Feeling like a Grasshopper…

I must admit that I have been a bit of a ‘Grasshopper’ so far with the advent of this horrific flood, as time passes and seeing the advancement of the unrelenting flood, together with all of the everyday essentials disappearing from the shelves, is quickly turning me into an ‘Ant’.

My main concern is clean water, with a three year old and another love of my life coming in about two weeks means clean water will be absolutely essential, so I have now started stocking water. To put things into perspective, we went to a restaurant today, and they couldn’t give us any water because they didn’t have any! All they had left was fizzy water (no brand will be mentioned here, lol).
 

That really scared the %$#* out of me, whether it was through panic buying or whatever, the result is the same if the water becomes contaminated from the flood (a very strong possibility here) there is a strong possibility that I shall not be able to find clean water in the near future and this is a good enough reason for me to also start stocking the essentials, just in case...

I wish I have become an Ant sooner than this... Well better late than never... :) Family do come first :) Personally I can live on beer for the next six months, lol.

24 hours later… :)

Matt, all these syringes were a result of about 24 hours worth of your medicine, no wonder people (literally) feel better in hospital, lol.

You are now sitting in the living room, next to my feet, and having a fantastic time with Angry bird on the iPad.

You are still far from 100%, we had a bit of a fright when you came home this afternoon, your temp. climbed up to 39c with no sign of it coming down, and this was even after a dose of your med., instead of the 4 hours gap we decided to give you another dose (after two and half hours), and so far that looks like the right decision :)

Get well soon baby, love you.

Dad.

Oh what an interesting weekend this will be :)

Dear Matt,

It all started with such a great plan, Saturday we were going to take you to your first stage show, ‘Mickey Mouse Show’ at Siam Paragon and Sunday would be another trip with your grandparents, so what happened? Life threw you, your first curve ball :)

Friday morning, you woke up with a slight temperature (didn’t think too much of it at that time), to keep you busy we decided to drop you off at Brain school just for the morning. At the same time, our house keeper turned up looking like death on a stick, she was obviously very ill. So while you and your mother were out, your mother decided to call the house keeper and told her to go home.

By the time you came back your temperature was a little bit higher but nothing to cause any alarm (still in the mid 37), so after lunch you went for your afternoon nap… then everything started heading south, you woke up burning and complaining of feeling cold… It must have been faith, your aunty turned up just as you were getting ready to go to the hospital, your mother did need a helping hand to get you ready.

At the hospital your temperature reached 39.3 (not again), the Dr. decided to do another test on you, and soon after it was discovered that you were suffering from Influenza A Type and that required a special medicine (Tamiflu), you were then sent home.

I arrived at around 18:45 to see you sitting on the black sofa, all wrapped up in your blanket watching Super Why on the iPad, there were no spring in your steps, it was obvious that you were very ill, your temperature was still way above 38. After dinner and a boatful of medicine I decided to carry you for a while, your stomach felt very bloated against my chest, I knew sooner or later you would be sick so decided to hold on until you did.

Call me Bangkok Nostradamus, first came a throat full of water, and I thought that was it… of course I was wrong, about thirty minutes later the full orchestra of rice, pork and vegetables :) decided to follow suit, everything came out, even the medicine… after cleaning you up, we decided it was safe to put you to bed, we were wrong. During the next hour and a half you were sick three times and these were gut wrenching, Papa help me kind of a session.

Considering the Influenza, the vomiting and very high temp. it was decided to admit you to BNH, this time there were no sense of panic just a sense of urgency, and in no time you were again on a table all wrapped up in what I think is the largest Velcro pad in the universe, of course it was needed so that the nurse could put the IV line into the back of you palm.

All that happened last night, it is now almost noon on the Saturday, your Mickey Mouse show had already ran for about an hour, your mother is a sleep on the couch next to you, you are now sleeping on the mattress and I am writing this blog in a your darkened hospital room with a small cup of horrible coffee by my side, all contented that you are now in good hands (although your high temperature still bothers me).



This morning after your breakfast I took you out in one of those special push car just to have a quick walk around the hospital, not wanting to waste a photo opp. I took the NEX 5 with me and promptly dropped it, lens first. Luckily the clear filter took all of the blunt and everything seems ok, of course your mother think I had dropped it on purpose (a couple of weeks back I dropped the lens cap in the river (she thought that was on purpose too)), so that I could get a new camera… of course I denied it wholeheartedly, but after a bit of time, sitting in this darkened room drinking dire coffee I am beginning to think it was my subconscious who had dropped the camera this morning… perhaps I should take this opportunity to catch an appointment with the on duty psychologist :)


Love you,


Dad.

Thailand flood: Watching Google.org Crises Response.

I never knew this service even existed, and I must think everyone of us in Thailand are watching this right now, to see the flood coming in graphical detail is quite frightening… The ground floor of a colleagues’ home is now under water, so he is now having to move into a hotel for the time being.

Looking at the map it looks like our outskirt home will be hit as well, but I am hoping that the area where our house is, is high enough to avoid the worst of the flood, nothing is certain until it hits.

http://www.google.org/crisisresponse/thailand-flood-2011.html

Everyday we are seeing it creeping closer and closer to the City Centre, nothing is certain now, Bang Yai and Bang Bon have already been hit, it is just a matter of time and the skills of the authority now.

