KhunDon

9 hours ago, Zambo said:

Any kind of compression support you can get for your back? I know it's a lot less complex but i wish i'd bought my knee support years ago.

Unfortunately not mate. Plus, being in a full spine brace day and night is not my idea of living. 😉

I agree that reducing the inflammation is key, but my lower spine (and as of 2 years ago my upper spine) is basically shot as all lower 5 discs are gone, and it’s extremely difficult to do any exercises that I was originally given to do. 
The Muscular Skeletal Clinic I’ve been going too over the years have basically given up on me ever doing the exercises they would normally recommend and I can’t get the inflammation down as I can’t take anti inflammatory drugs. 
Luckily the Morphine and Paracetamol reduce the pain to manageable levels and I do some VERY gentle exercises at home whenever possible, but walking more than 20 mts at a time is virtually impossible and it requires me to stop for a few minutes to rest the spine and hips. 

27 minutes ago, Phantom51red said:

Let me know the roads she ll be driving on tomorrow will ye.

Actually she’s a very good driver (she’s only ever managed to have small accidents in every car we’ve ever had) but let me know which road you’ll be on and I’ll see if she can give you a gentle nudge in her EV9. 😉

I seem to remember reading the book in 76, loved it. 
We don’t use Netflix or anything of the other film platforms, but no doubt it’ll be on Sky some time in the future, so I’ll wait for it then. 🤗

Post deleted. 

🧌

Driving Back to Hua Hin from Pranburi one day the wife emitted a horrible scream and pointed to the other dual carriageway and I saw two bodies flying through the air and crashing down on the roadway. Obviously I stopped and looked at what they’d hit, which was an old, rusty red pickup. In the back of which was a motorcycle and yet another injured motor cyclist, who turned out to have been the driver who was dead and the two I’d seen airborne were his passengers.
The pickup driver had pulled straight out to cross the two lanes to join traffic going my way and the motorcycle had T Boned him right at the B Pillar, depositing the motorcycle and driver into his rear load area and the other two on their short, but bone shattering flight. 
The driver died on impact apparently, as he took the brunt of the impact. 
My FIL a police chief, was following us in his car, so he walked across to help out in a situation that he’d probably seen a hundred times before, a motorcycle versus a pickup. 
It never ceases to amaze me how stupid many Thai drivers are when crossing very busy highways, seemingly without a care in the world, oblivious to other road users coming their way. 

Just collected and paid for one of two new cars.  
Damn that invoice hurt. 🤨

Gotta do it again next week. 😫
Taking the wife out in it tomorrow to get her used to all the features, many of which even I’m not familiar with.  
All this automated driving is stupid as far as I’m concerned, I’m old school and like to do the actual driving, not leave it to some algorithm dreamt up by a 14 year old kid in his mom’s cellar. 🤨

On 4/22/2024 at 7:38 PM, Aqualung said:

My sciatica has returned for the first time since 2008. This time in my right buttock and right leg. Absolute agony and getting out of bed is a nightmare. 

First appointment available here in Sweden.... 3rd of May. Fucking useless. 

I've taken ibuprofen to no avail so I would like to be prescribed Co-Codomol as I was in 2008.worked wonders for me. Here in Sweden they will probably prescribe nicotine patches or some other useless medication. 

I had it for almost a year, so I can commiserate with you. 
Luckily I had access to copies amongst of morphine in the form of Morphine Slow release tablets, (MST) Oramorph liquid and Paracetamol which was reasonably effective in reducing the pain to manageable levels. 
I went to specialist who wanted to inject my spine and other areas with something or other, however I’m a bleeder so they wouldn’t inject me as they were worried I might bleed into my spinal column which could cause paralysis in my lower regions, so it was just a case of wait until the nerves reduced the inflammation by themselves and no Ibropufren as I’ve had heart attacks so that ruled it out. 

Good luck. 👍

Had it been my car, I’d have marched him to an ATM and insisted he withdraw funds to cover whatever I thought the repairs would cost. If not, I’d be on the phone to police pretty damn quick. 
Drunk drivers are, IMHO, the scum of the earth and need to be taken off the road, after they pay for the cost to have my car fixed of course. 🤬

12 hours ago, Butch said:

^^^^^

Good on you for making someone's day and good on them for being honest.

Karma works both ways and has done so in this case.

