kandahar

None to be found at the corner market of Den Haa but I will stay vigilant in my travels.

VF, why not share the position with Limbo . I get the impression you two hit it off

Now PLEASE answer the question

Ah, yes. The very thing I was talking about. Colorful, one and all. jubby shines the light on a very good point. VF, how could you want for more than to have such an ideal antagonist vs, the ideal protagonist for the little short stories that would present our deeds to the interested public and to be able to present them with your take on the subjects? And, you could always leave us with a question, just for fun and the joy of role reversal.

( My thanks to Microsoft Word and Spell-check for help with the above.)

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I'm not sure whether to be pleased or perturbed by this nomination, as I am not sure that my "writing skills" are suited to recording gossip, data, historical or organizational events. I'm more inclined to report on the beauty of the colors in the evening sky or the fullness of the rising moon, just moments ago.

Besides I am somewhat preoccupied with my own self indulgences and producing my own Google Map for my loyal readers. Surely there are others better suited.

Dear VF,

I just can't think of anyone better suited. In fact, I'm pretty sure you own several suits. But clothing isn't the issue here. Shorts will be okay.

I'm thinking that we will have some beautiful sunsets on BBQ/meeting days/afternoons and some full moons if the thing goes into the later evening. There will surely be much gossip exchanged during the BBQ's/meetings, data will be abundant and surely a little history will be made. "Organizational" or organized, I'm not sure about. I think that if you view the "colorfulness" of the gossip and the data (true or otherwise), the words to describe it and to relate to the unfortunate few that couldn't attend will come easily enough. It appears that a fairly colorful group will make up the majority of the attendees. Easy pickings as I see it and an opportunity to cast your own light on the events/personalities.

Now, I have read a fair bit of your writing and a majority of it is historical (after the fact, event, or motorcycle trip), so don't fret on that. You have a good memory when you finally sit down to the keyboard. I'm sure your narrative would do the group justice. And having your own Google map to pinpoint the place where the carnage occurred would only be a plus. Good way to promote your map while promoting the group. (By the way, please PM me with the link when you get the map up and running. I'm interested.)

However, if you resist this offer with a fair bit of enthusiasm, then I will stay quiet about it long enough to do a Google search to find the opposite of impeach and see if there is another way to bestow you upon the literary throne that awaits a man such as you. I know the opposite of explode is implode. Based on that logic, perhaps we can "expeach" you??? I dunno. We'll see what Google says and we'll see if another person out there is just imploding to be the literary representative of the fine group to come. I doubt that. But truly, you write well. We would be lucky to have you post a paragraph or two after an event, even if you couldn't make all of them. I believe even if you missed one, you could probably hammer out a paragraph describing the outcome just because you have a feel for the personalities involved.

I can't be that person that will record these things. I don't have the words in my vocabulary to do the group justice. I'm just not very good at writing. Here I am without automated grammar correction and spell-check- "sicks munce ago, i wanned to bee a righter an now i ar won" And I often have a lot of trouble with this computer. SometimesthespacebarsticksandIcan'tfigureouthowtofixit.Surelyyouunderstandmypredicament.

This just in!!!

Looks like my workload at home is going to be increasing, according to my wife. Any of the duties I have had in the past concerning the CR Expats club are going to have to be handed off to different people. I'm sure you guys can work this out at the next meeting (the first BBQ). My wife says I will still be available to attend the BBQ's and social events. That is good news.

I guess this is as good a time as any to nominate VF as the "recorder" for this outfit. His writing skills will lend themselves well to the narrative needed to publicize the official upcoming happenings of the group here on the CR Events forum and will come in handy on reports afterwards ( the aftermath).

sceadugenga, great idea! Of course, your name is at the top of the list, occupying the same space as the other two "first names at the top of the list", Dingdong and Limbo. I'm assuming I can delegate this first task to you and whoever else shares that coveted "first name at the top of the list" spot? Let me know the who, where, when and how much of the very first BBQ. We all know the why. I am VERY busy but the wife and I will find time to contribute and partake. And thank you so much for stepping up like this. We're in business now! CR needs more folks like you and your cohorts.

Man, you just freed me up to do so many other things. Things like attending BBQ's with good folks. Thank you. I am so relieved.

The Tessaban 5 School thing sounds good. I think I will see what’s for breakfast there. (I’m trying to stay “on topic” here.)

Just a quick “Expat Club” update here guys. Made the trip to CM and checked in with the CM Annex of the CR Expats Club. The brief meeting went pretty much as anticipated.. Started off bad and went downhill from there.

