jetjock

I turn the big 70 next month and I am very much looking forward to a great many more years of the good life. My genetics should be good because Mom is a healthy 96 and still drives her car and my relatives are very long lived. My wife is half my age and into the same heavy duty sports as I am so I am very motivated to stay healthy and extemely physically active. All I need now is the most important ingredient which is a lot of 'very good luck' if I am going to eventually reach the century mark.

She would be welcome to fly copilot for me and tie down in my hangar anytime (as long a my wife didn't find out ! I flew with a few female copilots when I was flying the big birds for a major airline and my experience is that just like male pilots, some are extremely competent and others were only marginally competent but unfortunately none of them looked anything like the beauty queen flying for Air Asia. I am definitley in favor of more female pilots like Miss Thailand 2005.

I have to admit that I am guilty of being absolutely obsessed with a Thai-Chinese girl because if I wasn't, she would probably divorce me. Actually my wife is very proud of being a Thai and never refers to herself as part Chinese. My wife's ancestry never attracted or influenced me one way or another because IMHO it really has no bearing of any great importance, but what did attract me was that she came from a wonderful family and was smart, beautiful, terrific personality and very highly educated.

CPI indexing is relevant to this past year I guess, but Congress suspended any SS increase for 2 years. So, no next year no raise either. no matter what the CPI.

Sorry but I think your statement is incorrect. Although there was no COLA adjustment in December 2009 due to the CPI indexing formula, it will not be known until the end of the third quarter of this year whether there will be a COLA adjustment in December 2010. Below is the actual Social Security explantion for COLA adjustments.

I started collecting SS at age 65 1/2 a few years ago and my payments are now about $2200. a months but am not sure what the max is for people retiring this year. Although it might be possible to live reasonably in Thailand on max US SS benefits, IMHO it would be next to impossible to live with any reasonable degree of comfort in the US if they had to rely only on their SS benefits.

Section 215(i)(1) of the Social Security Act defines the calendar quarters that are to be used in the calculation of a Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA). In particular, the Act defines a "cost-of-living computation quarter" to mean a third calendar quarter with respect to which the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has increased relative to the last such quarter. Simply put, this means that, if a COLA becomes effective in any year, the COLA must be greater than zero.

If there is no COLA in one year, how is the next COLA calculated?

Assuming Congress does not intervene by enacting a general benefit increase, the next COLA would become effective in December of the next year that has a third-quarter average CPI greater than the average for the last cost-of-living computation quarter.

For example, because there is no COLA effective for December 2009, the next COLA (2010 or later) will use the average CPI for the last cost-of-living computation quarter—the third quarter of 2008—as the base. That average is 215.495, so any future third-quarter average CPI must exceed 215.495 for that quarter to be a cost-of-living computation quarter. To further illustrate, if the third-quarter average for 2010 were 1.0 percent greater than 215.495, the COLA effective for December 2010 would be 1.0 percent.

If you are interested in the future direction of commercial and military aviation, I thought I would share this recent email I received from a fellow pilot .

News from the 'Skunk Works' - no more flying pilots....

Steve Chelander member of the NTSB 2007-2009 is a retired American Captain.

He gave a safety presentation at recurrent training about two years ago.

He opened the floor for questions an one guy asked facetiously when are we

going to one pilot cockpit. Chelander said that is not funny. He said Fed

Ex and UPS are now (two years ago) working on the procedures for a one

pilot long haul over water operation. The pilot would be at the controls for

take off and landing then go the bunk for cruise while the guy back in

Memphis would take over for the cruise. One pilot passenger flights will

take a bit longer to get approved.

12 years ago I was Director of Operations for the Alaska Air Guard. I

went to a high level conference and this three star gave a presentation that

said the exact same thing the major said. The only limitation on fighter

aircraft now is the pilot. We have the technology to do everything from the

ground and it will be a huge cost savings. No search and rescue, no life

support systems, no backlash when we lose a plane.

So this article is right on the money.

I attended a flight safety presentation last evening from a retired AF

Major test pilot from Edwards, Bill Koukourikas, now serving there as a

civilian. During the course of his presentation, his statement- No future attack

military aircraft within the next 15 years will have pilots in the cockpit.

