El Grillo (the cricket)

Winter is coming, again.

2011-11-03T05:22:00.000-04:00

We will leave again for Bello Oriente, Costa Rica on November 15. It has been another fun summer with our family. William Thomas Hoisington XIII (our 13th grandchild) is not a baby anymore.
The motorcycle will soon be mine. I built a "for sale" sign for the house that should stand for 3-5 years while people realize its value. Caught a few bluegills and ate them.
Most importantly, the book "Mas Alla del Compost" made it to Amazon, and we visited Mark and Melissa Sisson in Cadillac(MI) who own Michigan Biochar. Biochar has become a new passion.
It seems like we live two years for every one year that passes. It will be a pleasure to leave the USA with its extravagance and return to the simplicity of rural Costa Rica, but we are spoiled enough to enjoy returning to the conveniences of complexity in May.

We're back in the USA

2011-05-17T10:01:00.003-04:00

Under construction, but while I try to find the photos taken in 2010-2011 here is a slideshow of the waterfall, and the construction of the house in the cloud forest beginning in 2006-07. Scroll down and watch both at the same time:

International GeoGrandpa

2011-01-11T18:13:00.008-05:00

I have been publishing a weekly photojournal from Costa Rica, which included some abrasive political views and a wandering style, and have made a decision to reform myself. Starting now, the journal will attempt to have fewer words, more pictures, and hopefully three of my grand-daughters will help to make it interesting to people who read at the 8th grade level, more or less. I have the encouragement of some of my adult kids.

This is going to be difficult for me, but it will force me to become a better person.

I have been accused of promoting Costa Rica as a paradise, but I would encourage you to consider a retirement destination in one of the 14 countries that have absolutely no standing military, as we have, at least for a winter haven. The link on the side will give you some possible places where violence is not the first resort for resolving conflicts. If you are one of the 10,000 per day retiring baby boomers consider these Western Hemisphere places:
Grenada
St. Lucia
St. Vincent
the Grenadines
and perhaps; Haiti
Panama
Dominica
or, even:
Belize or Honduras
Nobody spends more money on military solutions and violence than the USA!

Fall, 2010

2010-10-21T09:56:00.006-04:00

It is that time again, to hug the grandkids goodbye, and migrate with the birds for the winter.

We will fly from Grand Rapids, Michigan, on November 13 and stop in Durango, Colorado for a week at Mesa Verde Nat'l Park and Grand Canyon with Tim (hijo numero dos) and his new bride Katy (both Federal Law Enforcement Park Rangers who met at Yellowstone NP)
From there we fly to SJO and ... our plans, so far, ...

We hope that the laptop will connect with a satellite and we may have access to the internet from the house on the hill.
We have invited many people to visit, but in the words of a priest-friend "Many are cold, but few are frozen"

From Summer - 2010

It has been a fun summer. A friend has allowed me to use his Honda Twinstar CM200T motorcycle, and my first experience at riding involved over 4000 miles of open road in SW Lower Michigan, from Traverse City south.

From Soilless Gardening

Late summer involved the Hastings Farmers Market and the opportunity to meet many people who share my interests in vermiculture and the potential of soilless gardening to feed the world.

Outrageous!

2010-07-28T12:25:00.002-04:00

Thanks to another "expatriot" (a person who lives in another country than where they are a citizen) I learned that the government of the USA has renewed an agreement with the government of Costa Rica that originally allowed the U.S.Coast Guard (Treasury Department + ATF + DEA) to pursue suspected drug trafficers into the waters of Costa Rica.

There has been a change in this agreement that is hardly a minor adjustment.

Until 31 December 2010, the USA has gained permission to also station 46 fully-armed ships of the U.S.Navy (Department of "Defense" + Navy Department + Pentagon) including submarines, helicopters, and (hold your breath!) seven thousand (7000) fully-armed U.S.Marines and all the equipment it takes to invade a foreign country (trucks, and armored vehicles) ... in a country that has no standing military forces to defend itself.

Most disturbing to me is the lack of interest by the news media of the USA, in spite of highly vocal resistance in Costa Rica by people who oppose this military intervention.

A case may be made that the agreement was made between the Presidente of Costa Rica (Laura Chinchilla) and the Ambassador of the USA (Anne ...) but any thinking person has to ask how a country as small and vulnerable as Costa Rica can refuse to allow a huge military force from the Collossus of the North permission to take over its sovereign territory.

Visitors to San Jose should expect to see groups of armed U.S.Marines strolling the streets of what used to be a peaceful nation.

