If the internet were portrayed as a musical, this could be it.

Found here at But You’re A Girl.

It’s a shame to become so popular after someone dies. I guess in Michael’s case so extra popular (since he was so much more famous in the past and not so much lately).

And it’s always shame for someone to die so young.

Rest in Peace Michael!

Went to the Red Bull Air Races this year, it was fun. A bit of waiting here and there but it was great. Don’t really know anything about airplanes or races, but it was cool to see on the river.

We were down by Hart Plaza on the Detroit side. Lots of people, we had tickets, I I’d thought you could have just wandered down there to watch, but it was all cordoned off.

The sky could have been sunnier, but then I’d have complained it was too hot, but my video would have been nicer in that case. This video was just shot on my Canon 1100 digital still camera.

I’ve got some other photos (and zoomed in video) but I can’t find what I need to get them on my Sony camcorder….

If you’re not a Watchmen fan you probably won’t find it very funny.

Here’s the direct link to Dr. Manhattan’s Pants.

Just some photos and video of the Chicago area while I was rollerblading around the Grant Park area. Just some free time before WordCamp Chicago 2009 starts

We do this in Michigan when Detroit sports teams are in the championships.

Nothing really exciting in the video other than it’s a nice bridge and it’s a nice day. You can see I’m getting pretty tired as I near the top of the hill.

This might be a good test of the new Image Stabablization features in the iMovie ‘09…

#wcchicago

This has happened to me several times at Kohl’s Department Stores. I’ll return something after paying my bill and while I might buy something there I’ve still got a credit with them (i.e. they still owe me money). So they send me a refund check.

This time it was only for $8.37, and after a month or two they mail me a check refunding me the amount. For one thing, it’s a pain, I have to go deposit the check and it’s not not for a very big amount. And (B) it’s not like I won’t be shopping there again. This has happened to me a few times before, I think always for small amounts. It just seems a waste on many levels, time, stamps, billing, etc. (I understand the computer just spits it out, but there is still expenses); not even to mention the non-greenness of it. BTW, Kohl’s is the only credit card that I have that won’t automatically deduct a bill from my checking account.

Better yet, they should mail me the check but tell me I can take it to any Kohl’s store and can redeem it with the attached five dollar coupon or (better yet) one of their 30% off coupons and get me to spend more in the store. In theory I’ve got this ‘found money’ plus whatever bonus they might offer me. They’d have to put limits on this so people don’t scam the system, but it’s not like they don’t pass out similar coupons all the time. It would have cost them nothing to put such a thing in the same envelope.

Another thing, mailing checks to people’s mailboxes when they aren’t expecting them strikes me as a security thing; now this wasn’t a large amount, but I really don’t want large checks sitting in my mailbox when I’m not expecting them (or when I might throw them away).

On a side note: I called a friend today and they were shopping at Kohl’s and I thought “I haven’t been there in a while” and instead of running over there today, I’m sitting here blogging about their weird refund policies

Why doesn’t anyone have a bike rack any more? It’s a pain in the ass when I need to park it somewhere. I’m being healthy and ecological and have to climb in the bushes to find a place to lock it up. The only thing around with one is the library. Although I guess since I’m at McDonald’s, healthy isn’t the first thought in my head.

I’ve got these stupid songs from Glee (that link goes to a free HD download of the pilot), running through my head. The two songs in particular are You’re the one that I want from Grease and Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey. Kind of a cute show, most of the adult characters are pretty lame though (the women especially). I just noticed they’ve got the cast doing Don’t Stop Believin’ at iTunes.

I think I need to go see Night at the Museum II and/or Terminator Salvation some time this weekend.

It’s another awesomely sunny day out too!

So when I was last in Costa Rica I saw this guy wearing shoes similar to these.

Direct link to Higher Quality video.

They’re a little thin on the soles and I never go barefoot so I’ll have to see how these work for me.

Here’s a similar pair at Amazon.

I’m bumping this to the top since I’ve posted some updates below…

So I get an e-mail from iTunes today stating that an episode for my new season pass for “Sophie” has arrived. The first thing I thought was that I accidentally clicked “buy season” when I downloaded the free pilot last week. But when I check the receipt I see six other items (in addition to the season pass) totaling $61.93! Not only that, I see another order for $5.97! Not a chance that I placed these orders (fyi,they were placed at 1 am and 5 am).

