¡Soy Tica! ... I'm Costa Rican!

I fell in love with Costa Rica more than 50 years ago. The romance began when I first arrived at the Peñas Blancas border crossing between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, thus ending what had been 10 day overland journey in a pickup truck, with a camper shell.

After living in Costa Rica for several years, circumstances required me to return to my homeland. When I left Costa Rica I left a big piece of my heart behind with the Ticos. For 35 years I dreamt of returning to Costa Rica permanently. During these years I traveled back to Costa Rica on as many of my vacations as I could. Then in 2006, John and I bought a piece of property in the mountain town of Atenas. We built a small casita to use as our vacation home for a few years, and finally, in 2011, my dream came true! We were able to quit our jobs, retire, and move to Costa Rica to live amongst the Ticos.

I am very proud to announce that Costa Rica has granted my request to become a Naturalized Citizen this week. ¡Pura Vida Costa Rica!

Read the whole story...

Happy 6th Retirement Anniversary to us!

Hard to believe that today is the sixth anniversary of our retirement and relocation to Costa Rica. Wow, looking back so much has happened in these 6 years. We are busier now than we have ever been. Our social life is so much fuller here than it ever could be in Texas. All through our working careers we were too busy to develop many relationships. Don't get me wrong, we have some amazing friends in the States that will always be there for us, as we will for them.

Then we have our beautiful family with 7 children, plus their spouses, 13 grandchildren, and one great granddaughter, plus all of our brothers and sisters. They are spread out among California, Illinois, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia. We love them all and miss them, but living in Costa Rica means that most of them are not much further from us than when we lived in Texas.

Looking back, this is a recap of just the highlights of the past 6 years.

We moved into our 300 square foot casita (vacation cottage) and quickly adopted our street dog, Gustavo as a companion for our Jack Russell Terrorist, Randy. Gus is a mini-pin/terrier mix and just a little love machine.

We built our Rancho to give us some outdoor living space and quickly followed with the construction of the main house.

My Costa Rican “Permanent Residency” was re-instated on September 19, 2011 and John immediately dove-tailed in behind me to get his. He was approved in June, 2012.

We moved into our new casa grande, about 60 meters from the casita, on May 30, 2012.

On September 3rd, 2012, we experienced our first major earthquake since our relocation from the States. It measured 7.6 on the Richter scales, with the epicenter about 70 miles from us. The entire house swayed, but we didn't find a single crack in the new construction. It's a testament to the building codes here in Costa Rica.

After we moved to Casa Wegner, we made our Casita Limón available to family and friends. We found there were too many months that the casita sat empty gathering dust and dead bugs. So, in April, 2013, we started offering it as a vacation rental. Since then we have had over 100 guests stay with us. In addition to family and friends, we have met folks from all over the world. Some have become dear friends, and you know who you are.

We have become involved in the community and social media. We manage a couple of Facebook groups for our town, Atenas. One FB group is for general info, and the other is for the local classifieds. We have also helped with fund raising for the local animal rescue group, Animales Atenas. Through them we found another street dog, Yoli, and she became an addition to our fur-family.

I started teaching an informal Spanish language learning class for a limited number of friends about a year ago. It has been fun watching their language skills progress, especially John's. I had to suspend classes in June when John broke his ankle, but I'll probably start them up again after our next big trip.

We have been stashing pennies for about 3 years now for our dream trip to Spain this October. We have arranged for friends to stay at Casa Wegner to care for our fur-kids while we are away. The plan is to meet our close friends, David and Norma Jean, in Madrid, rent a vehicle, and then travel around Spain for a couple of weeks. When we get to Barcelona, we'll take in the sights and cuisine, and then our friends will take a train back to Madrid to fly back home to the States. A couple of days later we will catch a transatlantic ocean cruise to Ft. Lauderdale. The ship stops in Cadiz, Tenerife, and one other stop in the Canary Island. We'll have a few relaxing days at sea and be back home in early November. We've talked about doing this for years and we're not getting any younger, so we just have to do it now, while we have the energy to get up and go.

Happy 6th Retirement Anniversary to us and to this "Pura Vida" lifestyle.
Read the whole story...

Nobody's Talking For A Reason

A member of the Facebook group Atenas Costa Rica Info asked about the veracity of an old book The Costa Rica Nobody Talks About.  I bought it online for $3.99 and read it today.  My thoughts about the book follow (I wasn't impressed).

Note: If you don't have this book, much of the following won't make much sense but I wouldn't recommend that anyone pay for this book.  

At the beginning of the book the author says:

"So I ask myself, how can I help the Ticos ... the answer is to write about the things I didn't like ... to help Ticos learn those behaviors and attitudes that are counterproductive." 

Is this guy a ghost writer for Donald Trump?

Chapter 2 Summary - I know exactly what those stupid Ticos need to do to make their country great.

God what an arrogant first-world-centric person. (trying to keep this G-rated)

Chapter 4 Summary - all the cops are crooked and prey on tourists.

Transito mgmt has really cracked down on tourist shakedowns. Re: the Transito vehicle being stolen and stuff disappearing: Don't leave any vehicle with the keys in the ignition; and, don't leave anything of any value in a car.

Local cops are a varied lot. Maybe some are dishonest. Some are just trying to get through another day, for meager pay, without getting hurt doing any stupid cop stuff.

Chapter 5 & 6 Summary - Customs is very corrupt. All (or most) of the government's Ministers are just taking the jobs to enrich themselves.

Neither we (40' container with car) nor anybody we know has lost anything of consequence, for certain, during shipping. 

The author's bribery "review" of the customs process and alleged extreme bribery is based on a single story by a single agent and the rest is total speculation.

The "you have 4 years to enrich yourself" claim is pretty thinly documented too. My wife was once married to one of these senior cabinet ministers and she will assure you that, at least back in those even more corrupt days, not everyone was goring the bull.

Potholes probably cause some accidents but locals know to slow down and stay alert. Horrid drivers and motos are responsible for way way more accidents.

Not driving at night, if possible, is a good idea. Not so much for potholes but because of the numerous pedestrians with no clue and no understanding of due care.

Chapter 7 Summary - You probably need something like a jacked up (high clearance) Toyota 4x4 pickup to survive the roads of CR. Importing will result in thefts. Insurance sucks.

If you stick to gravel or paved roads, you never need a high clearance vehicle or 4x4. Crappy old taxis go everywhere and almost none of them are 4x4. 

Our 2003 Subaru has now been on the roads here for 5 years and the only repairs have been tires (used when we got here), front brake pads (60k miles) and an air conditioner part.

We imported the Subaru, stuffed full of goods. Only a very very attractive hunting knife was missing. (Left in there by my stupidity.)

Yeah, the car insurance and accidents and locals having more luck in the courts than foreigners (surprised?) can all happen -- but the vast majority of gringos don't have many episodes.

Chapter 8 Summary - Honey attracts more bees than vinegar -- especially when dealing with bureaucrats.

Yes, chatting up the locals is almost mandatory in order to get things to go smoothly in bureaucracy transactions. Yes, doing anything with any part of government takes a long time. Bring your Kindle.

Chapter 9 Summary - Buying real estate is easy. Selling it is extremely hard

Unless you have lived in CR for at least two years and unless you're fluent in Spanish, NEVER BUY PROPERTY. Also "Realtor" means nothing in CR. It's not a trademarked "thing" here with requirements and ethics, etc.

Chapter 10 Summary - Everybody has one price for locals and a much higher price for gringos and retailers live and breath to rip off gringos.

Gringo pricing is very rare now with most prices published and automatic bar code checkout at almost all stores. Not sure but I don't think we've ever been charged gringo pricing, except at parks, and only until we got permanent residency.

Chapter 11 Summary - Ticos will screw you all the time.

Doesn't this guy watch his receipts and checkout clerks in Canada? Everywhere has people who will screw with oblivious customers.

Chapter 12 & 13 Summary - Bad guys are going to break into your house and take all your stuff.

