ChiFlyer

22 hours ago, Stillearly said:

Just noticed they are all available to watch on Disney + as well as Sky ... I missed this series originally, so might start it soon

I have watched S01 of this show. (2024) IMDB 8.0.

This is a 6 episode season that is watchable IMO. S01 concluded in a manner that felt like there would not be a S02. It came across as a limited series.

43 minutes ago, Stillearly said:

Does unintentional hotel stays count  .... I mentioned it before , but as we approached Heathrow in Dec 2010 , the airport closed due to snow  ... and we were diverted to Koln in Germany , any non EU passengers had to spend the first night in the Airport .. the rest of us were shipped to hotels ..eventually....

we had two nights there with only our hand luggage... then eventually flew back to Heathrow and I had to try and get another flight home ... it took about 72 hours door to door 555

My normal trips usually include at least one overnight stay in London , either because it's an early flight to Bangkok or as with EVA , the return flight lands too late 

Well if unintentional hotel stays count, I have another story.

20+ years or so ago I had a TJ favorita. We were close friends for over 5 years and she had the patience to help a thick tongued Gringo learn Spanish. Said Gringo also took classes at a local community college and read books as well. I believe that a person is only "fluent" in the language they learn from their mother, but I became more than conversant in Spanish.

Anyway said Favorita was from El Salvador. We became close. I helped pay for her sons to attend the University in San Salvador. I bought them scientific calculators so that they could be competitive in their classes. One son made it to graduation. It was too much pressure for the older brother. He was a campanero at heart.

Anyway, on January 13th 2001, I scheduled a few vacation days to spend some time with her. A 7.7 quake hit El Salvador while I was traveling there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2001_El_Salvador_earthquake

My flight to San Salvador had been delayed in Miami for 2 hours. I was pissed about it. About half way to San Salvador the pilot circled for close to an hour. He then announced the earthquake and said they were looking for alternative landings. If the plane had left on time we would have been landing directly into the earthquake.

I had been in El Salvador two weeks earlier and had driven by where the mountain collapsed killing thousands.

The plane returned to Miami. With my AA Executive Platinum status at the time I was offered a hotel room until things could be sorted out. I spent two nights in said hotel room, but could not make contact with said favorita other than to contact the hotel where we had a reservation to learn she had never made it there.

Had to get back to work in Chicago at this point. When I walked into the door my boss smiled and said "I was wondering if we would see you today". 🙂 Good boss.

Maria (the favorita) was able to get to me by phone a few days later. It was good to hear that a friend was safe.

So 72 hours start to finish for zero accomplished miles. AA actually refunded me the points for the trip. Talk about back in the days. 🙂 

13 hours ago, forcebwithu said:

.....

What is "coach burn"?

Arterial leg thrombosis caused by sitting in a restricted position for an excessive amount of time thus inhibiting blood flow. In my case a Xanax or two helped create the problem.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/arterial-thrombosis

Actually, kind of a serious problem. In layman's terms a blood clot forms in your leg. The big danger is that a piece of the clot could break off and be carried to either you brain (stroke) or lungs (pulmonary thrombosis where one could drown in their own blood).

I once had a 36 hour birthday. Due to a combination of billable and non-billable flight segments I continually flew West for 36 hours on my birthday.

BKK-BOM-ZRH-DFW-ORD with various layovers. I also could not catch upgrades on any segment related to a ZRH leg. Damn Swiss bankers. 😞 

I ended up in the hospital with coach burn a few days later. Damn stupid young people. 😞 

After skimming through this thread, I was a little surprised that the topic of putting effective links to your home country resources in place is not mentioned or I missed it. For me this is a paramount necessity if one is still primarily legally based in their home county (USA in my case). The following were necessary things that I put in place in order to live in Thailand while being legally based n the US.

