Sakon Nakhon Web Site

Recently spotted a local website www.sakon-nakhon.com
It's all in Thai, but can be viewed in GOOGLE TRANSLATE
Plenty of useful information and the start of a great photo collection

Three Persons hospitalized after boating mishap

Sakon Nakhon - Nong Hahn (Lake Hahn), October 13

A longboat on the way to honor monks at an island temple capsized when encountering waves apparently created by another boat.
Up to fifteen passengers were thrown into the water.
Three persons required hospitalization.
One of the three, a minor child is being treated in the ICU.

Chance of heavy rain diminished

October 12 & 13

The weather system anticipated to bring us possible heavy rains this week has tuned north, creating cloudy and cooling local weather locally.
The center of the storm is moving into Hanoi.

Feeding the plants

With most of the nutrients in my garden soil washed away during the rainy season, it's time to fertilize my garden.

Over the years I've tried a variety of fertilizers until Tony told me about a fertilizer his family is selling. Been using it for a three years and am extremely happy with it. My garden harvest has increased noticeably.

The rice fertilizer is prized by many local rice farmers. I've heard lots of praise.

Local rubber tree growers also praise the product.

I had shown Tony a preview of this blog entry, asking if he wanted to mention his phone number. Here is his reply:

Yes please. I have some of the lads from (Saka) give glowing reports of there rubber flowing better then ever and are willing to talk to anyone interested.
My wife speaks proficient English and can be reached at 0895722904

The fertilizer apparently is the result of university research.
You can read further about the product here Fertilizer Literature

First rain, then cooling trend anticipated

Possibility of rain this weekend and next week.
The slow moving storm which has been almost stationary over the Philippines for a week is creeping west. Animated satellite weather map

Even more noteworthy is a cooling trend forecast within 10 days.
Night time temperatures are expected to drop into the teens at that time.
15 day forecast

Watching TV online

Satellite dishes I had for the past few years have been hauled away.
With the exception of True-UBC, most other satellite services available locally tend to be pirated. If reception is interrupted and you need repair service... good luck.

Lately I've spent quite some time researching what's available on the net.
There's plenty available, but you have to wade through tons of junk.

Of course a major problem is internet connectivity.
It gets quite slow from noon till early evening, when demand is high.
Demand is increasing, but apparently service is not keeping up.
An there are plenty of disconnects.

By doing continuous maintenance on my own computer, I've been able to watch television with limited interruptions.

Just about any web-page you visit will attempt to deposit cookies on your system. They gather your information and tend to slow you down.
This can be prevented with your firewall settings. Delete all unnecessary cookies.

Removing spy-ware, cleaning the registry, deleting junk files, and defraging your hard drive, need to be daily chores. There's plenty of free software available to make things easy.
I've been using Advanced System Care. I use the software whenever TV reception seems to deteriorate. It improves reception. Cleaning the cache also should become part of the maintenance routine.

I've installed a second screen to my computer.
This way I can watch television and continue with other tasks.

I've mentioned TVU previously. There are plenty of channels to choose from.
But of course you have to wade through the junk. The software is free and allows you to set your favorites. To save your favorites you have to log in and log out, otherwise your favorites are not saved.

TikiLive can be viewed from your browser and offers CNN and Fox News among others.
There's plenty of other FREE software, which I'll mention at a later time.
I'll be collecting a list of television links onto the sidebar, and update it as time allows

Sakon Nakhon Wax Castle Parade 2009

A bit of a humorous event occurred when one of the dancers, a middle aged gentleman, got so entranced in his dancing, he did not realize he was 20 meters behind the rest of his dance troupe. It looked like he was dancing all by himself for some time holding up the next float.
From appearances he looked like he may have been intoxicated.

I wasn't the only one who thought so. A police officer stepped in and quite politely put his arms on the mans shoulders as if they were friends. His trance interrupted, the man rejoined his group of dancers. From appearances, he was not too pleased at having his dance interrupted.

Sitting in the grandstands was not the best place to view the parade this year. Crowd control seemed to be lacking. Countless people with cameras repeatedly walked in front and blocked the view from the stands. I had to severely crop my photographs. Editing my videos may result in a hack job.

What was missing this year were any spot lights, so photographers had to get right into the parade to get their pictures.

A block down the street there seemed to be no crowd control at all.
Crowds had moved into the street, narrowing the parade route from four lanes to two lanes.
Those stands were now one lane behind the crowd and pretty useless for viewing.

Sakon Nakhon Wax Castle Festival Food Fair

Decided to head to the fair grounds early (6 p.m.)
Streets leading up to the fairgrounds where doubly busy.
Besides the fair going public, the streets where also used to move wax castle floats to the parade starting point.

Some of the floats where moved onto the fair grounds for public display.

Plenty of food, drink, friends and entertainment.

Tomorrows parade starts at 4 p.m.

Praying to the weather gods

The center of Typhoon Ketsana headed south of us.
Sakon Nakhon received light continuous rains, cool temperatures and some moderate winds.
The center of the storm according to the news was in the Ubon vicinity, some 290 miles south.

Recent weather was cool and damp enough that I had no interest in watching any of the local boat races this year.

I intended on going there, but diverted to the Toon Army bar when the rains started getting heavy.

Weather also seemed to cause reduced crowds at the

Mukdahan night food market (Isaan Life video)

We did receive our invitation to the Wax Castle Parade on Saturday. Grandstand seating. I'm praying to the gods of thunder, wind, rain, and lightening that they stay home for the day.

The satellite image looks slightly cloudy for a few days.
Manila seems to be hit by another typhoon which apparently is comming this way.