Life in Thailand: Battling Boredom

[Pleng]

No-IP.org is still free. You just need to click a confirmation link which is sent to you by email every 30 days. But that's a neat little script, anyway

[Ratsima]

The script is less important than the idea of showing High IQ people how they can stave off boredom. If too-dumb-to-be-bored me can whip up a little code like that just think what a really smart person could do!

[JamesWest]

fly a drone.
go pro camera.
camera with 400mm lens.
photoshop/video editing.
film making.
musical instrument.
learn Thai in a classroom.
GET OUT OF BORING HH. Pattaya and BBK in small amounts.
big scooter/big bike long trips on back roads.
Big Bike Week all over Thailand.
go as fast as you can for very short periods on remote, empty roads on your big bike.
train travel. visit Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar. EXPLORING.
remote Myanmar islands and beaches.
go to every Thai "event". If you hear loud Thai music, lights, move towards it.
stay out tourist night markets. avoid western style malls. MV etc.
make living within your budget a hobby. account for every baht.
teach a Thai to budget and plan.
Thursday beach clean up HH.
learn to arc weld.
amateur radio license. Shortwave monitoring. Satellite uplink.
Monitor FTA satellites.
Python programming.
website or blog with constructive info.
stay off of facebook. no TV.
cooking. Nutrition. juicing.
hydroponics. grow you own food. landscaping.
workout. hiking. bicycle. ideal body fat percentage.
people watching in dive bars.
girl watching in dive bars.
play spot the mafia/con man and ID their country.
dogs and cat neutering. feed starving cats and dogs. set positive example for animal treatment.
computer networking. packet capture. network mapping. wifi mapping.
teach english to one bar girl.
meditation. kama sutra. tai chi. martial arts.
archery. paint ball.
teaching Thais about proper nutrition. negative western influence.
teach a Thai world history. BBK vs NYC 1900. Evils of Communism.
Tell Russian tourists you are retired CIA or MI6 and see what they say/do.
see how many geeks you can have. start with one and work up.
schedule every day. stick to it.

[Thistle]

James, I am sure after that wonderful instructive post you will be out of GURU level immediately,and all my collegues agree,glad you back safely from Pattaya,and of course had a wonderful time.Look forward to your next post!!!

[JamesWest]

James, I am sure after that wonderful instructive post you will be out of GURU level immediately,and all my collegues agree,glad you back safely from Pattaya,and of course had a wonderful time.Look forward to your next post!!!

thank you for this very nice comment.

I could get into my TWO WEEK Pattaya trip but even the Night Crawlers forum could not handle it.

Zero boredom on that trip.

[Liberty70]

It's amazing the hours you can fill up with a capable motorcycle, a GPS and a good camera. I also have a Ham Radio licence - google "summits on the air" if you want to see an interesting way of combining motorcycle trips and Ham Radio.

Video some of that stuff and set up a youtube channel - you might make a bit of extra coin on the way!

[Stargeezer]

I spent 4 months in Hua Hin a couple of years ago. The weather was great when I got there in January, but by March
it go hot, and one of my pastimes was to have a Siesta in my air conditioned bedroom every afternoon from 2 PM
until 5 PM. I found that I got up earlier in the mornings and to bed around 10 or 11 PM. My hobbies were, people gazing
in the day time around the shopping areas, and the beaches, taking pictures of the colorful ones. Watching
the wind surfers on the breezy days, riding my Honda motorcycle around the country side in many different places,
and star gazing during many of the evenings when the skies were clear. I did go to some of the bars to chat with
some expats, and my friends when they were around, as well as to the Restaurants throughout Hua Hin. During the 4 months, I think I ate at nearly three quarters of the restaurants in Hua Hin. It was a good thing that the meals were
very good at nearly all of them. I have spent many years staying where I live in Canada, in the Yukon, or in B.C. or Alberta, and I can say that I would rather be bored in Thailand, than in Canada.
Stargeezer

[Ratsima]

Another boredom battling project:

I've installed a water tank and pump at my house to make up for the Thai government's inability to consistently supply water at a pressure sufficient for showering, laundry, etc.

Trouble is, I have to go outside to flip a switch to turn the pump on. There must be a better way.

A little searching turned up a plethora of possibilities. Lots of remotely controlled switches with dedicated remotes. And then I found the Kankun Small K switch which is WiFi enabled and controlled from an app on your Apple or Android mobile device. For fifteen bucks (Ali Express) I figured I'd give it a go.

Well, it works, but not very well. Even with the robust WiFi at my house I was getting network timeouts and login failures. The app seemed poorly written.

