Mother's Day, August 2009

Another month has passed and we're all doing very well. Things aren't perfect, but they never are... and that's life. But, despite the challenges we are all doing fine and things are holding together.



Here's Little Nio striking a pose with his hard heat and a flute. That little flute could probably be played with gently, but at this stage we're all treated to shrill ear-piercing blasts from it. Our neighbors are not a big fan of this flute.

Little Nio now goes to a daycare three times a week. This gives him an opportunity to interact with other children his age on a regular basis, and it gives my wife time to catch up on housework without having to keep an eye out for our child. It's working out very well and Little Nio is really enjoying himself.

After spending time at the daycare center, sometimes Little Nio comes around to the office after work and helps out a little bit.



Here he is checking out a pencil.



Examining the workings of an adjustable triangle.







Here he is playing around with a calculator and a magnifying glass.



Sitting on top of our coffee table with his plastic knife. Probably thinking of all those other ways to skin a cat.







Striking a series of poses with a calculator in hand. I'm not sure what that's all about, but I hope that he ends up more mathematically gifted and less numerically challenged than I am.



We were able to spend the weekend with my sister and her boyfriend, Tita Via and Tito David. We met them with Little Nio for Sunday lunch, but his mother wasn't feeling very well so she decided to stay home instead.



In the car trying on a hat to show Tita Via his cowboy look. This was shot on the way back to their hotel.



Here's Little Nio giving Tita Via the "thumbs-up" sign of approval. That's probably because she brings him the coolest gifts ever. Last time was a chainsaw and this visit she brought him a crossbow.

August 12th is Mother's Day here in Thailand because it coincides with the Queen's birthday. Aside from getting my wife the bag she really wanted, I also wanted it to be a very special day for her and asked her what she wanted. Strangely enough, she didn't want to spend the day with us, but asked that we give her time for herself.



So here's Little Nio with pastry snack in hand ready to board the elevated train, also known as the BTS Sky Train. We spent most of the day on the train, stopping off to go to the park, run some errands, explore parts of the city we'd never been to, and visit some nice restaurants.



Here's Little Nio at Chatuchak Park, again feeding the birds there.





On the train like a big boy already. Sitting up to enjoy the passing cityscape.





Having lunch with Daddy before we go back home to spend time with his Mom.

We haven't been able to spend as much time together because of my workload at the office (and the extra work I do at home on the computer) and the tremendous amount of housework that my wife has to do. Hopefully we will be able to find someone to help out around the house very soon. We're all doing fine, but things could be better.

Mommy's Birthday, July 2009

This series of photographs was taken on the 4th of July.

Not that American Independence Day has any special meaning for us, we just needed to go out and have our car serviced. It was the 25,000 kilometer maintenance check-up of our car and while we waited for it to get done we went elsewhere.



Here's Little Nio hiding inside his Daddy's closet early in the morning. We have to leave early to make sure that we're at the front of the queue.



Sitting with his Mommy for an early breakfast at the Café Reno, right across the road from the Nissan Service Center. After breakfast we went off to Chatuchak Park to enjoy the weather.



Here's Little Nio spending time feeding the birds at the park.







For only 20 THB you get three fairly big bags of bird pellets. We spent a modest sum and lots of time feeding the birds. We both got a tremendous work out chasing after the birds and pelting them with pellets, while Mommy got some much needed rest time in the shade of the trees.



On July 18 is my wife, Kanittha's birthday! And as you can see it's a bit of a slow start for Little Nio.



A bit of gratuitous baby nudity to keep the ratings of this blog fairly decent. Fresh from a nice warm bath and getting ready to go out for a late lunch. We're going to keep this photograph here as blackmail material for when he gets old enough to date and we need to keep him in line somehow.

It was Mommy's day, so she got to choose how the day would unfold, what we were going to do and where we were supposed to go.



Little Nio is not at all excited about having matching outfits with his Daddy. He got over it though. We ended up going to a mall very near to our village, where we had lunch at "Sizzlers" and then did a bit of shopping. My wife picked out her own birthday gift, a simple gold bracelet. Times are tough, so we have to scale back on a few things and even birthday gifts go through the same downsizing exercise.

We also had to get a new washing machine and a new refrigerator as both items were carry overs from our old apartment. The cost of repairing them twice was almost the cost of buying a new appliance. Not too bad considering that both appliances were long past their warranty periods. Big expenses, but unfortunately necessary ones.

Little Nio discovered that there was some sort of Science Fiction exhibit at the convention area of the mall, so we both gravitated quickly to the displays.



Here he is posing in front of a cheap Transformers knock-off.



Getting up close and personal with the creature from "Alien". This one is probably a pygmy version as it isn't as large as it was imagined for the films.



A really short version of the alien hunter creature from "Predator". Not a bad model, just not to the proper scale.



Standing in front of a very impressive Gundam robot model.



Captured by a couple of stormtroopers from "Star Wars", Little Nio and his Daddy get escorted to see Darth Vader.



Here we are in front of a pretty good Darth Vader display, complete with flashing lights on the chest plate.



Here's Little Nio spending time studying the displays and items at the "Batman" counter.



