So the cover photo for this post is from last night's dinner. That's Bill King, our US expat operations manager here in Curitiba. We are sharing the national cocktail of Brazil called a caipirinha. It is made with cachaca, a Brazilian liquor made from fermented sugar cane, mixed with crushed limes and sugar. Very tasty, but with a kick like a margarita. Spent all of today with our Brazilian colleagues making supplier visits and showing them how to do evaluation...

Not much to comment on today, as it has been, so far, a work day. Bill King, our expat host here, picked us up at 7:15 for what should be a 15 minute trip However, with traffic, it took 35 minutes. The team at Curitiba is quite nice and very friendly. The cover photo is of the exterior of the office building. I will post other photos later of the other building that is used mostly for storage on the lower level, and houses the production and operations office...

After a 35 minute taxi ride from the airport. We arrived at the Radisson hotel. Traffic was moderate, and it was clear from the parks and restaurants we passed that a lot of folks were out to enjoy their Sunday afternoon. We took a half hour to unpack, and at 3 PM John Lewis and I headed out for a walk. We did a big loop though several blocks of high rises, many looking quite nice. The town reminds me of many Mexican cities, but a little cleaner overall. I've p...

Off to Brazil! Left ORD on time at 9:30 PM and arrived in São Paulo at 10:40 local time the next morning. United keeps getting chintzier. The meals were lousy and only soft drinks were free. Apparently, one must be flying trans-Pacific to get a complimentary glass of wine. Seems to me the luggage bins on the new 777s are smaller and it feels like they chopped an inch or so off the legroom in Economy Plus. Despite that, I got some sleep and didn't wake up unt...