Early Years.

I was born and raised in what was at the time (1960) a small semi-rural community in the North West of England. Not the sort of country boy that can catch and skin rabbits, but I don't freak out if I find a cow in the living room, in fact a few weeks ago, someone carelessly left an elephant on my driveway, it was only a small one but still took a bit of shooing away.

I had two older sisters, they were nearly teenagers when I was born, and my parents were fast approaching middle-age, by the time I hit an age when music became interesting to me I was well versed in Glenn Miller, Patsy Kline, Perry Como, The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix, which serves as an explanation for my ever-growing mp3 collection.

Schooling.

Yes I did get one, not a bad one in fact. While at Grammar School, I had already decided what I wanted to do with my life, I was going to be a Geology Teacher, the subject fascinated me, sometimes to the point of obsession. But then came the years of the teacher strikes and becoming a teacher didn't look as attractive as it once had. Add to that, I had started to discover beer, girls and computers, so I changed direction and ended up with a piece of paper from U.M.I.ST. Saying that I'm not bad with computers.

Of course, this piece of paper being almost 30 years old is pretty much irrelevant now and I am more concerned with smaller, more colourful pieces of paper with numbers on that I receive for still being quite good with computers.

Apart from a brief spell in the world of professional photography, my life has revolved around computers since I left the education system, oh, and beer, and girls.

Thailand, how did I end up here?

I first came to Thailand at the turn of the century on a business trip, yes honestly, it was. But like most business trips the entertainment plays a very important part and I found myself returning three months later, just for the entertainment, and three months again after that.

After around a year and a half of doing that, I ended up visiting Udon Thani (dragged there by a female obviously) and I became exposed to how the rest of the country lives, and sort of liked it a lot, that relationship didn't last long however, as she turned out to be a black hearted bitch with ice in her veins (not that I hold a grudge)

A while later I hooked up with a girl from Buriram, she was much less tainted by the bright city lights. She spent more than a small amount of time with me in the UK and thoroughly enjoyed it. Both of us were more than happy to commute between the two countries for the time being, but then something changed (I'll spare you the details) and in December 2004 I packed all I could carry in to one suitcase, a small piece of hand luggage and a fake leather wallet and said bye bye to the UK.

Sam B Chang