Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Feb 7, 2012, 8:02 am
Yesterday I slept late due to some confusion with my alarm clock and as a result I arrived an hour late at the store. I was informed that two guys had come by looking to buy paint. One of them, Sinal, was murdered yesterday. I only met Sinal a couple times - he was a pichador (Brazilian for 'tagge...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Feb 6, 2012, 1:32 pm
The military police are on strike, and the city is fucked as a result. Aku Tyger wrote a nice synopsis of the situation. It's impossible to know what's really happening, there are tons of rumors and suppositions, but this much is clear: the police are on strike, there are a lot more crimes goi...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Jan 21, 2012, 10:09 pm
Here I am, home again on a Saturday night once again. It's my own fault - I left a party as soon as I could this evening. I just wasn't feeling it - I wasn't drinking, so the drunk people were starting to really annoy me, I hardly knew anyone, and I couldn't stop ogling this lovely college student...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Jan 20, 2012, 7:39 pm
Man, if I had one day a week like the day I had today at the store the business would be doing great. If every day were like today, I'd need employees and would be thinking about finding a new location already. Leaving the house, I got a call from a customer asking if I was already at the store, th...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Jan 16, 2012, 9:39 am
This is a complaining post, and kinda gross, so if you're not in the mood please skip to the next item in your reader. And my apologies in advance to my Brazilian readers (all one of you) for making broad generalizations. I was leaving an event on Saturday, and noticing the girl seated at the door ...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Jan 12, 2012, 7:38 pm
Welp, I did it. I ran the Corrida Sagrada- all 6.8 kilometers or 4.2 miles of it, and it took me just under 36 minutes to do so. This was actually faster than I expected, so that was a pleasant surprise. I got myself a medal for participating, plus a bag with a banana, an apple, and an energy bar...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Jan 8, 2012, 8:38 am
I'm going to make good on my one New Year's resolution and write a post about my store, Mil Muros Graffiti. Not because I'm feeling particularly virtuous (I'm drowning in virtue after signing up for the road race), but because I got an email from a family member curious to know more about the shop ...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Jan 2, 2012, 2:40 pm
Hmm - looks like my first race might happen sooner than I thought. As soon as I finished my post last night, I got curious and googled 'race salvador 2012' (in Portuguese of course, which means only one word was different from the English, but I digress) and lo and behold, I found a site called 'Po...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Jan 1, 2012, 8:05 pm
Here it is- another New Year's day, and I wanted to write a short post before I go down and watch the rest of the Transformers movie that I have to return tomorrow. Rather than summing things up or making resolutions, I just wanted to mark some milestones in my life. Any resolutions I might have co...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Dec 24, 2011, 9:12 am
About a month ago I received an email receipt for a PayPal purchase, in this case an ATM withdrawal. Only problem? I didn't make the withdrawal. I immediately called and reported unauthorized use of my card, PayPal cancelled said card, and I was issued a provisional reimbursement while a chargebac...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Dec 15, 2011, 5:49 pm
I had wanted to write a follow-up to my previous post, but I'm so slammed with work that it's just not going to happen- except briefly. To sum up the rest of the trip, I thought Curitiba was awesome. It was a nifty blend of elements from back home, things I saw in Europe, and at times I even fel...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Dec 10, 2011, 9:45 am
I am in the city of Curitba, which is part of the southern end of Brazil. I haven't been this far south since I was in Australia some 15 or more years ago. Looking at the map, it appears that I am at about the latitude of the city of Brisbane, Australia, where I spent a month waiting for some ribs...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Oct 19, 2011, 8:11 pm
I'm tired. So tired. Some years back I wrote a furious post about the nightmare I was having trying to get telephone and internet service hooked up at my new office. Unfortunately, history is repeating itself- I've been in a waiting, calling, and threatening game for three weeks now trying to get i...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Oct 16, 2011, 10:40 pm
Wow, three posts in three days! Amazing! Only because I'm an idiot. I got to thinking and in addition to the extra hour of daylight I will be getting, I will indeed be getting the three hour jump on deadlines that I thought I'd get originally. That is, once the time change happens in the northern ...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Oct 16, 2011, 12:50 pm
He writes again, and so soon! He writes a correction. I got my addition mixed up with my subtraction, and it turns out it will soon be three hours later here than in New England, not three hours earlier. Blast! So much for my extra three hours to meet deadlines. There was another thing I wanted t...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Oct 15, 2011, 11:06 pm
Hello there. It's been a while- no apologies, the blog stumbles but it does not fall. There are many things I could write about, my whirlwind, stress-filled trip to the States, my brand-new semi-opened store, phone company incompetence and tomfoolery, etc. But I won't write about any of those, I'm ...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Sep 8, 2011, 12:34 pm
Yesterday Lucas wrote me this note after I got mad at him: It was all I could do to keep myself in stern parent mode, and prevent myself from smiling. Allow me to translate: Papai I'm sorry please I want to go back. The thing that's so funny about it for me is that even though he only spelled one ...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Aug 14, 2011, 8:16 pm
