Author: doug
Sunset on the beach
From two nights ago:
Creepy FaceSpook
I am no fan of Facebook, but have been on there a while. In 2013, with the release of my wife’s first memoir, of her rather incredible experiences in Cyprus and Europe, we engaged “social media experts” who lectured us about “branding,” and, for the first time since 1999, I used my real name online. On Facebook.
That lasted about a year. I came to my senses, and my Facebook name has since been constantly changing, and ridiculously so. Moredecai Grammerhell Thorpewallow Strathpeffer? Sounds good to me!
So Sure, Facebook remembers my real name, but even so, what just happened is creepy. Too creepy.
People You May Know yesterday: two I do know. Two I didn’t know were on Facebook. Two who have no mutual friends on Facebook. And two with whom I have virtually no electronic contact.
Also two I rarely see in person, but have, both, in the last two weeks. One, Chuck: I needed to contact him a month ago (didn’t even know he was in Uruguay), but had neither email address or phone number. The other, Burkhard, from Namibia. I do have his phone number and email, but aside from lunch together a month ago, my physical visit to his house a week ago, have had no electronic contact.
No phone number, no emails, and certainly no Facebook Messenger or mutual friends
And yet: people you might know, according to FaceSpook.
OK, let me read your mind: Blah blah blah.
I understand. But this:
Chuck’s last Facebook post was in 2014.
Burkhard’s was in 2012.
Not friends on Facebook, no mutual contacts on Facebook, neither posting in the last three years, and no contact other than physical visits, and two utterly inactive Facebook accounts suddenly flagged as “People you might know” – ?
I’m outta here.
The little one, two months later
And he’s apparently learning from his older brother:
Road trip, Austrian style
You may recall my fascination with the unwieldy vehicles that arrive here, most often from Germany. I’m equally (actually, more) amused when I see a perfectly ordinary car that managed to brave the same territory.
Here’s one that has been traveling in South America for five years, driven by an Austrian who sold his restaurant and took to the road.
He said that if he had a dollar for every time his rig had been photographed, he would never have to work another day in his life. I believe it!
He leaves for Austria in a couple weeks. His final preparation will be to take off the front bumper, which extends forward maybe 30 cm, and strap it to the roof. Turns out the shipping company charges for a set length (I’m guessing 5 m), and with bumper in place this vehicle exceeds that.
Just pay a little extra? No, €1,300 without bumper, but €2,600 with — that’s good pay for an hour of simple mechanical work!
Etherchew
While the puppy has become better at not leaving nasty-cleanup morning surprises, we did find this morning, destroyed by puppy teeth, the end of the ethernet cable that connected to the computer that we use for watching movies. My fault: I left it dangling when I moved that computer to the dining room table while my Mac Mini is the hospital, having succumbed to a panic attack.
Yes, that’s a real thing: kernel panic, where the machine decides something’s not right and shuts down. Over and over and over.
No problem. I have a crimping tool; all I had to do was pick up an Ethernet plug at the local electric store. Since it was easier to see the tiny colored wires outside in the sun, I moved the operation to the picnic table, prepared the wires, and went two meters inside the house to double check on the order of the wires, difficult to see with certainty at the other end of the cable. If the eight little wires don’t match at both ends of the cable, ain’t gonna work.
A handy diagram on the computer reassured me that it was orange-stripe, orange, green stripe, blue, et cetera. I jotted them down, and returned outside…
…to find that in my absence of a few moments the puppy had severed the other end of the cable.
Rode my bike to the store (actually two; apparently I had bought the last Ethernet plug this morning at the first), and bought three plugs. One because I needed it, and two por las dudas — just in case.
It’s all good, but I think I’ll be hiding cables at night for a while.
Fake Croc Mods
This is a pair of fake Crocs my wife bought at Géant for a few bucks. They turned out to be just a half size too small for comfort.
And she prefers open-toed shoes for summer.
All it took was a few minutes with a razor blade and voilà!
Do they sell razor blades in Uruguay? I have no idea. I almost didn’t bring these from the United States. I’ll explain.
When we flew to New York in 2012 for my niece’s wedding in Connecticut, we had offered to bring an absurd amount of stuff back to Uruguay for people.* My last-minute packing operation occupied a significant part of my sister’s living room floor. I kept reassigning goods to different suitcases. It took a while, but finally everything fit.
But just before we headed out the door for the airport, I suddenly realized I needed one more item reassignment…
…because going through airport security with two box cutters and 100 razor blades in my carry-on bag didn’t seem like something that was going to end well.
*no more!
Lines in the sand
The few hundred acres of scrub bushes and pine trees we where we walk dogs has little in the way of stunning beauty, and sometimes glaring examples of human ugliness, but it does not have thousands of people like the beach.
And it almost always has fascinating little discoveries, like these lines in the sand.
They must have been caused by wind and the grass, but how exactly they managed to make those outward curves was not at all clear.
Dogs were playing
And I tried to take a picture.
One of the few times I miss using a real camera, instead of my phone, to take pictures.
Always fashionable
A couple years ago, I posted about this face cut-out sign near the tourist office in Atlántida. The artwork has changed (or maybe it was different on the other side the whole time), but nearby a newer version has appeared.
With a message: the condom is always fashionable, and advice to condom yourself this summer! (a play on words, I expect).
Yes, that is what you think you’re seeing.
I’m having some difficulty imagining to whom this might appeal, or how. Or who thought this was the best use of $3,000, much less 3,000+ condoms. Maybe I should hang out some sunny day and ask questions.