Another great Thai plan...Haaaaa!

Ok, here's the latest on the school. They are adding on about 20 rooms to the school I will be teaching at. They have 6 weeks left. They don't even have the roof framing on yet. There is no way it will be finished. I had to go there today and have my photo taken with Jan, and Roxanne. It seems we will get to be on a billboard or two in the area. I am sure they see it as great advertising for the school, but it makes me feel like they are opening a farang petting zoo.

Anyway.... these shots are of the school add-on in progress, the boss and his wife, Roxanne, and Jan.

*Update: I guess I shouldn't complain about the billboard. We have 4 new students at our little school as a result of it. I will try and get a photo of it. It looks hideous! Haaaa!

When did "Badminton" become a sport????

Who, on god's green earth would ever consider badminton a sport? They take this thing verrrry seriously over here! Roong's Office sponsored a tournement between the offices. So naturally I had to go. Yeesh! I tried to get out of it, but I didn't have much choice. Roong's boss Kong was there. He used to be good at this game, but blew his knee out. I think it was a freak "shuttlecock" accident (SMIRK). Anyway. He's still pretty quick at it. The only thing worse than playing this sissy game, is getting whooped at it by your wife's injured boss (who still owes me for a decal I designed for his truck!!!!) .

Roong made it quite clear that I was not allowed to add "full contact" into the game plan. I did get to sit in the comfy chairs with the local parliment rep tho. That wasn't so bad. And I admit that there were a number of cuties scampering about on the courts. That was even less bad.

Roong has just been promoted to C-7, so there was a bit of attitude going on between the contestants. I didn't know that Buddhism came with "in yer face!" victory poses, but it seems it does. Anyway, Roong and Taa ended up placeing 4th overall. I hope for her sake, there were more than 4 teams playing. I couldn't tell.

The worst of this is that now Roong has decided she misses playing, and wants me to play twice a week. She says it will be very good for me if I play, and very bad if i don't. I am not sure she is concerned with my health here. ACK!

Goodbye Karaoke!

Steve and Joom have to go back to the U.K. for a month. Joom has to renwe her dual-citizenship visa, soooooooooooo Steve and I hit Bannok for a goodbye beer, and just to bitch about living in Thailand. Peter stopped by, which was great, because we don't get to see him often. Peter is from the U.K., and is kind of the local veterinarian. We did it on Monday, because there is this group of women that sneak off early every monday, and go to Bannok to get a bit wild. They love to sing and act silly, until about 4pm, when their husbands show up, and then it's back to the stone faced Thai thing. Also, we got the only known existing photo of Yui (she's the cute on in the white apron)! Thai's are a bit camera shy sometimes, but Yui is scared stiff of having her photo taken. The other girl is Baw, and that is Oy in the pink apron. Ead's dad was on hand to keep us out of trouble, Haaaaaa!

The Family Crest

Lately, to keep from going nuts, I have been digging into the family name a bit. I got into the Missouri census birth/death records back to almost 1900. I have found a few things (maybe), but nothing concrete. I am now waiting for some e-mail responses off of Brand family web pages and such. While I was waiting, I tried to design a family Coat of Arms that captured the real me. I like it, but Roong says there's no F'ing way she will let me paint this on the front door. Haaaa!

( She liked it better than the Velveeta wrestling and zuccinni jousting tournament idea though.)