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Timberwolf

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Blog Entries posted by Timberwolf

  1. Timberwolf
    Well, let's see. I would have to day that day 3 has been the worst so far. Yesterday started off really good, and the whole day was good. It was some thing that happened at night that really kind of drove me crazy, but I soon mellowed back out.


    Now for today? I've been great so far. Yes, I'm still using my patch, and I have 2 more patches left, but I'm feeling really good about it. I haven't had any issues or anxiety attacks at all today. As of right now, I'm feeling really strong about quitting smoking. Now I will check in again in 3 days, lol, and let you know how it's going.


    And now I can keep you all updated with what's going on with @hirondelle also. She has gone 2 days now with out a patch or the nicotine gum. I'm really proud of her! She is amazing.


    Now I just have to remember as time goes on that I just can't think, "Oh, I can have just this one", or, "Eh, we're on holiday/vacation, I can just have a pack and stop again when the holiday/vacation is over." That's kind of what happened the last time and well.... It just doesn't work that way. It's just like any other drug, when you stop, you have to stop. If you start again, even for just a taste, you get hooked again.


    This time, I'm done for good! Or at least that's my plan.


    Thanks for listening to my rambling on.
  2. Timberwolf
    Well, what do you know. It's been 9 days, and I'm feeling really good! It's also been 3 days with out using the patch. I haven't had any anxiety attacks at all. The only problems I'm having about now is that one, I'm starting to feel like I can't get enough breath sometimes, because my lungs are starting to heal back up, sometimes it takes me forever to get to sleep, and I have so much energy. There are times that I feel like I'm just bouncing off the walls. Like right now, I'm sitting here, it's 4:15 in the after noon, @hirondelle is on her way home from work, and I'm seriously bouncing in my chair. It's not like I'm nervous or anything. It actually feels like when I was in school (way before I started smoking) and I had all this energy I just had to do something, so I usually just bounced my foot or shook my leg or something. Would drive the people around me crazy, lol, but I can't help it. I don't know why it was like that then, and I don't know why it is like it is now, lol. But I do know I'm feeling much better, and when I do finally sleep, lol, I feel like I sleep more sound. And as for the feeling a bit short of breath, I just have to make sure to breathe deeper then I used to when I was smoking, which is actually a good thing, because it puts more oxygen into my system, lol, but it does make me bounce around a bit more, lol.


    So the update is that It's been 9 days and no smoking and 3 days with no patch, so I'm feeling great!! I won't update you as much now, lol, as I have been, but I will try to update you about this about once a week until I get bored with writing about not smoking, but I will try to start writing more blog posts (again).


    Thank you all for reading. I know there are a number of you, and you don't make comments, but that's OK. Thank you for reading.
  3. Timberwolf
    I have a lot to say and I will try to break this up into sections for you, lol. Please enjoy the read.


    My birthday


    Well, let's see. Today is my birthday and I got some lovely well wishes for so many people today. I feel truly loved. In my 40 years on this earth, I have met so many amazing people. Some have just traveled in and out of it, some have traveled in and out and back in again, some have even stuck around awhile. Some of you I have met in real life first and have gotten back into touch again through the wonders of the internet. Some I've met online and have had the wonderful opportunity to meet in real life. And other still, I've met online and hope to one day meet in real life. And there are those of you that are my real life family that I talk to on the phone or skype or emails or facebook. I consider each and everyone of you a member of my family. You all mean so much to me and I hope to keep all in my life in one way or another. I love you all! Thank you so much for being apart of my life and enriching it in ways you could never know. And thank you all for your birthday wishes.

     
    Non Smoking


    Well, it's now been 17 days with no cigarette and 11 days with no patch. I'm feeling great. I no longer feel like I'm dying when I walk up a lot of steps, I have more energy then I've had in a very long time, and I'm sleeping so much better then I did when I was smoking. One of the nice things about not smoking is the fact that when I go to bed at night, I can now sleep on my back. I love sleeping on my back. When I was smoking, I couldn't lay on my back to go to sleep. If I tried that, I started to get sick to my stomach like I was on one of those spinning rides (which I happen to love). But now that I've stopped smoking, I can fall asleep on my back again and I love it! I also love the fact that when I wake up in the morning, I don't feel the need to have a smoke just to get going. It's so nice! And, as of right now, it's to the point that when I smell a cigarette, I don't have those bad cravings for them. And there are times that when I smell somebody after they've had a smoke, they smell of stale smoke just kind of hangs on them, and I feel kind of bad knowing that I used to smell like that. I don't ever want to smoke again.

     
    Life

     

    This is only partially really considered life. The gift @hirondelle is giving me for my birthday this year is she is buying me a tattoo. I've put a lot of thought into this tattoo and the type of image that I want. It's a combined zen circle and ying & yang. I'm really excited to have it done. I can't wait! When I have it done, I will make sure to have pictures taken of it and post them here.


    More things to deal with life:


    In February, we are going up to Chiang Mai for a few days. I will be relaxing for these days while my love will have to work. Sorry love, but I'm looking forward to the time off.


