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Hi OTTFOG, My family in CR has donated blood at some of the major hospitals (Calderon, San Juan de Dios & Clinica Biblica) on various ocassions…I would imagine that the hospitals would also know where else you could donate blood if they didn’t have any need for it…Rebeca
I love your recipe mcsolas! Easy to remember and works in any latitude (only have to remember to learn the corresponding language in step #2)! It even works in the US and with fellow gringos elsewhere. If someone repays your respect and kindness with obnoxiousness, then you’re probably better off without them. Plenty of nice people to meet out there and you don’t need to get stuck on those that use up their energy to make someone else’s life more difficult. Pura Vida! 🙂
Hi Maravilla, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day–I couldn’t help but think of you and your flourless chocolate cake when I ate a yummy chocolate mousse cake yesterday. Hopefully one day I will get to taste yours which I’m sure it’s much healthier too.
You offer very sound advice. Unfortunately, some things aren’t as easy as eating a good chocolate cake and there have been some very elaborate real estate situations that even though you thought you did your homework, something or someone might not have been acting in good faith all along. I certainly don’t know the particulars of this situation and I can’t assess that there was any intentional wrongdoing here, I guess the attorneys and the courts will figure that out, but that’s why it’s always so much better when you deal with agents that have a proven track record and not just on paper, but that you hear this from real people that can attest to their integrity and experience. I hope Waggoner41 is able to resolve this situation with his new attorney…
Waggoner41: You seem to be very well prepared to face this unfortunate turn of events and I do hope all will turn out positive for you. Please note that although I know some very good attorneys in CR, I also have met a few unscrupulous ones along the way. Even so, I would not be that willing to share anecdotes with their names due to the legalities involved in doing this in CR unless a case had actually been thru the court system to document it. In other words, please don’t assume the guilt (or innocence) of any party based on the lack of information forthcoming from the Forum regarding your question. However, El Colegio de Abogados in CR (like the BAR Assoc) has been keeping track of complaints made against attorneys or notary publics in CR for the last few years. Please check with them. http://www.abogados.or.cr/info_general/quejas/procedimientos.php (Legal Director Licda. Natalia Rudín 506-283-0419). Best of luck and let us know how this turns out…
You need to contact CR attorneys to protect your own rights and provide you with information on legal recourse in this particular case. On a personal level, I can tell you what we did in a similar situation. We put a downpayment on this house I loved in Santa Barbara de Heredia. When I went to show it to some friends about 3 weeks before closing on the property, the next door neighbor approached me and told me that the house was going to be under litigation soon. I asked her how she knew this and she told me that the whole area had belonged to her father and that he had divided the properties up for his children. The house I wanted to buy was her sister’s house that had been purchased in a foreclosure sale by the man that was now selling it to me. What the seller was trying to do is sell it to an innocent 3rd party (me) so, that he could get the money and we could get the litigation headaches. We knew this meant trouble and my friend’s uncle is an attorney that works for the OIJ (police in CR) so we arranged a meeting with seller, brought the uncle along, explained that we obviously did NOT want to be involved in purchasing a house that would be undergoing any litigation and that we needed our money back. He gave us the money and we purchased another house. I would try arranging a meeting with your attorney and the seller to try to get your money back because if you close on it (and pay the remaining monies due) you might never see that $ again. Interestingly enough, the bank giving us a small mortgage on this house did NOT show any lien on the house until after we had discovered the situation ourselves and managed to get our monies back. Best of luck….
Tom, I don’t know of any English speaking services in Alajuela off the top of my head, but I promise to find out and get back to you on this before your trip. I do think that Aaron’s advice is sound, but if your family doesn’t speak much Spanish, then I understand wanting to visit an English speaking church. Have a safe, grateful and happy Thanksgiving Day…Pura Vida!
Ditto Alfred…I hope you and your family will enjoy this day full of gratitude, health and a house full of love and delicious food…
I really believe that we don’t exercise enough gratitude and Thanksgiving in the US affords us the opportunity to stop and think, acknowledge our blessings, pray for those that haven’t been as blessed as us to be safe and sound in the bosom of their families…I also want to thank the virtual friends of WLCR for having blessed my year with your knowledge, insight and humor and even those that have made me realize I still need to work on my patience–every one of us is still “work in progress” :)–Thank you….
