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paul ogier Joined: May 29th 2006
Logged in: November 13th 2011
Logged in: November 13th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
Looks Okay to Me
VIDEO - On February 21, 2011, Francisco attempted to burn a small strip of weeds along the perimeter of someone's property. Here is a VIDEO of the outcome of that attempt.... read more
I feed my pet crow eggs in the shells.
Not much to write about. No problems. Calm, sunny mornings. After my 'tilers' were dismissed a few days ago, I relaxed on the hammock and counted five layers of clouds during the sunset. One layer was climbing the hills below me, and the other layers were above me; some near, some far. A towering rain shower was over the Nicoyan Peninsula, to the left of the disappearing sun. For a while, I watched the lower layer try to make it up to me, thinking that it would engulf me, but it dissipated as quickly as it built. Later I watched a movie on streaming Netflix. It seems like yesterday that I was tuning my short wave/fm radio trying to find something in English. Now I've got microwave internet, and, this year, the owner of the internet ... read more
You've heard of cat burglars
I absolutely hate workers in my house here in CR. And I hate it even more when I don't know them. I have to stay here day after day, watching them and checking the work every fifteen minutes to make sure they don't do something ridiculous with the bathroom tile. They made a major screw up in the first hour - one that had me change my design rather than tear down 45 tiles. He said he measured wrong. At least he took responsibility for it, which is rare. And who knows what's going on in their savage minds as they wander in my house looking at the butterfly that is hanging from the ceiling and the big wooden iguana that is mounted on the wall. I hid my keyboard the second day. I watch as ... read more
Previous Boulder
November 18, 2010 I think I'll write about the dynamiting today. There are other things I could write about but this is fresh in my mind so I'll just try and write it quickly. So you know about that boulder that fell on the highway? There's a picture of it to the right. That boulder fell onto the highway a few days ago and the highway has been closed since. No one got squashed (as far as I know). Someone emailed me that it must be dangerous to drive in Costa Rica. I responded that the boulder would have to land on you at the precise wrong moment (for you), and, come on, what are the odds of that happening? The boulder is now on the shoulder but the people in charge of road maintenance are ... read more
Beach Highway
November 5, 2010 Well, I hope most of you realized that what those characters in my last entry said was not copied with any precision. As a matter of fact, I embellished their actual words with what I imagined they wanted to say. So, thanks for the advice, but I don't really need to go to the American Embassy for how I'm being treated down here. On Tuesday, I drove down to Esparza in my second attempt to get my Pathfinder inspected at one of the ten or so national inspection factories. It was a much smaller operation; only two lanes as opposed to the 12 or so in that gothic warehouse/hangar I visited up in Alajuela on Monday. In all of them, you have to drive through a building set up like a car wash; ... read more
One Bad Wire
I was talking with the new caretaker here, the one Gary and Loren hired, and he seemed like a nice guy, jabbering away at the speed of luz. Was he telling me he was going to leave in two weeks? Why's that? Something about two weeks. I was very tired what with the small electrical fire in my car on Saturday, and that causing me to miss my annual car inspection thereby being at risk for a $200 traffic ticket right now, then all day Sunday with the mechanic working double overtime, him telling me I could get the inspection no problem when the national inspection station opens on Monday, the next day, as long as I go very early, and they open at 6 am., and they'll let me in on a standby list. He ... read more
Bailey Bridge on Main Highway
Well, it's almost time to head for the sunny paradise of Costa Rica. According to news and resident reports, the rains down there this rainy season have been monumental and catastrophic to the roads. The Inter American highway that goes past my house at Butterfly has been closed often, and even now has a temporary 'Bailey' bridge that allows one lane at a time. And this is the main road that connects North America and South America. The rainy season ends this month, so I'm heading down next week to see if I can handle the traffic backups. So far, the ladrones have not returned to Butterfly, or, if they have, the presence of Gary and Loren have kept their activities in check. But, so as not to disappoint you, I attached an email I got ... read more
Garage door
You probably don’t want to hear about the mundane existence I’m living while I’m watching our three houses here in Costa Rica, i.e. getting my daily grout onto the kitchen counter, or redigging trenches to drain my property during these non-stop thunderstorms and incessant rains created by some tropical storm or disturbance or whatever. (Seven inches in three hours yesterday.) Or going over to Gary's house every evening to turn on the makeshift outside lights I had to install after his original high-dollar ones failed. (Then turn them off again every morning so that thieves will maybe think that there is someone living in the house. Outside lights on during the day is a dead give-away that the house is vacant.) Like I said, you probably don't want to hear about that. But I do guess ... read more
Morning
Gary's alarm went off yesterday morning at around 8 and I'm not saying I'm quick, but I did actually get over there before the alarm quit on its own. A personal best. Considering I had to put on a shirt and boots and lock my door and set my alarm on the way out...... Not bad. I walked around the outside of his house and it apparently had just been big blackbirds, according to his theory. From the front corner of the outside of his house, I looked toward the ocean, but I noticed some activity just inside the development, on the road down. There were two cowboys on horses, wearing hats and all, and they were trying to gather and herd about a dozen of our resident white bovine with horns. (I'm not a real ... read more
