Route21

Sent a message to FlightRadar24 and was told, via FAQ's, to delete my current version of Google Earth and install the latest version.

Been there, done it - no success.

Awaiting further suggestions from FlightRadar24

R21

This is brilliant. http://www.flightradar24.com//t_blank

Click on any aircraft in the map. Then cockpit view on the left of the screen. Takes about a minute. I watched a landing at Swampy.

Hi Mosha

Brilliant, except I use Firefox and can't get the cockpit view when I click on the appropriate button.

Screendumps attached.

Any suggestions?

R21

Hi, maybe you can help me. I just bought a piece of land in Bueng Sam Phan. We want to build a holiday house there of 42 square meters and we are looking for a constructor. Any advices please?

Thanks,

Len

Hi Len

Just seen your post. Don't know if you are still in the market?

We've just had our new house built on Route 21, a few kilometres North of Nachaliang.

Good local family builder, but he's just started on a Thai bungalow at the back of our place for "pops" and a house for another Brit just outside Nachaliang.

May have to wait a few months till he's free.

Regards

R21

People using Yahoo or Hotmail Email addresses really know nothing about internet...

Yahoo and Hotmail are the worst about SPAM and nobody should use them anymore.

Only Gmail rules.

But what about Ymail.com ? (also belongs to Yahoo)

Sorry to disappoint you. but I've been happily using Yahoo for very many years now and get ZERO - and I do mean ZERO - spam in my Inbox.

All "spam" messages are delivered correctly to my Spam folder, which I check around twice/week, to ensure that no true emails get inadvertently diverted there - even though I haven't found a single misdirected email for years.

My latest email from TV, delivered directly to my Inbox as usual, arrived as recently as 3.5 hours ago.

Regards

R21

PS As already mentioned by "devaram", the inclusion of TV in my contacts list has ensured I get all my mail from TV in my Inbox.

For those who don't regularly drive South from Phetchabun, it appears that Ford are building a new place just a couple of plots south of Toyota, on the same side. You can't miss the Ford logo outside the plot on the main Phetchabun-Saraburi road.

Regards

R21

3. Anyone, whose second language is English, considered for employm

Resending the final section of my truncated post ......

3. Anyone, whose second language is English, considered for employment under the NES program would need to demonstrate at least 2-years residence in one of the designated "NES-speaking" countries (UK, US, Australia, New Zealand or Canada) or pass an English proficiency test.

Regards

R21

PS Apologies for the delay in responding - I'm having constant mobile internet access problems!

<p>

From memory, the program gives 10k per month for a NES or 5k per month for a non native English speaking foreigner. So it's sorta aimed at just improving the quality of English spoken, although ideally by using NESs.

I read, elsewhere, based on an unofficial translation of a Thai Education Ministry document, that:

1. The 5K applies to Native Chinese/Japanese etc (NC/JS) speakers, not NES speakers.

2. Amongst other qualifications, the NES speakers needed to be educated up to at least M6 level.

3. Anyone, whose second language is English, considered for employm

NES Teachers at my school, teach 18h a week, for 36k a month :-P

So it works out to around 89 hours per month (4.5 week month)

Schools in BKK (We're in the countryside), likely pay more too .

Which suggests, presumably, that fully qualified and experienced NES teachers (leaving aside paid holidays etc) would receive 404 Baht/hour - only 1% higher than that originally proposed under the new scheme. What a price to pay for qualifications and experience?

The current version of the NES scheme gets ex-pats at half price - without teaching qualifications, experience or training/guidance and apparently just thrown in at the deep end for 3-4 months with no support.

Regards

R21

PS The 40K/month figure (maybe rounded off - up or down) that I mentioned for BKK was based on a Brit who was on paid leave, last year, visiting his wife's parents up here, as his school was closed by the BKK floods.

Just a thought.....

Based on the original plan, I understand, an NES with no teaching qualification or experience working for 4 schools at 25 hours/month/school (100 hours total) would be due to receive 40K Baht/month.

I'm not sure of the full-time working hours for teachers out here, but an average 4.5 week month clocks in at 180 hours/month (almost twice as much) based on a 40-hour week.

Around our area, and even in Bangkok (I heard last year), a qualified (and experienced) English teacher may not be paid any more than 40K for working full time!

I wonder who was the government's maths adviser (and has it changed recently!)?

Regards

R21

I'm happy to say ....... the terms are the same 6 hours a week 2 hours Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings. I.