Oh, yes, bad guys WILL break into an occupied home. Making your home unattractive to thieves and self-protection are the only solutions. Also the author's precious Nicoya area has recently had daylight armed robbery of tourists in their cars as they stopped to examine water fords on remote roads.

"It is very difficult to ... (be) going out (from your house) as you please and not having your house broken into in Costa Rica. Your house becomes your prison." 

 ABSOLUTE BULL SHIT.

"Purchase or rent in a gated community..." 

That makes you a target. Are the bad guys going to some poor little Tico-looking house or to that target-rich gringo enclave? All rashes of burglaries and home invasions that we know of have been in gated communities.

By U.S. or Canadian standards domestic help might be "inexpensive" but live-ins will cost you about $350 per month plus medical plus bonus (mandatory) plus food plus the room. Also, some live-in that you get "off the street" could very well be a relative of a crook or someone who talks to crooks.

The best recommendation (not very clearly stated) is to make friends with your neighbors; become an active part of the neighborhood. Then there are many eyes watching out for you.

Chapter 14 Summary - Tico justice for gringos sucks

Basic info is good, except for the story about the Kimberly Blackwell murder story. The author mentions that "She had frequent clashes with poachers" That's true. What was skipped by the author but mentioned in the local news is that she shot at them with a BB or pellet gun. Poachers. Armed guys. Angry at you for interfering with their source of income. 

And, the Jairo Mora accused are being re-tried (no double jeopardy immunity in CR). 

NOT to say that the police and courts are very good at putting away bad guys. They're not. 

Bottom line: Living in CR is a bit like the wild west days of the USA -- just with the internet and cell phones.

Chapter 15 Summary - A bunch of blather about Ticos wanting free stuff from gringos because, um, you won't believe the author's logic.

The leap of logic that U.S. international monetary policy and financial aid to Costa Rica's government resulted in teaching the average people on the street to expect gringos to give them money is astounding. All of the author's thoughts about the country's debt and suspicious stuff is simply speculation. Again, see remarks in about Chap 9. Don't buy or invest your fortune here unless you've been in-country for years, are good with Spanish and know the culture.

Chapter 16 Summary - There are a LOT of fraudsters in Costa Rica

Pretty much all true, which is yet another reason to wait years, until you build up a network of trusted Tico friends, before you buy real estate or a business.

Chapter 17 Summary - The author's grand theory of everything that everyone should do to make CR just like he wants it to be.

Peeing in the ocean. Nobody is listening (hopefully).

DAMN!  Why did I waste that $3.99?
Read the whole story...

Road trip to Playa Jaco the long way... via Puriscal

This morning I told John it was time for a "day off" from the daily grind of retirement and we needed to go on a road trip to somewhere we had never been. So I suggested we take a drive up to Santiago de Puriscal, to the South of us, in the mountains at about 3500 feet in altitude. From there we continued south, on the old road, Highway 239, all the way down to the Pacific coast, somewhere between Playa Jaco and Parrita.

Today was a good day for a road trip, the weather was clear and beautiful, and the rainy season is just now starting, so everything is vibrant green again.

It's only about 35 kilometers from Puriscal to the Pacific on this road, but only the first half is paved. We continued to climb up the mountain to around 4200 feet and the temperature was so pleasant we opened the window and turned off the A/C. As we came around a curve, we found this big guy parked in front of someone's house. 

We looked up to the left to see where it came from and this is where it rolled down. Can you imagine the racket it made as is came to it's resting place. The folks living in that house sure were lucky this bolder ran out of steam when it did, or they'd have been like the Wicked Witch of OZ.



There were some beautiful vistas on this road and this photo doesn't begin to do them justice.


It wasn't too long after the bolder that we came across this sight. You've heard of a "vehicle in tow", but I'll bet you've never seen a "horse in tow" without a trailer.


The driver was just coasting and the horse was just walking along behind, like a dog out for a walk on leash.


The road was pretty good for a dirt road until we came to this very narrow iron bridge. Then the road was nothing but a dirt track, about 17 kilometers of BAD road.


When we dropped down out of the mountains, we saw the remains of someone's pipe dream of a "gated community". What on earth were they thinking? Who, in their right mind, would invest in property at least 10 kilometers from a decent highway, and probably 25 to 30 kilometers to any sort of amenities, like a grocery store, pharmacy, gas station, medical care, you know what I mean, the basic stuff you just gotta have. Sheesh, no wonder it's abandoned.

So here is one finished house with an empty pool and the steel framing for two more houses. Lots of money down the drain on this venture.

It took us about 2½ hours to drive from Puriscal to Jaco Beach, and since it was already lunchtime, we stopped for some Arroz con Camerones (Shrimp and Rice) at a local seafood restaurant before heading home on the Autopista del Sol, Costa Rica's version of a super highway. The final leg of the journey only took an hour, but that 17 kilometers of BAD road took it's toll on my chauffeur.

I thinks it's going to be a "kick back" sort of evening with maybe popcorn, or cheese 'n crackers, for dinner.

Read the whole story...

Where are our lost friends???

We seem to have misplaced a couple of good friends. The last time we saw them was when we went to have lunch with them at the beautiful home they were renting in Punta Leona on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. That was way back in October, 2012.

I received an email in December, 2012, from my friend saying her yahoo email account had been compromised. She said she was going to close the yahoo account and open a gmail account. That was the last time we heard from M and T.

I've tried to find M and T on Facebook, but no luck. I know at one point M used to follow our blog and frequently sent me comments about our posts. So, on the off chance that M or T happens to see this post, please send us a note to let us know where you are and how you are. We miss you guys.
Read the whole story...

The "Yigüirro", the National Bird of Costa Rica

We have an Yigüirro (ee-gear-row) that has fallen in love with it's reflection in our dining room window. It flits between the mango tree, at our neighbors, and our window, where it will perch and tap on the glass for a good part of the day.

This clay-colored robin, or thrush, is the national bird of Costa Rica. In spite of all the beautiful exotic birds found in Costa Rica, the Yigüirro was chosen in 1977 for several reasons. Due to its wide range and tendency to live close to humans, it is well known and therefore mentioned in many of Costa Rica’s folk songs, short stories and novels.

The males are also cherished for their exquisite song; during mating season, they serenade potential mates with an unmistakable tune. Click here to listen to their beautiful song.



Read the whole story...

Typical Product Packaging in Costa Rica

Ketchup, Mustard, Mayo, Sour Cream & Refried Beans

We've been meaning to blog about the product packaging you find here in Costa Rica compared to the methods used in North America.  Back at H.E.B, our favorite grocery store in Houston, the top three products in this photo would be in either glass or plastic bottles.  The sour cream would be in a plastic tub and you'd find the beans in a metal can.

These Costa Rican packaging choices may have happened because they didn't have the USA's huge glass jar and metal can infrastructure in place but whatever the reason, this way of doing things is simply sensible.

The sour cream is the real stuff (not full of guar gum and thickeners -- it almost pours) and we simply snip off the edge of the recyclable polyethylene bag and squeeze the contents into our own little tub.  Either the empty is off to be recycled or it is very low profile land fill.  We're talking "sandwich bag" vs., plastic tub, plastic lid, and foil safety liner.

The other products in the picture are all squeeze pouches.  Not only do they recycle, take up less room on the shelf and reseal like magic but think about never again digging around in the bottom of the Hellman's jar while your knuckles get smeared with mayo; or never shaking that danged Heinz ketchup bottle; or, don't go get a knife dirty -- lay down a perfect bead of mustard on your bratwurst.

Another great aspect of this is if you're any kind of a refried bean fan.  In the USA, what do you do with the rest of the can after you open it up and only want to use a few tablespoons?  Scoop it into Tupperware?  Then it either gets pushed to the back of the refrigerator and turns into a "strange biological growths" science project, or you take it out a few days later and it has that nasty crust all over it.  With the CR packaging, we just unscrew the little cap, squeeze out a dollop, or ten, and stand it back up in the refer door.  Better yet, we can have a pouch of regular refried black beans; some with jalapeños; some with Salsa Lizano; some red bean; and, oh, the flavors go on and on.

