27 December 2011

Winter

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27 December: Am I still on the same planet? (You don't know how many former high school teachers, classmates and fellow citizens have asked that exact same question of me for my entire life -- in slightly different contexts of course.) Writing in this date of late December is a shock, because in this time of year I was usually ice skating, x-c skiing or ice climbing, yet here I am turning on the fan and lighting mosquito coils for the doorways. It is a latitude-leap, a climate-warp.
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However, last night really was cold. I turned the fan off before midnight. In our winter I sleep with long pj bottoms and a hooded top, with a blanket to cover my bare feet if the fan is too cool. But it was cold -- down to about 60*F -- a Two Cat Night, requiring two cats huddled around one's feet to stay warm. Taking a shower this morning without hot water was a real wake-up call. (We have never had any heating system for the house nor any hot water system.)
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Today we took a trip through insane Bangkok traffic to visit a shopping mall. We walked a bit before getting a taxi, but it was an air-conditioned ride to the a/c mall and theater. An a/c taxi back home at sunset; back into swim trunks and flip-flops after turning on the fan; I didn't sweat once today, and that is very unusual.
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I just read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2005) by Stieg Larsson, and I could not put it down until finished. The film, in its English language version, will be in our theaters soon, so I wanted to read it first. It is a dark story and a bit edgy and twitchy, so it's not for everyone. Delicious. The DVDs of the original Swedish films of the trilogy are available here, so I will later view them.
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The day after finishing the above book I started reading Dan Simmons' Flashback (2011). I love anything Simmons writes, and so far I'm not disappointed.
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-Zenwind.
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26 December 2011

St. Stephen's Day and the Wren

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26 December: St. Stephen's Day. Hmm... I didn't know that our cats were Irish. But it appears that one or more of them have observed the ancient St. Stephen's Day tradition by killing a wren (or another species of bird).
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This morning before Tuk went to work I was out on the open area on our second floor, and I saw some bird feathers. Not wishing to ruin Tuk's day by telling her of this evidence of a possible murder, I said nothing. She doesn't like it when the cats commit such "sins" because it will tarnish their karma and not bode well for their future re-births here in samsara. My reasoning that it is just a natural feline instinct does not impress her.
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After she left I had a closer look. There were many more feathers than I had originally thought under the table -- sure proof of a bird's murder -- and I swept them up and disposed of the forensic evidence.
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"The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,
St. Stephen's Day was caught in the furze...."
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-Zenwind.
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21 December 2011

Boat Trip to Bookstores

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21 December: It is winter solstice, and a fine day it has been. Temperatures were in the mid-80s F and the direct sunlight was hot, but the humidity was comfortably low. Finding a shaded seat on the boat, I enjoyed the north wind blowing down the river. I went into the center of town to get some things for Tuk and to raid a bookstore or two.
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Last Thursday I met up with my libertarian friends, and I used that day's trip to first visit a big bookstore in that part of town. I saw some titles that I have long been looking for, so today I returned and loaded up my rucksack with books. Among my purchases were the Diamond Sutra in Red Pine's translation and, unexpectedly, Dan Simmons' lastest novel, Flashback. My piles of unread books are getter bigger, and deciding which to read next is tough.
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Returning north on the boat was surprisingly comfortable, with the north wind in my face.
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Blessed coolness. Zen delight.
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-Zenwind.
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09 December 2011

A Great Day for a March

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9 December: The temperature at midday was only in the high 80s, and the humidity and dewpoint were much lower than usual – although the sun was blazing hot – so with such a comparatively cool day I did a long march beyond my normal neighborhood walking circuits. I still returned home wringing wet with sweat. (The fact that Christmas is in two weeks is almost incomprehensible here.)
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I walked for the first time in recent months through the area further south of us that was completely flooded a month ago and impassible then to all but big military trucks. This area lies much lower than our neighborhood, so when the levees broke they got hit hard. The watermarks from the floods were sometimes chest-high at the sidewalk level, and what impressed me most today was how very low many storefronts and homes were. Many of them were flooded up to their ceilings. Complete devastation.
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In our near neighborhood, garbage piles are still appearing overnight after the cleanup from the day before. Massive amounts of furniture and belongings are ruined and thrown out. It is a rag-picker’s windfall.
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There has been a homeless family or two living on the sidewalk under the big bridge since the first flooding. Lots of little kids were running around until this week when school finally started up the new term. They have a tent for mosquito protection at night, as well as some chairs and couches. Notably, they hooked into a nearby outdoor electric outlet, and they have a huge TV set there in their little urban campsite. Life is simple in its basics, but there are priorities. (Yet I would have chosen differently: a radio and a big bag of books.)
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-Zenwind.
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02 December 2011

Normal Exercise Again

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2 December: I started lifting (light) dumbbells again after a long, long lapse. I don’t even know how long ago I last lifted weights in a fitness routine because my old lifting log sheets are still lost amongst the chaotic piles of stuff we hurriedly brought upstairs when we were flooded. But I started lifting again this week, and I’m taking it slow and easy at the start-up, so the muscle pains are not too bad – and not nearly as bad as the aches and pains from moving heavy sandbags and appliances during the flood. Our all-too-brief winter here is the best time to exercise because the humidity is not at its brutal normal.
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I took a taxi to a shopping mall today, needing a haircut, some electrical cords, and any books worth getting. It is the first time I’ve been down that way since the flooding, and this area south of us was hit very hard. I saw the high-water marks on buildings and walls, looking like a dirty bathtub ring but at chest level or sometimes higher. Many shorter shrubs and bushes were killed by being under water for too long, making our normal green streets less colorful. People are still shoveling out their homes and drying stuff in the sun.
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On the way home I had a taxi driver let me off way short of home so that I could have a good long walk the rest of the way. With all the exercise I’ve been getting lately, I’m hitting the sack early tonight. Our cats agree that this sounds like an excellent idea.
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-Zenwind.
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25 November 2011

Melancholia

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25 November: No, I’m not suffering from melancholia, but I just saw an interesting film by that name. I went into Bangkok, just for movies and books, for the first time in a long, long while.
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The express boats finally resumed service this week after a month off, and I got to see things at river level again. The river is brimming, and many locations along its banks are flooded badly. Riverside houses that have always seemed to be suffering foundation failure are now collapsing. Other houses are probably now doomed. Everywhere, huge pumps are trying to get water out of the neighborhoods and back into the river. As I’ve said before, it is astounding that so much water is flowing by.
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I almost missed the express boat. As I was walking toward the pier I looked ahead and saw the southbound boat coming in, and they wait for no one. Waiting for the next one would mean a 20 minute wait, so I ran an obstacle course around sidewalk vendors, children, homeless sojourners, and sleeping soi dogs. The boatswain had just thrown the cable from the pier’s peg back onto the boat and had piped to the pilot to go on, when I took a running leap to land on deck. (Love those sure-footed sports sandals.) This was much more exciting than waiting for another boat.
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The film Melancholia (2011) was a rather odd movie, two hours and ten minutes of strangeness. Oddness and strangeness are not necessarily bad. Written and directed by Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier, it starred Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling, and some other good actors. I am not really recommending it, since most people will not like it, although a few might. I had wanted to see it for weeks, but the flooding kept me from getting to it. Afraid it would soon end its run in the one theater here that has been showing it, I made a point to come in and see it in a matinee.
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It is about two sisters who seldom ever get along, and now a huge planet named Melancholia is suddenly going to crash into and destroy Earth. During earlier “normal” times, Justine (Dunst) is crazy, dysfunctional, hurtful and disturbing, while her sister Claire (Gainsbourg) is stable and comforting. But watch how they each deal with the coming annihilation as it closes in. Great acting by two great actresses. My main criticism is the poor sound quality; in early scenes the whispered dialogue given by Charlotte Gainsbourg is inaudible; I will have to wait for a DVD with subtitles to find out what she said.
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-Zenwind.
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22 November 2011

Back to Normal?

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22 November: What is normality here in Thailand, anyway? Well, the opposing political factions are demonstrating in the streets and/or threatening to riot against each other, and that seems very much the status quo ante here.
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Today my parents-in-law hired local people, who are out of work because of the flooding, to clean up our courtyard front and back. I am very grateful, because doing it myself would have probably killed me. I cannot lift another sandbag. I spent last night unable to sleep because of aching, screaming-in-agony pain all over my body. (Well, I did not actually scream out loud, but I did bite down hard on a towel to keep from moaning and waking Tuk or scaring the hell out of the cats.) Some day I will admit that I’m getting old, or that I’m out of shape.
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Workers have torn down the elevated boardwalks in our neighborhood that we all used to navigate above the floodwaters. We can walk down dry sidewalks now. Things smell a bit better. I think normality is on its way.
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-Zenwind.
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19 November 2011

Dry

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19 November: In the last two days things have almost dried out, although other areas are still dealing with floodwaters. Tuk and I left on an outing today at 08:00 and still had to exit via the boardwalk and ladder over the wall, because of the thick mud still in the courtyard. But when we returned at 16:00 her parents were directing some hired folks who were shoveling out the mud and garbage from the alleyway and courtyard, so we could walk in the front gate for the first time in three weeks.
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Our outing was a trip to Chonburi, a two-hour drive to the Gulf of Thailand. We went to visit some dogs and to get out of town for a break, now that transportation has improved. Tuk’s brother’s three dogs were taken there for safety when his house (and soon ours) was flooded three weeks ago. A family outside Chonburi boards dogs and takes very good care of them. I was impressed by the guy’s knowledge of dogs and love of them.
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We had to cut straight across Bangkok, and I hadn’t been into that part of town for years. I was gawking at the skyscrapers and freeways like a hick on his first trip to a city. In the open countryside south of Bangkok it is surprising once again to see how incredibly flat the land is.
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Chonburi, however, has a few hills, and I saw actual bedrock for the first time in quite a while. (I saw additional rock when Tuk’s friend bought herself a new mortar and pestle made completely out of granite. The handle end of the pestle was polished glass-smooth, and it was beautiful to see.)
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The direct sunlight was hot, but the shore of the gulf had nice breezes, and we had a good meal there before returning north.
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Thailand seems to be slowly returning to normal, including the norm of rising political tensions.
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-Zenwind.
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17 November 2011

