VegasTim

Don't know anything about it and have never been there, but Agoda lists this hotel as pet friendly and 7.4 kilometers from Don Muang:

The Park Drive-Thru Check-In Resort

Wat Suankaew in Nonthaburi has a lot of used PC's for sale ... laptops as well as desktops. They accept donations of broken PC's and use them to train their students in PC repair. Once repaired and working, they are sold. It's a good program and well worth supporting. I really don't know what operating systems they are offering, but I would think they would be able to hook you up.

Their website is: http://www.suankaew.or.th/

Hope this helps.

Skip Yellowstone and spend your entire time at the Grand Canyon. A 5-day or 7-day raft trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon is absolutely fantastic and is definately one of those things that you will never forget.

I don't know the full background, but it all sounds like a child destroying another child's toy because it can't have one like it for itself. I hope most adult gays are more mature than this attitude suggests.

????

Ummmm ... can we say "sarcasm"?

Thank you for your help! I'm looking forward to getting out of town and relaxing for a few days.

Cheers!

Hi,

I'm thinking of taking a quick weekend trip to Hua Hin starting this Friday (25 November). Are the mini-vans still running from the Victory Monument or have they changed locations? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Tim

...but she would cheat on her bf.

Where did you read that?

Right there in the story:

“Ms Chanokporn’s family told police that the young woman had recently been seeing another man, sparking jealousy in Mr Natthaphon, Maj Watcharin said.”

Pretty simple really:

1. Less water being released from the dam means less water entering Bangkok and surrounds.

2. It takes 2 weeks to get here ... so, it will not impact current conditions. By the time it gets here (two weeks from now), BKK will already be flooded or (hopefully) a significant amount of the water currently here will have drained into the Gulf.

3. 18% of the current water is from the release at the dam. Therefore, 82% is from the rain.

Hi All!

My sister is here in Bangkok visiting me from the USA for the next six months. She is a good bridge player and she is looking for a club here where she can play a couple times a week. So far, she has only found one at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club, which is a bit far from the house. Does anyone know of any bridge clubs close to the Town-in-Town area? In case it matters, she is in her early 60's and she doesn't speak any Thai (only English).

Thanks for your help!

Tim

Hi All!

My sister is here in Bangkok visiting me from the USA for the next six months. She is a good bridge player and she is looking for a club here where she can play a couple times a week. So far, she has only found one at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club, which is a bit far from the house. Does anyone know of any bridge clubs close to the Town-in-Town area? In case it matters, she is in her early 60's and she doesn't speak any Thai (only English).

Thanks for your help!

Tim

Hi All!

I've been living in Thailand for the last year or so, and just realized that I really don't know how to call the police, ambulance, fire department, etc., in the event that an emergency should arise. Hopefully, I won't ever need to use it, but it seems wise to be prepared just in case. What are the phone numbers? Do they have English speaking operators? I don't know if it makes a difference or not, but I only have a cell phone (no land line).

Thanks for your help!

Time for the more sensible leaders of the NPP to abandon Sonthi and Chamlong and join the Democrats. It's never a good idead to use the word new in the name of a political party, thay all fail-ask Chavalit.

He was replying to the question of whether foreign monitors would be allowed, so his reply was in the sense of ,'Well, why should we hold (the monitors, the westerners) in esteem, we can do the job ourselves?'

Hi All!

My sister is planning to visit me (in Bangkok) for about six months and she is thinking about getting a facelift while she is here. Can anyone recommend places where they do a good, safe job? I already directed her to the Bumrungrad Hospital and Vibhavadi Hospital websites but was thinking there were probably other places she should check out before deciding. Any help you can give would be appreciated. (In case it matters, my sister is 63, a U.S. citizen and would like to have it done around August 2011.)

Thanks!

Hi!

Hope you can help me. I've looking for a house/townhouse rental in the Town-in-Town area but have not had any luck. The websites I have visited are either in Thai or they don't list anything for Town-in-Town (just Lat Prao). If anyone can direct me to a rental agency or website with some listings for the area, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks!

Hi Jerry. I used to be a CPA in America before I decided to move to LOS. Here is what I know:

1. If you do a direct rollover from your 403B to an IRA, there will not be any taxes. A direct rollover means that you open the new IRA and your 403B company sends the check directly to the new IRA company. (Sometimes the check will be sent to you, but it will be made out to the new IRA company; if this is the case, then you just mail the check to the new IRA company.) Note that you will receive a 1099-R tax form next year showing that you made a withdrawal from your 403B; you simply add the amount to your income, indicate the amount that was rolled-over (should be the same amount) and it results in a net zero increase in income (basically add it in and then subtract it out).