A GRATITUDE – HEART
“A gratitude-heart
Is to discover on earth
A Heaven-delivered rose.”Sri Chinmoy
~
Funny thing happens when the influx of any group is too fast and too much for a more gradual adaptation to the local ways. Sometimes these population fluxes bring with them a lot of social issues, but it seems this time that turtles have been the unsuspecting victims. Like they needed another strike against them! In 1982 my Tico brother-in-law bought some eggs that looked like golf balls but were squishy. He said, just eat one and I did. It was not pleasant and had a gritty texture (which I imagine was the sand in it). I didn’t like it and when he told me that it was a turtle egg I almost puked. I’m please to say that my Tico family has long given up eating turtle eggs, but you can still find them even in San Jose. (Please be advised if you travel to the Caribbean side that Rondon can be made with turtle meat and eggs. It literally means a seafood stew of “rundown”–includes everything available–in some private homes turtle meat is still used, but restaurants today typically doesn’t include turtle meat anymore, but I still always ask. Maxi’s has the best and Miss Edith has a vegetarian version that’s really good too, but I digress just so you won’t innocently make that mistake…) Most of the CR population has been educated to know that it’s really a huge problem to poach these eggs, but I certainly don’t blame people for eating them if they have NO other source of protein available to them or their children. What is sad to see is that people that could afford to eat chicken eggs will poach these instead. There needs to be a show of force to stop this and there also needs to be the appropriately focused environmental education of the local population (national or foreign born) to make sure they understand the consequences of their actions. Sometimes it’s just ignorance and like Ben Franklin said, we’re all born that way….As a woman I have been able to confront a lot of these situations without being perceived as a physical threat, please be careful if you choose to approach the men poaching because they may take your remarks as offensive….I guess it’s usually about the tone and words you use, but cultural differences are very important and it may not be the best course for you to take….Please keep calling MINAE and also contact the turtle NGO that works in Guanacaste to see if they can give you some tips or go to Playa Grande to create a local strategy plan. I have also spoken with my friend and he’s asking his colleagues in that area….Take good care…
That’s the problem Alfred, ONE person did not blink (that’s what the human error was supposed to be), it was a whole bunch of them! That’s what they were NOT counting on and why they changed the leadership style at NASA to prevent this from happening again. That’s why people need to question because sometimes even the best of leaders get lost and can’t see the forest from the trees..Similar to what’s happened with Iraq except only the people of the US have moved, while many of the “leaders” continue the course to tragedy for the least noblest of reasons….
One thing is for NASA to make a statistical analysis and conclude that they “may loose one spacecraft” due to unforeseen causes and another thing is to have the cause put square in front of your face and still choose to be blind to it because you think “it’s worth the risk.” Even though I’ve trekked thru amazing tropical jungles like Corcovado Nat’l Park, faced more than one viper in CR, counted croc and alligator populations in Caño Negro AT NIGHT, been up to my neck in the swamps of Palo Verde and thigh deep in its mud to the point that I thought it would swallow me whole among many other excursions that could be considered risky, my friends know that I probably will not be “bungee jumping” anytime soon unless it was to save someone’s life. No offense meant to bungee jumping and those that like the thrill of it. I consider it too risky for the thrill it may bring me so I don’t risk it. I too choose to take calculated risks and I assure you that I was well prepared throughout those adventures, accompanied by colleagues and not only had knowledge about what I could encounter as well as the expectation that I could encounter unforeseen situations along with good dose of respect for nature. Calculated risks are one thing, loosing your way and sending someone to their grave to save your organizational/ political/ personal pride is another…It’s not very far from the war scenario we’ve been discussing….people get stuck and stop using logic to come to their conclusions for the oddest of reasons…
Alfred you are really mistaken about the Challenger and you’re right that there are typically risks associated with these missions–this was not part of risks that they had calculated. It is such an example of the “Groupthink” mentality that it is actually used as an example to teach about this psychological phenomena. It was not part of the calculated risks, they had plenty of data & engineers stating that those O rings should not and would not work under 53 degree weather and yet they bashed them over the head & went over their heads to their superiors and finally the company in charge of the analysis said, well, we’ve given you the data, removed the advice not to launch and NASA chose to go forward. I’ve actually seen the interviews with the engineers, the superiors and the NASA personnel. It was NOT an inevitable event. It was an event that occurred because the people who had the knowledge and dared to question the “wisdom” of NASA were silenced for what was considered THE ULTIMATE GOAL (this may start sounding familiar to you now?). You have to remember that at that time the space program was being questioned and funding was not as ample as before, they thought that if they delayed this take off which was to be historical because it had the civilian teacher on board it would be “bad for business” and what transpired was a tragedy that could have been prevented and became the unfortunate historical link for Challenger….
Just like in anything there are some that have been more of one thing than another–this administration has had it’s share of liars and well meaning, but misinformed blind followers! But that the American public was lied to, that is UNDENIABLE! As far as America winning, that’s what they kept saying about Vietnam or do you still think we “won” there too? Our disagreement doesn’t hurt me, what hurts me are the men & women dying and being injured on both sides…You might try thinking about someone else other than yourself for two seconds and while you’re at it, put yourself in their shoes instead of flaunting that “superior invader mentality” you can’t seem to shake off…NO ONE wins in a war, but at least when one is faught for a just cause then, “vale la pena…” (it’s worth the pain…)….
