17 January 2005 to 14 December 2004
¶ 17 January 2005
Last night I finally got around to seeing Super Size Me. I've read Fast Food Nation and Food Politics, so not that much of Spurlock's industry information was new to me, but I was still appalled all over again by the magnitude of it. It doesn't seem too unreasonable to say that McDonald's is ultimately and knowingly dedicated to bleeding short-term profits at the expense of the methodical medium-term destruction of bodies with french fries and long-term destabilization of societies with ground beef.
I hate McDonald's, the corporation, on principle, but I also physically despise the bilious crap they serve as food. Back when I occasionally ate fast food (i.e., before I read Fast Food Nation) I could deal with Burger King or Taco Bell every month or two, but I think I've eaten at McDonald's exactly three times since puking up a Big Mac in 1984, and after the last time was finally able to quit thinking that it couldn't possibly be as disgusting as I remembered. For me the burgers provoke immediate nausea, the "milkshakes" taste worse than anything I've ever ingested as medicine, and the fries are so unmistakably inorganic that if I discovered one in any other plate of food I'd want the responsible kitchen condemned. These truths seem so indelible to me that the effort required to accept that they are not universal is almost enough to make me physically ill by itself.
Spurlock, however, likes McDonald's food. Statistics imply that his embrace is far more typical than my defiance. Because I hate McDonald's food, I would only ever conceive his month-long experiment as a contentious test to see whether it's even possible to reasonably contain the damage you're doing to yourself. But I just walk by. One profound problem with McDonald's is exactly the least damage they can't be prevented from doing to unbelievers, but that's what Fast Food Nation is about, not Super Size Me. The movie is not investigative journalism, it's a speculative memoir of surrender. The movie is about a different profound problem, the social and biological toxicity of the craving McDonald's exists to serve and promote. In this, as in so many other things, arguably the greatest horror is not the ever more amoral schemes that opportunists contrive for profiting from human weakness, it's the urgency with which people line up to pay for their own physical and moral poisoning. Perhaps the worst thing about this evil is that its executors can't be blamed for its invention. Perhaps the worst thing about Super Size Me is that Spurlock eats this way three times a day for a whole month, and we only see him throw up once.
I hate McDonald's, the corporation, on principle, but I also physically despise the bilious crap they serve as food. Back when I occasionally ate fast food (i.e., before I read Fast Food Nation) I could deal with Burger King or Taco Bell every month or two, but I think I've eaten at McDonald's exactly three times since puking up a Big Mac in 1984, and after the last time was finally able to quit thinking that it couldn't possibly be as disgusting as I remembered. For me the burgers provoke immediate nausea, the "milkshakes" taste worse than anything I've ever ingested as medicine, and the fries are so unmistakably inorganic that if I discovered one in any other plate of food I'd want the responsible kitchen condemned. These truths seem so indelible to me that the effort required to accept that they are not universal is almost enough to make me physically ill by itself.
Spurlock, however, likes McDonald's food. Statistics imply that his embrace is far more typical than my defiance. Because I hate McDonald's food, I would only ever conceive his month-long experiment as a contentious test to see whether it's even possible to reasonably contain the damage you're doing to yourself. But I just walk by. One profound problem with McDonald's is exactly the least damage they can't be prevented from doing to unbelievers, but that's what Fast Food Nation is about, not Super Size Me. The movie is not investigative journalism, it's a speculative memoir of surrender. The movie is about a different profound problem, the social and biological toxicity of the craving McDonald's exists to serve and promote. In this, as in so many other things, arguably the greatest horror is not the ever more amoral schemes that opportunists contrive for profiting from human weakness, it's the urgency with which people line up to pay for their own physical and moral poisoning. Perhaps the worst thing about this evil is that its executors can't be blamed for its invention. Perhaps the worst thing about Super Size Me is that Spurlock eats this way three times a day for a whole month, and we only see him throw up once.