    Also, in the beginning of March, I will be making a visa run (I hate these) but I will be going back onto a dependents visa which is a good thing.


    And the final thing for the life section of this post, we are headed to the States for the first 2 weeks of April. @hirondelle is going to finally be able to meet my kids! I'm really excited for this to happen. Also, we will be driving to New York, so she can meet my father, one of my sister and my nephew. Then we will be driving to Minnesota so she can meet the rest of my family. That's going to be so awesome! I'm really looking forward to that.


     
    Teaching


    A teacher. How I love it! Right now, I'm working like a buffalo teaching a lot. In the mornings right now, I'm teaching 15 five year olds for 3 hours. We are running a special camp called Around The World in 10 days where we teach them a little bit about 9 different countries. They have a little passport that they made up, and a photo album to put the pictures they will cut out for the places "they have visited". They love it so far, and I've really enjoyed teaching them. This past Friday, I taught them for 5 hours. 3 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. I will be doing this again tomorrow, Thursday and Friday. I will also be teaching my normal classes, lol, so I'm teaching a hell of a lot right now and honestly, I'm kind of beat, so I'm looking forward to my time off in February. But don't get me wrong. I love teaching. Just a little tired about now.


    Well, I think that's about all for right now. As things come up, I will try to keep you all posted.


    Thanks for reading.


    Stay safe and enjoy life! And most of all, try not to worry about how somebody else is thinking about you. It will just cause you head and heart ache. Worry about making yourself happy!


    hugs and licks to all
     
  4. Timberwolf
    Over the last few days I've been kind of busy here at The Northlands. I've been fixing the blogging skins here. For some they are missing some images and for some, the coding for IE was all messed up. Over all, I've gotten it all cleaned up. I've got the missing images taken care of, and I've worked out how to add personal logos for all our hosted blogs. The Northlands is starting to shape up and look the way I want it to, so I'm feeling really good about all this. I've created personal logos for my blog here with a logo for each skin, so when you look at my blog with one skin, you will see one logo, and when you look at my blog with another skin, you will see another logo.

    Next step is to clean up all the emotes for the dark skins. They look great on the light skins, but on the dark skins, some of them look really bad because they have white lines around them and makes them looks dirty and messed up. So that's my current task for The Northlands. I really enjoy doing all this for The Northlands and it's members, I just need to remember that I also need to post and talk to people. I hear that they miss me, but I can't always figure out why, lol, J/K.


    But I will try to be around more, and keep make blog posts. Just remember that if I go over a week, somebody give me a kick up the backside and tell me to make a blog post.
  5. Timberwolf
    Hey all, I'd just like to keep you posted on what's going on with The Northlands. I will continue to post an update in the Forum News area, but I will also post in here.


    To start with, I've updated the blogs. The software for the blogs is supposed to be more streamlined and runs smoother and fit better with IP.Boards 3.1.4. If I see anything that is totally amazing going on with the blogs, I will let you know.


    Also, I tested out a thing that put the Active User list (who's online) over on the side tab. It didn't really look right there. Everything looked all crammed in, and it really looked strange looking at the bottom of the page and not seeing the Active User list down there. So, I just removed it.


    Now, About a month ago or so, I added a facebook like button to the bottom of threads. I told you about that before in the Forum News area, and we had some issues with the image that was being sent to facebook. Well, I've gotten that sorted out, and I've added another button to the bottom of the page (see image below):


    On the left hand side, you see the facebook like button, and now on the right, you will see the tweet button so know you can tweet a thread if you like it.


    There is still the one thing I talked about before, that I'm still working on, that will make things smother for signing in from the main page. We're adding what's called IP.Content, which is like what we have now, but it's fully integrated with the board, so we won't have the issue of people trying to sign in like they did before. And everything will be linked, and it will pull information right from the board and things like that. That's going to take a lot of work, but I'm really looking for to working with it.


    There is also a lot of things I'm looking at from the Invision Power Community, but you will just have to wait and see what's coming with that.
  6. Timberwolf
    For the last 2 weeks, I've been teaching a special class. Well, what my work calls a camp actually. It was a lot fun. I had a class of twelve 5 year olds. Every day of the class they learned a little bit about a different countries.
     
    Day 1: Orientation, Make passports, Make photo albums Day 2: Went to United Kingdom Day 3: Went to New Zealand Day 4: Went to Australia Day 5: Went to United States Day 6: Went to Canada Day 7: Went to China Day 8: Went to South Korea Day 9: Went to Japan Day 10: Back to Thailand

    It was a lot of fun! The kids were great. On the last day, we gave them certificates for completing the camp (see photos).


    For the first week, I started each day, doing 3 hours every morning with the kids, then they would go to lunch, and I would work on things for the teacher in the afternoon and the afternoons later in the week. then off to my normal classes to teach in the evening.


