radiochaser

I found a gray snake in my Pennsylvania yard that I could not identify. I played around with it a little bit until it became too aggressive trying to bite me, so I left it alone and it crawled off into the brush. Later I found out it was a timber rattlesnake. What threw me off on identifying was no rattles. Too young to have them I guess.

Could it be that the alcoholic beverages had more to do with this than age? My bet it is.

First time was in 1972 - 1973 working a SINGINT mission as an Army grunt for the NSA. 1973 is when I learned about Songkran. I don't want to go to Thailand during the 1 or 2 week Songkran and will not go there during a 1 month long Songkran. I have been returning almost every year since 1987. Family now has 2 condos there in which I can stay if I travel there by myself, which I do sometimes, with the wife following a week or two later or she leaves a week or two before I do. Beaches are OK for a few hours. Mostly here in the U.S. if I can fish off a dock, otherwise, I don't are for them. I like deserts, desert mountains, mountains, and wide open plains. I am not very fond of city vacations and hope to never have to go on a cruise with the wife, who talks about that sometimes.

Having had to work in St Louis, Chicago, Baltimore and NYC, Newark, NJ, when working as a Federal Agent, they are pretty much the same in many ways, as you described, cesspits! You also left out Philadelphia, PA! Having lived in Louisiana as a child and teenager, with relatives all over that state, saying "entire state of Louisiana are more a cesspit than Chicago" is wrong. But, I will agree that parts of Baton Rouge and New Orleans is damned dangerous to be in if you are white, especially at night. At some point, years ago before my grandmother died I started wearing my badge and pistol on my belt when I visited her and my aunt across the street from her house!

Wife and I have been talking about taking the grandkids, when they are out of school for summer vacation, in the RV and touring the U.S. of A. .. It would be a long slow drive (32 footer ... RV = Caravan for you Europeans). But I like the idea even if I am the driver. Unfortunately, that is not happening next summer. Wife has already booked flights for us, the daughter and grandkids to Thailand already!

I flew non stop from JFK to Thailand one time. I prefer traveling with a stop where I can get off the aircraft, take a shower, change clothes, etc.

I am blocking your despicable post!

I don't know what the Japanese company wanted to do with the property. If my wife did tell me, I have forgotten. Mother in law valued the land more than the money.

Before the gubmint employer I worked for in california transferred me to wanna be california, pennsylvania, I saw a lot of great attractions in california. Those attractions were away from the major population centers out in the countryside of california. I found that the fewer progressive (yes, even back 27 years ago) there were around, the better california was.

Really? On the other hand, when I was in the U.S. of A. Army, I liked driving the M35 2 1/2 ton (carry weight off road) Cargo truck (not trunk LOL). Outside dimensions, 96 inches (2.4 m/ 8 ft.) wide and 277 inches (7.0 m/ 23 ft.) long. I could and did park that thing, including parallel parking, just about anywhere. But, a regular vehicle, including my 19 ft. long RAM 1500 pick em up truck. Watching me try to parallel park that thing, especially between other vehicles, now that's entertainment!

I have a different model Optoelectronics that I bought over 30 years ago. It still works. I used it with a vhf/uhf receiver that connected to the Optoelectronics receiver. When the Optolectronics device picked up a signal, it would tune the vhf/uhf receiver to the frequency and emission mode. I used it when I was working for the U.S. of A. goverment. It worked, but you have to be within about 100 feet or less for it to work. I had other equipment that I could use to determine frequencies at a much greater distance so stopped carrying it with me when working.

15 or 20 years ago a Japanese firm wanted to buy the 10 rai of land my mother in law owned. They offered her $2,000,000.00 U.S. for it. Mother in law turned them down. My wife now owns the 10 rai and has a signed contract with her cousin who farms rice on it. It is worth more than she gets for the lease.

A condo in Nonthaburi was up for sale by the developer for 5 years. Asking price was 9 million baht for a 2 bedroom 2 bath, 2 balcony condo on the 26th floor of a building, overlooking the river, 2 swimming pools, 2 exercise rooms. Strange how all that is in 2's. The wife wanted to see it and it looked nice. But she thought the price was too high. A few months later our son's wife told her the price dropped to 4.9 million baht. Wife flew Thailand and bought it. It is a nice place.

I was offered an insurance policy here in the U.S. of A. and the company refused to send me the details of the policy to read, before I paid for it. Then if I did pay for it and did not like the terms of the policy, they told me I could not get a refund. Naturally, I did not purchase that insurance.

Does Thailand attach contracts to Thai tourists that go to the USA or Europe, in order for Thai tourists to be treated in emergency rooms? I cannot speak for Europe, but in the USA, emergency rooms are required, by USA law, to treat sick and injured people whether or not those people have any insurance. That would include Thai tourists who go to hospitals due to illness or injury. And if the Thai tourist happens to overstay their visa's while hospitalized, those Thai tourists are not treated as criminals and subject to detention or fines or blacklisting for overstay!

Interesting. I am curious why the police were looking for bugging devices and what equipment was used to locate the bugs. I have F. G. Mason Engineering Mini Probe reciever equipment that was once used to locate bugs. I think it is the MPR-5 Model. Small, compact and can tune up to 10 Ghz.

I cannot recall if there was a TV in the room the FIL was in. It was not fancy but it was decent. Clean, no mold in the bathroom. A real hospital bed that was comparable to one in the U.S. of A. and a couch that his attendant slept on (wife pays the attendant) . I have had to stay in a worse hotel room in the U.S. of A. when no other facilities were available in a back woods town. It could be that the wife was also kicking in some additional money for the private room, cause now that you mention that, I have a vague memory about her not letting him stay in one of those bay's like I described.

