Life in Paradise Update: May 3, 2009

While Todd was visiting, the weekend in March that Doris left, we determined that Dog needed to have stitches as she was constantly chewing open her wounds. Guido and I did that on the Sunday morning and on Monday I made my normal trip to Turrialba the day prior to my departure to the north.

 

On Tuesday I dropped Todd off on the way to San José, using the way through the national park and Siquirres, and on the way noted that I’d not taken any of my cash in Dollars with me. I get distracted in the morning of my departure if anything interrupts my normal procedures and that always happens when someone else is going with me. I had plenty of Colones for the trip so that was ok but sure would have liked to have a couple of dollars in  my pocket when arriving in the US.

 

My stay back in Costa Rica during April/May was highlighted by a good friend who had once lived here (check back into the earlier entries to read about Larry who was working with James in Chitaria) returning for a visit. He came with his sister and brother-in-law from Canada where he now has been living since 2001. I heard a lot of “Ehs” during their stay and almost got used to it.

 

I don’t recall whether I mentioned it in earlier posts but a couple of months ago, Eugenia, who had been cleaning our house, just quit coming to work. Upon questioning Guido about this he said that she wasn’t able to work because of her back. I seriously doubt this as she was still constantly going up and down the hill carrying her granddaughter, who lives with them, and never appeared to be in distress. She still hadn’t returned to work so in addition to my normal activities I also had assumed the responsibility of doing the housework.

 

Along with the standard work, visiting with Larry and his family, making a couple of trips into town each week for supplies now I had the upkeep of the house to keep me busy.

 

Not much of a report but that’s it for my stay from the middle of March to the middle of April!

 

The day that I returned to the US I drove into town, parked the car, and then waited for Doris to arrive as she had flown down that night from California. We exchanged a kiss and went on our respective ways; she returning to the farm and me heading for the airport!

 

I’ve been back now a week and have a bit to report. Our new topographic plans for the farm are completed and have been paid for and picked up. That information has been forwarded to our attorney and he is once again in contact with Father Abel’s attorney.

 

Things here always proceed a bit slowly and it took the registro nacional over a month to place the stamps on the farm. There was a problem with one of the properties not being located in contact with the main part of the farm but this was just an error in the registry way back in 1979 so they had to check all the surrounding properties that indicated where our farm was in relation to the others. There was also a delay as Semana Santa was in the middle of this month and the entire government takes that week off. Thursday and Friday are national holidays  for everyone else and this year another holiday fell on Saturday before Easter Sunday.

 

In addition to those delays my attorney was also in the US for a while, leaving on the day that I returned and staying until the 30th of April. Then May 1st in International Labor day so forget getting anything started before that!

 

Getting to the point, I finally got him all the information on Saturday, the second of May and he’s busily proceeding, having exchanged at least half a dozen emails with me on Saturday.

 

I’ve been working on a little project to put all of our Life in Paradise emails, posts and even some old handwritten journals in one file and in book form. I’ve spent several mornings on that since my return this month and even used some of the extra time last month to do so.

 

As Life in Paradise is winding down we now have several options and once the farm is sold and we have the funds to do so, we’ll be looking for another location. Our original thoughts were to stay in Costa Rica and spend several months searching for another property. That’s still one of the options but we are also considering Panama and Belize as alternatives to Costa Rica. We wish to visit both places and look around so the purchase of another property in this part of the world is a long way off.

 

We also have to consider the advantages of medical services that in the US are unparalleled elsewhere. We might just might decide to purchase in both the north and in Latin America but, again, we need to visit and evaluate our options.

 

Enough for now!

 

 

Life in Paradise: Update March 14, 2009

 

Starting with the last item in the last post, It looks as though we’ve sold the farm. That’s a good thing, I guess, but I’ll sure miss it. We’ll be looking for a much smaller place and although we had originally planned to keep several of the horses and look for something in the neighborhood of 4 Hectors, we’re now considering how much easier life would be without the animals and the responsibility having them entails. That’s not a firm decision, as yet, but we could eliminate the need for a full time farm worker and a good $200 of expenses in just the food it takes to keep the horses healthy and in good shape.

 

The day following the Father’s visit I was off again on my trip north and with the economy tanking it looks like my trips in the future won’t be quite as lucrative (although that never has been a word that describes my little bit of income correctly) so our consideration above now takes an even greater importance. The work was as usual; just a lot of time in front of my computers. I’ve experienced a problem since we converted to an only digital newspaper and that’s been that the program I use, PageMaker 7, doesn’t convert the pages to CYMK as they should be. That’s something that I really don’t understand as the program is specifically designed for the print media. More on that a bit later…

 

I’ll insert here that the day Father Abel visited the farm it was possibly the worst weather we’d ever experienced here. The fog was so thick that less than 100 yards were visible in any direction and as we’d had so much rain it wasn’t really advantageous to use horses to view what could be seen. One of the streams was so high the only place that it could be crossed was on the rocks above a waterfall and this had a major impact in our selling the farm. That’s one picture that never made it to our web page (www.fincadelpacuare.com) but made a major impression on Father Abel. He’d effectively already made a decision on the purchase but returned on one of the days that I was up north for another visit with my sweetie and that sealed the deal.

 

One of the major concerns on of his attorney was the lack of recent plans on the farm and the list of properties included in the paperwork of the farm didn’t match the total area being sold. We negotiated for a topographer to come and do a new plan, which is now all but complete with only the actual registration and the stamps being purchased for the registro nacional. That provided us with a fairly busy month so I’ve not made even an attempt at updating this page.

 

Just as a matter of point, we’d been advertising 81 hectors and ended up with 82.447. Pretty close and it’s always better to be on the long side of something like this.

 

We had a full week after my return before the topographers were coming so I hired an extra hand to work with Guido to clean up the property line, making the topographer’s work easier, and we spent the time at the beach. What else!!!

 

While I was there, I took advantage of my friend’s higher speed internet connection and went searching for an updated program for the work I do up north. I ended up getting the new(er) In Design CS4 program as an upgrade to the old PageMaker one and have since spent a considerable amount of time just familiarizing myself with the differences. It has many nice features for the work that I do so I’m happy that I made the purchase. When it comes to programs Adobe hasn’t created new ones with the frequency of even Microsoft’s operating systems so this is only the third version of the software that I’ve needed since first starting to use it 12 years ago. It’s also nice to be able to purchase the programs at a considerable discount as a user of their earlier programs, which is something I wish Quicken would learn from.

 

Another nice feature of this program is that it’s available for both Windows and OSX operating systems so I don’t have to use the Parallels program on my iMac when doing the major work while in the U.S. Some of the keyboard shortcuts are different but I’ve already gotten used to the differences and don’t expect that to be a problem.

 

While at the beach the weather was still rainy and, as a matter of fact, the last four days have been the only ones that haven’t been wet and cold for several months now. It’s actually nice again but the cooler weather made the beach trip one to remember in that it wasn’t the normal hot, sticky weather that I still associate with the Midwestern US in the summertime.

 

I brought back a couple of items for our friend, Todd, who lives in the northern Caribbean area of Costa Rica and he’s coming today to spend the weekend and pick up his greatly anticipated items. My sweetie headed back to the north for a month (I’ll see her there on Wednesday) so it will just be us guys for a doy or so.

 

A couple of other items of interest from the past month is that we had to lease a month’s pasture as our cattle had made a pretty good mud area where they’ve been grazing. The rain is nice to grow the pasture but too much isn’t really a good thing. The other item is that since we’ve had cattle, which would go back to 1998 when we moved here, I’ve consistently attempted to purchase a 55 gallon drum of molasses to add to their weekly rations of salt. I came up with nothing for so long that I’d effectively given up the search. One of our neighbors, last week, actually took the time to give me a call as he was going to pick up a barrel for himself and wished to know if I’d like one also. We now have that in hand and it should still have sufficient quantity for the Father when he takes possession of the farm. He’ll be getting three of our horses as part of the deal and also has an interest in purchasing some of our cattle. We’ll negotiate that at the time of transfer as the prices do vary considerably over the period of a year.

