Gary

My pickup had nearly 90,000 kilometers on the Bridgestone Dueler original tires. The tires still looked good with no cracks and about half the tread left. I changed them because they were no longer safe on wet pavement. They appear to have hardened to the point where they had no traction. If the tires are more than five years old, it would be best to change them. Spending money on new tires rather than chancing an accident seemed to be a good investment to me. I did keep the old tires and someone may be able to use then for a trailer or an old beater pickup for farm use. The tire dealer wouldn't give me anything for them.

I have tried many different brand of maps on my Galaxy S3. I decided that they are all less then decent. Yes, I also tried Sygic and didn't like it either. Sygic lacks detail upcountry and I found it difficult to use. The free map from Nostra was the best of the bunch but you have to be online. If you are serious about a Thailand map, you should buy a Garmin. The ESRI Thailand map is excellent. Avoid the Garmin S.E. Asia map. It sucks. For 3,900 baht, the cheapest model comes with the latest ESRI Thailand map and it is difficult to beat that price. If you buy a Garmin outside of Thailand the new ESRI Thailand maps won't work. They are dual mode, Thai and English. Neither of my US purchased Garmins can't use the latest dual mode map.

I knew one guy who had prostate surgery and he had to start wearing adult diapers. He pissed his pants a couple times a day. No control at all.

I don't like basketball, baseball, hockey or soccer. I DO like American football and boxing.

I can assure you that my condo air con filters are clean. I really don't have much sore throat problems but within 5 days I feel like I am catching a cold. After I go back upcountry it disappears so it is definitely not a cold. I do have allergy problems here in farm country but nothing like I have in Jomtien. And they say salt air is good for you, bullshit.

I have searched and found no information regarding emergency care coverage abroad. I do find it silly that citizens living abroad are denied coverage. Medical care would undoubtedly be cheaper than in the US, at least in most countries.

Social Security did send me a letter regarding Medicare Part B. I emailed them and asked the lady what would be best for me. She told me that since I am living in Thailand and have no intention of moving back to the US, that I would be wasting my money paying for part B. I thanked her and declined paying. I have heard good things about Queen Sirikit hospital in Sattahip. I understand that it is a huge public hospital but I have never been there or heard any first hand reports.

If I were able to travel, Medicare is certainly an option. That's the main reason I paid the premiums until I was 65. My recent medical problem; When I first moved to Thailand, as I said previously, I had LMG health insurance. They could not cancel my insurance policy because of age. What they didn't tell me is that they could raise my premiums and price me out. Nuan talked me into cancelling the policy and instead put about $60 a month in a separate savings account. I have a friend in Jomtien who is a few years younger than I am. He pays a premium of about $2,700 per year for his health insurance. I recently had a stroke, a fairly minor one if any stroke can be called minor. Anyways, my wife insisted that I go see a doctor. The clinic doctor had blood work done and spent quite a bit of time with me insisting that I go to the hospital. The clinic charged me $18 for that. Nuan, my wife, thought that was too expensive. We went to the Loei government hospital. They took blood, checked my blood pressure and did an EKG. I was pleased to see that they had a new GE CT scanner that was only for your head rather than the old claustrophobic tunnel type. From there they put me on an IV drip, two bags full. I wanted a private room but they were all full. I had to stay in the stroke ward for two nights. That was NOT pleasant. Nuan slept on the floor beside my bed. I had several more EKG's and they checked my blood pressure every couple of hours along with taking more blood samples. When we checked out, the hospital gave me a bag full of pills and figured out my bill. It came to about $225 for everything. I'd hate to see what that would have cost me in the good ole USA. When I finish all the pills, I have to go back for a checkup and the doctor may change my meds. I didn't know what to expect from a government hospital but was pleased to see that they had sophisticated equipment and a lot of nurses. I was happy that Nuan stayed with me all the time except for in the CT scan and ex-ray rooms. I don't know why they also gave me a chest ex-ray but they did. I was surprised in the stroke ward. There were two old women, one was dead and one old man out of 14 patients. The rest were fairly young fit looking people. More women than men. One woman, maybe 40 years old had a stroke about two weeks before they took her to the hospital. It was a bad one and her family put her in the mental hospital because they thought she went crazy. She couldn't walk or talk. Follow up; I went back to the hospital as instructed by the doctor. They took another blood sample and of course the normal blood pressure test. I had to wait until the blood sample was checked. The doctor said my blood tested much better than before. Before my triglycerides were way high. They gave me a two month supply of the same drugs and told me to come back in another two months. The checkup and the supply of drugs cost about 1,000 baht. A local friend of mine here had a heart attack. He wanted to go to Loei Ram which is a private hospital. I took him there and they stabilized him. They wanted to take him to Khon Kaen hospital to put in stents or have a bypass. They changed their mind when they found out he had no money. Since I took him in, he told me that they wanted me to pay his bill. He told me to leave quickly at the same time they were paging me. I did leave. They actually called the police. The cop that came to the hospital yelled at the hospital staff and asked them if he was supposed to put him in jail. The cop was angry. He turned around and stomped out. They then loaded him in the ambulance and dropped him off at the government hospital. Loei Ram charged him 13,000 baht for that couple of hours of treatment. He did eventually pay them. He was in the government hospital for several days. His bill there was 6,000 baht. There was no pressure for him to pay. He eventually paid that bill also.

