Konini

Just an oddity - today I got an email from Immigration telling me my 90 day report was due.  Mr K didn't get one and I did it online for both of us, I think I did his first.  The only difference is that he is the main visa holder and I am on spouse Non-O.

Anyway, nice to get a reminder BUT we've just come back from overseas and don't need it, so obviously the 90 day report section of immigration doesn't get up to date info on people going out/into the country. 

It really wouldn't be so hard to link the data, but hey - what do I know.

Slightly off-topic, please forgive me.

Is anyone else having problems with Bangkok Bank internet banking?  I haven't been able to get on to for days, after logging in I get a page telling me it's unavailable - tried a couple of other browsers, same same.  No problems with the phone app, just the net banking.

Does anyone know  if this has to be done in person?  Can Mr K take his and my certificate and passport.

Expecting important documents mailed from overseas so one of us has to stay home in case it comes.  For some reason Australia doesn't use the standard tracking that the rest of the world does;  I have a tracking number, and it's in the correct format (two letters, eight numbers, country code) but as always when I enter it there's no such number in the tracking system.

On 10/4/2021 at 2:39 AM, Bruno123 said:

Did you set it to delete the System Reserved partition and the partition on which C sits?

If you don't, the install won't proceed. If you cannot, then possibly that is why it isn't working for you

 

How did you create the USB Flash installation drive?

I didn't delete the system reserved partition, I'll have a go at that later, thanks for the suggestion; nothing I've read mentioned it.

Tried burning a ISO with autounattend from Rufus and from Media Creation tool then copied autounattend.

2 hours ago, Bill97 said:

And so that means the average cost here in Chiang Mai is how much?

 

Or have you posted on the wrong topic again?

It's called sharing an anecdote - I was replying to someone not in Chiang Mai so not giving an average cost here, but that didn't seem to incur any wrath.  Perhaps I just got unlucky.

|| Or have you posted on the wrong topic again?

Again?  It's been a long time since I posted, I tend not to any more because of general unpleasantness.  

Aw, I thought there'd be an easier way out. 

I can boot to the bios OK, but when it restarts to Windows install there's only the broken screen (monitor drivers install part way through installation) so unfortunately that one's out.

Option 2 involves work - haven't opened the beast so far , but if I stuff it up I'm looking at replacing a big SSD as well as the screen. The other partitions are jam packed so I'd rather not do that if I can avoid it, but.. thinking out loud now... If I can get the disk to boot to one of the other laptops' screens rather than to the monitor via hdmi which needs a video driver I could install as normal (I wipe the partition and reinstall every few months) then put it back without formatting the other partitions.

Actually, this might be the way to go.  Thanks for pointing my mind in the right direction.

EDIT: D'oh!  I have a 500gb SSD that I'm not using at the moment, with a bit of luck there'll be enough room inside to add it as an extra disk.  Even if not, I've got an enclosure casing for it (somewhere) that I could probably use as my O/S disk.

 Why didn't I think of that?

(Unless I'm overlooking something really obvious, please feel free to chip in.  It's late, I'm tired and my not figuring this out hours ago without becoming one of 'those kind of people' means I really am getting too old to be messing with stuff like this; I don't want to fix the screen unless there's no other option.  Doubly so as it's still under warranty so I'd invalidate that unless I take it to HP which will cost a small fortune).

On 9/26/2021 at 9:55 AM, Bluetongue said:

 I also paid 12/15 cant remember for a root canal (4 visits in total) which failed at the last hurdle and had to be extracted anyway. 

Ha! I can better that one; 17or 18 years ago I became the owner of an $1,800 hole.  I'd had a root canal/post and crown done on a back tooth in the late 1980's and it went quite badly wrong, ending with lot of pain and 23 stitches following a surgical extraction (which I was never charged for so I can only assume they stuffed it up).  I really didn't want to go down that route again, but my (new) dentist was so nice; he convinced me that I should try to save it and that I'd just been really, really unlucky and lightning doesn't strike twice and anyway, he wasn't going to attempt to do it himself - he knew a top rate orthodontist, and he wouldn't have gotten to be in a 30th floor office in Collins Street if he wasn't really, really good at what he did.  I should have listened to the thunder that was starting to rumble. 

A few weeks later when I went to my GP in a very bad way, having lost 20kg (even if I had had an appetite I physically couldn't eat) she looked at the 10 day course of antibiotics Mr Top End of Town had given me (TWICE) and, shaking her head, said 'Was he an older man? (Nope, younger than me).  We don't use those for this kind of infection any more'.

