gk10012001

For Youtube I love movies from the 60s or 70s. Remembering the fashions, the language, places I used to live, etc. Matt Helm movies, In Like Flint. And so many songs and music from the 60s I had never heard. I listen to Thai Radio all the time. Love it. https://radioth.net/ I watch the streaming live High Stakes Poker now and then. I don't play those high stakes but I do play and have spent many hours in the casinos in Los Angeles that broadcast those. Finance wise I am pretty set on the path my equities are on (dividends and income) so I pretty much don't have a need to move things around. But I browse Morningstar for details, watch bloomberg online when my cable package does not carry it, I play free poker online. Would never put real money in to those crooks. I probably can't post that site but a few hours a week is interesting. I even play a free slot machine now and then. Again never put real $$ in. House hunting for my retirement home or even a rental investment I typically start with Zillow because their search features are pretty good. Then if I find a property I find the redfin has more information such as crime, flood, noise ratings etc, for a property. Sadly, Zillow is often not that up to date and propertie sale or not for sale status is a bit suspect. And of course I scan Thai Visa for Thailand updates, and Youtube for some of the daily news and often watch and listen to the Thai News, Thai PBS etc. I like the language

you know, that is so true. The man who became my very best friend came down with a buddy of his, who was a friend of my co worker. I got them a room at Tunica MS casino. I thought the guy was weird. But the more we talked I learned about his background, his time i Vietnam, his engineering background similar to mine and we had worked on the same projects with the Air Force. He was also an MD. I learned so much about life, finances, responsibility, etc. from him. OVer our 15 years of contracting I got him probably 6 jobs and he me a few. We often bunked together to save money, shared a hotel room, shared an apartment, crashed at each other's places between gigs, etc. he and his wife are now retired and have 22 acres up in Egmont BC. There is no way I would be as well off as I am today if it had not been for Mr Doug.

I am not aware that America is self destructing.. yet. Changes are afoot for sure. Previous minority groups are now a very large portion of the population and they are electing persons to office and setting policies that some don't like. Welcome to the election process. The courrupt politicians have not changed much and probably never will. The national or local election issues are strange, that's for sure. Sad we can not do a solid verifiable online voting instead of all the machinations, polls closeing, gerrymandering, etc. Race issues are not new and I doubt it will be going away. Immigration... is a tough one. most countries have strict immigration policies and if thousands showed up at their borders it would be considered an invasion. I was a young teen during the Vietnam mess. But amazingly not that much was actually taught in school to us at the time. So my real time memories are jaded with what I later learned. The recent divide is COVID and Biden and others literally trying to criminalize people that do not have vaccinations. And now mandating under penalty of termination to get vaccinated for millions of Americans. But at the same time, exempting groups such as the US Postal Workers. Lawsuits are hitting the courts and time will tell. I have friends starting contract work at Electric Boat. Only 50% of their current workforce is vaccinated. Biden and the advisory committee seem to be saying all workers and sub tier contractors must be vaxed by Jan 2. Good, bad or indifferent, these mandates are causing a lot of strife between workers, agencies, families, etc. I find it irrational that vaccinated people are so worried about unvaccinated people. Are they doubting their own vaccines? When they go shopping, they have no idea who at the market or the mall has been vaccinated so forcing it on co workers seems ineffective. I made some calls and could not find any JJ vaccinations available all up and down Florida from Orlando, to Daytona to Melbourne, to Palm Beach. All the pressure is to get Pfizer or Moderna, and I checked dozens of websites for availability and not one that said they had JJ actually had it when I called several CVS, Wallgreens, Publix, and a few private pharmacies. Sounds like a money and market grab and maybe time to look at PFizer's books. Remember a few years back when Congress took the Oil companies to court to collect windfall profits? Is Pfizer making piles of money off of this? Due to the nature of the issue, I bet nobody will question Pfizer. Electing a very old person to President may be becoming too frequent. Senility and dimished capacity is a big issue.

You got it. One greek ethnic to another. My grandparents all came from Greece! Im back in Melbourne FL still house hunting as I just retired and am debating when to head to Thailand and how much time I will spend in the states, etc. Wierd having free time and no work schedule

yes. The thing is bigger than I wanted for carrying purposes, but frankly the big screen makes it easier to see things, to type, etc.

slim chance your computer's cmos battery is kaput. That will mean the computer time will drift anytime it is turned off. Check on that also?

click on the time display down in the tool bar. Look at the settings. The words vary a bit from windows versions. You can synch it to windows, time.windows. com. Or you can change the time manually. It would be odd if the server(s) in Thailand are all wonked up all the time since internet time is pretty common inside most Ethernet packets

You got that right. I miss chatting with many of my co workers. We shared similar backgrounds. Some of us were in the Military together or stationed at the same Bases or facilities or worked on the same defense projects. And having a security clearance it is cool knowing some things or going to places that are off limits to most. Many of us really did work on important or critical defense programs. I have been on submarines, worked on satellites, worked on the F 15 Anti Satellite program, Ballistic Missile Defense, and so many other things that are really interesting. Kept the brain active. Now, having had some time off between the last two gigs, it is becoming an education on what I will need to do to keep a little bit busy and enaged in things. I have seen so many retired people just waste away. Others, such as Hans Bethe, the great physicist, my god he kept on going and loved it until he was 95.

