Picture of the Day, February 3, 2010: A Visit to the Playa

Yesterday Angela and I both had the day off, so we went to the beach. We chose Playa Bejuco, on Costa Rica's Central Pacific coast. It was a great day, although I had major trouble finding a political picture. Because of that, I just decided to use this as Picture of the Day:

It's a picture of some shadows that Angela and her niece Adriana traced in the sand. I just thought it looked cool.

Here are some more pictures from the day:

Angela and our niece Adriana. "Adri" is 25 years old, so she's actually pretty close to our age, making her a good travel companion. I've not had nieces or nephews before (get to work, Di and Paul), but when I married Angela I gained about a dozen of them, with a wide variety of ages.

Here's a shelter that we came across on the beach. One of the main reasons we chose Playa Bejuco is because it's big, deserted, and right next to a road, so you can park your car right next to a little shelter and not have to traipse back and forth over the hot sand if you forget stuff. The one thing it doesn't have, though, is public access to running water, so bring a jug with you to rinse off when you leave.

Angela and I. For comfort and style when at the beach, I prefer to use Speedo-style swimsuits, also preferred around the world by elite swimmers, Eurotrash, and pervos.

Angela and Adri making some of their shadow tracing creations.

On the way back home from the beach, we stopped at Playa Herradura (I wanted to take the short detour to see if they had any political signs related to the election, believe it or not). I'd never been there before, but it was a lovely little beach. It was certainly more developed, but there were more restaurants and hotels, and people in general. In my opinion, it's nice that beaches like Herradura and the much-larger Jacó exist, to sort of keep development concentrated in certain areas, leaving places like Bejuco less-developed and more relaxing.

A boat in Playa Herradura. I liked this picture a lot, and almost made it Picture of the Day.

So, that's it for now. Thanks for reading, and have a good day!

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Picture of the Day, February 2, 2010

February 2nd's Picture of the Day is also an election-related one. This is from one of Laura Chinchilla's campaign posters in Palmares. She's the presidential candidate for the National Liberation Party, the party that's currently in power (she's Oscar Arias' Vice-President).

She seems OK as a person, but she's definitely missing that "it" factor that's so essential to candidates. If she doesn't win, she's probably got a bright future in some sort of robot exposition.

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Awesome Awesome Awesome

Have all those prayers and all those letters to Santa finally been answered?

Star Wars: Uncut Trailer from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

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Picture of the Day, February 1, 2010

This week I'm hoping to take pictures related to next Sunday's upcoming presidential election.

Because I got here just about three and a half years ago, this will be my first election in Costa Rica. It's a bit different from the U.S., especially in terms of advertisements, adornments, and publicity. Everyone says that this year has been really subdued compared to usual, though.

It's still very common to see flags representing the different parties, hoisted up onto flagpoles or tall bamboo sticks. These two flags were on a house I passed in Rincon de Zaragoza de Palmares de Alajuela, on the way to work yesterday.

The yellow and red flags represent the PAC, the Citizen's Action Party, whose candidate is Ottón Solís.

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Picture of the Day, January 31, 2010: A Visit to the Río

Here is the picture of the day for January 31st. Can you guess what it is?

Time's up. It's frog eggs. Weird, weird stuff. We'll get more into that in a bit. But the reason I have a picture of frog eggs is because Angela and I went to a river with our friend and boss Lucy, her husband Wilson, their family, and also Wilson's extended family. It was great Costa Rican fun, and we're already hoping to go back soon! Here are some more pictures from a lovely Sunday outing:

The 4-wheel drive road down to the river. This is Elias, Lucy and Wilson's son. I believe there were 10 or 11 people inside their enormous yellow Land Rover, two hanging on to the back, and three sitting on a raft on the top. Who needs a carnival ride when you've got this?!

Speaking of carnivals, when the car arrived to the river, we all got out like so many clowns jumping out of a little VW bug in a circus. There were also the supplies for bathing, barbequeing, and relaxing.

Angela getting into a little pool in the river. It was wonderfully cool water, mercifully free of mosquitoes, snakes, and frostbite (the three things I associate with open bodies of water in Colorado).

Angela with some frog eggs. You can see Angela's complete Gross-Out Progression on my flickr page.

These eggs are supremely bizarre. In the water, they look like little strings of white specks, but outside the water they're little black dots. They're all connected in a gooey chain that I'm sure my younger students would love to get their hands on. When the chain is extended, the dots move into a single-file line, but when you let out some of the tension in the chain, they double up into groups of two eggs. Crazy stuff.

Posing for the camera. I put the eggs back, of course, so that they could develop into tadpoles (another common and fascinating feature at this particular river).

Pulling the eggs out of the water. Frog Eggs on a Stick: Coming to a carnival near you!
I didn't even know that frogs laid eggs like this. I guess I just supposed that they spontaneously generated themselves, like little amoebas.

