Love this time of the year

I guess it's technically spring time here in Brazil. You know, the total opposite of America where it is very cold. For me, I think Brazil only has two seasons, dry and wet for six months of each. The temperature is very similar throughout the year. It does get a little cold in June and extremely hot in August but the rest of the year is 22 - 32 celsius (71 - 90 fahrenheit). Perfect weather to open the windows and doors each day. Let the air flow through the house. Almost each day now it rains a little here and there. Where I live it tends to rain less than it does in the big city nearby. We can see parts of Goiania from the neighborhood and a lot of times it is a downpour there and nothing here. I guess the heat of the city makes the clouds explode. With all this rain the trees and grass are bright green. The total opposite of the brown and dead looking when it's the dry season. I will never complain about all the rain because we suffer during the dry season. The rainy season is extremely nice and I welcome the rain each day. So if anyone wants to know what season it is here in Goias state, I would say its wet or dry instead of the normal four seasons you would experience in America.  

Its awesome to live here and experience the wonderful weather and even the culture. Has it been a tough transition, yes it has and I am still trying to adjust. Sometimes the cultures clash with one another like a torrential downpour and it's to be expected. I am grateful for this wonderful opportunity! Can't wait to see what the New Year will bring for me and especially my family.

Thanks for reading!       

Bird...the one that got away!

On Monday I was outside with the kids and the construction workers next door flagged me down. They asked if I was missing a bird or knew someone who had a bird like this. It was time for them to leave work and taking a bird out the gate through security wasn't an option. I took the bird and went to my house with him. His right wing is clipped and he can not fly. He or she was very friendly and didn't mind being touched and carried around. I went next door with him to ask the neighbor if they had a cage to keep him in and to get some food. They didn't have one and the one time he tried to fly away he just crashed landed on the floor next to me. So I wasn't worried about him getting away.

Next I went into the house to show my wife that we now have a bird. At first she was not thrilled and said get him out of here. In the meantime I was growing attached. I had grabbed a handful of bird food from neighbor and also gave him peanuts and crackers. Little guy was very hungry and thirsty. I took him out to the garage to feed and find a perch for him to sit on. My wife came out and I asked her to go get a cage at a store. My intentions were to keep him until we found the owner or make him a forever home with us. He was actually a bird who liked to be held and didn't mind attention unlike the other birds I have seen here.

I decided to see if he minded a box for just one night and that got him all crazy. Not an option and the likelihood my wife would find a place to buy a bird cage this late in the day was zero to none. My next idea was a wine bottle holder with a few sticks secured through it. More comfortable than metal on his feet for the first night. He also climbed all round it like it was a playground for him and seemed to be very good at using his beak to climb. With the perfect cut of the wing and the fact he was touchable, I knew he was a pet of someone and he was loved for sure.

He ate a ton of food for such a small bird and drank a lot. I had finished putting a few sticks through the wine holder and securing them with wire. As he moved around the sticks would fall off and it scared him so they had to be secured. Next I was working on a food and drink container. My idea was to put him in the bathroom for the night so he would be safe. Pet store trip tomorrow to buy a proper bird house or go to my wife's grandmothers house to borrow an old cage she had. I was on the fence of spend money or don't because the real owner could show up to claim him

Now here comes the bad part, as I was doing all this work to secure him for the night. He was hanging out eating, drinking and climbing around the perch I made for him. A few times he crash landed onto the floor and walked around. No more than a 10 foot radius. Well, he did it one last time and must of caught the wind just right coming out of the patio into the backyard. He cleared a huge row of tall bushes separating my backyard and neighbors. I took off running and couldn't get through the thick bushes. Through the bushes I could see him crash land and take another leap and flapping his wings across the neighbor's yard. As I ran around the hedge row I lost sight of him.

I spent the next hour looking for him until the sun went down. Met a new neighbor and got to see their beautiful house in the process. They let us search their yard and look around for the little guy, but couldn't find him. With his color it's almost impossible to find him when he is in the grass or brushes. I wish him luck and looked for him yesterday and a little today. Hopefully he is a survivor and will make it. There is a lot of cats around here and I'm sure he will eventually be cat food if not found. I will keep an eye out and security is aware that a pet bird is on the loose. Maybe someone else will catch him.

