So 2018 has been quite an interesting year to say the least.  It's been quite an interesting and eventful year to say the least.

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January - 

Early in the month, @hirondelle took me to one of her favorite restaurants from her early days in Thailand, a place called Suda.  She took a great picture of me having a beer

Although hirondelle says the food wasn't as good as she remembers, it wasn't bad, and I enjoyed going to one of her old hangouts.  And just look at that hair!  You think that's bad?  Wait till you see it as the year goes along.   

February -

We had a special visiter for hockey here in Thailand, we had Coach Jeremy from How To Hockey and you can find his YouTube channel HERE. While he was here, the Siam Hockey League and the Flying Farangs put together a pick up game for him, which I got to play in.

Also during this time, hirondelle and I started exploring kink a bit more and we attended our first shibari training class, where I started learning the Japanese art of tying people with rope.  We also started to explore with what is called impact play.  Impact play is like spanking, but sometimes using other objects other than your hands, which have found we liked a lot.

March -

March was a really big month for me, because I was asked to play with the Flying Farangs during the City Of Angels Old Timers tournament here in Bangkok.

Although we didn't do so good in the tournament, it was so much fun to play with these guys.  One of the best things about this was that when they asked me what number I wanted, the first number that came to mind was my number from when I used to play hockey back in the 80s.  When I asked if that number was available, they said yes!

April - 

Lots of interesting things happened this month.  First, we went to our first munch in the kink community here in Bangkok.  This was a big step for us, because we didn't know (1) who was going to be at the munch, and (2) what if somebody we knew showed up at the munch.  As things would have it, there was somebody going that we knew, but he was so super cool about it and helped us ease into it.

Right after the munch, hirondelle and I headed off to England.  It had been a few years since I'd been to the UK, and we wanted to make the best of it.  We spent a few nights in Hucknall, and while there, hirondelle took me to the hockey rink in Nottingham, where the Nottingham Panthers play.  One of the reasons she brought me to the rink is because they have a pro shop there, and I was looking for some new hockey equipment.  More specifically, I was looking for new shin pads, new gloves, shoulder pads and a new hockey bag.  To go with that, they had quite a bit of NHL stuff, so I got some Minnesota Wild stuff, pins and a hockey puck as well as a Nottingham Panthers T-shirt.  I didn't buy everything in Nottingham, hirondelle also took me to Sheffield, which also has a hockey team, the Sheffield Steelers, one of Nottinghams rivals.  They have a giant hockey equipment shop called Puckstop, which has just about everything you can think of when it comes to hockey gear.  Of course, as luck would have it, we didn't check the hours of the shop.  We arrived in Sheffield on Monday and thought they would be open and when we found the store, we found that they were closed on Mondays.   So we had to go there on Tuesday.  Oh well.  These things happen.  Between the two stores, I found what I was looking for, and it was pretty cool walking around Sheffield. 

We weren't only in the UK for hockey equipment though.  One of the other reasons we were in the UK was so I could finally meet one of hirondelle's oldest friends, Sharron and Sharron's husband Doug.

We spend the whole day in Lincoln, walking around and hanging out with them.  Lincoln is a pretty interesting city, with an amazing cathedral, and the high street is this really long hill that leads right down to the river that runs right through Lincoln.  It was pretty cool, and it was awesome finally meeting Sharron and Doug.

One of the things we always do, especially when I'm with hirondelle, when we go to the UK is we meet Autumn and Jamie. 

We love meeting up with them, and on this trip, we spent most of the day with them.  They took us to their tattooist and piercer and hirondelle got her nipples pierced.  So cool.  One of the things hirondelle and I talked about with meeting Jamie and Autumn was them taking us to their tattooist and piercer so hirondelle could get her nipples pierced. 

After our time in Nottingham/Sheffield, we spent some time in London.  We love London for so many different reasons.  This year, we decided to go to some more kinky type shops, because we were looking to get some special things.  We picked up some pretty cool kinky toys that we just love.

May - 

May was a pretty busy month for me when it came to hockey.  First, I played in a 4-on-4 hockey tournament in Pattaya.

