Burkhard’s Model T has now moved from shipping container storage to his garage workshop, on borrowed wheels (his are being rebuilt). Because of course, just borrow Model T wheels. No problem! They’re actually from Francisco, who told him about using rear axle housings to keep the front end level — notice them to the left of the photo.
He thought the jacket draped over the back shouldn’t be in the photo, but it struck me as perfectly symbolic: well, at least this thing has value as a coat rack!
Burkhard chuckled as he lifted body panels, demonstrating how flimsy the whole thing is.
I think at this point I would decide that maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. Burkhard is undeterred.
The bodywork in a Ford Model T is build over wood framing. This door is mostly good, but much of the other wood in this critter is rotted or destroyed by bugs. Researching a while ago, I read that Henry Ford owned over 100,000 acres of forest land to provide wood for Model Ts. I also read that — perhaps — they cut up pallets from parts deliveries to use in Model Ts. Perhaps. Just under 15 million of these cars were produced, between October 1908 and May 1927. Insane!
I left my kitchen scale out after making bread recently, unwashed, and some else decided to wash it – not just the detachable measuring cup, but the whole thing. Electronics and warm, soapy water don’t go together well. After a few days, it began to work again, but then simply died for good.
So my challenge was to take it apart without breaking any parts, because that’s what I do rather than simply chuck things. I’m curious about how things work, and how they’re put together. Also whether there might be any parts worth saving.
Despite its apparent simplicity. it was a little tricky –– some well-concealed screws beneath labels and the plastic readout cover. Nothing really useful to save.
I’ve made bagels and pizza dough a couple times since, but I really prefer doing recipes by weight, so have thought about getting another.
I bought this one with points at the Disco supermarket a few years ago, not thinking about the actual cost. Now I see they sell it at Tienda Inglesa for 40 bucks – yikes! They also show one for USD 12 at Tienda Inglesa so maybe, just maybe, I can get them to bring one to our local store. I suppose I could try ordering one online but *shudder* that has not gone entirely well for me in Uruguay (think mattress and oven).
Except for socializing at the weekly feria, I find little fun in trying to find and buy things here. But maybe that’s OK, especially when I reflect on the inordinate amount of stuff we accumulated before moving to Mexico — and that was less than three years after moving ourselves across the country, from North Carolina to Nelson, BC Spokane, Washington.
UPDATE: Yes, this does seem like a rather pointless blog entry, but it reminded me to look at Tienda Inglesa, and guess what?
I took Mocha to run today. He was neutered one week ago and has been constrained as a result. The weather was on-and-off, and Syd had gone with his dogs earlier, during a clear break. So it was just us, traversing this route for the first time in a few weeks. Happily, no motos, no quads, no horses, no woodcutters – OK, a few cows that Mocha ran to and barked at – but with little apparent result (with Benji they would have been making noise and moving, not a Good Thing.)
I’ve previously written about trash dumped there in the middle of nowhere, for no apparent reason, but it continues to beggar the imagination. Consider this location —
— where we now find a discarded Epson printer. And not just discarded: the blue-green stuff to its left are the bits of glass from the deliberately smashed display. So somebody carried this thing far into an empty area, only for the purpose of smashing its display screen and leaving it?
A bit further along, new discarded clothing, apparently children’s winter wear. So we’re in the middle of winter, and the best thing you can think to do with unneeded clothing that can keep a child warm, is not to donate it to the take-anything thrift shop, or even discard it in the ubiquitous trash containers for some scavenger to find, but carry it hundreds of meters into the middle of nowhere and throw it on the ground where it will serve no one?
I’m sure at some point I documented the sudden appearance of discarded auto parts. These have in fact diminished – there were, if I recall, three windshields. The other two, unbroken, have apparently been harvested. And maybe other parts as well. I have photos here, elsewhere, somewhere.
At another location, where overnight appeared a huge pile of construction plastic sheeting some time ago, now widely scattered by the wind, a new visual accent: a smashed and probably UV-sun-rotted plastic dish rack. (But why so shattered?)
I discussed this over dinner with my wife. Perhaps we’re not witnessing a cultural manifestation (these people!), or necessarily a low level of awareness (these troglodytes!).
Maybe something different: an expression of frustration, anger. Not that you would experience that meeting them. But they are expressing frustration and anger about their environment – not discerning physical from emotional. Trashing their physical environment somehow serves an emotional need, not so much different from people who cut themselves.
Down the rabbit hole…
These is the image Paul refers to in his comment below.
Bank wire transfers end up costing $60-80 for a realistic maximum of $9,000. Sure, I could have wired $20,000+ but that would have involved jumping through bank hoops. You’re not allowed to just have money somewhere else. You’re supposed to be able to document where it came from. Our local bank branch is considered by many people to be one of the worst for this type of inquisition.
