Cool Video About Airplane Food

No one really likes airplane food, yet we all complain if we end up on a flight that doesn't serve anything. Weird.

Well, lest my blog turn into a stand-up comedian complaining about air travel, I'll just share this really interesting video about the massive food production for one airline:

Thanks for reading, happy new year, and safe travels if you're traveling now!

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More and More Pictures

I've been uploading a lot of pictures from our trip to South America (I'm in Colorado now and it's pretty cold, so there's sometimes not much else to do). You can check out the newest ones on my flickr page, or you can also look at picture sets from the different places. Below I'll put up some slideshows of some of the finished places. I'm still planning on writing more stories and observations about each of these places, but that'll take more time. So for now, you can at least check out some pictures:

Buenos Aires, Argentina:

Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay:

Ushuaia, Argentina:

Additionally, I've uploaded all the Pictures of the Day from November, so you can check those out, too. At the start of December I officially completed two years of my Picture a Day project, which is pretty impressive, at least in my mind. I'll write another post about that soon, but for now you can check out November (most of them were in South America, obviously):

So, that's it for now. As I mentioned, I'll write some more about these places soon, but we're still visiting with family and friends, so it may take a while. Thanks for reading/looking, and have a great day!

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Some Trip Pictures

Hi there! I've been slowly going through our pictures from our trip to South America. I've got the first week up on flickr, so you're welcome to check them out here if you'd like. The first week is basically all in Buenos Aires, but there's also one day of Uruguay pictures (like the one above and below). Other highlights include various pictures of street art/ graffiti, some lovely flowers, and Angela feeling uncomfortable next to an enormous dog!

I'll upload more pictures and get them organized soon and when they are, I'll tell you. The whole thing is a slow process, though. In the meantime, if you look at the flickr widget at the top left of this page, you can see if there are recently uploaded pictures.

Thanks, and have a great day!

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Story Problem

Pretend you need to build a road. You need 100,000 kilograms of powdered cement to do the job (the exact numbers aren't that important). Which option do you choose:

A. Order 10 trucks with 10,000 kilograms of cement each. Have the trucks dump the cement where you'll do the job.

B. Order 10 trucks with pallets. Each pallet will have 400 paper sacks of cement weighing 25 kilograms per bag. Have workers pass the bags one by one from the trucks and distribute them around the site. Once in place, have workers open the individual bags and pour the cement powder out of each bag. Make no plans to deal with either the dust or the thousands of heavy-duty paper bags.

So, which would you choose? There's no "correct" answer, but if you said, "Obviously, I'd choose A. What kind of numb nuts would choose option B?" then you're probably not in charge of building highways in Costa Rica. 

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G'day, Mate

Today we've been visiting more with Angela's family, but I've also been working on "curing" a mate that we brought back from Argentina. Here's some general information (link), and here's a video explaining a bit more about it (all in Spanish, but at least you can hear a nice Argentinean accent):

...and here's one talking about how to cure the mate:

In any case, that's what I'm up to today. How about you?

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A Few Newer Pictures

Pretty soon I'll be putting up a lot of pictures on Flickr, but for now I thought I'd share a couple recent ones. 

Here's short Angela with some traditionally tall Buenos Aires businessmen, Andrés and Leandro. We met up with them for lunch a few days ago, just before we left Buenos Aires.

After leaving Buenos Aires, we took a bus to Neuquén, where we met up with Nacho. He made's been making us delicious food non-stop, and it's been a great time so far!

Finally, as you may remember, the guy on Uruguay's 100 Peso bill had a startling resemblance to Tom Hank's theoretical dad. I also stumbled on another shocking discovery when I saw Argentina's 50 Peso bill:

That's right: it appears that one of the Founding Fathers of Argentina may have actually been a mafioso, since he bears a more than passing resemblance to Frank Pentangeli's brother, Vincenzo:

Witness Protection Program, anyone?

So, that's it for now. I'll tell you in a few days when I've posted more pictures, if you're interested. Until then, be sure to frequently check Sitzblog: your number one source for South American currency conspiracies!

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In Your Arms - Amazing Video!

