The Tube of Caulk

In case anybody was wondering what life is like with Jimmy in Bend, Oregon in January...


-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Bresci
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 2:42 PM
To:
Subject: RE: Frozen pecker

Well it goes a little something like this....

Back in October we were replacing the shingles on Jimmy's roof (side note: we never finished. There are about 6 stacks of shingles still up there). As you may or may not know, you need to use roofing caulk to seal up the edges around the roof under the shingles. So Jimmy's up there working and he has this tube of caulk that keeps rolling down the roof and getting in his way. Jimmy gets pissed off pretty easily, so he fires a few f-bombs and sticks the tube of caulk in the closest convenient location he can think of... On top of an air vent. He later explained to me that he was under the impression that the vent would be at least a quarter inch narrower than the diameter of the tube of caulk. Apparently, it's a quarter inch larger. Jimmy, by the way, is a licensed contractor.

So... Fooom! The tube of caulk goes shooting down this air vent into who knows where. At this point Jimmy unleashes a stream of epithets reminiscent of the dad in "A Christmas Story." Anyway, after regrouping we decide that we need to resolve this issue ASAP. This is where the combined clever genius of Dave and Jimmy comes into play. The first thing we tried was lowering a string line attached to a weighted film canister with crazy glue on the bottom, letting it rest on the tube of caulk (which was about 12-15 feet down) and letting the glue dry so we could pull it out. Needless to say, this didn't work. We tried the same thing except substituted the crazy glue with Liquid Nails, which is some bad-ass shit. Negative. At this point one of our neighbors, Jay, comes by, sees us on the roof and asks what we're up to. Jimmy tells him what happened, and after Jay stops laughing he offers to help. He works for the power company, he's on his lunch break, and he has a big truck full of bad-ass tools. So he and his partner climb up on the roof with this giant spool of what looks like copper wiring, maybe about an eighth of an inch thick. He cuts off about 15 feet of it, winds one end so it looks like a corkscrew, and proceeds to spend the next 20 minutes trying to screw his way through the bottom of the tube of caulk with this copper wire. Unsuccessfully, of course.

That night we discover what the air vent was used for, which was for intake to the bathroom sink and the laundry room. At this point we have no running water in either spot.

The next day I had this genius idea that I would attach a screwdriver with duct tape to the end of a 20 foot section of PVC, then try to puncture the bottom of the tube of caulk in order to then twist and pull it up. I still think this might've worked if maybe I'd used a bit more duct tape. As it happened, I punched my makeshift PVC spear down into the abyss only to have it come back up without the screwdriver. Time for drastic measures. We rip the sink and the vanity out of the bathroom so we can get to the wall which cointains said air vent. We saw through the drywall until we have access to the pipes, then saw through what looks like the correct pipe. We were right, it's the pipe with the stuck tube. Unfortunately, the tube seems to be about a foot below floor level as best we can tell since we can't really see. Turns out I probably shoved it down another few feet with my PVC contraption.

Anyhow, we got busy with work and didn't get around to calling Roto-Rooter until about a week after the original incident. The guy comes out and looks at this hole in the wall with a section cut out of an air vent, then goes back to his truck to get one of those cameras they have. He pokes around in there for about five minutes, then tells me that there's nothing he can do because it looks like the tube opened up and the caulk dried inside the tube. He says the only thing we can do at this point is bust through the concrete floor, dig out to the bottom of the pipe and replace it where the problem resides. It's not as hard as it sounds, he says. Then he charged me 85 bucks.

The next day I go to an equipment rental place to get a concrete saw, which is a bad ass piece of equipment if you've never seen one. We cover the entrance to the bathroom with plastic and Jimmy jury-rigs a sort of a ventilator using a shop-vac and some PVC because the bathroom has no windows and, therefore, no ventilation. We split the duties this way: he does the cutting and I stay in the hallway to make sure the plastic covering stays sealed so cement dust doesn't go flying everywhere. So Jimmy gets geared up with goggles and a big ventilator mask and goes in to make his first cut. He's gonna cut out a big rectangle and cutting through concrete is fairly slow. After about five minutes he comes out of the bathroom covered in sweat and dust and says he made the first cut. He rests for a few minutes then goes back in there for the second cut. The same thing again for the third cut. When he's in there for the fourth cut he seems to be taking a little longer than usual. He finally comes out, pouring sweat, and stumbles down the hallway through the living room out to the front yard. Now, all I can see from the hall is the doorway, so I see him go to the left of the door, then stumble across the doorway off to the right, then come back in the house an plop down on the recliner. I go up to him and see that he is soaking with sweat and that his eyelids are twitching, so I start asking him "Are you ok? Are you ok?" He doesn't say anything and his breathing starts to turn to snoring and it looks to me like he's passed out. I grab the cordless phone and yell at him, "Dude I’m going to call 911!" He opens his eyes halfway and slurs "What for?" I lift him up with one arm over my shoulder and take him out to the front yard where he lies for about fifteen minutes in a semi-catatonic state, occasionally reviving himself for a drink of water. I went back into the bathroom and discovered that I couldn't see two inches in front of me from the cement dust and that it was about 120 degrees in there. So he either had poisoning from the dust or he overheated or both.

After the dust settles I decide to take a sledgehammer and try to crack through the cut floor. After about 15 minutes of sporadic hammering, I've probably got about 4 square inches cracked off the slab. Jimmy's in no shape to take over, so we decide to return the saw and rent a jackhammer. It takes about half an hour but I finally break up the 2x3 foot section under which we're going to dig. By the way, using a jackhammer is not as cool as it sounds. It's fun for about two minutes until your arms start to get sore. Then it just really sucks.

After we cut through the wiring (because lucky for us it was reinforced concrete) we decided to call it a day. We didn't get around to digging out the dirt for another couple of weeks, and by that time I'd gotten used to doing everything in the kitchen sink. Anyhow, I dug through the dirt to get to the pipe and when we cut it out we found the fucking screwdriver was sticking through the bottom of the pipe.

