PadPrikKhing

I'm in Thailand (from the US) on a 45-day visa-exempt entry that I got a 30 day extension for. My current stamp expires December 17th. But this is a relocation, not a vacation, and I have a load of belongings on a ship coming here and due around January 13. Due to a dumbass mistake wherein I lost my debit card in an ATM, my intended business with a visa agent to obtain a Non-O (with bank workaround... please don't judge me) could not take place because I couldn't gather the 28k baht in cash within the needed time window, as I couldn't use the ATM and my bank then sabotaged me by sending a replacement card (that I spent $112 having rush shipped to me via UPS!) which they instantly shut down when I tried to use it (long story, but basically being in Thailand keeps triggering their anti-fraud systems despite that I pounded the point home to them when opening the account that the account was going to be used from Thailand and that they need to be aware of this so that they wouldn't do this exact thing to me!). I finally got money sent to me by a family member, and I have a second replacement debit card arriving in a couple of days that I will activate more carefully with a human bank rep on the phone to try to prevent them from doing that to me again. But now my window of time to do the Non-O is closed (because I believe it can't be done within two weeks of stamp expiration on this kind of entry---please correct me if that's wrong) and my only choice is to do some kind of border run to get another 45-day stamp and more time to get together with a visa agent and get the Non-O process rolling. I'm looking at doing a border run with one of those companies that drives you to a crossing and back. I will be in Chiang Mai in a few days and am looking at possible ways of doing it. There is a company called chiangmaivisarun dot com I'm looking at using that does a run to Huay Xai in Laos, but I'm also willing to fly somewhere from CM, stay a day or two, and then fly back, but it looks like the ticket costs for anywhere I can think of (Vientiane, PP) are too high. Any recommendations on how I should do it? Thanks for any help.

No, I had not thought of that really... thanks for the idea. I'll look into that as well.

Hi all, I've rented a condo in Jomtien, and now the really hard work starts of trying to get what I need to outfit the place. I am planning to make a project recording studio/office out of the second bedroom, and for sound insulation reasons as well as aesthetics and comfort, I need to cover most of the floor space with a rug. The problem is that it's kind of an odd size that is determined by the size of the room, and I am having zero luck finding any rugs that match that size closely enough... hence my interest in any places that might cut carpet remnants to a custom size. Especially if they could bind the edges so that it wouldn't just be a rough cut... but I'd be happy either way. Anyone know of any place in the Pattaya area that does this? (The ideal size for what I need would be 270 cm x 225 cm.)

A Volcano would probably be tough to get past them since they're such big bulky devices. Maybe I got lucky, but I just entered with a CFC Boundless (a small handheld), a Pulsar APX (an even smaller handheld), and even my Vapor Brothers, which is a tabletop old school type. Of course I didn't bring any tubing for the Vapor Brothers, and the glass parts were thoroughly cleaned. Personally, I believe you could successfully take the position, if confronted, that the Volcano is a valid medical aromatherapy device. Pack some eucalyptus or peppermint leaves and a printed out web article describing the use of those leaves in aromatherapy or some such stuff. You need it for your holistic treatment of asthma. Be persistent. Dismiss the very idea that you would use cannabis with a wave of your hand. In that situation it will be all about conveying a believable energy. In other words, you'll have to do a bit of acting.

This is one reason growing indoors is popular. You have pretty good avoidance of this phenomenon as long as the air intakes are filtered.

Something really good—as long as it isn't a hemp variety. I'm a big fan of Asian sativas.

There is nothing forcing you to mix up fresh nutes every watering. Just as in hydroponics, you can simply make a big reservoir of nutrient solution (e.g. a 55 gal drum), aerate it constantly with an air pump and keep it constantly circulating with a water pump, and just check EC/total dissoved solids and pH every day just before you water, adjusting it for evaporation (water top-offs to get to desired EC) and for pH if necessary.

You could get away with vaping (dry herb vaporizer). It creates only about 1/10th the odor. A spritz of deodorant or similar would wipe it out.

I dig it. And I'm not even into hip-hop really.

Regarding this, I did disclose the prior cancer in a detailed email, so she's well aware of that and the other history. At the moment, things are temporarily held up because when I looked over the application (before filling it out), I saw that on the signature page it said in parentheses "We cannot accept applications signed in the United States." I immediately brought this to Jenny's attention, and she seemed surprised, saying she had never seen that before. She is currently checking with the company and will get back to me about it. I'll be contacting her tonight (today, for her) to see if there's any clarification.

Hmm, I would think that being given the correct application form is fully the responsibility of the broker. I should not have to check her work. I agree. That's what I'm saying too.

Jerrymahoney: I just triple-checked it, and that question absolutely does not appear on the April application form that Jenny provided to me. So the question of whether I should say anything about it is a delicate one because usually in legal and insurance matters, if one is smart one only reveals the things that they are legally bound to reveal. I'd feel pretty stupid if I revealed it despite that the application and company itself didn't ask the question, and then got denied because of that info. If Jenny put the question directly to me, I'd have to answer it, but volunteering that when no one asked me seems like a bad idea.