¶ 13 January 2005
I understand that forecasting the weather is difficult, and I hold no human being culpable for the fact that it was 35F today when the forecast had insisted it was going to be 55F. I assume there were clear, tangible indicators that suggested it was likely to be 55F today, perhaps even very likely, but something less-likely happened, and in the end it wasn't. The improbable will periodically occur.
But what I would hold someone responsible for, if I thought it weren't a pervasive cultural flaw, is the destructive precision with which uncertain predictions are communicated. Weather is merely the most obvious daily public manifestation of a fundamental reluctance, or perhaps an inability, to say what we really know, rather than what we wish we knew. We'd like to know whether it's going to rain, and how cold it's going to be. What we know, however, is not these things, it's what's on the radar and how it's been moving and what our computer models can extrapolate given the data we know how to supply. We know what stock prices have been, and how many we sold last year, and how long other projects that seem like they will turn out to have been similar took.
I brought the clothes I'd need for running in 55F, but since it was 35F when I left home, I also brought some others. If I'd gone out and felt too cold, I'd have come back inside. The forecasting failure of is little direct practical consequence, but that isn't an excuse for a forecasting grammar that obscures the essential natures of the activity and its results. "Today's high: 55F" is nonsense. What we should really see is a graph of the last 24 hours and the next 24, maybe, of past predictions and future ones as probability ranges, with a trendline of the actual temperature running through the past. Ditto for precipitation: past predictions, future guesses, the measurement history. This, after all, is what we actually know for sure: what we think, what we thought, what was.
And if we learned to talk about the weather, maybe it would help us understand how to talk about other systems. Maybe a daily reminder of the limits of certainty in one natural system patently out of our control would encourage us to acknowledge the limits of certainty in the human systems over which we exert only slightly more influence. Maybe we'd be a tiny bit less likely to manage by oversimplified dashboards and spurious charts and uncalibratable figures. Maybe we'd build communication tools better suited to representing hard-won understanding of vital complexity, rather than discarding it in favor of quantification of our wishful ignorance.
But what I would hold someone responsible for, if I thought it weren't a pervasive cultural flaw, is the destructive precision with which uncertain predictions are communicated. Weather is merely the most obvious daily public manifestation of a fundamental reluctance, or perhaps an inability, to say what we really know, rather than what we wish we knew. We'd like to know whether it's going to rain, and how cold it's going to be. What we know, however, is not these things, it's what's on the radar and how it's been moving and what our computer models can extrapolate given the data we know how to supply. We know what stock prices have been, and how many we sold last year, and how long other projects that seem like they will turn out to have been similar took.
I brought the clothes I'd need for running in 55F, but since it was 35F when I left home, I also brought some others. If I'd gone out and felt too cold, I'd have come back inside. The forecasting failure of is little direct practical consequence, but that isn't an excuse for a forecasting grammar that obscures the essential natures of the activity and its results. "Today's high: 55F" is nonsense. What we should really see is a graph of the last 24 hours and the next 24, maybe, of past predictions and future ones as probability ranges, with a trendline of the actual temperature running through the past. Ditto for precipitation: past predictions, future guesses, the measurement history. This, after all, is what we actually know for sure: what we think, what we thought, what was.
And if we learned to talk about the weather, maybe it would help us understand how to talk about other systems. Maybe a daily reminder of the limits of certainty in one natural system patently out of our control would encourage us to acknowledge the limits of certainty in the human systems over which we exert only slightly more influence. Maybe we'd be a tiny bit less likely to manage by oversimplified dashboards and spurious charts and uncalibratable figures. Maybe we'd build communication tools better suited to representing hard-won understanding of vital complexity, rather than discarding it in favor of quantification of our wishful ignorance.
¶ 11 January 2005
Although I have not done any comprehensive research into the spectrum of available charities, and so offer no informed endorsement or particular insight, my wife and I donated to the International Response Fund of the American Red Cross. I don't pretend to have any good formula for prioritizing world crises and needs, either, but this disaster seemed too catastrophic to ignore, and the needs too straightforward to second-guess.
Peace, on this planet, is dangerous enough, and paradise fragile. Natural disasters ought to remind us how inexcusable it is to compound the difficulty of existing here by destroying our environment and undermining our cultures and inventing ideologies to justify wars.
