Dinner in Arenal

This weekend we went up to Arenal Volcano with our visitors (Karen and Mary). On the way up Friday night..we stopped at the roasted chicken place we like in Arenal. The place is pretty funny...it is an open air place, has big picnic tables and a stage at one side of the restaurant. The Kids love the stage...here was their performance for the entire restaurant on Friday night!

The video is pretty poor...but that's cause it is from my cellphone...

Kade's 1st Presentation

The folks at HomeTwo apparently believe that it is never too early to have kids start working on their presentation skills. As such, the pre-schoolers have been giving presentations to the class the past few weeks. Kade's topic was to present on his favorite animal. And what would that be? But of course...el Elephante.

Kade and I worked together one Sunday afternoon (well he did a lot of TV watching with mom at the same time...and he is not really an accomplished multi-tasker yet) to pull together this gem of a poster board. The centerpiece was a 3-D elephant head with real ears and a trunk. Will the trunk is made of one of my old socks. At first we tried just the sock...but it did not stand out enough. Then we tried some Kleenex and apparently I put a little too much stuffing in as it stuck almost straight out. After a few laughs from Jen and I, we opted on a semi-stuffed sock which hung just about right...(leave it alone CC). Jen went with Kade that day and took pictures and video. Since our camera is not designed to record a whisper from over 15 feet away...the video is a little useless so the pictures will have to do for now (you can try to hear the clip below). He did a great job and covered all the basics (where they live, what color they are and what they eat) and was very proud of his certificate for a great job. I am glad he is at HomeTwo.

Oh yeah...and that EESAY blog...great stuff guys!

Latest 'Edition'...

Click for larger version

Typical Dollar Meal

This is a typical meal at work (almuerzo). Beans, platano madura, potato chips, ham steak, arroz con leche and bottle of water...all for $1.25.

There is a MOLE in our midst....

Tonight while I was putting Kade to bed...we had the following exchange which I am sure will make Fay proud:

Kade: "Dad, what color are your eyes?"
Dad: "Brown"
Kade: "What color are MY eyes?"
Dad: "Brown"
Kade "Oh.....so we have the same eye color. BUT...my eyes are brighter than yours."
Dad: "[Yes - that is probably true especially considering my current state of sleep deprivation]. What makes you think that?"
Kade: "I don't know...God just made me that way."

While we are on the topic of going to bed...here are two recent pictures of Payton sleeping. She tends to be just as creative as Kade was when he was about the same age.

Finally, today I received an email from one of my cousin's regarding a subject which is known only at the highest levels within the Cavagnaro family. Being an avid
conspiracy fan...this lead me to think of what possible trail could have lead to this egregious breach in security. Something tells me it probably has to do with the "4 sisters" and the fact that together they act a hell of a lot like the worlds loudest megaphone....but again, this is only a theory....! And yes, for the record I am calling you out Mom! It cost you a phone call tonight.

Oh Crap - Continued - double crap

When we try to watch the streaming Olympic coverage through NBC...this is what we see...

I guess illegal file sharing is the only option...

Oh Crap

So last night Jen and I found out the hard way that Amnet is just cheap (Amnet is the local cable company). Apparently, they decided that paying NBC for the Olympic feed from the states is just too expensive. As such, we get to look at a homemade blue screen saying in Spanish that they do not have rights to rebroadcast the Olympic games. Oh Crap. So Jen is officially back in the space of hating Costa Rica. Way to go Amnet...you just made my life hell!

Drill Drill Drill

Ok...so I have heard so much about offshore drilling and drilling in ANWR that I finally decided to go out and figure out what the heck is the real story about ANWR in particular. I found a very interesting online piece by a guy who used to work at Prudhoe Bay. You can read the whole thing here...but basically here are a few key highlights:

• Prudhoe Bay is only 15 miles x 40 miles. A lot smaller than I thought...and produces about 1 million barrels per day (more on that in a second)
  
• "The oil itself lies in porous rock formations anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 feet below the surface. It rises to the wellhead under its own geologic pressure, so no pumping is required. Produced oil normally comes up mixed with water, natural gas, and even paraffin wax crystals."...kind of makes it sound like a pretty low impact deal to me.
• "In order to protect the tundra, drill sites are constructed on 4' thick gravel pads. Even if a 1" drop of crude oil drips onto the pad, workers are required to shovel it up for proper disposal."...Maybe Pelosi and Boxer should hold car repair shops in CA to the same standards???
  
