournament, this Saturday was cancelled. All schools in Bangkok have been shut down due to the pollution problem.
Over 437 schools have been shutdown until Monday. Read the above article for a summary. Hey, the Washington Post is on top of this :-)
The tournament cancellation is unfortunate as it was a fun tournament for us to play everyone and see what we need to improve on for next season. It was also an opportunity to say goodbye to the boys before departing Thailand for 6 months. Our school, being Thai/Chinese will also be closed all next week for Chinese New Year and then my family moves downtown for 3 nights before heading off to Canada.
We have a LINE group and I told the boys to check it weekly for updates and pics of Canada from me. The internet age is wonderful :-)
That leaves me bored for 5 days so I will head off downtown tomorrow morning and hit the IT mall for an SSD backup drive and a bookstore for some reading. Perhaps a beer or two at Country Road before heading back to the condo.
I am also spending time getting acquainted with Windows server 2016 and ColdFusion server 2018 as we migrate all our web software from Windows Server 2008 R2 and ColdFusion 2008. Lots to learn as neither of these two products are being supported after this year. I am also moving our servers from AWS West Virginia to AWS Montreal for privacy law reasons that are stricter in Canada than the US and some of our customers are requesting their data to be hosted in Canada for that same reason. We don't want Nancy or Donald peeking at our data.
Maybe I shall buy a bottle of Scotch tonight and toast the end of a successful 6 months in Samut Prakan, although I do enjoy living downtown where I could walk to everything.
Thavorn and Jaidan headed off to the village today to say their goodbyes and spend some time with her family. There currently is a lot of friction between Thavorn's mother and her two oldest (12 and 13) children who are feeling their oats. The children are typical, thinking they are smarter than they are and have life all figured out. The grandmother has no clue how to interact with them other than yelling and the odd smack. Shouting accomplishes nothing! I predict the situation is not going to turn out well. It seldom does in the village.
I keep telling Thavorn she will have to make a choice. Make herself happy or try to make her family happy. She is leaning towards making herself happy as she can't see the forest for the trees with regards to her family. I told her to take Jaidan and I out of the picture and imagine what her life would be like. Her two children do not want to leave their friends (misery loves company) and go to Canada which is fine by me. They are choosing to be poor for life.
So I am baching it for about 10 days. Time to say my goodbyes, play one last basketball tournament. buy a couple of books, kick back and contemplate, and have a bit of fun.
Our lease is up on February 12 so we will leave Febrile 13th and stay at the Hyatt/Regency downtown on the 13-15 and return to Big Tree residence the night of Febrary 16th as we fly out early on the 17th and Big Tree is close to the airport. Sating at the Hyatt/Regency downtown will enable Thavorn to see her friends and I plan to go out the 15th (Saturday) and party with some friends.
So, it is getting real and I find myself wishing the days away which is not a good thing at my age.
There is so much to like about minimalism, once you wrap your head around it.
Speed bumps probably seemed like a good idea at the time (20 years ago) but in this age of climate change and global warming they are simply stupid and are damaging the environment.
Issac Newton figured this out many years ago:
Newton's first law states that every object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless compelled to change its state by the action of an external force ..
A vehicle travelling down the road wants to keep going at that speed. Speed bumps force the driver to apply brakes, slowing down the vehicle, thereby turning the kinetic energy into heat energy (warming up the environment). The driver then has to accelerate turning the chemical energy (gas) into kinetic energy, heat, and CO2 to get back up to speed. Multiply this a million times a day over millions of vehicles and think about it.
Why do speed bumps exist. Here in S.E. Asia it is because many people drive like idiots and the police don't seem to want to do anything about it (too hot I guess) so they create speed bumps to slow drivers down. You never see any copy handing out speeding tickets. Not that the average Asian has money to pay for the ticket, or even a licence, or the cops have any way of tracking if it was paid.
Speed bumps are also a hazard to ambulances and fire engines and back home create havoc with snow plows. So what bright light came up with snow plows and how many idiot politicians have voted to adopt their use. They were probably Politically Correct.
I decided to google speed bumps and discovered I am not the first to think of this:
It would appear that perhaps instead if, or besides, looking at electric vehicles and fewer emissions, we should be looking at eliminating speed bumps from around the world. Time to move on. (pun intended).
