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Tuesday April 29, 2008

OMG - Someone stole my car...

After a great night of poker, we had an issue. My wife made it to 4th in the event while I was knocked out in 6th. After I finished in the game, I played in the cash game and did well. Cathy wanted me to leave with her at midnight and I was on a roll. She ended up getting a ride with the person that finished in second place, I thought she took the car when I left an hour later; I was walking out with a cash game buddy talking over hands and bad beats and walked by a car that looked like mine.

A few minutes ago, my wife went to leave house and noticed that my car wasn't in the driveway. I have been crushed with work and not even thinking about stuff. I ran downstairs and feared the worst. In 10 seconds, we were ready to call 9-1-1 and I asked if she left the keys in the car when she came home from poker. She advised that she rode with Darren and I commented that I rode with Gary. Then the shock of leaving our car at our friends place overnight and what Mark is thinking. (Mark, I know you read my blog, so here is to you)

Turns out that we blocked in a car in Mark's driveway and the SOP is to leave keys in the car if you block in someone, so I did. The car was moved from spot A to spot B and given that folks were still playing when I left, I didn't realize that the white car on the other side of the drive was mine given that I thought that Cathy drove home. I was so pleased to have won a bunch of cash that I didn't pay attention as I walked in the house last night... The joys of old age.

Spring cleaning and eBay

I spent most of the weekend doing "spring cleaning" type of activites. Keep in mind, I'm big time type A, so having a list and crossing stuff off the list is quite a nice feeling.

In the last few week, when picking out clothes for my kids, not a regular happening, I always find the shirt that doesn't fit and the "high water" jeans... So on rainy Sunday, we pulled all the clothes from the closet and only put back the items that fit. We lost like 1/3 to 1/2 of the clothes. A fair amount of them are now on eBay. We have more than 40 auctions running and will probably sell $500-$800 of stuff that still has life in it. Name brands like UnderArmour, Boden, Izod and Polo sell like crazy and thankfully my little one with all the cool threads is easy on her clothes. Seems that we get better than 50% of the price back on lots of items, so the next purchase isn't bad.

I could do a whole series on selling on eBay, but not today. If you have stuff to sell, first be a buyer. See what you like in a seller and what annoys you. Build up your feedback score, I'm well over 400 at this point and don't sell until you cross 10 or 20 positive feedbacks.

Monday April 28, 2008

Did 4 yesterday in between rain showers...

Got in a nice run yesterday in the middle of doing a weekend of spring cleaning. If you haven't run for a while, get back out there... I need to take my own advice and push harder on the exercise.

Which heals quicker: broken arm or cut on shin???

Depends if you are 7 or 40... The day before my little one broke her arm, I got a pretty bad cut on my shin while helping my wife coming in on her kayak in the waves at the beach. The next day, shorty broke her arm. Today she got the cast off and is more or less fine. 98% healed as her doctor described it. Yet my shin is still not 100%. I'm sure it is that I'm old and very little blood flows to the shin, so repairing itself is slow. Oh well. Getting old sucks. :)

Wednesday April 23, 2008

Ran 3.5 yesterday

You haven't seen this blog entry in a bit. I have turned into a slacker, but now I'm back. The weather is turning great and I'm mentally done with winter. I still have those winter pounds on me so back to work to look and feel good. I'm getting a kick out of taking my dog. He needs to blow off some steam as much as I do, so I get the good dog owner feeling plus the feel good from the run itself.

No better day than today to get your running/biking/workouts back on track.

Monday April 21, 2008

4 cute kids - 3 human and 1 goat

My folks have a great farm with lots of petting zoo animals and a fun place to play around. They recently, 2 weeks ago, had 3 baby goats. They also have 25 sheep which were clipped this past thursday. In the picture are my kids and a little one's BFF and one of the female goats. We are expecting another goat mom to have more babies this week. I'm sure if that happens, we will be in the car again next weekend.

Friday April 18, 2008

Vacation review of Costa Rica: part 5 (pics)

Awesome shot of the Arenal Volcano . My pics weren't this good and I couldn't get one at night to prove my sightings of red hot boulders.

I love warning signs with no fence, although this sign of High Volcanic Risk was pretty scary. I hear that a few folks die a year from gases and tumbling rocks.

Vacation review of Costa Rica: part 4

I want to wrap up from Costa Rican blogging with the possible exception of a few more pictures at some point with this entry.

