PattayaClub

Contact the people at wish beer.com... They are not direct importers as I understand it but will certainly be able to point you in the right direction.

Interesting site. Too bad it's all so prohibitively expensive.

I vote for "Internet Happiness Freedom Plan."

You can use a lawnmower with a sharp blade to take the feathers off a pet chicken before stewing.

A fast death is a good one as far as meat quality is concerned. I hope you bled it out quickly.

Adrenaline also affects some meat. Making it more tender.

It's why in China, they often set dogs on fire and let them panic before killing them.

The panic based adrenaline rush affects the meat in a positive manner.

So perhaps setting it on fire, before killing it would have given it extra flavor. Plus perhaps crispened up the skin and juiced up fat.

Good heavens. Such a method would absolutely ruin venison. I have never taken a deer I couldn't get with a single shot to the head for precisely that reason. The last thing you want is a shot of adrenaline coursing through the meat.

On the other hand, I can see some merit in setting fire to a live duck that quacks all night.

From the NOTICE TO MEMBERS POSTING IN THAILAND NEWS:

Please use discretion in your references to the government. Phrases which can be considered as anti-coup will be removed. Referring to Thailand or the government as a dictatorship, military dictatorship or other such terms will be removed.

All I can say is: Wow!

Just cut off all the fat and render it. Throw the rest to the dogs. Taters roasted with rendered duck fat are to die for!

Hey, what happened to the post by Bagwain where he states he offers a whole house system that filters down to point 2 of a micron, with low maintenance and gives safe potable drinkable water to every faucet in the house and has fitted dozens of these systems around Pattaya.

I wanted to ask him more about it, specs, etc and whether he can supply references. It sounds like a good way to go if not too expensive. If you see this, Bagwain can you tell us more about it?

I know this doesn't help, but I have question for you. I previously studied the thread on PR, and have looked at the requirements on the Immigration website. One requirement that ha stymied me is three years of continuous employment in Thailand with a work permit. Somebody told me the other day that they had dropped that requirement. Do you know?

I'm not sure what redwood I have.It cost about 10,000bht for

7 doors and 7 frames.

I just got what I could at the hardware shop.

I got Berger wood stain in redwood color,there is very little English on the tin,I would love to know if it's the stuff with

Oil in it or not.I would love to know if I have to use varnish on it or not.

I got a gallon of clear Matt exterior varnish just in case.

I must wait till I get home and get the missus to read the can.

Sometimes DIY is a complete mistery in Thailand.

something wrong with that price. A single door frame cheap will be 600bt, but normally a decent h/w frame is 800bt. if you have 7 that should be circa 5600bt. The only door you can get for under 700bt is......thinking.....still thinking....possibly the crappy plastic doors..... but a hardwood door will cost you from 1900bt upwards.

What did you buy for10k.

The Beger stain is my favourite becasue its the cheapest and is available in gloss and semi gloss. There is no need to varnish when you are using gloss but personally I dont like the unpredictability of gloss stains they can be great or can look awful. I would first use a semi gloss or matt stain and build up the colour to your preference then clear varnish at the very end.

I agree. There is no possibility the vendor sold you mai daeng for that price. If he said mai daeng, he's either a liar or he stole the wood. Most door frames here are typically made from mai bradoo, sometimes called mai doo.

I normally use the semi-gloss, never gloss. I haven't been able to find the matt.

I'm not sure what redwood I have.It cost about 10,000bht for

7 doors and 7 frames.

I just got what I could at the hardware shop.

I got Berger wood stain in redwood color,there is very little English on the tin,I would love to know if it's the stuff with

Oil in it or not.I would love to know if I have to use varnish on it or not.

I got a gallon of clear Matt exterior varnish just in case.

I must wait till I get home and get the missus to read the can.

Sometimes DIY is a complete mistery in Thailand.

There is "Berger" and the is "Beger." Beger is a German brand (manufactured here). I suspect, though I do not know, that "Berger" is a deliberate attempt to capitalize off the well-known Beger name. I used "Beger," and it has Thai AND English on the can. I have seen Berger at Global house but have never bought it. I know the Beger brand. I had never before heard of "Berger," so am suspicious. I also boycott most products that don't bother to put English on the can. There are almost always other choices to be had.

