While we don't suffer hurricanes, storms like Gustav drop a lot of rain on us. We've had unusually heavy precipitation for the last three or four days. It is pretty at times, but as the ground gets soggier, things start flooding, and it gets to be not-that-fun.

We are looking forward to some more sunshine soon, in the mean time we've got some movies and plan to spend the weekend indoors.

Labels: Costa Rica, tamarindo, weather

I added a nifty new feature to Sandcruiser. At the bottom of the page you can now find a moon-phase box. It should self-adjust to your time zone, but I think it always shows a North-American moon (which isn't quite right for us, but close enough). Enjoy.

Labels: weather

If you like to laugh at other people's mistakes, THIS is a site for you. Don't let the cake theme fool you, there is real pain lurking in the midst of that page.

Labels: blog

We found a beautiful flower growing onto a neighbor's trash receptacle and figured it was bound to be chopped anyway (the local trash collector isn't what you would call a gentle fellow) so we pulled some cuttings. So far they seem to be doing well in a bottle of water on the kitchen table (one is over a week old, sprouting roots, the others just a day old). I was pretty sure it is a Passiflora (passion fruit) but checked online anyway and am pleased to discover that it appears to be Passiflora 'Pura Vida' a hybrid of P. amethyst and P. racemosa. Fun. We are hoping to cover an ugly pergola with it. Time will tell if it flourishes. The website I found predicts that this vine can grow up to 40ft. And some others suggest that P. racemosa can become an invasive pest in some areas. We'll have to keep an eye on it. Google turns up a bunch of sites on Passiflora, if you are interested. I like www.passiflora.info among others.

We also clipped a little bit off of a vine near Langosta- purple flowers that could be any of a number of Passiflora hybrids or species. It was growing well there, let's hope it does well here also.

Speaking of flourishing- our jalapeno seedlings appear to have been ravished by something. I suspect leaf cutter ants, but it could have been an iguana. Either way, we had 10 or so, now we have two :(
The good news: we can plant more seeds.

We also moved a pot-full of Vetiver grass that was suffering from bound roots. It is amazing how quickly the roots on that grass get constricted in even a large pot. In less than six months, two little plugs turned into a huge stand and made a root ball the size of a basketball (albeit a slightly deflated basketball). We broke up the stand, harvested the roots (they smell wonderful) and replanted. They are now planted in front of our wall, on the street. Trying to create a little more shade and some shelter for critters (dragonflies like to perch on this stuff) instead of just bare gravel and concrete wall. The pot? It will be become the new home for our Passiflora (we hope!). That should keep it from taking over the entire garden.

August weather has been oddly fabulous. We both feel that in years past it was wetter and less.... perfect. But the temps have been very pleasant and breezy weather has prevailed with evening rain storms that don't seem to last more than few hours. It sure makes it easy to stretch morning coffee out as long as we can!

Labels: Costa Rica, garden, weather

After only six or seven years, we've finally purchased a post-office box. I'm not sure if it is more surprising that we took so very long, or will be more surprising when we actually get some mail. A PO box here is an inexpensive proposition- it was about $10 to get it, then will cost under $5 annually to keep it.

Getting mail at home, by the way, is a hit-and-miss affair at best. Just today I received a letter sent within Costa Rica. It took 10 calendar days to arrive. It was addressed to my home address, but the post man knows my name and that I worked at the office, so he tried to deliver it there. Unfortunately, we've recently moved offices and the note on the window at the old office is in English.... so the letter only just arrived at the new office today.

While you and I may have considered delivery to the *home* address that was printed on the actual letter, the postman, apparently did not. So we got it 10 days late.

Hence the PO box and an mailing address that we hope will be permanent and reliable. As much as mail in Costa Rica can be considered reliable. Which isn't saying a whole lot.

If you would like to enter the wild world of sending mail to Costa Rica, you can address it to:

Steve Broyles
Aptdo: #33-5159
Villareal, Santa Cruz, GTE
Costa Rica, Central America

You could try using Jocelyn's name, but who knows what sort of confusion that might cause!