Floodwaters In Retreat

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17 November: The floodwaters are giving way a bit. Our ground floor room (our former main living quarters) is almost dry, but outside in our courtyard and in our entrance alleyway it is still choked with filthy water almost up to the knee. The small soi off to our northeast is still deeply flooded. To leave our property, we still must use our elevated plank walkway and the ladder over the wall. Technically we are still flooded.
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However, the floodwaters out on our main soi started to go down dramatically yesterday afternoon, and today its sidewalk is completely dry. Floodwater remains in lower lying neighborhoods, such as our place and the soi to the nearest wat (Buddhist temple). It is hard to say when these areas, including ours, will drain.
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Yesterday I did not venture out; it was a rest day for me to catch my breath because my back, pelvis and knees are still screaming with unholy pain from this whole long ordeal. Today I stretched thoroughly and carefully, and then I walked (sauntered) my customary 4k walking route to the hospital and back, and for first time in weeks it was dry the whole way. My feet did not get wet once. Garbage removal was well done. It is almost back to normal in the larger neighborhood.
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I bought some token snacks (mainly small cans of cold coffee and chips) from the small sidewalk concession of a Chinese mother and her adult son on route, as I usually do every time I pass by them. They are treasured friends. Further on, the river was high, fast and brimming the levee as usual these days, but the water was contained. A lot of water is still streaming southwards.
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Many Bangkok residents who had a place to go up-country away from the floodwaters had left town weeks ago. A lot of them are still gone because their homes here are still flooded and there are no places to park their cars. So the streets and sidewalks are a bit less crowded at the moment and it was easy to walk fast.
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My friend who has a key-duplication stand across from the hospital has returned, and I talked with him today. He speaks very good English because he had lived in the USA for a few years at one time, and we chat whenever I pass by. He is a great guy. Recently he had gone up-country to stay dry and has now returned for business. I will bring him some keys to duplicate soon.
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Apparently this floodwater retreat will mean easier transportation into downtown Bangkok in the future, plus the ability to return home late, which is critical. Tuk is suggesting a couple of ventures outside our neighborhood in the next few days, so I am plotting to get her to agree to visiting a live music venue or two this weekend on our way home. Heh, heh. I’m completely evil, I know, but get over it! Even evil folks must hear the Blues and Rock n Roll now and then.
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-Zenwind.
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15 November 2011

Neighborhood Flood Zone

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15 November: On today’s walk around my neighborhood, I had slightly more dry sidewalk than ever, but I still had to wade through deep water to get out of our house and block. The water level in our ground floor has risen up almost to the ankle again, but the level on the streets and sidewalks beyond our block is down a few inches. Once I get to the river the sidewalks are quite dry. The river level is still very high, almost brimming the sandbag levee. The amount of water streaming past us from the north is amazing – it just keeps on coming. Our main street south past the hospital is still deeply flooded, and we are still boxed in and unable to travel.
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Thai friends along the way communicate how high the water is at their houses by gesturing knee level, waist level, chest level, neck level, etc. Our once highest flooding of knee level makes us very lucky compared to most people.
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For the first time in weeks, the big mountains of garbage that were growing on many intersections are cleared. People had also thrown out flood-damaged furniture and other debris, and sometimes I had to walk in the street to get around it. At one spot today a huge bulldozer was scooping up junk from the sidewalk and loading it into big trucks.
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Now that every day is quite sunny, people are bringing out wet stuff to dry, and it is giving me a good indication of how much people have been affected by this flood. Few got by unscathed.
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It seems that sandbags were not enough in most cases when it came to stopping the water. Even sandbag levees packed by experts suffered leakage because of the slow, steady rise of water from every direction. The only benefit from our horrendous labors building sandbag levees around our place is that the water that seeped through to our ground floor room was filtered a bit to exclude larger bits of garbage. The water is still quite vile, especially outside around our house.
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Now – ironically when it is too late – I feel I have a bit of experience with sandbags and their effectiveness. If I had it to do over again, and if I had enough materials and help, I would use 10 times the sandbags along with two hundred meters of sturdy plastic sheet. Along with that I would have four or five powerful pumps to pump water seepage out. Ah, blessed hindsight!
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-Zenwind.
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12 November 2011

Outsider

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12 November: I will probably not be posting here every day now that being surrounded by floodwaters is becoming the norm. We are still surrounded by water on all sides, and we don’t know when it will drain. It's a long haul. Many everyday items are still not available, but we are getting used to it and it’s not a big deal.
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Our biggest street going southwards into Bangkok still has unpredictable flood levels, and traveling anywhere is uncertain. The biggest hardship for me about all this is that I cannot venture into Bangkok for movie theaters and bookstores, and, especially, to attend the newly re-opened Tokyo Joe’s Blues Bar, the premier Blues venue in-country that had closed well over a year ago but is now back for four nights a week. But since many others here in Thailand have suffered much more than me I will quit whining.
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But you can bet that I will be there at Tokyo Joe's listening to the Blues the very first chance I get. Until then, I’m an outsider trying to find a dry spot above the floodwaters. And being an outsider has definitely never been an unfamiliar vantage point for me.
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-Zenwind.
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10 November 2011

Marine Corps Birthday

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To all Marines: "Here's health to you and to our Corps..." (see Marines' Hymn)
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Happy Birthday. Semper Fi.
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-Zenwind.
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09 November 2011

Headline: Thai Floods Reduce Beer Supplies to a Drip

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9 November: Yes, it’s that bad. Beer rationing signals the decline of a civilization, and we might be headed there.
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However, before we even placed the first sandbag here at home, I had hoarded a substantial amount of Chang Classic, my first choice of beer here. This hoard was increased by the generous gift of a case of the same beer from Tuk’s girlfriend on the very day the flood hit us. Bags of ice are now more easily found in the neighborhood, so we are doing okay in that respect.
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This morning I walked to the hospital for a prescription and then checked out the flooding on the way home. The river is still high but not brimming over, and in some places the water appears to have receded a bit. Because there is still dirty water at calf height all around our compound, we still exit and enter via an elevated footbridge and a ladder over the wall.
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Our ground floor – which was always our main living quarters – is now cleared of all but an inch of water, and most of the wet junk is thrown out. Best of all, our regular ground floor shower room (Thai-style, water tub under faucet with a dipper) is operational again, although we must still use 2nd floor toilets. I am beginning to like this dry and airy 2nd floor living, and I appreciate more than ever why classic Thai houses are built up on stilts.
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-Zenwind.
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08 November 2011

Exhausted

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8 November: Apparently we will not see much more flooding in our neighborhood, although other parts of the Central Plains south of us are still expecting the floodwaters to reach them soon. We still wade in water on the ground floor and outside the house. We could still have water levels rise again in our house and street, but after what has already hit us it would not be that dramatic.
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We are flood veterans now – although many Thais have experienced much, much more traumatic flooding for a longer time. For us it went through several phases: watching news predictions; moving stuff upstairs and building sandbag levees around the house; the flooding itself when the levees were not enough for the huge volume of water; now the gradual receding of floodwaters. Next will be clean up, but now is time for exhaustion.
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I had lifted heavy sandbags and moved heavy stuff upstairs – efforts that I never thought I could do at my age. My knees and back still scream with pain. Now I’m just tired out.
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-Zenwind.
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06 November 2011

Electricity with Water Everywhere

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6 November: Among the 500 plus deaths caused by the recent flooding here in Thailand, there are many who died of electrocution when wading in water. I have always been scared to death of electricity, I respect it, and I take no chances. I thank my cousin for his concern and his reminder of the dangers involved.
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We are lucky that our electric service was never cut off during this crisis – without electric fans I would wilt, and the mosquitoes would eat us alive at night. Our two main circuit breaker switches, both the one for our half and the one for the parent-in-law half of the house, are located high on the ground floors (about eight feet up), and all electrical outlets on the ground floor are at least chest-high. This house was designed with floods in mind. We only threw the main switches a couple of times, and only temporarily. This was when the water was at its highest, knee-high.
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My procedure when handling main switches or outlets went like this: Dry hands; place a sturdy plastic stool with a dry top under switch; fold a dry foam camping pad over four times and put on stool; lift one bare foot up and have Tuk dry it with a towel; place dry foot on pad; lift other foot out of water and have Tuk dry it; gain sure balance on stool and pad; make sure hands are dry and not touching any metal; touch switch/circuit breaker only with dry plastic over hand. I take no chances with electricity, and I think Ben Franklin (bless his genius mind) was insane and very lucky.
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We power our new 2nd floor abode (which has no outlets) by extension cords from below. The wiring in this building is unbelievably ancient and scares me. We are careful to use only some electrical devices in combination so as not to overload the archaic system. Someday we will replace it with a properly grounded system.
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Water levels continue to go down, but very slowly. The smells of the beached debris below us and outside in the neighborhood are strong. In my daily walk I saw huge piles of garbage, because no pickup has been possible. If we don’t get flooded anew this week by high tides, the tasks ahead are being watchful for waterborne diseases and cleaning up the aftermath. I feel like I’m working in a hospital again, given the strict hygienic regimen we follow.
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-Zenwind.
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Water Level Is Down a Bit

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6 November: The water level in the 1st (ground) floor at our house has gone down from knee-deep a few days ago to below ankle-deep now. That still doesn’t mean that we are safe from new flooding in the near future. After all, TIT (This Is Thailand). Anything can happen here.
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-Zenwind.
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05 November 2011

Fifth of November

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“Remember, remember the fifth of November…”
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-Zenwind.
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04 November 2011