Hi IG

Although you have apparently been offered the 6 hours/week (25 hours/month) that you were interested in (and promised), which is really great news, you don't specifically confirm that you have got or will get the also promised 10K/month?

It looks like either the government, or your local powers that be, have started, at least partly, to fulfil their previous promises.

Many congratulations to you and your "Agent"!

Regards

R21

Hi Splod

I'm with you all the way, until you get to your last para.

A mate of mine told me about a fellow farang who was an accomplished "pub pianist". He would regularly go down to his local bar and play on a piano they had acquired. A guy started chatting to him on one occasion and casually asked him how often he played and whether they paid him. He said no, they didn't pay him, but they would often give him a free beer. The guy told him that it constituted "paid work" and, if he caught him playing again, he would be in serious trouble.

Substitute a pepsi and a bowl of noodles for the beer, for helping a bunch of students with their English, and add in the possibility of the problems that the Head of English at one of the Private Schools has had recently and it just isn't worth it! It only needs one disgruntled parent......

So sad!

Regards

R21

@ CaptainSplod

Many thanks

As a rider, I would note 2 things:

1. If the Government had allowed it, I could easily have been working with the local school for free over the past year, but couldn't/wouldn't jeopardise my "retirement" residency status.

2. I had also been approached, under the scheme, by a second school who were so desperate to have any form of English support (they have no English speakers/teachers in the school) that they were prepared to up the rate from their own resources. I had to turn them down, without submitting a formal application, as I believed that anything more than the 25 hours proposed would have involved too much of a commitment.

Now, 2 local (rural) schools will be without any NES support as, contrary to what they were told earlier, they have now been told that they can't propose a substitute NES. It's either the originally proposed NES or do without!

I'm not sure where the NES budget funds allocated to the school will go, but don't believe the school will ever see them.

R21

3. OBEc (Office of Basic Education) stipulates that all school follow the exact same principles :

- A NES person can only work at one school, working at multiple schools is not allowed.

- If you already work as a teacher, then you are not allowed to be a NES person in this OBEC project.

- The NES person is required to work exactly 50 hours a month, no more, no less.

- Forms will be supplied to the school to check the NES in- and out times.

- The responsible Area Education Centre will be required to occasionally visit the school to ascertain the standard of NES teaching.

At present, there is still no information regarding visa, work permit, possible tax payments - or anything else concerning the farang NES.

Cheers

Splod

Many thanks Splod for the very valuable info.

As I posted on another related site:

"I've just been advised, today, that my application has been successful, but I have had to turn it down for 2 primary reasons:

1. The promised 400 Baht/hour turned out to be only 200 Baht/hour by the time it reached my level.

2. We're in the middle of building a new house and it now involves a 35km car trip rather than just a walk down the village lane

Has anyone else experienced a cut between the rate the government promised and how much was left at the end of the trail?"

The teacher who came round to personally give me the news didn't get as far as mentioning the 50 hour rule - I'd already blown it out as soon as she told me the new rate! It just isn't worth it!

Also, until next month at least, I'm still on a retirement "visa" which would cut further into the available 3-4 month window for the "project".

R21

To me, the puzzling part of this is the requirement to the have the performance guarantee in order to sign the contract. In my experience with a number of very large international contracts with a Thai government owned corporation, the requirement was always that the performance guarantee was required after the contract signing and the before the submittal of the first invoice for work performed. Many companies need the signed contract in order to have collateral for the guarantee.

The requirement to be able to provide the guarantee before signing is often used to weed out financially weaker bidders in favor of your preferred one.

TH

To answer your 2 points:

1. Guarantees can be used in many scenarios in international contracting situations, The two situations considered above are a) a Bid Bond and a [Contract] Performance Bank Guarantee.

The Bid Bond is primarily to ensure that a bidder doesn't renege on their bid or any commitments they have made during the bidding period. We had a case, I understand, where a winning bidder, having been awarded the Contract on a [conditional*] "Letter of Award" wanted to renegotiate the legal/commercial Terms and Conditions as a precondition of signing the "hard copy" Contract! They were advised that they were putting their Bid Bond at risk but still insisted on renegotiation. I understand that Corporate approval was given to encash the Bid Bond and the Contract was promptly awarded to the second best bidder. The Bid Bond was used to defray the incremental cost of going to the second best bidder.

* The "Letter of Award" was firm, but conditional on the bidder providing a) the Contract Performance Bond and appropriate Insurance documentation etc within a certain number of days of the LoA and signing the "hard copy" Contract.

