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Timberwolf

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Blog Entries posted by Timberwolf

  1. Timberwolf
    Well, as some of you have read, @hirondelle and I have decided on a few things for New Years. First and foremost, is that we plan on quitting smoking. I would also like to get back into shape, bring my weight back down to what I think it should be, and also start studying martial arts again.


    I'm going to try and keep a bit of a travel log of how things go here.


    As of today, we have quit smoking. I always forget how hard the first day is. So what I'm trying to do is keep my mind busy by doing a few different things. I'm listening to some good music, working on some new things for The Northlands, and a friend of ours is coming down and he would like to go to this open park and work out a little bit. So this here is the start of things.


    Wish us luck.
  2. 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.
  3. Timberwolf
    Well, as I had said in my last blog post, things are starting to move forward. I found a lot of the images for one of the skins we used to have at the old New The Northlands, so now, because of that, I'm almost finished with another skin. We have an appointment with an immigration lawyer for the 20th of July, and we received an email from the U.S. immigration offices saying that I really shouldn't leave until after Tracy ( @hirondelle)has her visa. It will make it easier for the interviews and such.


    Also, one of the things we will need right away when we get there is a vehicle of some sort. And Avia and Paladin have really been helping us out a lot with that, and have found us some really nice cars in the price range we have been looking for. They have also offered to put the car title and insurance in their name until we get to the States and then switch it over to my name. One Suzuki and one Subaru, both really nice and about the same price. We have pretty much decided on which one we would like, but we don't want to rush to any decisions about which one to get if it is even either of those until we have some type of time frame for when we will be moving to the States. And hopefully, one of both will still be available when it comes time for us to buy a car.


    Well, that's all for now. Enjoy!
  4. Timberwolf
    Welcome family and friends. Today I start my new blog. A few days ago, we all started a new home here at The Northlands. And just a couple of hours ago, I started a new life.


    A five(5) months ago, our home crashed, burned and died. For whatever reason, our hosts server crashed. And for about two(2) months they answered my emails. About three(3) months they updated their main page, and stopped answering my emails. With their server down, I couldn't access any of the information to move our home. So, Tracy ( @hirondelle) and I decided to start fresh. We got a new board, some new skins, and some old skins and here we are. Welcome to ours and your new home.


    My new blog. I don't remember the name of my old blog on the old Northlands, but I decided to give blogging a try again. I will try to at least make some type of post a week. If I don't do it, feel free to give me a nudge, lol.


    Tracy ( @hirondelle) and I became husband and wife today at 12:30 p.m. Thailand time. It's an amazing feeling. I'm so happy!


    Our next step is to have the marriage documents translated into English (as we are in Thailand, they are in Thai).


    After that is to get Tracy ( @hirondelle) a visa so she can live in the States.


    One of the things we have been wanting to do is to buy a house in northern Minnesota. Either in Roseau, MN or in Warroad, MN. But we are having some issues. The biggest issue is getting a mortgage for a house. So far the one bank we have talked want us to wait until we get to Minnesota and come in and talk to them. Now this would be kind of hard for us. Why? Because while we are waiting on a mortgage, where are we going to keep our things? We have the furniture we want to bring with us, the electronics, the clothes and more importantly our pets, Lily, Roso and Spike. Now I am still talking to them via email and I will try to explain our predicament.


    But all and all, life is great! I'm incredibly happy to be married to The Goddess, and starting our new life together.


    Keep an eye out for us.
  5. Timberwolf
    Well, things have been a bit busy for me around here. As you all know, I've recently finished a number of skins, which I am very happy with. Just after finishing my latest skin, and just before heading to Bangkok, our desk top computer crashed. Well, the C-Drive crashed. Now that wouldn't be so bad if it was just the software, because then we could have gotten all the information off of the drive. But nope, the actual hard disk itself crashed. Which means we lost everything on that drive! All our pictures were on that drive. Everything saved in our network is gone as that was also on that drive. Now the good thing about that is this, the hard disk was guaranteed for 5 years, so we get a new 320 Gb hard disk for free. And we wanted to get a 1 Tb hard disk. So what happened is we now have a 1Tb hard disk and a 320 Gb hard disk, plus we will have a 320 Gb external hard disk. All our music and the movies we had on the other hard disk are fine. We actually have almost 200Gb of music, so that made me happy.


