First blog post of the new year.

I am planning on migrating this website from Squarespace over to another server that is maintained and managed by a friend of mine under WordPress. I'm not trying to be cheap but I realized that I'm paying almost $400/year for Squarespace when I utilize only a fraction of its capabilities. I don’t really expect anyone to notice any downtime but please do contact me if you can’t get to it.

Fatigue & Sky Fruit

The general tiredness that I have been experiencing continues. A Danish friend out of the blue came up to me and offered me a packet of some drink mix from Malaysia. Called Sky Fruit. He told me that he took a half packet every four days and it really helps with energy levels plus of course some additional side effects ( accompanied by a wink ) so I assume that meant something to do with male performance. I thought, why not?

Lo and behold, I did start to feel, I believe, some benefits. Tasted like grapefruit, the main ingredient other than the Sky Fruit appears to be fiber, and I noticed after a couple of days that I was still awake and alert up till 9 PM in the evening. It wasn't a massive change; it was just simply not feeling tired all the time. I tracked the company down in Malaysia. I was able to order a year’s supply, I will experiment with it on an ongoing basis and see how it goes.

https://www.xkl2u.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=65&product_id=56

Currently I am in the Philippines, and I have mentioned to my partners that this is the last year I will be here. I felt a little nervous about that, but it went over fine. My partners are wonderful people. But, and I have joked with this with this about them in person, empathy is not their strongest suit. And for all the times that I worry about the conversations I'm going to have with them, I am reasonably certain that it never affects them even a fraction of the way I envisioned it. 😊

I must admit that my sole feeling for the most part is just relief. I will no longer have to maintain 2 households, and I am in fact reveling in the sensation that I no longer have this burden of returning to a country that I haven't really enjoyed for many years. I feel like a tremendous weight was lifted from my shoulders. My housekeeper came with me from Thailand this time, and I made sure she had an excess baggage allowance going back so that she could pack more of my stuff. Most of what I will move from here to Thailand is my clothes, medical supplies, electronic stuff and a few tools. All of the large stuff, the treadmill, the sauna, the majority of the tools, the furniture, the ref will all either be sold or given away. I already paid the rent until February of 2026, but I suspect that I will be basically finished after probably June or July in terms of whatever it is that I feel like moving. I will have to talk to some friends and see if anybody wants to partially stay here awhile I'm not here. I’m not terribly worried either way.

I have lived here for the better part of 20 years but feel really nothing much about leaving. I’m not sure what that says about me. It doesn’t say much for my attachments here. I have a few people here who are very important to me but I will be happy to come back and see them and just stay in a hotel. 😊

My tiredness about traveling is still there, but if the exit from PI works like I think, I feel like that may have given me a slight increase in energy to actually travel. My Danish friend Jacob showed me a video of a three-day ferry trip that one can take from Denmark to Iceland stopping at the Faroe Islands and route. That sounds like something that I might really like. It would make for a nice trip. They are a possession of Denmark, but I might count them as a separate country anyway.

https://youtu.be/o1k5pLmLTkA?si=4xe3YZ2p3nJzzCfb

I am going to do a full court press with Thai this year. I found a foreigner (Stuart Jay Raj) who speaks Thai flawlessly and I signed up for some courses with him. I spoke with him and he, at least, was able to explain some things to me. Now I am so irritated I want to beat it. I will also try 2 hours a day face to face working solely on speech and pronunciation to see if that gets me over the hump.

https://youtube.com/@stuartjayraj?si=DL_OVZDLYXauk1-N

I noticed that Thailand, at least at exit now, has passport scanners. Yay! No stamps in passport so my Argentina passport will last longer. Hopefully the same for entry. I will see in a couple of weeks.

It appears that Thailand now has a rational Long Term Resident visa that is about 10 years (2 @ 5 year chunks). I will probably apply for that next year. It includes tax exemption for foreign earned passive income.

I may, regardless of moving out of the Philippines, apply for residency here, in my St. Kitts passport, simply as a back up.