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Showing posts with label Buenos Aires Style. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buenos Aires Style. Show all posts

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Garbage Day!

Garbage Post_1 by Frank Almeida

Garbage Post_1, a photo by Frank Almeida on Flickr.

"I've been married to one Marxist and one Fascist, and neither one would take the garbage out."
"He estado casada con un marxista y fascista, y ninguno de ellos sacaba la basura."
Lee Grant

Sometimes I show up to work and I am struck by the ugly garbage scene strewn all about our sidewalk and street.
A veces llego al trabajo y me llama la atención la escena fea de basura esparcida por toda nuestra vereda y calle.
Truth be told, I know that this is not an isolated occurrence that just happens to strike us. I have seen scenes like this throughout the city.
En realidad, esto no es una ocurrencia aislada. Nos ha pasado varias veces y lo he visto en la ciudad en varios lugares.
In some neighborhoods the city has switched to leaving containers on the street that people are supposed to take their garbage to and the trucks, instead of going door to door, they go corner to corner picking up the garbage.
En algunos barrios de la ciudad, han cambiado a dejar contenedores de basura en la calle que la gente se supone que tienen que ir a dejar la basura en los mismos. En lugar de que los recolectores vallan de puerta a puerta, ahora van de esquina a esquina.
I can see why a city would like to switch to something like this. In fact, I wish our particular neighborhood would have that as well.
Puedo ver porque una ciudad cambiaría a un sistema como este. De hecho, me gustaría que mi barrio cambiase a este sistema también.
Anyway, in addition to seeing this garbage left strewn about today we also get an angry citizen thinking that we just threw our garbage out this way.
De todos modos, además de ver la basura hoy por la mañana también pasó por nuestras puertas un vecino enojado, pensando que nosotros tiramos la basura de esa manera.
He was so angry that he said he would take a picture and turn us into the man.
Estaba tan enojado que prometio tomar fotos y hacer una denuncia.
If I may, I would like to address this citizen through this blog since he didn´t even wait for me to come out to talk to him.
Si me permiten, me gustaría aprovechar y referirme a este ciudadano a través de este blog ya que no esperó a que salga a hablar con el.
Estimado Vecino,

Comparto su frustración, después de todo, es mi basura que no se recogió y se dejó tirada frente a nuestro lugar de trabajo y almacén. No está en frente de su casa, si no que queda enfrente de la mía.

Lo siento si no la recogimos tan pronto como le hubiera gustado. Puedo garantizar que normalmente lo hacemos ya que es algo que suele suceder con algún tipo de frecuencia.

Su ira expresada hacia mis empleados finalmente me dio un incentivo para obtener información sobre cómo presentar una queja oficial. Por lo tanto, en cierto modo, yo le debo las gracias. Sin embargo, a pesar de que hay muchos ciudadanos locales que tratan a la ciudad como un basurero grande, no todos lo hacen y sería mejor no hacer ese tipo de supuestos.

La siguiente imagen es mi queja oficial a la ciudad. Este tipo de cosas funcionan mejor cuando nos unimos para luchar en lugar de luchar entre sí. Lo invito a que se suma y haga la misma cosa.

Atentamente,
Francisco E. Almeida

*********** Ingles / English **********

Dear Angry Neighbor,

I share your frustration, after all, it´s my garbage that does not get picked up and is left strewn in front of our place of work and store. It is not in front of your home, it´s left in front of mine.

I am sorry if we did not pick it up as quickly as you would have liked. I can guarantee that we do pick this sort of thing up since it is something that tends to happen with some sort of frequency.

Your angry outburst at my employees did finally give me an incentive to find out how to make an official complaint. So, in a way, I do owe you some thanks. However, I would suggest that, even though there are many local citizens that do treat the city as one big trash can, not all of us do and it would be best not to make those sorts of assumptions.

The following image is my official complaint to the city. These sorts of things work best when we join together to fight instead of fighting each other. I welcome you to please do the same thing.

Sincerely yours,
Francisco E. Almeida


Para ingresar reclamos:
http://suaci.buenosaires.gob.ar/suaci/contacto

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Hello 2011!

Yes, these are fireworks. Nothing dramatic happens, except that this firework show lasted for over an hour (about 1 hour and 15 minutes)!


Monday, December 1, 2008

Political Drama in Buenos Aires

We just couldn´t let the Republicans have all the fun of political infighting. Could it have been the lack of fight, now that Obama won, that made us turn on each other?

Democtrats Abroad Argentina is now organizing a vote to remove Yanqui Mike from DAA for this Wednesday night at the home of a fellow expat Laura Atkins:

Calle Austria 2660,
the entire 6th floor,
Recoleta, Buenos Aires
6pm






Being a member of Democrats Abroad, I think I have previously mentioned it here, I have received some e-mails on the subject; another expat mentioned those e-mails in her post. And yet, another expat wrote about the same thing, and according to her post, she seemed to have met Yanqui Mike the same way I met him.

For transparency´s sake I have to mention that I consider Yanqui Mike a friend. I have been social with him and his wife and have gone out and shared a beer or two. It should not be any surprise to anyone that I would find all this nonsense unsettling. My very first reaction is to stand up for my friends. What kind of a friend would I be if that was not the case?

My second reaction was to check with him to see if he did anything wrong.

The other two posts on the subject, written by Gina of Buenos Aires Style and Debbie of TangoSpam highlighted the little we know of the accusations. So far, in those accusations, I don´t see any reason to have taken things this far. If there are other reasons I guess I will have to wait to hear what those are at the meeting.

Meanwhile, the accused Yanqui Mike, did write on his blog regarding this turn of events. The very first post on the call for his resignation has him promising to post every e-mail that he receives. The second one is actually a listing of some more e-mails--this guy gets a lot of e-mails. In the third one he is posting information on the meeting and begging people to go and witness and vote. In this one, "Heidi in San Juan" makes an important observation.

"This is more like Democrats Abroad Buenos Aires" since people that live in the interior of the country are out of luck and will not be able to vote unless they travel to the big city.

One other little thorn to this event is the timing. 6pm is very early for Argentina. There will be some people who will not be able to attend becuase they will be either working or stuck in rush hour traffic. However, I have also been calling people and the word on the street is that there is a lot of interest in this meeting and some people are making arrangements to get there. Heck, one guy is coming straight from the hospital after recuperating from surgery and another person is coming from Quilmes just to name two examples.

I wonder how big Laura´s 6th floor really is? We might have to actually use the entire floor.

I will have to take time out of my day. I would rather be playing with my kids, or spending time with my parents who are visiting from out of town, or being in the company of my own wife, getting dinner ready and talking about our day, etc.

I probably echo most of my fellow Democrats when I say the following: There better be some damaging evidence there ´cause what I have seen so far is petty squabbling and if I drag my ass out there to hear whining and little substance I am going to be pissed.

And if that wasn´t bad enough Ian of Goodairs just had to highlight how now it looks like the famous Argentine beef will be a thing of the past much sooner than later.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Biggest Debate Watching Party on the Planet!


Congratulations to Mike and gang of Democrats Abroad. Last week they organized the biggest debate watching party on the planet.

I knew there were a lot of people. Some of the people that I saw were:

Gina Gattone of Buenos Aires Style.
Maya of Sexy Spanish Club in Buenos Aires and hubby Tom Frost.
Kevin Dwyer of El Pavo Real B&B.
Cliff Williamson of Transpack.

and many more.