This tournament was a lot of fun, though we lost our first game, we won our next 2 games to put us in the finals against the local favorite team, the Pattaya Destroyers.  This tournament had two (2) first for me.  First, the manager, Scott Murray put me in as a forward.  I don't remember playing as a forward since I was in mites, back when I was 5-6 years old.  Second, in the second game, Scott (my forward line mate) had me taking face-offs on my side of the ice.  Of course, when I first started, I did really shitty, and didn't win any face-offs, but then I won a couple face-offs, so that wasn't so bad..  The first time we played the Pattaya Destroyers we beat them, but then we had to play them again after a break ofd about an hour, and they beat us, so we ended up taking second place in this tournament, which wasn't too bad.

After this, I had a tournament a tournament in Northern Bangkok, an hour by underground train, to help raise funds for one of the local, Thai ice hockey players that was in a motorcycle accident.  This was another 4-on-4 tournament, and we did really good in this tournament and eded up winning it, which was awesome.

The last thing that happened in May was that I started playing in the Bangkok Ice Hockey League (BIHL) for a team called Bunteng Rengrom.

The BIHL starts off their season with one (1) division, then after 4 games, they split into two (2) divisions, and after 4 more games they have the playoffs in three (3) divisions.  Last season, my team, Bunteng Rengrom, took 3rd place out of 4 teams in the 3rd division.  This year, we took 3rd place out of 3 teams in the second division, so we did better than we did last year.  I was one of three foreigners on my team, and almost half of my team were women, which was pretty cool.  We had a lot of fun, though in one game I got a little heated when we were playing in our second game against Greatest Ice.  One of their top players took a cheap shot at one of our players, so I defended our player and gave the guy a check in the back, nothing dirty, no elbows or anything like that, just a should, which sent him to the ice, which caused a bit of a scuffle in front of our net and I got sent to the box for 2 minutes.  Over all, I feel I didn't do too bad in my first season in the BIHL.  I got 2 points (assists) with 4 minutes in penalties.  I was asked to come back and play for them again next year, which I plan on doing.

June - 

June marked a few big things.  First, hirondelle and I went to our first kinky play party.  That was pretty exciting and fun. 

I also played more hockey.  The BIHL went until August, so I was pretty busy with that, but I also got to travel with the Flying Farangs to the Philippines.

This was the first time in about 5 years that the Flying Farangs have traveled outside of Thailand to play in a tournament, so I was pretty stoked to be asked to come along and play in this one.  This was also the first time I'd been to the Philippines, so that was exciting in and of itself.  Also, I got to meet a long time online friend for the first tie face to face while I was in the Philippines.

Karen actually came to the rink for her first every hockey game.  It was awesome to meet her, and we had a lovely dinner together.  

Another cool thing was we had to NHL hockey players and Stanley Cup winners, Johnny Oduya and Marcus Kruger visit Bangkok for a charity game.

This was so awesome, and I did the score keeping and announcements for the game.  I also got to have dinner with them before the game.  The most exciting for me thought was the night before.  There was a game for those that weren't playing in the charity game to be able to play with Johnny Oduya and Marcus Kruger.

This was awesome on so many levels, but the biggest thing for me was being a D-partner to Johnny Oduya!  Amazing!  Oh, and I got a penalty for "tripping" Marcus Kruger, but I still say he took a dive.

The most important thing for me in June was that my baby girl, Bretney, graduated from high school!

I talked to her for a few minutes before the ceremony and I got to watch the ceremony live through her schools website.  Totally awesome.  So proud of her.

July - 

Hockey wise, the BIHL is still going on and I'm playing in the weekly shinny for the Flying Farangs.  Also, when it comes to Shibari, I did my first suspension, which was of a friend of ours, and then a few weeks later, I suspended hirondelle for the first time.  That was a lot of fun.

August - 

Kink wise, August was pretty exciting for us.  One of the groups we are part of had what's called an Auction Party, which is what it says, but people are auctioned off with the money going to special organizations and groups.  First off, hirondelle went up on the auction block to do art for a scene for somebody.  Second, we both went up on the block as a couple to co-top somebody.  So that was really exciting for us, and a lot of fun.

September - 

So this was a good and bad month.  I got pulled over on my motorcycle on my way to where I eat lunch and they wanted to give me a ticket for my tax being out of date, but I showed them where my tax was and they were like, oh ok, but then when they looked at my driver's license, they told me that I needed a Thai driver's license.  This was a shock to me, because I'd been using my American driver's license whenever I rode a bike here in Thailand.  They didn't give me a fine the first time, but when they pulled me over a second time in the same week, they checked my tax and found out that it was out of date, I had made a mistake, and this was the second time in a week that I had been pulled over and didn't have a Thai driver's license, so I did get fined this time.