The last tactical aircraft with a pilot in the cockpit will be the F-35.

He also indicated that within the next 10 or so years all UPS and FedX cargo

flights will be with pilot-less aircraft. This prediction coming from

their test shop at Edwards.

All drone testing, development etc. is taking place just south of Edwards

in the Palmdale area. Sounds like a continuation of the skunk work

developments of Lockheed which previously took place in that area.

Simply amazing!

Hey, are we a dying breed or what??

Guess you'll have to invite your computer to "have a beer" after the day's

flying is done....... Glenn

(Note from Jetjock: Just in case your not familiar with the term, the Skunk Works is an official alias for Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs (ADP. Skunk Works is responsible for a number of famous aircraft designs, including the U-2, the SR-71, the F-117, and the F-22. Its largest current project is the F-35 Lightning II.)

Cognos, why dos'nt your wife's family have a Chinese surname? Somewhere along the line they adopted a Thai surname. If they are so proud of being Chinese I would have thought they would have retained the Chinese name so everyone would know their origin. In Malaysia they did not change their surnames.

I think the Thai Chinese are not proud to be Chinese, only on Chinese New Year.

I may well be wrong, but I recall reading somewhere that they were forced to change to Thai surnames by law, if they wanted to become Thai citizens. They had to be new surnames also, hence why there are so many long ones.

Both of my wife's grandfathers were Chinese however never mentions it when asked about her ancestry as she is so extremely proud to be Thai. I did not learn that she was half Chinese until one day when we happened to get into a conversation about her deceased grandfathers. I originally could not understand how she had a Thai surname with her grandfathers being Chinese until I did some internet research. The following paragraphs helped explain the reason to me:

"By 1910, nearly 10 percent of Thailand's population was Chinese. Moreover, the new arrivals frequently came in families and resisted assimilation. Chinese nationalism, encouraged by Sun Yat-sen, the leader of the Chinese revolution, had also begun to develop, parallel with Thai nationalism. The Chinese community even supported a separate school system for its children.

Legislation by King Rama VI was enacted in 1913 that required the adoption of Thai surnames was largely directed at easing tensions with Chinese community by encouraging assimilation. Thai Chinese had to choose between forsaking their Chinese identity or being regarded as foreigners. Most opted to become Thai ... Nevertheless, the Chinese were still encouraged to become Thai citizens, and by 1970 it was estimated that more than 90 percent of the Chinese born in Thailand had done so." (http://www.answers.com/topic/thai-chinese)

My pick for Best Actor is Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart--He does a really terrific acting job as an alcoholic country western singer and actually does his own singing and guitar playing in the movie which is one of his passions in real life. I have not seen the other movies up for the award and am a bit predjudiced as Jeff is one of our home town boys here in Santa Barbara however if you enjoy watchining a good actor in an entertaining movie, this is a good one.

I noticed this topic a few days late but for those aviation afficionados, I thought I would comment on a couple of postings that were not exactly correct information. Statements were made that the 747 can "easily fly on one engine" which is not true and another poster inferred that pilots are trained to fly the 747 with only one which is also not true. How well a 747 will maintain altitude with engines out is mostly dependent on it's gross weight and what altitude the pilot is trying to maintain (the lower the gross weight and the lower the altitude, the better it will fly). The 747 will not maintain altitude on one engine unless it has virtually no fuel or payload and therefore is extremely light (which would not be a normal scenerio). Pilot training for 747 regulated by the FAA are trained with one engine or two engines out but not normally with 3 engines out (probably because it is a highly unlikely scenerio and because under normal conditions even after dumping fuel, one engine would normally at best only increase your gliding distance to an airport. I was lucky enough to have access to my companies multimillion dollar 747 simulators so when I wanted to mess around and have some fun, I used to go in and play around doing one engine approaches, rolls, spins, etc so there is some validity to my opinion on this subject. I made many one engines approaches and landings in the simulator but the experience is just one step above making a dead stick landing. IMHO the 747 is the finest passenger liner I have ever flown and I will guarantee that it definitely flies much better with two engines out than does a 777.

