Hello to all of you!

I want to thank everybody for the warm e-mails and concern during my recent absence, however, I am fine.....it was my laptop that was sick. The computer tech said the mother board was toast, and then presented me with several options. One option was to replace the mother board, an expensive endeavor as Dell parts from the U.S. don't come cheap. The next option was to buy a used Dell and exchange the hard drive. Final option was naturally to buy a new computer.

Well, I took option "B" and purchased a Dell Latitude (which I affectionately call my "Dell Attitude) Pentium 3, which easily accepted my old hard drive and after some parts exchanges (RAM chips, etc.) I was in business!

Price? 19,000 Baht (about $473.00 U.S.)

Not too shabby overall. Anyways, I'm finally B-A-C-K like a bad case of indigestion.

My trip to Koh Phi Phi Don was.....well.......okay. Not really my cup of tea actually. More for the jet set and the very wealthy. Extremely hot, crowded, too commercialized and too expensive, although I did manage to have a good time. Spent 6000 baht for the trip and spent 8000 baht on the island.

Not to get into too much detail here, if you're interested, check out my review on Virtual Tourist dot com. Will get pictures posted as soon as I can, although I must admit that I really didn't take all that many.

I'm back to work again and loving it. The kids are wonderful and the classes are going well. Our rainy season here seems to have petered out and we are left with sunny, hot and humid days. I'm managing to get out and about around the village more and I really hope to begin taking some more pictures as soon as I can, for all to see.

Enough for now....I've got to get back to answering all my e-mails that have piled up during my absence. I'll post again soon.

-Jeeem-

Howdy from sunny Koh Phi Phi Don island!

I'm sitting here at an internet cafe on Tonsai Bay beach sweating like a stuck pig and frantically trying to let the world out there in cyberland know that it is not official....

MY LAPTOP COMPUTER IS FRIED.

I tried firing it up one day before I left for Krabi and it is toast. Won't even power up. So, needless to say, I'll be off-line until I can either get it repaired or (gulp) buy a new one. So, until then, expect few posts from me if any....I will try to get to as many internet cafe's as I can and keep you updated as to my trials and tribulations.

Meanwhile, I had a long, painful ride to Krabi yesterday in a crowded van and we ran late because we ran into two accidents (one fairly serious) along the way. Once in Krabi I finally got to meet a couple of cool folks who were in the back of the van, both from Argentina. We ended up all going to Phi Phi islands, so we got to chat a bit. Haven't seen them since we got on the island though, but I'm hoping I'll run into them before I leave.

Funny, but I can't remember the last time I saw someone from the U.S. All the people here are either from England, Australia, Sweden, Germany, Canada or elsewhere.

I'm going to try to book either an island tour or a snorkeling trip tomorrow, to top off my trip. Last night I got to eat some good seafood and enjoy a quiet evening watching some local kids play on the beach, while the sun went down. I didn't manage to see the fireshow at Carlito's because It's at 11:00 p.m. and I was just too tired to make it. Maybe tonight.

-Jeeem-

This, by-the-way, is a fairly decent picture of a Songtaew.

They are typically different colors, red being the color of the ones that travel up and down route 4 from Hatyai to Sadao and beyond.

A major form of transportation around here and very reliable. Only 10 baht to go from my place to Hatyai.

-Jeeem-
Posted by Hello

This is a photo of Her Royal Highness Princess Chulabhorn Mahidol.

I went for yet another interesting songthaew ride yesterday, into Hatyai, to meet my boss and go to immigration to get my visa extension.

Nope, no babies in my lap or anything like that...just tons of traffic as Thai's from many different provinces descended on the city of Hatyai to attend the graduation ceremony at one of the local universities.

It seems the Princess was in town to attend the graduation ceremony and hand out diplomas, which is why I ended up having a pretty eventful afternoon.

The streets in Hatyai were absolutely clogged with traffic. Truely unbelievable. I was once stuck in South Philly traffic after the Rolling Stones concert of three days duration let out at JFK stadium (circa 1982 or 1983) and even that didn't come close to what I experienced yesterday afternoon.

My boss Craig dropped me off at Tesco Lotus at around 5:00 p.m., and I ducked inside to quickly pick up a couple of things for dinner. I've got this thing for their deli's Chinese red roasted pork with sweet sauce and their rolled chicken baguettes...yum, yum....just slice em' thin, drown them in sweet hot sauce and enjoy! Ummm...ummm!

Anyway, I got out of there quickly as Lotus was packed to the hilt with people and the impending clouds outside were signaling another good soaking on the way. So, about fifteen minutes later I emerged, zipped across the walkover and picked up the first red songthaew bound for Thunglung.

Police were everwhere! I'd never seen so many of them. They were standing in the middle island in the street, one ever few meters yakking into their walkie talkies. Really, there were hordes of them....you would have had to seen it. Traffic was bad enough, when suddenly I heard police traffic whistles going off like crazy. Suddenly the songthaew made a detour across the intersection we were at and I could see uniformed police, wearing white gloves, frantically blowing their whistles and directing traffic away from a section of roadway that had been deserted.

Putting two and two together, I figured the royal brigade was somewhere in that area, probably visiting some local businesses or picking up some eats at one of the local restaurants, so police had thoroughly blocked off traffic to this huge section of route 4.

The detour my songthaew took, into the bowels of Hatyai, was actually kind of fun. I got to do plenty of sightseeing of areas I had never been through. But, that pleasure got progressively old when it became evident that all the huge tour busses, songthaews, tuk tuk's and passenger vehicles alike, were crowding into these smaller, narrower streets....all making for a major traffic jam.

Then it began raining.