Check out this video:

If you look closer, you can see that it's done entirely in stop-motion animation, and that the background is thousands and thousands of jellybeans. The Making-Of video is pretty amazing, too. It turns out that it took them nearly two years to shoot the video above. Check it out:

I like the song, too. It's probably now my second-favorite song with the phrase "in your arms": 

...and it's even pretty close up there with "In These Arms":

Keep on rockin' in the free world!

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In Ushuaia

 
Just as an update, we left Buenos Aires early this afternoon and now we're in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. It seems very nice, and quite a lot cooler than up north! I'll try to put up some more pictures in the coming days, but like before, you can check on Instagram and find some there, probably. Here are a few from yesterday and today:

The "generic flower," in a park in Buenos Aires. We did yet more walking yesterday and stopped in the park for photo opportunities. This sculpture opens and closes with the sun.

 

At Aeroparque Jorge Newberry, the Buenos Aires airport primarily used for domestic flights. It's really close to the city itself, as you can see.

Thanks for reading!

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More Pictures, Less Confusing

We're currently in Uruguay, and I'm here to tell you, it's a real country.

Just joking... It IS a real country, and it's a beautiful country, based on the little we've seen of it, at least.

I've been taking quite a few more pictures on my camera, but I've also been taking a lot of pictures on Instagram because-- as its name indicates-- it's instant. That way I can immediately put up some impressions from our trip without having to find a computer, transfer the pictures from the memory card, shrink them, upload them, etc. The biggest drawback is that I have an iPod, not an iPhone, so the camera isn't very good and the quality of the pictures generally isn't great if you're looking at them on a screen much bigger than a cell phone.

Anyhow, here's a link to see all the Instagram pictures I've been taking:

http://web.stagram.com/n/sitzman/

As I mentioned the other day, you can see the six newest ones in the widget on the left, but apparently you can't see more than that. With that link above, you can see all of them. So, check them out if you're curious about Uruguay, aka "The Hermit Kingdom"!

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

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Pictures

If you want to check out some pictures from our trip, you can see the ones I've taken with Instagram (just go to the widget on the left). When we get back I'll upload more, higher quality pictures that I've been taking with our camera. In the meantime, enjoy!

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Somewhat Unemployed

What a herd of boludos.

I realized recently that I'd not told many people that I had quit my job. I actually gave my one-month notice at the end of September (here you have to give a month instead of two weeks, if you've worked at a job longer than a year). I liked my job and the students I was teaching, but there were also things I disagreed with, and it was time to go in a new direction. That direction? Well, for now: Argentina! Then after that, we'll figure something out.

As Andy's brother is rumored to have said, "I'm not too worried about it. We'll be fine."

Thanks, and have a good one!

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Danger 5!

Wow, I almost think this may not be real, simply because it looks like it's going to be so amazing:

But according to their website (which has a pretty hilarious spoof on a 60s action magazine complete with clickable articles), they're actually going to produce this, starting November 21st. I'm pretty sure the guy who says "Domo Arigato" is wearing the same wig I wear for most Halloweens.

I'm gaining more and more respect for Australia and Australians.

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Thanks!

Just a quick re-cap from Blogtoberfest: It was awesome! Many thanks to everyone who checked out the posts. I actually got up to 31, which is one more than last year. We'll have to see what I can get done next year!

I'll also include the Pictures of the Day from October if you'd like to check them out. You can see larger versions of them and the October Leftovers on flickr, or you can just check out the slideshow here:

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Box

I originally had combined this post with the last post about the Animal Sanctuary, but it became really huge so I divided them since they're not related, anyhow.

I put a message on Twitter the other day talking about an app called Box giving away 50 GB of cloud storage to iOS 5 users. I've not got an iPad or an iPhone, but I'm sure a lot of you do. Still, I do have an iPod touch, which is basically like an iPhone without the phone (and with a crappier camera, unfortunately). Nevertheless, I downloaded the app and I indeed have 50 GB of free cloud storage now. It's a pretty good backup option for documents and pictures, quite similar to Dropbox in many ways. In any case, if you're interested, check out this link. It does say that it'll only be doing the free 50 GB offer for 50 days, which means there are probably 40 days or so left. I don't get anything if you do or don't go for this deal, but I thought I'd share it since it seems pretty cool.

