wpcoe

To continue my monologue, the non-loading of forum pages in Dragon continues at random times.  The other day mid-afternoon it happened.  It just happened a half hour ago at 4:30am.  I discovered it only happens for short period of time, too, something less than 15 minutes in duration.  Annoying, but livable First World Problem.

I guess I never gave it much thought, but I had assumed that a wildlife sanctuary would have some sort of fence at its borders to keep the wildlife from meandering.  Folks living near a sanctuary always need to be vigilant to fend off wild elephants, tigers, and whatever animals might be in a sanctuary?

Is the picture in the article of a recognizable building in Pattaya the place where the operation was done?  If so, I'm surprised she felt the place was dirty and not up to standards.  Although it is somewhat well-known to be expensive for foreign patients, I never heard concerns about cleanliness there.  

53 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Dog poo may actually be some of the cleaner stuff in the air here. It's organic innit?

Yeah, I never understood why folks got so upset about the high fecal matter content in the water off Jomtien and Pattaya beaches.  

I, too, am enjoying these grey and rainy days, but know from experience that I slowly lose my enjoyment after a few months.  The best for me is a pattern of daily rains, but only once a day for brief periods.

After living in a condo, and then townhouses, which had limited views of the sky, I now live in a condo with an unobstructed 180-degree view and enjoy watching the dark clouds build up and pass by.  This month a couple times the clouds were so dark they reminded me of snowstorm clouds.  The lightning shows at night are amazing, too, even out over the water.

On 5/13/2017 at 2:03 PM, Chivas said:

In laymans terms tell me how this works ??  How do I start etc. Not being pedantic but am guessing others than me may want to ask the same question etc..... Is it a Thai app etc etc

If you want step-by-step hand-holding, first tell us if you have an Android, Windows or Apple device.

If you just want a general overview: you download the Uber or Grab app like you do any other app from the relevant App Store on your phone.  Then, once you have downloaded the app, open the app and follow the directions.  It's not difficult.  You can check fares by entering the pick-up and drop-off point before you commit to ordering a ride.  Once you have committed to a ride (i.e. you submitted a request and you are notified that a driver accepted) you are supplied with the license number and make/model of the car along with a small photo of the driver.

I'd recommend downloading both apps (Uber and Grab) and when you need a ride, check the fare on both apps.  Sometimes one of them will have "surge pricing" in effect (rush hour pricing) which can be considerably higher, while the other is offering the regular (i.e. non-surge) pricing.

And, at Cholburi Immigrations they declined to accept my TM.28 when I moved back to Jomtien.  They only wanted a TM.30.

So, to the OP:   to cover all the bases, have a TM.7, TM.28 and TM.30 in your packet of papers.

6 hours ago, LennyW said:

It dries out very quickly in the heat and blows away in the breeze....

I hope that is not the reason.  If so, considering the overabundant amount of soi dogs, think of the amount of canine fecal matter we breathe in day in, day out.  

If an extension has expired a couple days and by some unfortunate coincidence the person is stopped by Immigrations Police on some search, would they be subject to incarceration and deportation for being here illegally?

13 hours ago, guzzi850m2 said:

 

Happy days for JIB, the tec told they might get 2 more stores in Pattaya (so 5 in total), one in the being build Terminal 21Mall and 1 in Central so they are busy as many Thais now also have their own PC's build to spec and they sometimes do +200k baht builds, the tec told me, but most are in the 20-30k baht range.

 

Good news, indeed.  When I lived in Hua Hin, they had a small shop but could order anything I found on their web site and it would be delivered within a couple days at no extra cost.   Where's the third current shop in Pattaya?  I know of Tukcom and Harbor Mall.

The Carl's Jr quality can vary a bit.   I quite like their Portobello Mushroom Burger, but it's not always the same.  Some times the sauce is moist and flavorful and other times, more like a gelatinous glue on the burger.  When the sauce is good it is quite good.  Come to think of it, it's been a while since I've had the glue version, so maybe they've tightened up QC?  I don't eat there all that often, maybe 5x or 6x a year?

When I lived in Hua Hin and followed the popular online forum there it was said by a few folks that when their regular mail man was ill or on vacation nobody filled in for them and the mail just piled up in the post office.  ISTR there was one situation where a mail carrier quit/retired/was fired and not replaced and local residents had to go to a room on the 2F of the post office and comb through a *pile* (i.e. unorganized mess) of undelivered mail.  Maybe something similar is occurring here?  

17 hours ago, shady86 said:

I would always look for a condo not facing main road, high floor and clear from future constructions. Anything other than these is recipe for disaster.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
 

The "high floor" part can be hit or miss:  sound travels up a building in waves.  When I lived in a mid-rise building on the 13th floor, road noise wasn't bad, but friends a few floors above heard the road noise much louder.

Okay, it seems someone enjoys tinkering with the forum software?

I switched from using the Vivaldi browser to Comodo Dragon, a Chromium-based browser.  Both yesterday and today at about the same time (1015am) suddenly links opened in new tabs wouldn't load in Comodo Dragon.  e.g. I would view a forum topic list and <right-click> to open the thread in a new tab, and the tab would load the page, then suddenly it stopped loading pages, just black rectangles in the four corners of the screen.  I would copy the URL from Comodo Dragon and paste it into another browser and the page loads properly.  Come back to Comodo Dragon and it won't load.