I actually have some mai daeng in my wood stock pile, but have not yet used it. It is quite old. When I sliced into some to have a look, I was shocked at its beauty. Although I got mine from timbers in an old rice barn, the locals tell me the stuff costs an arm and a leg. If you truly did get mai daeng, it should have been quite expensive. I have been thinking about using some mai daeng for a cabinet or some furniture. Unfortunately, I have not yet used it nor tried to apply a finish. I have been told, however, that it is so hard that it won't effectively take a stain. I do not know if this is true or not. I do know that when it comes to sanding it, it will require at least twice as much elbow grease as you would need to sand the same amount of teak.

You might be interested in this interesting pinned link about Thai woods (some six pages of reference and discussion): http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/201757-local-wood-varieties/

This is an except about mai daeng:

Tree Latin Name: Xylia xylocarpa
Local Lao/Thai name: mai daeng
Trade Name: Pyinkado

Description: Even though a direct tranlation would work out as 'red wood' it isn't, neither is it rosewood. Pyinkado is actually the Burmese name trade name but it covers all wood in Lao and Thai. It is a VERY durable and tough wood which has twice the hardness of teak. Used for railway sleepers, piers and other sub-aqua purposes (15 years life untreated) also excellent flooring. With these properties it is also very heavy when green over 1000kg per Cum also hard to work. Added to this it's a very decorative pinky red in colour.

As for varnish, I have never used varnish in my life except for using some marine grade varnish on a front door in Alaska that got 16 hours of direct sunlight per day during the summer. I have always preferred an oil-type finish. That's not to denigrate varnish in any way. Frankly, I do not know a lot about it.

In any event, I would strongly recommend you go back to where you got the door frames and ask for some scraps of the same wood. Then experiment with it with sanding and application of different possible finishes until you find one you like. You shouldn't just jump into a permanent solution that you might discover doesn't work well.

A friend that is building a teak house filled with beautiful woodwork and he swears by Protego products: <http://www.protego.co.th/> There is a rep in Phichit: Chatree, phone 092-612-1969 He says the customer service, product quality and free consulting is unmatched.

I have never used Protego products. So far, here in Thailand, I have used only Beger Wood Stain on everything. I just bought some clear yesterday that I will try out today.

Let us know how it goes with the mai daeng.

By the way, termites won't eat mai daeng, which is one of the reasons it is (or used to be) favored for railway sleepers.

By the way, no.2: Beger 'wood stain is a stain and oil "all-in-one' product with a UV protectant added. It comes in many different stain colors including clear. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you about long tern durability because I have only had my earliest projects in service for a little over a year. But so far, so good. I have another friend who has built four houses over several years in Thailand and swears by the Beger products.

Just make sure the wattage.amperage output rating of the step down transformer is sufficient fo the appliance and you will not have any "burnt up transformer" problems.

Also many motors designed for 60 Hz run slower on Thailand's 50 Hz nd will suffer not only slower speeds, but shorter lives. Years ago, I brought my Milwaukee "Hole Shooter" corded electric drill over. That drill is a monster of power in the US. With the step down transformer, it ran sluggishly slow and had no power. I sent it back to a friend in the US.

I use a step down transformer with a coffee grinder every morning. I'm doing it because I couldn't get a decent consumer grade conical burr grinder here. It works great. But the slower you grind coffee, the better and a coffee grinder is never used for sustained periods. You may experience some serious power loss with the mixer, and it may not have the speed you need to whip up, for example, merengue. but you can try it. Just make sure the stepdown transformer's output rating exceeds 1,500 watts.

My stepdown transformer looks similar to the one pictured above and is a Simran AR-2000 automatic transformer/voltage regulator with a 2,000 watt output, available on Amazon US of $61.60US. http://www.amazon.com/Simran-2000-Continuous-Transformer-Stabilizer/dp/B000MX5PFU

Turn it off when not in use, as a transformer consumes electricity whenever it is activated, regardless of whether it is feeding an appliance. It is NOT a very efficient way to go.

Hahahahahahahahaha.......

And I repeat, hahahahahahahahaha . . .

I wish you luck my friend . . .

The best thing you can do is get a debit card on a foreign account that has no fees, like Schwab, and extricate yourself from the Thai banking system, which is riddled with fees.

TMB has a "no fee" account that you can use to make in country bank to bank transfers free. In my eight+ years here, I have learned, and no longer pay ANY fees to Thai banks.

If you want to be able to bring money in by ATM debit card with NO FEES and at the best possible exchange rate and be able to deal with a bank that has fabulous online access and service as well as an international toll-free number, open a charles Schwab Bank account in the US.

My goal was to eliminate all the ridiculous fees charged by all Thai banks and many US banks. I have done that with a Schwab account.