So, that's it for now... We'll have a Blogtoberfest wrap-up in a little bit, though!

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Wild Animal Sanctuary

I recently saw this picture on Stern.de:

At first I couldn't figure out what it was, but then I read the caption:

"Keenesburg/Colorado, USA. Noch feiern die Amerikaner zwar nicht Erntedank, Truthahn gibt es für den Löwen aber trotzdem schon. Der gerupfte Vogel wird dem Tier im Wildtier-Schutzgebiet serviert, in dem rund 290 Löwen, Tiger, Bären, Wölfe und andere große Fleischfresser leben. Das Gelände ist das älteste und größte seiner Art in den USA."

That more or less means:

"Although Americans aren’t celebrating Thanksgiving yet, the lions already have turkeys. The bird is being served in a wildlife reserve area, in which around 290 lions, tigers, bears, wolves and other large meat-eaters live.  The reserve is the oldest and largest of its kind in the USA."

I noticed the Keenesburg, Colorado part and I realized that it was talking about a wildlife reserve where my dad volunteers sometimes (he's a veterinarian). I found their page online and it's pretty interesting. I thought I was going to just look at it for a minute, but there's so much information that I spent about an hour there, and now I'd really like to go visit the facilities next time I'm in Colorado. You can check the website out here if you want: The Wild Animal Sanctuary. (It's also got more information if you're interested in visiting).

My dad also mentioned that the reserve has trouble keeping things running since it's a pretty expensive type of place to operate. We always complain that our two cats (aka Our Little Crap Factories) are expensive to maintain, but I can't imagine how much it must cost to keep a bunch of wild tigers, panthers, and bears.

I considered making a donation, although when I checked it out more I saw that they also have an online gift shop, and the products are pretty cool (I like this picture of a lion that looks eerily similar to 1980s Steve Perry, and the lion in this poster reminded me a bit of our old cat Cucho... with Steve Perry Lion behind him). Even better, the proceeds from online purchases are tax deductible and support the Sanctuary. Or, if you're so inclined, I think it seems like a good place to make a donation. I myself bought an item in the store and made a donation to help out the Wild Open Spaces project today. That's a program to buy land surrounding the reserve to expand it and build the "Mile into the Wild Walkway." It seems like a great idea because it combines animal protection and expanded open space, both of which I strongly support. It'd be cool if you'd consider it, too. Thanks!

That's all for the moment, but now that I've asked for your help, in a few minutes I'll put up a link that may help you!

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The Ghosts of Halloween Costumes Past

They don't really celebrate Halloween here in Costa Rica. Well, I guess they do have some parties, but since it's not part of the cultural background here, it feels a bit like forced cultural imperialism. But in this case, it's strange because the country is forcing the cultural imperialism on itself, if that makes any sense. As long as they don't try to adopt Thanksgiving, possibly my favorite holiday, I'll probably be OK. But Thanksgiving is ours, man!

But hey, Halloween's OK by me. We didn't go to any Halloween parties this year, but I have been to some pretty fun ones in the past. In fact, one of Angela's dreams is to be in the U.S. for Halloween so that she can wear a costume. We'll see if we can get that done one of these years. But in the meantime, I thought I'd show a few pictures of my favorite Halloween costumes that I've accumulated through the years... enjoy!

This is from Halloween 2008, I believe. I was working as an English teacher at a call center outside of San José, and I figured that I should at least dress as something, so I decided to go as "My Arch-Nemesis, Bryan Fitzman." That bastard! In any case, one of my students took this picture, and I liked it so much I decided to use it for my Sitzman ABC site's logo.

I think this is from 2004, when I was a grad student. It's at the faculty party. Obviously (can't you tell??) I'm going as Axl Rose. I also had a very similar costume a few years before that, when my roommate Himal went as Slash. It's a cool costume, but all too literally... we went out afterwards and I was incredibly cold walking around in the late October snow.

