autonomous_unit

I have had luck in the past starting a "marriage visa" renewal process and then having additional documentation dropped at Suan Phlu within a week or two, during the under-consideration period. I think it depends on the whim of the officer and whether they want to like you that day. However, I think it is easier for them to process a renewal than a brand new application. So they probably would like to accommodate you if they can within the rules.

Give them a call or stop in and ask!

Considering the experiences people have had here, I'd expect the following if you brought in printouts with multiple photos on A4 paper:

1. The officer mutters, "crazy farang"
   
2. The officer cuts out the individual pictures or has a young intern do it
   
3. The officer pastes the cutouts back onto an A4 sheet
   

They might even be in a different order than they were to start with, but I wouldn't count on it!

Sorry, no. The requirement for foreign earned income is not that it was taxed somewhere else, but that it was earned by labor performed in a foreign location. It doesn't matter where it was paid, where it was reported, who else got their fingers on it, etc. The tax treaties aim to reduce this gap, but that is separate from the definition of foreign earned income.

I think the OP will have real trouble arguing that a severance is foreign earned. If it is considered earned at all, I think it is going to be attributed to the work performed over the previous period of employment. There are many forms of income aside from basic interest and investments which are still classified as unearned by the IRS. The OP is not going to get better or more accurate advice from us here, but needs a real expert if he cares to know for sure.

I have recently been using United between LAX and BKK. I was usually flying them via SFO and ORD prior to that. It seems to be a crapshoot whether I get a 747-400 or a 777 aircraft. They go via Tokyo Narita and have a decent lounge there if you have sufficient Star Alliance status. One nice bit is that you can make a multi-day layover in US cities and they treat it as a single international round-trip. I've done this for BKK-SFO-ORD-BKK, BKK-SFO-LAX-BKK etc. and it should work for east-coast cities too.

I am a frequent flier with them, usually on someone else's dime, so I don't really price shop that much except to use a local agent in Bangkok who regularly beats the online prices. Still, it is lately costing me roughly 74k THB for an upgradeable economy seat (round-trip). The lowest (non-upgradeable) fare is lower than that.

Almost every year we renewed at Suan Phlu, we have been asked for "new" photos. They do not want pictures of "the house" but of "the family in their home", including one showing the house number. I think these pictures are in lieu of a house visit by the immigration police. One time when we watched her rifling through the documents, it seemed she was comparing the photos to older ones in the file to make sure the new ones were new. She paused a few times, because our annual staged photos look pretty similar in the same house and furnishings.

I always select "Thai" in the language support list while installing Fedora onto the system. From looking at yum and rpm outputs, I think "scim-lang-thai" is the main package to install to get the equivalent function. However, I am looking at a Fedora 10 Preview system rather than Fedora 9...

If you are using the normal Fedora GNOME desktop, you can do this which is the same basic approach described by hegenious, but going through the system preferences menu to get there:

1. From the desktop menu bar, select System->Preferences->Hardware->Keyboard and a window pops up.
   
2. In the new window, select the tab called Layouts.
   
3. Click the Add button.
   
4. Choose the default entry for Thailand or Thai language, and click the Add button when the displayed keyboard looks right.
   
5. Now that multiple layouts are listed, click an item in the column labeled Default to choose your default layout.
   
6. Click the Layout Options button, and then click the small triangle to expand the entry called Layout Switching
   

You will see many different hot-key combinations and one should already be selected. You can change or add additional combinations to easily toggle between layouts. My wife seems to prefer "Both Alt keys together change layout". I don't know if that was a common Windows behavior here or why she likes it... see hegenious's post for how to add a panel button to change layouts via mouse instead of via keyboard...

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Which are...?

I believe our esteemed colleague is referring to the inevitably engaged exit orifice...

Who knows when I learned my eyes were bigger than my stomach, but it was memorable to learn my mouth was more desensitized than my a...!

Income paid by a US employer can be foreign earned income for a US citizen! People keep repeating this mistaken idea that it matters who paid you or where the funds were sent.

