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Showing posts with the label Expat

Four Fractures, One Enema, and a Whole Lotta Thailand

On May the 8th of this year at approximately 9:45 am, my wife and I were in an accident on my scooter; a lil 125cc Honda Click doing about 35kph (22mph). It was a sunny morning, the roads were dry, traffic was minimal. I wasn't driving too fast or in any way anyone would say was "unsafe." As we approached an S-curve in the road, this man came around the corner going the other way. He was on a motorcycle and was in my lane. I had to slam on my breaks and swerve to miss him. My wife and I ended up falling and I obtained a pretty serious injury. My wife got some bad road rash on her knees.  People nearby came out quickly to offer us help. One called the hospital for an ambulance, one called the police. I lied on the pavement for about 30 minutes before the ambulance got there in pretty intense pain fearing I had dislocated my left hip. I told the medical professionals that, and did so in the Thai language to prevent misunderstanding. Forty minutes or so after the accident, w...

Out of the Hospital and Back Home

We left the hospital today. As luck would have it, the most comfortable place in my house for me to sit is in the chair I'm typing from right now, so I wanted to provide a quick update.  Surgery went very well and without any complications. Within 18 hours of the repair, I was no longer having muscle spasms when I coughed. I don't think I've slept more than four hours total any night since the accident (May 8th), but getting even close to comfortable seems to be an impossibility at present. I've got bad road rash over my left hip where I fell (good three stinging layers deep), two long and lovely incisions across my guts, and 32 staples keeping them closed. My left home is the host of three new titanium alloy plates and a bunch of surgical screws keeping my ol' bones held together and "stable."  There's a lot to say about all of this, but I want to collect my thoughts and get some pics uploaded so I can post them for reference. A few of them are pretty...

The Return of Darth Grampus: Blurred Vision

I'm finally in a place where I can recommit to this whole "becoming Darth Grampus" thing, or whatever it is I'm doing with this. It's been a busy couple of months. I suppose I owe the one or two readers I have (if they didn't bail on me) an update and explanation for my absence.  Updates Since my last post, my wife and I have been to Bangkok twice. Each trip was for multiple days, both of us having things we needed to do.  We moved. And we were able to take our time with it... so we did.  I got myself into writing another story. I've probably edited the 12k words to have written 20k by now but, it took up a bunch of time.  I have had the most interesting conversations with the Gemini Advanced, LLM. These are some terribly complex algorithms at play, certainly where reason and cognition are concerned. I started with it in mid-February (?) and have made some very interesting discoveries. If you chat with Gemini ask it to tell you how it uses everything you s...

The Illusion of Insignificance: Why I Keep Blogging Despite Low Viewership

In 7 or 8 months of blogging, I don't think any single post I made got more than 4 or 5 total views. A handful got 3 views, and 2 views, but the normal view count for one of my posts was 1 or 0.  Why do that? What motivates someone to constantly subject themselves to the quantified evidence of their insignificance?  In fairness to myself and others, I do not share my blog posts on social media and I'm not making any effort to do so. Blowing up as a blogger isn't necessarily an aim of mine.  I have more family members than my average blogpost view count. I share the link with them. I don't owe any of them money that I know of and I recently spent 6 weeks traveling the broad and wide United States to spend time with them. Unless they haven't told me something, the visit went pretty well with everyone. Me and my missus enjoyed ourselves and it seemed everyone else did, too.  Despite how that might sound, I'm not trying to dog my fam out for not viewing every post I...

Consolidation, Reintroduction and Goals

Consolidation I've been writing a blog as Darth Grampus for a while now, but not under the Google profile for him. That changes today. From now on I'll be writing and posting all Darth Grampus blogs here. If you'd like to read the earlier content, send me a message or leave a comment and I will send or post a link to all the earlier entries.  I know everything I'm trying to do will be a bit easier if it's all consolidated under the same umbrella. There should also be better continuity and ease for any would-be readers who find their way here from my YouTube channel. Shameless plug:  DarthGrampus on YouTube And if you're a new reader who found their way here by some other means, a very warm and hearty welcome to you! I empathize greatly with people who's feed suggested this to them, or who's search led them here! HA! We are not alone my friends!  Reintroduction I became a grandfather last year. Honestly, the experience affected me in ways I didn't exp...