Today is Father's Day in Brazil. A big day for some, an absolutely non-event in my family as I was growing up, although I did start calling my dad on the U.S. version a few years back, to his eternal amazement. All I really wanted for Father's Day was to go out and work on my big wall, and so ...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Aug 1, 2011, 3:02 pm
"I cut this board three times and it's still too short." ...which is apropos to nothing, except that I was trying to think of a clever way to say my ladder is too short and that was the only thing I came up with. How about this: "Hey Kuza, we'll put the ladder on your car to reach the top of the wa...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Aug 1, 2011, 12:18 am
Yesterday I had reason to ask Lucas if he remembered the story about the boy who cried wolf. After an enthusiastic request for me to tell the story once more, he proved that he knows it by heart by reciting the whole thing for me. So he knows the story. But has he learned the lesson? We had our '...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Jul 25, 2011, 1:11 pm
I wasn't going to write about this until it was finished, but it's taking forever... that, and my friend Jon took some great pictures of me working on it yesterday. This is by far my most ambitious wall, and therefore my most ambitious painting, and probably my most ambitious artwork, ever. It was...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Jul 14, 2011, 9:23 pm
Tonight Lucas asked me to fix up an old berimbau for him, and since I had all the various pieces lying around the house I obliged him. For those of you who don't know, a berimbau is a one-stringed instrument of African origin that is played in Capoeira rodas around the world. As I was working on it...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Jul 9, 2011, 1:09 pm
Today would have been my Dad's 82nd birthday, except that he left us this past year. I've been thinking about him a lot, and missing him - it has now been a full year since I last spoke with him. Lately I've been reading a book he recommended to me, 'Seven Days in the Art World,' enjoying it thorou...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Jun 30, 2011, 10:55 pm
Well, well. It's been a while since my last post. Again. Since I last wrote anything, I added a year onto my age and... other things... can't think of any of them right now... just as well. I'm not here to play catch-up. So it's been just over a year since I bought myself a bicycle, and about two ...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - May 3, 2011, 6:41 pm
Yesterday as we were arriving at Lucas' school, we heard girls shrieking in the entryway. Not an uncommon occurrence, but there was a particular urgency to these shrieks. As we came in the door, we discovered why. There was a large rat loose in the large room just inside the door, and two of the ...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Apr 26, 2011, 10:42 am
Easter, and Holy Week, are a big deal here in Brazil- I celebrated them by locking myself up in the house and ignoring all invitations for Good Friday meals and the like. On Saturday I let myself out and painted something, and on Sunday I went and got Lucas at his aunt's house. Lucas had been count...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Apr 11, 2011, 4:12 pm
(Note: this post was started a couple weeks ago and I never published it. I have a bad habit of doing that) That title translates as 'Paint over here dude,' and it was the name of a graffiti event that I attended this weekend in the city of Serrinha, which is about a three hour drive from Salvador...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Apr 7, 2011, 2:40 pm
If you use Facebook, you may have noticed that the number of scams is on the rise. A friend of mine had her account hacked, so I learned about a new one today. This was in the form of a chat, with some crook pretending to be her and fabricating an emergency. Here's the transcript. See if you can...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Mar 31, 2011, 10:42 am
Lucas' birthday was yesterday, and we are all recovering now. Like last year, we had the party at his school, which meant it was a 45 minute ordeal that was neatly wrapped up when the teacher whisked him and his classmates away for other activities. It didn't seem like much to me, but he enjoyed i...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Mar 24, 2011, 11:36 pm
My son managed to get his sucking thumb infected. Back in my thumb-sucking days, I'd switch off from one to the other but Lucas will only suck his left thumb, unless the situation is dire, as it was last night, and nobody slept much as a result. Today the swollen digit and the child carting it arou...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Mar 17, 2011, 3:14 pm
I've been following the story of Japan's developing nuclear disaster with mounting horror and, I have to admit it, a sick fascination as well. Then I start thinking about what it really means to have bits of plutonium floating around in the atmosphere and I start freaking out. This may seem flip an...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Mar 11, 2011, 10:58 pm
... is over. Most of our guests have left, although we still have a couple stragglers. I can honestly say we had the best houseful of people yet, although it wasn't without some drama. Carnaval for me is not as exciting as it used to be. I ended up spending most of my time with Lucas, both on and...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Feb 27, 2011, 7:25 pm
Today is the first day I can remember when I have not eaten any meat, at all. I did have a large cheese omelet, so a vegan I am not. Although I would like to reduce my meat consumption, I don't expect this feat to be repeated anytime soon. Today I did not leave my house. This is not the first tim...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Feb 20, 2011, 3:50 pm
Today I took advantage of a painting opportunity I could not pass up. Carlos Gomez is a main thoroughfare through the center of the city, it is also very close to my house. Painting spots on this street are highly sought after, and there is graffiti in every available spot. But occasionally, new s...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Feb 7, 2011, 9:26 pm
I guess Lucas had a good first day of school. He drew this picture of himself writing at a desk: Note the huge smile.
