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Our last day in Calgary — yesterday — was filled mostly by me repacking all of our bags so we could fly out, and then the actual travel here to Burlington, Ontario. We’re here to visit with family (today is Alex’s family reunion) before we leave for Costa Rica.

Or face the long-distance wrath of scorned relations…

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So you’ve been around a bit. You’ve been to Costa Rica, Honduras, Belize, Hawaii. You’ve seen a lot, but are finding the same problem again and again and again — everyone else has already been there. They’ve done it, so every time you want to go somewhere, your friends are blasé about the whole thing.

I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. There’s a small country near the equator that an exceedingly small number of people go to for tourism. Business, yes. One city as part of a cruise, maybe. But visit? Hardly.

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I’m in Panama. Been here since Tuesday afternoon. Been really, really busy. So far, the biggest problem I’ve had here (aside from the aforementioned busy-ness and subsequent inability to talk to my family), is that I’ve had Van Halen’s Panama stuck in my head pretty much since we left San Jose.

Damn you, David Lee Roth. Damn you!

So far, it’s a great place to visit (a post coming on this soon). But we’ve been steadily on the move.

Oy.

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Okay, so a while back I was having kittens (pun intended) about bringing Asia into Costa Rica. Mostly because I simply could not seem to get a straight answer from anyone about the proper process. It was driving me batty.

So, to anyone bringing in their (small) dog or cat (this might also work for rabbits, but don’t expect success with gerbils or hamsters or any form of rodent; and it’s a one-way trip for all birds, you can’t take them out again) into Costa Rica, allow me to present the (current) process. It’s really easy.
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As you might have seen on my Tweets this morning, I’m alive in Costa Rica. But I’m not “well”. My daughter gave me a parting gift — a nasty head cold. Fortunately, it didn’t kick in until I arrived here, otherwise flying would have been utter hell. Such as it is, my head is stuffed with a pound or two of mucus, which is pouring out of a couple of orifices. Kept me up most of the night. Oy.

I had a better experience than Jason or Mark. Jason arrived at the airport on my flight last night only to find his bags didn’t arrive with him. Mark’s connection had issues, and got stuck in O’Hare. I had an email from him at 3:20 this morning, with a 5:45 departure. The bags and Mark should arrive just after 12:30 today.

Jason and I met with Javier this morning. Good news on the office front — we have a space to work in for the next month and a half, and we’ve started to acquire materials to construct the new office. I’m not going to go into details on those just yet — there are some things you really have to see to believe.

For now, Jason and I are cooped up in our hotel rooms (Jason’s likely to be here another night) until we can head out to get all of our paperwork signed for the condos. More than likely, Mark will be here and come with us at the time. With luck, I’ll be in my condo this evening, and the cat will finally have reign to run around a bit.

Well, we’re on our way. I was up until almost midnight last night packing. Was originally thinking three bags, but went down to two. Which is good, because apparently I’d have been denied the third bag. As it stands, the backpack was overweight by three lousy pounds, so I got stuck with an extra bag fee and an overweight fee.

Where the heck did all these fees come from? It even costs me $100 to get the cat on the plane. Three and a half hours later, I’m in Houston, with a cat in a bag. Tried letting her out at the “Pet Relief Area” over in Terminal B, but all she wanted to do was hide in the tropical plants. I’m not even sure if she relieved herself at all.

Lunch was at Ruby’s, while Asia watched people go by. She’s been exceedingly good, and hasn’t had one freak-out as a result of all this. Whether or not she’s still in one piece when we get to our hotel in Costa Rica is another question.

Last session of the conference. And yes, another Schill recommendation. But this one I wanted to go to as well. We always have this problem — how to let people know something is private without the fear of “unauthorised” access.

Sadly, Kellan’s slides exploded just prior to the session, so we see an Apple-like presentation sans imagery.

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