I guess it can't be sunny every day. Not a big deal though, its quite nice to get a good rain. I'm living in my house in Avellanas again finally, after how many months of having baby Happy in the states? I'm stoked for rain because I have a well, and the end of the dry season last year meant hardly any water in my well. Now the well is full again, just like that. The news says that we've received the entire month of May's expected rain in the last four days. I believe it. There is a very good side to rainy days, especially right now: great surf and no crowds. This storm has brought offshore wind constantly. Yesterday I surfed in front of WRSC a little bit after low tide, getting into some really good waves that would have otherwise been blown out had it not been for the weather. This morning I walked from my house to the beach in Avellanas and surfed the rivermouth, then walked down the beach and surfed Palo Seco and had some pretty good waves there too. I almost stepped in monkey crap in my yard, which funny as it sounds is a pretty normal hazard to watch out for when you live in Costa Rica. Whats worse is when the monkeys see you below them they try to pee on you, its totally true and can happen when you're not expecting it. I walked to the market in Tamarindo the other day and was surprised to see a huge howler monkey in the tree on the main road. not sure why I should be surprised, we used to have them around all the time. Maybe now that its low season again they're coming out more. A great side to low season (as it has suddenly become low season) is the lack of crowds in the water, so if you want to get away and get some great waves without tons of people like back at your home break, check out WRSC. We will treat you right. Tonight is going to be a big party here at WRSC, we're raising money for Luis Castro's knee operation. You wouldn't know it from watching him surf but the kid has a bad knee that isn't getting any better. The surgery is $3500 here in CR, we've already received donations from multiple people including a few very generous past guests. If you are interested just give us a call, Marcela is handling all of it. Its pretty awesome to see some of the locals in town pitch in, like Marco Pacheco donating a surfboard to be raffled off towards the cause. If you're in town and reading this, cruise by as we're having live music with two bands from 6-10, should be fun. If you're in San Diego, or soCal for that matter, and you want a surfboard, I'm selling quite a few. I will be putting photos and prices on my blog later today or tomorrow morning, as soon as I get the pics from Holly. I guess its almost six so its time for sin panza- hasta la pasta
I've left and come back. Actually, I'm almost back but not quite yet. I'm in the continental presidents lounge at Houston International, sitting at one of their work desks. Have I turned into one of those guys? You know who I mean. The Secret of My Success Michael J Fox of the 21st century with wifi and an iphone. Hopefully not. These days you can exist anywhere, simply using your laptop and do your work from wherever. That doesn't change the need for community, as in a solid place to call home. Costa Rica is in my blood, has been since I moved here when I was 23. I guess its ok to call Costa Rica home instead of San Diego, but its how I feel. Normally I'd be spending more time with my family, but we're trying to get out of our lease in SD early, probably selling a few things on craigslist or ebay. Is there anyone in or near San Diego who wants a sweet Witch's Rock longboard? I have three of them there and I don't need them. I also have a few Witch's Rock shortboards. All are slightly used but not abused. How about our dog Gus? He is almost six years old, a real sweetheart but seriously afraid of lightning, which makes living in Costa Rica tough. With two kids, a wife, and a job in another country I just don't have the time a dog requires. At least I'm being honest about it. He is a doberman lab mix, a really nice dog, just really big. 90 pounds maybe?... Let me know if you're interested... Besides trying to slow life down for the week, I took the opportunity of the new summer to give Otis the now-traditional head shave that I always knew I'd give my boys, when they were old enough to have hair. I wasn't done shaving his head when I took this photo. I just about died, realizing that I no longer have two baby boys but instead one baby boy and a little man named Otis. Here is baby Happy, about to turn four months old, chilling with me on the deck in OB yesterday. If you're shocked, its probably not nearly as much as I'm shocked. Yeah, I know I should get used to the fact that I have two boys, but it just doesn't sink in. Its awesome and crazy all at once. I'll write more once I get back to Costa Rica and get settled, whatever "settled" means. There is a BIG SWELL on the way, so that is always good news.... a coincidence with my arrival to CR and the surf? hasta- joe
thats what I'm doing. no need for the suitcase, I'll be back in a week anyways. I should just leave clothes here anyways. I will miss my Nintendo and RC Pro-Am, that has been a life saver. But I will be glad to leave the surf camp, I'm sick of working. Not that it isn't awesome to run a surf camp. Surfing, fooseball, rum drinks, salsa dancing, sushi, surfing, chilling with my dad under the palapa roof of the Sand Bar, Tico Hendrix drilling a Led Zepplin tune right about now, its all good. So is chilling with my little boys and momma bear, and some San Diego surfing instead. I got to see my mom and my uncle cory, its been a while. I'm glad to take some time with my family. We're hitting up the OB Street Fair on Wednesday, we're hooking up with Jeff Kearl and family from Skullcandy at San Onofre on Thursday, a week long beach trip to SD to chill with my family in my other life. How crazy an airplane ride can be, huh?