However, the important bit here is "foreign earned" which is figured based on the location of actual efforts. The first year abroad is also more complicated: your qualification criteria define a date when you are first considered overseas, and only the fraction of the year after that date can possibly have excludable foreign earnings. The annual limit is pro-rated for the days during your qualifying period.

Then, you can only exclude income that is "attributable" to days worked abroad during that period. It is not that relevant when you receive a payment, but when the work was performed. For example, consider two guys whose qualifying periods start on June 1. A guy who is paid on May 31 for the work he will perform in June can exclude that payment amount. A guy who is paid June 1 for work he performed in May cannot exclude that payment amount. You need very specific accounting to be sure you pass an audit on this topic...

I think the real questions for you are whether any of your income is earned after you leave the US. if you severance is really "paid back vacation", I think the date of earning would be associated with when the vacation days were accrued, not when they were cashed out, and even then only if they were a benefit accrued in relation to a period of work.

I gave it almost five years (2004 to present)... no, I was not happy living in Thailand. I am now in the midst of resettling in Los Angeles and suspect I'll be happy here, once my wife rejoins me. She's the only reason I ever went to Thailand, and she's the only reason I'd ever return there.

As for why, I guess there's no better way to say it than that I could not acclimate. To the weather, literally, but also to the culture, language, etc. I felt that I was retreating into myself instead of thriving. I don't have any animosity towards Thai people or Thailand in general. There are parts of the USA where I'd probably feel just as out of place, but I was never forced by circumstance to live in those parts!

I reached what felt like a clear turning point this year, where I realized I had to choose a future path, because the status quo was wearing me down. At our ages (under 35), I cannot think about retirement but instead still have to worry about how to feel productive and secure. So I quit one western job and started hunting for another. (I am not really employable in Thailand.) When I found a suitable job opportunity, we decided to reverse our migration (we moved from Los Angeles to Bangkok in 2004...)

Boy, replying here makes me feel like I'm stalking Mobi! Once again, following my father's health (which seems to have similarities to Mobi's) and reading up on things, I saw that throat clearing and choking sensations are also a common symptom that seems to accompany diabetes.

But in Thailand, particularly Bangkok, I think there are also a lot of folks with unhappy sinuses and the post-nasal drip can lead to frequent throat clearing...

A good source of information is Federal Voter Assistance Program which has a way to dig up rules for any state.

As a general rule, you have to register to vote using a US address but this is your "voting address" and does not imply actual residence. If you ever lived in the US, your voting address/district is the last place you resided before leaving. If you never lived in the US, your voting address is your parents' last address. I am not sure where the esoteric rules go if your parents never lived there either...?

As far as maintaining your non-residence, make sure you check the right box for living outside the US indefinitely, and consider whether voting in local state/county issues may affect your status. I don't know whether there are traps/gotchas there, and say so since people seem to be worried about this issue on the thread. Voting in the federal elections does not imply state residence.

By the way, I used the FVAP forms a long while ago and received a "sample ballot" from Los Angeles County just recently. I don't know when the real ballots will be sent out.

My wife and I are mid-thirties, and I'd say we live in Bangkok on less than 40k THB/month which includes my mother-in-law most of the time (maybe even less, but I don't keep close tabs). But our lifestyle must seem ascetic to some folks here. Most meals are home-made, and we don't have any servants, just like when we lived in the US. I include in that amount a wild guess at a housing cost, because we bought a house at a bad time and perhaps would lose 25% on it if we had to sell today. So I amortize that loss over the three years we've owned it.

But I completely understand the voices of caution being argued here, regarding a decision to relocate. For my own sense of security, I find our situation just barely reasonable. We are able to basically live on my wife's take-home pay (government job) and can save away all my (less predictable) earnings for the future. So, I never was on one of these expat packages, but could afford to run my own consulting business with overseas clients and try to keep my skills current (there isn't even a market for my skills here locally). At my age, I have to consider the opportunity cost of being here, rather than on a good career track back in the US. If I drift too far off, doors start closing.

The discussion about education costs is worrisome though. If those figures are accurate, and if we were to have kids, it sounds like we'd need a serious rethink of our situation!

Thanks for the answers. So the end result of extending first, then renewing the passport, would leave me with a normal length extension through next October on the new passport? If so, that sounds good...

