California 2 Puerto Rico

That’s right, Summer is here. Both of them.

Summer arrives in Puerto Rico I

Summer flew in almost a week ago from her three week business trip to San Diego. The entire time she was there she was working 15 hour days, moving warehouses, setting up new utilities, working with accountants and bookkeepers and I can only imagine what else. She left San Diego at 9:45pm on Jet Blue and arrived in Aguadilla around 10:00am the next day. I got to the airport a little early and decided to hang out at Wilderness (surf spot in the flight path) until her plane cruised in overhead. Here is a picture I took of her plane with my phone. Sitting on the beach waiting for her flights is definitely better than circling the San Juan Airport in the truck.

Jet Blue Arriving in Aguadilla

Summer arrives in Puerto Rico II

Not only is MY Summer here, but the summer heat is here as well! The past couple of days have been hot (but they are always hot when you are in the sun), but the evenings have been hot as well. In the winter, the nights really cool down quite a bit. It is perfect weather for shorts and a t-shirt and maybe jeans if the trade winds are blowing or there is a storm system over us. Once summer starts to hit, the evenings don’t cool off quite as much and the idea of putting on long pants becomes quite unsettling.

This prompted us (along with a visit from Brian) to install our new ceiling fan in the master bedroom and begin our research on installing air conditioning in the two bedrooms upstairs and the offices/guest bedroom downstairs.

We will be getting split units for upstairs, but Brian brought up putting in Ducts and central air downstairs since we haven’t drywalled the ceilings yet. Let the Air Con research begin! Have any of you guys made a Air Conditioning investment at your house? If so, do you have any input for us (cost, brand, pitfalls etc)? Let us know!

Popularity: 5% [?]

Listen up people! It’s time to go bowling and all of you need to join us. We have been bowling in Aguadilla a couple of times (Next to the Wendy’s and Freshmart Health Food Store on the No. 2) and have decided if it is a worthy enough sport for The Dude, it’s a worthwhile pastime for all of us. Summer and I would like to loosely organize a Rincon bowling night in Aguadilla. Tuesday and Wednesday nights offer $5 a person all the games you can bowl from 4:00pm to 9:00pm. Medalia is only $1.25 and the place is air conditioned. The way I see it, anyone that goes is making out on the deal.

Rincon Bowling Night

: Tuesdays, 6:00pm

Smokey, this is not ‘Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.

This may not be ‘Nam, but it is Puerto Rico so I am not going to make any rules at all. If you would like to play, Summer and I are going to go Tuesday nights around 6:00pm and would like all of you to come. As far as we are concerned, the more the merrier (rowdier)!

If you have never been to the bowling alley in Aguadilla, it is tricky to find, but once you have been there once, you’ll never have a problem finding your way back. It is right across the street from the Walgreens and next to Wendy’s on the No. 2. It is hard to see because it is up about 40 feet on a hill above Wendy’s and they don’t have any Vegas blinking lights advertising * Bowling * Bowling * Bowling . I embedded a Google Map below with directions to the Wendy’s. You will be able to find it from there.

Bowl Aguadilla with us, Tuesday Nights at 6:00pm

Let us know if you are thinking about going. Once we get this rolling on the weekly basis, we’ll reserve lanes, set up some teams and keep an official score sheet that we’ll post publicly here. It could be that my poker habits are bleeding into the rest of my life (especially since I am no good at bowling), but I think I’d like to make a $1 wager per game (yes, an entire dollar). Ya know, spice it up a bit. Who’s in!

Popularity: 17% [?]

Puerto Rico can vote in the presidential primary elections to help elect a candidate for the President of The United States. Puerto Rico has 5 Superdelegates (same vote as a delegate, just they aren’t pledged to a candidate). At this point in the primary, of the 5 superdelegates, three of them are unofficially pushing for Hillary Clinton and the other two are pushing for Obama.