I've seen them in RImping Meechok occasionally.

Mr K worked there for a lot of years; he would never eat one.  Tried one on his first day and then went 13 years without tasting another.  Take from that what you like...

Many moons ago he made something that automated the switching of wrapping plastic.  He was left with an open mouth when a Choice/Which magazine test was published in The Age.  All of the different pies were taste tested and graded, various store home brands, 4'n20, Herbert Adams - all of which came out of the plant in Kensington via his quick wrapper change thingie.

When I couldn't be bothered to make pastry, the only ones he would eat from the freezer were Big Ben, but I've never seen them here.  Different ones in the freezers in the supermarkets, suck it and see.  Sausage King pies are decent, to be honest they're the only ones I've tried here.  Mr K agrees, and says UN Irish aren't too bad but the ones at Kaseem are just gravy sandwhiches and not great tasting.

I've seen Sausage King in Tops and I think Big C Extra or you can have a tootle out to San Sai.  Delivery is available but only worth it if you're stocking up - if you are, his pork and leek sausages are amazing.  I've been perfecting my recipie for them this year, and can't get close enough to pass the test.

(Mr K gets a fancying for a pie every now and again and doesn't rest until he gets one, either home made or bought.  The pastry gives him heartburn.  Every. Time.)

I broke the screen of a laptop (it's a spare, hooked up to a monitor).  Don't have a pressing need to fix it (expensive touch screen) and it runs perfectly, but I need to do a full reinstall of Windows. I'm testing it out on another laptop before commiting myself, both are HP's of a very similar model/age.  Having to do an autoinstall as the monitor driver doesn't kick in unti the setup is about half way through.

I've tried everything in my armoury and a couple of things Google told me to, but I just can't get the unattended.xml to catch at boot - got the answer file from a website and wrote my own in ADK, tried having it done as MBR and UEFI, changed the usb to GPT.  Nothing working.  I have a feeling it's something to do with the partition - I have the O/S isolated on drive C:/.  The answerfile has provision for disk and partition numbers, both triple checked to be ok.

Does anyone have any ideas?  I'm probably going to wait to do the broken one until the new version comes out next week, but I'd like to be ready to go.

(I'm getting too old for this.  There was a time when I would have taken this in my stride, enjoyed the challenge of solving it even.  Now I just can't be bothered so have become one of those people who just ask  - at least I spent a couple of hours on it first).

And you may have to order that letter it in advance - Bangkok Bank told us it had to come from head office and it would be up to seven days for it to arrive (from memory it took five, the branch phoned us when it was there for us to go and pick it up).  I believe it is valid for seven days from the date it is generated, so at least it doesn't have to be same day like the other document you have to get from the bank.

From reports I've seen and heard, it does seem to depend on the individual IO whether it is strictly needed.  A friend had the letter/statement last year and purposely held it back from the IO to see if it really were needed and in his case, it was a case of him having to say 'I'm sorry, it's on top of this other pile of papers I have here'.  

8 hours ago, EricTh said:

 

 

They come up with new and new requirements every year. I wonder what they do with the tons of photocopies every year?

 

They reuse them.  Three or four times over the years we've had things printed off from them with someone else's passport or Thai id card on the other side.  It's a privacy nightmare if you're that way inclined.

90 day reports time and we've been doing them online for a year now with no problem.  I did them online over the weekend as they were due yesterday and both of them were rejected. 

Mr K went to Promenada to do them in person, the girls there were mystified as they weren't on the system, they actually looked up from their phones and tried more than expected to find out why they weren't on the system. He took the Approved printouts from the last report to prove we were there then.  When I go to check my status, it shows 4 approved and the latest one rejected.

So, not working properly every time but no real hardship.  Will have to wait until next time to see if it's sorted itself out.

30 minutes ago, zzzzz said:

Vice took the article down

 

petition to seek the site be taken down and for the "artist " to apologize

 

and the ministry of culture made a post

 

 

Pleased about this.  How he seeks to justify himself is beyond belief.

If any of the families requested a smile along with the restoration, fair enough - it

may be the only photo they have.  It would be a private matter for the family, none of us could even start to imagine what the surviving family members went through and if having a photo with their relative smiling brings comfort to them, it's a good thing.  But it's a private thing; these photo's should never have been published.  There are more than 140 of them, and as well as cheeky grins being added, one has a handprint in blood on the wall next to the victim which wasn't on the original.  I think that might be worse than the smiles.