So, that's it for January 31st, as well as the month of January. Remember that you can check out the Pictures of the Day for the whole month of January by following this link, and if you're so inclined, you can also see the Leftovers, which are also pretty interesting.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

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Pictures of the Day, January 29 and 30, 2010

Last week was a very busy one, so let's get caught up on these pictures of the day. Here are the ones from January 29 and 30th:

January 29th: I took this picture when I got up early on the 29th to go to the English Teacher's Conference in San Jose. I saw an amazing moon shining through a tree in our back yard, but when the picture came out, it looked quite different. In fact, though, I like this quite a bit more than reality, especially because of the blue sky and the lights of "Downtown Berlin" at the bottom left!

Another picture from the 29th: Angela's been knitting something. Actually, she's knitting this, and she's also knitting something else with some different yarn (technically, this may be crocheting, since there's only one needle). She actually completed two whole scarves, only to find them too scratchy. So she completely unraveled them, and now I think she's making something for the cats to sleep in, although she also mentioned a rug.
It's quite frustrating from a bystander's perspective!

January 30th: This is a picture of my Saturday afternoon "First Steps, Level 2" English class. They're really nice kids, although we seem to have a bit of a language barrier between us.
I think I found a way over the barrier, though: Before each class, I've been buying a packet of Halls (which are considered candy here). Then I write "English Speaking Club" on the board, with the kids' names. If they speak Spanish, I erase a letter, but if part of their name is still on the board at the end of class --which is 4 hours!--, then they get a cough drop. Result: almost 100% English spoken in class.
Ryan Sitzman. Proven results.

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Pictures of the Day, January 26, 27, and 28

Hi everyone! This week is the National Conference for Teachers of English in San Jose, so I've had to go there to help out and to present twice (my presentation title is "Sex, Politics, and Religion: Breaking Through Taboos," a good title if I do say so myself).

In any case, things have been busy. Here's a few pictures from the last couple of days:

January 26th: This is a trusty teddy bear that Angela gave me when we first met. I keep him on my desk to watch my shit when I'm gone. Plus, it seems to be the place in our house with the least mold.
She also gave me that little mug in the bear's hand, but it was separate at the time. I sewed it to his hand (yep, I can sew... it's genetic... thanks, Mom).
In any case, my bear was providing constant inspiration the other night while I was preparing my presentation for the conference, which started yesterday (Wednesday).

January 27th: This was in a session that I attended yesterday. I took a couple of pictures of the room (you can see more on the flickr page), but for some reason I liked this one, especially when I got it to my computer. I like how the light is shining on this girl's hand, but only there, really. It's like her pencil is holding the key to her enlightenment. Here's a bit of detail:

January 28th: I chose this as the picture of the day mainly because there were slim pickins. But the more I look at it, I like it. Mainly I like it because it's in a classroom, and I can't imagine that most classrooms could be host to a gas fire or one involving logs (which I think is what is on the "ground" in the "A" picture).
Plus, as I was analyzing the picture, I realized, "Oh! There's not even a fire extinguisher on the fire extinguisher hook!"
Oh, Costa Rica!

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Picture of the Day, January 25, 2010

Angela was cleaning a lot today, and she even cleaned the oven thoroughly. These are the knobs from the front of our Atlas brand oven. Atlas is, if not the best, then certainly one of the top ten oven manufacturers in El Salvador.

Cooperation in the isthmus: ¿Si se puede? Sure, ¿why not?

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Picture of the Day, January 24, 2010

Here's today's Picture of the Day:

The ticket window at the sala comunal de Berlin. I'm not sure which events they hold here that require tickets, but today's Water Board meeting wasn't one of them.

We went to the Berlin Water Board meeting because water is occasionally a pain in the ass in Berlin (by occasionally, I mean "during the day"). We finally had to install an enormous tank and pump near the Formerly-Crappy Casita near the back of our property, but it's still good to know what's going on with the Water Board. New this year: rates will be raised to about 40 dollars a year for water, and they're still trying to figure out where the leaks are.

Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

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Pictures of the Day, January 22 and 23, 2010

Here are my Pictures of the Day from yesterday and Friday, as well as an extra leftover. Hope there's something interesting:

January 22nd Picture of the Day: I'm not a huge fan of this as Picture of the Day, but I didn't have many other options. This is a bromeliad-type of flower in a tree in our back yard. I always think it's pretty impressive how these guys just grow all over the place, especially on branches of other trees. Plus, they're really light.
Buy or steal a bromeliad today.

January 23rd Leftover: This is technically a "January 23rd" picture, although I took it late the previous night before I went to bed, around 2 AM. I looked out our bathroom window and saw the fog and the streetlamp, and it was pretty nice. I'll have to try to re-create it some day, when I don't have to take it through a bathroom window, and when I don't have to wake up in 4 hours.

January 23rd Picture of the Day: While on my lunch break at work yesterday, I went to the Palmares Festival and bought some ice cream. They gave me an umbrella on the ice cream. I put it in our plant since I'm uncreative and wanted a Picture of the Day. Done and done.

So, that's it for those two days. We'll see what today brings!

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Picture of the Day and Morbid Story of the Day, January 21, 2010

Here is today's Picture of the Day:

If you've not heard it already somehow, there was a guy murdered in front of our house early this morning. Evidently, one coffee picker stabbed another one around 5:30 AM. According to rumors --and rumors, plus a lot of gossip, is about the only type of information available in Berlin at any given moment anyhow-- the stabbing was a result of a conflict that was carried on from a few days ago.

