Getting my Thailand Tourist Visa photo 627425 629515 0 right A giant building in downtown Houston TX that houses the Thailand Consulate it s on the 20th floor photo Normally you aren t required to get a tourist visa to enter Thailand as an American but because the length of my trip is going to be longer than the standard 30 day on arrival visa I figured I should check with the consulate fortunately for me they have one in Houston just a 5 hour round trip from Austin and this is what I learned Frustrating as it is to hear a non binary answer when it comes to the laws of another country the woman at the consulate who was the nicest person ever by the way told me that while I could always just get a flight out of Thailand say to Vietnam and then come back in thus renewing the visa the officials frown upon this Again that s a pretty ambiguous thing to hear So it s not that they ll say no necessarily but rather that they frown upon you taking advantage of extending your 30 day window in Thailand simply by making what are called visa runs She told me that the first time you come back into the country they won t have a problem with it but if you do it two or three times that again they will frown upon it After doing some research and consulting with friends who have regularly visited Thailand all research pointed to the idea that it s entirely the discretion of the immigration officials Meaning if I took advantage of the system I could find myself stuck on the border between say Cambodia and Thailand unable to get back in Naturally that s not a position I d like to find myself in and so I got a tourist visa It normally takes them three to five days to prepare but since I drove in from out of town and am leaving this Sunday they managed to do it in just a few hours for me photo 629519 740 0 center My Kingdom of Thailand Visa in all of its glory photo br style clear both Unfortunately the Houston consulate is only able to issue one time entry visas instead of the multi visa that I would have been able to get in Washington DC Not AS ideal but this should at least give me the flexibility to do what I need to When I land this visa will be used to illustrate that I can stay in the country long enough to catch my return flight six weeks later When I eventually do travel outside of Thailand I ll be able to come back in provided that my exit flight is within 30 days of my entry back into Thailand So that would then be my first on arrival visa If I leave again and come back I ll then be at that point whereby they could frown upon my entry but provided I show that I m flying out of Bangkok within a few days of coming back I don t think it will be an issue The short of the story is that this should give me three entries into Thailand during my trip inclusive of my initial landing instead of just two The visa itself cost me 40 00 USD in cash but I also had to spend about 10 00 getting my photos printed out and then another 15 00 in parking fees in the garage Turns out they would have validated if I d parked in THEIR garage but I did not think to ask in advance Still 65 00 USD in total is a reasonable fee for peace of mind photo 627358 629515 0 center This is just a random sculpture that was outside of the Thai consulate office building photo

What is Tourist Bangkok Really Like Bangkok is enormous Absolutely enormous All told there are more than 11 million people living in the area and it definitely feels like that Getting around Bangkok can be a slow and painful process at times While the foot traffic is dense it pales in comparison to the actual street traffic Cars buses motorcycles mopeds tuk tuks and everything in between can and DO drive down any visible path they can find It was frequently the case that you would have to pull yourself close to a wall while walking down a narrow alley so that a car or even bus could drive past you Like other places in Southeast Asia it somehow all just works I tend to think that being a driver oneself would overwhelm most westerners photo 633531 641660 0 center A reclining Buddha photo br style clear both The city has its share of scams like most every other destination of the like but the most common ones are just tuk tuk drivers and other transportation services trying to rip you off No doubt we overpaid for services here and there but having done a ton of research before entering the country I had a pretty good idea of what to look out for As an aside to that Uber really makes a huge difference now that it s available in the country For one you know you re not going to get ripped off You can follow along on the map and so you know if your driver is intentionally trying to run up the price which even Uber has made difficult to do since the fares are now pre calculated within reason of traffic Perhaps better than that though is just overcoming the communication barrier While it s generally easy to explain where you re going when you can read the alphabet even if you can t understand the words the same cannot be said of the Thai language I literally could not explain to a person where I was going in some cases as I cannot read the Thai characters It s just not possible to sound it out Thankfully Uber just lets you set your destination on the phone and so that problem goes away Yay for technology One noticeable component to being in a more tourist driven area of Bangkok is the salesman harassment It s not unlike other 3rd world countries I have visited but I do think the intensity of it is much worse in Bangkok photo 633553 641659 0 center My friend John and me riding around on a tuk tuk in Bangkok photo br style clear both I m really only using Bangkok as a stopover destination to the many other cities and countries that I m exploring and so other than seeing all of the sites I m not planning to do a whole bunch here All in all it s a fun city but I m not certain how reflective it is of the majority of Southeast Asia that I ll be exploring That said and like so many places in Asia it does have some absolutely amazing temples worth exploring Since my time is pretty limited here that s mostly what I am planning to do but there will be plenty more to come elsewhere photo 633314 641660 0 center Standing in a long line of golden Buddhas photo br style clear both