My kids are now asking for a pet bird. I am opposed to buying one from a pet store, because I believe they all belong in the wild. Don't want to support this behavior of collecting birds and selling them as pets. It's a shame they do this and cut their wings so they can't fly. I am however, for rescuing injured birds and would accept one this way. Maybe we can find one this way, we will see.

The kids are always trying to convince me to get a pet. Can we have a dog...no fence, can we get a cat...there is a cat at your grandparents, can we get a bird...the neighbor has two, can he get a guinea pig...they stink. I have lots of excuses! The fact I just lost a bird who can not fly should tell you maybe I am not fit to take care of animals. I am a little heart broken I lost him...        

2016 Election From an American Living Abroad

I thought I would write about the election. A bit of violence back home with the dreaded liberals at the moment. It figures, that group of people generally pursue violence and they say us Republicans or Independents are horrible deplorable people. Nothing like destroying half a city to get your voice heard...which never works. You look like a bunch of thugs throwing a tantrum because you didn't get your way. This is what happens when everyone gets a participation trophy. Congratulations, you showed up to practice and played a few games and you suck but here is a trophy anyways. There will always be winners and losers but somehow we made a generation or two think there is not. What a shame, I don't remember this happening 8 years ago with Obama.

Now with Clinton, the Democratic Party made a huge mistake. She is a pathological liar, criminal and corruption is rampant all up in her daily life and the pay to play fake charity within the State Department. I easily think anybody else in the democratic party would of beat Trump. Hell, Bernie Sanders an admitted Socialist would of won the election if he wouldn't of been cheated out of the nomination and his ideas were pretty damn crazy. Free college for everyone, who was going to pay for this. Also if everyone goes to college does this mean a degree is necessary to become a janitor or custodial worker.

Yes, she will win the popular vote, but that's not how it works to get elected into the presidency. The electoral college was created by our founding fathers to even the playing field with large populated areas and the rural areas. Which if you look up a map of the actual counties (not states) she won, you will see it is very small spots of blue associated with large metropolis areas. Yes there was also very close counties that she almost won. This has been the system of electing a president for over 200 plus years now. You can't just change the rules now because it didn't go in your favor. This has happened before as recently as 2000 and we didn't change the rules after that. The rules were clearly laid out and the two major parties fighting to win knew the rules.

Ok, its Trump's turn, I'm biased and I admit it. I am not a journalist, news reporter, etc... I can be biased and I will tell you I did an absentee ballot and voted for Mr. Trump. Do I agree with everything he has said or the things about his past that are not too flattering, no. Hey, we all make mistakes and do some incredible dumb things. Is he perfect with getting his message out on policies he wants to change or make better, absolutely not. But it comes down to who I trust more and who I think will make America great again. I don't think we are that great of a country at the moment. The failed policies and the state of division in our country started way before Trump even started campaigning.

These are a few of my reason I voted for Trump: the constitution is important to me and over the past few years I have seen it eroding, a country also has borders and laws that need to be enforced and upheld, trade deals need to be fair and not lopsided, veterans need to be taken care of and our active duty troops need the manpower and resources to do their job, the Supreme Court needs to have conservatives on it and a few liberals to, the 2nd amendment is not to be messed with, the right to bear arms shall not be infringed and in all actuality it's to protect us from our government, etc... I'm sure I am missing a bunch of other highly important topics I can't think of at the moment.

Watching the election that night was epic. I only get Fox and CNN down here in Brazil and to see the news reporters transformation of we didn't hit the states yet where she is projected to do well, then it went to well the majority of the votes are not all in and then it went to oh my god we were so wrong. The American news media got caught with their pants down. The pollsters all had it wrong! That's because American media has been extremely biased the past 8-10 years. Follow the money and read some of the E-mails to the Clinton campaign from media sources. Hell, they were feeding her the questions and giving her heads up when they were about to release a biased poll in her favor.