Here’s the really strange part: Almost all of the purchase was videos (tv, movies, movie rentals) and I think those kinds of videos still have DRM in them and no additional computers were authorized. What good are these to anyone if they didn’t authorize a computer? Can they even play them? Wouldn’t it have been easier to have just downloaded torrents of these files? These oddities make me think it’s an accounting error.

So I had to “report a problem” to Apple/iTunes for each of the 10 individual items. The e-mails went something like this:

I did not place this order for any of the 3 items on this order. Nor has my computer downloaded these items. It’s order XXXXXXXX I also have another order from today (ZZZZZZZZ) that I did not place.

I’ve changed my password as a precaution. I also tried to play some older protected/DRM’d music and it still plays (so I’m guessing if someone hijacked something they didn’t deauthorize my computers).

Gary LaPointe (phone ###-###-#####)

PS – These purchases don’t even meet my normal purchasing patterns.

My responses appear to be identical other than contact info (and I only got one response for each of the two orders):

Dear Gary,

My name is Jane Doe with the iTunes Store. I’m so sorry to hear of the unauthorized charges made with your iTunes Store account. I can certainly appreciate your concerns, and will do everything I can to assist in having this resolved.

With regards to financial reimbursement for the charges in question, these would have to be removed by a specialized team, designated to handle requests of this nature. I would urge you to contact your credit card company as soon as possible to inquire about canceling the card and removing the unauthorized transactions. A member of your credit card’s fraud department will contact the iTunes Store directly, and this team will resolve the issue. I apologize that I’m unable to remove the charges myself, but all unauthorized transactions must be handled in this manner.

If you suspect you are the victim of identity theft, please consider following these recommendations:

(they then gave 14 lines of tips that I cut out)

I sincerely hope that you are able to resolve this matter with the help of your credit card company, as soon as possible, Gary. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Sincerely,

Jane Doe
iTunes Customer Store Support

Please note that I work, Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 12:30 PM – 9:00 PM this week

The identity theft issues don’t even make sense. Why would someone steal my charge card number and log into my iTunes account? The CC number won’t even get them into my account and if they had a CC number, they could just create their own new account and I wouldn’t have know about it for days. And Apple doesn’t display the account number. I’m thinking, it’s an accounting or some bits on the web got mixed up. And the responses were generic enough where I’m not 100% sure they read the post.

I did notice they they did include their working schedule, which was even evdifferent for the two different people who responded (neither of whom were named “Jane”), it’s a nice touch but they both had the same return address (although the “follow-up” code could possibly redirect it).

I responded with:

Jane,

I will have my charge card company dispute/remove the charges as you said to do below. I have changed my password.

I have four (4) questions below in bold.

Unless I’m mistaken, they only gained access to my iTunes account. They don’t have my charge card number, iTunes doesn’t display the number for them to see, correct? A charge card number will not get them into my iTunes account. If they actually have my charge card number, I’d think they’d charge more than $70 of music/videos and

So this is either someone guessed my password (which was letters, numbers and non-alphanumeric characters) or some data packets got mixed up as someone else was placing their order. Since I have the two authorized computers in my possession and I know no one else was here using them, I’m assuming the latter.

Can someone actually download songs/videos to a non-authorized computer if they guessed my password?
Since videos still have DRM, someone wouldn’t actually be able to play them, correct?

Someone at the iTunes Customer Store Support can’t actually intervene in some way, at least to stop someone from downloading the season pass?
If it’s just an accounting error, it’s still going to download the season pass to my computer the next time I purchase a song.

Without my new password I’m assuming someone cannot download more of the season pass. I don’t even see how they could have in the first place without authorizing a computer.

Thank you,
Gary

And I can’t even dispute these charges yet since they haven’t fully been charge to my credit card company yet.

If anyone from iTunes/Apple is reading this and wants to fix this. You can leave a comment below or contact me directly.

UPDATE:

Wow! Lots of people with similar problems these last few weeks (see comments below), but I’m the only one that didn’t seem to have gift cards purchased on my account.