No real advantages either way. Can have both a Thai and a US birth certificate regardless of where she is born. If in Thailand, can get a US state department certificate of birth which of course you can use to get a US passport. If born in the US, will have to apply for a Thai birth certificate through a Thai Embassy in the US. Not a big deal. When she is of age, she can get on a family house book in Thailand then obtain an ID card which can be used to get a Thai Pass port, etc...

Who know may be your child want to be US president then should be born in US soil , other than that no real advantage to be born in either place[/sizte]

If both parents are US citizens and the child is born in Thailand, one does not have to give up hope that their child may someday become US president since it is not necessary to be born on US soil to become US president. One can be born abroad and still be considered a natural born citizen and elligible to become US president as long as both parents were US citizens at the time of birth. A very recent example of this was the presidential candidate John McCain who was born in the Panama Canal zone .

When I was young, I had hoped that if I accidentally checked out early that it would be in a blaze of glory. Now that I am much older and the glory is pretty much gone, the only blaze I plan to experience will be that of the cremation ovens, After that I have directed that my ashes be scattered in the Mekong River.

Call it a swindle or scam or whatever but there seems to be a never ending supply of seemingly normal intelligent men that really get taken for a ride by some of the black hearted Thai women that are so abundantly available in the farang tourist areas of Thailand. I chalk much of it up to a "lost souls searching for love" type of naivete brought about by them being overwhelmed by finding themself living in a candy shop of easily available young pretty Thai girls.

It is interesting that when these guys (who should have known better) get taken to the cleaners or get their heart broken, many of them begin to stereotype poorly all Thai women just because they were so stupidly naive in their choice of women. I don't think it has much to do with age since naivete has no age limits. The reality is that Thailand has more than it's fair share of genuine, loyal, financially secure, honest, intelligent beautiful women but the key is that you have to be smart enough to figure out how to meet them and hopefully smart enough to realize that they are looking for a man with many of the same similar qualities that they see in themselves. I get the feeling from some of the posts that many of the younger guys have the mistaken idea that youth, immaturity, inexperience and financial instability are qualities that are somehow much more attractive to women than any of the qualities that older or more mature men have to offer. Just an opinion, but I have not found that to be true in either Thailand or the western world as most really genuine intelligent women look for qualities that are go much deeper.

The fact is that my dog lives a better life here in the US than most people do in Thailand, however, that doesn't mean much because he lives such a pampered life that he lives even better than I do ! The things that I like best about Thailand are the women, the food, the cost of living and the massages however if you can afford to live somewhere else, there are many other places in the world with much better climates, more interesting cultures, more things to do and much cleaner and healthier environments. I can surely understand why some farangs enjoy living in LOS but to each his own because even as much as I personally enjoy spending a few months every year in LOS, I would never choose to live there full time unless it was dictated by economic neccesity. Being able to enjoy the best of both worlds has worked out perfectly for me.

Congrats to Thai Airways for doing what most US airlines would love to do if they could legally get away with it. Injecting an air of youth and freshness into the cabin crews of long established airlines, especially those like United, would certainly give passengers a better traveling experience and cut costs to the airline. US airlines have no mandatory retirement age so many of the F/A's have a 'fly till I drop mentality' which is obviously not in the best interest of the airlines. I have flown with many F/A's in their 70's who are still very nice to passengers but had a hard time just getting from the parking lot to the airplane so although they are well trained and experienced, I would not have much confidence in their physical ability in aiding passengers in a crash or evacuation.

Yes, I admit that I loved those 'Hot Pants' that the stews of PSA used to wear so I admit to being a sexist pig when it comes to these type of matters however even on the financial aspects and passenger experience aspects, I think it is a very smart move for Thai Airways as it would be for some other airlines.

The previous posters have given you so many great suggestions and spring is a perfect time to travel because you should have good weather while avoiding the heavy summer tourist crowds. I know California and Nevada expecially well as I travel a lot between several homes I have in both states, so from my experience, I can assure you that there are so many interesting things to see in just in those two states alone that you will have to plan your trip wisely if you are planning for a 3 week week trip and want to do it comfortably. There are so many interesting beautiful nature sights such as our many natural parks, beautiful scenic drives along coast, gold country along route 49 in California, comstock load country in Nevada, etc. etc.