If you do it, it is best to use somebody's US address so as to avoid hassles with the Patriot Act and other money laundering paranoia banking rules in the US.

If you have ny questions, feel free to PM. I will not follow this thread.

Early this year we had exactly the same problem. Our bill was only about a third of a normal one. Afterwards I checked our meter daily and the numbers were not moving. It had clearly jammed. In our village, south of CM we have a guy who comes t the house and we pay the bill through him. He noticed it was very low, but said do nothing now, wait until you get next months bill. If it is still low or even zero then the man who issues the bill (a different person) will write on it telling you to report to the local office.

During that month I noticed the meter had freed it's self, the numbers had moved on. So when we received our next bill, it was only slightly down on a normal amount.

The last four months or so have been fine, normal readings. So basically we just ended up with one very cheap month.

So I would say check your meter daily to see if the numbers are moving, and then see what next month bill says.

I wish my meter would get stuck for a couple of months.

No great help to you Roger as I am in Buriram, but I learned to play bridge 30 years ago at Norwich Bridge Club in City Hall. Wonderful lady teacher Joan Trett.

In Thailand you should familiarise yourself with "Playing Cards Act BE 2486"

Dealing cards here is akin to dealing in Yabba!

Playing cards.pdf

Just to clarify, a lot of people think playing cards is illegal in Thailand. Not true. There are lots of places to buy legal playing cards (with the tax stamp) in Thailand. It is perfectly legal to possess them (with tax stamp) and play cards as long as not gambling is involved.

Usually ill-informed moderators immediately close topics on playing cards. Just don't discuss gambling with cards.

You say "redwood." that me be the color, but what is the species? Most doorframes here re made from mai bradu.

What brand and kind of stain do you intend to use? I had good l luck with Beger Wood Stain (oil and stain all-in-one). They advocate using a sealer if it is a high tanin wood, or if the moisture content is high.

You question depends on both the species and the nature of the chemicals you intend to use.

If you can't sand out the concrete stain, I am wondering how hard the wood really is. Stains don't often penetrate very deeply in a very hard wood.

thee are many wood treatment products available here, but I am not sure what you mean by "conditioner." You can get sealers, moisture barriers, etc.

Have seen this many times. Crossy and NeverSure have the correct answers. You can buy borax from a chemical supply house. Every major town has one. Just ask the chemistry teacher at your local high school where it is. Locations are often obscure and not well marked.

There was a lady from Cape Cod,

Who blamed her condition on God.

But it wasn't the almighty

who lifted her nighty.

It was Roger the Lodge by God.

Sorry, I live too far from Udon to take you up on your offer, but couldn't resist the limerick my dad used to regularly recite to my friend, Roger.

Yes their manners are terrible, yes they're rude, aggressive and don't know how to wait in line.

But they are swimming in cash, and they know how to get things done.

The West pays people not to work, pays immigrants not to integrate or work, pays State employees to barely work and keeps borrowing money it can never pay back.

Once the West was the great industrial power of the world, now it has to go begging to the Chinese to build its nuclear power stations and railways, and to buy its bonds, so it can go further into debt.

While we sink into debt China grows fat and rich.

They can do what they like, and they have enough petty cash to build one hundred 800km railways.

Doesn't sound like you have been keeping up with the business news.

Bangkok to Kunming is 1,221 km as the crow flies. Something doesn't add up here.

840km from Kunming gets us roughly to the Thai / Laos border.

Maybe the rest of it is the train line Thailand is planning to build . . .

Check your bill to see if the 165 baht was the product of an actual reading or some kind of an"estimate," in the event the meter reader did not make it around this month.

In any event, let sleeping dogs lie. If you don't spend your savings, you'll have the money to pay the giant bill if it comes it. Why go asking for trouble?

"Conflict-free democracy" is an oxymoron. There is no such thing. Conflict is an inherent part of all democratic systems and always has been. If everybody agreed, there would not even be a political process.

They have never seemed to understand this simple truth in this part of the world.

They make the determination by dividing the GDP . . . which assumes that every American gets an equal share. Baloney. When you factor in (or should i say factor out) the giant salaries and bonuses American executives are pulling down and look at the scraps and bones left for division among the rest of the people, the Pommies don't have it half bad.

Many years ago, I took an HTC phone in there for repair. The proprietary charger receptacle on the phone had come loose and it would not charge. The repair price they quoted was so ridiculously expensive (approaching the cost of the phone) that I dropped the phone on the floor, crushed it under my heel and walked out. I have never purchased another HTC product since. And I never will.