Minimalism is another area that we should look at. All that stuff we are buying has to be manufactured, transported, and powered. Multiply it by billions of people! Altering people's behaviour is what we need to do to stop global warming! Good luck with that.
I have become a minimalist and I did not know it. I recently came across the term and indeed I am one. Rather than describe it, there are many excellent videos and blogs.
I guess that is the reason I am so happy. I don't have many 'things', and the things I do own and use fit in one suitcase and that includes my 29 inch monitor that I use in my work.
No mortgage payment, no residential tax, no grass cutting, no snow shovelling, no windshield scrapping, no furnace filter changing, no home owners insurance, no car insurance, no car maintenance or tire changing, no to many things :-)
What do I miss? I do miss a fun motorcycle and I will rectify that some time down the road. There is a freedom involved in motorcycling and may I daresay, it is somewhat anti PC, which I like. There is still an Easy Rider in me just like I still yearn for Walden Pond and a hippie commune.
People and relationships matter, things don't matter. If you have friend and family (loved ones), and food to eat, and a roof over your head, then everything else is fluff. You can't take it with you.
The clue is that we arrive on this planet with nothing, and we leave this planet with nothing, except the memories that live on in the minds of friends and family. I will raise a jar to that .. as Thavorn is want to say, 'amen', rather strange for a Buddhist :-)
We started preparing for Thavorn's Immigration question when she arrives in Canada. There are quite a few sites, including Government of Canada sites that delineate the questions that she will be asked. I was not surprised she did not understand some of the questions such as: What items are you bringing into questions. It told her items = things and then the lights went on. The vocabulary is what trips her up. Hopefully she will not be nervous once we finish preparing. BTW, preparing was not a word she knew but when I explained it meant getting ready she said ok mai, I understand.
I have often been surprised at what Thavorn is anxious to accumulate. A couple of years ago, i described her yearning for a real Barbie doll at the age of 27. It was something that her friends had growing up, but her family could never afford to have. I never did buy her a barbie, but perhaps I should have.
Lately we have been eyeing a pair of running shoes, waiting for them to go on sale. They were quite popular and Thavorn was disappointed they sold out of her size. I knew she was disappointed and we decided to look for bargains in all the different brands and I was surprised there was nothing that she like. She kept gravitating back to Adidas and there was nothing on sale so I suggested she try on whatever she liked and she did like a pair at 4,400 baht, on sale for 3,400, 500 baht above what she was willing to pay. I suggested, we would be doing a lot of walking in Canada and that shoes were much more expensive and came with a 13% tax so we bought them. She was ecstatic and when we got home she told me t was the first Adidas item (thing) she had ever bought. It turns out that Adidas is the brand of choice in Thailand, not Nike, or under armour or whatever. I think it is due to their interest in Soccer (Football) which Adidas had locked up in terms of endorsement for years, and I think still do. North America was always more Nike driven.
Chalk one up for making dreams come true. She never would have told me, trying to influence a purchase as that is the way Thavorn is. :-)
As I type this, Thavorn is working with Jaidan on his numbers, alphabet, and vocabulary in both English and Thai. She has more patience than me in this area although I am professional taught. Go figure.
I managed to obtain one more basketball to finish off our season. We will be playing in the Shrewsbury Invitation Tournament on February the 2nd. I am not sure how many players I will have as it is the end of the second semester and the start of Chinese New Year.
Today's song is: Girls Like You .. Maroon 5 .. Superbowl 2019
I don't often see Thavorn really excited when looking forward to future activities but she is now really excited about going to Canada. It has to be a really big deal for a rural village girl to go halfway around the world to a completely different country! I asked her if she was nervous and she said no. I am nervous, worrying about whether or not I have forgotten stuff, misspelled a name on a flight, or other stupid little things which can create havoc in this day and age.
I remember the issues I used to have with Aeroplan. My legal name is James but I have always gone by gym. So, I created my Aeroplan account many years ago under the name of Jim and had no problems for many years flying in Canada or into the United States. However, when I started to fly into Asia where the person behind the counter was matching names by character rather than by name, I could no longer convince the person than Jim was actually me when my passport stated James. Be warned.
In this day and age of AI (artificial intelligence) you would think Google would be able to come up with better suggestions for misspelled words. For example 'staed' does not suggest 'stated'. It does not give me great confidence in a machine coming up with a medical diagnosis. But then again, you read about doctors amputating the wrong leg, etc., so maybe not so bad.