The initial greeting offered the perfect example of just how out of control the CM Annex of the CR Expats Clubs has become. I’m sure all of us here in CR know the secret handshake and how to greet fellow expats with the secret handshake. We all know the importance of the proper execution of the secret handshake and that the purpose of the secret handshake is to insure that we are indeed greeting a GENUINE CR Expat club member. There are lots of wannabes out there and it is our duty to ferret out the fakes and to exclude them from our exclusive club. Of course, at the initial greeting, the CM member seemed to first recall that the secret handshake involved extending only one upright finger. After my quick rebuke, the CM member tried again and was fairly certain that it involved the words “pull my finger”. Neither version is right of course and only caused offense with the visiting VIP from CR, especially when the VIP actually did pull the finger, thinking maybe he had forgotten the original secret handshake and never expecting a fellow expat could be so crude. My embarrassment and humiliation was only heightened by the gales of laughter and thigh-slapping of the CM member.

Putting that behind us, we moved on to addressing some of the concerns of the CM group. The first concern was the naming of the CM Annex. Issue was taken with the word “Annex” and it was explained to me that “Annex” had connotations of being “taken over” by a higher power. I quickly offered a change and suggested “sub group” but that was explained as being inferior to “Annex“ , as “sub” is short for subordinate and the CM bunch doesn’t really want to be seen as subordinate to anyone. I quickly pointed out the obvious, which led immediately to name calling and then a few punches being thrown.

The meeting was adjourned and I retreated to my hotel room to plan my next move in this monumental power clash with our ANNEXED and SUBORDINATE CM bunch.

An additional note here on the behavior of this rogue outfit in CM: Apparently, the member in CM has been going behind my back and making phone calls to other expats in the CR area, trying to convince them that they should join his ANNEXED and SUBORDINATE group in CM. I’m told that he sees that group as superior to the CR group and that this belief is based solely on the fact that CM offers about thirty different places where pizza can be purchased. Personally, I don’t think the number of available pizza joints is that much of an indicator of how superior one group is over another but apparently the CM member puts a lot of stock in that. I’ll have to sit down over a good pizza tonight and try to come up with some arguments to dispel this myth so that we don’t lose any CR members to the CM crowd.

Okay. That’s the report from CM at this moment. I know you guys have my back on this thing and I appreciate that so much. Don’t worry. You know you can count on me to protect your interests. That deadbeat bunch down south isn’t going to get the best of us. But just so you know, when I get back to CR, we are going to have a meeting and try to figure out who’s bright idea it was to ever get the CM crowd involved in THE Chiang Rai Expats club. We’ll get the answers and there will be consequences. I suspect we may lose at least one member over this folly.

In other news, many of you have been posting here with your interest in becoming full-fledged members of THE Chiang Rai Expats Club. I‘m really overwhelmed at the moment with trying to salvage this disaster down south but when I get them back on track, we will try to have a get-together and show the CM bunch how it is done. In the meantime, I have been besieged with PM”s from MANY interested expats and as they are most persuasive and emotional in their offline and very private pleas to become members, and officers, I will probably try to expedite their claims to membership first, before I can give any attention to the “general” requests that I am seeing posted here. With that in mind, please know I’ll be unavailable to the general public while I conduct the interviews of the entire PM group. My favorite local coffee shop has a great little corner table that I like and both of us will enjoy our time there. But for those of you posting your requests publicly here, know that we are saving the choicest officer positions for folks like you. We’re certainly not going to be giving those positions away to the needy and selfish crowd that feel compelled to PM their vain requests for attention, trying to get a leg up on better people.

Oops! Another PM coming in right now! Man, I just have too much going on right now. I gotta go! I’ll keep you guys posted.

P.S. I’m also starting to get requests from people in Bangkok. They are wanting to be a part of this successful organization that we have here. Does anybody know where Bangkok is? Maybe a small place close to Mae Sai? Or perhaps a ruse from someone in a little burg near CM? I smell a rat. If any of you know anything about this, let me know.

Can I join?

Well, right now I kind of have my hands full with that unruly annex bunch down south. When I get that mess straightened out, I'll get back to you. In the meantime, don't get desperate and join a copycat club. You deserve the real deal, man.