Do something good today.
Peace, on this planet, is dangerous enough, and paradise fragile. Natural disasters ought to remind us how inexcusable it is to compound the difficulty of existing here by destroying our environment and undermining our cultures and inventing ideologies to justify wars.
Do something good today.
¶ 2004 in lists · 5 January 2005
Music
1. Björk: Medúlla
2. Mascott: Dreamer's Book
3. Puffy: 59
4. Abra Moore: Everything Changed
5. Jimmy Eat World: Futures
6. Supercar: Answer
7. Kings of Convenience: Riot on an Empty Street
8. Issa Bagayogo: Tassoumakan
9. Nightwish: Once
10. Alanis Morissette: So-Called Chaos
Or, annotated for reduced clarity:
The Best of 2004 (Epilogue)
Movies
1. I ? Huckabee's
2. The Big Animal (Duze zwierze, Poland, 2000)
3. Goodbye Dragon Inn (Bu san, Taiwan, 2003)
4. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring (Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom, South Korea, 2003)
5. The Crying Wind (Fuon, Japan, 2004)
6. The Parking Attendant in July (Kan che ren de qi yue, China, 2003)
7. The Incredibles
8. Before Sunset
Also very good: Coffee and Cigarettes, The Corporation, Fahrenheit 9/11, Finding Neverland, Garden State, The Ketchup Effect (Hip Hip Hora!, Sweden, 2004), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Napoleon Dynamite, Untold Scandal (Joseon namnyeo sangyeoljisa, South Korea, 2003).
1. Björk: Medúlla
2. Mascott: Dreamer's Book
3. Puffy: 59
4. Abra Moore: Everything Changed
5. Jimmy Eat World: Futures
6. Supercar: Answer
7. Kings of Convenience: Riot on an Empty Street
8. Issa Bagayogo: Tassoumakan
9. Nightwish: Once
10. Alanis Morissette: So-Called Chaos
Or, annotated for reduced clarity:
The Best of 2004 (Epilogue)
Movies
1. I ? Huckabee's
2. The Big Animal (Duze zwierze, Poland, 2000)
3. Goodbye Dragon Inn (Bu san, Taiwan, 2003)
4. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring (Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom, South Korea, 2003)
5. The Crying Wind (Fuon, Japan, 2004)
6. The Parking Attendant in July (Kan che ren de qi yue, China, 2003)
7. The Incredibles
8. Before Sunset
Also very good: Coffee and Cigarettes, The Corporation, Fahrenheit 9/11, Finding Neverland, Garden State, The Ketchup Effect (Hip Hip Hora!, Sweden, 2004), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Napoleon Dynamite, Untold Scandal (Joseon namnyeo sangyeoljisa, South Korea, 2003).
These days the memory of her voice pulls me out of good dreams, but not bad ones, so at least now there is some solace in nightmare.
The material in his pants was worth more than some people's cars, but the color of them has never, in the entire span of human in history, been in fashion for anything intended to be seen outside of an esophagus.
There will be plenty of time, later, to argue about the difference between compulsion and regret.
The exact spin of the truck, as it crossed the median already shedding clouds of Korean aluminum and Malaysian static-fiber, took its front wheels close enough to my head for me to pick out the smell of tires leaving asphalt.
I remember when I stopped knowing what you think, and later, when I stopped caring.
This desert used to be a place.
You will always open the yellow door, and most of the time this is what will lead you to her.
He knows I hate him looking away while he's talking to me, but he also knows how his profile affects me, and I have never known how he balances these two and decides whether to turn.
I wish I could promise you that I'm never going to lie.
In the Mexico where the three of us learned what time is worth, waiting is sometimes a way forward.
A 647-year-old oil painting in a perfectly square frame lifts silently off a cloud-grey wall, and 405 miles away a zero changes to a one with a peripheral click.
