happenings

I am here...

Okay. Been super busy? Doing what? Getting my life back. So weird how when one does not have a real job one finds time to stay busy. But I am digging it. I have free time - kind of. I am 3 hours a day - 5 days a week in Thai school. Way cool. It is kicking my ass. I am getting to the gym more - but not enough. Life is cool.

Hong Kong. Glad I don't live there anymore. Saw a snippet on CNN where Hong Kong was rated as one of the rudest places to live. I agree. Bangkok - total opposite. Gotta love it.

King holiday stuff is over here. Cool stuff indeed. Amazing dude.

Temasek in Singapore must regretting the whole Shin corp deal by now. AIS is losing subscribers. I for 1 changed to DTAC. Now ITV owes the goverment a huge sum of money - almost equal to the amount of money Thaksin duped the people of Thailand out of by not paying taxes. U get yours Singapore. Never liked you much anyway and I hope this leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Karma comes around and u bought a company from a bad guy and u are paying for it. Simple as that.

What else? Who knows. Getting my coffee so I can get studying.

Cya

Lost an old grammar school friend...

article from the auburn journal

I remember jason from grammar school. We were not close but both being from the same small town means you know everyone. I did not go to high school with him since I went to home school but I do remember seeing him once at Marine World while he was working the elephants. Really nice guy. Pretty shocking for this to happen. wow. bummed out.