I am often asked if I feel safe living in a "foreign country". I will have to answer, "Well, I used to feel a lot safer!".

We're back!

2010-05-22T11:45:00.003-04:00

We returned to the USA at midnight May 4. It was a busy time and much was done in spite of a determined effort to be retired.

We agreed to invest the proceeds of my book sales in the local community in the form of labor dollars for two brothers who walked over twice a week from the next hill.

Winter 2009- 2010

2009-12-15T12:20:00.002-05:00

We have been here in Costa Rica since November 16, and have been working on details of construction like kitchen cupboards and painting. We expect visitors this weekend and will take the bus to San Jose to meet them at the airport. From there we will be going to the beach at Manuel Antonio National Park and then returning to Bello Oriente with them to enjoy our part of the country in the mountains.

Christmas here is an affair that begins 21 Deciembre and is celebrated until 4 Enero, with music, dancing, special foods, fireworks, and events in the ¨Salon de Toros¨that are appropriate adaptations of bull-fighting and rodeo events for a country that does not find violence attractive.

I have volunteered to help with the festivities, and look forward to the night when pretty girls in miniskirts get in to all events free.

"Beyond Compost"

2009-08-24T10:31:00.001-04:00

I've finished writing a book on vermiculture, describing the system I've designed and developed for schools, greenhouses, and other medium-sized operations.

If you were to direct your local school principals to the link (over on the right): http://vermichester.blogspot.com
it might inspire them to turn their lunchroom wastes into vermicompost.
Thanks!

Honduras, etc.

2009-08-03T09:37:00.011-04:00

I hope that you have been following events in Honduras, as I have been. The situation in Honduras is the most serious threat to democracy in our hemisphere since Ronald Reagan. The mainstream news media seems to find tittilating entertainment figures more newsworthy.

In brief, the Honduran military General Valasquez (trained at our infamous "School of the Americas", at Fort Benning, Georgia) got miffed when he was fired by the Presidente (Zelaya)for refusing to obey an order, so he got a Supreme Court Judge to issue an arrest warrant. His overzealous underlings kidnapped the Presidente at gunpoint and put him on an airplane in his pajamas, and shipped him out to Costa Rica. In spite of a very vague Constitution allowing for three Vice Presidents, they had all quit, conveniently, to run for Presidente in November. That caused the next in line (Micheletti) to step up to the Presidency, however the rest of the world refuses to recognize the legitimacy of a succession created by a military coup. This has been a tiny bit of news now for a month and Zelaya is still trying to get back into Honduras.
(He is back now, under the protection of the Brazillian embassy)
Our USA position has been to allow the Latin Americans to sort this out by themselves in spite of us having 600 USA military troops stationed in Honduras since the reign of Ron Reagan and Ollie North, and our prior policy of domination and interference.

A recent tidbit, equally ignored, sheds some light on why it is taking so long for our USA State Department to declare this an official "military coup" which would require us to stop all funding of the illegitimate government. It seems that Mrs. Clinton is also the chair of Millenium Challenge, LLC which has been funnelling $6.5 million to the coup leaders since June 28. Hmmmm.

When we tell people that we spend our winters in Costa Rica, the first questions are about safety and security. This situation adds to the reputation of "banana republics" that has almost been wiped out. I hope that you are aware of Honduras.

On Virtual Change

2009-08-02T10:26:00.000-04:00

As I write this I am 71 years old. It is 2009. About 25 years ago my sons and I brought home a loaner Commodore 64 “computer” that played ping-pong and some other things that were recorded on tapes. The kids were about 10 years old. The machine was a novelty for me, but in a very few years they became an essential tool for their generation. I learned a bit of Basic language, and I enjoyed the way it meshed with my earlier training in Algebra.

Long before this, I was exposed to military “mock-ups” that taught people to maneuver ships and fly jet planes without the expense and risk of involving real accidents. I tagged along as games became more interesting and realistic, and realized that some games were gaining potential for visualization of future planning for behaviors as well as for my field of construction. For years I have joined in discussions of how to initiate behavioral changes, with relatively little measurable success.