So it looks like my charge card is refunding the two dollar amounts to my charge card. This is contingent to Apple not disagreeing with my claim. FYI, after I said it was kind of stupid that they weren’t going to cancel the season pass since I was disputing it and they were still delivering the shows, Apple did contact me to say they would refund the rest of the season pass (right around the same time).

PS – It appears the Apple does not allow you to cancel a season pass! This is insane, it’s to their benefit to get you to subscribe, the fact that you can’t cancel is a non-motivator. Obviously if it was a discounted season pass and you canceled it, you’d pay the full price for episodes already received. Just seems like an obvious solution.

I still don’t understand what they are doing with these iTunes protected movies/shows if they can’t play them? Why not just download torrents off the ‘net if they are going to steal?

TGIFriday’s is a sit-down casual restaurant chain in the US, I think they’re all over. They’ve got a deal for penny appetizers and buy an entree get an entree for a dollar.

If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it’s that awesome of a deal:
0) Print the coupon and read the fine print on the coupon.
1) Sign up for their “Stripes” (frequent flyer) program and they’ll mail you the coupon within 24 hours.
2) Go to the bar and eat an appetizer for a penny (any except the two big sample plates).
3) You must order a drink (doesn’t no have to be alcoholic).
4) The e-mail says to move to the tables to order the entree, but it seems they don’t care.
5) It’s one coupon per person: So two people can get one appetizer and two entrees for somewhere about $11.01 (1 penny + two $10 appetizers) plus your drinks.
6) Don’t forget to tip your wait staff based on the price before discount.
7) They then generally tell me to proceed to come back again to use the same coupon until April 30, 2009. FYI, the coupon I have does not require the card so you can print more. Come back here and tell me what great deal you got!

You could use this for two people for two one-penny appetizers with two of that coupon. Ask before you try this, but I’ve done it once.

Obviously, if you don’t like TGIFridays, it’s not that great of a deal.

Totally funny spoof of Malin Akerman’s roommate giving tours of their apartment (while she sleeps).

Here’s the direct link to the Watchmen Tour with Malin Akerman at Funny or Die.

Heard there was another earthquake felt in San Jose, Costa Rica. Actually, I saw a tweet from The Tico Times when they felt it. USGS reports that it was a 5.7 about 175 km (110 miles) SSE of San Jose. I was kind of worried after the last big one.

A 5.7 should be a bit less than the last one and it was centered in the water, but it was in the bay of the Osa Peninsula by Golfito. I’m hoping there won’t be as much devastation as the last one.

UPDATE: And this is followed four hours later by another quake of magnitude 5.9 just a few miles away. I’m not sure what makes this a new earthquake and not an aftershock, but @TheTicoTimes stated it that way.

LATER UPDATE: Looks like no injuries and very limited damages. And depending on where you look the magnitudes for the bother of the above range from 5.5 to 6.3. Here is an image from the Tico Times. They’ve got an article up, but I’m not sure how long until they rotate out the article.

A very cool video of building a virtual world from the inside and it’s a love story too.

It’s done by the guy who did 405.

Here’s the high quality direct YouTube link. Found at The Fire Wire.

We don’t get another Square Root Day for another 7 years, so be sure to celebrate wisely.

Today is 3/3/09 and 3 x 3 = 9 or more accurately (for today) the square root of 9 is 3. And the beauty of it is that it’s 3/3/09 no matter if you do day/month/year or month/day/year so it works for people all over the world…

Louis CK does a routine on Conan on why we live in the best times ever! And why we are all spoiled brats. I have no idea who this philosopher comedian is, I don’t think I’ve seen him before.

You only have to was the first 60 seconds (the good stuff starts at 30). I say that because you’ll be hooked by then and watch the rest (because it just gets better).

The direct link.

Found at EverydayGoddess.

Here’s a Valentine for all of you!

Historic Blockbuster Store Offers Glimpse Of How Movies Were Rented In The Past. A historical “field trip” on the way to rent videos in the past.

Here’s the direct link.

Another great venn diagram from indexed.

So I’m heading up north and thought I’d check the McRib Locater Map to make sure I didn’t miss an opportunity. I haven’t had one in years.