Don't give your good lady too much of a hard time, it can happen to all of us when tired and exhausted.Props to you as well for handling an extra 5+ hours to your journey.

Sometimes life throws us a curveball and in your case, all has worked out very well for everyone , apart from the poor bugger having to drive!.

It could have been so much worse, all things considered.

True, it could have been worse, I could have swung for her. 🤪
I was always the poor bugger who had to drive on the 260+ round trip, now I just stuff her and our son into a taxi both ways, it’s way better for my nerves. 😉

21 hours ago, Zeb said:

I went with a MG4 and am very happy with it but the BYD Dolphin is very good as well and I seriously considered it.

BYD are going to produce some of their vehicles in Thailand soon and the Dolphin will be one of the models made in Thailand. BYD have big improvement's coming soon for their batteries building on already very good batteries (& cars).

BYD started out as a battery manufacturer (30% of the batteries in mobile phones world-wide are made by BYD). They started making cars including EV's earlier this century and are one of the biggest car manufacturers world-wide.

The main difference between the two (IMO) is that the MG is rear wheel drive has good overall kit and is a drivers care with good finishing. Its been reviewed consistently very well by various motoring journalists and much can be found on YouTube,

The Dolphin is front wheel drive all models come with all the bells and whistles and a range of different size engines and batteries making it a very good runabout for a range of circumstances. The new model should out later in the year.

Again plenty of YouTube reviews available.

Off the shelf charging kit are readily available and it may well be worth your while to explorer linking it to solar and a home battery.

But a plug in home charger is the most straightforward way to go.

I did try the MG4 Trophy and liked it, but felt it was just a bit too small for us and the material's and infotainment systems weren’t up to those of the Kia’s. But if all I wanted was a cheap to run runaround, then they would be close to the top of my list. 
The problem with BYD vehicles isn’t so much the cars themselves, but their dealership/service centre's.
There are 2 equidistant from me, each a journey of 145 miles round trip, which isn’t something I’d want to be doing for services or to repair faults etc. Also BYD as a brand, is relatively new to the UK, so I’d like to see a few years of their products here before I look harder at them.

Kia however is only a 50 mile round trip and the wife prefers their vehicles. 😉

4 hours ago, galenkia said:

I have been buying Issey Miyake for years now, always been really nice smelling.

Cool Water is what her majesty usually says suites me best, as for aftershaves, I’m not sure. 😎

20 hours ago, coxyhog said:

In one of the Las Vegas ones I was waiting to meet a mate there around 3pm & a lovely young girl enticed me upstairs with the promise of a BJ.Anyway there were no towels so after the dirty deed I'm lying akimbo on the bed trying to get the ceiling fan to dry me when she went down on me again,so I had 2 for the price of 1😆.

Were there no curtains that you could have used? 😉

3 minutes ago, coxyhog said:

Some middle easterners drink aftershave....

I don’t, I’m from the deep, deep South. 
 

Cornwall. 🤣

Anytime my wife is anywhere near a duty free she gets me aftershaves that she thinks would make me smell nice.😘

Her trip back home to Thailand in August is bound to mean I’ll get a year’s supply of  “smellies” as she calls them and several different perfumes for herself. 👍

2 hours ago, ChiFlyer said:

Interesting thread.

I have not had time to look through it in detail, but will do so over the coming week.

I recently watched "An Optimist's Guide to the Planet" 2024 IMDB 8.7. This is an eco-travel documentary hosted by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jamie Lannister from GOT). The 6 episode documentary covers Climate Change actions that are being undertaken in a large number of countries by private citizens and startups. There is quite a lot in the TV series about EVs (including planes) and building better batteries.

I noticed earlier in the thread that there was some criticism of battery material procurement of materials being unfair to African countries. There is an episode in the TV series that I have mentioned that debunks this. There are new Climate Change conscious companies in Kenya that are working on better batteries and providing much needed employment. These companies, although Euro funded, tend to be operated by Africans.

I live in Thailand. We are getting nearer to the point where we need to replace our car. This is in the 2025 budget to say the least. I am starting to think seriously about going EV. We are not high mileage drivers and I think I could easily setup a charging station at my house.

My other pipe dream is to convert or supplement the electric supply for our house to solar.

 

It would easily be possible to charge your car with a decent size PV array or from batteries charged from Solar. 
I charge ours in the cheap, four hour period overnight from the grid, on an 7 kWh home EVSE and get more than enough charge to do the daily usage, which is around 60+ miles. 