At this point, two things have blossomed in my mind. What began as a novel approach to designing a house, or learning to fly an airplane, has evolved into a technology where it is possible to become personally immersed into an entire new world. The experts insist that if a person can experience a change in behavior for about three weeks a new habit will be formed. Immersion in a virtual new world provides the opportunity to invoke changes by providing vicarious experiences that would be almost impossible to provide for large numbers of people at negligible cost. Imagine a world where “conflict resolution without resorting to violence” was the norm and was the basis for success, however that was defined. Early virtual worlds focused on silliness and violent behaviors to attract and stimulate children. It takes time for ideas to mature. I picture a time when my grandchildren will live, and interact, in at least one other world, moving out of one and into another as comfortably as stepping out of the door at home and entering their school environment. As a matter of fact, the potential exists to do exactly that. Education may evolve into elimination of buildings and campuses and become interactively available worldwide without opening the front door. The hazards are obvious, but not insurmountable. Misdirection and misinformation are not strangers to our present methods. I would go on and describe uses that virtual reality is being used for virtual surgery, etc. but as fast as my two fingers will type there are new applications rising. The greatest risk is that of logical assumptions leading to “unintended consequences”; that IF a certain behavior is chosen, THEN a certain result will always occur in “real life”. Part of the maturation of this concept requires field testing of each parameter, and recognizing that a certain percentage of each behavior will have an unpredictable anomalous outcome.

The second thought is the reason I say “grandchildren”. As recent as my latest high school reunion, I discovered that less than half of the people I know in my generation even use e-mail regularly. My children use the available tools as they arrive at tested usefulness, but my grandchildren use the new technologies as quickly as they become available, “warts and all”. Also, the infrastructure of worldwide application is only becoming available to the developing world and not yet available to the poorest of the poor.

Many of our “industrialized” behaviors must change, and quite soon, if we are to avoid the consequences of economic disparity. We claim to desire “democracy” in the world while thoughtlessly accepting that 86% of those worldwide potential voters live on less than $2 a day. We can only support our capitalist idealism by disenfranchising most of the other inhabitants. We have allowed anonymous corporate ownership to replace the former responsibility of personal capitalism. Most of us have been duped into believing that our current anonymous capitalistic system still encourages invention and innovation, which it does not. The present system is only interested in return on investment which ultimately encourages concentration of power and control and which restricts and resists experimentation.

We have sufficient resources to support “happiness” throughout the world, but generating the political will to enable serious behavioral change is going to require more than nice words. Walking in the other guy’s virtual moccasins will be a way to understand the task in front of us, instinctively, without having to actually send each of us to another continent.

2009-04-21T09:55:00.006-04:00

We have returned to Hastings, Michigan, USA, and it is cold and wet. Next year, God willing, we will stay in Bello Oriente a while longer. I can use the extra time in Costa Rica for planting trees and flowers.
In addition to planting fruit trees and ornamental flowers (bougainvillea, etc) I was able to secure a dozen protected Ronron seedlings and transplanted some Poro seedlings from the jungle down below. Both will become forest giants and are supposed to grow about one meter per year.

My rainwater collection system is a huge success, so I will continue to expand it. It supplies us with extremely soft water for our electrical water heating showerhead, and will eventually store enough water to flush our toilets automatically.

Right now, the single 50-gallon storage tank isn't big enough for toilet flushing so we carry pails of water from the overflow tank on the other side of the house for flushing. I have 3 plastic tanks and one steel drum to hook up next year. A political glitch keeps us from having enough pressure in the public water system to reach beyond the half-way point of our driveway, so we fill bottles for drinking and cooking. The good side is that we have become very aware of the amount of water it takes to perform various tasks and conserve out of necessity rather than out of environmental enthusiasm.

Flushing toilets with drinking water now seems so irresponsible.

Verano: The Dry Season

2009-02-02T11:10:00.003-05:00

After the November rains subsided, the dry season began. It has now become too dry to plant anything with much hope for success. Even seedlings that are watered have to get daily attention. Most of my time is spent painting and building furnishings, and hacking away at the long grass that grows waist high when you don't allow cows to graze what has become pastureland. I can buy tree seedlings for only 40-cents each, but the limitation is that a small garden plot must be cleared for each one. The good news is that I am strong and healthy and the exercise will make me live longer and enjoy the growing forest longer. When I walk down to the bus stop, I am inspired by the work of Dr. Lynn Carpenter who has grown a jungle right across the highway from me.
I am planting papaya, oranges, lemons and bananos. I probably won't harvest much of this, and fruit is very cheap to buy. The other trees are a selection of large growth forest specimens. Some are protected. I have been promised a single seedling of Ceiba(Kapok), and will build a protection for it to keep it from being trampled by cows that may stray in while it is growing. The planting will wait until just before I return in April so the rainy season can work for me in my absence.

The rainy season ...

