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8 June, 2004 As requested, puppy pictures! Even a video (short and small, but moving). Calypso (we think that is her name) is doing great- she has recently learned how to bark and growl a little... we suspect she thinks that she is acting tough, but mostly we laugh our butts off when she barks or growls at us. Last night was our first experience with a vet in Tamarindo. A lot different than the states, that's for sure. The vet came to us (well, to Caly's old house where all the pups were reunited for the visit) and did a quick exam of each and gave them an injection. This was all done on the front porch, on a picnic table, and he had a headlamp on to make sure he had enough light to see well. After he was done looking at them all, we chatted for a bit about general puppy care advice, paid up the bill, and he was on his way. The total bill, by the way, was about $7/puppy. I can't imagine that our vet in the states can even buy the vaccines for as little as $3.50 each. And house calls.... what luxury! To top it all off, it was a great opportunity to get all the pups and mom&dad back together for an evening. All the dogs seemed to enjoy the reunion. Whether it was the shot or the party, Caly came home and crashed out for a nice all-night slumber.
4 June, 2004
26 May, 2004 23 May, 2004 Big News, Sandcruiser fans! We've actually done an update! Unbelievable. We know. Try not to be too overwhelmed. We thought we'd go through all that's been going on in the last year, but let's treat it as though YOU'VE been the slackers and have simply MISSED the last hundred or so episodes of sandcruiser.com. HA! So now, you lazy bums, you'll just have to pick up where, we, uh . . . you, uh . . . where somebody left off! Recap of last episode: We left our heroes stranded -- oh wait, no! We mean happy as the proverbial clams in Costa Rican paradise. Or was it homeless, helpless, brainless in Greenland! Crap, we keep mixing our metaphores. Or movies. One or the other.
But to set the record straight, we are still currently alive, happy, with home and with some brains left. We tend to loose quite a bit of the latter in the waves -- and yes! we are both surfing. Steve better than Bb, but she's missed out due to extended stays in the U.S. Pity. We're currently working on building our house, or rather just getting the bloody plans drawn up and approved; and now have a bee in our bonets about building a tree house/lookout point/widow's walk/ocean view tower from the back of our lot. Steve is fearful it won't look right. Bb just wants to get the darn thing up! Who cares if it looks like crud, the rest of the house won't be built for another three years at this rate and by then we won't need the house -- we can just sell the land! Real estate is still Steve's gig, so if you're interested in what it looks like and costs, drop him an email. Pretty soon here bbcostarica.com will be up and running with gobs of information, but since the squeeky wheel gets the grease... Sandcruiser came first. Beebee's jewelry is keeping her busy full time. Check out her latest (and come to think of it a lot of her older work too) at www.jocelynbroyles.com Enjoy the pics and have fun getting to know us again!
And.... as if that weren't enough, we are doing a new Journal! Yep. Sandcruiser is finally taking advantage of a technology that, had it existed in 99, would have been a godsend for us and just about completely obviated the need to waste HOURS learning html. So- go take a quick look at the new Journal , be sure to fill up our mailboxes with comments on the format and whatnot and maybe we'll get this darn site back up and on its feet again!