    We had one teacher that did Monday and Tuesday afternoon, and the kids loved him, and he loves the kids, but his normal teaching work took him away for the rest of the week, so they hired another teacher to cover him the rest of the course. Well, as it worked out, he is a shit teacher with kids. What he wants is to teach University Students. Oh, and he would prefer to only teach the University students that are girls. Funny how that is. But hey, at least the kids knew he was a shit teacher. The only problem with this, is that then I had to teach the second week in the afternoons on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. So on Tuesday, I taught from 9am to 3pm, then I had to hightail it to my evening class and teach them 4pm to 6pm, and I had to do that again on Thursday. I was freaking beat! But like I said, I loved it.
  7. Timberwolf
    So @hirondelle told me around Christmastime that she wanted to buy my next tattoo for me for my birthday. So I finally got some free time, and put together an image that I was very happy with. When you look the gallery pictures for this blog post, it will be the one titled original.


    They are great! The lady that did the samurai on my right arm is the same lady that did my new tattoo. Her name is Poo. Her husband, Leck New York, does the big back and body pieces. They both are amazing artists. Now we went in on Tuesday to our tattoo shop by the name of Sak Lai Tattoo Studio. Poo too the image and said she was going to turn the outer circle more into a brush stroke, because she new the idea I was going for. I think she did a great job with that.


    Now to describe my tattoo. The outer circle is called a Zen Circle. It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To me it represents that nothing is perfect. Which to me is life. You just do the best you can, which again is life. The inner image, you all know, it's a Yin and Yang. To me this represents the two sides to everything. You have to look at both sides, listen to both sides and you can't have one with out the other... in my opinion.


    Well, that's about it. Hope you all like it.
  8. Timberwolf
    So yesterday I finished another class. The class was at a place called Aurecon. Aurecon is a company the has engineers and drafters for buildings and such.


    The class was Pre-Intermediate level. Now the book we used, wasn't actually the correct book to use in my opinion. We used a book called Market Leader, which is a great book for people in marketing. And not really what these students needed. Now don't get me wrong, the students learned from the book and they did get something out of it, but that book is more for students of marketing, lol, not engineers. In my opinion, they book that would have worked better is a book called English 365, just because it combines the different aspects of Business English and General English. Meh, lol, it wasn't my decision, lol.


    Any way, the class was great. The students were a lot of fun. And it was about the class size that I love teaching. When all the students were there, which never happened, there were 17 students. The least amount of students that I had was about 10. So over all it was great! I'm not a big fan of the smaller class sizes, but those are the kinds of classes that my company like to use, but it's no big deal. I can teach all sizes of classes and ages, lol.


    Well as you can see from the pictures that are attached to this blog post, they were a great group. Unfortunately, not everybody was there on the last day so I could get a picture of everybody. Here is the class list of the ones that came to class, at least part of the time, lol.


    Aon, Amnuay, Donut, Ton, Nart, Kee, Jue, Pong, Took, Sao, Sit, Thong, Piak(2), Gigx, Art , Piak(1).


    They were a such a great class, that on the last day, they got a cake for us! Talk about awesome!!


    Well, I'll stop boring you with my teaching, lol.


    Always remember: Always listen to your heart. Not anybody else's. Their heart doesn't know you!
  9. Timberwolf
    Well, the past few days have kind of been hard couple of days. It all started on Saturday.


    Something happened while I was at work, and I had such a strong desire, want, need, craving for a smoke! I almost walked out of work, walked down to the local 7-11 and bought a pack. It was so strong, I couldn't believe it. I'd yet to be hit so hard with such a craving for a smoke since we've quit. It was rough. But I didn't go out and buy any cigarettes. I grit my teeth and worked through it, but damn it was hard on Saturday!


    Sunday...? Well, Sunday was fine, lol. I didn't have any issues on Sunday and didn't have any cravings for a smoke, so I thought I was safe. And to make things even nicer, lol, @hirondelle and I went for our weekly foot massage. OMG! If you haven't had a foot massage by somebody who is really good at them, you have just got to try and find yourself some place that does them! Freaking hell! We get them once a week and they just wash away the weeks stress and worries. And they usually knock me out for about 30 minutes for the hour that we get them. They are awesome!


    Then Monday hit. Monday wasn't too bad. But for some reason, I was just having minor cravings for a smoke. I don't know why, but time to time throughout the day, I just kind of wanted a smoke. But don't worry sports fans; I didn't have one on Monday. They weren't that bad.