Almost everything that is a watery liquid comes in refill-size poly bags.  Lysol in a bag?  Weird.  Floor polish?  Windex?  Hand soap?  Weird, weird, weird.  It's a recycle thing again and an efficiency benefit.  One quickly gets used to it.

Pump bottles and sprays:  Here, if you're smart, you get a good pump or spray bottle and keep it forever (with a smile.)  Almost everything is sold as a refill, rather than with the pump every time.

We were a little unprepared for the laundry detergent powder to come in a giant, floppy poly bag until we realized that they're sized to fit neatly into a snap-on-lid 5-gallon bucket.  Way-hey-hey-hey more convenient than those big cardboard boxes and in this climate, no clumping.

A few things need a little work here in the CR packaging industry.  Although aseptic packaging puts myriad tropical fruit juices at our fingertips, the pouring spouts are awfully splashy unless you pour awfully slowly.  Aseptic boxed milk is ultra convenient (and we try to always keep some, "just in case") but they still haven't figured out how to get it to taste as great as the fresh stuff.  

Now the downside.  Coffee is all in form-fill-seal bags.  No cans.  What the heck am I supposed to use for nuts, bolts and shop junk?!?  These barbarians.
Read the whole story...

Life With Suzie

Hey ... it's the old man here, not the nice sweet Tita. Here's the skinny. Some of you know that we have a 1994 Isuzu Rodeo. Some of you may even know the name by which I call said vehicle. It's not Suzie. If you don’t remember the name, perhaps a refresher is in order: http://gooblegobbus.blogspot.com/2008_06_01_archive.html

Tuesday night, after winding down a day of construction workers running all over, dogs acting like maniacs, a smoker billowing apple wood smoke all over the place and finally trying to once again stuff everything back into the garage so that the door could be shut for the night, we retired to our bedroom for a little TV and reading.

After very little of these diversions, we decided to kill the lights and call it a day.

Some time towards midnight, Pat woke up, then woke me up. “The lights are on inside the car.” [This is one of the advantages of living in a shotgun shack. We can see our entire world, out the front window, while lying in bed.]

“{Expletive deleted},” I said, and climbed groggily out of bed. I knew that The {Expletive deleted} Car had been acting up lately, electrically. And one of “her” most annoying traits has become the inside courtesy lights staying on unless all of the doors and the hatch are very tightly closed (i.e., slammed.)

Fumble fumble fumble in the dark, looking for the keys. I unlocked the front door and padded out into the driveway. {Expletive deleted}!! Now I was hopping around with sopping wet socks having forgotten that, duh, in the rain forest, it rains … and the concrete is wet with COLD rain. [Yes, I sometimes wear socks to bed … get over it.]

Got the front passenger side door opened and slammed it. The light went out. Well, that was easy.

Locked up, stripped out of the wet socks and crawled back into bed. I was almost instantly asleep.

“Hey,” Pat said poking me, “the car lights are still on.”

“Urhuuu?” I sat up and looked. Sure enough. The {Expletive deleted} Car’s interior lights were on?!?

No fumbling this time. I knew exactly where I had thrown the {expletive deleted} keys. Pad pad pad, out into the driveway in my bare feet. {Expletive deleted}!! I’d forgotten that the construction workers had been dribbling concrete, sand, rock and all descriptions of sharp-ish things on the driveway throughout the course of their work, earlier in the day. Some of those little sharps kind of weld themselves into the bottoms of your bare feet so no matter how much hopping around you do, there’s just no shaking them. Ow! I leaned up against the car and brushed the offending daggers from my feet.

Well, the second most likely culprit of not being slammed hard enough to ensure that the interior lights go off would be the back hatch glass. Blick! Slam! The lights go out. [Come on … the sound the latch on the glass makes when you push the button is “blick”? Didn’t you know that?]

Anyway, success. Lights out. Back inside … lock ‘er up … crawl into bed. Ahhh. Peaceful sleep.

“John.”

“Wut?”

“Look.” In the darkness I could see her pointing out to the front. The {expletive deleted} interior lights were on again in that {Expletive deleted} Car.

“Arrrrrrrrgh!” I stomped outside. Now I was afraid that all of these episodes might have pulled the old battery down far enough that the car wouldn’t start in the morning. I got in, put the key in the ignition, cursed the FSM and turned it. Well, well. The {expletive deleted} engine started instantly. I ran the rpm up a bit and sat there letting the battery charge back up, shut ‘er down, got out … SLAM!

The lights went out.

“Nooohohohoho you don’t you {Expletive deleted}{expletive deleted}{expletive deleted}{expletive deleted} Car! I know your tricks you piece of {expletive deleted}. So, I waited for the lights to come back on. And waited. I hit the windows with my fist to try to jar it into the state of electrical Botherationus lightus. Nada. I bashed fenders with my ample butt. I rocked it on its springs. Nuttin.

“All right, ya {expletive deleted} … good night.”

I laid down in bed but couldn’t take my eyes off of The {Expletive deleted} Car, outside our window. It just couldn’t keep doing that. I had by now opened and closed every opening of that old heap at least twice. Next thing you know the slamming would have been waking up the kids down the street!

I think that I drifted off a little. You know that in-between state of mind when you’re not quite sure if you’re awake or dreaming or what? I was there. Are those really lights?

Now it was my turn for the jab. “Pat!”

“Huh?”

“Are those lights on in the car?”

“Yep.”

That ripped it.

Not that the new, calm, Pura Vida serene me would ever fly off the handle and get violent or anything. Perish the thought. But I was headed for The {Expletive deleted} Car with blood in my eye. I threw the driver’s side door open – flipped the hood release – jerked the hood latch free – lifted the hood with more than a little force … and then stood there, in the dark, holding up that hood, with the hood support rod in my other hand, wondering where the {expletive deleted} is that {expletive deleted} little hole where the hood rod goes so that this {expletive deleted} heavy son of a hood doesn’t fall on me and kill me.

Yeah, I know … plan ahead.

Finally, the hood rod slipped onto some hole or another and it seemed sturdy.

With both hands I reached down to the battery wiring and with the strength of a really {expletive deleted} off maniac, jerked the wires off of the battery terminal.

[Had ya going there, didn’t I. Haha. I knew that the terminal clamp was loose because I had installed it without a wrench the other day. But it made good reading, didn’t it.]

Victory! No more lights.

I staggered back to bed. The neighboring farmer’s rooster crowed. And again. And again.

Oh … don’t do this to me. That means that it’s a quarter to 5 and the freakin sun will be up in 45 minutes. Then the dogs will be up and jumping all over to be let out. Then I’ll give up and stay up.

And that’s what happened last night.

So if this episode sounds a little cranky, it’s because, well, I’m cranky today!
Read the whole story...

Social Security, Pension and Costa Rican Residency

It's official, I've applied for my Social Security benefits and should receive my first check beginning in 2011. As part of the process, Social Security Administration found an old pension I forgot I had.

Years ago, I worked for a division of ADP that was sold off to some investors and several years after that, it was bought by the company that eventually laid me off. It turns out I had worked at ADP long enough to qualify for a pension, albeit a small pension, it is guaranteed income for life. When I talked to the HR rep at ADP, she said they tried to contact me at the old address they had on record. I have moved 4 times since I worked for ADP, and changed my last name too. Anyway, ADP is sending me a packet of information to apply for the pension. I thank Social Security for checking their records and finding this for me.

Two years ago my half Tico (Costa Rican) son, Donald, went with me to Costa Rica to get his "Cedula", the Costa Rican national identity card. Now that he has this, I can apply for unrestricted residency as the mother of a Costa Rican citizen.

After much research, and many recommendation from other expats, we have decided to use the consulting company called "Residency in Costa Rica" (RCR) to handle our residency applications and all the supporting documentation required by the Costa Rican Government. This week I mailed RCR all of the initial documentation to get the process started. This included my birth certificate and a letter of good conduct from the local police department. All of the documents have to be authenticated by the various States where they were issued, then the Costa Rica Consulate has to authenticate the States' signatures. After that the Consulates signatures get authenticated by the officials in Costa Rica. Then, all of the documents have to be officially translated into Spanish before the application is finally submitted.