2008-11-22T09:32:00.002-05:00

is not only rainy, but it is humid as well. nothing gets completely dry. I can only attest to the period since November 11, and the rumor is that we will shift gears soon, perhaps by the weekend when the Nov. 23 First Annual Rancho Amigos Motocross Club will apply their everyday transportation to the jungle paths in an attempt to imitate an extreme sport.

The national beer company has provided a beer tent. Imagine! Socialized beer! I will let you know if beer has to be held in the left hand.

At 12:40 PM, on November 11,...

2008-10-27T11:24:00.000-04:00

...Spirit Air will connect me to the beautiful Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO) to the west(?) of metropolitan San Jose, Costa Rica, for the winter dry season. Since I was unwilling to pay extra for an assigned seat I will not have had a chance to watch the Russian Navy exercise with the Venezuelan Navy in the Caribbean. Also, by limiting my round-trip fare to $403 I will only have one stuffed duffle bag and my backpack to carry down to the bus stop. According to my daily weather reports the temperature will be reaching 76 degrees F (-32/2=22C).

I want to visit the 7th Ave book store, the national map place, and the Tracopa bus station before they close. I haven't yet decided between the familiar and cheap spartan backpacker Gallileo Hostel and something closer and more expensive ($40+) downtown.

The one thing that I can count on is that it will be an adventure. Perhaps it will rain in the afternoon. I want to buy my bus ticket for about 6:00 AM if the schedule hasn't changed. This will get me over the mountain of death (Cerro del Muerte) before the afternoon clouds rise to obscure the grande vistas. For me, the trip is a seven-and-a-half-hour tour of a dozen or more ecological zones.

My youngest son has recommended that this blog is the best place to post my weekly journals. In the past, I have published a photo-laden attachment to an e-mail to a list of about 50 friends and relatives. You can be added to the list by sending your e-dress to
costajournal07@yahoo.com
or if you agree with my son...comment, here,
gracias, pura vida

Continuing Education

2008-08-25T14:32:00.008-04:00

I'm trying to become less "technologically challenged" and perhaps will even reach the point of becoming proficient. Click the triangle to see a short slideshow. Clicking on the lower left corner will take you to see lots of other slideshows.

My objectives are to "embed" some slide shows for you to visit that don't force you to look at them if you are busy.

I also trying to learn how to download full-sized books that I can read at my leisure. Hopefully, this post won't become too complicated.

Over on the right are easy links to important documents that I refer to so much that you may enjoy not having to look them up. I didn't include the Bible, but you probably already have one. If you really want the "whole truth" about how 25% of the other folks in the world think, I also recommend the Koran(Queran?). Create your own spin!

We're back!

2008-05-12T11:46:00.000-04:00

Having run out of time and money at the same time, the house has now been closed up with shutters and doors. We have returned to Hastings and a full schedule of birthday celebrations and visits with grandchildren. After six months of building the new house with a fantastic crew of six neighbors who spoke no English I have gained a vocabulary of construction terminology, a tenuous grasp of metric measurements, and an appreciation of techniques used where labor is not expensive.

Livin' the Dream!

2007-10-25T13:53:00.001-04:00

(updated to present tense)
This is the spot to stay posted on the progress of the new house, near the Panama border, Agua Buena, and Canas Gorda, in Costa Rica.

You can click on this view from an adjoining hilltop.It is facing to the north. As you can see, we began with nothing but a flat spot. Our hectare (2.2 acres) extends to the left downhill to a creek that joins others to supply the 60' waterfall. Out of sight beyond the bare spot is a public right of way that goes to the right to the Restaurante Rancho Amigos and the highway, where we catch the bus.

The plans include rainwater collection to avoid flushing our toilets with drinking water, although clean water is plentiful. Greywater is separated from sewage water and is filtered through compost and eventually through the vermiculture system, and on to irrigate some organic cultivation of perhaps some spices, etc. that may have economic benefit to the area.
The concept is that only two things require confinement; those that need privacy and those that need to be secure from living creatures. The rest of the house is a viewing platform with amenities.

Feel free to ask anything that pops into your head. I publish a journal with many photos, more or less every week, and it goes out to about 50 "subscribers", mostly relatives and friends. If you would like to receive these, contact me at costajournal07@yahoo.com.
(Don't use this direct link yet, it doesn't work. Just type it in your e-mail. Sorry!)

I will send the "International GeoGrafix" to you as a BCC(blind copy) to protect your identity. If you find my journals too boring or filled with "too much propaganda", just e-mail me an "unsubscribe".

pura vida

Costa Rica

2007-06-22T12:42:00.000-04:00

The three most popular countries for retirement are France, Costa Rica, and Ireland. I'm not sure of the order of preference, but mine is obvious. We were attracted by the climate, but we return each winter because of the people.

