For anyone who has dealt with driving in Uruguay, there is nothing here particularly unusual: a pedestrian wandering into a highway, curious interpretations of the meanings of those lines in the road, red lights that don’t apply to city buses.
Author: doug
Chemtrail plane identified
Strange combination of wispy clouds and fluffy ones today. But this west-east streak is clearly spraying.
I guessed 10-15 minutes old, when to planefinder.com and found the culprit:
It seemed a little off course, or pointing the wrong way.
But a half hour later, it’s out to sea and passage over us seems much more feasible.
And the wind’s from the north, which makes sense. The trail drifted south a little.
Five minutes later, it has turned northeast
en route to Dakar, Senegal, about exactly halfway to Frankfurt. Spraying the whole way, or just over populated areas?
2012/05/17: A chemtrail in Uruguay
2013/05/09: Chemtrail in Uruguay: rare, but unmistakable
2014/09/28: Not a good sign
Design notebook 20160919
Beach, street, hand, dog, roof
I was talking with an Uruguayan today about our arrival in Uruguay, how people always asked why we’d want to live here when we could live in the Untied Snakes (OK, they didn’t say it exactly like that). This picture I took yesterday reminds me of the answer (especially after almost three years in Mexico): tranquilidad.
Then this, a “garbage” photo that I don’t think I took but I like. Shades of Henri Cartier-Bresson, perhaps. Or maybe it’s the weirdness of the street reflector looking like a sixth finger? Whatever.
Cuzco, Perú, July 2016
And then, this, from a week and a half ago. Dog barking from a tile roof. Of course.
A little windy
As in 2012, we’ve had some pretty serious wind the last couple days.
Yesterday evening, between two trips to the garage to get firewood, a couple of clay roof tiles blew off, landing directly where I would have been walking. (I still haven’t replaced the couple from the front that blew off in 2012, given the height of the roof.) I felt a little lucky.
Especially when, from upstairs this morning, we saw that a neighbor has suffered slightly more roof removal.
When we first saw it, the white area top center was a hole completely through the roof.
Not much more visible from the road. I don’t know what the roof was, but obviously not very sturdily built. And equally obviously, not a good idea here to build that way.
Busy sky!
Atlántida, Uruguay
I try to limit posts to a photo or two, but there are times, like yesterday, where one or two photos don’t do justice.
There appears to be a congress above the neighbors’ house.
Not to difficult to see faces interacting.
A dragon?
A dinosaur?
All leading up to …
… a spectacular finale!
Close call
The best rule for driving in Uruguay is to try to watch every person and vehicle — pedestrians, bicyclists, motos, and other cars and trucks, constantly imagine the stupidest thing they could do — step into traffic, swerve in front of you without notice, run stop and yield signs — and plan for it.
In this case, I might have been distracted by the conversation and so didn’t see the approaching out the side window. Fortunately, the passenger’s field of view allowed her to see it before it cleared the A-column for my view, and warn me. Locals will recognize the voice 😉
When we bought this vehicle in 2010, the blind spot was one of the more pronounced criticisms I could find online.
The triangle caused by the A-pillar split should be helpful, but since my eye level is near the top, it provides no help. Still, I have most often had problems with the passenger side, so perhaps I had a lapse of attention.
Which — when driving in Uruguay — can prove expensive, dangerous, or worse, as perhaps you can imagine.
Maseratis in Uruguay
You can buy a Maserati in Uruguay in only one place, Punta del Este (natch). Two Ghiblis were on display when we went for the buffet lunch at the Conrad Hilton Sunday (USD 55, but 45 when you pay with foreign credit card and they deduct the “value added” tax of 22% or so — noice!).
So what would one of these beasts set you back in Uruguay?
Maserati Ghibli 350 3.0 V6 A/T – U$S 174.990
Maserati Ghibli S Q4 3.0 V6 A/T – U$S 197.490
Well, considering things like Ferraris and Lamborghinis, those prices didn’t sound too outlandish — until I looked up the prices in the United States (bold):
Maserati Ghibli 350 3.0 V6 A/T – U$S 174.990 starting from $70,600
Maserati Ghibli S Q4 3.0 V6 A/T – U$S 197.490 starting from $78,550
I can’t do an apples-to-apples comparison, not knowing the customization involved with the UY prices.
Being someone who, at age 17, owned a Volkswagen bus at a time when his friends were wet-dreaming Porsches, I can’t imagine any scenario in which I would throw $70-80K at a freaking car. (For the record, we had hella more fun in Bus than any of my friends “cool” pseudo-sports cars.)
But, 150% markup? Where’s the extra going? I’ll give you a clue: starts with a “g.”
Design notebook 20160904
Not playing dead
It’s been clear for a while that a comadreja (possum) had been getting into our compost barrel.
Its last visit was indeed its last.
Since lately I’ve only taken compost out after dark (without a light), I don’t know how long it had been there. But I expect I would have heard it moving when I emptied scraps on top of it. The last time this happened, I actually tipped over the barrel so it could escape.
I just recently bought a book, Compost Everything: The Good Guide to Extreme Composting, whose author would have left it there. I’m not there yet. I took it to the overgrown corner lot to let nature do its thing there.
Obviously it couldn’t climb out. But why did it die?