Costa Rica 2008

Hola Amigos de Los Ustados Unidos! I have returned to the States safe, reasonable sound, and all in one piece. Last week my entire family ventured down South to Costa Rica for a week long adventure filled with deceit (not really), danger (really), drugs (not by us), delicatessens (lots of food), dogs (mostly wild) and delight (by all). We ziplined through miles of canopy, rafted through brown-water-turned-white, hiked to placid waterfalls galore, fed or were fed to various types of wildlife including cocodrilos (just say that outloud, it's really satisfying), macaws & toucans, spider & whitefaced & howler monkies, ais and their two-toed counterparts, a poison dart frog, lizards aplenty and a wild boar. We visited a lovely, live volcano (see photo #1) and bathed in natural hot springs at the foot of, and heated by, the volcano. It was pretty much like Dante's Peak. We enjoyed the beach and the rain and the family time, the culture and the Jungle and the Eco-tourism, the food and the fifteen passenger van we squeezed into, and the time away from work, school and problems. It was really a spectacular vacation, and I fear I have only given a brief smattering of what happened, here in my blog. Just know that Cost Rica is Costa Awesome!

My Face is Back in the Book, Baby

Well, I have an announcement and I couldn't think of anyplace better to make it than my widely published and well-read blog: I am officially back on Facebook. This announcement brings a myriad of emotions with it; some of joy, some of belonging after years of disconnect, and some of outright fear, like you get at the top of Sears Tower, leaning against the glass as you hear a soft 'creeeek' from the otherwise silent glass. Just as my beard is soon to come off, so has my inner technologically-impaired neanderthal passed on, a young sapling taking its place. Here's what my fear is: this really shouldn't be a significant point in my life, and yet I'm treating it like one. Of all the things I could blog about (my wife giving birth to our first child, my being promoted to CEO, getting my first patent, the passing of six significant family members), I chose to write about a social networking website? So let me just say that I am not obsessed with Facebook, and I am considering my recent affiliation with it as an exercise in will and discipline. Do not be surprised if my facebook resposes are retarded in length and my profile is delayed in information. Now that I am back on however, I will say that it is great to see so many friends' profiles again, and I thoroughly look forward to keeping tabs like a stalker on all of my new friends. Just kidding. But seriously, I have been nominated for The Longest Friend Confirmation Award, approximately 18 months.

A Man in a Woman's Club

My class went on a fieldtrip today, to the Belmont Women's Club. I was just grateful they let me in, frankly. Virtually the only think I have in common with the organization is the Belmont part... We walked through the pouring rain with not-a-few umbrellas and chaperoning parents. We were a good sight, causing heads to turn like those disjointed owls that you see on the discovery channel; you know the ones. Once we got to the Homer House, as it is called (Winslow Homer's uncle owned the house and Homer was known to paint there in the summers), we were greeted by a Victorian-clad octogenarian who gave us a speech about the living room. The staccatoed apex of the presentation came when the lady in charge asked me, in front of forty two students, two teachers and ten parents, "Which one is your child?" I would have been absolutely delighted to answer with a bit of humor ("I have the twins there in the front row"), but my teacher came to the rescue commenting that I was her teaching assistant. I was just thrilled that she thought I was senior enough to have an eight year old child! We got a tour of the whole house which was historic and fairly typical for homes of that era, and then got some ice cream and strawberries to commemorate the annual Strawberry Festival. The "Festival" has become more filiopietistic than practical since all the strawberry plants in the area have mostly been destroyed. The rain didn't drench out spirits, and the fieldtrip was a smashing success; I would rate the day with an A.