Ahhh...let me rephrase that...it doesn't "rain" here, it pours buckets and buckets. So here we were, at a dead standstill on some distant Hatyai Soi, in the pouring rain, breathing exhaust fumes and gawking at store fronts that were now beginning to close.

I began my songthaew ride home at around 5:25 p.m. or 5:30 p.m. and we finally reached Thunglung at 8:40 p.m. Three hours or so, jammed into a crowded songthaew in the pouring rain. Alas, I didn't have to be anywhere.....nobody waiting for me at home (besides Howard) and no appointments to keep, so I just settled in and enjoyed the ride to the best of my ability.

The dark Thai kid across from me, however, looked horrified. Made me wonder what he was missing out on....a date? His mum? Hummm...guess I'll never know. He pressed the buzzer and got off somewhere short of my stop and disappeared....running like a banshee, into the downpouring darkness.

A truly interesting afternoon/evening in southern Thailand!

-Jeeem-
Posted by Hello

Laura Curry (Baltzell) where the hell are you?

Okay search engines....do your duty!

I'm looking for this woman, my sweetheart in high school, who wrote to me via "Classmates.com" but for some reason...DUMPED me, after a couple of e-mails.

Come on Laura, we spent too many years together for you to give me THAT sort of treatment.

Was it something I said? Did your computer blow up? What the heck???

I've reached out by sending all sorts of mail to all sorts of businesses in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and various websites that vaguely mention the name LAURA CURRY or LAURA BALTZELL.

Laura was last seen somewhere in Albuquerque, New Mexico, working in a bank and bowling in her spare time. She lived in El Paso, Texas on Filmore street, and graduated from Stephen F. Austin High School in El Paso, Texas.....before marrying Joe Curry, having children and moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

So, hopefully you'll get the message and drop me a line! I really hope so, cause I'd really like to be able to keep in contact with you.

Your pal,
Jim

Well, it's official!

I'm going to Koh Phi Phi Don next Wednesday!

I'll leave Hatyai around 9:00 a.m. and will travel by van to Krabi, where I'll take a boat to the Phi Phi islands!

-Jeeem-
Posted by Hello

Word has it that the seas can be a bit rough during rainy season, during the boat trip from Krabi to Koh Phi Phi Don, so I'll be prepared with my Dramamine because I get seasick standing in a mudpuddle.

I'll be staying at the Cabana Hotel for four days and three nights and enjoying as many of the activities available as possible - depending on both time and pocketbook.

Tonsai Bay seems to be where most of the action is, so you'll find me there, wearing some flashy tourist shirt and hat and chowing down on some fresh seafood. The fire dances, Thai boxing and other entertainments can evidently be found at the Reggae Bar, Carlito's and Apache...so meet me there!

-Jeeem-
Posted by Hello

During my college days, studying behavioral health, I remember study sessions where we discussed people's boundaries....

You know, that "invisible bubble" of space a person has that is their so-called comfort zone in relation to other people around them. We studied the possible reasons why people have "big" or "little" bubbles and the differences in comfort zones involving different cultures, religions and mores.

Yada, yada, yada...

Well, as you can probably guess....Asian people, in relation to interacting with westerners, are supposed to have pretty small bubbles.

Not so today, on my songthaew ride to Hatyai!

Ha!

Here I sat in this crowded songthaew, people pressed against one another...but the skinny-yet-goodlooking woman to my right, although she had plenty of space, was practically in my lap. She had a young child on her knee, maybe one - two years of age and she was trying to balance baby-on-knee as she was also trying to change cell phone batteries between two different mobile phones in her carry-on bag,

She kept losing her balance, grasping at the baby on her knee, while trying to juggle these two cell phones in her other hand. Her husband sat across from us, but he had his hands full with a rambuctious three year old.

Finally, (and much to my surprise) she simply grabbed baby and plopped him into my lap, thus freeing herself of her burden so she could attend to more important matters.

Naturally (instinctively?) I held the baby, who seemed perfectly happy to be on my lap. He cooed and cawed (ahhhh, you know what I mean!) at me and gripped my shirt with both hands while looking into my eyes.

I looked up and caught the eye of an elderly Thai lady across from me, who just smiled knowingly, like she knew that life, as it was at that moment, was perfect in it's own sense. I, however, did not share this feeling, and only looked at her emploringly as if saying, "Would you PLEASE offer to take this kid?" But, she didn't seem to catch the telepathic message.

Suddenly, the skinny mother, now finished with her task, turned to me, smiled, and took her baby back into her arms, kissing him on the head and plopping him back onto her knee in one smooth swoop.

Minutes later we arrived at her and her husbands departure point and once they disembarked, she turned around once and gave me this quick, almost imperceptible wink.....

Which of course totally made my day.

-Jeeem-

Well, I found out it wasn't a fan error on my laptop.....

...and it wasn't errant "piss ants" scouring my USB port.

It was/is a computer virus!

I've spent two days researching the internet and downloading fixes to get rid of it, but lately I've found that "it" is in fact "them"....

So, although I'm back online with a bit more frequency, I'm still at battle with more than one of these nasty little mechanical codes, that some "dork" who has no life, has so skillfully seeded into my computer.

I'd love to get ahold of one of these little jerks who send these viruses out and cause so much havoc. I could think of a lot of little "torture" tasks to set upon them that would make Rumsfeld proud!

-Jeeem-
Posted by Hello

In this online media world of hate, bombing, terrorism and the like, today I found an article that disturbed me more than any of the other negative news media reports....

The death of Christopher Reeve.

This man, to me, represented strength, purity, health, persistence, and just plain awesomeness. I can't remember a sadder day than today, upon hearing of his death.

To me and countless others, he will be sorely missed.

-Jeeem-
Posted by Hello