So I was delighted to find I could send $3000 for only $6. This was through a thuggish untrustworthy mob-like operation (TUMO). I didn’t identify it as that at first. You’re familiar with TUMO. If you’re thinking it-which-must-not-be-named has something to do with a W and a U and started in the 1850s, you’re on the right track. TUMO gets seriously bad Yelp reviews. One reviewer who mentioned (not criticized) TUMO in a blog post got threats for “trademark infringement.”
Of course I had to provide ID to set up the account, as you would expect. Above $3,000, TUMO’s fee increases to $15, so I started sending $3,000 at a time.
Two or three months and over ten transactions later, I went to Abitab. TUMO had told me my money was waiting for me. Then some kind of glitch. The teller asked if I could come back in 15 minutes; no problem. When I returned, she said something I didn’t quite get, but it was clear I wasn’t getting any money.
Back home, an email from TUMO. They had cancelled the transaction (while I was there to pick it up!) and would refund my money within a week. (It actually happened quite quickly).
I phoned, but turns out the Impersonal Customer Scrutiny Department only communicates via email. Here’s the response I got:
Dear ________,
The reasons why a consumer is not authorized to use the services of Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation can’t be disclosed since it is a private policy. [their emphasis]
As a financial institution, it is the policy of Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation (“TUMO”) to conduct appropriate due diligence on consumers who utilize our services.
We are currently working to solve your issue.
Upon completion of the review, we will inform you of our conclusion.
Yes, you are reading that correctly. TUMO does “due diligence” on a customer only after two months and a dozen transfers. I provided them copies of Uruguayan and US passports, and explained exactly what I was doing and why. Two months later, this:
As a financial institution, Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation is required to comply with industry legal and regulatory standards in the countries we do business. Part of complying with these standards involves performing due diligence to determine how customers are using our services to ensure that Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation is meeting its obligations under applicable law.
We have reviewed your reinstatement request and have decided to uphold our previous decision [their emphasis] on this matter. This means Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation will not accept any money transfers from you as sender and will not pay out any money transfers to you as receiver.
Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation’s Money Transfer Service Terms and Conditions provide that Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation and its Agents have the right to refuse service to any person. Accordingly, Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation has made the business decision to refuse and refund any transactions you may attempt to send or receive in the future.
On behalf of Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation, we apologize for the inconvenience this process has caused you.
So there you have it. I can almost imagine an employee wiping a tear from his/her eye while typing that heartfelt last line
If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you know that occasionally it changes appearance. That’s because I change WordPress “themes,” the templates that determine how everything displays. Many themes don’t allow full-size photos. In my last change, I found one that did. So I was thrilled…
…OK, stop right there. Today I notice that this theme has decided to replace my changing Uruguay header pictures with a black and white photo of mountains with snow, of which Uruguay has neither. How the hell did that happen? Actually, I kind of like the irony. I think I’ll leave it for a while.*
But this theme had something I didn’t like: when I wanted to make something italic, the theme displayed it as bold italic.
So for weeks my daily to-do list has had a reminder to fix it.
But how? I went to the theme developer’s site to find a helpful forum, only to find that the theme hasn’t been updated in two years. Bad news. Kind of on my own.
I downloaded the theme’s stylesheet. Nothing amiss there: the <em> and <i> tags were probably mapped to italic. So what next? I looked at the source code of a blog entry, downloaded the header.php file, and there it was!
OK, not exactly in-your-face obvious. But in line 36, the theme is calling for Google web fonts, and font Open Sans italic is only specified as 700 weight, which as you know — because doesn’t everyone work with Google web fonts every day? — is bold. So I got the correct “call” code from Google fonts, created a “child” theme in WordPress, and inserted the “correct” code in the header.php file there, which overrules the original (without the risk of your changes being wiped out with a theme update, even though that seems unlikely after two years).
And it works!
I still have no idea how header.php was invoked by my blog posts, but perhaps that’s because…well, I did look into PHP programming at one point and essentially decided life is too short.
I’ll leave it at that.
* No doubt it has to do with my messing around with code I don’t understand.
I am walking with someone ahead of me on a path through an open area towards woods. Suddenly Benji and a black dog are charging full speed to the left through the field, towards a small yard where several children are playing. The children jump up on a small table for safety. But only the black dog is there. Behind them to the right is a fence, with Benji on the far side of it. (The side the dogs approached is open, but hey, this is a dream.)
I yell to Benji, and he runs back towards the right. Just at the point he has cleared the fence, and I think he is about to turn toward me, a large white horse appears, running beside him, between us. The horse abruptly drops to the ground on its left side. I think it must have landed on Benji, but then see him, also on his side or back on the ground. I don’t know what they do next, sniffing or rolling around, but they are completely preoccupied with one another.