The Surgey

My appointment was for 5:00 in the evening since they tend to do the Lasik surgeries in the evening so that after they get done slicing and burning you they can send you in a taxi home to go to sleep. Yeah right.
I was sent to an operation room waiting area where I was met with my personal nurse, stop it, the nurse was a male since he would be accompanying me through all the processes which meant joining me in the bathroom and all that. I was given my gorgeous blue outfit which consisted of some baggy pants and a Chinese style shirt that used strings to tie up the front of it versus buttons. This was joined by some basic lounge sandals and a nice paper based fast food like head cap to wear to keep my out of control locks from getting in the way. Fair enough. Looking decked out I headed for the huge lazyboys in the lounge and watched some CNN. Bumrungrad is the bomb. BTW – yes there are some pretty hot nurses scooting around the hospital. My time to get cut and burned was suppose to be around 6:30 but I was the last victim for the night and the doctor was running late so I don’t think I entered the cauldron until 7 or so. I was given a couple of pils which I was told was some muscle relaxants and then sent outside to lay down on a gurney. Now I was getting nervous. They wheeled me down a huge hallway and aligned my chariot along the wall and I was told to relax since it would be another 15 minutes before I entered the operating room. I have been in hospitals many times but this was going to be the first time I was having something serious done so I was starting to get a little edgy.
From here on out I will be describing the process step by step. When I was using the net for some Lasik research I was surprised that although I found some videos, some step by step procedures and lots of explanations I never found a personal account or a blow by blow so to speak. After the surgery I also found that the only people I could talk to in detail about the surgery was those who have also experienced it because it seems that it is just to uncomfortable for most people who have never been through it to talk about it. Well – I am a big talker and I have to share when I go through things like this so I figure I will provide a blow by blow as best as I can remember it. So if you are a bit squeamish you may want to skip this part.
They wheel my gurney in to the Lasik OR room and ask me to step up and get onto the specialized bed made for the Lasik machine. The room is big, slightly cool and mostly filled by the huge Lasik machine and a row of computers and diagnostic equipment on one side. I see Dr. Chate, makes me feel a little more at ease, a nurse and another female eye doctor. Dr. Chate starts explaining that once I relax and get comfortable they will slide my bed under the machine to practice a bit with me keeping my eye open and steady looking at small orange flashing light. Sounds easy. I had not trained for this but I was sure this part I could handle. My head was cradled pretty tight in a bladder like pillow that was inflated with air to mold itdelf to my head and neck preventing my head from any lateral or horizontal movement. Feeling constricted yet safe I continued to let my body will itself over to the large machine that was getting ready to zap my eyes. I guess we all take modern technology for granted most of the time but I was suddenly starting to realize how amazing modern medical technology is and my thoughts went out to the Quality Assurance team who had worked on the Lasik machine hoping they did a much better job than I know most of the QA people do with modern enterprise software or very well known crap like Windows.
The doc slid my commander chair under the machine to practice my light watching skills. Open your eyes, stay steady – okay u see the light? Yes. So beautiful it is. Okay. Let’s try with the other eye. Yup. I see it with that one too. The doc says that I will need to keep my eye steady and looking at the light. The machine will do the rest. That’s it? Has to be more to it. And there is, much more to it, but let’s face it - if they really told u about every step of the process my guess is most people would back out. I still ask myself now, having almost healed but still not seeing great, would I have gone through with the procedure had I known what it was like and how long the healing process would take? I am not sure really. Every once in a while my right eye focuses with such clarity that I am just amazed with how crisp the vision is knowing I have not felt like that for years even when wearing contacts or glasses. During those brief moments I tell myself for sure I would have had the procedure done knowing what it was like but then other moments when my left eye still hurts like a MF I tell myself there is no way I would have had Lasik knowing what it was like. Tough call. I was explaining to one friend that someone needs to invent some technology where u wear some skull cap that can briefly generate the exact feeling of a particular form and severity of pain. Then during your Lasik consultation the doc can say would u like to know what the after surgery pain might feel like? Sure, why not? He pops on the skull cap contraption, punches a few keys on his computer and says here u go. Boom. Ouch. No thanks I think I will just get some new glasses or you might be saying I can deal with it. Carry on.
Carrying on. The doc slides me out from under the machine to prep me for the surgery. First they clean my face and put some sort of antibacterial ointment around my eyes. Then they tape both eyelids for each eye out of the way. I know this my sound stupid but think about it. U stop seeing when u close your eyelids. So with your eyelids taped open your eyes have to see everything. That’s right. You have to watch the procedure being done on your own eye, but wait why can’t u just knock me out and let me “sleep” through this. They can’t so deal with it. At this point I must admit I was getting a little nervous squirming in my chair a bit. The doc even told me to chill out and quit moving. Okay sorry I said  - just a tad freaked out and nothing had even happened yet. Nice. Then the doc stretched some latex over each eye and taped it into place. Eyelids taped open, eyes looking straight up scared shitless I felt the chair sliding back into place under the machine. The doc then told me he was going to cut the latex open on my right eye to begin the procedure. I could see through the latex