thanks to all...

I want to thank all the people who made this trip memorable, the 9 million people of Bangkok for their moter scooters, cabs, cars, buses and tuk-tuks all of which seem not to have a single emission standard, the food stall people who sell food on the side walks, making it possible to eat a meal for 75 cents that in the states would cost about 15 bucks and would give me the same upset stomach, I would like to thank the hotel for a medieval Internet connection that involved 2 old men with megaphones standing somewhere between the coast of Taiwan and santa cruz, the lovable police department that still honors old traditions of bribery and total contempt for the people they protect, the hospital staff for being the worlds experts on scooter injury's, the old lady on the river who veit cong dress code tried to spit on me,( everyone loves America ) the restaurant where we had our reception, may they drown in pink flowers, and most of all, the pharmaceutical industries that made the pills that made it possible for me to fly here, by the way, i am leaving out the ice cream maker who produces an ice cream sandwich given to us on the airplane on the ride over with it, i passed out ( caused of the pills ) with it still in my hand, 5 hours later i awoke to find that it was still in my hand, down my lap, and puddled on the floor under my seat, they can put a man on the moon but they still cannot make an ice cream sandwich that is Valium proof....no justice sometimes in this world..

running fo office, or just running

would you vote for anyone with red beady eyes besides George Bush Jr.?

may i presnt to you, the cohens, or is that sweet and sour cohens

roons sister, the doctor, her mom, beautifull roong, sweating ron, and i am so silent dad.

whats my favorit color?

tell me again how they promised not to have anything pink there...

what happends if someone cannot be downloaded..

me and roongs uncle...making whoopie.....see these pink flowers, you know how i feel about the color pink..notice the leather jacket, perfect for january in bangkok

can you see the sweat dripping?..the new shiney exapmle of sweat controll by ron

hi all,
well, we only have good news, the big day, the one that i tried so desperately tried to keep small and quiet came off without a hitch, everyone quite accepted me and there were no last minute nightmares, no flare ups of cultural differences, no guns drawn, and Roongs entire family quite embraced me. I nightmare averted.
the day started off with a series of rituals, which were told to me step by step...i was picked up at 8 am buy her..uncle...who i might add was on his best behavior, due in part to a reprimand by roongs mother to keep his mouth shut, he took me to roongs aunts house just a few doors down from roongs moms place, there i sat as the ritual of placing candy and oranges, special oranges, on platters, 4 to be exact, 6 oranges and one 20 pound sack of candies on each ( interesting footnote to this..the day before the wedding i had to go to the dr cause i started to run a fever and very sore throat( rung had the same hting, she went in the Morin) and i was prescribed 5 different meds, including antibiotic, a cough med( i had no cough) antihistamine, decongestant, and something for pain and fever), so, ( the night before the wedding, about 40 pounds of oranges and the 4 sacks of candy were dropped off at my hotel for me to bring to the wedding the following day)(also part of the "ritual", now, feeling ill, i saw oranges, i thought to myself..wow...good old fashon vitimum C, so lets have one...mmmm...so sweet..so good...hit the spot...)so...there we all are at roongs aunts house...i am watching them place the oranges on each platter, the sacks of candies, and there seems to be an issue..the issue of the missing orange....crisis averted when after about 15 minutes of orange searching, one was found and finally placed in the last tray.....then....the ritual of gathering the 4 trays carried by cousins to follow me to roongs house, walking, i was instructed not to take off my shoes when i entered the home( this is always done, except when accepting delivery of a bride) and to sit in a special chair....in that chair i sat for about 30 minutes until all the other rituals were ready,
the next step..after sweating like a rat in a Bangkok cellar was to pass threw 2 sets of people holding golden chains, this is done by bribing them with pink envelopes filled with cash ( who said there were no new york influence in asia) at which point, after the bribing of family members holding the chains is complete, i am allowed to go upstairs and collect my bride. upon bringing her downstairs, she is to have one last breakfast with her family, sort of symbolic farewell, this is our last meal together breakfast consisting of 10 different dishes( none of which roong likes) and with me sitting off to the side of the table..the next step was to collect her..and bring her back to my wonderful hotel for a blessing on my home from the budda, now, since all residence here have two items in every home, one is a picture of the king, and the other is a "spirit house", those are the little buddist shrines you always see in chineese resturants( now i know what they are for), our spisit house is at the end of the parking lot in the hotel..so about 10 of us went, roong and I did the old kneel to great budda pray thing, then it was back to roongs mothers house for the final step..
this involves serving her parents tea, now i never even mowed the lawn for my folks, but here i was made to kneel to her parents and serve them tea, then, each aunt and uncle, but only kneeling for the parents,, after this whole thing, it was done..she was mine...mind you..it took 4 hours for it to be done..it was done...we went back to the hotel where both of us slept for 2 hours before the reception.....
the reception was done at a little restaurant off a main street, we took the whole place, and we were expecting about 100 people, for that is the number of family friends that were told to me about 4 days before the wedding, mind you i demanded in the beginning to roong that no more that 40 people, keep it family only, but this is Thailand, and for a people who have never been colonized by western powers they were about to submit to my piny little demands, so..it went from 40..to 60..to 100, all in all about 60 showed...it was a simple event, no big flower arrangements, no big dancing by a d.j. and none of the nauseating speeches by drunken family members or friends...( i saw to it that no alcohol was served), the one carnal rule i had that were no special pink flower arangemts made, i told her flowers by the front door were fine, as long as they weren't pink, i hate pink, brings out rage in me...no clue why..but it does, its like showing a peace flag to pat Buchanan, anyway, as you will see when i am able to post the pictures, all the family and friend pictures were shot under a canopy of pink flowers and ribbons strung over the front door of the place, much like the nazi's used to hang there little symbles out of windows and over doorways..arugh...
well, the food was food, at least the restaurant listen to me on that one...my friends chieko and her husband mark both showed up and i was very grateful to them, it was more English i spoke with them than i have in the last two weeks, it was great to be able tot sit at my own wedding and smile threw conversation without having wondered what was being said...there was no wedding cake, that's a western tradition, and in the heat of bangkok you will not find a wedding cake that isn't a monument to gelatin. as soon as i can i will star to post pictures of all this..but as usual, the wireless here is about as reliable as any presidential candidate telling the truth, any truth

