The Broken Laptop I Sold on Ebay

Great article about this guy who gets ripped off by buying a broken laptop on ebay, so he exacts his revenge on the seller by posting photos and facts (like from his resume), on his own blog for the world to see. Priceless!

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Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day! It's too often that people forget meanings of Holidays, and we arrogantly associate them with what affects us most. In the case of Memorial Day, we often think of Bar-b-ques, beaches and picnics, the "unofficial" start of summer. That's all great, but we shouldn't forget the true meaning of this holiday - remembering the heroes past (and present) that allow us to have these celebrations, and live the free life that we do in this great nation of ours.

So today, I wish you all a safe and happy holiday, hopefully as you spend it with family and loved ones. Also take a moment to reflect on those great men and women who've sacrificed so much so for us all.

First Dance

First dance as husband and wife! Unforgetable night.

The Reception

Look our names on the Marquee! This is the Ambassador Hotel, where we had our reception. It's a beautiful hotel, and we got a very good deal on the Sala Thai room. It looked amazing!

Receiving prayers

Receiving our blessings from the monks.

Ceremony

Here we are in our traditional Thai outfits. They are hand made from thai silk. I like the way this looks and amazingly, you stay pretty cool in this garb.

I'm Back!

Ok, I know I've been real bad about keeping up to date on my posts. For that I apologize. I attempted to upload photos a couple of times last week and the server kept booting me off. I guess, there were just too many people trying to do the same thing. I'll post more pics as time goes on, or maybe I'll post em on flickr and the have a link.

I've been back in the States for about a week now and everything in Thailand went great. The weather was very hot, and humid, but the sun was out most of the time. The ceremony, and the reception were all terrific. I know that I'll have to make it back to Thailand a lot sooner then 10 years next time.

The flight really wasn't that bad. Yes, 17 hours is a very long time, especially when you stay awake for the entire duration, but I was able to keep myself entertained. Each seat comes equipped with it's own video player and you can watch movies, play games, read news and listen to music. On the return trip, I didn't even boot up my laptop as the inflight movies were enough.

Movies I watched -
Aeon Flux. Charlize Theron was so, so hot, but the movie, so so sucked. I didn't really get what was going on, other then some sort of creep, shitty future society where the government controls everyone and the rebels are getting restless and want to overthrow the current regime and blah, blah, blah. Oh, Charlize Theron is so hot!

Cheaper by the Dozen 2 -
It was a cheesy, campy movie, yet I was entertained by it and enjoyed this movie. I love Steve Martin and he doesn't disappoint in this movie. At least I didn't fall asleep in this movie!

Tom Yum Goong -
Yeah, said what? I've never heard of this movie either, but it stars Tony Jaa that really kick ass Thai kick-boxer that really rocked in Ong Bak. It's a Thai movie, which gives it a special place in my heart. Tony Jaa has more spectacular moves that makes you think of Jet Li and Jackie Chan all rolled into one. I have to buy this movie and add it to my collection.

Memoirs of a Geisha -
Stupid chick flick. Had to check it out to see if Zhang Ziyi was really going to play a Japanese prostitute, but I never got that far. Too much blah, blah, blah, so I got impatient and watched Charlize Theron some more.

Some travel tips. Pack some snacks, 17 hours and 3 paltry meals makes you pretty hungry. Pack some extra food for those long spells in between meals. Also you can request instant noodles free of charge. Get noise-cancelling headphones. My brother had the Bose model and it completely cancels out the drones from the engine making a much more peacefull flight. Unfortunately he only let me check em out, I had to promptly hand them back after getting a taste of silent, ear nirvana. Wear comfy clothes, or bring some you can change into. Make sure you dress appropriately for your destination. It was surprisingly chilly when we arrived in New York. A light jacket would have been suitable.

Anyway, I'm back in NYC and I'm trying to get readjusted. I can't believe that it was only the beginning of this month that my adventures began. It's also reawoke the traveling bug in me, so we intend on doing a lot more traveling from this point on, all of which I'll document here!

Floating Market

Although it's late, and low tide, the floating market here runs pretty much dawn to dusk. As, you can see in the picture, there are always a lot of people interested in visiting the market. It was a 1 hour boat ride there (and another one back), so due to the time constraints, we really couldn't fully enjoy the floating market. In the morning, with the tide high, it's a busling market with boat ladies selling everything from food, flowers and every kind of trinket imaginable. Along with the floating market, Samut Songkran (this area) is also known for it's salt farms and coconut sugar. Very yummy!

My Temple

This is where I was a Monk nearly 10 years ago. The temple is a lot bigger, but the head abbot remembers me well. Here he is, giving us a blessing for good luck as well as some amulets. I wish I had more time to spend here and see the temple fully again, but it's a full day for us.

Wat Po

Here's a shot of the reclining Buddha. This temple is also regarded as the first real school or univeristy of Bangkok, with studies in medicine, massage and other holistic disciplines. It's a beautiful temple and very low key compared to the other temples.

The Grand Palace.

We got off to a great start, with a trip to Wat Phra Khew. Unfortunately, it was closed do to a visit by the Prince and some sort of Religious ceremony. In fact, while we were in Thailand, there were an awful lot of holidays. The temple is also known as the Grand Palace, with one of the main attractions being the Emerald Buddha. As I mentioned, we weren't able to enter Wat Phra Khew, but we did go to Wat Po, another historical temple, with the largest reclining Buddha. This however is a picture of the Grand Palance from outside the walls.

Here's Lek showing off some exotic fruit. It's called dragon fruit and actually tastes very much like a bland kiwi.

A late night dinner

First night in, and we took a leisurely stroll down Silom Road to enjoy a late night meal. It's really hot here, like 98 degrees and very, very humid. We decided to go to a noodle shop and grab a late night meal. It's great to be here with everyone.

We've made it!

Here we are at Don Mueng airport in Thailand. It was a long flight and we're really tired, sweaty and grumpy, but it's great toall be here!

And away we go!

I can't believe this day has arrived so quickly! These past weeks have really flown by. The last night before the flight was especially hectic with me making last minute preparations, then realizing that my suitcase is too small, so I had to borrow my brothers. Of course I'd forgotton my dress shoes at work, so had to swing by there as well. Even though we were hectic to the very end, there was still a lot of excitement and a great feeling of adventure! Here we are with tickets and passports ready to fly!