Howdy: Another Newb Joins Up

[Hank Gunn]

With apologies to the inimitable J. Morrison,

"Well I just got into town about an hour ago
Took a look around, see which way the wind blow..."

Actually got here about 2 weeks ago and was lucky enough to find a really great rental here in town.

Discovered this forum about a year or two ago and hope to gain some local knowledge from fellow expats here.

About me:
* American born but moved to Toronto, Canada where I lived from age 8-17
* Family moved to Silicon Valley for my last yr of high school and lived and worked there for the last 35+ years
* Took an early retirement from the Silicon Valley grind to try to find a slower pace of life and new life experiences
* Met my Thai wife about 11 years ago, been married 10 and lived all 10 of those years in the US
* Traveled to Thailand every 2-3 year for 2-3 weeks at a time (typically a week up here in Buriram and week down at a beach in the south)
* Wife is from a village about 10 K south of Krasang, and we have some land in the next village over. Hoping to build a modest house in about a yr.
* I'm hoping to do a little regional travel and start a simple hobby blog to share photos and stories with friends and family back in US/Canada

I'll probably be popping over to the IT forum for questions on Internet Service Providers and other basic IT questions. As we get ready to start building our place, I'll probably be in the Building/Real Estate forum.

Thanks for accepting my forum application.

[nookiebear]

Welcome aboard Sir

[jmcet]

Welcome....Hope all your plans work out...

[urleft]

Welcome, I spent some time on Cannery Row, drove through Gilroy but never made it to the Garlic festival, and spend many long months in King City.  Back in my teens used to cross the Bridge/tunnel to Windsor, been to Toronto years ago. 

[Tassie]

Welcome to Buriram.  I hope all your plans work out for you.
Regards

[DeputyDavid]

Welcome!  Enjoy LOS!

[Hank Gunn]

Thanks for the warm welcome folks.

As additional bio info: I've been a long time motorcycle rider (sport bike > BMW Sport/Tourer > Harley Tourer ["Baggers"]) and in my early twenties used to enjoy going to watch the world-class motorcycle and car racing at Laguna Seca raceway down in Monterrey and at Sears Point (now Infineon) Raceway up in Sonoma (wine country). The former a couple hours drive south of Silicon Valley and the latter a couple hours north (about 1 hr. north of San Fran.). So I'm looking forward to eventually checking out some of the racing at iMobile Stadium here. That was back when Paul Newman (the actor) was still racing cars for his own team (Newman/Haas Racing).

I also splurged on shipping over a new, 22" Weber Kettle grill (fellow Yanks will know what that is) along with boxes of clothes and basic household goods my wife wanted to shop here. I'm hoping to get that sucker going in a couple of months, once we get settled into our new rental. I'm no gourmet, but I can do some nice slow barbecued Terriyaki chicken. Hoping to try my hand at some ribs, although I've yet to do them on the "barbie". I mention that because there was another older thread here (accompanied by some tantalizing photos) of a BE member doing a barbecue rib cookout.

Thanks again folks.

[Freddy]

Welcome Hank,
I'm from the UK but have a large family (on my Dads side) living in the Fremont, Oakland, SF, Carmel, Monterey area. Spent a lot of time over there, a beautiful part of the States.

Hope you enjoy your new life here.

[DeputyDavid]

Hank if you go to Macro meat department and ask them they will bring out a nice slab of pork ribs and cut for you.

Regarding shipping items, have you already received them?  I ask because the freight forwarders in Los Angeles are not shipping right now because customs (Thailand) is being a bit over sensitive.

[Hank Gunn]

Thanks for the advice on the Makro meat dept. DD. I'll keep that in mind.

Yes, we received all of our stuff yesterday. Met the truck at the stadium (easy for the driver coming up from Bangkok to find) then led him out to MIL's house where we'll unpack it and bring it over to our new rental house when we move in next week.

I guess I got lucky regarding Thai customs, but we used a small but excellent shipper that is Bay Area based. A young Thai couple that does shipping to Thailand by the pallet. He then rents containers when he gets enough to fill them, so you don't have to ship a whole container. His price was quite reasonable (including the delivery to Krasang area) and he handled all customs paperwork.

[Firepilot]

Welcome from a fellow , I am in a similar situation to you as I took early retirement from the British Fire Service a couple of years ago then spent 18 months living with my girlfriend in Pattaya. We moved to Buriram in March this year and currently renting a condo in the city whilst we are building a house on our land in Sawai Chick (about 17km out of city towards Surin). I have also been a biker all my life and went through the Harley stage before returning to sports. Now riding a pcx 150 which I never thought would happen. Have already had to fire our first set of builders on the house and had a new crew start yesterday. Hope everything works out ok for your build but cant emphasise enough that you need to be on site for a lot if not all the time.
Iain

[Hank Gunn]

Thanks again for the well wishes folks.
Freddy, yes N. California, especially Carmel/Monterrey is beautiful but the S.F. Bay Area has gotten so hectic and cutthroat that it's just not the same place it was when I first moved there as a teenager. (But then again, what place hasn't changed in 35+ years).

Fireplace, having lurked on Thai forums for the last ten years or so, I'm acutely aware of the need to be physically on site for house builds here and frankly don't see how some fellas do it from abroad via emails and photos with their wives/girlfriends. But thanks for reinforcing this seemingly trivial but actually very critical point. Good luck eith your build.