But as you can see by the map (click it a live map) that Michigan is completely bare. Please note that these points are put in by people, not McDonald’s so don’t be disappointed if there isn’t actually a McRib there…

So I just found a new video podcast called TMI Weekly, three women (life, tech, style) just doing a talk show type show. I watched about 5 episodes and I thought they were entertaining and informational. I actually found this because I saw it in the TiVo somewhere and all I had to do was click and I was subscribed on my TiVo.

I’m mentioning two non-similar episodes, both embedded below. One is the CES episode which held my interest and even the non-tech women seemed to have a blast.

The other episode was dealing with drinking (eating?) a lot of juices. Way more than I think I could handle. But they made it sound appealing.

I’ll check them out for a few more episodes. Or maybe dig through their past episodes. Their show is everywhere: iTunes, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter, etc…

On one episode they were wearing NonSociety T-shirts and when I went to that link the site (click on their personal blogs) it looked familiar, I know I’ve visited there at some time in the past, but I don’t remember when/what. It was before they started doing this show…

So a bill has been proposed to repeal the 22nd Amendment, it’s the one that says how long you can be president.

The title for H.J.RES.5 (111th Congress) is:
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.

Introduced 1/6/2009 by Rep. Jose E. Serrano [NY-16].

This is a direct link to the Library of Congress search results the actual document isn’t very long. If the link doesn’t work you can do the search yourself: go to the search and search for “H.J.RES.5″, be sure to change the search to “Bill Number” (make sure the 111 is selected at the top).

You know me, I’m not way into politics, maybe someone suggests this every year…?

I like this word cloud of President Obama’s inauguration speech that someone put together. Here’s a larger version of the cloud and a copy of the speech (I think this is who did the word cloud).

There’s also one for Obama’s Victory Speech.

FYI, the whole Inauguration Speech is available in HD.

So the CTIA (Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association) has asked people to only text during the inauguration and not overwhelm the cell services with photo images even though they are spending millions temporarily upgrading D.C. I’m not sure how they asked them, but that’s what the NY Times says.

Here’s the fun part! CNN has asked everyone to text them a photo of ‘the moment’. Then they plan to so a PhotoSynth which is to assemble all of the photos to show it from all different angles. The photo synth is a neat option to build a viewable multi-angle “photo” from all the images. If you’re on a PC you can see samples here (actually you can create your own if you have enough photos). Let’s see how that works out. (Found at the Skype Journal.

Here’s a good YouTube explanation of PhotoSynth.

Send your Obama Inauguration photos to CNN.

Follow up articles reporting: FOXnews, PCworld, MS-NBC, CNN, NPR. Sounds like it was spotty but many calls went through first time, but those were PR people from the companies so I’ll wait to see what the attending bloggers say…

It’s totally silly, but I thought it was cute (and it’s making the rounds).

It’s not as cute as my previously mentioned “Star Was as told by a 3 year old“, but how could it be?

I try not to speculate to much about gossip and things about people but Apple did release a press release on Steve Jobs health today. It was actually a letter from Steve to the staff with phrases like:

“In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.”

“I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.”

I hope everything turns out okay; he can’t be too happy that he’s needed to do this, doesn’t seem like that kind of guy (and I’m thinking he can’t be well if he’s doing this). Two, not having him in charge of Apple will shake things up a bit in the world (rumors do that enough as it is) for at least a few days.

Found at MacRumors.

Semi-Sidebar: I was going to make a comment like “and their stock didn’t do to good today, I wonder what time this was made public” but they did a heck of a lot better than Dell or Palm. It doesn’t look like the market as a whole did too good and Apple’s not that far off the curve.

Friday update – There is a nice “Get Well Steve Jobs” cartoon on Joy of Tech.

Friday update 2 – The Telegraph.co.uk has a health timeline for Steve Jobs, just click and take a peek at the pictures (the 6 mugshots at the top).

Spam isn’t anything I generally talk a lot about but this spam showed up a little differently. It’s a old internet scam but with some graphics and updated to try and get you to help them smuggle some money out of Iraq. It’s crazy that people still fall for these…

The next day: I got a much longer more generic version of this too, turns out I only get 30% and him and his buddy get 70%, that’s not even $3 million for me! What a rip off!