So that's how a tube of caulk cost Jimmy about 500 bucks. And we still don't have a sink in the bathroom.



-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 12:50 PM
To: Dave Bresci
Subject: RE: Frozen pecker

Nice, a poopcicle. I hadn't heard about the caulk incident, what's that all about.

-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Bresci
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 12:43 PM
To:
Subject: Frozen pecker

So Jimmy just finished painting the bathroom the other day and gets a wild hair up his ass about tiling the floor. As you probably know, we've been without a sink in the bathroom for three months because of the tube of caulk incident, so he'd have to tile the floor anyway before we put a new sink in.
Of course, in order to tile the floor we have to remove the toilet, which was done last night. So the tiling goes pretty smoothly, after which we both realize that it's going to take at least twelve hours for the mortar to dry before we can replace the toilet. Last night the temperature in Bend was 1, with a wind chill factor of -12. Needless to say, I've been taking a leak in a one gallon water bottle for the last day. Dropping a deuce presented a slightly larger problem... I drove to Costco this morning to use their can. Jimmy, on the other hand, in his words "went from Defcon 1 to Defcon 5 in about three minutes" and ended up taking a dump in the garage in the 5 gallon bucket he used to mix the mortar yesterday. He said he couldn't believe the amount of steam coming out of that bucket after he took it outside.

I love this place.

The World Cup and the Running of the Bulls

Chaos. Mayhem. Madness. Booze. And it was only day two in Koln...

That's pretty much how it went down for the entire three weeks in Germany. Bouncing from one Fan Fest to another in our beat-up Volvo station wagon, we sampled many beers and experienced the unique smells that can only develop when you're camping with three other guys and only showering every few days. Mmm... musky. There's nothing else quite like the world cup experience, though. The way that fans are whipped into a frenzy for their national teams is hard to describe, yet it never really managed to erupt into anything violent. Well, except that one night where we were chased by riot police, and that was mostly because Max and I were curious as to what it's like to be part of a mob of English hooligans. Other than that, all the fans were very civil toward each other, and even when the English eventually lost in Gelsenkirchen the worst thing I saw were some overturned porta-potties.

I'm not sure how participating in the running of the bulls can be a let-down, but that's what happens when you're in Pamplona where nobody gives a crap about soccer and the rest of the world is watching the final between Italy and France. I was told that in Viareggio, my home town and where Italy's manager Lippi is from, there were close to 200,000 people watching the match in the main piazza. I was watching it at the only bar we could find in Pamplona that didn't have its television tuned into a bullfight on a microscopic, static-filled television surrounded by French people. After that, I pretty much had to run with the bulls. I mean, I didn't want to go all the way to Pamplona for nothing. I learned two things from that experience: Bulls are really, really big, and don't count on Max waiting up for you if you're in the middle of a stampede.

Overall, much beer was drunk, many miles were logged, and there were many times when we wanted to kill each other. Other than that, it was great.

Check out the pictures:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/2m2TVgLr6sqDmeSu6

and

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Wjn64Lq2Spyzk7Fe9


Take 'er easy,
Dave

A Final Word

Hey everybody,

I'm cold. I haven't worn long pants or shoes in several months so my perspective is somewhat skewed.

Anyhow, my last few weeks in Thailand were pretty mellow... exactly what I was looking for. I went through some mixed emotions when I stopped working, I felt a bit guilty quitting while the work wasn't quite finished but I knew that if I didn't take some time off then I wouldn't have a chance to do anything fun before I came home. It was tough... I'd put so much into that project that I didn't know what to do with myself once it was over. It was like my reason for being there was finished so I wasn't sure what to do or where to go. I decided to treat myself to a 4-day liveaboard scuba trip, which turned out to be fantastic. The Similan Islands in the Andaman Sea are supposed to be some of the best dive sites in the world and the sea life I saw was spectacular. I have three words for you... Wall of Fish. It just has to be seen. Of course, I came back with swollen ear canals, I must've been somewhat congested because equalizing underwater was extremely painful, so I was laid up for about four days with throbbing inside my ears, which was fun.

I then took off for the other side of Thailand, the gulf, and met up with my old roommate Jimmy on Ko Tao where he and his brother were finishing their open-water dive course. We spent about a week on Ko Tao and Ko Phangan lounging on some tropical beaches and then I came back to Khao Lak to spend my last few days in Thailand. Last Friday they held a party on Koh Kho Khao to commemorate the end of the volunteer work... the houses are finished except for a few details that the contractors need to work on, but villagers have already started moving in. It was exciting and gratifying to see the houses in finished condition, many of the villagers showed up to the party which was my first opportunity to meet most of them. Jimmy was there as well, which in a way made it more real for me because it was a link to home. He took some great pictures, one of which I've attached to give you some idea of what the houses we've built look like. Then it was a 14-hour bus ride to Bangkok and 19 hours of flight+layover and I was home.

So, what do I think after 6 months in Thailand? It's an interesting country. Selling porn is illegal, but selling a girl named Porn is okay. There are two worlds living in parallel, the first and third world. Where else are you going to see a satellite dish outside a corrugated tin shack? There are more pickup trucks in Thailand than in any other country in the world. Everyone has a cell phone, almost no one has a flush toilet or hot water. Many towns don't even have water pipes, each family has to have their own well or cistern. Stray cats and dogs are everywhere.

There's an incredible amount of natural beauty in this country, especially on the beaches and in the jungle, but if you want to see it I suggest you go now.
Thailand is whoring itself out to tourism and it doesn't seem like there are many controls on how it's being done. Air, water, and noise pollution don't seem to be of much concern to the general population. There are plenty of areas designated as national parks, but these are slowly being sold off to the highest bidder, usually a resort. In 10 years' time it's going to be a completely different country, for better or worse.

