Found the jetty on Google maps

Yes the water is brown :  (

A nice place or two

I found some really neat places today. One I've known about the other I
stumbled upon. The one I stumbled upon was a concrete jeddy that
extended out to some big boulders. I walked out to the end, it was
windy and the waves were crashing all about. Very peaceful, nice views
of the sailboats and ships.
I'll try to pull up a Google maps photo.

The other place is near my home at the engineering school parking lot.
There is a very short wall, well more of a bench. Nice view of the
beach and sunset. I sat down just in time to watch a big cruise ship
pull out of port, probably on it's way to Buenos Aires.

I also went to the Saturday ferria (Open market). There was some people
dressed in native Indian outfits doing traditional native Indian
dances. They were also selling CD's of the music which is probably how
they make their livelihood. My best guess if that they were Peruvian.

The song of Montevideo

What song whispers through the air of Montevideo more than any other?
Home and car alarms! Where I live it's apartment alarms, wailing away,
any hour of the day or night. People just learn to live with it.

Windy nights

The nights have been very cool and very windy. Right now the wind is
howling at 20+mph, it was like that last night. It is nice though, very
nice breeze blowing through the apartment. Skies were all gray today
with low clouds. Rain is foretasted for the next three days.

Now you see it... Part 2

So I make a trip to the grocery store and needed to get more cat food as
the cats just tore through the Whiskas. It was a small bag, half a
kilo. The Whiskas I had purchased was pollo y leche (Chicken and milk),
I knew they liked it so I wanted to get more. You know where this is going.

Not a single bag on the shelf. Plenty of other Whiska flavors, but it
can be risky. I decided for a 1 kilo bag of atune y sardine (Tuna and
sardine) hoping they would like it.

My fears where quickly quenched when the feeder made it to the floor. I
think the cats are still eating it. I put the old stuff in a zip lock
bag for emergencies.

Learning to fly

Walking out the door this morning I noticed two of cats entranced with
something. I decided to investigate to which I saw tawny chasing
something back and forth. At first I thought a cat toy and then maybe a
big moth, but then I heard a chirp. Next thing I know Tawny goes
prancing by me happily as can be with the tiniest bird in it's mouth.
She dropped it in the dining room to swat at it a couple of times. I
had to take off my glasses and squint a few times because I couldn't
believe it was a bird, it was the size of a golf ball! If it wasn't for
the big beak I would have thought it was a fuzzy golf ball!

I picked up the small victim and took it outside to the balcony and said
"I hope you know how to fly little buddy, because if you don't...", I
tossed the little bundle and wings came out just in time and it flew away.

I hope the next time that bird picks a better place to land then a
balcony with three cats!

Now you see it...

Now you don't.

Went to the store to pick up some cat food. First it was the Whiska's
pouch food that was pretty well stocked, now haven't seen it in months
and I don't expect it to make a comeback. Well I had been feeding the
cats some expensive Pro Plan stuff that cost and arm and a leg. I was
able to ween them to some generic Argentine made cat food and all was
going well, and at a 1/3 of the price of Pro Plan, good for me. Well
guess what, not a single bag of the generic cat food on the shelf.
Fortunately they had a decently priced substitute but I know the cats
won't be happy.

No cinema!

What? Just a Doc Report blast from the past. I just finished watching
a movie online and the quality was pretty bad, somebody had videotaped
it inside a theater. I remember when I was in the Marines and we would
but bootleg VHS tapes in Okinawa and when we watched them sometimes you
would see someone get up and walk past the camera.

So whats with the subject line? When I was in Jeddah there was a kid
was selling DVD's at the housing compound community center. About $5
each (In Ho Chi Minh City $1 for bootleg DVD's, not that I am condoning
that). I was trying to figure out a way to ask the kid if they has been
videotaped in a theater, I pretended like I had a video camera and he
enthusiastically says to me "No cinema!"

Now today was a HOT day!

95 degrees! Hot and sunny! Wow, what a scorcher. Now, 10:30PM, nice
cool breeze coming through the window. Wish I could go to Punta del
Este with my boogie board and catch some waves :-)

I saw on the news that the largest cruise ship in the world is in Buenos
Aires and will be coming to Montevideo. Think I need to Google that so
I can watch it pull in.

Hot Day

86 degrees today, sunny and hot!  The beach nearest my home was unusually packed, I had never seen so many people at that beach and in the water.
Wish I could have took a photo for you, but no camera.

