I’ve Recovered

It is now the 1^st week of August, and I am finally, as of a month ago, seemingly fully recovered from whatever was affecting me for more than three months.

NAD Wow!

I am still suspicious about falling sick again, but I have recently embarked on a regimen (about four weeks ago) of intravenous infusions, one called a Myer’s cocktail, and the other one called Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD). Relatively expensive, the NAD, but I read that it took a couple of infusions before one starts effect. [I did try in pill form for 90 days a few years ago but seemed relatively useless. A few friends who swear by it say the IV is the only way to go]

I am now four days past the second infusion of NAD, and I am in a state of shock and hope that this is not a one off thing. My energy levels are higher than I can remember, at least within my memory.

I bought a package of 6 infusions of both the Myer’s cocktail and the NAD. And I’m going to try to redo the NAD approximately every 2 weeks. That is, in Thailand about $xxxx. On the one hand I look at it and think “Wow!”, that’s a lot, but on the other hand I look at it and think over six months if it really restores my energy levels I’m not sure that there’s a price you can put on that. Or at least that price appears relatively trivial to me if it gives me the energy to start leading what I would remotely call a normal life.

*** HIATUS 10 days – NAD Progress Report ***

And over the last 12 days I have been absolutely bowled over by my energy levels. It must be at least a couple of decades since I had energy levels this high.

I wake up in the morning and I am ready to go. I don’t spend as much time watching videos and sitting on my recliner, I am able to launch into language study and for the first time in years, really focus and study. Sometimes for as long as two to four hours.

I am awake almost all day. I have only occasionally taken naps that used to be a twice daily occurrence.

Anecdotal Evidence

And a couple of anecdotal things regarding language. I am not sure whether this one with my Thai is if I just reached a tipping point or not, but when I combine it with what I experienced with my French I am wondering whether or not the NAD may be a key factor.

What I am talking about is that in the last 10 days to two weeks I have actually started to speak Thai to people. I am not having fluent conversations about life, the universe, and everything but, I am able to speak relatively complex sentences and even more importantly, they are understanding what I say.

As for my French; I had taken a French class with my regular French tutor about two weeks ago. And my French was OK, albeit somewhat labored. I took one three days ago and the teacher said, “I don’t know what happened but all of a sudden you have started speaking a good 50% better than you did the last time, you’re more fluent, you’re not pausing as much, you’re not looking things up as much, what happened?” I am paraphrasing of course here a little bit, but that was the essence of the conversation.

And … á la Monty Python … Now for something completely different. 😊

KYC should be countered with KYB

KYB – I am truly getting disgusted, alarmed, and infuriated with this KYC business. You don’t have to search for long on the Internet or YouTube to find diatribes against this.

For those of you who don’t know, KYC stands for Know Your Customer. And it consists of organizations, banks in particular, asking innumerable invasive questions about who you are, where you live, and where your money came from, before they agree to keep your money. This can extend to asking the purpose of why you are sending money somewhere. That is absolutely unacceptable.

These banks, business, and now even the Internet (Age Verification), seem to have no compunction asking people to upload very sensitive documents such as driver’s licenses and passports. They have few if any assurances of what is done with that data, how it’s maintained, how long it is retained, etc. And people wonder why I never put my real address on my driver’s license. You would be crazy to. If you try to upload a driver’s license picture with the address information redacted you will pretty much get denied. They want to see all the information.

I don’t know if it’s possible, but I would like to institute a counter movement called KYB. Know Your Business.

This is where when the businesses and banks start intruding about KYC questions, the response has to be a list of highly intrusive questions that go right to the heart of their business and the people who work there and whether they and their business are in fact trustworthy and not doing criminal things.

Ah! Well, I don’t think it happened, but it would certainly be interesting if it could turn into an Internet meme or go viral. I wonder how one would do that. I could certainly come up with a list of questions:

1. What are the names of the people that maintain your customer data?
2. Do we have a valid audit that we can see that shows that they are not having any suspicious cash flow from undetermined sources that may affect their ability to secure all of my personal data?
3. Where can I see a copy of the company security standards and a certification that all of your employees that are involved with data have been trained on and certified that they understand all of these issues?
4. In particular I would like to know about the leadership of the company. I want to know:
   1. Their name (Supply Passport or National Identity Card)
   1. Their addresses (Supply utility Bill )
   1. Where they get their funds from and what is their net worth.

Imagine what the shitstorm that would create?

But I think that these are perfectly valid questions.

In addition the same requirements should apply to the lawmakers, politicians, and bureaucrats who passed these laws.

All in favor say Aye 😊.

Another Language – 6th if I persist

And I have decided to tackle Vietnamese again. After 6 months of intensive Thai study it seems REMARKABLY easier to comprehend. I am amazed but early days yet. I am taking a different approach. I’m focusing in the beginning solely on correct pronunciation of consonants, vowels, dipththongs, and tripthongs. We’ll go from there.