I’d like to install a big PV array and batteries with a large inverter, but not sure we get enough sunlight during the winter months to make it viable, with not enough storage in house batteries to power house and charge the EV. Summer time is different, but the payback would be 20 plus years for the system I’d like. Of course in Thailand the sun shines a lot more, so things would be different for you. 
Maybe as new PV designs come on stream, things could change enough for me to invest in a solar system. At the moment here in the UK, it’s all about Air Source Heat Pumps replacing Combi Gas Boilers that heat the house and provide hot water, but luckily we’ve just refurbished the whole house and that included installing extra insulation in walls and roof to save heat from escaping. 

2 hours ago, Mrmango said:

No its not.

Let me clarify my position. The problem with battery EV is when they get very cold they simply stop working, as evidenced in the big problems in the US this winter.

its that they wont work from  a cold start, not if they work when warm in extreme cold weather

And both the Artic and Antarctic can be quite pleasant and mild sometimes in their summer.

You do know that you can precondition the batteries and car when charging at home don’t you. 
Leave it plugged into the EVSE in a warmed garage and you’ll be fine. No different than an ICE vehicle during extreme weather.

If your battery is flat, just like an ICE with an empty tank, neither will start. 
Cold batteries with a decent charge will work fine. 
 

“Quite mild and pleasant sometimes”. 🥶

It can also be extremely cold, pretty much all the time. 🤣
 

2 hours ago, maipenrai said:

And many people who have bought them have said they will not repeat the experience - lots of trouble with range, getting charged, abysmal service from the dealers who sold them, etc. - and this is from southern Canada, never mind the north where I live where you'll have over 100 miles between settlements and much colder weather - no EV in my immediate future. 

https://www.facebook.com/sten.linde.5/posts/pfbid0RYndzLpGKFQW5z8KxW8bLU2HWYrygTQzUva9Xj6CbrZtT9LrSbNHfUVKPfCWEjEtl

That FB Page won’t load. 😟

Trouble getting charged?
Why would anyone buy an EV that they can’t charge at home, or at least at a nearby DC charger, seems extremely stupid to me, especially as the distance between public chargers must be high, compared to the UK where distances between chargers are very low.
How stupid to rely on a charger 100 miles away, especially if when they get there, it’s broken. 

Obviously range will be lower in winter, if they didn’t understand that when they purchased the vehicle, that’s their fault. Didn’t they try googling anything about EV’s to do their due diligence? A few clicks on a pc would have told them about range in winter conditions. 

Bad dealerships are all over the place, we have them here in the UK for both EV’s and ICE vehicles, but that’s got nothing to do with how EV batteries work in cold temperatures. 

😉

2 hours ago, Mrmango said:

Really? Pray tell me exactly how many charging stations there are at he South Pole?

A pure publicity stunt.

Obviously they’d arranged for getting a charge from a portable electric source, such as a generator or battery bank. 

How do all the snowmobiles and big tracked vehicles get their “fuel” at the North and South Poles, at a fuel pump of course.🤪

But this isn’t about charging is it, it’s about EV’s working in the freezing temperatures and it seems it worked for them, both at the North and South Poles. 
As for the “press in Minnesota”, how many intrepid reporters actually went to check that the stranded EV’s were actually broken down due to a cold battery, I’d lay good money that none of them got off their assholes to check, just made up the stories in their nice warm offices. 
 

Of course it was a publicity stunt! why else would Nissan front it, but then, so was Clarkson and Mays trip by ICE pickup to the North Pole, I think that could have been in a Nissan truck as well, or maybe a Toyota. 
I seem to remember they had a special fuel heating system built into their fuel tanks to stop the fuel freezing and “BRICKING” the ICE vehicle. 🤣

55 minutes ago, Zambo said:

I do think orchard is better than fruit farm. Must be grest to have a walk around.

Orchard Towers on the otherhand is not the place it was, closure threatened. In fact haven't been for a couple of years.

On my travels I always find a place to spend all my money. 

I was up and down those elevators like a daddy rabbit, on a 3 day stop over to Australia, back before I got married. 
Stayed at The Commodore Hotel FOC courtesy of Singapore Airlines. 🤣

Quite a few Thai girls in the bars there back then. 👍

On 4/18/2024 at 11:35 PM, Krapow said:

 

Why do her and her husband have different names?