Month: February 2015

Origins–a movie not to miss

Sawadee Khrap

Here is a movie that you need to take the time to see – 90 minutes – make sure and watch it full screen – beautiful, informative and eye opening.  ORIGINS  -shared by www.Mercola.com

Origins

 

The film “Origins” shows how our modern lifestyle has caused us to lose our connection with the earth, resulting in so many of our global problems from environmental destruction to hunger and disease
   
The US is now producing and importing 74 billion pounds of chemicals each day that are poisoning our bodies and polluting our planet
   
If we ever hope to heal, we must address how we eat, move, and live symbiotically with the earth

Ciao

Just back from USA

Sawadee Khrap

I just got back from my trip to the US to visit my MIMG_2411other – she’s doing the best and with the best care for the present circumstances – only time is in control now.  IMG_2410I stayed at the Holiday Inn in San Pablo, California – and rented a car from Budget Rent a Car at the San Francisco Airport – Here is a photo of the place and some shots travelling across the Bay Bridge to the Greater Bay Area – San Pablo. Got to see and have lunch with all my sisters and meet many of the other relatives as they visited my Mother at the nursing home.  Haven’t seen them for a long time and the kids are now grown up.   Also visited friends “Dan” and  “Tin” and his new husband – congratulations
IMG_2408IMG_2493IMG_2476


Got to visit the place where I sobered up and meet Pastor Steve at the Pacifica Baptist Church where I attended most of my AA meetings – beautiful costal area – – Pacifica, Calif.

IMG_2455IMG_2456IMG_2436IMG_2428IMG_2441IMG_2453


Then I did a quick run to visit the Castro Area in San Francisco – not much changed since I was living around there – 8 years but little changed – except the prices – Wow

IMG_2507IMG_2513The first thing I noticed was how clean the whole area was – cities, streets, freeways – everywhere you looked – and no smells – relativity clear air wherever I went -  San Pablo, Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, Pacifica – what a IMG_2550delight – traffic was not that bad but I did try to visit areas at low commute times.  The homeless are still there – 45F cold while I was there – and getting colder – here they are by the Holiday Inn setting up “home” in the bushes by the freeway.

Had a little problem when I went to the Social security Office in Berkeley – don’t know if I was pickpocketed or just lost the keys to the rental car – but they had to send a tow truck to get it and took me to the Oakland airport to get another rental – Budget was a great company to work with – really helped me out and excellent service.20150219_162943   And Last be not least if you are planning a trip by air check out EVA Airlines – really excellent service and wonderful meals in the Elite Section of the plane – a Boeing 777 – they even offer wine, cocktails or Beer if you like during dinner.- included - 

Blood pressure seemed ok during the trip but I do have to admit that I did not check it – just how I felt – Anyway home now and will talk by Skype to my Mother every day while that’s possible.

Ciao

Sai Kaew Training Day

Sawadee Khrap

Here’s a couple of shots when Pat, Charlie and myself went to Army-Navy Base and Sai Kaew Beach on Saturday.  Timing was perfect and we got to shoot some of the Army new recruit training going on at the base – CYMERA_20150207_104520-EditFirst is Charlie and myself at Khao Chi Chan – the mountain with the Buddha image carved on face  – and the second is my modified version of a shot of the training – _MG_0355 crop-move-modern2 they looked so weary from the days marching and exercises that it made a perfect image to represent the rigors of war – I picture the troops returning after a heavy battle – how does the image strike you?

Ciao

Latest Twist in the Artery Saga

Sawadee Khrap

Over the last 2 weeks I have been preparing to go to Sirirja Hospital to restart the procedure to get a new stent operation scheduled.  First, I wanted to get some funds transferred from my US to my Thailand account to make sure I could fully cover the deposit needed and also have a blood test done to see where the kidney status was before I went to set the appointment – don’t want to ask again and then for any reason have to cancel – I am sure they won’t start it for me again a third time if I don’t follow through now.

At the same time I was told to reduce my Olmesartan dosage by half as I was having terrible ringing in my ears and not good control of the BP – so I cut it in half – 40mg to 20mg and amazing all bad side effects dropped in half – after 2 days my BP started dropping again – so I decided to cut it to 10mg and see what would happen – worse would be like missing a dose – next morning my BP was at 130/60 and I felt much better so I have continued this for the last several days – to my amazement my BP has been a steady 124 – 135, day and night – ringing is still there but less, and still some swelling in the feet – Blood test back and everything seems to be normal – need to monitor further to see if this is going to be a steady thing, – so for now don’t run to try and set the appointment until I am sure .    From this I can only guess that the high level dosages of meds they were giving me were based on my high anxiety levels and now with that under control the high amounts were causing more problems than fixing them. -  So now  10 mg Olmesartan, 7mg Cialis, 3000 Fish Oil and 5mg Folic acid —  everything working as I would want. – will see what the next month will show.

Perhaps it’s God’s intervention again – just received notice that my Mother is seriously ill in hospital and so I may need to return to the States to see her – at 94 her condition is really bad and they expect she may not make it past another month.   My stable BP now would allow me to return have still time to reset the stent appointment if still needed it later.  Checking into that now and we will be hopefully setting up a Skype call so I can talk to her face to face.

Ciao

Testing Photoshop actions

Sawadee Khrap

Since I’ve had my medical problems I haven’t had many photo shoots of the local boys,  so to test a new Photoshop action that creates a explosion following the contours around a selected subject – I grabbed this older image of “Eart”._MG_2996-Edit -forge   I see I didn’t do a good job of selection, especially his hair, but the results of the action is encouraging.  If your into Photoshop and working on images then make sure to check out the actions crated by Brad Goble – They really are great starting points – and can give you some great inspiration and  ideas -  check them out.

Ciao