2. The Roth IRA has a number of advantages including (a) no taxes when you withdraw money from the account (at normal retirement age); ( no minimum distribution requirements regardless of your age; © ability to will the account to your heirs. As such, I prefer the Roth IRA to the traditional IRA. HOWEVER, any money that you rollover from a 403B, traditional 401K or traditional IRA to a Roth will be taxed as ordinary income in the year of the transfer. (There was a bit of an exception in 2010, but I believe that exception is no longer in place.) So, if you transfer the 403B to a Roth, you will have to pay tax on the amount of the rollover. (As it is still a rollover, the tax would be just the addition to ordinary income rather than penalty.) Since you are moving to Thailand and will not (I assume) have further income in the USA, there is a way to avoid the tax. Basically, open both a traditional IRA and a Roth IRA. Rollover the 403B funds to the traditional IRA (there will be no tax on the rollover). Again assuming you have no USA income in 2012, you can transfer about $12,000 from the traditional IRA to the Roth IRA. While this transfer will be considered ordinary income, it will not be taxed because your personal exemption and standard deduction will be sufficient to bring that ordinary income down to zero. (If you have USA income, however, you need to lower the amount of the transfer accordingly in order to make the transfer tax free.) If you do this every year, your traditional IRA will eventually be fully converted to a Roth IRA. (Just be sure to check the exemptions and personal deduction each year so you know how much you can transfer.) You get the benefits of the Roth (including no tax on distributions down the road) without having to pay any tax.

3. There are a lot of ways to transfer the funds to Thailand, as some posters have already noted. For myself, I opened my IRA accounts with E*Trade and I also opened a regular bank savings account with E*Trade bank. So, I sell funds from my IRA and then transfer the money to my E*Trade bank savings account; then I can withdraw the funds at an ATM or have E*Trade wire to my Thai bank account. Very easy. Bank of America does have a similar arrangement with Banc of America Securities where you can easily transfer the funds from the IRA account to a bank account and then use ATM, wire transfer, etc .

IMPORTANT!!!! NOTE!!!! I'm not sure from reading your original post, but it sounds like you are planning to withdraw the money from your new IRA relatively soon. Please note that any withdrawals from an IRA before you reach the age of 59 1/2 are subject to penalty as well as being included in ordinary income. So, even if you rollover the funds this year (2011) tax free and penalty free, you will still be charged taxes and penalties if you take money out next year or any year before you are 59 1/2 years old. Again, if you keep your withdrawals to less than $12,000 a year (with no other USA income), you can get away with not paying any tax due to the personal exemption and standard deduction as noted in #2 above; the penalty, however, is not negotiable and you will be charged a 10% penalty. From a financial point of view, 10% is a huge penalty and will ravage your IRA account (not only do you lose the 10% immediately, but you lose the potential of future earnings on that money effectively increasing the penalty/damage to as much as 100% or more over the life of the IRA). So, think very carefully before withdrawing any money before you are 59 1/2 years old.

Hope this helps.

Hi all,

About me: I am a U.S. citizen and native English speaker. I have a BA in Business Administration, approximately 30 years of progressive work experience in accounting (from auditor to Director of Finance to CFO of a publicly-traded company), and I just completed a CELTA course (Pass ; I expect to have my actual CELTA certificate within the next couple of weeks (after the administrative review is done and they mail it off). I am 50 years old and am living in Bangkok on a Non-Immigrant B visa (I have to make my first visa run before November 3rd).

Ideally, I am seeking a job teaching Business English to adults, preferably at a University in Bangkok. (I live next to the MRT at Huai Khwang and would like to work as close to home as possible.) Any ideas as to websites I can visit for job openings? Or other ideas on how to go about finding this type of position?

I am fairly new to Thailand and very new to teaching. Any help you can give me in my job search would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Hi.

I will soon be moving from the US to Thailand and was wondering if anyone had a recommendation for a door-to-door shipping company. I am currently on the west coast (Nevada) if that makes any difference. I don't have a lot to ship, just my DVD collection, pictures and other small personal items. I really want a door-to-door shipper so that they take care of customs; I really don't want to have to pick the stuff up at some customs warehouse and then have to figure out how to get it from there to my apartment; I want the shipping company to handle that and bill me if there is any customs duty.

Thanks for your help!