That picture describes the last twenty minutes of my life. Oh, that and I have this Modest Mouse song stuck in my head AloneDownThere.mp3 I was supposed to fly back to San Diego tomorrow but ticket prices went up $500 for the Saturday outbound flight and I decided it was better to move my schedule around on the other end so I'd have even more time with my family and fly out on Monday. Another couple of days living in my apartment above my bar, in Tamarindo, Costa Rica, with my family on the other side of the world. On one side its about as perfect as it could be, except for the having-to-work part of it and the fact that my family is happening without me. and it would be better if there was a bit more surf. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying... I feel like I've been working way too much, and I have. Its getting better, the surf camp is starting to do some pretty good stuff as always, but now I'm much more connected and seeing the light. I found this webcam floating around the offices and downloaded some 3rd party software, next thing you know the camera is working fine with skype. We have a mac desktop at home, with a built in camera, so the family just sits in the office and we have family time over the internet. What a trip that is. Its awesome, kindof weird, I'll find myself telling Otis to stop picking his nose or to stop hitting his mother or his brother without really being able to stop him. I wonder if he realizes that. Today he was in a bummer mood after getting two shots at the doctor, I would be too. I've been too busy to make my Zephyr newsletter, but anyone who is interested, Zephyr Eco Project is leasing part of it's property towards a zip line tourism business. The consultant named Brad is coming down on June 2, so is my friend Chris Hickman who is involved, partnering with ZEP. The zip line - waterfall tourism company actually started already in that we are currently under construction of the rancho that will serve as the restaurant/bar for the company, and for the eco lodge that will some day become a reality. The zip line/waterfall tour is going to be great as it will help bring in some funding for the eco services that we're working on there. My next side project is to turn the cooking oil from my restaurant into fuel for my vans and schoolbus. I know that I talk about a lot of crazy stuff, its only crazy because its normally not very related and you wonder how someone goes off to do something like make biodiesel in Costa Rica. I guess it just kindof happens if you're interested enough. Other random news, my backhoe broke and I'm out almost $400. Little things like that add up to big things which add up to me deciding that I need to do better planning. I'm still very happy that I own a backhoe, especially since if I don't need it I can rent it out. Oh, did I tell you the guy that I rented it out to last week stiffed me 70,000 colones (like $140), he thought $30/hour to rent my backhoe was too expensive. hmm.. ok. How much does it cost to rent a backhoe in the US anyways? The cost of a backhoe isn't just the diesel and the operator you know.... whatever, no biggie. There were some talks today between myself and a current/past WRSC guest (who happens to own a electrical services company in Maryland) to help to start sending containers of lower-cost solar panels and wind farm equipment to Costa Rica, so anyone who is interested in getting off of the grid in Costa Rica just let me know. The more buying power the better the cost. Tandem surfer Bear Waznick emailed me today because I met his friend Paully here on the beach of Tamarindo offering tandem surfing lessons to anyone interested. If you've been to Tamarindo lately you'll know who I'm talking about. He has a pretty sweet blonde surf mullet and is a big dude, a totally nice guy. To me, tandem surfing is just awesome so I was stoked. Anything that gets you out on the water is awesome. As for Bear, he is Co-President of the ITSA and they want to work with WRSC to bring a contest to Tamarindo on their world tour. Sounds like a pretty good party to me. I was chilling at the pool today (not in the pool, next to the pool) talking to a few guests, the biggest greenest iguana was cruising in the trees over the pool area. It makes me laugh that we have guests that find out we have a pool only after their second or third visit, its just so hidden yet so close. It trips me out to have so much wildlife in our "planter". No, not in the trees along the beach. In the small planter that divides the restaurant from some of the hotel rooms. We've had iguanas, parrots, monkeys, raccoons, snakes, all in a planter the same size as one you'd have in your back yard. I guess living in Costa Rica has its differences from Ocean Beach San Diego (except for the parrots, we still have plenty of those in OB) Check out my current favorite youtube clip (did I share this already? can't remember)
