Today's song is: Lifestyle ... Derulo and Levine

Covid19 has altered many lifestyles around the world. If I was in Bangkok at this moment I would be sitting out covid in my apartment except for runs for food. The entertainment places are still closed and I suppose the BTS would be somewhat risky so getting around would be a problem.

Here in Canada many of my plans fell apart. I was planning on driving out east with Thavorn and Jaidan and visiting the Atlantic provinces this past summer. Of course that never happened. I was also planning to do some camping and canoe camping in Algonquin Park. Then again I was going to book some time at Mount Tremblant and introduce Jaidan and Thavorn to skiiing and the mountain village. Not happening.

We were also planned on visiting my 2 sisters fairly regularly and that is not happening. Ditto for my friends, or just getting out to a sit down in Timmy's, Starbucks, or browsing the books at Chapters.

So, my lifestyle has been altered dramatically, but not as much as the past 10 years when I embraced minimalism and embraced being a bad boy on the wildside in Thailand. I don't miss owning a house, 2-3 cars in the driveway, keeping up with the Jones, etc.

I do miss a motorcycle, my friends, coaching basketball, and travellingwhich I can solve once covid19 gets diminished. My motorcycle arrives this month.

Meanwhile age is catching up. I strained my achilles tendon running on the treadmill and altering my walk has strained my lower back as well. Apparently the achilles takes at least 2 months to heal. Bummer. 

Some motorcycle pics. I always like a touch of red on my bikes:

What's in store for my lifestyle down the road. For the next 4 years we will live with my sone Jordan, with perhaps a trip or two of 3 months in Thailand, probably June-August. At the end of the 4 years, Jaidan will be in going into grade 6 and we will probably spend at least 6 months in Thailand as we build a house for Thavorn in her village. I will home school Jaidan during that time.

After the house is built, we will spend 9 months in Canada a year and 3 months in Thailand. Or 6 and 6 with 4 months of home schooling. Time will tell. You don't want to plan too far ahead at my age :-)

TTYL

Proud of my Mule

 Today's song is: Proud Mary ... Tina Turner

I am proud of my RC controlled mule. Mainly because I built it from scratch with my own drive train and steering mechanism. Also because it is very fast. It is driven by 2 lego L motors geared up running on a NiMH 9.6 volt battery back. However, it can be improved.

I am using a Raspberry PI to control it which is okay, but I use an AdaFruit Crickit board to drive the motors and it is overkill for what I need and has one inherent problem that is, it can only drive motors up to 5 volts dc. That means I then add on another Cytron motor board to drive the 9 volt Lego motors. I also have an issue with the 9.6 volt battery pack as I can't tell how much battery is left. I could add a small volt/capacity meter but that means another small addition. I like to adhere to the KISS principle.

My plan is to keep the Raspberry computer, but perhaps downgrade it to a Raspberry PI Zero W from the Model 3B+. Why, because it is cheaper, and does the job, as well as being half the size.  I am then going to add a WaveShare Motorboard that sits ontop of the PI zero and is the same size, and can drive the Lego motors at 9 volts and potentially up to 12 volts (more on that later). The more volts, the faster you go.

The final new addtion will be a 12/5 volt USB Battery Pack. Most of the USB battery packs only pump out 5 volts to charge phones. The one I found by TalentCell has two outs, one at 5 volts and one at 12 volts. I could (undecided), run the PI Zero off the 5 volts and the motor board off the 12 volts. Best of all, it has 5 leds that show the status of the battery so I know when to recharge it.

All of the above makes everything much smaller and simpler. I should be able to get it all hooked up in a week as the parts come in, unless I fry something.

Meanwhile in Covid land we are surviving and today is a snow day and Jaidan is at home and working hard om Math and Reading. Thavorn is drying pork to use with this week's meals. Thai, her daughter has managed to get herself kicked out of school in Phang Na for truancy. Not sure, what will become of her, but probably nothing good.

Some more picks of the existing mule.

TTYL

Covid Update

 Today's song is: Mood .. Bieber et al

Jaidan is back in a regular classroom and my days are free again, so, maybe, I will post a bit more.

A bit of a setback with my latest mule as I fried the microcontroller that was powering it. $60 up in smoke.  I decided to go all in and order a Raspberry Pi as a controller and a motor hat. Way more expensive so I will try not to fry them.

Meanwhile I have decided to optimize my programming desk and here is a pic of it.  The motorized desk is important for anyone coding for more than 8 hours. The dual monitor setup is required for productivity. The left monitor can be recorded (both video and voice over) for documentation/training. The device with the green light is the Hauppuage Rocket which records to my 500 gig ssd drive on a push of the big red button. 

I have a Amazon Echo 5 (gift from my daughter Jaime) with a display for quick info on anything from weather, amazon deliveries, and trivia. On the right are my headphones for listening to YouTube tutorials. My mouse is a Logitect MX Master which is ergonomic to prevent RSIs.

The laptop is a Lenovo Think Pad with 16  gigs of memory and a 500 gig ssd internal drive. The coffee mug is large size and a present from my son Jordan.

Meanwhile, back in Bangkok, the bars are shutting down and many will never reopen. The coup born governmnet is still under reporting covid and does very little testing. The government still believes the tourist will come flocking back but that will probably never happen post covid, and if so, defintely not befoe 2022. A whole generation of bar girls has seen their lifestyle yanked out from under them and are back in the hinterland bored out their tree. The Thai economy is probably back to circa 1995 but the government has yet to realize it. Thailand has priced themselves out of the main tourist market and prices will have to come down and government bureaucracy needs to make it easy for tourists to visit.

 

Do I miss Thailand? You bet. The normal loso Thai are great people (okay, not all) and deserve a better life. The student protests looked promsing but the government are locking up the leaders now. A 60 year old lady was sentenced to 40 years in jail for posting a video on Facebook. Governments around the world have to do something aout this by applying pressure to Thais in power but little seems to be happening on that front. I suppose our government officials enjoy their cheap seafood too much.

TTYL