When we go back to Costa Rica later this year, I will be fingerprinted and photographed. Then RCR will be ready to submit the residency application to Immigration for approval. RCR anticipates it will take from 4 to 6 months for my residency to be approved and the government to issue me my cedula (the equivalent of a "Green Card" issued to legal immigrants to the U.S). Once I'm approved, we will start the application process for John. He will be entitled to residency as my spouse.

We'll keep you posted on the process.

Read the whole story...

January - February, 2010 Update

We have fallen behind on our blog posting, so I am going to bring it up to date and try to be more diligent going forward.

John and I are both doing great. He has lost about 90 pounds in the past year just following our new style of eating. I, on the other hand, continue to lag behind, in spite of all my bicycle riding. I’ve only lost 58 pounds. Nevertheless, I think we will both reach our goal in another year. Then we will move into our maintenance phase. Since this isn’t really a diet anymore, we both feel our life style changes will make maintaining our weight easy in the future.

After our December trip, we decided it was time to go ahead and set the boundaries around our property in Atenas. We decided to build a 2 meter, concrete wall between us and our neighbors on the west side and a 1 meter, concrete wall on the other 3 sides. We will still have a great view, because we are installing 1 meter of fence on top of the low walls. In the future, we will probably replace this fencing with decorative wrought iron.

We got a couple of proposals and it turned out cheaper to have the same guy that built our casita, build the wall too. He is a Civil Engineer and it’s great to work with him. He won’t let his crews take any shortcuts and when he is done it’s a quality job.

In January, we went to California to meet the latest addition to the clan, little Charlotte. Talk about a cutie! She is such a good baby too. While we were there, we managed to squeeze in a mini family reunion with my sisters and their families, Aimee, Keith and their kiddos, and of course, Chris, Jen and baby Charlie. It was so good to see everyone.

I spent January and early February cooking lunches and dinners for John. I vacuumed sealed meals and froze them so it would be easy for him to continue to eat right while I came to Costa Rica to oversee the construction.

I arrived in Costa Rica a week ago and the wall construction is now well under way. Once we have the wall in place, we plan to install an automatic watering system and a lawn. Right now, the property is barren and it will be nice to see a lush lawn and plants the next time we come down here.

Once of nicer things about Costa Rica is the cost of medical and dental care, coupled with the outstanding quality. While I’m here, I’m getting some dental work done that I’ve been putting off. I can have the same work done here for 1/3 of what is would cost in the States.

The downside of being is Costa Rica…… I really miss John and I can’t wait to be home with him soon.

Read the whole story...

IT LIVES!! (in the tall grass)

I’m not really very fond of bugs. Apart from Fluffy, my pet tarantula, I wouldn’t miss the entire class of critters that bite, sting or chew up the wooden shelves in my garage.

I do enjoy the Spanish word for them: bichos [beach’ ohs]. It just pops off the lips like an English homophone that is usually combined with a tone of venom and the words, “son of a …” Saying their name in Spanish, with the correct tone of voice, helps me get through the day. “Damn bichos!”

See?

Then again, the little nasties sometimes get to pay me back for not showing them “the love.”

On our way back to Atenas from two wonderful days in the Valley of the Quetzals, we were seized with our obsession to look for tiny boxes of hidden trinkets, worth less than a penny, using millions of dollars of Global Positioning System technology, aka, geocashing.

“Oh, look! There’s a cache showing on my GPS, right down there in that little valley! Turn down this road!” said my co-pilot.

“Aarrrrrgh!” sez I.

After 15 minutes of dropping like a rock, down into this verdant valley, my co-pilot again said, “Turn here.”

“That’s a cow path.”

“No it isn’t. There was some gravel there once and there are a few rocks here and there right now,” she retorted. Then she set the hook. “Besides, do you want to log a Did Not Find on the website?” We turned up the cow path road.

Forty-five minutes of bone-jarring single-track later, following her GPS needle, we came to a bridge over the beautiful crashing cataract of the Rio Blanco de Copey. Boy what I would have given for an ultra-light fishing rig and some trout bait.
But we were after a different quarry now – the elusive Tupperware box full of trinkets.

The online hints said that the box was hidden in a “cave near the bridge” and the GPS’s kept dragging us towards a big ol’ rock about 20 feet off the road, sitting in meter-high grass. Having planned ahead, I was wearing shorts, crocs with no socks and no Deet. Ah, but it will just take a second.

It took about 10 minutes. You have to locate the cache, get it out of the cave, open it, look through the trinkets to see if there is one you want to take, leave one of our trinkets behind and sign the log book. Through all of that time, I never felt the little monsters striking into my flesh and injecting their venom.

Pat says they’re called no-see-ums. I think in the Midwest we called them chiggers. Either way, the domestic variety is a poor excuse for their genus, considering the strength of whatever the hell it is those horrid Costa Rican cousins leave behind in your skin. The Costa Rican branch of the chigger species are the Black Mambas of chigger-dom.

Our glee at logging another cache find was soon supplanted with a need to scratch. Our legs had been attacked and we both had numerous little red “pimples” raising up and itching. It’s overwhelming. And, I’ve learned my lesson: no matter how hot and steamy it is in the jungle [hoon’ glay] thou shalt always bathe in Deet and wear long pants.

Today is 4 days later and the only way to ignore the itching is to get my mind off of it by writing dreck like this for you to suffer through. See? I like to share.

Read the whole story...

Is it Christmas yet?

Apparently it is … here in Costa Rica. The Ticos take Christmas decorations very seriously. Every place you look, the decorations are up. Most of them have been up for a week or more. There doesn’t seem to be any of the competitive, “my lights are better than your lights,” here. Everyone just decorates. Some of the decorating is amazing.

During one of our geocaching forays deep into the mountains – where rain forest jungle edges up against forsaken little fincas (farms) -- we saw pockets of grinding poverty where the houses are just slapped together shanties. Many of them are fully constructed of rusty corrugated steel roofing, probably appropriated from unguarded construction sites or reclaimed from the roofs of ancient abandoned barns. But, amid their poverty, their hovels are decorated for Christmas. At least there is a cut-out of the Jolly Old Elf’s visage nailed to the front door. The “rich” peons [pay-owns’] have electricity and if they have electricity they’ve somehow managed to come up with a string of Christmas lights or two, gaily twinkling away, day and night.

In the towns we traveled through, Friday, December 04 is a crazy day of frenzied celebration and city-wide carnival. For, this is the day of the alginaldo [ahl-gee-nahl’-dough]. This is when every person in the country is paid (on the same day) the equivalent of 1 month’s salary, for Christmas bonus, by law. Imagine the craziness in the States if every employed person suddenly had that much cash in hand. Well, it’s crazy like that here, too. On top of the alginaldo, this was the last week of the school year for most of the children. Add that to every city staging a big fiesta / bazaar / carnival / party (usually centered at the town square and the Catholic Church, which is always situated on one side of the town square.) It was so nuts that the main street of the capital, San Jose, was blocked by a sea of surging humanity, already spending and partying, in the middle of the afternoon. We didn’t hang around to find out where that party was going … cripes … we have a flight to catch in two days.

And then … there are our neighbors, bless their hearts.

Imagine, one of them actually has a house that looks to be smaller than ours (if that’s possible). Clearly there is no room inside for a Christmas tree. Sooooooo, the fully decorated and lighted tree is proudly sitting out on their miniscule front porch, half blocking the front door.

But the prize goes to our “almost-neighbor” up the street. Their house isn’t close to being finished yet. This week it was just a framed-in structure with a roof. Yesterday, they started putting up the sheets of blue Styrofoam insulation on the front wall. On the second floor, dead center on the front façade, there will be a huge picture window – some day. Right now, it is just a hole in the framing, surrounded with blue sheathing. Guess what is hoisted up in that opening, blazing away with the latest LED tree lights? Oh, yeah … they might not live there but by god they’re going to decorate.

