2007: Year of "The Vern"…

December 31, 2006 by Vern · 2 Comments

2007 New Year’s Resolutions:

1. I will blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blogggggggg!

2. I will ride the Honda at only 60kph in town, 90 on
highways. Not “full-bollocks” as usual.

3. I will ask my UK friends to explain ONE MORE
TIME why “dog’s bollocks” is a good thing.

4. I will get OUT of teaching full-time at a school
because my mindset is NOT made to easily deal
with the routine spontaneity that’s required to
work with Thais’.

5. I will put maximum effort into getting my lame friend
Dave to make the bold step to come here to visit. Nothing
will stop me.

6. I will put together into ONE all the books I have started
about various parts of my degenerate life.

7. I will gain back 2 kg because were it not for a shaved
head, I really would resemble Bruce Lee.

8. I will avoid entertaining thoughts and offers of making
an immoral living here.

9. I will start seriously thinking about buying a car, my
assbone is growing spurs from long-haul motorbike rides.

10. I will stop telling Thais’ “God told me to” and start
explaining myself more.

11. I will not continue to keep email silence for 3 and 4
weeks at a time with those that love me back home
- just to see how much they plead with me to write
them something to show them I’m still alive here.

12. The year 2007 will be known as the year of the
“Vern”. I will become the most well-known expat in
Thailand this year through blogging. I will be more
famous than even STICKMAN or DANA or GALT!

THEY WILL WAI DEEPLY and SO respectfully
BEFORE MY GREATNESS and tremble as if
having tsunami size piss-shivers when they hear my
name.

V – E – R – N

Filed Under: expats
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I am always, ALWAYS the WINNER!

December 31, 2006 by Vern · Leave a Comment

If i SEE it, I kill it. This is my new mantra here
in Thailand, land of a billion bad bugs.

Far too many times since being here I noticed
a new bug flying around. I hope it lands, and
usually they land on me.

As i’m admiring it, the colors, shape and
weirdness… it bites me and sometimes the
bite is not that pleasant…

And so I KILL IT.

But, today after a long skinny bug bit me and it REALLY
hurt, I got smarter!

I realized… if i kill everything
before it bites me then I AM THE WINNER.

My uncle used to have a t-shirt, “He who has the most toys, Wins…”

My shirt would say, “He who gets the smartest, Wins…” One could
have toys out the a$ and not be having a great life… However, if
you were the smartest – you’d be smart enough to know how to have a
great life.

I think i’m on my way to this – but if you put me on a timeline I’d need
to get SCARY smart in the next few years before I die of something to
compensate for all the “slow growth” years I’ve had before these last
few.

Attitude and outlook on your life – no matter how lame your life might
be – is the key to a great life.

There are people living in caves meditating and eating rice – only rice
- and drinking a little bit of water or coconut milk everyday – and you
know what? They’re having a great life…

Me? I’m kicking my a$ to make what I think is a great life… and yet I
know it won’t be that great even if I accomplish 100% of what I’d like.

Why? Because I also know that as much as I kick my own a$$, the factors
in my environment that are beyond my control (God, statistics, evil) are
conspiring to kick my a$ to a power of 5 beyond what I’m kicking my own
a$ to do.

I’ll try to simplify…

I’m kicking my own a$ to this degree, we’ll call “A$-x”

factors outside my control are kicking my a$ to this degree:

(A$-x) x (A$-x) x (A$-x) x (A$-x) x (A$-x)

However, while I’m kicking my a$ in a positive manner… which could
lead to positive things… factors outside my control are kicking my a$
AGAINST all of those positive efforts. So – they are a reducing my positive
efforts by being a NEGATIVE a$ kicking…

hence the equation above now becomes:

-[(A$-x) x (A$-x) x (A$-x) x (A$-x) x (A$-x)]

when you add up my POSITIVE a$ kicking to environment’s negative
a$ kicking to the 5th power – it just doesn’t add up in my favor…

I’m still NEGATIVE a$ kicked to the 4th power.

So, I think I need a new outlook on life… I once married a girl that
had this awesome outlook on life… at least she SAID she did… and
I loved the saying… In fact I need to make another shirt…

my other shirt would be this…

“I am ALWAYS the winner.
If you are the winner,
then I AM ALSO the winner.

But, if I am the winner,
then I am the ONLY WINNER.”

This is a nice way to look at things… and maybe will help me get to a great
life…

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen some things… I’ve experienced some things
that appear great to everyone else… but the greatest things that I ever
experienced were these two… in this order…

1. Vipassana meditation to the point of stopping the mind and having
“my” consciousness mesh with the fabric of all that is…

2. Laying down on a mattress on the floor with my son who was only a couple
weeks old… and watching him sleep as I breathed in the breath that he
exhaled… and then he slowly awoke and I watched him smile as soon as he
saw me… he just looked at me smiling for a long time and we smiled at
each other for what seems like eternity…