T_Dog

The Mae Taeng Floral Show opened up today and I guess it was well attended. Lots of Thais and foreigners enjoying the rice farm culture, elephant, and flower exhibits. It runs until the 3'rd of January.

To get there, go through Mae Taeng village on 107 and take a right at the traffic light at the 3 way intersection that heads to Mae Ngat Dam and the Mae Taeng Hospital. Go up the hill past the hospital and then down the other side and look for it on the left side. If you hit the Ping River, you went too far.

Tops I have heard was 12, he was a big old fella that lived behind my wardrobe. Caught him eating a mouse once so he was allowed to stay.

I've always liked them too for eating scorpions, spiders, and even rats. Our rental house a few years back had a big white one which was quite friendly. It would come down the wall when we were eating outside to show us his latest catch.

And mahtin....good reply! But Tywais, as for me being in Thailand too long, I thought that was when you see footprints on the toilet seat and they are your own.....

BTW, took my 250 in for an oil change at 150km, all looking good. And got the sponge-y rear brake sorted out, just had to tighten the nut connecting the brake lever and cable. Also adjusted the clutch cable so there's a lot less play on it.

Congrats on the new bike appropriate! You must have been a good boy last year.

How about a report on the vibration.... Is it noticeable, and can you comment on it versus the CBR150? It sure is a meaty looking bike!

Those pluggers (tire shops and kits) work well if the tubeless tire stays on the bead. I had a flat in the boonies two years ago and it took most of an afternoon to find an air compressor with enough capacity to blow the tire bead back on the rim to seal. If you get a flat, stop right away and get the weight of the tire to keep the bead seated. That way a low capacity air source will get you back on the road after the hole is plugged. If it tire unseats from the rim, you are going to need a lot of air.

You could use the old 4WD'ers trick of using flammable gas to reseat a tyre on the bead. It works for big tyres. I might just try a bit of R&D on that and see if there is enough volume in a big bike tyre to allow the process to work.

4WD tire

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=vLtBojvDEyc

IT WORKS....!!!!

Bike tire

That is one sweet trick! Note to self: Pack butane canister......

ThaiVisa member Drtreelove showed me some of his single track haunts northeast of Maejo University and it is indeed a treasure of an area. Fairly technical so you have to think, no huge climbs, and hours of trails to explore. Here are two kmz files for Google Earth that get you into the areas, but be advised, you can easily get lost with the many trails and intersections. Take a GPS or remember your turns. The kmz file named "Trail Entry" is the best one and it is on an old and now deteriorating interpretative trail system which is all single track. The "Easy Trails" kmz is wider and easier riding. This area needs to be on any mountain biker's radar if they like single track, and there is more up on the ridge we never got to. It's called the Bann Bpong community area and it feels very remote.

Easy Trails.kmz

Trail Entry.kmz

Maejo Ride Center.kmz

Those pluggers (tire shops and kits) work well if the tubeless tire stays on the bead. I had a flat in the boonies two years ago and it took most of an afternoon to find an air compressor with enough capacity to blow the tire bead back on the rim to seal. If you get a flat, stop right away and get the weight of the tire to keep the bead seated. That way a low capacity air source will get you back on the road after the hole is plugged. If it tire unseats from the rim, you are going to need a lot of air.

Wine drinkers may wish to check out Rimping near the airport.

They have a large quantity of wine on sale at 3 bottles for 1000B.

Admittedly it may not be the best on the market at this price but there is a large variety of brands and style.

Thanks for that info as I need to pick up some for Christmas dinner. I assume the same 2-5 PM rules for not being allowed to buy applies there also? If so, will pick some up in the morning on the way to work. Opening time for Rimping near airport?

Dang, there go the good ones! Seriously though, they have the same promotion at all the Rimping stores.

Heard a Tokay call 14 times last night and I happened to be counting. He almost got a 15th one out but it was just a little grunt. It just kept going, and going, and going.....