(I can't believe how angry this has made me.)

11 hours ago, NanLaew said:

either quarantine in the place you’re staying or in a managed quarantine hotel for 10 days when you arrive in England

It's not quarantine if you're not being held under government supervision, it's self isolation and as has been proven time and time again in UK (and I imagine other countries) a lot of people self isolating willfully break the rules, and some do so accidentally.  I read somewhere last week that those self isolating at home can go out for essential shopping and outdoor exercise but must do it alone and avoid other people (honestly can't remember where I read it, in all likelihood it would be the Melbourne Age or the Guardian, although it could have been on the websites of either BBC or ABC).

Quite unbelievable really, but I don't read internet-only news sites or tabloid newspapers and I tend to trust the sources I'm getting my news from and only check elsewhere if something doesn't smell right.

The UK government are currently considering hotel quarantine based on the Australian system for everyone who arrives, but people are saying it's too hard because too many people.  More population means more hotels available, if the political will is there they can make it happen.  Covid has escaped the quarantine hotels several times in Australia, all of which are in the centre of the major cities.  Army barracks, mining encampments and even big holiday apartment/cabin/bungalow or  similar with live-in staff/nurses/doctor not going home into the community each night to spread any virus they may pick up would be much more suitable in my opinion.  Not too far from the nearest hospital just in case anyone becomes seriously ill or has an accident or emergency, with an ambulance on-site ready to race to the nearest hospital if required or even a helicopter if the site is deemed too far for an emergency ambulance to reach medical help.  We have a good sized army, navy and airforce.  We are not at war, there are a lot of defence personnel who are trained to do exactly what they are told, so if they were put to work running a quarantine facility, which really is  mainly about organisation and ensuring staff don't do stupid things which exposes them to the virus, they would be the perfect candidates.  What about using one of those cruise ships that are standing empty right now.  They have a lot of rooms with windows, no aircon to recirculate the virus and meals left out the door as they are in the hotels.  Even leaving an empty room between guests as they are now doing in the quarantine hotels would work if the ship were big enough, and I'm quite sure if the word was put out the cruise lines would be very willing to earn a bit of money, and along with the armed forces they are ideally qualified to take care of the catering with trained kitchen staff and waiters possibly on furlough who could get back to work.  All Australian major cities have a big port, no need to go out to sea, just tied up in the port would make an excellent quarantine station in my opinion.  Cruise ships are normally just huge petri dishes, but if controlled properly with no mixing of passengers I can't see why it wouldn't work.

Off topic, but some may find this interesting.  The terrible outbreak in Melbourne last year has been traced to a family of 4 returnees placed in hotel quarantine.  The security guards caught the virus and the rest is history; thousands of cases and almost 700 - mainly elderly residents of aged care nursing homes - deaths.    One interesting fact to come out of this is something nobody - and I really mean nobody - had even considered. 

Security guards are, to put it bluntly, the bottom of the food chain in most countries I've lived in or visited.  Unskilled, no experience, very low minimum wage industry in countries that have different minimum wages for different jobs based on skill, danger etc.  In Australia, most of the bottom level  of security guards are recent arrivals with a lot of these being international students who are allowed to work so many hours per week to help support themselves.  The next biggest cohort are recent arrivals from developing countries, both migrated through regular channels like Mr K and myself did all those years ago and refugees  - a set number each year are accepted under international obligations.  Students and recent arrivals either arrive with or can later get a visa without much trouble for their fiance or wife.  It was this fact that nobody thought of. 

There were immediate concerns voiced because security guards often work part-time, very often are contracting, working for a labour hire company, not knowing if they would have work the next day or not (known as zero hour contracts in UK) and all earn so little they are likely to work for more than one labour hire company and are also likely to work at times as taxi or uber drivers or work for food delivery companies, all of which are jobs with possibly significant contact with the general public and made them bad choices to be working anywhere with the possibility of contracting Covid.  There were other concerns raised, some obvious and some not, but the real problem was not foreseen by anybody; their living arrangements.  Being low paid meant that these 'gig economy' workers often shared houses and flats, sometimes a lot of people squeezed in to share the rent.  A few people did raise this concern, that the security guards often lived in close quarters to taxi and delivery drivers.  But that wasn't the real problem.  Many of them (most if not all were male) lived with their wives or girlfriends, and a good number of them were refugees who came to Australia with their families and lived in what the authorities call multiple family households; they lived with their parents, perhaps grandparents, perhaps brothers and sisters, perhaps partners and children too.  To say this category were squeezed in tightly is an understatement, with 8, 9 or 10 people in one household not being unusual.  And here lies the problem; the wives, girlfriends, siblings, and parents if of working age were in the same boat as the security guards.  They were also unskilled, lacked experience or a work history and worked in similar 'gig economy' jobs.  The women very often work in the female equivalent of the security guard - aged care assistants.  The men brought Covid home with them and the women took it to the nursing homes, where it spread like wildfire.  Like the men, those working in aged care are all employed by labour hire companies, and like the men all are employed on a daily basis, finding out during the day if they are required to work tomorrow, and which facility they will be working in.  This made the spread of the virus around multiple aged care facilities so much faster.  Really obvious when you think about it, but so obvious nobody thought about it. 

