radiochaser

"just kidding"? No, I think you may be on to something. He posts more in a week than I do in a year!

That is a close description of one place we went to. Watched some kind of show in Thai, I think it was about bamboo cloth, healing wraps for knees, elbows, lower back, then go and buy bamboo cloth products. My wife bought some underpants for me made from bamboo cloth (google it) and they are actually comfortable. I wondered how much the Thai people working there were paid, only to find out they were all Vietnamese. They all went to Thailand for a few months to learn Thai language and were very fluent in it.

It was my wife's idea to go. Some of her friends were going there on a 3 night 4 day tour (read, 4 days of going to places that was selling stuff) and she asked if I wanted to go. I said yes. I didn't get much chance to sample the coffee shops because of the shopping tour! The shopping was centered on Danang and the tour bus took us to different places each day. Before or after the shopping was done, we had a big meal at restaurants that seemed (to me) to be set up for tours. I did not see anyone off the street going into the restaurants, but there were groups of people that were herded in and sat at their assigned room/area of the restaurants! The food was good, but still, people that were not in our tour group or the other tour groups did not eat there. They were patronizing the restaurants that were next door, across the street, up and down the street, etc. The 2 or 3 coffee shops that I did get to had, I think, good coffee. Even a small take out coffee shop on a beach had good coffee.

Vietnam has its problems, but I would like to go back again to check out a couple of places that I was working at. Not the last place, while the Phu Bai airbase, now airport, is still there and is now the Hue International Airport (still in Phu Bai), the base just across the street, 8th RRFS, is now an industrial area. Before being at Phu Bai I was assigned to a detachment away from the company I was assigned to and worked on the north perimeter of Phu Cat Air Force base, is now the Quy Nhon Airport - Phu Cat Airport - UIH. I was there 7 months. Looking at google earth, the area of our communications intercept site may still be there. It would be fun to look around, if the officials would allow it. Using google earth you can see the bomb bunkers on the north end of the airport and I worked about 100 - 150 yards north of those. Besides, the coffee was good when I went there in July of this year and I would like to try more.

Never mind, I turned on my vpn (I had it on the last time too) and changed the region to Japan. Now it opened up with out the "Access denied". If you do know the reason and want to provide an answer, that would be appreciated. Maybe tna security does not like my comcast.com internet service. I did find that my laptop had connected to someone else's unsecured wifi router (my wifi router was temporarily not working ) and I found a huge amount of traffic was running through my lapatop. I downloaded a packet decrypter/translater/whateveritwascalled and found that a huge amount of spam was running through my laptop. I also discovered that multiple IP address' that belonged to comcast.com were blacklisted and blocked in Russia.

I get this (and had it the other day with another article) when I click on the link to read the entire article. Anyone have an idea about what is happening? I did an internet search a couple of days ago when I first got this message and did not find what the reason was. : Access denied Error 14 tna.mcot.net 2023-11-10 03:00:00 UTC What happened? This request was blocked by our security service Your IP: 73.81.88.150 Proxy IP: 45.223.160.163 (ID 101460-100) Incident ID: 1460000820537389505-188899056980071557

