Speedruning the first 10 years
How did this come about? That’s actually a great question!
Essentially, we decided it was time to start fresh, and Alex had some experiences related to Asia. The options were Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Dubai.
After some research and traveling, Thailand emerged as the ideal place, so we decided to do a “trial run.”
i will put here some “better pictures”, this will however take some time as i have to digg out some offline harddiscs that do not work anymore. the dates are mostly taken from photos and may not be 100% (i’m 50.8 years old, memory starts failing, thats why i’m writing this down now)
December 2003: First “trial” with friends
The first trip was fairly “standard.” We did all the typical tourist activities with friends Adrian, Alex, Trung, Freddy, and Pattara.
We spent some money on tourist activities, looked for business partners, explored potential regions to settle in, and checked out the local infrastructure and other important aspects.
May 2004: Pulling the plug
The third trip to Thailand was intended to be the final one. I booked a flight with Kuwait Airways, which was terrible, but I made it.
I temporarily settled in Tanakorn Apartment, Pakkret Nonthaburi, within walking distance of the Major Cineplex. The building was next to a school, which added some liveliness to the area.
For internet connectivity, I used a PCT1 system, which is quite impressive for the time. The City of Bangkok implemented this system, a variation of the famous wireless phone system “DECT” operating on 1900MHz. Instead of having a base station in your house, the city placed these base stations literally on every corner. This way, you could be reachable via your landline number anywhere in the Bangkok area, or just use it as a modem with 16k/baud speed.
June 2005: Briefly re-uniting
At the time, I was legally separated2 from my wife, Sandra. To give our relationship another chance, she came to Thailand with Pascal and Marco. I rented a small townhouse next to Pop (Pattara) in Maneerin Lake & Park, Bang Khu Wat, Pathum Thani.
However, this arrangement was short-lived. Sandra returned to Germany, leaving the kids with me for a few months.3
After this, everything pretty much fell apart, and I tried to keep moving forward somehow. Fortunately, I met Mark P., an American who had been living in Thailand for years and was the CEO of a local company, we engaged in several projects to keep things afloat. I also formed some good friendships with people around there, such as Sam and Samarn, to name a few.
(my own iMac, which i still have)
Sept 2005: Going my own way
Moved to “Public Condo T9” in Muang tong thani, which was a half dead condominum complex with only a few buildings fully developed, yet about 30.000 people did live there, the whole area was completely isolated during the weekend, as the Impact arena was just a stone trow away, causing massive traffic on the weekends, but during the week this was a nice place to be, especially as almost everything was provided within walking distance.
i did live in Muang thong thani for almost a Year,and moved then to Bang Phli for social reasons while still working in Muang Thong for Global Telelinks.
this is also where the profile picture i use everywhere was made 😉
Sept 2006: New chapter
Being in a nice relationship with a very smart woman, which made things exceptionally “fresh”, and had finally found a great job at CCM-Systems (back then it was called CaraCAD), moved for logistical reasons to Ladphrao.
Work and social engagements were changing, not in a bad way, now in hindsight, it’s not so clear how this came about, as there are no real regrets about the past.
2009: New things for the better
Met Yui, the woman i’m still with today.
This Part of my life will have more detailed pages later on.
For now, a short list and a few photos from 2011-2013.
- Got a Cat in 2011 (Som)
- Got married in 2012
- Got another Cat (Tiger)
- our Daughter Natascha was born in April 2013
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Handy-phone_System ↩︎
- It’s a term used pre-divorce (basically the government enforces a try to get things sorted in which the couple has to leave apart for at least one year. ↩︎
- There was a lot of drama that seemingly “helped” with the divorce. Many things were said, including accusations of kidnapping. However, these accusations were completely false, as I never hid and ensured Pascal attended school regularly. i have spoken with Pascal in 2022, he does not remember any of this events. ↩︎