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Insecticide Spraying in Rural Thailand
UPDATE: I’ve added a video to the bottom of this post. The first time I saw government spraying (fogging, really) in our neighborhood was last year. There was the sound of a lawnmower engine from a block away, and then a man with a backpack sprayer walked by on the street, spraying a dense, white fog over our front yard, which promptly blew through our open windows ala a 1940’s public service announcement/DDT promotion. The cloying stench of RAID remained on the house for a couple hours, and I had to wipe everything down before the kids got back. Today, we got a twenty minute warning by a pickup truck…
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crazy day
After having one of the busiest days in recent memory, I was chilling with the kids in our living room when I heard a bloodcurdling scream from outside the front of our house. By the time I hit the floodlight in the driveway, there was another — the kind you hear when someone’s getting attacked. We peeked through the curtains to see a mid 90’s pickup stopped in the street directly in front of our house. We couldn’t see though the truck’s windows, but saw people struggling on the far side of it, on the bank of the pond. Thinking that someone was about to get dumped, I rushed over…
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BooksThailand.com
A few weeks ago, my bathroom reading materials had dwindled down to the point of having to reread some old favorites. Then, while browsing a Thai-related forum, I spotted a banner for booksthailand.com. They are apparently a used bookstore on Koh Chang that have started selling online. Long story short, they are my new go-to place for books here in Thailand. They accept PayPal or bank transfers and the prices are very reasonable considering the price of new English language books here. They are currently running a “buy 3 get 1 free” promotion that I used for my first order. I paid via PayPal and quickly got an email from…
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Dragon and Peony
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What’s going on (May 2011 edition)
So we went to Koh Samet for a few days with a bunch of my coworkers and some of their families. It was awesome, but I feel the need to write about what’s been happening around here before moving onto editing the trip photos and video. Max and Mina started school on May 18. Max is now going to the demonstration school at the old Maha Sarakham University campus, very close to the Rajabhat University where I work, because his old school shut down at the end of the last term. Mina is going to a nursery school very close to Nam’s office, at the new Maha Sarakham University campus. Both…
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Back from the beach…
…regular intermittent posting to resume posthaste.
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Quick trip to Ko Samet
I am taking the family on a work trip from now. It will be an overnight bus ride, followed by a boat ride to Koh Samet and a smaller ferry-to-shore. We plan to return on Monday night, just in time to finish preparation for the new school term.
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Installing Thai fonts on a Samsung Galaxy 5 i5503 (custom Froyo ROM)
Notes: I am writing this guide from memory and it shouldn’t be considered definitive (or even accurate, ha ha). Also, I get this sort of stuff done with heavy googling and then lots of trial and error, an approach that often ends in tears. It happened to work for me this time, but only after trying several different approaches and tools. It might not work for you and I accept no responsibility for that or what it might entail: Worst case, you might brick your phone. That being said, it has made the Galaxy 5 one of the best values currently on the Thai smartphone market – cheap (about 5,000…
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Photos (and Video) from the Korat Zoo
Yesterday we got home from a trip to Nakhon Ratchasima, more commonly known as Korat. The city is famous for being the gateway to the Northeast region (where we live) of Thailand, and is at just about the halfway point when we go to/from Bangkok. We were only there for one reason, though. Max wanted to see animals… The zoo is medium-sized, and unremarkable from a technology standpoint. However, some thought has gone into the layout, premium services, and a few of the exhibits really stand out. In addition, the cost of things including admission (50 Baht for Thais, 100 Baht for foreigners, free for small children) is very reasonable.…
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Khmer Hip Hop
(via my pal Ton on FB)