My wife is Thai and based on the fact that she has been traveling with me around these states for the past 4 years, here are some quick thoughts:

I would strongly suggest as one of your California priorities that you take the drive between Monterey and San Simeon (72 miles) on Route 1-Big Sur Coast Highway. A tour of Hearst Castle in San Simeon would be well worth your time. If you are golfer, between Monterey and Carmel , you might enjoy taking the beautiful '17 Mile Drive' which goes along the coast and the world famous Pebble Beach Golf Course. Thaitown in LA is not really much and probably not worth you time unless you just happen to be driving in that area. I also think a trip into Mexico would be a waste of your time as you will think you are in Mexico when visiting certain areas of California. As a point of information, if you plan to visit some our national parks and and are over 65 years old, (I am not sure if you have to be a US citizen) be advised that you can get an Eagle Pass at any park for only $10. which enable you to get free entrance (including anyone in your car) to virtually all the national parks in the US for the rest of your lifetime. Have fun and enjoy all the beautiful west coast scenery.

The job of Flight Attendant is both well paying and prestigious by Thai standards even for very well educated women. When I met my wife, she had just been accepted as a F/A for an airline but was still in the process of interviewing other airlines. Initially it was difficult for me to understand why she would want a F/A job when she had postgraduate degrees from Mahidol U. and was working for a US based company in medical scientific sales in a job that I knew paid well over $100,000. a year in the US. Her answer was simple in that the same job in Thailand was only paying her a little of 30,000. Baht a month. Airlines like Thai Airways and Emirates that hire in Thailand have very high standards so I think it is a great job as it is considered not only well paying and prestigious by most Thai women but can also be a lot of fun if you enjoy traveling thoughout the world. In the US, however, the job of F/A has lost most of it's former glamour and is no longer well paying or prestigious so unlike in the past, most highly educated women in the US do not normally choose it as a career.

Legal pharm reps do not earn "well over 100K." Now if you are talking about pimping illegal drugs, yes by all reports they do earn well.

The fact that a suposed well educated individual life time aspiration is to be a waitress on an airplane.... doesn't speak well as to what type of education is received in Thailand.

Dakhar, Regarding your post, I have no idea why you mentioned pharm rep and what they make as I never mentioned it in my post however I do not what medical equip. reps can make since my wife is now one in the US and I can definitely assure you that if you are in the right medical equipment field and work for a good company then 100K and even 200k is very possible if you are good at what you do.

Most F/A jobs for major carriers here in the US start at around $24,000 a year or even lower and as a rough figure, they can usually make up to somewhere in the $50,000 range per year depending on the airline and if they have many years of seniority and fly max hours every months. I won't dispute the fact that part of their job consists of being a flying waitresses and putting up with the BS from a few of the A-hole passengers that seem to cause problems on flights however their main job that they are highly trained for is to try to save the lives of passengers in the unfortunate event of a crash or an evacuation. To reinterate what I said earlier, by Thai standards of salary, the F/A job is a great job even for well educated Thai's. People that are well educated are usually smart enought to go to where the money is and the fact is that F/A's make good money so I can totally understand why a smart Thai girl would choose the job of F/A which also has a tremendous amount of great benefits like free travel in addition to the money.

The job of Flight Attendant is both well paying and prestigious by Thai standards even for very well educated women. When I met my wife, she had just been accepted as a F/A for an airline but was still in the process of interviewing other airlines. Initially it was difficult for me to understand why she would want a F/A job when she had postgraduate degrees from Mahidol U. and was working for a US based company in medical scientific sales in a job that I knew paid well over $100,000. a year in the US. Her answer was simple in that the same job in Thailand was only paying her a little of 30,000. Baht a month. Airlines like Thai Airways and Emirates that hire in Thailand have very high standards so I think it is a great job as it is considered not only well paying and prestigious by most Thai women but can also be a lot of fun if you enjoy traveling thoughout the world. In the US, however, the job of F/A has lost most of it's former glamour and is no longer well paying or prestigious so unlike in the past, most highly educated women in the US do not normally choose it as a career.