as his hands using some scissor like device cut a nice hole into the latex basically only exposing my eyeball to the elements. Then the doc said they would be putting something on my eye to hold my eyeball in place and that I would be feeling some pressure at this point but to stay still. I felt a sort of like vise grip for the eye being put into place and could feel it lock down around the eyeball. For sure I felt some pressure and at this point I could tell I could not really move my eye around anymore even thought I tried. The doc noticed this and told me to hold still and watch the orange blinking light. My true friend at this point a stupid blinking light. Focus. Then the doc said the next step would feel even more uncomfortable. And it did. I think at think point he was either drawing a circle outlining the flap of skin that was going to be cut or was actually starting to cut it. I need to ask to be sure. Now this is where Lasik and Epi-Lasik part ways. In both procedures the top flap of your eye is moved out of the way to allow the laser to reshape the actual lens of your cornea. Traditional Lasik using some sort of alcohol based solution to separate the flap from your eye and slide it out of the way for the Laser to burn the correction in. Then they slide the flap back and you are done. In reality this process is less painful but is not as healthy to the eye given that the solution is a chemical and can kill some cells. Epi-Lasik actually slices the flap off, the laser burns away and the flap is put back. I am not sure if the flap is totally cut off or just cut enough to open up like a cup of noodles cover, then you laser and shut the flap. Like when you close the lid on the cup of noodles to allow the hot water to work their magic on the noodles. We have all watched the idiot who completely removes the lid on the cup of noodles and then wonders how to cover the noodles while the hot water does the trick. So this is how I imagine the Epi-Lasik working. As I was clamped down the tool cuts across sliding the flap out of the way as it goes but leaving the edge of the flap attached while holding the flap out of the way so the laser can burn away. To make this painfully clear because you see this all happening - I watched as the tool cut across my eye to remove the flap and I could see and feel the flap being put out of the way. I was really gripping the chair at this point and wishing I could just pass out. It was not the pain so much as it was having to watch all this happen to your own eye. Then the doc said that I would need to focus on the light for 15 seconds or so while the laser worked. I focused but still wanted to just escape my body and watch this all happen from over the doc’s shoulder. Just seems to me at the time that it would have been a better vantage point. Thinking about it now I find I need to step away from the keyboard for a bit to regroup.
With the flap out of the way the doc said to focus on the blinking light while the laser did the trick. He also mentioned not too worry about the clicking noise the machine made. Click, click, click and on the machine went burning my path to corrected vision. During this time I remember for a few seconds not being able to see at all – like I had suddenly lost my vision. The doc told me this was going to happen and not to worry. I am not sure what actually happenes but at one point during the laser working u just stop seeing. That was freaking scary but it happens so quickly that just as you are about to really lose it you start to see again. Okay I know this part is weird but I have to mention this. With as big as that machine is why can’t they figure out a way for it to be silent? Honestly I do not need any audible clues that the laser is working and I can’t imagine the doctor does either. This next point I am sure no one can do anything about except one could wear nose plugs but given the anxiety of the situation I am sure no one wants to mess up the patient’s breathing but while the laser is doing it’s thing you actually smell your own flesh burning. Nothing overwhelming but enough to let u know that the laser is connecting with some live flesh. Nice isn’t it?
Laser done the doctor proceeds to put the flap back in place and looks to hold it in place for 30 seconds or so with his finger. Thanks doc. Try not to sneeze cause I would hate for the front of my eye to be all crooked and shit. Then the doctor puts a rather large contact in your eye which basically acts to hold the flap in place and doubles as sort of a bandaid. At this point your own eyelids coming into contact with the newly cut flap in your eye would be quite painful so the contact is there to act as sort of a a buffer and later I would learn how wonderful these contacts were. The doctor then put some tape of over my eye so I would relax and try not to look around too much. He also said I could close my eye at this point. Nice but at this point the burning sensation in my eye seemed to persisst whether or not I closed my eye or left it open. Just as I was feeling so proud of myself and started to relax a bit the doc said it was time for the other eye. Oh shit. I have to do this two times? I forgot that all that hell was just for one eye.  Oh man. Anyway. At this point I was more agitated than before since with the first eye I was not sure what to expect but now having done one eye I was more scared than before. No need to explain the rest. Rinse and repeat. The whole process repeated but on the left eye. I took everything in me to just relax and to try to stop from going postal. I almost told the doc I could only handle one eye this year but I knew that would be stupid and I should just get it all over with. Deep breaths and he moved on. I recall remembering less about the left eye than the right because for some reason although I remained totally conscious through it all I just seemed to tune out a tad more and I am glad I did.
All cut up and burned I hopped, right, back on the gurney and was wheeled out to another post OR room. There I was cleaned up, had bug-like plastic covers taped over my eyes and was helped into my street clothes. Then they wheeled me to the pharmacy to pick up my much needed medications and then over to the taxi queue. I am sure I was just in a bad mood but having to wait for a taxi at this point really was making me crazy. After what seemed like an eternity, 15 minutes, I was helped into the taxi and on my way home to begin the 2 weeks of suffering.