I don't think I'd call it lack of foresight. I had LMG health insurance until I was 65 years old. I chose LMG because the policy had a clause that they could not cancel my policy because of age. What the policy didn't say was that they would be able to price me out with the premiums. My wife now makes me deposit 2,000 baht per month into what she calls my health care account rather than pay crazy insurance premiums. So far, so good. So, yes, I am also self insured.

A number of years ago I went to the annual condo association meeting. The meeting was conducted in Thai so that was the only meeting I ever went to. Each owner was given 2,000 baht because there was too much money in the fund. Recently the staff re-painted the outside of the condo buildings. I had thought they would have hired a contractor. We had a pigeon problem so they changed the condo rules to allow resident cats. There are no pets allowed in the complex. The cats have made life a lot harder for the flying rats. These are examples of how the association saves money. I think the large size of the complex greatly reduces the fees. There are 9 five story condo buildings and about 90 houses in the walled gated complex.

I assume we are talking about monthly maintenance fees. My condo is in a large complex and we pay by the square meter. Ten baht per square meter, so mine is 60 square meters and costs 600 baht per month. My electric bill comes directly from the power company. Other than the 600 baht per month, there are no other fees. Security is top rate, the grounds are neat and trimmed and the swimming pool is pristine. Some of the condo committees are very corrupt and some give their own electricity bills. It is common for those corrupt committees to charge double what the power company charges. Anyone wanting to buy a condo should check to see if the maintenance fund is fat and healthy, how much are the total fees, and additional information about the electricity bills. If the condo office refuses to give you that information, keep looking.

Unfortunately that average certainly does not mean average. If you take the top ten percent earners out of the figures I would bet that the average would drop to less than 10,000 baht per month. Factory workers earning 300 baht per day would only be earning 9,000 baht per month and upcountry farmers are far below that.

When I lived in Jomtien, I used to park my bike at one of my favorite bars and take a baht bus into Pattaya. Trying to park in Pattaya was just too much of a hassle.

It may be just a farang tax. They know MM can afford the extra charge. I'd bet the Thais who have a PCX maybe pay a little more but not 5 times more. This is just another good reason to take the baht buses.

I doubt you'll get many answers. It's like asking how long is a piece of string. No one knows what the future will bring. As for today, I know guys who live here on under 25,000 baht per month. There are other guys who spend more than 100,000 baht per month. As for lady prices and rentals, use the search.

Of course you are a deadbeat the same as I am. You don't work. We deserve to be deadbeats. We worked a lot of years to get into this position and are now enjoying the fruits of our labor.

A good friend of mine, Eddie, ordered a gas BBQ from the USA for Rich Man Poor Man in Jomtien. I think he paid 40,000 baht for it. He can tell you that anything built from regular steel will not last very long. He is still using it but he has a clever Thai metal worker who has totally re-built it several times.

You can get a decent fan for your thousand baht but nothing else.

You'd be better off buying a small air conditioner. It will do the same job with the benefit of some cooling. The smaller the unit, the more it will run and the more moisture it will take out of the air.

My brother in law is the village barber and he also has a small shop that sells beer, cigarettes, soft drinks and some food items. His dog was poisoned. It is a difficult thing to prevent a dog from eating poisoned bait. Keeping the dog inside at night is probably the best way but no way my wife will allow animals in the house at any time. I had a large dog house where I put him at night. He hated staying in his dog house. He didn't seem to mind being on the long chain at night.

I got a good deal on Norton 360. It was $49.95 for a two year subscription. I'm quite happy with it. One thing I liked was that they give you the option to cancel the automatic renewal. Of course I did cancel the renewal option. My US bank offered a free year of McAfee. I signed up for it and found that there were conditions. I had a hard time deleting the program but I finally got rid of all their junk. I will NEVER use McAfee.

Sorry, this is a diesel engine, it doesn't have a distributor. It also doesn't have a timing belt, it has a timing chain.

My Google Chrome got so glitchy that I had to look for another browser. I started using Comodo Dragon. It is based on Chrome and I was quite happy with it except that it has problems with a few websites. I used Firefox for those few websites. A few days ago Firefox had an update. They made a lot of changes and at this point the new Firefox is set as my default browser. It appears to be much faster than it was.

A dog is a good thing to have but you have to put the dog on a chain at night far away from where the assholes can throw poisoned food to the dog. The thieves have no scruples about silencing a dog.

The problem with a house is that if they want to get in bad enough, they will find a way. Their latest trick is to remove enough roofing tiles and go through the roof and ceiling.