In order to have a legitimate rant about the collecteria, everyone needs to know what the collecteria is in Puerto Rico.

Collecteria: The collecteria is a government office that collects money from businesses and individuals. An example of an individuals’ payment is state income ta, property tax or to cash in lottery tickets. An example of a payment a business would have to make is the 7% sales tax or the tax withheld from employee payroll.

Departmento de Hacienda

Just a little more set up before I rant.
At one time, there was a collecteria located in downtown Rincon. As a Rincon based business, I was required to collecteria and make payments every month. There was always a long line, but it was right around the corner from our house so no big deal.

begin rant
They closed down the collecteria in Rincon about 6 months ago. I’m not sure why, since there was always a line there, but they shut the doors and the landord of the building put a sign indicating it was for rent. Se Aquilla (sp?). The sign on the glass read that it was closed and the next closest location was in Aguada.

I was bummed, because Aguada is 10 minutes away with no traffic and 45 minutes with traffic. Beat. Well, I was over it and started to enjoy going to Aguada once a month and used it as an excuse to stop at a Deli we discovered that actually sells lunch meats by the pound! Not that I like driving, but it was nice to get out of Rincon regularly.

Today I went to the collecteria in Aguada and they changed their hours of operation. They used to take my money from 9:00am to 3:00pm, but today they had a hand made sign written in highlighter that stated their new hours. They are now open from 9:00am to 12:00pm and then again from 1:00pm to 3:00pm.

Well, this new schedule isn’t that bad as long as you plan for it. Today, Sydney and I showed up at the collecteria at 11:45 and the guard came over and told me they were closed until 1:00pm. I asked the guard what time it was and he told me it was 11:45 and gave me a look like, I know we are closing 15 minutes early, but I’m not in charge, they are. He then pointed to the side walk and said;

Please wait here until 1:00pm.

I explained to him that it wasn’t 12:00pm yet and that I had all my paperwork/checks in order and that I would only take 2 minutes. He looked in to the counter where they were helping the last person in there and told me no.

Sydney the Superstar

Maybe it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but I thought it was ridiculous. Close early? I understand cutting down on hours to save money but this was just ridiculous. They weren’t closing down because of government cuts (closed office and 9-3 office hours), they were closing early because they were hungry and/or lazy.

The round trip with Sydney took us about an hour and twenty minutes. Do they think I can just leave the office for 3 or 4 hours to make a lousy payment every month!? When I was walking away the manager was giving me stink eye and I had no recourse. He’s the boss, gotta come back when he says so. If I were from Jersey, I would have flipped him off.

At first I was livid, but then Sydney and I went into a locally owned store down the street hand-in-hand to get a bottle of water. The store was small, only had beer, rum, smokes and bottled water. The owner was talkative, nice and was sweet on our little superstar girl. I let Sydney drink out of a big girl water bottle, she pointed out the balloons at the bridal store, claimed the motorcycle when it roared by and pointed out animal shapes in the clouds as we walked back to the truck. I was back in a great mood (thanks Syd).

However, just because I was in an instant good mood, it doesn’t mean that I’m not going to have a little rant on the blog. Man I was pissed. Have you had any good/bad experiences with Departmento de Hacienda Collecteria? Do share!

Within the last few months we have noticed that some of our thriving palms tree have suddenly died for no apparent reason. We initially blamed it on the ants, since we found a large ant pile around the base of one of the palms that died, but then we kept losing palm after palm and started to notice holes dug near the base of a lot of our palm trees. I initially figured they were dug by lizards or maybe even tarantulas so I just left them alone, but we have finally found the culprit of the palm tree murders and they are the ones making those holes!

Root Borer Beetles!

This is what is left of the beetle that Stefan pulled out of the hole:

And here is a picture of a live Root Borer Beetle:

And here is how those little bastards get into the tree’s roots for a feast that will end up killing the tree:

I read up on Root Borer Beetles on the internet and they said that there is not a whole lot you can do about it, because once you start to notice that the tree is dieing, the damage has already been done and the tree will most likely die. Stefan tried to flood them out of their holes by sticking the hose down there and filling the hole with water then backfilling them with dirt, but the next day, the holes reappeared. Obviously the Root Borers thought that Stefan’s water treatment was refreshing, so I decided to get down and dirty! I sprayed inside the hole with roach killer and then filled it in with dirt. It seems to have worked because that hole did not get re-dug.

So if you are noticing palm trees around your property suddenly dieing, check around the base. If you see some large holes, about 1 – 2 inches in diameter, you’ve got root borer beetles eating your palms roots. So far, they have only been eating the palms, but we’ve lost at least 6 already.

I feel the need to share this great song by a local band here in Rincon. Check it out and let me know what you think about the Durty Rats.
Applesauce 002 remix cb 32bit to 16 by Durty Rats

I’ve said it before, but I’m not sure if I said it here. The summer time in Puerto Rico to me is all about work, fresh fruit/vegetables and planting. This weekend was a great weekend. I got tons of yard work done, Summer and I planted a bunch of new plants and we got dumped on by a nice little tropical afternoon thunderstorm.

Rooster on the Front Porch

Our crazy rooster, that attacks Summer all the time, is quite brave. This afternoon, he (and his hens) were cruising around the front yard and decided to take a closer look at how humans live in Rincon. He cruised right up to the porch like it was nobody’s business and claimed the house as his own. Summer, Sydney and I are moving to the chicken coop next week.

