Back in the Saddle

I am finally getting caught up after missing 4 days of work. 4 days doesn't seem like alot, but you would be surprised at the number of phone messages, computer problems, staff problems, and drama that can pile up in that short amount of time. Luckily, there was nothing too serious. Nancy is glad too, since I told her on our way back that if there were any disasters while I was gone that we may never go on another vacation.


Like I said before, Costa Rica was awesome. I didn't know much about the country prior to our visit, but we were thoroughly impressed. Our original plan had been to go to Mexico, but it made some of our friends a little uneasy to go there with all of the drug cartel stuff going on. So we decided on Costa Rica. For those that don't know, it is a tiny country between Nicaragua and Panama in Central America. It is a fairly mountainous country with alot of jungle and farmland as well. We stayed at the Occidental Grand Papagayo Resort on the northwest Pacific coast, in the province of Guanacaste.


We flew into Liberia, a small town in Guanacaste...a 3.5 hour flight from Houston. We met Derrick and Bjorn (friends of mine from vet school), Bjorn's wife Devin, and Derrick's fiancee Tiffany at the Houston airport. D and Tiff flew in from DFW and Bjorn and Devin from San Antonio. The airport in Liberia was interesting. It was very small, with open-air and no AC. Our plane did not pull up to a gate, but instead had portable stairs right down onto the tarmac.


We realized soon after our arrival that Nancy's leopard-print suitcase did not make it to Liberia. So we had to go through all the red tape of reporting that to Continental and waiting on the rep to make a copy of my passport...which took almost an hour. Needless to say, the ten other people who were riding on our shuttle to the hotel were getting pretty irritated b y the time we finally left. One crack whore even suggested to the shuttle driver that he should leave us in Liberia. Luckily, we got it all straightened out and our bag arrived at our room later that night.


The resort was very nice and all-inclusive. Basically that means all the drinks and food you want are included in the deal, so you don't pay for anything while you are on the resort. Needless to say, we took full advantage of both food and drink, and got our money's worth and then some.


We spent alot of time just relaxing on the beach and in the pool. It was great to catch up with good friends who we don't get to hang out with nearly often enough. And unlike sometimes when a group of people go on vacation together, there was no drama. It helps that all of us are pretty laid back individuals.


We also rode some jet skis, rode four-wheelers through the jungle, and went on the previously mentioned "Canopy Tour"...another name for ziplining. Bjorn and I did not particularly enjoy the Canopy Tour as much as everyone else did. In fact Bjorn quit about 1/4 of the way into it. I stuck it out for some unknown reason. It wasn't necessarily the fact that we were 100 feet off the ground that bothered me (well, maybe some), but it just wasn't very enjoyable to me. Everyone else, besides the two of us, enjoyed it alot. Here a few pictures of my first and last ziplining adventure. You will notice Nancy is smiling and I am not.

Despite that insane, uncontrolled, near-death experience... it was a great vacation, with great friends, in a beautiful country.

Some random observations about our trip:

• Our Bubba Kegs were the envy of the resort. While we were lounging on the beach or in the pool, sipping on our drinks out of these gargantuan, insulated cups, all the other guests were drinking warm beer out of small plastic cups, with constant trips to the bar. A couple of us even sold our Bubba Kegs to other guests before we left.

• A guy, who we named Frank, was the only one who seemed to have a problem with our drinking vessels. Frank was a cross between the gay guy from the first Survivor and Vlade Divac. He stared at us constantly, making snide comments to his grotesque wife (who we named Bertha...a cross between Grimace and a large, wrinkly beach ball), and acting like a total dewshbag.

• The shuttle drivers in Costa Rica would make good kamikaze pilots. The trips in the van made the zipline look like a siesta. Daredevil passing on two-lane narrow roads, nearly driving off the side of the mountain, and a blatant disregard for ALTO signs made this the most dangerous part of the vacation.

• When in Costa Rica, it would be wise to find the air-conditioned lounge area BEFORE spending two nights sitting outside in the open-air lobby with its 124% humidity and breastfeeding Europeans.

• Devin is going to find some interesting, possibly slightly graphic, photographs on her waterproof disposable camera she brought.

• Derrick is the sunset Nazi. Do not even think about leaving until 5 minutes AFTER the sunset, which is when every seasoned photographer knows you get the best shots.

• Bjorn (The Sexual Manatee...don't ask) was stung or bit by something while we were in the ocean. He will still be complaining about this horrible wound at his 1-year-old son Gavin's high school graduation.

• Just below ziplining on my "future things to do" list is eating sushi. If you force me to try it, I will then vomit it up. Once bitten, twice shy.

• Non-American males have a strong desire to accentuate their boy parts for everyone by wearing speedos. Really tight speedos.

• They actually make thong bikinis in size XXXXXL. Who knew?

• We witnessed our first Caribbean-mullet. Business in the front, braided reggae party in the back.

• The Grand Papagayo does not, nor will it ever, sell a shot called a Costa Rican Car Bomb...no matter how many times Bjorn asks for it.

• And finally...Full glasses of liquor do not stand up on angled, beveled table edges. Derrick learned this by accident. Then while trying to demonstrate what caused the spill, he spilled drink #2. You had to be there.