I read about how the Superbowl game is having a hard time getting performers to perform at half time because of the bleeding heart liberals supporting Colin K, the below average quarterback (IMHO), who started taking a knee, during the national anthem, and ended up without a team to play for. Colin was trying to draw attention to the plight of black Americans in the states. A noble endeavour, for sure, but perhaps the football league was not the forum to use. Now, the football league is being blamed for the countries problems. I am not sure of the cause and effect. I would have blamed the politicians. The football league has enabled many blacks to move out of poverty into wealth. Ditto for many entertainment industry such as most sports, music, video, etc.
Meanwhile, back home, Jaidan has come down with the stomach flu as well. However he bounced back after 2 days. Must be nice to be young. Thavorn does not seem to catch much of anything due to a strong immune system as she was raised on a dirt floor in the village. Poverty does have one advantage. Oops, not PC, I apologize :-)
The day after my BISAC basketball tournament I came down with stomach flu. I suspect it was from one of the 50+ hands I shook at the tournament. Anyways, not fun as I was tied to the toilet for 2 days, firing from both ends, As always, Thavorn was concerned as she sometimes views her old man as fragile. I have no idea why. It may be because the majority of Thai men are dead by my age. Regardless, I seemed to turn the cornet this morning about 4 am and I am feeling much better, but not 100%.
My sister Elaine eMailed me and it is -40 degrees with the windchill factor in Ottawa. Hopefully it will warm up a bit before we arrive on February 17th. I received an eMail from my resort company stating they are looking forward to hosting us at their downtown Vancouver property which is one of my favourite as it follows the mantra of location, location, location :-)
Jaidan just received his second haircut. He likes being cooler.
If you think he looks like an imp .. you are right, he is one at times .. but basically a great kid.
I am not quite sure how we will get the remainder of our possessions to the village. Thavorn will make one more trip, but most likely by bus. I guess I had better check out the fare by taxi. It should be about 4,000 baht or about $170 Canadian. They are mostly kitchen and house items and I think it is cheaper just to buy new ones when we get back and have Thavorn take the bus.
Today's song is: Get Your Motor Running .. Steppenwolf
BTW, the lawyer dude is Jack Nicolson in possibly his breakout role ...
Wherever the winds blow us. My buddy Shaun remarked that I appeared to be favouring living in Canada more so than Thailand. We really have not decided and without being locked into property and house, it depends on which way the wind is blowing. Sort of like the start of the Mary Poppins movie.
Yesterday my basketball team competed at the BISAC Bangkok League tournament and we came second in the plate tournament which is the bottom 6 teams out of 12. So, that makes us the 7th best team out of 12 and I am content with that. Our team is made up of a grade 7, a grade 8, 3 grade 9's, 3 grade 10's, and 4 grade 11's. We start the grade 7, a grade 10, and 3 grade 11's. The top teams are fielding 5 grade 12's. We are also, one of the smallest international schools with a total enrolment of 620 students from 3 year old to grade 12, playing against large international schools with enrolments of over 2,000 students. Another huge disadvantage is our 1 gymnasium where the top teams have 6 or more. Hence my contentment for this year, but next year, I would like to be in the middle of the pack in the top 6 teams.
If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well :-)
I have bout 2 weeks f practices left until Chinese New Year when the school goes on holiday and I start to plan for 6 months in Canada starting on February 17th. I am leaving the team with a checklist of standards each player must meet in order to make the team. I have about 18 players who are capable of making the team of 12 players and the program is attracting more players every week as the core of my team is talking up the program.
Thavorn and I have started to buy some warmer clothing for Jaidan so he will be comfortable in Vancouver. We are are having a difficult time getting him into pants as he has never worn anything but shorts and t-shirts. He likes hoodies and shoes so we are making progress. Vancouver will be about 12 degrees when we get there on February 17th.
I contacted our airBnB host and every thing is confirmed for our 6 month stay. The closest supermarket (within easy walking distance) is FarmBoy which I like and even has some Asian food and sauces.
Usually a countdown signifies moving from something not so good to something a better. Not the case in our situation. I, Thavorn, and Jaidan like Thailand, but for a variety of reasons it is time for a look see to see if the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, or in our situation, the other side of the planet.