Fun country.
Read the whole story...

Geocaching: Costa Rica style

For those of you who we haven’t bored to tears with tales of our geocaching hobby, here’s a quick description:

Thousands of participants register at www.geocaching.com and become Geocachers. Geocache people take little containers, filled with everything from trinkets, coins and other tchotchkes, if the container is large, or just a little slip of paper to write your name and the date upon if the container is small. Then the Geocacher takes that container out in the world and hides it. (S)he takes a GPS reading on the exact hiding spot and then publishes those coordinates on the geocaching.com website. Other Goecachers then run out and try to be the first to find a new cache – or, in the case of us slower folk, just finding the durn things, period. Once found, you proudly log your find at the website. There are about 900,000 caches currently hiding, around the world. It’s addictive.

Costa Rica is a new geocaching experience, however.

In the States, thousands of caches are simply plastic 35mm film canisters, stuffed with a log sheet and shoved under the base-shroud of a shopping mall parking lot light. A little boring at times.

It seems that’s not how they do things here in Costa Rica.

Our first shot at a Costa Rican cache was supposed to be one of the most famous ones in the world. This baby is stashed in Manuel Antonio National Park, out along a jungle trail, allegedly far from the maddening crowd. We’d never been to the park, but, hey … no biggie. We’re semi-professionals.

“Where’s my back pack?”
“You left it at the house.”
“How can I carry water and “stuff”?”
“Here’s a cosmetics tote. Put some in there.”

So, we put on our protective long pants, shirts, hats and best hiking boots, grabbed two liters of water, bought our tickets into the park and headed out.

Kind of a disappointment right at the start. The “trail in the jungle” is as wide as most Costa Rican roads; and, it’s flat and nicely graded with fine gravel. On top of that, there were several large tour groups being noisily led to their great adventure by paid guides.

None of that for us! We’re world-famous wilderness explorers!

We got ahead of or behind most of the chattering Germans & Canadians & Americans and finally got to a place where the road-like trail looked like a real trail. Just dirt, roots, bugs, plants and you.

After a short time on the trail, we were sure that none of the tours seemed to be following us. Then, we came up to a very decayed, barely readable Park sign, showing the layout of the trail (a loop) and where the main attractions were along that trail, all marked and numbered. We studied the sign but couldn’t make much out due to severe jungle rot and weathering. Another tour couple came up and headed to the right side of the loop.

“We’re going left,” I declared.

Off we went into the deep rainforest jungle. No fears. The brave Pirate Juan was fully armed with 15 knives (surprised?) and, heck, the whole loop was only 2.5 kilometers. Piece of cake. Pat is in great shape, having been riding her bike 5 to 10 miles a day; and, I’m, well, “Arrrrrgh!”

Climb climb climb climb climb. Damn! Don’t these people know about the proper angle of construction for a trail, or about trail switchbacks? Climb climb. Wow, a body really works up a sweat out here in the jungle, but with 100% humidity, there isn’t much cooling-by-evaporation going on.

Fortunately, I’m wearing one of my best “Coolmax® Moisture Transport™ tee shirts which mechanically pulls the perspiration from your skin and moves it to one of your outer clothing layers, thereby keeping your skin dry and cool.” Unfortunately, my outer clothing layer was some crappy cotton button-down shirt that I grabbed out of the closet. Guess how fast Coolmax can saturate a cotton shirt?

Climb climb. Whoops. We’re over the top of that canyon and now we have to drop down to its bottom.

Drop drop drop drop drop. Huge steps down – the kind where your boot heel is almost touching your butt by the time your other toe touches the next lower trail surface.
Drop drop. Whoops. Down in the bottom. Gotta climb up the other side. Gee, didn’t these people ever hear about how to construct steps so that a normal person can negotiate them?

Climb climb climb. Whoops. Drop drop drop. Whoops. Climb climb climb.

Climb till you can’t breathe. Drop until your knees hurt. Climb. Drop. Climb. Drop.

Damn! Gimme some water. Gimme a GPS reading. Where the hell are we? Whataya mean the jungle canopy won’t let a satellite signal through? They told us that durn Garmin thingy would get a reading inside the Bat Cave even while The Joker jams the signals outside.

Ever sweated so much that your SHOES soaked through? Ever sweated so much that your wallet was so soaked through that the leather softened and your credit cards permanently debossed your name into the leather wherever they touched? Sheeeeit!

Guess how fast we both went through our liter of water, sweating that much? Think we were to the geocache yet?

Nah.

We must have looked so bad to other people we encountered (all going the other way, coming from the right side of the loop) that we convinced several of them to turn around without any explanation.

This went on for 3 hours.

Know what happens when you run out of sweat? That was just about when we reached the approximate cache site and we drank the last swallows of water. I stopped sweating. Very very bad symptom.

Pat was not quite as bad off as me (remember, she cheats by riding her bicycle back at Houston.) While I meandered around in my heat stroke daze, she tried her best to decipher the hiding place clues and get a reading through the jungle canopy on her GPS. No luck. We decided to bail.

About a (flat) hundred yards down the other side of the loop we ran into one of the tour couples.

“Is it flat this direction or is it all up and down?”
“Uh, its flat and the beach is just over there.”
“Beach?”


Another hundred flat yards of staggering and we came out into the shade behind one of the legendary Manuel Antonio beaches. Sun worshipers were frolicking in the surf. Tourists were playing with the monkeys. Fat old Germans were kicked back on their beach chairs, swilling water and eating bratwurst sandwiches (or whatever fat Germans eat.) I’d say, FUCK right here, but this is a family blog.

I plopped down on a beach bench and sloshed sweat from my saturated clothes all over the place. I think I looked pretty wonderful to the tourists. Pat must have looked pretty concerned that her “famous Pirate” was about to croak on some Park bench in the middle of the Garden of Eden for want of a drink of water. Anyhow, she was so convincing to some passers-by that they popped out a full liter of their water and gave it to me. I downed it like a fraternity kid downing a beer.

Thirty minutes later, I could walk. I got over to the cold fresh water showers (?!?) and drenched my head. I was ready to go again – as long as “again” didn’t involve any climbing.

A great first geocache in Costa Rica.

Read the whole story...

You think you’ve gone through a safety inspection of your car? Think again.

If you follow any of my ramblings on the other blog you know a little bit about our old truck that we use to bounce down the roads of Costa Rica. The truck has a name. Pat calls her “Suzie.” I call it “That %$!#&@ car.” Any-hoo, at this time of year in Costa Rica, EVERY car and truck in the country has to pay their annual license plate fee. Oh, but there’s a slight catch. They won’t accept your payment unless you have a new safety inspection certificate. No biggie? Yeah, right.

We made an appointment for one Friday evening because smart Costa Ricans know that not many people want to put up with government inspections when they could get an early start on the weekend, at a time that probably interferes with the first cocktail.

We were forewarned that Suzie’s lights all had to work, as well as the wipers, brakes and … electric windows? Damn. The front passenger window had a bad switch. Ever try to find an electric window switch for a 1994 Isuzu, in a little town in Costa Rica?

Amazingly, the local auto parts purveyor “had a friend” that could come up with a useable switch for “only $90, U.S.” Greeeaaaaat. We placed the order and some little courier boy, on a motor scooter, had it to our local parts shack within hours. These are resourceful people.

Anyway, after 10 minutes work, the window was operating just fine and we headed for the inspection station.

The Costa Rican Vehicle Inspection Station ain’t some ratty gas station or mechanics bay in a back alley. These places are huge, with efficient processing offices to take your fees (up front) and set up your “work order.”

Work order?

We trip-trapped around the back of the monster building and came up to 8 drive-through bays, wide and tall enough for a semi tractor and as long as a football field. The bays are each lined with blinking winking computer screens and control panels for (erk!) real testing equipment.