Jingthing... We checked out a new set of buildings next to Export 71 on Huay Gaew Road two months ago. Separate bedroom, free internet, two TV's, washing machine, and very modern. Right around 11,000 baht a month with the promotion then, but they may have filled all the big units. It's a buyer's market right now in CM for rentals of all kinds. New buildings up by CMU, past Wat Umong, and in Hang Dong. Be patient and check out all the offerings, but when you find a good one, move on it.

I wonder if you can buy Estes rocket motors in Thailand?? You could just glue a guide tube on the engine and mount a few on the bottom bracket. Put in the ignitors wired to a convenient switch on the handle bars and a battery and you've got some seriously effective CCM. (Canine Counter Measures) An estes rocket motor swirling around on the ground would scare the crap out of anything around!

Thinking about this a bit, a windshield wiper motor from a car hooked up to a tank of C-Snake-NT special elixir would work pretty well too! Just point one nozzle sideways on each side of the bike.

I've thought about putting stuff like that in a water bottle but the attacks don't happen often enough to warrant it. I've got experience using pepper spray on humans (much to their chagrin I might add) and the canisters need to be used just like firearms with proper shooting posture and procedure. Not handy on a bike but like I said earlier, once off the bike it can be different story. A bike bottle with a good squirt top might fill the bill though, but it still distracts you from protecting yourself.

hey T dog... Yup I have been there many a time... Have to control the situation. Have to impress on the alpha dog that a biblical act of violence is an immediate possibility... I prefer the visualization of throwing a few of them into an industrial wood chipper. If they get a whiff of a humans ruthless inner Chimpanzee then they think about their self preservation.

People forget that 5000 years ago all dogs were wolves. Man started domesticating them and that's why we have wiener dogs and greyhounds etc. Those dogs would not exist in nature.. They would be eaten like finger snacks by wolves.

Deep down in every dogs DNA is a scary flesh mauling pack savage of a wolf.... Once in a while a person might get to experience a taste of that.

Fortunately these days it's pretty rare.

Ah Snake, the ruthless inner chimp! Yep, I agree with you. There is one black dog that lives in a hill tribe settlement that is truly an attack dog. Luckily he lives on a downhill so I can out maneuver him but he always has that look in his eye...... But smarts wins.

I am out on the bike several times a week and in four years, have only had a few risky encounters. Most dogs just want to bark until you leave and it's not worth doing anything in those cases.

Other dogs might require you to just raise you arm like you are going to throw a rock and they scurry away when you yell "Bpye" as long as you are leaving the area.

Last week though I got surrounded by a pack of 5 dogs south of the Samoung Road near the Olive Home guest house. 3 dogs were very aggressive and they actually circled me to get behind me. For the first time here, I had to get off the bike and protect my rear. I picked up some rocks and threw them at the dogs to make room for me to keep walking the bike out of the area. 100 meters later they retreated and I was able to get back on the bike, only to find one of the dogs ripping up the road to get at me. Had to get off the bike again and pick up some rocks.

You need to control the situation while protecting yourself and I doubt any type of weapon could be deployed fast enough when on a bike to help you. Once you are off the bike like I was last week, it might be a different story.

Just ran into something about FireFox. If you go to "Preferences", "Security", and "Saved Passwords, you can see all the passwords that you may have saved into FireFox. I would have thought you would need to use the computer admin password to get to it but all my passwords can be easily viewed with just a few keystrokes. Not a problem as long as the MacBook is used only by me and doesn't get stolen, but if it does....... Ouch! I don't use a turn-on password but I think that is about to change..... This is a handy feature in case you forget a password, but maybe a little bit too handy.

I've got a CBR-150 and I have to admit that many times in traffic jams I have wished I had more of an "Urban Transporter" like a Click or the PCX. But I deal with, enjoy it, and often hang stuff off the mirrors. We just got back from a 900 km trip, two-up and it was wonderful. No complaints from the missus except the usual "when do we eat next?" The new CBR-150 has much nicer seats so I hope she doesn't see one. In Chiang Mai with all the ring roads, the CBR-150 makes a lot more sense for getting around overall.

I have never been able to send embedded images through my Gmail account, until I enabled the 'Inserting Images' option through the Gmail Labs feature. Would that be of any help?

Well, not really, as that would require me training all the people sending me emails where I can't see the images. I appreciate the thought though.

