Gsxrnz

you aint kidding, my fork springs are starting to go now too.

I'd say before you start getting too involved in evaluating tyre performance, might pay to get the springs looked at. Better suspension will let your tyres perform properly.

Less than optimum springs will give you a totally different feel and performance with whatever tyres you go for. I don't mean the ride, but serious braking and cornering performance can be majorly affected. In fact, give me a dodgy tyre on good suspension, or a good tyre on dodgy suspension, I'll take the dodgy tyre combo any day.

The pre-load and sag can't be trusted, and the compression and rebound won't be able to perform satisfactorily if the springs are dodgy. Nothing worse than heavy braking over a bumpy surface and the compression and rebound are fighting each other because the spring can't respond fast enough.

It's also a recipe for a tank-slapper if you're accelerating with WOT and the front ends a bit on the light side. If the front tyre comes slightly off the ground or just becomes light and hits rough surface on getting firm contact...........can you say, ejector seat!!

It's a bit like riding one of these.

As an afterthought, you may want to clean the rivet spacings on your discs as well. These get clogged with brake and general dust and lose the ability to float freely, often leading to the impression that the tyre pressures or suspension need looking into or even major shudder. If the discs cannot float, feedback is very confusing. I just use a degreasing spray and an appropriate sized shaft inserted into the rivets to move them around. If they can turn, they're generally free and will float. Take off your callipers and tie them out of the way, don't want degreaser on your pads!

I know a bloke that sold a perfectly good bike because it apparently had warped discs and he had major shudder under braking. He didn't want to shell out for new discs. All it wanted was the rivets clearing so the discs could float - I gave them a thorough clean after I bought it.

Suspension settings and tyre pressures - the two Black Sciences of motorcycle racing.

make sure you get one that has the post in the middle, the ones that dont will tangle up your cloths and will be a tremendous pita when you pull them out.

Have you tried tying them in knots before you put them in the machine to see if they get un-knotted?

Here is my tried and true household appliance purchasing method. Not yet patented, but am considering doing so.

Go into the first appliance store you find, go into the particular department of the appliances you wish to purchase and go "Eeeny, meeny, minie, moe...........I'll have that one please!"

This method saves an inordinate amount of grief comparing specifications and prices of <deleted> that really doesn't matter anyway.

This is an early April 1st stunt.

By definition there is no such thing as an overweight truck in Thailand.

If you can get it on the truck, you're good to go.

Most of the assumptions from posters thus far are that you would be an owner/operator. Your latest post implies that you will be purchasing either an equity shareholding or possibly a partnership. My response is based on the equity shareholder proposal.

The returns you can anticipate are therefore as an investor as opposed to an owner/operator. Normally, shareholder returns (dividends) cannot be guaranteed because they are determined by the financial position of the company, including profits, cashflows, future capital investment, business expansion, working capital etc.

Valuing a small business (for equity investment purposes) is actually more difficult than valuing a public company. The principal reason being that a public company regularly has willing buyers/sellers that trade the stock on the sharemarket. Whilst the share price may not represent a true/fair value using any one of a many valuation calculations, the fact that the shares trade is indicative of the fact that there is a trading mechanism that allows the willing buyer/willing seller to trade their shareholdings.In a privately held company you don't have that luxury.

You therefore have to determine the likely returns (dividends) you can expect, plus any potential capital gain/loss on the initial investment and do in-depth analysis of the financial and business performance of the company as though you were actually buying outright. You have to be aware of qualitative and quantitative aspects of the business.

This is not a simple task and you can use many methods, but unless you understand the principal of discounted cashflows, EBIT, EBITDA, working capital etc, you're kind of screwed if you try and get too technical beyond your financial knowledge.

HOWEVER, I am assuming that as this is an existing company run by owner operators that have owned the business for some time, they will/should have adequate financial records that allow you to make some rough assessments of the basics. Further, if they are seeking your equity to expand/grow the business, they should have detailed budgets and forecasts that show the logic behind their growth plans.

If they DON'T have detailed budgets containing details of customer base growth/demographics, charges, income streams, detailed expenses/overheads, profits, taxes, cashflows, capex, dividends etc and simply verbally mention random numbers and "great expectations" of profits.......RUN FOREST, RUN!!!! Reason - if they themselves don't truly understand their business and don't have this level of business skill, they won't be too bothered about looking after your equity investment. They don't need to worry about returns to an equity investor, because YOU are paying your money and taking your chances. They can take their money in wages/drawings.