 

I see that I’m getting sidetracked here so will finish this entry by stating that three of our large dogs decided to get into a battle yesterday morning and we have one recuperating in the corral. The female known simply as Dog decided to attack another female (Baby the Black Lab) and for the first time Baby wasn’t in the mood to be bothered. She did a pretty good job on Dog and in the process they ranged into Prince’s (the male half Husky/half German Shepherd) area where he decided to become part of the fray. To complicate matters our little Gypsy (a whole 12 pounds of Papillion) decided that she was also an alpha female and attempted to attack all three of the others. We were finally able to separate them and fortunately only one sustained any damage.

 

This happened just a few minutes prior to my leaving to take my honey to the airport, a trip that required over six and a half hours!

 

That’s it, kids!

 

 

Con Dios Acompaña

 

 

Life in Paradise Update: February 7, 2009

 

Wow! Has it really been a whole month since the last time I posted? How time does fly!

 

I returned on my monthly trip north shortly after the last post and was there an extra day. I’d had a difficult time obtaining the dates that I wished due to the new website at TACA.com but that really turned out pretty good. The worst part of the change in dates is that I’ll now be returning on a Monday, rather than a Tuesday, and we aren’t allowed to drive our car in the downtown area of San José on Mondays with a license plate that ends in the numeral one! I’ll be catching the bus from Turrialba but have already made the purchase so don’t have to worry about the usual Monday morning migration into the city.

 

I’d mentioned also that I was preparing our little buggy for the annual inspection, that I always fail at least once, and that took up the remaining days of my stay last month. I’d had all the mechanical and electrical items taken care of but still had a vibration in the front end when I hit a small bump. Tweaking the directional device in either direction managed to eliminate the problem but I was sure that would fail so attempted to get a complete front-end alignment, which would have identified the exact problem for repair. To my chagrin, there were no available appointments until after the 28^th and I didn’t wish to wait that long for the inspection, as you can only make appointments two days in advance and that wouldn’t have given me sufficient time to have the problem repaired. I did take the car for it’s annual steam cleaning, including the complete undercarriage, and if I didn’t make note of it before, also had some of the tubing for the exhaust cleaned and painted.

 

That bit of work took the remaining time that was available so while in the north I went online and secured an appointment for the Saturday immediately following my return. That would allow complete week to have any items repaired and time to make another appointment prior to the end of my month. You aren’t allowed to use a vehicle that has past the date of it’s mandatory inspection so I considered this sufficient time.

 

My sweetie returned with me but, as has been the usual case, her flight information had somehow been screwed up so a good portion of the last two days in the north was occupied with the correction of this problem. We returned on separate flights, although the same evening, made contact in the baggage claim area, and had an uneventful trip home.

 

I usually have an extra day to rest prior to having to make a trip into Turrialba for supplies but as I was a day late forced myself to become presentable and drove into town on Friday. We had removed the back seat while my sweetie was in the north (I don’t volunteer to give people rides as my honey does) as the seat wasn’t really needed and that frees up sufficient space to carry a pretty good sized load. I’ll only note here that the trip back to the finca was a bit slower than usual, as it’s uphill most of the way.

 

The next morning I also had to get myself up early for the hour and a half drive to the inspection facility in Guapalis. It’s really only an hour drive but not knowing the road conditions I always try and give myself ample time so that I’m not late. I’d actually left about 20 minutes earlier than I would have, figuring that I might have time for breakfast on the way, and made the trip in good time, actually arriving a bit over an hour early. Rather than make a stop for breakfast, I decided to use a bit of the time doing a quick inspection on the car to insure that everything was as it had been. This took very little time and the only thing that needed to be fixed was the connection to the engine heat sensor, which I was already aware of being inoperable. It must have come loose when the engine was being steam cleaned but took only a few seconds to repair, once I re-located it.

 

I then went into the facility to find out how early I could enter the line (last year I had to wait to even enter the building until a mere ten minutes prior to the appointment) and I was happily told that as there were very few vehicles there that I could enter immediately.

 

Now, the most unbelievable part of this venture! I actually passed the inspection on the first try. I was, understandably, dumbfounded!

 

I received a couple of minor repair notes including the fact that the steering box was just within the limits of passing. This was, and still is, the obvious answer to the vibration.

 

So, on to life on the farm! Again, all I can say is WET! It has only stopped raining since our return for a few days and even those days weren’t completely without rain. We had another cold front along with the rain and it’s rarely been warmer than 60 degrees since our return. There has been very little actually accomplished in the shorter than normal stay as most of the time has been spend just staying warm and dry.

 

I know, I know! No one is really going to feel sorry for us as much of the Midwest just experienced a devastating ice storm and many people are still without power. I certainly don’t intend to put myself in that category and have great respect for how they are handling the situation without any help from FEMA or even any extended coverage from the media. All that I can say in my own defense is that this is supposed to be the tropics. We have acclimatized to a great extent, even though we spend time monthly in the north, and you should also realize that heaters and insulation are nonexistent. Homes are not even made tight so when the wind blows (and we’ve had many days of rain being driven horizontally) it seeps through the cracks and contributes to the abnormal conditions. This is now the third year of “abnormal” conditions and I’m beginning to seriously consider those who promote global warming in the same vein as those who promoted global cooling in the late ‘70s.

 

Today we are being visited by a Benedictine Monk from Saint Michaels Monastery in Siena, Tuscany, Italy. Our farm has been on the market and his interest is in restoring the forests and making it a religious retreat. I’m certainly happy that I was of a mind to protect the hardwoods (even though my honey often wished to harvest it for funds) and we have even more area in second growth forest than earlier.

 

As I was finishing that last paragraph Monje Abel and a Tico friend (the father of one of the other monks) arrived so I was interrupted for about an hour. They are now off on foot, as the road is way too soft for even the horses to be reliable, to look at the farm. To further elaborate on his plans, he plans to provide a retreat for youths in his area of Italy where they can learn a bit about real nature and get away from the influences that are prevalent in all modern societies that contribute to the high drug and crime rates. Pretty good idea!

 

We’ll see what he has to say after seeing the farm.

 

 

 

Con Dios Acompaña

 

Life in Paradise Update: Earthquake! January 11, 2009

Update:
Later on Friday the death toll was increased to 15. On Saturday the
toll was listed at 30
(http://insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2009/january/10/nac01.htm) and a
whole pueblo has apparently been lost
(http://insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2009/january/10/nac04.htm).

Life in Paradise Update: January 9, 2009

Just a quick note about the 6.2 earthquake that hit the central valley here yesterday.

 

Guido was behind the house washing Gypsy and I was at the kitchen table. It didn’t seem all that great at the time but it was a long one. There were no sharp jolts, like usual, but a long wavy motion that left both of us a little dizzy afterward. Only one item in the house fell and that’s of no real concern as it was only a splatter screen hanging in the kitchen. Absolutely no damage done but I’ve yet to get into the Pueblo of Tres Equis and will be going to Turrialba this morning.

 

I’d, quite honestly, forgotten about it until getting an email from a friend this morning and then reading all the news afterward. So far they have found eight people who perished in the temblor and hundreds injured with an unknown amount of property and infrastructure damage. AM Costa Rica is has a pretty good wrap-up and will probably be updating their news pages as the morning progresses.

 

Con Dios Acompaña

 

Life in Paradise Update: January 7, 2009

Aggravation, frustration and incompetence have been the keywords for the last several days. Primarily, this is concerning the lousy new website provided by TACA that refuses to complete the booking of a flight. I’ve spent in excess of 20 hours online just in the attempt to complete what should be a no-brainer and still don’t have a flight for this next return to Costa Rica.

 

I’ll get into some of the specifics later but I’ve noticed one thing about all the websites in Latin America. They think it’s great to fancy them up with lots of flash and animation features but for those of us who are restricted to slower internet connections that poses the problem of additional page load times and often requires more than one refresh just to open an otherwise simple page. One example of this is our bank here, BCAC, that requires a reload upon the completion of each box that needs to be filled, even for the simple process of signing on. Why can’t they realize that simplicity is an accepted art form and “Cute” doesn’t cut it when people are concerned with time and costs, i.e., the fact that I have to pay additional fees for each minute that I’m online!

