Category Archives: Expat Issues

All expat issues such as where to buy or get a computer repaired, etc.

Mistakes moving to Thailand Jack Corbett learned over18 years.

Tom Crowsen interviews expat Jack Corbett on the mistakes moving to Thailand newbies need to avoid and what to do before moving here.

Click here to get the video

This video’s not just about the mistakes moving to Thailand newcomers need to avoid but how to handle health care, insurance, visas and other key issues.

Tom points out that anyone thinking about moving here needs to read my book Pattaya Pattaya Pattaya Confessions of Sin City newcomers can buy from amazon.com. But when Jack replies, read Money Number One by Neil Hutchison first, Tom agrees wholeheartedly.

But I can virtually guarantee that very few men visiting Thailand are going to take our advice. Because I’ve found that most tourists already know everything about Thailand’s bar girls. And don’t need to listen to the likes of Tom or myself.

Watch the video. Enjoy it for what it is. But I need to retract one statement I made in the video. When I commented that one needs to sign up before he’s 60 to get health insurance benefits from my insurance company past the age of 65, there’s a new policy in effect. One can sign up with Allianz Ayudhya, formerly Bupa until he’s 65 and be insured until he reaches 80 now. While he can still sign up before he’s sixty to be able to receive lifetime health insurance coverage.

To visit the Jack Corbett bookstore where you will find six of my books click here.

What does my Dealing with Nipples have to do with being CHairman?

Dealing with Nipples is Chapter 24 of Life of an Exotic Entertainment Photographer. Why do I compare this to being chairman?

Dealing with Nipples my universal gym at the farm
To help keep myself in prime physical condition, I had my own private exercise room built out of a one car garage at my farm. To make it appear larger I had large mirrors placed along an entire wall. While I had another wall done up as a mural showcasing the mountains overlooking the Snake River. The concept was to transport myself into an entirely different world which I would later use while Dealing with Nipples.

Because I am chairman of the condo here in Pattaya Thailand where I’ve been living for the past 15 years. I’ve been chairman for the past seven years after serving on our condo’s committee for two years. Now most of you will not be interested at all in my being chairman. Or the things I have to do to serve the 62 owners. But for the few of you who want to know about Thailand condo management I am introducing a new subject area called Thailand condo management. For the few who are interested, it will be enlightening.

But big surprise, Dealing with Nipples has nothing to do with breast implants or sexuality in any form.

While it has a lot to do with condo management. But that’s going to take more articles here. In Life of an Exotic Entertainment Photographer dealing with Nipples is all about fighting. And how to strike so much fear in an opponent that you will never have to deal with him again. Nipples was the inspiration for my first book, Death on the Wild Side. She was a stripper. Whose stage name was Nipples due to her large nipples. Dealing with Nipples meant my oftentimes running into her violent boyfriend who threatened to disfigure my beautiful supercharged Mazda Miata sports car. And beat me up with the help of his friends.

My supercharged Mazda Miata sportscar, developed over 180 horsepower out of an engine that had just 116 horsepower stock. So I equipped the car with oversized wheels and tires to contain all those extra ravaging ponies and had the car lowered. It would have topped 150 miles an hour had it not been for the rev limiter which shut the engine down at 7000 rpms. Even so, I wound up blowing the engine three times trying to get more than 140 miles an hour.

Did you ever face two or three antagonists simultaneusly? Well I have.

I describe two or three of the events in the chapter, Dealing with Nipples. The second time was when I was a Junior in College. The staring half back for our college football team was having a bachelor’s party with a group of his friends. All of them on the football team. Three of them imimidated a friend of mine into leaving the bar. Then the three football players tried to grab me and throw me out of the bar. I won and they lost.

Which sets the stage for Dealing with Nipples.

Dealing with Nipples meant my training hard as a boxer in my exercise room
My heavy bag and platform bag for speed bags in my farm exercise room. When I found myself Dealing with Nipples, I devoted myself to boxing so that If necessary I could simultaneously take on up to three or four men.

I was fifty then. So figuring I wasn’t too much over the hill yet, I trained myself for the upcoming fight. The fight of my dreams. Which I would win even if I had to face three men. I won’t go into the details of the encounter here. You will just have to read about it in Life of an Exotic Entertainment Photographer. And in the end I never had a problem with Nipplies boyfriend ever again.

So what does Dealing with Nipples have to do with successful condo management in Thailand?

For one thing, whether it’s a fight or a critical committee meeting or condo co-owner’s meeting, it’s essential to be well prepared for the upcoming encounter.

