jfchandler

About the issue of jurisdiction for Thai consulates in the U.S., the language they use on the Thai Embassy web site can be somewhat misleading....

Yes, there is language on their web site that basically says they divide the U.S. into regions, and then direct people who live in different states to go to the corresponding consulate for that region. Consulate meaning the actual Thai government consulates or Embassy...

That was my assumption all along, and as someone formerly living in L.A., I had assumed I had to deal with the L.A. Consulate...

But later, upon hiring professional help, I discovered there is additional language that entitles people to also go to the honorary consulate of their choice (and there are many more of the honorary ones)....if they wish to... regardless of what region/consular area they live in. That came as a surprise, but I have found it is in fact true...

OK...so she's hoping for a U.S. company to sponsor her for an H visa... pretty hard to find, unless she's got some really special or unique work skill...

What area are you/she living???

Yes...Los Angeles consulate will issue tourist visas....if you follow their procedure...

About business visas... if your paperwork is about planning or exploring setting up a business in Thailand...the LA consulate supposedly will not issue a B visa for that....

If your paperwork is documenting you doing some business with a Thai company by invitation or having an existing business in Thailand of which you are the owner/operator and meet all the visa requirements, such as employing Thai nationals....then they probably would issue a B visa...

They also have their own web site.... Just for your information, you can check their web site as it details what things they require for certain kinds of visas... and see if you/your documents meet their criteria...

http://www.thai-la.net/visa/visa-non-im.htm

fyi...in talking with Houston lately, they indicated if you have the appropriate paperwork, they would issue the visa within 1 day... Others have indicated that other honorary consulates will do it while you wait.. assuming you are there... If worse comes to worse...remember...I believe you could fly Southwest from LA to Houston and probably back the same or next day...

Please report back...and let folks know what happens with the L.A. consulate...and on what basis you were applying to them...

Jing, although MJ doesn't really advertise or promote it, I realized once I started using it that in the program menu, they have options for using MJ with a computer headset and mic, instead of with a traditional telephone. But, I've only used it with a phone yet... not with a headset...

Have you used it with a headset yet? And if so, how do you do that in terms of the connections? Change the software menu settings to headset... plug the MJ into your USB port...and then what... Just plug your headset into your computer's headset jacks...and it works????

After using Skype before and always having to muck around with the headseat and microphone on my head.... I LIKED the change with MJ where I could just go back to talking on a regular telephone...and holding the phone between my shoulder and ear..... But as you mentioned...if you're using it in a net cafe...it's probably easier to carry around a headset vs. a small phone...

Skype to Skype international is free - so I'll still use it to call to another Skype user. For my business I have people in the US and India for instance and me in Thailand. We do 3 way conference calls for free. I assume that's a toll call with Magic Jack.

Just a thought about your situation above.... If you in Thailand and the others in India both had MJ... you could both call back to your U.S. people for free....unlimited time... I don't know about arranging conference calls on MJ... Anyone done that????

My company has an office in bangkok and their lawyer did all the paperwork for me. All the forms that were listed on the requirements are attached, right down to photos of the office and the desks. I am in Ca, so will be going to the Thai Embassy in Los Angeles. I called and spoke with the woman there and she was Thai. I would hate to get there and they cannot read the documents as I fly out 48 hours later.

The Los Angeles consulate is not HONORARY... it is a regular, Thai government operation, they certainly have Thai staff there... They also have a very bad reputation about issuing (not issuing) O and B non imm. visas....

About DTAC and related, I'd add a similar story...

When I first came to Thailand...my Thai friends would always talk about going to or places at "Centen World"... And I'd say... HUH??? What is that? And I'd look on my own at maps and directories and such and try to figure out what the hel_l place they were talking about...but not find it...

Then finally...after going there...I realized they were talking about Central World mall near Siam....but I could never figure out why they always say "Centen". If I'd pronounce it "Central World," my Thai friends wouldn't know what I was talking about...

Finally, lately, I asked my Thai tutor why locals say "Centen"... And her answer was Thais, of course, have trouble pronouncing the L sound... So they, somewhere/somehow, decided to change the name to avoid the L.... That was her explanation... Have no idea if it's true....

Indeed. PDX is painless. I got my 1yr non-O in Feb. $100 and 5min is all it took.

On what basis did you apply/qualify for the non-imm O visa issued at Portland????

Others here have reported being denied at various of the U.S. honorary consulates just on the basis of wanting to visit LOS....

Regarding the honorary consulates in the U.S., they generally/often seem to be housed in some kind of private businesses, as is the case with Houston.

So, as far as I can tell, Houston for example has no Thai staff involved. All the people I have come across there...from the honorary consul to his assistant to the person who actually handles my paperwork... are all farang. I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case at most of the honorary consulates... They are, after all, HONORARY consulates....

Thus, they're likely going to have a hard time making sense of documents written only in Thai.

What are people's experiences at any of the other honorary consul locations about this????

No problem to get a taxi from Suk to Silom at ANY hour of the night/morning...

No traffic then...so figure less than half hour drive.... Maybe fare of 100 baht....

Skytrain BTS closes at midnight... so you can use to go from Silom to Suk... but need to take taxi b ack home.. That bar is a short walk (5 mins) from the Nana Station...

Ya...I've had the same generally good experience with it also... now after about six months of regular use...

I pretty much only have used it for calling from BKK to California...using my supposedly 2 MB True DSL...until my current trip where I'm now using it in Los Angeles for local calls.

There have been some times when the net connection from Thailand to the U.S. has been so bad/slow that I couldn't make a useable call.. But on those occasions, I likewise tried Skype and got the same problem result... So it wasn't anything particular about MJ...but rather... a symptom of the sometimes overloaded demand for Thailand to overseas net traffic...