 

TACA’s new page is now in its third month and has consistently presented a problem. I finally gave up on it on Sunday and called the local office to book the flight but found that, not only could I not get the fare rate that was available online, I would have to pay the equivalent of a Business class ticket just to get 100% mileage.  The first time I called I was put on hold after spending 20 minutes with a young lady woman that seemed to be irritated that I’d interfered with her siesta. After waiting fifteen minutes I was disconnected so had to re-initiate the call. I decided that I would continue to attempt to book online but still have had no success with the venture.

 

Yesterday, thinking that the problem might be with my own computer, I went to an Internet facility in Turrialba but was presented the same problem. I then made a contact with them and later, in the evening, was referred back to the local offices. I’m going to continue to attempt to make the reservation online as I really hate to have to deal with the services provided by phone here. Costa Ricans don’t really have a service based mentality and can be quite curt if you don’t just accept whatever they offer. I haven’t found this problem with my dealings in El Salvador so it isn’t a  “Latin” thing!

 

So..

 

…enough complaining!!!

 

I’m in the midst of the annual rush to prepare our vehicle for the dreaded RETIVE inspection and hope that I’m almost finished. I had to go into town on Friday for cash to pay Guido and stopped by my mechanics shop to schedule an appointment. Fortunately, he is service orientated and Monday morning I took the car in for repairs. On that day they replaced all the rubber under the car, fixed all the burned out light bulbs and broken wiring to same, calibrated the brakes and tightened or replaced all the loose clamps, rivets, screws and other common hardware of the car. I retrieved it prior to five p.m. but had to return the following morning (yesterday) for additional work.

 

Now, waiting around all day isn’t the most relaxing thing and although I do like to enjoy an adult beverage on occasion, that isn’t the way to spend the whole day. On Monday I’d taken my laptop into town with me with the intent to utilize the free wi-fi provided in the park but encountered the problem of it being a rainy day. There is a restaurant on the furthest corner of the park but there was no signal within. In the afternoon, as it was then dry, I did get into the park but the city had apparently determined there was no reason to activate the system on a rainy day. Yesterday it was raining again at home so I didn’t bother to carry the laptop, it just means lugging around a lot of additional weight for the entire day. That’s when and why I used the public internet facilities in the above commentary.

 

Yesterday I had the front cam and crankshaft seals replaced, the timing belt replaced, the gasses checked and the associated carburetor adjustments made. I also had the alignment looked at again as there had been a vibration on my way home the evening prior. I also had the oil changed, as that was almost due. I’m currently out a bit over $250 for all the preparations but still have a couple of items to accomplish. I want to get the motor and undercarriage of the vehicle cleaned and all the exhaust tubing inspected for excessive corrosion. I stopped on the way home to fill up with gas as that hadn’t been done since my trip to the beach.

 

I’m taking today off from repairs and plan to get some items accomplished around the house. We’ll see how far that goes. I also need to continue with the purchase process for my next trip.

 

Con Dios Acompaña

 

Life in Paradise Update: December 31, 2008

I’

m dating this post for tomorrow as I don’t wish to go back online today. Service is extremely slow, even though I’m being told that I have a relatively fast connection by my computer. I guess that even if the connection is higher than normal it still depends upon how fast the server is connecting to the www.

 

The weather here has turned fairly nice. We’re having a bit of light rain during the dark hours but the days are clear. Last night I went out to see why the dogs were barking and was presented with the sight of every tree, bush and tall piece of grass being covered with lightning bugs. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that and the Christmas season is a perfect time for it. It’s still a bit cooler in the evenings but about equal to what it’s been the past several years with global warming. Isn’t that what we’re being told? The colder temperatures that we’ve been having since 2002 are a result of global warming!

 

As my sweetie was in the US and I was relegated to spending the Holiday alone I opted to spend it with friends at the beach in Puerto Viejo. That offered me the additional facility of being able to communicate with all my family in the frozen north using Skype rather than having to pay the ridiculous amount of 45 cents a minute for the phone calls. I took advantage of that and called them all!

 

I do have to admit that one of the disadvantages of spending the holiday with friends is that it only intensifies the loss of being with family during this important time of the year. This is either the fourth or fifth time that I’ve been alone since we moved here and the other times it didn’t really bother me. Oh well, perhaps it’s an age thing!

 

I stayed an extra day at the beach, but probably shouldn’t have. The last day that I was there I was gloomier than the others, for some unknown reason, and upon returning to the finca found that one of our cows had fallen down a hill and killed herself. That’s one of the dangers of having a mountainous pasture area and this is only the second time that has happened in the 11 years that we’ve been here. Still, I hate to see it happen!

 

I’ve needed to get started on the yearly repairs for my car so that I can pass the inspection due in January but have been putting off the first trip into town to do so until it’s absolutely necessary. Tomorrow we run out of horse pellets so I guess I’ll be spending the day, or part of it, in Turrialba. It’s a yearly process to first get all the rubber under the car replaced, have any tubing for the exhaust repaired, should it need it, make sure that all the lights work and get the gasses adjusted so that I can pass the emissions test. I also usually take it for a steam cleaning but didn’t do that last year. I’ll probably have to pay for that this year as the engine is in pretty disgusting shape. I also have one rear shock absorber that barely was within tolerance a year ago so to properly insure that will pass, need to replace the pair. This is always a major expense for the year and following December, when we have to pay Income Taxes,  Aguilando, Vacation, Marchamo (vehicle registration and insurance) and also have the Christmas budget to consider, can take its toll! Along with the government here’s propensity to attempt to devalue the dollar during this time so that they receive a bunch more dollars during the major tourist season the actual expenses can come as quite a shock. The attempt this year was frowned upon by the international market and they had to allow the Colone to reach its own level but they’ve continued to make this attempt twice since then, with hazardous results, resulting in an exchange rate much higher than had they not played games with the money.

 

I didn’t really have anything much to report but felt the need to update this page.

 

Prospero Año Nuevo y con Dios Acompaña

Life in Paradise Update: December 18, 2008

Well, the rains have abated to a reasonable state but as this is usually the wettest month in this part of the country they are still present. It's also warmed up considerably and we again have temperatures ranging between 70 and 80 but the nights are still a bit cooler. That's been more of a normal situation from December through February now for a few years so normal would be the descriptive word!

I returned yesterday on the beginning of my 132nd monthly round trip to the north and it seems that I got out of there just in time. Los Angeles is experiencing a rough winter!

I spoke with my sweetie upon arrival to insure her that I'd arrived safely and she's about frozen. She was supposed to spend Christmas here but, once again, her doctors decided that her medication should  be changed and wished for her to remain where she could be monitored a few days longer. We decided that she should just spend the Holiday with the kids rather than make a mad rush down here and I'll be spending a couple of days on the Caribbean Beach with some friends. I've spent several Holidays alone over the years so it's really no great shakes. I'd, of course, prefer to have her here but you take what you can get and be grateful with that! I hope that the roads between L.A. and Bakersfield clear up enough for her to get there prior to Christmas.

Our house was broken into while I was in the US but it seems that our trusty Guido managed to scare whoever was inside away before they could either attach themselves to anything valuable or do any damage in the search thereof. I'm not sure but I believe there  were a couple of my rings that managed to be taken but I might have stored them somewhere other than where I believed them to be. It's been a long time since I even saw them but a thorough search of all my storage places will determine whether they were stolen or not. In any case, they weren't really valuable but the sentimental value will be noted

Oh, well...

...¡Hasta Luego y con Dios Acompaña!

Testing, 1, 2 3

For many months now ScribFire has refused to work. This post is a test only of the newest updated version of that program.

Life in Paradise Update: December 3, 2008

There’s not a lot that can be said about the last couple of weeks. It’s been raining almost constantly and we only had two days that were worth going out in. The cold fronts continue to engulf this part of the world so just staying in and dry has been the major activity.

 

We’ve been having a lot of trouble with the water supply. About a week ago he major aqueduct from the local reservoir was washed out so it’s been an on-again, off-again proposition. I’ve managed to store a bit up but that’s not been enough to get laundry done in anticipation for the trip back north next week. We had water yesterday but the flow was so slight that I was only able to get two loads accomplished.

