jetjock

I would not call a British expat a loser for becoming an expat in Thailand, but merely someone that is very smart in trying to escape from living their life in the drab. lousy climate in GB. Living in Hawaii and California as I do, is as close to paradise as I will probably ever get so I would definitely consider myself a loser if I ever traded it for the hot muggy weather in Thailand. For me, I love Thailand and it is a great place to visit a few months a year, but I will leave the 365 days a year thing to the expats that are smart enough to escape from the more miserable climates.

My wife has a Master's Degree in Science in the International Program taught in English from Mahidol and has nothing but good things to say about the university. Many of her best friends are professors at Mahidol and all of them got their Doctorates at top US and European universities so the teaching staff is excellent. Mahidol, Chulalongkorn, and Thammasat are all considered among the top universities in Thailand. Chulalongkorn is generally considered tops in technology whereas Mahidol is tops in medicine and research. Mahidol is ranked 113 in the THES world ratings for Life Sciences and Medicine. If you need any further info about Mahidol, please feel free to pm us.

Almost all my close blood relatives have lived well into their 90's and some are still alive and going strong and pushing 100 and they are all red meat eaters. Most studies I have read show that vegetarians tend to live longer than meat eaters so I personally do not eat red meat and am pretty much a vegetarian. I figure that with my genes and the fact that I eat vegetarian, I will continue to be so healthy that I will live well past 100 and someday find myself in the unfortunate position of laying in a hospital bed dying from nothing !

California WOW has always been run as a huckster type of operation in my opinion. PriceWaterhouseCoopers (one of world's largest accounting firms) in February of this year gave their unqualified opinion expressing doubt that California WOW can continue as a going concern. When I was in Bangkok, I always used to enjoy working out on the nice equipment at their Sukhumvit location despite their sleazy policies and loud annoying music. IMHO in the near future they are probably going to be sold to someone else or will wind up in bankruptcy.

PSS A wise tuk tuk driver once told me "You are only as old as the girl u sleep with"

The predominant use of British English on this forum has been an great added benefit for me as it has helped increase my vocabulary of Brit and Aussie slang. I spend a great deal of time in Oz and have many Aussie friends however the forum has helped me pick up many new words and phrases that I had never heard before. On the spoken level, I think American English has bastardized British English mostly by the way we yanks run our words together. IMHO, compared to an American accent, an educated British accent has a lot more class and an Aussie accent is much more colourful. British English is hands down the winner with me but I must admit that I still find the word 'whine' to have a better ring to it than the word 'whinge'.

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are? " is one of my favorite quotes about age that was made by the late great baseball player Satchel Paige. As for myself, when I first wake up in the morning, I feel like I am only twenty years old but depending on what I do that day, my age seems to change. When I go for a long run, workout for a few hours or play a few sets of tennis, I feel like I am twenty five. When I am doing things with my wife, I feel like am thirty (her age). When I have to work around the house and do paperwork and pay bills I feel like I am forty. Most people guess my age to be in the upper 40's which would really piss me off except for the fact that I was born in 1941 or as Satchel Paige also said "Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter."

Zen,

I cannot speak with authority about other parts of the world, but after being a pilot with a major airline here in the US for over 35 years, I do have some opinions about the possibility of your gf getting a F/A job in the US in today's current job market. Virtually all the major US carriers are cutting back and many are furloughing F/A's at the present time due the current recession so I do not know any majors that are hiring or that plan to be in the very near future. There may be some very slight possibility of F/A hiring with some of the regional carriers (but I seriously doubt it) however if there are any openings I can assure you that the competition for those jobs would be fierce. As for pay, most majors start F/A trainees at around $2000. or less per month. Regional carriers starting pay is even lower. After being with a major airline for over 10 years, a F/A with a some major US (not regional) carriers may find it possible to make between $3000. and $4500. per month.

