philsquest

the adventure I find myself in / das Abenteuer in dem ich mich finde

Month: September 2007

Back in Chiang Mai

27 September, 2007 / / 2 Comments

I’m back in Chiang Mai for a view days. Saturday morning I will go up to Hui Kau Laam with Les and Bill from Australia. Bill is an electrician and will install lights in our new toilets. Three years ago he and his wife did the electricity on the main building. This will be a one day job and we will come back in the evening.

Meanwhile all our kids got sick with a sinus infection. Unfortunately I got it too. So I feel a bit down and out at the moment dragging myself through the day still able to do some work. Probably will crush next week.

We did quite a lot of work in the mountain. I will update the questasia web page soon and put some photos of the work on it.

Team from Australia

21 September, 2007 / / 0 Comments

I will be gone for some days. We have a team from Australia I’m taking up to the mountains. At the same time Lillian is up at the women’s retreat playing in the worship band. We have quite a busy time. So I won’t be blogging till next Wednesday.
According to the weather report we are going to have some sunny days. Which I would be very glad for. We are planing to do some digging in the jungle. The rain is making driving in there sometimes impossible.

One year military putsch anniversary

20 September, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the latest putsch in Thailand. One of many. There was a four page special in the Bangkok post. I remember the day when it was announced. Thaksin was in New York at the time and the army took over the streets with their tanks and soldiers. There was a mix of excitement and fear topped with the question how that would effect us staying in Thailand.

Since then the tanks have left and martial law has been lifted (at least I think so) A new charter has been excepted and Thaksin is in self imposed exile in London enjoying his football club Manchester city. Living here seems to be like before. That means I don’t really understand how this country works. Except that it seems that power and money play a very important role in it.

Things seem to be back to normal. At least on the surface. There is a lot of talk about the democratic development being set back 15 years. Thailand is still under military rule and there have not been elections yet. I’m not sure but martial law in Chiang Mai has been lifted lately. We never really felt there was one. The interim Government is trying hard to keep the peace and hopefully will not stand in the way of the democratic development and elections in the country.

It will be interesting to see how things will develop into the next year. In the meantime I wish Thailand peace.

 

Schlammfinken

19 September, 2007 / / 2 Comments

Dieses mal bin ich wirklich fast stecken geblieben. Nicht das ich mich mit Hilfe der Seilwinde rausziehen könnte. Meistens ist es aber so das wenn ich aus dem Truck aussteigen muss auch im Dreck stehe. Es ist rutschig und klebt wie ein Kaugummi.
Meine "Finken" wurden echt dreckig und trieften nur so.

Schmierfinken

Trip to the Border

18 September, 2007 / / 0 Comments

After being in the jungle delivering material for the Team we have this week, Thomas and I drove up to Mae Sai. He needed his stamp for his Passport and I needed a change of scenary. We drove from Fang to Tathon and then to Mea Chan and turned North to Mae Sai. We passed several check points on the way. Apperently the drug problem is back in full swing six years after the controversial "war on drugs".
I haven’t been back on the border for a while. Nothing really changed there. Last time I was there with Dave & Trix (friends from Switzerland) The bridge that you have to cross is very busy all day with people crossing back and forth. I did the obligatory photo shoot under the sign with the funny English (The Northern Most of Thailand). Then we had lunch overlooking the bridge. Closer to Burma without crossing is not possible. Shopping is not that great really. But living in Thailand for so long one gets used to all the cheap stuff. I bought some "fake Adidas" sunglasses for 120 Baht. They were already broken on the drive back to Chiang Mai. So cheap is not always good. 🙂 We made it back to Chiang Mai after a long drive with lot’s of rain on the way. Will it ever stop pouring down.

Rainy season is in full swing. Every time I go up to the jungle behind Hui Kau Laam to work on the pipeline the road is worse and soon driving there will be barely possible without getting stuck. But who doesn’t like a little adventure in between.

Most_northern_piont

Mae_sai_border

Border_crossing_burma

Thai_burmese_flag

My ibook is back

10 September, 2007 / / 1 Comment

I got a phone call from the Mac shop this morning. My ibook is fixed. I’m so glad to get my old machine back. Next month this laptop will be three years old. When I bought it it had a one year warranty. I added another two years to the ibook with the apple care plan. It extends the warranty for another two years. Next month it would have been expired.
The Mac shop had to change the Logic board (mother board) which would have been an estimated 30,000 Thai Baht. (over 1,000 SFr.) So thanks to God that I had apple care. It would otherwise have been to expensive to get it fixed.

200pxibook_g4

Break down ibook

4 September, 2007 / / 0 Comments

My Mac gave up on me. Yesterday when I wanted to start it only the fan noise would come from the machine. Worse I couldn’t turn it off and had to take the battery out. I brought it to the mac shop. I still have warranty with the apple care plan. What really annoys me is that three weeks ago I already had problems and brought it to the shop twice. They said it was just a system failure. No it is probably the logic board that gave up on me. I wonder if it has to do with humidity and the heat in this country.

I took out my old ibook G3 my kids use. The thing is just to get all the programs and my "stuff" on the machine. This will take some time.

Since we got a 500 Gig. external hard drive from Switzerland (Thank you so much Viktor), we have been backing up everything. So I just lost a view days of data.
I also signed up for a .Mac account. This makes the switching between all the machines a lot easier. When Lillian doesn’t use her E-mac I have my account there as well with all the same data.

Every Man’s dream

2 September, 2007 / / 3 Comments

… or maybe not. But one thing I don’t have to regret when I cross over to 40. I have been on the cover of a magazin.

Magazin_cover_3

I was hanging about 50 meters of the ground on the crazy horse wall in San kam Peng Northern Thailand.
This was the beginning and the end of my modeling career. So I can say now: "Been there done that!"

Goodbye Mathias

1 September, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Yesterday evening I drove Mathias to the Chiang Mai Airport. He was here for three month helping us with the work and take time off from his demanding work.

“Mathias I hope you had a good flight. Thanks again for everything. Have a good start on Monday… (oh boy I don’t know how you going to do it).

I’m going to miss our lunches in the food court, the coffee’s at the corner in Gad Suan Gauw, our many talks and the trips to the mountains.

Have a good start in Switzerland annd don’t forget to ask the important questions of life. ;-)”

Today in the afternoon I cut down a hegde in the garden when I heard an air plane pass. It just started from Chiang Mai international Airport and I could clearly recognize the Airbus A380 (superjumbo with two levels) Lillian wrote about it on her blog. Actually we wanted to go to the airport to see it but kind of forgot.

So I was standing in the garden and thought: “is this a sign? a new area beginning, … oh ney…. just another airplane.”

Quotes

Before I got into midlife crisis I was in pre-midlife crisis. Life an event I don't want to miss!
... am I moving into post midlife crisis now?
Ah! Life is wonderful!!!!

"Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative."

"Life doesn't end here after all :-)"

From now on it's midlife evaluation, not crisis

Just some thoughts

.... to many to bring to paper :-)

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