Yep......from what in the hell did I relax from?????? Was it necessary to just kick back and do not tooooo much of anything???? Well......I AM retired, and if I want to do absolutely nothing if I have nothing to do, then I most certainly will NOTHING!! Hey....no soapbox tonight over this.....just verifying my feelings about doing nothing. Hmmmm.......enough of this crap, John!
I did walk two miles this afternoon, even though the wind was a bit nippy as I walked into it. Spent about an hour in TheHowserHouse.......needed to run the gennie and also needed to check out the new entertainment receiver and surround sound after having it replaced. The DVD player worked wonderfully, as well as the surround sound. Sooooo, while the gennie ran for an hour, I listened to a CD of Nora Jones being piped throughout the RV, cleaned out a few drawers that needed some arranging, and took out he microwave/convection oven manual for the Jim and Sherry.......who never received one when they purchased their new Cedar Creek!
Supper was a rerun of last night's Jambalya(still don't know the spelling??).....and it was even better than last night!!!! LOVE THIS RECIPE!!!!!!!!! And the 1st Lady even really likes it, and she is not one for tooo much heat in a recipe/dish.
The 1st Lady is busy this evening......finishing up the present wrapping for us.....and for Santa Claus. Thankfully, it is about complete......it is beginning to drive her nuts trying to make certain that the granddaughters have EXACTLY the same number of gifts!!! Of course, the girls NEVER count them, but she feels this little exercise in futility is necessary.
Thailand Tales:
I don't believe I have ever talked about exactly what I was doing for the USAF while in Thailand. I was just there on temporary duty for two months and then for another two months, at my request. I worked in equipment supply, which meant while in the Kingdom of Siam, any aircraft parts that quit working in one of our planes had to be returned to me and then I would issue a new part. When I arrived at Ubon AFB, the supply sgt. who had been operating the issue/return supply section had not done the required job.......and I am not telling a tall Thai tale!!! There were two million dollars in aircraft parts that were defective/broken which had not been turned in when the new parts were issued!!!!!! THAT is a lot of money worth of broken parts.
Sooooo, a long story made short, I set about combing the base and over a period of several weeks, I located the missing parts...or at least about 1.5 million dollars worth. Consequently......I was awarded a commendation and some "time off" from my job there at Ubon. Sooooo.....I grabbed a flight to Chiang Mai, the second largest city in Thailand which is in the northwest part of the country. Located rather in a triangle of Thailand, Burma(at least that is what is was called then), and China. The beautiful city lies at the foot of the mountains, much as Colorado Springs and Denver do. I had four days for the trip and needed much more, but after all.....I was in the USAF and we were fighting a war in Viet Nam.....not very far from Ubon.
The city, as I said above, is a beautiful city with some wonderful hotels......now keep in mind this was in 1970!!! I enjoyed walking around the city and visiting some of the incredibly beautiful Buddhist temples while I was there.......what an experience. One day I took a bus tour....which made circle route around the area surrounding Chiang Mai. All around this route were small little Thai villages.....and the unique thing was that each village specialized in a specific art or craft. Once village made paper umbrellas for blocking the sun....and there were tons of little open air shops with these brightly colored umbrellas hanging from wires and blowing in the breezes. Another village made Thai silk.....weaving the various colors and designs on hand operated looms in large buildings cooled only by large fans. The silk is highly prized for its beauty and high quality. I purchase many yards of the silk to take back home as gifts to family and friends that enjoyed sewing.
Another village worked with silver.....making small boxeds, jewelry, and beautiful art works for homes and offices. The tour took us through many villages and there were several more: one that did art work on very, very delicate rice paper which had scenes of Thai life on them......another worked in laquer ware, making wooden vases, boxes, plates, etc., etc and then the pieces went through cycles of painting the lacquer on the items.....and the layering of the lacquer took days and days to complete; another village was the incredible Thai wood carvers.....WOW!!!!! This place was just hard to believe: all items were carved from Teak wood and and finished soooo beautifully.....all by hand. I purchase a 32" hand carved elephant....about 50 pounds.....and the price???? $3.00.....yes, I said three dollars!!!! Everything was sooooo very, very cheap at that point in time.
I bought at least one item from each arts/crafts village that we visited. I wasn't sure if I could get all of these things back on the USAF aircraft to return to Ubon.....but I decided to take that chance!! As it turned out, I didn't have anything in comparison to some of the others.....some had purchased desks, beds with large ornately carved headboards, etc., etc. When we started down the runway to take off.......well,..we had to make three attempts to get off the ground because the aircraft was soooo heavy with furniture and gifts!!!!! Three times we gathered speed and then had to brake and turn around and try again!!!!! A bit nerve-wracking, to say the least...hahaha!
Sooooo, with my day in the villages around Chiang Mai now extracted from my memory, I will close this for tonight.....and so,
Life is GREAT (and was in 1970 also), and I hope the same for all of you!!!
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