maipenrai

I remember discussing this car with you in Pattaya, and gated shifter or not I am still green with envy - I am a lifelong Ferrari fan but the only time I have ever been in or driven one was in Las Vegas on a race track where I rented an F430 for a few laps - I would kill for a ride or drive in a classic model from the '60s but with the "collectors" (better term "speculators") driving their values sky-high that wish gets more remote as time goes by - one of the prices I've paid for living in a remote area during my lifetime.

No fishing this weekend? I got an invite to go ice fishing later this winter with friends, haven't done that for years...

We don't have that many up here in the YT and I have met several of them but as far as I know none are running restaurants - more the domain of the local Chinese who have been here seemingly forever. I think we have considerably more Viets than Thais but by far the biggest ethnic group after the First Nations people are the Filipinos - they are everywhere, and some have done very well for themselves. I'm seeing a lot more East Indian people moving in as well.

While our current weather system was moving in the other day, with its attendant high winds, I noticed that my rooftop extractor vent was making a lot of noise - went up on the roof yesterday and took it down and gave it a good lube and now it's quiet again - first time i even had to look at it in the six years since I had my roof completely redone. Now I have everything done around the yard and house, all toys and seasonal vehicles put away properly and I am ready for winter, bring it on...the pubs are always warm and are basically functioning as usual with only the seating reduced somewhat for social distancing, not that any of the regulars really give a damn about that anyway...very safe part of the world to be living in nowadays.

Lol, I feel your pain - I get a big kick out of the Thai girls' fascination with the white stuff - "want to see sa-now"...yeah, it'd be a big novelty for the first couple of days but after a couple of months they'd never want to see it again...

Got back from the pub after a pleasant 3-hr visit with my mates, and then fired up my big woodstove for the first time this year - it is -8C now and expected to dip to -13 tonight with no respite for a few days so it's a good time to do so...I've had my forced air oil furnace going so far with regular day/night adjustment but the wood is a much more comfortable heat....

Lol, ain't that the truth - when I went there for my last extension in March there was a guy in front of me that looked so seedy I thought to myself, if they can give him an extension I don't think I'll have any trouble myself...

No worries there, I have lots of winter gear I haven't used much for years as I spent a career mostly outside doing utility work. Also, we have a dry cold here, not like where you lived by the great lakes where the damp goes right through you...

Oops, I did it again - saw a deal I couldn't refuse and jumped on it. This is a 2017 Yamaha WR450F with only 228 km on the clock, barely broken in - its original owner left the country and gave the bike to a friend to sell for him but the friend knows almost nothing about bikes and put a really crappy ad on Facebook and the machine sat in his garage for a few months with no takers. Knowing the potential of this model, I had a look at it the weekend before last but of course the battery was almost flat and we couldn't start it - tried again this past weekend with more success and I closed the deal and brought the bike home night before last - spent yesterday doing maintenance and easy performance mods and went out for a short and scary ride on our treacherous local trails just to get the oil warm enough to change - it's been freezing at night the last week or so and the trails are really greasy, was sideways more than once with the power that this thing has. Last night it snowed and with the current forecast I think it might stay, so I timed things just right - the machine is now put away for the winter but I'm glad I had the chance to try it out once this year before it was too late...

Yeah, this will probably be my first full winter here for many years and I'm really not looking forward to it....

Apparently he was pretty broke at the time and that's the only reason he took the role anyway - nobody thought the movie would be that successful...

First snow of the year last night and now it is -6C and blowing like hell - forecast is for sub-zero temperatures for at least the next few days so winter could possibly be here; normally in this neck of the woods we will get some snowfall in October but it won't stay until around Halloween, but I'm not too optimistic this year. Thankfully yesterday was a lovely sunny day and I managed to get my bikes put away and some other yard stuff done before the white stuff arrived...today will be a lazy day and it's off to the pub later.

Threw my old mountain bike, which I haven't been on for two years, in the back of my pickup and dropped the truck off at my local tire shop to have new winter tires installed, then rode home about 2km in -6C weather....brrr.....will have to do the return trip in a couple of hours but at least the sun will be up then; snow forecast for tonight and tomorrow so good timing.

My English cousin had one of these a few years ago - ended up trading it in for a Q7 SUV/crossover model because he feared for his driving license; he had this Q7 with a turbocharged diesel when I visited a couple of years ago and had a warning bell rigged up that went off every time he hit 100 mph with it, lol...now he drives a Tesla sports model and has put a deposit down on the new weird-looking Tesla pickup...

You're thinking of "Piemeltje" who was into BMW's, and had some very nice ones too...maybe he had an Audi too but I don't recall that...

Getting things stored away and organized for the winter:

We're supposed to have snow on Friday and Saturday so I guess it's time to put the dirt bike away for the winter - this snow will not stay on the streets but it will on the shadier parts of the trails so that's enough for this year. I had to make an early shopping trip downtown this morning and saw a guy riding a street bike into town at -3C, all bundled up - felt cold just looking at him, lol...

Yes, we had a week or so of -40 temperatures when I was thankfully in Thailand - first time it's gotten that cold for a few years as our winters have generally been getting milder during that time frame and it was an unpleasant surprise for everybody at home. I do remember our winters being much colder when I was growing up, with severe cold like this often hanging around for weeks - but then our summers were a lot better too and I can only hope that this coming winter will be a mild one since it looks like I'll be stuck here for the duration...

In the winter of '78-'79 I was living in a trailer court in an old converted travel trailer that belonged to my brother, who was off at college - we had a cold snap with temperatures going to -45C and colder and I would wake in the morning to find my blankets frozen to the bedroom wall...

Here in the soon-to-be-frozen north where temperatures are near to or just below freezing most nights, I run my furnace for one cycle in the morning and then another in the evening and that'll usually do it - when it gets below freezing 24 hrs or so a day I'll run it more. I usually don't fire up the big woodstove until it is -10C or colder because it will cook me out of the house if it's warmer...

I just drain any used cooking oil into a jar that I keep in my freezer - when it is full I just throw it into my garbage bin at the last minute and away it goes; also I saw a Facebook thing a while ago where they demonstrate mixing used oil in with oats and then feeding it to the birds...anything is better than dumping it down your drain.

Good presentation and thanks for posting - although I didn't frequent most of these venues, they still added to the atmosphere of the Pattaya that we knew and loved and illustrates all too clearly just how dire the situation has become there...

Singer, actor, and successful song writer Mac Davis also gone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Davis

Same with the guy who plays Tuco Salamanca - I just about pissed myself when he opened the door on the two skateboard numpties, sure wasn't expecting that!!

Another of my favourites as well, and I am just about finished watching the "Lilyhammer" series now, which features one of the actors from the Sopranos and is similar...