Its a Friday night and I'm on my computer, a total geek. I guess its the first time in a while that life has slowed down to remember what I did.
I think I was going a little stir crazy this week. I stayed upstairs from Monday when I returned from the airport until Friday night, except to get a coffee or a couple quick surfs. I've been in hiding trying to get caught up on work, having meetings, organizing thoughts, making phone calls. I got a lot done, I'm still getting a lot done. Finally the surf picked up on Friday, in the afternoon on Friday it was pretty fun even though its been a super high tide. yesterday morning I took Lyle (as in Monday nights live music with Lyle, he's my neighbor, he and Stacy live up on the hill with their kids and we hang a bit) out on the boat to that offshore reef for a surf. We got some pretty good waves, I saw Chilo on a wave that had a ten foot face, and I know that I had the biggest wave of the day yesterday, I'm not really sure how big it was, but it was good size. I was going to go on the surf tour, but when I changed the surf tour destination to "off-shore reef" I guess the three guests didn't want to go surf big waves, plus its been plenty of size in front of WRSC and fun. I surfed Casitas this morning with Flash. I've also been catching up on my fooseball skills, which is dope because a few days ago I was still rusty and lost a few games (could have been the drink) but today I schooled Rodolfo, Rafa and Jairo, over and over again. I sweat through my clean shirt after a shower, guess its so humid as its finally started raining. I'm stoked, stoked because the surf camp has seven open rooms, which means its slow in town because normally we're booked. The rains have been super light, but welcomed as they've cleaned up the surf a lot. I can't surf tomorrow as I'm leaving at 430am and driving to San Jose. I'm bringing Leo with me, so he can drive while I chill the f$%k out and read my Mens Journal and Maxim that my dad just brought me. Last Thursday Zephyr Eco made it's first money as a new company, so it was a day to celebrate. I rented the backhoe for 10 hours for $300. woo hoo. Its awesome :-) Now Chris Hickman and I are on the same page with things, tomorrow is the first official day of construction of the rancho, an open-air bar and restaurant on the top of the mountain. I'm waiting for Chris to send down the canopy tour consultant guy who is going to ensure that we don't build a zip line that kills anyone, simply one that makes you think you could die. I figure its kindof like an opportunity for me to do what I tried to do as a kid. I remember going to the True Value Hardware and buying a pulley and rope, then in the park of Portofino where I grew up in SD I tied one end to a tree and the other end to a lower tree, and a line of kids showed up from out of nowhere wanting to play with it. I just remembered that memory, and now I'm laughing because I've found a way to build a grownup version of it. The more and more I talk to people here at the camp, the more they are bummed on the canopy tour offered locally, the more I know that they are going to be really stoked on the zip line - waterfall tour that Zephyr is starting. For me I'm going to be stoked as it will hopefully give me the cash to pursue my sustainable development dreams up there. The restaurant is being built entirely with earthbags and powered by solar, all the wood is reforested teak and the roof is a giant, steep palm palapa. I am really going to enjoy working in the country on this project. I like construction if it isn't stressful or if I'm not running out of money, which is common when you're building. My dad is here, downstairs somewhere. Today is Mother's Day, and although I forgot to send flowers I remembered to call both my wife and my mom, and I'm planning on getting back to SD this next Saturday as I need a break from paradise and my family misses me and I miss them. Tico Hendrix is about to start, that dude is a lunatic. Seriously he is. I wear earphones and he resonates through them. If he could only understand personal space I'd like him a lot more. Still, I keep him playing at the bar because I appreciate how much of a lunatic he is.