However - if they DO have detailed budgets, go through every single expectation they have for income and expenditure. Probe, question, interrogate!! And then do it again and again. It really isn't rocket science once you get into it. For me, I would expect a return that represents the risk-free cost of money, plus the risk return that any investor wants. Risk-free value of money for me is say 5%, and I want at least 10% on top of that for the risk.

Assuming the forecast shows a return to shareholders of X Baht, and you're happy with that return, go for it. if not, keep your money in your pocket. Beauty and value are in the eye of the beholder - only you can decide if the returns warrant the risk. So you MUST understand the business and you MUST understand and believe their business forecasts.

If they haven't got forecasts - walk away. Why would anybody invest money with somebody who doesn't have a roadmap. And a final point - make sure you discuss your exit strategy. I'm assuming you don't want your money to stay there forever.

Good luck.

Contrary to most comments on this thread, my recently turned 4 year old can recite and recognise all the characters of the Thai alphabet as well as the English alphabet. She can write all the English letters (big and small) perfectly, and does a fair representation of most Thai characters.

Her idea of fun is tracing around the Thai characters in some learning books to become more familiar with writing them. I've learnt over half of the Thai characters by default because she pesters me to help her all the time.

She's also responsible for helping me master my spoken Thai as her ability to relate Thai and English words with actions or situations is just uncanny.

The trouble is, the parents of Thai children rely on the teachers in their school to teach them how to read and write. Sure, they learn spoken Thai from their parents, primarily, but I can't imagine those poor peasant parents buying their kiddies books to show them how to read and write!!

OK, so you have learnt to write about half of the Thai letters - what about all of the other aspects such as the vowels, numerous peculiar rules, tone marks, special letters and definitive rules for ror reua and or ahng, not to mention consonant clusters etc:

Knowing how to write 50% of the consonants is fine and dandy but it isnot going to get you very far is it!!

The fact that I've learnt to recognise half of the Thai characters was not the point of my post, it was merely an aside. I used that analogy to show how enthralled my 4 year old is at learning - I soaked up knowledge because of her hunger to learn. As a further aside, I have no intention of learning to read or write Thai, so proficiency in the finer points of the written language that you highlight have no particular interest for me.

The point of my post was to point out that if given some encouragement, Thai children can easily learn two languages and have some written proficiency at age 4, just as our children can (and do) in the west.

Your first paragraph is on the money. And if I can draw parallels to my own country, the literacy level of Maori children in NZ is well below that of Pakeha (NZ Europeans). The main reason being lack of encouragement from their parents because of their general lack of appreciation of the need to be educated - that's a broad brush observation to a complex situation, but I think satisfactory for the sake of this discussion.

There was basically no education system in Thailand until post WWII - I haven't time to google the details but I recall that as being generally correct. Until that time also, it was normal for women to be topless in their everyday lives, thus showing how backwards (terrible word) Thai society and education was at that time.

The parents and grandparents of many of the current school age children were and are therefore illiterate or maybe only semi-literate. My wife's parents aged in their late 50's are illiterate. This is similar to developments in the west - my grandparents were born circa 1890 and they were only semi-literate. Education in the UK raced ahead after that generation and my parents (from working class backgrounds) were educated by the State and were obviously literate. My old man got me interested in crosswords as a kid, and it's a hard habit to break!

My opinion is that Thai education with regard to literacy is therefore a generation or two behind western cultures. Future parents will be generally better educated and with the aid of technology, I suspect the current and next generation of Thais will leap ahead in the literacy stakes. Just my humble analysis.

It is possible to enlighten a Thai person about an error or omission without actually causing them (or you) to lose face or become embarrassed - normally resulting in the problem being solved or resolved with mutual happiness. You must give face to them in order for them to return it to you. Returning it to you means the problem is resolved with no need to admit or confess that a mistake was made in the first place, even though everybody knows that a mistake was made. It's all about the exposure!

<snip>

Mate, I didn't have any likes left at the time ... great Post Gsxrnz BTW.

When I was pushing the issue, I remained calm and never aggressive at the time because of exactly what you were referring to.

I was hunting for an apology from the Hospital for the stuff-up and, after all ... we are all human.

More importantly, I was looking for a free service from the Hospital as a lot of their work is labour based thus having no intrinsic cost.

They held their ground there also ... no problems.

Options exhausted, we both took a backward step ... some give from her side ... some also from my side.

We both walked away happy, face saving and smiles all round.

I think that the gf will get better service next time ... and we will discover if my assessment of the situation is correct this Saturday ... because that's when she's back for that specific test ... and a few others.

I'll report back what happens.

Cheers David and best withes to your SO for Saturday, hope it all turns out for the best.

Go to a tailor and have one made, very simple to do if you show them a picture and let them fill it with foam balls.