I'm going to miss a lot of things about it, though. Thai people are incredibly welcoming and friendly... everyone smiles at you when you walk down the street, kids will wave at you from the school buses, people will try to randomly start up conversations with you whether or not you speak the same language... just being back home one day reminds me how different that is from the US, at least California. I'm going to miss seeing a family of 5 piled on one moped or 25 laborers in the back of one pickup truck. I'm going to miss papaya salad. I'm going to miss the relaxed attitude toward just about everything. I'm going to miss the crazy driving. I won't miss Thai pop music.

Well, that's just about it. Sorry I didn't have any more ass stories for ya, but the opportunity didn't present itself. I did moon a guy when I was scuba diving, but he didn't see it so I guess that really doesn't count.

Well there are a few final pictures:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/isDpxXSiYyaExW4t6

Take 'er easy everybody. As always, the dude abides,
Dave

Khao Lak Asstravaganza

Pictures are here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/mcEuLpDZmuiLy3UP6

Greetings from Thailand, where if one more Thai guy calls out to me "Zidane!" I'm going to punch him in the face then shave my head,

Well, the last few weeks have been mostly focused on finishing the work on the island. We've reached the stage where all the heavy labor is done and the detail work like paint, ceiling tiles, and debris cleanup are all that's left. Strangely enough, I think this may actually have been my most dangerous month. Why? Two
words: Thai scaffolding. I think when they put the scaffolding up they expect the houses to be painted by circus monkeys. Balancing on a 3-inch wide beam 20 feet in the air while painting some eaves under a roof usually involves strategic placement of the ass cheeks, as I've found out. The only thing worse is when we try to build our own scaffolding. Oh... yeah, that's top notch stuff, I'm sure up to the highest OSHA standards. If you're ever in charge of a volunteer construction site, there's nothing better to keep annoying old guys occupied than to put them in charge of scaffolding construction. They'll use up about 3/4 of all the wood on your site, and by the time they're finished you would probably have painted about 4 houses, but it's worth it to keep from standing over your shoulder saying "That's not how I would've done it" or "Why do they do it this way" or "Why don't we have a [insert random tool name that is impossibly expensive or impractical in Thailand here]?"

On the plus side, the houses are rounding nicely into shape and from the exterior a lot of them look almost finished. We're having to move a lot of supplies and equipment around, so the last couple of weeks I've been able to drive the dump truck. That's right... dump truck. You know when you're a kid and you get one of those Tonka trucks and zoom it around your backyard. Yeah, I get to drive a real one of those. Oh baby, you wouldn't believe the turning radius on one of those things! I could probably parallel park it on Lombard St. Okay, maybe not. Still, the point is we're at the stage of construction where a lot of the ceilings and electrical are done, so we just have to finish floors and painting for many of the houses to be in move-in condition.

Actually, we've gotten so much done that a couple of weeks ago they told us volunteers to take a week off from the island so the contractors could catch up. We ended up becoming volunteer mercenaries, kind of like the A-team, working a couple of days each at different projects. We did some beach cleanup, which basically involves waiting for low tide and going out into the water to pick up chunks of concrete and other debris. Man, there are entire houses out there. We had to break an electrical pole into bits and dig it out of the sand underneath a couple of feet of water. It's pretty incredible to think that this stuff was planted into the ground somewhere inland, and that it's been over a year and it's still there. We also worked a day at Thap Tawan moving sand (about as fun as it sounds) and a couple of days at Nam Kem digging septic holes. That is so damn satisfying... knee deep in mud or clay, cursing at a future shithole because the walls are caving in on you, finally getting the concrete rings into place... that's a day's work, baby! Actually, we've gotten pretty good at it... the Nam Kem team asked us if we could come back and dig more but there was work back on the island for us.

It's been hard to keep up morale and keep people motivated the last month since we've mostly been painting, especially the long-termers who know what it's like to do much more satisfying concrete and digging work, so I've been doing my best to try to keep things interesting. In late December, we began to wage a campaign against all the other teams involving serial mooning, or b.a. as it's also known. We started off small... shoving a pair of ass cheeks out of the only functioning window on the shark while two others were pressed against the glass as we passed by Thap Tawan. But then, as the regular moonings became too banal, we tried to raise the stakes. One fateful morning, the planets aligned so that we were able to moon five (5) TVC vehicles on the way to work: 3 from Thap Tawan, the Thaikea truck and the environmental restoration truck. I thought that was the pinnacle, but I was wrong. Soon thereafter we strafed the crew from the Pakarang boatyard. The cool thing about that is that we had just helped them load up a boat on the trailer behind Scott's truck, and the entire boatyard crew was sitting on the boat with nowhere to hide or shield their eyes. It was magical. I may have been overzealous in my pantsing that day because one of the boat crew later claimed he could see my boys, but that is just part of the legend. The next day, on the way back from working at Thap Tawan, we had the first all-female mooning (thank you Bec and Tammy) on one of their trucks, which we later discovered was full of Australian christians and being driven by a pastor.

Then, last week, Dean took the two station wagons in for servicing and gave me the songtaw to drive around. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's basically a pickup truck with an enclosure welded to the truck bed and benches lining the bed so it becomes a passenger vehicle. What it really becomes is the perfect mooning vehicle. There was only one group left to moon, Nam Kem, and I really wanted to come up with something special for them. Then, as if in a vision, it came to me... the Ass Pyramid. One fateful Thursday morning the opportunity presented itself, and we did not let it slip by. With Richard behind the wheel driving like Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity, Luke, Tammy and I formed the first known Ass Pyramid in the Khao Lak area. Luke and I were on the bottom and Tammy climbed on our backs while we passed the first Nam Kem truck and pulled directly in front of them. What the hapless drivers were treated to was a triangular formation of slapping asses for approximately 30 seconds until we sped away. But that was only the appetizer. The main course was when we finally caught up to the big Nam Kem truck. We got at least a good 45 seconds of ass on them. I really don't think they appreciated the coordination and dexterity it took to balance three people on the back of a truck bed while pantsless and using one hand for slapping. Anyway, about a minute after we stopped laughing I got a phone call from Tilo at the TVC office and the first thing he says is "Did you just moon the Nam Kem vehicle?" Apparently, one of the people in the front seat of the truck was one of the Thai bigshots at the TVC and he didn't think it was so funny, so I got an earful about that one and ended up going to Nam Kem's worksite to apologize to him personally. It's not the first time I've made an insincere apology, and I'm sure it won't be the last. I mean, how can you not appreciate the planning and execution that goes into an ass pyramid out of the back of a moving truck?