It's kind of a toss up depending on your hobbies, needs and budget. One thing I will point out is the available female girlfriend situation is a 1000 times better in Thailand.

Hear, hear!

Even saying 1000 times better would probably be an estimate on the low side! Hawaii can be good if you are married but easily succumb to temptation because there probably is very little in the way of available local women that you will ever find tempting to you.

I am fairly well versed in both places as I have a home in Hawaii and spend a lot of time in Thailand so here are my personal opinions on your question.

Raising kids: Hawaii has a relatively poor school system compared to most other states in the US. Do not know much about the overall school system in Thailand but do know that in both Hawaii and Thailand, many people with money prefer to send their kids to private schools. Highly self motivated kids in both places can get a decent education but from what I have observed it does not appear that the local cultures in both places put a very high value on education. Local kids in Hawaii learn to speak a type of pidgen English which is generally considered to sound low class outside of Hawaii.

Housing: Hawaii is one of the more expensive places for housing in the US wheresas Thailand is very cheap compared to almost anywhere in the US.

Cost of living: Once again, Hawaii has one of the more expensive cost of living in the US and Thailand is relatively cheap compared to most countries in the world.

People attitude: Your are a 'farang' in Thailand and will be a 'haole' in Hawaii so you do get a slight change . The 'Aloha' spirit is mostly now about locals wanting the tourists money however generally speaking you will be much more accepted into the local population in Hawaii than in Thailand.

Weather: Hawaii is considered by many people to have one of the best living climates in the world so is the hands down winner over Thailand in that category. Temperature range for most the year at sea level ranges between 70 to 88 F. (I keep my windows in Hawaii open year around and never need to use my air conditioner and room temperature is always nearly perfect)

Personal Observations: Hawaii has no snakes (other than the Island Blind Snake (which most people mistake for a worm) so you can go hiking anywhere without any worry about critters that can kill you). Diving is great in Hawaii but not as good as the Andaman Sea off Thailand. Thailand has many beautiful girls and they tend to be slim so if you are single and like that type woman then Thailand is your place. The local population of Hawaii consists mainly of people with Pacific Islander blood such as Samoan and Tongan which are very large people ( If you like women that are in the 250 lb. plus class then Hawaii is your place). Overall Hawaii has much-much-much less pollution of water and air than Thailand.

My personal comments: I love both Hawaii and Thailand but for very different reasons. My personal opinion is that Hawaii is a much better place to live but only if you can easily afford it. If you do not have money to burn but still want to live a fairly decent quality life then Thailand would be my choice. Thailand and Hawaii are very different places but if you have the opportunity to spend time in each then you will be able to enjoy the best of two very wonderful worlds.

Just a friendly reminder to any of my fellow pilots that may be holding an FAA issued pilot certificate and may be out of the USA and missed the notice, the FAA now requires all pilots to replace their paper airmen certificate with a counterfeit-resistant plastic certificate by March 31, 2010. After that date paper pilot certificates may no longer be used to exercise piloting privileges. Three years after this date, certain other paper airmen certificates, such as those for flight engineers and mechanics, may no longer be used to exercise the privileges authorized by those certificates. Updating your paper licenses to this new plastic certificate can be done on the FAA website for $2. per license.

The downside of marrying a Thai woman is the same as the downside of marrying any woman. A bad choice eventually leads to a lot of regrets and a miserable life and a good choice usually leads to a happy life. I was married to an American woman for 30 years and have now been married to a Thai woman for 4 years. Both were great choices so I have been living a very happy life that I would not ever be willing trade for my swinging single days. The big difference between the two is that my Thai wife turned out to be an absolute angel and so much more than I could have ever hoped for that now I feel like I have found paradise here on earth. Good luck on finding the right one for you.

Just returned from the US and all went well until I started my trip back to Thailand.