    Now, on to other computer things. I have recently been working on a new main page, history page and friends page. The new main page and history page are finished and they look pretty good. We are very happy with them. I'm still working on the new Friends page, and that is looking great. I'm just waiting on a few things from a few people to put the finishing touches on it. Once that's done, I will upload all the new pages.


    Now, onto non-computer things, lol. Our paper work is coming together really well. We just have a few more things to take care of, mainly my back taxes, but I got the paperwork from the company I worked for for 2006-2007 saying what I was making and I've contacted the CPA for American taxes to get those taken care of. Now I'm just waiting on him to get back to me.
  6. 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!
  7. 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.
  8. Timberwolf

    Feel The Love (Repost from 17/06/2009

    By Timberwolf,


    The Northlands
    Over the last few days, while I've been working on The Northlands, I've noticed something special. It always amazes me every time I notice it. And it all started back in 2004.

    I was at FE and posting mostly in The Woods and for one reason or another, the board got nuked. While we were waiting for the FE to come back, which it would for a bit and something would happen and it would go away again and come back. Somebody made a post about how stupid it was that the admin couldn't keep the board up and running, and the admin flipped out and shut all of FE down.

    A number of us went over to PI to post and I started talking to some people and found that they were tired with the way some of the things were run, just like I was.

    So I talked to a friend of mine and decided to open my own board. That was Northlands Fantasy. A number of people joined us there and started setting up what I thought was a good community. It actually inspired other members to set up their own communities, and I helped them with that.

    In about 2005, something happened and I decided to totally walk away from all the online communities. I was away for about 2 years.

    During that 2 year period, I would pop in and take a look at Northlands Fantasy, and I noticed that for whatever reason, it just wouldn't die. People would come back and make a post here and a post there and just keep it ticking over with just enough to keep people, like myself, checking to see what was going on. Thank you Moonhawk.

    Well, one day, Tracy ( @hirondelle ) and I decided to give it kick in the pants, change the name and change the look. This was in late 2006 early 2007.

    The Northlands was born!

    But we felt that wasn't enough for those people who stuck it out and who came back and the new members, as The Northlands started to become a family. So we purchase a board with all the bells and whistles and set it up. And everybody loved it! Some people left, but for some reason, most people found it hard to stay away. Including myself.

    Then we lost the board

    And we waited, and people offered to help us with getting the board back and with getting a new board. We decided to wait and ended up waiting about 5 months but the old board never came back. We finally got tired of waiting and decided to purchase a board with all the bells and whistles again. And again a number of the family offered to help.

    Once we got the board up and working and invited you all here, you flooded the place with your happiness and love, and showed us how much you loved The Northlands! And some of the family members who never went to the Original Northlands came back to this one.

    At least once a day I hear from a member how much they love The Northlands, or how much they love us.

    We decide to create a donate button for those people who wanted to help out The Northlands and before we had it finished we had donations. We couldn't believe it! And then just today, I had new member of the family tell me that all the good members of FE came here. That's why this place is great. I would have to agree with that member.

    Thank you all.

    Thank you all. You all mean so much to us!
  9. Timberwolf
    Well, we are slowly getting things done in real life and I am getting things done here at NL.


    IN REAL LIFE


    I have filled my taxes for 2008, even though they are a little bit late, you get an automatic 2 month extension when you live out of the country, and I don't owe any late fees.


    We've made an appointment to go talk with an U.S. Immigration lawyer in Bangkok on July 20th, so we can find out our options. We had a bit of a scare concerning immigration just the past week. We contacted an immigration lawyer that was supposed to be here in Chiang Mai, they have an office here, but the lawyer doesn't come up here, and she told us that it will take about a year and I will have to make almost 4 times what I do now . But we are talking to the original lawyer and we are going in to talk to them and find out what he has to say.


    Also when we go to Bangkok, I will be able to talk to my former employer and hopefully get something saying about how much I made a month from them, so I can file my past taxes, and get that taken care of.


