Timberrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

The other night, we were lying in bed (Lucy sleeping, me reading after having talked to Rolando, the night watchman) when suddenly out of nowhere, a thunderous crash echoed through the house.

Perhaps echo isn't the right word. More of a school bus swerving into a Jack in the Box type crash, with no one in the way. After getting into some shoes, I headed outside to talk to Rolando to see what the sam hill had happened. Turns out a rather large tree (probably about 60 feet high) had sheared off about 4 feet up and fell onto the house. Luckily, the tree was about 50 feet away from the house, so only the last bit hit the roof (denting it--the roofs are metal here) and messed up a portion of the gutters.

I've seen trees that have fallen over because of too much rain (the ground gets too soft and their roots can't handle the weight) but have not seen until now a tree just shear off like that. There wasn't even much wind.

It was a wild wakeup call, and hopefully one that won't be repeated anytime soon.

Two fillings, no novocaine, $36. . .

We had our six-month cleaning and checkup a while back and Lucy skated through with no hitches. I, on the other hand, came up with two cavities. One on the left and one on the right. The one on the right was so small, the dentist tossed that in as a freebie and only charged me for one filling.

I had yet to have a filling here in Costa Rica, and there was a little trepidation about what it would be like. I arrived at the office a little early and then was taken to the room and put in the chair. The dentist and her assistant were listening to a World Cup match on the radio.

Dentist: "Do you want some novocaine for this?"

Me: "Uh, am I going to need it?"

Dentist: "No."

Me: "OK, just please don't make me cry."

(This was all done in English, thankfully, as the dentist speaks it well. I don't know if I'll ever be confident enough in my Spanish to talk about drilling and novocaine).

About 20 minutes later, both fillings were in and I didn't cry. Just a couple of twinges while she was drilling the larger hole.

I slid out of the chair, got the score update on the match and ponied up the $36.00 for the fillings. We don't have dental insurance here, but with these prices, we're probably not going to need it, I would guess.

Wood delivery

Here comes the wood. Or at least most
of it. There needs to be about
100 or more boards still to be
delivered, but that will come
later. Some of the boards had
tongues and grooves, so it will


be easier to put them together for the outside facade of the tree houses. Some are really long and not all that easy to haul around and stack. It took about 90 minutes and five people to unload the truck and stack it up near the bodega where the construction folks are living. It will take a few days to dry out and then another day or so to treat all the lumber (termites are just as bad, if not worse, here than back in Hawaii) and then the tree houses will really start to take shape.

Someone, please take me

This little sweetheart wandered up to the hotel the other night, following a car through our gate. Here she is with Mini-B
in front of her. She's probably less than a year old and a little skittish, and was bleeding a bit from her mouth. We already have Bejuca, Mini-B and Si-Si, so we're looking for a home for the new one. Any takers will be greeted warmly and remembered well in the marketplace. Any guesses as to what kind of pooch she is would be welcome as well.

Moving on up

OK, not sure why I have the blue underline going under things here, but until I can figure it out, we'll just all have to live with it.The perling is now up on No. 5 and nearly up and finished on No. 4 as well. The tree houses are about 6 meters off the ground (higher in some corners) which is around 20-plus feet or so, I think, though if someone out there has the correct measurements, feel free to chip in. Once they had the vertical columns set in place, they climbed a ladder and hauled up the horizontal columns by hand, with rope. Then they welded them into place and shinnied and walked (crazy) from one to the next. If you look close, I think you can see them up in the top picture.


Once the perling is set, then it will be time to start putting the wood in. The wood will be coming soon,
so that will be fun to see the place
really start to take shape. For now,
we will just have to wait and see.

A dog's life. . .

Sometimes life can truly be trying for the canines in the family. . . From left, Bejuca, Si-Si, Sweetie and Mini-B soak up some rays in the driveway on a recent morning. Why Bejuca and Mini-B, with their black fur, enjoy this is beyond me. It's hot enough for three-shower days to be the norm, let alone sit out and soak up more of the heat.