Markets and Spontaneous Order

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4 November: Today I went out scavenging for food and useful items, walking my normal route and visiting friends along the way. The river level was down a bit, but high tides in the future may bring it up again, so we cannot relax our guard for threats of more flooding.
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I am amazed at the thriving little markets that have sprung up on any small bits of the streets or sidewalks that are higher and dryer than most. Everything is on offer, whatever is demanded is supplied. Mainly food is sold, but also rubber boots, bottled water and many other things. No one person organized or coordinated these markets, and certainly no government did or even could.
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There is too much information contained in such coordinated activity for any central planners to process. It is a “spontaneous order” that comes about when numerous individuals see opportunities to buy or sell. Each individual uses their own unique knowledge of their needs and strengths to make economic decisions. Given a Rule of Law culture that recognizes and allows free trade amongst equals, such markets are the model of true cooperation.
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Historically, ideas that might be called spontaneous order can be traced to Chuang Tzu, the ancient Chinese Taoist philosopher, but they became embedded in Western culture in the Scottish Enlightenment of the late 18th century. Adam Ferguson, David Hume, Adam Smith and others applied such ideas of freely organizing forms of social activity to the original emergence of language, law, economies, science, etc. Ferguson described it as “the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.”
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More recently, spontaneous order as an explanation for human coordination has been developed further by the Austrian School of economics – L. von Mises, and, especially, F.A. Hayek. Hayek’s last book, The Fatal Conceit, spells it out concisely.
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People thrive when left freely alone to cooperate. I’m seeing that every time I walk down the street.
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-Zenwind.
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03 November 2011

Missions Accomplished

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3 November: Two major accomplishments today: Immigration Office visit and paperwork done, and a bridge built over our polluted knee-deep water surrounding our house.
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I did virtually nothing to contribute to these successes. Tuk went with me as a guide into the heart of Bangkok, and her cousin did the last miracle.
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Considering how messed up transportation is due to many roads closed by floodwaters, it is a creative nightmare linking up the means to get around. There are no express boats for the time being and few taxis on flood zones. From our flooded intersection at the police station, Tuk contacted two motorcycle taxi drivers to take us over the bridge on the great Chao Phraya River. I haven’t been on a fast open-road cycle ride in a long time, and it was fantastic. From there we lucked out to find a regular taxi to take us straight across the city to Immigration. People will do anything for Tuk.
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Immigration at the old office was more than the usual chaos, but the job was eventually finished. Traditionally, when completing frustrating Immigration visits, I would take Tuk to The Hard Rock Cafe, but today I took her to an expensive restaurant called Café Chili, Northeastern Thai food, the really good spicy hot stuff. It brought tears to my eyes. We got home via taxi, then bus, then walked the rest of the way through water.
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A really pleasant surprise awaited us when we returned home. The husband of Tuk’s cousin fixed a walkway bridge above the horribly polluted water that surrounds our house and our neighborhood block like an evil, smelly, stagnant bog. It is actual sewage plus.
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Our problem had been leaving and entering the house while wading through the filth. Once you get to the main sidewalk, it is a series of temporary elevated walkways that take you to the main intersection. The water in the intersection is sometimes deep, but it is moving and is thus not as fetid. This new walkway leads from our 2nd floor steps over our flooded 1st floor's water, over the flooded courtyard, and to the main walkway (by using our big stepladder to surmount the wall), we don’t have to wade through the filth again. I honestly did not think it could be done with materials at hand, but Thai ingenuity proved me wrong, to my delight.
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No one has ever mistaken me for a handyman who can fix things. Rather, I usually break anything I touch. (To be fair, I can set a tight fence for cattle or horses, I can set up a bombproof climbing belay, and I can often cobble together quick fixes with rope and knots.)
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While getting around in a big city as a foreigner looked easy when I knew a couple of trustworthy transportation connections, when chaos hits and nothing is operating as normal, then I need more than my map and compass. I really appreciate the kindness and helpfulness of Thais when stuff hits the fan. They are wonderful people.
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In an unrelated news item, it seems that 15 Green Mamba snakes escaped when their owner’s property was flooded. This was not in our district, but they are up-river in our province. Green Mambas are native to Africa, and this guy had them evidently as pets. They are deadly and they are on the loose. Great.
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-Zenwind.
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02 November 2011

New Digs

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02 November: We are settling in to our new digs, one floor higher and much dryer than our flooded 1st floor below. But coming and going from the house still means that we must wade through knee-deep dirty water get to the soi (street). There is an elevated temporary board walk from the nearby utility office complex to the main street. Many sois are closed nearby.
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For our extended family of four, we now have two toilet stalls and two bath stalls operating, thanks to Tuk and her cousin getting water to the second floor via a longer hose from below. Running water! I’ve been rigging clotheslines, and everyone has finally washed adequate clothing.
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Yesterday I did my climb to the roof by going out of our 3rd floor window and up a rusty ladder with a solidly placed static rope next to it. I took my laundry up and it dried quickly. My procedure: I put on a climbing harness, clip the rope into my Petzl ascender on my harness, and that provides my safety net. The ascender ratchets, and I can move up but not down, so if the ladder fails the rope will catch me (theoretically). Coming down, I release the lock momentarily to go down a step at a time, and if I fall I will be caught.
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I love the feeling of height again. Small balance shifts, precise footwork, meticulous attention to clips and technical details, and well-thought-out moves are all so exhilarating. There is no room for error, and it makes you feel so proud and glad to be a free rational being.
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Yesterday I also went out to do my routine walking circuit, but it was hard going because of the water. The highest water was on our soi, and some of the other parts of the sois were either flooded lightly or not at all. I checked on some my friends along the route but not everyone was outside. The vendors I knew had no customers because the road ahead was closed to traffic. There is a Chinese woman along that stretch who has a small table out with snacks and a refrigerator with cold drinks. I stopped to buy something cold; her house was lightly flooded.
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But new vendors I’ve never seen before are out in droves on one intersection. It is a small, narrow, two-lane soi, but now it is one-lane because the new vendors have set up on both sides. They are supplying all kinds of food, water, rubber boots, etc., and it is very crowded on the corner by the police station.
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On one stretch of sidewalk near the river, the sidewalks and streets were quite empty, so I sat on a bench and listened to the newly arrived birds from the north. I’ve never witnessed such quiet there before.
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Tomorrow I might venture into Bangkok if I can find a way. I need to file some immigration paperwork, and my own province’s immigration office is flooded and so is the main one for Bangkok. I heard that the old office in the inner city is operating, so I will go for it before it too is flooded. I haven’t been in a bookstore for an eternity, and this might be my chance.
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Tuk somehow bought some bags of ice!
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-Zenwind.
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31 October 2011

Halloween: The Monster Mash

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“The scene was rockin’ all were digging the sound …”
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This classic Halloween song always reminds me of my late great friend, Ron D. The full lyrics and backstory are found Here.
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-Zenwind.
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Still Knee-Deep

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Sunday 30 October: The floodwater level increased only a little during the night, so perhaps it won’t go higher. But we are still knee deep in the shit when we descent to the first floor or outdoors. I haven’t visited the internet since Friday the 28th, so I’m behind on the news. (See the post below for my first writing since we were flooded.) We have had continuing help from Tuk’s cousin, who is staying here for a bit to help us.
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Clean tap water is still not working right to the upstairs bathrooms, and this is due to the water authority being forced to cut their pressure and volume. But the tap in the flooded 1st floor still works, and we have been carrying bucket upstairs to bathe with.
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Finally, at dusk today, we rigged a hose from the functioning downstairs tap and going up to the 2nd floor. It still doesn’t quite reach the shower/toilet area, but it is close enough to haul there in buckets filled by the hose. Thus, more easily taken showers.
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The crescent moon is slipping down to the horizon, and my back is killing me, so I’ll stop writing for the night.
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Monday 31 October, Halloween: It is 14:00 hours and I’m too tired to move. Today I hauled all my books up to the 3rd floor. I’ve only been in Thailand for five and a half years, but I’ve accumulated quite a little library.
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We finally got our WiFi hooked up to get online. Before the flood hit us, I was reading news a lot. Now, I think I’ve completed withdrawal, and all news seems like old news. There is still too much to do here in the aftermath of the flood, and the water level is unchanged – still knee deep.
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At 17:00 the water pressure and volume will be high, so we will do the ritual of wading downstairs to turn on the water for the hose; then we fill the big shower barrel. Now I will do something I never used to do: take an afternoon nap.
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-Zenwind.
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Knee-Deep in the Shit

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Saturday 29 October: Last night the floodwater was ankle-deep in our first floor (i.e., ground floor) living quarters, but we still slept in our bed there anyway, too exhausted to move anything more. All of that brutal sandbag work was in vain, except that it stopped some of the more scary critters from coming in the house.
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We woke up to floodwater a bit higher and the promise of more on the weekend. All levees of ours failed – there is just too much water. It is incredible. We waded through the wreckage trying to take it all in. The first floor is up to the knee now in filthy water, and even higher out in the courtyard, and we cannot bathe properly. Considering the sometimes primitive sewage systems here, one doesn’t like to think too vividly about how filthy it is. This experience gives the old expression about “being knee-deep in the shit” a very personal meaning.
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Morning priorities:
1. Get cleaner tap water running to the upstairs toilet area which has a toilet and a bathing room (a 2nd floor open area that we will have to share with parents-in-law next door since both their downstairs toilet out back and ours in our quarters are swamped).
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2. Knock a hole in the floor of the 2nd floor room above us in order to connect us with two rooms directly above. The old stairway from 1st to 2nd had been sealed off for decades above a little loft that Tuk uses for storage. The parents live in a similar loft in their half of the building with a hallway running beneath to their back toilet area, but they have stairs leading directly to 2nd floor. To get to our two upstairs rooms, we have had to go to their side for the stairway. If a hole could be made, our three rooms would be linked. Not only could we then move stuff higher, but it would be a wonderful area to live: storage space plus direct access to my 3rd floor window leading out to my climb to the roof.
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3. Move things up when we can and however we can before water reaches them.
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Tuk’s cousin, a young Thai woman, came to help us, as did a friend of Tuk’s and her strong son. I don’t know what we would have done without them. We did some heavy work, especially connecting the 1st floor with the 2nd and 3rd by knocking out the floor separating the stairs. Once that was done, we hauled up huge loads up steep narrow stairs, e.g., the refrigerator, the bed, and the treadmill. We did all this work in bare feet – it is Thai custom to take off shoes before entering a house, and with some of the unspeakably dirty water in the tropics I can understand why.
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These days upon days of heavy sandbagging and moving big stuff have left me depleted and in pain at the end of each day. My knees and hips hurt, as well as my back. My feet are taking a beating from being in dirty water so much. The main reason people are needing medical care during this flood emergency is foot problems. At each rest period, and especially at night, I scrub my feet with an old tooth brush and antibiotic soap; then I dry them.
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Possible upsides for us from this flood:
(Caveat: We are luckier than most to have less than a meter of water and dry rooms upstairs; many Thais have lost everything.)
For us, this might be a great opportunity to lose weight and gain muscle, since there is not much to eat and we are working our tails off. The other thing is that it forced the opening of the stairway upstairs; I feel like it heralds a new life, since the 1st floor was shut in and always felt like a basement. As I type this, I have a window view of the Southwest and watch the waxing crescent moon make her passage. And my 3rd floor window to the outside and the roof is right there at hand.
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-Zenwind.
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28 October 2011