Costa Rica had a huge earthquake yesterday (Thursday, January 8th, 2009), 6.2 on the richter scale (I’ve seen reports that say 6.1). Just north of the San Jose area. This is the biggest one that I’ve heard of in Central Valley. The Tico Times has a lot of the earthquake coverage (you do have to do some clicking and scrolling, they’re mostly a subscription service).

They’re reporting about 23 dead with 11 still missing (at least that’s how I’m piecing everything together, I’ve seen numbers all over the place; as high as 30 dead). Lots of damage, mud slides and people trapped in various areas. 1,000+ people relocated and another 1,000+ stranded. If you check out the news stories from around the world there are definitely conflicting reports (especially on the death toll). Lots more earthquake details here and if you’ve got Google Earth installed there are some additional visual details if you click on the spot of the earthquake.

I can’t imagine the chaos and devastation that something like this causes. My thoughts an prayers go out to everyone affected by this…

I’ve been having a hard time getting my head around some of the damage, I found some photos at Inside Costa Rica and a video clip (in Spanish).

You can see many of the areas that felt it on this map, people can actually report it and that’s what feeds the map (don’t know how long they keep these on-line).

How many people are affected by this that I’ve met on my various trips down there? Places that I’ve visited or stayed at the I don’t recognize the names. I wonder how much it freaks out the tourists, imagine if they didn’t speak the language. I don’t speak Spanish well enough, in a crisis, without my translation book, I don’t know what I’d do…

There was a slightly bigger one (6.5 richter scale) in November when I was there, but I didn’t feel it and I don’t remember this much death and damage, but it was way at the south end of the country (I think it might have been in Panama) and if it was a few of my more isolated days I wouldn’t have gotten much news. My biggest earthquake ever was also in Costa Rica (4.3 richter scale) but most people didn’t even notice it (it was just after midnight).

A slightly erratic post but these thoughts have been in my head and wanted to share them…

I’ll add more links below:
Pictures from the Tico Times newspaper (more landscapes and buildings are towards the end).
Photos from al Dia from La Cinchona de Sarapiquí, Heredia
La Paz waterfalls had to close down. I believe some people took shelter there when the roads got cut off (I might be mixing the location up).

FYI, I’ve been updating the details in this posting daily, it was originally from January 9, 2009 but some of the details might be from up to a week later.

I love Indexed! It took me a second to get this one…

Jessica has a whole book of these called indexed (of course).

I know I should stop drinking bottled water, but I can’t. It’s too convenient to just grab a bottle on the go. It’s generally less than 17 cents a bottle when I purchase a case (this week it’s way on sale for 11.5 cents a bottle for an odd sized case of 35 at Meijer). I keep a case by the car in the garage and I take grab one to go all the time. I generally refill it as the day goes on. It’s just too easy to grab it and go; if I make it more inconvenient I might end up drinking less water and I probably don’t drink enough as it is (I used to hate drinking water).

And yes, I do understand that much of the bottled water is tap water.

Why am I talking about this today? Because I just read 10 Reasons To Stop Drinking Bottled Water over at The Good Human and I’m feeling a little guilty. The two statistics that really blew my mind were that it can take nearly 7 times the amount of water in the bottle to actually make the bottle itself and that on a weekly basis, 37,800 18-wheelers are driving around the country delivering water.

I will mention that at home I do drink tap water and while I prefer to run it through the Britta Filter first, it’s not a requirement. I do not open bottled water to drink in the house and I’m perfectly fine drinking non-filted ice from my freezer (hmm, I wonder if there is a filter on the freezer that needs changing?).

I just don’t see me washing out some kind of travel bottle to reuse over and over. If I drink two plastic bottles a day (and that would be a lot) we’re only talking about saving $2.50 a week (not counting purchasing and cleaning the reusable bottles and the time); wouldn’t I be better off saving a gallon of gas or two? I see me needing to get out of the house and wanting some water and the bottle isn’t clean or full or the Britta pitcher is empty or some other barrier stopping me; a few times a week I’d probably have to skip it and have to stop somewhere and buy a bottle for $1.50 which is counter productive. Maybe if I had 3 or 4 refillable bottles??

Been getting more and more sick the last few days, but (most importantly) made it through most of the holidays. The coughing got worse throughout Christmas day but the ultra-bad congestion didn’t start until nighttime and hasn’t stopped since. I’ve used my netty pot over and over; more times than I’ve ever used it in a day but it just won’t clean it all out (I use it all the time and I think it helps with my allergies and getting sick). I’d like to take a sleeping pill to help me sleep but I’m afraid I’ll drown/suffocate in all the mucus.