Construction update II

A couple of more pictures of what we're now calling tree house No. 5, until we come up with names for that and the other tree houses. The wooden boxes were used as forms to pour the concrete in. From there, perling will be attached to a steel plate and will go up to about 20 feet in most places, though some areas of the tree house will be a bit higher and lower, as the ground isn't exactly even all the way around.

Construction update

Work has started and the first signs of the new tree houses are starting to show. This is Milton (left) working on twisting some re-bar together for the concrete supports. The tree houses will use trees for support, but will also be bolstered by steel perlings.

It's tricky to pour concrete here at this time of year with the weather, etc., because it can open up and just pour in the afternoons a lot of time. The three-person crew is mixing concrete the old-fashioned way: bags of concrete, gravel and sand and stirring the concoction up with shovels, putting it into a wheelbarrow and carting it to where it needs to go.

Input?

This is a scary proposition, tossing out into the great void of the Internet for ideas. . .

We are building two new tree houses, which will give us a total of five.

Currently, the tree houses are known by their numbers; i.e., 1, 2 and 3. However, No. 1 is followed in a direct geographic line by No. 3, which in turn is followed by No. 2. Madness? Perhaps. However, they are named in the order that they were built, so in a roundabout sort of way, it makes sense (if you live here, perhaps).

So, when we have the two new tree houses built and ready to go, we are going to name them, rather than number them (which will toss the geographic numeric order into a whole other realm which would likely only be understood by physicists and cartographers).

Which brings us to the question (and no room for dirty answers, except on the comment section):

What should we name the five tree houses?



Hummingbird House



Monkey Mansion



Boa Bodega



House of Bejuca



House of Mini-B



Sloth Sanctuary



Pecary Penthouse (look up pecary on the 'Net)



Other: put it on the comments and keep it semi-clean

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Car talk. . .

A couple of weeks ago, we took the mighty Hyundai Galloper in for an oil change and to check the transmission and power steering fluids. All turned out well, as it drives much smoother since the visit. However, a byproduct of the visit turned out to be that the speedometer and odometer no longer work.

Not a bad deal if you're a used-car salesman, but pretty humbug when the thing has 250,000-plus hard kilometers on it, and you're relying on the numbers for regular maintenance. Not to mention it could cost us when "Leadfoot Lucy" gets behind the wheel.

Since I was passing by the oil change place, I decided to stop in and let them know that since the change, the mileage has not altered at all.

It went well for the first two minutes until the teen-aged girl asked me exactly what the problem was. After several minutes of pantomining (has anyone ever tried to do charades for a freakin' speedometer or odometer?) I waved her outside to show her the problem.

"Ah, yes," she said.

"Ah, finally," I said.

More charades and 30 minutes later, it was determined that they had popped a cable while doing the change. They didn't have the part there, but would do the work for free when we buy the part.

After more conversation, there was some trepidation on their part when they asked when I would be coming back. I told them not to worry, that my much better half, Lucy, would be returning with the Galloper to get it all hammered out.

Their relief was palpable.

Breaking ground. . .

The time has finally arrived, and the construction crew has broken ground. One thing they found out right away, was that the dirt here in this area is pretty solid and has a clay-like quality. They had expected to dig the holes for supports in an hour or two. It is taking a lot longer thanks to the dense, red earth around here.

There is no backhoe, no machinery, it's just Palomino (the contractor) and two others (one of the others broke his leg right before the start of the job) and some shovels and augers to dig several feet down into the ground. Then they will mix cement, in a wheelbarrow by hand, using the several loads of sand and small gravel with the cement mix, to bury the supports.

They still expect to take about three to four months to finish both of the tree houses, which will be quite a feat, considering it's mostly hand tools and not a lot of power tools.

Pictures will be coming shortly (and hopefully we can avoid another labor dispute).

A boom, a bark and a whimper. . .

The other day, while we were sans guests and enjoying a quiet afternoon, someone from across the road thought it would be fun to light off a bunch of fire crackers.

No big deal, it's just some noise--for us. For Bejuca and Mini-B, however, it's an entirely different story.

