Karelia / Alone in the Wilderness

It was nice being able to sleep in a tent for a few nights this past year; I like camping and look forward to taking Max and Mina…

There are a couple of nice outdoors themed links I’ve been wanting to post, so:

Unforgettable Vacation In Karelia – Nice photo set from Finland or Russia, can’t tell which. (It’s hosted on English Russia, so watch for pop-ups.)

Then there’s this clip from a film called Alone in the Wilderness:

This kind of stuff just fascinates me – I often wonder if I’d be able to handle a month or two of solitude.

The guy’s homepage is here.

I’m acquiring the full video as I type this, so I may write about it again.

sunny rain

A couple weeks ago I was engaged in the never-ending battle to figure out why my Crown hates running cold so much (Next step: Replace coil pack and plug cables, plus various tweaking with components expensive to replace but cheap to check/clean). I took her out on the Sarakham bypass that’s close to our house and runs for a couple unimpeded kilos in a straight line. It was a glorious sunny day, dry and hot, and I was running with all four windows open.

As I started up the bypass, it suddenly started raining, though there was hardly a cloud in the sky (weather like this always reminds me of Hawaii for some reason). Luckily, I was headed into the wind, so not much rain got inside the car. By the time I was halfway through the run, something curious happened. The rain hitting the hot asphalt started steaming and the entire highway was enveloped in a dense fog. The thing is, I was completely alone on the road and I savored that moment of having it all to myself. As I cruised with windows open and wipers on, the wind blew the fog into dancing spirals that parted as we passed through. When I got to the end of the bypass, it suddenly stopped raining. When I got to school, the janitor sweeping out the parking lot saw my car and asked if it was raining.

I said yes and thought, just for me.

Friday finality

I think I’ve finally got this blog up and running the way it should be, so I feel great.

Woke up this morning, went to buy a traditional Isan breakfast of sticky rice and skewered BBQ pork, as well as some fried doughballs and a bag of rice porridge. Brought it all back home, got Max ready, and took him to school. Found a roadside vendor selling fresh durian and had him break down a small (~.75 kgs whole) one for Nam – she loves them (I merely tolerate them). Came home again to Mina babbling and scooting around madly on her baby walker. It’s been a perfect start for the day.

Oral candidiasis (oral thrush)

Mina’s got it, but we caught it early. The new nanny had seen it before and told us to get it checked out- yay for us finding an experienced nanny. The pediatrician started Mina on an oral course of nystatin; hopefully her whole mouth won’t turn to cottage cheese.
On a related note, Max’s cough is almost gone, which is a big relief. It took way too long for it to get better, and he’s been out of school for eight days now (this week the teachers were gone from Monday to Wed. to Udon Thani for a conference or something). Nam and I have been taking turns watching him and it’s a relief that he can go to school tomorrow so we can FINALLY GET STUFF DONE.