Ok, quick recap: go to the Journal to see what we are up to these days. We are going to try really hard to update that at least once every week. Maybe even daily. This page will eventually change some, but most of the news will be here, on the journal. 1 February, 2003
Wow. It's been a little while. Since Steve's sister is having a baby today, we thought we would make a real quick update to let everyone know that we are in Tamarindo and doing fine. Keep checking- pretty soon here we'll post some new pictures and spin some new yarns about the last few weeks. Our pal Brian Sullivan is visiting and enjoying himself. Ted and Jessica are also visiting and also enjoying themselves. Everyone is happy and healthy (except for the occasional traveler's grief). 7 February, 2003 An update!!! An honest to goodness update!! Still lacking photos, but at least there is a journal now. You can also check out some cool photos and stories at Ted and Jessica's site. And because so many of you have asked, here are some shots of our new digs. Unfortunately, our trusty digital camera seems to be on its last legs, but we've tried to make the shots decent. Enjoy! 10 February, 2003 Our close pal Brian (actually more like one of our favorite people) and his cousin Molly (who is also really cool) are here visiting. Because we are a little sick of journaling, and because Brian is really funny, we've decided to try out something new here on Sandcruiser: a guest opinion. From now till he leaves Brian has the microphone. His comments will be denoted by italics- Just to help us all keep it straight... read on, send complaints to Brian, not to Steve and Bb. 26 Feb, 2003
Ugh. Bb is still under the weather. This tropical flu has really been a bummer for the two of us. Steve spent an entire week feeling awful with temps up as high as about 102. Bb has been lucky in that she seems to have escaped the fever and has merely been congested and achy. Regardless, we've been a sick little family here and are more than ready to be healthy again! On the plus side, we've enjoyed getting to know some fun neighbors: Sam and Jill are here for a month or so from Vermont and we've been chatting with them in the evening, loaning them Bubba for various errands, and generally making pals. Bb has also been working down at the Sharkbite to help out Willie and Janet and Doug. Well, mostly Doug as Willie and Janet have been in San Jose having a baby. Well, mostly Janet has been having the baby. We guess Willie was mostly just hanging around. But either way, Bb has been helping, which has been fun for her and we've been eating a lot more sandwiches, which is fun for Steve. Bb has also been enjoying some nice success on the retail front here in town with her jewelry and is super-excited at having discovered that another new friend, Natha, is a metalsmith from the states. They've been swapping notes and jewelry and encouragement and having all sorts of fun. Steve continues to try to sell real estate here in town and has actually been pleasantly surprised at how well the new job is going. He has been fortunate to hook up with what he is sure is the best outfit in town, which helps an awful lot. US/World politics continue to amaze, amuse and confuse us. Now that we only get a little bit of world news, mostly by internet, we are finding it awfully easy to drift away from learning about the "big" issues. Certainly we are also distracted by the local "big" issues on a daily basis. For example, Steve has been without a phone at work for the last few days because of a mixup at the phone company. They misread an order to move our phones to our new offices and thus moved them a week early (the new offices don't have a phone junction box nor electricity yet!). It only took us two or three full days to track down the right person to find out what the heck had happened to our lines. It shouldn't take more than another two or three days to rectify the situation, we hope. Scrambling for such basic luxuries as full-time phone service has proven to draw our attention away from the intracacies that we found so fascinating in our former lives. Oh, and the beach. Going surfing is more fun than reading news. We've updated Brian's Journal and given him his very own section. We hope to have more from him shortly. He only left us about 10 days ago but when we haven't been miserably sick we've really missed his company. We have noticed, however that being sick and not having three houseguests has made our beer supply last much longer! 18 March, 2003 (Brian's Journal updated also!) Holy cow. This is actually beyond the pale of ridiculous. Now we know why everyone has been sending us mail asking for updates (and in some cases even mild threats to stop reading our site!!). It really has been a long time since we've updated. Today it is steaming in Tamarindo. Temps are in the high 90's, but we've got weird unseasonable humidity that makes it feel much hotter. Yet all in all, it is better than yesterday and the last several. It was really hot then. We've heard reports of rain nearby, and even a rumor (we don't believe it) that it rained in Tamarindo. That would be the first time in many years that it has rained in March. Steve spent the morning unsuccessfully trying to change both motor mounts on Bubba. They were both broken, so she's been puttering around with the motor just sort of sitting on the mounts. Scary. But also a pretty huge testament to Toyota engineering as surely many vehicles would had serious problems with the motor only attached to the transmission and nothing else. Working on cars here this time of year involves getting up very early (5:45) and skipping coffee to get under the greasy and dusty car on a dirt road. 6:00 a.m. is waaaaay to early to be sweating like the proverbial sinning church attendee, especially while rolling around in the dust. Yuck. And without even the benefit of coffee. Next time he'll remember the coffee. Yesterday, for example, Bb made coffee while Steve was replacing terminals on the battery and topping it off and tightening random shaken-loose nuts and bolts (two of the screws for the side-cover on the motor were literally hanging on by their last thread) and grounding the headlights.... and those jobs behaved just fine. Must have been the coffee. Regardless, working in the morning is great with respect to heat