Robert Gentel’s Blog

Ok, so I have two “Siamese Fighting Fish” (a.k.a. “Betta” fish) at the moment, and I had one in a community tank and the other in a large vase. The community tank is a bit aggressive, there is a Red-finned shark that harasses a lot of the other fish. He hasn’t injured any fish that I know of, but he chases them when they come near the bottom of the tank.

With a large Angelfish keeping the fish at the top of the tank in check I figured I may have the right kind of crowd to make for a tank that can house two Betas in one tank. See, everyone “knows” that you can’t do this. The conventional wisdom is that they will “fight to the death. But in the wild, that is just not true, the weaker fish will usually flee. However in a small tank there is no opportunity to flee so the Bettas can actually kill each other.

In any case, the experiment seems to be working. They have both been in the community tank for a week now and the larger one only chases the smaller one for a second or two and they’ve not even touched. It’s a tentative peace, based on the smaller one being afraid enough and the larger one being uncomfortable enough around the red-finned shark and the angelfish. I don’t recommend it for novice aquarium keepers but for those with experience with difficult fish pairings and with a large tank with the right crowding and enough places to hide this can be done. They will chase each other briefly at most and have not fought.

Ok, so on Friday we decided to go to the beach (Manuel Antonio, in Quepos)  on a whim and took our dog Harry.  He vomited a bit on the way (he gets motion sickness) but he enjoyed the trip and eagerly took in the sights.

It’s a long drive, several hours, and we left pretty late so we got to the beach at around 11 and started looking for a hotel. Luckily, one of the first hotels with vacancies said having a dog would be no problem so we checked in and all headed out to dinner.

Dinner proved to be more challenging, as it was now past midnight and most kitchens were closed. But we found a restaurant/bar whose kitchen was still open and their food was not bad at all. They had no problem with Harry (the tables are on a covered, but open, deck) so he joined us for dinner (from under the table).

Harry woke us up early the next day, and we checked out and headed for the beach. We had a quick breakfast at a beach side restaurant and then hit the sand. We rented some chairs and a big beach umbrella that were setup all across the beach and took orders from the various waiters serving drinks across the beach (that’s alone is one reason I prefer living outside the States) and drank beer while Harry discovered digging. He’d tried digging at home on a tiled surface but at the beach it actually worked and he frantically dug a fairly impressive hole. This kept him busy enough for us to relax until he saw a large rottweiler run into the surf and roll around in the water. Harry went nuts and challenged the dog to a duel. We had to hold him back as he barked and thrashed and tried to get loose to quote “kick the dogs ugly ass”.  He’s a Maltese and loses his fights with our not-yet-fully-grown cat so I played it safe and held him off the ground.

I rented a jet ski for an hour and spent some time circling some islands right outside of the national park (where I was not allowed to go) which was a lot of fun, and then we headed back. The trip back was in the daylight, and the two narrow rusting metal bridges you need to cross to get to Quepos looked even more derelict than at night. Thankfully, they are being replaced with new bridges and it shouldn’t take the 15 to 20 minutes it sometimes does to get across in the future.

In San Jose, I had a bit of bad luck and was stopped by a traffic police. I hadn’t renewed the “right to circulate” (kinda like registration) for the car yet and the cop played hardball saying he may have to take my license plates. He was, of course, expecting a bribe but I would rather not pay into their corruption (I think tolerance for corruption is a huge impediment to economic progress in developing countries) and he took them away and ticketed me. Now I’ll have to go through a lot of hoops and pay a lot of fines to get them back and since I don’t have time or patience to do so I’ll end up paying someone else to do it. He would have let me walk for 10 to 20 dollars, but now I’ll end up paying a couple hundred and not being able to drive my car a week or two and paying a lot in taxis. The good angel on my shoulder (as opposed to the lil’ demon who gives the bad advice)  is avoiding me because he knows I want to kill him right now.

But in any case, we got home and the cat hadn’t partied too hard in our absence so all is well.

