Life in Thailand: Battling Boredom

[JamesWest]

I'm in Pattaya right now. I'm not bored. GLC have you bought a motorcycle yet? Really good way to increase your endorphin levels as the Thais try to kill you on the highway.

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[JamesWest]

GLC I don't know you but some of your posts sound like you battleing depression. You should think about changing your diet. I read your other thread about some of the food you eat. Not good choices. And boredom is a sign of a certain state of associated with

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalto ... epression/


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[JamesWest]

GLC I don't know you but some of your posts sound like you battleing depression. You should think about changing your diet. I read your other thread about some of the food you eat. Not good choices. And boredom is a sign of a certain state of mind associated with ADD and you may be medicating with weed to quiet your mind. Don't hook with a girlfriend because she will just gun on you until you get out of your funk.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalto ... epression/


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[GLCQuantum]

Boredom is especially baffling in this day in age when you have such engaging entertainment at your fingertips.

Bored? Never.

Simple things please simple minds - I truly wish I was as easily entertained as you.

Well, one of the "simple" things occupying me recently was to write my own webcam software to replace the horrible commercial application that I was using. I decided to do the whole thing using bash. The software I wrote grabs a frame from a USB webcam every few minutes, adds weather data downloaded from Weather Underground using their json API, and then uploads the photo to my website. The software also creates a timelapse movie from the grabbed frames and uploads that to my website.

I know, a simple pursuit for a simple mind, but I found it to be amusing.

(I"m not allowed to post a link to my website because it contains an ad for my wife's law firm and a link to her website.)

That sounds pretty cool, I'll give you that.

[Ratsima]

I think that having challenging projects is important. I bake sourdough bread once or twice a week. I "harvested" the starter from naturally occurring yeasts and bacteria and am constantly experimenting with flour mixtures, resting and rising times, etc. It's something to keep your mind working even when you don't have a loaf rising or in the oven.

Another fermentation project that keeps me challenged is my compost heap. I know, boring for some, but the science behind it can be quite challenging and successful results quite satisfying.

[Bristolian]

^^ I agree challenging projects or hobbies are the key.
For the last two years I have been combining work with building a comprehensive hobby engineering workshop... Which I doubt will ever be as fully equipped as I would like. You can not believe how difficult this has been in Thailand where this hobby pretty much doesn't exist.

Evenings I reserve for my family genealogy or my photograph pastime.

The whole point is that I have been building a retirement and not simply transitioning from working to retirement overnight. Well at least that's the plan. Ask me again in a couple of years if it has worked. Currently the hobbies of course take second pace to work but it's getting a close call

[hhfarang]

I agree too. Even the heat and constant sweating didn't seem to bother me as much during the first years when I was overseeing the building of our home. That kept me very busy. After that a couple of years playing a lot of golf helped.

[J.J.B.]

I think there is a significant difference between a hobby and a pastime. You will soon grow tired of pastimes, hobbies are a life's work.

[heartofmidlothian]

You need hobbies or pastimes when you are retired. Amazes me that more older people do not make an effort to get fitter. Plenty of studies show that the biggest gains for resistance training are for older people. If you feel better and stronger, then you are also mentally fitter and stronger. Getting your body stronger takes only 3 sessions per week of about 30 minutes. Very cheap to go to a gym compared to other hobbies. Important that you get advice at the start and start off light and increase slowly, making sure you lift with good form. Never mind running on treadmills, unless you want to run marathons. Learn to do deadlifts, bench press, overhead press, pull ups and dips. Within a month you will be amazed how much stronger you are and how much more energy you have.
GLC Quantum, your diet is a shocker and it is no wonder you feel so miserable. You are what you eat. I am sure that even you will agree that if you really are so intelligent, then you are being stupid eating like that.
I am sure plenty of people will have a go at me for suggesting people get fit but does anyone disagree with my statement that getting fitter makes you feel physically and mentally stronger.

[Dannie Boy]

You need hobbies or pastimes when you are retired. Amazes me that more older people do not make an effort to get fitter. Plenty of studies show that the biggest gains for resistance training are for older people. If you feel better and stronger, then you are also mentally fitter and stronger. Getting your body stronger takes only 3 sessions per week of about 30 minutes. Very cheap to go to a gym compared to other hobbies. Important that you get advice at the start and start off light and increase slowly, making sure you lift with good form. Never mind running on treadmills, unless you want to run marathons. Learn to do deadlifts, bench press, overhead press, pull ups and dips. Within a month you will be amazed how much stronger you are and how much more energy you have.
GLC Quantum, your diet is a shocker and it is no wonder you feel so miserable. You are what you eat. I am sure that even you will agree that if you really are so intelligent, then you are being stupid eating like that.
I am sure plenty of people will have a go at me for suggesting people get fit but does anyone disagree with my statement that getting fitter makes you feel physically and mentally stronger.