Worth a visit: yowayowacamera.com

I am convince everyone who has a camera, even mobile phone camera have at least once tried a levitation / flying photo, or in plain English taking a photo while your subject is in the air after a jump. I was doing my usual browsing this morning, and ended up at digitalrev.com (can be informative and very funny ‘camera’ site), they had this short youtube vdo on trying to imitate the levitation / flying photo from this yowayowacamera.com site.

Several photos are fantastic, and totally believable (you’ll need to scroll through her album). the key being all the essential limbs are in focus (fast shutter speed) and try to hide the effect of gravity from all the parts (including clothing) as much as you can. She was kind enough to also give the detail on how she took all of her photos, definitely worth a visit.

When I win the lottery :)

Canon had just announced their latest professional DSLR, 1D X. Looks like I can either find a second job, or start buying the lottery again (looks like the latter will win out :)

The flooding of Thailand 2011.

Dear Matt and Marcella,

For the past couple of months Thailand have been suffering from a terrible flood, we have seen its devastation slowly coming from the North affecting millions of people along the way, in Ayutthaya the flood have been reported at three to four metres deep!

As of today it is now knocking gently on Bangkok’s door. Bang Yai has just been hit and that isn’t that far from our home in the out skirt of the city, on the news we see homes literally being drown, the ground floor have totally disappeared under the water.

The next couple of days will be critical for Bangkok, there are whispers that the surround provinces are suffering more than it should because Bangkok is being protected. The major river of our country is Chao Phraya River and it runs right through Bangkok, but because Bangkok is the capital city ‘they’ have limited the flow of the water so that it goes around Bangkok rather than through it, meaning the surrounding provinces have to suffer from the flood longer than they should. Of course there is no way to validate this claim, just only that Bangkok is still dry while the other provinces are drowning.

The headlines are saying, “Nearly 270 dead, 8 million affected, and over 3 Billion USD worth of damages” and the ending is nowhere in sight. Several industrial estates have been totally wiped out, my thought was not only for the people who was suffering, but looking to the future, who will invest in Thailand now? Without jobs the future beyond this flood looks so much bleaker.

Here is a picture of the affected area, those blue patches are certainly not lakes just area that are being affected by this flood.

This map was updated on the 17th of October 2011, it is coming to Bangkok, the general feeling is that the authority may not be able to stop the water entering Bangkok, so people are preparing. Tesco, Big C and others superstores’ shelves are empty, cars are being moved up high, people are moving their ground floors belongings to the second floor.

This is a tough time for most, lets hope it subsides soon.

Blogging from my bed...

Just downloaded this Blogger app, looks interesting...

He just walked through the door clutching his butterfly pillow... Decided to let him crash on our bed, it is half term n all :)

I wonder how this post will turn out from an iPhone :)

(5 mins later: looks alright but no ability to move the pic around is a bit restrictive, but a useful app none the less).

Conversations: Matt and us.

Matt:     “I need go to the toilet”.
Gio:      “Ok, what do you need to do?” (meaning number 1 or number 2)
Matt:     “I want mix pee pee and poo poo together Mama”.
Gio:      lol :)

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It was time to leave for school...

Me:      “Come on Matt, time to go we are late”.
Matt:    “Ok Papa (in a loud voice)”.

(Gio follows behind us)

Matt:    “Mama you stay”.
Gio:     “Why baby, can’t I come?”
Matt:    “No Mama, you are too big! You stay!”
Gio:     lol :)
Me:      [Laying dead on the floor :)]

(Gio is now eight and a bit months)

Surprisingly no anger this time (stolen spare tyre).

My 5 years old Fortuner have spent more time standing still than on the road since we’ve moved into the city, and with the new job with a position car meaning the Fortuner has even less of a chance to run wildly on the open roads.

Anyway, it is well known that Fortuner is a soft target for spare tyre theft, as it hangs (in plain sight) under the boot of the vehicle. This past Sunday we drove the Fortuner to our home at the out skirt of the city, Gio noticed there was a unsymmetrical trapezium shape hole in the rear bumper... WTF, was my first thought, how on earth did that happen, even upon closer inspection I was still baffled on how it could have happened and not for a second did I realised that the spare had gone!

Did I back the car into a horizontal ‘this is Spata’ spear? Or was it just a simple case of a vandalisation? Anyway, it quickly went to the back of my mind and didn’t think much of it, and at around lunch time we drove back to the condo in the city.

In the same afternoon I took a taxi to take Matt to his Little Gym class, and on the way back as the taxi was stopping at the condo there was another Fortuner right in front of us, naturally I was focusing on his rear bumper... Then it hits me literally like a bolt of lightening. “Oh %^#& someone stolen my spare tyre”!




There was no anger, just very annoyed that the thief actually drove through the security guards, and had the time to remove the spare tyre without being spotted by the security guards. How did I know that it happened in the parking lot? Gio went down to look more closely and found the missing part of the rear bumper, it was still there in my parking spot.
 



After Gio found the plastic part, she went to verbally complaint to the management, they sat down and watched the CCTV feed, however the CCTV proved little use as they can only go back one week.

The day after I had to go to the police to log the case (this is a normal procedure in Thailand), not hoping for any compensation but will submit a letter to the condo’s management, just to let them know how disappointed we are. I was later told that another Fortuner also had his spare tyre stolen exactly in the same manner and probably at the same time as mine.