    ON THE NORTHLANDS


    I have finally finished something I've been working on here for a special foxy friend and I can start working on Original NL Skin, Wolf & Goddess Skin and the 18+ Skin, which I'm excited to be working on.


    Sorry everybody, there isn't a lot in this post, but I just wanted to give an update, lol. Enjoy
  10. Timberwolf
    Hey all. I know I've kind of missed a little on keeping up with my writing, but I have been a bit distracted.


    One of the small distractions has been my own Visa for Thailand. It's become a bit of a rig-a-maroll. Before, all I needed was a letter from the British Consulate, but things have recently changed. As I am an American working for the British Council, I now need to go to the American Consulate and get a letter from them stating that I am working for the British Council. Now the American Consulate understandably doesn't want anything to do with this, and thinks that they should be removed from the circle, but the Thai Immigration doesn't agree. So the first letter I got, my boss's, boss's boss (John) who is friends with the American Consulate General, got the letter for me. But John isn't there any more. He has been transferred as his 4 years in a position are up, and he needed to move to another country. For my second letter, I needed to go to the American Consulate and get the letter myself. The American Consulate General was on vacation and didn't inform anybody about this letter I was supposed to be getting, so I didn't get the letter the first time I went, that's when the American Consulate informed me that they didn't know what the letter was about, and didn't want to do the letter. Now @hirondelle contacted John, and the American Consulate to let them all know what was going on. The American Consulate informed me that they wanted me to come back in to get a notarized affidavit instead of the letter. This affidavit, I would have to fill out myself, and swear that it was all true and correct, which is no big deal. But I didn't know I was supposed to put on the affidavit a request to extend my Visa. Nobody told me this and Thai Immigration decided that my letter wouldn't do. So I had to do another Visa trip to Malaysia, with out @hirondelle again.


    The second distraction has been that I got a new xbox and have been playing a lot of Smackdown vs. Raw, lol. I've created a wrestler called Mr. Destroyer that has his own entrance music (Destroyer by Twisted Sister) and I have won the U.S. Title, the Intercontinental Title, the ECW title, The World Tag Team Titles, the WWE Heavy Weight Title, and the WWE World Title (my favorite as Ric Flair held it for such a long time!).


    I will try to get back to writing here again.


    Talk to you soon.
  11. Timberwolf
    As most of you know by now, Tracy and I have moved back to Bangkok. Well, it's been like forever since I've written in here, so I figured this would be a great way to get back into it.


    Well, let's see. About 3-4 weeks ago, Tracy and I had our stuff packed up, said some sad good byes, packed up Roso, Lily, and Spike and climbed into a van for a long drive down to Bangkok. The driver, Tony, was great and stopped whenever we asked him to so we could let Spike get out and run around. I felt bad for Roso and Lily thought, because we couldn't take them out of their crates. I was afraid that if we did that, they might pee and poop all over the van. The trip down took about 10 hours. Overall it was a nice relaxing ride.


    A few days later, the moving company showed up with our stuff. It was nice to get our things and start setting up the house. We have a nice 3 bedroom house. It's two stories with a running area all the way around the house for Spike to run around.


    The front gate also has a walkway gate for us to enter and exit with out having to open up the whole gate. Also the gate goes almost the whole way to the ground with about an inch or two open at the bottom, so we don't have to worry about Spike slipping under the gate and escaping, so we can let him run about outside when we are out or have to work. He seems to like that a lot. We got some nice outside furniture with the house, and he has taken over the two seater as his own and lays on there when he's outside. I think he likes it, because he can see from there out through the gate, so he can see what's going on on our road. Spike has also made friends with out landlady, Parn, and her dog Nam Tan (more on that later).


    Roso and Lily seemed to take to the house right away. They have the run of pretty much the whole house. We just don't let them into the kitchen, because (1) the windows don't have any screens, (2) the two doors that go outside don't actually have a catch, they have sliding locks, when our cleaning lady comes, she leaves the doors open, and in the morning while Tracy and I are having our coffee before she leaves for work, we like to sit outside, so I leave the kitchen door open. They both just love the house.


