#015 Thailand Update: And The Winner Is...

Usually I try to sleep on the way from work, but today I have some energy. I decided to put that energy to good use and get a jump start on the next update. I wonder if I’m anymore creative at the end of the day? Maybe not. I’ve probably sucked up any creative thinking by the activities of the day, and you will be left with a whole bunch of meaningless words that don’t seem to correlate and have no rhyme or reason. If this becomes true and you still keep reading, I’m not sure what to say about that. After all, I’ve warned you. Shall we begin?

And the Winner Is…
Today was the day of the mighty weigh-in. Yesterday, we weighed ourselves as sort a “motivational experience,” and the results were promising. Siriwan maintained her weight, I maintained my weight, and Ekgachai gained about 2 kilos. Okay, this week is in the bag. I was very happy.

I left for work late this morning because of a weekly conference call with Chandler. I ate a small breakfast because I’m still not willing to sacrifice my health for a silly contest. Of course, I still took the stairs and avoided the elevator. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve seen the elevator since my first week here.

At about 9:30AM, I get a call from Siriwan.

“Khun Roger, Where are you?”

“I decided not go into work
today.”

“Huh? Why did you decide this? You know today is the
weigh-in, right? Are you afraid?”

“No, I’m kidding. I’ll be in
soon.”

I get into the office and head straight for Ekgachai’s desk. He’s not there, but Siriwan spots me and takes me to the nurses station where the scale is located. She gets on the scale and is 1.4 kilos lighter than the day before. 1.4 kilos! Wow. I was impressed. Not bad for one night of not eating. I get on the scale, and I’m 0.8 kilos lighter than the day before. I was happy. That’s nearly 2lbs of difference. I was very curious to see how Ekgachai did. We go back to Aporn’s desk to record the weight, and I notice something that doesn’t make me too happy. Ekgachai has lost 1.1 kilos.

What?

Somehow, he managed to go from being 2 kilos over to 1.1 kilos under. For those of us who refuse to conform to the metric system, that’s nearly 8 lbs… in one night! How in the heck do they do this? Now, my meager 0.8 kilos has turned into the losing weight. I bow my head in shame and walk to my desk.

Later on, I ask Siriwan what this is going to cost me. It’s no longer lunch. Now it’s dinner. I ask her how many planners will attend. She tells me only twelve. Okay, so that’s twelve planners, her, Aporn, and Ekgachai. Oh, and she wants me to bring my entire family. Okay, five more. Oh good; it’s only dinner for twenty. I thought it was going to be lot of people.

…pausing to catch breath.

Still later, Ekgachai comes by to enjoy his victory. I glare back at him, asking him how he could possibly drop 3 kilos in one night. His smile is bigger. Then, I smile back. He asked me why, so I tell him “You both had to really do some big things to lose so much weight in one night. I really haven’t changed much, and still managed to lose weight. Next week, it will be much harder for both of you to maintain your new weight. Good luck to you.”

I also told him that Siriwan has turned it into a dinner with twelve other planners. He looked at me and frowned, telling me that you cannot change the rules. Okay, since I have started this little contest, the rules seem to have changed daily, but now you cannot change the rules. I think I need to see these rules. However, I’m not one to argue when the lack of change is in my favor. We go to Siriwan’s desk and inform her that lunch will be in the same place as last week. Plus, I told her I would only take the amount of planners that could physically fit into Ekgachai’s SUV. Now let’s see how many people I buy for.

Mmm... Chilis
I went to lunch with Ekgachai today. He’s turning out to be a good friend. We took a couple of guys from the US with us. For those that know them, Valen Burd and Duane Burt joined us. Duane was pretty impressive, managing to eat quite a bit of his Khao Phad Gai (chicken with lot of chilis). This of course, made me feel a little more adventurous with my eating.

We started off the meal with Phad Thai noodles. Phad Thai with some mixed seafood. I always forget the Thai word for “mixed seafood.” Luckily, I have a driver whose English isn’t the greatest but he speaks great Thai (go figure). He tells me the correct way to say this is “Phad Thai Talay.” Ekgachai is continually making my dishes spicier and spicier, to get me used to the heat. He also ordered a second plate of something he and I could share. I looked at it, and couldn’t help but notice all the red chilis. I also noticed things that looked like miniature versions of a bunch of grapes. They were about the size of capers. I asked Ekgachai if they were hot, and he said “Oh yes, very hot.” I decide to see how hot they are and place one in my mouth.

Do you remember how I told you the story of the “salty egg?” Let me tell you a new story: let’s call this story “green peppercorn.” Ok, storytime over.

It was a solid piece of pepper, in its pre-ground state. So here’s a new thing to imagine. Imagine taking your pepper out, placing a spoon inside, and shoving a nice amount of pepper in your mouth? Does it sound tasty to you? Me neither.

