South America Trip Pictures Are Done!

It's taken me a while, but I finally finished uploading our pictures from our trip to South America. You can check them out on my Flickr page, or you can also look at them here on the blog. Remember I also put up pictures from Uruguay, Ushuaia, and Buenos Aires in a previous post, if you want to see them.

I'm still planning on writing a sort of "trip report" for these places, but for the moment, you'll have to just use your imagination by looking at these pictures. So, thanks for reading, and enjoy!

Neuquén, Argentina to the Chilean Border:

Santiago, Chile:

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Cool Video About Airplane Food

No one really likes airplane food, yet we all complain if we end up on a flight that doesn't serve anything. Weird.

Well, lest my blog turn into a stand-up comedian complaining about air travel, I'll just share this really interesting video about the massive food production for one airline:

Thanks for reading, happy new year, and safe travels if you're traveling now!

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More and More Pictures

I've been uploading a lot of pictures from our trip to South America (I'm in Colorado now and it's pretty cold, so there's sometimes not much else to do). You can check out the newest ones on my flickr page, or you can also look at picture sets from the different places. Below I'll put up some slideshows of some of the finished places. I'm still planning on writing more stories and observations about each of these places, but that'll take more time. So for now, you can at least check out some pictures:

Buenos Aires, Argentina:

Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay:

Ushuaia, Argentina:

Additionally, I've uploaded all the Pictures of the Day from November, so you can check those out, too. At the start of December I officially completed two years of my Picture a Day project, which is pretty impressive, at least in my mind. I'll write another post about that soon, but for now you can check out November (most of them were in South America, obviously):

So, that's it for now. As I mentioned, I'll write some more about these places soon, but we're still visiting with family and friends, so it may take a while. Thanks for reading/looking, and have a great day!

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Some Trip Pictures

Hi there! I've been slowly going through our pictures from our trip to South America. I've got the first week up on flickr, so you're welcome to check them out here if you'd like. The first week is basically all in Buenos Aires, but there's also one day of Uruguay pictures (like the one above and below). Other highlights include various pictures of street art/ graffiti, some lovely flowers, and Angela feeling uncomfortable next to an enormous dog!

I'll upload more pictures and get them organized soon and when they are, I'll tell you. The whole thing is a slow process, though. In the meantime, if you look at the flickr widget at the top left of this page, you can see if there are recently uploaded pictures.

Thanks, and have a great day!

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Story Problem

Pretend you need to build a road. You need 100,000 kilograms of powdered cement to do the job (the exact numbers aren't that important). Which option do you choose:

A. Order 10 trucks with 10,000 kilograms of cement each. Have the trucks dump the cement where you'll do the job.

B. Order 10 trucks with pallets. Each pallet will have 400 paper sacks of cement weighing 25 kilograms per bag. Have workers pass the bags one by one from the trucks and distribute them around the site. Once in place, have workers open the individual bags and pour the cement powder out of each bag. Make no plans to deal with either the dust or the thousands of heavy-duty paper bags.

So, which would you choose? There's no "correct" answer, but if you said, "Obviously, I'd choose A. What kind of numb nuts would choose option B?" then you're probably not in charge of building highways in Costa Rica. 

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G'day, Mate

Today we've been visiting more with Angela's family, but I've also been working on "curing" a mate that we brought back from Argentina. Here's some general information (link), and here's a video explaining a bit more about it (all in Spanish, but at least you can hear a nice Argentinean accent):

...and here's one talking about how to cure the mate:

In any case, that's what I'm up to today. How about you?

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A Few Newer Pictures

Pretty soon I'll be putting up a lot of pictures on Flickr, but for now I thought I'd share a couple recent ones. 

Here's short Angela with some traditionally tall Buenos Aires businessmen, Andrés and Leandro. We met up with them for lunch a few days ago, just before we left Buenos Aires.

After leaving Buenos Aires, we took a bus to Neuquén, where we met up with Nacho. He made's been making us delicious food non-stop, and it's been a great time so far!