When it came to facing off against Nipple’s boyfriend and two or three of his friends, I worked out an hour a day on my punching bags. Using the speed bags and heavy bags. Until I knew I was faster and much more coordinated than my opponents. And able to knock anyone of them down with either hand.

In future committee meetings or the annual co-owner’s meetings as chairman, I would always come well prepared. I would come with notes, for what I wanted to cover in a committee meeting or once a year condo co-owner’s meetings. But I would also prepare myself for any questions raised by a fellow condo co-owner especially during the annual c0-owner’s meetings. So that I could effectively convince to vote in favor of my agendas.

While running the annual condo co-owers’ meetings I also had to prepare myself for combat. Just as I had in Dealing with Nipples.

While running these annual condo co-owner’s meetings, it is not enough to be totally prepared. And it’s not enough to be as cool as a cucumber. It’s also essential to be totally fearless and be willing to get physical with an adversary.

In these annual condo co-owner’s meetings, half of the attending condo co-owners are complete assholes. They are despicably rude and selfish. They are constantly interrupting the speaker, no matter who’s trying to make his point. It becomes total chaos. It brings back memories of teaching a High School class of unruly students. Except these “grown up” condo owners are far worse.

So I find it necessary to show my fellow condo owners that I’m the toughest guy in the room and that my fuse only goes so far before I am willing to kick someone’s ass.

I once had a drunken fellow co-owner get into my face in the condo office. The guy just wouldn’t back off. Even when I tried to leave the office in front of our manager and bookkeeper. I slapped him so hard in the face that he went down. And when he got up the co-owner threatened to sue me for assault and battery. Too bad for him though. Because I had come fully prepared years in advance. Due to my making sure that our Thai manager and Thai bookkeeper would back me to the hilt.

In one of our condo annual co-owner’s meetings I’ve had to grab a totally out of control mouthy fellow co owner by his shoulders to physically throw him out of the room until our security guard intervened. While a year or two later, I had to get up close and personal to another co-owner who just wouldn’t shut up. I think everyone in the room knew I was going to punch the guy out. Until another co-owner was able to persuade him to settle down.

So welcome to the new condo management section of the Fun House expats blog. From now on I won’t be making any comparisons between Dealing with Nipples and successful Thailand condo management.

But I will contend with pride that I don’t think there’s a single condo community that’s better managed than ours. Like most of the Pattaya condos near us, we’ve had a bookkeeper embezzle sizeable funds from us. We’ve had big problems with owners who won’t pay on time. Not to mention problems with providing adequate security for our resident’s possessions. For the few who are interested in what it takes to sucessfully manage a condo here in Thailand I will be writing future articles here.

Links to related topics

Welcome to the Fun House
Describes my first 2 years on my condo committeee. Written as fiction much of the book follows my experiences under the German builder and first chairman of our condo community here at Wongamat Beach. This is a great introduction to the corruption inherent in most condo communities here in Pattaya. Welcome to the Fun House portrays an idealistic picture of the kind of condo owners here in Pattaya. Whereas Pattaya Pattaya Pattaya Confessions of Sin City which I published right before Life of an Exotic Entertainment Photographer paints portrays such condo owners in a very negative light. It took six years as chairman for me to develop my present extremely negative opinion of most Thailand expats.

Dick Fitswell the Man in Quest of the Perfect Fit

In my opinion after writing and publishing six books in over 12 editions this is my finest effort. But it’s no Man of La Mancha and I am certainly not at all like Miguel de Cervantes who inspired Man of Mancha with his Don Quixote. Dick Fitswell is outrageous satire. Which will be continued in Pattaya Pattaya Pattaya Confessions of Sin City where Dick Fitswell has a second coming. In which I further develop my Big DIck theory that motivates most (but thankfully not all) men.

Men cause most wars. Whereas most women don’t. Women after all want to protect their children. Just take a look at what’s going on in the U.S. today. With all of this infighting between moderate Democrats and the left wing of the Democratic Party. And how the far right has captured the Republican Party. The Trump cult. Attacking the U.S. capital, and then denying that you’ve committed treason. It all comes down to is My dick is bigger than your dick. I have more money than you. I’m smarter than you. My voice is louder than yours. My gun is bigger than your gun. And I am going to prove it at the expense of even my own country.

Jack Corbett Books

Excluding Kindle ebooks which work great on your cell phone there’s over twelve editions of my six books. There’s two versions of Life of an Exotic Entertainment Photographer in Hardback from Amazon and Lulu. And one full color paperback from Lulu and another you can get from Amazon. And a black and white edition from Amazon and another black and white edition at lulu.com. There’s also multiple editions of Etreme Guns and Babes for an Adult World from both amazon.com and lulu.com. And three calendars you can buy at lulu.com, the 2021 and 2022 Extreme Weapons calendar and the 2021 Pattaya Beaches Eye Calendar at lulu.com. Jack Corbett Books can help you decide which edition to choose.