Our first “agent” did a walk around on Suzie and then started in:

Lights.
High Beams
Left Turn Signal
Right Turn Signal
Wipers (wipers?)
Windshield washers (washers!?!)
Pop the hood and shake the battery and hoses (geez!)

Open my door and inspect the control panel; my seatbelt; the general interior

Open all the doors and check each seatbelt, buckling it in place.

Walk to the back and repeat the entire “lights routine,” including the brake lights.

“You have a very serious problem.” Damn.

“What?”

“Your rear license plate light is out.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll get it fixed.”

“You’ll have to get it fixed before I continue with this inspection.” Continue?

Aw, geez.

I’ll spare you the details of racing all over creation trying to find a light bulb for Suzie with little luck. By the time we finally found one and got the light working, the testing facility was closed.

Next day, at the crack of noon, we were back over to the testing station. Pray that the damn light works and that none of the others have shorted out in the mean time (Suzie likes to play that “works today but not tomorrow” game.)

Fortunately, all of the lights worked and we were motioned down the testing bay to the first “station.”

While a Technician stuck the familiar gas sensor rod up Suzie’s tail pipe, another motioned us up a few inches until the front wheels fell several inches into a pit. All of a sudden we could hear the wheels winding up. Then the left side started to rumble and bounce like we were running at high speed over a typical horrible country road. On a plainly visible computer screen, a graphic representation of a front suspension, left side, was bouncing all over the place and registering performance numbers. This was repeated to the right side. At this one station, they had tested the wheel bearings, shocks, springs, tires and ball joints.

Then we were moved up until the rear fell into the pit. Same story but now we were also on a dynamometer. Talk about a test!

Next we roll down the bay to the brake testing station (both front and rear, individually, plus the parking brake.) Then it’s on to the wheel alignment station and the headlight alignment station.

Unbelievably, that %$!#&@ car passed everything.

How many hundred thousand cars in the U.S. would fail this test? We could get all of those wrecks off the road if we had safety inspections like this.

But, then, again, what fun would that be if the Feds took over vehicle testing? All of those crooked cousins that own crooked inspection stations at their crooked gas stations would be out of business. Our economy would be in the tank.

Read the whole story...

Random musings late on a Saturday night

I bit the bullet and finally committed to daily exercise of some type at least 3 days a week. In the past 2 weeks I've averaged 5-6 mile bike rides. I rode 4 days last week and 5 days this week. I even talked John into riding with me today.

Last weekend we did a little Geocaching on our way home from grandson's birthday party. Found 2 out of the 4 we went after. Today we went back to one of the caches we found on our first Geocaching adventure to replace a foreign coin we lost by accident (a coin fell out of the cache when we opened the container and disappeared in a pile of rocks.) Rule number one about Geocaching: Take what you want, but replace it with something of equal or greater value.

I must say, I'm becoming a pretty creative cook throughout this process. Last night we had chicken and veggies with a marinara sauce over penne pasta and a salad on the side. Tonight it was grilled pork brisket and grilled zucchini with herb roasted onion and potato wedges.... Total calories: 393, including the cup of 1% milk. Tomorrow night... Scallops in a white wine sauce over whole wheat linguini. If I had the money, I'd open a restaurant for folks wanting to eat really great food and still stay on a healthy nutrition plan.

We are planning our next trip to Costa Rica the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and we'll be returning on December 6th. We can't wait for our Tico family to see how much weight we've lost since our April trip.
Read the whole story...

Time to start blogging again...

I have been very negligent as of late and I have not kept up with our blog entries. It’s time to bring our readers up to date on what we’ve been doing lately.

In February, John and I decided we had to get serious about our health and weight, so we dramatically changed our eating habits. I am pleased to report we have dropped about 85 pounds between us. You could say we have lost the equivalent of a 10 year old child. This is not a diet, this is a total lifestyle change and I think we will probably eat this way for the rest of our lives. I will blog more about this later.

I’m still without employment, so in late March I was able to take a road trip to Ft. Worth, Texas where John attended a conference. We both managed to come down with bad colds which turned into the coughs from hell.

We took a trip to Costa Rica for 12 days in mid April. Even though we still had our coughs, we had a great time. We really didn’t have any work that needed to be done around the house, so we took the time to visit some places John hadn’t been to before.

We took a day trip to Monteverde where we rode the Canopy SkyTram followed by a walking tour of the jungle canopy. I was really glad I remembered to bring a sweater with me because it gets chilly up in the mountains.The vistas were amazing.We ate lunch in town at a typical Tico restaurant. We ended the day with a visit to the Monteverde Dairy for one of the best ice cream cones in the world. Yummy! The ice cream is not on our normal menu, but everyone needs a little splurge now and then. The secret is in the portion control. We bought some Parmesan cheese and the best smoked cheddar I have ever tasted. This is true smoked cheese, not artificially flavored. I now know I had never had the real thing before.

We have actually found the Costa Rican way of eating is more in line with our new dietary changes.

John had never been to the Pacific side of Costa Rica, so a few days after Monteverde we headed out for Puerto Limon via the Braulio Carrillo National Park where the mountain views were majestic. Once we got to Puerto Limon we headed south through Puerto Viejo and eventually found our way to Punta Uva. We found a wonderful hotel in Punta Uva. The hotel had a nice restaurant, pool and large cabins with hot water, a/c and a veranda. John heard howler monkeys for the first time that evening, so we decided to sit out by the pool where we were serenaded by the local frog population. The restaurant staff accommodated us and served our dinner and drinks poolside.
The next day we headed back to Atenas via the southern route through Turrialba, the Orosi Valley, Cartago and San Jose. Again, the scenery was spectacular.

The only downside of the trip was Isuzu Susie decided we didn’t need any air conditioning, so it just quit working.


Vinicio promised to have it fixed for us before our next trip to CR. He is also going to get trees planted along the east property line. It is great to have such wonderful friends as we have in Vinicio and Maritza.







When we got back to Houston the bathroom scale reported John had lost 5 pounds and I had lost 3.

More to come later…
Read the whole story...

July 7-9: I can be such a sap

We were in Alajuela trying to get the necessary paperwork for arranging utilities and other “official” stuff when I spotted a hardware store. I’d already had no luck at the Atenas hardware stores finding a special anti-corrosion paint that I wanted and I figured that this might be a source (here in the “big city”.) Pat probably rolled her eyes as she heard me say, “Oooo. Hardware store!” At least, she should have.

No, they didn’t have the paint either but there were a number of little things that we needed so I stood by while Pat took care of ordering them in Spanish.

ASIDE: Anyone know where, in CR, to buy zinc-rich primers, also known as cold-galvanizing coatings, such as Z.R.C., or, Sherwin-Williams Zinc Clad, or, ICI-Devoe Catha-coat, or, PPG Dimetcote? Everybody I ask, in Costa Rica looks at me like I’m from Mars. I should think that with the humidity and salt air of CR that these coatings would be all the rage.

A young worker-looking lad standing next to me suddenly turned and said, in clear English, “Hey, if you ever need any iron work or welding, that’s what I do,” as he pressed his business card into my hand.

Wow! What a coincidence! We needed somebody to produce both a trash stand (for our garbage pickup) and to create a rather special burglar bar assembly that I wanted. “What the heck,” I thought, “this kid looks clean-cut and honest … and getting him going today, here in the hardware store, would be really hassle free.”

So, I told him what we wanted and he seemed to immediately know exactly what was needed. He instantly launched into an animated, detailed discussion with the hardware store clerk about the steel and consumables he’d need for the job. The next thing we knew, we’d purchased $200.00 of steel and our “soldador” was scheduled to be at our casita at 8am the next morning.

Pat discussed directions to our place from downtown Atenas and everything sounded good.

“I’m sure the taxi will know how to find you,” the eager lad said.

(Taxi? I’m not too good at understanding Spanish yet. Did I miss something?)

On the way back to the house, Pat explained that the welder-lad lived in Alajuela and he’d be taking a taxi from there to Atenas and out to our property. I felt so confused. I thought iron-work welders had big trucks with big welding machines and tools and a torch set and, well, lots of stuff.