 

A couple of months ago I was backed into by a truck on one of my outings to Turrialba and the phone number that I had from the driver wasn’t any good. I know that I could go through the process of getting a denunciacion but that would involve hiring an attorney and I’m just not willing to do that. The cost of repairs is only a bit over $70 so I’m just getting the work done locally. I’m supposed to get the car back on Friday so we’ll see about that!

 

The government here is playing their annual trick with the forced valuation of the colone and it’s had about a 6% change so far. It’s been stable now for several days and I see that the international market is starting to adjust to the change. I should have purchased some colones yesterday as I could have earned about $6 on each $100 had I done so. Today it’s only about $1.5 so not worth the effort. I’ll just have to ride it out as I did last year and wait for the spike in April that can be expected. The valuation is also consistent with the Euro and the English Lb, as with Gold and Silver. Silver is still a bit higher than the others but for all practical purposes it doesn’t matter where you are coming from (or what currency you change) this tourist season, You’ll lose about $6 to every hundred that you change to the government’s gain.

 

Of course the locals are also hurt by this, prices won’t drop but when the rapid rise takes place in a few months they will raise drastically. The resultant inflation is now in the area of 15% annually where prior to this forced valuation last year it was a hair below 20%.

 

Well, I need to go empty the rain buckets into the large containers so they can start to fill again.

 

 ¡Hasta Luego y con Dios Acompaña!

 

Life in Paradise Update: November 23, 2008

 

Again it’s been a considerable amount of time since the last post but there have been circumstances that influenced the delay.

 

As I noted in the last post, we were visiting the Caribbean Beach with visiting relatives. There isn’t much to say about the trip to the beach that hasn’t been said several times before so I’ll forgo any additional  details about that. I did spend the majority of my time assisting the Cabinas owner with computer related tasks but that’s nothing exceptional.

 

That visit ended fine and we left on Tuesday, October 21, returning to the farm for one night’s stay. The following morning we headed out in both the rental car and our own little buggy for the trip to San José. The rental was for convenience and space only but my sweetie and I needed a vehicle for the return trip. I drove alone, giving everyone else the considerable luxury of the rental. An odd thing did happen, however, in that the other members of my party passed me about 40 miles from San José and I ended up at the hotel before they did. I’m sure there’s a very reasonable explanation for this but we’ve yet to find it!

 

We enjoyed a nice dinner out that evening prior to Doris’ cousin leaving the following day and ourselves returned home on the Thursday, also.

 

As there had been a considerable amount of time passing without me taking care of some of the higher priority items I went to work attempting to finish, first, the back painting and second, the records needed for filing our Sociadad taxes prior to Dec. 15. It had turned cold and rainy (two weeks of the temperature only occasionally reaching into the 60s) so on Sunday morning, October 26, I headed downstairs to the computer room only to discover that my laptop was completely dead. The battery was fully charged but nothing happened when I pressed the complete Windows button or the Media Direct button. After a bit of investigation I determined that whenever I attempted to turn on the computer that the light on the AC power supply would extinguish. This indicated that a probable short was loading the charger to the point that it was shutting itself off.

 

Although I did receive several years of electronic education, both in college and in the service of our country, that knowledge is related to a time prior to the proliferation of nano technology. I decided, after a cursory examination of obvious possible faults, that I would take the computer to our local repair facility. I shouldn’t have to note that doing so came to naught! They have only occasionally been able to assist with computer problems so, although disappointed, I wasn’t too surprised that I would continue to be without a computer.

 

I then  attempted to get one of the old desktops, that have been languishing in reserve, functional but neither had an operating system and attempting to add one failed to produce the desired results. I determined that I would just have to wait until I returned to the US on the 10^th of November to see if the laptop could be repaired. Subsequent attempts to accomplish this feat since my return have continued to elude me but not all options have yet been considered. It would be nice  to have something in reserve that I could count on, should the need again present itself.

 

I didn’t get a lot accomplished in the interim but did spend several afternoons at our little “internet café” just attempting to check my mail. They, as I, are restricted to the available connection and that’s dialup. Putting several computers on one connection at a speed of less than 50kps doesn’t produce very rapid response from the server so it was a time consuming process.

 

I’ve had a little hand held Poker game for a couple of years and on the third of November actually got a royal flush. That’s the first one that I’d ever gotten, regardless of where or what I was playing so in addition to being surprised, was quite happy with myself, having received a score of 5000 points as a result. Well, I got down to just a few points over 3000 and the next day I got another one. Unbelievable! But wait, on Thursday, just three days after the first one I managed to get a third one, hitting on three of the required cards. Wow, I now had a score of over 10,000 points where for two years the maximum had been 960. Rounding off the actual figures, I’ve calculated that the probability of hitting on four to a royal flush your odds are about 50 to 1; hitting on three: 1000 to one; two: 15000 to one and one: 300,000 to one.

 

A couple of days later, with aver 8,000 points on the machine I had to change the battery and not being careful to  let the unit turn itself off first, lost not only the points but the high point record, as well. On the good side, this morning, hitting on one of those 979 to one odds I did it again. What can I say?

 

Getting back to the real world, on October 29 my honey went back up north so the third trip to San José in a month was required. I made the standard trip back to  the US on the tenth of November, finishing 130 consecutive monthly round trips.

 

I wasn’t too confident that the computer could be fixed and the first day didn’t bother to take it to the shop. On Thursday I did but the tech wasn’t coming in that day so I had to wait until the following day for any news. On Friday I stopped by the store in the morning and noted to them that should it be something that couldn’t be fixed I would just head over to the Apple store and get a new Mac laptop. Less than an hour later I had news that it could be fixed, relatively inexpensively, and an hour and a half later had my laptop back, working fine! I neglected to mention that the last time I took a  unit in to this facility I ended up purchasing the laptop I now have from them as they said the old one couldn’t be repaired. I’d reasoned that the best probability of getting it fixed was if they knew up front that I would not be in the market for another Windows based computer. I don’t know if that actually had any effect on the outcome of the repair but I’m going to assume that it did.

 

So, another job is done and another trip back to the jungle is complete! I arrived on this past Wednesday with the beginnings of a cold so haven’t been very ambulatory in the interim. As I stated previously, it’s been wet and cold, with the temperature today finally going above 60 degrees. It’s currently about 64 and had I not lived here for almost eleven years wouldn’t believe that this could be the situation in the tropics. The cold has been accompanied with torrential rains and for the first time since my return, it isn’t raining.

 

I finally got around starting a couple of weeks laundry this morning and will finish up the accounting so that I can take it to the accountant tomorrow or Tuesday.

 

I suppose that I should note that when I was moving all the plants from the downstairs living area to an area behind the house, where they would get better attention in my absence, I came upon a two foot Coral snake under one of the pots. Before I could get something with which I could dispatch it, it had moved to an inaccessible location in a small pile of rocks beside Bill’s cage. I just let it go, they do have their uses and this wasn’t the first one that got away!

 

I guess that’s about all there is to say. I realize that “Life in Paradise” isn’t very exciting, but I guess that’s a good thing. After eleven years the novelty and adventure have worn off and it’s just a normal existence! Sorry if you were hoping to find a more exciting post!

 

 ¡Hasta Luego y con Dios Acompaña!

 

 

 

Life in Paradise Update: October 23, 2008

We had a very nice, but rather short, stay at the beach. Our normal sojourn there is in the neighborhood of five nights, leaving on Monday and returning on Saturday. This time we left the farm on Friday and returned on Tuesday.

 

I didn’t make note of it on my last post but when we go to our friend’s cabinas we get the only cabin with an air conditioner. This is because my sweetie has a lot of problem with the additional heat and humidity there and is also influenced by the fact that said air conditioner was brought down here in one of my many trips in my own suitcase.

 

As soon as the unit was installed the first guest in that cabin managed to wrench the control know off of it so the only way to turn it on or off was with the plug; turning the unit on required only to plug it in and turning it off was accomplished by un plugging it! Over the years it’s begun to cool less and less and although that could probably be fixed with an addition of Freon, that’s not something that you can get done unless you remove the unit and carry it to some larger city like Limón or San José. Horst decided to purchase a new one and this one is a beauty. It’s an outside unit with the inside unit wall mounted. Lots of neat features including a remote and no knobs for the uninitiated to break off!

