Tropical Thunderstorms can hurt

Three days ago in the mid afternoon we started to get some rain and a little thunder. This is my cue to shut down and disconnect all electronic equipment. Unfortunately, while I was winding down, there was an enormous crack of lightning that sounded and felt like it was directly overhead. My system went down in seconds but miraculously recovered everything except internet. Now being the "expert" I am, I decided to put in a call to the resident PC surgeon. We agreed, it was likely the ethernet connection at one end or the other had been blown up. He had a spare ethernet card so I set off to Potrero, the neighbouring community in the pouring rain on my Honda ATV. He gave me the card and went back into the shop to look for a cable to test the system with. While I was waiting, I saw Sally, one of my dogs at the bottom of the hill. She had somehow followed me all the way from the house to Pat's in Potrero. She gets spooked by thunder and lightning so I guess chasing me seemed like her best option. I picked her up and placed her in one of the cargo boxes on the back of the machine and took her home.

I could not install the ethernet card...seems the CD is corrupt. Called the Cable Service provider who promised to send out a technician the next day. While I was waiting, I switched the internet connection to USB and it worked. The technician came and went claiming to have fixed it but it is still not working. Today I downloaded the support material for the ethernet card but the system will still not let me install it. USB is slower than ethernet but I can live with it.

I will call the Cable company again tomorrow. And poor little Sally is limping around as though she had run a marathon...which I guess, in dog kilometers, she did.

Pool boy blues

So the water in my pool has turned green. It's disgusting. I have never had a pool before. I didn't realize you have to be a chemist to maintain it. In the last two years, I have purchased enough chemicals to outfit a high school lab, I'm sure. But over time, I got into a regular maintenance program that kept the water clear, bright and sparkling. Of course, this is the rainy season and God knows what is being introduced into the mix when we get a significant rain. So I am playing chemist and doing the best job I can to fix the problem. The pool has a paper filter system so I can change filters frequently. I bought a new broom to dedicate to the pool and I use it to stir up any algae or sediment that settles around the perimeter after I have vacuumed. In theory, the chemicals kill algae and fix particles to themselves to be trapped by the filter. Hmmmm...we'll see. I have done this successfully in the past but I can't remember if it was rainy season or not. Then again, I can always call the pool maintenance company. They'll probably straighten it out in an hour or so.

Housekeeping help

I thought I would have no problem keeping this little beach house clean and presentable. After all, I live and work here so one would not expect it to be much of a challenge. In that case, one would be wrong. It is a challenge...and a big one. I have two dogs that leave a trail of hair, mud, dust and food everywhere they go. I can only do a little laundry at a time because we are so near sea level, the water table is high enough to serve dinner on. I think I can multitask and I suppose I can but I tend to forget which tasks I'm multi-ing.......of course that could be age. In any event, it was running away from me. So today, I hired the services of a housekeeper to come and put things back in order. She did an outstanding job and I can now spend my time looking for things in places I would never consider putting them.

Disastrous Sunday

Normally, Sunday is the only day when I am completely free and I usually use it to relax and get ready for the coming week. however, this is a luxury I can no longer afford. But I am big on multitasking so I got some laundry going. Then I vacuumed the pool. Next, I switched the laundered clothes over to the rinse cycle. You see, I have one of those washer spin-dry units so you have to empty and re-fill the wash tub part. I set this all up and took a little break while the tub was filling. Need I say more?

I woke up almost ankle deep in water! I then spent hours mopping up until the flooded section of the house was reasonably dry. They have the strangest mops here. Not the Rastafarian or even sponge type from home, but, rather, a device on a stick that you clamp rags into. For me, this was a most awkward and tedious operation and sucked a large hole out of my day off.

Not to worry, I still had time to light the barbecue and grill my dinner. Maybe I'm not as good at multitasking as I thought!

A visit from the Vet

Living in the rain forest does have it's advantages. Being a rural area, we get a lot of house calls - everything from the German Bakery, to the butcher shop and, yes, even the veterinarians come right to the door along with your usual variety of "tramps and hawkers" selling hammocks and floor mats, kitchen utensils, etc.

The dogs - Gracie and Sally - never quite seem to get used to it. A lovely, gentle vet gave them both the once over and they behaved very well. They were given pills - one huge and theoretically chewable, the other rather small - to immediately repel the fleas that had hitched a ride with them which I administered later that afternoon cleverly disguised as hot dogs. I was left with a syringe and something to inject them with that eliminates fleas and ticks that can be irritating and even lethal during the rainy season. I have found a combination of FrontLine and flea collars to be successful.

One of the dogs, Gracie, develops an ear infection during the rainy season so I was given a regimen to treat that as well. Trouble now is that as soon as the dogs see me with anything that appears to them of a medical nature, they are out the door in a flash. I have to alter my routine yet again it seems.

In any case, the dogs are healthy and a little too smart for my liking...but there you have it.

Waiting for the Monkeys

Several months ago, a howler monkey unfortunately turned itself into a crispy critter by attempting to utilize the power grid as a transit route here in Surfside. This happens all too frequently as development inevitably leads to denudation of the rain forest. It is particularly saddening to watch these wild denizens of the jungle in the throes of death with presumably no idea what hit them. Many orphans are created and even with the best intended care, probably do not successfully return to the wild.

One hope is the Monkey Bridge, a strip of plastic netting and rope that reaches across roads and allows the animals an opportunity to avoid going to ground or being tempted to use the power lines to cross thoroughfares. The one I have was installed by the local power company using their cherry picker and hopefully will save a few monkeys.

But where are the monkeys? Oh they're here right enough. If you have ever heard a howler monkey, there's no way to mistake it. I have been told that, pound for pound, the howler is the loudest animal in the world. Around 4 am today it sounded as though I was surrounded and I thought this morning I might witness the first crossing.

Well, it didn't happen but some one of these days it will and I can't wait to get teh video to post. In the meanwhile, I'd settle for a squirrel.

Pathfinder passes RTV ! yea

Owning a vehicle in Costa Rica is something else. Import duties are set so high that it is not practical to drive your personal vehicle here. But if you choose to, it can take months to get the registration changed over and often winds up costing as much as the equivalent vehicle purchased here. So most folks find themselves purchasing used vehicles worth about half of whatever they drove at home. In my case, this is a 1989 Nissan Pathfinder.

Now, a few years ago, the Costa Rican government implemented a Technical Revision System that must be passed annually to keep a vehicle on the road. It is owned and was set up by a Spanish Company with unrealistically high standards. Like most such organizations, it concentrates on alignment, brakes, emmissions, lights, and tire condition.

Bearing in mind that these are 20 to 25 year old vehicles we are dealing with, you can imagine preparation for RTV as a sort of swap meet for owners of compatible machines. There is a service station across from the RTV centre that tests emissions and will do any last-minute adjustments that might be necessary. Vehicles often get tuned for the test and then de-tuned afterward.

It almost always requires two and sometimes more trips through the RTV torture chamber and I am delighted to announce that I made it through on my second pass this year. I rarely use a car here and the gas and maintenance costs are through the roof. Maybe it's time to sell.

Lost another friend

Goodbye to David Ellis, the hotdog man, restauranteur, poker player, and community servant. Dave had just launched a new enterprise here in Surfside, Playa Potrero when he was taken from us by an apparent heart attack as he was leaving work...unexpectedly and untimely. Dave, you will be missed and remembered. A tribute is planned for Saturday, September 5th to celebrate his life.