Undeterred by my slight setback, I set about strategizing on one final magnum opus of mooning which I could pull off while I still had the songtaw. The perfect opportunity presented itself at last Friday night's TVC costume party held at an outdoor restaurant on the main strip. It was a couple of volunteers' birthdays so they thought it would be fun to throw a dress-up party where everyone had to show up dressed like a character from a movie. I didn't really feel like finding an outfit, so I jokingly said one night at dinner that I was just going to show up in my underwear and say I was King Kong. Well, after I thought about it a couple days it didn't seem like such a bad idea, but I thought I should probably do something more than just go in my underwear. So the day of the party I completely smeared myself in Vaseline, which was cool, and then put on a layer of shoe polish to make me more dark and ape-like, or at least that's what I was thinking. Turns out I looked more like "Just crawled out of the sewer man" or "charred corpse man" than King Kong, but it was already done so I went to the party. Anyway, back to the ass. So the party kicks off full swing, probably about a hundred people drinking and sporting some really creative outfits considering resources are limited, when me and seven other people sneak off to pick up the songtaw which was strategically parked only a couple of blocks away. I'm proud to say that we performed the first-ever recorded two-level songtaw seven-ass mooning, with four asses sticking out of the bottom row and three of us (Luke, Tammy and I) on the roof. Rich was driving and basically stopped directly in front of the restaurant honking the horn while we slapped away. I can only describe it as sheer poetry, a crowning achievement of human spirit and vision, really possibly the eighth wonder of the world. I'm not kidding, it was that good. I have it on video.

Anyhow, we went back to the party afterward and I wasn't in trouble, which was cool. Unfortunately, it was at this point that my "outfit" began to cause me some discomfort. First off, no one would come within three feet of me for fear of getting some kind of black greasy concoction on their clothing. Hey, it's not my fault about half the party was wearing white. Secondly, I smelled like shoe polish. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, my skin was starting to feel a slight tingle that at some point began to turn into a burn. At that point I decided it might be a good time to go home and take a shower, which turned into a 45-minute scrubbing epic to which I sacrificed an entire bar of soap and a formerly light blue towel, now slightly blackened. I can't imagine how I could've gotten that shit off if I didn't have the vaseline on.

I had a plan this week to moon the new volunteer orientation, but unfortunately it was foiled when they decided not to come to the island. I really don't care whether or not I get kicked out of the TVC at this point because I've given them my notice... Friday the 17th will be my last day on the island. I think it has a nice symmetry to it, I started on September 17th. I'm probably going to relax for a few weeks, get a lot of sleep, and then come back to the island for the official dedication ceremony on March 10th. After that, I'll be homeward bound I reckon.

Hope you're all doing well and I'll see some of you fairly soon.

As always, the Dude abides,
Dave

Happy 2549!

Pictures are here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/LXgHDE6XTgQkK8mr9

Greetings from Thailand, where happiness means a hot shower. The year here is 2549, which means we are like 500 years ahead of the rest of you idiots and have far superior technology available to us. The large, public bonfires, exposed wiring and squat toilets are just a ploy to throw you all off. In fact, I am currently writing this message while orbiting around Alpha Centauri in search of minerals to power the new fusion-driven longtail boats. I'm not sure exactly why the year is 2549, but when in doubt, the answer is always "The King."

Things have been going really well on the island as far as the housing construction goes. Friday we finished pouring the 2nd story columns on house 7, and today we poured the final columns for the final house we're going to be working on. I'll have to admit... the Dave got a bit emotional over that one. It's the first big milestone for completing the island project. Also, I love to pour the concrete. Lastly, and most importantly, it means all we have left to do is paint, which is somewhere between listening to Gilson for three hours and rubbing a cheese grater over my face on my list of favorite activities. In other construction news, a few weeks ago I almost destroyed a cement mixer while trying to move it with the Bobcat. The wheels were stuck in concrete, and thinking that brute force always wins out, I just tried to lift it up regardless. The result... a cement mixer minus a front axle. No problem, though, we put the mixer up on cinder blocks, like some kind of redneck mixer. In other island news, I found out a few weeks ago that, since I work on Koh Kho Khao, and apparently three consecutive monosyllabic words are too much to master, people around the office and volunteers from other worksites refer to me as "KKK Dave." On top of that, there's some crazy Thai local that's been hanging out around the worksite with us "helping out" with some of the work. He's a short, chubby, toothless fella who likes to walk around barefoot. Anyway, I was standing around during lunchtime the other day, minding my own business, when he comes up to me, points to my earring, moves behind me, grabs both my hips and proceeds to have mock anal sex with me, cackling all the while. Yes, one of the highlights of the volunteer experience... interacting with the locals!