Clearing Claire s Land photo 1201516 1209238 0 right The Husqvarna Chainsaw and accessories I purchased photo My dear friend Claire purchased a sizable piece of property in the general Asheville North Carolina area about a year ago I had been wanting to visit her for awhile and unfortunately wound up canceling a few potential visits with her towards the end of 2021 So I thought I d make the drive out her way and spend a few days with her A few days turned into a week and a week turned into three weeks It s a beautiful area Since I always love having a good project that I can work on this is generally how I thrive the most I asked her if there was anything at her house that she needed done She explained to me how she wanted to clear out all of the smaller trees in the forest next to her house so that it was walkable and so that the larger trees would continue to thrive Unfortunately she mentioned how she only had a small electric chainsaw Since I hadn t gotten her any kind of house warming present I drove over to the local Tractor Supply Company and purchased her a nice 14 Husqvarna Chainsaw I also had to pickup a gas can some oil and a few chains I d basically spend the mornings cutting down trees with the chainsaw lopping off the smaller branches and then either cutting the trunk into firewood logs or dragging the trunk in the case of smaller trees up the hillside to our giant pile photo 1201230 1209238 0 right Cutting down one of the trees in the forest photo Over the course of about 3 weeks I wound up cutting down somewhere between 250 and 300 trees I referred to this as chainsaw therapy We had a massive snowstorm come through sometime during my visit with her This cut into my morning therapy sessions but as soon as the snow cleared I got right back to it br style clear both photo 1201647 1209238 0 center The massive firewood pile that I wound up creating for Claire photo In cutting down all of the trees I wound up creating five massive brush piles While this is to be expected we still needed to get rid of them Her friends Geoff and Ashleigh came over one afternoon just as I had started burning off some of the brush Everybody wound up chipping in and helped me drag literally thousands of branches to our massive brush fire While we didn t burn off everything namely as we d have needed a few more hours and we had a birthday party to plan for we got three of the giant brush piles entirely removed photo 1201040 1209234 0 center Geoff helping me to burn off some of the extra brush photo photo 1201103 1209234 0 center Standing in front of the ember pile the next morning photo Finally and just before I wound up leaving there was another giant snowfall It was spectacular seeing the snow cover the area that I had just cleared out It entirely changed the look and feel of her property I m going to head back there in a few weeks and work on cutting out some hiking paths I m told I need to get there before all of the giant forest spiders start coming back out I m not a fan of spiders photo 1164710 1199871 0 center The cleared forest after the snowfall photo

Updating the Database As a small technical note for my blog I ve been busy writing a ton of code to fix some of the issues that have recently come up I d been working on this over the past several months but took a bit of a break in January while tending to other things I ve written about this rather extensively before but most of the problems stem from Apple stupidly reorganizing the way they store photos within the iPhoto app While they used to keep a tight directory structure on your photos disk making it extremely easy to RSync to one s personal server they are now using some kind of hex based directory structure and simply add all of the photos into these folders using 0 through F eg 0 1 F Worse still is that they include the photos in the directories seemingly at random This makes it extremely difficult to find your new files and move them where they need to go Yes you can use the export feature but this is SUCH a slow process and makes absolutely no sense for storing your own photos on your own system It s absolutely bonkers that they ve adopted this new structure Of course this is all in line with Apple taking the blue ribbon for most evil tech company They re quite clearly doing this to make it more and more difficult for people to use software outside of the Apple realm thus ensuring that people stick with iPhoto and much more insidiously their Cloud services I ve been writing about this for nearly 20 years now and this is just the latest example of it This required me writing code that would look at the MD5 checksum for every single file and then compare those to the files that I already had on my server The ones that were missing were copied into one of the new directories and processed I still have a ton of photos needing to be sorted but it s coming along in my spare time