Podcasts, steroids, audiobooks, frogger, Tylenol, Richard Simmons and Stevie Wonder.

You may be asking yourself what they all have in common? Lasik Surgery. To be even more precise – Epi-Lasik Surgery. A few months back I was having some coffee with a buddy of mine in Bangkok and out of the blue he mentioned that my glasses were looking a little dated. Bummer. I knew it to be true but never really thought about it. Usually I wear contacts but for some reason I have taken to wear my glasses more in Bangkok than I used to in Hong Kong. I had to admit though that I had not had my eyes checked in a while and I could use some new glasses. So while we were on the subject my buddy asked why I had not looked into getting laser surgery so I could dump both the eyeglasses and the contacts for a while or at least until I got older and would need reading glasses. Ouch. That hurt even more realizing that I was 34 and at one point would be needing reading glasses. It hit me. Not only was I getting older but that I should burn my eyes with some modern machinery so I could use some of the years I had left to live without glasses and contacts.
The very next week I headed out to Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok to look into the laser surgery. Bangkok is home to both the Rutnin Eye Hospital and Bumrungrad – both the leading centers in Asia for Lasik. I knew already that getting the surgery performed in Bangkok would be at least a 1/3 of the cost of getting it done in the US or other parts of Asia. I went to Bumrungrad first because I had been there before and was familiar with the process. I have mentioned before that the private hospitals like Bumrungrad in Bangkok are just amazing compared to healthcare in places of the FIRST world like the US. I sauntered over to the concierge and asked about Lasik. They politely sent me to the 3rd floor, the eye center, to meet with the staff there. I was greeted promptly and was handed an information kit with prices, guidelines, doctor information and after surgery care schedules. I made an appointment for the following day to meet one of the doctors and to get a thorough examination to determine if I was eligible for Lasik.
The next day I went in for my appointment and after 2 hours of poking and prodding my way through various eye tests I meet with doctor Chate to discuss the possibilities. Chate is renowned in SE Asia for some pioneering work in Lasik and comes highly recommened by some folks I have chatted with. Dr. Chate is a soft spoken, older Thai guy who instantly made me feel at home and comfortable with the path ahead. He quickly summed up my situation as one being eligible for Lasik but that due to my thinner than normal corneas I would need to take the Epi-Lasik route verus the normal Lasik procedure.
Lasik requires somehow removing the front flap of your eye to allow the laser to reshape your lens in order to alter your lens shape to correct your vision. Chate said I should get 20/20 or better and that my reading or close up eyesight would probably improve to be even better than it had been with or without glasses. Sounds good to me, What is the drawback I asked? Well he said. Sometime Epi-Lasik hurts more during the recovery period and sometimes the recovery is slower with normal eyesight taking longer to arrive. Meaning it could hurt like hell while I heal and that it would take 2 weeks or more to start seeing with the corrected vision. Did I have a choice I asked? Dr. Chate said no, It was Epi-Lasik or no laser at all due to my thin corneas. Okay. Sign me up. When can we get going? I don’t really have a schedule these days so anytime was fine with me. He wanted to see me 2 more times to make sure his choice of vision correction did not change so I made a few more follow up appointments over the next few days to verify how much vision correction I needed and during this time I made the appointment to get the Lasik done.
Since I am writing all this while I am still healing I will be breaking this up into different posts but let me answer the subject line before I move on.

Podcasts: I am a big Mac fan, use iTunes and have an iPod. So I signed up to a few podcaats so I had something stimulating to listen to since I was not able to read for almost 2 weeks.

Steroids: No. Not a bodybuilder I will be but to get my eyes healing faster I was using steroid eyes drops for a few days.

Audiobooks: I was getting so bored so thank God for the iTunes store where I downloaded more than a few books to listen to. Will review later.

Frogger: Remember the game? Trying to get your frog across that scary river or crazy street without getting killed? Well Bangkok is not a handicap friendly city in any way, shape or form. My friend Lee told me that he was surprised I was still alive knowing that even with good eyesight he worries about getting killed crossing some of the big streets in Bangkok sometimes. So getting around town when I could not see reminded me of being the little frog in Frogger.

Tylenol: I ate it like candy. It is so cheap in Thailand. You pick up a plastic pack of 10 tabs for 10 baht in Bangkok. That is 25 cents. Yes – that crap you are overpaying for in the US really is that cheap to make. I would go through at least one of these platic packs per day. Yummy.

Richard Simmons: When I was really hurting and board at home I would dance around to some techno music in my underwear trying to forget how much my eyes hurt and get a little exercise in the process. I am sure if I had the hairdo I would be Richard Simmons.

Stevie Wonder: I wore some really dark sunglasses when I went out whether I was inside or not and while talking to people, not looking directly at them, people kept telling me that my Stevie Wonder impersonation was pretty damn good.

There u have it.