A lot of very highly qualified people are kicking themselves for not piecing this together before it happened.  It was a case of people quite simply not thinking about it as a possibility, and I don't really blame them.  Part of my job back in the dark ages was to play devil's advocate and think of everything that could go wrong with and come up with every possible negative in relation a decision which was to be made, and I could come up with some really bizarre left of field possibilities.  On reflection, despite how obvious it is, I can honestly say I wouldn't have joined the dots.  

I say this without wishing to degrade those working as security guards or in particularly those in the aged care sector.  I know I couldn't do the job that those people do, and they have my full respect regardless of their citizenship, visa or immigration status.  These are the people who are or will be caring for our parents and one day, maybe us.  

1 hour ago, starky said:

 

I'm not sure what figures these are, but Victoria hasn't had any international arrivals (apart from crew on cargo flights) since the little oopsie on Feb 5th.  They will resume next week.  800/week to start then back up to 1,100/week.  From memory QLD are capped at 500 per week at the moment, NSW 1,500 and a few hundred in WA and SA.  Flight crews have to go into the hotels too, so there's a lot of the spaces taken before you start with passengers.  I can't be bothered looking for numbers of completed quarantines, you have your mind made up.

Pretty lucky that you got to Thailand though.  Twice.  Written permission from Border Control before you're allowed to leave the country, and they weren't letting people leave to visit dying parents or attend their funerals last year, I think they eased up on it a bit now because of the outcry, but going on your jollies isn't a permitted reason to leave Australia at the moment. 

I'm really not sure I'd boast about it though.  A second hand story here, I don't know this person.  A relative of a close friend stuck in UK tried to get back for his terminally ill father's last weeks towards the end of August last year.  NBG.  He stayed on the list trying to get back for the funeral.  NBG.  He's still on the list trying to get back just to be  with his mum.   He lives and works in UK, just wanted to see his dad before he died then back to UK, now just want to give his mum a big hug and back to UK.  But he couldn't, because all the flights he booked were cancelled or he was bumped (still trying to get refunds for some of the flights by the way; fortunately he is in a position where he could keep putting flights on his credit card without worrying about when he'll get refunded so he has enough money to book another, and after the first couple of failures he's been booking business class direct with airlines not from agents).  He was cancelled and bumped because the airlines couldn't take him.  The airlines couldn't take him because there were no places in quarantine.  You seem to have had two places he could have had.

26 minutes ago, aboctok said:

 If it's just your personal circumstances making it difficult for you to leave, that really means you just WANT to stay longer; you can't claim stranded status. Don't claim to be a stranded foreigner when stranded foreigners are (have been deemed to be) extinct.

Try to book a flight to Australia.  If you can afford it - I saw a one way ticket for $11,000 earlier this year. 

But wait; there's more!  There is a quota system with limited spots in compulsory 14 day hotel quarantine, only a couple of thousand people a week are being accepted.  39,000 stranded.  Really stranded.  Official government figures, so it's probably more.  39,000 people have registered with the government to say they want to go home but can't.  Can't get a flight because airlines can only take a couple of thousand people a week.  This will all change now because there's currently a cluster in Queensland and anyone crossing state borders from there will have to go into quarantine hotels, meaning people who are booked to fly in from overseas will be bumped because the quota for airlines will go down to compensate for the Queenslanders travelling interstate.

Not everywhere is Kansas.  Anyone can jump on a plane and go to their home country unless they are Australian, don't think any other country in the world is doing it so strictly.  These people really are stranded.  Retirees, probably not, but how many working people - engineers, educators, scientists, health professionals etc were living and working abroad, some with families accompanying them, all caught out and unable to get home because the government is not  organised enough to have sufficient quarantine places available for those wanting to go home. 

