Author: doug

Mail, now and then

Ah yes, like the IRS notice giving me 60 days to respond to an earlier notice I never received, which arrived 105 days after being mailed.

Up through January 2007, when we left the US, going away for a few days would result in a bin like this awaiting our return.

Since then, I’m pretty sure ALL mail we’ve received since would not fill one of these.

Flight patterns

Though we rarely heard planes before, despite being close to the airport, it wasn’t because they weren’t there. Now we rarely hear planes because planes are rare. Last couple mornings I’ve heard them, gotten curious, and seen some interesting patterns on flightradar24.

Here a flight that has already circled overflew the airport and circled some more off our coast.

I guess because of this flight in from Paraguay, which also had to circle, presumably for the plane already on the ground.

And then the plane circling offshore has to wait for an incoming flight from Madrid.

And finally gets back on final approach.

And so this morning:

More circling, this time to allow a flight from Panama, seriously behind schedule, land.

Wheee! Why do you do this? I hear you ask. Well, it’s more interesting than cutting the lawn in sweltering heat, for one thing….

Cartoon car

This silly little car has caught my attention several times. I don’t know what brand it is. I don’t know if it’s ICE or electric, and I don’t care because my mind is overwhelmed by one question: if I wanted to design a car that looks like a cartoon, could I outdo this?

Fires

On New Year’s Day 2009 a huge fire deforested much of the area in which we walk dogs.

Almost 12 years later, in October 2020, another fire raged through.

Fortunately, many of the trees survived this time.

Satellite view of burned woods, Villa Argentina, Uruguay, April 2021

14 months after the last fire, last week, another big fire.

And yesterday on the dog walk we see this:

Wind from east northeast. The others came from the southwest. No sign of any activity. Around an hour later, Syd heard a helicopter (we leave from his house to walk), and this morning it appears to be out.

Satellite view showing path of probable-arson wildfires near Atlántida, Canelones, Uruguay

Almost 12 years between fires, then 14 months, then just over a week. Following that progression, we could have expected the next fire in 3-½ hours. Glad it didn’t happen.

Cleaning our unoccupied casita is an annual event I do every five years or so, whether it needs it or not. Among stuff that’s been floating around in there since my son left seven years ago is a Mexican 1,000-peso note.

I was reminded of preparing to move to Mexico from Spokane, Washington, in a pickup truck. I had fun giving things away: on Craigslist advertised a pile of post cards from my grandmother, few of which actually said anything, sent to us kids from around the world in the 1960s. Some stamp enthusiast eagerly took them. I has a small box of coins as well. Some I gathered while working a job in West Germany that took me to 14 countries, despite my goal of leaving each with no coins, and many more, also from my grandmother, including some WWII era aluminum ones from Italy. I took those to the closest elementary school late one afternoon, introduced myself to the principal, explained how these might be interesting for geography, history, math and more, and asked if he had a 5th grade teacher who might be interested. He did indeed.

Which got me thinking. The date on this bank note is in March of 1982. What was it worth then?

Well. It turns out that the Mexican peso had been devalued 30% a month before this note was issued, and it only got worse from there.

It was a very not-good year for holders of Mexican local currency units.