Hi All,

I am in the process of moving to Thailand and I just rented a condo (Ratchada Road at the Huai Kwang MTR stop). The condo is furnished with all of the big things (sofa, TV, bed, etc.) but I need to buy some small things for the new place. I need dinnerware, glasses, cutlery, pots and pans, bed sheets, etc. As I really hate shopping, I like to buy quality stuff so that it lasts as long as possible (and I don't have to shopping again for quite some time!) so for things like these I usually stay away from the street markets. I was thinking of looking at Robinson's. Does anybody have other ideas for a good store to buy these small household items?

Thanks!

Hi. I am looking to rent a place beginning in mid-April. Preferably, I would want a 2-bedroom place but I will also strongly consider a 1-bedroom place. I am looking to sign a 1-year agreement and would even be willing to pay the first year's rent in advance if it will lower the overall price. I will initially be going to school near Central World (Chit Lom) and would like a place nearby or, at least, close to the BTS so that commuting does not become an issue. The following is what I require ... anything else would be a bonus:

1 or 2 bedroom

Washing machine

Swimming pool (or spa)

Fitness room

Balcony/terrace

Shower preferred (but bath tub is OK)

I would like to keep the price around $15,000 baht including electric, water, TV and Internet but will be willing to go a little higher for the right place.

I saw this place on the Internet ... the Baan CD (On Nut) ... that looks pretty good. Does anybody know anything about this building?

http://www.easyhomes.tv/property/baan-cd-on-nut--1061

Thanks for your help! I appreciate anything that you can offer.

VegasTim

you need a proper link to that story.

ie; the URL.

GungaDin

I tried to post the URL but TV said I didn't have the proper rights and I had to delete in order to post the story at all ... But I will give it another shot!

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8...ticle?chn=world

I wanted to post this under the "News Clippings" forum, but TV wouldn't let me ... Sorry.

Thailand's Blue Diamond Heist: Still a Sore Point

By Christopher Shay Sunday, Mar. 07, 2010

Two decades ago, a Thai gardener climbed into the palace of a Saudi prince through a second-story window, busted open a safe with a screwdriver and stole some 200 pounds of jewelry. The former Saudi chargé d'affaires in Bangkok told the Washington Post that the gardener stuffed "rubies the size of chicken eggs" in his vacuum-cleaner bag, along with a huge, nearly flawless blue diamond, which at 50 carats would be one of the largest blue diamonds in the world.

Or at least that's how the story goes, according to the local Thai press and the old chargé d'affaires. Thailand's Department of Special Investigation (DSI), which is similar to the FBI, says it has no evidence to confirm the facts of the case — and doesn't even know whether the blue stone that's said to be larger than the Hope Diamond exists. What is certain is that the alleged theft eventually cost Thailand billions of dollars, left people dead in its wake and put an Elvis-impersonating Thai official on death row. More than 20 years later, the ripped-off Saudis still want their jewels back, and relations between the two governments remains strained.

In January, five Thai police officers were arrested and charged for a murder that is allegedly connected to the case, raising hopes that some of the questions surrounding what has come to be known in Thailand as the Blue Diamond Affair would finally be answered. For Thailand, it could mean improved diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, potentially returning hundreds of thousands of jobs in the oil-rich nation to Thai migrant workers. But since Thailand's statute of limitations lapsed in February for murders allegedly linked to the heist, the Thais are running out of options. It will now be up to the Saudi government to decide if Thailand's last-ditch efforts are enough to normalize relations.

After the 1989 jewel heist, the gardener, Kriangkrai Techamong, airmailed the loot to his home in northern Thailand and hightailed it back, according to reports in the local press. After the Saudi government gave Thailand the tip about Kriangkrai, it didn't take long for Thai police to arrest him, but not before he allegedly sold some of the priceless jewels for a mere $30 an item. Soon after, three Saudi diplomats in Bangkok were shot execution-style in two different attacks on the same night. Two days after that, a Saudi businessman was kidnapped and never seen again.

Though the DSI insists there's no proof that the murders and kidnapping are connected to the theft, the former Saudi chargé d'affaires, Mohammed Khoja, was adamant, telling the Bangkok Post in 1995 that the murder case and heist were linked. Despite the deaths, the Thai police tried to return the gems that weren't yet sold by Kriangkrai in an official visit to Saudi Arabia, hoping it would end the scandal. It didn't take long, however, for Saudi Arabia to claim that most of the returned goods were imitation baubles. To add insult to injury, the local press reported rumors of photos of the wives of bureaucrats wearing new diamond necklaces at a charity gala, ones that were awfully similar to the ones taken from the Saudi royalty. Needless to say, Saudi Arabia was not amused. In June 1990, the country would stop renewing the visas of more than a quarter-million Thai workers in Saudi Arabia and would give out no further ones, cutting Thailand off from billions of dollars in remittances. Saudi Arabia also barred its citizens from traveling to Thailand as tourists. Nabil Ashri, the current Saudi chargé d'affaires, said the decision to downgrade relations was "obviously for safety reasons and due to repeated failures of the Thai authorities to adequately solve or explain any of the cases to Saudi authorities."

