A Blog is a Blog is a Blog!
Not exactly wishing to date myself, but I will tell you that I have had a BBS (Bulletin Board System) and personally developed and monitored this baby on my ever-so-speedy and newly minted 56K baud modem whilst most of the world was still chunking around going from their 12K’s to their 24K’s.
Time marched on, thank God, and I thought the world was very cool as speeds increased and we transformed ourselves to the Internet forums, as they seemed to be the best method of drawing contributions of knowledge from the largest numbers of users. There are still many forums in use that cover a spectrum of topics heretofore unimaginable and while most are monitored and managed to a useful level of information gathering, there are many that invite disagreement, intolerance, and the abuse of participants either because there is some statistical rule that in any group of an infinite number of people there will be a jerk or two. Another probability is the sensitivity of so many topics either touching or bordering politics or religion. Our parents, or mine for sure, tried to teach me to stay away from both of those topics and I am sorry to say that they failed in their endeavors as I invariably wander into these topics with my friends who are always of differing religious or political persuasion. And certainly online these “wanderings” could cause more inflamed feelings to more people, so decorum is a constant requirement in the forum world. These are only a few of the topics that can lead a forum’s “threads” into the world of bickering and even name calling. And I have seen many a moderator whose power goes awry, and gentlemanly behavior and civil discourse go out the door.
Evolution carries on, as it always does, and the blog evolves from the online diary, where writers would keep an account of their lives day-to-day with the experiences that were learned as a result of those happenings. In the beginning, those writers were called “diarists” or journalists and in 1994 we began using the formal web word of “blog”. I was professionally advised not to have a forum to avoid the need for constant monitoring and administering of manners to the obvious end result of hurt feelings and also advised against a blog because of the time investment in disseminating this much information. Ah, but this is exactly what I was looking for, which I think has the most value to the readership and the least amount of aimless content wanderings or snippets of information without the full answers.
In the year prior to our move to Costa Rica, I had a friend with whom I exchanged emails on at least a daily basis about his experiences here in Costa Rica and I was asking him every question one could have about real estate, home construction, goods, and services available here and on and on. He was quite verbose, but the content of that year of emails prepared me indescribably for requirements of the move, residency, mail options, construction, architecture, restaurants, doctors, lawyers, banking, haircuts, telephones, television, high speed (low speed at that time) and as you can see, topics far too numerous to list. And now I have this valuable information that I want to have available to those like us who need that information and a place to find it. This does not mean that I will not shamelessly lead you to our real estate site, CostaRicaLandToday, from time to time or loudly proclaim a gem of a deal that I just discovered, but the real purpose of this blog is for you to have that friend that I had where you can learn the information you need to make a more informed decision to move or not to move (does that need to be footnoted?), seek the information that will undoubtedly help you in your transition, or give you advance notice of what to do prior to coming here to prevent the “I wish I woulda done……….” before we came down.
And this is certainly not to say that this is a monologue of only our experiences, but I am hopeful of engaging all of you in Costa Rica cyberland to contribute your experiences to the blog in a bloggish sort of way. “A real estate blog about everything Costa Rica” was created to gather and disseminate real information, real experiences, and true stories that will be interesting and helpful to those of us who live here and valuable information to those of us who are not here—yet. And if you are not here yet, then there is a reason for the shameless plugs to the CostaRicaLandToday website as it also has a fair amount of very useful transition information, and if you are getting close to “that” time whether here or there, you can also choose or shop for land, lots, homes, farms, investment property, and estates in the Central Valley. Those who are here might want to list their land, home, or lot and purchase something different. If nothing else, you can use the site and blog for due diligence in gathering of information. For those of us already here, we owe it to those up north to describe our paradise and its flaws so that they too know that there is another place outside the States, Canada, and Great Britain that is a beautiful tropical country with smiling faces and a perfect climate. And please, if you have a particular topic of information you would like to have covered, all you have to do is send me an email and I shall do my very best to get you your information.
That which I derive the most pleasure from is giving information about Costa Rica to those who want or need it. And secondly, I love to talk about El Cajon de Grecia, as we are as happy as we could be with our choice and would like others to see the opportunity as well. I feel like I have a secret and it shouldn’t be kept a secret. So my challenge to you is to ask yourself if you live in the very best place you could ever want to be and if you do not, please visit CostaRicaLandToday and see if we can help you achieve that.