If you fit the title of this post and use the Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) Federal Employees Plan (FEP) health plan with the prescription plan associated with it. You are in Thailand, but you still use a U.S. of A. mailing address (does not matter why). You are also of Medicare age and are enrolled in Part A - Hospital and Part B Medical. You use your BCBS prescription plan to cover your medications. If you have not received a notification letter (or post card) introducing the FEP Medicare Prescription Drug Program (MPDP), then you do not know if you are, or will be, automatically enrolled, into this plan. From what I understand, after speaking with several people associated with BCBS and CVS Caremark prescription plan, and what I have read on the internet webpage related to this issue, you will not have drug coverage outside of the United States! I became aware of the issue yesterday (my Tuesday 11/9/23) that BCBS FEP members with Medicare are automatically enrolled into the MPDP program and must opt out of it within 26 days of the letter notification of the automatic enrollment! If BCBS FEP has you listed in their database as a Medicare recipient, but does not know you live outside of the United States, you are or will be enrolled. The MPDP program starts January 1, 2024. Some medications from CVS Caremark mail order department, are not covered as a mail order medication, by MPDP. I assume that those medications must then be purchased under the MPDP program at a local U.S. retail pharmacy. One such medication I have, costs me $10.00 for a 90 day supply (1 pill a day) through CVS Caremark mail order department and at the local pharmacy a 30 day supply cost is, $5.00. But MPDP will not pay for medications outside of the United States. I had medical care in Thailand in July and the prescribed medicine was included in the co-pay for my visit. I believe BCBS FEP members can determine if they have been automatically enrolled in the MPDP plan by going to the website, fepblue.org/medicarerx . I think you can also unenroll from the plan there, if, you are within the 26 day opt out period. If you missed that, you can still opt out but may or may not be covered for drug prescriptions if you are not enrolled, either in the U.S. or overseas. I have been unable to determine, yet, what drug coverage, if any, that you may have, if the 26 day opt out period has passed. Opting out of the MPDP will allow you to continue with the current drug prescription program you currently have, covered through BCBS FEP. See the attached picture of the post card that I received regarding this issue. I have not received a letter and was advised that I was not automatically enrolled in the MPDP program. OK, not really ok, I cannot upload the picture I made of the post card. Use the fepblue.org/medicarerx website link for information. admin/moderators. If this is in the wrong forum, please move.

Met my Thai spouse in Thailand, married her in the U.S. of A.

I was in Vietnam for more than 1.5 years. People there were trying to kill me (perhaps not just me though)! 4 months after being in Vietnam, I was in Thailand for 7 months. People were not trying to kill me! Ergo, I chose Thailand. P.S. Earlier this year, I was in Vietnam for 4 days. No one tried to kill me. Such a welcome change. And the coffee was very good!

Blocking your stinking post!

I read some of that thread and the linked article. I retired due to a military connected disability. I am rated at 100% disabled due to my service in the Vietnam war. I pay, no, tax on my disability pension which is more than I need to become a retiree in Thailand. I think the Thai government might try to tax me on that, based the term, "other income" that was in the linked article. Both the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and the Pennsylvania State revenue service says, my disability pension is non taxable.

I met a Thai woman in San Francisco decades ago, that was working in a massage parlor. She told me that she was preparing to return to Thailand as she had finished paying for a farm, house, car, and truck for her mother and had a lot of money in the bank. I think that was in 1988 or 1989. She spoke very good English and seemed to be a smart woman.

I think you are correct, or it could have been 12 D cells.

Most of those jammers will block GPS signals. There was a case years ago in Louisiana, U.S. of A. that blocked the GPS signal of a ship transiting in the Mississippi river in a fog. The pilot or ships captain attempted to bring the ship to a stop, but it ran into a bridge before it could stop. The device was located in an apartment building. It was determined that the jammer had an almost 1 kilometer radius! Another jammer in Philadelphia, PA, U.S. of A., was blocking GPS signals for aircraft that flew over the building it was located in, as the aircraft flew over the building. The United States considers jamming of GPS signals to be a National Security Issue of high priority and investigates the jamming cases.

I remember people carrying boombox's 3 foot long on their shoulder. You could hear them coming from 100 meters away!

