DrDave

In high school, we were taught that term by our French language teacher.

People we tip: taxi, massage, hotel room cleaner and bellman. Basically, anyone who performs a personal service or gives us their undivided attention for more than 60 seconds. In Bangkok, we normally stay 3-4 days and give the room cleaner a tip the first time we see her in the hallway. The bellman gets a small tip for bringing our bags to the room and checking to make sure everything's in working order. Taxis in Bangkok usually get a tip rounding up to the next 50 or 100 baht unless their driving was crazy. No tip for taxis in Phuket though, due to their outrageous fares. Foot massage always gets a 100 baht tip for a 1 hour massage. I refuse to tip at places like Starbucks however, where the person at the counter does nothing more for me than spending 20 seconds in front of a coffee machine. Tipping in the US has gotten out of hand over the years. One very large, well-known restaurant chain offered only carry-out service during the pandemic, and added a mandatory 18% gratuity to all orders placed online. Not sure what the gratuity was for since there was no table service.

Nothing unusual, retail prices fluctuate daily in step with with the global crude market.

If you have a Rakuten account, you can usually get a 40% rebate on the cost of Nord VPN. BTW, I've found that Nord VPN hasn't worked for the applications I need it most for: Bank of America and Netflix.

Hopefully Genting Dream's new owners will manage the business better than Genting H.K. did. Genting's Symphony and a sister ship were foreclosed upon for non-payment of fuel bills about a year ago while sailing with passengers onboard. The new owner bought them for literally pennies on the dollar a few months back.

The general format for houses I've always used is: [House Number] [Soi and/or Thanon], [Moo Baan] [T.Tambon] [A.Amphoe], [Chiangwat] [Postal Code] In some areas (as in cities), the Moo Baan isn't required, while in rural areas it's an important part of the address. For a condo, you would probably want to include the building name.

I think I've mentioned this before, but I was watching the news on the TV in the US some years ago when Blacks were rioting in Paris. The US newscaster was reading the copy and said "African-Americans are rioting in Paris...", and you could immediately see the look of horror on her face, as if to say "what idiot wrote this copy?".

That's what I was thinking as well. The value of the business, and what someone will be willing to pay for it will be based mostly upon two things, net profits and goodwill. If there are sufficient profits, they could hire someone to run the business for a salary or percent of revenue, and be free of the day to day operation. If the net profit is small and nobody is interested in paying for the intangible goodwill, then it might be best to sell off remaining stock and close the business.

California charges 53.9 cents per gallon in taxes. Federal tax adds another 18.4 cents, bringing the total taxes to 72.3 cents per gallon. Assuming the average new ICE car is driven 15,000 miles per year and averages 30 MPG, an ICE driver pays about $360 per year in fuel taxes, while an EV driver pays only a $100 EV registration fee in lieu of fuel taxes. That's quite a shortfall.

Can you provide any examples of models that facilitate the funding of road transportation infrastructure (streets, highways and bridges) by those that actually use these resources? Fuel taxes are obvious, but that revenue will decline sharply in the future as California shifts to EVs. Sales and use taxes on vehicles could help fill that void, as excise taxes on new cars and tires did many years ago. Attempts to spread these costs over the general population via increased taxes has historically been met with resistance in the US.

Getting back to the question of taxation and how to fund infrastructure maintenance and improvements. These are currently funded via gasoline and diesel taxes paid at the pump. It'll be interesting to see how California addresses this issue, with their mandate to completely phase out ICE vehicle sales by 2035. The phase-out will begin in 2026 with 35% required to be zero-emission or hybrid, ramping up to 100% by 2035. My guess is that the lost tax revenue will be recovered in two components: an excise tax levied on the sale of a new EV, and an additional tax added to the annual registration fee (road tax) on EVs.

I don't know about the ships in SE Asia, but in North America and Europe, generally no since about 6 months ago. As of about a week ago, most lines have dropped the requirement for staff to wear masks, although many still do.

That's the largest ship I can recall mooring in Patong Bay. Only 800 pax came ashore?

Really hard to narrow down to just three, but here's a try: Nam Ngiew (Northern-style pork soup) Khao Na Phet Moo Nam Tok There are quite a few uncommon, northern-style Thai dishes my wife makes, but I don't know their correct names. My wife is a great cook - I'm a lucky guy!

Right!!! It's far more profitable to follow this script: "I'm going to use YOUR money to build this project, and make a tidy profit off of the sale. Then, I'll rent out the unit YOU paid for while paying myself and a staff an ongoing salary from the rental proceeds. I'll also pocket charges for any *cough, cough* 'expenses' as I see fit. Whatever crumbs that may be left, I'll give to YOU. To sweeten the deal, I'll let you use the unit YOU paid for 5% of the time." Near-zero capital investment and risk for the developer, with a very significant upside. You are basically financing the developer's business. Oh, and any "guaranteed ROI", is in reality not guaranteed.

These type of arrangements are generally a horrible investment. The investor (you) who puts up all of the money is the last to be paid, that is if there's any money left after the management company or developer take their cut. The only ones making any money on these arrangements are the developers and their management companies who sell over-priced condos and then skim most of the ongoing revenue off the back end. Many, many condos in Phuket were sold pre-covid using this 6% ROI scheme. You might ask those who bought them how their investment is paying off. I wouldn't be surprised if most would be too embarrassed to respond.

I recall taking my daughter to Mission Hospital some years back. We arrived at the time of her appointment, and the waiting area was completely full. She got to see the doctor 4 hours later.

"...the project is expected to generate about 62 billion baht in annual revenue through medical tourism..." That would be 170 million baht in revenue per day. Even after accounting for related medical tourism income such as lodging and food, I think their estimate might be off by an order of magnitude or so.

Many times, shipping is free if ordering a minimum amount from that particular vendor. For example, the product page will say something like "Free Delivery 999B +"

Normally, if the pump is leaking you would only need to replace the actual pump portion of the pump/motor combination. Just as in the case of a car whose transmission fails, you replace only the transmission and not the whole engine/transmission assembly. But... in your case with the manufacturer not operating in Thailand any longer, you may have no choice other than to replace the whole pump. With that said, Hayward makes a very good pump. When I needed to replace a pump, I ordered the same brand and model because I thought it would be a simple swap out with no plumbing modifications required. I was wrong though, as the inlet and outlet locations changed slightly in the newer version. In any event, you will most likely have to modify some of the plumbing when installing a new unit. Make sure you get new union fittings for connecting to the new pump, as you probably won't be able to re-use the existing ones. Pumps are usually mounted on a concrete slab or pad. You may want to consider pouring a small slab. You'll definitely need to modify the inlet and outlet pipes to accommodate a different pump location, but try to avoid adding sharp angles if possible.

What was the elapsed time between application and receiving the visa? We did a fiance visa many years ago, and the interview occurred about 6 months after the application was submitted. At that time, fiance applications were being processed much faster than marriage applications (approximately a 1 year wait). I think the OP is looking for a visa that can be obtained relatively quickly, thus going down the tourist visa road, albeit with a very slim chance of arriving.

That's a great suggestion - thanks! I'll probably go with a battery maintainer and plug a GPS tracker in the OBD2 port.

Unfortunately, can't make my son-in-law an "ex".

An IP camera is do-able, but trying to avoid running power (or PoE in the case of a wired camera) to it. Checking the mileage is impossible when I'm 8,000 miles away for months at a time.

I'm not worried about the car being stolen, and I don't want it immobilized. I just want to be notified whenever someone uses the car, and know where it was driven. There's a trust issue with a family member who has permission to use the car only in an emergency. I want to know if the car is being used on a regular basis or for other purposes.