This is part of the crowd that was hanging out and rubbernecking. We actually didn't hear a thing, since our room is on the opposite side of the house, but when Angela woke me up around 7:30, she said, "There's a shitload of people in our yard!" I was surprised, but mainly because I didn't know she knew the word "shitload." When we went out, sure enough, there were a ton of people hanging out in our yard and in the street.
A few of the people in the crowd were family members of the victim. Most of the people in the crowd weren't. I can't imagine how it must be to have a bunch of slack-jawed dipshits hanging around you and discussing you and your son's death while you're looking on at his dead body. Shame on the police, for not keeping all the "tourists" away, I guess, but as my friend Lucy pointed out, it's also a reflection of their cultural approach to death and dead bodies, and it's quite different from what one may be used to in other countries.

Finally the cops closed off the road so that the inspectors could do their work a bit better, but people were still hanging out in our yard. I guess the cops thought that it didn't make sense to have an orderly crime scene where people weren't (literally) stepping on your clues, if creating that scene meant foregoing some insightful comment from one of the yokels eating a bag of chips while standing in our bushes.
Since the victim and killer are both from Nicaragua, this led to much speculation and talk about the "Nicaraguan character." Most of this talk was bigoted bullshit, of course, and it's lamentable that when a Costa Rican kills someone, they don't talk about how Costa Ricans supposedly don't know how to solve their problems without killing one another, either.

This is the worst part: when the cops were about to lift and move the body away, the crowd grew even more animated, and people clamored in to get a good look. I know, Lucy, you're right that it's a different cultural approach to dead bodies. Still, it's my cultural approach to say it's fucked up to gather up the family and then go down the road to see the fresh corpse. Also, I guess the fact that I'm not posting any pictures of the dead body covered in a white sheet shows a different cultural approach. Food for thought, at least.

So, that's the interesting news for today, I suppose. Not the good kind of news you want to spread around, but still the kind you should probably mention.

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Picture of the Day, January 20, 2010

I didn't have a chance to post this picture yesterday, but it's the Picture of the Day from yesterday. Angela's pretty.

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Picture of the Day, January 19, 2010

Here we have today's Picture of the Day, decided upon after much deliberation (and obviously much more photographing of this praying mantis-type creature):

I chose this one because it was the most "mantisy." You can see its colors, and you can also see its antennae, buggy eyes, and evil-doing hands. All in all, a nice picture. Thanks to Angela for pointing it out after she saw it on a plant on our front porch!

I also included this one just cause it's such a great picture of Cucho "roaring." We're training him to open his mouth enough so that we can put our heads inside and impress our houseguests (if we've not invited you over yet, it's because we want the routine to be perfect before we show it to visitors).

That's it for today. Thanks for reading!

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Picture of the Day Catch-Up: January 11-18, 2010

With this set of 8 pictures, I think we'll be about up to speed with the Pictures of the Day. I may put up a few more pictures from our trip to the US sometime soon, but we'll see about that. For now, hopefully there's something you'll like in this set:

January 11th: For the first week or so after we got back to Costa Rica, it was windy as balls. It's hard to take a picture conveying how windy it is, especially when you don't want to go out into the wind, but I think this does at least a passable job.

January 12th: My classroom, after class. Although sparse by American standards (especially since school's not in session here until February), this classroom is still pretty nice. You should see some of the public schools.

January 13th: Someone spray-painted this message on the corner by where we live. I believe it was for a bike race or marathon --something like that-- but it's still good advice in general: "go up."

January 14th: The weather in Berlin is strange sometimes. Near sunset, especially, things get kinky. Angela and I went for a walk to her parents' house, and the sun was setting through a thick fog, which had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

January 15th: This is what they call a "receiver of coffee" here, but I believe we'd call it a depository. It's where the farmers drop off and measure their coffee at the end of each work day, and then the trucks take it down the hill to the Co-op's processing facility. In any case, I passed this depository on the way back from work late one evening, and it was all lit up, but closed and lonely.

January 16th: Speaking of coffee, there's nothing like a cup of it after a "long" day at work.

January 17th: This was a pretty lazy day. I worked in the yard moving dirt for a few hours, but then I sat in the sun and read "The Left Hand of Darkness," which Lucy loaned me. I love the back patio on a sunny day!

January 18th: Ah, the joys of trying to teach English right next to Palmares' annual two-week Festival. There was an elaborate 10-minute fireworks session near the end of my class last night (there's a video on flickr, if you want to see one of the multiple "false grand finales"). It's certainly pretty, but not conducive to hearing if my students are pronouncing "ship" and "chip" correctly.

Well! I believe we're now officially caught up! Thanks for reading, and check out the following links if you're interested in more pictures:
My flickr Page
January Pictures of the Day
January Leftovers
SeeVida (with pictures from multiple countries and contributors, including me in Costa Rica)
December Pictures of the Day
December Leftovers

If you're not familiar with flickr, you may not know that with each of these photo sets, you can view all of the pictures in a slideshow. Just click on that icon, near the top right of the page.

Thanks again for reading, and have a good day!

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