By cdwan, on March 6th, 2013  I’m writing from the tiny island of Culebra, just off the Eastern coast of Puerto Rico. I’m listening to the roosters finally settle down a bit as the sun comes over the hills, and feeling the air pause and shift from cool nighttime breezes into warm daytime winds.
Four of us have rented a tiny house for a week. We staged in by way of San Juan, allowing Marriott to say thank you for all the time I’ve spent in their hotels in Manhattan this year with a rather opulent suite overlooking the beach. Among the other amenities, I found time to indulge in a drink at the swim-up bar, which was not nearly so glorious as I had been led to believe. For all the completely unnecessary extravagance of it, it turns out to merely be a hotel bar with fairly wet seats. There’s a reason you’ll nearly never see me at the hotel bar. A few reasons, actually. The social scene is just crushingly transient and depressing.
After a couple nights of pre-decompression, we boarded a little 8 seater airplane and took the half hour flight to the smaller island. I enjoy these tiny plane rides very much. Somehow, it’s more personal when you can feel the tiny motors working to drag you through the thick sea level air. My favorite detail was the adjustable plastic cutout in the window of the plane that you could turn to get some fresh air and a lot of noise.
 The dominant mode of transportation for tourists on the island appears to be the golf cart. We rented one of those, and my whoops of wild joy have echoed off the hills as I’ve driven it around. Seriously. If you’re allowed to drive a golf cart on safe little streets with a few friends, you really should try it. There’s a particular wave that the drivers of the golf carts give to each other as we pass on the street. Sort of a “hey, you look like a dork, I look like a dork, but we both know we’re enjoying this,” shared enthusiasm.
Yesterday we decided to attempt to scale Mt. Resaca, the highest point on the island. Apparently “resaca,” translates as “undertow,” or “riptide,” but might also be taken as slang for “hangover.” There are no maps to be had that show a trailhead, so four of us loaded into the tiny golf cart and set off laboring its tiny motor up a series of hills in the right general direction. We found a near-deserted parking circle containing a chained off road and a sign next to a trail that was dubiously maintained, at best. We went up the road, first, figuring that the chain and locked gate were intended to keep other people out, but not us. This led to a demolished radio antenna and a really nice view of the peak, which was still at least half a mile away. Rather than bushwhack, we backtracked to the trail and went merrily stomping off into the underbrush.
The trail led to a stunning and completely deserted beach. The waves totally merited the “riptide” name, so we stayed on the beach, exploring the permanent tide pools. On a whim, we knocked a couple of coconuts off the trees and carried them back up the hill. After a stomping around for a bit, we returned up the trail and golf-carted it back down the hill.
So, in summary, life is pretty good.
By cdwan, on February 8th, 2013 Five years ago this evening, my mother died unexpectedly. I got one of the phone calls that you never want to get, and joined what my sister now calls “the club that nobody wants to be in.” At the time, I wrote a bunch of blog posts about it. That turns out to have been . . . → Read More: Five years
By cdwan, on June 9th, 2012 Back in the day, I had a Livejournal blog where I kept in touch with a few dozen friends and acquaintances. I used it to push out updates that I thought people might find interesting, when they had the time to read. I used to post about once a day. Reading back through those posts . . . → Read More: The undocumented years
By cdwan, on May 21st, 2012 I lost a bet recently, thought you might like to know about it.
This all started back on March 20, when in a fit of pique I posted on facebook: “Bay leaves are a lie. They do nothing.”
My friend Dan jumped in: “I cannot let pass this culinary heresy, Chris. Bay leaves, when . . . → Read More: Of bay leaves, and taking things to ridiculous extremes
By cdwan, on April 13th, 2012 I work with computers for a living. Here are some of the tools that I use all the time:
Macbook Pro: I’ve used a Macbook Pro as my primary workstation since they were introduced, and I haven’t looked back. I’ve had one significant hardware issue in all that time, and Apple fixed it for me . . . → Read More: Tools I Use
By cdwan, on April 9th, 2012 This weekend I spent three days at PAX East. PAX stands for the Penny Arcade Expo. PAX is a convention / exhibition of games and gamers. It’s also something of a movable-feast nerd mecca. This year, like last year, it was at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (BCEC) – the biggest venue in town . . . → Read More: Of PAX and the Greater Internet
By cdwan, on April 1st, 2012 I find it difficult to select charitable organizations to support with either my dollars or my time. Everybody has a hand out. Federal “not for profit” status is no indicator of good intent, much less effective action in the world. Neither is appearing in the news any kind of a clue about whether or not . . . → Read More: Decent Charities
By cdwan, on February 9th, 2012 I was reading Matt Taibbis most recent blog post, and I feel moved to build on his points.
America is losing its competitive edge. There are a lot of reasons for that, but one if them is almost certainly the fact that we pay our highest wages in nonproductive sectors like banking, and to . . . → Read More: Cultural re-alignment
By cdwan, on January 15th, 2012 Jessica Alqhuist is a student at West Cranston High School in RI. I’ve written about her before. She’s the one who noticed that her school still displayed its “School Prayer” (a relic from the 50′s) on a large banner (a relic from the 60′s) in the auditorium. Initially, the prayer was a mandatory daily recitation . . . → Read More: Prayer banner, redux
By cdwan, on January 1st, 2012 At the end of each year I make a little summary post listing the first (interesting) line from the first post of each month. What I note this year is that I basically stopped writing as of September, and also that I seem to have spent a lot of time pissed off about various things. . . . → Read More: 2011 Retrospective
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