Thanks for the "thank you..." It's an inexpensive...natural tool that anyone from the U.S. who's living in Thailand can make very good use of....

The guys at Taco Loco on Silom are very pleasant and accommodating... But...unfortunately, their food doesn't hold a candle to Sunrise, either in taste or in variety of menu....

However, last I heard, there isn't going to be a Sunrise outlet on Silom any time soon.... So the alternative is to stop by the Siam Paragon branch in you're out that way, as opposed to the Sukhumvit area....

JJ.... I also have a Countrywide account, but it's an online savings account, which comes with no ATM card, but otherwise has been great.... What kind of Countrywide account are you using that has a no fee ATM card???

About the BofA thing, note that Countrywide used to be a consistent leader in CD rates, but lately, they've fallen out of the top ranks, though their rates are still at least competitive... Once the BofA acquisition is final, assuming that happens, I wouldn't bet on them remaining fee-free for very long, considering BofA's habits....

Jing... I'm back in California now on a two week trip.... and...took my Magic Jack and small house phone with me... Plugged them into my laptop here in my hotel, and presto....I have my regular home phone...wherever I go. Free unlimited calling to any U.S. numbers here, just the same as the free, unlimited calling from other countries like Thailand back to U.S. numbers....

I've used the Magic Jack in a few net cafes and it has worked OK... The software is all onboard, and works with both XP and Vista... I suppose a net cafe could configure their PCs so that no one can do anything with software or saving files onto their hard disks...but I don't think most are configured that way... So... it should work OK most of the time...assuming you have a USB plug available to access.

For those doing hotel stays such as myself...it's a great way of avoiding some hotels' ridculously overpriced rates for local and out of the area phone calls.

The rooftop bar above Foodland in Sukhumvit Soi 5 told me the other night they stay open until 5 in the morning.... The TGF and I visited there about 2 in the morning lately, and it was pretty quiet... But they had a big screen TV on showing some sports thing at the time...

We didn't stay that night...so I can't vouch much for the place. But it looked to be a good place for a group to watch sports late into the morning. And I've read past reviews about the place that say exactly that...

ROYAL THAI CONSULATE-GENERAL 1123 AURARIA PKWY, SUITE 200 DENVER, CO 80204 Tel : (303) 892-0118 Fax : (303) 892-0119 E-mail : [email protected] Honorary Consul-General, Mr. Donald W. RingbyThe full list of Thai consulates/honorary consulates in on the Washington D.C. Thai Embassy's web site.

fyi...I noticed today that the contact info for the Houston consulate (phone, suite and zip extension), as shown there, has changed somewhat from a year ago when I last contacted them.

Why applying for the O visa...when you're over 50.... A retirement visa or extension would seem a more convenient route????

See a related thread that's now surfaced on this same general subject...

PS... I still have the same box of records, not yet digitized... Life threw me a few loops in the intervening months that pushed down the records project to a lesser priority...

But meanwhile, I've replaced the older PC with a new dual core HP Media Center PC.... with integrated sound... Hmmm.... next stop.... new PCI-E sound card on the next trip back State-side...

Then back to the record player dilemma... Sorry guys... I know stereo and computer stuff... But I don't have a degree in electrical engineering...

Trying to figure out the upshot of all the prior advice on eliminating the hum from my prior turntable recording set-up was like trying to ski uphill...just going nowhere!!!!

See this prior thread on a similar subject...

Sony is also in grade A (mostly made in Taiwan but some in Japan), I use Sony DVD-R and CDR mainly because it is consistently available and doesn't cost the earth I pay 650thb for 50 DVD-R and 350 thb for 50 CDR.

I've been living off my reservoir of CD-Rs and DVD-+Rs brought from the U.S., all TDK and Sonys..... But that stock is soon depleted....and I've got an upcoming trip back to the U.S.....

Any suggestions of where to purchase the Sony DVDs and CDs here in Thailand, specifically BKK....?

Or should I just grab some spindles while I'm back in the U.S.?? Last time, I was getting 50 pack spindles of TDK and Sony DVD-Rs on sale at Circuit City, Best Buy and such for $12-$13....ie... 400 baht... But the list price for those typically was $20, or about 650 baht... And it'd be easier to not have to be adding those packages to my already overloaded luggage....

I was having a monthly collection of forwarded snail mail sent from Texas to BKK by U.S.P.S. flat rate envelope, which is not trackable... All documents... no goods/merchandise...

Normally...it was taking about 10 calendar days to arrive here... Then last Christmas, my December package went missing... and I gave hel_l to my mail shipping company.... assumed I had lost all those documents, and switched to using trackable DHL or Fed-Ex....

Two months after its original mailing date, the UPSP envelope finally arrived at my home in BKK....unopened and with no indication of why it had been delayed or where it had been for all that time... That was my last time shipping from USA with USPS....

After eating all that Vegemite... you STINK???????

(just kidding....)

It seems very odd to me that supposedly two different people...on the same day....would both make their first ever posts on Thai Visa making different but derogatory comments about a local business....

I've had sometimes good and sometimes bad things to say publicly here on TV about Sunrise, the negatives mostly relating to the staff and service, not the food... But I don't recall any of us who are frequent TV posters, and repeat Sunrise customers, ever making or encountering such allegations...

One thing I know for certain... Greg is very serious about trying to make a success of his business there. It would be a shame if his business became the target of an unwarranted smear campaign....

I know Houston is good for B (business) visas, if you have the necessary supporting invitation paperwork from Thailand...

But I don't recall hearing any reports about their willingness to issue O visas just for longer-term visits, absent some other normally qualifying factor, such as marriage to a Thai, etc...

Like to hear about that...if anyone has O visa experience in either Portland or Houston...