In Thailand, economics drives just about everything. It is why pretty girls and ladies work the bar industry, and lo-so folks stay lo-so and hi-so remain hi-so. It is also why we are going to Canada for 6 months.
I have been in Thailand for 10 years now, sometime full-time, sometimes part time. During that time I have seen the CDN dollar go fro 32 baht to the dollar to 23 baht to a dollar. I have effectively lost 33% of my purchasing power. Thais also adopted smart phones during that period and have become more economically aware and now charge more for their services. Wealthy Asians travelling to Thailand have also resulted in higher prices as they often pay too much for a service. Thailand is no longer the bargain it used to be.
The other driving economical force is life and health insurance. At 68 years of age I can't afford the $7,500 US for health insurance and forget life insurance. In Canada, I get free health insurance, topped up by my group insurance plan, as well as a guaranteed 10 year term life insurance plan at a reasonable cost. The kicker is I must live in Canada for 6 months a year. My group plan also covers myself and my family for out of country trips for 3 months at a time.
The biggest issue with 6 months in Canada and 6 months in Thailand is schooling for Jaidan. He is 4.5 years old now and we home school him. Sometime down the road we will put him in school and at that point we may move to 9 months in Canada and 3 months in Thailand. There is really no reason Thavorn can't spend an additional 3 months in Thailand to see her other 3 kids, mother, brother, and sister, not to mention her Thai friends.
However, first things first. This is a look see to see how Thavorn and Jaidan like Canada. Thavorn is intrigued by the idea of working in Canada. In Thailand she can make 110,000 baht a year and in Canada she can make 900,000 baht a year.
I anticipate that I will have lots to blog about with lots of pics. I will keep you informed of countdown activities (of which there are lots) and our departure .. then onto another new adventure!
Tomorrow is the 17th and the countdown begins in earnest. We are all looking forward to our new adventure. Matter of fact, if you do not have a new adventure in your life, you are merely existing, not living.
Julian Hanlon and his wife Claire arrived this past weekend on an adventure and they seem to be enjoying themselves. It has always puzzled me why more of my friends are hesitant to step outside their comfort zones and embrace the world. BTW, Florida and Mexico do not count and Europe is a stretch, but that can too be an adventure.
I am looking forward to seeing Jaime's new house and partaking of a dinner or two there. I am also looking forward to having a few beers with Jordan and his friends and perhaps play some games of pool.
Then, of course there are some friends that I wish to see .. Don Burke is always fun and interesting, Terry Nolan is refreshing as always, Coach Brown is always an affable companion on a wing and beer night and his wife Lorraine is always the ultimate host. Liz and Ray always need a visit and a chance to get updated as well as the new boss of the upper Ottawa Valley, Debbi Wensley and Bob who brings her back to reality. Paul Cotton always owes me the yearly dinner and a few rounds of beer. Unfortunately I miss the Ravens this time around in basketball. Cindy Mar and Francis are always fascinating to see and get uptodate in their lives.
I would guess I would miss out on some snowbirds. Bondo and Ashley are still down south. Bill Fox should be around and if he can sneak out to see me is usually good for a coffee. I think the muffin disapproves of Bill fraternizing with me these days due to rumours my ex spread around to my friends.
I have given up on Bainer and Rheal. Bainer is just too busy and Rheal is not ready to move on. It would still be great to see either of them.
My new friend Gerry needs a wake up call and when Bondo arrives we should descend upon Gerry's escape from marriage haven and find out why Gerry has still yet to set foot on Thailand.
I must not forget my two sisters who always seem willing to entertain and feed me once a year. I am not sure how they will handle me 6 months at a time. No doubt I will test Bill's (Ann's hubby) patience from time to time, but he needs his cage rattled from time to time.
I am sure I am forgetting someone but then again, I can always claim old timer's disease and I ain't getting any younger :-)
Julian and Margaret
John and Claire
The McGrath's
Julian at rest
Julian being Julian :-)
Jaidan is growing up .. 4 and a half years old .. 120 cm
Thailand makes visitor visas pretty easy with their 30 day on arrival visa for most countries. Most tourists are only spending 30 days in Thailand so that works out well. However this visa leaves to many people taking advantage once inside the country to overstay. This gives rise to the 90 day reporting and demand for passports when staying in hotels and/or condos or apartments.