O.K. – Pura Vida. I’ve learned to assume that the Ticos can do just about anything with just about nothing to work with.

The steel was delivered that afternoon and everything was set up for some get down burnin’ and weldin’. Except, wasn’t that awfully puny steel bar that had been delivered? (1/2” square bar and 1” angle iron) I figured that I just needed to learn to trust. Have faith.

The next day, at 9am, I was starting to wonder about our welder-lad. No sign of him. We called his cell phone number listed on his business card. “Well, no, the bus was running a little late, but he’d be there real soon.”

(Bus? Now what did I miss?)

At around 10am, a red Corolla taxi came bouncing down our road and turned up our little “servidumbre” (service road.) The grinning welder-lad jumped out of the taxi, opened the trunk and eagerly began unloading tools; and, then, the littlest, itty-bitty buzz-box welder that I ever saw.

But he had great enthusiasm!

Wanting to spare you details, I’ll just bullet the highlights of our DAYS together:

• No torch or chop saw, so every cut was with a right-angle hand grinder and a little abrasive cut-off blade.
• Wow, 1/2” square bar and 1” angle-iron sure does make flimsy looking stuff.
• Welder-lad brushing black oil-base paint onto bare steel, in the rain, with a partially dried out brush doesn’t get a good rust-resistant coating of paint onto new weldments.
• We needed more steel. The hardware store clerk made a mistake. (Certainly NOT the welder.)
• We needed another cut-off blade.
• The hardware store sent the wrong kind of pipe for a post for our trash stand. The welder would come up with a novel design that used 4 legs of angle iron.
• We ran out of angle iron for the burglar bars.
• I decided to add a security cage around the air-conditioner compressor. We needed more steel.
• Pounding the trash stand into the ground with a hand hammer is almost impossible, even for a determined welder-lad.
• Pounding on the flimsy trash stand with an 8 pound hammer for a half hour made one side-bar fall out and two other welds break, but, “That’s O.K., Meester John, because that will make it easier for the trash collectors to reach through the side of the stand – they will be very happy because they don’t have to lift it over the top.” Yeah, right.
• The burglar bar frame and the burglar bar insert warped out of shape when they were welded together, but, “That’s O.K., Meester John, because that way the bar will pop way open when you release the emergency exit latch.” (I don’t want the bars to pop open.)
• "Meester, John, I don't have enough steel for the last leg of the air-conditioner cage."

Nah. At this point I just had to step in and take over the design and utilization of steel for the welder-lad. Within 2 minutes, we had the air-conditioner cage redesigned and we’d have steel to spare.

We convinced the welder to wrap it up and took him to the bus stop in Atenas.

The next day I repainted the trash stand, burglar bar assembly and the air conditioner cage. Except I didn’t do it in the rain and I used a good paint brush. I drilled the holes and hammered the cage down into its anchor holes. A load of epoxy finished off that task. Finally, I bent and warped and tugged on the burglar bars until they sat somewhat straight within their frame and didn’t have any propensity to explode off the wall of the house when simply unlatched.

I never knew hiring a contractor could end up being so much work.

Next time I’m checking references and credentials.

Sometimes I’m such a sap.
Read the whole story...

Early 7/14/08: Yeeeow!

Whilst using the microwave to boil water for coffee, in the casita of Atenas, I decided to test the structural integrity of a certain polymer-to-glass joint which was keeping the coffee pot handle attached to the coffee pot. Several things were learned during this investigation.

Lessons:

• Coffee carafes that are filled to the brim with water are heavy.
• Coffee carafes that are filled with boiling water are hot.
• Heat softens polymers and the glues that bind them to glass – especially low-bidder polymers & glues, made in China.
• Softened polymer and glue joints will not sustain the load imposed on them by coffee carafes filled to the brim with boiling water.
• When held at an elevation of 16-inches above a stone countertop, glass coffee carafes are not strong enough to withstand a drop to said countertop when, due to heat-weakened polymer and glue, the handle departs from the Made-In-China carafe’s side.
• Boiling water refuses to hold the shape of a coffee carafe when the carafe is suddenly, explosively, removed from around the water upon striking a stone countertop.
• Even a possibly former CIA agent with the reflexes of a pissed off Jedi cobra cannot remove his 300lbs of lard from the suddenly expanding frontal area of boiling water, once said water is free to assume whatever shape and form gravity deems fit to impose upon it.
• Two quarts of boiling water, engaged in near-supersonic flight through the air, are able to saturate the front of “Outer Limits” jammie pants at an alarmingly rapid rate.
• Even former possibly world-famous CIA assassins don’t still have the strength to rip open BOTH jammie legs at once – only one; therefore, leaving one saturated jammie leg still attached around the world-famous possible killer’s left leg.
• Even former possibly international men of mystery and superheros cannot do the hippity hop dance into the shower fast enough to turn on the cold water quickly enough to chill-flood the affected left leg and avoid all injury.
• That much boiling water is able to convey a great deal of thermal energy into the leg of even the most possibly formerly hardened, evil, black hearted pirate, thus doing serious localized damage.
• Pat, with her fluency in español and her calm demeanor, is a great one to have around in an emergency to help you navigate the system at the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social and obtain excellent emergency medical care.

All in all, the second degree burns only covered the top of the left quad area about the size of my hand with spread fingers, plus a dinky area about the size of a credit card, below the knee. Uhhhhhglee! The right leg only had a big ol’ sunburn (1st degree) of about the same size.

I tell you what. This here burn stuff … it’s really fun. You get all kinds of cool goop to smear all over everywhere, and shots, and pills, and really really good drugs, man. Doesn’t hurt a bit when the drugs are good enough!

Maybe from now on, I’ll be avoiding the ol’ Hecho en China label whenever possible. Ya think?

Followup: Due to the excellent care of the CAJA clinic in Atenas and intense followup with creams, etc., by the end of July, the burns are down to looking like sunburn with no sign of scarring or stiffness. Oddly, the 1st degree burn area peeled and looked horrid, compared to the 2nd degree area, which doesn't look like it will ever go through a peeling stage. Maybe this is because all the surface skin that could have peeled away was burned away the first day? (The blisters washed away in the shower from about day 3 to day 6.)
Read the whole story...

7/14/08: I Was Right All Along

I just knew that our old truck, Suzie Isuzu and I would get crosswise sooner than later.

O.K. Yeah, I’m spoiled. I’ve driven new cars for decades. After I’ve driven them awhile, they start to break, and I go get a new one. So, shoot me.

Regardless, there didn’t seem to be any sense in getting a new or near-new car for Costa Rica, driving it for a couple of weeks, then parking it in the garage for months, until our next trip to CR. Logically, we bought a 1994 ol’ beater. Dependable enough, but not breaking the bank. And NO PAYMENTS.

But then I started driving her and my love affair with Suzie started to sour:

• She burns oil.
• The rear doors are sticky and won’t always unlatch, without a jiggling and banging session. (And if somebody KEEPS slamming her seatbelt buckle in the door, they’re really hard to open.)
• The outside spare tire rack rattles and squeaks.
• THERE ARE NO CUP HOLDERS. ZERO! NADA. NONE!
• The driver’s window sometimes won’t go all the way up, leaving a tiny crack that whistles air and dribbles rain.
• Radio? There’s a radio?
• The front windshield washer doesn’t work.
• She stalls a lot when she’s cold.
• She burns a lot of that $6.00 per gallon gas.
• The hatch window lift gas struts are worn out. They won’t lift all the way by themselves and they leak down, slowly letting the window close on your noggin while you’re loading groceries.
• She smells like an old truck that has been used to haul everything except (maybe) dead bodies.

Waaah.

Then I remembered, “No whiners allowed in CR.” So I sucked it up and we started to get along.

Things were going pretty well one Monday, considering that I’d received 2nd degree burns across the top of my left leg that morning.

That afternoon, Pat, Jenny and I had driven to Alajuela to see our friends, Maritza and Venicio.