pot pot, who's got the hot pot.

we did hot pot tonight, now this isn't my first time doing hot pot, for those of you not in the hot pot know..its where they have you cook your own meal in a broth of clear chicken stock, now, most Asians know about his stuff, and so its not really a novelty for them, they sully it up with all sorts of fishy things, and we all know unless it says Mrs.Pauls on the box and its fish, i ain't gonna eat it, so i choose steak, roast duck, bok choy, Morin glory ( all greens) green onions and had a very healthy meal, the green squiggly noodles go in last as though they are already cooked...not a meal goes by here in Bangkok with some sort of squiggly noodles. good stuff...the bizarre part came half way threw the meal when the entire staff lines in every 30 minutes and does karaoke .they all clap there hands in unison, do a little dance wave their hands and arms back in forth all in unison and every thought i ever had why there were so many gay people in Thailand went out of my head...it had to be because of the hot pot resturants, there trained here.

I know..you have all been asking..so many wonderful pictures of everyone...but none of my little Ronnie?..well, this is for the folks back home...taken by roong while her and i decided to escape the east, and visit the " trendy " section of Bangkok, you know the places where those nasty little bombs went off a day before we go there..set off a few bombs at the mall, scare away the dollars...well, it worked.for about 20 minutes..this place is filled..packed to the rafters with tourist, mostly young Japanese being extremely anorexic and wealthy...they all look at my belly as if to say "look a pregnant man"...i just thank my lucky stars i know how to eat...um, say, if your not gonna finish that....

mom and pam, these pics are from you..i am now taking orders for delivery...silk anyone???...these were taken in downtown Chinatown, i was there with roong today, i highly recommend a yard or two not cheap..but by American standards...very cheap...any takers???

another day in bbk

well howdy all, nice to see some fresh faces in the crowd, i see Mommy, i see daddie, i see Pammie and i see Bobbie i see alecie...as long as i don't see a letter from the bankie..were all doing good....(not to mention the i.r.s,ie)
today was another hair raising ride in a cab that discovered that brakes are actual for using, that bizarre clanking sound you get when your doing 65 mph on a side street and you hit the brakes, the wheels wobble and the driver turns to you with hands off the wheel and says in English without a trace of accent " hold on"that sound is your brakes being reincarnated as a set of broken pieces of metal, now, in one cab ride we already hit another cab, that was my second day here, this cab ride was a little different, that first accident the driver just bumped at about 4 or 5 miles an hour the cab in front of us, but this guy actually lost his brakes. all said and done..once the clunking got so loud as he was standing on the brakes the car did come to a halt, when i started to get out, he turned to roong and wanted to know why i was getting out...another day in bang the drum slowly kok.

