Saturday Night

Today's song is: RockaBye  .. Clean Bandit

Saturday night is the busiest night in Bangkok but not for Thavorn and I. That will change when Tai and Dun come to visit on their school holidays. We then get a baby sitter and Jaidan gets some one to play with, closer to his age :-)

In the meantime, we spend a lot of time at the park.

It is 10 days now for Thavorn's visa application so we hope to hear back early next week.

On another note, I watch a lot of CNN. I used to get Fox News as well which gave me a balanced news view but for now I am left with CNN.

A couple of observations.

The network news anchors are full of themselves. I think Walter Cronkite would be turning over in his grave.

The "most trusted man in America" is gone. 

Walter Cronkite, who personified television journalism for more than a generation as anchor and managing editor of the "CBS Evening News," has died. CBS vice president Linda Mason says Cronkite died at 7:42 p.m. Friday with his family by his side at his home in New York after a long illness. He was 92.

Known for his steady and straightforward delivery, his trim moustache, and his iconic sign-off line -"That's the way it is" - Cronkite dominated the television news industry during one of the most volatile periods of American history. He broke the news of the Kennedy assassination, reported extensively on Vietnam and Civil Rights and Watergate, and seemed to be the very embodiment of TV journalism. 

Special Section: Walter Cronkite: 1916-2009 

"Cronkite came to be the sort of personification of his era," veteran PBS Correspondent Robert McNeil once said. "He became kind of the media figure of his time. Very few people in history, except maybe political and military leaders, are the embodiment of their time, and Cronkite seemed to be." 

At one time, his audience was so large, and his image so credible, that a 1972 poll determined he was "the most trusted man in America" - surpassing even the president, vice president, members of Congress and all other journalists. In a time of turmoil and mistrust, after Vietnam and Watergate, the title was a rare feat - and the label stuck. 

from:  http://www.cbsnews.com/news/walter-cronkite-dies/

I also find it strange that the entire network came down hard on Trump for calling Rosie O'Donnell a fat pig when you never see any homely, chubby people delivering the news on CNN. They obviously are very bigoted in their hiring policies.

But, what kills me is their indignation and holier than thou, and 'we are never wrong' attitude. But, that is to be expected as they are a product of universities which are so politically correct and left of center.

CNN also trots out panels that have very suspect individuals who almost always have a book that is being promoted. I guess these folks come cheap. Definitely a conflict of interest. To be fair, they do try to have some conservatives on their panels as well.

I guess what peeves me most of all is I really do not think they are fair and they certainly do not take criticism about the media well. Thin skinned they are  :-)

TTYL

Night Out with Friends - new and old

Today's song is: Say You Do  .. Sigala

My buddy John just arrived back from Canada after 3 weeks of travel to japan and the US. Needless to say, he needed a night out and we decided to meet at the Bier garden at 7 pm. However, I had not been out for a while so I headed out to Country Road for a beer.

At Country Road I bumped into my namesake, Jimmy who originally hailed from Singapore and has called Bangkok his home for the past 20 years or so. Jimmy is about 80, plays excellent pool and speaks about 4 languages. I was surprised to hear he is working, albeit for a friend as  favor. His friend just opened a new factory in Rayong and needed someone to oversee his 3 Bangkok businesses until he get Rayong in maintenance mode.

After about an hour, a youngish girl and guy sat down beside us and revealed themselves as newbies when they pulled out a map of Bangkok. It turns out she was born in Austria and works in Switzerland as a stewardess for Swiss Air. Her BF was from Ecuador and did not fit my stereotype of playing flutes and wearing a straw hat. Turns out he is a hi-so Ecuadorian who married a Swiss girl on holidays and eventually became a Swiss Citizen and their marriage ended in divorce. He met his current GF in Switzerland.

I broached the subject of him marry the girl to obtain Swiss citizenship and he stated it looks that way, but like many marriages they just drifted apart and they maintain their friendship. This is the kind of thing that Canadian Immigration frowns upon as they see it as a marriage of convenience which I am sure happens quite frequently.

