jcon

What's the news with CPALL today?  I haven't logged into this forum for quite some time.



Bought @41 just now, ask questions later I guess?  

I'm leaving the country very soon and having a guy do tiles in my last and smallest condo before I sell it.  Of all of the guys I've had do flooring, he is the best considering his price.  I've had slate, teak, granite, polished concrete in my other homes/condos, but it turns out that this guy laying the cheapest tile I could find at Boonthaworn (I paid 63baht per 60x60cm tiles), in my cheapest property, looks pretty darn good.  I would recommend him to anybody, and I'm picky.  He was initially lazy, and asked for all kinds of money for this and that, but after I got on his ass for being lazy and not doing what I paid him to do (I had advanced him 70% of the money already, nice guy that I was), he finally got going.  

Of course I have to be there every single day to make sure, which is a pain in the ass as I have to leave within days... Anyway, he could have taken my money and walked and said ''find somebody else,'' especially after the verbal abuse I gave him, but he is a stand up guy and did the job.  He also uses one of those diamond-cutter things that you lay on the floor to slice tile instead of those god-awful grinders which cause so much dust and noise you have no idea... He's worked in Jordan laying tile for 2 years, and while a bit slow, he really takes pride in his work and it shows.  His rate is about 250-300 baht/sqm which is better than paying some Somchai 200bht/m2 do just stick some glue to a tile and lay it.... I would recommend him to anybody (especially for ''cheaper'' jobs, and possibly even for a more expensive home - his work is better than what I've seen ''professional contractors'' do in 7-8million baht homes.  PM me if you want his info - he only speaks Thai, so hopefully you have somebody Thai there to speak to him.  He's also kind of deaf so speak loudly.....

Call it a total of 20k for your job.  10k for tiles and 10k for labor which will include some demo/removal and sand and cement and gas and what-not.  Don't skimp on labor like this, it shows.  1000baht/m2 tile + shitty tile guy = crap work.  Cheap tile + great tile guy = pretty darn good.  For disclosure this is just a small condo I'm selling before I leave, if it were my home I'd be much more particular with the tile and overseeing the work (as I have for my other houses), but for what you're looking for, this is a great guy - and I had fired 3 guys prior to him for crappy work so I'm still picky even though it's a cheap condo.... I feel bad for yelling at him now!

p.s. To address your question about laminate  -  termites... termites... termites... Thailand is full of them and it's wet here and etc. etc. etc.  Sure some people do well with it but from all the laminate floors I've seen, they don't last.  Like I said, I've had slate, teak, granite, and polished cement - never laminate, and for good reason IMO.

Well summer is over (for me, as I'm back in Bangkok, jet-lagged) and I was dead wrong on on silver and gold - actually I was already wrong before I left Thailand for the summer... which saved me some potentially large losses since I tend to never turn on a computer when I'm in the US).  Congrats to those of you who made money this summer on those trades.

I will marry soon, though, so I'd call it a wash!  Thus my time in this country will come to an end in a short few weeks and I wish everybody the best.  Thailand has been good to me but it's time for me to move on...   I've never been so happy to put 50% of my assets at risk

Live well, folks.  It's been fun.






(I will still battle the zombies in 2050... and as I've promised before, I will report back with my results )

MoonRiverOasis, on 2011-06-04 13:05:26, said:

Pics, MRO, pics!  Is it stock?

Unfortunately there is no bottom in US property taxes grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RedFx, I don't know if I really agree with your ''best scenario for gold'' you mentioned in post 4378 - I know it was kind of tongue-in-cheek perhaps but I'm not sure if everything you mentioned there was bullish for gold.

For gold, I will pull out 3 numbers.  250, 1250 and 2500.  That's just the difference if a brick is 100K USD, 500K USD, or 1 million USD - I think we'll stay within that range....  Yes, giant range duh but It's easy to calculate

100K USD/brick is probably a thing of the past now, so actually 500K for a brick sounds about right nowadays so call it 1250.  That's a no-frills way to look at it   That goes along with my view since more than a few years that 5 million USD is the new 1 million USD.   We're not quite at the point where 10 million USD is the new 1 million USD IMO, that's a ways off and if it comes soon, then a lot of retirees are going to get hurt......  That's my no-b.s. easy-breezy assessment.