    Tuesday and damn did Tuesday freaking hit! I was at work, and having a good day, getting a lot of work done on the curriculum they are having me re-write. I originally wrote the curriculum for the kid's classes with one course book covering 100 hours, which gives myself and my fellow teachers plenty of time to get through the course book, prepare the kids for up and coming tests, for the teachers to work with the kids doing portfolios and the like. Well, my bosses felt that it would be better if we went through two course books in 100 hours. Now this cuts down a lot on what the teachers can do, they just have to quickly teach the book, which is OK, but it doesn't really give the teacher a lot of time to really focus on what the students need other than making sure the know enough to move on to the next section of the book. Then after running this curriculum as they wanted it for about 6 months, they decided to change their mind and go back to what I had said they should do, which was run one course book over 100 hours, and they also want to introduce story time for the little, little kids, and reading time for the older kids, which I think is a great idea. Also, before the end of the year, I wrote the curriculum for a camp that we were running for the beginning of the year, which I'm sure you will remember, Around The World In 10 Days. It was a great camp, and I had a lot of fun, and I taught the majority of the classes for the two weeks that it was running. After I was about 75% done with the curriculum, they decided that what I had done was to mature for the kids, so I had to pare down what I had and get a lot of other activities and put a lot of different things together, so it took me a lot long than it should have to write this curriculum, and now is where the problems start. I got my pay here yesterday, Tuesday, and one of my bosses, Dang, said that I don't get paid for curriculum work (1) because I taught the class and (2) because I was claiming too many hours for writing it. Talk about setting me over the edge. I kept my cool, but damn did I really want a cigarette after that. They still haven't paid me for this time, but we were supposed to have a meeting about it on Thursday, because I normally teach on Monday and Wednesdays.


    Now it's Wednesday, and I was supposed to go to a class about 2 hours out from center Bangkok so I didn't have to go into the office, but the class canceled today, so I went into the office. I went into the office at 12 like I do when I'm not teaching. And the owner of the company didn't come in until about 30 minutes before I left, and she didn't even come in and say hi to me or anything. And my other boss, Dang, didn't even come in today. So we didn't have the meeting today about it. And the owner told me that she couldn't have the meeting tomorrow because she is busy, but we can have the meeting on Friday. This is fine by me. Last night, Tuesday, I made a decision, and this morning when I woke up, I felt so much better about things.


    No matter what they decide, I come out for the better. See, when we moved back to Bangkok, I really wanted to work for this company, because they were always good to me when I worked for them before. I knew I would probably be making less then I could probably earn, but working for a good company it's sometimes worth it. So the decision that I made, with @hirondelle's support, is simply this. They can give me a pay raise and I won't add any curriculum work or placement testing or any non-teaching work to my pay claim, and if I work more than 70 hours in a month, they will pay me the regular teaching hour pay for anything over those 70 hours. Or, I can go back to being a part time teacher, and not worry about any curriculum or anything like that, and they can just pay me by the hour for my teaching, and I can look around at other schools and get my own private students and make more in the end. So I'm not too worried.


    And the good news is a two parter, lol.


    Over this whole time and no matter how much I wanted a cigarette, I didn't have one, which makes me feel good.  I didn't have any cravings at all today!


    Oh, and when I was in today, I finished the Starter, Movers, Flyers curriculum that they asked for, and only worked on it for about 15 hours total, which should make them happy, lol. And, I was a nice guy and emailed it to them, so they have it no matter what decision they make on Friday.


    Thanks for listening to me ramble along.


    Always Remember:  If you always follow what your heart says, you can never go down the wrong path.
  10. Timberwolf

    Changes

    By Timberwolf,


    Music
    Let me start off by saying that I've been a Black Sabbath and Ozzy fan for quite a long time.  Now that doesn't mean I have or had listened to everything they put out.  There is a lot of music there, and as much as I like Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne, they weren't and aren't my favorite artist.  
     
    So, in 2003, I saw Ozzy Osbourne on some talk show, I don't remember which one it is now, and he was on with his daughter, Kelly, and they did this song.
     
     
    It just blew me away and I immediately fell in love with this song.  I have since done some research on this song.  This piano was by Tony Iommi and the lyrics were by Geezer Butler and was inspired by  Bill Ward's breakup with his first wife.   Black Sabbath did this song in their album Vol. 4 which was released in 1972.  This is Black Sabbath's version of this amazing song which is so heartbreaking.
     
     
    In 2010, one of my favorite rap artists, Eminem, sampled Changes for his song Going Through Changes for his album Recovery.  He talks about his problems with drugs and losing one of his closest friends Proof.  How he fought through his struggles for his daughters and for himself.  This song, for me, is also heartbreaking, but very inspiring as he has fought through his difficulties.
     
     
     
    The final version of this song, which I happened to stumble upon just a few weeks ago, just tears my heart out.  This version is by Charles Bradley, which he sung after losing his mother, which really hits home for me.
     
     
    Some of you may know this, I'm a huge music lover.  I love a lot of different genres of music.  These are different versions of the same song and inspire some different feelings in me.  I love when a song sung by different people can do that.
     
    Always Remember:  Keep an open mind because you will never know what new thing you will end up loving.
  12. Timberwolf
    So, I've been talking about how I need to lose weight.  And I even talked about how I need to lose weight in the My fat ass thread here at NL.  I figured this would be a good way to keep track of my weight loss.  
     
    So, one of the things I decided I was going to do a few things.
     