I tell him it tastes just like pepper. He said “Right. That’s what this is. Pepper.” Oh well, all things considered, it’s not a pig’s colon. I think I will use that disclaimer on any new foods that find their way into my mouth.

“Roger, what are you eating?”

“Oh this? It’s just a rat’s spleen.”

“Ugh! How can you eat a rat’s spleen?.”

“All things considered, it’s not a pig’s colon.”

I decided that lunchtime today is the day I get braver about spice. I take a spoonful of food, and make sure I have a chili pepper in the food. Down the hatch it goes. Not too bad, actually.

I learned something about the chilis in Thailand. They don’t burn going down. They burn when you breath. I swallow this mouthful of food and I think to myself “why was I so worried about this food? It’s actually not that hot.”

And then I breathed.

Taking that first breath felt like I had taken a shot of gasoline and followed it with a lit match for a chaser. The heat of that bite started resurfacing from about mid-throat, and burned its way into my mouth and beyond. It’s almost as if I could feel the roof of my mouth bubble up from the burn. I then do something that has to be one of the biggest rookie mistakes of eating a flaming hot dish. I lick my lips.

Why do I have the desire to do this when I know what was just on my tongue? It’s almost as if my brain is saying “you’re tongue cannot possible handle this on its own, so spread it onto something else.” My lips were so hot I felt like I could feel my heartbeat in them. That was one hot bite. Of course, I was amongst a group of guys, so I had to keep my composure.

“Boy, that was a little spicy.”

I’m surprised I managed to say all that without crying. I feel tears beginning to form, so I decided to put my fork down and take a break. I drank all the water I had left and had Ekgachai crack open a new bottle. That still didn’t help. Then I remembered that this restaurant served ice cream. I had Ekgachai order ice cream for me. I took one bite and felt my mouth immediately gain relief. Ah, that works great! Now that I have ice cream, I can finish my meal. I grab another bite filled with chilis, munch down on them, swallow, breath, gag, and then take another bite of ice cream. Ah, neutralized again. I keep doing this until I finish my meal. Granted, ice cream and spicy foods don’t make the best meal-mates, but when all your trying to do is finish the meal, you need to take whatever steps are necessary.

Oh look. There’s my apartment. Time to shut down.

It’s Curtains for You!
My wife and I are presently in a heated battle with our shower curtain, or at least the rod holding the shower curtain. It seems as though it is resisting its life mission of holding the shower curtain up. It has fallen down a couple of time before, and each time I just put it back up. Last night, it gave up on me. I went to put it back up, and it was about an inch too short. Now, either the walls somehow grew apart an extra inch, or something is wrong with curtain rod.

Before I continue, I need to inform you that I am primarily an artist. I love to draw, enjoy writing, and will do almost anything that involves the use of creative juices. However, one thing I am not is mechanically inclined. My brother Frank took the entire mass of “mechanical” aptitude for himself, and left me with whatever other genes the family had. Ugh! First-borns.

For my wife’s sake, I continue to try, but many examples of my attempts are on public display in my home. If something is screwed in, it’s not coming out, because I’ve shredded any area that you may need to use to remove the screw. Makes me wonder why someone doesn’t invent a round-tip screwdriver. And as long as I’m on the subject of round tips, why not a round socket? I have many bolts that have been “smoothed over” through the years by my feeble attempts at home repair. Many of my friends change their own oil in their vehicles. My response to that? It’s too messy, you don’t know what to do with the oil once you’re done, and it’s time consuming. It is far easier to simply pay the money and have it done right. In truth, I couldn’t change my oil if I tried. Don’t tell my wife that though. I think she would believe me if I told her I could perform open-heart surgery. Not that she’s gullible; only that she trusts me and believes in me. Trust is good, but dangerous. I tell you all this because it will make the next part of this post make a little more sense.

I pick up the rod to put it back, again noticing that is too short. I pull it back down, inspect the rod, and put it back up. Hmm… it’s still too short. Now why didn’t that work? I would have thought that looking at the rod would have made it longer. Oh well, let’s try step two of my troubleshooting prowess. I move the rod around the wall, thinking that maybe I have the wrong angle or the wrong height. Nope. The walls are the same distance apart… everywhere. I take a moment to marvel at the construction, and then return to my troubleshooting. Luckily for me, my wife is standing right there to watch in awe at my “mechanical” abilities.

My past two attempts to fix the rod have proven to be a success at this point. This means something else is wrong. If it’s not the walls, it must be the rod. I pull on the rod and I hear a spring inside. Aha, its spring loaded. I pull on the rod. It extends out, and when I let go it retracts back to its original position. I try again. It does the exact same thing. Next step? Keep trying about 20 more times. I mean, it’s gotta work eventually, right? In the end, the answer is “no.” I put the rod back up and notice it is still one inch too short.