For all those in the know, my 2005 costume was Prince, but a few thought I was a pirate. Their loss. In any case, it was much more comfortable and warm than the Axl costume, but on the downside I had to put some kind of makeup on my eyebrows and skeezy facial hair... eyeliner? Whatever that makeup's called that women usually use on their eyelashes. That was the stuff.

I happened upon this one when looking for Halloween pictures today. It's me and my friend Miss Thang (now Mrs. Thang) in Regensburg in 2001. I can't remember who took the picture or how I got it, because people didn't even use digital cameras then. It must be scanned. In any case, I think I just wore random crap and called it a costume. I know I borrowed the wig from Matt (thanks) and the shirt from Miss Thang (also thanks), and then called it a day in terms of costuming. As usual, I also included my "Smart Guy Glasses," which are actually construction goggles I got a long time ago.

This was 2004, I think? I think I also wore a costume in that house where I dressed up as Tom Cruise's character from Risky Business (it's probably better I couldn't find a picture of that costume, since its main components were sunglasses, a dress shirt, double-bagged tighty-whities, and a smart-ass smile). But time-wise, my math may not work out. In fact, this may have just been a costume party, and not actually for Halloween. Who knows. All I know is that Jesse, Zach, and I dressed up as the undercover cops from the Beastie Boys' Sabotage video (I think I'm supposed to be "Vic Colfari as Bobby, 'The Rookie'":

Now, prepare yourself...

Finally, we come to my favorite costume, "Sitz-man"! I think the idea of this picture is that I've just saved Cowgirl Katie from some kind of danger. It's my favorite costume because it's the most original thing I've probably ever come up with. Plus, due to the long underwear it was really warm, one of the two prerequisites I've come to adopt in my Halloween costumes (the other apparently being a wig). It took me about an hour and a few drafts to color in my chest insignia. I then found a baby blanket, some long underwear, and some blue underwear, and I even put together a pretty awesome utility belt! The very next year after wearing this costume, I was in Costa Rica, so maybe subconsciously I recognized that my costuming had reached its apex, and I semi-retired after that. 

Anyhow, if you're going out tonight, have fun and be safe! Eat some candy for me!

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Swissta Rican Quiz Answers!

I meant to post the answers to the quiz last night but our power went out a couple times over a few hours. If you've not checked out the quiz, it's easy: all you have to do is decide whether 9 pictures were taken in Costa Rica or Switzerland. Go here if you still want to try it.

So, here are the answers:

1. Switzerland

 2. Switzerland

3. Switzerland

4. Costa Rica 

5. Costa Rica 

6. Costa Rica 

7. Costa Rica 

 8. Costa Rica

9. Costa Rica

So, how'd you do? Thanks for reading, and check back later today for more Blogtoberfest fun --it's our last day of Blogtoberfest, after all! 

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Swissta Rican Picture Quiztravaganza!

After the post from the other day talking about the similarities between Costa Rica and Bosnia-Herzegovina, I felt like I should mention that at least on the surface, there are some similarities between Costa Rica and Switzerland. So let's have a little quiz, shall we? I'll put up some pictures, and you decide if I took them in Costa Rica or Switzerland --it's just that easy! But remember that looks can sometimes be deceiving! Check back tomorrow evening for the answers. Good luck!

1. 

 2.

3.

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

 8.

9.

So, do you have your answers ready? If so, great! If you want you can leave a comment with your guesses, or you can just check back tomorrow (Sunday) night for the answers.

Thanks for reading and guessing! Have a good one!

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Not Feeling So Hot

I had planned on writing a longer blog post today (it's still Blogtoberfest for three more days, after all!), but I'm not feeling too good right now. I had a bit of a sore throat earlier, but now my teeth and eyeballs have started hurting, and that's never a good sign. So for now I'll leave you with this picture, which previews what I'm about to do:

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Costa Rica: The Bosnia-Herzegovina of Central America

Can I just say something? This flag is awesome.

I came to Costa Rica in 2006 and it wasn't long before I heard one of Costa Rica's unofficial nicknames: "The Switzerland of Central America." 