• Many US businesses require a US home phone number. I saw no reason to pay $70 a month for US cell phone service that was useless to me. I pay for a Skype number instead (about $60 a year). Works well enough for my purposes. Some have suggested that Google is a better choice for VOIP service.
• I pay for a mail forwarding address. This costs $36 a month. Basically this gives me a US mailing address that stores my mail. I can view it online and choose which items I want to send on to my Thai address. I use https://www.usa2me.com/ .
• I use Charles Schwab Bank as an extension of my trading accounts with Schwab. This enables me to do all of my US banking at no charge. Occasional Schwab international transfers to my Bangkok Bank Account cost $15 and are lately completed in under 24 hours.
• I have permission from my oldest son to use his home address as my legal residence. This is a huge help for dealing with the IRS, voter registration, etc. I do my best to avoid having any mail sent to this address. I do not want to ware out my welcome. This is the reason for the mail forwarding address. Also my son can send to the mail forwarding address if something does show up, such as a tax filing item.

There is more, but .....

On 1/10/2024 at 7:59 AM, Freee!! said:

Olive oil is not the best for cooking anyway. Rice oil is nice, but much more expensive than sunflower oil.

I disagree some with this statement. It all depends on what type of cooking one is doing.

Olive Oil has a relatively low smoke point. A smoke point is the temp where an oil starts to burn. If one is doing a saute at a moderate heat, Olive Oil is an excellent choice especially for many Italian recipes. Point is that one needs to use an EVOO that has a good contributory flavor. I am partial to Colavita as a moderately priced EVOO. Colavita is not carried in many stores in Thailand, but can be bought through Lazada and other places.

Back in the US I was partial to California Olive Ranch as an EVOO and after moving to Thailand would carry some back from any US trip. Their product has gone downhill according to critics as they have diversified their ingredient supplies to include South American countries due to the cost of growing Olives in CA. I tend to agree that their product has declined in quality.

Most of the earlier mentioned oils (Sunflower etc.) are good choices when an oil with a higher smoke point is required (stir fries, deep frying, etc.). I use Canola for the most part as it has a high smoke point and a neutral flavor. When I am cooking at higher temps I do not want to influence the taste with my choice of an oil.

Oops - unintentional duplicate of a January 10th post by me. At least I am not waffling on my opinion. 🙂 

Paul Simon performed -> "Slip Sliding Away" on "The Late Show" last night to celebrate Stephen Colbert's 60th birthday.

I guess I never heard the song before. 🥲

I am taking the Mrs to the US in September to meet my family and friends as well as take care of some personal business.

We got her tourist visa recently. I began pricing air tickets. I had not done this in a while. Looks like they have gotten sneakier about stuff. Big surprise. 😏

I am talking Business Class here. My 75 year old bones need this or else I am hobbled in recovery mode for 2 days. Basic pricing at this time seems to put these tickets for two into the $9,000 to $12,000 range. This is something I do about once every two years. It does represent 40% of the trip cost (for one month) now that I am buying for two.

I am a long standing One World guy, so I started out with the AA web site. I have been happy in the past using AA to book flights that were primarily on JAL metal. I like the BKK-HND-ORD route. The way over looks great. The return for some reason raises the price for 2 by $3,000. 😏There are ways around this by connecting through an additional US city. However most of these connection flights are on BA-737s. No Thanks. 

The connecting flights options also have some fine print saying that some of your flights will be in economy. Easy to miss this. This is especially true of NRT connections. The HND versions usually include a 10+ hour layover. Some of these options also include an HND-NRT transfer. I would prefer not to do that.

Qatar offers some decent options, but I think I would like to avoid the Middle East at this time. Plus I have read that Qatar likes to switch out planes at the last minute, possibly affecting your class of service.

One option that I found that looked interesting was Turkish Airlines. Excellent prices at this time. Comes in at about $9,000. I had looked at Turkish Airlines late in Covid, but they were cancelling a lot of flights at the time. Anyone used them recently? Also some of the options that I am looking at have a one hour connect time in IST. Is this doable?