The man with the third code wears black leather shoes that seem unremarkable until you notice that they bear no manufacturer's logo of any kind, gray wool pants with faint dots of heel-flung sand up the back of both legs, a blue crew-neck sweather with folds still pressed into it from having sat on wire shelving under great weight, and an immaculate almond-brown felt stetson under whose left brim, two inches behind his ear, the bullet has just entered.
The three largest American tobacco companies have each killed more human beings that all the world's missile manufactuers put together, which is indirectly but indisputably why, for the fourth time since I swore this would stop happening, I am standing on the front step of my own house in early afternoon sunlight with a cardboard box full of snow globes in my arms, trying to improve on how I broke this news to Meredith before.
"The processes for cigarettes and cheese," he was saying, "are basically the same," which explains a little bit about the cigarettes and quite a lot about the cheese.
A red square is sealed by any movement into an adjacent black rank, unsealed on the conversion of its original marker, and removed from play after the third change in control, all of which Marco knows exactly as well as I do, so I wait patiently while he fumes at what he will presently recognize has been his own negligence.
The brownstone was rehabbed half-heartedly in the late Nineties, the dog still has his appetite but not his hearing, and the Belgian in the neck brace has been dead for no more than an hour.
I am doing something viscous and unmentionable when the phone explodes.
The material in his pants was worth more than some people's cars, but the color of them has never, in the entire span of human in history, been in fashion for anything intended to be seen outside of an esophagus.
There will be plenty of time, later, to argue about the difference between compulsion and regret.
The exact spin of the truck, as it crossed the median already shedding clouds of Korean aluminum and Malaysian static-fiber, took its front wheels close enough to my head for me to pick out the smell of tires leaving asphalt.
I remember when I stopped knowing what you think, and later, when I stopped caring.
This desert used to be a place.
You will always open the yellow door, and most of the time this is what will lead you to her.
He knows I hate him looking away while he's talking to me, but he also knows how his profile affects me, and I have never known how he balances these two and decides whether to turn.
I wish I could promise you that I'm never going to lie.
In the Mexico where the three of us learned what time is worth, waiting is sometimes a way forward.
A 647-year-old oil painting in a perfectly square frame lifts silently off a cloud-grey wall, and 405 miles away a zero changes to a one with a peripheral click.
The man with the third code wears black leather shoes that seem unremarkable until you notice that they bear no manufacturer's logo of any kind, gray wool pants with faint dots of heel-flung sand up the back of both legs, a blue crew-neck sweather with folds still pressed into it from having sat on wire shelving under great weight, and an immaculate almond-brown felt stetson under whose left brim, two inches behind his ear, the bullet has just entered.
The three largest American tobacco companies have each killed more human beings that all the world's missile manufactuers put together, which is indirectly but indisputably why, for the fourth time since I swore this would stop happening, I am standing on the front step of my own house in early afternoon sunlight with a cardboard box full of snow globes in my arms, trying to improve on how I broke this news to Meredith before.
"The processes for cigarettes and cheese," he was saying, "are basically the same," which explains a little bit about the cigarettes and quite a lot about the cheese.
A red square is sealed by any movement into an adjacent black rank, unsealed on the conversion of its original marker, and removed from play after the third change in control, all of which Marco knows exactly as well as I do, so I wait patiently while he fumes at what he will presently recognize has been his own negligence.
The brownstone was rehabbed half-heartedly in the late Nineties, the dog still has his appetite but not his hearing, and the Belgian in the neck brace has been dead for no more than an hour.
I am doing something viscous and unmentionable when the phone explodes.
