Category: Commerce

Products, services, marketing, names

Amazing!

This remote control is for a split (heat/AC) unit that we’ve had for 13 years or so. It had gotten to the point that the on/off button no longer functioned. I took it apart, found no moving parts and nothing dirty, so figured it was a lost cause.

Until the feria this week. There, next to the cheese sellers I go to almost every week, was a guy advertising remote control repair. I couldn’t believe it. I have never seen him before. I went home and fetched the remote control. He spent maybe ten minutes with it, disassembling, scraping, cleaning, and voilá! Ten bucks seems like a lot, and I could have gotten a universal remote control for a lot less.

But do I really want to deal with this when I only use five buttons? I think not. My solution is far more elegant.

A big-ish chunk of firewood

It was a bit of a trick getting it in there – the bed of coals was hot!

I never noticed the rust on the stove until I looked at this photo. But I’m pretty sure this is the stove’s 10th year of service, so it has certainly fared better than our first, that rusted out inside in three years (Ñuke was the brand, if you insist).

Advertising, UY style

I picked up one of those little advertising booklets. Flipping through it, a couple of things struck me. A guy advertising his transport service with a picture of a 60 year old truck.

And who could possibly think this imagery is going to inspire confidence in a locksmith?

Ah, Uruguay, es lo que hay.

Indigone

A bustling place―if not outstanding―with a deck overlooking the beach. Prime location. Buildings on the beach side of the Rambla are very rare. And then one day this summer the thriving business became an empty shell.

No idea what happened.

The outdoor haircut

While yet another large vendor has bailed from our local feria, the one in nearby Salinas is thriving. This morning I saw an outside barber shop. I have never seen such a thing before. A haircut was advertised at $150 (~USD 3.80). I normally pay 240 (~6.00) and have to make an appointment, so I thought why not – the difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is two weeks anyway.

My goodness! This was perhaps the most meticulous haircut I’ve ever had, including eyebrows, nose, ears and endless clip-clip-clip. You’d think they would want to crank through customers at that price, but it must have been 20 minutes. (Hot minutes despite the breeze, I might add.) Using two different electric trimmers alone seemed to take more time than my entire haircut normally does.

Amazing.

Lidenor no more.

Apparently one thing you don want to be when a forest fire comes through is a huge commercial sawmill. I’m told 55-gallon drums of wood preservative were exploding like bombs.

This is the remains of what I thought I had documented: an automated machine for chopping and splitting past-expiry wooden telephone poles into firewood.

Unfortunately, no effort was made to remove the metal mesh embedded in the ends of the poles – eucalyptus being prone to serious splitting. I took most of those pieces back to exchange for “real” firewood. I didn’t plan to ever buy firewood from them again for that reason.

In semi-related news, today is the third Thursday in a row for which rain has been forecast – and failed to materialize. It is brutally dry out there.

She

Since our neighbors opened their minimercado a year ago. their outside summer-shade sitting area has increasingly become a repository of store-related items, including this display case, which fortunately I see only when I get close to the wall.

That face. I absolutely do not like that face. The pinched smirky mouth. The eyebrows that seem raised, as if she sees something surprising in you. But not pleasant, because she’s not smiling. And those bulging eyes. Remind me of, yeah,

alleged school shooters.

And now I want to know if she’s a real person. Does she have a firearm? Is she on prescription drugs?