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6 min read

Butterflies and getting lost

You can only stay around Santa Ana for so long before you start to feel a little caged in. And given that Alex and Mi Pequeña Niña are here all day, every day, there was a distinct need to explore a bit beyond our …

5 min read

I (heart) Google Chrome

Not 45 minutes ago, Google released their latest contribution to the internet: Chrome. This effectively ended years of speculation that Google was writing a browser, that it would throw its hat into the ring and kick off …

2 min read

That's one small step for a baby...

Today is Alex’s and my third anniversary. Three years ago, I had no idea that I would one day be living in a different country, with a beautiful daughter, experiencing a totally different way of life. That is one of the …

4 min read

Happy first birthday, my daughter!

Hey kiddo! I know you’re not reading this on your first birthday — you can’t quite walk on your own right now, let alone read anything. So I have no idea how old you are now that you’re reading this. You could be 4, 14, …

9 min read

Ole Ole Ole Ole Ticos Ticos

Last night, we were originally to be in Panama, having completed meetings with our client, discussing the next steps and planning out strategies. Over bottles of Panama Lager, of course. But as is well-known in the …

10 min read

U-turns are illegal in Costa Rica

Yesterday, just after noon, I went into the nearby ATH (A Todo Hora, which is the Costa Rican version of “ATM”) to check my Scotiabank balance. Lo and behold, after two weeks of wrangling account, Swift, …

2 min read

Why the right tools matter

A few years ago, I went off to Japan to visit my friend Chris. I took along my (at the time) fancy digital camera: a Canon Pro 90 IS. Fancy in that it was big mega-pixels (for the time) and had an image stabiliser …

2 min read

My new 1998-era Nokia TDMA cell phone

Note today’s date: 8 August 2008. That’s (almost) two months since we first came to Costa Rica. Two months ago, we tried to start getting things like cars, bank accounts, work visas (a fairly significant need), and cell …