Livonia is still watching me.

I’m standing there, rod extended over my head, one inch too short, thinking “What do I do next?” I pull off the end caps of the rod and look inside. Yep. It’s pretty black in there. Can’t see a thing. Now the rod is one and half inches too short. Seems like I’m going in the wrong direction.

Then it hits me: We have a spare bathroom. In that bathroom is another shower curtain… and another rod. I can take that rod/shower curtain combo and replace mine. I marvel under my breath at how smart I am. Looks like I may have some mechanical aptitude after all.

I go into the other bathroom, pull down the shower curtain and bring it in my bathroom. I put it up onto the wall and look with dismay at my problem.

It is one inch too short.

Marvelous. I take this down and decide to return it back to the spare bathroom. I put it back up on the wall, and wonder of wonders… it is also now one inch too short. There was a famous campaign slogan that went “Does it get any better than this?” I can’t remember the product, but I do remember the slogan (sounds like bad marketing). At any rate, I have now taken our single bathroom problem and migrated it to an additional room. The kids have bathrooms. Maybe I should tear down their curtains as well?

I decide to quit while I’m behind. I send an email out to the rental company, informing them that we have a problem with the curtain rod in our master bathroom, and now this problem has mysteriously migrated to the spare bedroom. Not sure why. It must be shoddy workmanship. I also inform them that we still have not received our replacement water cooler, nor have they fixed our dryer, which is currently doing a good job of making cold, wet clothes into hot, wet clothes.

One of the beautiful things about living in a rental property is that you are not responsible for fixing anything. When the sink is plugged, we call maintenance. Broken dryer? Maintenance. Water cooler doesn’t work? Maintenance. I love it! Of course, we still have a home back the US that we own, so our problems with it are for us to figure out. How is home doing? I’m happy you asked that question.

Only Three Hundred Dollars
The past few days, Livonia and I have been writing to our friends back home about our watering system. Please note that I installed the watering system. As much as I realize that therein lies the problem, humor me.

Our first message is a note about our sprinkler pump going out. I wasn’t exactly sure what a sprinkler pump was, but if it’s going out we probably need to get that fixed. We make some rather panicked calls, and then get a report back that things are okay. We call our friend Dave, who I am sure has grown weary of all our requests, and he drops by our place to take a look at the problem.

I learned we have an anti-siphon valve on our watering system. Apparently, it serves the purpose of preventing water from flooding your yard. This works fine, provided the valve is not broken, but is not the case at my house. A quick thought runs through my head to call maintenance, but then I realize I can’t do that. Darn. Dave manages to rig the system so flooding no longer occurs, but now we need to get this valve replaced. The cost? Only a mere THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS!

Tell me why I own a house again? Oh right. It’s a good investment vehicle. Visions of Tom Hanks and Shelly Long start racing through my head as I remember the movie “The Money Pit.” Do you remember when the tub fell through the second floor and onto the floor below? Do you remember how hard Tom Hanks laughed? That’s what was going through my head as I discovered I needed to pay for this. When all else fails, you need to laugh about it. It takes the edge off. Of course, if I laughed now, Livonia would think I had lost my mind, so I laughed on the inside.

Before we left, we had to get our sprinkler pipes fixed. We had a leak. We setup for our new landscaper to fix this for us. We also asked him to fix the leak in the drip system that I had already made three attempts to fix. I default back to my statement on my mechanical inaptitude for that one.

Livonia Is Settling In
On the way home from work, I called my wife to get an update on her day. I had sent my driver home to pick her up so she could do some shopping. She picked up Nathan from school, got an ISB identification card for our driver, and then headed out to go shopping. When she got to the first place, Nathan was fast asleep, so she left him with our driver and shopped alone. If the thought running through your head was “Is it safe to leave Nathan with your driver?” the answer is “You need to know Boonchan.” Boonchan was actually asked by his company to work for someone else, and make twice the money he’s making for Microchip. He turned them down and said he wants to stay with us. How cool is that?

Her first place was a place recommended to me by my friend Wanphen. It’s a placed called Jelang, and I’m almost positive I’ve misspelled it. However, since I don’t know the correct way, we’ll just stick with what I’ve got and continue. Before going into Jelang, she found a blanket that she wanted to buy for me. This is one more thing to add to my comfort on my ride home. She how she always thinks about me? She is so awesome. When she entered Jelang, she wasn’t able to take the blanket in with her. She had to check it at the door and they put it into one of the storage bins and gave her a claim check to pick it up after shopping.