I estimate from what I have read that at least half or 50% of the expats the last 10 to 15 years skipped health insurance and that was OK for most routine things. Setting a broken bone was not a big expense. Even getting an appendectomy was not a huge expense. Some made out OK. Others not so. In this day and age no health insurance is a big risk in my opine. Especially since people in general are living longer, the chances of some serious illness or complication, cancer, heart attack, surgeries, etc. increase. I hate the health insurance industry (I live in the USA), but for the last 40 years once I left home, I have never been without it. I have never ever needed it, no surgeries, no nothing so I have spent a pretty penny on nothing and the premiums are only going up! And I don't get any credit, or cash back or anything beause over the years I changed carriers, had different employers, had a few years in the Air Force etc. Now in a few months I will be switching over to Medicare, which is not that cheap if one has any substantial income. But at least I know the premium costs vs. MAGI (Modified Adjusted Gross Income), so I can plan my tax bracket and my IRA withdrawals to keep my medicare premiums as low as possible.

20,000 heart disease related deaths a year. Jan 03, 2020 · In Thailand, from 3 January 2020 to 3:36pm CEST, 28 September 2021, there have been 1,581,415 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 16,498 deaths, reported to WHO.

Sheeseh 11 AM? Sun in his eyes? My Dad owned a lounge in the states when I was in High School and College. Best deli food around and daily specials. When I worked there all those years, literaly every day, about 1030 AM the locksmit from across the street was sitting at the bar, just like Norm or Cliff from the TV show Cheers.

Well, my money really was made in just the last 17 years. I was flat out broke, literally jobless and homeless at one point. But I had outs. I was an ex air force captian, I had job experience, I had a BS and MS degree in engineering and math. So I stopped screwing around. Now my net worth is 1, 145,000 and that is not fluff. My credit balance is 0. I have no loans, no debts. My investments earn just over $60,000 USD a year. I can push the button now and start my Social Security and get another $30,000 a year. As for saving, well, I learned that the sooner I started the monies and dividends and interest would start compounding. Wish I had been smarter a few years earlier. Anyway, what's done is done. Some of my engineering contracts paid a ton. Last year in New Jersey, just when I had retired from Northrop and was heading to thialnd, COViD showed up. At the same time my agency called me and said $135/hour and there would be 1400 a week split tax free per diem. JEsus. What a windfall. $4,000 a week paychecks. So a great year that easily doshed me up and was wortho two or three years of work. My typical engineering contract jobs paid me $80/hour on average with some tax free per diem split out. YEs I had to work away from home, and over the years have worked in 18 states, no bull. Just the way things happened. I always maxed out the 401k at work. Usually no matching contributions as a contractor but the last 3 years with Northrop I was a direct and they put in 6 % of my pay which was OK with me. I also, thanks to part of my pay being tax free I was usuallya ble to contribute to my ROTH IRA outside of work, or about 6 or 7 k a year depending on the limits. My monthly expenses averaged about 3,000. I own and drive a 2008 KIA. No loans. I pay rent at my home in Florida while away but it is pretty small but necessary to mainain residence there. While on the road sometimes I have to pay like $2,000 a month in an extended stay furnished hotel, but such is the cost of doing business. Sometimes I shared a furnished house when in California and that cost me about 1200 to 1500 a month over the years. It was risky to rent an apartment with a least because sometimes the contract jobs end suddenly so I have to eat rent costs. Bottom line, is I was lucky to have a background that got me good paying gigs. And in between the gigs, I would jet off to Thailand. When it was easy to travel, visa exempt on arrival, no notice 30 days, often extending an extra 30 days and then return to the states for the next gig. So since my first trip in 2004, which was the same year I got my life and fianances on track, I work, break, go to Thailand, break, work, hang in Florida, etc. Now have a pending gig in Connecticut starting Oct 25. It's a coin tosss if I will take it. I probably will, and work 10 more months. One final dosh up until I turn 65 next year, start USA Medicare, which will lock up my health insurance costs. Thailand should be in better shape next year, and that will fit my timeline. Although I am tempted to jet over there now and hang out. It is good to have options.

Yes and that is very true for many people. Working, paying taxes, lousy weather, etc. can wear one out. Thailand living, while some may turn their nose down on it, can be better than most would believe or accept. The only problem now adays is old age, cost of insurance, etc.. The moat around one's life can be filled with many alligators waiting to take a piece of you! I think I reached a fair compromise. Damn COVID ruined Thailand in many ways the last few years so I worked a bit more. Luckily I was underworked and over paid! So things are OK. Be well

Amazing isn't it? That somebody belittels another person's life choice, and name calls them "greedy"

Wasted a year in a locked down place, sitting around doing nothing but watching his mind turn to mush? Don't you act like you know what is right for him or anybody else.