    Drink less beer.  When there is a game, football or hockey, on TV, I drink two to three beers.  I decided, that no matter what is going on, I'm going to only drink one beer a day at the most. Drink less pop.  I don't generally drink a lot of pop any more.  I used to drink a lot of it, but I'm going to keep it down.  One of the things I'm going to do is, on the days, game days, instead of drinking two or three beers, I will drink one pop.   I'm also going to start doing yoga again.  A minimum of three Sun Salutation As a day.    
    On thing I plan on doing is keeping a weekly log of how things are going.  If I miss a week, please feel free to give me a nudge to get back on track.   
     
    So, as of this morning, I weight 237 lbs (108kg), which is about 20 lbs (9kg) less than I thought I was.  I thought I was up near 260 lbs (118kg), so that's good.  That doesn't mean I'm not going to work as hard.  It just means I have less to lose than I thought.  
     
    The start of my weight loss was yesterday.  There was a hockey game, and I only had one beer, and I had 1 coke.  When @hirondelle and I went to bed last night, we both did 3 Sun Salutation As.  It actually felt pretty good to do them.  I've gotten pretty shit at doing them, but it felt good at doing them.
     
    There are a few reasons that I've decided to lose weight.  First and foremost, I just want to feel healthier.  I'm out of shape, and I know that once I start losing weight, the right way, I will start getting back into shape at the same time.  Another reason for me to lose weight, is it will help improve my hockey game again.  I feel I have gotten slower since my knee surgery and all the lock downs and gaining weight.  It really sucks, because I was starting to get decent.  The final reason for me wanting to lose weight is because my knee has started to feel sore, and losing weight will take some of the stress off of my knee.  So getting in shape, taking stress off of my knee, I think this will set me back on the correct path of getting my skill level back up for hockey.... I hope.  
     
    Well, that's all for my first post.  See you next week some time.
     
    Always Remember:  If you set your mind to it, you can do it.
  13. Timberwolf

    Welcome To My Fat Ass

    By Timberwolf,


    Welcome
    Welcome to the NL Community blog that is focused on helping our member with losing weight and their struggles with with weight.  All are welcome to make blog posts and comments, all that we ask is that people are respectful to each other. 

    In this blog, we can talk about what exercises we are doing, our eating habits, our triggers, or anything that surrounds our weight loss.
     
    The most important thing is that we support and encourage each other in this journey.
     
    Thank you,
     
    @Timberwolf
  14. Timberwolf

    Timberwolf - Losing Weight - Week 3

    By Timberwolf,


    Weight Loss Update
    OK, so here I am, three (3) weeks from my blog post Losing Weight - Week 1. 
     
    The reason I didn't do a blog post last week, is because I was on holiday in Koh Chang with @hirondelle, and some friends.  
     
    The good thing is that I haven't gained any weight.  I'm holding steady at about 237 lbs.  I've also started doing Sun Salutation A. 
     

     
    Now, I'm not doing them every day, but I am working towards that.  At the moment, I'm doing 5 in a row when I do them.  I did them for the first few days when I started, and then I didn't do them while we were on holiday, and then I did them a couple of times since we've been back.  Not enough, but it's a start.
     
    Always Remember:  There is no failure, there is just a new starting point.
  15. Timberwolf

    Sukhothai Motorcycle Trip 2022

    By Timberwolf,


    Travel
    @hirondelle and I had been talking about doing a trip to Sukhothai for quite a few years, but we never actually sat down to plan it.  Mostly, because my schedule is pretty busy.  This year, I ended up having a five (5) day weekend, so we decided to go for it.  
     
    Now, before we get started, to give you an idea of how far this trip actually is, it was just shy of 851km (just shy of 529miles) round trip.  That’s about 425.5km (264 miles) to Sukhothai from our home.  We decided it would be best to break this up over two days, which is something we would normally do.
     
    One more thing before I get started with this journey.  Once we got started on this journey, for our first stop, we stopped at a PTT gas station and almost all PTT gas stations have an Amazon Café.  Amazon Café has OK coffee and good iced lemon tea.  But it’s one of those things that is just special for when you travel.  It’s a nice little rest area.  They have a covered area outside that you sit and relax while you have a break, and some locations have an inside air-conditioned area to relax in as well.  This has become our favorite rest stop in all our journeys since this trip.  
     
    Just to put things into perspective, when we used to do our road trips around northern Thailand, we would go from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai to Chiang Saen to Thaton to Chiang Dao to Chiang Mai, about 565km (351 miles).  The trip we did right after we bought the Honda Rebel was Bangkok to Kanchanaburi to Sangklaburi to Saiyok to Nakhon Pathom to Bangkok which is 699km (434 miles).  So, this was our biggest journey on a bike to date.  
     
