A Day in the Life of Chaos

Every nation has their sports.  American's love football, basketball and baseball, the world loves soccer.  This said, Thailand and sport is something I am still trying to figure out.  I do see a lot of jackets emblazoned with the names of English Premier League teams.    Chelsea, Manchester United... the list goes on.  That said I am still not sure there is a true passion for the game.   I am increasingly becoming convinced however that there is an unofficial sport here, the art of scooter riding. Perhaps it is the same way around South East Asia but with only the Philippines and a brief time in Shanghai to compare I must say, Thailand is on the cusp of this emerging sport.  Okay, maybe it will never make the big leagues but if each commute is equal to a game how many athletes can say that they survived death in the course of their match?  As a current resident of Thailand I have embraced this life or death struggle with all the veracity of a shark feasting upon a helpless swim

Seventy some years ago my great uncle Bob who by all estimations was quite an eccentric man took a series of photographs of my great grandfather and a friend.  They were posed studio photographs and taken long before digital photography was ever conceived of.  I love these photographs for several reasons but foremost is the window into the playful side of my great grandfather's personality.  I have no idea why they chose monks but for a strange reason they always seemed perfect.  Another portrait from the same session was taken in a fisherman's weather hat and titled Cap'n Hart. It has yet to be recreated.  As the years pass memories fade.  Eventually one generation transcends the next and living memory ceases to exist.  The only thing that remains are the images of people who once walked our world yet long ago departed.  I love to look at these old photographs and wonder about the people.  Who were they?  What made them laugh and what made them cry?  Did they ever fall i

Is a person with an obsessive compulsive personality born with it or can it just happen?  I never really thought about the answer to that question as I laughed my way through every episode of Monk, the story of an obsessive compulsive private detective.  Monk is never far from a hand wipe.  Luckily he always has an assistant ready to hand him one after each door opened, each hand shaken.   Recently however a state of enlightened consciousness obtained while sitting on the holiest of holy thrones has provided an answer.  There is not much to do in the moments while you wait for nature to take its course.  Some read, some hum.   I tend to just speculate on who else is in my throne room by the shoes that they wear.  Of course all the while I keep my own shoes well within the boundaries of my stall to avoid any Larry Craig incident. When a toilet flushes you hear them rise to their feet.  They slide the lock to the stall and venture out into the bathroom.  At this point a decision is