This is just a follow-up question or two with specific details that affect me. My US passport is due to expire in July 2009, and my Thai permission to stay expires mid-October 2008. To top it off, I have to travel in and out of Thailand frequently over the next few months, making any extended period without valid travel papers unbearable...

Can I apply for the passport renewal at the US embassy in Bangkok, and then travel between Thailand and the US while the application is pending (travel on the old passport)? Or do they retain the old passport during the renewal processing? It is difficult for me to arrange a 2+ week stay in Thailand at the moment with my work schedule.

On the other hand, what is the process for renewing the passport in the US while retaining my Thai permission to stay and re-entry permit? Can I just re-enter on the old and new passports together, or would I have to go to the Thai consulate to get stamps transferred? My next stay in the US may be 3+ weeks, so I could probably use expedited local service during that visit. However, it makes me very nervous to be away from home (Thailand) and not in possession of my passport and visa to get home!

I think I have the option of applying immediately for the renewed permission to stay---and then traveling during the processing period, or applying on my next arrival right before the current one expires, e.g. apply in early October before mid-October expiration. Is that correct? So far, I've always applied nearly 30 days in advance of the expiration... Will my annual extension be complicated by renewing a passport during or after the extension process? Will they stamp my existing passport with an extension of stay that is valid later than the current passport's expiration date, or will I wind up having to get it adjusted post-renewal?

Why isn't anything ever simple?

I feel for your plight. When I was in university 15 years ago, I did have to write many lines of scripts to get a dial-up SLIP or PPP connection to my school's systems on Linux. But that was because I had to write a custom "demon dialer" to try to get a (data) word in edgewise between all the other competing students who were clogging the lines.

But in the four years I've been living in Thailand, I've only ever used the Fedora GUI network manager to configure a new GPRS/EDGE connection on my Thinkpad using my Motorola phones via USB. I don't even remember most of the gory PPP configuration file formats from years ago. The only mysterious bit I needed to learn was the funny dial string and modem initialization string to type into those boxes in the "new connection" wizard. I learned those, in general, via google about eight years ago and then only had to update them with the new gateway values for each telecom provider ("internet" for AIS, versus "www.dtac.co.th" for DTAC, etc.)

The single biggest obstacle in migrating from Windows to Linux, in my opinion, is trying to take the Windows culture with you. That culture is expecting to get a random piece of hardware and chasing down the "driver disk" from the hardware manufacturer, and fighting with Windows until it works. I've been amazed at the amount of effort Windows users will put into trying different versions of drivers etc. before abandoning a piece of hardware on Windows. All of this follow-up effort instead of doing a little research BEFORE buying the hardware!

On Linux, to the contrary, the experience is usually all-or-nothing. Most supported hardware is supported immediately, or not at all. The only exception is brand new stuff that may take a little time (months) until support is added, when there isn't some other reason blocking the support, such as really uncooperative hardware vendors. Therefore, experienced Linux users will not have questions like, "how do I get this new thing to work with Linux?", but rather "what piece should I buy that is known to work well with Linux?"... if you can learn to do your research beforehand, instead of after, moving to Linux is not nearly as distressing. Only very Linux-savvy individuals should ever take the risk of trying new hardware with uncertain support status, e.g. because they are able to (and willing to) work with developers to add new support.

I think fungus is involved in destroying the foam rubber in humid conditions. This is when you see the soft part turn into crumbly, sticky bits. It also happens to the foam that surrounds the cone on some audio speakers. I also had a messy surprise when I took out an internal-frame backpack from storage and found the lumbar pad had turned to dust inside its nylon mesh cover.

I don't know what causes the glue to come undone, but I've had a pair of training shoes and some Teva sandals come unglued so the sole just fell off, without showing signs of foam crumbling away. We took them to a shoe repair place and got them glued back on good as new for a very low price.

We bought ours from a small back-corner shop upstairs in Pantip Plaza in Bangkok. I don't really know where else they are available, but we just stumbled across this one that had them on display, including some APC boxes stacked in the walkway.