In 1948, Costa Rica dismantled the military and applied these resources to social programs and education. The other places that have done this are the Vatican, Luxembourg, Monte Carlo, and a few small islands in the Pacific Ocean. After three or four generations of solving problems without weapons, the people have a distinctly different perspective. "Resolving Conflict Without Resorting to Violence" is a mandatory course in the elementary school curriculum. The emblem for the police is an officer with his arms on the shoulders of two small children. They travel about on foot, or two on a dirt bike. The emergency medical teams have modern ambulances.

My Medicare "B" doesn't cover me when I am outside of the USA, so I cancelled it. We have become "residente pensionados" and purchase full coverage health insurance, including dental, for $50 a month. We only pay for it when we are there. Costa Rica has the third best medical care in the world, and life expectancy is three years longer than in the USA.

We live "large" on our Social Security. By cancelling our auto insurances, Medicare "B", trash service, telephone, lowering the thermostat, turning off the water heater, using no water, and not having to cut grass, drive cars, and eating food that doesn't come in fancy packages, we save so much money that the difference in life style pays for our travel and living expenses all winter. We don't own a car there and can go to our volunteer morning jobs at the Wilson for 60 cents each. The beach at Playa Zancudo is two hours away, and we are frequently invited to join our new Tico friends for a day trip in a packed van.

"Culture shock" is going through the airport security check points when we return to the USA, and buying a huge lunch for more than $3.

pura vida!

Livin' Large at Bello Oriente

2007-06-10T23:24:00.000-04:00

We have purchased a home site within view of Panama in the southern end of Costa Rica. If you look up the Wilson Botanical Garden website you will see a description and pictures of a similar place. Our intention is to live six months in Costa Rica and six months in the USA.

This view of Volcan Baru, in Panama, will be our view from the bedroom window at sunrise.

The view from the South

2007-06-05T10:05:00.000-04:00

I have added a link to the "Tico Times", the largest English-language newspaper in Central America. It has a USA bias, but in general the reporting is current and newsworthy. It won't give you a clear perspective from the point of view of a typical "Tico" (sort of like we call ourselves "Yankees", etc) but it will give you an additional look at the world from another angle.

While most "Americans" think of every country outside of the UN Security Council as being in the "third world", the Ticos consider everybody in the Western Hemisphere to be "Americans" and make a very clear distinction between "third world" impoverishment and "developing countries" evolution.

No place is perfect. Welcome to the struggles of the Developing World!

Introduction to County Government - CG101

2007-05-04T19:50:00.000-04:00

In Barry County, Michigan, the county government consists of an Administrator, a County Board of Commissioners, five Standing Committees, and assignments of Commissioners and others to an array of regional, etc. boards and commissions.The best way to observe and discuss this county government is in light of the County Budget. The Budget has a General Fund that is the main topic of conversation and is understood by most ordinary observers to be "The Budget". It is similar to the family checking account.

The search for the "whole truth" requires that we also consider the family "savings account" as well. This is the Special Revenue section of the Budget and is frequently ignored. It represents millions of taxpayer dollars.

In addition to the checking and savings accounts, the Commissioners are assigned to various outside boards as representatives of Barry County. Many of these boards manage budgets far in excess of the County Budget.The General Fund Budget has about 80 accounts. The Special Revenue Funds also have about 80 accounts. Each account represents at least one "issue". The number of issues could easily surpass 200.

Incarceration

2007-05-01T09:53:00.000-04:00

Basically, I hold with the position that nobody needs to be incarcerated unless they are a threat to society, and only a judge can make that determination. The length of sentence should run until such time as the person no longer represents a threat to the rest of us (if that means that a dedicated drunk driver spends the rest of her life incarcerated, and crime-of-passion-killer gets out in a week, so be it).

This leads to a number of different conclusions than we are currently experiencing. For one thing it throws out the notion that punishment has ever been an acceptable solution to any behavioral problem. It also suggests that jails and prisons may not need to look like dungeons. As long as he plays golf on the inside of the walls, I have no problem with an inmate living out his life in a country club. Some of those who play on the outside now are a greater threat.

We have evolved at least to accepting that incarcerated people can learn soft skills and learn the behaviors that will help them re-enter society.

At any rate, Barry County is having a discussion regarding a bigger new JAIL, so weigh in, if you want to.
The first dozen comments are historical, but I've retained them for your pleasure. If and when a new discussion materializes, I will drop them to give easier access to new material.
eG