Ankle-Deep in Floodwater

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28 October: Actually, by the time I post this, it is over ankle-deep in floodwater. And the water just keeps on coming.
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Dawn: Water finally seeped in to our drainage ditch out back, my worst fear because it is the most vile water. Tuk woke me up at midnight to tell me water was appearing. (I am super groggy at night because I am now taking a bigger dose of FMS sleeper meds, my “zonkers,” since this backbreaking sandbag routine started.) I staggered out, and to my horror, saw that while I had slept, Tuk’s mother had decided to move sandbags that I had in reserve to plug totally useless spots. The two of them dragged/ carried/ muscled my reserve bags to the other side of the compound. I was so sedated I had to lean against the wall for support. I threw a few sandbags on the spot I had planned to reinforce at the head of the ditch, then I had to go back to bed and zonk out.
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Midmorning: This morning I went out at 07:00 and carried the misplaced sandbags back to more useful spots, dripping with sweat before 08:00 – and the sun was not even high yet (and my family in the States said they have already had snow!).
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Went up to the roof with field glasses to survey the scene. Water coming toward us from the East (from river) and from South and West, turning the streets into rivers. It is a slow inundation, rather than a raging torrent. But it is on the steady rise.
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Noon: Water invading. One of Tuk’s girlfriends just brought me an entire case of Chang Classic beer. Much appreciated, as doctors never give adequate pain meds to people in pain. Meanwhile, I have been trying to write this, trying to read the incoming news items, and trying to deal with the latest catastrophe. Tuk again found some sandbags and had them delivered by workers she hired from her workplace. These guys are sandbagging experts, and I learned a lot watching them pack those babies in. As I mentioned before, in Vietnam we manhandled many a sandbag, but we stacked them as protection from bullets and incoming explosive rounds – a very different art from stopping water.
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Mid-afternoon: News reports have said that the flood is bringing out snakes, centipedes, crocodiles, and other critters. Indeed, this afternoon Mother-in-law and I where reinforcing a sandbag levee in the back of the house when I saw a monster centipede a foot long on the lower wall not a foot away from our heads as we were bending over our work. She grabbed a broom and swept it away while saying something in Thai, and the tone said it was not a very welcoming message. The centipede swam away surprisingly fast. That big guy was a creature out of nightmares.
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Small-time, lower class, country folk entrepreneur families I’ve never seen before are visiting street corners, selling eggs, etc., from backs of small pickup trucks or just from baskets on the sidewalk with their kids in tow. This is true laissez faire capitalism at its best: supply and demand; cooperative voluntary interaction. Its structure as a group of buyer/seller equals solidifies a true community.
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There are ignorant laws here against “price gouging” and “crisis profiteering” – all fascist Nixonian-style idiocies. But if scarce items are in demand and needed, then the producer/ retailer who has the guts and takes the extra effort and risk to get it to us, the consumers who need them, deserves whatever profit he can get, whatever the Free Market – that great liberal law of fairness and voluntary cooperation – can bear. These entrepreneurs are heroes, and I hope their kids see the value of the individualistic effort, thought, and fairness that their parents model for them.
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After another heavy workout with new sandbags, I took a walk around my familiar neighborhood circuit to check on friends. A couple of them seemed to escape the worst of it so far, but no one is betting on what tomorrow brings.
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Our soi is almost knee deep in water. Our courtyard is ankle deep now. We have a decent system of levees that we hope keep water out of our living quarters. It all depends on how high the water gets. Parents-in-law live in a loft next door which is high enough to be protected. Tuk and I live on the ground floor and are more vulnerable.
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Our beloved cats are afraid to go out into the flooded courtyard, so I have brought in sand and am intending to potty train the bloody heathens. Hah! Let’s see how that goes. I'm a rabid individualist, but cats beat me in that category: "Piss on you!" is their motto.
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My back is killing me, and I hope to have some Chang therapy later. The water outside is half-way to the knee and rising. Water is now coming into our living quarters. Work needs doing. So I shall stop rambling.
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“If the levee breaks/ I’ll have no place to stay.” -Led Zeppelin.
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-Zenwind.
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27 October 2011

Feeling Beat: Beaten Up and Beaten Down

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27 October, evening: Screaming pain has now been added to the beat feeling again. (See the earlier note I wrote in the afternoon for the context.) While in the act of heaving the heavy sandbags, I do not hurt so much, but when I sit down afterward it feels like someone hit me square in the back with a baseball bat – a homerun swing.
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Tuk and I laid a good foundation for levees in four points of floodwater entry to our home. Trying to get the levees watertight is the challenge, and I’m still not sure how well we did the job. I never laid sandbags to stop water before but rather for bullets.
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I’m in too much pain to write anymore tonight.
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-Zenwind.
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Sandbagged

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27 October: My back is absolutely killing me; every muscle in my body is screaming in pain; and, to add to the aggravation, we have a good chance of being flooded tonight. Levees are breaking more and more everywhere around us, like falling dominoes.
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My pain is the result of working too hard yesterday with heavy sandbags. I have been out of shape for too long, and now I’m paying for it. Being an old guy is no excuse. And the job isn’t even half finished.
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I never thought that we could ever get sandbags, but yesterday Tuk somehow acquired some big sandbags through her friends. She and I worked last night after sundown, hauling and placing them. I was absolutely wringing wet from sweat by the time we quit for the night.
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I am not sure that our sandbags will even make any difference, since floodwaters can come into our home through so many different channels. Yesterday, while brainstorming and surveying our home environs, we found many unexpected huge holes in our perimeter that we are unable to plug. So it is now damage control, deciding which areas to try and keep dry, and which to allow to flood, if and when the flood arrives.
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All of this means going out to manhandle more sandbags tonight, and it probably means getting up during the night to check for incoming water – if I can even move by then. The worst thing about this entire nightmare is its long, drawn-out and never ending character.
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-Zenwind.
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25 October 2011

25 October Thai Flood Report

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My brother-in-law’s house – some 4 or 5 klicks away from us as the crow flies but reached only by twisted roundabout roads – has major floodwaters surrounding it, so my father-in-law is here with us. Brother-in-law’s house is not yet wet, but it now has about a meter and a half of water menacing it.
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My midday local recon of the river saw the level down slightly from last night, but I’ve found that doesn’t mean anything since the levels have been fluctuating wildly according to tides and unpredictable runoff from the flooded North. I walked as far down our main street as possible before reaching the section blocked by water. Riverside levees had broken in spots downriver from us.
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This slow and steady onslaught of floodwaters is wearying. The latest news is that this coming weekend will see the river overflowing its banks in most places because of high tides and runoff. To top it off, a thunderstorm is approaching right now. Dukkha.
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-Zenwind.
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24 October 2011

I Just Had to Look

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Evening of 24 October: Of course I just had to do an after-dark recon of the neighborhood, especially after reading increasingly alarming local web reports about flooding events getting closer and closer to us.
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I was shocked to find the Chao Phraya River was much higher than I had ever seen it, right up to the top of the sandbag levee and flowing fast. Much, much higher than yesterday, and much more than government officials predicted. The water seepage through the river-front levee was up to the sidewalk, and a pathetically thin second levee had been built a bit higher at the sidewalk level. The bottom line is that the river levees here are very close to being overwhelmed.
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Two of the three main roads connecting our neighborhood with the city are cut off by high water. The third, the bridge over to the east side of the river, is passable at the moment, but the other side has flooded areas. [Update: This bridge is now also closed; we are cut off from resupply; now is the time to go on a strict diet!]
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I guess this means that I won’t be getting any ice soon.
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-Zenwind.
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Breaking Loose

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24 October: It looks like levees are breaking in places around our area in every direction, and there is a good chance we will get some floodwaters anytime soon, if not tonight. It is not life threatening, as the water should be no more than a few feet high and spreading out slowly. If you don’t see any posts here in the future, it is because I won’t have electricity or an internet connection. It is more of an aggravating inconvenience than a scary situation.
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-Zenwind.
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23 October 2011

No More Ice

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23 October: This is bad. Local stores are all out of ice because re-supply of almost all items has been discontinued by flood-blocked roads. And our ancient refrigerator has about zero capacity to make ice cubes, so I always stock up on packs of ice from the stores.
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Street vendors are selling the last of their stuff as everything becomes scarce. Gone everywhere in the neighborhood are: coffee, eggs, canned goods, the better brands of beer, noodles, rice, and drinking water.
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We have a decent supply of drinking water, and we could always boil tap water if necessary on our propane stove. I have already been stocking up on a few necessities such as cat food. We really don’t need much food for ourselves because no one needs that many calories anyway in this awful heat.
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The state utility complex next door has added an impressive sandbag wall around their perimeter, so it looks like they will stay dry. But not us, because there are too many avenues for floodwaters to creep in with no ways of blocking it. It may take a full week for the water to get to us, or it might come fast “when the levee breaks.”