"Hmm," I thought, "That interesting." Coincidentally, the only time I had been to Switzerland was just a few months before I got here, and I was curious about the comparison because frankly, I didn't see it. (See here, here, and here for more details and ideas about this nickname). I asked a few people and apparently it got this reputation because both countries are sort of peaceful and democratic in areas that are frequently neither. And both have lots of mountains and cows. Sure, I agreed with those points but beyond those, I didn't see many more similarities to Switzerland. A safe haven for banks where trains run on time? Not exactly. A reputation for transparency and efficiency? Yeah, right. Watches? No. Pocketknives? Well, they do have a lot of machetes here, but they're hardly discreet. Yodeling and shit? Try again. The more I thought about this, the more I became convinced that it was just a ploy by some Costa Rican tourism agency.

But then one day while eating cereal I was reading the statistics in the back of my atlas (as I like to do) and I noticed something: Bosnia-Herzegovina and Costa Rica are almost the same size (Bosnia is the 127th-largest country and Costa Rica the 128th). Then I started noticing a few other similarities. Let's break a few of the main ones down, shall we? I found some general stats for each country on Wikipedia (Costa Rica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Switzerland). We'll consider it a contest-- the closest country to Costa Rica for each category wins!

AREA OF COUNTRY:

Costa Rica: 19,653 square miles (128th)

B-H: 19,741 square miles (127th)

Switzerland: 15,940 square miles (133rd)

Winner, Bosnia vs. Switzerland: Bosnia-Herzegovina!

POPULATION (2010/2011 estimate):

Costa Rica: 4,608,426 (123rd)

B-H: 3,843,126 (129th)

Switzerland: 7,866,500 (95th)

Winner: Bosnia-Herzegovina!

GDP* (Per capita, nominal, 2010/2011 estimate):

Costa Rica: $7,843

B-H: $4,702

Switzerland: $75,835

Winner: Bosnia-Herzegovina!

Intentional Homicide (aka Murder, 2008, per 100,000 people):

Costa Rica: 11

B-H: 1.8

Switzerland: .71

Winner (aka Loser): Bosnia-Herzegovina!

(Sad Fact: The USA's score was 5.4 on this)

FIFA World Cup Appearances:

Costa Rica: 3

B-H: 0

Switzerland: 9

Winner: Bosnia-Herzegovina!

TOTAL SCORE: 

BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA 5 : 0 SWITZERLAND

So, as you can see, Costa Rica may have cows, but in the end it's got more in common with Bosnia-Herzegovina than the famously-neutral watchmakers of Switzerland.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

*As indicated, this is using nominal GDP, not PPP GDP; if PPP were used, neither Bosnia nor Costa Rica would look as impoverished on paper... but I don't really know much about PPP since I'm not an economist.

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Fast-Talking Explanation Videos

If you remember a recent post about coffee, then you may remember an interesting video in that post. It basically explained more about the whole coffee production process. It turns out that the guy who made the video, someone named Grey, has made some other videos that I think are pretty cool. I actually put this one on Sitzman ABC since it explains Daylight Savings Time (they don't do it in Costa Rica, and it's a weird thing to describe or justify to classes sometimes):

And I also liked this one about continents, which is incidentally another controversial topic in my classes here:

The reason it's a controversial topic is because, as the Grey notes in the video, in the US they generally count 7 continents (North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica). However, in a lot of Latin America, Costa Rica included, they count North and South America as one continent, and from there the confusion begins.

Anyhow, I thought they were cool videos, so have a look if you'd like. Grey's YouTube page also has some explanatory videos related to the United Kingdom and different electoral systems, most of which are fast, entertaining, and educational. Have a look!

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

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Ants!

This picture shows the telephone jack in one of the rooms in our house. As you can see, for some reason it's being swarmed by hundreds of little ants. In fact, many of the outlets in our house are currently being swarmed by ants, and we can't figure out why. Most of them seem to be carrying and/or laying eggs, too. It's pretty depressing.

