The weather today is absolutely wonderful. At about 6:15 I was sipping coffee outside, enjoying the multitude of trees out in "our view" that were swaying gently in the morning breeze with low-angle sunlight flashing a million shades of green. I snapped a photo, it doesn't do it justice.
On top of the trees I enjoyed watching several groups of white egrets flying, a flock of parakeets, some vultures, a hawk, some annoying grackles squabbling over something, and a variety of little yellow birds here and there. An industrious squirrel ran around on the nearest tree while a green iguana basked by the pool.
The breeze was unusually fresh for this time of year, the air temperature was around 75, which feels cool to us (daytime highs are in the 90s right now) and it was easy to remember why we put up with all of the little hassles involved with living in a 3rd world country.
Oh, and here is a photo of our seedling nasturtiums and seedling jalapeno plants. We've got grand expectations of these little sprouts.

Labels: Garden, tamarindo, weather

For those of you who are tired of Steve being a grump, take heart, Jocelyn is due back in Costa Rica on Sunday. She had a great week in Vegas.

Stay tuned to her blog or jocelynbroyles.com for more information on new store locations near you. If you can't find a store on those sites- go talk to your local jewelry/accessory store and suggest that they check out Jocelyn Broyles jewelry.

But don't call us on Sunday afternoon.

Labels: jewelry

There's a lot of talk about gas prices in the USA. And more than a little bit of whining about how expensive it has become to operate absurdly oversized on-highway vehicles.

If it helps you feel any better, we're paying 710 colones per liter for diesel right now.... that's about $4.94/gallon. Not a low price.

And operating a small, efficient vehicle down here has some legitimate pitfalls- there are ruts here into which you could drive a Honda Civic.

There is talk of the government slashing taxes on diesel and applying extra taxes to gasoline under the theory that the working vehicles of Costa Rica operate on diesel (I'd guess at least 90% of the commercial vehicles use diesel). There may even be some justification to the notion that many gasoline vehicles are inefficient luxury cars, but it seems to me that it would be sensible to tax vehicles directly based on their specifications vs. taxing them based on their fuel. I don't envy the politicians trying to work this out.

The good news? Costa Rica is working hard to make biofuels a significant percentage of our national energy mix, which gives some hope.

Labels: fuel, gas prices

I went back to California to share in celebrating my Grandmother's 95th birthday. Then found out my buddy, Soop, was headed to Moab, Utah for a week and last-minute changed my flight so that I could ride along and share the adventure.

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Like any great road trip, we started ours A) Late (almost 6 instead of almost 1) and B) looking for some electronic gizmo so that we could listen to music. Road trip without music? Are you crazy?	The first morning "on the road" we awoke at my sister's place in Nevada. Great mountain views from that neighborhood. Curious absence of photos of the people in the house, Brian and I were exhausted after 4 hours sleep.	My Sister's home in Sparks, NV. She was kind enough to let us roll in at some ungodly hour (1am? 2am?) and sleep.	Hwy 50. Desolate.
This is a "major landmark" on Hwy 50 according to the sign. So major that they named it.... "Sand Hill". Lots of imagination those Nevada explorers.	Shoe Tree.	Not sure what an L is. Or why it has its own sign. But there is one out there, somewhere, apparently.	Quaint little towns pepper Hwy 50. Ok, maybe not "pepper". More like, once in a great while, a little town pops up.
Mom's Cafe. Looked like a good place for coffee and pie. It was.	Morning 3. Our campsite in BLM. I'll call it Camp1	The first of many, many photos of rocks	There were also wildflowers, really beautiful ones, not infrequently.
More rocks. These were stacked by someone to create a little cave in a natural crevice.	rocks, sky. Lots of that out in Moab.	This is the view to the west from Camp1	Camp1 was pretty much on the trailhead for Kane Creek Canyon. So instead of driving back into town to run a trail with a bunch of folk, we just started driving eastward.
This is just before we started out, the two cameras that I used weren't synched to the same timezone, so there will be occasional chronometric anomalies here.			stopping for a beverage and for the dogs to frolic in the cool water
	I don't know what makes the black face on some of the rocks, I assume minerals, but it was really beautiful and refracted the light into an almost oily-looking sheen.	The predominant feature of Kane Creek Canyon, not surprisingly, is Kane Creek	Thus the trail involves many crossings of the creek
Soop is kind enough to frame the naturally ocurring S in the rock face	If you look carefully, you can make out the upper trail, it is at about the 2/3 height on this image. The lower trail is where you fall if you fall off of the upper trail (and an alternate route). Long ways down.	One of the toughest spots on the trail, big stair step.	More amazing geology
Waiting for some folks to get through the tough spot	Seth. Waiting.	Another time problem... this actually came after the next few shots. A pretty creek.
Here you get a better perspective on the size of the stair steps.	Soop went first. Two tries and he was through.	Requires a little articulation from the truck. Those are 35" tires, by the way, it wasn't small bumps. There was also a dropoff to the right that went about 400 feet down.	We finished off the evening in downtown Moab, decent meal at Slickrock Cafe, then back to camp.

Labels: 4wd, camping, landcruiser, Moab, Utah, vacation

Here's a recap from several months ago (should have been posted end of April, 2008).
As Steve was up in California for a day, Marty suggested we sail (good practice for the BVI trip coming up). We couldn't have asked for better weather in which to go sailing on the Bay. It was one of those days that is so perfect it almost hurts.

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Steve's Maiden Voyage with Marty in SF	Marty at the helm	Sailing under the Golden Gate, a fun first. Note the helicopter which had just flown under the bridge.
Alcatraz Island. Note the guy heeled over in front of it. Pretty decent wind blowing.	Excellent post-sailing margaritas with the family. Delicous meal with great company.	Steve, Austin, Marty

Labels: california, day trip, sailing, San Francisco

For those of you in the boutique biz, you can check out Jocelyn Broyles Jewelry at the WSA show in Vegas next week. She'll be at the Venetian, suite 6136 from the 28th through the 31st. You do need a pass to attend, so follow up via email to jb (at) jocelynbroyles.com for more info. She is on the road in the states right now, so her response may be slow.

You can find out more about this sort of thing by going to Jocelyn Broyles Jewelry Blog

Labels: jewelry

Lest readers think that I'm endorsing the Pope without reservation, I thought I'd include a link to the essay Losing Sight of Progress which includes a persuasive lay argument against that absurd philosophy "Intelligent Design".

In essence, the author uses the case of blind salamanders to underscore some of the shortcomings in creationist theory that should be obvious to... even a blind salamander.

Please, please, don't comment in favor of ID. I won't approve the comment anyway as I don't want to get embroiled in a debate about it here. Your chances of convincing me that evolution doesn't happen are right up there with my chances of mastering transcendent meditation while eating dinner tonight.

Don't comment about the Flying Spaghetti Monster either, I won't approve it and it'll only make me hungry.

Labels: news