-Zenwind.
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22 October 2011

The Slow Creep of Doom

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22 October: Well, I guess the Universe did not end after all, as it had been prophesized by Harold Camping. He always did seem like a loser. But doom seems to be approaching locally.
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On the northern rim of greater Bangkok, we are in an area officially deemed as a “Medium Flood Risk” zone. (Maybe 0.5 to 1 meter of water may hit us.) It is a slow steady onslaught of floodwaters, giving us time to react but perhaps giving us false confidence. Big, big water is heading our way, and neighboring districts have been hit hard. It is like a severely crippled zombie slowly crawling toward you with a fixed purpose.
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“[It] is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever!” (James Cameron)
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Cars are parked along our sidestreet, unusual for a weekend, as the owners are seeking to save them from high water. This may be a good sign in that they might see our street as “safe.” Maybe not, but one hopes. The mood is getting more desperate. Food and supplies are disappearing as people stock up.
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Hoarders and price gougers are demonized – i.e., vendors who are thought to engage in “charging unfair prices” can get seven years in prison and a huge fine. Shades of Richard Nixon. In a free society they would be recognized for their natural and legitimate role in providing goods to those who really want to pay the price in a market of scarcity.
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It is not good when government centers set up to shelter flood refugees are now being flooded and in need of evacuation. Dominoes are falling. Some are saying that it will take three or four days for the slowly seeping floodwaters to hit us. Another estimate is that this entire region will take four to six weeks before the excess waters drain completely. Watching and waiting.
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-Zenwind.
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21 October 2011

Waiting for the Apocalypse: Will the Universe Be Destroyed Today?

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21 October: Vast floodwaters are descending on greater Bangkok, and we are prepared to move out on a moment’s notice. But more importantly, today is the End of the Entire World! Today is the date that the American shaman Harold Camping prophesied as the cataclysmic destruction of the entire Universe.
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Yes, he did fumble a bit last spring when he prophesied that The Rapture would occur on 21 May 2011, and when it did not happen he admitted that he was “dumbfounded” about the non-event. Maybe the Rapture did happen and he was simply not worthy of being taken up. I don’t know. No one I know came up missing on that day.
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But, as these shamans always do, he later recovered with some kind of apologetic mumbling about what the true significance of the 21 May 2011 date was. He then declared that today, 21 October, was to still be the day of the destruction of the entire Universe (as his original prediction had stated, presupposing the Rapture of the worthy ones in May).
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This whole episode is but a common occurrence in history. For instance, see the Great Disappointment of the followers of the American preacher William Miller in the early 1800s. It is a fascinating pathology.
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However, the floodwaters are still bearing down on us here in Thailand. I won’t be so smug if I’m swept away to Hell in a deluge before midnight Indo-China Time.
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If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow at midnight, head for high ground.
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-Zenwind.
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When the Levee Breaks – Led Zeppelin

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“If it keeps on rainin’
Levee’s goin’ to break
If it keeps on rainin’
Levee’s goin’ to break
When the levee breaks
I’ll have no place to stay.
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“Mean old levee
Taught me to weep and moan
Mean old levee
Taught me to weep and moan
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“It’s got what it takes
To make a mountain man leave his home.
Oh well, oh well, oh well
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“Don’ it make you feel bad
When you’re tryin’ to find your way home
You don’t know which way to go?
If you’re goin’ down South
They got no work to do
If you’re going down to Chicago
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“Cryin’ won’t help you
Prayin’ won’t do you no good
Now, cryin’ won’t help you
Prayin’ won’t do you no good
When the levee breaks
Mama, you got to move
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“All last night
Sat on the levee and moaned
All last night
Sat on the levee and moaned
Thinkin’ about my baby
And my happy home
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“Going, I’m going to Chicago
Going to Chicago
Sorry but I can’t take you
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“Going down, going down now
Going down, going down now
Going down, going down
Going down, going down
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“Going down, going down now
Going down, going down now
Going down, going down now
Going down, going down
Down, down, down, down.”
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*
Written by: John Baldwin, John Bonham, James Page, Robert Plant, Brian Stone; original by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy.
*

20 October 2011

Floodwaters Bearing Down Hard

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20 October: These are interesting times. I did not go out on my usual recon walk yesterday, as I was reading local internet news updates on the floods and making preparations at home. Today I ventured out, and what a difference a day can make! My first indication that things were really changing was seeing middle class folks on our street heading out with luggage. Moving out. Jumping ship.
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When I got to the Chao Phraya River I found that the river level was higher than I had ever seen it, much higher than two days ago or even at its previous high last weekend, and it was straining against the upper rim of the sandbag floodwalls and seeping through. That is a lot of water. Huge volume, fast water. Massive.
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Leaving the river and walking back along the main street, I immediately noticed the anomaly: traffic was jammed in the lanes moving North, to the main roads that are still open out of the city. What is that old saying about rats leaving a ship?
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All districts in our province have experienced flooding, although we are still dry for the moment. The immense amount of water flooding the Central Plains is unbelievable, but, believe me, it is heading our way. We continue to prepare, watch and wait.
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-Zenwind.
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19 October 2011

Lots of Water Heading Toward Us

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19 October: We still do not know if we will be flooded out or not. It is a slow and steady onslaught of a huge water volume from the north, and it is getting closer. This is an extremely flat, broad and heavily populated floodplain, and the vast flooded areas upriver from us present a wide front of water wanting to flow to the sea. It is mindboggling to consider how much water is still upstream from us. Floodwaters find the paths of least resistance, and they break through in unexpected places along the long and over-extended system of quickly thrown-up sandbag floodwalls. It is closing in.
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If breaches in the floodwalls do divert water our way, we should have time to act before it gets too deep. We have already thought things out and are continually making preparations for the worst that could happen. Meanwhile, we stay close to home, watch and wait. And wait. And wait.
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-Zenwind.
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18 October 2011

High Water Remains

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18 October: We are still high and dry – so far at least. There is still a big danger of flooding in our area, because of the enormous amount of floodwater still keeping many provinces under water up-river to our north. That water must drain downriver, and decisions on how to drain it, and when and where to drain it, will have an impact on all of us farther downstream.
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There are raging disputes over the policies that determine this diversion of floodwaters. To save some areas, water is diverted into other areas which are then devastated. For instance, inner Bangkok is (maybe) protected by sandbag and earthen dikes that divert the southbound floodwaters to the capital’s east and west, flooding many suburban neighborhoods (ours?) in the process. To the north, some residents are angrily confronting authorities who attempt to build dikes, because those dikes will save some other districts at the expense of their own. Disputes about opening or closing flood gates and building new dikes are bitter. There is one English phrase that Thais know well when applied to unfair treatment in politics: “double standard.”
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This anger and resentment from flood-devastated people with nothing left to lose may cause some to destroy the last dikes protecting Bangkok in order to share and spread the suffering. This would be not only a material tragedy but also a cultural one.
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On my daily walk I found the river level to be the same as yesterday and slightly lower than Saturday. Our neighborhood seems to be going about business as usual, except for new installations of sandbags in front of a few homes and shops, just in case. I stop and talk to a few friends who speak English; they are not that worried but they do admit that the situation is uncertain. Maybe their lack of worry comes from the perspective that all of this entire sweep of human experience is just impermanence anyway.
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-Zenwind.
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17 October 2011

Have Floods Crested?

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17 October: Taking my daily reconnaissance walk by the Chao Phraya River, the water level still looked dangerously high, but I noticed that the amount of standing water that had seeped through onto our side of the sandbag wall seemed to be a couple of inches lower than yesterday. Some government officials are now claiming that the largest mass of floodwaters coming down from the north had passed Bangkok yesterday. Not that I trust any government's knowledge claims, but it does agree with my own hunches. Maybe we have seen the worst of it.
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There is still a lot of water upcountry behind full dams, in rice paddies and in flooded cities. This water still could drown us here if it were released to hit us all at once.
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Our mystery kitten that appeared over the weekend has just as mysteriously disappeared. Tuk saw its mother on the wall at one point. The kitten could have died, or its mother could have taken it. Perhaps “the monster,” as Tuk calls any monitor lizard, ate it. We fear the worst and wish we knew its fate.
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-Zenwind.
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15 October 2011

Still High and Dry, for Now

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15 October: Happy Birthday, Friedrich Nietzsche, wherever you are!
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Locally, we are still not affected much by the floodwaters that have hit neighboring districts so hard. No one really knows what will happen in these next few days, so it is watch, wait, and Be Prepared.
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Our latest news is that a stray kitten has mysteriously appeared in the corner of our courtyard. She is wild and scared and hiding under some corrugated metal sheets. When it rains, she cries, and it is heartbreaking. We put out some food, and she apparently ate it. Tomorrow we will start attempting to gain her trust with food and constantly talking to her from a non-threatening distance. One of my few areas of moderate expertise is taming cats, a skill learned growing up on the farm. (My nephew once called me “The Cat Whisperer.”) Cats are tough critters to domesticate – then after that they own you.
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For this kitten it is a race against time, because neighborhood monitor lizards eat small cats. The monitors tunnel under our wall frequently, and we see one every week or so. We lost a litter of four kittens a few years ago to them, one by one, and we only figured it out too late when the last kitten, an almost full-grown adolescent male who had just been neutered, was killed but was too big to be swallowed. Dukkha everywhere.
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-Zenwind.
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14 October 2011

Still Above Water

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14 October: We are not yet flooded here at home as of early evening. But a huge thunderstorm roared through and the rain was hard.
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We took Father-in-law to his hospital checkup (as well as me to my own checkup in the same hospital), and we had to go over a couple of bridges over the Chao Phraya River to get Father, as well as to return him. We saw a lot of flooding along the way. In particular, when Tuk and I were on our way home, our entire lane on a main road was running fast with water up to the taxi’s running boards, and it was not bad in that spot just an hour before.
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My new doctor, a hematologist, is great. My ultrasound showed thrombosis and he is taking over my treatment. His questions and explanations are thorough, and I have a lot of confidence in him. I could hardly believe the huge amount of blood they took from me. I was given a shot and take-home meds, and I go back to the hospital again for each of the next three days for shots and then for major bloodwork again a week from today. Because the meds for the clots in my leg must be carefully monitored for the safe yet effective level, the doctor carefully explained it all to me and made sure I understood. I took home a six page document about the meds. I have no pain, just a little swelling still in my ankle, and I feel great.
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We continue to closely monitor the news about the flooding. The latest word is that Bangkok will be safe from flooding but that those of us living outside the capital will not be. Tomorrow I plan to do a walking exploration of our neighborhood and scope out the waterfront. It reminds me of the Red Shirt riots in 2010, because everybody is wondering what will happen next. I will post news again soon, if the nagas be willing and the creeks don’t rise.
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-Zenwind.
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13 October 2011