Yes and they can make a bag that goes inside to hold the balls, a lot easier to wash if the balls are in a separate bag.

So that would make it a ballbag ?

I suspect he might be Cambodian.......

"The airliner “was not damaged” by this stunt, the report said straight-faced, though the same could not be said about the Russian’s shorts."

You have to admit is it funny writing.

Makes you wonder what would have happened if he actually managed to get his donger out and peed on the undercarriage. Flight delayed another 3 hours while they jack her up and whip the spare out of the boot.

Good for them! Their names don't sound too Russians by the way...

What's in a name? Traditional Australian names are things like Benjara, Yarrah, Karruah etc but you generally hear of Smith, Ngyuen, Mustafa, Quan etc.

What happened to Bruce?

Well I am one of them (Bruce), but contrary to common opinion there are only a few in Australia, and we are still considering a class action against Monty Python. Those bastards have a lot to answer for mate!

Probably more Bruces in NZ than Aussie. There's a truckload of Bazzas (Barry) in Oz but!

I hear Barry is now only the second most popular name in Australia behind Mustafa.

Can I go the opposite way. When I was a school teacher, the Head of the English department retired, the new one was a young teacher, and she told me to use a different teaching method, and then she explained what she wanted, I said OK, tried it. and told her that in my opinion it was not working. I asked her if I could go back to the original method explaining why. She said OK, go back to your method on Monday. Thais would say she lost face, but I say she never. What she did do was earn my respect.

Actually, that's not how I would interpret it. You gave her face by accepting her alternate teaching method - your alternative was to dispute her proposal, thus taking away her face. In effect you also gained face for not disputing her proposal and causing conflict.

She returned the face that you gave her by letting you revert to your former methods - notwithstanding the good or bad of the two teaching methods, her decision was aided by the fact that she owed you a favour in face.

Nobody lost face, the problem was rectified.

If you had disputed her proposal from the outset and taken her face away, she would have had no option but to gain face by insisting that you do it her way. And if that had happened and you later told her that it wasn't working, she would have no choice but to say her method will remain in place, thus gaining the face originally taken away from her.

It's a game - games have rules, and rules can be manipulated to best advantage.

OP - if I were you I'd use your 1,000 baht to open a Thai bank account and have money wired to you from home.

The chances of your new card arriving by 4 Oct (or at all) are slim and then you'll have trouble activating it or maybe get it swallowed again.

Relying on a single foreign card in Thailand (or anywhere really) is dicing with danger.

The reason I was using this card was that I had nearly emptied my Thai account buying electrical equipment, I still needed some more cash. Money is automatically sent to my Thai account every month, next payment around 4 October.

I didn't put in the wrong code as I got the 5000 Baht I requested as well as a receipt.

OK - sorry, your OP implied that you sole access to funds was your foreign card and that the replacement would arrive on 4 October.

OP - if I were you I'd use your 1,000 baht to open a Thai bank account and have money wired to you from home.

The chances of your new card arriving by 4 Oct (or at all) are slim and then you'll have trouble activating it or maybe get it swallowed again.

Relying on a single foreign card in Thailand (or anywhere really) is dicing with danger.

OP - thanks for the post. I'm going to be in a similar timing position with reporting and visas and re-entry permits when I return in October, so I'll be sure to write the re-entry permit number on the card.

Funny thing is, I don't ever recall writing a visa or permit number on the arrival card before and didn't even know there was a slot for it. Obviously I'm not too observant.

Never had any problems although once one of the officials said something like "retirement visa expires on dd/mm/yy, right?" Maybe he was confirming what he thought.

Anyway, thanks once again for your timely post.

That's approximately 102 cases, and 136 arrests per day.

I find it hard to believe the Pattaya BIB could be this active in between ripping off motorcyclists and drinking coffee. They probably included parking tickets in their statistics gathering, if indeed the numbers are legitimate.

Why do you say ripping off motorcyclists? It is the LAW to wear a helmet.

Well ripping off a motor cycle was exactly what a Pattaya Police Officer tried with my wife's Yamaha Fino.

Luckily by the time my solicitor had finished with him his face was more melted off than just lost.

calimotty - can you give us more info? May be some lessons for us if he actually tried to nick the Fino.

Do you use 6-8 tablespoons of MSG in your cooking or RotDee (a msg flavor enhancer) found in all foods here? I have found the only thing that gets to me is the msg. Otherwise I suggest your issues are in your mind. You believe you should be getting sick as kitchens and cooking standards are not what you need.

Let's not turn this into an MSG thread - I'm neutral on MSG, but you have to be joking if you think food safety standards here are safe. Even the stench of "off" meat products can be smelled at the big supermarkets that can't be named.

