TallCoolOne

First of all, deal with the negatives. You mentioned her condescending attitude and her lack of sweetness. Confront her on these issues and tell her what you want/need in a wife. If she's willing to understand and respect your needs, then go for it.

It sounds like a rational relationship, and I believe you have a better chance of succeeding as compared to an emotional or passionate relationship. Passion can lead to a passionate divorce. A real heartbreaker.

There's nothing wrong with a rational relationship, especially in the wake of an emotional disaster. A rational relationship can give you a lifetime of stability, as compared to an emotional rollercoaster. As long as you like each other and respect each other, and there's some basis for physical attraction, you can have a very satisfying time. When you want passion, well, that's what mia noys are for.

You've been with her for a while now, you know if you're getting along or not; also you will have detected any signs of severe mental illness by now. Tell her to knock off the condescending shit & treat you nice, and you'll marry her.

Worst case scenario: it doesn't work out, and you move on. If there's no great passion, then there's no great heartbreak.

The arrivals process at Suvarnabhumi gets many negative comments so I thought I'd post a positive one I had yesterday afternoon.

Arrived from Singapore on Cathay Pacific 25 minutes early, just two people in front of me at passport control, and luggage already getting dizzy on the baggage claim carousel. It was no more than 15 minutes from exiting the aircraft to passing through customs and onwards to the taxi stand.

I guess it could be down to lack of other passengers arriving (my flight was 75 per cent empty). If only all arrivals could be like this.

I've never had much of an ordeal getting through Suvarnabhumi. I don't see what people fuss about. I travel quite a bit, and I've definitely seen worse airports, slower, less efficient service, etc elsewhere.

It usually takes me about half an hour to get out of the airport upon arrival.

Leaving usually takes a lot longer to clear passport control in my experience.

Overall, it's a nice enough airport.

The hospital spokesperson was quoted as saying "the course of Mr Hermannweid’s rapid demise was consistent with infection by the Eltor-Okawa cholera bacterium that also causes severe diarrhea. However, the source warned that it was impossible to know for sure without a full autopsy."

First off, it's mispelled. It's El Tor-Ogawa, and it's a strain of cholera that is milder than other forms of cholera. It rarely kills people, and when it does, it's due to severe diarrhea, with vomiting being a somewhat unusual symptom. And if there were a strain of cholera that causes rapid death in 50% of its victims, it would be killing a whole lot more than this small number of people. By now it would be a major humanitarian health crisis.

At any rate, I think we can cross off El Tor as being the causative agent here.

It could be pesticide poisoning, as other posters have mentioned; the World Health Organization estimates that some 300,000 deaths occur in South East Asia from pesticide poisoning each year, though most of these are from chronic exposure over long periods of time.

Acute poisoning generally causes symptoms within 4 hours of ingestion, the sysmptoms often being:

Headache, nausea, dizziness, muscle-twitching, weakness, hypersecretion, miosis and pulmonary edema. Other symptoms can include: anxiety, restlessness, tremor, incoordination, vomiting, abdominal cramps, diarrhea, sweating, salivation, tearing, rhinorrhea, bronchorrhea, blurred or dark vision, chest tightness, wheezing, productive cough, tachycardia, hypertension, sinus arrest, toxic psychosis, confusion, bizarre behavior, unconsciousness, incontinence and convulsions

Death occurs from asphyxiation, caused by both fluid in the lungs and depressed breathing.

The trouble with diagnosing pesticide poisoning is that there are over 3,000 chemicals used in pesticides, so it's hard to narrow it down the specific agent from symptoms alone. Detailed toxicology is necessary to identify the specific agent(s), however a general diagnosis is made by checking the cholinesterase level in the blood or plasma, a 25% reduction below generally normal values being likely indicative.

Treatment is similar to what you would give for nerve agents, like in the military, because pesticides work in much the same way on the nervous system. Primary treatment includes opening the airway, and administering atropine (then, if poison was ingested, pumping of the stomach contents is necessary).

I hope people find this information useful.

Keeping your camera inside a closed camera bag when your not shooting helps to insulate it from temperature fluctuations such that the transition is more gradual. If you plan to go back and forth, just put the AC on a moderate setting.