The next day, we were able to do a simple celebration where his Mommy blew out some candles on a doughnut. My wife's special request was to get half a dozen of her favorite doughnuts from "Daddy Dough", we just put some candles on top of them and she blew them out.



Simple, intimate and a very special day for my wife. Little Nio looks on to make sure that all the trick candles get blown out properly. We had a great time.

Via's Visit, June 2009

We are so very proud and happy for my older sister, Via, who has just taken a very demanding, rewarding and well deserved job with Nokia. Her new job has her traveling a lot, and we are so very fortunate that part of her travels include Bangkok. And that means we get to see her.



Here's my sister, Via, with my wife, Kanittha, having breakfast at her hotel, The Pullman. The hotel is really very nice and the breakfast buffet was fantastic, but the hotel isn't located in a nice part of town. Fortunately it's in a great self-contained complex that feels like it is in a less congested and more upscale neighborhood.



Little Nio doesn't agree with his Mommy where we should be going. She wants him downstairs, but he prefers to take the higher ground for a better vantage point. Not sure if you can see it in this photograph, but he's carrying his toy sniper rifle. So you can appreciate why the higher ground is more important.



Striking a pose in the connecting walkway between the hotel and the duty-free shopping area.



Tita Via bought an awesome gift for Little Nio — it's a toy chainsaw! Aside from the battery operated chainsaw with moving plastic teeth complete with sound effects, its got safety goggles, work gloves, ear protectors and a hard hat. Despite all the great added props, Little Nio is only really interested in the chainsaw. Let's hope he doesn't go looking for a creepy hockey mask to go with it.



Tita Via spent a simple and quiet afternoon visiting with us at home. We bought one of Tita Via's favorite dishes... "pork satay" and had ourselves an impromptu picnic in the bedroom.



We all watched "Kung Fu Panda" together, curled up and had an afternoon nap all on the big bed. It was relaxing and simple fun for all.





Without prompting, Little Nio instinctively knew how to operate it and the proper way to hold it. It may just be good ergonomic design that allows for the natural handling, or our son may have been a lumberjack in a former life.



Here he is doing a bit of pruning on his Mommy's plants. For the rest of the day, and over the next few days, he's tested his chainsaw on the furniture, the doors, the walls, his stuffed toys and the cat, of course.

SL+A Bangkok Projects, June 2009

While business has been difficult to find, we still have quite a few current projects that are keeping us busy. Here's a quick presentation showing recently completed work and ongoing projects that we are still in progress.

I put this clip together from perspectives created by our design team. This was a part of our office presentation at our regional group meeting held last month.

A Little Boy's Toys, May 2009

Just a quick update to let you all know how we are doing.

Things have been rough all around. Work has slowed down considerably and the jobs that are out there are under heavy competition. We don't have help at home, so my wife, Kanittha, is all alone doing all the housework and taking care of Little Nio who is well in his "Terrible Two's" mode. My wife isn't lazy, but she's not exactly built for heavy industrial abuse... so between a little boy and three floors of cleaning, cooking and all the laundry, she is past the point of exhaustion.

Despite that, she's managed to hang on and keep the house clean, the laundry and ironing done, put food on the table, keep the little boy clean and well fed. So she has done an admirable job and I love her to pieces for keeping us all going in these troubled times.

Meantime...



Little Nio has managed to stay on top of things. Here he is on the computer table taking a closer look at all the stuff he's not supposed to be playing with.



Here he is on the bathroom floor, playing with his flashlight. It's absolutely fascinating watching him play with that flashlight. It keeps him quiet and totally preoccupied for a while. At least until the bulb gets busted or the batteries run out.



We've made some preliminary attempts at toilet training, but we don't really want to force it on him yet. As you can see, it's not going very well. He's having too much fun using the potty as a helmet.





He spends a lot of time with me in my study (whenever I'm home), so he's got his toolbox stashed there. He enjoys playing with all the tools. Obviously the hammer is a favorite, but then he also has great fun with the power drill, the saw and the ratchet.





Little Nio is most definitely a little boy when it comes to play time. I have to admit that we do play a bit rough and we enjoy ourselves thoroughly, but I do have to make sure that he learns not to play too rough with other kids later on. I hope that he doesn't become a bully.



Here he is dressed up in desert cammies with a helmet. He's a real character with a very livid imagination.





Doing a bit of research on armor from his Daddy's reference library.



Here he is with the family pet, Samuel. Our aging Siamese cat is not a big fan of getting manhandled, but he understands that Little Nio is just being a bit heavy handed in his affections. Little Nio will go around calling after the cat, yelling "SAEOW! SAEOW! SAEOW!"





Here they are spending some play time together, with Little Nio carrying a plastic katana. The sword lights up on impact and makes awesome crashing sounds. At least it did for a couple of weeks, but it didn't survive the sword fights.



His latest toy is 39 THB (1.13 USD / 53.37 PHP) plastic toy gun, scaled perfectly for two-year-old hands. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be an Enfield, FAMAS or a Steyr, but Little Nio adores it.





His pretend play is impressive, and he has some pretty good moves. For whatever reason, he takes to this sort of play-acting instinctively.





Even sitting down he's still in action.





Non-stop action and it doesn't look like he's going to run out of ammo any time soon.