I've been spending so much time on my computer lately that some of the time I just can't get myself to do any work, like when I'm eating a fish casado or one of my restaurant creations (current favorite is the new Witch's Tejano, a cheeseburger with bacon and BBQ sauce, mmmmm....) and I'll find myself on youtube and have been watching some of the most random stuff. Somehow I got to this clip and just started busting up laughing. It seems like something that would happen to me in a parallel universe, if I was a redneck. I just love Reno 911... It is currently 7:33pm on a Thursday night, I'm upstairs in my office. Not the Skybox, this room used to be my office up until a couple of years ago, about the time I started getting burnt and wanted a bit more space and moved the family to Avellanas. James took it over for a while. Now I again have it back. While the restaurant and bar are literally full of people having dinner (we're lucky and one of the busiest restaurants in tamarindo) I'm hiding away. I've been upstairs in hiding for three days, only appearing downstairs a few times when I went surfing once or when I skipped out and went to playa negra to hang out with my good friend Patrick McNulty aka Terminator. Pat is doing good, he and Scott Partridge, another hard core cop from Providence are down here for a few days. We had quite a few beers, actually the Playa Negra pizza joint ran out of beer and we had to drive back to Avellanas to continue the party. I ran into Alex, otherwise known as Pira, WRSC's version of Snyder the maintenance guy, he and my restaurant manager's cousin who apparently owns the soda Las Palmas in Villa Real was there, they had just returned from buying pargo from the Nicaraguan fish guy in Callejones. 2000 colones per kilo, not a bad deal. I ate a fish head that they fried up in the bar. I later got sick from eating said fish head, a stomach pain that didn't end until yesterday about mid-day. I called my family this morning, Otis picked up the phone. It just blows me away, how old he's getting. We're having phone conversations now... just crazy. check it out, I actually recorded part of our talk from today: talkingwithmykid.mp3 Obviously Otis is infatuated with the giant pig Lola that lives on the beach at Don and Christi's bar (named Lola's for good reason). He just loves that huge pig, won't stop talking about it. classic. The surf has been pretty small these last days, its about to jump up. I've taken the time to get a ton of work done. In an attempt to conserve on plastic cups the bar is now serving me rum and cokes in a giant beer mug, so there goes my attempt at taking a break from drinking. Are you surprised? I'm not. After working for 12 hours/day a few strong drinks allows my head to rest. You should see the things that are on my to-do list these days... definitely different than the surf camp I had a few years ago. I'm thinking more and more about the fact that the surf camp of today, no matter how awesome it has become, has become much more than the surf camp I originally intended to build. The camp does amazing numbers in sales, but the expenses are really high, probably because I don't have the heart to fire my staff unless its a worst-case-scenario thing. I'm not cut out for hard-core business executive type stuff at all, I'm like a teddy bear instead of a lion. I'm the guy you bring as a surf camp consultant, the guy that explains what a surf camp should have based off of what I'd want a surf camp to have. I'm not the guy thats supposed to haggle with my restaurant suppliers for a cheaper price on chicken breasts. I realized the hundreds, no, make that thousands of dollars spent in recent months on cleaning supplies. A little internet research later and we've found a way to make a completely natural 100% biodegradable cleaning solution from baking soda, vinegar and fragrances. Look at that, we saved money and we aren't buying toxic chemicals anymore, a total win-win. Its not all happiness though, as some of the people