rideswings

Thanks for your reply. I have heard that K-3's take longer to get approved, up to 1 year, and that K-1's are not taking that long, thats 1 reason, The other reason is that if she hates it in the USA, and wants to come back before the 90 days are up, it will not be as permanent for me if we only file a K-1. Alot of my future relationship is based on whether or not she will be happy living in the USA. The plan is to get her over to the USA, stay there 2 or 3 years without returning to Thailand, and then coming back to visit Thailand annually for short periods of time after that.

Im looking to file for a K-1 USA Fiance Visa for my Thai GF, we are both currently in Bangkok and have been together for almost 2 years. I dont have much faith in my own ability to fill out paperwork, so I am looking for assistance from a Lawyer.

Im wondering if I should hire a Thai lawyer to help, or should I wait to get back to the USA and hire an American lawyer. Im going back next month for a few weeks.

Thanks for your help.

Thanks for the info Mario.

Happy new year to everyone.

I am currently on retirement extension issued last year 21 July 2014. I departed Thailand and got a single reentry at the airport before i left on 27 August 2014. I returned to Thailand 28 October and have been here since then, a total of 69 days so far. I hope I am legal since I have not been to immigration since returning in October. Should I go and report at least a few days before the 90 day period has expired, or should I just go this week and report? This is my first retirement extension so Im still not sure about everything I need to do. Thanks.

Im looking to move closer to Seacon Square but I dont know the area. Does anyone know of condos for rent not more than 5 or 10 minutes from that area? I would prefer something not near a mosque or railroad crossing due to noise.

Im looking for at least 1 bedroom, and a laundry with washer and dryer (can be communal W/D). Niceties would be a pool and or fitness at no extra charge. I know I will prob need to buy internet and TV reception myself.

My current situation is forcing me to move near there, so any tips or referrals would be appreciated. I dont speak much Thai, so some of the agencies that dont speak English are of little value to me.

Thank you.

Gotta be careful in Bangkok. My theft deterrent is carrying a 690 baht Nokia Non-smart phone. If they want it, they can have it.

I may be able to help, but when you say Phra Khanong, do you mean district or BTS station. Phra Khanong BTS station is in a sub district of Wattana. You mention On Nut and Ram which makes me think you are some where up Pridi Banomyong Rd. What's your mode of transportation? What time of day do you want to practice? How much do you want to pay? What type of Yoga do you want to practice? Can you speak or understand Thai? Yoga in Bangkok can be expensive but there are some good studio's with reasonable prices too.

Hi JuliaB. I meant Phra Khanong BTS, yes near Pridi. I have a motorbike or could take a taxi.

I am open to practice during the day up until 5pm, preferably between 12 and 5. I could pay 200 baht or more per hour depending on whether its a class or private lesson. Im not rich! haha

I dont speak or understand Thai.

Thanks for your help.

I'm looking to do some indoor yoga at a place not far from Phra Khanong. Does anyone have any recommendations for a place?

I could go as far as Ramkamhaeng Rd or On Nut.

Thanks!

Op, what side of the sidewalk do you walk on? Im from the USA, so I usually walk on the right side of the sidewalk. Thais I see daily will walk on either side, so if I see a potential collision with an oncoming walker, I usually just turn sideways and let them pass.

Hello Mr R, nice to see you.

I'd have to say, if I'm ever going to collide with anyone, it would be an American. They seem to do everything arsed about over there. I've even seen them driving on the wrong side of the road in Oz. 55555

Yes nice to see you too ND. You had better keep that Kangaroo that you ride off of the motorway or else you might be colliding with more than just Americans unless you can get it to gallop a little bit faster to keep up with traffic.

I'd rather take that Cessna of your for a spin

Should be easy for you to fly because it has controls on both the left and right sides. Very accomodating for those of you from countries whos steering wheel is on the wrong (right hand) side of the car hehe

Op, what side of the sidewalk do you walk on? Im from the USA, so I usually walk on the right side of the sidewalk. Thais I see daily will walk on either side, so if I see a potential collision with an oncoming walker, I usually just turn sideways and let them pass.

Hello Mr R, nice to see you.

I'd have to say, if I'm ever going to collide with anyone, it would be an American. They seem to do everything arsed about over there. I've even seen them driving on the wrong side of the road in Oz. 55555

Yes nice to see you too ND. You had better keep that Kangaroo that you ride off of the motorway or else you might be colliding with more than just Americans unless you can get it to gallop a little bit faster to keep up with traffic.

Op, what side of the sidewalk do you walk on? Im from the USA, so I usually walk on the right side of the sidewalk. Thais I see daily will walk on either side, so if I see a potential collision with an oncoming walker, I usually just turn sideways and let them pass.

Thanks again everyone for the info.

Thanks for the information.

