grin

My dad and my uncle (when they were alive) owned three window/glass/mirror stores, a storm window and door factory (aluminum), and were the Andersen Window distributor for their entire state. So, did any glazing knowledge rub off on me? Who knows?

My experience was replacing all of the windows in the 3 houses I owned in the SF Bay Area from 1984 to 2002 with Andersen windows before moving in. These were all dual pane windows. The technology just kept getting better and better. My understanding with argon gas filling is that there is always some leakage. Even the best windows continue to leak over time. And how would you know if you had a seal failure and all of the argon was gone? 555, argon all gone.

Our builder in Chiang Mai used the Windsor Windows mentioned above. We went to Windsor directly to add extras to our house like screens and interior window trim, but the builder kept trying to insert themselves into the deal so we waited until the house was done (talking about negative value add).

Windsor has been fairly responsive with new items and repairs. We've only had a few minor problems with window latches and door locks.

At the time of our build we considered going with dual pane windows to reduce AC costs, noise and the smell of burning garbage. Based on some calculations and a couple of things mentioned above we decided not to install dual pane windows. The house itself seemed to be very poorly insulated and thus conducive to air and noise transfer without regard to the windows. It seemed like too much trouble to change the house construction. Also as mentioned the type of window frame has to be taken into account.

I don't particularly like PVC window frames. So, I was not enamored with the Windsor PVC windows. But for 12 years the windows have held up. Who knows how long they will last? Just closing the windows when needed takes care of the burning garbage smell. I actually like hearing roosters crowing and the occasional tokay croaking. At least we don't have a motorcycle repair shop in the neighborhood. And it still costs less to air condition our 500 m² house in Chiang Mai than our 125 m² condo in Las Vegas.

Not sure about Thailand but in India vultures were being killed off by eating the carrion of dead cows that had been treated with diclofenac. I think this was a problem in Europe as well.

Yes, at Rajavej you can walk in without an appointment. Also I don't remember the price but thought it was very reasonable. Most likely under 1000 Baht.

We got a set of new Michelin tires from Pro Auto and they seemed to be reasonably priced with their 30% discount at the time.

Have had all of this done at Rajavej Hospital. Good English and reasonable wait time when going in without an appointment. My exam also included a diabetes eye checkup.

I grew up in the midwest US in a very conservative state. I was always getting in trouble for my so-called anti-establishment ways. It was generally expected that upon graduation from high school that you would get married and go to work in your father's or your wife's father's business. Some people even attended the local junior college and a few went to the few universities in the state. People thought I was odd for going to college out of state.

I missed the 10th and 40th anniversary reunions but went to the 20th and 30th. I was really amazed at how all of my classmates turned out. Very few of them stayed in our town and many had great careers, although most of them remained in state but not all of them. They mostly lived in the large cities in the surrounding states, not at all what I expected.

College was the opposite. The expectation was that everyone would succeed. I would say that as many as 50% were wildly successful. Quite a few started up new companies that had IPOs or were acquired or became CEOs of established entities. The only friend that claims to be a billionaire (quite possibly true) was the biggest con artist of the whole bunch. I still don't understand how or why he got his CEO position just before the company's IPO and then acquisition a year later. He went from being the CTO of a tech company to CEO of an internet service business.

The weird thing is that I bought a book about the IPO and acquisition written by the founder and chairman and my friend is not even mentioned in the book. It is public record, however, of his hiring as CEO and his salary and number of options. Years later I was at a colleague's house for dinner it turns out his wife used to work for my friend at this business. Her stories about him confirmed that he had never changed his ways. Of course I had stories about him as well.

On 7/11/2021 at 11:14 AM, DogNo1 said:

Speaking of the Lima Prieta Earthquake - I used to hold my breath whenever I drove on the Nimitz Freeway.  After the quake, it was horrible seeing all of the people squashed when sections of the upper deck fell.  It was a disaster waiting to happen.  Fortunately, I was living in Berkeley at the time.

Second time now that I see the earthquake being mentioned. I was supposed to be in divorce court in downtown Oakland that morning. We got there and some guy had taken his kid hostage in the courtroom. We were not able to get started until afternoon and meanwhile guess who's stuck paying both lawyers for the whole time. Drove home to Albany on the Nimitz just an hour or so before the earthquake. My brick chimney was toast and several plaster walls were cracked.

The husband of one of my colleagues at work was stranded for several hours on one of the sections of the Nimitz that remained standing until a crane was brought in to get people down.

3BB is not a mobile operator like AIS or True so they would have to do a deal with a mobile operator to provide a sim. The only other operator is DTAC and they are in decline.

12 hours ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

 

  Not everyone particularly likes beaches and the sea .

Two weeks by the sea per year is enough for me 

Beaches are fine by me as long as I can find some shade and get some reading done.

Ever heard of a rut runner? With double rubber wheels like the following you would not need a rail or track: Rolling gate wheels

On 6/19/2021 at 8:36 PM, owl sees all said:

Thanks for that grin.

 

I just want a simple prog' that will let me cut out bits I don't want.

 

What do you suggest?

VidCutter should be fine.

I prefer the following open source apps for audio/video manipulation on Linux: FFmpeg is the classic command line app for converting audio and video. Some GUI based AV apps actually run on top of FFmpeg. VidCutter is a simple app for cutting and pasting AV. OpenShot is a fairly feature rich AV editor. Kdenlive is another decent AV editor. In general having more AV features means the app is more complicated to use. Sometimes it is easier to use simple apps for specific functions than an all-in-one app.