Thanks for this reply

Thank you Sheryl—that is exactly what I'm doing at the moment. As of yesterday I'm corresponding with Jenny at AA Insure about getting April insurance. I only just now read your post, but those are exactly the things I'm doing (though I didn't happen to tell her about Cigna's denial). I wrote her an email yesterday that candidly detailed any/every medical condition I've ever had, and made it very, very clear that it would be fine if they wanted to write exclusions for the things they're concerned about. I told her that what I want the insurance for is any serious things that might come out of the blue and have nothing to do with my past history. I'm going for a policy that will cover inpatient things only, no outpatient. She sent me the April application form yesterday and medical questionnaire, but I kind of got stopped right away when I noticed that on the signature page the application form said "We cannot accept applications signed in the United States" which confuses me since she instructed me to fill it out and send it. I'll be asking her by LINE tonight (her morning) about this contradiction. My sense of what pushed Cigna to deny me is not so much the cancer thing alone but the cancer history combined with a few other things that are mentioned on a CT scan report from last year that they asked for. It's a report that I had not even seen myself until I requested it to send to them, and unfortunately it noted a couple of other things that I was totally unaware of until I saw it. One of them was that the doctor who interpreted the image wrote "LIVER: liver steatosis" which was total news to me, and unfortunately I saw it for the first time only after I had responded to the Cigna rep during the medical questionnaire phone interiew that I had no known liver problems or symptoms. That was the truth, as I had not seen that CT scan report at the time of the interview, and have no liver symptoms, but it might have looked to them like I had answered untruthfully initially. I fully explained, but it was too late. What makes it worse is that I have it on pretty good authority from a doctor friend of mine that a low level of liver steatosis (aka "fatty liver disease") in someone like me who doesn't drink alcohol is not even necessarily a medically significant thing. Another was a finding of diverticulosis, which again I was totally unaware of until I saw this CT scan report. I would bet that millions of people have uneventful diverticulosis that never develops into anything and causes no symptoms, as in my case. So, my hopes rest with Jenny and April International at the moment...

Thanks! When I look them (April) up on trustpilot.com—for whatever this is worth—they seem to have mostly good reviews. By mentioning the brokers in HH and Pattaya, are you saying that it can be obtained after I'm already in the country as an option to obtaining it before arrival? I've noticed that some insurers say that you can only get their expat insurance before you arrive in the country they'd be insuring you in.

I'm surprised and frustrated by having just been denied by Cigna for an expat medical policy after being told it was the best company to go with. Is there another company that is perhaps less strict that will also be be trustworthy when/if it comes down to making a claim? It's not that my age is super advanced; I'm 60. I guess it was a previous bout with a form of cancer that did it, even though that was five years ago and was dealt with back then very successfully with no subsequent problems. It was so easy to deal with, in fact, that it was outpatient surgery and I was out the same day, no chemo or anything like that. It appeared they were about to say yes, and then the sales rep said that the underwriters had requested a couple of additional medical records and then when they got those, they denied me. The timing is getting close here, as I already have bought my air ticket for early October and have already shipped all my stuff there. I would appreciate any promising recommendations any of you might have as I'm getting pretty nervous about how near to my relocation date it's getting. Thanks in advance.

I certainly hope it had died before being fried. Can you imagine frying a live beef beast? ???? Okay, I'll see myself out now...

Those are seeds that have formed. There's no such thing as "male seeds"... you're a little confused on how the plant works. Either some pollen landed on your plant and made some seeds, or the plant produced some unnoticed hermaphrodite (male) flowers and self-pollinated. But either way, they're not "male seeds."

Thanks, but I guess I will just stick with Cigna. The communication problem you mention is definitely one problem, another would be that I've heard that Thai insurers can deny claims very easily and it would be tough to do anything about it due to Thai jurisdiction. You say buy through a broker instead of direct. Why do you say that? Can I easily do that from the US before I get there? Do you mean that the broker should be Thai?

Thanks, that is precisely what I was wondering. I just wondered if maybe Cigna was more expensive because of the big name while there were others just as good but not as expensive. Sounds like probably not...

I definitely want to stay for a few years, and if things go okay, I meet someone nice, etc., it could be permanent. I have a lot of reserves but no income until I take social security which, like most people, I want to delay doing as long as possible to maximize it.

Unless you're using Affordable Care Act insurance, as I have been for a few years due to being semi-retired/unemployed. If I were staying here, I would likely have just kept using it. In California it's called Medi-Cal and you can get it if you make less than around $35,000 a year. That (~$35k) is apparently seen as the poverty line here.

I've seen it happen, so I thought it warranted mentioning it. You're right though, too fast and hot is the primary cause of it. But heat and having the bud "brutally" handled while wet, in my view have the same result—terpene loss and strong chlorophyll smell. Oh and that's another thing... when the bud is wet and being brutally scissored, it gets a lot of juicy chlorophyll going, which contributes to a grassy smell. The people I saw who trimmed wet were doing that because they were impatient, and since they were in a hurry they also used harsher conditions to dry it (more fan wind, higher temps) after trimming it wet.

Yes, the good news is you can do it in a vaporizer, but the trick is, you should not put it in as straight hash. What you want to do is mix it with some weed... even low-quality would work and might even be preferable for this purpose since hash is so strong. The principle here is that if it's mixed with a buffer substance, it will be held sort of in suspension in the chamber. If you were to just put a chunk of hash, or broken-up hash in the chamber of the vaporizer, it will probably just melt down and clog. But if you have little tiny pieces of hash mixed with a dried plant substance (doesn't matter much whether it's weed or dried mint leaf or tobacco [blech!]), it will get vaporized efficiently.

I can answer, was in the business in California for a decade. When you trim the flowers before they've dried properly, that handling knocks off a lot of the trichomes and they get lost to the scissor blades, etc. Also, handling them wet also causes them to gas off a lot of the terpenes. Further, when you dry cannabis that has been wet-trimmed, it doesn't smell nearly as nice afterward (you get that "hay" smell), again because there is a lot of terpene loss that way. The best way as stated above is to dry them slowly over about 2 weeks in a room where the humidity is kept to about 50-55% and the temp is kept to around 70-72F. That slowness of the drying is key. You also want to hang the plants whole, fan leaves and all, for this. That protects the terpenes from quickly evaporating as the flowers dry, slows down the drying process (vital), and just somehow always makes them retain the best aroma and consistency.