Google image results for Playa Ramirez

The New Era Begins

And so it begins, our new President has taken reigns and only time will
tell how well he will do. Had a chance to watch all of the pomp and
circumstance at work complete with goodies. I bet that crowd was cold!
It looked cold! Couldn't imagine what it must have been like trying to
get into the District. Read that ticket holders were turned away, you
know they were, upset.

Technology is cool!

I wanted to watch a DVD last night and when it came to the menu I was
unable to negotiate through the different sections up and down. I have
a universal remote and it is lacking that function, I was going nuts as
it was a 4 part series and I couldn't get to the other 3 parts after
watching the first. Couldn't find the old DVD remote, what to do?

Well I remembered that my HP iPaq had a program called Nevo that lets
you use the PDA as a remote. In less than 30 seconds I had programmed
the PDA to use as a remote for the DVD and it had the additional
functions (Up and down arrows) I needed and was able to watch the other
sections!

Pan de carne

Funny story. Went to the cafeteria at work the other day and asked the
cook what was under one of the lids "pan de carne", I grinned from ear
to ear. The woman next to me said she that I had the biggest smile on
my face. I know what your thinking, it's just meat loaf, but they
really make a delicious meat loaf, with a strip of cheese down the
middle, mmmmmm yum!

Cold snap

Not here! I've been getting reports from back home about the freezing
temperatures, brrrr! I can't remember the last time I have been in
really cold weather, I mean Iraq, Saudi and now here.

Went to the store at 10:30 this morning and it was at least 86 and very
sunny! But we'll get our winter soon enough.

Back from my vacation

Well I'm back, and it took me three days to do it, but more on that. My
vacation was short but sweet, got a chance to see my children, friends
and family.
Always nice to get my USA fix, the land of the big box stores. The
weather was cold, but pleasant, rained mostly.

My trip there was uneventful, was hoping for the same on my return trip
but as luck would have it, my return trip earned top 3 placing of worst
trips yet!

Beginning with checking in at Norfolk, VA I did a self check in at the
kiosk and noticed only one boarding pass had printed out. As I checked
in my bag I inquired about it and was told my connecting flight must be
the next day, I thought that couldn't be right, or so I thought. Turns
out I had a 12 hour layover in Dallas and a 10 hour layover in Miami!
You read that right.

To make a long story short I'm here. My bag didn't make it so I caught
a ride to the airport and took the bus back. 350 pesos for a taxi or 24
pesos for the bus?
Wasn't sure if the bus driver would let me take my big bag on the bus,
so I just pointed at it, gave him the thumbs up and he nodded his head
yes, hand language, the universal language.

Packing for the trip

Getting ready for my trip home, catching the red eye to Miami, but
instead of a direct flight to Norfolk (ORF) or Dulles (IAD) to ORF I am
going to Dallas (DFW) and then to ORF! I had my choice of switching to
Delta in Miami and flying to Atlanta (ATL) but I wasn't comfortable with
switching carriers, that and my return flight would have cost me an
extra day. My tickets cost the company a small fortune. In fact the
head shed had to really debate whether or not to purchase the tickets,
especially since switching to Delta would have cost less, but in the end
it was approved.

I plan on grabbing a window seat, putting on my eye mask and ear plugs,
slip on my neck pillow, take a sleeping pill and hopefully wake up in
time for breakfast!

The AA seats in coach are really bad, no TV's in back of the seats, just
a couple of monitors in the aisle : (

Book Corner - Finished Reading

The Hosatge (A Presidential Agent Novel) by W.E.B Griffin
465 pages hardback

One of the better books I've read, really enjoyed this as it is about
the American embassies in both Buenos Aires and Montevideo and the
author apparently knows his way around both cities.

What a night!

Wish all of my readers could have been here! The fireworks were
spectacular as usual. The huge bottle rockets that my colleague had
purchased were something else! They really hurt my ears when they
launched, that loud! They went up several hundred yards in the sky and
exploded just as in anything you would see at a fireworks show. Thank
goodness no duds! I could have only imagined what that would have been
like. Some of the other fireworks were partial duds, as they weer
supposed to shoot out of a multiple luncher, key word shoot, instead
some just kind of plopped out and exploded, but nothing to loud.

The band was great and played lots of classic rock tunes. My ears were
ringing when I got home.