Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I’m confused. How do you pay colon debts directly from a dollar account? [/quote]
I have been paying a bill in colones from my savings account which is in dollars for three years now. I make deposits in person in dollars. I opened the account with the assistance of a Tico friend who knew a bank officer. I used his address and electric bill to open the account.
I would love to see the finished work. Almost everyone has some talent and a need to be creative at something and almost everyone finds an outlet for their creativity. You are right in saying that for a true artist, creativity never stops. But I believe that holds true for everyone. And there are as many ways to be creative as there are people.
All the advice I have ever read says that epxats retired in Costa Rica need to find ways to continue their interests or find new ones. If you can make some money legally while doing it, great. But the money should be a secondary consideration, the icing on the cake. Since we are not permitted to work, the main focus should be on making a life, as David points out. By the time a retiree gets to Costa Rica, the money part should already be resolved. In fact, that is a legal requirement.
I worked for three years as an in-house illustrator when I was in my mid twenties. I belong to a small percentage of people who can say that they have earned their living with their artistic abilities. But I quickly came to the conclusion that when I had to be creative upon demand in order to secure a paycheck, much of the desire I felt in illustrating disappeared. It became just another job.
Of all the dreams that people pursue when they move to Costa Rica, I should think that work or career would be near last on the list. As foreign nationals, we aren’t allowed to work and entrepreneurs would have a better environment in countries which focus on business. From my perspective, the best reasons for coming to Costa Rica should have little to do with making money and much to do with making an adventure.Anyone who can hold a paint brush or strum a guitar may call him/herself an artist. What the government calls an artist or an original work of art may be probably as loose a definition as could exist.
As a Customs broker in the States, I cleared a whole lot of “original works of art” as duty free through US Customs with nothing more than a declaration by the artist on a commercial invoice. However, I suspect any official provision for permission for artists to live and work in CR will probably require proof that income has been and can be earned by the production or performance of the art in question….and that the art in question is unique and would be a valuable contribution to the Costa Rican culture. This, it seems to me, would be a tall order for most artists to fill.I am not well traveled on Costa Rica’s coasts on either side. The few towns I have seen on the Pacific coast were quite ugly and I felt the urge to leave for the mountains. Even the more modern looking town of Jaco has enough of a reputation for crime that I avoid it. This probably has more to do with a higher concentration of foreign national wealth than with an indigenous propensity for crime. No doubt there are great places near or on the beaches. My limited travels have just not shown me one yet.
On the other hand, all of the major population areas in the central Valley outside of San Jose that I have visited seem quite safe and attractive relative to coastal areas. This is just my very inexperienced opinion.
A lot of us are at an age where medical care is a consideration. I timed the drive from the ambulance garage to my property in the Central Valley and made note that there was a small clinic within walking distance.
These major infrastructure aspects are usually factored in to the pricing of property too. There are other factors. Land and houses in the Limon area are probably very much lower in price than almost anywhere else on the other coast. If I am correct, then there will be good reasons for this, one of which Scott has pointed out above.
I am curious as to who or what interested you in the Limon area. I can think of a few positive things I have read about the area and I can think of a few more negative things.
My initial ideas about living in Costa Rica were about the Pacific coast and I wouldn’t even consider the mountains. After one visit, I completely turned around. Now, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere near a beach or under 3000 feet of altitude. Definitely make a trip or two…or more.
Don Diego, I assume no response to the question of your age means that you are over 40. At that stage of life, devoting 30 paragraphs to sexual activity is no different than doing the same for bowel movements except that one is essential for individual survival and the other is not. I hope this crass comparison illustrates how silly it seems (or should seem) to mature, well adjusted adults.
Once your contribution to propagation of the species has been achieved, and glandular levels recede, continuous, repetitive promiscuous behavior starts to get ponderous. Promiscuity in older men is not a question of can or can’t because men in their 70’s are capable of sexual activity. It is more a question of should or shouldn’t.
But don’t take any of my critique to heart. We all enjoy oddities as entertainment.
I play around with home design work and I use a rather sophisticated architectural design program. I could not find a quality one which worked with Mac’s OS…and I looked. I much prefer the Masc for anything, but I ended up having to switch to the Windows OS in my Mac in order to use the program.
Don Diego, how old are you? If you are a young guy in his twenties, have at it! But if you are an older guy, you won’t find a cure for your masculine insecurity in sex. The biological necessity to reproduce is at its peak in youth. But after a certain level of maturity is reached, such glandular imperatives are reduced if not eliminated and a serene tranquility replaces the crazy hunting instincts. If you are still chasing and sniffing around after “conquests” after the age of 40, you may have a addiction problem which is enabled by a severe emotional retardation. I suspect you have been diagnosed with this problem which is why you are disdainful of
any kind of analysis.I have many applications running simultaneously on the MAC as well as the HP. All computers today are big enough to do this. On the HP, I run market trading software with live data feed which uses a lot of memory as well as watching movies and TV programs simultaneously…I never experienced any lag at all or other problems.I felt I had to buy Norton virus protection for the HP, though, just in case.
But in the 12 years I have used Macs without any virus protection, I never once got a virus. I suspect, though, as Apple continues to garner market share, there will be more hackers out there to work on ways to attack Macs.
What you are paying for when you buy an Apple computer is the software and, to some extent, the cache of an iconic brand name. The hardware is pretty much the same quality with all the big players. Apple software is more intuitive and slightly easier to use but, then again, Windows has made efforts to make their OS easier. Reliability is the only remaining difference between the two with Mac the winner but my sense is that even that gap has been closed a bit lately.
Macs cost more than PC’s. Play with both and you will probably like the Mac better. Then you have to weight the price differences.
I owned Macs since 1998 and I at present, I own several, one of which is a MacBook. I also own an HP for business apps which Apple OS cannot handle, HOWEVER, you can always load a Windows app into any Mac and have the use of both which is what I did with the MacBook. The best of both worlds.
For photos, music and all the artsy-craftsy stuff, Mac rules and I remain an aficionado.
[quote=”soldier”]I have not enjoyed so much comedy, since my favorite comedian, George Carlin died! Very intertaining![/quote]
I agree, soldier. This is quite funny. I keep waiting for some of the females out there to pipe in but either they stopped reading Don Diego after the first out right slap in their collective soft faces or they believe he is just not serious and is looking to annoy them.
No matter. If he is serious, then we are witnessing the deluded rants of a member of a dying breed and we should probably nurture Don Diego as the endangered species he is…not that such an ego needs much nurturing.