I am an Obama supporter, and just made a donation to his campaign, because I beleive in him and think that he can get our country back on track. That jackass Texan in the White House has created an enormous mess which the next President will have to unravel (if a Dem wins the whole shooting match, the conservative press is going to have a field day bashing the new Prez for problems created by George W), but I think having Obama as our next President (well rounded, well traveled, cultured, educated, charismatic) is Americas HOPE. I don’t want America to be the laughing stock of the world. I want our dollar to regain value and our economy to become a super power once again. Obama can get us there.

If you want to Donate to Obama, click on the link or the banner.

YES WE CAN

Do you want to have to pay a toll to your Internet provider to access websites? Do you want your Internet provider to charge the business you are buying from to have premium connection speeds (this charge will need to be passed on to the consumer)? NO NO NO.

Read Obama’s stance on Net Neutrality

Protect the Openness of the Internet: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet. Users must be free to access content, to use applications, and to attach personal devices. They have a right to receive accurate and honest information about service plans. But these guarantees are not enough to prevent network providers from discriminating in ways that limit the freedom of expression on the Internet. Because most Americans only have a choice of only one or two broadband carriers, carriers are tempted to impose a toll charge on content and services, discriminating against websites that are unwilling to pay for equal treatment. This could create a two-tier Internet in which websites with the best relationships with network providers can get the fastest access to consumers, while all competing websites remain in a slower lane. Such a result would threaten innovation, the open tradition and architecture of the Internet, and competition among content and backbone providers. It would also threaten the equality of speech through which the Internet has begun to transform American political and cultural discourse. Barack Obama supports the basic principle that network providers should not be allowed to charge fees to privilege the content or applications of some web sites and Internet applications over others. This principle will ensure that the new competitors, especially small or non-profit speakers, have the same opportunity as incumbents to innovate on the Internet and to reach large audiences. Obama will protect the Internet’s traditional openness to innovation and creativity and ensure that it remains a platform for free speech and innovation that will benefit consumers and our democracy.

Popularity: 30% [?]

I haven’t really noticed exactly what was itching for the past two days (itching is a very common thing this time of year in Puerto Rico because of all the Pica Pica) but I have been scratching as needed. Yesterday, I realized that it wasn’t Pica Pica, that it is some sort of rash, but I don’t know what it is from: sea lice? allergy to another plant?

Have any of you seen this? Can you identify this itchy rash on my back?

The welts I have on my back are from Sea Lice! Crazy, sea lice bites me, but I have never had welts. I guess the sea lice in Puerto Rico is vicious!

Popularity: 42% [?]

You know how it goes. When the cat is away the mice will play! I decided to pack up the car and head to Las Vegas for some casino, restaurant and some social action. I saw the signs, but never found the big lights of the city. Rumor has it Las Vegas has high rises and spotlights that I thought I’d be able to see from a distance…no such luck. I didn’t find any casinos, or any high rises for that matter. I decided to head over to Mark’s Texas Hold ‘Em game instead, it was fun. I placed fifth.

Popularity: 43% [?]

Summer and I both lived alone before we met each other. I lived in a little one bedroom cottage in La Jolla and she lived in a 3 bedroom house in Carlsbad. She worked from home (except when she and Kuta would go to the post office with the daily shipment) and I commuted to downtown San Diego to my office. So, when we moved in together, we both had to get used to having a roommate again. Of course, living with you significant other is different than a run of the mill roommate, but once the honeymoon stage is over you need to get used to each others domestic shortcomings and step up to pick up each others slack (For example: I hate doing laundry and summer hates doing the dishes).

Domestic routines and chores have never been my strong point. I am either OCD clean, or a complete slob. When Summer left for California, my plan was to organize, scrub and set up a routine for both of us to follow so we won’t constantly feel like we are living in a construction zone (with dirty dishes and dirty laundry).

