Progress Report

September 11-14, 2006 // CONSTRUCTION LOG #101

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: none

The Story: Trip to and from Georgia and enforcing the lease contracts.

CONSTRUCTION

Weather: overcast with periodic rains. (The rain this year is substantially less than last year and less than normal.)

Clean-up: virtually done; the last load debris is ready to be taken away.

Unit 102: Floors, doors, and some of the cabinetry are in. This unit will be substantially finished next week. We continue to have several parties interested in it; we'll see what Develops When it is finished, the price will increase.

Lockers: done and landscaped...

Electrical System Upgrade: finished and all circuits are now working. I haven't cracked the champagne yet but plan to. Just haven't had time.

Marketing: We have two tenants moving in over the next three days. Each unit has been decorated and furnished.

Internet: continues to work fine

Gardening / Landscaping: we continue to move plants and fill in behind the sod and changed plantings. I bought about 200 shade plants and they are now all planted. We will be cutting some ferns back and plugging an area where we want them to grow.

Rio Oro Development

We've received two other proposals. We now have three. We will evaluate them next week now that both Paul and I are together. One has fallen by the wayside as being too expensive and too cumbersome. One looks like it will be for architectural work only which is fine and the third is looking like it will be for the site design and engineering. We expect to make a decision by the end of next week.

We're clearing the tall grass and small brush from areas of the land.

We're getting a GPS plot of the trees we've identified.

Several additional people have identified themselves to me as being interested in purchasing in this development.

Property Management: The accountant is getting caught up-she isn't there yet but in a couple weeks is likely to be current. She did a lot of traveling in May, June and July to deal with her two daughters who were on job assignments overseas and who had never been away from home. September is the cutoff date for the corporate year end in CR. I believe we have until December to get all the paperwork in for the previous accounting period. Paul and I would like to have all remaining issues resolved in a month so we can focus on Rio Oro.

We have three people quite independently challenging issues of our lease agreement. Our lease is quite detailed and outlines specific remedies should it be breached. This is unlike most CR leases which are very general and say virtually nothing. Our lease is based on years of experience and has been reviewed by legal counsel. We will enforce it for the benefit of our investors. It's never fun enforcing issues but for some reason my experience is that when some North Americans come to Costa Rica, they seem to think they don't have to abide by the terms and conditions of a contract they sign. These are often times the same people who are quick to point out any deficiency or error that is made that they don't like.

Saturday update: Two of the three are moving out.

OUR LIVES

The built-in furniture on the terrace is still under construction. When finished, Lita will have a place to clean the bird cages other than the kitchen sink and I'll have a nice area for bar-b-queing.

Our trip to Atlanta and beyond went well except for the attitude displayed by the staff at the airport and their lack of forthright information. Had it not been for a couple who knew the procedure, we would have been lost and separated from our luggage. I would have to think very, very hard to return through there. I had anticipated the requirement to have an exit ticket out of CR when flying back to CR. I had purchased two $10 bus tickets to Granada. The Delta rep interpreted the US Gov't requirement as being airline tickets We had a "discussion" and she was finally educated on the definition of "ticket" but it took her supervisor to educate her-I doubt that she's management material.

CR has opened a new section of the San Jose terminal. It's nice. The planes each way were about 40% full. Delta did make an attempt at serving food unlike Continental which, when last flown, had reduced the effort to "please don't bother, this is an insult, my dog won't even eat it".

After this experience and were it not for family, I would really rather not travel to North America. There are so many other places in Central America which are more interesting for me.

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

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