We had a great chat covering many topics over the next hour but then I had to say my goodbyes as I had to go meet John and my friend Arthur who is a US citizen.  After a couple of beers at the Bier Garden we headed off to Butterflies and BillBoard bars for some bar hopping where I met another crazy Australian who decided to hang out with the Bangkok Lifers who seemed to know where to go to have fun. Meeting people from all over the world is one of the things that makes Bangkok so very interesting.

After about 90 mins we jumped on Motorcycle taxis and proceeded to Cowboy to visit the Dollhouse as I had not visited my friend Ratanna for quite a while. Eventually we said our goodbyes and I left my new found Australian in the good hands of Ratanna. Besotted he was, in more ways than one.

On my walk home (I walk most everywhere I go in Bangkok, bumped into a friend named Phai who I had lost contact with. We communicated over LINE and she had bought a new iPhone (the bar business is good for her) and she did not migrate her LINE settings to her new phone. We remedied that by adding me anew and we are good to chat again.

All in all, a great night in Bangkok and I was home in bed by midnight as today is a gym day for me :-)

TTYL

Visa Application Update

Today's song is: Hello  ... Adele

Thavorn submitted her visa application on Feb 6th. Processing times for a TRV (visitor's visa) to Canada is currently at 7 days. Today is the 7th day so we hope to hear from Canada sometime tomorrow. I spent today reading visa forums and it can take longer than the times listed. However, reading the visa forums made me realize that many people applying really do not understand the process or simply do not qualify for a visitor's visa. I don't relish the CIC (Canadian Immigration Center) staff their jobs.

My visitor's from Canada who are now in the wilds of Myanmar are not communicating much these days. Myanmar is definitely a developing country so I am not surprised. Two more friends arrive in Phuket around February 20th and will be in Thailand for a month. They plan on flying up to Bangkok for a few days in the City of Angels. It is always lots of fun to tour Bangkok with newbies :-)

I am still noticing more and more individual tourists from China which is much preferable over the bus loads that arrive and move like lemmings following their tour guides.

The weather has been great with the temperature being in the low 30's and then dropping to the mid 20's during the evening hours. Sure beats winter in the Great White North.

Valentine's Day has come and gone. It is just about as commercialized in Thailand as Canada. Thavorn. Thavorn decided to go out with her girl friends . They started partying in our condo about 9 pm and left at midnight for a local Thai night club that they like to frequent. Thavorn says, mostly Thais with the odd farang accompanying his Thai GF. She arrived home at 4 am and after brief spell chatting with the big white telephone fell asleep. As usual, she was out of commission most the the next day with a hangover.

Speaking of hangovers, the bar featured in the movie, 'Hangover 2' is one of the tamest bars on Soi Cowboy. They even have a sign outside stating as featured in Hangover 2. I assume the movie chose that bar to make sure they did not get a, 'Restricted' rating on the flick.

Tilac  .. inside and out

My gym workouts are going well. Now all I need to do is lose the 3 kilos I gained while sick with that rotten cold that seemed to infect half the population of Bangkok. Eating stopped the coughing so eat  .. I did :-)

TTYL

Democracy vs Anarchy - Deplorables vs Indivisibles

Today's song is: Someone Like You .. Adele

There will always be winners and losers, haves and have nots, leftists and rightists.

The Republican party won the US election and the democrats are not willing to accept that. Interesting enough, that was a major question asked of Trump, whether or not he would accept the results of the election if he lost.

For democracy to work, the populace must accept the winners and work within the government and constitutions framework to moderate the winning parties agenda. However, what I am seeing is the anarchists working outside of the existing structures to basically get what they want by protesting and lobbying using the new media to organize.

That is the key difference. Anarchists are in media heaven with twitter and Facebook among other social media platforms. There also seems to be quite a large percentage of younger folks that seem to have lots of time on their hands to move around the country to protest. Perhaps if they had families to support or real, full time jobs they would be too busy to protest.

And what are they protesting? I wonder how many of these anarchists have the 7 visa banned countries on their bucket list to visit. I doubt very many of them. Face it, these countries are in turmoil. Bad things happen when good people sit and do nothing. But then again, that may be how the anarchists view themselves  :-)

Just some random thoughts  .. but the future for democracies does not look good!