The noise drives Bejuca nuts. She jumps and prances around, barking and growling. Not a bad thing, as folks can hear the big bark and with the "Perro Bravo" (vicious dog) sign on our gate, it's a good combination. We don't let her get too far out of control, though.

Mini-B has a different reaction. She started shaking and trembling (remember the old vibrating beds from the motels back in the day?) and didn't want anything to do with anything. She even came running up to me and sought comfort.

As the three of you know who read the blog, I can wrap myself in bacon and Mini-B will shun me for Lucy 99.9 percent of the time. Apparently, fireworks are her Kryptonite to come to me.

The noise even put Mini-B off of her feed for an hour, which is a pretty big deal, considering she will hoover up anything (including mosquitoes, discarded fruit, lizards, etc.) that she can find or run down. She was just too shaken up to eat.

After an hour (in which she buried herself under a load of blankets and pillows) and no more boom-boom, she let me carry her outside, where she scarfed down her food.

At New Year's, it can get pretty noisy (not as bad as Hawaii) so hopefully there will be a break until then.

Mundial. . .

It's that time again. Every four years, the world goes batty for "futbol" or soccer, save for the States.

Heathen, infidel, pagan, whatever you want to call it, I don't get that excited. The World Cup is more fun to watch than the Champions League of the UEFA Cup, but it just doesn't grab my attention like the World Series, NBA Finals, NCAA Tournament, BCS Championship or the Stanley Cup (OK, I'll take the World over the Stanley cup).

Perhaps it's the 20-plus years in sports departments in the Northwest and Japan and Hawaii that have immunized me to the sport (where people write, call, fax to insist that soccer is the sport of the world and deserves more coverage).

"It's the most popular sport in the world!" they say.

"Then move where you can see it every day," I would say.

Maybe that's why I'm not in the newspaper business any longer. Do you think that newspaper folk in Kenya or Germany get phone calls demanding more coverage of American football, or Australian Rules Football?

It would be more interesting to watch if Costa Rica wouldn't have gagged its chance at qualifying and were playing in South Africa. It's not, so while throngs are gathered around their televisions watching the action, there's not a feverish devotion to this edition of the Mundial de Cup.

It's that time of year -- again. . .

Now that we're going on our second year here at the hotel, we're starting to notice things and then we think back and say: "Remember when we thought that was real weird?"

Now it's not so weird, but interesting nonetheless. We missed the peak of the cicada season (think giant houseflys that buzz and bang themselves silly on the windows) but we're back in time for another type of bug. It's about the size of a regular fly, but the wings are dark and leave a residue kind of like a moth when you swat them. Right now, they're pretty much everywhere.

If memory serves, this should carry on for about two weeks, then they will be gone. Not sure if they die, move along to another place or what.

Coming up next should be critters that don't fly, but crawl and they'll invade our house in a month or so, I believe. Oddly enough, they don't end up in the tree houses, just in our house down on the ground.

Beauty and the beast. . .

Or Beauty and the Peccary. . . You can all be the judge. Mini-B (left) and Bejuca actually stood still for a few seconds so Lucy could take their picture. (OK, they were pretty tuckered out after chasing each other around.) It's on the road to the new tree houses where they were christening the path.

Which leads to the question of the day:

Do you think Mini-B and Bejuca would look better:



Mini-B as Wonder Woman and Bejuca as Cat Woman?



Mini-B in a tu-tu and Bejuca in a onesy?



They're both fine the way they are



Slap Hooters T-shirts on both of them

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Aloha. . .

Sunday, June 6, 2010, was the last day of publication for The Honolulu Advertiser, where I worked for nine years before vamoosing to Costa Rica.

The day that Lucy and I flew back home to wrap up the sale of our condo, it was announced that The Advertiser was being sold to the Star-Bulletin and most of the folks I worked with would lose their jobs. People said I was smart; just dumb luck.

Out of 20 people in the sports department, four will be working at the Star-Advertiser.