First of all United Airlines canceled my connecting flight to LA without notification then they put me on a flight to San Francisco to connect with a flight for LA to meet my international connection I was really ticked off about this time as it only gave me 35min. to reach the next airline now is when it started to really get bad after boarding all the passengers and going through the inflight safety bs they then asked everyone to deplane as they had no one in the cockpit to fly the dam_n thing (????) how do they not know there are no drivers? then they just walked away with no explanation of what was going to happen. Too make a longer story short I highly recommend anyone that is thinking of flying United to re-consider and get another airline as for me it will be a cold cold snowing day in hel_l before I or any of my friends will ever fly this airline again!!!!!

Hey 'retiredusn', I actually intensely dislike United Airlines even more than you do ! After 35 years of service to UA, I lost 60% of my pension plus many benefits when UA went into bankruptcy and elected to jetison all it's pension obligations to the government sponsored PBGC. I have to say however in all fairness that I have never understood how US airlines could successfully compete internationally with asian airlines when their labor costs are so much higher than most of their asian counterparts. Many asian airlines are not burdened with strict labor laws and powerful unions so are able to use a lot of contract workers and fire people for any reason. This is one of the reasons you see all the granny type flight attendants on US airlines compared to all the young cuties on asian airlines. Pilot pay on US airlines has been cut drastically in recent years however it is still quite a bit higher average than most Asian airlines. Most US airlines in this poor economy are currently just struggling to survive and stay out of bankruptcy so they operate with minimum staffing and extremely heavy aircraft utilization which is a setup for poor service to the flying public. I think that people traveling on any of the US airlines are going to have to get accustomed to poorer service and to the cattle car mentality unless by their actions they can convince the airlines that some people are interested in quality service and not just the cheapest cut throat airfares. To generate more cash flow, perhaps someday one of the US airlines will even come up with the idea of onboard coin operated Pay to Go lavatories.

We were also faced with the same surname change dilemma when she first came to the US and we got married 3 1/2 years ago. At that time we decided that it would be best for her to keep name because of the added paperwork it would cause when applying for US citizenship and the remote possiblilty (since laws can change) that it might cause problems down the road for the property she now owns or might want to buy in the future in Thailand.

She is now a US citizen and uses her legal name for signing legal and business documents however on an everyday basis she is known by Jamie (her americanized nickname) or Mrs. (my last name). This dual name thing has worked perfectly living here in the US as it has helped avoid confusion among casual acquaintances and it is much easier for people here to pronounce and remember her name. With her american type names and the fact that she speaks perfect english without any accent, people are totally surprised when they learn that she was not born in the US. The only reason I can think of that she might want to legally change her last name is if we someday have children.

The top universities and best jobs are in Bangkok so it is logically the best place in LOS to find highly educated successful women. Although it is possible to meet this type of women with a little luck, IMHO it is not highly probable for most farangs. In my experience, most of these women are fairly independent and not just looking for a farang ATM but are looking for someone that is also well educated and successful that they can love for all the right reasons.

I was both lucky and fortunate that I have a friend that is a professor at Mahidol who introduced me to one of his former grad students who was the beautiful girl that eventually became my wife. We have known each other for 5 years and have now been married for 3 years (a few days ago she received her US citizenship) and we both consider our life together to be some of the happiest years of our lives. I guess my short answer to the OP's question is yes, there are true positive stories out there.

I would not recommend not to abandon your citizenship especially if you are from a developing country, like UK, US, Ausi, etc.

I hope this current world recession has not been so bad that you now consider the UK, US and AU as 'developing countries' !

I can give you a little more info about transferring credits or degrees from Mahidol as my wife has a Masters of Science degree from there. Mahidol is a very well respected university in Thailand and is considered the top ranked in Thailand in in both medicine and science (in a recent study, Mahidol was ranked #1 university in Thailand and #30 in Asia) We only know about transferring to USA colleges as my wife has taken several post-grad courses at the University of California since she arrived here. A degree from Mahidol is recognized here if you want to go on to more advanced degree. Transferring of credits and degrees requires the foreign university to send a transcript to the University here (it must be mailed directly from University to University). The transcript is then evaluated here and then the university decides how many of the credits are tranferrable partly based on the similarity to courses at their university. Usually a language test is required before a foreign student can enroll at a college here in the US. This info only applies to Mahidol and transferring to the US as it may be different transferring between other universities in Thailand and to other countries other than the US.