California 2 Puerto Rico

This sounded really weird to me. Rent wood. hmmm…something just didn’t seem right about it.

Jerry is forming up the cement posts for the entrance and gate to our property today, and wrote (i am speaking figuratively here) up a spec list of things he needs to get it done.

Supplies needed to build the concrete wall and entrance gate;
• 14 2×4x8 - Untreated
• 4 sheets of 3/4 inch plywood - Untreated
• nails
• construction tools (hammer, saw, level, shovel, string, tape measure etc)

Once we did the math on the timber that we need for the fence (we are only going to use it once) all of the wood added up to about $180 (that is just to build the forms to pour the concrete into…concrete costs are an entire different deal). Jerry suggested that because we were only going to use the wood once, we rent the wood from a concrete supply store in the Puntas barrio of Rincon instead of using expensive virgin wood and just throwing it away when we were done. It seemed strange to me, but we headed on over there a few minutes ago and got a big load of RENTAL WOOD(so weird to me).

Rent Wood for Concrete Forms - Save Money

We rented all of the wood we needed for the wall for a grand total of $38 dollars. It is already cut to the size we need (standard cement posts for fencing) and we just give it back when we are done. They required a $50 deposit and we have to have the wood back to them in 25 days. What a deal.

Picture of Concrete Supply Store in Rincon - Easy Reference Guide
Jerry carrying Rental Wood

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We were planning on using IPE hardwood floors throughout the house upstairs. We were going to use it everywhere except the two bathrooms…that includes the kitchen. Upon further thought (more so because of the advice Robin gave us) we decided that hardwood floors in the kitchen would not be such a great idea. Tile is cleaner, easier to maintain and much more durable than hardwood floors.

Today, we have a lot of things going on at the house.
• Jerry is framing the forms for our gate/fence at the entrance of the property
• Gino and Kevin are putting up concrete board in the master bath
• Gino, Kevin, Jerry and I are going to move the heavy ass mahogany cabinets out of the kitchen into the great room
• We are going to put down the concrete board in the kitchen (opposite direction of the 3/4 plywood that is in there now for strength
• Summer and I are going to look for tile again today (we looked on Saturday…with a little luck)
• Summer and I are going to put down Behr High Gloss Concrete Sealer through out the entire downstairs (using Gino’s 18” rollers)
• I am going to order a 20” utility sink for the laundry room (smaller than normal…Home Depot doesn’t carry it hear in Puerto Rico…only on the mainland WTF
• We are meeting with the landscapers at 4:00pm to see their computer renditions of our property with their landscaping ideas along with an estimate

Busy day.

It’s funny. I was talking to Summer last night about the complete paradigm shift that I had when I moved down here and started working on the house. I have seen 100’s of houses being built, I have spoken with many people that have built their own house…but now I see building a house in a completely different light. The hard work took a while to get used to, especially in the heat, but now that I am used to working with my muscles everyday (as well as on the keyboard) I find the hardest part about building our house in Rincon are all the decisions I need to make (based on what is available to us here and the vision it takes to make them) on the daily basis. Anyone want to come down and make some decisions for us? That is the hardest part.

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I am not a huge fan of zoning out in front of the ‘idiot box’ for hours and hours with a bag of chips, some mountain dew and a couple hand fulls of bon-bons…but I do like what watching movies does to me sometimes…totally zones me out to where I think/see nothing but the movie. I stop thinking about tile choices, bank mortgage rules, contractors, grass, landscaping……blah blah blah.

I joined Netflix last night. I am now paying $17 a month for unlimited movies shipped to my PO Box here in Rincon. I’ll let you know how well that works out…I started my list this morning….”When will I get my first movie?”

The drawback to using Netflix in Puerto Rico is that there is no “on-demand” feature here. In the main 50 United States you can browse movies that you can watch on your computer instantly! When I went to download one last night…they informed me (after I signed up) that would not be able to view movies instantly.

I am looking into maybe using a “proxy IP” or something that would make my computer look like it is on the mainland. I got researching and found something called “TOR” and the plugin for FireFox. Maybe I’ll give it a shot and let you guys know what is up with that working as a mainland IP address. Do any of you have any suggestions?

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Summers’ flight left Lindberg field in San Diego today at 12:20pm. She is flying JetBlue to JFK with a 3 hour layover and then is scheduled to arrive in Aguadilla Puerto Rico at 3:39am. I have my alarm set for 2:45am.

We are both strong minded people so we know what we need to do to make the living in Puerto Rico dream become reality. Unfortunately, that means weeks apart from each other at a time. We have been at that game since May (almost 5 months) and we have done pretty well so far. Neither of us dwell on being apart…it just is what it is. Finish house, live happily ever after. But now, knowing she will be here in 6 hours I am going to have a hard time falling asleep. I am excited to see Summer.

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This is not going to be as easy as I had hoped. I thought there was a slim chance that I would be able to exchange my California drivers license for a Puerto Rico license and be on my way. Not so much. It really isn’t an easy thing to do, there are many hoops to jump through, and of course, the hoops are in espanol. I will do my best to explain what you need to do to get your license here in Puerto Rico.

Getting Your Drivers License in Puerto Rico;

• Original Birth Certificate
• Passport
• Social Security Card
• Official Copy of your drivers record from your home state
• Written Test
• Health Physical (Certificacion Medical)
• Three 2×2 passport photos
• Sellos (DMV Stamps)

Most of the things you need to give the Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico Departamento de Transportacion y Obras Publicas would be realatively easy to find if Summer and I weren’t in the middle of a move. I have my birth certificate, passport and social security card in a travel folder….that is packed away somewhere…so that may take a while to find.