I'm going back about 30 years when I was at my fittest (still playing football and training for runs of up to 10 miles) and I certainly felt great both physically and mentally and slept well too, so I don't see why the same type of benefits wouldn't apply now that I'm in my 60's, - maybe time to try and get at least a bit fitter and see what happens!!

[Chazz14]

I stared cycling regularly a month ago and have completed 10 rides totalling 80 miles. Average time about 45 minutes.

I feel much better for it and I appear to be coping with the heat better (or is it my imagination?).

I'm 58 - my bike cost B6500. If I can feel better after only a month,then anyone can...!

[Korkenzieher]

Well, given that you are fluent in Thai, why not try Latin...

Oh. Not fluent? Well, there's a radical idea. Given that you live in Thailand and all that!

I spend a lot of my time doing online MOOCs (http://www.mooc-list.com). I'm just finishing up the science of food (Harvard), and have moved on to Music Theory (Edinburgh) and Tibetan Buddhist Meditation (UVirginia). There ain't enough hours in the day to do as many as I would like to!. Done about 40 in the last 2 years as it is.

Oh, and (well, keyboard but no appropriate smilie

[JamesWest]

Hua Hin is nice but can be very boring. I am in Pattaya right now and I am not bored.

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[GLCQuantum]

Well, given that you are fluent in Thai, why not try Latin...

Oh. Not fluent? Well, there's a radical idea. Given that you live in Thailand and all that!

I spend a lot of my time doing online MOOCs (http://www.mooc-list.com). I'm just finishing up the science of food (Harvard), and have moved on to Music Theory (Edinburgh) and Tibetan Buddhist Meditation (UVirginia). There ain't enough hours in the day to do as many as I would like to!. Done about 40 in the last 2 years as it is.

Oh, and (well, keyboard but no appropriate smilie

One thing I don't want to be doing is wasting my time learning a load of useless information.

I think there is a significant difference between a hobby and a pastime. You will soon grow tired of pastimes, hobbies are a life's work.

This is an extremely good point.

[Ratsima]

Boredom is especially baffling in this day in age when you have such engaging entertainment at your fingertips.

Bored? Never.

Simple things please simple minds - I truly wish I was as easily entertained as you.

I know I'm too stupid to be bored, but here's another little project that leaked out of my lame brain.

Like most of us, I have a dynamic IP address. I also have a need to log in to my home computer when I'm away. I have been using Dyn's DNS service, but they charge for it now and I'm not sure I can justify the expense. So, I wrote a little shell script that manages it for me. It checks the IP address periodically and if there's a change it:

• Logs the new IP address in a DropBox file
• Sends a Growl notification to all my devices
• Sends an email message with the new IP address

Here it is, for anyone who has the need:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash

# shell script to obtain external IP address
# and send growl and email notification if the IP address has changed

# By Mike xxxxxxxx
# www.mgxxxxxx.com

# this script should be run from launchd or as a cron job
# to work it needs postfix or some other MTA and
# growl and the command line tool growlnotify

# Use constants for home directory, IP file name and email address

HOME=/Users/mnewman/Dropbox
IPFILE="$HOME/ip.txt"
LOG="$HOME/ip.log"
EMAIL="xxxxxx@mac.com"

# if the IPFILE exists then read the old IP address
# otherwise set the old IP address to 0.0.0.0

if [ -w "$IPFILE" ]
then
	oldip=$(<"$IPFILE")
else
	oldip="0.0.0.0"
fi

# get the current IP address from opendns

ip=`/usr/bin/dig +short myip.opendns.com @resolver1.opendns.com`

# if the IP address has changed then
# write the new IP to the IPFILE in DropBox
# send an email notification
# put up a growl message
# write to a log file so we know how often the IP address changes.
# if you don't want to use growl or email notifications, just comment out those lines

if [ "$ip" != "$oldip" ]; then
	echo "$ip" > "$IPFILE"
	echo $ip | mail -s "IP" "$EMAIL"
	/usr/local/bin/growlnotify -m "new IP" "$ip"
	echo $'\n'"`date`" "$ip">> "$LOG"
fi

Simple but effective. Certainly could use some better error handling.