The best thing that happened this month, well, let me go back to about May, before we went to our first kink party, we were invited to a welcome back party of somebody that was part of the group that wanted to meet us, so she got us invited.  The party was at another person's house, by the name of Stef.  Both hirondelle and I really hit it off with Stef.  We went to quite a few parties and events at Stef's house through out the year.  Well, Stef told hirondelle and I that if we ever wanted to try being with a third person, she really liked us and would be willing to be our third.  hirondelle and I had talked about this before, but that was about as far as we had gone with it, then Stef brought it up to us.  We went home that night and talked it, and we decided we would like to try it, so I messaged Stef and we made a date.  We had that date, and spent the night at Stef's and all three of us really enjoyed it.

October - 

More motorcycle news this month.  So we went to get our motorcycle it's tax updated and well, we found out that the bike needed to be inspected because it's older than five (5) years old, and then we went to get it insured and taxed.  That was a whole day affair.  Then I went to try to get my Thai driver's license, but found out that I could only do the eye test portion of my test and I had to head back there in November, so keep an eye out for that.

One of the good things that happened, is we had a weekend date with Stef, and this time, she came to our house, and she spent the weekend with us and it was so great!  So chill and relaxed.

November - 

Motorcycle - Wow.  So I went and spent five (5) hours at the Land and Transport office watching videos and then I took the written test after, and I was told I had to come back on another day to do my driving test.  Talk about being angry, because I was told I could do both tests in the same day, and that just didn't happen.  That worst thing about this is I took a day off of work to take the test, and ended up having to take another day off of work to get this taken care of.  So I passed the written test, and I decided to come back the next day to do my driving test.  Which I did and I ended up passing it and getting my license.  

So I am finally legal!

Hockey - Well, I was asked to play for another Flying Farangs teams.

We didn't do great in this tournament, we lost the first two (2) games, then we tied the third game, and we finally we won the last game and we won a trophy!  It was such a blast playing in this tournament, but I also worked this tournament, so I did some interviews for them, score keeping and stats entering. 

Lastly, we had another weekend date with Stef, which was great.  We went to see one of our friends do improve, and they were really good.

December - 

Exciting times.  At the end of November, we went and looked at getting a Honda Rebel 500 and to get the financing done for it.

We got approved and picked it up.  Super exciting!  It's so much fun to ride.  We really put it through its paces as well.  We did a road trip to finish off the year.  We went from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi, and spent the night there.

That portion of the trip was 174 km (108 miles), which took about 3 hours.  From Kancanaburi, we went to Sangklaburi.

Sangklaburi has the longest wooden bridge in Thailand, which you can walk across.  It's pretty amazing.  That portion of the trip was 201 km (125 miles) not counting our missed turn, and it took us about 4 hours to get there.  Was a portion of road that went through the mountains which was pretty cool.  We spent two (2) nights in Sangklaburi, and on the second day, we took a boot to the submerged temple and another temple near that.

From Sangklaburi, we went to Sai Yok.

This portion of the trip was 175 km (109 miles) which took about 3 hours.  The resort that we stayed was off the road and back north another 20 minutes, but it was nice and peaceful and right on the river.  Our last stop on our trip was Nakhon Pathom.

This portion of the trip was 148 km (92 miles) and about 3 hours.  Our resort, this time, was about an hour away from the main road!  Very very quiet, like an 80s motel/resort horror movie kind of quiet.  There was even one point where we started hearing strange noises from the roof of our bungalow.  I guess we should have been watching Stranger Things before bed.  That last leg of our trip was back to Bangkok.

This last leg of the trip was 78 km (49 miles) which ended being about an hour and a half.  I did miss a turn at one point, but there was a double U-turn, so I think that happens quite a lot, and I got us back on the right track.

The other thing that was lovely was we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Stef.  We had dinner together on Christmas Eve and then spent the rest of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with us.

All and all, it was an amazing year filled with mostly high points.

Well, that's all for now.  I'll see you next time.

Always Remember: Life is meant to be enjoyed, not dreaded, so get out and enjoy it.