Flood Update

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13 October 2011: It is worse than anyone thought. Our immediate neighborhood area (here on the northern rim of greater Bangkok) is not flooded yet, but neighboring districts in our province are. And whole provinces in the rest of Thailand are under water.
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The inner city of Bangkok might have built up enough floodwalls to save it from major deluge. But we are not in Bangkok proper, so we are not as well protected. The crucial test will be this weekend when a huge amount of flood runoff from the north will reach us just as the high tide occurs, the tide retarding the river’s ability to empty the excessive water. Bangkok is only two meters above sea level, so you can imagine the problem. And it keeps on raining!
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I walked to the Chao Phraya River this morning and looked around from the walkway on the bridge. Many homes along the river are flooded, especially the tin squatter shacks put up on piles over the water. I have wanted to take an express boat into the city to see the water levels, but family illnesses and the threat of home flooding have stopped me. I am sure that any waterfront levees that are not strongly reinforced will fail. The sandbag walls down by the river pier are holding it back so far, though water has seeped through because the river is up level to the shoreline and roadway.
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Today I have been reading the local news closely, and what has really sobered me are the maps of the flooded areas and the risks of each area. We are in a very at-risk area. I am writing a list of items for our “Bailout Bags” just in case we are hit hard and forced to pack up and evacuate. “Be Prepared” was the Scout Motto, and it never hurts to think ahead. Write the list; then assemble the stuff in a good old USMC “junk on the bunk” inspection layout (where you lay everything out on a bunk or bed for inspection); stage the stuff for quick retrieval later; then, if it comes to that, pack and go.
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The worst predictions now for our area – if floodwaters actually do break through – are for about a meter or maybe two of water. We can move valuable stuff upstairs, but it would ruin our refrigerator and treadmill. We would still be lucky compared to many poor souls throughout the country who have lost everything they own.
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One problem for anyone evacuating is that looters raid flooded houses that are temporarily abandoned. Anyone who knows me personally well might imagine how I would be tempted to handle this if it happened to any of my property Stateside: Lights off; powerful flashlight waiting in hand; sufficient caliber loaded and locked; waiting in the shadows; looters break and enter; the looter population goes down. Miserable goddamn cockroaches! Can you tell that I’m angry?
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Stay tuned for later developments.
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-Zenwind.
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10 October 2011

Flooding, Rains, and the Ailments of Aging

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The recent severe flooding in Thailand only gets worse. Entire provinces are complete disaster areas, people have been killed or have had their homes destroyed, and the great historical temples and museums of old Ayutthaya up-river have been overflowed. Here in greater Bangkok, our worst high water will peak around 16-18 October when the main water volume flows south to us. Yesterday, Tuk and I were in a taxi coming home, and the driver made a bad navigation decision; he took us into side streets in a heavily flooded area, and I could both hear and feel the water hitting against the underneath of the floor of the taxi. It was slow going but we made it. Our house still appears to be safe. But in the other danger areas I have seen more people filling sandbags than I’ve ever seen since Hill 55 in Vietnam in the autumn of 1969.
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The monsoon rainy season is supposed to be over, since the official end of the monks’ three-month Rains Retreat is the full moon of Wednesday the 12th, Pavarana, marking the traditional end of the wet monsoon in South and Southeast Asia in a tradition going all the way back to the Buddha almost two and a half millennia ago. But it still rains. I must admit that a hard downpour adds a brief respite to this constant god-awful heat. But there is too much water!
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As for my personal health, today’s hospital visit confirmed that thrombosis is the diagnosis for my ongoing leg problem for the last six weeks. The ultrasound spotted a few clots down in my ankle area, and I am seeing a hematologist in a few days for a follow-up. I am back to almost normal, with no pain, and I can walk quite fast and far. Stay tuned.
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My father-in-law has been sick lately, but has bounced back somewhat. He fell on a wet slippery cement slope – twice – and his hip and leg cause him intense pain. He was hospitalized for a couple of days for tests (no broken bones) and for treatment of a spike in Blood Pressure, which was perhaps related to the pain. He is now staying at Tuk’s brother’s house, but Tuk is the one most concerned about seeing to his care. I checked his B/P today with my own B/P cuff, and his reading is now much better than my own normal B/P. He is still in pain and still lame, but we are finding equipment to aid his ability to move around. I was amazed to see him sit in a half-lotus meditative position with the foot of his painful leg resting up on his opposite thigh, and this was most comfortable for him when sitting up! He is a wonderful man, a true sage. As a lifelong Buddhist, he knows that all of life is Dukkha and he takes it philosophically, but if anyone on this earth deserves to be free from suffering, it is him.
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This coming Friday, both father-in-law and I have medical appointments at the hospital. Tuk will be taking us there, worrying perhaps more than she has to. We old guys still have a lot of fight in us.
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-Zenwind.
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06 October 2011

Bad Flooding in Thailand

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We are not personally affected, but this is some of the worst flooding to hit much of Thailand in many decades. Floods have caused over 200 deaths and have affected over 2 million people. It is now getting toward the end of the normal Rainy Season monsoons, but a number of typhoons coming in from the west Pacific have added huge amounts of water to an already saturated ground and an overflowing river system up-country. Entire provinces are flooded.
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Walking along the Chao Phraya River this week, the water level was higher than I have ever seen it. Sandbag walls are everywhere, and floats made of long bundled bamboo stalks are tied out to help stop waves from hitting the sandbags. That is a lot of water moving downstream.
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-Zenwind.
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05 October 2011

Been Down So Long, It Looks Like Up to Me

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Forgive an old man for going on and on about his health concerns. You too will reach such a day; all you must do is live long enough. My leg problem is almost cleared up, although the doctors don’t know if it was thrombosis or what. For over a month I have had soreness and swelling in my lower leg and foot, and that meant not walking for exercise. At one point I was using a cane just to get around the house. For me, to stop marching/ rambling/ wandering afoot is to stop living in the complete sense.
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But things are looking up. My walking distances and speeds have come close to normal in the last week, and I’m approaching the rigor of true Marching. “Left, Right, Left, Right. One, Two, Three, Four, I love the Marine Corps!” Ooh rah!
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Today I have been sitting outside in the shade all afternoon, trying to keep our cat, Silly Willy, from major mischief. He is a full-grown neutered male who sleeps indoors most of the day and night, but sometimes he fancies himself to be a great wild tiger hunter and goes after birds outside. It is his nature and it doesn’t bother me, but my wife and other more traditional Buddhists in the household believe in literal rebirth and in the karmic consequences of actions in this life following on into the next rebirth. In short, they do not want to see Willy murder birds or mice lest his rebirth after this life places him in a lower realm of being. I am a total skeptic about any survival of death, but I like their (metaphorical) point a bit – as an aesthetic musing.
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So I have been thwarting Willy’s attempts at murder. He – being a cat – concealed himself well behind obstacles while intently watching some pigeons feeding nearby. One could sense his feline tension, wound up tight for the kill. I tried to scare the birds away by waving my arms and throwing water at them, but the dumb things ignored me. Finally, I picked Willy up high so they could all see him and said, “Cat! Cat!” The birds scattered, and Willy kept his good karma intact for the time being although he was not happy with me. Ah, we all just wallow through samsara as best we can.
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-Zenwind.
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27 September 2011

First Migratory Bird of the Season

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27 September 2011: Yesterday morning I heard a birdcall that I had not heard in a long time. It was definitely a seasonal visitor, a bird from the north coming down to make Thailand its winter home. It is a similar feeling to hearing the first robin of spring back in the States. Once this Rainy Season finally ends, some cool and comfortable weather will follow. We have also had the early surprise of a few clear days lately, and it makes it much easier to dry laundry outside.
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-Zenwind.
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01 September 2011

Back to Health

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01 September 2011: I have recovered from over a full week of a nasty head cold. I still get about one cold per year, and, like summer colds Stateside, these warm weather colds are the hardest to kick. Because of my busted up sinuses – broken from boxing and from an ice climbing accident – my left Eustachian tube blocks up and thus the hearing in my left ear goes way down despite taking antihistamines. My left ear is my good one; the right ear has major permanent nerve damage from an in-coming NVA mortar round back in 1969; so I am a bit deaf for a while.
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Whenever I start coming down with cold or flu symptoms here in Thailand – body and joint aches, fever, chills, etc. – I immediately suspect Dengue Fever and rule it out first. That is the most dangerous mosquito-borne disease threatening us, and it would require immediate hospitalization.
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I took a short walk to the store in the middle of my cold bout, seeking ice and beverages. It is only about a 700 meter round-trip, but coming back I thought I would have to sit down and rest. It was so hot and I was so thirsty. Checking the weather after finally arriving home, I saw that the Heat Index was over 114*F. Wicked humid heat and major dehydration. Break out the ice drinks!
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It will be an up-hill battle to get back in shape, walking, marching and eventually lifting again. But then, life is always an up-hill battle, isn’t it? The Myth of Sisyphus comes to mind, in which Albert Camus muses on our ephemeral creations.
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-Zenwind.
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22 August 2011

Sunny Day

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22 August 2011: There is not much new to report. I seem to have come down with a flu or cold, with major FMS symptoms, and it has left me weak, groggy, in horrible pain, with a sore throat. I shortened today’s walk because the sun was out and it was extremely hot. Sunny days like this during the Rainy Season are great for drying laundry, but I had to come in before long. I so look forward to winter.
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Two of my good friends here are leaving Thailand for good soon, and that is sad. I really liked talking with them and sharing ideas.
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I just installed a fine piece of language software, a Thai-English English-Thai Talking Dictionary, and I am hoping to study Thai more now. I am also still working on several book reviews and articles. If I ever do get them finished I will post them on my main “Zenwind” site.
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-Zenwind.
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07 August 2011

Still Hot and Steamy Weather, and Mundee Still Plays Some of the Hottest Rock n Roll in Bangkok

