October 3, 2025

Dateline – San Jose, Costa Rica

And I’m back in travel mode. It hasn’t been the most interesting vacation day as it was primarily devoted to getting here and, as I was up past midnight completing everything that had to be done for work before I left together with having to get up at 4:30 AM in order to catch an early morning flight, I’m a bit on the tired side and am lolling around the hotel room before going to bed early. The tour I am on (sponsored by National Geographic) begins tomorrow evening. There appear to be a dozen of us in total. I’ve been with groups of that size that have bonded (Spain/Portugal in 2021) and that have definitely not (Ireland 2025). No clue what this group will turn out to be. It’s usually a mixed bag. As this is more of a jungle adventure trip than a lets see the cathedrals and museums trip, I expect it to skew a bit younger. I’ll find out soon enough.

Alarm at 4:30 AM. In the Uber at 4:50 AM (would have been sooner but my driver was very confused by the entrance to my complex and drove up and down Arlington past me a couple of times). At the airport at 5:05 AM. Cleared check in and security at 5:35 AM. Boarded first flight at 6:10 AM with Starbucks venti caramel macchiato in hand. Take off 6:35 AM. Landed in Atlanta 8:10 AM (time change forward one hour). Disembarked and headed to the next gate arriving at 8:40 AM. Boarding flight to San Jose 9:40 AM. Take off 10: 20 AM. Landed in San Jose 12:20 PM (time change backward two hours). Cleared customs and immigration and found hotel shuttle 1:30 PM. Arrive hotel and collapse face first on rather comfortable king size bed 2:40 PM. Just a bit over eleven hours in toto. It could be worse. It could have been a redeye.

I haven’t got much of a feel for San Jose yet. It’s rather sprawling across a number of low hills and river valleys at the foot of some volcanic mountains. The weather is warm in the low 70s, without being hot. Unfortunately, it’s accompanied by 110% humidity and low clouds making it feel like it will start storming any moment. (It did this evening, fortunately after I was alreday in). The hotel (the Radisson) is in the Northern part of the city which feels a bit like Guadalajara or Mazatlan. I’m not picking up the European vibes of a Buenos Aires or Mexico City and, as the country is much smaller, it doesn’t have the veneer of wealth one finds there with the aristocracy – or at least I haven;’t run across it yet. After a bit of a nap, I wandered around the piece of the central city closest to the hotel and, as the weather was looking fearsome and darkness comes early in the tropics, I headed back for a bite to eat and hopefully a long comfortable sleep.

This latter may be an issue this trip. Earlier this week, my left shoulder began to ache in the way it did last year and which took a facet joint injection in the neck to resolve. I did not bring my fluoroscope with me so that isn’t going to happen until after I get back. I will make do with Tylenol, Aleve, and good hot showers. This last shot lasted for roughly a year which is a reasonable run for such things. I’m resigning myself to the fact that I’m likely going to have to go through this once a year or so for a while. There might be a more permanent surgical solution but I’ve seen far too many disasters following elective neck surgery to really want to go that route.

As I was sitting around airport waiting areas for some hours, I had time to dive into the news and do some reading on current events from perspectives on both sides of the aisle. If I am reading the tea leaves right, based on current events in Portland, Memphis, and Chicago we are heading into a heap of trouble. ICE appears to be operating unchecked by norm or law with some backing from the National Guard. The raid on the Chicago apartment building where everyone (mainly citizens) was taken into custody while their homes were trashed put me in mind of the sequence in Schindler’s List with the girl in the red coat. The only reason I can find for it was as an exercise in raw power of the ‘look what we can do to you and you’re next if you don’t submit’ variety. And most of us will stay quiet. But we’re getting to the point where abstention is becoming complicity. The good people of Portlandia are reacting in the way that population does, with general weirdness which appears to be taking the shape of a naked bike ride in protest.

I am not one who likes conspiracy theories or unsupported interpretations of events but I did pick up on something regarding the gathering of the generals earlier this week. That the true purpose was not the photo op or the messages delivered from the podium, but rather to study the reactions of senior military leaders and begin to determine which ones might be willing to obey unlawful orders from above regarding use of military force on American citizens in Democratic leaning cities. I read one piece claiming that there are new AI tools that can pick up and interpret even small facial reactions and infer emotional states and thought processes and that these will be used on footage of the audience. I would really like to disbelieve this one.

A dangerous trend that is well supported by fact is coroporate media owners, of both print and televised news, are coming down hard on reporters and news rooms to spin the news in ways that will be looked upon favorably by the administration. There have been a number of high profile resignations of journalists due to these trends and, if this continues (in clear violation of journalistic ethics and likely the first amendment), there’s not going to be a lot of quality investigative and independent reporting left. And most Americans will be blissfully unaware that what they’re being fed is a combination of propaganda and a single side of the story.

I think I’ll take my news from the Costa Rican press the next couple of weeks. It may be in Spanish (a language in which I am in no way fluent), but it’s likely to be a more honest appraisal into what’s going on in the world.