and it encourages the heck out of you to finish up before the sun hits you. Once that fiery orange ball (mostly bright yellow on account of the unseasonable humid haze) is beating down on you, you've only got another hour at the most before the sweat pouring off of your limbs, chin and nose starts to actually prevent you from seeing or holding onto the tools (why has nobody ever thought to make PADDED grips on ratchets?). Safety goggles are good magnifying glasses when they get a pool of sweat on the lens, just in case you are ever really pressed for reading glasses and only happen to be looking down. The other nice thing about working in the morning is that it means that (in theory, and only with coffee, apparently) you can still wrap up, take a shower and head to the office for a day of talking about Tamarindo real estate. At least we are in our new offices, which are pretty darn nice in that they have an ocean view and are more spacious than our old offices. And a few days a week Bb is coming in to help answer phones, which is great for Steve cause now he gets to hit on the secretary, and great for Bb because she can spend a few moments here and there on the internet looking up news and stuff. She was starting to feel a little too withdrawn in her little artist's studio. And as much as we don't want to admit it, a little air conditioning can feel pretty good. But just a little, which often leads to minor disputes at the office as some of the other inhabitants prefer cooler temps than we do. At least we can always go outside to warm up, lizardlike. With the heat here these days, it doesn't take long. Speaking of heat- Joyce (Bb's mom) was here for a couple of weeks and seems to have loved the area, except for the heat. It was unusually hot while she was here and it is supposed to be hot right now, so "unusually hot" translates to hovering just below 110° F (that's nearly 44° C for those of you whose countries employ a rational system of measuring things). But she seems to have been super-enthusiastic about things we did, despite the heat, and really enjoyed Monteverde (where Steve and Bb were freezing). While we don't expect a journal from Joyce (though it is tempting to institute a new visitor policy of including one) the two things that she would probably be most excited about were the arribada (mass arrival of Olive Ridley turtles to lay eggs on the beach) that we saw and the pleasure of sitting out in our outdoor kitchen every morning drinking coffee (again we see where coffee improves morning activities) and watching as about a dozen different species of tropical birds would fly, hop or walk into view for a while. We have quite the regular crowd, including some rufous naped wrens (they hop), a mot-mot (one of Steve's favorite birds other than pelicans, which are always his favorite, they fly) and some woodpeckers (they mostly walk/hop). There were also several notable visitors including black-headed trogons, tropical gnat-catchers, various hummingbirds, baltimore orioles, magpie jays, grackles, various parakeets, parrots, several little yellow birds (LYBs) and the ubiquitous boat-billed flycatcher. Surely we are leaving something out, but since our bird readership has never been particularly big (talk about hunt and peck typists!) this list will just have to do (Oh! she also saw a Quetzal in Monteverde, for which she acted a lot like a little girl on Christmas, it was cute). The point here being that Joyce really liked the turtles and the birds and we were glad she enjoyed seeing them here with us. Now that Joyce has returned home, we are once again enjoying having the place all to ourselves. It isn't a big apartment, so while having guests is a pleasure, it is not a pleasure made without a minor sacrifice. Since we've moved in (almost three whole months ago!) we've only had about eight nights without a visitor. Since nobody else has mentioned to us that they are coming soon, we are looking forward to spreading out a little and having the place to ourselves for a few weeks. For those of you have expressed dismay over a lack of recent photos- there are these below, and there will be more coming soon as Steve has just recently gotten a whole bucket-load of film processed and will be scanning as time permits. Our little digital camera has been a trooper for the last couple of years- it got (ab)used hard keeping the site going- but alas it seems to have mostly given up the ghost. It still works, but more of the images look lousy than look good. That, of course, makes photographic updates to the site much slower, so please bear with us.
27 April, 2003 Still alive and kickin! Mostly paddlin, actually. It took a few weeks of solid effort, but the surfing bug has finally bitten Steve. 'Bout time!! After living most of his life in California, including seven years in San Diego, it took friends bringing us a board (thanks Brian!) to get Steve out into the water on a regular basis. Now he starts just about every day with a few hours of surfin before heading into the office. Bb is also learning. Which of course means that now we want two longboards... but we usually manage to share in that Steve goes in the early AM and Bb usually goes at sunset while Steve body surfs or just enjoys the view.
Since our last update we've made a few trips to Liberia or San Jose for various things, but no other major travels or big news. On one of the trips to Liberia we dropped off about 20 rolls of film, which Steve has been (slowly!) working his way through with the scanner, so we've got some more pictures to post (though none very recent). If anyone out there has a Nikon dSLR that they don't want, we would be more than happy to give it a good home (a $1,700 paypal transfer would be fine too). It would sure make the photography aspect of this site a lot easier. Hey, it is worth trying, right? Actually, we've been feeling lucky with digital cameras this week. We thought the little Canon A50 (the machine behind most of the imaging on this site) was finally dead, but after some tinkering we seem to have revived it. It is still losing all detail in highlights, but at least it can capture images again. Maybe we'll even update more often.
To see past journal entries, you can follow the links below or you can just start at the very beginning.
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