Seems like a good reason to keep your old phone after upgrading. Just install any required apps on your old phone and check it into the SHA+ hotel and leave it there for 2 weeks. Too bad it can't take any of the required tests for you as well.

3 minutes ago, Lokie said:

ha ha ha... My Bad apologies... I meant Rhodes (and its a 60 minute crossing) I said its been a while since I was last there... 555 

Short story: I have done that crossing on a very small boat in bad weather.

Long story: My unplanned side trip to Turkey

Rented a motorcycle on Rhodes and was crossing the island when I went off a small cliff through an orange tree. Was taken to the main hospital and stuck in the mens ward with about 20 other men. Tried to leave a couple of times. Turns out Greek law required 2 days of observation. So after 2 days I managed to retrieve my backpack from the hostel and headed for the docks.

A nurse in the hospital had told me that I should go to Izmir in Turkey where there was a French hospital and get better treatment of my injuries. The crossing on the small fishing boat was horrible. On the Turkey side I was taken in by some very nice people that could see how bad my injuries were. They fed me and moved a bed into an empty store for me to sleep on. They woke me up in the morning, fed me and put me on a bus to Izmir and told the bus driver to take me directly to the hospital in Izmir.

The hospital was a major improvement over the one in Rhodes. The French doctor spoke excellent English and turns out he went to medical school at ORU in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. He fixed up my wounds and gave me enough dressings to last a week. So my holiday took a detour and I ended up spending a week checking out a bunch of ruins around Izmir.

In general we have had good experiences with ProAuto. However, my wife was not successful in getting some brake noise fixed after several trips there so I had to go in. I've never had any problems myself and I deal directly with Ton or his wife.

Just curious about whether family or friends may visit or stay with you at a Phuket sandbox hotel. Please excuse me if this was discussed earlier in this topic. Has any information on this been published?

I spent some time traveling around in Turkey one summer while still in college. Since then I have been back for a few short visits, mostly in Istanbul. A friend of mine has retired there with his wife who is from Iran. They were both academics at a top US university so I was somewhat surprised that they retired there.

A few years ago I saw a post somewhere on a Thai political website that was titled something like "Top Ten Annoyances in a Country that Starts with a T" . It was a list of the usual stuff that applies to Thailand but at the end of the article it noted that this was about Turkey and not Thailand. It was a very nice lead up to the conclusion. Unfortunately this article seems to have been taken down. Now I wish I had saved it to a PDF.

There are quite a few academic articles available about the similarities between Thailand and Turkey. Mostly political articles about the regimes and coups but also economic and cultural.

For some contemporary views of Istanbul there is a very very long Netflix series: Black Money Love

I used to attend technical conferences in Thailand where they handed out FM radios so that you could listen to the English translation of the speaker. I found just the opposite in that what seemed like long phrases or whole paragraphs were usually translated to short English sentences. From this it seemed to me that the Thai language was a bit repetitious and or redundant. But maybe that was just the way these technical speakers normally spoke when they were being careful to make sure they were understood.

On 5/31/2021 at 1:10 AM, tifino said:

yeah go Android ???? 

 

 from experience with iPads...   the built in speaker system will fail... just a matter of 'when?'   and it happens to all models without prejudice - all one has left is the earphone...  

 

 

how can one fill out a .asp online form on an iPad? How can one 'edit' a .pdf proforma? 

 

Interesting about the speakers. I had an original iPad and an iPad 2 that have been handed down to my daughter and wife. The speaker on the original iPad just quit working and it is over 10 years old. I now have an iPad Air and an iPad Air 2 with no problems so far.

I have an old Canon ink jet printer that I have kept going for many years using hydrogen peroxide for cleaning the print heads. I pretty much have to clean my print head every time I am out of town for a couple of months. First, I soak the print head in about 2 mm of H2O2, just enough to cover the nozzles. Then I turn old ink cartridges upside down and using a dropper put about 10 drops of the H2O2 onto the sponges for each color, slowly allowing each drop to soak in. Then I insert the cartridges into the print head and run the cleaning and test print functions. If the print head is really clogged up it may take a few iterations. I bought a spare print head many years ago and I have yet to open the package.

I am a US citizen and my wife has an ITIN and we file our US taxes jointly. We have received every stimulus check in the mail so far but the amount is for one person not two. Even though it seems to be only for me the checks are made out to both of us, probably due to joint filing of taxes.

When Apple introduced the ADHD file system (oops, I meant APFS) things got much more complicated. However, the file system is much more flexible using containers now.

See description: APFS Containers, Volumes, and Partitions

22 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Does that crowd give you any grief for taking care as you do?

Don't really give people a chance. When shopping I always keep my distance and am in and out of stores in minimal time. I still get all staples using curbside pick up and generally only buy meat and produce indoors.

Doing pick ups at some stores is a real time saver as their app tracks your GPS and they have your order waiting at the curb for you. It made me realize how much time I used to waste wandering around in stores (wondering what to buy).

Nevada is a weird state in many ways but here in Las Vegas there is definitely a large retiree presence and they still seem to be masking up. When I see someone double masking we tend to acknowledge each other with a nod.

I have always traveled a lot for business and pleasure. And have always been able to do most of my work online. However, I never really considered myself a digital nomad but now I basically seem to be a digital hermit.