noise

We went from the monthly plan to the purchase plan earlier this year ( and got new hardware, including the box). We returned the "rented" stuff and got a full refund minus some fees because we had a partial month on the monthly plan.

I assume you are only talking about tax on interest paid on your bank account. I found this on line at what appears to be a UK govt web site: Interest Tax

I extracted the paragraph below. The web site covers many other situations

If you're a non-taxpayer

If your level of income means that you don't need to pay tax, you can complete a form 'R85 - Getting your interest without tax taken off'. If you've already had tax taken off your interest, you will be able to claim it back.

Does the "tuk tuk" (or hospital cart) follow the same route?

Not exactly. After picking you at at the parking lot, it comes out on the moat road going to Ram, drops you off at the front door, goes around to emergency, picks you up, goes around the back of the hospital, down the ramp, and then turns immediately RIGHT and follows that little soi adjacent to Ram towards Kad Suan Kaew for a 100 meters or so and then turn left and goes south along that soi into the back of the parking lot. So...main road going, back alleys on return. Never has to go inside the moat.

I believe that the crunch is due to expansion of the building on the upper deck of the parking garage. That took away quite a number of parking spaces.

Nice to know there's "tuk tuk" service. The parking area is a bit of a walk. Last time at the hospital I noticed a multi-seat golf cart ferrying people away from the building.................. the turn onto the road to return in a northerly direction is a little tricky because you have to get through possibly heavy traffic quickly to get to the left before the lot entrance, and I recall that the parking area entrance is not very far on from that turn.

I think you are referring to the old entrance. The new entrance is between the 1st cross over and the 2nd one.

If you come from the north (e.g., Huay Kaew road), you go inside the moat and go south to the Suan Dok gate (3rd cross overs from the north west corner of the moat). The 2nd cross over is blocked for U-turns from inside the moat.

Having made the U-turn at Suan Dok, you have plenty of time to get over to the left lane and then go past the 2nd cross over. The entrance is maybe 50 meters further on.

For those that might not know, return to the parking lot is arranged at the emergency desk. Ask one of the attendants and they will call for the tuk tuk or let you know it is already on its way.

Go and have a look in hide away .......It's a thai diary the milk is really good not sure about the cheese because i don't eat it but my friends have said it was ok.

Dacheeso's fresh dairy products are superb. Their aged cheeses, though, are mostlymade for Thai tastes. Might be good for children, too. They're very mild. I suspect that one of the reasons for this is to properly age cheeses like cheddar, you have to give it at least 6 months in a temperature controlled environment. Which means A/C and lots of storage space. This is expensive given Thailand's climate.

I have bought DaCheeso's cheese at Rim Ping and at their outlet in the Hide Away restaurant and, to my tastes, none of it is aged. None of it really has the flavor I grew up associating with the names.

Their gruyere cheese has the "sharpest" taste.

Their parmesan is soft at the factory. It would shred but I doubt it would grate worth a darn. I did buy a small cup of their grated parmesan at Rim Ping one time so I was surprised they did not sell it at the factory. I bought a 1/2 kg block of it on my last visit and put it in the freezer hoping that would dry it out without it getting moldy. Time will tell.

It is also possible that there is nothing wrong with the pump but maybe you have a water leak somewhere between the pump and the water outlet (tap/shower etc). ....

Could be a leaking toilet, even just a small amount will make the pump run continuously. That is the easiest to find and fix as you can hear the toilets running when you stand next to them.

Crossy's suggestion is also a good one. Every couple of years, I seem to need to adjust my screw settings. Well, it really may just be that playing with the mechanism, turning the screws back and forth, is just working off some corrosion in the mechanical/electrical connectors. Anyway, one place to check.

But another problem may be that between you and your landlord you ran water somewhere (e.g., watering the yard, washing the car, filling fish ponds, etc.) for a enough time to empty the tank or just pumped down below "draw" pipe opening and, therefore, started sucking air. Once you get air in the line, the pump runs continuously.

On my pump I have a "relief plug" (for want of the proper name), a short vertical piece next to the pump. I think that Fig 2 of your pump, short vertical blue pipe with grey notched cap, may be the same thing.

That could be a priming port, rather than a relief port, so first try this. With the pump off, unscrew the cap completely. Take the cap off and if you can fill that with water, that may solve the problem. If you can not because the water just runs into the pipes, then try my next suggestion.

With the pump running, (very slowly or the cap blows off) unscrew the cap until air starts blowing out. All you need is a noticeable hiss; you want to keep the threads engaged enough to keep the lid/plug in place. Once water starts coming out, I screw the cap back in. Pump then shuts off when pressure restored.

Svenivan

Did you say this new project is called One DOA?

When an American dies in Thailand, the US Consulate will provide certifed copies of the death certificate (in English). Could it be that the British embassy/consulate has the same citizen service?

Ate there last night for the first time. I would label it a HIDDEN GEM. The simple strip mall sign out front really gives no hint about what a clean, nicely decorated little restaurant with an extensive menue is lurking behind the doors.

Had delicious zebra clams in a white sauce on pasta with a decent generic white wine. Friend had a nice lasagna with a glass of red.

It is a great asset for the Mae Jo/San Sai area. I kick myself for driving by it all these months without trying it before this.

I saw thatThai food is available, also.

I have never seen Sam Adams in town and I would bet there is none in country. No IPAs, either. The only noticeably hopped beer (to my taste buds) I have found is Hoppe (sp?) sold at the wine store in Mee Choke Plaza. It may be at the other locations but I have not looked.