It is people like you that reason irrationally and make stupid hasty generalizations. you use the word greed. You assert I wasted my life. Maybe I enjoy my career as an engineer working on state of the art Aerospace projects. Look up X-47B UCAS on the internet and youtube. Maybe I enjoy being around educated, mostly literate people with which one could have conversations with. Maybe living in Northern San Diego and still being close to friends in Los Angeles with so much to do was good. Maybe I have seen more people run out of money in retirement and had to live in attics and basements, live in their reclining chair, unable to go anywhere, do anything, afford anything. So don't you dare criticize or assume you have any right to belittle my life choice. Had I gone to Thailand, well, then what? The darn place was shut down. I see nothing wrong with doshing up, spending a fine year in San Diego, then New Jersey while so much was locked down, and locking up retirement. Life isn't perfect. Now at 64 I am totally solvent and right now, am house shopping for my retirement home in Melbourne Florida, and as soon as that is put down, and I get one house mate in from Nothrop, I plan to head to Thailand, assuming they make some better travel restrictions

Some have posted that they were never asked to show it. Me personally do not yet have a workable smartphone or plan, but I did buy a MOTO G7 power, 2019 just in case and at a good price. It works with wifi right out of the box. And I have been able to download some apps such as a compass, and a few other things. My plan if I go to Thailand in November is to bring that phone with me. I am debating which carrier in the USA to change to as I have to get rid of my old 3g voice and text only phone. as for the app, I found it on the play store. I did not download or install it. I do not know what that no devices thing means on your phone

If I had punched out early, i.e. three years ago, I would have been right on the edge of being comfortable and not worrying about the future. For various reasons, mostly COVID, I kept working, got some huge windfall engineering gigs, and my social security has gone up by 7 % each year. So current expenses and future look like a sure thing... knock on wood. That Thai baht drop since 2004 of course was drastic for many.

Over 60 now. I guess I can imagine 3 x 21, but at the current prices I hear, my wallet might stay put

Yeah. I have encountered the issue often. It did not kill me.

well, percentage wise the odds on my 15 trips have been pretty good for running into some odd jobs. One Thanksgiving while I was eating at Tequila Reef in Pattaya, this black guy asked if he could share the booth and I said sure. The place was a bit crowded. He could not stop bragging about who he knew, how connected he was, and if I needed any recreational drugs, etc. I don't do any of that so I was polite and just quickly finished eating and left. Another time, as I got off the bus from BKK, this American guy, maybe in his late 20s startet talking to me. His accent, similar to mine gave him away as from New England, Boston area. A few minutes in and I get the sob story about wallet lost, will take a few days for money to be wired from home, etc. He said his hotel had no issues and was letting him stay but he needed some spending money. Now I have traveled in every state in the USA and having once been broke, I will usually give a guy the benefit of the boutn. So I gave him 2000 baht which is plenty to eat for a few days. I figured if I get it back, great. If no, well, I get karma points. So I told him I was at the Flipper and give me a call in a few days to pay me back. Surprisingly two days later my room hotel phone rang and he was in the lobby. I said, great, you have my money I will be right down. He said, no money yet, but wanted to know if I wanted to go out and eat. So much for that. I suspect some of you may have run into that middle aged skinny Indian guy on soi bukhao that used to hit people up with a money story. Heck, one year, he hit me up on both of my trips. He did not recognize me. Every now and then I had some good chats. One American was an overseas worker and we were chatting at the old FLB bar on walking street. It was October. He was hanging out a few more months to qualify for overseas tax exemption on his money. His GF was nice and my GF and her seemed to chat quite a bit. One other guy was a chip runner from the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles California. Me and my buddy both went over to say hi to him and it turned out he was broke and begging. If nothing else I learned early on in my travels there to not be stuck and always have access to funds if needed.

Well, I was 47 when I went to Thailand on my first trip. young 20s were within reach. Now at 64, well, that opens up a wide range, as my needs are modest. Too young and you probably will find you have so little in common, such that any conversation is tough except for routine fun stuff. You may find that is tedious to put up with no matter how sexy or fit the girl is.

"Bars, nightlife, nightclubs, karaoke, gentlemen clubs, gogos, entertainment, etc. remain shut. So do waterparks, arcades, pool halls, amusement parks, anything alcohol-related, snooker halls, etc." I think many tourists would miss some of those activities.

I too prefer the beach and have stayed in Karon several times. Of course turning around and looking up and seeing the Big white buddha on the hill top really is quite surreal. No idea on the eatery choices at the moment since I have not been there since 2019. Loved the place about midway between Karon and Kata that had 4 or 5 restaurants on the left side of the road as you walk towards Kata. Phuket Town .. eh. small shops street after street. A big night market with eating stalls but they are a dime a dozen in Thailand and nothing was unique. I don't shop for stuff so did not do much for me. I did take the ferry from Phuket Pier to Ao Nang once. Gosh what a pretty scenic trip as you motor past little islands

Also any building supply store should sell copper flashing or copper. Not rare to be used for chimney or other uses around the house, copper ceiling tiles, etc.. not rare in houses or restaurants.