There are 39,000 people officially stranded.  If their employment contract finished in whatever country they are in, they will be out of work and not earning any money - overseas governments are not giving welfare benefits to non-citizens (Australia isn't either, there are some heartbreaking stories from people trying to survive) but at least their work visas have been extended IF they are able to find work.  All countries are extending their visas to stay, but I don't think many are extending working visas. 

I really don't know how those people are coping.

10 hours ago, jeffandgop said:

I asked because in trying to process my 90 days reporting on line the dreaded “report to IMM “ popped up. Don’t understand why as I last entered Thailand in April 2020 and have been able to do online reporting the last 2 times without any problems 

I got that message because I tried to do it a day too early.  Suggest trying again tomorrow if you're aiming for 15 days in advance.

6 hours ago, EricTh said:

I tried to do my online 90 days report today but it failed 'Please report to nearest center'. Does anyone have the same problem.

 

I never had any problems in the past few years doing online reporting.

I did ours yesterday - I got the same message as you when I tried to do it on Tuesday; I miscalculated and was 16 days before the due date, yesterday it was 15 days and accepted and approved within an hour.  You may have done the same, or entered something incorrectly.  If you don't get to the 2nd page where you put your address, you get the 'report to nearest centre' message, just means the system doesn't like something you've done. 

Over time, I have found that even though my browser (Chrome) saves what I have entered previously and gives me a dropdown list to choose what goes in the field, it won't work.  Each field has to be filled in manually, and the one I got stuck on the second time I did it was choosing the date of entry to Thailand from the dropdown list or entering it manually.  The date has to be picked from the calendar or it won't work. I'm embarrassed at how long it took me to figure that one out.

Suggest trying again tomorrow or Monday.

8 hours ago, EricTh said:

 

How is it being abused?  Could the girl have the wrong information? It is better to check with a higher up at the airport immig.

 

 

 

No idea at all, but I can confirm that's the info they are given.  Went to Prom yesterday morning (virtually empty apart from a couple of people extending visas), explained that we knew it wasn't due until February but IO at airport told us we had to do it when our old visas were due to expire.  They seemed unsure, had a discussion then stamped the existing ones and hand wrote the original February date above the stamp, so a wasted trip.  I asked if we could do it online and they said no, no explanation given. When we're within 15 days of it being due I'll try to do it online again and report back.

38 minutes ago, techno said:

Went to immigration at Promenada and a girl on the front desk told me that Chiang Mai Immigration are no longer processing online 90 day reports as the system is being abused, No other information available

Thanks for that, looks like we will have to go there if we really need to because the current one will expire on the date of the extension.

We did our visa extensions a few weeks early last month, and the IO said to not forget our 90 day reports would be due 21st Jan (the old expiry date of the visa).  I questioned it because our 90 day reports aren't due until mid February and she confirmed it would have to be done. I assumed they had either changed things or my memory was playing tricks because I don't remember this being the case in the past.

Just tried to do it online and it gives me the error message (contact local office etc) which I have had in the past when I tried to do it 16 days early rather than 15 or put dates in manually.  

We kept our 90 day reports up to date throughout the amnesty periods last year, so it isn't something catching up with us.

Does anyone have any experience or knowledge of this?  Not a huge drama, but as there is a query I don't want to do it by mail and it's a bit chilly getting on the scooter at the moment so I'd rather not  go there unless really necessary.

11 hours ago, fangless said:

If you want to talk recipes please do it somewhere else.

Well, that's me told.

1 hour ago, Lacessit said:

I used to bottle my own kalamata olives in Australia, hundreds of them on a neighbor's tree. Bay leaf, garlic, salt, vinegar, slice of onion. Virgin olive oil on top, turn over once a week to coat the olives with oil. Took about six weeks. An Italian friend said they were the best he had ever tasted.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen an olive tree around Chiang Mai. Not part of Thai cuisine, or maybe the climate or soil is wrong.

Oh dear.  I forgot the garlic in the okra recipe.  Three or four nice fat ones, smashed and peeled.  It really doesn't taste the same without it.  That goes for everything lacto-fermented apart from preserved lemons, limes and oranges.  Also forgot to say when they get to the taste you want, put them in the fridge to stop the fermentation process.

Olives are something I've never tried to preserve, even when we lived in Australia. I really like the bottled ones, and didn't think I could improve on it.  I just wish that they weren't so expensive here.