who have grown accustomed to getting a certain amount of WRSC dollars each month are horrified that I actually want to cut back on my expenses. Remember Ishmael, the singer of the calypso band? The guy I literally promoted for three years as a great music act in the restaurant? Well... as I've had to cut back on expenses I decided to cut back the days of the calypso band to two days/month. Ishmael is now suing me, claiming that he was my employee for this time and wants his liquidations. wtf is up with that? Dude, Ishmael, you're a musician that played a couple times a week in my bar, nothing more man. You never got a name tag or a paycheck. I can understand that you're stressed that now WRSC has to cut back a bit, but don't take it personally, there happens to be a recession going on, a food crisis....remember hearing any of that on the news lately? This new upsetedness applies to everyone from my lawyer to the ice guy, from Ana the cleaning lady that I love so much but that I had to let go because I just can't afford anymore to the company that services our computers. I invite anyone to spend a day in my shoes and see what its like running this show. Yeah, you're right, I'm living the dream, just sometimes it sucks a lot, especially since I have an art degree and not an MBA. I guess I'm learning it the best way though. At least I'm paying my mortgage every month, and some day I won't have that bill anymore. Part of me wants to go feral in Panama right about now, another part of me says that I should stay here and put in 15 hour days and make some scratch and make a long-term plan. What is my long term plan? uh..... Where are my kids going to school? uh uh...... Time has really gone by really quickly, even though its been seven and a half years. Yesterday a diver at Avellanas got attacked by a morey eel, the thing bit his arm and cut it down to the bone, pretty serious. Our surf instructor Carlos Arias happened to be there surfing, and since he has been trained as a lifeguard he knew what to do. An ambulance was called and he drove the guy towards town and met the ambulance and got the guy to the hospital. Stories like that go on and on. Its been really high tide and a really low tide, and people have been getting sucked out to sea with the low tide as the river has been pushing a lot of water out lately. Without lifeguards at the rivermouth its pretty much up to the WRSC instructors and guides to save the tourists these days, and we do. None of this information ever makes it back to the municipality though, or to anyone else in the town. Nobody lives on the beach like we live on the beach, so nobody knows what is really going on on the beach except for us. In an attempt to get more involved in the community Marcela went to the Pro Mejores meeting yesterday without me (due to eating a bad fish) and got the skinny on what the plan for this out-of-control growing city of a town. Supposedly even Pro Mejores has bypassed trying to work with the municipality of Santa Cruz and is working directly with the government in San Jose towards positive change. If you visited a government office here you'd understand whats going on, everyone is still using typewriters instead of computers. I'm not bitching, I actually like the fact that we're where we're at, I just wish the government got the big picture. I remember when Tamarindo had dirt roads, I remember when the news covered the Sunrise condos as the biggest development in Guanacaste (four stories high, woo hoo!), I remember when the surf camp was on the outside of town. Now we're in the middle of town with town's biggest high rise development being built right across the street. I'll never stop reminding myself how lucky we were in getting here when we did, before town started booming like Hawaii. Despite all of the craziness in the US with the economy people still want to chill on the beach in sunny and warm Costa Rica. I don't blame them. After spending this winter in San Diego I'd rather be in Costa Rica too.