But other than the pounding headache, it’s really not that awful. It’s not too bad when I sit up, which is why I’m typing and not sleeping. I can eat and I’m semi-hungry so those are good things. I just don’t understand where all the snot comes from!

Hopefully you’re didn’t just read this over breakfast…

I swear that I eat more candy and desserts more the last two weeks of December than I do the rest of the year. Plus it’s usually mixed with a few drinks. Not a good mix for my stomach any time of the year let alone the holidays.

On the other hand it’s really nice to see friends and family!!!

I found this over at MacRumors. It’s the Simpsons at the “mApple” Store. The more you know about Apple the more inside jokes you might catch (including a poke at a 20 year old commercial).

Direct link to the mApple Simpsons video.

Just some photos of some of my meals from the lower Nicoya Peninsula. I thought they looked and/or tasted nice.

Sesame Chicken (Chicken dipped in Lime and Honey and rolled in sesame). La Narango resurant in Montezuma, Costa Rica. $7.50-ish

Big breakfast from the Soda Monte Sol in Montezuma, Costa Rica (2200 colones, just under $4). There is cheese in them Scrambled eggs! Server very fast!

Shrimp and Rice (Camarón y arroz) from a place in Cobano, Costa Rica. It was delicious, had lots of shrimp and it was cheap ($5 if I recall).

So Cobano is a nearby town of Montezuma it’s about 7 km away. It’s kind of the centralized place for the bus transfers, a few more restaurants, way faster Internet and some larger stores. Also it’s the nearest bank, ATM, pharmacy, gas station, hardware store, appliances, bicycles, etc. Even with all that, it’s pretty small. I was waiting for the bus the other day and shot this time lapse footage of the main intersection.

Here’s the direct link to the above video.

I also shot this photo of the sky as the sun was setting. I thought the colors were great!

So riding the bus in Costa Rica is cheap and it’ll take you anywhere. The problem is figuring out when the bus is going to be running.

In the bigger cities this doesn’t appear to be a problem, if you miss a bus another one will be by soon and if it’s not the right bus it’s still heading in the correct direction, just hop on. In the more remote areas (such as Montezuma) they probably don’t come more than every two hours so if you miss the bus it’s a pain.

The people closest to the bus stop seem to have the most reliable information. Restaurants and internet cafes have it written down, but they wrote it down ages ago. My trickiest problem is asking “when is the next bus?” and they tell me “it’s in 20 minutes” but that’s too soon for me so I try to find out about the bus after that and it’s no good; I have to come back in 25 minutes and ask again to get the info for the bus after that

The appears to be no schedule posted, even at the bus station in Cobano (a central town in the lower Nicoya Peninsula). I did notice the bus that goes from Montezuma to Cabuya to the National Reserve does have a schedule taped to the window (4 trips a day) with pricing and everything; as an added bonus, it generally seemed to be leaving Montezuma at the correct time! More info below.

Pricing is cheap though. In San Jose I took a bus for about 150 colones (28 cents) but honestly I don’t know far that would have taken me, it was in front of me heading the right way and it kept going once I got off. In Montezuma, it’s 300 colones (55 cents) to go to Cobano which is 7 km. away (a very hilly/dusty walk).

You can get a direct bus all the way to San Jose from Montezuma, but you might not get a seat and there isn’t any A/C but I think you can do it for about $8-ish (maybe $10 including the ferry ride).Montezuma to Cabuya to the National Reserve info: When I saw the schedule it said 600 colones to the Reserva and 500 colones to Cabuya (just over or under a $1.00). It leaves Cabuya for Montezuma at 7:20 am, 9:20 am, 1:20 pm and 3:20 pm (not sure what time it actually leaves the park). It Montezuma for Cabuya at 8 am, 10 am, 2 pm and 4 pm. Obviously they get a long lunch hour or maybe it doubles as a school bus?

So I think part of what makes Costa Rica (and other places I’ve traveled to in the world) so interesting to me is the learning that’s going on. Just going into a restaurant is a new experience, almost like when your parents let you order your own food for the first time. And many other basic things becomes a learning experience.