Wire transfer from U.S. of A. bank to Thai bank showing that the money was from a foreign source. There was no start up cost for the restaurant here in the U.S. It was an established business more than 20 years old that my wife and her sister purchased. My wife has a business degree from a university in Thailand and knows what she is doing. Since she and her sister purchased the business changes were made and the gross receipts have increased over what they were before. As an example of one thing that has increased profits; the previous owner was only using a dial up access by telephone to process debit and credit card purchases. This process took 2 - 3 minutes to complete. At best that is (if my math is correct) 30 debit/credit card purchases an hour. I ordered an internet service provider installation which has VOIP, reducing the processing time to seconds. About half to 3/4 of sales are debit and credit card from day to day with the rest cash sales. The facility the business is in has enormous numbers of people going through it. 100,000 potential customers pass through the facility each week and it is open from 9 am to 6 pm daily. During the busy times, it is impossible to walk through the place without bumping into someone. If I recall correctly, the G.S. stands for General Schedule a white collar job for office workers, or in my case a Federal Agent for one of the 3 letter agencies. G.S. 13 pay grade is a senior position paying in the 6 figure range in U.S. dollars, usually requiring college education. I worked my way up from the lower grades to the G.S. 13 grade even though I only had a high school education. If you do well in your pay grade, then about every 2 years you are increased by 1 step or you can be promoted to a higher step or higher pay grade by merit. G.S. grades start at G.S. 1 and goes up to G.S. 14 or 15. After that the only way to be promoted to a higher level is to become a supervisor, Manager Grade, M.G.. I was promoted by merit, i.e. even though I did not have a college education, my work was on par to those that had bachelor and master's degrees from universities. I found the following on the internet: "The GS-13 pay grade is generally reserved for top-level positions such as supervisors, high-level technical specialists, and top professionals holding advanced degrees. Positions at GS-13 and above are known as Career Competitive." I guess I was considered to be a high level technical specialist. G.S. vs. W.G., wage grade which is pay scale for mechanics, carpenters and machinist type jobs, blue collar (I think) which has a lower pay scale. I don't know what you mean by Jolly Green Giants tax.

I have seen stuff about muslim extremist wanting that to happen.

She and her sister owns a take out restaurant in a historical building here in the U.S. of A.. Their gross income per year is more than I earned in the last 10 years of working for the U.S. of A. government!!! 11 of those years I was a G.S. 12 Step 6, the last year a G.S. 13 step 5. Pay scale was for the Philadelphia, PA area. Of the more than 100 other business's her place is the top seller! The business occupies a smaller footprint than the condo she bought!!

That right there is probably the reason I can never get home and have to sleep in the streets at night! 🤪

I don't watch any K Pop singing groups. Usually the music I listen to on youtube are the olden goldies from back in the 1960's & 70's. If any singing group or individual pop's up in the youtube suggestions, then I usually choose the, don't recommend that channel (I would do that with some kid stuff but my grand kids like to watch them on my tablet). I don't watch ticktok, don't have a subscription to Spotify, and block MTV on youtube as well. The only reason I recognize the name Blackpink is I saw it used in news headlines but was not interested in reading that news. Most of the time I do not listen to music as it does not sound as good as it used to. Mostly I listen to talk shows on radio while driving. Then, recently, I was given a pair of Phonak hearing aids! Much better than the Siemens that I had before. The Phonak hearing aids make an amazing difference in the sound of music (pun intended). But I don't plan on listening to Blackpink or any the other K Pop groups, Korean, Japanese style, or similar from any other country. I just don't care for that style of music. I also don't care to listen to rap, hip hop, or anything like that music as well. I have had the Phonak hearing aids for about 1 month and only today did I listen to music in the truck while driving. As I wrote, the sounds I could hear in the music today was amazing. I could hear instrumental notes that I have not heard in years. I have upper frequency hearing loss allegedly from daily listening to radio Morse signals 12 hours a day for nearly a year, decades ago.

13 Rock Road, Rock City, Thailand. Or, in Thai, 13 ถนนร็อค เมืองร็อค ประเทศไทย

Oh, just read that Blackpink is a group.

I have heard the name Blackpink, but have no idea who she is or what she does.

You haven't met my Thai wife. None of the descriptive's you wrote fits her, except that last one.

My Thai wife must not be Thai then. I won't say how much she has in the bank, even after she bought a 4.9 million baht condo on the river with cash (all her money). Yet, she gushes with thanks when I giver her 200 baht as a gift .