Jelang is a “dry goods” warehouse where you can buy tons of dry goods that are Mai Pang (very inexpensive). It was there that she found the Milk Tea that Wanphen has been buying for us and sending back to the US. Thirty bags for 69 Baht. Definitely cheap. She bought a couple other things and then left Jelang.

She called Boonchan and met up with him, with Nathan in tow. Nathan was all smiles and asked Livonia “Mom, where did you go?” Apparently, he woke up while Livonia was shopping and asked Boonchan where his Mom was. Boonchan took Nathan and went to find Livonia. As far as I know, Nathan was fine just hanging out with Boonchan. He talked to me about it that night.

Livonia also needed meats, but they didn’t have that at Jelang. That’s when Boonchan introduced her to CarreFour. This store is apparently a cheaper version of Lotus, her previous favorite spot.

Livonia now has her key shopping places identified. She likes Jelang and Carrefour for most shopping, Talad Market and Green Gate market for fresh vegetables and other items, and Lotus if all else fails.

When I got home, she talked more about her shopping and a surprised look came across her face. In her hand was the claim ticket for the blanket she left at Jelang. She asked what we could do, so I asked her how much the blanket cost. She said is was 250 Baht (about 6 bucks), so I told her not worry about it. We can just get a new one.

Then she told me “but I bought it for you.”

I took the claim ticket and put it in my bag. This morning, I told Boonchan to return to Jelang today and attempt to retrieve the blanket from them. Hopefully, it will all work out. I guess we’ll all have to wait for the next update to see.

Keeping in Touch
Before we decided to make this journey, Livonia and I had dinner at Mathew’s and Amy’s house. For clarification’s sake, Mathew is my boss. I’m going to stop referring to him as that because he’s also a good friend. From here on out, you are just going to have to remember that he’s my boss.

Moving on…

One of the things that Amy brought up is that when you are overseas, you tend to communicate MORE with friends and family than you did when you lived nearby. I’m not sure why that’s true, but I’m seeing now that it is. You are all finding out much more about our day to day lives than you ever did. Many of you live close by and didn’t know this much about us. My thoughts are that when we return, you will have a deeper understanding of who we are. If this results in you running away in fear, it will help to explain things. I think when I get back home I’ll hire a driver and move to North Phoenix. That way, I’ll still have a means for writing this update. Trust me, being in a different country doesn’t change the fact that we have issues. Many of you already know that, and love us anyway.

Since I’m on the topic of communication, let’s identify other ways. Another way to find us is online. Livonia and I both keep our Yahoo! Messenger accounts active throughout the day, so if you are up late one night and can’t sleep, login and say hello. Livonia’s username is “peaches0503” and I use the rather cryptic moniker of “rogerwinkles.” I know, I know, how could you ever expect to remember that, right? Livonia will be much better at sending back quick replies. I reply between meetings or other work activities (after all, that’s why I’m here).

Above all, please keep in touch. We sincerely appreciate all your emails and messages.

What’s up with the Picture?
We have been receiving quite a few emails regarding my picture on the website. Why do I look like that? The answer is quite simple. This is a look I would have if I’m confused about something and frustrated at the same time. I think it was appropriate for the subject matter. However, I have received so many inquiries as to why it is like this that I’ve decided to change it to something more passive.

If you’re wondering why I have so many pictures of myself, it’s because of an earlier trip I took to Thailand. On this trip, I was bored in my hotel, so I took a picture of as many faces as I could think to generate, and then put them all together in an email to Livonia. I used these faces to tell a story, and my faces reflected my reaction to certain parts of the story. Some of you may have remembered that story. Why? Because it was meant for Livonia’s eyes only, but she felt the need to share it with many of our friends and family. Thanks honey. People are already worried enough about me. But, I guess it did serve a good purpose, because now I can use the pictures on this website. I also use them when I’m logged into Yahoo! Messenger (hint, hint).

Who’s Reading This Anyway?
This week, I sent out an email to find out who still wants to receive a reminder each time we post a new update. The responses we’ve received back from the people who want to stay on the mailing list have been such a blessing to read. One in particular that really got to me was an update from Seattle.

One of the people who receives this update is Livonia’s old boss Cathy in Seattle. Cathy wrote to me and told me that the mailing list is growing in her office as well. It seems Cathy has forwarded the link to a certain number of people in her office, and now they are reading right along with all of you. Livonia and I love to hear about stuff like that. I mean, if people cannot enjoy reading about the trials and tribulations we deal with, than all they become are trials and tribulations. That’s horrible. When we take those situations and turn them into stories, Livonia and I (and all of you) can look back on them and have a chuckle or two. NOTE: We do hope to balance out the trials with successes. I’m sure that before this is over, we will have accomplished that.

If you have forwarded this onto to someone else, let us know. If you have received this from someone and would like to be notified of the next update, let us know as well. We can add you to the mailing list.

Until next time...