November 2007 Roundup

I don't think I have gone so long without writing and for that I apologize. It's not laziness, writer's cramp or apathy. I just have way too much going on right now. So I thought maybe I could sum it up a little bit in this post.

I managed to loose a long time client and then get them back. I have a client with a chain of locations throughout the city that manages to get into cash flow problems around this time of year. We find out on payday when we get a check payable for 90 days (Ouch!). I overreacted and they didn't take it well and we eventually kissed and made up, all in the same month.

I have been flying to Uruguay, Chile and Cordoba to meet with a mixture of new, current and potential clients. This sounds more glamorous than it really is. I get to experience flight delays on every single one of my flights for example. I also get to go to new unexplored cities (unexplored by me) with only enough time to maybe walk 6 blocks before I have to go do something. They stayed mainly unexplored. I get to take lots of pictures of stores and store shelves and get to wait around for meetings. All of this would be enough to drive me to suicide, but since I am doing this for the sake of my business, I have to admit that my curiosity drives me to do that job well.

I joined a political group called Democrats Abroad. For those of you who know me I can just picture your eyebrows going up. I have never been much of a joiner of groups. However, all the shenanigans that have been going on in the name of my country have just gotten me sick and I felt that I had to do something; voting obviously isn't enough. I guess that if I had written a post on this subject the title would have had been "The Devil Made Me Do It". If you would like to read a little bit about this group you can click - here - for Yanqui Mike's posts on the subject and - here - for 99's posts.

I have a new client! Normally I don't mention this until I have a purchase order in my hands but these guys have been so enthusiastic during the whole sales process that only a natural disaster or an act from God can keep them from following through. The chain is Libertad. It is a supermarket chain that is positioned mostly in the north of the country and they were purchased by Casino (French multinational) back in 1998. They also form part of a large group of supermarket chains in Latin America that are owned by Casino. This should help us get into these other countries. As for Argentina we pretty much have the whole country covered with these three clients (Jumbo, La Anonima and Libertad) now I can focus on exporting. You can insert a big sigh of relief from me here.

I have another new client in Blockbuster Video. No, I am not going into the DVD business. Blockbuster is actually hurting big time from the sale of illegal DVD's. They are forced to think out of the box and try something new. Sure you always had that option of buying some snacks from there to go with the movies but now they are going all out gourmet. There first gourmet store was on Callao (& Santa Fe) and from the looks of their purchases the trial must have worked and they are expanding the concept to other stores. Where else can you get the world's best chocolate chip cookies to go with that movie? If you answered your grandmother's house it's time to get off your lazy ass, get a job and limit your PS2 gaming time, unless of course you are 14 years old.

I managed to read some blogs and managed to be impressed by some of them so much that I want to share them with you:

Taos finds out one of the things that Argentines are super efficient at doing... and that is killing themselves behind the wheel of an automobile. It's actually very tragic and depressing but he's just presenting the facts people. You can click - here - for that article. However, he also finds out that Argentine women love having sex more than women from other countries. He also found that 97.2% of Argentines are literate. Somebody give that guy some Scooby snacks. He is churning out way too many interesting articles.

Pablo in Rosario also touched on a depressing topic in the state of abortion in Santa Fe (The State in which he lives in). He has also started assigning names to the power outages in his city like how they give names to tropical storms. The latest outage is called Carlos. You gotta love that.

Ian finds out why "one should not fuck with the French". This little episode happened in my neighborhood.

Robert Wright has the skinny on the Recoleta Cemetary.

A Texan in Argentina discovers Punta del Este, Uruguay.