 

The only problem was that it hadn’t yet been installed when we arrived on Friday. That entire afternoon and part of the evening was spent on this endeavor! Now, Horst is a native German speaker and although his spoken English is more than competent he sometimes has problems with the written words (especially interesting are emails I receive from him when I have to guess and what he’s trying to communicate). That meant that first I needed to read the complete instruction manual and anyone familiar with recent editions of these will know that they are often written by Chinese or others who seem to miss a grasp on realistic interpretations of the translation. Simply said, I had to translate the Chinese English into comprehensible English and can’t fault Horst for being unable to do so.

 

Once the instructions were fairly well understood the actual installation ensued and that included a trip to the hardware store for tubes, elbows and wiring for the outside unit. As the plug that was supplied with the air conditioner (and the item was purchased here in Costa Rica) had no counterpart available in this country it entailed cutting off the plug and hardwiring it into the junction box after determining the color coding of the wiring.

 

With the assistance of Thomas we eventually had a working unit about 8:00p.m. and sat down to several homemade pizzas thanks to Marglet.

 

After departing the beach on Tuesday we spent that night on the farm and then left for San José yesterday morning a bit after 8a.m. My honey’s cousin was scheduled for a flight out this morning early and as far as we know, they left on time. We stayed the night and will be leaving soon for the trip back to the farm. It’s been nice having company but I’m way behind now on the items that need to be done.

 

We had to drive both cars into town as the rental car was no longer needed but we had to have a way home. A couple of stops are in order as we need to replenish our stock of horse pellets and whatever else my honey decides we require.

 

Noting the rental car: I’m considerably irritated at the Hertz agency here as they offered the lowest rates online and that was supposedly a complete price, only optional items extra. Upon actually signing for the car, I found that the unmentioned “Mandatory” items, like insurance, actually doubled the price of the rental. I’ll certainly never rent from them again. When my wife called to change the rental date (due to the delay of her cousin’s flight at mentioned in the previous post) there was no longer a vehicle available at the airport when she needed it so the rental had to be picked up here in San José. That actually worked out to the best but when she asked if they could bring the car to the hotel (a common courtesy here) she was told that they couldn’t but wasn’t told that they would pick HER up at the hotel, as is their policy. As I previously stated, I’ll not rent from them again and would discourage others from doing so. I’ve had dealings with other agencies here and they were a lot more forthcoming with their prices.

 

Well, I need to get up to the room and pack my meager bag. I’ve been using the hotel’s wireless connection but it’s too weak to get connection upstairs so I’ve been sitting here in the garden restaurant for several hours this morning. Check out the beach location at www.riococles.com and this great little hotel in San José at www.kekoldi.com. They’re both great places to stay!

 

 

 ¡Hasta Luego y con Dios Acompaña!

 

 

Life in Paradise Update: October 19, 2008

I managed to get most of the painting finished prior to my return to the US for my monthly visit. The last item to get done was all the window trim above the first floor that wasn't directly accessible, and I had a young man come in for that project as it seems age is starting to take it's toll and vertigo raise it's ugly head when I reached about a third of the way up the ladder.

I still have to do the back of the house where the work area is but that was put on hold until all the trim was completed. I'd originally planned to do the entire area in the darker color but am glad that I waited. I think the lighter color will be better as it will be easier to see when it gets dirty and also won't show so much dust when I'm using the worktable to cut wood. That's all on hold now as we have our expected visitors and are taking a few days on the Caribbean beach at our favorite haunt, Cabinas Rio Cocles (see the link on this page!)

I will say that the outside of the house wasn't much of a treat to do. I was able to get the cracks in the walls filled with a little extra pressure from the roller but I had to load it more, also. That caused the paint in the cracks to run at a higher rate than I'd been experiencing so the result required a considerable amount of cleanup of the unwanted drips to the floor that resulted.

The back of the house was the real time taker. Although I'd applied four complete coats of paint of the wall facing the prevailing weather (this was also the wall that needed the most prep) that didn't take anywhere near as much time as the back of the house.

Our house is probably at least thirty years old and in that time the construction methods have changed here considerably. There are very few wooden houses being constructed now and the common use is preformed concrete half walls that are later smoothed over to eliminate the seams. They make preformed, concrete 'I' beams where the concrete slabs fit into the slots of the I and this is also filled when the smoothing of the wall takes place.  Back in the time when our house was built one of the methods was to use overlapping boards that were about 10" by 3/4" and this is what was used at the back of the house. With the overlapping 3'4 inch that produced a considerable amount of area that was untouchable with a roller so either a small roller or a brush had to be employed to paint this area. At this was entirely on the second floor the time necessary to accomplish this task was considerable. I employed both methods, as there were also several other areas that required a bit of imagination, and not being able to do so on the ladder necessitated the use of a 14' pole to do so. Have you ever painted with a 2" brush at the end of a 14 foot pole? It's a real backbreaker!!!

Eventually the job did get finished along with re-screening one window and both of the screen doors. I took the doors apart and painted all the pieces prior to adding the screens and the result was worthwhile. There's a bunch of pictures at
http://my.opera.com/fincadelpacuare/blog/

So, back to the time at hand!

Thomas and Stephi (Thomas is my sweetie's second cousin from Germany) were supposed to arrive on a Condor flight on the ninth of October and I left for the US on the seventh. Prior to leaving I arranged a rental car at the airport for them to pick up on the ninth, leaving my car at the parking lot where it usually resides during my absence, and Doris stayed in town to meet them at the airport when they arrived. As much as I love my little car, it just doesn't have sufficient room to carry four adults and all the baggage they need to tour. Anyway, when I returned I could then pick up my car and they wouldn't have to return to San Jose to retrieve me.

The three of them were planning to leave directly from the airport and head to the west coast to Manuel Antonio where a tour through the national park had already been arranged, spending a couple of days there, returning to San Jose over the weekend and then heading either to the Irazu Volcano on the way home or taking a canopy tour in the Braulio Carrillo National Forest. They'd planned to arrive on Monday afternoon, late, and wait for my arrival before heading to the Caribbean on Friday.

Whom of you recall Apollo 13 and those infamous words "Houston, we have a problem"?

Sitting, bleary eyed, at my computer on Wednesday afternoon in Chatsworth, CA, USA, I received a similar call from Germany!

It seems that Thomas' Condor flight was one of the 35% that are NOT on time and they were now scheduled to leave ten and a half hours late. As they didn't know how to contact my sweetie in San Jose their only option was to try and contact me so that I could let her know of the change.

Now, the original arrival time was just after 7 a.m. so this would put them in late in the afternoon. We don't drive in Costa Rica at night on most instances and certainly don't drive at night on roads we are unfamiliar with, looking for a place that we haven't been in over ten years. That meant that they would be staying in San Jose for the night (fortunately our friend had room in his hotel, the Kekoldi - see link on this page) and the necessity to pick up the car wasn't until the day following the one it was arranged for.

I haven't heard all the stories of their excursion but they did manage to get the tour rescheduled, cutting their stay on the west coast short and still returning to the farm on Monday. They opted for the trip to the volcano but due to weather conditions turned around prior to actually arriving at that location. I suppose if you can't see because of the fog it doesn't make a lot of sense to visit a site where the reason you want to go is for the vista!

Once I arrived everything was back on schedule and so far remains so. We're to leave here on Tuesday, go back to San Jose on Wednesday after a night at the farm, the airport is Thursday morning and then back to normal until my honey heads back north on the twenty-ninth.

So, here it is, Sunday morning and I'm enjoyed the sunrise (mostly overcast) on the beach prior to starting this entry. I'll try and get around to updating this again prior to leaving for the US but no guarantees, there's a lot to do in the interim!

 

 ¡Hasta Luego y con Dios Acompaña!

 

 

Life in Paradise Update: September 9, 2009

 

I’ve had an extremely busy month so haven’t been keeping any of the blogs up-to-date.

