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archives push me to post webmail :: xenii mail the hive :: for trading and raiding polymorph :: a cosmographia universalis chrisnelson.ca :: chiefwagonburner has a blog fortune cookie distro :: x's distro
No, we didn't get a chance to make it down to the Osa area. We wanted to head down there, but we also wanted to see everything else. Travel takes a significant amount of time and we were only there for 7 days so we just concentrated on a couple spots - figured we would come back and do the east coast and Osa. I tried starting to write a bit about my trip but it would be pages long. So here is the short of it: 1 day in La Fortuna (Arenal volcano), drove around the lake to Santa Elena (nice drive but rock roads the last bit.. and when I say rock, I mean rocks the size of your head) where we stayed for a couple days. I really liked the town, we did a few tours in and around the cloud forest, quite amazing. Then we headed down south, ended up staying in Caldera (was late, driving at night is a bit scary - people all over) for the night. Then the rest of the time we spent at a very nice hotel just outside Quepos (Manuel Antonio Park area). Manuel Antonio is a very beautiful park - beaches and jungle. I loved the trip. Pictures here.
chiefwagonburner Hey Chief, did you go to Corcovado Peninsula in Costa Rica? I asked my advisor what you should see there before you left, but I just read the e-mail now. So if you didn't and are ever back there, I guess you should check out Corcovado Peninsula. He claims it is the wildest remaining rainforest in Latin America.
jeffron x I realize I post too many links, but these two are really worth checking out: The top Censored Media Stories of 2002-2003. Some of this has been picked up in limited bits (Depleted Uranium Rounds and Corporate Personhood), but the vast majority is still underreported. An interview with Karen Kwiatkowski (formerly in Near East South Asia (NESA) of the Pentagon) on the politicizing of intelligence to go to war with Iraq. A very interesting interview.
chiefwagonburner Make it Suntory time - translated.
chiefwagonburner U.S. Still Mining Terror Data - Mega Super. When I came back from Costa Rica I got to experince the new border security. Everyone not from the US was digitally finger printed and had thier mug snapshotted by a digital camera attached to the agent's computer. I gave them a big smile. Terrorists never smile. Jimmy, your congress squeeze toy resembles a boob. Don't play with it too much. I've often wondered what happens to the babies on baby product comercials. Do they ever sue? Case 4158, Jonny Frank vs. Mr and Mrs Frank - "PUBLIC NUDITY & CHILD LABOUR WITHOUT CONSENT" I saw Spellbound last night. I liked it.
chiefwagonburner Ah, see? That's exactly what I wanted to hear, Jeffron. That you're around, and that you'll work on your health in 4 hours. What's with the bot? You gotta spill the beans on that one. And welcome back, Christopheles. I hear the apes have good aim, they probably have forebrain enough to correct for wind speeds, elevation and maximum distance angles; all good enough to slam a big wet dump right in a tourist's face. I'm pretty sure they work this factor into a zoo's architecture. Howler monkeys though. Maybe it spared you folks, or maybe Paul's howl translated to "dump and run, buddy, dump and run!" Jeffron, I typed this sentence the other day while actually asleep at my terminal: " I typed the enture m." I fell asleep in the middle of a sentence I was typing. I know what I was talking about earlier in the email, so I suspect I was trying to say "I typed the entire email in my sleep", or something like that. It proved my point very well, so I kept it. I woke myself up at my terminal three times by my own snoring. Each time my hand was on the mouse, or in mid sentence on the keyboard. I left early that day because I just couldn't get it together. I think it was Thursday. It was awful! Someone opened my Coke bottle at work. Normally I peel the label off and replace it with "Black Death". I didn't do it this time, and it was unopened, so the person wasn't even being sneaky. They were being downright defiant. I wish we lived in a world where we didn't have to bicker for Coke, but that's not gonna happen soon, so I may as well play the part. But I have no baby-butts on my monitor. Instead I have a miniature rubber "Inframan", a classic alien "grey" holding an umbrella and a school book, some sort of spindly legged insect replica made of wood and wires, a dinosaur sticker and an alien sticker. And a stress pad thingy that you squeeze when you're mad, except it's shaped like the building Congress meets in. What's that building called? Anyhow, it gets a lot of use these days. Perhaps I can re-appropriate it for a little political voodoo. Or a little opalescent voodoo honey if you like that sort of thing.
