Progress Report

April 3-7, 2006 // CONSTRUCTION LOG #78

Contact phone numbers

Internet Phone:
New York: 315-279-6711
Toronto: 416-907-5758 // 416-461-2203

Costa Rica:
Cell: 506-305-3965
Land: 506-282-4142 Ext. 101

NOTE: the New York and Toronto numbers are "local calls" for people in the area codes; calls from outside the area code will be billed at the normal rate from the caller's area code to either the "315" or the "416" area code.

Pictures: 101/2 and the lockers, mosaic mural

Note: We are closed down for the week of Semana Santa. Our crew worked full Saturday's for the past week so they could take the entire week off. We have only gardeners. It will be a quite respite for all.

CONSTRUCTION

Weather: mixture of calm / sunny / and some overcast and light rain-this could be a prelude to the coming rainy season but seems about a month too soon.

Units 101 / 102: Block walls are progressing.

Lockers and Locker House: Block walls mostly in place; structural columns being poured.

Units: 120, finished.

Landscaping: walkway tiles are laid and grouting is finished. We need to acid wash all walkways including those previously laid with slate.

We seem to have a fungus that is affecting the roots of some of our plants. It seems that the solution is to remove the existing soil and replace with new and to get new plants. There's always something happening in the garden.

Electrical System Upgrade: no visible movement.

Mosaic Mural: it progresses. See picture.

Water reservoir tank: we've installed a 5,000 liter elevated water tank to maintain pressure and to serve as a water reserve during the dry season. We have a lot of controls to add to make it self regulating.

Transition: The letter is out calling for nominations for the offices of Doneste S.A. Paul continues to work through the startup accounting system-lots of work and details he is very competent to deal with. Personally, I'm really glad to have his expertise.

Internet: We've been having some instability lately. We've upgraded our router, built a better location with air circulation. While that probably helped we still had more problems than we felt we should have. ICE, the service provider, is here today to upgrade their end of things and that may have been part of the problem. ICE has lowered the cost of the bandwidth we are buying; we will . Dog: We now have the new German Sheppard dog--Mac. We are breaking him in and he is training us. We are installing an electronic barrier at the gates to limit his ability to exit the property. Training will begin the week following Semana Santa. He and Canuk seem to get along fine and Canuk likes the company.

Marketing: We closed on 4 units this week-113, 121, 122, and 123. We also entered into a lease for one of our part time resident investors. His unit was not vacant for more than a week. We've had lots of other RE activity.

We now have available for sale, 109 / 110 / and 112 as investment income as they are all leased for several years. For immediate occupancy, we have 120 which is finished and vacant-we had a verbal offer on this but it has failed to close numerous times so we are putting it back on the market. In the future we expect to have 124 and 125-the one bedroom 610 sf second story houses above the lockers. Those should be finished in about two month and probably sell for around $75,000 (preconstruction). Unit 101 will be about 1700sf or (165ms) and probably around $200,000 - $225,000.

Next Project

No progress on this. We've focused on finishing off this project and digesting our appetite for the next. We probably have a number of people who are looking forward to what we do next.

OUR LIVES

Nothing special; the parrot continues to be its mean, miserable, noisy, self indulgent self. Lita cares for the last days of Canuk and doesn't want to bond with the new dog-a nurse that she is to the end.. Hugo spends most of his time buried under the comforter or in the neighbors house. We have the employee / friend of one of our owners on site who has returned after 28 months and can't believe the change. He walks around "ghagha" eyed.

My schedule has slackened; my health has been iffy at times this week-that now becomes a priority.

Brian, Lita, Hugo and irreverent Vicka, the pigeon toed parrot.

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