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I know that I am constantly repeating myself, but two constants in Bangkok are absolutes and deserve repeating. One, after five years I still cannot believe how hot and humid this climate is. Two, the band Mundee plays outstanding Rock n Roll at Bangkok’s The Rock Pub.
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Today I did another death march at midday when the Heat Index was up over 110*F. I will never learn. And, why do I always try to break in new sports sandals in the hottest times of the year? However, after about 5k on the hot sidewalks I did make it back home, and I’ve been re-hydrating with iced drinks ever since. An evening thundershower finally cooled the outside air.
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I recently got another chance to stay in downtown Bangkok late to hear Mundee. They started at 00:05 and rocked solidly until 02:00. I cannot adequately express how much I love this band and their hard-driving Rock n Roll. I’m becoming a diehard fan.
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-Zenwind.
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17 July 2011

Monsoon Rains, Nixon, and drug freedom

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After exercising in the horrid humid heat, marching over the whole of my regular walking route, I made it home to shower and sit in front of a fan with an iced drink. At dusk it finally started to rain hard. We brought in our laundry and battened down the hatches for a real monsoon blow. Standing outside under the eaves, we relished the cool wet air as the storm raged. Simple pleasures, gratefully enjoyed.
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It has been a week of intellectual upheaval for me, trying to read my impossibly long reading list of books and websites, trying to meditate and integrate all of my life’s adventures and insights. This last Full Moon was a celebration of the Buddha’s First Discourse, when he announced the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. Meditating on this discourse does give me profound peace.
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But there are political considerations too. These are notoriously non-peaceful. Thinking back over my life’s many experiences, I remembered some young friends whose lives were cut short by the unintended consequences of government tyranny. On my Zenwind blog I reminisce about Nixon’s War on Drugs and the fatal collateral damage.
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-Zenwind.
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10 July 2011

My Thai Neighborhood

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We have settled into the rhythms of Rainy Season life. This means carrying an umbrella whenever going out. At home we try to estimate how much non-rain time is in a given day in order to dry laundry outside. When the sun is out, it cooks, and the intense heat and humidity saps one’s strength. Evening rains are welcome relief from the heat.
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In my regular walks in our neighborhood, I have many acquaintances although language is usually a barrier to full conversation. But there is one taxi driver who is often standing about chatting in our neighborhood and he speaks very good English. There is also a guy on the corner who speaks good English and who sells various foodstuffs with his wife and whose sister is the best outdoor fruit vendor on the block. They are friendly and naturally curious because I’m the only farang (i.e., foreigner) in the neighborhood, and they ask me many questions on my background. I am slowly integrating myself into the neighborhood, but it is very slow due to my hermit nature.
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There is the guy who sells popcorn from his three-wheeled cart with a mounted popcorn cooker. In the morning he sets up by the bank, and in the afternoon he is by the police station. Nearby is the guy who fixes shoes (and who did an excellent job repairing my sports sandals). I have communicated to him some of the rather long marches I’ve taken in the city in the tropical heat, and he just smiles and shakes his head (crazy farang!). There are many other snack vendors and sidewalk restaurant owners that I see on every walk.
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The other day I was walking near the river and I came across a very old Thai man in a wheelchair whom I have seen often and have always nodded to in greeting. On this day he gave me a genuine military salute. Although surprised, I returned it. I am wondering if word of my military experience has been spread in the neighborhood.
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A small vacant lot along my walking route is being developed for some kind of building. The lot is a very small wedge-shaped one, and they are still preparing the ground. (Bangkok soil is unstable silt and mud, thus things sink, and so strong foundations are a major project.) The handful of workers involved now live on the site, and they have been building their own temporary living space – a tin shack, or rather one built entirely of thin corrugated steel sheets. Can you imagine how hot these will get in the tropical sun? Before they even had the walls finished, they put up a satellite TV dish. After all, there are priorities.
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I took an express boat ride down the Chao Phraya River last week, which I always enjoy. I saw a monitor lizard crawling up out of the river on some old concrete steps then over a low wall into someone’s front yard. Just tonight at dusk I was standing outside under the eaves enjoying the blissful cool of a hard rain, and I saw a monitor lizard (a 3-footer) slithering from our outdoor faucet to our sheltered butane cooker. They are extremely well camouflaged and hard to see, but my eye for them is getting better. They are also smart and quick, so I lost track of him when he retreated back into the dense foliage. They look like surviving dinosaurs.
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-Zenwind.
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24 June 2011

Ron Diethrick, R.I.P.

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We just lost a wild and wonderful guy.
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He was my best friend from my youth. He mentored me and others on our climb to Eagle Scout. He taught many of us to truly enjoy life.
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-Zenwind.
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08 June 2011

Rock and Roll Music in Bangkok

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Last night, 7 June 8, 2011, was a great night for Rock and Roll in Bangkok. Peter Driscoll and The Cruisers played once again at the Wine Bibber Sangria, aka, Club Bibber, on Soi Thong Lor between soi 9 and 11 and across from the Pet Hospital. If I seem repetitious by mentioning Peter’s gigs many, many times over the last year, it is because I’m a major fan and this music is an invigorating experience.
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Or, as Chuck Berry put it in the definitive statement:
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“Just let me hear some of that Rock and Roll music,
Any old way you choose it,
It’s got a backbeat you can’t lose it,
Any old time you use it.
It’s gotta be Rock and Roll music
If you want to dance with me.”
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It was another night of foot-stomping Rock n Roll music, with a focus on early Rock n Roll and Rockabilly with Peter’s excellent historical comments on the songwriters and the singers who covered any one song. Because 1950s songs were of such short duration (because that was the radio norm in those days), The Cruisers play a lot of songs in one evening.
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Among the songs covered last night were ones sung by: Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Dion (“The Wanderer,” one of my personal favorites), Eddie Cochran, and many more.
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-Zenwind.
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01 June 2011

Hot

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1 June 2011: Our weather is still the transition period between the Hot season and the Rainy season. When the sun is out, it sizzles. The clouds and occasional rains are very welcome, and good breezes often catch one by surprise.
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The other day at dusk, the wind suddenly picked up dramatically and the sky got very black. As we brought in the last of the day’s laundry, it was obvious that the temperature had dropped significantly in a very short time.
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Just as it does anytime that this temperature drop happens, I thought of my father’s weather wisdom. He would say, “It feels like it has rained somewhere.” And it had. Within 40 minutes the skies opened on us with a hard rain.
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Blessed coolness,
Zen delight.
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-Zenwind.
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05 May 2011

Fifth of May Revolutionary Communiqué

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Cinco de Mayo, 2011. I am now re-reading – after several decades – the great libertarian science fiction novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein (1966). Hence the revolutionary consciousness.
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I have been, and plan to continue to be, offline a lot more than usual for the foreseeable future. It is the Hot Season now, our summertime and holiday time, and the hot humid weather does not encourage me to sit in front of a computer for long stretches.
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I’m feeling very well, and I resolve to keep on feeling that way. In the past few years, I have had major illnesses during the slothful days of the Hot Season, so I’m allotting my prime time to exercise and healthy pursuits. Jump-starting a new fitness program, I marched 7 klicks in 100-degree humid heat the other day, and I feel great (after major re-hydration).
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I hereby am liberating myself from mundane technological bondage. This is consistent with my personal history, as I liberated myself from the Boob Tube (TV) back in the ‘70s and never missed it. Today I must limit my time in front of the modern, wired, www version of the electronic teat. Being thus weaned is a wonderful release. Ah, Liberty!
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I am practicing my meditation with new resolve, i.e., in accordance with the Buddha’s last words of advice: “Strive on with diligence.” I am adding Hinayana/Theravadin simplicity of focus on the original fundamentals (Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Noble Path) to my decades-long practice of Ch’an/Zen daily aesthetic mindfulness. I haven’t known such clarity in meditation since my teens, in ’67 and ’68. I feel very young.
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-Zenwind.
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23 April 2011

April is the cruelest month

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April is cruel for us, although not for the same reasons given by T.S. Eliot. April is the hottest and most humid time of year here (although we have had many unusually rainy days lately which block the sun and cool things off a bit). It is also the month when I must complete my work on my annual visa renewal by the last week of the month.
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I just posted a couple of very short book reviews my Zenwind blog, one on With the Old Breed by E.B. Sledge and one on the Earthsea novels of Ursula K. Le Guin.
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I managed to get into town a couple of times for US Embassy paperwork visits, to talk with friends, and to see a couple of movies.
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Winter’s Bone, an independent film that was nominated for an Oscar for Best Film, was very good. It featured a strong teenage girl who must be the care-giver for her younger siblings and also stand up to the threat of death to protect their impoverished Ozark home. The young actress also was nominated by the Academy. It is a low budget film and is a bit of hillbilly noir, dark and ugly at times but ultimately redeeming.
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If I survive the coming ordeal with the Immigration Bureau, I will post again.
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-Zenwind.
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09 April 2011

Pit-Viper in Our Kitchen Tree

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Last week I saw a pit-viper at close range, slithering up a tree in our courtyard which supports our outdoor kitchen’s small tin roof over the propane stove. A beautiful light-green in color, it crawled with reptilian leisure and disappeared between several tin sheets making up the roof. One look at its triangular head told me it was a poisonous snake.
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I was sitting outside in my lawnchair reading in the shade of this tree, and I only noticed the snake because one of our cats alerted me to it. This cat, Silly Willy, also alerted me several years ago to a huge monitor lizard who was basking in the sun about 10 feet behind my chair. Willy may be silly, but he is a good hunter, and I can always tell by his eyes if he is looking at either prey or predator.
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Willy was sitting high on the wall on the other side of this tree, and I noticed him looking quite attentively at something with his look of apprehension. Following his gaze I saw the pit-viper move slowly up the tree at a height of about 7 feet from the ground, camouflaged very well against the underside of the leaves when one looks upward. I got up and stepped closer to look at it, and all my old Boy Scout training told me it was venomous.
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After it disappeared between the layers of the kitchen roof, I went inside to consult my Guidebook to Snakes and Other Reptiles of Thailand and Southeast Asia. That and some web searches narrowed it down to a couple of pit-vipers: The white-lipped tree viper or the large-eyed pit-viper. I didn’t have a long enough look to tell if its lips were white or its eyes big.
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I alerted my wife and her family, but no one seemed to be impressed. I’m sure they believed my sighting, but it just didn’t seem to be a big deal to anyone. Although living here for 5 years now, plus doing a year’s tour in next-door Vietnam 40 years ago, I guess I’m still a bit of a boot to tropical life. But I’m still watching my every step and every branch above me.
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-Zenwind.
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08 April 2011