jimmy MISSING SUPPLICANT'S MISSING UPDATE FROM FRI. 2/20 Well, it is quarter past eleven a.m. here, and jeez, am I tired. Is using 'jeez' too cute? Need sleep.....badly.... I swear I am going to start living healthy. Start in like 4 hours, with a solid 14 hours of sleep. It's strange being sleep deprived, earlier I was just cranky, every little thing seemed to exist solely to irritate me. But now that I've been inert for awhile, I'm placid, groggy, and my greatest task is not to fall asleep. Still, this whole biology dictating mood thing, that's irritating. I don't want to be cranky. I'm cranky about being cranky. Yikes. You know those little magnets with words on them, that people put on their refrigerators, so they can make little poems and jokes and things? There are some of those here in the office, on the metal overhead container. But the words are all motivational, words like "innovation" and "achieve" and "momentum". There's "employees" and "solutions" and "customers". There's even "smile", and weirdly, "video". But there are no verbs, besides "is", "are", and "I'm". So the things you can say with these words is very limited. I suspect the people who came up with the idea of giving employee propaganda magnets want the language to be limited. You wouldn't want people to be able to form Customers smell wicked for example. But I can't help viewing this deficient little collection of magnets as a metaphor for my whole relationship with the working world. I'd like to find a place to work where I could spell with magnets butterflies roam oceans or opalescent voodoo honey or some such thing. You get my point. The robot is coming. Did I tell you I work with a robot? I swear I am not making this up. Ok, robot's gone. Damn, that was exciting. It never rains, it pours. The 'bot came, some guy delivered a package, and the phone rang, all at once. Thrilling. I like being able to use the term "'bot" regularly. Lunch has come and gone; it was a salami sandwich. At least I think it was salami. On a whim I purchased some luncheon meat, I think because the package said 'Genoa', and that sounded old-worldy, and I became fond of the stuff. I generally shun luncheon meat, having grown up on the blandest of ham and bologna sandwiches, but this has a nice smoky bite to it. It might be a pastrami, I'm really not sure of the difference. Don't think I'm some kind of luncheon meat eating freak, really, once a week or bi-monthly is enough. But it is a convenient lunch. There's still an orange and a banana in my bag. I didn't eat the orange because I went outside for lunch and it would have been messy. The banana is aged, clearly past its prime, I felt a twinge of pathos for it, like when an elderly person waits on you at McDonald's. When I get home I think I'll blend it and the orange. Maybe tomorrow, after I sleep. The coffee mug I took from the communal pile is forest green and reads "Moraine Farm" in white italics. What does this mean? Mirrors are sometimes good and surprising. I feel like a surly old bear awoken (awoken? waked? woken?) from hibernation, all matted fur and big gummy eyes, but actually I am clean shaven and decently dressed. Appearances, so deceiving. I just had to type up this wrist-slitting sentence: "Several process improvements approved and implementation is in process." I mean, I feel bad sometimes, like I've got my nose stuck up in the air, but Good Christ, it's almost degrading. Still, it beats scraping dirty dishes. Actually, this is a pretty sweet gig thus far. There is free coffee. I have a degree of privacy and space. And of course time. The downside is being surrounded by someone else's family photos. There is a picture of a naked baby on top of the monitor, a grandchild I assume. You can see it's butt. Eew. I guess I can understand the impulse of a mother or grandmother to take such photos, I mean there are some of me in the family archive, but to display a picture of a butt above your monitor, day in, day out...I'm not too keen on the whole displaying of family photos anyway. Albums are fine, maybe one or two on the wall, if necessary. But this cubicle has 16 photos (12 of babies or toddlers in various stages of development, 3 of adults singly, 2 of adult couples - one of those being a wedding shot). That's a whole photo album right there. Two more hours....I can do two hours standing on my head. On my head, I tell you! I'm getting kind of punchy, hence the exclamation point. Light-headed, a little dizzy. Only an hour and a half now. Really, I feel foolish for not getting sleep - though not for talking to you, it was worth it being up for that - but for not calling earlier, for staying up late. I think I will treat myself to Chinese food on the way home, get some take out so I don't have to cook. Eat Chinese food, and go to sleep on a full stomach. That sounds delicious. I could get duck, that's my favorite. I feel guilty about that because ducks are pleasant, unlike chickens. I think I could do chickens in, but I wouldn't feel right about killing ducks. A moral dilemma. Not really a dilemma, I'm going to eat the duck. But I like birds. The National Aviary is a block away: http://www.aviary.org/ I've never been; I'll have to go, maybe when the weather is warmer. Ok, I've made it to 4 o'clock. Half an hour to go. The boss just went upstairs (I didn't even know there was an upstairs) and asked if I could hang around 'till a little after 4:30 in case he wasn't back by then. Of course I said sure, but really, ouch, any possible delay is painful to think about when you've been watching the clock all day on less than 3 hours of sleep and you've got a hankering for duck. more later....
jeffron x Awake early because of the 2 hour time difference and the sleeping schedule. The last 3 nights we were there we had a 5 am wake up call from a howler monkey. If you tried to make the loudest, deepest sound you could while breathing in you would have a decent idea of what it sounds like. The last night we were in a house on a hill, and the monkey was in the tree next to us. He called at 1, 4, and 5. Diurnal my ass. We hiked up to the top of the hill and watched the sun rise from an observation tower. Very beautiful. We got back to the house and Paul tried to imitate the howl. The monkey glared at us, shook his branch, pooped twice, howled, and ran away. At least he didn't throw it.
chiefwagonburner Back from Costa Rica. I really loved the country.
chiefwagonburner This is just as scary. Oh ye, dead forum, wherefore art thou supplicants? My re-record project is almost done. After that, it's on to fix xenius.
jimmy 
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