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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 …

1 min read

The phones I ordered finally showed up

Augh. I called it yesterday, when I got my new cell phone. A month ago, we ordered phones over the internet. They were shipped US Postal Service. They entered Costa Rica on 8 July. And then sat in customs. When I got my …

1 min read

My Canon Rebel XT doesn't work

It’s weird. I’m not sure what it is. When I was in Panama a few weeks ago, I was out happily snapping pictures when, for reasons I simply don’t understand, the auto-focus stopped working. My first thought was …

4 min read

Walking and Talking

There’s a whole host of milestones that parents go through. When children are young — such as newborns and infants — you sometimes have to look for the little things that mark growth and progress. (This is something, …

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2 min read

Finally got my box!

Way back in June — the 13th, to be specific (I guess that should have been a first sign, eh?) — I packed up a whack of things on my desk to bring down to Costa Rica. TeamMG (Mary and Morgan) arranged for this to be …