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I am back from Brazil and thought I would give a report of my last couple of night while there and also report on an unexpected and unusual occurrence while at the airport, leaving Brazil. Lagoa was, as usual, not busy on Monday night. There were only a few clients and garotos. I really did not expect much because of the day of the week. There is always next visit to Brazil to see Lagoa on a Wednesday and Friday when it is usually busy and fun. I enjoyed the short visit at Lagoa, somewhat, then decided to make another visit to Fragata. Fragata was about the same as Lagoa in that Monday was not a busy night to visit. I stayed there a short while then went to dinner. Tomcal mentioned in his recent post about the new airport Terminal 3 in Sao Paulo. I agree. The terminal is quite modern, with lots of shops and lots of restaurants. Everything is nice and shiny and cheerful. An extraordinary thing happened while I was checking in for my flight. I heard a male voice call out my name in the funny way my name is pronounced in Brazil. I looked up and saw a former sauna rent boy, I used to know, working behind the counter checking in passengers. I was surprised to see him working at the airline and quite hesitant to say anything to him considering how we knew each other. However, since he spoke to me first (by calling me by my funny sounding name in Portuguese), I thought it okay to talk and acknowledge him from a different venue. His face lit up and I knew that he was very pleased to see me. After checking me in for the flight (in Brazil Americans cannot check in on line and get a boarding pass), he reminded me that my flight was not due to leave for almost two hours. He then said he could take a break if I would meet him in one of the new fancy restaurants in the new terminal. Of course, I agreed. This particular guy had been one of my favorite sauna guys until I lost contact with him about six years ago. Before we lost contact with each other, I saw him often and once took him to Buenos Aires. That trip was his first time on an airplane. He is now married and has a child. He did not want anything and did not ask for anything. He just wanted to talk. I am very happy that he got out of the sauna business and now has a family and appears to be happy. We exchanged phone numbers and email addresses before I went out to the gate to catch my plane. I already received text messages from him and an e-mail. He was not just a simple encounter in the sauna. He was special from most garotos in a sauna. Brazil can create such fond memories, if you allow them to happen.

Nice enthusiasm.

but very worth revisiting.

They're number one at what?

Chernobyl is in what is now the Ukraine, not Russia. Some folks downwind aren't too enthused about waiting for those two to get their act together and fix the mess. Besides seems like the guys running the Ukraine considered their options: 1) spend billions roofing over the temporary containment because it would be the responsible thing to do or 2) squander said billions on theft and foreign bank accounts, wait everybody else out and then steal a good chunk of the money foreigners would eventually pony up to do the job for them. Hmm...what to do, what to do? Don't you hate difficult decisions?