Even though I wasn't there, I was able to keep in e-mail contact with a lot of folks right up until the end. I honestly wish I could have been there for everything. These were some of the finest, nicest and skilled folks I have worked with in my 20-plus years in the business over six newspapers.

Rock time. . .

After clearing the road, it was time to put the rock in. No problems back home, where you could rent a Cat or something to make things go faster and easier. Not so here.


At first, we brought in seven dump truck loads of large rock (around 4 to 12 pounds each) and sand. The loads were dumped at various points, and then it was up to Miguel, Keneth and myself to spread it around with shovels and large hoes. Back-breaking work and it was around 90

degrees with equal humidity. Once the large rocks were spread, then we had to go through and move them to the outer edges of the road, sort of a barrier for the smaller rock that was to come the next day.

After hauling and moving the big rock, the smaller rock was cake. We just took 4.5 loads of rock, and since it was smaller, the dump truck driver was able to tilt the bed and drive in a herky-jerky style and pretty much spread it out along the road. There were three of four areas where he just had to dump a big pile and we had to move it around and spread it out. Miguel and I were able to even out and spread an entire load before the driver returned with the next, so it was a relief after all the work from the day before.

You can see the results. We need to drive over the road a bunch of times to pack the smaller rock down, and that will come before and during construction with cars and trucks going in and out.

What the. . . doh!!!

The other day, one of the lights that we turn on at night by the second tree house weren't working. No worries, I hauled the ladder out of the bodega, carried it down to the tree by No. 2 and headed up. I had two new bulbs with me and while I was perched atop the very top of the ladder (standing on the part that says "DO NOT STAND ON THIS"--yes, it is in all caps) I changed out the bulbs. There are two lights on the fixture, and the one on the right was the one that was not working, but the one on the left was. After I was finished, the one on the left was still working with the new bulb, but the one on the right was still out. A few hours later, I went down just before dark to turn on the lights. Now, none of the lights were working. No clue, no idea. I flicked the switch, jiggled the wire, kicked the tree. No joy.

The next day, we asked Miguel, the jack of all trades, to take a look at the lights. I was tied up talking to guests when Miguel went down to check out the lights. He told Lucy that the lights were working and they were when I turned them on that night . . . The next day I caught up with Miguel and asked what kind of mojo he had worked to get everything working.

Expecting a protracted answer in Spanish, I called on Lucy to help me out with the translation.

"What was wrong?" I asked in Spanish, settling in for a long discussion on all things electric.

"The bulbs were bad, they just needed changing," replied Miguel.

"What the **&%$$%?" I asked. (Lucy didn't translate this, but Miguel got the idea).

"Bad bulbs. Check them next time."

Arrrggghh.

More road. . .

This is actually the road that we have cleared. It didn't come through the first time, so just posting some more pictures.

Bejuca and Mini-B have given the road their official stamp of approval as only dogs can do.

The road. . .

Is getting closer to being finished. . . We've cut through the jungle and scrub and now have a clear path to where the two new tree houses will be built. . . Construction starts on June 15, if everything goes according to plan.

Fortunately, we had to cut just a few trees to make way for the road. We could have taken a more direct route to the two tree houses, but it would have involved cutting down too many trees, so we took the longer way. Good from an environmental perspective, a pain in the tuckus from a labor perspective.

No bulldozer, CAT or tractor, just machetes, shovels, an axe and a chainsaw for the three trees that had to come down.

The yellow tape is where the new tree houses are going to be built. It's not CSI Costa Rica.

Now that the path is cleared, we have to bring in rock for the road. First is the big rock, with some sand and other fill dirt, and then the smaller stuff to rest on top of it.

Editorial 1, Art 0

Well, it may not have been amicable, but the strike is now over. Pictures have been delivered (albeit tardy) and we will resume normal publication muy pronto. (That's soon).

For the devotees of the Simpsons who sent nasty e-mails supporting the art department, your time will come.

For the other two folks, thank you for your support and you are now on the permanent Jungle Journey, Editorial, Christmas card list.

Solidarity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!