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Gecko Peter Parker
Last night, I was driving alone down the highway into a headwind and a small gecko suddenly appeared on the outside of the windshield, probably blown up through the bodywork from wherever he was chilling down below. Geckos are good to have in your car because they eat bugs and are just cool to watch, but it sucks when they die inside because they stink for ages. Anyway, I have always been fascinated by their sticky feet. I decided to test just how much grip they have by flooring it. I got to about 170 km/h when he suddenly crouched down low in a spiderman pose and leaped off the side…
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Spraying insecticide, again
When I ventured out this morning to buy the kid’s breakfast, sticky rice and barbecued pork skewers (which have gone up in price universally to 5 baht per skewer — they were still 3 baht at some places up until a couple months ago), I drove though a fog hovering in the neighborhood behind ours. Even with the windows closed, I got a whiff of Raid and realized they were fumigating the area again. I hurriedly went to buy the food — in an yet unsprayed area — and rushed back home. Nam said she’d just heard a pickup driving around blasting a message from the local government, so that meant they…
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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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Poxy Varicella
I came home yesterday after lecturing for two days, fresh off finals week, looking forward to a nice, relaxing evening and some much-needed sleep. Alas. Max has chicken pox. Which means Mina will probably get them soon as well. Trying to keep babies living under the same roof quarantined is pretty much impossible, especially since the nanny isn’t around today, and Nam has a faculty meeting from now. It’s all on sleep-deprived daddy now… Max is just torture to look at with sores all over his mouth, writhing in agony and saying no to everything. Mina just wants to play. Plus the fuel pump in the Kujira died this morning.…
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..random
Mina shook her head in serious disagreement 17 times in a row yesterday – I was asking about people she loves; apparently she just hates everyone, because by the time I got to the end I had run out of people she knows by name and had started naming animals. — Max just told his mother to leave him alone and go be with daddy. — I got an e-mail from a distant relative in Kyushu who runs a beauty salon that T, Adam, Inaba and I visited 12 (?) years ago when we went to visit my cousins Kana and Aya in Saga Prefecture (Saga was where my grandfather…
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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…
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Night Beer Hiking in Downtown Chiang Mai
Exactly one month ago, our family took a trip to Chiang Mai by way of daddy, Max, Mina, and the nanny hitching a ride with mommy on a business trip. Our driver was fast and polite, and since there are typically no seat belts in a Thai commuter van, we decided to leave the baby seats behind. This made for a very smooth and uneventful ride, just the way I like it. I’ve written about other parts of the trip already, but I didn’t get around to posting (blurry) photos of one of the highlights, an impromptu night stroll from the center of downtown to our hotel. We went out…