In Costa Rica if you don’t ask for the check (la quinta) they’ll never bring it to your table. In England, in a pub, you have to go up to the bar in order to get drinks or food and many places will let you sit until you figure it out. It’s part of the fun at least to me it is.

When I travel, I don’t just want the sights, I want the learning that goes with it. I’ll hit the local places off the beaten path specifically to figure things like that out. In Costa Rica, taking the bus (the bus another post to come) or getting a driver’s license is an experience that lets you figure out how things work in that country. I find all those parts particularly interesting and enjoyable…

UPDATE: Usually, I don’t update a post as much as I’m about to…
But I’m reading a Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson, a humourous book about traveling in Europe. And he said.

I’m going to change the date on this so it floats up to the top, so if you saw it already, you’ll see it again for the new content…

Does anyone know where the Official Bus Schedule for Public Busses in Costa Rica is? A million sites list bus schedules but they’re all different (and mostly wrong).

I understand the busses don’t run on time. But there isn’t any reason for me to be at the bus stop at 11:30 if the bus isn’t until 12:30 (especially if it’s going to be late), it’s certainly not going to leave early.

While my life has been pretty cRaZy this past year it’s been awesome lately. I’m very happy with most parts of my life and I am looking forward to the future. It’s looking very promising with lots of things to be thankful for

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

On this holiday note, I have no idea what I’m having for dinner today. Probably not turkey since there doesn’t seem to be any in this part of the country

Haven’t been doing much the last few days. I’ve been experiencing the other Montezuma so I’ve been under the weather. Here’s a few recent photos all from the Montezuma, Costa Rica area.

This was my view from where I sat and had my lunch.

One of the water outlets to the Pacific Ocean.

I always like trying to catch photos of birds flying, but I’m never close enough.

A new canyon that I found

The waterfall two hours up the north beach.

You can’t click to enlarge these, larger versions will probably show up in some other album later…

I thought this was funny that someone stuck this sticker on their motorcycle.

So I’d really been looking forward to the fire dancing in Montezuma. I haven’t seen it done as much the last few trips and I knew it was on the schedule as entertainment for the Film Festival. It wasn’t the local group that I’ve seen do street shows before but they were excellent. Most had some kind of costumes or makeup on which added to the whole effect.

It’s hard to capture but I think these turned out pretty good. A few of the ones in the woman in costume I pulled from video I took so the quality might not be so great but I wanted you to see…

I only show a few photos here, the other dozen are here (including larger versions of them all) or click for the fire dancing slideshow (same photos).

This is a problem!!!

Someone else dropped something into the river and I made a grab for it an my camera fell out of my pocket. I meant to only leave it in that pocket for a minute when I thought the water might reach my pants pocket and I forgot to move it back. I’m am so bummed…

The lens was closed, it was under water for just a few seconds, I wiped it off with a dry towel immediately and pulled out the battery. Needless to say I didn’t take any more pictures, I had a few from today of the ocean and monkeys but I bet those are fine. I hope the monkey shots are, I got a monkey (with a baby on it’s back) that managed to snatch a shaker of parmesan from a restaurant and were eating it up in a tree!

Now the camera, the chip and the battery are in a zip lock bag with some dry rice (to soak up the extra moisture). I’ll leave it for a day or so and see how it is. Kitty litter is supposed to work well too, but I didn’t need a 25 pound bag of it in my tiny room.

It’s a great camera, I’d definitely recommend the Canon SD1100 with image stabilization. It’s been in my sights for ages and I recently found a great on-line deal for it from Dell (that’s where I bought my SLR Canon camera too).

I’ll definitely be adding the WP-DC22 Waterproof Case to my wishlist (assuming the camera still works). It’s good for 40 meters underwater (130 feet) and is supposed to also be great for “beach, rain and on the ski slopes”.

Later: Oops, it’s more expen$ive than the camera was!!!

I thought the tiny UPS truck was interesting.

I haven’t seen any other 3 wheeled vehicles this trip.

So went to get my driver’s license today. What a bureaucracy! The only plus was that it wasn’t very busy.

I knew this was going to be a hassle so I hired someone to take me there and work me through the process, it was $35 well spent. I would have spent that on cab rides alone.

