Chapter Two; pages 16-18/150

Chapter Two
Costa Rica


I showed up at the San Jose International Airport compliments of a coach flight which I upgraded to first class during August of 2000. After dealing with a relatively short line at customs I grabbed my bags and walked outside where I was met by a young, local, BOS employee holding up a placard with my name on it. The local kid appearing to be in his early 20's assisted me with my bags, escorting me to a tiny little red Toyota. It wasn't exactly limousine service to the offices of BOS but who was I to complain? This wasn't my country and most of the cars appeared to be small, red Toyotas anyway. I tried to make conversation with the driver on this drizzling day as he drove me down a simplistic highway system winding through lush green hills with giant billboard advertisements, and numerous brown skinned locals along the side of the highway that lasted for about 5 miles. Once the highway ended we continued through more residential neighborhoods with pot hole filled streets where we seemed to hit every other one. The ride was bumpy and the weather was rather gloomy that morning and all I wanted to do was take a nap after flying all night from Los Angeles with a pit stop in Houston. The driver was very courteous asking if I wanted to grab anything to eat. Since I had never been to Costa Rica before I asked him what was good and he rattled the names off of numerous fast food American places from Burger King to Subway which was not too exciting to me. We finally pulled up onto a very narrow street. Once I got out of the car I was quickly side swiped in the arm by the rear view mirror of a passing car. It was immediately apparent to me that the pedestrian does not have the right of way in Costa Rica and would notice more than the normal amount of people missing and arm from hanging it out the window of a car which is not advisable.

From the car we walked across a rather busy 6 lane street with a divider in the middle past a bunch of exhaust pumping buses to a giant mall, The Mall San Pablo. That day it seemed a little bit dangerous after being side swiped by a car but over the course of the years to follow, I have crossed that street with relative ease. It's just a matter of getting used to the locals and their non-nonchalant use of brakes.

My first visit to BOS was very brief and uneventful with a slow ride up an elevator that seemed to take forever. Up to the 10th floor I went in the Mall San Pablo and waited in the glass enclosed lobby outside of three elevators with the BetOnSports logo nicely painted on the glass. Inside the lobby, three beautiful young receptionists greeted me as if I were a plague when I requested to see Shaun Kelly or Shaun K. as he was referred to. Not quite sure these beauties understood the importance of me walking into those offices. But then again when you’re making $2-3 an hour, doing your nails is probably a higher priority and my first impression probably wasn't all that great after flying all night in my relaxed wardrobe. My flight wardrobe consisted of a purple warm-up suit fitted for Bruce Smith of the Buffalo Bills. Or at least that is what I was told when a good buddy of mine who worked for Smith's agent in Southern California gave them to me as a gift. Finally Shaun came out to get me. Shaun was a short frumpy man with a boyish face and a voice so dry that one had to wonder if the guy ever drank water. His wardrobe was worse than mine with a pair of faded blue jeans, sneakers, and a button down shirt that looked like it just came from the Ralph Furley collection*. I had done 90% of my correspondence with BOS since Caroline had called me that spring through Shaun, and he was the “Marketing Director”. I would also find out that nepotism existed as he was Claude’s cousin.

Over time I would find out that Shaun was a devious virus who seemed desperate to impress his older cousin, making unwise decisions including making numerous braggart statements of how he “fucked over people”. His leadership sent the message to others in the company that the malicious treatment of others was ok. This type of behavior is very unsettling for an industry that is trying to gain trust with the public that it depends upon.

Shaun welcomed me to Costa Rica and suggested I take my bags to a very nice apartment they had set up for me and then return to the offices and he would give me the tour of the place.

I thought it was very nice of BOS to try to make me feel at home. I didn't know I was going through a time warp, back to my early 20's with a roommate and an apartment with third hand furniture just like the early college years. That's right; the biggest and most well known offshore sports book in the industry back in 2000 spared no expenses for their advertising representative in the states and put me up at “Barrio Terrace”. This was certainly different from any business trip I had ever taken before; if the company offered to bring you to their location they paid for first class accommodations not a pink stucco, roach infested apartment with barbed wire on top of the iron gated fence. To this day outside of Costa Rica I have only seen one other residence similar to this one that is located just off of the northbound 110 Harbor Freeway at the Normandy exit right down the street from where the 1992 Los Angeles riots erupted. I also found out very soon that I was on the roommate plan with a lost soul for a roommate. I would find out later from another ad guy that BOS provided these accommodations for everyone they invited down to Costa Rica. When BOS said it was classy they were right, too bad it was 3rd class.