Dia Veintesiete hasta Dia Veintinueve – Tres Dias, Tres Cosas

Yo tengo tres cosas por los ultima tres dias:

1. Apple

I caved in and watched the WWDC Keynote on Friday. Apple is amazing :-) My favorite part of any keynote speech is always the Mac OS and the Mac computers. Admittedly, Snow Leopard is not a groudbreaking release, but it still is pretty neat and the price is incredible! Apple knows and admits that Snow Leopard is not a huge new OS and specifically calls its new features “refinements.” So for Leopard users, they are selling the new OS for only $29. I saw that part of the keynote and I audibly gasped. The new Macbooks look pretty amazing too. The thirteen inch MacBook Pro was such a neat announcement because it really is true; it truly is a MacBook Pro and they are selling it at the price of a MacBook. So anyway, Apple didn’t release anything utterly game-changing but I think it was a pretty solid advance for the Mac OS and the Mac computer line.

What I thought was really cool was the iPhone updates. I usually don’t really pay as much attention to the iPod or iPhone parts of the Keynote speeches but I think the new iPhone + iPhone OS is pretty neat. For the first time, I am really considering the iPhone not just as a cool gadget to have but as an incredible tool. GPS, calendar, phone, IM/email service, CAMERA (the iPhone takes pretty amazing pictures), to do list manager, etc. I am seriously considering saving for the $199 16GB iPhone.

2. Benjamin

I have decided to write a short blurb on Mr. Benjamin. Benjamin and I went hiking on Saturday. Benjamin decided he wanted to hike up Volcan Barva asked me to come with him. I learned a lot about Benjamin on the eight hour trip to the Volcano and back. Benjamin and I get along splendidly but we have different viewpoints on a variety of things. You probably already know from my other posts that Bejamin is more of an adventurer while I guess I am more of a homebody. When we missed our bus in Heredia and had to make new plans to get to the volcano on the fly (namely by getting a bus to another town and taking a third bus to our destination) my mind instantly began to consider the things that could go wrong: What is the bus schedule for this new route? Will the buses be running all day? How will we know when to get off the bus? As I pondered these and other questions in considering our new situtation, Benjamin turns to me and says with a smile, “Awesome! This is going to be an adventure.”

Benjamin is cheap. And for anyone who knows me, if I say someone is cheap, they are. My family is the “never pay retail” family and when it comes to spending money, I like to think that I am pretty good about keeping my spending down. Benjamin takes this to an (I would say unhealthy) extreme. You are going hiking for about 4-5 hours, what do you eat for breakfast and what do you bring for lunch? If you are Benjamin, you eat half a loaf of white bread (it’s like candy) for breakfast and eat the other half for lunch. WHAT?!?! Yes, it turns out that Benjamin has been eating sugar and starch for the last few weeks for lunch because he is too cheap to actually buy something with protein in it. (And yes, I got permission from Benjamin to post my thoughts on his eating habits before I shared them with the world.)

Benjamin’s philosophy is “what can I get away with” while comparatively I seem to be a “better safe than sorry” kind-of-person. What do you learn in Boy Scouts that you need before, during, and after a hike? Water. Yes, lots of it. I drank two bottles of water during our hike. Benjamin? Half a bottle at most. Why? “You need to purposely dehydrate your body so that you can train it to need less water.” Stephen, are you reading this? You are pretty smart concerning this topic. I think one of us is crazy, can you say which?

Finally, Benjamin is fun to hang out with. Sure, he drags me into hiking with him up a volcano by ourselves in the middle of nowhere in a country we don’t speak the language in. But we survived so I can say that he is a lot of fun to talk to and has a lot of senior wisdom to pass on to this little freshman. Anyway, the trip was fun. I am very thankful to God that we got back safely. And I don’t think I am ever. Ever. EVER doing that again. (At least, not in quite the same way.)

3. Steven

Noah got replaced. On Sunday, a new student named Steven came to live in Noah’s old residence. He is 17, speaks less Spanish than I did when I first got here and talks like Ian Sturdy or Matthew Miyares (two debaters I knew in NCFCA). He seems to be a thoughtful, contemplative person and it will be interesting getting to know him. I sometimes serve as translator between him and his tico family and it is fun to practice my Spanish in that way. He plays chess (we are 1-1 right now) and is interested in science. In our walk to school, he was naming the plants as we passed by. Wow. To me they are just “plants” and “bushes” and maybe a “tree” here and there. He knows their names and characteristics. It is pretty cool how people have such variered interests.

Anyway, that is all for today. I look forward to a new week and I hope y’all had an amazing weekend!