Foot Massage

I like foot massage and been getting them ever since I first started traveling to Asia. Some people know this as foot reflexology. U just need to know it feels good and Thailand ranks right up there as one of the best places to get it.

So let me tell of 2 of my favorite places. First one on Sukumvit soi 8 since I live on this street I have to have a foot massage place here. I like the first one on the left - I forget the name. But never fear. Enter Soi 8 from Sukumvit. Look for the Tatoo place on the left and then keep walking and will see a foot massage place. First foot massage place on the left hand side of Sukumvit Soi 8. Good price, mellow place and a good massage. I am a regular there.

Next one is on Sukumvut under the Robinson that is located on Sukumvit and Soi 19. I forget the name here as well but who cares. find the Robinson which is near the Westin. Everyone knows where this Robinson is. Go downstairs, kind of like a basemant that holds the Tops and the food court and right at the bottom of the stairs on the left(naturally) is the foot massage place. One of the best in Bkk I think. Great atmosphere, always a good rub and nice people. They like to help me with my Thai. Tasty food court BTW.

Enough.

Writing!

Here's a prime example of "Men are from Mars, Women are from
Venus"; offered by an English professor from the University of
Colorado for an actual class assignment:

The professor told his class one day: "Today we will experiment
with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple.
Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her
immediate right.

As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph
of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph
and send another copy to me. The partner will read the first
paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send
it back, also sending another copy to me. The first person will
then add a third paragraph, and so on back-and-forth.

Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to
keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking
outside of the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be
written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a
conclusion has been reached."

The following was actually turned in by two of his English
students: Rebecca and Gary.

THE STORY: (first paragraph by Rebecca)
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted.
The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings
at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in
happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must
now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness
was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her
asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the
question.

(second paragraph by Gary)
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack
squadron now In orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things
to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed, asthmatic
bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over
a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geost Station 17," he said into his
transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of
resistance so far..." But before he could sign off, a bluish
particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through
his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him
flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.

(Rebecca)
He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before
he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the
one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards,
Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful
farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing
War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning.
The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared
out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed
unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read, no
television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at
all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's
innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.

(Gary)
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live.
Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership
launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dimwitted
wimpy peaceniks who pushed the unilateral Aerospace disarmament
Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target
for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the
human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the
Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough
firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop
them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium
fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President,
in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean
floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive
explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid Laurie.

(Rebecca)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature.
My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic, semi-literate,
adolescent.

(Gary)
Yeah? Well, my writing partner is a self-centered, tedious,
neurotic, whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent
of Valium. "Oh, shall I Have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some
other sort of F--KING TEA??? Oh no, what am I to do? I'm such an
air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels!"

(Rebecca)
A**hole

(Gary)
B*tch!

(Rebecca)
F**K YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!

(Gary)
In your dreams, Ho. Go drink some tea.

(TEACHER)
I liked this one very much
A+

In Penang...Again...

Not really digging this place all that much but due to a much needed visa run I am here. oh well. Hanging at the bucks in Gurney Plaza drinking an iced one while using the FREE wifi from the coffee shop next door. I bet that sucks...for them. Oh well. Reading business week today while I was getting my haircut. You can ponder as to why I had so much time to read but all I can say is things are looking green these days. Mango green... Anyway it was this big Chindia issue. Insightful but does not say much that most people should already now. The US is in trouble and Chindia is learning to capitalize on it. I was just floored by one of their articles discussing oppurtunities some US people might have due to the demands in Chindia. One example was some US dude living in HK, yeah my mom and dad are moving there for work too,  who speaks fluent Mandarin and sits on Chinese boards to provide Chinese companies the "american" view. Like - yes Wen, we always supersize our value meals. Killed me. I lived in HK and you don't pick up Mandarin - you have to learn it. Given that it is not even the HK native tongue - Cantonese is makes it even more tricky. Plus I just don't see this position as being hugely in demand. But maybe the US can start some night class at Sierra College - The Professional Chinese Board Sitter. I am sure it will take that chick who just got axed from the alternator company only about 3 years to pass it and by then it just might be too late. Interesting. GO BW - thanks for making it all painfully lucid. cya

Pocket PC Phones a plenty...