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Feb 7, 2011, 11:55 am
After a week in the house by myself, bouncing off the walls and staying up until dawn, the family returned this morning and things begin to return to normal. The TV and radio are on, Evani is chatting on the phone as she does for at least a couple hours a day. Normal. Summer vacation ended for Luc...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Feb 4, 2011, 9:02 pm
Here they call it a 'Bleckautch'... Portuguese can sound odd to the unaccustomed ear, but if you hear a word that sounds truly bizarre, it's probably an English one getting the Brazilian vowel treatment. You wouldn't recognize 'check in' (as in a flight) or 'outdoor' (what a billboard is called) un...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Feb 3, 2011, 12:55 am
I just had a car battery die - the third one in six years. I also had another wireless router die - the fourth in six years? I know the climate here is rough on electronics, but this is ridiculous.
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Jan 23, 2011, 6:18 pm
Don't leave your laptop on the floor overnight, at least not at my house. One of my big motivations in starting, and maintaining (insofar as it is maintained) this blog was a desire to write about the challenges I experience living here in this culture so different from my own. I know I get whiny w...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Jan 17, 2011, 10:05 am
Time passes and no posts. It's not that I've lost interest in this blog, which is now in its fourth year, but rather that it's found its way onto the long list of back-burnered projects that I maintain in my head. I suppose that means I have lost interest to some degree. Or maybe that I'm not fee...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Dec 9, 2010, 10:43 pm
In the interest of writing something absolutely silly, and shocking the world with two posts in two days, I will recount the following. We went to the supermarket this evening. My son, who is big on his superheros, got dressed for the occasion. This involved putting on not one, but two costumes un...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Dec 8, 2010, 11:27 pm
I know, you haven't heard from me in a while. Lots of reasons for that, none of which I will get into just now. I couldn't resist the opportunity to repeat my oft-expressed love for my charming neighbors. So sweet and polite, considerate and engaging. Here's a couple women engaging in a debate ov...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Nov 7, 2010, 6:53 pm
Note to self, and any of you who might be as dunderheaded as Yours Truly: Don't watch The Road, by yourself, if you're already kinda bummed out, even if you've been waiting months to see it. Some are born fools and some seek out a higher realm of foolishness by re-watching parts of the movie and ...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Oct 23, 2010, 9:36 pm
I went to put out the trash just now, 10:30 on a Saturday night, and as I go to drop a bundle of cardboard on the sidewalk I hear "No no no no!" I turn around and this guy, socializing with the neighbors, reaches for the bundle, saying "What, you're just going to throw it away?" I give him the card...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Oct 12, 2010, 11:13 am
Yeah Right. I had been told that a painting of mine had gotten into a TV commercial, but I hadn't seen it until just now, as it's on YouTube as well: My little red monster can be glimpsed at 4 seconds in and again at 50 seconds, you can even read the 'Kuza' under it if you are really paying attenti...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Oct 3, 2010, 10:28 pm
I had fun today. Today was Brazilian election day, and I went out scavenging with a couple friends of mine. They are a Chilean couple who, unfortunately, are planning to leave Salvador in a couple months. Since none of us was obliged to vote (like that would have stopped us) we went out with my ca...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Sep 26, 2010, 2:13 pm
Several weeks ago, at about midnight on a Saturday, I got a phone call, and Monday morning at 6 AM I was at the airport. That same evening I was in the United States, and the next day I was in a state of the art medical facility in the middle of the woods in New Hampshire. It was one of the most b...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Aug 26, 2010, 11:19 pm
I went to the dentist today- which is only news because I haven't been in almost twenty years. The infamous Pfohl enamel came through for the most part- the dentist remarked that I have surprisingly little tartar as she dove in with a drill (and no Novocaine) to prepare a filling. No yankings, no ...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Aug 22, 2010, 7:09 pm
My last couple posts have left a bitter taste in my mouth, so I thought I'd do a silly little Mr. Fix-It post to act as an after-dinner mint. My mom used to call me Handy Andy, because I used to like to fix things as a kid, and... my middle name is Andrew. Still like to fix things, yes I do! I supp...
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Markuza P. posted an article on What am I Doing Here? - Aug 21, 2010, 12:15 am
Man did I make a mistake. I received a question, via my graffiti supply site, about spray paint caps. For those of you who aren't involved in this particular subculture, there are several dozens of different types of spray caps- all with different properties and that work better or worse on differen...
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