Giving Haiti vaccines is a travesty and insult to American tax payers

Giving Haiti vaccines is a criminal act against American tax payers living overseas because it sacrifices the lives of American tax payers.

giving Haiti vaccines insults me
This is my hospital, Bangkok Pattaya Hospital. It takes me just eight minutes to get here on either my Yamaha Nmax or Triumph Bonneville motorcycles. Unlike most American hospitals where I’d normally share my room with one other person, the rooms I’ve gotten here are single person occupancy. I can order my food from three menus in my room, which is double the size of the rooms in “comparable” American hospitals. Except there’s no comparable hospital that I’ve ever seen in the U.S. BPH is like a five star hotel. I pay a lot to have the best medical care possible so it really galls me to learn that our government’s giving Haiti vaccines out of my taxes deprives me and my fellow American expats from getting the anti virus vaccines we need.

I am one of a few thousand American expats living full time in Thailand. And I pay over $6000 a year for top notch health insurance.

While my hospital of choice, Pattaya Bangkok Hospital, is first rate. But I am willing to pay dearly for the best medical care that money can buy. And like many American expats residing in Thailand, I pay a lot of taxes. But I cannot get an effective anti virus vaccine at any price. So you can just imagine mortified I am to hear that the U.S. has just sent 500000 doses of Moderna and Pfizer vaccine to Haiti. With a lot more to come.

Meanwhile the United States Embassy has been notifying us that no vaccines will be available to us until October. But it wasn’t the United States giving Haiti vaccines that has made my anger go ballistic.

Giving Haiti vaccines only intensified the total disgust I was already feeling for our incompetent American Embassy. Which has endangered the lives of American taxpayers living in Thailand by its failure to act.

If anyone tells you that the United States government is doing its utmost to U.S. overseas citizens from Corona I’m calling it BS.

And I am putting $200 on the table to do my utmost to get my message heard worldwide.

All expats living in Thailand can get the best anti virus vaccines so long as they are French.

Germans, Austrians, Englishman, Americans, etc do not qualify for getting the best anti virus vaccines here in Thailand. Because the French government is the only government that cares about its overseas citizens. For it’s only the French who buy the vaccines. And then deliver them to private hospitals. While the French Embassy provides a list of French expats to the private hospitals. Which then contact all French nationals living in Thailand to come get your vaccine. While these same private hospitals proclaim, “we don’t have those effective vaccines you think we have.”

Before you read on, please read and memorize the following.

In early July, the Bangkok Pattaya Hospital gave the Moderna Vaccine to a French citizen who owns a condo here at Wongamat Residence. I know this because I am chairman of the committee governing Wongamat Residence.

As chairman of our committee I saw the email Bangkok Pattaya Hospital sent to the Frenchman on June 22, 2021. BPH was informing the French expat that he needed to come to the hospital on July 1 to get his first Moderna injection. I have the Frenchman’s passport number, his phone number, his exact address and his entire payment History with Wongamat Residence.

Around the 4th of July, Lek who’s our condo bookkeeper informed me that the Frenchman arrived at Bangkok Hospital where he encountered a line. And that he went back to his condo because he didn’t want to deal with the line. A couple days later. Call it July 6, when I encountered the Frenchman getting on the condo elevator. When I asked him if he had received his vaccine yet, he extended one arm out to me to show me the little mark the needles had left. Then he smiled at me, and told me he had gotten Moderna. “It was free”, he told me. and that it was free.

Meanwhile I was becoming good friends with another Frenchman.

The man’s 39 years old. He’s an engineer who works for Caterpillar which headquarters out of Peoria Illinois. From the very moment I met the man, I liked him. Having lived ten years in Australia his English was close to being perfect. While both of us had been to Peoria, Illinois many times. While the Frenchman was a high level exec for Caterpillar, I had shot at least three Pure Talent Feature Showcases at the Big Al’s Strip Club.

When I told my new friend how well his government had treated the old French condo owner at Wongamat, the man got busy to get on top of what his government was doing for its overseas citizens. But right off he told me the French government supplies free virus vaccines to all Frenchmen whether they are paying taxes. Or not.

The next time I saw him, he told me that his company will supply him with the anti virus vaccine. This meant Caterpillar. Instead of the French government. Then he told me, “but I might not quality because I’m not sixty yet.”

But a few days later I read that the French government had just announced it was making the vaccine available to all French overseas citizens. From the age of 18 and up.