Your camera may generally not survive as long in a tropical environment due to the heat and moisture causing corrosion, damaged seals, and literally mildewing/molding inside the body. I don't think extended warranties cover that kind of damage, therefore no point in paying for extended coverage. When in a tropical environment, ALWAYS put those gel packs in your camera bag to prolong the life of your investment.

A plastic bag doesn't help that much, because you have to take it out of the bag to shoot. If you put it into the bag while outside, then go to a cold environment, water will condense inside the bag. Not great. One of those underwater transparent housings might do the trick, but it will still degrade your image quality because the clear plastic isn't perfectly optically pure. You'll see a lowering of contrast in your images.

the shutter speed was too slow to freeze the movement of the waiter , and so his image is blurred.

if the shutter was open for , say , an eighth of a second , the waiter will have been moving during that time and the image of that eighth of a second of movement is what has been captured on the image.

when the flash fired , it illuminated the waiter to such an extent that his image during the flash (a lot shorter than the eighth of a second the shutter was open) is correctly exposed , whilst his image during the rest of the eighth of a second is underexposed and hence is seen as a blur or with a ghost like effect.

Also, notice that it's only the dark areas that have the 'ghost like effect'. It's because those areas aren't reflecting the light from the flash as much as the lighter areas, so they didn't get recorded to the sensor during the brief instant that the lighter areas did.

I suspect that your flash mode is set to Rear Curtain Sync, where the flash fires just before the shutter closes after a long exposure. This setting is normally used when you're shooting a city scene at night, and you want the cars to show up as streaks of lights.

Now that you know what happened, you now have the creative freedom to generate this effect when you want, but otherwise simply set the flash back to it's 'normal' (front curtain sync) mode.

I have about 50 rai in central Isaan planted with nice, healthy sugar cane which is just about ready for harvest (also have sweet potatoes and rubber, but that's another story). As I'm not running the farm directly, I have to depend on my farm manager's 'honesty' on how much money the harvest brings in. It would help if I had a general idea how much income I can expect to receive per rai in terms of tonnage per rai, and price per ton. My farm manager says the price for sugar cane is likely to be down this year, but that goes against what I've heard, as all over the world the price for sugar cane is rising due to increased demand for ethanol.

Anybody else out there growing sugar cane and care to share? Thanks in advance.

My Thai GF told me about one of her friends. This friend is a 32 year-old Buriram lady, divorced with two children from her prior marriage. She met a British man of about 35 years of age in a Pattaya bar and they became BF/GF. He returned home after a few weeks, and she returned to her village, where she promptly hired the local shaman to do 'black magic' so that her BF would give her all his money. Well, her BF is a taxi driver back home, so he's not a wealthy man, but shortly thereafter his mother dies and he inherits her house. Immediately he sold the house, and within two months he bought a condo for his new GF in Pattaya, and paid for a deluxe house to be built for her in her Buriram village. Additionally, he sends her 30k to 50k baht per month. Within six months they got married. A year later, I hear that she's terrible to him, and they're thinking of divorce. Now that she has his money.

No way to know for sure whether the 'black magic' was the cause, but he sure parted with his money quickly.

350k per rai is a typical rate for prime building land, as another poster already pointed out. If she seriously wants this land for agriculture then, at the least, she has no business sense, as it will take an awfully long time to gain a return on that investment - I don't know what jasmine goes for, but I doubt it's high enough to justify this - if it was everybody would be growing it, and on much cheaper land.

Typical agricultural land, with some sort of transferrable title, should go for 40k to 80k per rai. Agricultural land in her village can go for as little as 20k baht per rai with no title.

Anyway, she's either addled or trying to con you. Either way, it's not a good idea.

On the other hand, if she's totally serious about wanting to go into the jasmine business, and you feel like humoring your wife, then suggest a business partnership in which you have the say over which land, at what price, and you hold some interest in a long-term lease of the land. Also, I doubt one rai is enough to make a living on - like I said, I don't know the jasmine market, but if it's in line with more common crops, she'll need at least 20 rai to make a go of it.

It's much easier to just tell your sister-in-law you're not a complete idiot, and to quit bothering you. If your wife gives you grief about it, then she's in on trying to con you, too. Not really an ideal life mate.

Best of luck.