P.S No, we didn’t go to the national park. I’ve already been several times and we’ll be back soon enough so we didn’t bother walking over to ask if Harry could go. Given his enthusiasm to confront the dogs, horses, and cows he saw it would have been funny to see his reaction to monkeys but that will have to wait till next time.

Or rather, his wife did. It’s small (hand-held) and stuff.

Congrats!

The girl and I went to the mall today and saw Mr. Brooks. It was only marginally interesting in that it is a decidedly different moral perspective on serial killers than usual Hollywood fare. They usually don’t portray a nuanced serial killer and it’s the first film I recall in which the serial killer’s struggle to control his urges are center stage. But enough about that, I have something more interesting: dog shoes.

My girlfriend bought shoes for Harry. They are little blue sneakers that lace up and I was sure he’d kill himself if he had to wear them. But he didn’t mind them much and ran around sounding like a horse. I’ll post a video of him and his new kicks when I get around to it but he’s more comfortable than I imagined he would be.

But as I expected, he’s too boisterous to keep them on, if he’s energetic he’ll run till one falls off and if not he’ll untie them all and knaw on them. My girlfriend says they are for his weekly outings to the park but I think I’d be mortified to walk a dog with shoes on in public, even if I think it’s very funny in private.

Ok, so working in my own company, Horizontal Verticals, means I get to smoke when I feel like. Since you can smoke in any bar and restaurant in Costa Rica and I can now smoke at work that has led me to smoke too much.

So here’s the plan (and I’m writing it here as much to remind myself to stick to it over the next few days as much as anything else):

- I am allowed to smoke only 5 minutes before or after the top or bottom of the hour. If I miss a window I am not allowed to make up for it.

Pretty easy. It keeps nicotine levels while separating smoking from other triggers and is an easy rule to keep. Later I’ll reduce it to the top of the hour only and from there I can get to the right number of cigarettes I want a day (not yet interested in quitting).

My uncle Roger passed away today, he was not in good health after years of abusing his body but I wasn’t expecting it. RIP Roger….

I finally went to the dentist. I’d been needing a filing for a while and my fiancé got sick of hearing me say I was going to go and scheduled me a visit. It was quick and uneventful. The prices are charged per visit ($50) for most dental work here and they divide big work into different visits. I have a follow up next week and I’m just glad someone’s finally forcing me to take care of details like this that I tend to put off.

Our stay in Managua, Nicaragua was uneventful. We stayed at the Best Western across from the airport (literally across the street). We went to the “Metro Centro” which was little more than a mall. I was disappointed in the difficulty in finding a decent restaurant. We ended up eating Pizza Hut there!

From there we went to some other commercial centers and to Managua lake, but there’s really no center of activity in Managua. So we stayed in the hotel most of the time, enjoying the pool, bar and restaurant.

Our exit was problematic, with Taca airlines taking 40 minutes to check us in but at least I renewed my Visa and can put all that behind me.

Damn, I left Harry and Fiona at a pet hotel today, as we are leaving tomorrow to Nicaragua for a few days. I didn’t think I’d miss them but I’ve grown accustomed to Harry’s furry little face and have come to look forward to greeting him when I get home.

Coming home after dropping him off, I caught myself calling for him as I walked through the door. He looked so damned sad as I left him, probably more to do with having vomited from motion sickness than knowing that we were leaving him but that’s still the last I remember of the cute lil’ bastard.

I’m off to Nicaragua tomorrow, but can’t wait till it’s all over and we are all back home.

Ok, so we went to the movies again and saw Will Smith’s new movie I am Legend. I had heard good things about it but was a little disappointed (not much since I expected to be).

The story was not very compelling and the climax was anticlimactic. The only good thing I can really say about it is that it wasn’t that boring. At least the “dark seekers” were freaky looking. For someone less jaded with Hollywood than I it might actually be a decent film but for me it was just good enough for me to stick around till the end.