TTYL

Visa Application Submitted

Today's song is: Rock Your Body  and Can't Stop the fFeeling  .. Timberlake

I finally finished getting all the required documents in place in order to submit an application for a visitor's visa for Thavorn to visit Canada.  here is the list of documents I had to upload:

After going through this process I really do not see how your average Thai person would be able to submit an application online. You need a fair amount of computer expertise to scan documents and add them to a single PDF.  You also need a fair amount of record keeping over the years. Thais seem to live in the present so I am not sure how much record keeping they do.

I wonder at the expertise of the staff at the local visa application center in Bangkok. If I had been allowed to visit with Thavorn, it would have been interesting to observe it first hand. I suspect that is why a Thai person is not permitted to bring a friend or spouse along. Thais hate losing face.

The application process seems to take a week at this moment in space and time. The actual online process is well done and kudos to Immigration Canada for having a robust website and intuitive online process. But, then again, I am an IT professional. Your experience may vary.

While I was submitting the required documents I was listening to CNN on TV. I have decided that CNN reporters are full of themselves and color the news with their personal biases. They bring in their political pundits to reinforce their political beliefs.

The reason I was listening to CNN is they are attacking the president for trying to get a handle on the visas from countries are basically in chaos of sort or another. I really can't see people from these countries being able to come up with the documents I just delivered for Thavorn's visa. The far left liberals are out of control. They should check in with the Swedes to see how they are enjoying their new immigrants and how those immigrants have contributed to Sweden.

It is probably easier for a refugee with little educations and 5 kids in tow to get into a developed country than a regular visa applicant who is jumping through the hoops.

The high tech companies are now lobbying the US government stating they are being hurt by the visa travel ban. Honestly, I don't see Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Sudan, and Syria as hotbeds of IT talent. Are they saying that the US is unable to develop the It talent nationally and they have to resort to importing talent from these 7 countries.  If so, it is time to 'Make America Great Again!' What a sad state of affairs for the greatest nation on earth!

I think the issue is that they get IT talent from these countries at a much lower salary. You get what you pay for!

TTYL

Off to Myanmar

Today's song is: This is What You Came For  .. Calvin Harris and Rihanna

My friends (Brent, Jeannine, Doug and Linda) flew off to Myanmar this morning. They have a day in Yangon and then they are off on their riverboat tour.  I wish them luck. They should be back in Bangkok in 2 weeks  :-)

Myanmar is having trouble these days and they are truly a developing country. My friends enjoyed the aquarium at Siam paragon which is world class. That mall also has a Rolls Royce dealership inside as well as a Lamborghini, Ducati, and other vehicle dealership.

Here are two pics of the entrance way.

The fountain and sky train above.

Entrance to the mall - definitely the hi-so mall in Bangkok

Our supper out (with friends on Saturday night was a let down. Despite being rated as the #6 restaurant in Bangkok, the food sucked, was slightly warm and rather tasteless. I grabbed a big handful of condoms on the way out to make up for the tasteless meal.

I also took a few pics of Jaidan while waiting for our meal.

However the Sunday night meal at The Wine Connection was a much better meal and the atmosphere was conducive to chatting and enjoying a bottle of wine. French and European cuisine at moderate pricing. Highly recommended.

TTYL

Tourists - Cabbages and Condoms

Today's song is: I Got You  .. Bebe  ..

It is high season for tourists and I have noticed an uptake in the number I see. on the street. There are many types of tourists I often see in Thailand ...

Older retired couples traveling in twos  or packs

Young couples

2 girls or guys travelling together

back packers

groups of Chinese tourists

single punters and lifers

among other types

I am being spoiled this month as I have 6 people coming to visit over the next 30 days. They are all from Canada and probably escaping the great white north.

Yesterday we explored Siam Paragon Mall (hi-so) and MBK Mall (lo-so). It was a jet lag day so you don't want to try anything strenuous as you will crash.  Today my friends are doing the river boat tour and the Grand Palace. Thavorn, Jaidan, and I will join them for supper at the popular Cabbages and Condoms restaurant that funds the abortion clinic.

Highly recommended for whatever .. make sure you grab a handful of condoms on the way out!

TTYL