This was about the same time I learned about the United States giving Haiti vaccines. I got angry and decided that I to act. Not just complain. And to cause as big a stink as possible.

My best friend in Pattaya nearly died of a heart attack several years ago. While another good friend spent over a week in Pattaya Bangkok Hospital nearly dying from a blood clot. Neither of them is likely to get vaccinated against the virus until at least October. But when my first friend told me he was complaining to his Congressman, I replied that I wouldn’t waste my time. Due to all of our Congressman being as useless as tits on a bore. But by evening I had determined that my Congressman was likely to be a Republican which made him even more useless.

Paying $200 Fed Ex to discredit the U.S.  giving Haiti vaccines
Note the three Fedex receipts totaling nearly 5000 baht ($161.00) I sent to Congressman Rodney Davis, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times and Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post requesting their help in getting American overseas tax payers foreign aid vaccine from France

I would attack my Congressman before he could even give me that line of B.S. “We are doing what we can, but—-

I decided to do my utmost to humiliate him. And the American Embassy, his opposite numbers in the Democrat Party and all the other government self serving, lying scumbags.

I would not only send my Congressman a letter. I’d send it Fedex all the way from Thailand to make sure that he’d read it. I also decided to Fedex letters to the Washington Post and the New York Times. Which I felt were the best two newspapers in the U.S.

But I’d would take this one level deeper. I’d send my Fedexes not just to the Washington Post and New York Times but to the best editorialists I could think of. Eugene Robinson and Thomas Friedman.

Robinson of the Washington Post was a winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism while Thomas Friedman topped everyone with three Pulitzer Prizes. I figured that both men sincerely cared a lot about their country. And that if I contacted them directly they would do everything in their power to help American overseas taxpayers. Who had been abandoned by their embassies, and elected representatives.

This is the letter I fedexed to my U.S. Congressman that expresses my anger about the U.S. Giving Haiti vaccines. While ignoring the plight of American overseas taxpayers who are effectively not able to gain access to anti virus vaccines.

Dear Congressman Davis

This is an S.O.S. via Fed Ex from my home here in Thailand. I am writing in behalf of my condo community at Wongamat Residence in Banglamung Thailand where I have been serving as chairman for the past 8 years. While also serving as a self appointed spokesman for all American citizens living overseas.

While the U.S. has recently sent over 500000 vaccines to Haiti with alot more to come, the U.S. Embassy has informed us my that an effective vaccine for covid 19 will not be available to us until October.

Wheras the French government has been taking good care of its overseas citizens whether they are paying taxes or not.

Yesterday, the French government announced it will be buying first class vaccines for all of its citizens residing in Thailand from the age of 18 and up.

Since the French value its overseas citizens, I am asking you as a voter and landowner from Montgomery County to ask your fellow Congressmen to apply for foreign aid from the French government for the neglected U.S. taxpayers living abroad.

Because our lives are in danger due to the incompetence of our American embassies.

Feel free to contact me if you wish to know more. As I can also fill you in on the plight of your average Thai citizen whose government is either unable or unwilling to deliver on its promises.

I am also Fedexing letters out to Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post and Thomas Friedman of the New York Times to make sure my message gets the action it deserves.

The labyrinthian path U.S. taxpayers must go through to get any kind of anti virus vaccine.

I was finally able to get an appointment to get an anti virus vaccine for August 7, 2021

There’s a web site expats living in Thailand can access to get on lists on which they can wait to get an anti virus vaccine. But the first problem with this is, the web site is down for most of the week. This amounts to a very small window of opportunity for any of us to even apply for a vaccine. Fortunately one of my friends messaged me to get onto that web site RIGHT NOW before it shuts down.

The bottom line is I need to go all the way to Bangkok to get any kind of anti virus vaccine. And the best I can hope for is Astraventica which is less effective than Giving Haiti vaccines offers to the non-Americans living far away from American shores. This will take me two hours to get to the hospital and two hours back. And since I no longer have a car, I must pay for a taxi or rent a car from Hertz. But as one of my friends told me, if I take a taxi I stand a good chance of getting the virus due to so many people using that taxi.

So I am going to rent a car from Hertz and hire my own driver who works for me at the condo I’m managing.

But while the average Haitian gets Moderna or Pfizer, the best I can do it to hope for Astraventica and the hospital might even give me that horrible Chinese poor excuse for a vacccine called Sinovec.

And as chairman of my condo committee for the past eight years, I won’t have our manager buy a Chinese made water pump for our swimming pool. At even half the cost of an American Hayworth Pump or Australian equivalent. So there’s no way I’m going to have that Chinese Sinovac injected into my body.

