gk10002000

the rules are vague and ambiguous.  I have been on flights where an 8 year old was allowed to run around and bump into everybody that was sitting on an aisle row.  Stewardesses did nothing.

well at least he was not playing bridge for points with friends.  The nerve of those criminals.  Or playing pool or darts while having some drinks at a pub that you went to because they had a dart board and a pool table. 

I would go tomorrow if it were allowed.  But so much will depend on what they require.  Some sort of medical certificate?  Test result? Hard if not impossible to get here in the USA before travel.  Testing not to mention getting to one's doctor is far from trivial, especially if working on the road as I am away from home. 

  So issues are or may be:

1:  Can one even buy a ticket with confidence

2:  What type of insurance if any is needed for say a 60 day SETV and subsequent 30 day extension

3:  What type of medical certificate or test may be required?

4:  Will enough hotels and pools and beaches and bars and clubs and zoos, and parks be open and able to support tourism?

Don't get what?  Most of the people around the world do not understand or transmisson or the actual death causes. This virus caused no more deaths than several flu seasons in the past have.  Flattening the curve is one thing, but it does NOT change the total area under the curve.  The same number of people will be infected and my suffer, but over a longer amount of time.  Shutting down economies will kill more people in the long run. 

  The old and weak will die and would have died from  pneumonia, flu, etc.  Cooped up in nursing homes being kept alive well past the time the human body evolved into.  Recirculated air, no sunshine, no exercise, industrial food, nothing fresh, etc,

  Obesity, hyper tension, horrible diets.  Look at the state of Mississippi.  Sure the focus was on the supposed disproportionate number of black people that suffered, but it was not because of the things I mentioned above, compounded granted by lower income on average, worse medical care, etc. 

  Masks do not stop the tiny micron sized airborne virus particles. Masks only stop some spittle and some moisture but that is not the only thing the virus particles are on.  If you took clean room training such as that for ultra hi tech 10,000 clean rooms or higher you would understand. 

  Horrible lack of testing which in itself would at least give good statistics.  Sadly testing is so sporadic in the USA.  No firm data, no idea what the test actually shows. no idea how long the virus is contagious once a person has it .  Just a mess

  Eat better, stay fit, get fresh air and sunshine and remember the boy scout Motto "Be Prepared".  The crowded cities and cramped apartments of course increased frequency of contact and amount of viral loads.   Look at the data from any USA state and you will see most cases even by percentage in the large cities. 

19 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

You did not answer my questions. They are common sense questions. 

You are free to do what you want.  If you are so sure, are you going to invest in the downside?  Of course not.  Stop trolling and run along. 

1 minute ago, spidermike007 said:

Not even close to being accurate. How many family vacations do you really think will happen this summer? How many Americans traveling to Paris? The only thing that will drive demand this summer will be more use of air conditioning. And most of those will be powered by power plants using a mix of renewables, coal, and some natural gas (38%). BP might tick up from it's current levels, but do not count on a big jump anytime soon. 

what do you know is accurate or not?  Your opinion is no more valid than anybody else's

On 4/23/2020 at 10:18 PM, NCC1701A said:

it was completely static for at least 30 minutes while i waited for my food.  

And hot and humid.  Temperatures will boil over soon

On 4/23/2020 at 12:50 AM, spidermike007 said:

Oil prices have dropped to record low levels. Even with taxes taken into consideration, pump prices should be at least 20-30% lower than we see right now. PTT and the feds are making a fortune on this historic drop in oil prices.

 

Others, who saw this coming, have been making a fortune too. Though jobs will be lost, there will be very little sympathy for big oil, over this price drop. I also have no sympathy for the US airlines, who were price gouging to a ridiculous extent before all of this happened. Overall, it is a very good thing for the average consumer, and it is happening at just the right time. Much help is needed, as hundreds of millions of low to middle income people are getting crushed right now.

 

Once things open up, I would imagine travel might be quite cheap, for the first 6-12 months. 

I am paying less for gas per gallon for my car than I can remember,, well not entirely true as I started driving in 1973 and remember 29.9 cents per gallon at the Merit self serve gas station in East Providence Rhode Island!  Funny thing is on this contract job in New Jersey I am only 4 miles from work and  with the shutdowns, there is no traffic and literally only one redlight to stop at sometimes on the way to work, and no place to drive to or go to after work or on weekends, so I am not driving much, the grocery stores and take out food joints are on the way to and from work and I am putting like only $30 a month of gas in my SUV.

I know why the price dropped, it is because I bought $60,000 US of BP a few months ago at what I thought was a good price and solid dividend.  I collected one quarter's dividend, sold some covered calls and things were looking good.  Now it is down 30% on paper value.  I won't sell it though.  The USA demand will pick up as the summer time rolls around. 

2 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

You'll have to explain that one to me.

Person who wais first is socially lower ranked.

I know that.  That is why I want to make it similar to a handshake.  No rank necessarily with a hand shake, except maybe who makes the first move, if somebody does the two hand politician grab, etc.  The idea is just to recognize and acknowledge the other person without physical contact. 