I took the dogs to the country for horse-desensitizing on Monday, three days ago. I got talking with our neighbor Mariana. Mariana is a veterinarian, and boards dogs there. I told her how Benji had attacked Mocha suddenly that morning, a few feet from my desk chair. I worried what might have happened had I not been right there at the time. I did not see what led up to it, but they had been doing their usual rough play before. I have heard a couple of little shrieks from Mocha recently. This time it was sustained terror shrieking. Benji showed no sign of letting up.
July 16: Benfi (32 kg) and Mocha (22 kg)
Tuesday morning we took all three – including our Shih Tzu Bandido – to the country. They had a great time running around (Bandido is a hoot to see running full-bore in foot-high grass). Mariana saw my wife, so walked over to chat; it’s been a while. Bandido early on escaped his harness, and when Mariana came to the gate he found a way to get out through the side where there’s no dog fencing. No big deal. Mariana handed him back, we put him on the grass. All the dogs had been running like crazy and now settled down near us. I went to the car to get Bandido’s halter. I asked Mariana to adjust it tighter, than crouched down to put it on Bandido.
And Benji attacked Bandido viciously. Benji missed the neck, but was starting to shake Bandido like a rabbit. (Bandido has a puncture on his leg, one stitch; he’ll be OK.) Benji had a harness, so I could grab him easily. I’m 6’3″, 195 pounds, and pretty strong for 64 years. I could immediately restrain a strong 70 pound dog. My wife or Mariana – five months pregnant and outside the gate – would have been helpless. Had I been even ten feet away I doubt Bandido would have survived.
Since this happened right in front of her, Mariana saw that there was no provocation and no warning. She asked me if this was typical. I said yes, there’s never any warning. When he meets other dogs he sniffs like a regular dog for a few seconds but then attacks without warning: no growl, no hackles. It’s been getting worse over time; I no longer dared let him off leash around other dogs.
I said that in the US, by now we would probably have had him put down, but vets here won’t put down a healthy dog.
She – Uruguayan vet – said she would do it. She said this is a dangerous dog. We arranged for that afternoon.
I had to wait a few minutes for Mariana, and a neighbor I haven’t met stopped by on his motorcycle. Country Uruguayans speak very garbled Spanish. He was saying something about a dog. I explained what we were doing. He kept saying what a beautiful dog, and wondering if someone he knew might take it. Mariana arrived, talked with him, and said absolutely no. Dangerous dog. A shame, but a dangerous dog.
It’s done. He went peacefully and quickly with my hands on him. Mocha was there.
The quiet yesterday in the house felt sad. Today it feels more like peace. A background anxiety has been building in me for months because of Benji. It is now beginning to fade.
Benji was getting better on walks, much calmer. I wish I’d known about theonlinedogtrainer.com when we got him at 7-8 months. But at that age I walked with him off leash, and he played with other dogs he met on the beach. He was under four years old.
I checked in with Burkhard yesterday, to see the status of the Model T project. He told me that they day before, he had felt like a kid at Christmas after a box full of parts arrived from the United States.
Here they are: bushings, suspension and steering bits. And the aftermarket springs.
And what of the beast itself? Look at this picture and see if you notice something strange, as I did:
His friend friend Francisco, who turns out to be the owner of the working Model A pickup, tipped him off that the rear axle housings are perfect for supporting the front end. Logs supported the rear end.
There’s a little more unanticipated, slightly tricky welding required.
The wood framing for the body panels needs to be replaced. Most of it is pretty straightforward, but there are a couple pf pieces – not pictured – which involve compound curves.
The parts department: spares for both cars.
You may well recognize the cylinder head and starter. That weird thing on the left is the flywheel and gear box, consisting of two gears and reverse. Pressing the pedals tightened bands around them. The braking for the vehicle also happened here, which suggests that there’s no such thing as a Model T screeching to a halt!
Then Burkhard showed me this gem: a unique tire-changing tool. The rims, which attach to the wooden wheel with five bolts, are not one continuous piece. When tightened with this tool, they effectively make the diameter smaller, allowing for a tire change on the side of the road. If you’ve ever watched your car’s tires being mounted, you’ll appreciate the ingenuity of this.
No need to go further. The rim’s not refinished, and it would still require a tube, but pretty darned cool!
I made an interesting discovery today. Dispatched to the “hyper” market to pick up crackers, among other things, I saw that my wife wrote “two types.” This caused me to look more thoroughly than usual on the “cracker aisle” (as did the fact that an employee stocking shelves, and two women chatting, blocked further progress).
Low and behold, on the bottom shelf I find flour tortillas, and not the type we’ve been buying, locally produced with the Mexican-licensed “Bimbo” (gotta love it) brand:
From the Tienda Inglesa web site. Note that accessories are not included 😉
So here we have “Azteca Wraps” – kind of fun, because I’ve never seen sandwiches called “wraps” in Uruguay (but they may exist somewhere).