I found a new place to live which is off the main road but only like a 10 minute walk away. It's huge... it has a front room, a bedroom, and a kitchen, and I only pay about $150 a month. And... it has a hot shower. The first hot shower I've had in two months. Oh, baby... splendiferous. There are a couple of drawbacks to the place, though. Apparently there's some insect wild kingdom shit going on, or maybe they built the bungalow over some sort of indian burial ground or something, because the place is swarming with ants, spiders, cockroaches, caterpillars, and, my favorite, leeches. One night I had a few people over in the front room and when I walk in there after going to the bathroom I see 6 people, grown men and women, huddling to one side of the room and pointing at the wall on the opposite end. I look over to see this large, disturbing arachnid... it had about a 4-inch legspan, and they were not those needle-like skinny legs, they were thick, man! So these guys are all looking at me like I have to do something about it, and I'm thinking "Damn you bitches, I'm cooking you dinner" but it was apparent they weren't going to do anything. I mean, Lee is like 6'1", 240 lbs, used to play rugby so he looks like he's been hit in the face a few times with a cast-iron skillet, and he's standing on a chair like the housewife in one of those old Tom and Jerry cartoons. Anyhow, I go outside and grab my flip-flop so I can smash that thing, and I tried to smack it a couple of times but it would just sprint, and I mean sprint, into one of the corners of the room. So I grabbed two (2) cans of insect spray,one in each hand and layed into the spider. The thing was just laughing at me. At this point, as a last act of desperation, I grabbed this long, thick stick I had in the room, and just tried to beat it to death. I mean, I was smashing this spider, giving it a few whacks with a large stick, and nothing! I thought at one point it was going to take the stick away from me and start chasing me around. Eventually, I managed to stun it enough so I could kill it, but I've been sleeping with one eye open ever since.

As far as the xmas holiday goes, I have to admit that I really enjoyed the holiday season here in Thailand. Why? Because there is no holiday season. No incessant commercials on TV, no near-brawls in the stores, no advertising bombardments on billboards in the street... none of that crap. So, to be honest, christmas day kind of snuck up on me. I was wearing a santa hat all day and when I was in a convenience store one of the Thais came up to me and said "Merry Xmas!" I mean, he literally said "xmas." A couple of volunteers organized a dinner with actual turkey, so about 50 of us turned up at this outdoor bar with a view of the beach for the meal. They even organized to have an elephant come to the party for about 15 minutes, which is not as good as the original rumor that Ricky Martin was going to be there, but still not bad. I decided that, since I could, I was going to go shirtless all day on christmas, and I did. So as not to show bias, I bought everyone on my team the same gift: a bowl of Cup o'Noodles from 7-11. I also gave out 60 eucalyptus nasal inhalers to all the volunteers at the party, just because the thought of giving out 60 nasal inhalers made me laugh. Then I went around and made them all pose for pictures with nasal inhalers inserted.

The day after xmas was the tsunami memorial, which I've had a million questions about, and I have to be honest with you, it really didn't mean that much to me. I mean, I wasn't here when the wave hit and I don't really feel any sort of personal connection with that particular event, even though it's the reason that brought me here. For me, the things that get to me are more like when I was riding on the ferry with Amnat from House 16 in Bang Sak (he lets us use his truck) and he was telling me about how he lost his wife during the tsunami and he was left alone with his two kids, and that anytime I come back to Thailand I'm welcome to come stay at his place. That means something to me, not some kind of dog and pony show. It didn't help any that the ceremony they had in the morning was, to be honest, very cold and unemotional. They set up a stage in Bang Niang in front of the police boat, the weather was blazing hot, and there was one speech by some kind of deputy prime minister that lasted about 10 minutes. Then there was some kind of rugby scrum to place commemorative flowers by the police boat, and that was it. Mica had some very strong negative feelings about that ceremony which were actually published in The Guardian in the UK (http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1674037,00.html),
but honestly I was glad it was short because I was drenched in sweat. The nighttime ceremony, which was the one with the princess and where they lit all the lanterns, got a lot more coverage and is probably the one you all heard about. I didn't go to that one, but the people who did said it was very well done and that the lanterns were spectacular. Still, like I said, for me the anniversary was sort of an abstract thing... I would've been more like a voyeur at the ceremony and not really a participant. One of my friends who is a volunteer was actually a tsunami victim (she was seriously injured and she lost her boyfriend) and she spent most of the day going around to various memorials in the area. Clearly, her experience and her point of view on the anniversary are going to be different than mine, and I know that she had a bit of a rough time with it, so maybe I'm not the best person to ask.

A few days after the memorial I was driving back to my new bungalow, which happens to be up the road from a Burmese camp, when I saw that the road was blocked by some kind of commotion. So I pulled up and saw that there was a truck surrounded by Burmese, and in the back of the truck was a group of white people chucking food and supplies to the Burmese workers. I just turned off my car and sat on the hood for a while, waiting for these guys to finish up. At first I was thinking that it was great that someone was paying attention to the Burmese, who essentially are the cheap labor in Thailand. They set up these aluminum siding work camps and live for months or years in Thailand while supplying the construction labor for most of the projects going on. They only get paid a couple hundred baht a day, at most. It was a bit strange, though, because there were these three white people standing up on a truck chucking food to the outstretched arms of maybe 50 Burmese, and it made for a strange and perhaps a little disturbing visual image. Still, I was glad that they were at least getting something. A few minutes later, a truck zooms by me honking its horn and forces its way through the crowd of Burmese and next to the other truck. An obviously agitated man, whom I recognize as Scott, the boatyard project manager, jumps out of the truck and starts yelling at the people handing out supplies. So I get off my hood and make my way toward the commotion, and by the time I get over there Scott is right in this other guy's face and they're just screaming at each other. Apparently, Scott thought that this was really not the best way to distribute food and that it was demeaning and condescending to the Burmese, and that the way they were distributing the supplies was unfair to those who could not physically force their way forward. Well, the other guy didn't take that very well, and these two are about an inch from each others' face, and I'm thinking there's going to be an all-out fracas any minute. Then they started dropping f-bombs and challenging each other to take swings at one another, so I kind of stepped between them and without really saying anything just tried to pull Scott away from the scene. I think the Burmese were more confused than anything at what the hell these foreigners were yelling about. Scott finally calmed down a bit and got back in his truck, and the other guy climbed in his truck with his people and drove off. Ever since then I thought that I could definitely see Scott's point, even though he handled it poorly, so I wondered if I should've been angry about what was going on instead of just sitting back and observing it. I did think it was great that the Burmese were getting something, but in retrospect there was no need to make a big show of it like that. They could've headed into the camp and dropped off the supplies to be doled out by whomever is in charge there. Still, I just couldn't get fired up about it.