What could be done? Well, the thing is on my LAN, so let's see if we can log in. Yep, got an ssh login prompt but I needed a password. Tried the usual suspects (admin, 1234, etc.) but nothing worked. I'm certainly not the first person who's tried this so we'll search the net for a password. Sure, enough, it's out there and I'm in. Turns out the switch is running BusyBox, a small embedded Linux distribution. BusyBox comes with a web server. Is it enabled? Point a browser at the switch and, sure enough, web server is running. All sorts of possibilities for mischief, I think with glee. Let's get started.

I didn't have to do much. Turns out there's a whole community Kankun hackers who have already done the heavy lifting with cgi scripts, etc.

To make a long story short, I'm now controlling the switch via it's web server. I put a button on everyone's iPhone that instantly loads the web page with a single button to turn the switch on or off. Works first time, every time. No more timeouts, no more login failures. And, with a little port forwarding I can control the switch from anywhere with Internet. Cool.

I'm sure glad my IQ is low enough for me to be amused by things like this.

[dtaai-maai]

I'm sure glad my IQ is low enough for me to be amused by things like this.

[Ratsima]

wanna buy a telescope

Yeah, I do, but I don't know where to begin, how much to spend, what I need, etc.

Right now I have a spotting scope that is fine for looking at far away terrestrial stuff like fishing boats, distant mountains, etc. But, of course, no good for astronomy.

Any advice, Stargeezer?

[margaretcarnes]

How do you guys fight it.

Once again, it's a Friday night. I've had my steak sandwich with all the extras. I've had my couple of beers. I'm ready to retire and do what I have been doing for most evenings for the best part of a decade...

Browse HHForum and maybe post a reply to a few things, but...

Alas! Nothing has really happened here all day. We struck lucky with the 'Youtube Superstar' thread... that afforded a laugh or two, but I fear 'striking lucky' won't always happen.

Am I gonna have to start looking at other forums, for the first time in my life (which comes with the added difficulty of being a 'newbie' rather than my current, well respected 'veteran' status that I have earnt here) or is it going to pick up anytime soon?

GLC - sorry darl but you are too young to have found yourself in this situation. Forget other forums - that won't help. Forums are full of expats who have lost the plot. The fact is that in Thailand you don't have access to the education and development opportunities which you would have had back home. You have had work experience in Thailand which quite honestly means diddly squat in the UK, other than to show that you have travelled and experienced other cultures.
You are caught between a rock and a hard place. Either you bite the bullet and go home and take your chances - which would mean maybe going for a degree and getting into teaching here (and the UK is desperate for teachers). Or you go home and be prepared to take any job you can and build up some work experience. Or - you stay in Thailand and get stuck in.
It's a scary crossroads in your life, and to take the right path you need to be really honest with yourself about what your aims are longer term.
On the face of it the easy option would be to stay put. Would that be enough? I don't think so. There are plenty of opportunities if you go home - it just takes a leap of faith to take them.

[hhfarang]

Another boredom battling project:

I've installed a water tank and pump at my house to make up for the Thai government's inability to consistently supply water at a pressure sufficient for showering, laundry, etc.

Trouble is, I have to go outside to flip a switch to turn the pump on. There must be a better way.

Why didn't you install a demand pump like everyone else in Thailand. No switch needed... it comes on when the pressure drops and goes off when the pressure comes back to the required level.

Speaking of boredom in Hua Hin, most everyone who has been a member for a while knows my story. I was miserable there after about 4 years. One additional thing to watch out for; Thailand made me fat. I'm not sure why but in the ten years I lived there I gained 25 pounds. In ten months back in the U.S. I've lost that 25 pounds and am back to the weight I was when I moved to Thailand.

[Ratsima]

Why didn't you install a demand pump like everyone else in Thailand. No switch needed... it comes on when the pressure drops and goes off when the pressure comes back to the required level.
.

I have a demand pump with a pressure switch. I'm stupid, but not stupid enough to leave it on all the time.

[hhfarang]

I have a demand pump with a pressure switch. I'm stupid, but not stupid enough to leave it on all the time.

Why not? That's the whole point of a demand pump... it raises pressure automatically on demand, hence the name. You're defeating the purpose by switching it off.

[Ratsima]

Most water related activities (hand washing, doing the dishes, flushing the toilet, etc.) can be done with low pressure. The only activities requiring high pressure are things like taking a shower, doing the laundry, watering the garden, etc. Running a pump costs money. Only a fool would pay for high pressure when it isn't necessary. Having the pump on a switch saves money.