Introduction

Hello,


My name is Michael and I am about to do something reckless.

In the next year, I am going to design, and then build, a single family residence in Nosara Costa Rica. Actaully, I will do neither the designing or the building, but rather work with people who will do both. Semantics aside, I hope to spend new year's day, 2008, looking out at the Pacific ocean from my place atop the hills of Nosara.

How did I get here?

In 1999, I decided I needed a vacation. I had never asked for a vacation before. The powers that be in the american edicational system, in thier infinite wisdom, had always carefully allotted me vacation each year at regularly scheduled intervals, allowing me to relax and focus on not being educated.

decisions need objectives, butvacations are inherently objectiveless, so I imported some objectives: 1) learn some spanish, 2) learn to surf. I spent a long time coming up with those. In the end, after several trips back and forth on the (free) Staten Island Ferry, I had a conclusion. Santigo de Compostela. After another trip on the Staten Island Ferry, notably the one leaving Staten, I had a reconsideration. Costa Rica.

Thanks to a client not paying for three, count 'em, three pay cycles, I was poor. Tuna from the can poor. I nearly bankrupted myself buying a ticket into San Jose CR. In Jaco, I used what remained of the petty cash to buy a surf board. After that, it was beach camping, stealing drinking water, and more tuna from cans for a month.

I visited the town of Nosara. I intended to stay 2 days. I stayed 2 weeks. By the end, I was in love, and like any lover, totally dellusional, and so I decided that my tuna money was enough to buy land there. I walked into a real estate office, green Hurley board shorts, flip flops, a beard, and eau de Salt water purfuming my presence, and announced I wanted to visit some plots for sale. No one blinked. I guess they are used to that. Well, long story short, I visited 5 plots, none of which were enough to move me to defraud myself by signing a contract, but then I saw the 6th. Prison...how bad could it be?

I inked the contract for 36000. I had, in my entire life, 1118. I wrote a check for 1000, to keep an option open for a month, and then I prayed. On the 28th day, my client paid. I sent the balance to a ms. Phillis someone, and then went back to my room in Bed Sty, where the taxis do not stop.

What ever did I do?

The piece of paper in my hand indicated that I owned almost one acre of costa rica real estate. There were stamps and seals and a lot of spanish words on that paper. Beyond that, I had no idea if I had been a victim of a 36k fraud, or if I owned something. I remained willfully ignorant. In truth, I never missed the money. It was only in my account for hours. I went back to my tuna, and back to my Goodwill Matress and slept with visions of Costa dancing through my head. Lord knows there was plenty of room in there.