The Podcast is Now ITunes official.

Today is an exciting day. Not only is it the day before the day before the day that I arrive in Thailand, but it is the day before the day that I leave for Thailand. It is also the day before the day after the day that I finish getting the heck out of this apartment (sad day).
You know, despite the get rid of my home brew party last night, and the fact that I have been cleaning and packing this apartment for days now (not dilligently, admittedly), the fact that I am leaving the first place that was my own slice of heaven (it really is a good apartment), until i did this this morning:

At least the people at the Greenwood Food Bank will appreciate it (or the stuff that they don't have to throw away).

But I digress. This whole post was about the podcast, right? Well, allow me to present you with a link.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/akloves-podcast/id498732304

By clicking on "show in itunes," it will bring the podcast up in itunes, where you can subscribe to it (under the picture on the left), at which time it will show up in your itunes podcast list and update automatically. Cool, huh?

So thank you all for your support in this trip. Thank you to my employers who were very understanding and helpful when the date kept getting pushed back (really, it was for months), to my friends who have offered and helped move this place, to the guys who came last night and helped "destroy" all of my old personal documents (wasn't that a nice fire), and to my parents and Aunt Betty for your financial support. There are many more people to thank for sure, but I have to get back to packing!

Most of all, your prayers are always appreciated and heard (although I don't get them "Rocky Style"- even Pavarotti couldn't holler across the pacific).

Thank you much, and I am pretty sure that the next post will say Bangkok, Thailand on the location bar.

P.S. for those with my email, you are free to use it. For those with my Facebook, feel free to message me there. If you have neither, by all means comment on here with questions. I would love to have some feedback about the blog, podcast, and any assaults on my personality.

Welcome to the Blog!

Welcome to the AL Thai Trip blog! As many of you know (and the rest of you will now know), I will be heading to Thailand to teach English for nine months. In that time, I will experience a lot of cool things, and would like to share them with you all (or maybe just most of you; a couple of people may have slipped through the cracks).

While I don't mind typing, sometimes it is nice to have some kind of audio track available. I have created a podcast feed (still working out the kinks), and will be embedding the player in the blog (see, that's it below. Pretty snappy, eh?). This way I don't have to type all the time, and can post some other audio files (like music!).

Give it a try, see if you like it, and keep in mind that I will be on the lookout for some kind of intro song.


I hope you like it, that this is informative, and that you click on some of the ads around the border.

Thanks for checking this out, and post anything that you would like to see in the comments section!

The First of a few...

The wait (that never existed) is over!!! I'm pretty confident that I am going to Thailand to teach English for at least 9 months. I will talk more about that later. Right now, however, I will discuss how the heck I will communicate with you guys.

The phone will be kind of expensive, and I will probably have to get a special Thai one anyway. I was thinking of something like a burner (you know, like drug dealers use...)

Skype is a fantastic program that allows you to talk with people all over the world. It requires good bandwidth, however, which my school doesn't have (Dialup....)

Messages in a bottle are notorious for getting to the wrong parties, and more often than not, get eaten by sea monsters.

Facebook is dependable, and I will probably be on it a lot, but I have kind of stopped befriending people for a while. No offense, I just don't do it often.

Email works and will be check daily. If you have my address, use it. If not, then you may be S.O.L. for now, as I will not be posting that on here.

I thought about using the "Rocky Method", but I don't know of anybody who can holler across the Pacific Ocean.

Prayers are appreciated, of course.

My last idea was a couple of cups with some string between them. The only problem is that $128,304,000 for  string seems a bit excessive. Besides, you can only have one line available.


 So most of you will be relegated to just receiving whatever scraps of information that I choose to throw your way. I am bad about being lazy when it comes to typing something on a regular basis, and have often found myself saying "If only I could just talk, and then I won't have to type." That dream has become a reality ladies and one gentleman.

   I will just talk. Not much typing, just talking. I am working on using the RSS feed to publish a podcast (if it works, I will post instructions), but until then, I will link to the download for my talkies. Below are the initial tests for this system. One uses my fancy Samsung Q1U USB mic, which has recorded some snappy tunes (available now on my Hair-Brained music blog), and sounds really nice. only downside of the mic is that is was kind of expensive, so I don't want to take it all over the place, and it's bigger than the alternative... which is the built in mic in my laptop. I think it sounds fine, but some speakers may not be loud enough.

As my adoring public, you must provide feedback as to which one works. Otherwise, i'll just mumble and speak softly into the computer mic just to piss you off.

Q1U test - the nice mic, plus some bonus talking! 

Conexant test- cheap o micro

Hope that this whole thing works out!