Geek from the street.... BKK style.

Having lived in Hong Kong, one of the most saturated mobile phone countries on the planet, over the last three years I was wondering what living in Bangkok was going to be like when it came to mobile phone craziness. For the most part I have been pleasantly surprised to see that Bangkok has the goods. Hong Kong being one of the major cities to roll out 3G for the masses was beginning to experience a lack of interest in what I call smart phones or PDA phones. Why you ask - cause the 3G voice prices were amazingly cheap and the handsets were subsidized. Plus all the operators were putting on the big 3G content push - in Asia this means girls, games and gambling. Well Bangkok is not Hong Kong because GSM is king, people love to buy/sell/trade handsets and as of late there are a lot of Smart Phones suddenly available.

There are two main places to check out phones and PDAs in Bangkok. One is Pantip Plaza and the other is Fortune Tower IT Mall. Pantip is bigger but has everything electronic and takes some dickering for a good price plus you get hassled by all the pirate CD, Video, VCD and MP3 vendors. Although for computer stuff this is the place to go. Fortune Tower is a little more focused on phones and of course tends to carry the latest in PDA Phones. My friend and I have been cruising over there the last few weeks to see what the latest is in Pocket PC phones. A quick rundown.

The last few weeks each of the stores has been battling for promoting either the new HP iPAQ 6515 Pocket PC Phone or the Lenovo ET 960 Pocket PC Phone. I am not able to get test models and I am not interested in either phone so I can only give you my impressions of the phones based on playing with them in the store. Based on these two phones I have no intention of trading in my Treo 650 anytime soon. But read on since the new Benq P50 is out. From what I can tell all these phones are running Microsoft Mobile Windows second edition.

The HP phone has been expected around these parts for a while and since the iPAQs are quite popular in Asia so some people I know haven been putting off buying a new phone until they see the new HP.  Let me say that I think this phone looks like it was designed by someone who use to work for Agilent building test and measurement devices. The phone just looks a little clinical - not something I wanted to have in my pocket. The features are there for the most part and HP has certainly come a long way but they just did not go far enough with this phone. First off it is just a crime that this phone is the size it is but without wifi. Kills me. The screen is slick and the keyboard feels good but you get a sense that there is not enough juice in the phone - it just feels sluggish. Including the Mini SD slot and the SD slot is super smart and allows one to use the SD slot for a wifi card and the Mini slot for memory but of course this is not optimal. Anyway - once I came to the conclusion that the phone did not have wifi and just felt too big I really did not dig further. Oh yeah - everyone seems to chat up the GPS capability of the phone and most vendors in Thailand are bundling the phone with mapping software for Bangkok and some other cities in Thailand. Yes this is way cool but jsut not enough to make up for the lack of wifi.

Yes the Lenovo phone is winning design awards and it is one sexy beast but sex appeal is not enough when one can only imagine that dropping the phone in a hurried rush while boarding the SkyTrain in Bangkok will spell certain disaster. It just looks fragile. Across Asia most people are comfortable with the Lenovo brand but when it comes to mobile phones only people in China are used to Lenovo. This is the first Lenovo phone I have seen outside of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Clearly this is the new IBM/Lenovo pushing their way outside the confines of China. I agree with the strategy but I am not sure this device will help that cause. I only bring this up because for the most part when you read about this phone it comes with the verbiage that this is a China only phone which is clearly not true. I did not play with the Lenovo very much because it did not feel like it could take day to day usage without falling apart. For sure you would want to keep this phone in a case which I never do with my Treo. Some of the buttons are even located on the beautiful rounded corners and they just look like that would not survive a fall. The phone is full of features but it is also lacking wifi and it also has a nubbin. The external antenna that some phones like the Treo cannot seem to engineer out. I have learned to deal with it but I don't like it. I will move on from the Lenovo because as one of the shop owners was telling me - everyone was waiting for the Benq P50 and they all felt it would be instantly more popular than either the HP or the Lenovo.

