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Nine Things I will Miss about Thailand
Remembering the Austin Allegro
Bring in the Old, Out with the New
I am Reviewing, My Situation...
Today I will Mostly be Eating...
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Designer clothes have never done it for me. Yes I like nice fitting clothes that flatter me, (assuming such things exist), but having a crocodile or golfer on them doesn't matter to me one jot. That said my favourite T-shirts are Giordano; (well possibly, I can't remember where I bought them).
Having had such a good month as we had in October it was important that we spent a little of that money on ourselves. In three years of being here it has, at times, been a bit of a slog, particularly this year, but we kept believing and this month has seen us build on last month, if not yet in orders, in enquiries and interest. (And as a sort of endorsement someone has sent me a document from a Chinese company which is an exact rip-off of a product that we have recently designed, they have even used the same name! They could not have copied it from the information we have released, they would have had to design it themselves from the concept, which is on our website. I see it as an endorsement of the idea, no point getting uptight about it, they wouldn't have bought from us anyway. As the name is the same all their advertising can only help us).
So we bought ourselves a TV, a forced hand as our old one broke down again, (although it has been fixed for 300 baht), and I am still re-watching all our old DVDs as they look like new. And I bought myself a new computer which was delivered this week - but that is for work and is not exactly thrilling. (Although for me, a job that took my old computer over 17 minutes, 17 minutes when 100% of the processor is used so I can't do anything else, now takes less than 3 minutes, so that is quite exciting, for me). And on Saturday I go to Singapore, (on business - a new product range to be discussed), and I treated myself to business class as I used my airmiles, (although it still cost 5000 baht in taxes). It is only a 2 hour flight but you may be surprised how much Singapore Air wine I can imbibe in that time.
Whilst in Singapore I may also look at buying a laptop as my old computer, a laptop by name if not nature, has no working display, weighs a ton, and is getting rather flaky in its old age. Getting the new computer I decided to buy a wireless modem, (my old modem only has one Ethernet output), only to find the poor old thing keeps blue-screening when the wireless is enabled so it is back to wired for now.
But after that, aside from the investment in the new product development, that has to be that. If I get the pension windfall then I will use some of that to go on my holiday to the UK but the rest stays in the bank until we get more orders; (or more importantly, paid for more orders). And then?
Well I want to take Ploy on a nice holiday somewhere. She has never been to New York and I know she would love it or Japan is a possibility. But it is difficult to persuade her to spend money on 'frivolous' things, especially after the last few months. She does like the TV but probably wouldn't have bought it if I hadn't persuaded her to. And it is her that talks about us getting a second car, (we have an 8 year old Mazda pickup), but I don't see that as necessary although she does all the driving and is now out and about a bit more with her job so something a little easier to drive, (an automatic), would be nice for her. (And to be honest, if we had a car that is a little more comfortable for the longer journeys I might feel more inclined to get and about more. If I am honest I miss my Honda Prelude [UK] or Mazda CX7 [Canada]). And Ploy does want to buy more gold which does make a lot of sense here. The little gold Ploy has, in the form of jewellery, has served us well recently as it is easily pawned here and allowed us to continue with new products for SingMai when things got tough. It is like currency here, but a currency that keeps going up in value.
I still have thoughts of getting a boat, a real one that is ocean going and can sleep us comfortably (like this one), but aside from the price which is dreamland for us, I don't have the time to even consider it. There is no point in having it if it just uses an (expensive) berth in a harbour somewhere. I would like us to go to Taiwan or Vietnam or even Hong Kong. And to do so without need of returning to some deadline.
But our little spending spree has sated me for now. Now it is back to work, (on my new computer - did I mention that), even as I type this on my old laptop, (it would take me months to reinstall all my programs on the new PC so I am leaving them on this one for now). It is important to reward yourself from time to time. Do do so everyday reduces the significance of the reward. To do so after after three years of hard work has been sweet.