As for the open air markets. A western food hygienist would have kittens if they were asked to monitor the standards.

As a matter of fact some friends and I discussed this very issue recently after one poor sod was confined to his condo for 5 days with "chronic everything syndrome". He emerged a pale comparison of his former self. He put it down to some dodgy BBQ chicken bought from the market. We hypothesized the potential lifecycle of said chicken:

Day 1: Killed (un-hygienically) and maybe transported to market to be displayed in the open air with no refrigeration or insect control other than the plastic bag on a stick waved by a 6 year old. Or it might sit around the chicken farmers yard for a day before being transported to market. Regardless, it's sitting in a tray of floating salmonella juices that smell putrid even to the hardiest soul. And all the Thais pick through it with bare (unwashed and been to the bog three times already) hands, wiping said hands on a rag that has never been washed and is stiff with bacteria.

Day 2: Wasn't sold on day one, but maybe (or maybe not) stored in an box of ice, along with pork, prawns, livers, fish, and lord knows what else. To be displayed yet again in the open air as on day one.

Day 3: Wasn't sold on Day two, but still good to go. Wipe off any blow-fly larvae.

Day 4: Wasn't sold on day three and vendor thinks maybe it might be getting a bit dodgy after 3 or maybe 4 whole days sitting unrefrigerated (never mind the 2-3 days of open air 32 degree plus 2-3 nights at say 4 degrees in the icebox), so decides to either sell to a fried/BBQ chicken vendor on the cheap, or fry it himself for re-sale. Maybe it will be sold, maybe not. If not sold, no need to store in an icebox over night because now it's cooked.

Day 4: Fancy some chicken on a stick and some khaow-niau anybody?

Whatever the lifecycle. They would never throw it away. That is part of the problem. Even been to quite an expensive restaurant where you expect it to be different and took one bite out of a burger, and I almost hurled. They must know when something is bad. Do they care? Not in their nature. Making a sale and losing that cistomer for life is much better than throwing out 1KG of rancid burger meat.

Klubex - you've got that right. I had a steak once and the first piece tasted a bit strange but was camouflaged by pepper sauce. Had a second forkful and things were decidedly not right. Scraped off the sauce and put the plate under a table light - the &lt;deleted&gt; meat was green! I like my steak mature but this was extreme. Haven't been back to that place again - but the worst feeling was knowing that I'd eaten there dozens of times before and always thought the place looked reasonably well managed.

Do you use 6-8 tablespoons of MSG in your cooking or RotDee (a msg flavor enhancer) found in all foods here? I have found the only thing that gets to me is the msg. Otherwise I suggest your issues are in your mind. You believe you should be getting sick as kitchens and cooking standards are not what you need.

Let's not turn this into an MSG thread - I'm neutral on MSG, but you have to be joking if you think food safety standards here are safe. Even the stench of "off" meat products can be smelled at the big supermarkets that can't be named.

As for the open air markets. A western food hygienist would have kittens if they were asked to monitor the standards.

As a matter of fact some friends and I discussed this very issue recently after one poor sod was confined to his condo for 5 days with "chronic everything syndrome". He emerged a pale comparison of his former self. He put it down to some dodgy BBQ chicken bought from the market. We hypothesized the potential lifecycle of said chicken:

Day 1: Killed (un-hygienically) and maybe transported to market to be displayed in the open air with no refrigeration or insect control other than the plastic bag on a stick waved by a 6 year old. Or it might sit around the chicken farmers yard for a day before being transported to market. Regardless, it's sitting in a tray of floating salmonella juices that smell putrid even to the hardiest soul. And all the Thais pick through it with bare (unwashed and been to the bog three times already) hands, wiping said hands on a rag that has never been washed and is stiff with bacteria.

Day 2: Wasn't sold on day one, but maybe (or maybe not) stored in an box of ice, along with pork, prawns, livers, fish, and lord knows what else. To be displayed yet again in the open air as on day one.

Day 3: Wasn't sold on Day two, but still good to go. Wipe off any blow-fly larvae.

Day 4: Wasn't sold on day three and vendor thinks maybe it might be getting a bit dodgy after 3 or maybe 4 whole days sitting unrefrigerated (never mind the 2-3 days of open air 32 degree plus 2-3 nights at say 4 degrees in the icebox), so decides to either sell to a fried/BBQ chicken vendor on the cheap, or fry it himself for re-sale. Maybe it will be sold, maybe not. If not sold, no need to store in an icebox over night because now it's cooked.

Day 4: Fancy some chicken on a stick and some khaow-niau anybody?