09-29-2003 10:00am I must be getting old. yesterday, there was this movie I wanted to watch on HBO. The movie was scheduled to be shown at 10pm. I went to the grocery store and bought some TV snacks around 5:00pm and I was ready to be a couch potatoe and watch my movie. until the movie began, I exercised a bit, cleaned the house and play on the computer. Sadly enough, I couldn't even stay awake to watch the begining of the movie. I fell asleep around 9:30pm. What is wrong with me? 09-23-2003 9:05am Yesterday, I got a nice surprise from this girl. We were at the bookstore and as we left, she gave me a book sh had just bought. "El Principito" or "The little Prince" or "Le petit Prince". What a nice surprise. An interesting thing is that she is the third person to give me that book. Of course, the first time was in French and then English, and now it is in Spanish. It is of course my favorite book in the whole world but I do wonder why women seem to associate that book with me. Especially since I never mention the book to any of them. Just got an e-mail from my brother and he was giving me the dates as to when he will be in Antigua, Guatemala. A town just 15-30 minutes away from Guatemala City that is full of history from when the Spaniards first landed. Hopefully, I will be able to meet him out there for a couple of days. Kris also e-mailed me that he will be coming down in October for more punishment. Presently, I have a cold and I hate it. Well, it's more like the flu but either way, it sucks. 09-15-2003 5:45pm Today is the Costa Rican Independence day. On the agenda, small barbecue, watch football game, rest. Here is a fun fact, the Costa Rica became independent from Spain a three months before any of them knew about it because it took that long for the message to get to them. 09-12-2003 6:40pm Alright, I'm forcing myself to write a little something in here because as a friend of mine pointed out today, I have been lazy with my weblog and some of my daily readers have been sending me hate mail. I don't really have any excuses for not writing except that I have been busy with work and a project of mine. Hopefully, You'll be able to see the part of this project by Christmas. This past Monday was "Children's day" in Costa Rica. So you go to a store with a child and the child gets candy. If the child goes to school, well they actually trade place with the teachers for a day so it's pretty fun for them. In other news, stay away from credit gambling. That is how you end up stressing out, getting your legs broken, and the payouts are really slow since you have to play the credit a certain amount of time and if you lose, you are playing the catch up game and more then likely will end up losing more money and not being able to pay your local bookie at the end. yes, I am a wiseman in my years. At home, I have a Tico stove. How do I know that, well, my stove went out the other day. I checked the fuses in the house and all of the fuses were fine. I didn't have time to complain to the landlord since I had to go to work but while I was at work, I talked to a Tico friend about the matter and he said that above the stove, there should be a box with a larg switch. That is the electric panel for the stove. Probably one of the wires burned out and I need to replace it. I went home to check and sure enough, one of the wires was cut in half. How ridiculous is this? I now had to go and purchase fuse wire for the stove. I mean, fuse wire hasn't been used for ages in the U.S. and these people still have it? The next day, I went and got a meter of fuse wire for the stove and it cost me about 175 colones or roughly 45 cents. Went home, and thought that I had turned all of the power in the house off and proceeded to install the new wire. Damn, I should have checked harder because next thing I know, I am thrown away from the fuse box by a charge of electricity and all I could see for a few minutes was sparks and colors. Thank God my stupidity didn't kill me. I am shaken up but now all of the power is cut-off and I finish the deed. yes, the stove now works. The next day, I am cooking some spaghetti and I am using three burners. One to cook the noodles, one to cook the sauce and one for the meat. HA, the fuse box begins to glow orange and then the stov goes out. hay Caramba!!!The fuse wire I used is not thick enough and melts if too much juice is going through it. Grumbling to myself, I replace the fuse wire again and using whatever logic I posess, I come to the conclusion that I can only use one burner at a time. Argh, I hate this place. Tomorrow, back to the hardware store to get some heavier gauge wire unfortunately, I forgot the name for it in Spanish. Another thing I noticed in the news is that many actors, actresses, singers, etc.. have left this world for a different one. Now, I grew up with these people and now that they have begun to die out, I wonder... Does that mean I am getting old?(cold draft just passed me and I am now shivering.) As I close this log entry, I just want to say that I am alive and well and will try to respond to e-mails ASAP but I make no promise of it. P.S. Will try to add pictures to this entry later.