Book Corner - Finished Reading

The Phony Marine by Jim Lehrer (Of 'The News Hour with Jim Lehrer')
206 pages

A quick refreshing weekend read. I enjoyed it. It's about a man who buys a Silver Star medal and turns himself into a phony Marine. Nice surprise ending.

Why Uruguay?

You would be surprised at the number of Americans who come to Uruguay to retire, or visit and decide to stay and live here. But why?

Well when was the last time you heard about Uruguay in the news? Can you even find it on the map? I'd have to say that for one thing compared to the crime even in my own hometown, the crime here is not that bad. The economy is pretty stable and the prices aren't to bad as a whole.

Interesting article about retiring in Uruguay:
http://www.internationalliving.com/Countries/Uruguay/Retire

To The Ferria

Decided to go for a walk to the neighborhood Sunday afternoon market. First thing I noticed was all of the trash on the street, must have been windy the night before. It looks terrible, but it will most likely be cleaned up by tomorrow.

I wanted a bag of mani caliente, hot sugared peanuts. I remembered the price was around 18 pesos. I ask a vendor how much and he said 25 pesos, which I knew was the "gringo price". At the other end of the market I find another vendor with larger portions of peanuts for 18 pesos!

Not sunny, at least not now and it was a little cool and windy. Just checked the weather, 69 and 24mph winds expected!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Nice warm day here, weather forecast shows
an expected high of 87! Go and eat some turkey!

Genesis To Revelation - #7

Finished reading through the Bible, New International Version for what I
believe is the 7th time. I accomplished it by reading a little of the
old and new testament daily, towards the last few months I started
reading in the morning as well as the evening.

Give it a read sometime!

A Good Night Then A Bad Night

So I took the bus out to the church last night for an event that is
somewhat sponsored by church, I say somewhat sponsored as it is mostly
something that the associate pastor took upon himself, it's called el
living http://elliving.org/ . The best that I can explain is it that it
is a get together with music and food and talk about spiritual topics,
but not to heavy and not to churchy. It was a good night, it was
running late though and by the time things were wrapping up it was after
12:00am.

Now the neighborhood the church resides in is a nice neighborhood, but
it has it's problems, mostly house break ins and people getting robbed
at knife point.
I was a bit concerned about waiting at the bus stop by myself, but
apparently there was a girl who also was going, but as it turns out had
a ride. Another thing is that the buses don't run as frequent late at
night and sure enough I found out my regular bus had stopped service and
I would have to take another bus.

Not such a big deal except I don't know where the new bus will take me
or if I will be able to find another bus to get me closer to my home.

I went to the bus stop and after about a 10 minute wait or so the bus
arrived, it was a nice bus, like a tour bus, very comfortable seats.
The good thing I realized was that it was making few stops and heading
towards my neighborhood, this was good. Unfortunately I didn't get off
at the right stop, and out of pure frustration ride the bus to it's last
stop at the end of the city.

Now what to do? I wait at a bus stop for awhile and none of the buses
seem to be going to my neighborhood. To make a long story short, I just
got any bus, the driver dropped me off at another bus stop where a bus
took me exactly where I needed to go.

In the end a 1 hour bus trip ended up taking 2 hours!

Have a good time here!

So I'm watching this tourism commercial on TV, great food, music,
wonderful beaches, shopping, beautiful women. Where? Right here in my
backyard, LOL. Most of the commercial was filmed right here in
Montevideo and chances are I probably had scene them filming it at one
time or another as it's not unusual to see a film crew out and about.

Some Amazon Reviews On Class 11

I was reading some of the reviews, talk about harsh! There were folks
that did quit reading the book. Amuse yourselves here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0525949291/ref=pd_rate_nojs?ie=UTF8&2115R3KMAVP37Z6Y8DHelpfulReviews3.s=SUCCESS&voteError=0&2115R3KMAVP37Z6Y8DHelpfulReviews3.v=1

Finished Reading

Class 11: Inside the CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class (Hardcover)
Author: TJ Waters
320 pages

Well just as the book suggests, it's inside the class, not much more. I
had a hard time finishing reading this book, it was rather boring.
Judging by it's Amazon rating I wasn't the only one. Not worth reading : (

Oranges and Banana's

I have been on an Oranges kick lately, used to be Apples, but the prices
has jumped up. I can buy a kilo of nice almost seedless Oranges for 19
pesos a kilo, that's less than a dollar for almost two pounds : )

The price of Banana's have gone up as well, around 35 pesos a kilo.
They are really huge Ecuadorean Banana's and although the price is
killing me, I still buy them.

Picasa 3 Beta test

Google's handy picture organizer has come out with a new Beta version
http://picasa.google.com/ it now includes a movie maker. I have been
playing with it a little, trying to find the latest features. Another
new feature is that you can Geo tag the photos to Google Earth, in that
someone searching Google earth can find your photos. So far I like it,
I think when it comes to photo editing Picasa is easy to use and
integrates with Google's web albums, give it a try!

Howling winds again

What crazy weather! We have enjoyed the past couple weekends with
sunshine and warm weather and today, howling winds, gusts of 35mph and
break out the light jackets as the temperature is 59 degrees! Just like
the weather back in the States!

