An inquisitive old fart with a camera
I have often commented on how long construction takes in Uruguay. Simple houses can take the better part of a year.
By contrast, using new technology, here’s the house Syd and Gundy are building as a rental.
This is in fact a bit misleading because, being Easter week, the workers have only put in a few hours of work the last three days.
Isopanel – interesting stuff.
I guess there’s nothing technically wrong with this parking, it bothers me viscerally.
And I can appreciate that ambulances and fire trucks sometimes put reverse lettering on the front of the vehicle, so you can read it in your rear-view mirror. But something about this application of reverse letters escapes me.
(Flete: transport)
When we go to the beach, this is what we do, over and over and over and —
Photos: Mihai Vasiliu
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.