When the airport was still new, and we were still young, and our city was still old
Before the night stole our river, and the river took the trees, and we learned to inhabit empty spaces without filling them
After even the wolves learned mercy and swam into the retreating sea
When the ground was still made of hope, and the sky smelled only of air
Before we learned how to sleep without resting, and wake again without ever having dreamed
Before the night stole our river, and the river took the trees, and we learned to inhabit empty spaces without filling them
After even the wolves learned mercy and swam into the retreating sea
When the ground was still made of hope, and the sky smelled only of air
Before we learned how to sleep without resting, and wake again without ever having dreamed
¶ packing notes (and gear review) · 14 December 2004
After testing on our Costa Rica trip, I feel fairly confident about this minimal packing list for anything up to two or three weeks in comparable climate:
two pairs of underwear
two short-sleeve shirts
one pair of long pants
one pair of short pants
one swim suit (for hotel hot-tub use only)
two pairs of socks
one pair of proven trail/walk-forever shoes
one pair of sport sandals
one dorky sun hat
one pair of sunglasses
one light rain shell
minimal toiletries/first-aid/meds
sunscreen and bug repellent
small pack-towel or kanga
watch with alarm
money belt
appropriate currency, cards and/or travelers checks as needed
passport
paperwork (reservation numbers, itinerary, etc.)
backpack with space for acquisitions
and then all the weight:
your favorite guide-book to where you're going
language dictionary (if applicable)
one reading book
one small notebook and pen
camera, media, batteries, case
binoculars (shared)
Several caveats inevitably apply. I actually brought a third set of underwear, socks and shirt, but only wore them on the plane home for scent considerations, which slightly better laundry planning could easily have alleviated. I brought a long-sleeve shirt, but only ended up wearing it to and from the airport in Boston. I brought a razor, which is obviously expendable. I brought twice as many camera batteries as I ended up needing, but I'd only just got the camera so I knew I was guessing. And I never wore the sun hat, but should have a couple times.
The only piece of gear that failed me significantly was the sandals, a pair of chunky elastic-strap Nike ACGs that had always worked well as light-duty water shoes and general-purpose summer wear, but turned out to be dreadful for walking distances while wet, and by the end of the trip had torn up my feet pretty badly. Next trip I will probably revert to Tevas, which would also have the virtue of packing flatter. I believe those sandals were my final surviving item of Nike apparel, bring a misguided phase in my shopping life to a welcome close.
I'm not entirely satisfied with my choice of shirts yet. I brought one fancy Ex-Officio nylon one ("17 countries. 6 weeks. One T-shirt.", beckoned the package.) and one slightly thicker polyester one. The nylon one was much more comfortable in humid conditions, and dried much faster after washing, but it also seemed unnecessarily fragile, constantly catching on packs and other clothing and developing dozens of micro-tears that left me looking a little chewed. I suspect it would be an ideal under-shirt, but in single-layer climates I'd rather something more durable. The poly one, though, was both warmer than I needed and slow to dry. I will keep experimenting. Possibly I've been underestimating buttons.
The rest of my gear, however, performed admirably. Ex-Officio's briefs (from the same line as the T-shirt) were unfailingly comfortable and trivial to wash, and next time I'll bring two of those. My shorts were Ex-Officio, too (Amphi), and in a beach setting might happily have been my only pants. Between city conservatism and rain-forest fauna, though, I ended up wearing a pair of Prana Titan long pants most of the time, and on a cooler trip might consider bringing nothing else, as they seem to be inexplicably self-cleaning, and despite repeated application of jungle mud and empanada grease still looked uncannily untouched when we got back home. Dual-entry cargo pockets, incidentally, are not a gimmick, and I quickly developed a shuffling motion that allowed me to expediently get out of the way of beligerent San Jose traffic despite carrying an impressive array of things at knee-level.
The only time I noticed the Coolmax light-hiking socks was when I wasn't wearing them, and even at the end after my sandals had done their damage, as soon as I put socks on again I was fine. My pair of Merrell Chameleon Stretch shoes are now close to retirement, after long service, but were no more fazed by rain-forest trails than they had been by Las Ramblas or the Louvre. My REI Ultra Light rain shell got less use than "rain forest" might imply, but rolls up nicely into its own stuff-sack.
