Beware of Boars

A foreign student from a communist country unexpectedly interrupted a college sociology lesson to ask the teacher:

“Do you know how to capture wild boars?”

The teacher suspected the student was heckling him, but decided to hear the punchline anyway.

“How would you do it?”, he replied.

“You capture wild boars finding good place in forest, and throwing corn on ground every day. Boars come daily to feed on free corn. When boars accustomed to come every day, you build fence on one side of place. They get used to fence and continue to come every day to eat. Then you build fence on other side of place. Boars get used to this and continue to come. You then build third side of fence around place with same result. The last side more difficult. You build only little bit every day, and soon boars will come through narrow opening to eat. When boars inside, you close opening with door and you have whole group.”

“Is very simple, in seconds, boars lose freedom. They run in circles, but once inside fence, they are subdued. Then they eat free corn and forget what freedom was like. Wild boars dangerous, but once captured they forget how to hunt and fight and accept slavery.”

Image by Nathan Duckworth, used with a Creative Commons license

Shiny New Wordpress Blog, Screenshot

If you’re reading this, I’ve succeeded in migrating to Wordpress. It was not as easy as when I tested it out, because I had bought my own private domain. That meant that the code that was supplied in this excellent blog post about switching from Blogger to Wordpress, didn’t work at all!

If it weren’t that I am a PHP programmer, I’d have never solved it. But I did So: enjoy! Thanks Hernán!

Oscar Arias, President of Costa Rica, has said that negotiations could take a long time, as both sides are unwilling to budge. Zelaya has stepped up his rhetoric, making some outrageous statements, that unfortunately, I didn’t have time to research today. more information later, when I catch up on my work!

Mel Zelaya has displaced Michael Jackson as the top news story on CNN’s website. I guess they really listen to Chavez’s criticism.

I am seconds away from running out of battery, so i can only say that I wrote an article on CNN’s iReport.

La Tiribuna, a newspaper friendly with Mel, is still online. But El Heraldo, one of Mel’s chief opponents is down. SIGH. I wonder what’s going on, and hope it’s just that the website couldn’t handle the traffic.

Lake Vigneur in Louisiana drained into a salt mine because of a small mistake.

The Great Escape, originally uploaded by ukaaa.

Tired of getting hammered on by greasy fingers, the Esc key decided he couldn’t take it anymore…

I have very little time to blog, there’s so much going on. From going hiking in the Sierra Madre (see my flickr photostream) to music concerts and performances, to making sure I get paid for stuff I did in Honduras, to finishing a detail in the airline application. On top of that, I’m going to the States tomorrow to get a new Mexican tourist visa. Prayers will be appreciated from those of you who pray.

Can’t wait to blog about it, but can’t tonight.

My nephew is a disaster magnet. He organized a party at a friends house on his birthday, but arrived an hour late to the house after it and was grounded. Then university officials said that they wouldn’t let him take his final exams because he didn’t have a student visa. But he has an immigrant visa, because my sister and brother-in-law are 2 years into the process of becoming Mexican citizens. He doesn’t need another visa, he’s under 21.

Yesterday, he forgot to take out a $1000 keyboard/synth from the car after music practice. Today they impounded the car because of a parking violation. We don’t know if everything in it will be stolen, as has been known to happen before in Latin America. If so, I won’t have an instrument to play this weekend, and my nephew will probably be grounded for life.

And now for other news.

Amazingly, its been a week already since I arrived. And, after a lot of interviews, a company has agreed to hire me. Now we just need to work on getting the work permit. According to a local lawyer, if all the papers are in order, she would take three weeks to get it, but she only gives me a 50% probability of success. And the whole process costs over $600. Nice huh?

I didn’t get to go out to the caves like I hoped. But instead I’ve been all over the city, learning the bus routes, the streets, the lingo. It’s very easy to make friends here.

The past few weeks have been mentally, physically and emotionally exhausting. If my plans would have gone ahead, I’d be posting from Longview, Texas today. But, I was forced to postpone my trip to Mexico for ten days. The reason: I wasn’t able to finish one of my projects until last Friday…the day before I was supposed to fly.

Staying has proven to be an excellent choice, because it has let me not only finish the project, but actually say good bye to family and friends, whom I have had to largely ignore up till now, in my rush to finish my work. My flickr account bears witness to 3 different send-off celebrations they gave me. (Insert guilt here).

I’ve grown attached to my blog-world friends, and will certainly continue to read your blogs, even though from a slightly higher latitude. I hope I’ll be able to keep your interest. Thanks for still reading and commenting even when I haven’t posted anything for weeks!

A lot has gone on in Honduras since, from the cantaloupe salmonella fiasco to our Olympic soccer team being the group champions over Mexico, Canada, and the US, Woohoo!

I hope to be able to get a job in Mexico within three months. Otherwise I’ll have to consider my options…to try my luck in the US (legally of course), or to come back to Honduras again.

I hope to travel to La Ceiba sometime this week, and then leave early Monday morning to Monterrey via Ft. Lauderdale, and Houston.