Just in case you were wondering if the ladders were really that bad, look at what was left on the chopping block after splitting seven steps from one into kindling.
As you can see, much of the inside of each step has been turned to dust.
It reminds me of buying new rustic furniture in Mexico. Within days, you’d find coin-sized perfectly round mounds of incredibly fine wood dust on the floor beneath it, and have to apply some horridly toxic liquid to every square inch of its surface to kill all the tiny critters.
Waiting for the car’s oil to be changed, I started looking through the freebie local business advertising mag. This not only occupies time, but challenges my Spanish vocabulary, and having some experience in graphic design, allows me to amuse myself by mentally redesigning ads.
But oh, an article about baking soda — always interesting.
Unless it’s basically illegible because of garbaged-up type. And not because of low resolution or image compression—
Umm, no, bicarbonado de “sodio”
— it really is that bad. So, OK, not I’m not going to read that article.
Below it on the page, a “spot the differences” image. Not my favorite, but worth a minute or two.
But immediately I am stopped by a quandary: is the fact that the two images are cropped differently meant to be one of the differences, or does it simply represent more design incompetence?
For over a month now, I’ve been supervising repairs on a house whose American owners haven’t been here in six years. The caretaker died of cancer a couple years ago. Leaving a house unmaintained is bad anywhere, but with the humidity, really bad in Uruguay.
Today I brought home two ladders (one on the ground cut in two pieces to fit in the car). The vertical one is completely ruined by bugs — notice the bottom rung, broken from just a little weight.
The one on the ground is equally scary. All that wire desperately wound to hold the thing together. That could be ten years old. More likely 15 or 20. Or more: the house was built in the 1960s.
Astillas? Kindling. My next fun-with-dangerous-power-tools project!
Living in one country and getting money from another can be expensive. The last time I did an international bank wire transfer, the originating bank charged USD 25 and the recipient bank USD 35. Since anything over USD 10,000 becomes a hassle, I have usually wired something less than that.
I have from time to time looked into alternatives, but they have always ended up being even more expensive.
Until now. I don’t know when it changed, but with Western Union I just picked up USD 500 cash locally for a fee of USD 5. It took, as promised, four days to get from my bank in the US to Uruguay. Had I charged it to a credit card, the fee would be USD 15 and the transfer instant. The maximum transfer without signing up for their FX service is USD 5000.
And I could have sent it in Uruguayan pesos as well. Sweet!
Of course, I can’t quite make sense of their slogan, but who cares? It works. The service, not the slogan.
UPDATE: after 9-10 transfers, they suddenly cut me off for life, after informing me money was ready for pickup. No reason offered other than “know your customer,” no appeal. What a truly shitty company.
OK, you figured it out: it’s not a strange type of animal, but Kiya the dog, with her obsession for digging holes (in the middle of the path, in this case) certainly qualifies as a somewhat strange animal.
She’s quite accomplished, though. This is phase 1 of digging. In a moment she will bag up for phase 2, kicking the sand she’s just dug clear of the hole.
I spotted this gem parked on the highway one day, thought to take a picture but didn’t, and the next morning it appeared in front of our house.
Although it doesn’t show in the photo, the only identification on the front was “V8.” So I walked around back, where again I saw “V8,” and only then “Ford.” The owner was walking back to get parts out of the back, and told me it was a 1942.
Right hand drive
¡Impecable! as some people here are fond of saying. But wait — he was getting parts out of the back? Yes, a car battery, is seems. At least for this day, this was a car mechanic’s working vehicle, a 75-year old show car.
Amazing to watch tree workers in action. Yesterday (yes, Sunday) involved removing all the lower branches from pine trees at the house of friends.
Quite a show.
His brother removing an acacia that was leaning over the roof. Not a bit fell onto the roof in the process.
An old stump five meters high had a non-functioning light fixture on it. That was removed, stump cut down, and birds flew in to feast on the ants inside, mostly oblivious to me standing two meters away.
And another surprise: look at how the rings grew on that angled limb in the first two pictures!
I find it quite amazing that none of these trees has come down in severe windstorms during the six years the owners have been gone, but it seems much less likely now. And, a lot fewer pine needles to clear off the roof.
I’ve posted several times about buying stuff from China with free international shipping (including a 99¢ money clip I used today). The latest is more of the same, with a couple of international twists: first, it came from India, not China.
Here, exactly:
Secondly, I thought of such a thing because a Romanian friend staying with us for a couple weeks in April, after watching me throw matches into the BBQ grill to get it lit (zzzzzht-toss-dammit! zzzzzht-toss-dammit!; zzzzzht-toss-FOOOMP!), wondered if there was somewhere in Uruguay to buy a sparking lighter (piezoelectric; no fuel) to take back to his father in Romania.
Recognizing that such a thing would be, if not as exciting, probably a better approach for me, I thought about trying to find such a thing in Montevideo. Half a day at least. Chance of success? Under 50%, I figured.
Twenty minutes later I had ordered one on eBay for USD 7.
From India. With free international shipping. 27 days to arrive, and it works great!
The people that make WordPress have a neat plugin that filters out spam comments. Today it seems to have failed, and so my inbox has been filling with this pointless crap, with apparently requisite misspellings.
Gratuitous image of SPAM sort-of meat product, but OMG this is a real thing — click on image and weep….
I must admit, however, that I like the one about YouTube.
It’s wonfredul to have you on our side, haha!
I was really struck by the jupstxotiaion of the beautiful prints and the inherent violence of them and what they are teaching. I find it interesting that beauty and violence can be conveyed in the same image.
Thanks for the different tips contributed on this web site. I have noticed that many insurance carriers offer customers generous discounts if they elect to insure more and more cars with them. A significant number of households currently have several cars these days, pacrrtulaily those with mature teenage kids still residing at home, along with the savings in policies can certainly soon increase. So it is good to look for a good deal.
Hihi! You’ve ordered from shopbop.com many times right? Can I ask if they are really the authentic products or really good knockoffs?? I’m coeapmnltting to get a mbmj wallet from there for awhile now. :/
I’m so glad that the innteret allows free info like this!
It’s a relief to find sonmeoe who can explain things so well
WOnderful giveaway!SOme of my ancestors from my dad’s side came from Portugal and one of them from Ireland (that explain my dad’s brother red hair), and form my mom’s side, we’re all Brazilian rfom the begining with a touch of gypsy in the far past.My mom’s family is very intuitive, so I guess that’s where I get mine from, although no witches before, me, ale32#8&s0;Kissas from Nydia.02Nydia recently posted..
Blog entries like this proves without a doubt that YouTube do&n;e#39st care what the users think about their decisions. I may be one who uses the new design, but i don’t necessarily like it. I just know that it’s going to happen so I’m preparing my anus for the big undodgable YouTube corporate dildo.
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