Finally, as you may remember, the guy on Uruguay's 100 Peso bill had a startling resemblance to Tom Hank's theoretical dad. I also stumbled on another shocking discovery when I saw Argentina's 50 Peso bill:

That's right: it appears that one of the Founding Fathers of Argentina may have actually been a mafioso, since he bears a more than passing resemblance to Frank Pentangeli's brother, Vincenzo:

Witness Protection Program, anyone?

So, that's it for now. I'll tell you in a few days when I've posted more pictures, if you're interested. Until then, be sure to frequently check Sitzblog: your number one source for South American currency conspiracies!

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In Your Arms - Amazing Video!

Check out this video:

If you look closer, you can see that it's done entirely in stop-motion animation, and that the background is thousands and thousands of jellybeans. The Making-Of video is pretty amazing, too. It turns out that it took them nearly two years to shoot the video above. Check it out:

I like the song, too. It's probably now my second-favorite song with the phrase "in your arms": 

...and it's even pretty close up there with "In These Arms":

Keep on rockin' in the free world!

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In Ushuaia

 
Just as an update, we left Buenos Aires early this afternoon and now we're in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. It seems very nice, and quite a lot cooler than up north! I'll try to put up some more pictures in the coming days, but like before, you can check on Instagram and find some there, probably. Here are a few from yesterday and today:

The "generic flower," in a park in Buenos Aires. We did yet more walking yesterday and stopped in the park for photo opportunities. This sculpture opens and closes with the sun.

 

At Aeroparque Jorge Newberry, the Buenos Aires airport primarily used for domestic flights. It's really close to the city itself, as you can see.

Thanks for reading!

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More Pictures, Less Confusing

We're currently in Uruguay, and I'm here to tell you, it's a real country.

Just joking... It IS a real country, and it's a beautiful country, based on the little we've seen of it, at least.

I've been taking quite a few more pictures on my camera, but I've also been taking a lot of pictures on Instagram because-- as its name indicates-- it's instant. That way I can immediately put up some impressions from our trip without having to find a computer, transfer the pictures from the memory card, shrink them, upload them, etc. The biggest drawback is that I have an iPod, not an iPhone, so the camera isn't very good and the quality of the pictures generally isn't great if you're looking at them on a screen much bigger than a cell phone.

Anyhow, here's a link to see all the Instagram pictures I've been taking:

http://web.stagram.com/n/sitzman/

As I mentioned the other day, you can see the six newest ones in the widget on the left, but apparently you can't see more than that. With that link above, you can see all of them. So, check them out if you're curious about Uruguay, aka "The Hermit Kingdom"!

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

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Pictures

If you want to check out some pictures from our trip, you can see the ones I've taken with Instagram (just go to the widget on the left). When we get back I'll upload more, higher quality pictures that I've been taking with our camera. In the meantime, enjoy!

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Somewhat Unemployed

What a herd of boludos.

I realized recently that I'd not told many people that I had quit my job. I actually gave my one-month notice at the end of September (here you have to give a month instead of two weeks, if you've worked at a job longer than a year). I liked my job and the students I was teaching, but there were also things I disagreed with, and it was time to go in a new direction. That direction? Well, for now: Argentina! Then after that, we'll figure something out.

As Andy's brother is rumored to have said, "I'm not too worried about it. We'll be fine."

Thanks, and have a good one!

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Danger 5!

Wow, I almost think this may not be real, simply because it looks like it's going to be so amazing:

But according to their website (which has a pretty hilarious spoof on a 60s action magazine complete with clickable articles), they're actually going to produce this, starting November 21st. I'm pretty sure the guy who says "Domo Arigato" is wearing the same wig I wear for most Halloweens.

I'm gaining more and more respect for Australia and Australians.

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Thanks!

Just a quick re-cap from Blogtoberfest: It was awesome! Many thanks to everyone who checked out the posts. I actually got up to 31, which is one more than last year. We'll have to see what I can get done next year!

I'll also include the Pictures of the Day from October if you'd like to check them out. You can see larger versions of them and the October Leftovers on flickr, or you can just check out the slideshow here:

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