maipenrai

As if the thick air wasn't bad enough in itself.....

Judging by the mostly flat terrain that has been shown in his previous trip reports, and the size and power of the machines he will be using, I would say his risk of having a "pretty bad accident" is basically nil - he's not burning up the mountains on a 200hp super sled - yes, you are being "Mommy like", lol... To survive on the street you basically have to be paranoid and think that every car driver is out to get you, and you need to pay attention at ALL times because there are some really, really bad car drivers out there who are NOT paying attention; especially cars that are about to turn across your path. It's one reason I used to love ripping things up offroad a lot more - all I had to worry about 99% of the time was just what was in front of me.

Your favourite activity, it seems....happy travels.....

Not even remotely similar to balut, which they also eat in much the same form in Cambodia - I have tried it once there in the past and don't intend to again. Here's a shot of an egg vendor for stillearly - note the snacks in the front basket topped with a bowl of quail eggs, with the chicken eggs kept warm on the rear basket over charcoal:

Just finished my copy today, actually, and found it quite entertaining; not the best job of editing which you admit yourself in your brief foreword, but if even half the stories in this book are based on actual events, then you have lived a much more interesting life than me, for sure. You certainly lend credence to the old adage that revenge is a dish best served cold...

Yeah, but what if you are only there for a couple of nights? I used to like checking in after arriving from my long overseas flight and having a cold beer from the fridge - now I'm expected to run out and buy my own instead, and the nearest place to do so is the 7-11 back on Soi 4.

Cross country skiing is very popular where I live and we have some world-class trails quite close to town but I never really got into it myself.

Funny little snowshoes - the snow must either be not too deep or somewhat packed already - this is the style I occasionally used in my youth:

The Royal Enfield would definitely be more my style, and be much more comfortable and useable as well....I'll take function, practicality and all-around performance before looks anytime...

I think this refers to the way the back fender has been shortened, or "bobbed" - surprised this example still has a front fender as most bobbers don't. As you can see, with the shortened rear fender they have to hang the license plate off to the side which I think looks totally ridiculous and spoils the clean lines of the bike, and could even have dire consequences to one's fleshy parts in case of mishap. I don't care for the look, myself - but then I don't like choppers, either.

This is my all-time favourite, 1970.5 - 1973 Firebird Trans Am:

Nice to know it's not just me who does this, lol...at home in the winter months I set my woodstove thermostat to 20C and as long as there is wood in the stove it will keep this accurately - same for the forced air oil furnace when I am not burning wood. In Thailand I'll usually set the AC for 22-23 or so; in the condo I am in presently I have an overhead fan which helps a lot and I just turn the AC on and off manually as I feel the need to.

Sure it's a trivial amount but it still gives you an idea of how these things creep up on us; however, one can still ride a baht bus from the nether regions of Jomtien pretty well to Naklua for only 10b which still has to be one of the best deals going around here.

Yes, at this point the machine does do all the fine aligning and splicing for you, but what kind of work do you think is involved to get it this far? You're starting with cables that are built for either aerial or underground applications, and they have layer upon layer of protection for such - vinyl sheaths, kevlar linings, "dry-block" compounds that will turn into a water-proofing jelly if water gets into the cable, and in the core you have "buffer tubes" that contain the fibres in further water-proofing jelly; the fibres themselves have a colour-coded plastic coating to tell them apart, which must also be removed with very precise tools. You need a specialized solvent to clean the worst of the gunk and then you finish it with very pure alcohol. In other words, the actual splicing of the fibres is easy, it's the preparation that takes the time and the skill. Blow up my photo and look behind the blue bag in the left foreground and you will see the splice case with four separate labelled fibre cables enclosed - this is a busy splice and it is very finicky work digging into one of these to reconfigure the fibres - you often had to painstakingly take all of the working fibres out of the trays to find the ones you wanted, re-splice them back together and then put the whole mess back in the tray again (or "cassette" in grogmonster's parlance) - again, very finicky work. Thankfully, most of the communication circuitry I worked on had full backups, so you'd kill one side first and re-splice it, then talk to your Network Control Center to make sure it came up again, and then do the backup link - not sure if grogmonster's railroad circuitry has the same redundancy but I imagine so. As with any trade, there is much more to it than often meets the eye.

I saw a YouTube video in Thai of how they make these some time ago, I'll try and find it again when I have time; what they basically do is get a quantity of fresh eggs, and knock a small hole in the end of them and drain the contents. They then mix them all up with Maggi sauce amongst others, I believe, and grey pepper and then they use a big syringe or similar apparatus to put the mixture back into the eggs. Then they are placed in a large pot with a jig in the bottom to keep them upright, and are steamed. They are easy to peel and have an interesting taste and texture. Sometimes they'll sell them from street stalls, usually placed three on a stick but I prefer to buy them from the wandering vendors with the pole over the shoulder - they'll usually sell peanuts and snacks from one basket and these eggs, along with normal hard-boiled eggs and quail eggs, from the other. Try them, you might like them...

Inflation strikes again - one of my favourite Thai snacks, "kai pung", which I have been enjoying for years; when I first started buying them years ago it was four for 20b, then a year or two before Covid they cut that back to three for 20b and now the price is 25b:

I was wearing contact lenses - I managed with them exclusively for around eighteen years until my short range vision began to deteriorate with age; I still wear them occasionally depending on what I am doing but need to carry reading glasses or similar with me if I do.

Raining lightly in Jomtien now....

Yes, you do what you have to so the job gets done. We were set up pretty well from the beginning when fibre started being used in the north, we had a cube van (freight van with 16' box) set up just for splicing and we could do almost everything with this rig - the only time we had to put up temporary shelters was when we couldn't get the van into the location or if we were working at both ends of a section. The only disadvantage of the van was that for bigger jobs lasting more than a day, we'd have to leave the rig in situ and get a ride back and forth from it, so eventually they replaced it with a tandem axle enclosed trailer that could be detached and left in place. Here's me in the van back in 2003:

Still my BKK hotel of choice - one other change since Covid is that they no longer stock the mini-bars in the rooms, and unfortunately the small 7-11 that used to be right next door is no longer there.

When I am flying regionally with Air Asia, I always spring for an exit row seat and it is very seldom that I have anyone sitting next to me because almost everyone else on the flight is too cheap to do so; on those not-so-rare occasions that somebody tries to sneak up to that row after we are aloft, the flight attendants tell them to buck up (baht up?) or f**k off back to their assigned seats while I sit there grinning.

I repeat, it is a very small cyst that has been there for years and is nothing to worry about.

Thankfully we don't have the environmental conditions where I live that cause these massive ice storms and snowfalls- all that humidity coming off of the Great Lakes can create havoc.

These are apparently fairly common, I have a small cyst myself on one of my nuts - I had an ultrasound done some years ago and the tech told me it was nothing to worry about.

I really don't enjoy the travel part much anymore, either - I never was a very patient sort and I seem to be getting worse as I get older. I was raised in a place and society where long line-ups for services (excuse me, "queues" for you Brits) were fairly uncommon and I still hate the thought of standing in line for anything for seemingly hours. There's all the hassle of packing, checking in, although I know they are attempting to streamline that, and of course the BS of security on top of it - once I am on the plane and settled in I am fine, it's just all the hassle of getting on and off it that annoys me. I guess that's why I tend to stay in Pattaya for a few weeks at a time, I have all I need here and don't feel the need to constantly be moving on.