For new year's I took a caravan of people to Krabi in my car, The Shark, which is on its last legs. The back license plate is hanging on by one screw. Two of the inside door panels have come off. The rear windows don't roll down. The front driver's window rolls down but won't roll back up unless you lock the doors. When you brake the steering wheel wobbles. The gas tank plate is off its hinges. The aircon vents in the back of the car don't work. The front passenger seat belt sticks. The stereo is broken. So, really, it's a pleasant ride for all, especially for three hours. Anyway, I won't get into too much detail, but I highly recommend spending new year's on the beach. There was the requisite firedancing, and the requisite Chang, and as for my personal experience... I was a dancing slut. I mean, I danced with whomever would dance with me... men, women, monkeys... I didn't care. I'd have to put it in my top three new year's.

Ever since that night, though, I've been fighting this cough and sore throat which has been dogging me for a few days now. I thought I remembered Jeremy telling me to buy some medicine with a dragon on it because it had opiates in it and would knock you out overnight, so I went to the supermarket and found a bottle of the stuff. So afterward I go for dinner at a small restaurant next to the supermarket where they know me and the guy asks me how I'm doing and I tell him I'm not feeling so well. He says something about taking medicine and I whip out the bottle and show it to him. He looks at it for a minute, moves away for better lighting, continues reading, comes back over to me and says "For lady." Then he starts laughing. He walks back into the kitchen and I hear this chatting in Thai and more laughing, and after a minute or so his wife comes over to me and says "Medicine for lady!" Then she writes out something in Thai for me to take to the supermarket and get instead. So for the rest of dinner I'm getting these sideways glances from the staff, and then a couple of their friends come by and I see them pointing over at me and laughing, so I don't think I can eat at that place anymore. Then when I tried to return the lady medicine to the supermarket they wouldn't take it back. I asked Bum to translate it for me, and when she read the box she just laughed hysterically for a couple of minutes before telling me that it's for a woman's period, which I suppose makes the dragon on the box an appropriate emblem.

So that's what's been going on with me. I'm sure I've forgotten something, but as usual I've written more than I intended. Hope everyone's doing well and...
happy festivus!

As always, the Dude abides,
Dave

Ton Sai Blows...

Pictures are here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/hdTi7dDPxBwjFkgm8

Greetings from Thailand, where the question remains: How many Burmese laborers can you fit in the back of a pickup truck?

On the subject of motor vehicles, I've had an easier time than I expected adjusting to driving on the left side of the road. The hardest part really is using the stick with your left hand instead of your right. On a road trip to Krabi I kept grinding gears as I was downshifting from fifth to fourth and the crew was giving me all sorts of shit about it. I haven't killed anybody yet, which is sweet, but I ran over a dog in front of the 7-eleven in Bang Niang but I'm sure it was already dead. Nevertheless, my team was calling me "Dave the dog-killer" for a couple of weeks. Have I previously mentioned the lack of respect my team shows me? Just like when I was employed, except without the paycheck. Anyhow, I have my own car courtesy of Mercy Foundation which has been dubbed "The Shark." It's a long, gray, diesel P.O.S. station wagon whose insides have been completely gutted from several months of transporting volunteers. I wanted to paint some teeth on the front of it like those old fighter planes and maybe use the arc welder to stick a metal fin on the roof, but I think Dean plans on selling it when we're done. These are the kinds of things I come up with when given access to power tools and heavy equipment.

I consider myself lucky to have had a consistent crew without much turnover for the last month or so which has made it possible for us to really kick ass on the construction front. We've been pouring concrete almost every day and have some structure in place on every house we're scheduled to build. They gave me a group of 15 Singaporean students this week that brought my total to around 30 or so, and I stuck them immediately on painting and ditch digging duty. Damn Singaporeans. That's payback for that crappy $17 Singapore Sling at Raffles. Speaking of digging, Lee and JC were digging holes for a cess pit on house 12 when they found one of the old septic rings from the previous house buried three feet deep. We tried to work out how to get around it but there was no way, so I told them we had to crack through half of it in order to get the new rings in. We got the big sledgehammer out and after the first whack realized that the old ring was black, which means filled with shit. The look on Lee's face was one of pure disgust, and I've never seen a 230 pound man leap out of a trench so fast. But, it had to be done so we equipped ourselves with surgical masks and I had the brilliant idea of smothering Tiger Balm under my nose to mitigate the smell of crap, which actually made me tear up because every time I breathed out the mask would blow eucalyptus into my eyes. Anyhow, I got down in there and finished sledging out the concrete ring, then began digging out poop. It was kind of weird, all packed in there like a can of cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving, except it was all black and green, and apparently the previous homeowners really enjoyed their chilies. Luckily, no one threw up, although Tom did roll some crap down his back from some overzealous shoveling.

We took a weekend road trip down to Krabi a couple of weeks ago and got 12 of us spread out between two of the Mercy station wagons. On the way down we had a boom box playing Swedish pop, courtesy of Joakim and Sanna, and Rich had his acoustic guitar on which he and Chris composed the song "Working on Koh Kho Khao" to the tune of "Knocking on Heaven's Door." Everyone was taking turns making up verses, and apparently the easiest thing to rhyme with Dave is "makes me work like a slave." We stayed on Ton Sai beach in Krabi, which is great if you're a rock climber or a pothead, but Ray Lei beach, which is just south of there, is a much nicer white sand beach. Ton Sai's beach was complete shit, all rocky and craggy and you couldn't walk into the water without some flip-flops or something else covering your feet. I have to admit, though, that the limestone cliffs that surround the beaches are quite striking. You could easily spend an afternoon with a couple of beers just watching the climbers going up and down the cliff faces. We spent the Sunday on the beach in Ray Lei and were blessed with the only sunny day I've seen in the last three or four weeks. It's been nothing but overcast and rainy since it officially turned into the "dry" season. Anyhow, the only reason we went to Ton Sai was because there was a caravan going over from the TVC, and I'd heard for a month how great Ton Sai was from all these guys, but I should've realized that it's because you can get weed and space cakes at just about every bar along the beach. So we ended up surrounded by hippy stoner volunteers with their shitty firedancing routines, which reminded me of living in the Haight for some reason.