But now that I am here alone, I am finding myself unmotivated to complete this monumental task (3,000 sqft of house, tools and supplies), but not because I don’t feel like doing it, but because I miss my girl. Back to paragraph one, it was nice to have some alone time at the house, but that only lasted about a day, and now I am aching to have my chick back in Rincon at my side. We are such a team. It is rare to see either of us outside of the house unless we are together (not counting my ridiculously early dawn patrol surf session that usually start around 5:15am).

Last night, on my way to the poker home game we love to play (Summer taught me how to play Texas Hold ‘Em Poker), I caught a glimpse of the sunset. It was the nicest sunset I have seen down here in a long time and I really wanted to share the moment with Summer. I pulled the car over, walked down to the beach and fired off a photo to send to my girl (Hallmark doesn’t have anything on the sunsets Rincon is privy to on the nightly basis) telling her that I was thinking about her (no need to dwell on the I miss you part, it makes it harder on both of us). Then it hit me, how selfish am I being? Summer knows I love and miss her, but you guys deserve to see the Caribbean Sunset as much as she does!

So, if it were normal to ‘toast’ to a sunset with our blog instead of a drink, this would be normal;

I toast this beautiful Caribbean sunset to everyone reading our California 2 Puerto Rico blog. I hope you have/will find a love in your life like I have found mine and that you work actively every day to make your wants/desires/dreams a reality!

Popularity: 54% [?]

The tomatoes that Eddie planted in the cool garden beds that he made, are starting to get big. So Stefan and I decided it was time to make some tomato cages. Luckly(?) we have 6 big rolls of fencing left over from putting up the fence in the backyard, so we recycled one roll into tomato cages.

Popularity: 59% [?]

As many of you know, there is not a whole lot to do in Rincon, Puerto Rico, once the sun goes down. Luckly there are many poker players in town, so we play home poker games 3 times a week. Mondays and Saturdays we play at Marks house and here are the official poker stats:

(You will notice that I am currently #1)

We are also going to try and set up a web cam so you can spy on us when we play. I’ll let you know once that is up and running…

Popularity: 53% [?]

Does anyone know if Puerto Rico celebrates the ‘non-religious’ side of St. Patrick’s day? Just to clarify that, I know that it is celebrated in the churches here, but do local Puerto Rican bars (not tourist bars) dye the beer green, hang four leaf clovers and discount Bushmills and Jameson shots?

Popularity: 59% [?]

Last week, I started feeling a little weak, it was getting harder and harder to get up early for surfing every morning, I had muscle and joint soreness and it felt like I had water in my ears all the time. It was throwing off my equilibrium, making be feel dizzy and all I really wanted to do was lay around an relax. It was not accompanied by anything else associated with being sick (vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, etc) For me, sitting around is a hard thing to do…even when I am exhausted, I do what needs to get done or my mind starts running through the list of things that need to get done like ticker tape and it ruins my relaxing moments.

Well, by Friday morning I realized that my body was going into shut-down mode. I was completely exhausted, was really achy, had a constant headache and felt dizzy. It was enough to retire to the couch and bed for the entire weekend. I didn’t sleep much more than normal on Saturday, just didn’t feel like moving. I drank tons of water/juice and watched movie after movie (Assassination of Jessee James, Two Days in the Valley, Death Sentence, He Was a Quiet Man) and read a junk food novel by John Grisham called “The Testament.”

Without ruining the book, one of the characters in The Testament got Dengue Fever while in South America…and it got me thinking. Hmmm…..symptoms of Dengue Fever; Headache, Joint Aches, Muscle Aches, Nausea, Swollen lymph nodes, Rash and vomiting. Dengue Fever is a disease similar to malaria as it is carried and transmitted by mosquitoes (Aedes Aegypti Mosquito: Only feed during the day) and it can be found in the tropics or tropical climates.

Instead of panicking or even caring at all (I am very melancholy when I am sick), I slept for about 18 hours yesterday. I woke up when Summer came to bed at about 1:30am and had a little trouble going back to sleep but woke up again this morning around 7:00am feeling pretty good. We’ll see how it goes today, hopefully I am on the road to recovery!

Popularity: 57% [?]