Thoughts

Cows and roads in Romania

A typical sight you might encounter as you drive through the Romanian countryside is cows returning home from pasture in the evening, or, if you’re an early morning traveler, going to pasture.

It’s interesting the first few times, particularly if you’ve never seen that sort of thing before. It’s “touristy”, cute, etc. But it gets old really fast, for multiple reasons:

Herds on the roads worked back when the pace of travel was as fast as a horse and buggy could take you. Nowadays cars go somewhat faster than that. Having to slam on your brakes and go in 1st gear or stand still for up to 30 minutes isn’t something the weary traveler looks forward to doing when trying to get home or find some lodging.
You won’t find it cute after an angry ox sticks his horns into your hood or tries to mount your car, frustrated because he couldn’t mount his favorite cow that day…
Your neck veins will possibly burst as you experience the indolence of the cow herders, who will drag themselves along at a snail’s pace, blissfully unaware of the cars that are waiting for them to move the animals off the road. Most won’t give a cow’s behind about you even if you ask them nicely or yell at them.
You’ll not think it such a quaint sight after you run through a few steaming cow pies and have to hose them off your car later.
If you have to brake suddenly, then begin to slide dangerously on the mud laid on the road by the cows, you’ll begin to appreciate the usefulness of clean asphalt, unsullied by manure or thick mud.

In this day and age, I’m surprised village mayors still allow the cows to use the main roads, instead of directing the animal traffic to use the side roads and the back roads. Sure, the cows have gotten used to using the same route every day, but they can be re-trained. It seems to me the will just isn’t there, and that’s a shame.

Reviews

POLLI-BRICKS reduce plastic bottle pollution

Plastic pollution is a huge problem. Most everyone has heard of the floating plastic islands in our oceans (the biggest is in the Pacific Ocean, but there are several others), all of which are made up of plastic bottles, wrappers, bags and other plastic waste that can float. They don’t break down. They only break into smaller pieces, which are still plastic and continue to pollute over time. For a wonderful primer on the subject, check out Dianna Cohen‘s talk at TED about it.

MINIWIZ, a Taipei company, has come up with an innovative “brick” design they call POLLI-BRICKS. They’re made from 100% recycled PET polymer (plastic bottles) collected from plastic waste reservoirs. This means that instead of ending up in the floating plastic islands, plastic waste can be re-purposed into bricks that can be used as building materials. Because they’re hollow and translucent (but not transparent, for those concerned about privacy), they have inherent thermal insulation, offer natural lighting during the day, and can be embedded with LED lights and solar panels for night lighting. They’re also durable, fire-resistant, interlock readily, and can be manufactured on-site. Check out the two videos embedded below, one recorded at CES by InfoWorld, and another showing how sturdy a small bridge built out of these bricks can be.

There are more videos posted on the MINIWIZ channel at YouTube.

[via Greenopolis]

Places

Beware of chimney sweeps in Romania

As cold weather begins to set in Romania, itinerant chimney sweeps begin to make their rounds. They’ll come to the gate and offer to clean your chimneys, or they’ll use lines like “We’re here from our head office, we’ve been sent down to check and clean your chimneys,” which of course is a bold-faced lie. Chimney sweeps mostly work alone, they have no companies, and no headquarters. It’s been that way for centuries. Sometimes, as an added bonus, they’ll reek of cheap wine. And almost always, they’ll be of Roma (gipsy) origin.

The keyword when using their services is CAUTION. If you don’t exercise caution, you do so at risk to your wallet and some of your smaller and perhaps valuable belongings. I’m not stereotyping here, I’m summarizing popular wisdom. I’ve met honest, hard-working gipsies, but they are few and far between.

If you ask them what it costs to clean a chimney, they’ll give you a quick look-over (if they haven’t already), and since they’ve already checked your house from the outside, they’ll quote a price that’s in line with your neighborhood, your house and your clothes.

If you say okay and bring them into your attic to start cleaning, you’ve got to be very careful, because they’ll often double their prices. They’ll say, and I speak from personal experience here, that your chimney is too tall, and they’ll need to charge double. At this point you have two choices: pay the extra money, or begin to escort them to your gate so you can kick them off your property. You should ALWAYS choose the second option.

What’ll happen next is they’ll back down and try to haggle a new price, somewhere between the one they quoted at the gate and the one they quoted in the attic. NEVER back down. Stick to the quoted price or kick them out. They’ll usually give up and agree to the original price.

Make sure they come equipped with all the equipment they need. They should have an adequate chimney brush, not a make-do one, and they should have a mirror, to look up the chimney and ensure that it’s clean. If they don’t have a mirror and ask you for one, make sure to check around when you get back to make sure nothing’s gone. Also make sure to monitor their every move while they’re in your attic/house. Something may just disappear when you’re not looking.

Photo courtesy of Northern Tool & Equipment

Finally, when they’re done, make sure they give you a stamped and signed receipt which states your full name and address, and also a certificate which states that your chimneys have been checked and are working properly — you may need the latter in your dealings with Romgaz and its subsidiaries, the only (can you say unfair monopoly…) natural gas company in Romania.

If you happen to live in a nice neighborhood and have taken care of your house, then beware of the initial quoted price, it may be higher than what their services are worth. Try to halve it, then negotiate up to 65-75% of their asking price if need be, or try to get it down to 50%. For example, one price I heard lately (fall of 2010) was 30 RON per chimney. I think that’s adequate, but it could be negotiated down to 20 RON if your budget is limited, or if you’ve got lots of chimneys (5-6 of them, for example). Use your judgment and exercise caution.

Places

Autumn in the hills outside Medias

We took a walk today on one of the hills outside Medias, possibly one of the tallest near the city, covered by a beautiful mixed beech forest. A thin layer of frost and a bitter cold lay over the city in the early hours of the morning, but thankfully, by lunchtime, with the friendly help of the sun, things warmed up enough to make it pleasant to venture outside.

Thoughts

Meet Mushu

Mushu is a tomcat born in late May to another of our cats, Mitzi. She gave birth to three kittens: two tomcats and a kitty. We found a good home in the countryside for two of them, but we kept Mushu. We liked his half-pink, half-black nose and his loving nature. He’s been shy from the get-go though. It took a while for him to stop running away from us, and he’s finally learned to stay calm when we move around him. (Let’s just say his mom also had a “cautious” nature, and it took a bit of time for her to trust us — she was half-feral when we adopted her.)

Here he is, as a kitten, playing and sleeping with his brother.