As you are probably aware, the whole job market here in the US is terrible and it is very difficult for anyone to get a job unless it falls into the menial minimum wage category. A Bachelors degree, even from from here in the US (much less Thailand), doesn't mean very much in today's poor employment climate. Sorry to rain on your parade, but IMHO those are the facts at present as I see them here in the US. Hopefully things will begin to look better for the airline industry in the coming years.

I want to wish all you TV members a 'Mele Kalikimaka' as we say here in Hawaii. I would have also liked to wish you a Merry Christmas however since one of the current TV general forum topics is "Political Correctness" , I guess I should just wish you 'Happy Holidays'.

Many people have a generalized belief that Thai women are docile and submissive. Those people have not met my wife. A husband and wife should be equals? I wish someone would tell my wife that. She does ask me about things but then does exactly as she chooses. My wife knows everything about everything. I think her self assurance came from having to take care of herself all her life. She is a seamstress and worked in a Dubai sweat shop garment factory for two and a half years to make enough money to build her house. If I were to leave tomorrow, she would have no problems taking care of herself.

Just like your wife, my Thai wife is very self assured and independent so has no problems taking care of herself (and me also). She also asks me about things but is then kind enough to correct my answers to her questions. I have to admit that we are not equals as she is a far better person and human being than I could ever hope to be. I am very well educated but she is even more highly educated so I usually happily defer to her should we not agree on something. Despite her obviously superiority, I am still the boss in the family (when she lets me be) even if it is not politically correct !

No problems in Australia. My wife has been well treated by family, friends, and strangers.

Could not agree more - after 20+ years of my wife being in Australia we have yet to experience any negative comments etc.

On the other hand I have had plenty of positive comments. If couples experience negativity it might have something to do with the way they present themselves.

thesunset75 - my wife's mother & eldest brother (the family patriarch) put up a lot of resistence to her coming to Australia. It took a lot of convincing that I was not going to use & abuse her once I had got her out of Thailand.

Similar experience after 3 years in the US with my wife. We have received nothing but a great many positive comments from both friends and strangers about our obvious happiness and being a such a wonderfully matched couple. If you are truly happy and in love, it appears that people most perceive it immediately and respond very positively even when there are obvious differences of nationality or age.

There are quite a few products on the market designed to foil the red light cameras by obscuring your license plate to the camera but appearing normal to the naked eye. Some anti-photo devices are more effective than the others but one of the most effective appears to be the spray. You can see the results of some tests of the various devices done by a police department by click on the following link

Many of the cities here in the US are now installing the red light cameras in an attempt to increase their revenues and are passing laws that ban the sale and use of anti photo license plate devices (however the devices are available through the internet).

Why bother going at all? There isnt much you can do about a broken toe...I broke my big toe years ago when i fell off a kiddies roundabout drunk at 5am, went to the hospital, got an x-ray and got told, yes, it is broken, try not to walk too much. That was it.

I agree with 'saorsa' as I broke several of the smaller toes through the years when I was involved in judo. A few years ago, I broke my big toe by dropping a 2 lb. jar of peanut butter on it. Doctors advice was always just to tape broken toe so that it is straight and then tape it to surrounding toes for support. It was always painful to walk for quite some time while the toe was healing.

I tried to choose a screen name that incorporated the 3 passions I enjoy most in life which are flying, playing sports, and women. I first came up with the name 'jetjockpussy' but since that sounded like it might be a little too crude for an intellectual crowd like we have here on TV, I dedided it would be best to shorten it .

I personally think that spending the closing years living near family and friends is one of the things that brings most people great happiness during their closing years. I am only in my mid sixties now and still feel like twenty so might have another 50 years to go so it will probably be quite a few years before I start thinking about where I want to spend my final days. It definitely will not be Thailand as the people that are most important to me are in the US. I will however as always, continue to spend a few months every year in LOS which has always felt like a second home for me.

I just read that Thailand is now listed as #7 on the US State Dept's list of 20 most dangerous travel destinations. Although I personally think that ranking is a exageration at the present time, I do think many Americans will not take this lightly so in addition to the economic problems in the US, I think Thailand will take a substantial hit downward in American tourist next year. I suppose that will put a smile on the faces of some of our anti US members.