At least with some plagues like cockroaches, crickets, and millipedes, the animals are easily identifiable and so is the solution (step on them and/or just clean your damn house), but in this case, we're baffled. We cleaned the outlets with a mop to get rid of the ants but within about an hour they'd somehow swarmed to other outlets. Of course, it all somehow happened when we were at work, and when we came back our friend Gina was with us, since she's staying at our house. Now she probably thinks we're just filthy.

It's sad living here sometimes.

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Keirsey

With only two options per question, you wouldn't think I'd have gotten so confused.

A while ago I was talking with Bobby, and he said that Chris had mentioned something about a "Keirsey" test. That sounds very similar to the name of a town in eastern Colorado that I don't have a very good impression of, so I was skeptical at first. But Bobby explained that it was a sort of personality test, and that Chris had correctly predicted what category Bobby would fall into.

For me, "personality test" also calls to mind images of Scientology, although it's not like that at all, either. In fact, you can take the test for yourself. I thought it was pretty interesting in the end, although some of the questions were very confusing for me (but maybe that's just part of my personality--getting frustrated at weird questions on personality tests). Here's a link to the site, and here's a link to the test. Here's a link with a bit more of an explanation on the different "temperaments." 

Just so you know, if you do take the test, it'll get you into a temperament, but not into one of the 4 specific categories in each temperament. I guess you may have to buy the book if you want to do that, but Chris (a "Rational Architect") has had quite a lot of experience with the test (you know, party tricks), so we were quickly able to nail down the fact that I'm an Idealist Counselor, or an "INFJ"--just like Alec "Obi Wan Kenobi" Guinness! Angela then took the test and discovered that she was an "Artisan Composer," aka "ISFP" aka "just like Michael Jackson"! 

For me the most interesting part was to consider how much Costa Rica had affected my personality, or at least my own perception of it. For many questions I was saying things like, "Well, for Costa Rica, I'd be ___, but for the US, I'd be the complete opposite." I also didn't see the logic of many questions, and many of them didn't seem to offer two conflicting answers. It was a good thing that I had Chris to talk me through it, and it's a good thing that Skype calls are free!

Well, I thought it was kind of cool, so check it out if you're interested. Thanks for reading, and don't worry, Blogtoberfest is continuing, no matter how much crappy weather or bad internet Costa Rica throws at us!

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The Dead Pants

I know I've mentioned Die Toten Hosen on this blog before (here's the post to prove it), but I wanted to put up a few of their videos because they're still one of my favorite bands in any language. Their name, as the title of this blog indicates, means "The Dead Pants," but "toten Hosen" can also mean that nothing's going on somewhere (maybe like "the boondocks" in English?).

When I was looking around the internet doing "research" for this post, I also came across this. It's got a good general overview of the band and it's in Spanish. It also seems that they actually came to Costa Rica in 2009! I wish I had known about it, but then again, I'm not sure I'd have gone, since my concert-going days seem to largely be a thing of the past.

Anyhow, here's the video I put up in the other post, for "Steh auf, wenn du am Boden bist," which means "Get up when you're on the ground." It's actually a pretty motivating song, and I played it in my German class this evening. My students seemed to like it:

But wait, that's not all! Here's "Walkampf," a sort of play on words that literally means "Whale-Fight." It's definitely one of my Top 5 German Punkisch-Rock songs featuring a bagpipe. It's not necessarily got a positive message or anything, but it's fun to listen to and the video's pretty cool, too:

This one definitely doesn't have much of a message at all, except for that the Bayern München football team is crap. Die Toten Hosen are from Düsseldorf and they're big fans of the local team, so the chorus says, "So many things can happen, so many things can occur, only one thing I know 100% for sure: never in my life would I go to Bayern!":

And they even have some pretty good songs in English! This is one of my favorites:

So, there's a very basic primer to this group. If you like the songs, I'm sure you can find more just by following the YouTube links at the end of each video, or you can also go to their website to find more information about them.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

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I Now Officially Have Plans For This Evening...

As one of the YouTube comments says, "You´re wrong, this movie are too much complex to your limited mind."

Happy watching!