I should've known better than to listen to those guys anyway, I never go into the TVC office unless I absolutely have to. One day I went in there during the afternoon and saw about 25-30 people working, or at least trying to look busy, and I just keep asking myself what the hell they need all these people in the office for. Luckily I'm not on the mailing list for staff but Jeremy keeps forwarding me these inane messages they send out about toner running low, or clothes being deposited by the front desk, or my favorite message... a support group is being formed for volunteers to help them deal with trauma and they wanted to know which name (out of a list of 5) was best suited for the program. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be insensitive, but there are only 3 or 4 volunteers that were here during the actual tsunami and the vast proportion have only been here a few weeks. Maybe this was something that should've been established, I dunno, 9 months ago? I've observed the volunteer population, and I think the greatest trauma they encounter on a daily basis is where to eat or whether or not they're too hung over to go into work. It kind of reminds me of the crap people come up with in an office to justify their position when they don't have enough work to do. So anyhow, the only time I go into the office is on Monday nights when they have a general meeting, and that's only because I have to get up in front of everybody and give a status report. Most of the other project managers talk about how many boats they built or that they finally completed bathroom number 46 or some similar stuff that no one outside their group really cares about. I'm not crazy about public speaking, and most of it is a bullshit clapfest anyway, so I mostly end up making stuff up. I had a three-week streak where I mentioned something about Jeremy and his penchant for child pornography. I told the new volunteers that we had instituted Topless Tuesdays on the island. I came up with an open wound leaderboard and gave away a Stupid Injury of the Week award, although both of those have really tailed off since English Chris left town. I talked about how every member of my crew had been trained in the secretive art of monkey fighting, where the chief element is surprise. You never expect the tail. I said something about the average volunteer's worth being somewhere between a wheelbarrow and a roll of duct tape, because you get new volunteers every week but a wheelbarrow costs like 1000 baht. I said that Sanna was the strongest woman in the world in her weight class and that I saw her lift a cement mixer over her head. Anyhow, no one really laughs except my crew, and me of course, and that's all that matters.

As I mentioned before, I feel really lucky to have the crew I've been given, although I think that there's a checkbox on the volunteer signup sheet that says "Alcoholic" and if they mark it they send them over to the island. Last weekend a few of the team were drinking pretty much straight from Friday night until early Monday morning, with the highlight coming on Saturday night, probably in my top ten nights out ever. I won't get into too much detail since it would be boring in the retelling, but it included a spicy food eating contest, unsolicited karaoke, driving people out of three establishments, and breaking six glasses at the Marlin bar. Actually, one of the owners of Marlin bar told us the next day that it was one of the best nights he's had since he opened the bar. We've been good this week though and we still all have dinner together just about every night. I wouldn't mind having some more alone time, but it's one of those things where you figure you'll only have this one chance to capture this particular moment in time, so I might as well spend it with a great group of people. Supposedly we've gotten a rep among the other volunteers as the rowdy party group, which is not totally fair since I think it's only by comparison since all the rest of them are a bunch of stiffs. I'm friendly with just about everybody and some of the volunteers from the other groups tell me that we're cliquy (I dunno if that's the right spelling), which is probably true to some extent, but so are all the rest. People tend to hang out with who they know and who they work with, and not a lot of them make an effort to expand beyond their immediate circle. It seems like we're always the last to know when there's some large social event being planned and sometimes we don't even find out until after it's already happened. Maybe I should hang out more at the office. Nah. I try to make an effort though. Last night I sent a text message to all the other project managers inviting them and their crews to a pizza party/basketball/volleyball thing going on in Bang Sak put on by Mercy and only one of them even bothered to reply to me. So fuck them. I like my crew. Heh heh. I suppose I could look at it as justification for pulling off our pranks. We encased Nam Kem's truck in plastic wrap the other night, and we have a couple more planned for the upcoming week. Does anyone know if it's safe to give sleeping pills to a dog?

Anyhow, as one of the project managers I've been invited to the grand opening party for Le Meridien Khao Lak tonight, so I'll let you guys know how that works out. I'll probably have to cut out early since, well, I'm going to be surrounded by project managers and office staff. Who knows though, maybe I'll find some sugar mommy to put me up at the Meridien for a while. Heh heh. If I don't get a chance to talk to you, have a great holiday and happy new year!

As always, the Dude abides,
Dave

Stop, Listen... and Love

Greetings everyone,

Pictures are here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/R7DjnnaYjBTcw4KD6

Last time I wrote I was still recovering from my brief dalliance with cross-dressing. Apparently, the hazards I'm facing in Thailand are not only due to conditions on the construction site. I now have to watch out for venom-spitting transvestites:
http://www.local6.com/news/5322040/detail.html
Thanks for the warning Gary.

There was a huge turnout for Jeremy's farewell bash. A bunch of us went out to dinner together and they let Jeremy and me cook our own dishes in the kitchen.
Jeremy made Massaman curry and I got to make some papaya salad. The best part was that the papaya came off a tree they had growing back behind the kitchen.
After the restaurant, we headed over to the Fisherman bar, which is usually crowded on a Friday night anyway, but there were probably about a hundred people there. Anyhow, as you can imagine there was a slight bit of alcohol involved with the leaving-do, and with Jeremy being the guest of honor, he was toasted approximately every 47 seconds. By about midnight he had partaken of just about 26 buckets, maybe 8 rounds of beer, and only he knows what else (or does he?). It's at this point that he decides he wants to make a speech to the entire gathering, so English Chris, Rich, and I tell everybody to shut up while Jeremy climbs on a chair and proceeds to spout five minutes of the most rambling, incoherent, and incomprehensible nonsense I've ever heard, and I've been to meetings with Eric Siegel (inside joke). Three of us are holding him up on the chair like a tripod because he keeps swaying from side to side. Just as the audience's interest is waning, Jeremy finds renewed vigor. "I have one more thing to say!" he shouts. He takes a long breath and stares over the bar. "Just remember this. I want you to Stop... I want you to Listen...." He takes a long pause and points his finger at the audience ".... and I want you to LOVE." At this point the entire bar erupts. It was as if some higher being had channeled the drunken body of Jeremy in order to deliver this profound message to the assembled masses. This point was further illustrated by the fact that as soon as he said the word "love" he fell off the chair and into a group of about 5 people. It was madness, people were cheering for about a minute, everybody was talking about it the next day, and the thing is Jeremy didn't remember any of it, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