Like I said Roark, You’re incredibly naive and/or misinformed about this war and now about other assumptions…In spite of my father’s military, police and intelligence background he has known when to question authority–Something the “fumbling idiots” that believed “curveball” in the intelligence community obviously didn’t ALL choose to do (because some SURELY did question)…Another erroneous assumption on your part…I said he has been in the intelligence community, I didn’t say where, when and for whom–you did guess one part correctly, he did serve the US for many years…and I can assure you that he would have laughed at the thought of accepting this kid’s story to start a war…
story about “curveball”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/01/60minutes/main3440577.shtmlI TRULY do support our soldiers, the question is how can you say you support them and send them to their death or to an unnecessary war that will scar them forever in a million ways? In my post I ask you to give this a name–The killing of over half of a million CIVILIAN NOT MILITARY Iraqis done indirectly or directly. This is atrocious and could hardly be considered an oops or collateral damage. I fully support the soldiers, I don’t support their orders, which is why I WANT THEM HOME SAFE AND SOUND. I find it incredibly arrogant and intellectually disabled of anyone that can actually say they support those brave men & women by GETTING THEM KILLED AND INJURED for no other apparent reason than, “well, it might have been a mistake, but we’re there now and so we can’t leave” or worse, “any lunatic that hasn’t listened to a word Mr. Bush has said when he ADMITTED that the supposed intel was wrong!” Heck NO, we should have left in 2003 when instead of finding weapons of mass destruction, we were bombarded with WEAPONS OF MASS STUPIDITY. What kind of gratitude do you think sending a kid to his death or to witness a war shows on your part??? I don’t know anyone that has a “spare” loved ones to give away on either side. I hope no one “LOVES & RESPECTS” you that inappropriately! My father has been involved in intelligence services for a long time and he can’t even fathom how the US went to war based on the lies of student curiously name “CURVEBALL.” The intelligence community in the US is one of the best around the world and if you think that there wasn’t enough IQ in the CIA to have people raising red flags all along you’re incredibly nieve, but this war was begun and continues to be processed under the GROUPTHINK mentality. You know, like the kind that let us send Challenger up in space even though we had full knowldege that this spacecraft should not be launched when the weather was under 53 degrees Fahrenheit because the rings would not hold out, but we went ahead anyway and launched it because they just didn’t want to look bad and so everyone caved to follow the “leadership”—only to have Challenger blow up in mid air and along with its crew! GROUPTHINK mentality can only exist based on certain leadership styles and can only be eradicated with a different leadership style!
I guess deer or any other type of hunter wants that population to be strong and healthy so that the hunter can reap the benefits, but I don’t think that deer would consider hunters their friend or think that they are being “supportive to them.” Don’t be absolutely incoherent and say you support people/soldiers that your opinion is sending them to be killed, injured and psychologically damaged over NON EXISTING REASONS! Once this whole mess is over, there will be real numbers of soldiers dead and injured and real numbers of civilians dead and injured to have to explain to ourselves and the world. There are already people setting up international legal action regarding the war in Iraq. Do you ever read or do you just watch TV?
UpeCity, There are many fine young men and women, not to mention the lifers in the military today, but the volunteer rate has been dropping and obviously you can’t blame the kids—-So what’s changed this time around—Where are the recruits coming from? The typical military standards have dropped and the lies being told to get recruits into the military have grown in order to keep up with the growing demand due to Iraq. I couldn’t believe it when my daughter’s classmate went into boot camp before ever finishing HS–Do you know where this boy was recruited? In a mall and he had NOT dropped out of HS until they told him to do this and join the military! The amount of stories I’ve heard of how non-citizens are promised citizenship/legal status residency in exchange for armed service are endless, but even after being injured in Iraq, that promise doesn’t always pan out…In my affluent town there are no recruiting offices, but if you drive over to other areas–you have another story. Heck the other day I even heard a CIA recruiting radio ad on a Spanish radio station. The day the demographic statistics for military recruiting is fully reviewed we should not be surprised to know which neighborhoods and which groups have been most heavily recruited…Everyone across America has been hurt by this and there are groups that have been specially vulnerable to the military cleansing–oh, I meant recruiting going on top of it all…
You’re right UpeCity, party lines will NOT save the day…That’s why I don’t vote along those lines and why I think “We the people” in the US have to do MORE than just vote. We have to be willing to stand up and say THIS WAR IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!! For goodness sake, there was more uproar during Vietnam than what has been DONE (not said, plenty of complaining being done now…) to demand this illegitimate action be stopped for good and we have no one else to blame, but ourselves for that….
