DogNo1

Simoh1490:

What can I say.  Your experience was different than mine.  My stent placements were done 12 and ten years ago.  Perhaps that explains something.  I'm glad to hear that your procedure went well. 

If you are an American, you will probably also need a statement of yearly income which must be signed in front of an official at the US Embassy in Bangkok.  My last one cost $50.  Maybe it's not needed for applicants who have 800,000 Baht in the bank before they apply.  The 800,000 must all be there and untouched for two months before you can apply for the 90-day Non-O.  It's good to get your papers in order and show up at immigration NLT 15 days before your period of stay expires.  Ubonjoe is the expert on all of this and can verify whether the embassy-notarized affidavit is needed if you have the cash in the bank.  I've always used retirement income.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Thailand really needs to develop Community mental health counseling to help deal with anger and grief issues.  It would be expensive no doubt but MSW and counseling psychology majors could be established at various universities.  

Some US states and cities have made against the law to look at your phone when you're driving or crossing the street on foot.  Being on the phone is just as bad in Tokyo among bicycle riders.  The Japanese though seem to usually be aware of traffic around them.  Of course the penalties are severe for drivers who hit bicycle riders.  I've learned to nearly stop when I make a turn.  Bicycles can suddenly appear from nowhere, ie. From behind you and suddenly be right in front of you when you turn.

Let's hope that the man who lost the 75,000 will be more careful in the future!  I must confess that I am mystified by the Man's logic in assuming that if he could withdraw 5,000, the previous transaction went OK.  These are two distinct transactions and have nothing to do with each other unless the man had less than 5,000 in his account before his attempted deposit.   Actually, it would be a considerate public service if the banks were to offer their customers a little pamphlet about how to use ATMs securely.  It does rather sound as though the man after him took the money in the deposit tray and fled.  I assume that none of his 80,000 got into his account all.  There are several possibilities: the ATM malfunctioned or the man didn't use the proper procedure when attempting to deposit, allowing the man behind him to make off with the money or the depositer is being untruthful about some or all of the money and is trying a shakedown on the bank.

It sounds plausible that the wheel turning for a while after the cooling unit turns off would help to dry the unit and equalize the temperature inside the machine with that of the room.  The air conditioner cleaners in Japan told me NOT to buy a self-cleaning unit but didn't explain why not to do it.  I'll have to investigate.  In Japan, I have been leaving the air conditioner and my standalone dehumidifier on 24/7.  I've tried turning them both off, opening the shutters and windows and exposing the room to fresh air and sunshine but that doesn't seem to help.  When I return to Japan, I will have an indoor pollution expert come to my house to analyze what toxic substances are in the air.  As a construction engineer friend surmises, there may be high levels of formaldehyde and phenol in the house.

Good luck with finding a blower wheel cleaner in Thailand.  They seem to be as rare as hen's teeth in Japan!

In the meantime, my allergic symptoms here in Bangkok are very much improved but I don't know why.  It may be because of the horehound tea that I'm drinking or maybe not.  I think that I'll go back to my allergist and talk to him about it.

Unfortunately, the auto-clean function will not clean your blower wheel.  It is very hard to clean the blower wheel without disassembling the unit.   Without all of the mold removed, you can continue to get mold sickness.  It's a serious health problem.  See "Mold: The War Within."  There are three pages about mold on Dr. Mercola's website: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/09/10/fungus-hiding-in-your-house-and-making-you-ill.aspx

My hotel in Bangkok has central air conditioning but my home's air conditioners are a real problem and most of the professional cleaners never give the blower wheel a glance.  Last year, I had to pay my air conditioner cleaners double to get them to attempt to clean the blower wheels and blower cavity with small brushes and cotton swabs but the cleaning wasn't complete.  I sprayed the blower wheel with isopropyl alcohol but the alcohol badly irritated my eyes.  I did get the name of a company that does what they call disassembly cleaning during which they take the wheel out and wash it thoroughly.  Mold grows everywhere in Japan - on the bricks in my yard, on the patio near my favorite coffee shop and even in the JNR train cars themselves.  Perhaps because it doesn't rain often in Bangkok, the mold problem is better but even so, mold grows here in carpets, in pillows, padded chairs, etc.  

Mold sickness is a progressive disease.  The longer your exposure, the sicker you get and it is much more prevalent than most people (and doctors) realize.

Here is some information: https://www.caffeineinformer.com/the-complete-guide-to-starbucks-caffeine

You will find that brewed coffee contains more caffeine that espresso, cafe latte or cafe mocha.

So far as the sports drinks, the caffeine content should be on the label.

When I read recommendations for marriage extension holders to switch to a retirement visa.  There are a fair number of people who confuse retirement extensions, retirement visas and 90-day reports.  It is especially confusing for nonnative English speakers.  I have a Dutch friend who insists that he is extending his "retirement visa" when he files a 90 day report. Of course, he doesn't have a retirement visa.  He has a one-year extension of stay based his retirement age (over 50) and the legally required monthly income.  Apparently in Holland, a visa is the document to which adjustments are made.  On TV, we have members who believe that they can just leave Thailand and return for another 90 days. They look up the requirements for retirement visas and then believe that they can extend their stay by filing a 90-day report.  What with the numbers of advertisers identifying extensions of stay as being visas, it's easy to see how the confusion is propagated. 

You can call your permission to stay anything that you want but if you confuse it with a different type of permission to stay you can get yourself into a situation of overstay or late 90-day report. It's best to identify your extension of stay correctly.

