Am I Hot or Not?

Who's stock is up /\ and whose is down \/ in the world of 301NIB?


Kaddi /\

Nichada's top beginner tennis player is dominating the courts every Monday morning. She's been moved up to the top court and will now be battling the pros...of her category. She also has a new friend. One of her tennis partners thought she was twenty-three years old and couldn't believe she had two kids.

Better yet, we paid a visit to Panthip Plaza this week - the black market capital of Thailand. Five floors of counterfeit merchandise and software. We got Flushed Away for the kids, a copy of Microsoft Office for her man, and Season 2 of Grey's Anatomy for the Lady herself.

And yes, they did have seasons of 24 available.


Meg /\

Meg had a rought start to the week when she accidentally discovered that the plants in front of our apartment are poisonous. She spent a good half hour in the bathroom crying with her hands under cold running water. But she's better now and we're trying to put the episode behind us, except that some injury attorney from Stockton keeps leaving us messages.

She has once again started dance and also began taking swim classes today. She came home and shared with me how her teacher introduced the kids to the backstroke. He said they need to pretend their arms are like little knives and there's a big chocolate cake behind them. With each stroke they need to reach back and 'cut the cake, cut the cake...'

Using this mental imagery, Meg set a world record in 100m backstroke for the under-14 age group.


J-Dog /\

Jake has his soccer tournament this Saturday. It's going to be a pretty big event. I've heard there will be some Middle School scouts in attendance, but he's promised us he won't sign a letter of intent until we've had more time to look over his options. He's also started baseball camp this week, although I don't envy him running around that dusty infield under the Thai sun. He told us last night that he hit a home run, although I'm not sure what that means since there's no fence. He made it all the way around the bases, I guess.

He's also pretty happy about being able to ride his bike over to a friend's house by himself. Jake's perfect afternoon involves riding his bike over to his friend's, playing gamecube, then riding bikes with his friend over to baseball practice. It's as if he were growing up in the United States...back in the fifties.

Things are so good for Jake right now he has his own theme song. It was written and usually peformed by Kaddi, including the following lyrics....

"J-dog in the house, J-dog in the house...
J-dog in the house....
I said J-dog in the howwwww-owwwwwwwse. "


Shane <->

I picked up a copy of the National Library newsletter this month to discouver I'd been named Bangkok's 'Sexiest Researcher Alive' for 2006. Since this may be the only recognition I get out of this research trip I was happy to accept the designation (it'll look great on my CV). It's just a little difficult to concentrate on extra-territorial treaties when there are fifty screaming schoolgirls banging on the reading room sliding doors.


Thailand \/

Thailand has recently been downgraded from 'partly free' to 'not free' in a recent survery of global freedom by Freedom of the World 2007, joining such democratic powerhouses as Burma, China, and the Congo. This think-tank apparently doesn't take kindly to military coups that oust democratically elected leaders, juntas that threaten the press and block access to international newsproviders and websites, or government agencies that force their civil servants to wear hideous yellow shirts every day.

No good news could overcome this bad publicity, not even the knowledge that Thailand has an equivalent GDP to the state of Arizona, as well can see from the following map:

















I was a little disappointed to see Wisconsin has a similar GDP to a former apartheid state, but hey - Minnesota is equivalent to Norway.