But a glance at the back reveals they’re not just intended for Uruguayans. And they’re not from Mexico, despite the Aztec implication. They’re made in Spain, and the back of the package presents info in twelve languages.
So let’s compare. The product produced an hour away weighs 360 grams. The product produced in Spain, shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, weighs 420 grams, or 17% more. Which do you think is more expensive?
Well, if you’re familiar with how things roll in the socialist paradise of Uruguay, you’ll recognize this as a trick question. Of course the local product, smaller, will be more expensive! In fact 63% more expensive!
And, comparing price per gram, almost exactly 100% more expensive as the imported product.
Better? Hard to imagine. The local Bimbo tortillas are not special in any way.
For a couple years I’ve walked with Syd and his dogs in a large piece of undeveloped land near his house in Villa Argentina. I’ve blogged many times about our finds there. (Tag: dog walk.)
We’ve stopped now. Benji’s aggression toward other dogs has been getting progressively worse. After a hiatus because of Mocha’s broken leg, we resumed walking together, and Benji attacked Jordan, Syd’s only male dog, three days in a row, despite our changing walking and meeting/sniffing protocol (latter for the dogs only, just to be clear here).
Benji (“what me, hurt a flea?”) and Mocha
At this point I don’t dare let Benji off-leash around any dog but Mocha. So I’ve been taking them to our Uruguay “mini-farm” every couple days, where I can walk the property and they can run around like beheaded chickens. It’s about 1.2 km — 3/4 mile for me, only half the Villa Argentina walk, but the dogs make up for it by chasing imaginary rabbits.
I did at one point watch several of the neighbor’s dogs chase a hare there, so they exist. It seemed a goner but somehow escaped. No idea how, but I did watch a couple of amazing rabbit chases in Villa Argentina.
About Villa Argentina: though usually we have had the place to ourselves, you can imagine that those sandy trails appeal to horseback riders, motorcyclists, and four-wheeler enthusiasts, all of whom Benji likes to chase. And in fact, during one of our recent visits to the campo, neighbor’s horses were grazing near the house adjacent to the dog-fenced area (thanks to Burkhard the Model A-and-now-T guy). Benji went batshit crazy. I tried to restrain him with force and yelling, to absolutely no avail.
So today we arrive, ready to walk out of the dog-fenced area, and I see five horses between us and the stream that runs through the middle of the property — the stream we need to cross to go to the back of the property. From the start, I’ve allowed the neighbor access for his cows (I can pretend I’m rich when I arrive and see “my” cattle). But today it’s a gift: a dog training opportunity! I tie Benji to the fence, go back to the car, get the key to the barn, retrieve a 20-foot piece of rope, attach it to the leash, and head toward the horses. Mocha runs over and says hello to the horses; he’s no problem. But Benji….
As we head in, the horses start to head toward us, because I’m being deliberately as calm as possible — don’t think I’ve had horses walk towards me before! I ask them not to come too close: don’t want to push it. Benji is calm, occasionally looking to me for guidance. When the closest is about 5 meters away, I turn my back to it (signaling “no threat/no interest” to Benji), and crouch down to investigate a fallen leaf that is suddenly fascinating. We continue toward the stream, horses following. Across the stream, before the horses have crossed, I drop the lead and let Benji run ahead, dragging it behind him. Halfway to the back fence, I take it off. Later, halfway back to the stream, I put it back on, because the horses have now followed us into the “back 40.” Mocha runs over to them, and Benji makes a couple of tentative tugs on the loose 20-foot lead. Does a shake, meaning he’s relaxed. We get past the horses, 100 meters past the stream, and I let Benji off the lead.
Back in the dog-fenced area, a horse is tethered outside on the road (roughly near the arrowhead above). I put Benji back on the lead, and we walk toward it. Mocha runs over to it a couple times; Benji is content, even lies down in the grass with the horse not far away.
Which brings me to the other gift, why the horses are a gift: theonlinedogtrainer.com (if you’re just remembering it, note “the” at the beginning; without is a bogus site). I don’t remember what led me to it; Universe tends to work that way, but if you are a dog lover, with any concerns – aggression, behavior, separation anxiety – Doggy Dan is simply amazing. One dollar for three day’s access, during which you can easily learn the basics. I’ve upped for a month, and will probably do more: this stuff is simply amazing!
I can’t say for sure I’ve reversed Benji’s behavior toward horses in a half hour. But I know why he acted the way he did, in response to the change in our relationship in one week. I’m now encouraged to expand the training to cows (yeah, those were a problem in Villa Argentina as well), chickens. And strange dogs as well. Since the neighbor’s daughter is a vet and boards dogs, they have stranger-dogs, plus cattle and fowl, all easy to arrange.