I will say that I have no problem with doing away with the physical hand shake when meeting strangers.  yeah I grew in the USA and the firm handshake not the wimp fish thing, but I have come to appreciate a simple Thai style Wai (without the social ranking connotation) and I have no particular desire to shake and hug or kiss each other on the cheek as the Italians, many Greeks and other cultures do.  yes that is often with known friends or relatives but I think it is one of the reasons Italy got hit so hard.  A combination of too much close contact and a lot of elderly people

Just now, Denim said:

 

Wow , you know how to treat a woman like a lady ! Fine dine them with haute cuisine.

Oh yes, nothing but the best.  The funny thing is they are the ones that recommended it!  It was just around the corner and just a place to go for a few minutes during the day while they shut the shop down for a break.  I would have never thought of it.  Oh and after hours I take them to the places at Big C.  They liked the soup pot place more than the Thai bbq place. Even did Karaoke one night at some hole in the wall I could not find again. That was kind of fun and they seemed to enjoy it.   Their shop was not very busy and they were nice.  It was up near that Pink Hotel off of Soi Yume.  Rattakin I think was the name? In Pattaya.   I gave them business every day, sometimes would catch a nap in one of the reclining chairs, or watch the Korean soap opera with them that was popular at the time.

I bought a fine reliable digital thermometer several years ago. Not expensive, takes about one minute under the tongue.  The IR scanners are suspect. At work, we are scanned each day before allowed in.  They used to use a gun, now they use some app on their smartphone!  As an IR (Infra Red) test engineer, I would not rely on that smart phone too much.  Sure it has IR sensing capability, and it seems to be looking for one's face and the fore head and it prompts you to stand close, but I doubt the IR scanner or array is really only reading your forehead.  Not to mention the whole presumption that the forehead temperature is an accurate reading of the body temperature,

The temperature taking is dumb.  One could easily have been over the virus or asymptomatic yet still carrying it, not to mention there are many reasons one may have a temperature.  Now if one does have a temperature it of course is probably a good idea to stay home, as one has some sort of bug, but i no way does it mean one has the COV ID 19

9 hours ago, smedly said:

taking a temp is not testing 

Yes the article headline is grossly wrong.  The text of the article says screening, while the title says "tested".  Methinks this will explain the low COVID 19 numbers.  

  Now even if they were testing, what would they do?  If the test (and there are several out there) checks for antibodies, than it just means you had or are carrying the virus, and nobody knows for how long you did that.  So you may have been exposed two months ago.  And no test I have read about can indicate if you are still possibly contatgious or not.  Most "experts" seem to think that after two weeks you can not transmit the virus.

I always carry color photo of my passport ID page and any relevant visa stamps wrapped up tight in saran wrap.  Since 2004 never had to produce it. But I have heard and read some reports  lately they have been requiring the actual passport in some  some places, such as Pattaya for example where they have checkpoints between sections of the city

Seems like different places have different types of burgers.   In Thailand I would take the girls from the massage place down to 7-11 now and then just for a break.  They turned me on to "Burger Kung" the frozen shrimp burgers there.  Pretty good junk food for a few baht.  And the good 7-11s have fresh tomatoes, lettuce, onion for topping there.  They had Pork burgers, chicken, burgers, too.  I kind of like the late night street stand burgers all over Pattaya.  Two or three stools to sit on, girl turns on the grill, throws on the frozen patties.  Fry up some french fries and a coke.  Good food? Nah.  But sitting outdoors in a foreign country 11,000 miles from home, well it is part of traveling.  Some of the stand girls are good conversation too.  Or take the burger "take away" as they say, chill back in the hotel room after a day of adventure, catch up on some internet news from home, or whatever. 

5 hours ago, Almer said:

Interesting that they stress non air conditioned may be able to open, slanting towards the theory of heat and humidity again.

Maybe, but I think they may be alluding to central air con places that can cause problems i.e. the old Legionairre's disease vector

13 hours ago, Boomer6969 said:

So only "Street food", don't think I've ever eaten in a "non-air conditioned" place in Bangkok. Sad joke again, I am sure there are places with AC systems that produce an air much safer than outdoor Bangkok.

Central air con is dangerous as dirty air, mold, dead bugs in ductwork, etc gets blown around and re-circulated.  But so many restaurants and hotels use ductless Air Con which are the cleanest general type.  That is one of the things I liked about Thailand.   Later this year I will be putting in one or two units in my place in Florida.  I like the redundancy they have, i.e. one unit could fail and you still have another to keep things habitable until you get things fixed up.  The air source is clean. 

58 minutes ago, josephbloggs said:

Come on, have you used Suvarnabhumi?  Do you really think they would have outdoor baggage collection in a new satellite terminal?  And then people have to walk back to the main terminal for customs?

That is under the terminal where the baggage handlers unload the bags off the plane and put them into the conveyor system - it is not a collection area.  

yes I have used that airport well over 30 times.  As far as what I think is irrelevant.  What the Thais do is what is relevant

mask customization on the rise.  Styles, colors, etc.  Just waiting for more masked crimes though