Gsxrnz

I have sent 40 kilos home a few times.

But her parents keep sending her back.

(Just kidding, sweetie, couldn't resist.)

My 40 kilos climbed into my suitcase last week as I was packing to go home for a holiday........I was tempted!!

Just remembered - I think there's one on the corner of Tai and Sai 3, and I know for a fact there's one on the corner of Soi zero at Jomtien 2nd Road.

But equally as sure there's half a dozen along Pattaya Sai 3

I had no problem getting my deposit but that was about 8 1/2 years ago when I moved out of the condo I was in

sounds like your mission to cause the workers a bit of grief worked, they have responded in kind

you should have gone with the flow, bided your time, followed the instructions, and then, if not refunded, arc up. You have done things in reverse,

Yep - he's using the "Ready, FIRE, Aim" methodology.

There's a floating market not far from the Siam Country Club, just off 36 and next to the Bira race track. It's called the Lake View Floating Market. It's 4 or 5 klms off route 7 - maybe you saw a sign from route 7? If you did, it gives the impression of being well north of Pats, but it's actually directly east of Na Klua. I think it's also signposted in Na Klua somewhere near the turn off to the crocodile farm.

Best way to get there without getting lost is take Route 7 at Na Klua (the road to BKK), drive about 12 klm and then turn right on route 36. Travel 5 klm to the Bira track and turn right there. It's 1 klm down that road.

Or............google it and take the dodgy roads all over the darkside to get lost.

Cheers

Bleteher - I've ben travelling so only just caught up on your situation. Best of luck Mate and hope you make a speedy and full recovery.

Don't forget that the only way to catch dengue is to get bitten by a mossie that has previously bitten somebody infected with dengue. The moral being that those close to you have a higher risk of catching it from a mossie that bites you while you're infected.

Avoid mossie bites while you're infected at all costs to reduce the chances of your friends or family contracting it from you (well, actually the mossie that bites you, but you know what I mean).

Keep your chin up Blether.

You probably want a Notary Public. There are quite a few all over Pats and Jomtien as I've seen signs for them, but can't recall a specific address. I do recall that there are some on 3rd Road between Tai and Klang. Just take a ride and watch out for the signs "Notary" or "Notary Public"

I'd guess you would also need a signed statement from the Notary stating that he has sighted the originals and can verify and attest that the copies he is stamping are verified copies of the originals.

You'll need your passport to verify your identity.

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I mean Jeez, even the spelling of liters and litres is up for grabs.

Naw, not really, liters is only used by people that don't use the litre.

That would just be Americans then?

I have a better, and dare I say, more practical problem:

I start drinking 80 proof scotch on the rocks, starting off with 2 nips over 6x 3/4" square cubes of ice, at an ambient temperature of 28 degrees Celsius. The first glass goes down in 5 minutes, and it takes the bartender 3 minutes to re-stock my glass. The 2nd glass goes down in 10 minutes, and the time to consume then increases by an additional 2 minutes each glass. After 8 glasses, I need to go pee, and figure it at about a pint and a half's worth. I've now got some company with me, and start ordering the same for them but they only get a single nip - the immediate ambient temperature raises a couple of degrees, and and there's now an additional 10 minutes between orders as I'm being a little distracted. After 15 glasses, how many pounds in total have I gained?

I'm not 100% sure, maybe only 5/8 confident that I could answer your question. But considering how much you drink, can I walk approximately 1.65 kilometres in your shoes, assuming they're a 44 Euro, or a mile in them if they're a UK 10 ?

Not sure how far I'd walk in a US 10.5 , maybe it depends on how many gallons to the kilometre they do.

On a serious note - considering we're in a country that uses metric with regard to the sale of petroleum products, and many of us come from countries that use metric, imperial, and US measurements, then provided you qualify the measurement you are using with a classifier, what's the problem? It's about as relevant and critical as saying the word "dollar" and leaving it open for interpretation. If you're from the US and talking about AUD, then you must stipulate AUD. Simple really.

I mean Jeez, even the spelling of liters and litres is up for grabs.

The real crime here is that she was 47.

@tywais apologizes,

It seems you are right even density from liquids changes with pressure. But the pressure has to be very high to make a significant change. Pressures like in the inside from the sun and black holes are examples. Under normal circumstances pressure does not have a significant influence on density. Different from temperature and % sugar solved in it

Please accept my apologies.

Back to my question in case a can of soda is filled with plain water at a temperature from 20 degrees Celsius and normal atmospheric pressure. What is the weight then in imperial units?

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

No as much as a pint of Guinness, to be sure, to be sure.........

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 &lt;deleted&gt; 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 ?