2. Yes, being able to provide a Bid Bond does help confirm that they are bona fide contenders, but one other thing we used to do was to ask them to provide a letter from a bank (a "Bank Certificate") certifying that, in the event of them winning the Contract, the bank would be prepared to issue the appropriate [Contract] Performance Bond. If they can't find a bank that is prepared to issue the Performance Bond that would raise cause for suspicion and probably prompt further investigation of their financial position. They don't actually have to use the same bank for the actual guarantee.

Note: Other forms of guarantee provided, separately, by Contractors, but used in different circumstances, might include a Bank Guarantee enabling any maintenance/tax retention moneys to be released earlier than would otherwise have been the case or a Parent Company Guarantee (particularly if the company concerned was a "paper company" where any assets that you may want access to, in the event of any problems, are owned at a "higher" level in the overall organisation than the company signing the Contract.

PS As an additional level of security, we never advised the unsuccessful bidders or returned any Bid Bonds until the ink was dry on the "hard copy" Contract. The successful bidder only received their Bid Bond back when they had not only signed the Contract but provided the Performance Bond.

Hope this helps

R21

Well it is definitely not my field but common sense tells me that 5% guarantee is not a heck of a lot. Especially on a multi billion Baht deal. That amount is right next door to why bother.

A Bank Guarantee of 5-15% is quite normal in international contracting. The higher the value of the contract, the more likely the guarantee would be set towards the lower end.

As posted earlier, once the value of the bond is large enough to get the bidder/contractor's top management attention, the law of diminishing returns starts to apply. If it's too high you may also reduce the competitive forces in the bidding, as potential bidders shy away from the increased exposure. Bear in mind that any bidder/contractor is probably bidding/contracting to other clients with similar high valued contracts. Their potential financial exposure to having any one (or more) of their high value bank guarantees encashed, across all bids/contracts, could therefore be quite high.

In this context, bear in mind the domino effect on security concerns with potential Chinese IT suppliers, as noted in others posts.

Regards

R21

PS Bonds should not be encashed arbitrarily. To do so could cause you to lose any reputation you might have had as a responsible potential client - once bitten, twice shy!

It is not a big secret, that some of the heavyweights within the government would like to be placed with another Chinese company: HUAWEI, for the usual obvious reasons=big kickbacks. So don't be surprised, when after a number of excuses the government decides to change surplier, to, yes you guessed it, HUAWEI.

It is SOP procedure for a client in a large procurement to request and obtain performance bonds. The bond ensures that a third party will provide the funding to complete or perform the signed contract. The bond can be replaced by a direct financial guarantee and that is what the government did. The government has behaved in a responsible and prudent manner in this regard.

Any company or government that would sign a contract when a supplier was unable to comply with the performance bonding or financial guarantee would have a lot of explaining to do. ......... The government did the right thing.

After around 20 years with clients involved in large scale procurement, I agree!

R21

PS I understand that the government haven't actually said they are not going to sign with Scope, just that they can't do so unless and until Scope comes up with the Bond. I would have done the same.

I though it was the buyer that had to produce a "Bank-garanti, for the seller to be sure he get paid.

Only in the normal world.

Ohps! Yes sure, I forgot.

Thanks for reminding me.

I think what you are referring to is what we call a "Letter of Credit", which the buyer (particularly in the case of international deals) may have to provide to guarantee payment.

What the supplier may have to provide is called a "(Bid or Contract) Performance Bank Guarantee".

If the bidder/contractor doesn't perform, the buyer can cash the "Performance Bond", which compensates the buyer for the incremental delay and cost associated with going to another (higher) bidder. The buyer normally doesn't need to actually "pull" the bond but merely suggest to the erring bidder/contractor that, if they don't sort out their performance, they are putting their Bank Guarantee/bond at significant risk.

If that doesn't get their top management's attention then either the value of the bond is too low or you are contracting with the wrong company!

Hope this helps

R21

^{Anyone have any experience with Loranta, I've just been prescribed it and the early signs are very positive?}

I've been on hypertension medication for almost 4 years now. Been through a number of proprietary medications, with a number of side effects, such as the cough (and ED - thought I was just getting too old!).

Changed, about 18 months ago, to generic medication and find them not only a lot cheaper but have also lost the side effects.

Am now on Loranta - "Lorsartan" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losartan) and Carvedilol - "Caraten" (http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Carvedilol), with Simvastatin (http://en.wikipedia....iki/Simvastatin) for Cholesterol and, of course, "baby" Aspirin - get them via a chemist in Tesco-Lotus.