About an hour later, after we were all thoroughly inebriated, Jeremy decides he wants to give another speech. Well, there's no way he's going to top the one he's already given, but since it's his last night we're going to give him some leeway. As he climbs up on a chair and begins to talk, this jackass climbs on the bar starts shouting him down saying "nobody wants to fucking hear it" and other comments to that effect. So Richard decides that he's not going to have any of it and decides to take matters into his own hands, grabbing the guy around the waist and yanking him down off the bar. So now the guy's buddies get into it and English Chris starts squaring up with one of those guys. They're yelling at each other, tensions are flaring, and, as we learned the next day, turns out Rich was grazed by a punch from the first guy. So I go in there to try and break up Chris and the other guy, I manage to get Chris away from him and the guy starts to square up on me and get in my face. Now normally I consider myself a lover and not a fighter, but I suppose a few Changs and an insult to your friend can change that pretty quickly, so I find myself right up in this guy's face just talking all sorts of shit. I know, fighting is stupid and all that, but I'll tell you that I've never been that ready to throw down in my life. This idiot was continuing to talk shit about Jeremy so I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck rising up, my heart rate climbing, and my hands forming into fists as I'm yelling at this dude about an inch away from his face. It was kind of nuts, I just wanted to destroy the guy, and all it would've taken was a move from one of us and it was on. Luckily, four or five people jumped in and separated us, most of them being women, who are uncannily gifted at making guys feel stupid for wanting to fight, so I managed to calm myself down pretty quickly. English Chris and Rich were another story however, and I spent most of the rest of the night keeping them in one corner of the bar so that nothing would flare up again. In retrospect, it probably wouldn't have been the best idea to open up my tenure as project manager on the island with a massive brawl among the volunteers, but I have to admit it was kind of cool to see the crew rally together in that situation. Plus, those guys had it coming, I think we showed remarkable self-discipline. Well, except for the drinking until 6 am part.

That was probably the most exciting thing that's happened the last few weeks. On the island I'm getting used to my new responsibilities, I've already managed to oversee a screwed-up floor and a crooked support column, so just be thankful that you're not getting a Thai house constructed under my expert supervision. I did learn how to mix concrete this week, which is a lot of fun but physically exhausting since each of those cement bags weighs probably 80 pounds or so. One of them opened up on me as I was lifting it and spilled its contents all across my shirtless body. I don't know if you know how well cement sticks to sweat and particularly body hair, but I looked like Santa Claus' hairy Italian cousin. I'm still getting the hang of this construction gig, what can I say? What I *am* good at is screwing around, so I organized a 3 am pirate raid last week on one of the other groups. We filled the back of their truck with sand and left a coconut with a skull and crossbones drawn on it, seeing as how we're the construction pirates and whatnot. Nobody knows it's us yet and we're planning some other raids, so don't say anything.

I also managed to weasel my way into a room at Le Meridien Khao Lak on Friday through the Mercy Foundation, which was way, way sweet. Some of the Mercy folks had been building a playground with this group called Kids Around the World who were staying at Le Meridien Khao Lak and crazy Dean offered me an extra room they had for Friday night with the stipulation that I have no "female roommates." I don't know what kind of reputation I have with the Mercy folks that they feel that they would need to make that expressly clear, and it sucks because the best part of having that kind of rep is earning it so it's definitely undeserved. Also, what's the point of staying at Le Meridien Khao Lak if you can't flash around your room key and use it to pull, but that's a minor point I suppose, and just having written that last sentence completely contradicts the previous one. Let's move on.

So we get the day off on Friday because of the dedication for the playground, which was great because there were 50 or so kids there from the local school in Bang Sak. They built slides, monkey bars, and a row of about 12 swings. They also put in a basketball court, which is great because we all know how much basketball is beloved by Thais. After the ceremony I went to check into the room at Le Meridien Khao Lak, which, if you didn't know this already, is an experience unto itself. They bring you cool lemon juice and a cold towel as you're sitting on a couch waiting to check in. Then they personally escort you to your room to show you the various amenities, features, and general whatnot in your luxury pad. The bathroom is encased in glass so, if you wish, you can raise the curtains and look out across your room out to the balcony and accompanying view as you're taking a shower, or a bath, or a dump. The balcony looked out onto the enormous pool complete with waterslide, and as I was remarking on this, the woman laughed and said "That's the kids' pool. We have three of them, the large one is behind the lobby." Of course, the kids' pool! How foolish of me.

So what did I do after check-in? I went to collect the rest of my team, of course. We fit 12 people into The Shark (my car), pulled into the parking lot, and walked through the service entrance toward our block of rooms where everyone got changed. We spent the rest of the afternoon crashing the various amenities offered at Le Meridien Khao Lak in a scene reminiscent of Caddy Day at the Bushwood Country Club pool from the movie "Caddyshack." I spent the night on a plush king-size bed and woke up the next morning in time for the 600 baht breakfast which is free for hotel guests, complete with fruit station, cereal station, pastry station, Thai food station, western food station, omelet station, waffle station, and real coffee. And, to cap it all off, I have to say that few things are more gratifying than taking a dump in a luxury bathroom. So I took two. Then I spent up until one minute before checkout watching HBO.

That's about it for now, I'm sure I forgot something but this message is already long enough as it is. As always, the Dude abides, Dave

P.S. Don't forget to Stop, Listen, and LOVE!