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AmoresPerros
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'I can totally relate to your sentiments. Try my tact- to recall or remind yourself of those who's lives were burdened by the wealth. I grew up with more than a half a dozen of this sort, some were even the best and brightest of their cliques, born with silver spoons and set for life. Yet they chose an early exit through suicide. Memories of those few souls always tempers whatever BS a HiSo chump throws in my face.
Funny... Skip, read your interesting post and remember your nickname is the same of one the of the darkest characters in "Less than Zero', from Bret Easton Ellis, a very harsh book about the extremely well off and suicidal youth in L.A.
Ellis was 19 when he was published, I had the same age when I read it. Awesome !
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 3:44 am on May 5, 2005
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Skip
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Now that is a co-incidence, AP, I remember well when he was all the rage for getting published. While he and I came of age in both different times and towns, I did feel I knew just what he was on about in that text.
But, that wasn't where I stole my yuppie stole. No, if I'd had my way I'd be posting as the resident Tyler Durden here. Glad you liked the post, and I hope it wasn't read as too morbid- wasn't meant as such.
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Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 5:58 am on May 5, 2005
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DSBones
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Rather a broad brush you guys are using on the residents of Pattaya.
We are not all thieves and bandits. There are actually some rather nice people down here.
____________________________________________
Expat, I agree. I have a number of good friends who live in Pattaya/Jomtien. Because I know these guys I also get to meet some of the "thieves & bandits". There are a lot of guys who have held down good jobs & then retired to Pattaya with comfortable wealth, but there are also a few, typically divorced with a little bit of spare cash but not enough to see them comfortable who need to continue earning money but do not want to go back to Europe or the US to do so. If I had to sell viagra as a sideline to make some money I think I would quit Thailand & go back home until such time as I had enough money to retire properly.
It may be that I meet lots of unsavoury gents in Bangkok but their behaviour may be more subtle & I can not tell. These may be the real scary ones to go into business with.
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 10:54 pm on May 5, 2005
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Triyclops
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I am not rich, but I have spent a fortune... 
TC
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 3:22 am on May 8, 2005
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Packripper
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It's never too late. Plenty find their success late in life. It might not be as sweet, but it sure beats never having tasted it.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 11:06 pm on May 10, 2005
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Koenji
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The OP's original statement may be valid for a lot of middle-aged British guys. That's thanks to UK property prices that have skyrocketed in the UK over the last couple of decades. A boring little house in a drab suburb can fetch around half a million dollars these days.
So it's conceivable that your stereotypical Pattaya, Hua Hin Brit is middle aged, bought his home in the 70s or early 80s for 40-60,000 pounds, then divorced his wife, flogged the house for around 500,000 pounds, and came to Thailand with his share of the loot where he lives like a king. Plus, don't forget the pension to which he's been contributing throughout his career. The British guys I meet living in LOS tend to be of the upper working class to lower middle class backgrounds, rather than executives, doctors, etc. But by Thailand standards, they are clearly upper class, financially speaking.
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Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 12:12 am on May 15, 2005
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Frank La Rue
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Quote: from Edge on 12:47 pm on May 4, 2005
Nice to be well off but it is important to enjoy your life.
I spend some time in bars where the retirees, workers in BKK and on business here (dats me) for a while go. There are all sorts, and ya know whats nice? They mix really well together. Different nationalities. From property millionaires ($), lawyers, well heeled business guys to retirees on small pensions, English teachers and down on their luck computer guys. Wouldn't happen too much in farangland. Must be the pussy glue that keeps em together.
In the dark of a bar with loud music and wall to wall pussy they are all the same.
55555555555 - PussyGlue - nice one.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 12:38 am on May 15, 2005
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Torq
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Hi guys,
Well I continue working on the whole LOS early retirement deal. Success can come at any time in life I agree but I'm working as hard as I can to hurry it along. Hopefully it will go well for me, I wish you all good luck too.
---Expatchuck, as an aside, it was funny to read your response about not being all thieves and bandits in Pattaya, especially with the Monty Burns logo. Thanks for the smiles on that!---
I work at a large corporation back in farangland. Nice wages but certainly not enough to get "rich" on by itself. I have been very diligent though since my first trip to Thailand...As I recovered from a night on Bangala Road the smaller of my hung-over brains intimated to me that despite the spirited workout I had handed it the night before that it considered a move to LOS a great idea. 
The larger of my 2 brains seconded the idea but warned the smaller brain that we would need a big wad of sweaty money so as not to end up like the alcoholic bum farang chick that tried to come by our bungalow the night before selling those tour scam deals...
So that was my satori: Thailand, the place to be make it happen. 
Anyway hung-over mysticism aside I have been working feverishly to achieve that very end. I am not a thief or a bandit and I don't really understand: "importing PLC's, Fabricating, foreign currency exchange, multinational sort of thing". I have run into guys like that too. They are weird and they give off a pretty clear scent of bullshit at least to my American nose. 