There are some that do get private rooms in government hospitals. My father in law is a retired police officer. When he was hospitalized 3 or 4 years ago he had a private room. We also had food delivered from somewhere to supplement the hospital food. But, I did get off the elevator on the wrong floor when visiting one day. There was a bay of perhaps 50 hospital beds that was open and with both patients and family visitors, there were 75 - 100 people in there!!

I don't know what the weather was like in 2013, up in Chiang Mai, but I do recall what I was told by a guy I used to work with in California. He was retired from the U.S. Air Force. He was stationed in Chiang Mai sometime in the 1960's. I don't recall if he said when in the 1960's. I do remember he said it snowed in Chiang Mai when he was there. That was back before the dreaded global warming, climate change propaganda started.

Trumpers answer is violence? I believe that most of the violence committed in cities like Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans, Houston, Philadelphia (near where I live) and the like, is not committed by "Trumpers" but by supporters of the democrat party! My wife opened a restaurant in the city of Philadelphia. During the first month it was opened, there were 5 murders within a 1 block radius of the restaurant. There were more murders elsewhere in Philadelphia. That was in 2012. And it became worse over the years. "Halfway through 2023, shootings are down and more killings are solved. But trauma persists. More than 900 people have been shot in Philadelphia so far this year, a 20% decrease compared with the same time last year, police data show. Halfway through 2023, the rate of gun violence in Philadelphia has fallen — albeit slightly. And while the moderate decline over the last six months offers some hope, it follows three of the city’s most violent years in recent memory, and the rate of shootings remains double what it was eight years ago." I bet you 1000 baht that the people that committed those shootings, do not support Trump!

I see that Sheryl has made a recommendation of a doctor already and I would heed her advice. I am curious if you have also been gaining weight as well over the last couple or more years. Your description sounds similar to a problem I had a few years ago, body aches, joint aches, fatigue etc. Another symptom was high levels of calcium in my blood stream. Eventually I was diagnosed with a hyper active parathyroid gland. After parathyroidectomy surgery, I started feeling better within a couple of days. But as I was told by my physician, it could take years before I was back to normal. Surgery was in August 2019 and I still feel some residual effects of the over active parathyroid. Look at the symptom list at this web page, scroll down to find it. https://www.hyperparathyroidmd.com/diagnosis/#:~:text=Dr. Larian will order the following laboratory tests,the chemical balance in the body) More items

I solved that by holding a trash can in front of me as I sat! I had food poisoning so bad I begged someone to shoot me. I never went to the hospital emergency room. When I think about it sometimes, I am amazed that I did not die! Now that I think about it, if I had to travel to the emergency room on my own, I would have never made it. The food poisoning occured in Santa Cruz California at a barbecue meat place.

I'm sure you already know this, but, you should take the joint of of your mouth before drinking the shake. It took me a while to figure out why mine would go out while I was drinking coffee!

Damn! I did not see this. That was bad!

Are you not from Australia? If so, you have never been required to follow Pennsylvania voting laws as I have for the about 30 years I have been here, much of which time, during an election of local and national elections, there was the possibility that I would not be able to vote at my polling place. Prior to each election I accessed the Pennsylvania government website with laws regarding legal voting and even spoke to the registrar of voters office about the legalities of voting. I know what the voting laws were, before the last presidential election. The linked article is misleading and in my personal opinion, deliberately so! Partly by conflating one issue with another issue. I was a federal agent. First year, I was trained in understanding laws applicable internationally and domestically (U.S. government laws). At the time of the 2020 election, the democrat politicians in charge of the Pennsylvania government violated voting laws as they were written at the time. The 2022 elections were after the fact and laws were different! My understanding of laws and how they are applied to individual people and business were important when individual people or a business was subject to fines of hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars. As well as when people were incarcerated in federal prisons between 1 and 7 years. My investigations and testimony was upheld by federal courts of laws. You implied I was a facist by your comments. "Conspiracy theories like this are how fascists justify fascism. Your claims are false." "Opposed to anarchism, democracy, pluralism, liberalism, socialism, and Marxism, fascism is placed on the far-right wing within the traditional left–right spectrum." "CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM 4 Conspiracy theories are morality tales based on archetypal narratives about right versus wrong, good versus evil. Providing “black and white” world views, they foster societal divisions between in-groups and out-groups by exacerbating intolerance against “the other” and delegitimising different voices as being part of the conspiracy. Extremist groups use conspiracy theories as a tool for recruitment and to advance their radical agendas exploiting uncertainties, fears, socioeconomic issues and mental health disorders amongst vulnerable people. In recent years, right-wing extremism has proven to be active and efficient in the dissemination of conspiracy theories aimed at targeting individuals or groups blamed to be responsible for the evil in society. Shielding the audience from the risk of being drawn into the conspiratorial labyrinth of these groups is crucial to push back the ability of conspiracy theorists in mobilising extremist action and violence." You conflated my comments about the illegal mail in voting during the 2020 presidential election with facists by making the claim about my comments about illegal voting were false! My comments about voting were based on the voting laws that were in place in Pennsylvania during the 2020 election! You implied that my comments were part of a facist conspiracy. Ergo, you implied I am a facist, and that is "a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation." Post script: I never made a claim of any election being rigged. Only that in Pennsylvania, democrat politicians violated the voting laws that were in effect at the time of the 2020 election.