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El Regreso

This afternoon Angela and I went to the movies for the first time in... well, in a long time. We saw a movie called El Regreso:

As you can see, it's actually from Costa Rica.* It's the first Costa Rican movie I've ever seen, although it can't really be argued that there's a huge catalog of them to choose from. It's about a young writer who comes back to Costa Rica to visit his ailing father after living in New York for 9 years. For the first 10 minutes or so I had some strong doubts about the movie, since it seemed to highlight all the things I find annoying about the country (an abundance of bars on the windows; overweight, fruit-eating bureaucrats; the general shittiness of San José; and family members completely freaking out and overreacting to everything). Plus, there were some people in the movie theater that wouldn't shut up at the start (another thing I don't care much for here). But after that point it seemed to shift and get better, the people in the back shut the hell up, and Angela and I both ended up enjoying it.

Angela and I were picking apart some of the details, and we think that it was pretty accurate when it came to depicting the capital, the weird shifting of address forms between Usted and vos (but never tú, of course!), and the strange abundance of Dos Pinos products. We joked, though, that the most implausible part was that not only was the protagonist a writer (in Costa Rica!), but that his father was also a writer, and a popular writer, at that! Also, there's one thing that occurred to me about two hours after we left the theater: the movie's got a lot of similarities with Garden State. I'm going to have to investigate this more and watch Garden State again, but I can say that there are also enough differences that it's far from a rip-off.

In any case, if you happen to see this playing at a movie theater or a video store sometime, it's worth checking out. It does shed some light on Costa Rica's positive and negative social aspects, and it's pretty entertaining, to boot.

Thanks for reading!


*Not Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico can ram it.

365: Picture a Day Project    365 Leftovers    All My Pictures    Sitzbook

October Rain

I've mentioned in a few posts and emails that it's been raining a lot here, but we should probably be thankful that we're in Costa Rica, since it's been a lot worse in other parts of Central America. As this article notes, it's been especially bad in Guatemala and El Salvador, and around 90 people have died. It's even washed out bridges and houses in a lot of the isthmus. So, maybe keep the people here in your thoughts. I also wanted to post a few rain-related pictures, although they're all older pictures.

On the upside, the rain has slackened today, at least in Berlín and the nearby area, which is a good sign. 

A picture from last year. These types of landslides are unfortunately common in the rainy season.

I don't have much else to add today, but since it's Blogtoberfest, I wanted to make sure I posted something today. Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

A picture that Dustin took when he and Sam visited a few years ago.
When I see this, I realize how remarkably the Formerly Crappy Casita has transformed.

365: Picture a Day Project    365 Leftovers    All My Pictures    Sitzbook

Wait, 10 Blogs?

As I was writing yesterday's post to commemorate Sitzblog's 700th post, I mentioned that I had 10 blogs. That does seem like a lot, so I thought I'd explain.

Blog 1: Sitzblog. This blog.

Blog 2: Sitzman ABC. The up-and-coming whippersnapper in the Ryan Sitzman internet conglomerate. It's a blog that I've set up mainly for my students' benefit, and I post things related to language learning there. I've also mentioned this blog here a few times because I sometimes post about cultural issues.

Blogs 3-7: Class Blogs for my Advanced Students. (Levels 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6) OK, this is cheating a bit, possibly, since I usually never have more than one going at once, and in fact none of them are active at the moment, but I still put some work into them. I can also use them as an example for other teachers who are looking to start class blogs. I guess.

Blog 8: Sitztoast. This blog is still active, although I've not posted to it too frequently of late, since I've been concentrating on Blogtoberfest (and work, I suppose).

Blog 9: Gringiticasa. I made this blog when we were building the house, and it actually has quite a few posts. Now it's mainly got a slideshow of the construction process from start to finish. I guess I check it out every few months to reminisce.

Blog 10: Gringo + Tica = Love. I started this mainly to give information about our wedding, which was upcoming at the time. As a result there's not too much there.

Bonus! Website: ryansitzman.com. I've not updated this very recently, but I'm hoping to do so in the near future. But you know what they say about good intentions...

Anyhow, that's it for today! Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

365: Picture a Day Project    365 Leftovers    All My Pictures    Sitzbook