But back to the French. The latest is the French Government will now offer all French citizens who are 18 or older living abroad with free Moderna or similar vaccines.

What this would mean to me, if I were French, is I could drive one of my two motorbikes to the Bangkok Pattaya Hospital. This would take me 8 minutes. I would not have to wait very long due to BPH’s excellent service (albeit at high cost). But I’m American. And the American Embassy is lying to us that an effective vaccine will not be available to us until at least October. However, I know better. There’s plenty of vaccine available at BPH provided I’m French. And not one of the many neglected American taxpayers living here whose government cares more about the Haitians than its own citizens.

If anyone can get an antivirus vaccine at Bangkok Pattaya Hospital, I can. I’ve written six books and I’m big boss of my condo community. Been living in Thailand for 16 years. I’ve got the connections. If I can’t get it done, no one can.

I have three good friends who either cannot or who are unable to get to Bangkok to get a vaccine. But they aren’t going to do squat about their terrible predicament. But I will.

I exercise for one of the last times at my five star Centara Grand Mirage Hotel Fitness Centers only a few days before the Thailand government shuts it down after the official reports come in that have over 15000 new virus cases per day. From the elliptical machine I spot one of my Bangkok Pattaya Hospital doctors swimming laps in the lap pool. Upon finishing my 45 minute workout I go out to the lap pool. Where I politely ask my doctor.

“I don’t want to interrupt your swimming. But if I get an appointment soon, do you think you can help me get the Moderna vaccine?”

The doctor tells me he thinks he can help me. So the next day I go to BPH to get an appointment. His office is in the mental Health Center. The doc’s a shrink.

And I’ve visited him a number of times to get sleeping piles. Or to bring in one of my girlfriends who has her own issues. I encounter the doctor outside his office so I am able to seen him within five minutes.

The physiatrist tells me that he has signed up on a list to get the Moderna vaccine. And he tells me that I can sign up for Moderna through his nurse. But when I ask the nurse for the paperwork I need to sign, she points to a cardboard advertisement. The nurse then tells me that I need to use my smartphone to copy the QR code on the advertisement and to use that to access the signup process for Moderna.

Problem is I’m terrible when it comes to smart phones. And the few times I need to use a QR code I have the other person do it for me. When I get home to my condo I eventually download two QR code readers to that I can access the Bangkok Pattaya Moderna Virus vaccine signup system. But it won’t work for me. So I ask my good friend to see if he can access the signup system using its QR code. My friend is a PHD in Computer Science. And he can’t do it either.

I go back to Bangkok Pattaya Hospital determined to get an appointment to get the Moderna Virus vaccine while thinking about the U.S. A. giving Haiti vaccines

So I go the the hospital’s large registration desk and ask two of the women to send me to BPH virus registration. But the two women inform me there is no such place. I must do it online. I show the two women the picture I had taken of the advertisement the doctor’s nurse told me to access with my smart phone. The two women told me. “No. You cannot get on a list using that. This is only for a survey you can take to tell us what vaccine you prefer.

But when I told the two women that my doctor had told me i could sign up for the moderna vaccine , they told me I had been misinformed.

So then I told the two women that I could not even access the survey web site through its QR code. I told them I was pretty good with computers but really stupid with smart phones, “So can you help me do this?”

Both women tried but neither of them could access the survey web site through its QR code. They told me, “It’s finished.”

I replied. “No it’s not. It says right here, it’s open until July 22nd and it’s not July 22nd yet.”

This has been a long post. I just wanted to show anyone reading it how it’s nearly impossible expats to even sign up to get a vaccine. Let alone actually receive the injection. Unless the expat is French of course.

So whatever you hear about the virus vaccines being in such short supply in Thailand or that the Thai government is blocking its distribution, we Americans can get it, but only if our elected leaders act as intelligently and responsibly as the French and stop being a patsy giving Haiti vaccines

But they won’t. Unless I can get the New York Times, the Washington Post and all the other newspapers to totally embarrass our so called representatives and senators. Until they are forced to start treating American citizens at least as well as they are treating American non citizens residing in Haiti.

I don’t know and I don’t care why the U.S. is giving Haiti vaccines. This smacks of the usual do gooder, stick your head in the sand liberal bull crap baby food. That hard working American tax papers have to swallow. Or it could be out of shame for the U.S. being possibly implicated in the assassination of the the Haitian premier. Or some possible malicious reason to put money into the hands of the undeserving. But our elected representatives don’t have their country’s best interests at heart. Because if they did, they’d get their heads out of their backsides. And study up on what’s happening here in Thailand now that the virus is out of control here. If it were not for the incompetence of our government officials, we can win big here now. At the expense of China. But that’s another subject for another day.