A Blog about the Daily Life on the Tropical Island of Koh Samui
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A few Words about Me
 My name is: Olle
I am living in: Lamai Beach, Koh Samui, Suratthani, Thailand
I am originally from: Stockholm, the capital of Sweden
I am doing for Kohsamui.org: Writing a blog about my life on a tropical island
How about my life here: Please read my blog below, my friends |
Fruity Friday
Text by Olle - Living on Lamai Beach - Friday, October 16, 2009
Today it has been a day with some setbacks again. First we went to see if the sign was about to be ready today and we got the news that it would be ready on Wednesday. We also got the information that he is ordering the sign from another shop. He had our phone number so I thought he could have called us and told us when he got that news. Instead we went to another shop and they will have it done by Monday, also for a lower price than they told us before when Nui went looking around.
Many hours was also spent by the computer hassling with the production which is ready but the company just keeps getting problems with whatever format I send the files in. Now they keep struggling with the factory instead. I just hope I can sort out their problem and save half a week of stupidity to the next time. This was the reason I did not have the time to write anything yesterday. Tonight I will not have any problem falling asleep and tomorrow I will sleep as long as a want to. The last 4 nights have not offered much sleep.
When we were about to got to the shop to ask about the sign I saw a snake laying dead on the street just in front of or driveway. The ants had already found it and started to do the cleaning work of the snake that actually is a baby King Cobra. One can only think of where that one might have been heading if he would have survived passing the street. Not that I am afraid of snakes, I had plenty as pets before but if I have a King Cobra close by I rather know where he is at. I would not like to get bitten by any of those even if they often do non venomous bites to save the poison I would be quiet worried with no doubt.
Today I skipped going to the gym, I have hammered my muscles to pieces and I felt that some days rest would do great. I am gaining rapidly now even with out protein and with a somewhat low calories diet. Tomorrow I will have to go to the gym and play tennis since the gym is closed on Sundays and I do not want to rest too many days in a row.
We just got back from Tesco and have made fresh orange juice and will also eat some fruits that we bought while watching some TV, I have not done that for several days as well.
Have a nice weekend.
Internet Is A Really Great Tool
Text by Olle - Living on Lamai Beach - Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Today I have not been able to go anywhere. I started to work yesterday but got some problems with the file transfers. The company in Europe could not enter my FTP and their FTP is extremely overloaded which result in a very slow file transfer. I stayed up till three in the night waiting for them to give me access to a few more tracks needed to be able to complete the work. That never happened and at 7 in the morning I woke up dreaming that the clock was already 11:30. I checked my email but I had no knew ones so I headed back to the bed for 2 more hours. I then finished as much as I possible could without all the material and then the day were just a mess with at least 50 emails and misunderstandings and so on. When I finally got the last tracks for the compilation CD one of the guys at the company figured out how to enter the log in information for my FTP correctly. That will probably be a time saver next time.
I finished the 2 CD discs and made the masters a bit quicker than I really wanted to. Normally I finish everything. Wait a bit and check everything again. After listened to 34 tracks, switching rapidly through them to listen so that all frequencies matches it is easy to become "blind". However the work other wise went on perfect on my new system. During the time I spent waiting for emails and tracks I could run some test to get to know the equipment better. I think leaving the world of PC for Mac was a perfect decision. The club and trance CD named Hyper Trance 1.09 will also feature one of my own tracks, Endoo - Perpetual Strings, a track I made two years a rainy day here on Samui. The track was never finished and has since then been laying around only as a short idea in my system. It was good that I at least did this much so that it could feature a compilation even if I did never have that in mind. Better it get a released then just laying here. I really hope that I will get the time to get going on the production again. Yesterday I spoke to a friend about doing some collaboration project. With Internet it is actually possible to collaborate on productions very easy and since we are using the same systems it would be even more simple. In 1 hour the compilation is uploaded and I am done for this time.
Tomorrow we will have to do the shopping that could not be done today and hopefully the sign is ready on Friday. Maybe then Nui can start working again in a few days. She has not had the greatest time with me being by the computer all days long so I think that will be very good.
Tasty Pancakes
Text by Olle - Living on Lamai Beach - Tuesday, October 13, 2009
A blue sky, some white clouds here and there and very hot. That is how the weather has been today. A day that has been completely trouble-free and we got plenty of things done, ordered the sign for the sidecar just to name one. We did not stick to the hard plastic kind because we were told today that they brake or get scratches a lot easier from for example small stones at the street. This one was slightly cheaper and they will simple attach a soft plastic film on a wooden board. For my part, it does not matter how they do as long as it gets done and it looks good. Unfortunately they were very busy and it will not be ready before Thursday or Friday.