Second rule - if you have everything, at the whim of the officer a new requirement will be invented to force a return trip.

If cost is not an issue, you could always combine a normal APC or other UPS and a small Linux PC with a GPRS Internet connection?

The usual APC UPS with the USB monitoring cable are supported by the apcupsd daemon on most Linux distributions. You can check the status of the UPS from the command-line or from scripts and then make it as smart as you want, i.e. only send an alert after the power is out for a certain minimum duration and/or the battery level is below a certain point.

I've never tried to control a phone to send an SMS, but you could bring up a GPRS link and send email or do any other sort of client-server interaction you wanted. With a cheap pre-paid SIM you could get a plan that will not expire for a long period but doesn't cost much to keep on standby, only bringing up the GPRS link when alerts are required. Or, for more sensitive monitoring you could get a better rate plan and have the box periodically send notices even when things are OK, so that your own machine could determine something is wrong when the notices stop arriving...

Good luck.

Red Hat and Fedora had some big intrusion into their servers and took lots of stuff offline last month. I think what you are seeing is the natural result of the disruptions and the shift of attention by the projects to reviewing their status, rebuilding servers, and making sure the event did not turn into a compromise of all our end-user systems (by distributing tampered packages or updates). Looking at a major mirror site, I don't see any Fedora 9 update packages dated newer than August 11.

You can read more on the Fedora project wiki, which includes links to their emailed status messages about this unusual event.

The internal Thinkpad modem is a "winmodem" which requires software drivers to do most of its work on the CPU. In all my years of using Linux on thinkpads, I've never found it worth the trouble. I used my mobile phone via USB instead.

If there is a way, it is probably documented on Thinkwiki which is a great resource not only for the use of Thinkpads with Linux but Thinkpad hardware maintenance in general. Good luck, and Godspeed.

Well, when I mentioned naam manao, I was thinking of the fact that it is traditionally sweetened and salted. You don't really need the citrus but it makes it easier to drink sweet salt water.

Another option is Gatorade or an Asian equivalent, or one of the rehydration salt packets from the pharmacy that you mix with water. (It's essentially what Gatorade contains... some sugars and salts in a good ratio for replenishing lost fluids.)

What is available here and very cheap are simple step-down transformers. I.e. 220V 50 Hz in and 110V 50 Hz out, just from some coiled wire and a hunk of ferrite core (and a fuse, if you get a reasonable unit) . We went to the Ban Moh shopping area near Chinatown in Bangkok. Most of the modern US electronics will tolerate the 50 Hz input just fine.

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Extras - I'm extremely tired to the point I can't motivate myself to work. Also, I'm not losing weight even though my calorie count is around 800 - 1000 per day.

This part confuses me. Are you trying to lose weight? Are you very small/petite? This calorie count sounds like a starvation diet to me, but then I am a big guy from the US...

Along with seeing the doctor, have you considered more basic issues such as dehydration or electrolyte imbalance? Particularly on such a restricted diet, I'd be worried about not having enough beverages in the Thai climate. That's my first instinct whenever I start to feel run down here... I get some fresh naam manao or an actual "sports drink" with salts and sugars. When that works for me, the effect is very immediate, perking me up within 20 minutes or so. But I also encourage the doctor visit... I have no idea if there are conditions where these beverages could be detrimental.

Assuming you don't have to pay import duties on your shipment and it won't increase the shipping fees appreciably, why not throw it in? I threw in our very old US model Yamaha 5.1 surround receiver and lots of speakers when we moved four years ago. It has served well enough as a home theater that I never bothered purchasing anything locally.

It will cost you less than 1000 THB to purchase a step-down transformer. I think we paid around 800 THB for a 400 W model, but several years ago.

On the negative side, our transformer makes a noticeable hum when switched on (actual vibration, not electrical noise). However, it turns out that I don't notice it nor the media PC fans once the air-conditioner noises swamp them out. My biggest acoustic complaint is that the Thai building materials lead to lots of echo and reverberation which kills sound quality. However, with the climate I do not want to fill the room with sound damping furniture or rugs since they would also absorb moisture and stink over time. I just accept that I cannot have a really high fidelity listening experience.