I am on a non-immigrant O-A visa. These can be for work, education, retirement, or marriage. I have yet to figure out what the O-A refers to. They all have a one year and then subsequent reapply again format. They also have a 90 day reporting period where you have to notify the local (provincial) immigration office of where you are staying. You would think you would do this only if you move but alas, that is not the case. There is no charge for this so it is not a money grab. The government just wants to know where to find you. Your apartment, condo, hotel, informs the government every time you check in. It actually costs me about 500 baht in taxis and a half day 4 times a year.
If you want to leave Thailand and reenter under the same visa period you must apply for a reentry visa at 1,000 baht. If you don't then you invalid your existing visa and have to reapply. I am on a October 2018 to October 2019 O-A visa and when I leave in February and return in August I want to continue on the same visa so I had to go get a reentry permit at the Samut Prakan Immigration office. Luckily I was also able to do my 90 reporting period at the same time. All in all it was about a half day.
Yesterday I spend the other half day, reviewing flight and hotel details as well as Thavorn's immigration details to make sure there would be no problems on travelling to Canada.
We fly on February 17 to Taipei with Air China and then from Taipei to Vancouver with Air Canada. We arrive in Vancouver during lunch hour and check into the Sheraton in downtown Vancouver for 5 days for Thavorn and Jaidan to acclimatized and buy some warmer clothing. We then fly with Canada to Ottawa arriving on February 23 at 1 am in the morning. That is a Saturday so we are hoping my son Jordan will be awake to pick us up.
We will be staying at my sister Ann's downtown condo until March first when we move into an AirBnB for 6 months. Unlike many parts of the world, it is hard to get an apartment for a 6 month rental as everyone seems to want a year.
Almost time to start a countdown but I think I will wait for 30 days to start a countdown on this blog. It should be interesting for me to blog about how Thavorn and Jaidan adjust to Canada, not to mention myself, as I have been gone for a long time and I am sure Canada has changed.
I am looking forward to see some Carleton basketball games and seeing my friends. I almost said old friends but they are old in 2 different ways. Old as in their age, an old in terms of how long I have known them. My only young friends are in Thailand. I truly hope they are not hanging out in Tim Hortons complaining about the government and their taxes. However, where do 68 year old guys hangout nowadays in Ottawa .. That will be a problem :-)
Well we are back in Bangkok after the usual 6 hour trek was completed. 5 hours by bus followed by a 1 hour taxi ride to the apartment.
We were up at 5:30 to shower and pack and then catch the local transport to the bus station but Thavorn asked if it was okay if her brother drove us. I said I don't mind and Jaidan and I jumped in the back of the pickup (owned by the father-in-law that shot him).
After he dropped us off I ignored but walked back a bit later and shook his hand and said copoon crup. Thavorn asked me where I went I told her to thank her brother and she said, I hope you did not pay him as I already did.
Of course I knew she had paid him. Zebras do not lose their stripes. He may have offered, fully expecting Thavorn to pay him despite owing us 20,000. I have reconciled all that in my mind because he is, after all, a product of an environment that fosters that way of thinking. If I could communicate to him then perhaps I could change him but I can't and I long ago learned to change the things I can and accept the things I can't.
The 8:30 bus was sold out but we managed to get 3 tickets on the 9:30 bus, the last one to Bangkok on any given day. I have never seen them add a bus on during busy periods of the year. That required future thinking :-)
There is no place like home albeit ever so humble ..
I never give up hope. I was spending some time being productive updating the online basketball score board that I have been programming while in the village. I plan of making it available free to the basketball community as pay back to a wonderful community.
I took a break and went outside to see what was going on and I noticed the motorbike with the bad clutch bearings was gone. Fool that I was, I thought someone took it to the Honda dealership to get looked at.
I asked Thavorn where it went and she said Lot, her momma's live in BF took it to the market to pay back a loan. Of course he has no income and Thavorn just gave her mom the money for the month so, I have in fact paid off the loan which was probably to buy some maryjane that he bought.
Now, I have come to accept the fact that the money I give to the mother (which is not a lot, about $450 a month) also support Jabba the Hut (my nickname for momma), the good for nothing live in BF, and the worthless brother when he is broke, which is often.