 

The house painting is progressing; that’s about all can be said for that! Once back I tackled the living room and it was  probably the easiest inside area to paint. There were fewer furnishings to guard and much lighter than the items in the bedroom that I’d completed earlier. In this room I decided to see how much faster the roller would be but with the cracks between each board in the walls and ceiling there was still a tremendous amount of brush work. I also had only one shelf of books to remove, although that shelf is 14 feet long! Along with the living room I did the small hallway and was happy to only need a couple of days for the complete job. Using the roller it is, however, necessary to do two coats of paint but this wasn’t that much more work. The bulk of the job is still in the brush work.

 

Todd came to visit for a few days but this didn’t curtail the painting, it just gave me someone to talk to and whenever advise was offered I simply suggested that he grab a brush and demonstrate. Actually, Todd has a background in construction so painting is something that he’s familiar with and knows several hints that did come in handy. I managed to finish the kitchen while he was here and that’s the biggest room in the house, and one of the most difficult as it had to be done in two sections. I was actually finished with the easiest half, that where the table is, prior to his arrival so even though I only really worked half days while he was here I still got it done.

 

Now, we have an ant here that’s one that we really like. It comes in and eats every other bug around, including all the dead ones, so they are generally welcome. Last year we found that they had made a next under one of the saddles in the bodega and this was something that we didn’t need so had to kill about half a million of them and clean up all the larvae from their nest but this had never happened prior to that so we would still welcome them. One of the features that we don’t really care for is that when they bite, it can be a bad one. They have an inordinate amount of poison in their bite (or sting, whatever!) and that can cause a considerable amount of discomfort.

 

That might have seemed like it was out of place in this post, which will be mostly about painting, but not so! On Friday evening, while Todd was visiting, we ran down the hill to a nice restaurant, the Turrialtico, expecting to have a pleasant evening and a nice visit. When we arrived we found that they were being inundated with this ant. They were around the building, not yet going inside the restaurant so this was really not a great concern. We managed to get through them with only my sweetie getting a bite on the foot but our waitress had a cream that took all the sting out of it so that worked well for her.  This restaurant is an outside one, like many here in Costa Rica, and up on a hill so that we could enjoy the lights of Turrialba while we dined.

 

This was at the time that Gustav was visiting the Caribbean so we were getting a bit of backlash from that although well out of any danger area. We were mostly getting lightning storms and one started soon after we sat down, with the low lying clouds obliterating any view of Turrialba. Along with the storm came the wind so we were forced to change our seat for one further within the restaurant, but still outside as that is the only option at this particular location.

 

Have you ever heard the charge of lightening building up in the ground prior to discharging? Well, we did this night and the discharge was but a few feet from the table we were originally seated at and it’s probably a fortunate thing that we moved. Todd and I kind of looked at each other, shrugging our shoulders and expressing “Cool!” but my honey wasn’t as calm about it. She wasn’t to the point of wishing to leave but it had given her more than a little pause of concern! This was but a minor part of the evening and the rest of the meal was great.

 

Unfortunately, on the way out I managed to have one of those little critters that I wrote about earlier get under the strap of my sandal and let me know that it had been there. On Saturday I had a bit of discomfort and some minor swelling so finished putting the kitchen back together after Todd’s departure back to Parismina with the new shoes that I’d brought from the US. By Saturday evening the swelling was considerably more and by Sunday morning I couldn’t even hope to force the foot into a shoe.

 

I spent Sunday on the couch with a foot about twice the size it should be and enjoyed several movies from the DVD!

 

Monday was back to work but I was a bit slow considering that my foot was still not back to normal and there was not a small amount of  pain associated with this. I got going on our bedroom and spent the day doing brush work on about a third of the room, later rolling that area twice. On Tuesday I’d planned to make a trip into Turrialba but as I was now almost normal (at least my foot was, I’ve often been accused of not being normal!) decided instead to finish the bedroom and was at that until about eight in the evening.

 

Wednesday was Turrialba for some greatly needed supplies.

 

Thursday was just putting the room back together so that we might get back into our own bed!

 

On Friday I started the veranda. I had thought that this would be the easiest place but I’d neglected to consider that it’s often a windy area to work in. Not only did the wind cause paint to blow from the loaded brush but it also caused the plastic that I was using to protect the wooden floor to blow around. I ended up with a considerable amount of drip that needed to be cleaned up once the area was completely painted and that caused me to spend an additional day at the job over what I’d estimated. At least that was completed on Sunday, giving me yesterday to prepare for the trip back to the US today.

 

I’ve posted some pictures at http://my.opera.com/fincadelpacuare/blog/ but they uploaded much smaller than I’d intended. I had this problem once before but have forgotten how I fixed it so will probably do it over once I get some speed in my connection. I just this minute went out on the veranda and took pictures of that, which will also be uploaded at a later time.

 

Gotta go…

 

 

...¡Hasta Luego y con Dios Acompaña!

 

Life in Paradise Update: August 22, 2008

 

Another round trip to the US has been completed and there isn’t much to mention about that. I do have to say that I was able, this month, to get time to head up to San Buena Ventura and visit with my son and his family. That’s always a nice change to the drudgery of the keyboard so is worthy of note.

 

I was asked to pick up one of the new $199 iPhones for a friend here in Costa Rica but found out that isn’t possible unless you sign up with AT&T for their service plan. What a pain that is! I ended up getting him an iPod Touch, as the main reason he wanted it was for the features other than the phone but the iPod was considerably more expensive. I suppose that AT&T are picking up some of the expense if it’s $100 less than the iPod that does mostly the same functions.

 

I did get the pictures of work in progress uploaded at the site listed in the last update but only a few photos as I got busy in the US and didn’t get around to posting any more. I’ll see what I can do as the work progresses.

 

As I’m getting to retirement age I found the following little bit of information quite useful as an exercise guide and thought I would share it with you:

 

Workout Plan For Those Over 50 Years Old

Are you an old fart wanting to lift weights but don't know where to start? Never fear, help is here! Follow along while we whip you into great condition!

Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you have plenty of room at each side. With a 5-lb potato sack in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides and hold them there as long as you can. Try to reach a full minute, and then relax. Each day you'll find that you can hold this position for just a bit longer.

After a couple of weeks, move up to 10-lb potato sacks. Then try 50-lb potato sacks and then eventually try to get to where you can lift a 100-lb potato sack in each hand and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute. (I'm at this level.)

After you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each of the sacks.

 

 

Just thought I’d share that with you!!!

 

I returned as usual on Wednesday morning and the trip home was uneventful. We went through the national park, which is the long way home, but it’s really a nice drive. Unfortunately, we do sometimes take for granted the beauty of the landscape and the wondrous vistas that are a part of life here. I suppose that’s one disadvantage of having lived here for over 10 and a half years. That was true with Arizona and the beautiful sunsets that used to be a part of everyday life. I spent my teenage years in the Phoenix and Scottsdale area but never appreciated what we saw on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the air pollution and the microclimate of Phoenix have now made these sunsets something that you need to go into the desert to see in the quality that was once normal throughout the city.

 

So, back to the farm. Nothing went wrong while I was gone so that’s always a good sign. Since my sweetie is again in residence, the peon and his wife don’t have the responsibility of everything and also do a much better job of everything with the additional supervision. I find it very interesting that they also don’t seem to forget or have excuses why even the smallest items couldn’t be accomplished in my absence.

 

Since my honey was here I have a whole package of receipts that have to be posted to my accounting programs and as the end of the fiscal year is coming soon that is my first priority. Then it’s back to painting. The next project is the living room and yesterday we went into town (my sweetie had a dental appointment) so I picked up five gallons more of paint. Now that the color has definitely been decided that’s a much better way to purchase it. Along with that I found that they have new five gallon plastic buckets so picked up four of these for watering buckets for the horses that are in the stables. A quick trip to the vet for two hundred pounds of horse pellets and 100 pounds of grain for our bull finished filling the back of our little car so we headed home immediately following lunch.

 

There really isn’t a lot to say here so forgive me if I seem to have been rambling…

 

...¡Hasta Luego y con Dios Acompaña!

 

 

Life in Paradise Update: August 11, 2008

Again I’ve been remiss in keeping this post up to date. I’ve been rather busy so this time I have a fairly good reason.