    We have a great place to put our bookshelves that better display all of our books, which is really nice, and it makes it easier to look for a book. We have a huge master bedroom with the upstairs bathroom just off of it. We have turned the back spare bedroom into our den (office) and I have put up the pictures I've received from my students up, finally, and it looks really nice. The front spare bedroom will be our guest bedroom for when we have visitors... if we have visitors, lol.


    Tracy only had a few days off of work before she had to start back at work, but we knew that coming down here. I had off for about a week and a half to 2 weeks to do things around the house. I emailed the company that I used to work for, Elite Training Institute, and couldn't wait for me to come in for an interview and talk about what both of us wanted. I told them that I wanted full time and the told me that they would like somebody to kind of take control of the Young Learners section, and we agreed on a starting salary, which was OK. It's great to be back with them. They always treated me well when I was with them. They are the company that I did my CELTA (Certified English Language Teacher to Adult) with them, and they hired me right off the CELTA. After a little while, I told them that I wanted more hours, so they gave me more hours. Then I told them that I wanted to teach kids, so they gave me some kids classes. I told them I wanted to teach in a school, so they put me into a school. I wanted management, so they gave me management. I wanted out of management so they took me out of management, lol. So, everything seems to be heading down those same lines, which makes me happy. I don't have a lot of hours right now, but they will give me 70 hours + a month of actual teaching time. Plus I have to do placement testing of all the kids, I've been rewriting their kids courses for a new book, and I will be organizing some special weekend activities for the kids. Plus, I will also be teaching some adults, university students and special courses, but I will be mainly focused on the kids courses. There are only two bad things in all this. One, right now, I only have one day off a week, which is Sunday, and two, Tracy's days off are Monday and Tuesday, so we don't have the same days off. But, the plan is for me to eventually have off Sunday and Monday, but I will have to work towards that. Overall, I really excited about being back there and I'm enjoying it.


    Well, I guess that's all for now. Again, I'm going to try and write more here, but we will see how it goes, lol.
  12. 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.
  13. Timberwolf
    Tracy ( @hirondelle) and I have been doing a lot of talking about when we move to the States, and things are just messed up to say the least. First, we are having an issue with getting a mortgage, which I touched on before in a previous blog post. We can't get a mortgage until I've moved to Minnesota and I've got a job. I can't get a job until I move to Minnesota. Our contracts aren't up until September. We can't move until our contracts are up, as we don't want to break the contract because the British Council will pay for the move, or at least a good chunk of it, including flights. So that's just kind of funky right now and more on that later.

    Just last week, we had some really messed up issues at work, and policies need changed, but they won't be changed, and this guy was really kind of a little kid about the whole thing, and just made it worse for himself, and decided to take off for the weekend, so I had to pick up an extra class, which is good for the money, but hard on a Saturday as I already teach 6 hours of kids that day, so it ended up being 8 hours.

    While this is going on, Tracy ( @hirondelle)comes to a conclusion about the whole move thing. I should move out early, get a job, get THE house, and she will ship everything out to me. That really kind of threw me for a bit of a loop, and I was kind of upset about it. I don't want to leave her for a month. Hell, the two weeks she would take to go to England were hard enough. This will be at least a month. Well, the more I thought about it, the more I've come to realize, it's actually better that way. But, it's still stressful.

    25 June 2009

    Today we find out that it looks like I will have to leave around August - September time and Tracy ( @hirondelle)won't be able to come out until after Christmas, because of the processing for her visa and everything. One of the nice things though, is that it looks like she will be able to work when she does come out.

    And on top of all that, I didn't think about doing my taxes, as I haven't been living in the U.S., so I didn't really think about. I knew that I had to do it, but I figured I could just get it taken care of once we move back. Well, I have to have it done before I leave. So, that's about 4 years of back taxes. The nice thing is that I don't make a lot, and the earned income tax credit for living over seas, if I read it correctly is over $87,000.00, and I am no where even close to that. Oh well. I will be going to a tax lawyer on Monday to check it out.
  14. 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.
  15. 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.
  16. 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
     
  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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