An inquisitive old fart with a camera
No, I still don’t have my Goldmoney debit card. From Toronto, it went to London, Then Dubai.Then — drum roll, please — Miami. Now apparently in Buenos Aires.
Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. If it’s ever actually delivered, let’s hope it works. Goldmoney, if you’re listening — this is pathetic.
I recently ordered a gold debit card from Goldmoney. The idea is that you own gold, but can sell gold grams to fund a fiat currency card (USD, EUR, GBP, etc). I imagined a scenario such as standing in line at Tienda Inglesa when the price of gold is $4,000/ounce and going up $10 every half hour, tapping instructions into my cell phone to fund the card, then spending the fiat moments later.
Alas, it’s not that fast. Currently takes about a day to transfer the funds (why?).
Why? Well, also why should a card from Canada be en route to Uruguay through Dubai?
I looked at our front door the other day.
It looks quite horrible. Thought I should:
But then I thought, ya know, burglars are pretty good at scoping out houses. Even for a deaf potential burglar, this gives a good clue about what to expect inside. Not favorable for his undertaking.
Problem solved: do nothing. Hella less work for me, and that warm fuzzy feeling of having done an unsolicited act of kindness for a stranger I’ll never meet.
Though the 200-hectare area where I walk Benji with Syd and (he and Gundy’s) five dogs features trashed campsites, crude shelters, and random and totally gratuitous trash dumps, and is no doubt much less appealing than when it was forest, mostly burned in 2009,
it can still be rather stunning.
I took this photo two days ago. We had been avoiding this route for several days because the water level had gotten so low that it only invited the dogs to get filthy. But my neighbor — who has a swimming pool — estimated earlier that we had gotten 1.5″ of rain in the early morning storm. Naturally Syd and I were curious to see how that translated in the doggy swimming hole.
Just wonderfully, it turns out! Plenty of room to splash around, lie down, or sit for a few seconds, looking goofy, before chasing each other around or digging holes (an activity frowned upon at home).
Now I can only wonder how deep will this get when we have continued rain? Stay tuned.
Well, of course I had to try it. And—? Since I’m not a wine reviewer, I’ll defer to the experts:
Wicked and extra-ripe. Whispers of fruit punch, acidic monster melon and aggressive lemon rind. Drink now through April.
Actually pleasant enough to drink, despite visual whispers of
this 
or this. 
I shouldn’t have been surprised to see that Blue contains artificial coloring. But I was surprised to learn it comprises only 10%.
Aunque el 90% del color se obtiene de forma natural, se añadió un 10% de colorante, para conseguir un tono más turquesa, deseado por los responsables de la bodega. (source) — Although 90% of the color is obtained naturally, 10% of dye was added, to achieve a more turquoise tone, desired by those in charge of the cellar.
From the same article:
Young people and people who like to try new things are the target audience for the product, said the director of fine wines at H. Stagnari, Virginia Moreira. She added that the product was born for a personal reason: “In part, having four teenage children wanted to seek a change of habit to choose a natural wine instead of other stronger drinks.”
I hope they like it. I don’t expect I’ll be tempted to buy it again.
We bought an old barbecue grill from some Americans who left a couple years ago. When the stamped-metal burner rusted through and fell apart, I tried finding a replacement. Alas, nothing for that model was any longer available from Sears.
But obviously had been — and needed — before. None of this handwriting is mine.
A friend who is an accomplished metal worker offered to fabricate one, but it turned out the only way to get a suitable piece of tubing was to buy 6 meters of it. Instead, he found a place in Montevideo that made one for $2,500, about USD 89.
That seemed like a lot, and only now did I try again to find a replacement part online. The closest I can find on thebbqdepot.com is something I can’t be sure is the correct part, and I would have to find someone to bring it from the U.S., and — drumroll please — costs almost as much!
And would eventually need to be replaced again.
In contrast, this galvanized burner built in Montevideo will certainly outlast the rest of the grill! Better still, because of the way they made the feeder tubes, it was simple to install. The original part was quite fussy.
Now I am curious what it might cost to fabricate a cooking grid locally, with stainless steel….
This morning, in my maybe-sorta dare-you-to-grow garden, an ambitious squash plant aspires to — what? A penthouse apartment in the avocado trees?
Most noteworthy about this image is what it lacks: shadows. After weeks of blistering sun, the temperature dropped dramatically overnight (90s – 70s F, 30s – 20s C). Unlike the last few weeks of forecast nonexistent thunderstorms, this time they got it right. We’re delighted, though reminded that *sigh* winter in Uruguay comes not far behind.
Three months ago, some guy sputtered up to our rusting mailbox and delivered someone else’s phone bill. Sombunall companies (phone, electric, and water are gubmint) deliver bills privately instead of using the government postal servicee (some irony there?). I don’t know which, since we get ours electronically (sometimes excessively). But two months ago, when the same bill arrived again, I went to tell them that I did not want this to happen again.
Which of course it did.
I did make an effort to find out to whom this bill should have been delivered, but didn’t get too far into that before hatching an alternate plan.
So here’s how I have chosen to advise the misguided mail carrier that the only bit of info he had right was the Manzana, or block. (No, you haven’t forgotten your high school Spanish: manzana does mean apple. I just live here, OK?)
Then came the presentation.
Style-wise, I’m of the school that says you can’t go wrong with duct tape. But if you think placing the offending bill across the opening where lazy doofus would cram it into mailbox is clever, you’re only revealing your northern-ness. It will not surprise me at all to see the next bill inserted behind this one.
Stay tuned….
It’s not often I get up early, but I was awake this morning and thought, if I leave by 6:15, I can watch the sunrise on the beach. I looked at my clock (which involves picking it up and pushing the button to light it) and saw that it was exactly 6:15. Two minutes later we were out the door.