Greetings from Bangkok

Yesterday I got the report from my Bumrungrad Hospital Comprehensive Physical Checkup, which now costs $500! The results are mostly unremarkable: a few more gall stones, slightly enlarged renal cyst, PSA still creeping up, but everything else pretty much the same as a year ago. Not ready to enter the Olympics, but unlikely to meet the Rim Greeper any time soon either.

In addition to getting my semi-annual physical, I came to Bangkok for some R&R before heading back to Las Vegas. Special rates at the four star Amari Boulevard Hotel located not far from the Bumrungrad in the Nana district is a great place to enjoy a bit of affordable pampering.

Sixty-five years ago when I was twelve years old my 32 year old father slipped off a steam locomotive while doing his job and fell beneath the wheels to his death. The huge engine wheels cut him in half. He died before the ambulance could reach the accident site. Yesterday, while fighting the mobs of people getting off and on one of the commuter trains here in Bangkok I managed to ignore the frequently chanted: "Mind the gap between the train and platform." and punched my right leg down into the ten inch space up to the crotch - my left leg buckling and absorbing some of the shock of the fall. Other passengers and a platform guard rushed to my aid and helped me up, but not before I'd managed to sprain my left knee joint... not a serious injury, but enough to cause pain while walking for a couple days. Today everything seems to be back to normal... on the physical level at least, but the incident brought back those old memories of my father's tragic fatal railroad accident.