Below is what I found on the GMAIL help links. I am having this problem with FireFox and Safari, and it just started about a week ago. I've tried all the normal clean-up items like cookies, etc.

FROM GMAIL HELP:

We are aware of an issue where users are having problems forwarding messages with inline images, as the images are not appearing for the recipients of the email. While we investigate the issue, please try using another browser.

Having this issue? Reported.

Awful timing! We have our staff party and sports day today and it is miserable! At least its getting cooler...

Keep moving to stay warm! It's also bad timing for Hmong villagers as today is New Year's day and lots of celebrations going on up in thar hills.

Okay, I got the date wrong and the Hmong new year is celebrated on 4 January this year. Just got back from a mountain bike ride in the hills near Samoung and I was in solid cloud and mist above 800 meters. Glad I took my Thermax long sleeve shirt as it was chilly coming back down. Looks like it's starting to clear now.

Last week emails from GMAIL users to my GMAIL account started having problems with embedded images not displaying. Tried turning off Ad Blocker, tried Gmail2, and looked through the many GMAIL help topics on this issue that many seem to be discovering. Anyone else experience this and find a solution? It only involves emails sent from one GMAIL account to another.

Awful timing! We have our staff party and sports day today and it is miserable! At least its getting cooler...

Keep moving to stay warm! It's also bad timing for Hmong villagers as today is New Year's day and lots of celebrations going on up in thar hills.

We hit a good storm last week on a motorcycle ride up north and hunkered down in Mae Salong for a day of rain. Tourists from Bangkok were gathered around in the morning watching the winds push the clouds over the mountains. A bit colder and it would have been snow so they might get a white Christmas up there yet!

Solid drizzle here up by the zoo. Quite the wet winter season so far. You can blame us as we washed the car and the motorcycle yesterday!

The Honda Shop on Huay Gaew Road in Chiang Mai has a red CBR-150 AND a red CBR-250 in stock. Just saw the -250 get unloaded from the truck 30 minutes ago. The -250 is very striking and first impressions are that it is a bigger bike, especially with those big tires on it. They couldn't start it yet, but it sure is a nice looking bike. My next bike is a two-cylinder though like the Kawasaki Versys and not this one. There were several Thai guys waiting to see the -250 so it is going to be very popular in Thailand.

Just1.... There is a helmet shop about halfway down Sri Domchai road that sells tank bags. The one I bought for 800 baht is a great one. Strong magnets, several velcro closures, expand-zip, and nice map pocket with a viewing panel. Sure worked great on the trip.

Makro.

And Kitchen Friend.

Boht sell nuts in wholesale quantities. (Pistachios, Almonds, Macademia, Cashew, Pecan, etc.)

Where is kitchen friend?

cheers

Just south of the Super Highway and on the Lampoon Road here in Chiang Mai. As soon as you cross under the Super Highway, look for a large building with a parking lot on the left. And in case you are interested, a great RC Helicopter/Airplane and BB Gun shop is a few doors down.

I have now driven about 2000km om my beautiful tri-color down here in phuket, and im just back from a quick spin kamala-karon and back. The last weeks i have rented both the ninja 650R and the baby 250, sure its great fun to go fast with the 650R and i will prob buy one next year, but "diving" in and out beetween cars and scooters on high RPM's in patong and the small curvy roads here in phuket with the 150 is just as fun, really enjoying the bike and lookin forward to putting many more km's on the meter.

And you will keep having fun with it! For your next bike, check out the Kawasaki Versus. I think that might be the ideal bike for Thailand as it has lots of suspension travel and it is darn light. I like a light bike for Thailand as it lets you get off the beaten path and it is easier to handle on the downhills. We just got back to CM from a trip up to Pu Chi Fah, up the Mekong to Chiang Saen and then to Mae Salong. Hit some rough dirt tracks to several hill tribe villages where a big bike would have a very tough time. Two up and we had a blast. Ran into a Truimph/BMW Super Bike club and some of those guys had 50,000 baht in tires. That would be the cost of my bike and all operating costs for 4 years! Here are some pics....