The USA Invades Thailand!

I received an interesting e-mail from my brother Rob last week. It basically said "We will land in Bangkok in 2 days. Be ready." After the initial excitement of seeing some family after 3 years settled down a bit, we began wondering what the heck to do. Bangkok is huge. There are 17 million people running about there, and they all like to drive (badly) at the same time. Anyway, Rob and Lauren got in late, so they stayed at a hotel the first night. Roong, Palmiez, and I chartered a mini-van and set off to find them early the next morning.....

Roong came up with the idea of visiting a small city in a neighboring province that is basically a little Thailand. It is shaped like the country and has all for major areas represented there. It has little shops and restaurants that give tourists an idea of what each area has to offer. This turned out ok. It was the middle of the week, so it was not crowded, but many of the shops and restaurants weren't open. Still, there were some interesting things to see. We spent a lot of our time trying to dodge tour buses full of noisy students.

I am not sure when the last photo of us together was taken. I think Rob said the only existing photo of all 3 of us together is that god awful photo of us as kids, wearing those 60's striped pants and zipper front shirts (Never let your grandma buy clothes for you). This shot was taken somewhere in Lopburi.

This shot of Roong, Palmiez, and I was taken at the ancient Siam city. They have a few small shrines from the different provinces. Rob said that he had had a knee surgery not too long ago. It was nice to know that I was not the only one creaking as they went to kneel on the floor.

The dudes and their daughters. Of course everyone is giving the mandatory little Asian girl peace sign thingy. Soooo creative (NOT!). After we wandered around the village, we headed over to the Hard Rock Cafe, so Rob and lauren could get a few t-shirts and shot glasses. It was only a few minutes away from the hotel that they were staying in according to the map. This did not, however, take in to concideration our fearless mini-van driver.

The problem with hiring the guy from our town to drive was that he only knew a few places in Bangkok. Most of which are on the main highway in. He spent most of his time chattering on the phone getting directions. He had to turn around a few times, but all in all, he did ok. Bangkok is huge and the traffic is rugged, there is just no way to get anywhere quickly.

Once that was all taken care of, we headed back to Pattananikom. Rob and Lauren stayed at "Bannok". That was nice. The rooms are clean, and the place is friendly. Ead even had breakfast for them the next morning. We sat, had a few beers, and talked for quite a while until jet lag, and the 12 hours we spent riding around in that goofy mini-van slowly won out over us. I don't think anyone had trouble sleeping that night.


The next day we met for lunch and just relaxed a bit more. We decided to try and make one more stop before we headed to the airport. Lopburi is kind of on the way, and has some interesting things to see.

One of the true highlights of the day was Lauren and the monkeys. This ancient structure is in the center of old Lopburi. There used to be many of these set up all over Thailand. Roong says that they were little Wats, or temples. I imagine they were quite beautiful in their glory days.

Now, the monkeys have decided that they own it. It has been fenced off, but the monkeys still travel wherever they want to in Lopburi. You can buy little bags of sunflower seeds to feed the monkeys, and one of the locals, armed with a slingshot, will help keep them under control. The little buggers will steal anything they can get their hands on.

This isn't the best photo of Lauren and the monkeys, but to see that one, you will have to ask her. Haaaa!

After this, we headed for the airport. I had not driven to the new airport before, so this was interesting. We made it there on time, only to find out that there United ticket counter was closed, and would not open until the next morning. This meant that Rob and Lauren had to grab a hotel near by for 6 hours or so. Anything near the airport is expensive to the point of being ridiculus. But there was nothing else to do.

I was a little worried because Roong and Palmiez were so quiet during all this. They can be shy at times, but both can speak English. They both started to loosen up a bit near the end. They were so worried about being accepted. Everyone seemed to get along just fine. Roong is already planning what to do when they come back. I heard about this for every single second on the 3 hour trip back home. Haaaa!

It was great to see family again. I hope that they can come back soon. Next time we can head down to Pattaya and hang out by the beach. Beer and seafood always works. I would like to get up to Chiang Mai to see the mountain villages and the flower festival, but it's 11 hours away. I think they do have an airport though. We will see.

Mobii Gets Swine Flu Fever!

It's just sad when people try to cash in on the misery of others, isn't it? It's not so sad if you actually do make some cash though. These are my latest contributions. See the rest on my Redbubble site.

Health Dept. Update

Warning

If you receive an email from the 'Department of Environment & Health' saying not to eat tinned pork because of swine flu, just ignore it.........it's SPAM!

Helpful Post Office Tips....

My, my, my, what an interesting Friday we had here. I had just finished the first week of the new school year. I was drained, but pleased with the results of my new lesson plan. As I was leaving work, I got a phone call from Roong, asking me to meet her at the post office. I assumed that there was a registered letter, or some other such thing that I needed to sign for. No big deal, so off I went.

