The Bulk of it All

As many of you know, I'm about as obsessive/compulsive as you can get without getting a diagnosis. Usually whatever I obsess about has some end in site. If it is an athletic obsession, it usually ends with me blowing out my knee or something equally dramatic. If it's fishing, the end of the season comes sooner or later. Seinfeld only went for 9 seasons and then that one died out, etc.

It is to my chagrin that my obsession with learning Thai has no such quick resolution. I've been enrolled in the university since I got here. 5 days a week, 3 hours a day. On top of that I'm seeing a Thai tutor for an hour before and 2 hours after every class. I then proceed to batter Pui with questions for another 3 or 4 hours. I'm speaking a little better, I can listen a lot better, and my reading/writing is going off. My vocab is probably getting close to 2000 words which is more than I thought I would ever know.
I'm still perplexed by all the special case rules for the reading/writing. I came across the word for 'culture' the other day: wat-tha-na-tham. However the word is spelled as such: watntrrm. After applying all the special rules of what do do with 2 r's, n's followed by t's in the middle of a sentence, etc., you end up 4 syllables where before there was 1!
Also, here is a lame video of me talking Thai with Pui so you have an idea how I sound.

Fingers and Toes

I just read what I wrote about this festival on last year's blog and suffice to say, it hasn't changed a bit. There are still just as many people losing their fingers and toes to all the fireworks. Bangkok has prohibitted all fireworks in the city, so as it would happen the festival is bigger in Chiang Mai than anyplace else.
This year Pui and I decided to celebrate it in the traditional thai fashion by building a Kratong (a little floating candle) and send it down the river. The building of it is actually quite fun; you use misc. parts of a bananna tree and piece it all together with some flowers. Check out the photo album to see the 'making of'.
Getting it to the river however, wasn't quite as much fun. The problem is every other person in Chiang Mai has the same idea. We waded through about a mile and a half of shoulder to shoulder traffic (and people throwing random firecrackers) to even get to the river. Then we walked down this little ramp to the river that is right below the biggest bridge in the city. Having people see how close they can fire a bottle rocket at your head without actually hitting it was more fun than I could handle.
After watching the video from last years festival, I was reminded that it's not all bad. However, I took another video this year that captures some of the stress.

Paying the Bills

So I had this sweet standing desk made for like $50. It's right next to the window of my condo in the high rise, and it's everything I ever wanted in an office space. Last summer I took on a job with Vertical Media running their hosting division. Between that and working with some clients consulting in Jackson, I've got the mix down pretty good. About 4 hours total; 2 morning and 2 in the evening, with my entire days free to do whatever my little heart desires.

The internet connection this year is easily twice as fast as last year. Same phone number, 307-739-8680 and it rings right into my room here. I still think that is pretty wild.
Anyways I'm working on websites like a banshee, so if you have any updates or web work you need done, I'm your guy.