Category: Photos

Our New Thai House Part 3 – Groundwork

Timeline: End of July to mid-August 2007
The foundations have been set to floor level (one meter off the ground) and are being extended to roof level.
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In this photo, our site is located at the four columns wrapped in wooden supports visible between the man in the blue shirt at the approximate middle of the photo and the first power pole to his right.
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The beginnings of our house. Notice the use of eucalyptus as framework; this is standard building practice all throughout Thailand for all types of buildings. In other Asian countries, they tend to use more bamboo but there’s not so much of that here.
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A couple weeks later, the eucalyptus framework has been replaced with cinder blocks, the stairs and pavilion have been added, and all foundations have been extended to roof level.
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Ski mask welding in stifling weather, against a beautiful sunset sky. Most of these guys don’t bother with eye protection for arc welding. This guy sure didn’t.

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Our New Thai House entries:
Our New Thai House Part 1 – Picking a Plot
Our New Thai House Part 2 – Foundations
Our New Thai House Part 3 – Groundwork
Our New Thai House Part 4 – Roof and Walls
Our New Thai House Part 5 – The Blessing Way
Landscaping Our House – Before and After

No more hi-octane ethanol-free gas in Mahasarakham

This photo was taken back in March.
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This was the last gas station in Maha Sarakham to sell 95 octane gasoline with no ethanol added. It greatly surprised me to find them selling it because all of the other stations had gradually phased it out by the end of the previous year – PTT and Petronas were the first to go, then Esso, then finally, what I thought was the last holdout, Caltex. But I stopped at this station (I even forget what company it was!) on the way back from the road to Borabu, a neighboring town, and got a full tank of the good stuff – unadulterated 95 oc (and it may very well have been the last tank my car will get, ever – it’s VQ30 is running fine on 95 gasohol, tho).
The problem is, this station is too far away and off the beaten path. When I went to the labor office (located on the road to Borabu) to renew my work permit a few days ago, I looked at the pumps when passing by and saw that they had finally switched to the ethanol crap like everywhere else.
Sad.
Note: The VQ30 in my A33 Cefiro is running on 95 gasohol. The RB20 in the S60 Crown is running on regular (non-eth) 91. They are both running fine, but I’d still prefer to run them on non-eth 95 because it runs smoother, gets better mileage, and isn’t robbing food from people’s mouths.

Almost crawling

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He can lift his head quite high, and he can propel himself forward with great force, but he can’t yet do both at the same time. He has a lot of fun acting like a human bulldozer, though.
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We are greatly enjoying these days of limited mobility – he can move to one side on of his crib while sleeping and even roll over occasionally, but he basically stays put. Also, he can cry and sigh and burp and laugh and coo, but he can’t tell us, “no.” All in all, newborn to five months is a pretty great age.