Please follow ubonjoe's advice. It's correct and simpler than your scheme.

Here is a link to spacedoc.  You can find everything from there.

https://spacedoc.com/

Spacedoc (Dr. Duane Graveline) found in his research that taking a very low dose of a milder type of statin (I take Pravastatin) lowers inflammation in the blood vessels.  Taking them to lower cholesterol though, is not beneficial.  Besides, these numbers of getting your LDL below 100, or in Trump's case, below 70 are arbitrary numbers made up by some doctors.  Recent research has repeatedly demonstrated that cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease.  I can cite the clinical studies or you can go on spacedoc and read through the articles on your own.

Zocor is a particularly nasty statin.  Given its destructiveness, it's scary that President Trump's doctor is planning to increase his dosage of Zocar.   There are reportedly very many people who are negatively affected by statins.  For the experience of one NASA flight surgeon and links to many articles by doctors, see spacedoc.com.  Also refer to articles in Time Magazine (Eat Butter)  and books such as The Big Fat Surprise.  It is now generally acknowledged that cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease.  About this, see many articles in the Health Section of the New York Times. 

The book "The Big Fat Surprise" details how the myth about fat and cholesterol causing heart disease was perpetrated and how people were scammed into taking statins.  The drug companies make BILLIONS of dollars per year selling these drugs. 

For those who are recommending eating tomatoes, beans, pulses, peanuts and almonds, I recommend looking at Dr. Mercola's article online about the problems of semi-poisonous lectins, found in all of these.  Just search on his name and then search for "lectins" on his website.

I picked up my reading glasses from OWNDAYS yesterday and they seem to be good.  I need a little frame adjustment and I'll see how comfortable they are after that.  The prescription seems to be correct.

I saw him in the Yokota Commissary after he returned to Japan.  Seemed to be a decent guy but didn't talk much. 

janclaes47:  You are right.  A couple years ago, I bought replacement lenses at some wrong places.  After shopping around Bangkok a lot, I found a shop in Emquartier that was willing to get me Nikkon progressive lenses for 17,000.  I then talked a shop in Central World into getting the lenses for the same price.  They were Hoya lenses but I paid about three times as much as you did.  I had gone all over Bangkok from optical shops in malls to small stand-alone optical shops and Just couldn't seem to get a better price.  I posted on the forum and several people, as did lopburi3 this time, recommended Zenni Optical.  I didn't get Zenni glasses at that time because I don't like earpieces that are strongly spring-loaded.  I went back to Tokyo at the end of that winter and found that many reasonable optical shops had opened, putting an end to the grip of extortionist optical shops, so I had some reading glasses made in Tokyo.  As someone remarked about the optical shops here, the frames were either too small or the nose pads were not suitable for western noses. To solve this I reused some old frames.  This past summer, I bought three nice frames at Walmart in California for about $45.00 each.  I'll try out the reading glasses that I get in the new frames this time but OWNDAYS, like many other Bangkok shops won't make bifocals.  I can't handle progressives and find that many shops that do make bifocals put the lines too high for me so I've hesitated to order my bifocals online.

A new optical shop named OWNDAYS has recently opened on the 2nd or maybe 3rd floor of the Gaysorn Tower.  Their prices are clearly posted.  Frames are 1,000 baht up and single strength lenses are 1,990 baht.  Progressives are about 3,000 more.  Today I ordered new lenses for my reading classes in line with my new prescription of this past September.  We'll see how they turn out. I hope that OWNDAYS is not forced out of business by powerful and well-connected optical chains.  OWNDAYS' caveat was that, so long as my new lenses conform to my prescription without any flaws, they will not remake the lenses.  The amount that I've paid for sometimes poorly made progressive and reading glasses in Bangkok is a hundreds of times more than the OWNDAYS price .  I will be very happy to see some of the shops that ripped me off go out of business.  

How about starting with teaching walking?  Teaching good walking etiquette to children would probably result in teenage drivers being more aware of dangerous practices on the road.  It's done in Japan; also, drivers can't get a license in Japan until completing driving school and passing a driving test.

If you can schedule your travel on or before the date that your tourist visa expires, you can get your money in the bank or get your affidavit of income straightened away now, leave and return on a visa waiver then begin your "O" conversion immediately. After 60 days you can then begin your extension for retirement.  

If, on the other hand, you extend your tourist visa now, you will need to pay the extension fee plus BUY A RE-ENTRY PERMIT.  It is not difficult to do all of the work on your own.  It becomes easier each time that you do it and you save a lot of money.  Of course, if you have money to burn, the agent fees are no problem.

Whatever you do, don't forget to get a re-entry permit before you leave the country!

By whom was Jerusalem stolen and when? What about the Sancta Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople?    By whom was that stolen?  Double standard regarding victors of wars?

Apparently there are no Surface Books for sale in Bangkok.  You can order one from the Microsoft Store but I don't know about the shipping and import duty.  I'd like to buy one too.  If you order one, please post your experience.  The machines in the advert posted above are Surface Pros, not Surface Books.

This is indeed a very, very old topic that just keeps coming up again and again.

You're right.  Today's SuperRich exchange rate is 32.6 while the Visa rate is 32.53.  That would be a difference of 7 baht per $100 or 70 baht per $1,000.

Caution is needed when using Viagra if you have high blood pressure.  My cardiologist has seen a number of deaths from Viagra.  He recommends using Cialis instead.