Most of the really rich people I know aren't full of themselves and don't really go on about it. They'll just say something general like, "I'm in Real Estate, I owned a company, I got another software deal, stuff like that." When I actually get invited over it isn't some cinder block cell either. It is usually some really nice place on top of a hill looking down at where I live or the like.
I have a plan and I am working it. I expect to be able to make a decision within 3 years. I spent a lot of time in life kind of blowing this way and that. I mean I got educated worked hard and all but I sort of moved along with the current. It has only been in the last couple of years that I have really taken the tiller. Lame to some I am sure but better late than never. I found that it seems a lot easier to get things going than I thought it would be. Really makes me wish I had started sooner, but as the BGs say, "what can you do?"
So I am going to build a place upcountry (not Issan by the way) and another somewhere in the gulf a little later on if things work out as I am hoping. Not a mansion to be sure (hopefully at some point though, a man has to dream) but Thai style built to a western comfort standard.
Oh and just to give you guys a free target I am planning to get married to a Thai girl next month. Go ahead assault me for that ( there have a freebie on me, LOL I know I deserve it). 
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Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:42 pm on May 17, 2005
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Ballsburstin
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Torq,
Re: "I mean I got educated worked hard and all but I sort of moved along with the current. It has only been in the last couple of years that I have really taken the tiller. "
I think that resonates with a lot more people than may care to admit it. I recall working with one guy, some years ago. He did house painting to pay for college (though he left early and never was graduated), then he got involved in software in the early 80's. 10 years later he looked looked up from his desk and realized he had a "career" of sorts. He told me, when I met him years later, "I said to myself at that point, 'I guess I'm in it for the long haul,' " and so he was.
Really easy to let work sweep you well into your 40's and 50's, only to realize you haven't always been at the tiller. But never too late to grab the tiller and right the craft.
BTW, let me guess, your Thai wife-to-be... a Uni student from CMU, lol??!!
- Balls
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 3:03 pm on May 17, 2005
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Torq
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Well Balls...
I'm sure this comes as a shocking revelation but she isn't a university grad...I know you're just poking fun and I was asking for it...
Anyway I suppose it might be said that I fit some of the stereotypes some of the times. But we each have a slightly different path to walk I guess. I did the whole divorce lose it all thing and after that wore out I got my house back in order to some degree. I like to think it is some innate drive thing that keeps us striving. I felt very drawn to the idea of traveling to Thailand for the first time for various reasons. I was somewhat burnt out basically I'd had it but once I was there, well you know how this part of the story goes. I am fairly well traveled and have lived and worked abroad before but only in Europe from the States. Thailand though really makes me happy.
Once I arrived in Thailand it didn't take long to fall in love with the country. I have been on fairly fun and exotic holidays before but I really love Thailand and the love isn't dissipating. Thailand just felt right on a number of levels. In Thailand I am happy even when I am way upcountry in a village with an outhouse and sleeping on a mat.
There is also that bit about how far the dollar goes. I live in an unpleasantly expensive part of the US. I am 41 and have an actual social life here. However the pace and style of life in the US seems increasingly unfulfilling to me.
I am not some tree hugging hippie with stars in my eyes. I have just watched guys spend their lives behind a desk or in companies and retire to a "dream". Their dream to me is like a nightmare, living trapped in some 4 bedroom 3 bath Mediterranean style home on a golf course. Occasional visits from their adult children and a general feeling of whatever it is that they feel...yuck...
Don't get me wrong nothing is the matter with the money just the whole; "where the f*** did my life go", thingy. I have been thinking about this for a long while and I mean you only go around once. You covered it pretty well talking about you painter/software friend.
I want to have more to live for more to enjoy and experience. I know how to work hard and make a good living I just want to get this show going better. Thailand seems to offer a lot of advantages to westerners over the usual fare back home.
The few people that I have met that got it to work there seemed to bring a similar effort to LOS that they did in their work or business back in Farangland.
Like I said maybe I am somewhat of a stereotype but I don't own a red convertible. I still feel physically like I did in school, I have most of the hair on my head but 41 is sobering. Basically I don't feel any longer like I can just keep diddling around in life. Living out the American track house dream is a nightmare of slow death for me. I don't under any circumstances want to be poor again. I really hated that part...
I just want to enjoy life and live well. Sooo...Thailand looks like the place, also a prenup/postnup looks helpful in preventing that whole poverty thingy again...
Sorry to paste such a long winded rant again I am just having a busy little corporate day over here and am eagerly awaiting getting on that wonderful plane back to paradise in two weeks.
I promise not to take the Pattaya plunge ever too...
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 12:48 am on May 18, 2005
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