I am about half way through S01 of "Ripley" (2024) IMDB 8.2. This is a dark look into the human heart, but I find it interesting. It is in B&W with many Gothic type scenes. Carries the theme well IMO.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripley_(TV_series)

Available on both Netflix and IPT.

6 hours ago, Glasseye said:

 

BTW - AA premium econ is just about as good as biz class, IMO. It might save you a few quid.

I disagree.

I have posted this before, but I am listening to it again.

Alter Bridge - "Blackbird".

21 minutes ago, Nickrock said:

A mate of mine down phuket way has just gone through this exercise the tesla sales people were rubbish took weeks to get back to him almost impossible to talk to tech people so he has gone with another co ( I think it was e solar ) and the sales lady got a fluent English speaking tech guy to  contact him and gave him good information and things he should plan for 

Plus their system is modular and more batteries just plug in you don't have the system down if you have to replace a unit like a battery and they have a 10 year warranty 

I am also discussing this with a mate of mine (also down Phuket way) who in conjunction with his Thai wife have led the design and implementation of a partial solar system for their condo complex in the South of Phuket. Very bright people. Me not so much.

The options are endless. A lot comes down to what one is permitted to do at their property from what I am hearing. I will likely need until 2025 to understand what I want to do. Should have paid better attention in Physics Classes I guess.

Like I said I am just getting started with understanding what it would take to outfit my home to support an EV charger as well as position the overall house to move toward solar. I am not looking to save money. I am looking to move toward a more environmentally conscious way of living.

I stumbled across this link that IMO has some interesting concepts.

https://deltathailand.com/en/products/Infrastructure/Energy/EV-Charging

I am not the handy guy type, but might be better categorized as semi-literate handy guy wanabee. 

hmm - sounds like the first thing I need to do is go talk to the overall property Management Association about what I am permitted to do.

On 1/29/2024 at 9:37 PM, Gary said:

I have several solar systems and have had them for about ten years. I didn't build them to save any money but for the reason that the electric grid here in the boonies sucks. Tho grid goes down  about every other day, it usually comes back on quickly but sometimes it is off for several hours, All the components have been very reliable. Over the years I doubt that there has been any savings on my electric bills. The main cost is replacing the VERY expensive lead acid deep cycle batteries. I am a Luddite and have avoided the Lithium batteries. One reason is that my components are not compatible with the new batteries. My small system that runs my computer system needed new batteries. This time I paid more the $500 US dollars for a  Lithium battery. It is a 200AH single battery that replaced two 200AH lead acid batteries. Since the lithium batteries can be discharged much deeper than the lead acid  batteries, I was hoping that the one new battery would carry the load. My hope proved correct. So as far as I am concerned, solar systems are not dead. Lead acid batteries are  dead. Anyone installing solar electric would do well to use Lithium batteries.

Excellent info guy. Me and the Mrs. live in Thailand.

My 2024 budget is constrained by making a trip to the US, so that my Thai wife can meet my family and friends. Also so that I can see my grandchildren and my sons.

The 2025 budget has a major item of replacing our car. I will likely go with an EV. I am thinking that the MG5 might be a good choice given that we do not drive a lot and that I can put a charger into our car port without much effort.

I am starting to look into changing the house over to Solar as well. Just getting started with understanding that. We live in the South Bang Lamung Burbs and there are infrastructure interruptions similar to what you describe.

Any additional getting started info for home solar would be appreciated.

This SNL segment (hosted by Dua Lipa this week) was a pleasure to watch. For some reason it struck a chord with me.

25 minutes ago, forcebwithu said:

Great news. Glad it worked out for you and your Mrs.

Thanks.

Now comes the next part -> getting everything in the trip scheduled.