Yesterday when this happened, it self-corrected within a few hours:  Later in the day I was again able to open threads in new tabs in Comodo Dragon with no issues.

What is going on?

6 minutes ago, Langsuan Man said:

No, everything has to go through Customs, it is the fact that the "couriers" want quick service so they pay for the total value of the container's contents and then they split up the individual costs to the receivers and then blame Customs  

Interesting.  Never heard that before, but would explain why using courier shipments consistently see customs duties applied when similar/same shipment via post office avoids customs duties.

As Crossy, "computers are supposed to be zero duty but..."  To minimize the possibility of Thai Customs intercepting your shipment and imposing custom duties, "conventional wisdom" on the forum is to not ship the item(s) via a commercial courier like FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc, but rather by plain old USPS.  The couriers apparently are bound by contract to direct all incoming overseas shipments to Thai Customs, whereas the post office isn't.  It's still possible a mail shipment can be snagged by Customs, but experience reported here is that most shipments are not. YMMV.

19 hours ago, Golden Triangle said:

As far as I am aware this pedestrian bridge was always in the plans, you may remember that there was a bridge there before construction started.

 

The new crossing point (bridge) was always going to have lifts for the Blind and Disabled children who attend the schools on the other side of the Suhkamvit Rd from Soi Siam CC.

 

It really is about time the needs of the few are taken into account for once in this country. So if the tunnel stays shut while they do this then all the better in my book, and they can also get on with starting work on the next tunnel while they're at it. The sooner they start the sooner they finish.

 

And yes I live in Pattaya so this will affect me as well, but I don't give a flyin F***, 

A confusing part of the report is that the handicapped-accessible overpass is to be at the entrance of the tunnel.  If it were to be there for the benefit of the school, shouldn't it be where they built the brand new "regular" overpass with stairs on each end?  How many sets of pedestrian overpasses will there be at the intersection?

Don't forget to put the visa number in the appropriate space on the TM.6 form (arrival/departure card) that you get on the airplane.  Some people circle the words "Visa No." that are printed on the card to ensure that the Immigrations Officer notices it.

If you forget to put the visa number, the IO will probably assume you are entering on a 30-day visa-exempt entry.

22 hours ago, KittenKong said:

 

The Thai language is particularly loud and grating anyway, I find. Even the adults seem to shout rather than talk and I rarely have any trouble hearing them from dozens of metres away.

I've attributed that to the loud noises that Thais grow up with.  A person with partial hearing loss will often talk louder than necessary.  They usually don't realize that, of course:  neither that they have a hearing loss nor that they are talking louder than needed.

If you want to make an American PC Brigader ponder a mystery, ask them what "African Americans" are called on other continents.  

@lopburi3:  Thanks.  A Google search of allopurinol side effects of course exposed the very worst things it can induce, and I must admit it was a little concerning.

As far as I know, no one else in my family has had gout.

Next time I see a doctor, I should ask more about allopurinol in particular and gout in general.  My doctor when I lived in Hua Hin was specializing in gout, but now that I'm in Pattaya I need to find someone competent that I trust.

5 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

 

Dietary recommendations are to avoid or minimize: red meat, shellfish, alcohol.

 

I know you were summarizing the most probable causes that trigger gout attacks, but my latest one was from tuna!  Of all things.  I do see it listed now as a cause when I research, but it didn't catch my notice until now, nor had my doctor mentioned it.

I usually have one can of tuna a week since I love tuna salad.  About a week ago, I had a can one day, another can two days later and, bam!, swollen and sore big toe. The only thing I had between the two cans of tuna were pizza, garlic bread and spaghetti on the day between, so I'm pretty sure it was the tuna.  I'm going to cut back on my regular tuna usage for sure now.  

1 hour ago, lopburi3 said:

Are you taking anything for the gout (when it is not active)?  I has last gout attack more than 25 years ago and did not have to change eating much - just allopurinol use.

Are you still taking allopurinol?  If not, how long did you take it before stopping?  My gout attacks have been infrequent -- four times, ever, all within the last 5-6 years -- and I'm wondering if the potential side effects are worth it.  I didn't go to the doctor for this current bout, but the last one (the 3rd) the doctor made no reference to taking allopurinol.

On 5/9/2017 at 10:58 AM, MANICMINER said:

Both Ais and dtac now have unlimited 4g/3g packages. Here are the details:

 

http://www.ais.co.th/postpaid/4gmaxspeedunlimited/en/?intcid=getpage-en-header_menu-consumer_menu-postpaid_submenu1-netalways_package_submenu2-4gmaxspeedunlimited_submenu3

 

http://www.dtac.co.th/en/postpaid/products/go-no-limit.html

 

So it does not have to cost you a fortune. Your wife will probably want the Thai channels, which are free from various sites, including ilikehd. For western FTA channnels, you can use a vpn to access their channels from their websites.

11 minutes ago, johng said:

 

Not to say you're wrong,but I just cant believe they can offer truly unlimited 4g data at those prices
their network would have to have huge capacity....there has to be some sort of "catch" if not it seems like the deal of the century !

 

The AIS package is a a bit confusing regarding 4G:

"4G Internet can be used unlimited which no reduce speed, maximum speed 300 Mbps for all package."

So, 4G is unlimited at 300Mbps??? 

If you can't find one, you might call or send a message to Thomas at InvadeIT (http://www.invadeit.co.th/contact-us/) and ask him if/when he can get one for you.  In the past, he's been able to get me things that aren't on his web site.