However, why, when there is a functioning motorcycle sitting beside the one that needs maintenance, would the good for nothing BF take the one in need of repair. My guess is one had fuel (I just filled it up after the good for nothing brother returned it empty yesterday) and the other one is empty. The other issue I have all the time is it is a nice leisurely 10 minutes walk.
Perfect sense for a Thai living in the present .. one full, working but maybe not tomorrow, and one working, but empty today.
Once you begin to understand how they think, it all makes sense.
I just started to laugh .. Now Lot went to the expensive school down the road and finished grade 12 so I guess he is just smarter than everyone else. Doesn't have to work, his drinking and smoking habit is looked after, has food to eat, and a roof over his head. For a rural Thai, it simply does not get better than that.. until I pull the plug :-) but that is in the future .. not to worry about in the now ...
Today's song is: Can't Stop the Music .. Village People
I can understand the disdain that hi-so Bangkok people feel for the rural Thai population living on farms and in small villages. I tend to think Thavorn's family is no different than most village families, apart from the police chief and the doctor, and perhaps the headman.
I have mentioned often that Thai people that I know live very much in the present (bar girls excepted) and do not worry about the future. Also, if cleanliness is next to godliness then most Thai villagers are destined for hell, or in Buddhist terms, destined to slip down the wheel of life rather than ascend.
I can't understand how they are willing to live in such filth rather than taking out a rag, and a bit of Windex, and cleaning off some dirt. The last time, many tables, chairs, TV, etc were cleaned was when Shaun and I were here about a year ago.
We took a motorbike ride into the village to buy some cleaning stuff for dishes (the existing ones were filthy) and I told Thavorn there was something wrong about the bike. It was night, but the next day, I put the bike up on its center stand and rotated the wheels and as I suspected, the rear wheel and in particular, the clutch assembly bearings had gone bad. I told her to tell her mom and of course she deferred to the good for nothing son (as Farangs are stupid) and he said, yeah, something wrong with the bike). This despite the fact that he had borrowed the bike for 4 hours the day before and had used it without saying a word. The last time I was here the bike had 9,000 kms on it and now it has over 20,000 kms so the son has been using it a lot and knowing the piece of shit as i do, probably abusing it.
I also told the useless live in bf what the problem was and he seemed a wee bit interested, but not much. I asked Thavorn to query the family as to what their plans were to fix the bike as it is now also ridden by Thavorn's children. I know what the answer is. No plans, ride it until it stops working and then look to Thavorn to either pay to have it fixed or put pressure on her to buy a new one. I have already told Thavorn, that will never happen. If Thais lived in Canada in the 1800's they never would have made it past the first winter. They would have all frozen to death through lack of a plan.
Darwinism has been at work for quite some time in the northern latitudes and I tend to think it has weeded out the non planners (thinkers).
I told Thavorn before that I should probably stay out of the village as it probably brings out the worst in me. My fellow workers back in the Board used to joke that, 'Jim does not suffer fools gladly!', and there is definitely no shortage of fools in the village. The really amazing things is they are too stupid to know they are stupid (especially the brother). Perhaps that is a bit harsh as they are a product of their educational system and culture. The culture seems to stress that the males are the boss and the female is subservient whereas in my view, the women are much smarter than the men, especially the men that I know. In the upper hierarchies of government there seem to to some smart men who know how to rule and hold onto power.
The other thing that never fails to amaze me is how lazy the majority of villagers are. They eat, sleep, and watch TV, all in great quantities. I forgot to mention drink, but this is one area where the men excel as compared to women. You can add in crack and maryjane as well.
The last thing that shocks me is their belief that the Thai people are superior to farangs and live in the best country in the world. As the prime minister was quoted recently, 'Thai language is superior to English as we have 45 characters in our alphabet whereas English has only 26. He can have my vote any day given that logic :-)
Enough negativity. Thavorn just brought me an iced coffee that the good for nothing brother's wife just made and charged her 20 baht for it, despite owing us 20,000 baht. Just goes to show they live in the present and the loan occurred in the past and is no longer relevant. Buddha will look after the future.
It boggles my mind that Thavorn is a product of that environment and is so level headed and considerate. Must be the farang influence :-)
However, there are many great things about the Thai culture I love such as very little political correctness and personal freedom.