There is a hop oil sold on line in the U.S. in 1 oz bottles. Squeeze a few drops into Singha or Chang to add a nice hops flavor. But I have not found a seller that will ship overseas.

If you go to immigration on Monday to get an extension you will not pay a fine nor get an overstay stamp.

He passport says he is allowed to stay in Thailand until the 19th. He shows up in Thailand on the 20th. Why would that not be considered an overstay?

Thanks for your advice SC but as I mentioned this was a new car and serviced religiously. If you can give me some evidence that tires here last more than 30 to 40 k km I will look into it.

As pure coincidence, at 1 pm today 16 August, I have an appointment to have my 5 year old Fortuner's Michellin tires with 72,000+ trouble free kilometers on them replaced with another set of Michellin tires. The still have tread, but too little for safety reasons in the rainy season.

When I looked for replacements, I found there are 4 different Michellin model numbers for the Fortuner with different prices. In my experience, tire life is in direct relation to the price and small difference in price can often mean significant differences in tire life. I assume I will get another 70+K km out of this new set based on reviewing the spec for each tire.

It doesn't matter where you are in the world, there are always random failures in quality products.

I just asked at 2 Toyota dealers in Chiangmai and they both said the updated GPS DVD is 18,000+ baht. I questioned them very carefully and both places repeated twice that that is just the DVD price, not for a new system.

Please, someone disabuse me of this information.

Maybe if you provided some details you would get offers.

There are some subjects about which I either know enough about and/or have thought enough about that I would feel very comfortable in writing a 300 word essay/article ..... but only if I knew where and how it was going to be used.

There would probably be many other subjects that I would find interesting enough to research in order to write an intelligent article.

But, again, knowing how and when the article was going to be used would influence what I would consider sufficient renumeration.

We just purchased a UPS , which is a straight forward model, for 1200 bht. There are many different models available in many of the PC stores. ( I suggest PANTIP plaza)

I agree with peterjb's suggestion you buy here. But if you have any idea that you have the room in your luggage and it is a 220V UPS, do so searches in Thailand for batteries (you will need a new one sooner or later) and, if they have them here, consider just leaving the battery behind when you come over. You could fill the case with socks or something.

Go to the day on which you have the appointment and you will see something like the screen shot below. Click cancel and follow the instructions.

The easiest way is....Open an account at SCB.problem solved.

This implies that SCB will go out and request from every utility company the monthly bill for each customer (by name/address?) and then pay it. Even if you tell SCB which companies to contact, that sounds like a lot of costly labor for them each month. But if you are saying once you provide the list, SCB does the leg work CMSteve described....? please clarify.

I know what CMSteve described works for everything that bills monthly. And it should be independent of the bank you use. Yes, you have to do the leg work, but once it is set up it becomes effort free on part of the homeowner/renter.

One way to protect yourself if you are uneasy about 3rd parties accessing your account is to set up a separate utility account and monitor it on line. If your monthly bills run 1,000 baht per month, you might make an initial depost of 3,000 and then each month transfer on line the amount you paid last month. That keeps a 2,000 baht buffer for unexpected charges.

Tell her you will have to get another maid to replace her, so she may or may not have a job when she gets back.

This is the best approach.

I stopped reading here as nothing else I could say applies. Our maid wanted to do something similar after a year and arranged for her aunt to take her place, intending to come back to work for us. By providing a relative as her (expected to be at the time) temporary replacement, she felt confident she could get her job back and we felt confident we would continue to get the superb work ethic we had gotten used to.

Our maid providing a relative as her replacement is the key, in my mind: reputations are at stake. In your case, if she really wants her job back at the end of 2 months, she will do her best to provide a good worker. If you get your own replacement, you have the luck of the draw.

Just a thought for consideration.

TWO FOR ONE SALE

Have you been to what appear to be major medical supply stores across the street from the CMU Medical School (Suan Dok)?

If unable to find anything there, I would try the Ram orthopaedics clinic on the first floor immediately to the left as you go in the front door. Just go in and ask the nurses manning the desk there how to get one.

Another approach would be to go up to the forth floor specialty clinic and ask those nurses.

I know they do order special devices and can get anything you want.

Has anyone tried taking the Burmese/Tai Yai's 90 day paperwork in and running it through the expat route?

Mae Taeng Northbound, 50m past the traffic lights where you'd turn right for Mae Ngat dam - on the right (Southbound side) is a medium sized "shophouse" that's a hardware store.

To clarify: when you say on the right (southbound side) are you saying that if one continued north past the turn 50m and looked to the right, to the east side of the road, one would see this shop?

Land & Houses Park is 3 km south of Mae Joe. It is not prone to flooding, though there was flooding last year. The majority of the water was street only, street and yard in some areas, and into houses on lower land near the front gate.

Most, but not all, of the is flooding was coming up from the storm drains and then channeled by the street curbs away from ditches and into residential areas. Since the floods, L&H has taken efforts to clean out the ditches and add more ways the streets can drain directly into them.

Driving in and out of the development was always possible.

I would not automatically discount living here and, in fact, are now actively helping poor relatives look for a cheap home here.

A location large enough to handle many more people than on the guest list and lots of car parking should be a must.

There are many of us who ( a ) do not live in town and only drive cars or ( b ) have both but will not attending a drinking function at night riding a motorcycle (i.e., will attend only if they can drive their car and find on site parking).

I liked the old Tuskers, but only had to go there once for party to learn not to repeat that mistake. It took more time to find a place to park and walk to and from than the time I spent there. The time I spent there was shortened by the fact that it was wall to wall people and just too hard to mix, get a drink, get food. Add in the band, and it was hard to even converse with the person jammed in next to you.