37,820

http://stattrek.com/Tools/EventCounter.aspx

That would be the number of non repeating combinations with 62 possible characters (i.e. the same character can only be used once and the order is irrelevant like for instance when drawing lottery numbers). The result is reached like this:

(62*61*60)/(3*2*1) = 37,820

But this tells us how many different ways you can pick three different numbers/characters out of 62 possible options. It doesn't allow for combinations where the same character is used more than once, and 123, 132, 213, 231, 312 and 321 would all be considered the same combination.

As mentioned earlier, I'm pretty sure we are talking about permutations not combinations here. And the same letter/number can be used more than once

Sophon

Okay. If I use the permutations calculator, the answer comes up 226,920. You're getting 238,328. I don't know which is right but probably your answer is. My hat is off to you just because you actually know what the word permutations means. I have never heard of it. I just know how to do a search on Google for whatever calculator I need. I have never needed this one. Probably never will. Most of my dilemmas involve how many gallons will fit in tank of ?? by ?? size or finding the unknown length of a leg of a triangle. But I'm pretty sure that if these folks really need to know these kinds of things on a regular basis, the ol' Internet has a calculator that will give them the answer.

I didn't even know that Chiang Mai had an Expats club.

Actually, I just started THE Chaing Rai Expats club two days ago. I'm the only member so far. Yesterday, I opened the Chiang Rai Expats Club Annex in Chiang Mai. I'll be the only member there too, when I happen to go down there for a little shopping later this week. I'm looking forward to going to Chiang Mai and collecting dues from myself when I get there and offering pointers to myself about the proper way to conduct meetings and encourage myself to try to build up the membership in the faltering annex.

I'm already starting to see a lack of motivation and participation in the fledgling annex and I perceive that the membership isn't taking it as seriously as the Chiang Rai Expats club membership thinks it should be taken. I understand that not ONE proper meeting has taken place at this time with that annex bunch. I have some really good ideas about how the Chiang Mai Annex of the Chiang Rai Expats Club should be operated and I am hopeful that when I present the ideas to myself when I get there that I don't find a lot of bad blood surfacing because of "jealousy" and resentment of the head office showing up and taking charge. If the bad blood does surface, I'll certainly be quick to remind the annex member that the Chiang Mai Annex charter can be revoked in very short order if the attitudes don't improve immediately.

I'll keep you guys posted.

37,820

http://stattrek.com/Tools/EventCounter.aspx

I have a Casio that works well. Solar powered, automatic backlight when you raise your wrist, date, stop-watch and all of that. It adjusts automatically everywhere I have been. I thought Iraq and Afghanistan would present a problem with the time signal but it finds the signal even there. I'm in Chiang Rai now and it works well here. I really appreciate that when I travel, the thing just keeps adjusting to the local time before the plane ever lands.

Do a quick online preview of the Casios and I think you'll find several good options. A lot of folks prefer the basic timepiece but I kind of like the ones that do a little more than keep time and Casio has a lot of options in that respect. The solar option is really nice because you don't have to worry about the battery going down and then someone compromising the water seal when they replace the battery. The solar model goes a long time without any light. It won't run down completely unless you put it in a drawer or other dark place and leave it there for a long time. Doesn't have to have sunshine. The lighting in a house will keep it charged. I've had this one for three years and haven't had to do anything to it.

I read that the Thai government is going after Philip Morris for maybe some import/customs tax fraud? Billions of baht at stake. Not sure but I think I read that the suit has already been filed. If you Google it, the story is there. After I read that, several brands disappeared from 7-11 Thailand. Not sure what all brands are involved but the brand selection at 711 has greatly declined in the last few weeks. Local 711 personnel in the shops here say they don't expect to be carrying the brands that have sold out.

When I right-click on the link and select "open in a new tab", the map opens but has some errors on it. When I hit the "refresh page" button, it opens again without the errors. Maybe a Google problem? Google has had their share of troubles lately. The link has worked well for me in the past so I don't think it is a problem with individuals users. Maybe the trouble will clear up in a day or so. Handy map to have. Thanks Sven.

Good job, O37. Nice post. A pleasant read on a mundane day.

Just ran the malware program on the wife's laptop. 30 files infected and now repaired. The NOD32 virus protection that she runs tried to stop the malware detection program but I by-passed it. So maybe her laptop will be a little quicker now, too.