 

I don’t recall whether I mentioned it but we’re in the process of repainting the house. My sweetie wanted me to look for someone to do this but from experience I’ve been reluctant to do so as the quality of the work is always lacking. When we had the roofs repainted a year and a half ago I hired someone that I was pretty sure would do a good job but he completely disregarded what I’d asked for and I’ve never been happy with the work. I had more paint splatter on the plants surrounding the house than on the roof. His estimation of the paint needed wasn’t even close and when it came time to get the corral painted he hired an assistant and didn’t even show up for the job. The assistant painted the roof with the nozzle about two inches from the roof and ended up, again, using twice the paint due to loss from misting paint than was needed.

 

I’d also wanted our house done first but the painter conveniently didn’t get started until the day that I left for one of my monthly trips and upon my return he was painting the peon house where Guido lives. With the repairs that were needed to that house the job ended up taking most of the month so ours wasn’t started until the next time that I went up north. There were a few minor repairs to the woodwork in our house, also, and when I returned I couldn’t believe the shoddy workmanship that had been done.

 

So, getting back to the here and now! I did check around and wasn’t comfortable with anyone that was willing to work so began the job myself. Since I’m doing it myself I’m probably more conscientious in the work being done. First is to clean all the areas to be painted and then to sand down any of the planks that are too rough. You’d think that the wood would already be smooth but this isn’t the case. Rather than get a new piece when one is bad during the construction process they just use what they have here, as they don’t wish to incur the additional expense so, even though not a lot, some of the wood isn’t up to par. The last time the house was painted was in 1997 so this was really a job that needed to be done.

 

I spent a couple of days dressing up the wood in the ceiling of our bedroom, as there had been several cracks that have become unsightly. I then decided that I’d do the second bedroom first, not being sure how my honey would really like the paint that she’d decided on and there was a considerable amount of sanding to be done in that room on the ceiling. This particular room is also a bit of an extra storage area and quite crowded so moving things around also took a bit of time and as we also have bookshelves on almost every wall of that room all of the books had to be stored during the process. I then used a stiff bristled brush to remove any lingering dust and dirt, especially in all the corners and washed down the area that I was getting ready to paint. With everything moved to one side of the room this meant that I had to do all of this in stages, increasing the overall time required for the project.

 

We found some minor termite damage around one of the windows so this then had to be treated prior to the application of paint. This room took me until the day prior to my sweetie returned from the US and required a bit over one gallon of paint to accomplish but that also included putting the room back together. Had I not painted the outside of the bedroom door I would have had enough!

 

I need to note that we are still trying to remove paint drops from both the upstairs floor and the downstairs that were left from the last painting. Some of them were so dried that no amount of thinner would help and attempting to sand them off also removed the stain from the wooden floors. Using that process would have required that all the floors be sanded and you can’t find a floor sander here like they have in the US. At least you can’t find rental equipment and I wasn’t looking to purchase one. There are no drips with the new paint job as everything was masked off using blue painter’s tape and plastic sheeting.

 

My honey had selected a light rose color for the paint but I wasn’t sure that it was light enough so the one room was all that I wished to do prior to her seeing it. With only part of the room painted it gave the impression of being darker than it was so I was originally quite concerned about the color. Once it was completed it looked pretty good but I still didn’t want to do more and have to do it over. This was a good thing as she also thought the paint was a bit dark when she first saw it.

 

As I had almost a gallon of paint left from the finished bedroom I then took on the next most difficult project, the stairs. As the eastern side of the stairs is subject to immersion when it rains a lot of the wood needed considerable sanding to remove the old paint that had become water damaged. This took several days to accomplish but the area that was prepared only took part of one day to paint and that was with two coats. I got that done yesterday but the upstairs part of the job still needs to be done. I won’t get back to that until my return in 8 days!

 

I’ll post a couple of pictures at http://my.opera.com/fincadelpacuare/blog/ of the work in progress. There’s also a post there with a picture of a sunset and as these are really rare here it’s one of my favorite pictures.

 

Got to go…

 

...¡Hasta Luego y con Dios Acompaña!

 

Life in Paradise Update: July 27, 2008

Following my normal absence while in the northern climes it’s time to get going again. Unfortunately, there’s not really anything to report.

 

As usual, the trip to the north was primarily for work so there wasn’t much difference with that aspect of the trip. My sweetie took the car on Friday to visit her daughter and family in Bakersfield so that left me on foot until Sunday afternoon when she returned. That wasn’t really much of a hardship as I made a trip to the grocery store prior to her departure to fill the freezer with junk foods while she was gone. I must have been hungry when I made the trip because there is still enough for my next trip, less beer, of course!

 

I always think that I’m in good shape on the Saturday but then spend most of Sunday just cleaning up the publication. Being stuck in the house gave me the opportunity to do a bit of proofing and as a result when the final proof of the pub was accomplished on Monday morning it turned out that there were only three errors in the entire issue that needed attention. How nice was that?

 

After sending off the publication to the printer at an unprecedented early time, we made a trip out to Westlake Village, where we used to reside, to visit some friends that we had not seen in several months. The good news is that it was a very nice visit and we caught up a lot with each other’s lives. The bad news is that they are both failing in health so that is not good. Of course, he’s 87 years old, soon to be 88 and we’re really not sure how old the wife is but she’s also getting up there. This particular friend is English and once served in Her Majesties’ service in the India Corps, having been there when India received its independence. He is one of those perfect English gentlemen and always a pleasure to visit. She’s one of the world’s premier watercolorists but, unfortunately, unable to continue in this activity any longer.

 

So, back to Paradise!

 

The return flight is no longer worth commenting on unless there is an unusual occurrence and this month there was none. The first half of my 127^th monthly round trip was just a long, boring experience! That did change once I was on the ground so deserves a bit of space here.

 

I decided to take the road through the national park and Siquirres rather than the older, but shorter, route through Cartago. One of the advantages of this route is that the highway is only a couple of blocks from where we park our car and the route is much faster, with passing lanes, so the gasoline mileage increases to be equal with the usage when we take the other route. It is much further, about 50%, than the route through Cartago, Paraiso and Turrialba, but as I said, the gas usage is the same.

 

Everything was fine until I went through the tunnel at Zurqui, which is about a half mile long (or seems to be, at any rate!). When I entered the tunnel the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. When I exited it, however, I found myself in a tremendous downpour which made driving difficult; visibility was reduced to just a few meters in front of the car and this made driving not only difficult but dangerous as well.

 

Fortunately this did clear to no longer be a deluge but just a heavy rain. Unfortunately, that status didn’t continue! The drive was fairly uneventful through the mountains but once I arrived at the plains of Guapilis the deluge returned. What would have simply been a two and a half hour drive was extended by another hour and a half due to the driving conditions.

 

I did make it home in one piece so I suppose “all’s well that ends well!” That isn’t, however, what you want to experience when you’ve already been up for over 24 hours.

 

Everything on the farm is fine, one new little calf was born on the day that I departed to the US but I haven’t taken a picture of it yet. That will be posted on my farm update blog on Opera at http://my.opera.com/fincadelpacuare/blog/ but not in the immediate future. According to Guido it looks just like the other one that has been posted on the site but I’ve yet to confirm this.

 

All the dogs are fine, the cats are fine, also the horses and cattle. Bill continues to be enamored with his/her reflection in the mirror that I reported on earlier but I did need to remove it and wash it this morning.

 

On a final note, I made the requisite trip into Turrialba on Friday but there was little that was needed. I probably should have made a stop at the grocery store but neglected to take the time so will be heading up the hill in a few minutes to get something to eat.

 

That’s all for now…

 

...¡Hasta Luego y con Dios Acompaña!

 

 

LIfe in Paradise Update: July 12, 2008

I neglected to mention it in previous posts but upon my return from the US almost four weeks ago our Tucanette wasn't looking very good. He/she was lackadaisical, his bill was dirty with crusted on food and his feathers weren't looking as though they were being preened in the normal manner. He also was taking to sleeping in the daytime, which is something that he'd never done before. I was at the point of taking him to the vet when another possibility for this behavior became evident when Guido made the suggestion that perhaps he was only sad.