Express Boats on the Great Chao Phraya River

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Again I sing the praises of my favorite transportation in the tropics. Sorry if I’m repetitious and have written this before.
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Taking express boats to downtown Bangkok is slower than going by taxi and much hotter, although sometimes river breezes give a bit of relief. But the boats are much cheaper and are an adventure in themselves. One gets to see Bangkok at water-level, at its roots.
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Sometimes the boats are so crowded that there is standing room only. If that is the case, I like standing in the back squarely in front of the engine-box. Let me explain:
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An express boat is about the size of a bus, an aisle going up the middle with pairs of seats on both sides. The pilot is up front. The forward two-thirds is seating; the aft third is engine-box plus steps up to the deck in the stern where folks embark and disembark as the boat briefly hitches to the piers along the way.
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If I have to stand during the voyage, I prefer the times when the standing customers are not too packed together, so that I can pick my spot, standing squarely in the center, just in back of all the rows of seats and immediately in front of the engine-box. To me, that is the boat’s center of gravity, its very soul. Standing there, I can feel every bit of the boat’s flex as the wooden structure twists and bucks with the waves. Looking up the length of the vessel from this spot, I can watch the pilot turn his wheel and then feel the slight delay of the craft’s response. It is the organic center of the ship.
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On those days when it is not too crowded, this standing spot is also the coolest place on board because the breeze funnels right back to you.
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Blessed coolness. Zen delight.
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-Zenwind.
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21 March 2011

St. Patrick’s Day 2011

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St. Patrick’s Day was also the day of our monthly libertarian meet up, and I got a late start, getting on an express boat in late afternoon. It was the coldest daytime temperature I have yet seen in Bangkok, in the low 60sF. Everyone was bundled up against the cold wind, including me. It was the only day and night I can remember here when I did not sweat.
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The meet up was great, with very good conversation and camaraderie. By 01:30 there were only me and a longtime buddy left. We closed down the Bourbon Street bar and walked to the nearby Dubliner Irish pub to see if their St. Patrick revelries were still going on. The Dubliner was quite empty and not serving any more drinks. There were still bottles breaking on the floor, and the whole place looked as dysfunctional as a battle zone, so we exited the back door. Once outside we had to carefully push our way through a crowd of milling, staggering, wild-looking fellows – most certainly all Irishmen.
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We walked to another venue where we could talk some more. Our conversation covered all topics from Man and God and Law to movies and books. Finally we closed down that place and went down the street to find some munchies at an all-night store. We stood on the street eating and talking until we could barely keep our eyes open, then parted ways.
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I arrived back in my home neighborhood at 04:00, and the streets were quiet and empty. Must be there are no Irish here. The only one showing any holiday spirit was a local soi dog who spotted me and trotted along with me to my gate. I threw out some food to her, making her very pleased. It was a great day for the Irish.
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-Zenwind.
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Whole Lot of Shakin’ Goin’ On

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I’ve finally found my niche in the Bangkok nightlife, amongst somewhat ageing Rockers – with a lot of white hair and beards in the crowd – who are diehard fans of the old-time Rock and Roll of Peter Driscoll and the Cruisers. They played last week at the Wine Bibber Sangria in Bangkok, and they really rocked the joint. I have written before about how I’m a big fan of Peter’s performances. I try my best get into town when I know he’s playing a gig. I am one of the only regular Americans at these gigs, for all the accents I hear are English, Scots, Irish, or Australian.
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Peter is a walking historian of early Rock. As a lad growing up in England in the 1950s, he got into all the music coming in from the States. As a teenager there he recorded “Paralyzed,” a song from Elvis’s second album. One thing that continually amazes me is Peter’s brief historical prefaces to most of the songs he covers, little bits of info about who wrote it and various performers of it. He is up to date on those people of early Rock, often mentioning that such-and-such a person involved with the song “died just last Friday,” for example.
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His band, The Cruisers, has a partially new line-up, and they are getting really tight as a group. The crowd was not as thick this time as it was for their performance last month, but it was because of a heavy rain that day that thinned out the crowds everywhere in the city – even the evening Skytrain was un-crowded.
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Peter and the Cruisers did songs by Elvis, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins (“I’m a lone poor boy, and I’m a long way from home”), the Everly Brothers, Rick Nelson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley and His Comets, Dion and the Belmonts (“I’m a wanderer, yeah, the wanderer/ I roam around, around, around”), Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, etc.
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At the stroke of midnight they started up a new set with a powerful version of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny Be Good,” and we all rocked on until late.
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-Zenwind.
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13 March 2011

Anniversary of a Cult Founder

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[quote] It is an anniversary for the late Mr. Sell Bond Blubberd. Blubberd was a genius, the greatest of all the 20th century intra-galactic seers and cosmic historians, and he was a magnificently successful religious profit [sic] and a brilliant scam artist. [/quote]
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[I am quoting this document exactly as it was written and forwarded to me by a Ch’an friend by the name of Han Shan, who was once briefly acquainted with the cult mentioned here. –ZW.]
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[quote] Blubberd is best known for founding the incredibly lucrative Church of the ScienceFictionist, a religion of wide international following to which many high-profile celebrities and other notorious zanies flock. Many are expecting Charlie Sheen to get on board very soon, if he can muster up the required cash.
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Blubberd is also famous as an absolutely hilarious cosmic jester, a laugh-out-loud-funny, hold-your-gut-and-roll-on-the-floor-gasping-for-breath satirist and prankster. For instance, after a typical ScienceFictionist Church newbie is lured into many years of studies, continual browbeating, and tens upon tens of thousands of dollars of contributions to the church, he is finally given access to the promised secret documents underlying the holy metaphysics of the entire religion. I.e., one must achieve the church’s official higher status of the level of an “ID-e-OT DCLXVI” – and this costs a lot of money to buy into – before earning access to the secret documents.
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Surprise! When you are finally given permission to read this cosmic history and theology of the church in these secret sacred documents, it all just seems like something out of the more seedy science fiction scenarios or cheaper comic books. You read about the cruel galactic dictator, Zeranhu, and his atrocities millions of years ago, e.g., “The Twoth Affair,” revealing the Flaming Buttocks story that involved massive turmoil, death, destruction and terror on earth and its near environs. What a prank! Blubberd always had promoted his persona as that of a high-seas pirate, and you can see from photos of those days that he was laughing his ass off all the way to the bank. A genius of joke and scam, rolling merrily in the money. What a guy!
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Blubberd’s business model here is incredibly successful, even improving upon other similar traditional religions’ scams by orders of magnitude. What a dude. He was a cynical opportunist with a great sense of humor and a genius for talking people out of their gold. It is sad that his church’s heirs today have no such sense of humor at all and are mostly concerned with both controlling their sheep and filing lawsuits against anyone who insults or threatens their holy cash cow.
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Mr. Sell Bond Blubberd was a really funny guy – a modern pirate with incredible audacity – and we will all miss him. [/quote]
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-Zenwind.

25 February 2011

The Rock Pub in Bangkok

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I have recently discovered The Rock Pub in downtown Bangkok, and I love it. They specialize in Rock and Roll, and these folks do not compromise – there is absolutely no half-stepping for this rocker culture. One of the terrific Thai rock bands that plays there is Mundee, and they just got a major new fan after I heard them play the other night.
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Hearing Mundee’s covers of ‘70s and ‘80s heavy rock was like a transfusion for me, an elixir, an exile’s redemption. I got there late, at about 00:10 hours. The place was not crowded, so I had a good choice of seats. From then until closing at 02:00, I was not disappointed with a single note. The vocals, lead guitar and rhythm section were all right on.
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The first full song I heard was Immigrant Song from Led Zeppelin: “We come from the land of ice and snow….” Perfect – I could almost feel the wind in the sail. Next was Iron Maiden’s Run to the Hills, which is still in my head and which frequently makes me look back over my shoulder: “Run to the hills; run for your life.” This was followed by a Jimi Hendrix song, and the lead guitarist did an incredible job. Then Zeppelin’s Black Dog: “Didn’t take too long ‘fore I found out/ What people mean by down and out.” Then Hendrix’s Purple Haze: “Excuse me while I kiss the sky.”
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The band took a break, but one of their singers filled it in with solos: Dust in the Wind, Bohemian Rhapsody, etc.
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The rest of the band came back at 01:15 and they gave us a hell of a show until closing time, starting by pounding out AC/DC’s Highway to Hell. This was followed by a great heavy metal song that I cannot ID at this moment. Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer was followed by Zeppelin’s The Ocean:
“Singing in the sunshine, laughing in the rain…”
“Used to sing in the mountains but the mountains washed away….”
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The band delighted me when they played Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love, a great favorite of mine when I was 17 and ever since.
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Winding up, they surprised me by performing Black Betty (“bam ba lam”), a great old folk-blues prison work-song covered by Lead Belly, Dave “Snaker” Ray, and Ram Jam’s 1977 radio version. This last version was on the radio during my early rock climbing travels and earliest solo climbs. Years later I sang the lyrics to try to cheer up my young rope-team partners when we were climbing the multi-pitch Old Route on the south face of The Roostercomb in a rain and hailstorm; the narrow traversing ledge was slanting outward at the top of the climb and threatening to dump us over the edge with the hailstones like icy ball-bearings under our feet – my teammates must have thought I was nuts. (It just now dawned on me why I sang that particular song to them there: it had been the radio song-of-the-day when I first soloed that very climb in September 1977; my first multi-pitch solo on-sight lead.)
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Mundee ended the night with Led Zeppelin’s song, Rock and Roll:
“It’s been a long time since I Rock and Rolled…
“Seems so long since we walked in the moonlight…
“It’s been a long time, been a long time,
“Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time."
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Yes it has.
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-Zenwind.
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