Here’s the process we took:

So if you buy one of these at the airport is there any music on it? Is it even fully charged?

They should come with a sampler? or an audiobook! That’d make for a good impulse buy…

‘iPod vending machine…‘ uploaded by garylapointe

Wow!!! I was just looking outside the airplane window and and there in the sky were contrails from another plane that must have flown by recently. It looked very cool and I had never seen any from the air before. I hope the pictures came out okay! Yes, I know it doesn’t take much to excite me

Contrails are the cloudy streaks that an airplane sometimes leaves behind in the sky, right? That’s what I saw, even if I got the name wrong.On a side note – I need a good dictionary for my MacBook that doesn’t need me to be on-line to use it. Just a big PDF would work fine. Anyone know of anything semi-recent in the public domain or something? Or if I can purchase one somewhere? Something old enough to have copyright expired probably would not have “contrails” in it…

So the first thing I head this morning as the alarm went off was all about the icy roads in the Detroit area. Specifically between me and the airport. Not a good sign, especially since I didn’t have that much extra time allocated since it was a morning flight and I didn’t know about the weather before had. But all was fine, a little slow on the roads but I got the airport fine. The airport was dead, I’ve never seen it so quiet there.

Got checked in, got me a morning McSandwich and got to my terminal with just a few minutes to spare. Someone took the seat next to mine so I moved to the back row, no reclining but i’ll live. I’ve got an empty spot next to me, an adorable little 8 month old boy on his Mom’s lap that I was pretty excited about, he had been pretty friendly the few times I had run into him. I thought he was going to be a lot of fun but he passed out a few minutes into the flight (boring!).

It’s beautiful up here in the clouds. We’re just above them and the sun is lighting them up perfectly. Looks like snow, maybe more of how I’d picture it in Antarctica (or some other vast snowy land). My cell phone photos just don’t do it justice at all; should have pulled out the real camera.

Bonus! They just brought us a bowl of cereal (Total) and a banana, don’t know if I’ve ever gotten that for a non-international flight. I’m a much happier flyer if I’m snacking and staying hydrated, it really makes the flight more comfortable for me. On a side note, I can’t believe the number of people drinking mixed drinks already!

Random results thoughts – (these are based on my observations not statistical calculations)

I was suprised to get this e-mail a few moments ago…

Subject: Sold out but more to come
Date: November 5, 2008 4:46:47 PM GMT-05:00

With the announcement of a new president and high voter turnout, this election has proven to be historic on many levels. Due to numerous requests to purchase additional newspapers, more copies of today’s Free Press are being printed and delivered to local retail outlets and select locations in outstate Michigan.
They will be available Thursday morning.

It’s just not a typical e-mail that I get from my paper…

Smart marketing though!

15 minutes later – I seem to have gotten a second copy of the same message.

Results for the election are interesting. They’ve got Michigan listed as won by Obama, but only 20% of the precincts have reported. Now most of those being waited for are smaller precincts but there is less than a 50,000 vote difference. Does that even count all the mailed in absentee votes?

A few years ago (in the early days of the Internet) the first time the Michigan government put detailed election results on-line I was the person who put them on-line so I needed to know what time I needed to be available for the uploads. I’m not going to get into particulars (and I’m sure many have changed now) but if I recall correctly, it was way way after the news shows posted their results and after the newspapers printed the results before real tallies were even started. And (if I recall correctly) two of the bigger counties didn’t even get in their totals until the next afternoon.

And pay attention on sites where you see election results they say things like “Results are based on projections and unofficial returns. Candidates listed in bold indicate projected winner”.

But these early “results” are generally correct so I guess I can’t complain. But you generally don’t call a sports game until it’s over unless it’s a landslide. From what I’ve been watching (and it’s not much) just in the last 90 minutes McCain has gained about 38 electoral votes (with 7 states still voting and 9 states that haven’t been called yet) so it’s still got a ways to go.

But if it goes the way Dori predicted we don’t even need the other states votes we just need all the tallies from the precincts that closed by 9PM EST. Just so you know Dori is a computer person, not a political blogger and generally just blogs life and tech (who does occasionally blog political things). FYI – As of 10:30 PM her chart matches all the states we have tallies for so far.