BP down from 150+/90+ to as low as (most recently) 100/52 on occasions.

R21

PS also lost a fair bit of weight - 36Kg (by diet only - minimal exercise).

I've been on Loranta now for almost 2 years, with no side effects other than an occasional postural hypotension (low BP) during the hot season out here.

I suspect the hypotension to be really due to dehydration, as a few minutes in the car with the A/C on and a cold drink and I'm fine! Loranta worked fine for me. It may or may not work for others.

R21

PS As previously posted, I was recommended Loranta by a clinic in Chiang Mai (details can be sent via a PM if interested).

Enalaril.

For further details on "Enalaril" see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enalapril

Been around a long time and minimal side effects other than the typical cough associated with such medications.

R21

"Different BP on each side?

Oops! http://www.bbc.co.uk...health-17442996

Many thanks for the link reminder - there was also an earlier link, that I should have posted in my post immediately after the "both arms" comment: http://www.bbc.co.uk...health-16739682

Regards to all

R21

Hi Richard

From your spelling ("rime") of the word "rhyme", with confirmation from the AME entry in "the free dictionary" (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rime), I would guess, although not apparent from your limited profile info, that you hail from North America.

Was my characterisation as AME correct in: The "a" sound in วัน (or วัด) : "sounds like the [American?] English "won". It is never the "a" of [American?] English "cat"."

Although I have spent almost all my working life in multinationalAmerican oil & gas companies, both in the UK and Middle East, I haven't personally come across anyone pronouncing "won" as "one" (to rhyme with "gone") such as in: "We "one" that debate too easily" - whether in AME or BrE. See also AME reference in: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/won.

I have, however, heard those with an American accent pronounce "gone" as either "gorn [away]" or "garn [away]", which could result in "won" being pronounced as "worn"/"warn".

One of the problems with the original link is that it apparently mixes transliterations that many native English speakers, without a detailed knowledge of Thai history, wouldn't recognise, with pseudo-IPA characters both of which don't immediately suggest the correct pronunciation.

Best regards

R21

In linguistic works, /c/ is used to represent a palatal stop or a similar sounding affricate. Word-initial English 'ch' matches this scheme. Thus when Rama VI presented a scheme of transliterating Thai to English, he naturally followed the tradition of transliterating จ as 'c'. The use of oo as opposed to oo indicates that they want a symbol not within their typing abilities. In this case, oo means what the IPA writes as ɔɔ.

Many thanks for your very helpful explanation. No offence intended.

The subject title was: "I don't know if this is useful .....".

I suspect that without your specialist advice it wouldn't otherwise have been understood by many TV members like me, who are attempting to bite the bullet and learn Thai.

I'm also surprised that such an eminent body as SOAS, just down the road from my own college (UCL), wouldn't have the capability of inserting IPA symbols, which doesn't help.

It's not easy when almost every "Learn Thai" book uses a different pronunciation system, such as:

The "a" sound in วัน (or วัด) : "sounds like the [American?] English "won". It is never the "a" of [American?] English "cat"."

All Thais around where I am pronounce the "a" in both "wan" and "wat" exactly like the (British) English words "can" and "cat"!

They will, however, treat a farang's pronunciation of "wat" as "wot" (similar to the English word "what") as being the English word for วัด.

Regards

R21

File28161 shows "Jor Jaan" as being pronounced as "coo"?

Not sure how they work that one out!

R21

If you don't want to put it out here, perhaps you could PM me, please.

Thanks.

PM sent

Hope it helps

R21

He also prescribed Neurobion, but I'm surprised to find that it is only a Vit B supplement- nothing to do with ^BP. Considering he didn't discuss it with me, I wonder if it's just to sell more drugs to the "rich" farang. Anyway, perhaps some B vits will put a bit of sparkle back into the body, so I'll see how they go.

The only (instant) connection I can spot between Vitamin B and BP, via Wiki, is with B6:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B Vitamin B₆ pyridoxine Deficiency may lead to ......... high blood pressure (hypertension) .......

I fully agree with Sheryl about doing everything via your cardiologist - but with the added caveat (here) of also back-checking it on Wiki.

When considering coming out to Thailand, and changing to generic medication, I checked what was available here with a great clinic up at Chiang Mai, via a fellow TV member. I then checked that out with my company's Chief Medical Officer and then my cardiologist. They all fully supported the Chiang Mai recommendation. I changed to the generic medication 2 months before I made the move to Thailand, giving ample time, if necessary, to adjust the dosage. Didn't need to make any changes - they were spot on!

Regards

R21