Time kind of slipped away during our visit and before you know it we were saying our goodbyes in the dusk. A short stop at a roadside restaurant put us out on the road home even later -- well into the darkness.

THUNK! Clang-ity-clang-cling-dinkle-dinkle-dinkle.

“What was that? Did you see anything in the road? We hit something,” I said to co-pilot, Pat.

“Didn’t see a thing, but yeah, I think we must have hit something,” she responded.

We drove for about 10 more minutes, putting us well up into the mountains, on the winding stretch with no shoulder and no pull-offs.

PHWUMP PHWUMP PHWUMP. I knew the sound and feel of a flat tire.

Absolutely no place to pull off. No way to stop on these blind curves … in the dark … with the pavement wet from the evening rains. Cripes.

Then a couple of those Pura Vida drivers started flashing their lights and honking their horns because: a)., I had a flat and was driving on it (duh); and, b)., I’d slowed down to below the speed of sound on these curves because, I brilliantly reasoned, a flat tire probably doesn’t get as much traction on wet pavement curves as does a fully functioning tire.

Tensions went up inside the cockpit as the girls tersely informed me that I shouldn’t be driving on a flat tire and that I needed to … well … uh … do something! Okey dokey.

It was probably at least a half mile before there was even the hint of a semi-flat spot along the shoulder of the road. I started in towards one and then saw that it was probably soft mud. Bailing back out onto the road irritated yet another Tico and earned me his ire, manifest by a little ol’ blast on his horn.

Thankfully somebody lives somewhere back in them thar hills as a driveway entrance suddenly loomed in the headlights. Driveway = flat (ish) and driveway probably = gravel. I pulled right in.

We’re parked at the top of a hill, at the end of a blind curve, about a foot off the road’s pavement. I hit the 4-way flashers. Yee-hah, they work. Score 1 for the home team!

O.K., we might as well get on with it. I knew the location of the jack due to an accidental discovery of its little hiding cubby while poking around inside one afternoon. That much we had going for us. And, oh yeah, we knew where the spare tire was … right there on the back hatch, always in the way. Two things going for us!

In very short order, the jack was out of its storage, and yippee, the lug wrench was in there too. Three things to the plus column!

You just know there are going to be some inhabitants of the minus column, don’t you. Bingo. You’re right.

First, pop that spare tire/wheel off the carrier on the back hatch. Slip the lug wrench onto the first bolt … skreeeek … it squeals loose and backs out; do the second one … ooof! … tighter but out it came … the third one should be easy because it’s on the bottom and I can put all 300 pounds down onto it. Nope.

By the time I was finished jumping up and down (painfully) on the lug wrench, the head of the bolt was starting to round off and there hadn’t been so much as a little “click” of promise out of the stubborn fastener. A couple of times I just let my arms drop to my sides, figuring that the game was over. That 3rd bolt was not coming out.

We momentarily discussed locking up the mess, calling a taxi and getting a wrecker to take care of the problem in the morning. That didn’t sound fun. One last go at it. The hell with how my leg was feeling, lean into the bolt head with everything I’ve got and then kind of fall down against the lug wrench. It squeaked a little! Re-purchase the bite on the bolt head … and pound down on it once again and it turned. That pig was completely cross-threaded – who knows how many years ago – and was probably hammered home with an impact wrench. It ground out of its hole by hand, but not willingly.

Pat started to cram the jack under the side of the car. But I knew that there must be some exact spot for this jack to go and that just anywhere wouldn’t work. What I didn’t know was that the inscrutable engineers at Isuzu had thought long and hard about how to set up their jack/vehicle “exact spot” in a location most likely to cause pain, anguish and suffering for any stupid old gringo loony enough to get a flat tire in the dark and then park over sloshy-wet mud/gravel. Oh, yeah. Let me.

I found the old owner’s manual in the glove box (amazing!) and dug into the “Changing A Tire” page. Oh, lord. The jack must be positioned directly under the rear axle, immediately next to the inside of the leaf spring bracket. In other words, WAAAAY the hell up under the stinking car.

Great. I’m dressed in cut-off jeans – cut off so that my bandaged leg didn’t have the pain of anything pressing against the burns – a brand new shirt and Crocs. Pura Vida. No whining.

Under the truck you go, boy. Not that hard. Just skud the jack through the mud and feel around in the dark (I had brilliantly taken our flashlight out of the truck the day before and forgotten to put it back.) The jack nested right up under the axle tube. The jack actuator wheel turned easily as the jack rose up and made contact. The actuator wheel stopped turning. That thing was going no further without a serious handle.

“Anybody see a jack handle?” No answer.

Dragged my bod up off the mud pan and started through every nook and cranny of that *&%$ truck. Nothing. Yikes.

Oooo. Oooo. The owner’s manual.

Remember those inscrutable Isuzu engineers that designed the lift point for the jack in an impossible place? Well, the same guys were on the team to find a place to put the jack handle. Without the owner’s manual, nobody would ever find it. Ever.

Here’s the trick. The rear seat and seat back fold down to give extra load space. While folding the seat forward, the very underside of the seat becomes visible. It is completely covered with the same carpet/fabric as are the floors. That (I guess) is supposed to be a clue. “Why would anybody upholster the underside of the seat?” you’re supposed to ask yourself. As you may have guessed, with a clever array of Velcro closures, the underside upholstery peels away. And, there, amid the springs and foam rubber, are little clips holding the two long jack handle pieces.

Oh, uh, but they are just straight bars. No handle off to one side so that you can crank the durn things.

Owner’s manual is no help on this one.

Search, search, search. The girls looked everywhere while I lay on my back underneath Suzie trying as best I could to turn the jack’s wheel with no crank.

“Are you SURE that there isn’t a handle under the seat somewhere?”

Jenny is standing near my feet, holding the lug wrench. “What does this little slot do?” She asked, examining the lug wrench handle.

Sure enough, punched through the middle of the lug wrench handle was a little slot that I guess we were supposed to simply know was the exact size of the flats machined on the end of the jack handle. What a leap of logic.

O.K., now I bet you’re thinking that all I had to do was to just slide that handle in place and spin the jack up.

Nah. Isuzu has engineers.

Some little geek in god-knows-where, Japan, designed this jack’s gearing so that the jack handle, which is already too long to rotate a reasonable arc beneath the truck, can’t possibly exert enough force to lift the truck smoothly, given the normal strength of a regular person. You get to lay on your back, way under the truck, let out a karate shout, while simultaneously pushing with all your might on the jack handle. It moves a quarter turn and then clangs into the truck’s undercarriage. (If you pull on the handle, you just lift yourself up out of the mud.) Re-set the handle for another push and repeat.

So with way more effort than I EVER expected to put forth while on vacation, I grunted and groaned the damn truck up a good two inches.

I was resetting the wrench/handle when I perceived the truck moving. I shouted something to the girls and did a twisting roll out from under the truck as it slid in the mud and fell off the jack.

Hey, this is getting fun. Now the gauze on my legs is fully saturated with mud – it feels really good – and we get to start all over again.

The girls went on a rock hunt and somehow came back with several stones big enough to wedge under the tires, ensuring that Suzie wouldn’t take any more unplanned strolls.

I went back at it and finally got the beast up high enough to remove the flat.

But not high enough get the new tire onto the lug studs.

Crank; clang. Crank; clang. Crank; clang. And then the engineers struck one final time. Ya see … they didn’t want to waste all of that money designing and building those fine jacks with ¼” of extra, useless lift capability … so they didn’t. The ol’ jack ran out of travel and quit with, oh, maybe 1/16 of an inch of clearance under the spare as it finally slid onto the studs.

But it went on and the girls took over the final installation and tightening of the lug nuts. And the jack cranked right down, with ease, so long as the weight of a whole damn truck was pressing it down.

Within 15 minutes we were home, covered in mud and grit (all 3 of us). Those on-demand water heaters proved to be up to the task because we all wanted and took some really long showers.

I love this car.

Read the whole story...