Best Cinnamon Raisin Sourdough Recipe photo 1220612 1220867 0 right Make sure that the starter is super bubbly photo Having made dozens of near perfect sourdoughs at this point and having experimented with a variety of my own recipes for the perfect cinnamon raisin variety I believe I have found the one that I ll stick with It should be noted right off the bat that because cinnamon naturally inhibits the work of yeast in the proofing dough many recipes call for adding additional yeast into the dough I ve actually found that this is unnecessary and merely requires letting the dough proof a bit longer than it normally might Given the temperature of my own house most sourdough will proof for me in about 8 hours time This one takes closer to 12 hours but comes out perfect every time I ve also experimented with combinations of flour between white whole wheat and rye and have actually found that just using 100 bread flour works the best Build your starter however you normally do but just make sure that the starter is super gaseous before you actually use it for the bread It should float like a cork when you mix it with water strong The Recipe strong In a large wooden mixing bowl add ul li 520g white bread flour li li 2 teaspoons salt li li 2 5 tablespoons of ground cinnamon li li 110g raisins no need to pre soak them li li 40g raw sugar li ul Mix the dry ingredients before you add the starter so that they re evenly distributed In a measuring cup or similar container stir ul li 90g starter li li 385g water li ul Use a fork to mix 90g of your starter in 385g of water Then pour the mixture into the bowl Stir it up like you normally would for any other sourdough until it has a good doughy consistency If it seems overly dry add another tablespoon of water before starting the proofing process photo 1220648 1220867 0 center The dry mixture before stirring it up photo strong Proofing and Folding strong I use two initial folds 15 minutes apart and then two final post proof folds Once the dough has been made let it sit for 15 minutes and be sure to cover it with a damp cloth After 15 minutes do your initial folding being sure to turn the bowl 90 degrees before each of the 4 folds Once done cover it with the damp cloth and let it sit another 15 minutes After another 15 minutes passes 30 minutes from start repeat the same folding process Again cover with a damp cloth and now let it sit for 12 hours After 12 hours the dough should have risen to a satisfactory level and with any luck you ll even find some gas bubbles trapped at the top of the dough Perform the post proofing folding the first time and replace the dough back into the mixing bowl Turn the bowl 90 degrees and after this fold place it into a metal bowl lined with parchment paper photo 1220609 1220867 0 right The final product photo Sprinkle cinnamon sugar and white flour atop the dough and place it in the refrigerator for an hour While it s cooling set your oven to bake at 500 degrees and place your dutch oven inside After an hour remove the dough from the fridge and use your lame to make the top cut Remove the dutch oven from the oven move the chilled dough into the dutch oven I always add plenty of parchment paper so that I can just pick it up like handles and place it into the dutch oven Put the dutch oven back into your oven with the lid on Bake for 21 minutes with the lid on then remove the lid Bake for another 11 minutes

Tuesday Flight 413ES While Dustin was preparing for one of our flights with Garrett in 413ES, I was busy going around taking snapshots. I think this was the first time that I actually managed to get our fearless instructor, Garrett Wilner, on camera.

Graham Rehearsal Dinner The night before Sunni and Preston's wedding was the night of their rehearsal dinner. Seeing on how I was one of the groomsmen, I first had to partake in the actual rehearsal before the dinner. I had jokingly asked Preston and Sunni if I could dress casually to the event, and for the sake of keeping the mood light, they not only said I could but suggested that I do. So with their blessing, you might notice that I am 'slightly' under dressed in the photos (hence can be seen wearing a colorful Hawaiian shirt).

Austin Indoor Soccer Just a few snapshots I took of a Goonies game one evening. There are also a handful of pictures from a guy being stretchered off of the field (from the previous game) after shattering his leg.

After Wedding Roses Seeing on how there were hundreds of roses left over from Sunni and Preston's wedding, I thought I would take some of them home just to brighten up my room a bit. I tried to keep them alive by creating a colorful bathtub setting but as one could probably have foretold, the roses quickly died and even more quickly began smelling up my room.

Building Das Avonni To anyone that has ever played disc golf, you know how much fun it is. You also know that the only real drawback to the game is that you really need a disc golf basket in order to practice. Being the all too practical guy that I am (and being a part owner of a woodshop), I decided that I would just make one for myself. Like everything else that I have ever built, I just wound up giving it away, but it was still fun to build.