My Thai wife and I are currently in Chicago visiting my family where the low temperature has been around -2 C. for the last few days. Although my wife travels alot in the US and Europe and is familiar with cold climates, she says she would NEVER-EVER want to live in a cold climate. She does prefer the climate where we live in California and Hawaii very much over Thailand's heat but would always choose a very hot climate over a cold climate.

We have had a front loader for years here in the US and the washing cycle in usually somewhere around 30 minutes which is about normal for front loaders. Three hours appears to be total ridiculous. If, as you say, nothing is wrong with you front loader then I would suggest checking the water volume going into your machine. Each fill cycle that requires additional water will slow down if for some reason the water supply volume is somehow restricted and it takes the water a long time to reach the level for the cycle to resume. This is the only thing that I can think of that would slow down your washer if there is nothing wrong with the actual machine.

I have seen pepper spray for sale in Pattaya but unfortunately cannot remember exactly where I saw it. My wife last purchased pepper spray at MBK in Bangkok at a shop on the floor where they sell the cell phones.

We pilots all have many great stories, how about sharing one of yours with us?

I have a quickie. On my first SOLO flight, I was unpleasantly surprised by both a brief rain, plus a number of hot air balloons (from a nearby club) slowly drifting across my landing pattern . About crapped my pants! Went straight home into the shower after the lesson ended!

Great solo story! Here's mine: Solo'd on a wintery December day in the mountains of Idaho and on my first climb out, the panel on the old C150 started shaking like crazy, with the intensity and frequency reducing pretty quick. I almost freaked, but kept flying. Decided to shoot the first touch and go after figuring out it sounded like the main gear winding down. Sure enough, tapped the brakes on the second climb-out and the vibration stopped right away. There was snow and ice in the wheel hubs, and my instructor had been tapping the brakes right after lift-off all day, and never told me. I needed a good shower after that day too! This not a problem you would ever see in Thailand.....

I do not have any idea how many pilots here on TV but it would be great if we had enough keep the thread and the hangar talk going. It is always interesting hearing the story about a pilot's' first solo. They say that all pilots vividly remember their first solo but after 50 years have passed, I have to admit that I now remember very little about it. Flying was less sophisticated in those days so most of us only had about 8 hours when we soloed and were still very green. The only thing that I still recollect is that I was very scared before taking off and very happy that I was still alive after landing. I have found that the one thing about flying that has not changed in all those years is that flying still consists mostly of alot of routine punctuated with a few random moments of stark terror !

Just ran across your aviation thread here so thought I'd check in and say 'hi' to all my fellow pilots on TV. I currently only spend about 3 months of every year in Thailand so have never paid much attention to the general aviation scene in LOS as I have heard that it is quite small. The only flying experience I have done in Thailand is flying the big birds into and out of the old Don Muang so probably do not have anything of any importance to contribute to this thread. Most of my time I now spend flying general aviation aircraft usually involves acrobatic flying. I will keep reading this nice thread as long as it keeps going since I am always interested in reading about what is new and happening with my fellow pilots in the general aviation world in LOS.

My husband 'Jetjock' asked me to help you. I think the song that you are looking for is "Kid Teung Pee Mai". The English translation of the title is "Do you miss me?". It's a very old song which has been sung by many Thai singers. Here is a link to one of the versions of the song. Kid Teung Pee Mai

Hope this helps you.

Ja-aey

The expression 'Six of one-half dozen of the other' which is the equivalent of 'Same-Same in Thailand.

Some fat dude who talks about crap in documentary’s I think.

Calling him a fat dude is about the only accurate thing that you have posted so far about MM. Although he looks and dresses like a homeless person, the fact is that he is a very wealthy Academy Award winning filmaker with very liberal political views with which you may or may not agree. I have personally enjoyed his documentary films and found them to be very thought provoking even though I do not necessarily agree with all his left leaning views. I don't know if Thailand needs him but I definitely do know that he does not need Thailand.