Well, if you drove through Tamarindo you'd see that the high season has ended. Or at least thats what people tell me. I guess most of the streets are pretty empty, most all of the restaurants and bars are slow, even though WRSC is quite busy every night. We're lucky for that, I guess we've weathered the storm and have a dedicated following here in town now. I never go out anyways. I haven't walked further into town in the last month except to get TCBY once and another time to the market. I had Orange Chicken at the Chinese food place across the street in the new Rodamar complex once, and I took the family all the way across the street to El Coconut for a nice dinner last Saturday night. I've ordered Pizza Hut twice to the Skybox. I'm at the point in my relationship with my restaurant where I try to come up with as obscure a dish as I can think of and see if the kitchen can make it. I had pasta carbonara a few days ago, it was actually pretty freaking great. Thats life living on campus for the last month. I woke up at 330am this morning and got the family ready and drove them all to the Liberia airport, Holly, the boys, and my dad (did I say that my dad came down here last week? uh... ), PK flew back to help bring Otis and Happy, visit with my mom for a bit, and then come back down to help me sell my house in Langosta. I simply don't want the responsibility of owning a house anymore, the surf camp is hard enough and I can live upstairs and always have one eye on the waves. I've decided to stay at work and make sure that we have a great month. It is one of our lower months of the year and a great time to do those room-updates that never get done when we're full. I'm finally getting bus plates after two months of waiting, two months of van payments, and two months they sat in the driveway. I'm finally getting that outboard motor I've waited for months to get. Amidst all of this running about, crunching numbers on a laptop, and getting at least one good surf in each day, I come downstairs for a lunch break from work and Jairo and Maria start telling me that some guy came in with a gun looking for the owner of the place. Hmmm.... Of course you can understand that I was like "what the f$%k are you talking about??". Somewhere in my head I didn't think that they were telling me that a guy that I didn't know came in with a gun that he was selling, and that he was looking for the owner of the place, thinking the owner might want to buy a gun from a dude at the bar. Remember what I said a couple of days ago about this place being the wild west? Well down here either could have happened, you just never know! Fortunately I'm pretty caught up trying to do some pretty good things, I have no ties to drug dealers and I'm not involved in any organized crime. You can still understand the "lost in translation" scenario to enjoy the humor though, I'm sure. Yesterday was a pretty good day. The swell picked up three or four days ago (Thursday?), I've been getting pretty good waves daily. Chilo picked me up in front of the camp at 630am, we motored out in the boat to a reef that breaks on a good swell south of Avellanas. The abyss. An offshore reef with peeling lefts and ledging rights, offshore winds, just reeling. And pretty big. With all of this talk about sharks lately I couldn't help but think that we were floating out at sea and in the living room of some of mother nature's most dangerous creatures. Its not like sharks don't come into the beach area, but I imagine that when you go out of your way to hang out where sharks like to hang out, you're taking some kind of risk. It was worth it though, the surf was insane and I surfed for over three hours and got pretty tired and burnt. It was still worth it, even though I couldn't keep awake at 7 last night! I'm feeling pretty good about myself and the fact that I just downloaded a program and unlocked my iphone, now being able to use it here in CR with the local provider ICE. I don't think they meant to allow for that, but whatever. Got an iphone? www.ziphone.org So, besides surfing and sharks and dudes selling guns and unlocking my iphone, I'm happy to say that the Zephyr Eco Project is in the early planning stages of building our very own canopy tour. When you see the finca, a literal mountain top, you realize how much the property lends itself to becoming a canopy tour. We will all be zipping down 100 meter stretches of cable, 200 feet above the ground and tree tops, nothing but ocean views and that feeling inside of "I hope this thing doesn't break, what a stupid way that would be to die". I've thought a lot about that, and fortunately there are quite a few "canopy tour building companies". Of course there must be. So now my partner Chris is helping me to find the BEST one. I want the guy who built the Sky Trek one in Monteverde, because the Zephyr Canopy Tour is one of the highest points of land along this section of coast, and over 500 vertical feet drop. That kindof freaks me out just thinking about it. I'm off to watch some television and wait to hear from the family, arriving back in San Diego after being gone a month. I'm not sure how long I'm going to be gone and in Central America at work, especially since I have a Panama surf trip scheduled next week and there is one hell of a swell forecast for Saturday, huge south swell and going to go off. Maybe the point break in the Gulf of Nicoya?