*Flashback* Last week, during an email to my Dad, I recall him saying that he was going to cut the grass that day. I remember saying that although I didn't miss cutting the grass, I did miss having a yard. Please keep this in mind as the story continues. Back to Friday.....

Upon my arrival at the post office, I notice my wife having what looks to be a very serious discussion with several men, most of which are in uniform and armed (guns out). When they saw me, things got very quiet, very quickly. The guy with the most medals snapped something off to the postal clerk, and motioned for me to go to him. He had an opened manila envelope in his hand, and proceeded to withdraw and hand me the one page letter inside. The note was a message from dad, reminding me of the grass email conversation we had the week before. Please remember, that I am the only one present with the ability read the note. After reading the letter, I looked at everyone like, "Ok, so what?". At which time the postal clerk dumped the rest of the contents of the envelope on the counter.

Dad had sent me a bunch of cut grass, as a joke. Hmmm..now let's think about this. What would happen if I sent about 2 ounces of dried green leafy stuff through the mail to the USA? Yup, the same thing. They were not amused. They asked me if it was marijuana. I told them I wasn't sure, and that if he would chase me up a pipe real quick, I would be happy to find out. They were still not amused. I explained what it was to Roong, who in spite of the seriousness of everyone else started giggling. She in turn explained it to the police. After a while, and much contents sniffing, they finally believed us, and we were allowed to leave. But, not without getting a severe lecture that luckily, I didn't understand a word of. And, the bastards kept my grass! There is no doubt in my mind that those clowns either tried to smoke it, or sell it within 15 minutes.

So, there you have it. Proof positive that you should "Just say NO", and shouldn't send grass through the mail. And Dad, a bit of Thai trivia, they can literally shoot you on the spot for drug dealing here, and next time, send the ganja to my school address, they never search educational material!

The Answer

On the first day, God created the dog and said:

'Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years.'

The dog said: 'That's a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I'll give you back the other ten?'

So God agreed.


On the second day, God created the monkey and said:

'Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I'll give you a twenty-year life span.'

The monkey said: 'Monkey tricks for twenty years? That's a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like the Dog did?'

And God agreed.


On the third day, God created the cow and said:

'You must go into the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer's family. For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years.'

The cow said: 'That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years.. How about twenty and I'll give back the other forty?'

And God agreed again.


On the fourth day, God created humans and said:

'Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I'll give you twenty years.'

But the human said: 'Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back; that makes eighty, okay?'

'Okay,' said God, 'You asked for it.'

So that is why for our first twenty years we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty years we slave in the sun to support our family. For the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren. And for the last ten years we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.

Life has now been explained to you.



There is no need to thank me for this valuable information. I'm doing it as a public service.


*Thanks Dee!

Grass Chairs

Is this brilliant, or what? Get ready for summer by growing your own grass chairs! Instead of wasting hours trying to decide on which matching lawn furniture set to buy, why not let nature do its job by letting it grow eco-friendly organic grass chairs for your backyard while you wait? No more of the annual scraping and painting. Now, all I need is a yard!

I am looking forward to retirement

Working people frequently ask retired people what they do to make their days interesting.
Well, for example, the other day my wife and I went into town and went into a shop.
We were only in there for about 5 minutes. When we came out, there was a cop writing out a parking ticket.
We went up to him and said, 'Come on man, how about giving a senior citizen a break?'



He ignored us and continued writing the ticket. I called him a Nazi turd. He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn tires.
So my wife called him a shit-head. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then he started writing a third ticket. This went on for about 20 minutes. The more we abused him, the more tickets he wrote.

Personally, we didn't care. We came into town by bus. We try to have a little fun each day now that we're retired. It's important at our age.

Teacher's License Update

Well, although it's still a bit gloomy where this is concerned, we did find some new info. With a letter from my school, I can get another 2 year extension. I have to keep taking those damn tests though to show that I am making an effort. This is a lot more than I can say for the Thai government. Roong found a Uni in Lopburi that offers a condensed teachers certificate course that will satisfy the Ministry of Education. It takes 9 months of going to school one weekend a month. Not bad, but it costs 60,000 baht. That's about half of what it would cost in Bangkok. But the catch is that they stopped the program due to lack of interest. There aren't many foreigners where I am, and most seem to have given up. I am searching for others that might be interested in the course because the prof. told Roong that he would re-open the course if we could get 8 students. We will see how that goes.

I have to get my visa renewed this month. I think we are going next Thursday. I don't look forward to sitting in the Immi. office all day, but I do get cheeseburgers. With all the fuss over education lately, I was looking online for free courses that I might be able to take to give me an edge on something. A surprising amount of places offer free courses. None of them give you any college credits of course, but I thought I might find a useful one.

I noticed that Brigham Young offered a few, so I looked at the list, and noticed that they offer bowling, beginner's swimming, and 300 religion courses. There's a lesson in there somewhere. I almost signed up for the swimming just to see how that works online.