Tag Archives: Puerto Rico

Waking up to the Sound of Roosters

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Puerto Rico has nice nights.  Last night Cassie and I sat on the porch and listened to the night sounds of the coqui and the smells of the tree blossoms.  Oh and the water was back on, it was out all last night.  We ended up driving to the beach to use the outdoor shower that you use to wash off the sand at the beach!  It was kind of cool to watch the stars shining as we shampooed our hair to the sound of the waves crashing.

This morning we could hear the roosters and they actually haven’t stopped all day.  Our chickens would be jealous, the chickens here get to walk around in the streets.


I wish you could smell this!

We’ve setup a few showings for houses tomorrow in Aguada.  They are places we have been looking into for a while now on the internet.  It will be nice to see them in person.  I’ve uploaded a few pictures in a gallery from today.

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Arrived in Puerto Rico!

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We left Denver last night at 1am and arrived in Puerto Rico at 11am.  I’ve never taken a red eye before and it actually worked out pretty well I think.  This is the first time I have been able to navigate San Juan during the day.  It is SOOO much better than at night. 


Sunrise over an airplane in Charlotte

On our way to Rincon we stopped at a little taco / burrito place and had lunch in Hatillo.  It was a really cool, clean and friendly place.  Good food and a Jamacia soda. 

 We then came to Rincon where we will be staying.  Its a much different place than the eastern side of the island.  A bit more laid back.   Today is a day to just get settled in.  I am writing this from the place we are staying at.  It is a house in the hills of Rincon. 

We are currently resting, surfing the web and we went for a brief walk around the neighborhood. We are going to start calling people and setting some things up to look at (properties) during the week.

 
Short walk vista

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From Busboy to Software Engineer

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I started out my professional career working at Village Inn when I was 16 years old as a busboy. I learned how to clean the tables pick out which cleaners to use and was responsible and timely with all aspects of the job. It paid off. They moved me up to Dishwasher. Eventually I did so well they moved me up to waiter!


From This (not actually me, Im way hotter)

Its much the same as I did for the company I work at now. Just proving oneself can get you places. I started doing some CD production and distribution and now I am working on software engineering projects for 911 and doing software quality testing with no formal education.

For me its all about setting goals and being persistent. I came here not knowing what the vi editor was in unix. Now I can make advanced shell scripts that run at an enterprise level site (have several hundreds servers and several datacenters). Learning new programming languages, learning about system administration, data cabling, fail over philosophy and many many other attributes of computing that I didn’t even know existed a few years ago.


To This (not actually our data center, our cabling is much cleaner)

When I look at where I started it gives me a good sense of pride to know where I am at now. I don’t exactly know what I will do once I get to PR but if the past is any indication I will do whatever it is I set out to do. I’ve never really failed at anything I’ve tried (rentals, carpentry, flying, computers, sports, jobs, etc)

The saying is true. You can do whatever you put your mind to. The part they don’t tell you is that it takes hard work, perseverance and dedication. Most important of all is that you can’t give up. Ever. The best skill that I’ve gained thru all my hard work is that I will do ‘whatever it takes’ to accomplish something.

I feel the same way about our Puerto Rico goal. I’ll do whatever it takes. Sometimes its discouraging to not have already completed this. Cassie and I were talking about it and as it happens to be; we could complete our goal to move to PR today. We could do this pretty easily.

The issue comes from knowing ourselves fairly well. We have realized that we want a challenge out of this. That is what we do, seek out and accomplish challenging goals. We aren’t ready to retire, we want to get to PR and make a difference or a substanial positive impact and have an adventure.

Who knows. I could start out there doing whatever it takes to get by and end up somewhere I never imagined or thought possible asking myself, “How did I get here?”. I ask myself that pretty much daily already, I don’t expect it to change! lol.


To This?

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Goals, Fears, and ETA to Puerto Rico

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Goals

Well, it looks like the budget cuts have indeed cost me my job, but the good news is that I will be able to stay on here at the county doing emergency preparedness (EP) work, specifically working on H1N1 stuff. I have already been trained in that and have been doing translations (English to Spanish) ever since I started here, so it won’t be a major change. I will still be able to work on some of my existing projects and programs as well. However, from what I hear, the money for EP will dry up by July 31, 2010, so Britton and I decided that that would make a good end time to move to Puerto Rico. We would probably need a month or so to get everything all ready for the move and so we are planning an ETA (estimated time of arrival) of September 2010.

t be afraid
Britton says I’m like the girl on the edge; ready to make the jump, but still worried

None of this is written in stone, but at least it gives us a working plan. Before we go, we have a few goals that we want to accomplish that we believe are feasible in that time frame:

1) Pay off one of our properties. Britton is very much about security in risk (and I am too, to an extent) and doesn’t want to see all that we have worked toward thus far just lost. This way, he figures, if we have to come back with our tails between our legs we’ll always have a house that we can live in for free.

2) Save up enough for the transition to be able to buy furniture, a vehicle and other necessities. We are not too sure how much this needs to be as we’ve never moved so far away. For those of you who have made a life changing move, what do you recommend? How much do used cars cost in PR? We heard they are about $2,000 more than in the mainland.

3) Find a place to live in Puerto Rico. We would like to go down there again some time this winter with the clear intention of finding a place, putting in an offer and closing (not sure if that would be one or two trips).

4) Find jobs. This is really open for interpretation. This could mean working remote, working on virtual projects (the internet), running a guesthouse and farm and/or one or both of us finding part-time or full-time work there. We are open to all possibilities. We do know that it will entail us remotely managing our properties in Colorado since we are not planning on selling them (nor do I think we should in this market).

We don’t know what will happen in the future, but who does, really? We can’t be afraid to live. It is exciting and fun, and darling, do not fear what you don’t really know.

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