Labels: Costa Rica, mail, tamarindo

I don't even have a bike, but these guys sent a nice note requesting some reciprocity through site links so... if you are looking for motorcycle fairings, that link is a great place to start!

Found out that our buddy had some good news when the Stanford Police dept found his heretofore stolen Landcruiser! (see original post)

Apparently it spent enough time sitting in a student parking lot that it had six parking tickets piled up. I guess it is good fortune that they finally checked the plates and noticed it was was a stolen vehicle. Can you imagine the frustration that the owner would have felt if he had gotten a letter "You have six unpaid parking tickets...." on a car that had already been reported stolen!?!?

And speaking of inefficient police behavior:
This morning a motorcycle was sitting in our driveway honking his horn intermittently, for about 15 minutes we heard "beep"... "beeeeeeep beep".... "beep beep beep" with a couple minutes in between. I finally went out to see what was going on and there was a police officer there, on a motorcycle, who told me that someone had reported a robbery nearby. He didn't have the house number nor did he know the name of the person (and seemed a little surprised that I had asked). He asked me if I could call the station to ask them about the house number and/or name but I couldn't get through (line was busy). I suggested he look at the other houses in our area as the ones on our small circle (of five houses) didn't seem to be showing signs of people expecting the police. He seemed to think that was a pretty good idea, and off he went. Hope he found the folks who had called.

Labels: news

Steve's parents (Bill & Bonnie) just celebrated 40 years of marriage.
We wish we could have been there to celebrate with them.

Congratulations!!

Labels: news

At the risk of maligning the country in which I've chosen to live, I'm going to share a situation that I think exemplifies at least the automotive shopping experience in Costa Rica.
I was in a little Auto Repuestos (parts store for cars) today and happened to see something that I didn't even remember that I "need". The part in question is a fuse holder for high-capacity fuses called Maxi-fuses (*see below for background). So I asked the guy at the counter,
"Is that a holder for Maxi fuses?"
He calmly said, "Yes."
So I said, "Great! How much?"
Him: "2,000 colones" (just under $4, a fair price)
Me: "Wonderful. I'll take it." [pause] "Oh, and I'd like an 80 or 100amp fuse please."
Him: "We don't have that."
Me: "Oh, what size do you have?"
Him: "No, no Maxi fuses."

I'll stop sharing the painful discussion here. But let me clarify: they sell a fuse holder but they don't sell the fuses. What in tarnation is going on here?!?!

Even more upsetting is that this is a completely normal conversation at any place that sells parts. I haven't yet experienced a place that sells nuts without bolts, but just the other day I did buy a handful of bolts and nuts and washers, all zinc plated, but the only split-washers that they had were unplated. It wasn't an exotic thing to ask for either, just a regular old 5/16 inch split-ring washer, with zinc plating. No dice. Let's think this through: I want corrosion resistance on the bolt. And the nut. And the washers. Isn't it probable that I'm going to want corrosion resistance on the other washer? Arrgh!

The moral of the story? Focus on the pleasure of finding an uncommon part hanging on the wall instead of the absurdity of not selling a requisite companion part. Now I've just got to go find a store that sells Maxi fuses (they are probably out of holders).

* Now for the backstory: Regular ATO-style (with two blades) fuses stop at 30 amps. I don't know why. But at some point it was decided to make a jumbo-sized fuse that also has two blades and a colorful plastic top that go from around 15 amps up to at least 100 amps. Maybe higher. There is no engineering reason for this as the smaller ATO size fuses are certainly capable of carrying higher amperage. I think it is because they ran out of plastic colors to differentiate the fuse amperages, and didn't trust folks to actually read the little number printed on the fuse. Maxi fuses (the jumbo ones) are found in stock configuration on many American vehicles, possibly foreign vehicles as well. They are certainly available in every single auto-parts store in the USA. Heck, probably in most gas stations. I've got some laying around from a different project, but I've asked at two different parts stores for a Maxi fuse holder and they didn't even know what a Maxi fuse is (one store was an electrical specialist).

Labels: Costa Rica, landcruiser

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: dog, jewelry, travel

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, news