Cheech the Cat Likes the Baby Chickens

Cheech absolutely loves the new chickens. He doesn’t want to eat them at all. He is just inspecting them to make sure none of them are sick or need medical attention. Cheechers says meow!!!

Yes, that’s right, Summer and I have jobs. It seems that many people think that because we moved to Rincon from California we got here with tons of coin and that we don’t need jobs because we are independently wealthy. Haha, this is not the case.

We both work full time from our offices located here at the house. We love working from home and love being able to spend so much time with Sydney. We’re super strict about schedules and parent duties timing. We alternate 6am-12 and 12-6pm Monday through Friday. This allows me to be in the office for 6 hours during the day, and then I work after Sydney goes to bed for a few hours every night. Summer and I often work weekends as well, as we both need at least 40 hours a week to work.

Yesterday, it was my morning shift in the office. I went upstairs to make a cup of coffee around 10:00am to take a break and say hello to Sydney and Summer. When I got up there, they weren’t home so I enjoyed my delicious coffee on the front porch alone with my thoughts. I put down my coffee and for some reason, thought what I was seeing was a great example of my lifestyle and two things that make me happy. Coffee and flip-flops. Not that it is art, but if you look at this picture subjectively I think you could read into it and get a lot more out of it than meets the eye. Hope your day today is as good as mine was yesterday!

Coffee Flip-Flops

Sydney and I were swimming at the Marina with friends the other day, when the weather started changing…It went from nice and sunny to dark and windy within a matter of minutes. While this is a pretty common occurrence in Puerto Rico in the summertime, this storm looked a bit more ominous then the typical 3pm downpour we’ve been having daily. As we packed up our things, we noticed a waterspout had formed!

I even got a short video of the waterspout:

This was the first time that I’ve seen a waterspout in person and it was pretty close. It was really cool to see the water getting sucked up from the ocean and the waves up the waterspout were so rhythmic, it looked like an optical illusion.

A waterspout is a tornado over water and is formed when cold air and warm air start swirling around thanks to a fast-moving thunderstorm. The waterspout we saw lasted for about 15 minutes and seemed to be increasing in strength, until it suddenly dissipated.

In other news…Looks like a tropical storm (Emily) is heading our way and will likely hit Puerto Rico this weekend. Will it be our first hurricane?!

Our hibiscus are getting so big, it’s time to start using hedge clippers!!

Netflix is in Puerto RIco!

We don’t have cable TV. The main reason is because I am a television addict. Sit me in front of a TV after 7:00pm and I am useless. I go into a hypnotic state and am pretty much good for nothing. Also, Time Warner Cable Choice Cable won’t bring cable to our neighborhood (even though we are on a main road with cable).

When we do watch TV, we decide which show we are going to watch and watch it on Hulu or one of the many streaming movie services on the web. The streaming movie services are all based in other countries that allow it and they are usually plagued with pop up advertisements, are poor quality and are anything but consistant.

We have been members of Netflix for years and when we are in California or traveling, we take advantage of their online streaming movies and tv shows, but they only owed the rights for the 50 states and when streaming was attempted from Puerto Rico, it wouldn’t stream and in place of the movie/tv show it would state that they don’t have the rights to show the program in Puerto Rico.

Well, all that has changed now. I received an email from Netflix yesterday saying their service now works in Puerto Rico! Yeah, cheers to Netflix for making the effort to gain the Puerto Rico market. We are stoked.

Last night I stayed up way too late watching a movie in bed on my laptop, and I’m stoked!! The streaming was SUPER fast, it never got interrupted or lost its quality.

While we love our home in Puerto Rico, the summer months tend to get pretty brutally hot (and the surf is notoriously flat), so we find this time of year to be a good time to see the world. This year we decided to visit some friends in Costa Rica and soak up the Pura Vida for a month. Costa Rica was actually first on our hit list when we decided to run away from home (although we have no regrets on ending up in Puerto Rico!). The surf, beaches, jungle, culture and food in Costa Rica is SO amazing and we are having a great time with great friends. Sydney is getting so much easier to travel with (not that this stopped us before!) and it’s nice to shake up the routine of our daily lives.

The place we are currently staying at is absolutely the most awesome place I have ever stayed at, anywhere. Seriously, I can not think of one thing I would change about Batik Blue.

Some pictures of our temporary home away from home:

Batik Blue is an amazing villa located a very short walk, through monkey filled jungle, to a great surf break and kid friendly beach. This place was built green, is the ultimate indoor/outdoor living situation, private pool, wonderful/friendly owners, dreamy beds, plush linens, and is literally located across the street from Stefan’s BFF, who is an amazing private chef here in Costa Rica (yes, we’ve been eating very well!). Our original plan involved a lot more “roughing it”, but thanks to an unfortunate day, good friends and good karma, we ended up in the ultimate spot for what we budgeted for practically camping.

Sadly, my camera was stolen (darn it!), so we don’t have any great pictures to share, but we’ll be back

Rainy Rincon - Summer is coming

My mom has been visiting us all week and flies out of Mayaguez this morning on Cape Air. She flies to San Juan and her flight will then connect to Philadelphia via US Air. We are hoping this weather passes in time for her to fly out and catch her flight to Philadelphia. It looks like San Juan is already clear.

Today, we have some South East wind, minor leftover swell in the water and a nice tropical storm reminding us that summer is right around the corner. It is pouring outside right now. The rain is bouncing off the tin roof and I am drinking a hot cup of coffee. Life is good.

The New Deck Enjoying The Rain