Okay. I took the easiest step (for me) first and downloaded the malware detector and ran it. It found these three files infected:

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\wiaserva.log (Malware.Trace) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

C:\WINDOWS\Temp\wpv131256100374.exe (Trojan.Agent) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\oashdihasidhasuidhiasdhiashdiuasdhasd (Malware.Trace) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

Thanks. I REALLY appreciate the constructive replies to my quandary

I'll just watch this thing for a day or two and see if that fixed it and if not, I'll go after the virtual memory and such. I have some reading to do before I mess with those items because I don't know how to do them.

As much as I thought McAfee was on top of things, I guess it isn't, even though it does catch a lot. I'll keep the free-ware program and run it periodically.

Here's one thing I'll just throw out there. I haven't had any trouble until I clicked on a link in the TV forum and downloaded a wmv.avi file that was posted two days ago. It was the "how they open your suitcase" link. Since that night, this computer has been slow. But I'm not sure that the link was responsible. It is still posted out there. Is it possible to have an infection inside a wav.avi. file? If so, I won't be clicking on any more wmv.avi. links

Thanks for the replies.

filingaccount, I'll try to find how to turn off Google update and see if it helps.

FM505, I too think it seems as if someone else is in this thing. The only commercial virus protection I have is McAfee and it is always on, updates every day and I ran a scan last night, found nothing.

bankruatsteve, I'll try to figure out the virtual memory settings but have no idea to how to see if it is "handling". Sorry. I'm just not a computer guy. I have lots of disk space left. I clean up often. The system and everything else is legal.

Supernova, if 35-40 is okay for browsing, then I won't fret about that. It must be the spiking that is causing the thing to slow and I will download the Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and see what it finds. I'll also download Process Explorer to try to get a better idea of what is happening.

Thanks again to all.

Need some answers if anyone knows them. My laptop seems to come to a standstill, often. After a minute or two, it appears to be doing okay and then slows again a few minutes later. I spending way too much time waiting on this thing these days.

I bring up the windows task manager to see if I see anything running that is taking up too much of the processors time and energy (I think). The system idle process runs in the high 70's and 80's, constantly, and CPU usage shows average of about 35 to 40 but spikes a lot higher sometimes.

Nothing running here except a browser ( usually Chrome but sometimes I switch to IE to see if it gets better---not). No scans running, nor anything else that I can see. Any ideas or things I should be looking for?

I PM'd you with a possible source for an answer. I don't think I am allowed to post it here so I just sent the PM.

I'm not in your area. However, my Canon flash mechanism quit a while back. Took it to one of many local Canon dealers in my town. The fellow took it, sent it to BKK (Canon Main Repair Center, he said) and got it back two weeks later, repaired. Works good. They even returned the broken part that needed to be replaced, which is a small circuit card. The fee was around 1,200 baht, Hated to be without the camera for that long but was pleased with the price and the fact that it was repaired correctly without damaging it further. I suggest visiting any shop in your town that displays the Canon sign and see if they can help in the same way.

What part of town are you interested in? Will you bring transportation or rely on tuk-tuk, etc.? Do you want to be within walking distance of the down-town or is that not important? Many nice places. Let us know a few specifics about your wishes.

Pretty sure he is in Chiang Rai, as that forum is where he posted.

You're welcome.

Sounds like they are biased against naked hot heads, though. That might not be good for their business.

Yeah, there is much hilarity to be found in some of the translations out there. I remember a sign outside of a shop advertising how you could learn perfect English at that shop. The message was so butchered, the English so bastardized, the words miss-spelled so badly, that it sent me into fits of laughter every time I saw it or thought about it. But for the people that don't know the language well, it probably made perfect sense.

More info, some corrected info. The address is 34/7 Moo 15, Sankhongnoi Raod. Phone 089-9569829.

The place is actually a little further down the street after you reach the bottom of the hill. The outside of the building is white, not orange. The furniture displayed from the outside is orange, the bar is orange, the interior of the place is more yellow than orange. I was just remembering "orange" from passing the place and looking in. The place has an open front.

It is near the Den Haa area. Find Highway 1211 on the map that Sven provided. Near the bottom of Mae Kok golf club, 1211 passes close by. The "1211" is posted there on the map, near a green motorcycle marker. That "1211" is the point where you turn off of the highway onto Sankhongnoi to go to the cafe. Turn into town (away from the river and the army base) at that light from 1211 onto Sankhongnoi. You will immediately go up a small hill and then go down the other side of the hill. Shorty after reaching the bottom of the hill, there is an orange building on the left. That's it, I am told.

If you Google Chaliang Cafe, you will find a blog with pics of the inside of the place and some of the menu items. The blog is in Thai. I have no idea what it says about the place.

Good luck