Easily the best piece of gear, though, was the new digital camera, a weather-tight Pentax Optio 43WR that B bought me and us as a wedding present. The weather-resistance is its defining character-trait (it's not intended for underwater shooting, but it can withstand semi-prolonged immersion and any amount of rain, so I had it out when my other cameras would have been in sealed bags), but in pre-trip A/B tests I found that it produced consistently better still images than my aging Nikon Coolpix 990 (even, startlingly, at macro lengths), as well as much better movies, with the considerable additional virtues of weighing a good deal less and consuming exponentially fewer batteries. For a $350 point-and-shoot camera it offers an unexpected amount of control, including a quirky but extremely useful manual-focus mode, and although my attempts at digiscoping on the trip weren't very successful, I'm pretty sure the camera is capable of better results with better binoculars. All the posted trip photos were taken with this, so you can make up your own mind about its performance. B's only complaint was that she missed some shots due to its relatively slow shooting speed, and my only complaint was that I missed some shots due to her borrowing it.
I wish I could report on the efficacy of our bug repellent, but I can't, really. There never seemed to be enough insects to merit DEET usage, and although I wore our usual Repel Lemon Eucalyptus repellent sporadically and still got bit by plenty of things, I have no clear idea whether I'd have been bit less if I'd used more of that or anything else, or vice versa. In areas of higher disease risk this would bear more thought and research.
Guide-wise, we brought a whole Frommer's book because it was the newest of the ones we had, some Xeroxed pages from a friend's Lonely Planet guide, and the San Jose section sliced out of a slightly older Rough Guide. Of these we ended up using the Rough Guide chapter most often. None of the three, however, proved capable of either revealing the elusive Serpentario, or at least identifying its location with sufficient clarity that we could be sure we weren't repeatedly walking past it without noticing.
Currency-wise, we actually brought the bulk of our funds in travelers checks this time, which seems anachronistic but saved us high Costa Rican credit-card surcharges on hotel bills. For daily expenses in San Jose, at least, you can just arrive with US money. You'll get colones as change, but in our experience dollars were accepted for everything down to $1.25-worth (i.e. a huge bag) of weird Hungarian chocolate bars.
Lastly, although it might be tempting to save a few ounces by ditching the alarm-watch if you know that you're going to be awoken at dawn by howler monkeys every day anyway, keep in mind that if the sun sets before six and dinner is not until seven, there will be a daily period during which you, or somebody with whom you are traveling, may experience a frequent recurring need to verify that time is still flowing properly.
two pairs of underwear
two short-sleeve shirts
one pair of long pants
one pair of short pants
one swim suit (for hotel hot-tub use only)
two pairs of socks
one pair of proven trail/walk-forever shoes
one pair of sport sandals
one dorky sun hat
one pair of sunglasses
one light rain shell
minimal toiletries/first-aid/meds
sunscreen and bug repellent
small pack-towel or kanga
watch with alarm
money belt
appropriate currency, cards and/or travelers checks as needed
passport
paperwork (reservation numbers, itinerary, etc.)
backpack with space for acquisitions
and then all the weight:
your favorite guide-book to where you're going
language dictionary (if applicable)
one reading book
one small notebook and pen
camera, media, batteries, case
binoculars (shared)
Several caveats inevitably apply. I actually brought a third set of underwear, socks and shirt, but only wore them on the plane home for scent considerations, which slightly better laundry planning could easily have alleviated. I brought a long-sleeve shirt, but only ended up wearing it to and from the airport in Boston. I brought a razor, which is obviously expendable. I brought twice as many camera batteries as I ended up needing, but I'd only just got the camera so I knew I was guessing. And I never wore the sun hat, but should have a couple times.
The only piece of gear that failed me significantly was the sandals, a pair of chunky elastic-strap Nike ACGs that had always worked well as light-duty water shoes and general-purpose summer wear, but turned out to be dreadful for walking distances while wet, and by the end of the trip had torn up my feet pretty badly. Next trip I will probably revert to Tevas, which would also have the virtue of packing flatter. I believe those sandals were my final surviving item of Nike apparel, bring a misguided phase in my shopping life to a welcome close.
