Time to Make Changes…

… to the look and feel of this Blog.

One of the zillion neat things about using Wordpress as your Blog software is the ability to change the theme (look and feel) of the Blog pretty much any time you get the urge.

The last theme, brownish in nature, was OK, but some folks found hard to read. The prior theme that I really liked (the one with the raindrops on green leaves) was excellent, but after 6 months of trying, I could never get the ’search’ feature to work properly. Searching in a Blog this size is important as there are years of Posts on many different topics. Many people just click one of the Categories that are listed to the right, but that is dependent on the Post author correctly ticking off check marks in all the appropriate categories.

Anyway, while changing a Wordpress theme talkes about 10 seconds, adding back the custom coding on this blog will take days and will most assuredly screw up the site until I fix it! So please be patient if you click here and the display is truly fouled up. Trust that I am all over it! Sadly (or happily), I am buried in work and this Blog must come behind my actual income producing labors.

Love it? Hate it? Could give a hoot? Feel free to leave a comment.

We have a new Contributor!

Please welcome Nora Straight who moved here from California with her husband and two sons aged 18 and 14. Half Chilean and half Mexican, it is no surprise she is Spanish fluent. She and her family live in Rio Seco which is about 15 minutes inland from Parrita, approximately 25 minutes north of Quepos.

Her bio indicates she likes Books, politics, cookbooks, travel, and knitting. It also indicates she likes chocolate. Having visited her Blog and seen her picture, it is clear that this is just nonsense. No serious chocolate lover could look like that. She probably doesn’t even sweat on the stairmaster either.

Welcome Nora! Now write something!

Just a Little Bit About Myself

If I may take a moment of your time, I’d like to properly introduce myself. My name is Susan Carmichael.  Tim said he erased the last introduction I did, but oh well, there’s always time for a second chance.

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New Author for This Blog

Susan Carmichael will be our newest contributor.

Susan lives here in Costa Rica and busies herself raising her two kids. She will provide readers with an expatriate mom’s view of Costa Rica that may well be of interest to other parents planning to move to Costa Rica with the younguns. She will address all the hot topics of interest to moms in general i.e. vomiting and diarrhea, schooling, bugs… etc.

Actually, Susan already submitted her first two posts, but like a bonehead, I managed to erase the first one, so you don’t get the intro post until she re-submits it.

Susan will have her own Category, so keep up to date by checking it regularly.

Welcome Susan!

Where is Nora?

That is the question being asked by some of our regular readers. Nora Schild is moving to Costa Rica… VERY soon… and has been contributing posts detailing her adventure.

The problem is… she has suddenly stopped writing! I have called her home in Missouri and chatted with her husband on several occasions. She is NEVER home! Now this is odd! For a woman only weeks away from the BIG MOVE, she seems to never be in her home!

This makes me wonder if she has been the subject of foul play! Perhaps her husband, driven loco by a woman bent on the expat lifestyle, has done away with her! Perhaps she is buried in the cold, cold Missouri soil behind the house!

Thus, I am making one more plea… Nora? Where are you? If alive, please write or call.

(signed)

Yo

Now Get The REAL Costa Rica Blog by Email

I have received several emails from people asking if they could get new posts and updates to The REAL Costa Rica Blog by email. They prefer to receive new Posts by email so as to not have to deal with RSS or visit a ton of blogs to see if anything new has been added.

This turned out to be a pretty simple request thanks to the folks at Feedburner, the company that handles my RSS feeds. Interested? To subscribe, just place your email address in the subsciption form at the top-right. You will immediately receive a verifying email which you must answer. Then you will be all set. The system will send you a copy of any new posts in HTML format at about 6-9 AM CST. No posts? No email.

Prefer a direct link to subscribe? Click Here

Fresh Blood!

As you can probably imagine, I get a ton of email from people who are thinking about making the BIG MOVE. Some are just sticking a toe in the international waters while others are in various stages of living the rest of their lives as expatriates.

Of course I made the move here some years ago and I remember I experienced the excitement, fear, doubts and panic that attend such a decision. I said my goodbyes to friends and family (my daughter did not believe I was really leaving until about ten days before I actually left). It was/is a scary thing experience for just about everyone I know who has done this.

So when I received an email from someone who was in the process of packing HER family and actually experiencing the emotions above… and when she further told me she wanted to BLOG her experiences, I jumped on it immediately! Welcome to Nora Schild who will be chronicling her family’s move to Costa Rica.

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OK… It’s Sort of IE Ready

After a LOT of screwing around, this blog now displays (almost) perfectly in IE.

Those of you who have had the “pleasure” of designing for the IE browser know how much fun this was. IE does not use the “normal” HTML set of commands, so stuff like this happens a lot. As more and more people use Firefox and other more compliant, secure and state-of-the-art browsers, making web sites work in ALL browsers become really important. But there are always the holdouts!

So IE users rejoice! And when you finish rejoicing, by all means go here and download a good browser! It will make you happy!

Not IE Ready!

GRRRRRR!

The longer I live, the more I HATE Internet Explorer!

So I get this beautiful new theme working just the way I want it, test it in Opera and Firefox, the two browsers I prefer, and make the BIG SWITCH! It looks great (IMHO).

NOW, I get an email telling me that my Blog “looks funny” in IE. So I test it (yeah, I know, I shudda tested it first) and lo and behold, the center column where there SHOULD be posts is empty… until about halfway down the page.

So here is your fair warning… For now, use Firefox or Opera to properly see the new theme or be content with scrolling down the page! I am working on the problem, but the solution so far escapes me. I also asked the designer for a bit of help. so be patient. Besides, Firefox or Opera are BOTH better that IE so use the links above to download ‘em.