Now let's talk about Brazil, very liberal down here. Everyone was extremely shocked about the results. The first comments I saw was American's that voted for Trump are racist, sexist, bigots and a whole bunch of other words. The majority of these people who said this never lived or worked in America. They only know what the biased media here and in America has told them. He is against immigration...which is a lie. Trump is for protecting our borders and supports legal immigration. He hates Muslims and is going to prevent them from coming to America...which is a lie. Trump wants to put a temporary hold on refugees until they can be fully vetted. Trump is against the LGBT community...which was a lie. I just saw him on November 2nd holding a LGBT flag on stage somewhere in Colorado. I even responded to an Irish lady who left a message on Facebook to explain that she was wrong and what did she do? She did the typical liberal response that I was a sexist. Hillary lost because she has more baggage than delta airlines has. She was damaged goods trying to get passed though a produce line at a factory.

I know in a few weeks most of this will blow over. Yes half of America is mad and it happens to be the side of the political spectrum that throws tantrums if they don't get their way. Hopefully they will stop damaging their own neighborhoods soon.

   

               

The shower has electricity going to it...Zap

Let's talk about the wiring here in Brazil. It's very similar to American wiring, just a little bit more juice involved and some caveman style application. The voltage here is 220 volts and I have experienced a jolt a few times with the well that doesn't work. A little more painful then the standard 110 volts like in America. The weird part here in Brazil, is the whole country is not 220 volts. There is parts of the country, mainly around São Paulo that are 110 volts. Plus, many Brazilians buy in America and bring the electronics here. Its standard to see a 220v-110v converters here and there. I have a bunch of them in random sizes depending on the appliance they are used for around my house.

There is also no water heater tanks in the houses here like you would find in an American house. The only type of water heaters I have seen here are for the pool and shower. Yes, there is wires going to the shower. At first it seems like you got to be kidding me and then its who the hell thought of this. That's 220 volts right above my head, when I am naked and wet. All I can think of is those warning pictures of a man standing in water messing with electrical wires. This is a very odd thing for an American.

Well, if you have read my earlier post on the rain in my office, you would of heard about my shower head debacle. So, these showers are very expensive and fancy with a digital temperature gauge. They are also not very good quality. The water here has some calcium build up and will clog very fine holes like the ones in these showers. So I have started a little graveyard of the ones that blew up and use what parts I can to keep the last one working. I am hoping to get another piece to fix the other shower in the master bedroom (the head). The only reason I like them is because I can see the temperature. The basic showers that I replaced the others with have 3 selections of temperature: warm, hot and extremely hot. Its nice to select an exact temperature!

I went out and bought 3 basic showers to put in the boys bedrooms and the guest bedroom. For a little while we shared the the master bathroom shower and it was getting crowded each night trying to get ready for bed. Time for them to move back to their rooms. The new showers were a great price at R$120 (USD $37.50). As you can see in the pictures they are huge and have two different ways for the water to spray out. A true rainfall shower and that is actually a true statement here. The water to the house is gravity fed from the two large tanks in the tower on the roof.

The problem with the new showers for me was the fact they were not pre-wired to just plug into the wall. A very weird concept of buying a supposedly ready to use shower but you need to wire it to plug into the wall. Or there is another way...shove the 3 wires into the receptacle. The shower adapter to the water line screwed in easy and the whole shower attached to that. So easy to install but now it was time for the wire part. It took me about a week to work up the courage to shove wires directly into the receptacle. Yes, I turned off the circuit breakers to the house...all of them. Just because a receptacle is in your kitchen doesn't mean the circuit breaker box next to the kitchen is responsible for it. Found that out when we hooked up the dishwasher...a few kitchen receptacles go to the garage downstairs for some strange reason.

First I made sure a responsible adult was in the house, in case I had an accident and shocked the piss out of myself. Then I just went and did it! Prayed I put the wires in the correct holes even though the Internet told me it could be backwards. This could definitely happen here! All wires are in and I started the process of turning all 3 circuit breaker boxes back on. No strange bangs or burning smell and everything seems fine. Next was to test them out and see what happens. Luckily they all worked and no problems at all.

Old Showers, one is currently inoperable 

New awesome simple shower with wires shoved in the receptacle 

For me this is a strange concept of no water heater for the whole house and the fact you can shove the wires into the receptacle. Well until next time, thanks for reading!