I'm not entirely satisfied with my choice of shirts yet. I brought one fancy Ex-Officio nylon one ("17 countries. 6 weeks. One T-shirt.", beckoned the package.) and one slightly thicker polyester one. The nylon one was much more comfortable in humid conditions, and dried much faster after washing, but it also seemed unnecessarily fragile, constantly catching on packs and other clothing and developing dozens of micro-tears that left me looking a little chewed. I suspect it would be an ideal under-shirt, but in single-layer climates I'd rather something more durable. The poly one, though, was both warmer than I needed and slow to dry. I will keep experimenting. Possibly I've been underestimating buttons.
The rest of my gear, however, performed admirably. Ex-Officio's briefs (from the same line as the T-shirt) were unfailingly comfortable and trivial to wash, and next time I'll bring two of those. My shorts were Ex-Officio, too (Amphi), and in a beach setting might happily have been my only pants. Between city conservatism and rain-forest fauna, though, I ended up wearing a pair of Prana Titan long pants most of the time, and on a cooler trip might consider bringing nothing else, as they seem to be inexplicably self-cleaning, and despite repeated application of jungle mud and empanada grease still looked uncannily untouched when we got back home. Dual-entry cargo pockets, incidentally, are not a gimmick, and I quickly developed a shuffling motion that allowed me to expediently get out of the way of beligerent San Jose traffic despite carrying an impressive array of things at knee-level.
The only time I noticed the Coolmax light-hiking socks was when I wasn't wearing them, and even at the end after my sandals had done their damage, as soon as I put socks on again I was fine. My pair of Merrell Chameleon Stretch shoes are now close to retirement, after long service, but were no more fazed by rain-forest trails than they had been by Las Ramblas or the Louvre. My REI Ultra Light rain shell got less use than "rain forest" might imply, but rolls up nicely into its own stuff-sack.
Easily the best piece of gear, though, was the new digital camera, a weather-tight Pentax Optio 43WR that B bought me and us as a wedding present. The weather-resistance is its defining character-trait (it's not intended for underwater shooting, but it can withstand semi-prolonged immersion and any amount of rain, so I had it out when my other cameras would have been in sealed bags), but in pre-trip A/B tests I found that it produced consistently better still images than my aging Nikon Coolpix 990 (even, startlingly, at macro lengths), as well as much better movies, with the considerable additional virtues of weighing a good deal less and consuming exponentially fewer batteries. For a $350 point-and-shoot camera it offers an unexpected amount of control, including a quirky but extremely useful manual-focus mode, and although my attempts at digiscoping on the trip weren't very successful, I'm pretty sure the camera is capable of better results with better binoculars. All the posted trip photos were taken with this, so you can make up your own mind about its performance. B's only complaint was that she missed some shots due to its relatively slow shooting speed, and my only complaint was that I missed some shots due to her borrowing it.
I wish I could report on the efficacy of our bug repellent, but I can't, really. There never seemed to be enough insects to merit DEET usage, and although I wore our usual Repel Lemon Eucalyptus repellent sporadically and still got bit by plenty of things, I have no clear idea whether I'd have been bit less if I'd used more of that or anything else, or vice versa. In areas of higher disease risk this would bear more thought and research.
Guide-wise, we brought a whole Frommer's book because it was the newest of the ones we had, some Xeroxed pages from a friend's Lonely Planet guide, and the San Jose section sliced out of a slightly older Rough Guide. Of these we ended up using the Rough Guide chapter most often. None of the three, however, proved capable of either revealing the elusive Serpentario, or at least identifying its location with sufficient clarity that we could be sure we weren't repeatedly walking past it without noticing.
Currency-wise, we actually brought the bulk of our funds in travelers checks this time, which seems anachronistic but saved us high Costa Rican credit-card surcharges on hotel bills. For daily expenses in San Jose, at least, you can just arrive with US money. You'll get colones as change, but in our experience dollars were accepted for everything down to $1.25-worth (i.e. a huge bag) of weird Hungarian chocolate bars.
Lastly, although it might be tempting to save a few ounces by ditching the alarm-watch if you know that you're going to be awoken at dawn by howler monkeys every day anyway, keep in mind that if the sun sets before six and dinner is not until seven, there will be a daily period during which you, or somebody with whom you are traveling, may experience a frequent recurring need to verify that time is still flowing properly.