After two day nights at Finca Rosa Blanca, we went to the Peace Lodge at La Paz Waterfalls and were blown away. The Peace Lodge may be the greatest hotel stay ever. It was a bathroom that happened to come with a bedroom. The bathroom had a waterfall, just flip the switch, a hot tub, a waterfall shower, a regular awesome shower and hundred, yes, hundreds of plants. The bedroom was impressive with a big poster bed with netting and a river rock fireplace. At 6500 feet in elevation, that fireplace was running the whole time we were there. The high temperature during our visit was 65, although nights was only high 50's...

The Peace Lodge had great waterfalls and trails as well as a Zoo/park attached. As guest, we were free to come and go but many tour buses stopped each day for the same attractions. I love the hummingbirds, while my kids liked the birds, monkeys and big cats. MayMay the puma was a favorite and still talked about in my house. The 6 month old Puma chased my kids as they run up and down the steps beside her cage. Can you say "prey"? I was impressed how much the employees cared for the animals as well as how close we could get to those same animals. I had to get a toucan away from my little one's Crocs as the toucan was trying to pull her butterfly gibit off the shoe. You don't see that at the National Zoo in DC.

The final stop on our CR tour with at the Arenal Volcano and Tabacon Hot Spring Resort. I loved the area and the bungee jumping/zipline/adventure theme of the area. I however was very upset with the 5 stars Tabacon Resort. It was at best a "Best Western" with a hot volcanic spring running thru the property. The service at Tabacon was great. The rooms were dark, no overhead lights and five 40 watt bulbs in a double room and the bedspread was that nasty and Motel 6 quality. Not fine thread count like all the other nice places we stayed and Tabacon was the most expensive place on our trip. I will not let a friend of mine stay there if I can help it.

We did see the Volcano erupting on our final night from our balcony. The sky above the volcano would turn orange/pink and then we would see a red ball rolling down our side of the mountain. The lava flow is actually boulders getting blown out every few minutes and not like Hawaii where it is a molten river.

We loved Costa Rica and may start learning spanish in the area so I'm more ready for my next trip.

Wednesday April 16, 2008

Book review: Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

First, I have to say that I loved this book (written in 1997). I mention the date from 11 years ago, but I don't think that million years of humans on the earth has changed much in the past 11 years. This book had my attention on every page.

From Wikipedia - But the book is not merely an account of the past; it attempts to explain why Eurasian civilizations, as a whole, have survived and conquered others, while attempting to refute the belief that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, genetic or moral superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies do not reflect cultural or racial differences, but rather originate in environmental differences powerfully amplified by various positive feedback loops. He also, most explicitly in the epilogue, argues that societies with food surpluses and high-to-moderate degrees of interaction with outsiders are more likely to encourage great people to realize their full potential and to adopt new inventions. A major theme in the book is a fundamental difference between Eurasia and other landmasses being their main directional axes: Eurasia, comprised of Europe and Asia together (with north Africa often included as well by the author), is laid primarily over the west-east axis, while both the North America - South America landmass and Africa have north-south as the main axis. This, together with Eurasia's large area, results in much wider continuous ecological areas in Eurasia compared to other landmasses (see the Mediterranean climate areas for example). Therefore domesticated plants and animals and technology spread much faster in ancient times inside Eurasia compared to other landmasses.

If you like historical nonfiction and every wondered why things didn't turn out differently, this is a must read. It was a great airplane book or a "i'm sick and not getting out of bed this weekend" book.

Tuesday April 15, 2008

Vacation review of Costa Rica: part 3

So the first part of our trip was 4 nights at the beach. We went back to San Jose to drop off my wife's sister and family and then up into the mountains just outside the city to Finca Rosa Blanca, in Santa Barbara de Heredia. The 21 acre organic coffee plantation was awesome and extremely relaxing. The US owners brought the property 25 years ago when it was a motocross track with only 2 giant Ficsus trees and planted, built and planned everything around those two trees. After the car accident, we need to just chill out and not leave the property. I highly recommend this property where we stayed and played for 2 nights.

Pictures to come on this part.

Monday April 14, 2008

Vacation review of Costa Rica: part 2

The first entry with pictures...

We arrived via Taca Airline (thru San Salvaldor, El Salvaldor) around 3:30pm from Dulles. It only took a few minutes to get our luggage and to get thru customs coming into the country. We booked transfers for our entire trip with Costa Rica Shuttle and for the most part, had great drivers, although we could have driven ourselves. The road were better than we thought but were still very much 3rd world.

We were shocked that it got dark around 6:15pm and the trip from San Jose airport took about 4 hours to get to Quepos, Costa Rica area. We stayed at Buena Vista Villas and they are GREAT. I couldn't have been more pleased with the resort. We got to meet and know the manager, Andy and his staff and enjoyed the interaction with them.