Ive been living in Bangkok for a while but I have not found a place to fly my radio controlled airplane. There used to be a field called Sawasdee somewhere, but I dont know if its still open.

Any RC flyers on the forum live in BKK and where do you fly? Im also into RC helicopters and RC cars and trucks, and Ive found a few places to drive my cars and buggies.

Thanks again for all the advice. Handbrake is a good program, and Ive been getting the file sizes down to around 700-800mb with those settings for a 2 hour movie.

I have done around a dozen of them, and Handbrake seems to crash about 50% of the time, gets to a point and then freezes and I need to start over with a different DVD. I am using 2 laptop computers to do this, and it takes around 45 minutes to an hour to encode one DVD. If a DVD fails in one laptop, I just use the other and hope it works.

Im not using subtitles, these are all home movies,

Do you think it could save me 10 or 15% of time in the process? I have a bunch of these to do.

Depends on cpu core count, clock speed, efficiency (intel is more effecient at same speed then Amd)

Im looking at a Dell desktop with 3.4ghz i3-4150 chip and 4gb ram.

Something like this:

http://www.itcityonline.com/shop/index.php?id_product=3877&controller=product&id_lang=7

Thanks for the info, Im trying that now.

Can i ask, would it rip faster if I used a desktop instead of my laptop? My laptop is a few months old with 4gb ram and a 1.9ghz processor. I never tried ripping on a desktop, just curious.

Thanks again!

Thanks again for the help. I started using Handbrake and I like it so far, but the first MP4 I made was almost 3gb, even though I changed settings to downmixing to 2 channels and used AAC codec at 128kbps. On quality I used 20, but now I am trying 25, but not sure how it will look. I hope it will reduce file size.

For sound, I think stereo will be fine. Here is a screenshot of my video settings. My original video is 4 hours long, but really only 2h34m in content, and Handbrake let me cut it down to a shorter length, from 85 chapters to 78, before starting the encode, a very nice features.

Handbrake is good, all in 1 program

Read up on some guides, use the x264 video codec, some guys are getting good quality rips with 720p material with a file size of 800mb, DVDs are 480p so you should be fine aiming for 700mb.

You can reduce the audio footprint by only using your preferred language track and downmixing to 2 channels, use AAC codec at 128kbps, much better quality then mp3 at low bitrates, if you want to retain surround sound use Ac3 at 384kbps

Thanks Diddy. Im gonna try Handbrake too and see what it gives me. These are mostly home movies, and the quality to begin with wasnt great, so I dont care abotu losing a little resolution.

DVDshrink or Freemake

http://www.dvdshrink.org/

http://www.freemake.com/

Thanks for the info.

What size is the file you are trying to rip?

700 meg, heck thats about VCD quality.

4 gig sounds about right, the only other thing to do is to get into the root files and not bother ripping all the crap you dont need, eg Korean subtitles.

Does the programme give you a choice of which file format to save the original file?

Most of them are almost full discs, so the VOB files were big, around 4gb.

700MB does sound small, but I just dont have enough space for much larger files.

My videos were mostly shot with a camcorder, so they didnt have any subtitles, menus, etc, so that wont need to be ripped.

Yes it gives me a choice of MP4, MKV, or AVI.

Im trying to rip all my old non-commercial DVD home movies to my hard drive, and Im not sure how to get the best mix of quality and smaller file size.

I downloaded a program from Cnet called Free DVD Video Converter, but it ripped my first 2 hour movie into a monstrous 4gb AVI file which way too big for me to store since I have alot of movies to rip. I chose AVI because I have used it before and Im not really familiar with other file types.

Can anyone that has ripped some movies give me some advice? I would be happy with file sizes of around 700MB.

Thanks!

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this topic. I just got back from the shop and had Pilots and YSS shock installed on the Click. The ride now is exactly what I was looking for. It tracks straight as an arrow, stays upright longer and with less work due to wider wheel width, corners like a 'vette, and feels like a motorcycle now instead of a scooter (bicycle feel). The bike soaks up Bangkok bumps with ease, and I was intentionally driving over things just to see how the bike responded. Nothing I threw at it was too much, and it feels like a whole different bike now. The tires feel like a good stable set of Nike running shoes, compared to the old tires which felt like ice skates.

Thanks again to all who helped.

BTW the mechanic who installed the tires overinflated them until they were as hard as rocks and the bike rode like crap. After letting out about 10 psi of air of each tire, the bike rides great.

Thanks for all the tips! I really would prefer to keep the Click instead of buying a Nouvo or PCX even if I have to upgrade it a little bit. The Click is so light and easy to "flick" in between cars, its a pleasure to ride in traffic.

Yes the monoshock in the back to me is a down side of the bike especially riding with a passenger. Im first going to replace the front and rear tires then see about the strut, and then maybe upgrade the variator as well.