In the past, a couple of times a day, he would e visited by others of his own species. I noticed that this was no longer happening. I also noted that the parakeets that sleep in our coconut palms had also quit coming around every night. These parakeets are extremely noisy and you would think that this would have been noted earlier but you get so used to their raucousness when they arrive in the late afternoon and leave in the early morning that you no longer really notice it.

Why are they no longer coming around? Well, it's nesting season and they prefer to do this in a much more private place than where they sleep. I assumed that this was probably the case also with the Tucanettes.

This was during the time that Todd was visiting so we headed out with the great idea of looking for a mirror that I could mount on Bill's cage to give him some company. We first checked at the mini-super in Chitaria after having lunch in that vicinity but they weren't stocking anything like I needed. We then headed to the Mega-Super in Tres Equis thinking that they might have one but, again, my plans were defeated. Next I decided to check out some of the little novelty stores that pop up in some of the strangest locations and the closest one was almost across the street from the Mega-Super.

There I found what I was looking for in a mirror about 4 inches wide and 7 inches tall for the outrageous price of 300 colones. That comes to a little less than 60 cents US so it was outrageously inexpensive.

Returning to the house I wired this mirror to the outside of Bill's cage at the end of one of his perches and waited to see what he did. He had been extremely curious as to what was being done to his cage but with all the hands in the area he was staying away from the area as Todd and I mounted the mirror.

As soon as we walked away he flew to that area of his cage and almost looked shocked as he spied another of his own flock and it was also at his own level rather than being on top of the cage, as other visitors had been. He immediately started trying to communicate with it but nothing he said elicited a response from his new visitor.

Needless to say, he was quite enamored with this new addition to his life and by the next morning his bill was spotless and his feathers appeared to have taken a very good grooming. Since that time I've tried to replicate the sounds that Bill makes but to no avail. The lack of response from his mirror image doesn't seem to annoy him so I guess it's all right.

A couple of days ago another Tucanette came to visit so he's now even more happy.

Yesterday was the twice a month visit to Turrialba when I take Guido's wife to purchase food. I needed an oil change in our little buggy but as it was Friday I supposed the service station would be packed and that I would have a long wait. With this in mind I took a wheeled backpack so that I could do some shopping for myself and an umbrella as it's still mostly wet here. Upon arrival at the station I was overwhelmed with pleasure when I found that I was the first person of the day, even though it was almost 10 in the morning, and only had to wait half an hour to get my car back.

After retreiving my car, purchasing 200 pounds of horse pellets and a quick bite to eat at Betico Mata we were still able to return home prior to one in the afternoon. Upon checking my email I was further surprised to have one from TACA offering me a free upgrade to Clase Ejuctiva (First Class) on my return to the US next week. This isn't that uncommon and I usually get the same courtesy from them but it did finish out a nice day.


,

¡Hasta Luego Y Con Dios Acompaña!

LIfe in Paradise Update: July 10, 2008

NOTE: The formatting of this and subsequent posts will be a bit different as after five updates, when ScribeFire quit working, I'm once more able to use that program to post. It really makes it a lot simpler so of that I'm happy!

Again, it's been a while since I made a post so there's a bit of getting caught up on.

As I noted in the last post, I managed to catch the inevitable cold on this past return trip to Costa Rica and suffered a considerable amount of time as a result. The 48 hour incubation time that is always there prior to determining that you're ill put it at the beginning of the weekend so it wasn't until Monday that I managed to drag myself to the farmácia to acquire medication to see me through. I wasn't much use for the following week but had to produce anyway.

I'd picked up some items in the US for my friend, Todd, and as he lives at not only the end of a long bus ride over rough roads but an hour's transportation by boat it was decided that he would come here to pick up the items. I wasn't in much condition to go visiting, anyway, so that was OK with me. He stayed from Thursday afternoon through the weekend but, again, I wasn't much company. His visit did give me the incentive to get out for regular meals and I'm sure that was a considerable advantage to my old body.

By the time that Todd returned to his island home in Parismina I was considerably better but suffering from the loss of energy and am finally getting some of that back. I think that's enough about illnesses!

As most of this month has just been hanging around the house there really isn't a lot to say. We did, however, have something happen this past Sunday evening that needs to be addressed, not necessarily on this blog, but in real life.

On Monday morning when Guido came to work our good mare, Casey, was loose in the corral and had a short line tied around her neck. As neither of us would have done this it was apparent that sometime during the night someone had attempted to steal her. This animal is worth thousands of dollars so that was a real problem! All of the boards in the manga (or loading chute) within the corral were removed so that's the way they attempted to get her out.

Now, with six dogs it isn't unusual for them to bark at night and when someone is around that they don't know they seem to go crazy in this activity. This hadn't happened the night before so that was somewhat of an oddity. Guido and I checked the area where we bring animals into the corral and with the significant quantity of rain we've had lately this was a huge, black, mud pile. We found evidence of footprints that would have been somewhat smaller than anyone's who had a need to go into the corral so at first I considered this to be a prank by one of the local children that know our dogs. That would have accounted for their lack of activity but most of them are also afraid of the animals so this was still only a consideration.

While discussing this problem I recalled that a bit prior to nine oclock the night before I'd been disturbed by Baby and Fanta barking but this was more in the manner of having an unknown animal around than someone they didn't know. I'd gone outside with my flashlight, but only on the upstairs veranda, and after seeing nothing yelled at them "¡Quita!", or simply 'Stop it!" This action probably convinced whoever was in the corral that I was speaking to them and they left without finishing the job they had in mind.

After a while Guido came to the house with a half-sock, the kind you wear with tennis shoes, that had been buried in the mud and identified it as one belonging to Eugenia's son, Alejandro, who had visited them about 9:00 the evening before and stayed for the night. They both also stated that his tennis shoes had been covered in black mud and an investigation of the complete area from the farm to the main road proved that behind our corral is the only place this exists. This also explains the reason the animals didn't go wild!

So, the source of this problem has been firmly identified and he no longer has permission to visit the farm. This permission was denied him by Guido and Eugenia so I feel no obligation to being responsible for problems within the family. I've also spoken to the local police about this and they were already aware that many items of theft are believed to have been related with his activity.

I've purchased three meters of heavy chain to secure the gates on the coral and locks for same. It looks as though we'll be having to worry about that now but a little extra time daily will produce a much higher level of confidence in Casey and the other animals security. This will be especially important when my sweetie returns and is here alone in the house.

Well, I guess that's it! I need to get something accomplished after being here for three weeks and completing nothing!

¡Hasta Luego Y Con Dios Acompaña!

Life in Paradise Update: June 26, 2008

It seems that lately I’m always tardy in getting around to making posts. Quite honestly, I’ve taken some time from blogging and don’t regret the absence. My political posting has been naught for several weeks as has this one. My dogs have been happy with the additional attention, as have the cats, but for the most part, I’ve just been vegging!

 

A should note a correction to the last post that I didn’t catch when my spell checker automatically decided that I had used the wrong word. In the fourth paragraph the word much should have been muck!

 

My friend, Todd, came for a visit the last full week that I was in Costa Rica at the beginning of the month so that meant that the items that I’d planned to get around to accomplishing didn’t get done prior to my departure to the north. We really didn’t do anything but it was nice to have another English speaker around for a while. He’s coming again this morning to pick up some items that I purchased (and that he had delivered) when up north and will probably spend a couple of days here.

 

The visit to the north was typical in that I had very little time to get any personal items accomplished. Work, work and more work were the words of the day. This was somewhat compounded due to the fact that my sweetie’s mother was visiting from Germany so to leave me alone in the apartment/office there they went visiting. That meant that I had to rent a car for the daily trips to my client’s office but I only kept it a couple of days.

 

As seems to happen with more regularity, my return trip included catching a cold from someone on the airplane. I’ve been suffering with that for a week now so other than doing the absolute necessities I have nothing to report.

 

It’s been continuing to rain, mostly in the afternoons, but it’s very wet! Another reason to stay in and stay dry!

 

So…

 

...¡Hasta Luego y con Dios Acompaña!