• The Alaska pipeline runs from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, Alaska ~800 miles in 5.5 days...or about 6 mph...faster than traffic in CR!
  
• "the pipeline is designed to allow 5 feet of vertical movement and up to 20 feet laterally just in case"...if total travel due to an earthquake exceeds 21 feet...then we probably have a bigger issue than some spilt oil.
  
• "Vehicles are left running from September through May, 24 hours a day... Otherwise, they just wouldn't start again."...reminds me of crapchester...I mean Rochester.
• "If you need to throw any trash in the dumpster at the end of the day, you must first bump the dumpster with the front of your pickup truck. This ensures that you're inside the truck if there's a brown bear in the dumpster! "...that is just funny!
  

Anyway...the first bullet above. If 600 square miles can produce 1Mbpd that is a pretty awesome return. So let's assume that we can replicate Prudhoe Bay in the neighboring ANWR area...what do you think an additional 1Mbpd would buy us? Well according to the Energy Information Administration the total crude imports for the US in May'08 was about 9.6Mbpd....making 1Mbpd a sizable chunk....especially when you look at the list of where we get the crude:

Crude Oil Imports (Top 15 Countries) (Thousand Barrels per Day)
Country	May-08	Apr-08	YTD 2008	May-07	YTD 2007
CANADA	1,840	1,952	1,889	1,858	1,876
SAUDI ARABIA	1,579	1,453	1,531	1,574	1,389
MEXICO	1,116	1,259	1,207	1,461	1,467
VENEZUELA	1,030	1,019	998	1,232	1,103
NIGERIA	851	1,115	1,053	882	1,048
IRAQ	583	679	670	341	456
ANGOLA	464	579	468	680	581
ALGERIA	440	393	329	496	492
BRAZIL	318	201	209	152	165
KUWAIT	263	176	227	162	179
COLOMBIA	245	149	184	104	101
ECUADOR	162	160	194	201	200
RUSSIA	119	106	86	232	156
LIBYA	96	85	73	33	51
EQUATORIAL GUINEA	93	40	58	0	52

So if we assume that we are OK buying oil from our neighbors Canada and Mexico...that knocks off about 3Mbpd making the "bad" crude imported only 6.6Mbpd. So we could in theory knock that down by ~15%. Now the fun begins...who would you like to send a message to the most? The Saudis? The Venezuelans - or more directly Hugo Chavez? (that one seems like a great place to start).

One downer though...oil production from the North Slope is decreasing every year since '88 (see chart). The Alaska pipeline is currently only running about 50% capacity (can handle ~2.1Mbpd). As such, we better start drilling more in the North Slope/ANWR before that continues to slide. It would be a real shame to have a pipeline at 50% capacity sitting there when you could have it running at 100% capacity...environmentally I would think it a better option to fully utilize the existing infrastructure than to build more in new places. But what do I know...

Oh yeah...here is a quick quote from ANWR.ORG

"The 10-02 Area of ANWR specifically set aside for oil and gas exploration by Congress lies only 55 miles away from Pump Station One of TAPS [Trans-Alaska-Pipeline-System]. The 10-02 is estimated by the USGS to contain the best potential for a “super-giant” oil field on the North American continent. Contributions by ANWR oil will have the capability to fill the TAPS for over 25 years. Had then President Clinton not vetoed ANWR legislation when it passed Congress in 1995, using EIA’s current figures, Alaska would have saved the nation $100,800,000 every single day in 2005. And in 2006 the savings to the nation would be an average of $114,450,000 per day!"

FYI - Someday we will get started talking oil shale...where the US sits on ~2 trillion barrels of the total world oil shale reserves of ~3 trillion barrels (a.k.a., 3 million-million barrels)...just talk to Grandpa-Russel and great grandpa-Rocky about this one! ...But not tonight.

FYI - last picture is of the pristine ANWR region. Does that mean we can not drill in TX or KS?

The Playmobil Airplane...for Poppy

Tonight Kade talked on the phone with Poppy. It was a loooong conversation...by far the longest of Kade's illustrious career on the horn. Most of the conversation was Kade telling Poppy all about his Playmobil airplane. Now...for the record...Poppy has been to CR and already seen the airplane, but Kade forgot that little detail (much like Poppy forgets the stories he has told me before). Apparently Poppy did not have the heart to tell Kade this little detail. Instead he told Kade to take a picture and send it to him so he could see this marvelous creation. So here it is...in all it's Glory. ...THE PLAYMOBIL AIRPLANE!!!

Let the world comment on it's greatness!