    When we were planning, we decided that would we stop in Nakhon Sawan, which is about four (4) hours out of Bangkok, 239km (149.5miles).  One thing that happened early on, when we made one of our stops, we realized that @hirondelle had forgotten her phone.  There was a bit of a panic at first, but we decided that we would just continue on without it.  Also, during this portion of the trip, we were on a nice stretch of road where the traffic was flowing quite nicely.  There was a section that I was doing about 130kph (81mph).  While doing this, there were a group of bikes that passed us and not thinking, I just picked up the pace a bit.  Before you know it, I was cruising along at 147 kph (91mph).  It was at this point, I decided to let go of some of that throttle and we continued coasting at between 120kph (75mph) and 125kph (78mph).  We stayed at a nice hotel there called The Paradiso JK Design Hotel.  Once we stopped, we headed to the local mall to get some drinks and snacks and then back to the hotel.  We had dinner at the hotel, which was some delicious Thai food.  They also had a very good breakfast, which was nice.  The staff were really friendly and helpful.  
     
    After breakfast, I packed up the bike and we headed out for our next stop.  Sriwilai Sukhothai Resort and Spa.  This portion of the trip was a little over 3 hours, 190km (118miles).  There were some scenic bits of this road, which was nice. Nothing too fast again, just cruising between 100kph (62mph) and 120kph (75mph).  We pulled in to Sriwilai Sukhothai Resort and Spa in the early afternoon.  Sriwilai Sukhothai had this amazing lily pond, which was huge!  They had four building that surrounded it, one of which was the building we were in.  Once we got to our room, @hirondelle relaxed for a bit, and I went and had a massage.  One of my favorite things while on holiday.  Once that was done, we had dinner then headed out to Sukhothai Historical Park to see the ruins at night.  It was supposed to be amazing, and it sure didn’t disappoint!  It was beautiful and we got some amazing pictures.  After we wondered around the lit-up parts of the park, we headed back to our resort.  In the morning, we got up and went to have breakfast, and that turned in a big pain in the ass.  We went to the restaurant, gave them our room number, found a table, and went to get our food from the buffet.  They approached us and said we couldn’t eat there.  There was some confusion about us having breakfast there.  Long story short, there was some mess up in the booking and we didn’t book breakfast and ended up having to pay for it.  Whatever.  We then went back out to the historical park and had a look at it during the day and took a lot of pictures.  It’s really cool.  Some of the best ruins in Thailand, in my opinion.  We then went to this lovely little restaurant the was kind of dead, and once we sat down, people started coming in and giving them business.  After lunch, we headed back to the resort and got massages and finished off the day with a nice dinner.  
     
    We got up in the morning and headed back to Bangkok, with us deciding to stop in Sing Buri, which was almost five (5) hours, 281 km (175miles) from Sukhothai.  We booked a room at Zen Garden Resort.  Oh was, was this place bad!  The room they gave us smelt like feet, didn’t look very clean, had no food or restaurant or anything.  We were almost tempted to stay there, but in the end, we just couldn’t do it.  We left and found this amazing little resort called Je t’aime café & villa.  They had four (4) rooms.  Of course.  Room L, Room O, Room V, Room E.  We had Room E.  They had a nice little restaurant there, and we had dinner and ordered our breakfast.  The only bad thing was that the beds were so small, but we did sleep together in the same bed.  
     
    We had a lovely little breakfast in the morning and then packed the bike to head to Bangkok, which was just shy of three (3) hours, 141km (88miles).  The last stretch is always the worst.  You want to stop, and have breaks, but you don’t want to stop, because you’re almost home.  It’s so hard.  We took breaks, but I think we just didn’t rest enough, and the very last bit was agony.
     
    Outside of the last little bit, the trip was actually really good.  I really enjoyed making that trip on the bike.  Makes me want to do more long trips on the bike.
     
    Always Remember:  If you really want to go someplace, set time aside to go.
  16. Timberwolf

    Lost - Part 2

    By Timberwolf,


    Stories
    Part 2
     
    As the sound of the truck disappeared in the distance, Mindy collapses to the ground in tears.  “What are we going to do, Sean?  What the hell are we going to do?”
     
    Sean reaches down and picks up the bags and brings them over to sit down and sit next to Mindy.  “First thing we need to do is check what supplies we have.  He said there was enough food for two days for the two of us, a knife and a revolver with five rounds in it as well as a tent.  Let’s check”, Sean said as he started emptying one of the bags.
     
    Mindy nods to Sean and picks up one of the other bags and starts to remove the contents from it, and Sean grabs the third bag and empties out with rest of the supplies.  “OK, what do we have”, Sean said as he picked up the notebook and the pencil.  He opened the notebook and on the first page was a small note from Micah.
     
    As I said to you, you have enough food for two days for two people, and a tent.  You will also find a blanket.  Don’t lose it.  It gets cold out here at night.  Use this notebook to keep track of things like how much food you’ve eaten, landmarks, and anything else you feel is important.  
     
    Good Luck!
    Micah
     
    Sean handed the notebook to Mindy, “Here, you can write down our inventory while I set up the tent and start a fire?”
     
    “Start a fire?” asked Mindy hysterically.  “Why would you do that?  They will be able to see us….”
     
    Sean grabbed Mindy and forced her to look at him.  “Stop!  I need to start a fire so we can stay warm.  We are fine for tonight.  He said they won’t come after us until noon tomorrow.  Now organize our supplies and make a note of everything we have while I start the fire and set up the tent.”  With that, Sean went back to starting the fire.  Once the fire was started, he and Mindy set up the tent for the night.
     
    ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
     
    A few hours before dawn, Sean’s watch alarm went off.  He quickly got up, got some water and a little bit of breakfast for the both of them ready and then woke up Mindy.  While they ate, Seans said “We need to get moving as soon as possible.  The more distance we can cover before the sun rises, the harder it will be for the hunters to find us.”  The mention of the hunters brought Mindy around quickly and they finished their small breakfast, packed the last of their supplies, and headed north.
     
    After walking for a few hours, Sean turned them northwest.  “Why are we turning?” Mindy asked, looking back the way they came.
     
    “I don’t want to make it easy for them.  I think they will expect us to go one of the four main directions, so I started off going one way, and then changed, and I will change again in a few hours,” Sean said looking over his shoulder at Mindy.
     
    “But won’t that take us longer to get to the boundary?  Won’t we run out of food?” Mindy asked on the edge of hysterics again.  
     
    Sean stopped and took ahold of Mindy’s shoulders.  If we walk in a straight line, it will make easier for them to find us.  If we change directions every few hours or so, but keep heading towards a boundary, it will be better for us.  Yes, we only have two days worth of supplies, but we have a knife,” Sean said patting his left hip, “and I have this revolver,” patting his right hip.  “I also know how to hunt and set traps.  We will be fine if we start moving before dawn and stop after the sun sets.  We can do this.”
     
    Mindy took a deep breath, visibly pulling herself together.  “Ok.  You’re right.  We can make it.”
  17. Timberwolf

    Motorcycle Rides

    By Timberwolf,


    Motorcycle
    On July 15, 2023, I purchased a new bike for me.
     
    Before I tell you about that though, I want to tell you what led to this bike.  
     
    2018 Honda Rebel 500  
    2018 Honda Rebel 500
    Back in 2018 I bought a new 2018 Honda Rebel 500 to replace my Honda Phantom 200.  This was a great bike, and we did a lot of rides on it, lots of lovely trips.  The first trip we did on this bike was a trip from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi to Sangkaburi to Sai Yok to Nakhon Prathom to Bangkok.  It was such a lovely trip to get used to the bike.  We have also done multiple trips to Khao Yai and a trip to Sukhothai and a number of lunch runs with friends and multiple safety courses with Honda.  
     
    This was a lovely bike, which I loved to ride, with lots of memories.  The whole time I had this bike, I only dropped it twice.  The first time was when I did a slow u-turn in the middle of a major road here in Bangkok and the person on the back of the bike wasn't paying attention to what I was doing and leaned over and I wasn't expecting it and the bike fell.  The second time was when I was on one of the safety courses, and it was late in the day, I lost concentration on what I was doing and I leaned the bike over too far and then felt the bike start to go, gave it a little extra throttle to set it back up, but the back tire broke loose and then I caught the platform and the bike went down hard.  
     
    One thing was, after owning the Rebel for about six (6) months, I started looking at other bikes.  One of the youtubers that I follow, Ryan FortNine (https://www.youtube.com/@FortNine), rode a 2015 Suzuki V-Strom 1000 and he did two reviews on in.
     
     
     
     
    Because of these two videos, I started looking at the cost of the Suzuki V-Strom.  One of the things I noticed, at the time, is that they were a little bit cheaper than the Honda Africa Twin.
     
    2024 Honda Africa Twin When my Honda Rebel 500 was almost paid off, I decided to sell it and get a bigger bike.  I felt like I was ready.  I was at the local Honda dealership and they showed me a Honda Rebel DCT 1100.  I took it. for a test ride, and it felt nice.  I went home and talked to @hirondelle about it, and she said that if we were going to get another bike, she didn't want another Rebel, because after about thirty (30) minutes on the back of the bike, she starts to not feel so good, and at about forty-five (45) minutes, she needs a break, and an hour, she needs at least a thirty (30) minute break.  It had a lot to do with the leg position for her on the back of the Rebel.  So we looked at what Honda bikes would be good for a pillion rider, and it was recommended an Africa Twin.  I started looking hard at Africa Twins.  I took a couple for a test ride, and I had @hirondelle go with me for a test ride.  She actually loved the feeling of riding on the back of that big machine.  We talked about what we needed to do to get one, and crunched some numbers.  We originally decided to get a new one, but then later on, we decided to get a used one, and save quite a bit of money.  
     
    Triumph Tiger 1200 One day, I had a Triumph Tiger come up in my feed on Facebook, so I looked at them.  Even the second hand ones were coming up as more expensive than a new Honda Africa Twin, but something weird happened when I was doing that.  I was reminded of all the research I did on the Suzuki V-Strom 1000.  So I decided to go back and take a look at the research I did on the V-Strom and the videos that Ryan FortNine did on the Suzuki V-Strom.
     