• I enrolled the Mrs for an American Airlines Advantage membership this afternoon. We may as well collect the points for these occasional very long trips.
• I will hold off on buying airplane tickets until after she has her passport-visa in hand (probably about 1 week). I want to read any visa terms before committing to the tickets.
• Airfare is going to be the biggest ticket item for the trip. We are going to fly Business Class (probably on JAL through Tokyo (HND)). Since I am waiting that long, I will wait until after the 17th (cycle closing date for my Amex card).
• Lots of other things to do, but all are dependent on the travel dates.

I stumbled across this site, which explains what caused the demise of Subscene. =< Money

https://forum.opensubtitles.org/viewtopic.php?t=18643&sid=adb5a46f2bf1a9d59d356ee56a49b37b

This forum seems to be mainly made up of up-loaders near as I can guess.

The good news is that the subscene content is being salvaged by a few other sites. Subdl seems to be one of these. I am noticing items on their site being tagged as subscene.

2 hours ago, forcebwithu said:

Good luck to the Mrs. on the interview.

I've entertained thoughts on trying for a visa for my lady, but as we're not married figured it would be a waste of time and money.

I will post an update after the interview. With regard to your lady giving it a try, it is definitely a crap shoot. Very few agents will even be willing to engage in obtaining a visa from the US Embassy. I have been told that the following are important in the eyes of the US Embassy.

• Has she traveled (to the West) before and returned to Thailand without incident? Prior to myself, my Mrs had a Norwegian boyfriend. She made a few trips to Norway and our agent says that this is a big plus.
• Does she own significant Thai assets directly in her name? (House, Condo, Car, Land, .....).
• Can she demonstrate strong family ties that will motivate her to return to Thailand.

There are other factors as well, but these are what I understand to be the most important.

6 hours ago, forcebwithu said:

I'm not even aware if a site is ad happy as uBlock Origin blocks them for me.

Thanks. I will give that a go.

Works like a charm with Firefox and Subdl.

30 minutes ago, Toy Boy said:

I'm thinking of going to Bangkok with the GF, just for a few days away from Pattaya. It's many years since I stayed overnight there, but back in the day my usual hotel was the Grace Hotel, just off Suk near Nana. Very popular with the Arabs back then, but it was a great location and they never bothered me. It's near the Nana skytrain station so convenient for travel, but looking at the website the prices have gone way up since I last stayed there 20-odd years ago. Has anybody been there recently, is it still OK?

Back in my Bangkok days, also about 20 years ago, I stayed frequently at the President Solitaire on soi 11. It was a great deal back then and was/is located about half way between Nana and soi Cowboy.

Sadly, I stayed there again for an overnight about 5 years ago and it had been pretty much run into the ground.

A moldy oldie -but also a relevant song for today IMO.

Springsteen's version.

15 hours ago, forcebwithu said:

I use YTS Subs.

Hmmm - when I click on your link I get YFIY subs. This one is definitely ad happy, worse than subdl IMO. Glad that it works for you, but I guess that I will keep looking for now.

I came across this link that lists various sub sites.

https://www.similarweb.com/website/subdl.com/competitors/

Looks like yts-subs and yfiy-subs may be two different things. Anyway my current cunning plan is to go through the list in the link and see if I can find something that I like.

We made it up to Bangkok today. Both the Mrs and myself have been under the weather recently, so I am not sure how much site seeing we will be doing in this heat. I do want to try the restaurant that @lazarus recommended.

The main purpose for the 4 day trip is for the Mrs' visa interview at the US Embassy. We will go through her docs once again tomorrow, so that she is fresh on everything for the interview. Tuesday is the actual interview. Our agent got an early time for the interview, so we will probably hustle it over to the embassy trying for a 7:30 arrival for an 8:45 interview. According to our agent one gets a seeding number based on their arrival time.

One disappointment so far. The dinner time party boats on the Chao Phraya are kicking up a bloody racket. I have stayed at the Chatrium Riverside 5 or 6 times in the past and do not recall there being an issue of this nature. I am unlikely to stay here again for this reason.