Yesterday I started with my first mastering project on the Mac and it has been painless. It is a double-plate club and trance CD where I will have one of my own tracks as well. Really fun when working with something that suits ones taste. After an ok but in comparison slow download for a few hours last night I had the material in my hands.
I do not know why but today the dogs in the neighborhood must had a meeting on the street outside our house. They were about five dogs sniffing around and doing other “dog things” which in many cases result in more dogs.
A shame that the owner does not neuter their dogs.
In the afternoon we went to Tesco. For a long time now I have wanted to make Swedish pancakes so I bought flour, milk and made the pancake mixture. It is so ridiculously easy, so the reason it have not been done before is simple because I think there would be less good to make them in a super thin frying pan over a gas flame. The thicker pans I have seen have all been Teflon coated and I think that Teflon and gas flames are not a good combination. I may be wrong but it feels as if the pan would get too hot and then release the coating and Teflon cakes does not sound very tasty. Now, however, we have the best pan in the world on the sidecar, which is nearly one cm thick. The weight is a fact that comes along with the quality as well. I think it weighs over 10 kilos for sure. This was the first thing to be made on the sidecar and after I had fixed the gas hoses and attached a split, since we have two gas burners on the motorbike I lighted the gas and in seconds the butter in the pan was bubbling and the first pancake was pored in to get a golden brown finish. The pan was amazing. It was as if it was the best Teflon pan ever made, the pancakes did not get stuck at all, even in places where it was not butter. Sadly Nui did not think pancakes with jam were a hit so I ended up eating pancake after pancake, while I baked the next one. Eventually I had eaten every single pancake myself, and I was gorged. My desire for pancakes is gone for some time. It must have been a funny sight, a farang on his driveway frying pancakes on a sidecar kitchen while he is happily stuffing himself with all the pancakes. There were quite a few of those who drove past who smiled and looked. Tomorrow Nui will fry hamburgers but first we must go to Chaweng for shopping, unfortunately they are not sold at Tesco.
Tennis Is A Drug
Text by Olle - Living on Lamai Beach - Monday, October 12, 2009
This weekend just flew away. On Saturday it was time for the normally scheduled tennis. We played for 2.5 hours so we were pretty tired afterwards. We were incredibly lucky with the weather too. It was pitch black up by the mountains and at times the mountain was invisible because of the heavy rainfall. We did not get one single drop at the tennis court.
We also brought the sidecar, which now has railings to keep things in place. Nui has driven around a bit and she thinks it is a bit scary. Partly because it is wide and it is difficult to know how much it is sticking out on the side and partly because it really pulls the handlebars at times. In an uphill she was a bit slow to get into first gear and got standing and there was no power to get started. The sidecar was so tail-heavy in the extreme slope so the front wheel had no contact with the ground and was unable to turn. I managed to almost become jammed between the sidecar and the motorbike I was driving when it began to roll backwards but I managed to stop it and with the help of a guy who came driving we turned it on and I drove it down. I then tried to go up again and it went ok as long as I kept the speed up on the low gear. I don not think Nui will have to drive in hills like this since this was extreme.
Yesterday, we also played tennis. Anders and I took a game just after a short rain had fallen so we started to scrape off the track, which dried up by itself rather quick. During a few minutes we had a ball boy on a visit and he also played for a while. After the match I helped Anders to cut his hair. He had long hair before and there was not much hair left when I was finished. He was lucky that he did not have to walk around with half the head cut and the other half with long because it must have been a power drop in the electricity, the machine did not want to do the job and I thought it broke, but after a few minutes it came back again. When the haircut was finished we went to the Tesco food-court and after that it was time to organize some stuff at home. I have now set up the system in my new computer so that all tasks now can be done, and also installed new drivers for the music equipment in the small studio as I now sit behind a Mac.
Today Nui went looking for various sign manufacturers to see how we will arrange that part in the best way. There are some different options. The easiest way is to print on a hard plastic sign, and it is probably the method that we will use. It’s the most expensive one but I think it last better and also looks better. Just when we were about to head to the store again to let him see the sidecar it began to rain. It did not last for many minutes but we decided to fix that tomorrow since the store would close very soon. Instead I went to the gym, it was several days since I last went there because we have had plenty to do. When I was about to drive home I thought the motorbike felt heavier than usual when I backed out on the street and I saw that the rear tire was punctured. I have no idea how it happened and it was too dark to see anything so tomorrow I will take a look at it and then march off with the bike to get it repaired before we can do something else.
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