Specialist

Apparently it is not. See here for some details.

Navy base commanders do things like this to remind the local community of just how much money the base puts into the local economy through base personnel salaries. A buddy of mine told me a couple of stories a long time ago. In one of them, the base commander ordered change from every transaction at the base exchange to be paid in silver dollars, as opposed to dollar bills. Got some attention, it did, when the silver coins FLOODED the local economy. In the other story, the Navy was having trouble with sailors being treated poorly by a LOT of people and businesses in Florida. Friday noon, the admiral commanding the naval district that included Florida declared the entire state of Florida OFF LIMITS. All personnel on shore leave were recalled and required to stay aboard ship or in base housing. Personnel living off-base were allowed to go home, but were required to STAY there, doing no business whatsoever with ANYONE in the state of Florida, coming onto base and using the exchange for anything critically necessary. Monday morning, the governor of Florida was in the admiral's office, literally on his knees BEGGING the admiral to rescind the ban. It seems that a whole lot of people had just found out how important the swabbies were to the Florida economy...

That does not surprise me a bit. It is DIFFICULT, even for a good actor, to capture certain things, without assistance. When they filmed the chest-bursting scene from "Alien", NONE of the actors knew what was about to happen in the scene.

"Pixels". Simple fun, no brains required. "The Martian". Very impressive work in some ways. I don't know how carefully they worked out the orbital mechanics stuff and the mission planning. The characters were of course cardboard.

I have NEVER seen sweaters and jackets and blankets and mufflers and bunny-rabbit-style hoodies in Soi Cowboy before tonight. NEVER. The poor girls looked like they were FREEZING. Heck, *I* wouldn't have minded a light jacket, myself! I'm taking the camera with me tomorrow night, if I can, and document it for posterity. The album title will be "What's all this Global Warming stuff, anyhow?"

Cute, Cav. She had (probably still has) some kind of respiratory bug. Meanwhile, I'm having major asthma issues, first time EVER in Bangkok, probably caused by a very recalcitrant bronchial infection. I spent Monday morning in Bumrungrad ER, to make sure it wasn't pneumonia. Conclusion: we're treating the infection, take it easy, go back in a couple of days if it doesn't improve or gets worse. Fair chance of no more sanuk this trip. Nonzero probability of a hospital stay. And here I am with at least five (5) willing potential sweethearts in the queue...

Update. I stopped by her bar tonight, and saw her. She's still coughing. She's going to be out of commission for a few more days, most likely. Oh well, lots of Plan B and Plan C options available.

Translation: STAY OUT OF THE ARAB BARS.

No, not #15. No story tonight, unfortunately. One of the problems with being 60 years old is that I know what a productive cough from a bronchial infection sounds like. I picked her up from her bar at about 8 PM. She was coughing some. We had a light dinner at Love Scene on Soi 23. She is a sweetheart, as well as a hottie, VERY well-behaved in public. She was coughing occasionally through dinner, and it sounded like it was getting worse. I was getting concerned. I offered to write off the barfine, put her in a cab, and let her go home, She insisted she was OK. We headed back to the hotel, she continued coughing, and eventually, after repeated prompting, she admitted she'd come down with something and was not OK. She had absolutely no symptoms last night, when we first met. I put her in a cab and sent her home. I'm going to check on her Sunday. I went back out, just to see what was happening. I have a strong agreement for tomorrow night with the girl who took it as her mission to make my 60th birthday memorable, and a tentative agreement with a sweetheart for Monday.

I'm of mixed emotions at this point. On the one hand, all my old standbys are pretty well gone. On the other hand, I have a tentative agreement with a hottie from Sucker (formerly Lollipop) for LT tomorrow night, and she chose ME!

I rode the skytrain out to On Nut once, years ago, just to see what was out there. Saw my first-ever shopping-cart-friendly escalator. GREAT idea! This was before Swampypoom was built.

No, it brings down the cost of launch for ANYTHING. Go out to Swampypoom sometime. Park where you can see the ramp. Look at all the airplanes. Think about how much air travel would cost if each of those airplanes could only be used ONCE, for a one-way trip. That's how expendable boosters, up to and including Saturn V, work. Now think about how much air travel would cost if, after EACH flight, each airplane had to be disassembled all the way down to the individual component level, right down to nuts and bolts, and everything overhauled completely. That's how the Shuttle worked. Now, consider: What Musk did was recover the FIRST stage, INTACT, *READY* *TO* *BE* *REFUELED*, *STACKED*, *AND* *FLOWN* *AGAIN*. That's the first step in REALLY reusing a spacecraft, in getting it to the point that you can reuse it like an AIRPLANE. Refuel, walk around, kick the tires, change out the crew, pump out the toilet holding tanks, load the in-flight meals, load the passengers and cargo, and FLY.

There's more to that 747 story. There's a startup cargo airline, that is working to get their operating certificate. They claim to have purchased the airplanes 6 months ago, and have documentation to prove it, but the airport board refuses to accept their documentation. There are commentators out there claiming that this is a shakedown by the airport board.

Agreed. Not flawless, but DEFINITELY fun! And DEFINITELY definitively Bond. Even if the vast majority of it is paying homage to scenes from many previous Bond flicks.

The problem, for me, is that that LOOKS like the exterior of Spice Girls, one of the Arab bars in Soi Cowboy, and I have a pretty-much hard-and-fast policy against going into the Arab bars... The second problem, for me, is that the Arab bars routinely put their coyotes on greeter duty, and the coyotes are, in general, not barfine-able. A real shame. The girl in the rabbit ears looks SWEET.

Well, consider the obvious example. (Quoting from a Facebook meme) In gun-free California, two wannabe jihadists went out to have a party. Fourteen victims died, more wounded. In gun-crazy Texas, two wannabe jihadis went out to have a party. NO victims died, none wounded. You can do the Google search on Kennesaw GA for yourself.

That place at Suk Soi 3/1 does the best shrimp pad Thai I've found ANYWHERE. My regret from the last trip is I didn't get a chance to hit them for lunch.

T minus 40 days and counting. I will not be making the early hop in over Christmas, unfortunately. The airfares are prohibitive at the moment, and there is NO award (miles) availability for the last leg of the trip (into Bangkok).

Part of it moved to Suk Soi 7/1, west side, a few doors the Suk side of Tarntip Massage. Nowhere near all of it. I haven't had a chance to check the menu at the new location yet, although I think I'll make a point of doing that in January, probably after my first massage of the trip, at Tarntip. (I've been a very satisfied customer of Tarntip Massage for years now.)

I've ridden Thai twice now, once in Business Class from Frankfurt to Bangkok, once in Coach from London Heathrow to Bangkok. Both flights are among my best-ever memories of flying.

Voodoo was very good years ago, as was Hollywood Rock. Those were the days...

Stolen.

Perspective. The first time I visited Bangkok, the baht was 40 to the US dollar. It is currently at about 35.

I keep saying I should try Grand President, but they're a bit more expensive than Royal President, for slightly smaller rooms, and Royal President has been taking very good care of me for YEARS. It is HARD to walk away from a place, when the first thing I hear when I step out of the cab is a hearty "Welcome back!" from the bellman, and it is echoed by just about every staff member I know over the next day or so as they see me.

I suspect that part of the problem is that I'm fighting US dollar weaknesses, and part of it is that I'm fighting US airline greed.