Bikes, Barbets, Card Reader, and Anniversary Dinner

We woke up to an interesting call. I got up and made a sound memo on the camera and downloaded it. Joan found the bird on the top of the tree and once I looked through the binoculars I was pretty sure it was a Lineated Barbet. (There's a nice description and good pictures at the link.) I looked up lineated barbet audio and that nailed it. But when I tried to download the sound memo, I realized I couldn't and hadn't tried for a long time. I googled and found a forum where someone suggested to get a card reader. CARD READER! Of course. That's how I used to download all my pictures and audio until mine stopped working. That was on my list of things to buy once we got here.

Pet and Bon were picking us up today around 11 to look at bikes. The bike choices have been:

1. buy bikes and sell them when we leave (Someone wanted us to do this last year so he could buy my bike at a discount.)
2. rent bikes (what I did last year)
3. the manager of our building offered to buy bikes and rent them to us
4. let Bon and Pet buy bikes and rent from them.

We finally agreed to option 4 since both wanted bikes. I decided this was not a violation of the AJWS ethics rules which say volunteers cannot leave valuable equipment or donate money to their organizations when they leave. I could be wrong, but it seems to make more sense to help them save money on their bikes rather than give the same money to the shop. In any case, we went over the AJWS policy carefully so they knew all the reasons for the rules.



But I insisted we go to Cacti Bikes where we rented our bikes last year. The owner was really a decent guy and I wanted to support him. Maybe he had some used bikes he'd sell. He did and we got two bikes. Bon and Pet went off to their meetings and we rode off on our bikes.











(1000 Baht is about $29)
Not far, because the computer arcade is pretty much across the street and canal from the bike store. I found exactly what I wanted - the card reader and a new stick on Thai keyboard for my MacBook. The paper one I'd bought last year got worn out much to quickly. J did great even in the Chiang Mai traffic. We tried to go more round about routes through less crowded sois. We mixed in some walking.

















The old card reader I had bought in Thailand was great. It was tiny and just needed to plugged into the USB port. This new one has its own USB connection. 150 Baht or about $4.30.



Next we got the stickers. The old ones were paper and after about six months, the most used keys had been worn bare. I'd seen clear plastic ones online, but there were about $6 plus more than that for shipping. I figured I could wait, and it was good I did because I had to get the keyboard replaced. But now I can put on the new ones, and I need them here.





Checking J's map, we saw the YMCA was nearby and J decided we should eat there. I'd only been in the parking lot when we picked up the Japanese researchers last year. With the bikes, getting a little off the beaten path is much easier. We had a decent lunch and I found this map there. I'd been aware that maps were culturally biased by seeing that in Asia China was in the middle of world maps while in the US, the US tends to be in the middle. There's also the Europe in the middle version.

But the description on this map said that the size of countries, of continents even, were distorted so that Northern Hemisphere countries appeared much larger than they actually were and Southern Hemisphere countries smaller. You can see more of the details at the Peters Map Site. But I figure that Alaska-Mexico example is of interest to my Alaskan readers. And no, Texas isn't really bigger than Alaska too.

Then we went on home - J getting used to riding in Chiang Mai - a lot more exciting than in Anchorage where there are separate bike paths most places.




Since it was our anniversary, I'd invited some people from work for dinner and we decided on Khun Churn, a yuppie vegetarian Thai restaurant. I'd also invited the other AJWS volunteers, whom I hadn't met, but we'd gotten email connection. We rode through the Chiang Mai University campus agricultural department area.


We had a fun dinner, lots of laughing. M, one of the volunteers came too. I learned that there'd been an orientation for the Thai and Cambodian volunteers that week that we'd arrived. I'd never gotten any information on it at all. This was about the same time that I learned from Pet that A, one of the AJWS staffers, had told him today that I wasn't really a volunteer, I wasn't on the list. Since AJWS paid for my plane trip, I'm guessing I really am an AJWS volunteer. Anyway, a trick I learned at the first Anchorage International Film Festival was that when the picture is too dark, or otherwise funny, you can always play with filters to make it interesting. So this picture of us at dinner is with Photoshop's graphic pen filter. Much nicer than the original photo.

[Update Jan. 25, 2009 Sunday evening Thai Time:  I forgot to mention that folks got there late because some roads were closed off and there was an anti-Government demonstration.  J and I didn't see it at all.  But this is pro-Thaksin territory.]