Cruising through Fortune Tower today was an eye opener. Lenovo banners were all but gone and HP was still alive in some of the big iPAQ shops but everywhere else Benq had taken over. It was astonishing. I must say that after playing with the P50 I was for the first time starting to feel like my Treo 650 was getting old. It was not anyone one thing but it was a combination of the better camera, the longer screen, the absence of the nubbin, the wifi and the form factor. Benq had really pulled it together for the first time out. Let me run down some specs:

Audio recorder and activation button
Speakerphone
1.3 megapixel camera with digital zoom and camcorder
Speech command compatible with activation button
5 way nav key and Touch Screen
Benq version of skype
Wifi
SD card - caveat. The slot is SD but the SD card is really a holder for a mini SD card. Not sure I get this but I guess it means you can use SD or miniSD but not at the same time.
Bluetooth
Storage slot for second SIM card - clearly this came from someone in China since roaming countries is not cheap so everyone has 2 or more SIM cards.

Guts:
Intel pxaRXx with wmmx
91 mhz
64 MB ROM/RAM

Software:
Build date for system is 6-21-05
SW ver 1.05
HW ver 1.00
Windows Mobile Second Edition ver 4.21.1088

The specs appear to be cutting edge in the Pocket PC Phone group and I have to say that with the wifi, the keyboard, the longer screen, the SIM card storage slot and the thickness - this is the Pocket PC Phone to get. Since my friend picked up the phone today I hope to play with it a little more and let you know what the day to day usage is like. The wifi works great - that we confirmed.

still alive

still in bkk. school is moving along. 1.5 hours of private thai lessons three times a week. the hardest part is finding time to really sit down and study but slowly I am speaking and understanding a lot more.

ran down to the mini-mart in my apartment building.
2 1.5 litres of coke.
2 birdy iced coffees. Asia is big on the canned coffees. cheap and tasty. no need for 'bucks.
bag of ice

84 baht. I USD=40 Baht. u do the math.

got quoted on Gizmodo today. pretty cool.

cya

Klong Toey...

Once I had decided to abandon the 9-5 steady paycheck world to explore life in Thailand I figured right away that I had better live cheap or I may have to go back to work quicker than I really want to. Cheap is all relative I guess since it all depends on comfort levels and savings accounts. For example - cheap to me is going from one part of Bangkok to another part for 40 baht on a motorcycle taxi. That is 1 buck USD. However I was with another Thai person who had jsut made the same trip and she only paid 20 baht. So yes Thais get it cheaper than farang and cheap is relative.

I had already experienced living "thai" style in a one room apartments before so I was prepared to make that a permanet lifestyle for some period of time. So I chose to live in a typical thai style apatrment building in the Klong Toey district close to the actual heart of Klong Toey. Klong Toey was originally the major slaughtering center for all the live animals that come into Bangkok to be killed, cut and served up as food. Most of the actually slaughtering has been moved away from the center of Bangkok but it is still a very active market for almost anything you can imagine in Thailand and is the biggest slum in Bangkok as well. So rent is pretty cheap around here, street food is plentiful, the outdoor market is full of all sorts of affordable food and you can get an everyday glimpse of real thai society. For more on Klong Toey and Father Joe's outreach program go here. Klong Toey is full of the drug and flesh trade so there are some local folks like Father Joe who try to aid those in need. Kids are generally the most exploited in this environment.

For me the interesting thing is just life around the apartment building or the few small sois around it that I know well. Food is everywhere from small street carts, to small indoor food places and house that double as small eateries. It is all pretty cheap and pretty much anything that is a part of a normal Thai diet is here. No farang food in general. So I am getting used to eating like this and there is even a small market downstairs for anything else I may need for normal day to day use. There is a laundry place downstairs where I can take a bucket of laundry and get it back a few days later all washed and folded for a dew hundred baht. Just too easy.

I also like walking the halls of the apartment building and peering into the open doors to get a glimpse of whatever is going on. Sometimes it is dinner, a mekong/coke karoake session, arguments, illegal dealings, tv watching and just about anything else you can imagine. I am not the only farang in the building but there are not many so in general I also get looked at when cruising around. Of course my Thai is getting better and for me this type of environment is feeling pretty normal.