The Health Exam, passport photos and sellos can all be purchased right next door to the DMV for $30..so that’s not hard either.

Puerto Rico does offer the Drivers Test in English by special request, and although they don’t have English versions of the Puerto Rico drivers manual, the pharmacy right down the walkway of the mini-mall sells them for $2.99. There are two mistakes in the English Version of the handbook.

Mistakes in the English Puerto Rico Drivers Test Handbook

• Between midnight and five am (12:00am-5:00am) you must stop and red lights, then you can go through them.
• Parking next to a sidewalk with Yellow paint is a $50 fine

I really think the most difficult aspect of all this is going to be getting a copy of my California Driving Record. Have you ever tried calling the DMV in California? It’s all automated messaging that has never offered the option of “Fax Copy of California Driving Record to Puerto Rico”. Regardless of this not being an option, I am going to try to get a human being on the line and explain my situation. If they send me in the right direction, I will report back to you guys with my findings.

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I order the DecoLav sink for our guest bathroom! I purchased it from FaucetDirect.com and it should be delivered to our house is Puerto Rico. Which should be interesting, since we’ve never used our physical address for shipments yet, so we’ll see if the UPS guy can find:

Stefan and I are trying to curb our spending a bit, so we went with a cheaper sink for the guest bath. The DecoLav sink was only $178.75…well, that’s without the “accessories” that you need for the sink. After it was all said and done I just spent $451.76 on the sink for the guest bathroom (sink, mounting ring, drain assembly and lavatory faucet). Sigh. So much for trying to be cheap…haha.

Edit: 9/25 - It turns out that FaucetDirect.com is retarded and won’t ship to Puerto Rico, even though they give you the option when you check out. SO I ordered the exact same shit (sink, faucet, accessories) from Faucet.com and it was delivered via UPS 2-day air for $70.

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If you buy a car in Puerto Rico, there is one thing that remains the same…the owner needs to sign the original title over to you. Here is where they spin you a little…if the owner is not around (like our truck) and they send you the signed title you will need to do the following;

• Get a lawyer to notarize a letter stating the owner signed the car over to you but is not around ($20)
• Go to the Department of Motor Vehicles and pay $10 for the new title
• Pay $30 for physical inspection
• Pay $20 for smog inspection

The easiest thing to do is have the owner go with you the local collectoria (local DMV office) and sign the title over to you there. That will only cost you $10 and you don’t have to worry about anything else besides showing up at the DMV within 10 days with the new paperwork to make it official.

Luckily, the old owner was in town this week, and after going to the DMV, I decided to call her and take the easy route. As of today, I have 10 days to make the transfer final.

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Jerry and I are heading to the Department of Motor Vehicles this morning to take care of two things. Jerry is a great translator and he also needs to apply for a new license since he lost his old one.

• Marbete (registration)
• Puerto Rican Drivers License

Apparently, Marbete registers your vehicle and provides you with basic collision coverage on your vehicle. The caveat of that is that even if you are driving a vehicle with updated Marbete, it doesn’t mean you are covered if you get into an accident. If you have been in Puerto Rico for more than 30 days and you don’t have a Puerto Rican drivers license you aren’t covered if you get into an accident. The key to being covered is also having a Puerto Rican drivers license; then your collision and health care costs from an accident are covered.

I was told by a few people that the only thing I need to do to get my Puerto Rican drivers license (I have been here for 4 months) is hand them my license from California and get my picture taken. I researched this some more online (not much on the web in English, and a lot of the spanish sites are all graphic based, so cool translation tools like BabelFish don’t work) and I think I am going to have to take the drivers test…which is only offered in Spanish.

I’ll update you on how my Puerto Rico Department of Motor Vehicle adventure goes today. I’ll post a more detailed explanation on how to register your car in Puerto Rico and how to get your drivers license in Puerto Rico. Wish me luck….bueno suerte (i just wished myself luck)!

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Summer and I bought all of our appliances at Sears. They offered a great discount for first time Sears Credit Card holders (24% APR) along with a preexisting sale so we pulled the trigger on everything we needed; washer, dryer, refrigerator, oven, dishwasher, exhaust van and microwave.

Everything we ordered we had delivered…all of which came in on different dates. Before delivering, Sears has an automated messaging system call you and tell you the delivery date about 3 days away from delivery. The day before delivery, the same automated messaging service calls back and gives you a three hour window of delivery along with a number to call if you have any conflicts with the delivery time.

All of the deliveries have been pretty accurate until this last one. The delivery of the dryer never showed up on Monday between 12:00 and 3:00pm and I have not heard anything from Sears. I am going to have to make time today and get them on the phone….”Where’s our dryer!”

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Kuta and Monkey are not like the typical Puerto Rican style dogs down here. They were raised in San Diego in fenced in yards and really only got to interact with people and dogs when we were outside the ‘compound.’ Because of this, they are very defensive of the house down here (especially when summer is here) and don’t particularly care for visitors.

Jerry is here helping with the house almost every day…and even so, Jerry gives them special attention so that they like him instead of barking at him everywhere he goes. Just in the past week, Monkey has warmed up to Jerry enough to run up to him wagging her tail in the morning. Kuta still barks at him coming down the driveway before he slowly goes over and says hello…but one false move on Jerry’s part (loud yelling, quick aggressive movement) and Jerry could have bite bruises from Kuta’s herding skills.

Kuta and Monkey getting some love from Jerry

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