eggs, who wants them, we got them, in any shape size or animal. I guess its the healthy protein factor these people have figured out, not sure, but none the less they are in almost all the dishes you find here, scrambled usually with other ingredients, pad Thai has it, as does a slew or other dishes, allot of deserts use them, not as ingredients but as the main attraction, now...whats who wants a birthday cake of eggs???

is there nothing better than meat on a stick?...we got pork balls, beef balls, chicken balls, even hot dogs wrapped in bacon, lord knows that is not exactly karmicly correctness hard at work, but heck, dipped in a little hot sauce, a little sticky gravy of god knows what, there yummy as hell., and, for about 50 cents for a stick of about 6 balls, i double dare mcDonalds to try that one...

after the great flood, china town got three of each kind of animal and pu tthem in lon gtail boats
then, noah orders some sweet and sour..
say, you gonna try to see me that plastic fan...or do i have to ask your borther?
floating market? or a vission of dante's health inspection nightmare

24 hours and a few in hell....

well, what i did on my winter vacation...a certain someones uncle picked up roong, my future mother in law and myself and drove us 2 hours north to a government hospital where roongs sister is currently doing her residency, as you all know how i feel about people who drive like idiots, i recently ( yesterday) met the worst driver of my life...worst ever. yes, it was that uncle...my god...oh my god..this guy....tailgating at 80 miles an hour in a Honda that even though it was new, had non of the American safety features except one airbag for the driver, this guy would get into someones tail then start to honk like he was on a cocaine binge, fire in his eyes, 80 plus miles an hour on roads that not even Romania would call a highway, the tires on his car were the " low profile" style, if you know anything about tires, those are made for looks only, not for performance...well, the 2 hour ride took 4, cause he was going so fast all the signs to the town where roongs sister lives were missed, as a matter of fact, i saw as much of the landscape as one would see on a bullet train.....after Disney on wheels, i told roong that how ever she needed to do it, to tell him there would be no need for him to pick us up the next day, for I'd rather have worms fed to me threw my nose than get in a car with him...its one thing for him to drive like a nut job, most people do here, but they do it at allot slower speeds, i will never put my life in the hands of someone who has to brag about a gun to cover up Asian penis envy.
all good things come to those who wait...or take action into their own hands..not sure yet, but he cancelled picking us up today because of a very important bizz meeting he had to attend...funny thing is, he is unemployed...i think he got a few of my hints....maybe the rage look i gave him for 4 hours..not sure.don't care...we took a buss back today..it took 1 hour.15 minutes..i am missing the west today.really missing it.

finaly ou rthird contestant loves to sew, speaks in tounges and, is the national spokes person for dental world toothbrushes

our second contestant loves reading, works for world peace, and has just modled for a new magazine called buddah skin..

in a far far far off land, which shall remain nameless cause my brother has made me paranoid, they held a contest..called guess what i am saying....our first contestant.......she loves popcorn, doesn tliek to share...and has been in the sun way to long....

the dog and I

in a land far far away, that makes george orwells 1984 look pale, there was a dog, who, big brother loved, loved, loved him so much that he cast a statue of him....his name wassnt fido....it wassnt king doggie doo doo...no....but..due to reasons beyound my controll and the fact that I saw midnight express 3 times, we'll just call the dog spot. spot had a palace built for him...spot was one lucky little doggie...i hear jodie fosters gonna play spot in her next movie..." the dog and I"

you know, one of the most easy jobs in thailand has go tto be on televission, the traffic reporter, all he has to do is give the caualty report and all is done for him....corssing the street in this place is akin to taking your life into your own hands, oh sure its not that they speed, you cannot speed in bangkok, its impossable, say, 30 miles an hour is as fast as your gonna go on any street, the highway is another matter. the street congestion is amazing...really, i want to set up my webcam on a corner to show you what i mean. between the tuk tuks( three wheeled taxi's) the scooters, motocycles and the taxi's not to mention the delivery trucks of all shapes and sizes, its amazing anything moves here...there are no amublances here, there are no speeking police cars, your hurt, dieing, its up to you to find a cab, otherwise your on your own....these people drive like europians form lines. Its a small matter of personal safety crossing the street when everyone here thinks that if they die..they will be back shortly as a cat or dog..i am having a wonderfull time, going to the country side today with roongs family, i will take alof of pictures and enjoy myself with some nice food, clean air, and, if there is any god at all, the sdrive will be safe...