The room was quite nice and had white faced monkeys on our deck every morning at 6am for about 45 minutes. They were great. The kids loved seeing and interacting with them. We jumpstarted their daily diet with mangoes and banannas each morning.

Our resort had several pools that we enjoyed and our own beach with kayaks, boards, fins/snorkels, etc so no need to feel the need to bring your own toys... The beach was great and the water nice and warm. The workers felt the need to apologize for the cloudiness due to recent rains in the mountains.

We loved the area and enjoyed the Manuel Antonio National Park. We didn't use a guide and saw tons of wildlife. We spotted a toucan in the wild, which was awesome. My son spotted several sloths in the treetops. A group of howler monkeys came thru the beach area in the treetops around noon and made a ton of noise. The park was great.

I will advise that we were in a head on car crash coming to the beach on Sunday, April 6th. The average driver in Costa Rica is a bit aggressive to say the least. A fellow leaving the beach around 4:30pm felt the need to pass a bus uphill on a blind curve and couldn't stop when he saw us. We were in a large SUV taxi and were almost stopped when we hit the passenger door solidly. The other car was NOT lucky and all in the car were in rough shape. I was in the front seat and saw it all. The bus driver stopped and screamed at the crazy driver, who was quite bloody, about his lack of driving skills. We got out of there within 90 seconds of the accident. No need to stay as the taxi driver couldn't leave and others walking the road were there and my niece and little one were injured.

We called a doctor to make a house call to our unit and within 20 minutes had the Dr. He gave the teenager 2 stitches and only charged $125 and my niece got a great story to share with her friends.

My daughter ended up with a broken arm and we spent Monday night in a private hospital in San Jose, Cima that was likely nicer and far more quicker than my local hospital. Emma got a hot pink cast. $385 goes a long ways in CR healthcare in an ER visit, XRays and the cast and supplies. Good news - my insurance plan will cover it.

More on next hotel later.

Vacation review of Costa Rica: part 1

First of all, WOW. Costa Rica was amazing. We had a blast and gladly I have the pictures to prove it. The "Ticos" that we interacted with were the nicest folks. We had a blast getting to know several of our drivers and one of the hotel porters rode with us to his hometown for a 2.5 hour ride and we got to know who daily live for CR workers goes.

Uploading pics and will start with day to day activites, lodging, etc. soon. Now back to several hundred emails.

Wednesday April 02, 2008

Vacation review of Costa Rica: part 0...

My kids are so excited that they are about to pop... It wasn't hard to get them up and going today for school. Late this afternoon we head to Dulles Airport hotel (with a full sized indoor pool to blow off steam tonight) to meet up with my wife's sister and kids for the trip. We fly out on Taca in the morning and after arrival will have a driver take us to Manuel Antonio National Park where we are staying 4 nights. Getting a rental car was actually the same price as a driver and after reading some of the descriptions of the roads/bridges where we were traveling, I would prefer someone else to worry about that.

After the 4 nights, we return the extended family to San Jose to return to the US (little Conner is just 2) then we continue on to a coffee plantation for a few nights and then up to the mountains for a few more before coming back home.

As with past spring breaks, I'll blog about where we go, stay, eat and what we do in case you care or want to use this information in the future.

Lots more to come.

Tuesday April 01, 2008

Vacation Bounce Message for email...

1. I am currently out of the office at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. Please be prepared for my mood.

2. You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn't have received anything at all.

3. Sorry to have missed you, but I'm at the doctor's having my brain and heart removed so I can be promoted to our management team.

4. I will be unable to delete all the emails you send me until I return from vacation. Please be patient, and your mail will be deleted in the order it was received.

5. Thank you for your email. Your credit card has been charged $5.99 for the first 10 words and $1.99 for each additional word in your message.

6. The email server is unable to verify your server connection. Your message has not been delivered. Please restart your computer and try sending again. (The beauty of this is that when you return, you can see who did this over and over and over...)

7. Thank you for your message, which has been added to a queuing system. You are currently in 352nd place, and can expect to receive a reply in approximately 19 weeks.

8. Hi, I'm thinking about what you've just sent me. Please wait by your PC for my response.

9. I've run away to join a different circus.

10. I will be out of the office for the next two weeks for medical reasons. When I return, please refer to me as 'Lucille' instead of Steve.

Thanks to Art for sharing...

Setting my bounce tomorrow, wonder which I'll use...