Under pressure from Saudi Arabia, Thailand continued to investigate the case, though maybe not in the way Saudi Arabia had hoped. In 1994, a Thai jeweler, whom Khoja believed was behind the imitation jewels, was kidnapped, and then his wife and 14-year-old son were killed. At the time, the Thai police said the two died in a car crash, but Khoja was not convinced. The Washington Post quoted him as saying, "The forensic commander thinks we're stupid. This was not an accident."

Only a few months afterward, Chalor Kerdthes, the police officer who had headed the initial investigation and handed over the fake gems to Saudi Arabia, was arrested by Thai police and charged with ordering the murders of the jeweler's wife and son. The high-ranking police officer fought the charges until the Thai Supreme Court upheld his death sentence in October 2009. Chalor remains in prison, where he has put together a band and recorded a Thai cover of Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock." Chalor has maintained his innocence, telling the Times of London, "Not all people in jail are guilty." It's no wonder that after all the deaths, Khoja said there was a hex on the blue diamond and that anyone who illegally handled the mysterious stone would be cursed — something many Thais still believe.

Further complicating the mystery, the U.S.-based Foundation for Democracy in Iran claimed in a 1996 report that the 1990 murders of the Saudi diplomats were the result of Iranian hit squads. The DSI, which took over the case from the Thai police in 2004, said any Iranian connection to the murders is only a rumor. But a 2009 arrest warrant for an "Abu Ali" for the murder of one of the Saudi diplomats has fueled speculation on message boards and in the blogosphere of Middle Eastern involvement. Despite having little concrete evidence about Abu Ali, a DSI team headed to Interpol headquarters in France at the end of January to ask the international police organization for help with apprehending the suspect.

Charging five current or former police officers for the murder of the Saudi businessman who disappeared in 1990 — along with the subsequent trial, slated for the end of March — represents the best chance in years to put an end to the long-standing row. All five officers, however, deny the charges and have vowed to fight them in court. The highest ranking of the bunch, Somkid Boonthanom, has blamed politics for the arrest, telling Bangkok's the Nation that he witnessed "outside factors intimidating and pressuring" the prosecutors.

So far the two-decade-old whodunit reads like a paperback thriller, but it remains to be seen if the story will be neatly wrapped up in its final chapters. Ashri said that if the case were solved, Saudi Arabia would "have to seriously consider restoring relations" and that he was pleased by the recent "serious efforts from the Thai government." Still, with the statute of limitations expiring, pressure falls on the upcoming trial to reveal the secrets behind the Blue Diamond Affair. Saudi Arabia will have to decide soon if Thailand's last-minute show of effort is enough, or if the curse of the blue diamond will haunt Thai foreign relations for years to come.

Hi everyone. I was just reading an article that the IRS is going to be doing more tax return audits this year and that one of the areas they are really focusing on are foreign bank accounts and unreported interest income. The article said that if you have more than $10,000 in a foreign account, it has to be reported on a Form TD F 90-22.1. I had never heard of this form, so I looked it up on the IRS website and, sure enough, foreign accounts have to be reported by June 30th of each year. I thought I was safe using the Turbo Tax program, but this form is actually from FinCEN (the Financial Crimes Enforcement Netork) as part of their anti-money laundering program, so it isn't included in Turbo Tax.

Anyway, I am attaching a PDF file of the form in case it applies to you and, like me, you aren't already aware that you are suppose to do this. I don't like the idea of having to tell my government every little thing I am doing, but I guess it beats getting audited. Why is it that our government treats us all like potential drug dealers? Can't even buy a box of nasal decongestant in the U.S. without giving your driver's license ... might use it to cook up some meth! Crazy.

Federal_Form_90_22.1.pdf

Hi Note,

The gay bars in Vegas are pretty much spread throughout town. The only real gay "area" is behind the MGM where the Gipsy is. As far as asians, I haven't found a place with an abundance of asians. But, because of that, you shouldn't have much trouble finding a guy to hook up with.

Good luck and have fun!

I've been to the websites of Nok Air, Bangkok Airlines, Thai Airlines, etc. None of them list any flights to Sakhnon Nakhon or Nakhon Phanom, so I am assuming that they don't fly there. If you know of any flights, please let me know as I would much rather fly as close as possible! Thanks.