    This convinced me to take a second look at the V-Strom.  While I was doing that, @hirondelle looked for bikes that are comfortable for the pillion rider.  She shared with me four (4) lists.  On those four lists, the Honda Africa Twin wasn't listed at all.  The BMW GS1200 (a bike my friend owns) was listed on two lists (2), and the Suzuki V-Strom was on all four (4) lists, so this kind of convinced me to start looking at them.  I looked at the Suzuki web site and saw that their bikes were about the same price as the Honda Africa Twin.
     
    Buying a 2018 Suzuki V-Strom 1000 I decided to look at used bikes.  The Honda Africa Twin was going for about 370,000 Thai Baht, which is about 10,500 USD, and the Suzuki V-Strom was running about 320,000 Thai Baht, which is about 9000 USD.  The day I started looking at used Suzuki V-Stroms, I found a 2018 Suzuki V-Strom 1000 for 270,000 Thai Baht, which is about 7,500 USD.  I left it for a couple of weeks to see if it would go, and told @hirondelle about it and showed her pictures.  She liked how the bike looked, and we both liked that it came with a top box on the back.  After a few weeks went by, I reached out to the seller and asked for a discount, and he knocked of 10,000 Thai Baht for me, about 300 USD.  Didn't seem like a bad deal, so I asked to go have a look at it.  Tracy went with me to look at it and for me to test ride it.  I started it up, and the motor sounded good, no strange noises or anything.  I took it for a test ride and it rode smooth and felt really comfortable.  I made him an offer, that he said he couldn't do as he was selling it on consignment, so the best that he could do was 260,000 Thai Baht.  @hirondelle and I talked about it and we felt this was a good price.  Put a down payment on the bike and came back a month later to pay it off and rode off the lot with my new motorcycle!  
     
    This bike is so comfortable for me, and for @hirondelle.  Our first big trip on it was a trip to Hua Hin, and it was so nice.  @hirondelle also said that she felt really good on it.  We both had to learn a new way to mount the bike as it was so tall, but now it's so natural for use to get on the bike this way.  We have also done a number of lunch runs with some friends on this bike and we love it.  

    I have been keeping a journal for the rides that I have done on this bike, which is something new for me.  To go with that, recently, I have started using the Riser app, which a great app for riding mapping motorcycle rides and also diving directions.  You can decide if you want a curvy route, a supercurvy route or a direct route, which is pretty good.  Also, there is an option to add friends when we ride together so nobody gets lost.  I haven't tested this part yet, but I plan on it.
     
    So, my idea is I will be making journal entries of my rides here, and I will also post my route, so people can have a look on Riser to see where I went.  I'm quite excited about this.  When I have a chance, I will post my journal entries here, but they won't have the map, but all rides after this will have the map and any images I take.  I'm really looking forward to it.  
     
    Always Remember:  Ride your own ride, not somebody elses rides.
  18. Timberwolf
    Date:
    12 May 2024
    Time (Estimated Length):
    51 min (29 km)
    People on trip:
    Dom & Tracy (Suzuki V-Strom 1000), Australian David (Royal Enfield 250 Interceptor), Tall David (Honda CB 650 Naked Street Bike), Jessica (Honda Click 125), Wonder (Honda Rebel 500), Harley Dave (Harley Davidson Road Glide 1950)
    Trip Checklist
    Tire & PSI:
    Good
    Fluids:
    Full
    Lights:
    Good
    Lic. & Reg.
    Good
    Weather/Temp:
    Sunny (37 C)
    Route:
    https://riserapp.com/trips/799807
    https://riserapp.com/trips/799981
    Type of trip/Ride:
    Lunch run with friends
    Points of interest:
    Sailom Bang Pu Restaurant
    Motorcycle Performance:
    Excellent
    Why?
    It has been a long time since I’ve done an extended ride and it felt really good.
    Departing KM:
    40767
    Ending KM:
    40825
    Will I do this ride again?
     No 
    Why?
    Most of the ride was going down Sukhumvit road and the traffic was bad.
    Memorable events/notes:
    This time we started from Big Mike’s restaurant, The Deck, which is a great restaurant.  Tracy and I were a little bit late, but only Australian David was there, so Tracy and I ordered breakfast while we waited for the others to arrive and chatted with Australian David.

    Next to arrive was Tall David, and we chatted to him a bit.  Next to arrive was Wonder with her new friend, Harley Dave.  
      We had a plan for kickstands up (KSU) at 12:30, and we almost hit the mark this time.  Jessica, our last scheduled person to show up, arrived at 12:28.
      I learned a valuable lesson with this trip.  Do not travel down Sukhumvit road at all cost.  Traffic is terrible and it’s so difficult to get beyond 60kph.  Since we couldn’t really get any speed, at that time of day, it made it super super hot.  
      I really liked starting off from The Deck.  It felt like having a home.  
      The destination restaurant wasn’t so good either.  That was a bad choice.  In the future, I will choose places North, East, and West of Bangkok and stay away from South as we would spend too much time on Sukhumvit.  
      As a first ride, I felt it went really well, and we left at around the time I wanted and got back in plenty of time.  
     
     

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