Costa Rica

We made it back from Costa Rica, after a far-too-short vacation. We had a great time, and I will write some more about that tomorrow...when it's not past midnight.


We flew from Houston to Liberia, Costa Rica on Wednesday and flew home today. We stayed at an all-inclusive resort called the Occidental Grand Papagayo. Here are a few pictures of our resort:


































































A Costa Rican Sunset:

















Nancy's favorite view:


















Me, about to display some mad snorkeling skills:






















There was a whole lot of this:

















Group picture, from one of our more civilized moments:

















On the Canopy Tour (which is another name for careening at 400 mph to your near-death, way too high in the freakin' air, with way too little holding you onto a cable tied between two trees):


















Looking civilized again, at dinner:

















The crew on the beach:

















During the ATV Excursion

















After a great time riding ATVs through the jungle:

















Some hottie I found in Costa Rica:

We were sad to have to leave:

The Liberia, Costa Rica Aeropuerto. Open air and no A/C.

Costa Rica

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we are off to Costa Rica. When we get back and recover, I will post some pictures. Nancy plans on bringing home a pet howler monkey...but I'm not sure that's legal.

Oh, and I am not at all looking forward to that 3.5 hour flight. Ugh.

Just a flesh wound

Never a dull moment at Lakeside Animal Clinic.

Today, a man came in, without a dog or cat, and walked up to the front desk. Our receptionist could smell the liquor on his breath as soon as he stumbled through the door. He teetered precariously with each step as he walked toward us. Now this guy is about 6'6" and about 300 lbs, so if he falls over, he's doing some damage to someone or some thing. But luckily he kept his feet long enough to grab ahold of the reception desk.

Then, he started telling his story. It went something like this:

He was walking his dog (a boxer) in his apartment complex about 30 minutes ago, when a large pit bull, not on a leash, approached them from the front. His boxer barked at the pit bull, which set him off. The pit bull bounded at the man, showed his teeth, and chomped down...ON HIS CROTCH. The guy freaked out, kicked the dog multiple times and it ran off. The man and his boxer managed to escape with no further confrontation. Fast forward 30 minutes to the lobby of the clinic.

The guy has a large blood stain on the left side of his crotchal region, and would likely have been in much more pain if he wasn't three sheets to the wind. He just stood there, cheerfully relaying the earlier events as if he wasn't bleeding profusely from his nether regions. After telling his story, however, he then thought it appropriate to show us his wound. He literally followed several employees around for ten minutes trying to get them to look at his injury, which I hear involved a missing hunk of groin flesh and a bloody testicle. I say "I hear" because I ran to my office and shut the door when he started playing show-and-tell. But a couple of girls got the whole show.

Why he was even at the clinic was my big question. He did not have a pet with him. We all originally assumed that the reason for his visit was that his dog had also suffered some sort of grotesque injury and he wanted advice...but was too cheap to bring him in to get checked out. Yet, he never even brought up his dog again. As far as I could tell, his sole reason for coming in was to tell us the story and show us his oozing crotch wound. After he had flashed everyone, he happily went on his merry way...hopefully to a human doctor. We like to form a bond with our clients and all, but this might have been a little too much.

Independence Day

In the midst of your fireworks, BBQ and beer, your visiting with family and friends, your day off from work...remember the reason we celebrate Independence Day. Remember all the rag-tag colonists who risked their lives and livelihoods to fight the tyranny of the British Empire, and succeeded. Also remember all those who have fought since, in order to preserve the freedom those colonists secured. Don't take for granted the freedoms you have, or the blessings you have to live in the greatest country in the world (yes, I still believe that, despite what our own leaders would have you believe). If we take them for granted, we will find ourselves right back where we started...living under the thumb of tyranny.

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to
assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to
which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect
to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes
which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure
these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People
to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to
them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence,
indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed
for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn,
that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than
to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the
same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is
their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide
new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance
of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to
alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of
Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute
Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid
world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the
public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing
importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be
obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts
of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation
in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants
only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable,
and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole
purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly
firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to
be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have
returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in
the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and
convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that
purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to
pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions
of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to
Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their
offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of
Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent
of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the
Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our
constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts
of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which
they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province,
establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries
so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the
same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and
altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with
power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and
waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and
destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to
compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with
circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most
barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to
bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends
and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to
bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages,
whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages,
sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the
most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by
repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which
may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have
warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an
unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the
circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to
their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties
of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably
interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the
voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the
necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the
rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in
General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for
the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of
the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these
United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;
that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that
all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and
ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they
have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish
Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may
of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance
on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our
Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:

New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham
Clark

Pennsylvania
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer,
James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas
Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

GeorgiaButton Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Update

Mom's surgery went fine. We went to visit her at the hospital last night, and she was still pretty doped up. She was also very cranky because she was thirsty and they would only let her have a few ice chips every 4 hours.

Carrie, Logan and Brynna are driving down tonight to go see her tomorrow, and we may have time to shoot some fireworks and have some other 4th of July-related festivities. The clinic is closed tomorrow, so I actually have a two-day weekend. Woohoo!

Mom's surgery

Mom is having surgery tomorrow morning, so keep her in your thoughts and prayers. Luckily, she does not have Nancy's surgeon (pictured) operating on her.