Christmas Creep In Montevideo

Just returned from Punta Carretas mall and finally found the theme of
this years Christmas, Navidad Azul, that's right "Blue Christmas".
Wasn't sure if it was the giant blue Christmas tree's that gave it away
or not : )

So this is weird, there were Christmas carolers at the center court of
the mall singing, "Don't worry, be happy", but they just kept singing
that chorus over and over. It's November 8th, it's 7:30PM (LT) and it's
daylight outside, it's 68 degrees and warm and I'm wearing shorts and
flip flops. Just doesn't feel right, LOL : )

Skype Beta 4.0.6

I installed the latest Skype Beta on my PC. Wow, what a total
difference, new interface new everything. It's much more of a resource
hog that it's predecessors.
Only tried it out a couple of times so yet to make an opinion.

Any day now

I expect to see the cruise ships start pulling into port, it's so nice
and warm here. There have been lots of tour buses about the city,
mostly from Brazil and Argentina, which I find amusing. They come from
the big countries to look at the little country, staring out the windows
thinking "Hey, they look just like us!"

It Happened Again

I went to the mall yesterday and wouldn't you know it they have their
Christmas decorations out, Christmas creep as I like to call it. Well
last year they put on a totally neutral and confusing display, they did
it again this year. This years theme? Polar bears and girls in fairy
costumes with wings. Last year it was some mystery magical woman whom I
wasn't sure what all she was supposed to be connecting with.

No Papa Noel (Santa Claus), no baby Jesus and nativity scene, just Polar
bears. They do have Christmas trees but even them are void of any
Christmasy theme.
Just plain weird!

A new era begins

I opened up my hometown newspaper, online that is, to see the election
results. I woke up around 1:00am (I am 3 hours ahead of EST) to see
what the results were and I think even at that hour back home it was
obvious.

All I can say is I hope our new President has wise advisor's and will
lead our country out of this economic mess.

Congrats Dr. Angela - New Baby!!!

Congrats to my sister Dr. Angela and her husband Dr. Chris, proud
parents of a new baby boy, Luca Brial. You know what, I think I need to
make sure if it's a boy or not. But hey, good news!

Asado Time

Just returned from an asado at the associate pastors house as part of
Serve The City Uruguay. What's and asado? Basically it's a cookout,
lots of meat, but mostly lots of talk and just enjoying the time
together with friends. What I thought was funny is how long it takes to
leave, as everybody greets everybody with a kiss on the cheek and it
seems the goodbyes go on forever, but thats just part of the culture
that makes Uruguay so fun : )

Wikipedia definition of an asado http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asado

Summer Has Definitely Arrived!

Extended Forecast   

Updated: 10:00 PM UYST on October 31, 2008
    Sunday
Clear. High: 77° F. / 25° C. Wind SE 6 mph. / 10 km/h.
    Sunday Night
Scattered Clouds. Low: 59° F. / 15° C. Wind ESE 8 mph. / 14 km/h.
    Monday
Scattered Clouds. High: 82° F. / 28° C. Wind light.
    Monday Night
Partly Cloudy. Low: 60° F. / 16° C. Wind light.
    Tuesday
Clear. High: 82° F. / 28° C. Wind NNW 11 mph. / 18 km/h.
    Tuesday Night
Scattered Clouds. Low: 64° F. / 18° C. Wind North 8 mph. / 14 km/h.
    Wednesday
Partly Cloudy. High: 84° F. / 29° C. Wind North 6 mph. / 10 km/h.
    Wednesday Night
Clear. Low: 60° F. / 16° C. Wind NE 4 mph. / 7 km/h.
    Thursday
Clear. High: 89° F. / 32° C. Wind light.
    Thursday Night
Clear. Low: 68° F. / 20° C. Wind light.
    Friday
Clear. High: 89° F. / 32° C. Wind NNE 13 mph. / 21 km/h.
    Friday Night
Clear. Low: 64° F. / 18° C. Wind NNE 13 mph. / 21 km/h.
Sports Weather

Halloween at work

I forgot to mention what it was like yesterday at work. There is a
contest for the best decorated office door/hallway, the winner gets a
pizza party. Well the same section that had one last year went for the
gold this year and all of the other sections just gave up! I have to
admit they had quite the elaborate spooky hallway going on, complete
with electric chair and a pumpkin attached to a rope that slid across
the atrium.

I know what your asking, electric chair? I had to see and try it for
myself. They had a typical wooden chair with aluminum foil on the seat
and cloth wrapped around the legs. They also had the lid for the head
complete with elastic band to go under your chin. When the "warden"
gave the sign the switch was thrown and the chair vibrated, enough to
make you jump! But I didn't, LOL. I think they may have had an
electric sander attached to one of the chair legs.

Sorry no photos : (

Summer Has Arrived

If any day deserves to be said of that, it would be today!  Nice warm sunny day in the mid 70's, just a beautiful day all around.  Started off a little brisk in the morning but quickly warmed up.

Spent the day doing some volunteer work for a group called Serve The City http://servethecity.org.uy/
which does things such as what we did today and that was working at a womans shelter.  We spent some time working in their backyard pulling weeds and lawn work and helping with organizing a large library of teaching posters that they distribute throughout Latin America.

All in all a nice day, got to see a different part of the city.  Not like where I live at all.  Not a bad place, just different.